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Poseidon's Wake

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‘I think I might return Garudi’s book to her family. Beyond that, it depends on how “tainted” I’m perceived to be.’

Swift looked down. ‘Oh dear.’

‘You needn’t worry. I’m adaptable. I’ll find something to occupy myself with.’

The robot nodded solemnly. ‘Of that I have no doubt whatsoever.’

CHAPTER FIVE

Goma was suffering another medical examination by the expedition’s physician, Dr Saturnin Nhamedjo, when the call came in from Ru. She was to leave Guochang and return with all haste to the sanctuary. Goma made her apologies to the gentle, accommodating Nhamedjo and was soon on her way back to the elephants. A year ago she would have taken the aeroplane, but her role in the expedition brought a number of new perks, chief among which was the ability to hire a government flier at short notice. She took the little beetle-shaped machine from Guochang, vectoring around Mandala to avoid a bad weather system. When Goma arrived at the facility, Tomas explained that Ru was already out with the Alpha herd.

‘That bad?’ she asked.

‘Worse, I think. You’d better not hang around. Take the buggy — it’s already loaded up for the day.’

Goma raced back out into the heat and humidity. She gunned the electric vehicle hard, nearly tipping it over on the bends, dust pluming up from its wheels as she sped away from the compound. It only took her twenty minutes to reach Alpha herd. She slowed and then stopped, taking in the scene from a slight elevation. From the disposition of the elephants, it was obvious that something was wrong. They were turned inwards, an audience facing some central spectacle. Goma left her buggy and walked the remaining distance, passing Ru’s vehicle on the way. They were so deeply preoccupied that she was nearly with them before any of the elephants deigned to acknowledge her presence.

Goma paused to allow the young mothers and calves to accept her arrival. A calf brushed against her with boisterous disregard, but the older elephants shared none of its exuberance. They were making low, agitated rumbles, with much mutual trunk-touching taking place, as if the herd members sought constant reassurance.

Goma scanned the familiar forms, noting body size, tusk disfigurement, ear shape.

She moved carefully between the adults, conscious of their size and heightened mood. She had rarely been the target of elephant aggression. In their present state, though, it would not take much provocation to draw a bad-tempered response. She was small and they were large, and nothing in the universe would change that basic asymmetry in their relationship. They could crush her between breaths.

At the focus of the gathering lay a dying elephant. Goma recognised her immediately: the elderly Agrippa, the herd leader. Even as she moved through the standing elephants, Goma had been aware of Agrippa’s absence among their ranks, so unlike this dutiful matriarch.

‘You’re in time,’ Ru said.

Agrippa lay on her side, her breathing laboured. Ru knelt at her head, one hand on Agrippa’s forehead, the other dabbing a wet sponge around the elephant’s eye. Agrippa’s trunk lay limp as a hose on the ground, only the end twitching up as Goma approached.

She knelt next to Ru. Ru had brought a pail of water and there was another sponge in the pail. Goma wrung most of the water from the sponge and then touched it gently to the end of Agrippa’s trunk.

‘When did this happen?’ she asked, keeping her voice low, as if there was a risk of the elephants understanding.

‘She was on her feet at dusk yesterday. Overnight, this.’

Agrippa had been ailing for many seasons, slowly losing her strength. But she had retained her authority as matriarch, and Goma had allowed herself to think that the elephant would go on until at least after her departure, that her death was a problem she need not face.

‘Thank you for calling me.’

‘I knew you’d want to be here.’ Ru recharged her sponge, the water in the pail already turning dusty. ‘As soon as I saw how bad things were, I called you.’

‘There’s nothing we can do, is there?’

It was a rhetorical question. She knew the answer as well as Ru.

‘Make things as easy as possible. Keep her eyes from drying, keep the sun off her. I should have told Tomas to send some blankets out with you.’

‘I think he did. The buggy was pretty well loaded.’

‘She’s been so strong,’ Ru said, pausing at a catch in her voice. ‘I thought she’d endure longer than this. Even when I knew she was ill, I didn’t think it would be so sudden.’

‘She was putting up a show of strength,’ Goma said. ‘For the sake of the herd.’

‘As always.’

After a moment, it occurred to Goma to ask, ‘How long have you been here, Ru?’

