The Book of Dave (26 page)

The warders made sure that the flyers were overheard when they spoke, either by themselves or their seeseeteevee men. Should
they utter any further word against the writ of the PCO, or the Dävinanity it promulgated, they were summarily punished. The
big steering Wheel was brought out into the yard and set upon its column. The flyer was trapped and lashed to its spokes.
Then the Wheel was spun and spun, until the unfortunate dad was bleeding from his nose and mouth, and his innards were mangled.
Within a blob of arriving at the Tower Symun had seen two flyers die upon the Wheel. Then his own appearances began.

The flyers' appearances took the form of questioning their Knowledge. No flyer could secure his release from gaol by passing
his appearances – for once accused of flying you were banished from the cab for ever. However, by calling over the runs and
points demanded, he might at least secure a remission. He wouldn't have another appearance for fifty-six more days, during
which time he could struggle to improve his Knowledge. If a flyer failed an appearance the consequences were harsh – their
next would be in twenty-eight days. A second failure and this was reduced to twenty-one, a third to fourteen. After a fourth
failure the flyer went for judgement before the PCO itself, then sentence would be carried out.

The least severe punishment was branding and exile, followed by the cutting out of the tongue and exile. The most severe penalty
– which was frequently applied – was death. Dads were wheeled until their brain haemorrhaged, then they were disembowelled.
Then, as the poor unfortunate was mindlessly gawping at his guts lying on the ground at his feet, his genitals were cut off
and thrust in his mouth. Death came within units. The dead dad's head was then severed and stuck on a spike at the water gate;
beneath it a placard was hung that read: VIS MANNE SPEEKS BOLLOX. Mummies – who were not deemed worthy of the Wheel even in
death – were burned on the barbie. If they were guilty of evading Changeover, their moribund exhalations were employed in
gassing their own children.

All the daddies' executions were held publicly in Leicester Square; the mummies' at Marble Arch. A large enthusiastic crowd
would gather to watch and keenly observe the comportment of the condemned; they would lay bets on how long each would take
to expire. A common criminal might sway the crowd with his brave demeanour, and the Inspectors would grant him pardon at the
foot of the Wheel, but however well a flyer behaved he was doomed.

This much Symun was soon made aware of – yet there was little he could do to prepare himself for his ordeal. He'd had scant
opportunity to read the Book since acquiring his phonics. While, like all Hamstermen, he'd been accustomed since boyhood to
call over the runs and points, this oral recounting was haphazard and imprecise. In the broad Mokni of Ham the runs were strings
of meaningless gibberish – and while Symun knew enough to differentiate one from the other in his own mind, he was by no means
certain that he could convince a prejudicial examiner that his was the correct version. It was the same for any cockney or
hick – with the consequence that while well-born flyers often survived in the Tower for years, the illiterate were dispatched
with great expeditiousness.

Symun's first appearance took place a couple of blobs after he'd arrived in London. He was dragged from the yard by two warders,
hauled up the external staircase into the White Tower, then marched along passages, the damp walls of which were green with
moss. Finally he was shoved into a chamber where at a table sat the Examiner. His black-robed back was turned, his hair cropped
very short at the neck. His eyes hung in his mirror, swollen and veined. He spoke Arpee in a bored monotone:

– Symun Dévúsh of Ham, you are held in the Tower, arraigned on a charge of gross and flying conduct. The testimony of Mister
Greaves, my Lawyer of Chil's Hack, is held to account in this matter and acknowledged accordingly. This is your first appearance
– he looked down at the A4s on the table in front of him and read – List eighteen, run eleven.

Symun tore his eyes away from the mirror. There was A4 on the walls, covered not with phonics but a curious pattern of leaves.
In places it peeled back from the plaster beneath, plaster that had fallen away in powdery chunks to reveal the ancient London
brick beneath. Through a high slit-window Symun could see another tower, a crooked edifice mounting to a wonky campanile.
Hawks were circling this, riding the smoky exhalations from the fires of the city below. Only the hawks and the leaf pattern
were recognized by Symun: the rest of it was a conundrum he could not interpret. The warder who had brought him to the chamber
stood against the far wall, his long railing held sloped between his big hands. He stared blankly at Symun.

The Examiner repeated his request:

– List eighteen, run eleven.

Symun took a deep breath and began:

– 4wud Kenzingtun Mal, rì Kenzingtun Chirch Stree, leff Nó-ing-ill, rì Pemrij Röd, fawud Pemrij viwwers –

– Viwwers? the Examiner broke in, viwwers, what pray are those?

Symun gulped:

– Beggin yer pardun, Reervú, thass juss ve wä we sezzit on Am.

– Well, you aren't on Ham now, my good fellow, this is London and in London you speak Arpee, and you call over the runs like
a Londoner. I'll give you another fifty-six days to improve your diction before your next appearance. Take him away.

– B-but, Reervú, vass nó rì.

– You what? The Examiner was so incredulous at such impertinence from a flyer that an amused expression lurked at the corners
of his severe mouth. Not right, you say? How so?

– 'Iss nó rì 2 eggspekk a dad 2 no vem fings, issit? Eyem sposed 2 B a fliar, nó a Dryva, sew owz a fliar sposed 2 av ve Nolidj?
I doan mayk senss.

The Examiner laughed at this and marked the A4 in front of him. Don't bandy doctrine with me, my fellow. For your impudence
I reduce your next appearance to twenty-eight days. And warder –

– Reervú?

– Give this gaol-yard brief a turn or twenty on the Wheel to make him mind his manners in future.

