Vulture's Gate (2 page)

Floss opened Callum's mouth and looked inside. He parted Callum's hair and checked his scalp, looked into his eyes, and then twisted his arms behind his back.

‘Ouch!' said Callum.

‘Bit of a precious petal, in't he?'

‘Nah, he's got enough grit. Cries a little, but that's what you expect from the fathered ones. That's what makes 'em worth having.'

Floss pushed back Callum's head, drew one finger along his jaw and smiled. Callum wanted to bite him.

Floss handed a bag of a sticky black substance to the Outstationer and took hold of Callum's chain. He led him through a ghetto of battered roadtrains and caravans to where a clutter of cages was assembled. Then he pushed him into a long, narrow enclosure on wheels and shackled his chain to the bars. Callum sank to his knees and smashed his chain against the metal floor in despair. The sound drew a cry of alarm from the occupants of the other cages. Most of the animals in the freak show looked like a cross between frogs and cats. Their back legs were smooth and amphibious but their forelegs were thick with fur. When Callum was small, he'd secretly longed to have a chimera as a pet, even though his fathers had told him they were illegal freaks. And now he was part of the freak show too. It made him feel queasy. If this outfit was trading in chimeras and boys, they were the lowest type of criminals.

‘Oi, dreamboy,' said Floss, returning. He pushed the handle of a bullwhip into the cage and poked Callum in the ribs. ‘Get out of those rags and put this lot on.' He threw a handful of clothes through the bars.

Despite his misery, Callum was glad to take off his old shirt and jeans that were caked in dirt and blood. The new outfit was a pair of silky, black leather-feel pants and a black vest. He tried to rake his hand through his hair but it was so stiff with dust that it stood straight up in matted clumps.

The cage was too small to stand in so Callum had to lie flat and wriggle into the close-fitting costume. With his eyes fixed on the roof of the cage, he could ignore the fact that Floss was watching him. When he was dressed, Floss opened the cage and tugged on his chain. ‘C'mon. Training time.'

Inside a silver-and-purple tent, three bikes were circling the ‘cage of death' and another was looping giddily inside the rim of a giant wheel. The tent reverberated with the roar of engines. Callum groaned. Of all the businesses to wind up with, he had been sold into the meanest motorcycle outfit in the western desert. Ruff and Rusty had told him about the nomad performers that drifted from outstation to mining camp, causing trouble wherever they went, trading in drugs and children and remnant technologies. Despite their dark reputation, they could always find an audience. The Colony wanted to stamp them out but they never stayed long enough in one place for the Colony's squadrones to catch them.

Floss suddenly jerked the chain, hard.

‘Leave off,' Callum snapped, holding the torque to stop it biting into his skin. ‘You're hurting me.'

‘Ooo, a cranky dog,' said Floss, laughing. ‘Okay, poodle-boy, time for you to jump through a few hoops.'

Floss undid the chain and dragged Callum by the wrist to where another bearded giant sat astride an old-tech Harley Davidson motorbike. The two men could have been twins.

‘Here's our new pup,' said Floss.

The other bikie looked at Callum appraisingly, then suddenly grabbed the front of his vest and lifted him off the ground. For a moment, Callum stared into his scarred face. Then the man threw him across to Floss, who caught him with one hand. ‘Nice weight, see?' said Floss. ‘Easy to toss around.'

‘Okay, kid,' barked the bikie. ‘Can you do a somersault?'

‘A what?'

‘Throw yourself in the dirt and roll, boy.'

Callum shrugged his shoulders and looked at the ground.

‘Christ, Floss, I told you we wanted one that could bend.'

Floss seized Callum by one ankle, held him upside down then shook him. Hard. Callum had to pull himself up like a possum and grab his feet so that his teeth didn't rattle.

‘See, Dental, he's got good reflexes. He'll train up quick.' Floss threw Callum down in the sawdust, knocking the wind from him. The pain in his ribs made him gasp. Then Floss pulled out an electric cattle prod. ‘What do you want him to do now?'

Callum lay in the sawdust, curled into a ball. He would not give them the satisfaction of seeing him cry. But when Floss poked him with the cattle prod, a surge of electricity made him kick out in pain.