‘You’re cross I didn’t call you sooner?’

‘No, I’m worried that you’ve been here hours and hours without thinking of yourself. You brought water for Agrippa, but I don’t see anything for you.’

‘There’s water in my buggy.’

Goma had passed the other vehicle long before she reached the herd. She doubted Ru had been back to it since reaching the fallen matriarch. ‘Wait here,’ she said, risking placing a hand on Ru’s shoulder by way of comfort.

She was as quick as she could be, but not so hasty that her movements would further disconcert the herd. In Ru’s buggy she found water flasks and a wide-brimmed hat. A little further back, where she had parked her own vehicle, she found a pair of survival blankets and a box of emergency rations. She bundled everything into the blankets and headed back to Ru.

Ru took her flask distractedly at first, as if being reminded to drink were a nuisance. But after she had swallowed a mouthful, she gulped the rest in sudden thirst.

‘Thank you,’ she said, with a certain wariness, as if the words might put her in some unspecified debt to Goma.

‘It’s all right. I’ve got these blankets, too. They should keep her a little cooler.’

The blankets only covered part of the elephant, but they did the best they could to make her comfortable. Goma opened the ration kit and showed Ru the contents, then tore the foil from an energy bar and bit into it.

‘I wonder if there’s more we should do,’ Ru said, wiping her mouth. ‘Then I wonder if we’re already doing too much. Prolonging something that shouldn’t be prolonged.’

‘You couldn’t just leave her,’ Goma said. ‘I know you. And this is a kindness, so don’t start doubting yourself. All you’re doing is easing things for her, not making it worse. Seriously, how long has it been?’

‘Seven hours. Maybe eight. I arrived just after sunrise.’

‘Then in a little while I want you to go back to the buildings. I bet you didn’t bring your medicines, did you?’

‘She’s what matters now.’

‘No, you matter, too — to me, anyway. You drive back and I’ll stay here. We can take turns holding vigil.’

‘I won’t leave her.’

‘She could be like this for days.’

‘I think it will be faster. Her breathing’s weaker than it was a few hours ago.’

‘All the same, you still have to think of yourself.’ Goma allowed her hand to rest on Ru’s shoulder again. It was what one colleague would do for another, she told herself, a gesture of emotional support that had nothing to do with their shared history.

‘I’m all right. But I was getting a little dehydrated. I didn’t realise it until now.’

Two of the senior females had come closer while this exchange took place, testing their trunks against the rise and fall of Agrippa’s ribcage. It was as if they needed validation that their matriarch had not yet taken her final breath, drawing the air of this alien world into her lungs one last time.

‘They know,’ Goma said.

‘Of course.’

Of all the animals, only elephants had a sophisticated understanding of death. They knew the difference between breath and bones. They had their own customs of grief and remembrance. More than once, Goma had found herself wondering if it was precisely this apprehension of mortality that had primed the elephants for taking the next step on cognition’s ladder, a rung up to language and sentience. To know death was to know time, to know the past and the future. Most creatures were bound entirely to the present moment, blissful prisoners of an ever-moving now. They knew hunger or anger, contentment or lust, but they did not know doubt or longing or regret.

Elephants knew that their tomorrows were not numberless, that each day was a gift. In that awareness lay both their majesty and their tragedy.

Ru would not be persuaded to leave her vigil for more than the few minutes necessary to wander to the bushes to relieve her bladder. On the way back, she stopped at her buggy, washed her hands and face and hair and scraped dust from her eyes. She refilled the portable water flasks and found extra rations, tucked into a forgotten compartment. As the sun moved, they adjusted the blankets.

Ru was right, Goma decided. After two hours, even she had noticed that Agrippa’s breathing had deteriorated.

The knowledge had communicated itself to the other elephants, too. The next-oldest Alpha-herd females, Arpana and Agueda, appeared to be assuming the role of matrons at a deathbed, ushering the other elephants to their matriarch’s side and ensuring that none lingered at the expense of another. Even the younger males looked more sombre in mood than when Goma had arrived. Armistead, the male calf who had nearly knocked her down, was emulating the trunk-touching of the older animals. He might not have understood the significance of the affair any more than a human child grasped the deeper implications of a human funeral, but Goma could not help but be moved by the sense of shared observance. Ru was right. They knew.