Terri gave Symun the rind of a fruit unfamiliar to him as they stood waiting under the murky screen. Byte dahn on vis, mayt,
the cockney said. Ven ve weel gess goin, U gotta keep yer teef clamped tyt, uvvawyse yul swaller yaw tung an suffercayt . .
. thass rì … thass rì. Symun only just had time to get the bitter thing between his teeth before the warders led him to
the middle of the yard. They laid him down almost tenderly on the square central boss of the Wheel, and Symun felt the raised
phonics 'Lti' pressing between his shoulder blades. His arms were lashed to the two padded spokes and his legs stretched and
tied to the far rim of the wheel. Orlrì! the Guvnor of the Tower shouted to his subordinates. Ryt an dahn!

To begin with, the big Wheel turned slowly. Symun felt first one pair of hands, then the next, impelling it faster and faster,
while prone as he was he could see nothing save the screen above him. The long streak of cloud immediately overhead began
to revolve as if there were an axle set in it. He tried to concentrate on its wisps and veils so as to prevent the sickening
dizziness. It was impossible – Symun's eyes bulged, the blood pounded in his temples, and the whole glassy panel stretched.
He tried to picture Dave behind the screen, looking down on him with stern benevolence, but the figures standing along the
balustrade of the upper gallery kept getting in the way. They jeered at the torture being enacted below, their individual
mouths merging to become a single elongated O howling derision. The prisoners yelped and shouted: Spin ve fukka! Spinnim!
Nausea came breaking over Symun in a wave and crashed into his clenched teeth.

O Dave! Ees onlë gonnan lungdup! cried one of the warders as Symun found himself ascending on his twirling rack, lifting up
out of the yard like a sickseed caught by the wind and whirled out over London, over the islands and sounds of Ing, across
the sea to where Ham lay, a soft pallet of mossy woodland and neat green field strips. At the blurred edges of his ruptured
vision appeared the faces of his loved ones: Caff and Fred, Effi, his mummy, Fukka Funch, the Brudi sisters and Ozzi Bulluk.
Symun could feel the rough tongue of a moto lick the puke and gore from his burning face. He dimly entertained the notion
– for consciousness was speeding away from him – that the Wheel truly had conducted him back home, and that when it stopped
turning everything would be as it had before, before the Ferbiddun Zön, before the Geezer, before the Second Book. Then all
was darkness and pain.

– See this, he told them, it is a bar the purpose of which is to keep the toyist beast of the field from profaning the sanctity
of Dave's Shelter. It has been drawn to my attention – he scanned the faces of his listeners, noting their guileless countenances,
their credulous eyes – that before I came among you your kine … your motos … ranked up here and even entered the Shelter.
This is now forbidden. If I cannot wholly detach you from your unsavoury relation with these creatures, I shall nonetheless
proscribe the anointing of your infants with their oil. The only true service is the Wheel, and whatever your interpretation
of the Book may have been, I say to you now that the moto is excluded from Dave's cab to New London, these beasts being not
real and in the view of the PCO toyist!

There was a stifled cry from the Hamsters.

This was not the full extent of the Driver's prohibitions. Rapping and cavorting were forbidden, and the telling of Daveworks
was forbidden. There was to be no work at all on the island from first tariff FRI until the end of the second on SAT: for
is not the blob-end a higher tariff, with time-and-a-half for calling over the points and the runs? The Driver's impositions
were as onerous as his prohibitions: daily calling over for the daddies, while lads were also to attend the Shelter and remain
silent. Even the Council was affected – at least ten runs now had to be called over before any business might be conducted.

Fred Ridmun, who had been responsible for the black crow coming to roost on Ham, blanched when he heard this, yet his own Dävinanity was to be still further tested. The Driver saved his most severe remonstrance for last:

– You gossip, you chatter, you flirt and you whisper – don't think I haven't heard you! Daddies to mummies, lads to girls.
This is a most revolting congress, and it must cease at once! Dave ordained the Breakup, and the Breakup must be entire! Only
at Changeover can there be any communication between noble Dave and perfidious Chelle! O Hamstermen! Speak only of childsupport
to your mummies, as it is ordained in the Book!

In response to this tyrannical edict the assembly became greatly perturbed and there was open dissent from the older mummies.
However, the Driver's will was not to be flouted; he rose up to his fullest height and glared down on them. They fell silent
and slunk away to their own gaffs.

All this took place late in the kipper season, when the screenwash lashed the land and the sea was too rough to venture out
upon. During this time the Hamstermen occupied themselves with gentle yet essential tasks – bubbery weaving, moto maintenance
and caulking the pedalo. Misinterpreting their layover as sheer idleness, the Driver set the daddies to work at rebuilding
his predecessor's semi and laying the foundations for a new Shelter. The old one, built by the previous Driver using prefabricated
sections brought from Chil, had long since fallen into disrepair, a leaky and warped vessel for the Knowledge.

The Hamsters had not the art of preserving wooden structures, nor could they build in London brick with mortar. Their own
gaffs were of such ancient pedigree that their upkeep was an organic fact rather than a work of construction. The mortar for
the last Driver's semi had been imperfectly mixed, and it was already crumbling as thick stalks of buddyspike prised the brickwork
apart. The Driver hitched up his robes and led the digging of the foundations for a new one. The younger dads, impressed by
his energy and willing to learn new ways that could benefit them, joined him in the undertaking.

Caff Ridmun looked on as the other mummies dragged the truckles of London brick down from the Ferbiddun Zön. She had more
intimate concerns: little Carl was three months old, and after much deliberation by the Council he had been given his real
dad's name, Dévúsh, for such was the way of the Book. Soon enough he would begin to crawl, then it would be time for him to
be paired with a moto.