‘Get up,' said Floss. ‘Tell us your handle, boy.'

‘My what?'

‘Your name, or don't they give names to you cybrid jam-jars any more?'

‘I'm not a cybrid. I have two fathers.'

‘So what did they call you?'

‘My name is Callum.'

The men rolled their eyes towards each other and snorted with amusement.

‘We'll call you Dog. You'll need a name that bites, not a fancy-schmancy baby-name. We're a two-man show. Two men and a dog, that is. Youse our dog from now on.'

‘What's that meant to mean?'

‘You chase after the bikes,' said Dental. ‘We've got a few tricks we're gonna teach you. First, we check your balance. You got no balance, we'll sell you to the next Outstationer looking for dog-meat.' He put out his wide, square hand. ‘Step up.'

Callum gritted his teeth as he put one foot on Dental's palm. He wobbled crazily as the big man hoisted him into the air.

‘Steady up and step across to Floss' hand.'

For the next half hour Callum practised stepping back and forward between them. Then they made him stand on their shoulders while they held his ankles. Sweat trickled down his neck as he struggled to stay centred. By the end of the afternoon, he could stand without them holding him at all.

Dental lowered him to the ground and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a handful of tiny biscuits and threw them onto the ground in front of Callum.

‘You done well. Like I said, this gig is about balance. Once you can balance, then you learn how to bend. Like a liquorice strap. The last bonehead wouldn't bend, wouldn't train up proper. We snapped him in two. If you bend, you won't break.'

Callum stared at the biscuits lying in the sawdust and knew, despite his humiliation, that he would eat them. As Floss came towards him with the chain, he also knew that he would learn to bend, he would learn to survive. He would never let them break him.

4

SHOOTING NIGHTBIRDS

Bo touched her gun and felt the coolness of it.
She didn't want to go out tonight but Poppy had taught her routines that were important. She took down her catskin shawl from the hook and slung it around her shoulders.

Outside, the sky was awhirl with stars. Nightbirds soared above the sleeping desert, circling for prey. Bo spread the catskin on the ground and lay down. She looked through the viewfinder and rested her finger on the trigger. When the first wedge of black wing came into view, a dark shadow against the stars, she narrowed her gaze and fired. The nightbird plummeted to earth, landing with a dull
thwack
on the rocky desert plain. More black silhouettes flitted against the starry sky, trying to escape her bullets, but they were easy targets.

She had the fifth nightbird in her finder when something caught her eye. Far away, on the edge of the horizon, a light flickered and then died. Outstationers. Bo's skin prickled with unease. She remembered Poppy saying the landmines would keep the two of them safe, as long as they stayed inside their territory. But Poppy had been wrong. She pushed away the memory of his face on the night they discovered how vulnerable they were.

As if to echo her thoughts, one of the mines blew. She felt it through the ground and heard the roar of the explosion roll across the stony desert. Someone was trying to cross the boundary of her hunting grounds.

One step at a time, sweeping away her tracks, she backed into the opal cave. A telltale sliver of light seeped out under the doorway and she hurried to switch off every lumina in the burrow.

Now she knew why she hadn't wanted to go outside. A part of her had sensed trouble was near. Sometimes she knew things before they happened. A change in the weather days before it came across the desert. Where water lay, as if her skin scented it. Even if she couldn't name the thing, she felt its impending arrival.

‘Woman's 'twitian,' Poppy had said. ‘'Twitian ain't rational.' He didn't believe in it, but the night he was murdered Bo had sensed they were both in danger and she had been right. She knew she should always respect her instincts. Right now, her 'twitian was telling her to go deep, to get away from the surface where some form of sensor might pick up the warmth of her skin, and bury every sign of life in the deepest ground. She pointed the beam from her laser through a small window that overlooked the Wombator's den. If she set him to work tonight, he would have a new, deeper burrow carved out for her by morning – but would his vibrations alert the Outstationers to her presence?

She lay on her belly and then wriggled through a portal into the lowest room of the burrow, pulling a rock in place to jam the entrance. Against the back wall, her roboraptors were stationed in standby mode. She spread the catskin shawl on the ground and settled herself beneath the roboraptors, their bowed heads above her. It felt safer being here with Mr Pinkwhistle so close. She wrapped one hand around his foreleg, just to remind herself of the strength in the beast-machine.

She tried not to think about the night the Outstationers killed Poppy. Remembering was like opening a wound, as if all the blood was running out of her into the desert stones. The hunting grounds had grown barren but Poppy wouldn't hunt outside them. He thought they were safe inside the ring of landmines. Then that night, when they were on the very edge of their lands, the Outstationers crossed the boundary. What was the last thing Poppy had said before the murderers were upon them? ‘Scuttle.'

‘Scuttle,' she whispered to herself. Poppy had taught her how to scuttle – how to disappear from view, how to move between rocks and hard places like water, like the silveriest skink. Bo knew how to scuttle. But she didn't know how to stop the cavernous hurt opening up in her chest at the thought of Poppy. There was only one thing that would push it away.

‘
Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom
. . .' she whispered into the blackness. She wanted to hear the susurration of the words, like a prayer, like an ancient telling that would make her feel safe. The words hung in the air of the opal cave. A moment later, another landmine exploded.

5

GAMBLING WITH FATE

Callum ran one finger over the line of notches in the corner of
his cage.
Three months. Every single day that he had worked for Floss and Dental was marked by a tiny notch made with his front teeth. Now there were ninety-two toothy indentations.

Callum had grown lean and wiry since his capture but he still hadn't grown accustomed to the confines of his cage. As much as he hated being made to bend and spin in the circus ring, it was better than the long hours trapped in the freak show.

They'd been driving all day, criss-crossing the red-brown desert, searching for the next cluster of Outstations. The trucks rolled through silent country while Callum lay in his cage, bathed in sweat. Finally, they came to a stop on a gibber plain. Tango, the striped tiger-monkey, picked at his fleas and snarled at the small willy-willies that swirled past their encampment. The other chimeras shifted restlessly, making weird mewling sounds that sent shivers up Callum's spine.

As darkness fell, the chimeras began to pace in their enclosures. Tango rattled the bars of his cage. They were desperate to stretch their limbs in the ring but there would be no show tonight. The desert lay still and empty on every side of the encampment.

Callum drew a deep breath and stretched his arms through the bars. If he could only find some way to forget how uncomfortable he was, a night alone could almost be a treat. He was tired of being thrown between Dental and Floss, flipped and tossed through the air from one speeding motorbike to another while an audience of drunken Outstationers hooted and roared, hoping to see him fall. He began to hum quietly – a ballad about sunshine, rain and wide blue skies – shutting his eyes against his prison and the company of the agitated chimeras. In his mind's eye he could see Rusty sitting on the end of a bed with his guitar and Ruff in the doorway, nodding his head in time to the music and then joining in, his deep voice adding a rich harmony. Fighting down his emotions, he began to sing the song, trying to hold the vision of his fathers. His voice rang out across the stony desert.

For a moment, he opened his eyes and looked out through the bars of his cage. The chimeras had fallen silent. Tango's yellow eyes flashed and the monkey stretched out his arms, palms turned up to the sky. Callum understood. When he came to the end of the song, he started another and the chimeras sat quietly, their restless misery stilled by the music.

It was only when he got to the end of his last song that he saw Dental's beady black eyes staring at him from across the compound. Callum turned away and curled into a ball in the far corner of his cage. He had given too much away. He had let Dental see into his heart. Nothing good would come of it.

The next morning, Dental opened the cage, undid Callum's chain and whistled. ‘Hup, ya bloody mongrel.' He knew it annoyed Callum but it was the same taunt every morning.

As he was led into the Big Top to practise, he muttered his own name over and over. No one called him Callum any more. ‘Dog', ‘Mutt', ‘Mongrel' was all they ever shouted at him. He was afraid that if he didn't repeat his true name to himself, he would forget who he used to be and become the thing they called him.

Dental whistled the tune that Callum had sung the night before and yanked Callum's chain. ‘C'mon, howler,' he sneered. ‘Sling us a tune.' Suddenly he yanked the chain so hard that Callum was forced to the ground.