Vulture's Gate (3 page)

Callum tried to stifle a whimper of pain. He knew that Dental took sadistic pleasure in watching him gasp for breath. ‘How many times have I told you not to treat the kid like that?' shouted Floss, snatching the chain from Dental. He unshackled Callum and checked the marks on his neck. ‘We can't afford to replace him. You break his neck like you did the last one and I swear I'll have your kneecaps.'

‘You will, will you?' sneered Dental, puffing his chest out like an angry rooster.

Floss pushed Callum to one side and turned on Dental. ‘Listen, I bought him with my stash. You pay me, and you can do what you like to him.'

While they argued, Callum slipped through the flaps of the tent, and ran out into the wide, empty desert. There was nowhere to hide on the flat plains but he ran anyway, leaping over the pebbly ground, kicking up flurries of red dust, running full pelt into the harsh morning sunlight.

He hadn't gone far when he heard shouting and the roar of bikes approaching. But he didn't stop running. He dived to one side as grit and dirt flew into his face. The sheer act of defiance made him feel alive even as the bikies circled him in a wide arc, letting him run himself ragged. They might punish him but he knew they wouldn't mow him down. If they did, they'd have to buy another dog-boy.

Wet with sweat and breathless with exhaustion, Callum fell to his knees. He covered his face with his hands and waited for the moment when one of the men would reach out and drag him back to the Big Top. He prayed it would be Floss but it was Dental's heavy hand that fell upon his neck. With one swift movement Dental wrenched Callum from the ground and onto the tank of his bike. Then he leaned forward and a spray of spittle covered Callum's neck as he hissed, ‘Floss plays the big man but never forget I'm top dog around here.'

Callum shrank away from Dental, clinging to the motorcycle's tank. He knew that if Dental wanted to have his way, no one could stop him, not even Floss.

Callum woke with a start as a hand groped his leg. He scrambled to a corner of the cage. In the darkness he couldn't make out who was his attacker. All the circus lights were out, the canvas of the tents flapping lazily in the night breeze.

‘We got business, you and me,' said Dental, shining a torch into Callum's face and flashing his jagged teeth in a shark-like smile.

He dragged Callum by his torque to one of the long, shining trucks that carried the motorbikes. He pushed a button and the side of the truck unfolded. Moonlight washed over the pearly-white tank and silver spokes of the biggest motorbike Callum had ever seen. Embossed on the centre of the tank was a blue heart edged with gold.

‘Beautiful, in't she?' said Dental, wheeling her down the ramp.

Callum nodded. He knew it had to be a rare machine. None of the other bikes was called ‘she'.

‘We don't use Daisy-May much. Too precious. She gets hurt and no one's got the art to fix her no more. But she is one beautiful getaway machine.' Dental ran his hand over the tank and smiled as he swung his leg over her. ‘Get on, woofer.'

Callum shifted from foot to foot. ‘Where's Floss?' he asked ‘Why isn't he coming too?'

With one quick jerk, Dental yanked Callum into the air and then threw him down like a rag doll onto the front of the bike. He leaned forward, his long arms trapping Callum between the tank and his body.

‘Where are you taking me?'

‘To round up sheep, Dog.'

Dental kick-started the engine and the Daisy-May started with a soft whirr. Callum gripped the seat with his knees. As the bike picked up speed, he lay down across the tank, hanging onto the warm, smooth metal with both hands. They were travelling fast, skimming over the stony ground. The wind felt like needles against Callum's bare skin. Dental hit a button and a transparent blue hood rose up from the front of the bike and settled over them so they were enclosed inside a bubble.

The desert whipped past. Callum remembered peyote bikes like the Daisy-May roaring along the highway outside the Refuge, and Rusty whistling, ‘He's doing a Doppler!' Maybe that strange tension in the air meant they were approaching the speed of sound. Dental leaned down hard, pressing against Callum. The speedometer nudged 1200 kilometres an hour.

Beneath the blue hood, the air was rank with Dental's body odour. When Dental stopped the Daisy-May at the gates of a silvery-grey outstation and raised the hood, Callum gulped down the sharp night air.

Two guards stepped forward to run a weapons detector over both Dental and Callum and then waved the Daisy-May through the gates. They rode slowly until they came to an open square where hundreds of men sat around in groups, gambling at long tables. The air was thick with smoke from hookahs, pipes and cigarettes.

‘Does Floss know we're here?' asked Callum. It felt safer to bait Dental when there were other men around.

‘Will you shut up about Floss!'

‘You guys, you're sworn brothers, aren't you? Won't he worry about where we've gone?' he asked, watching as Dental's face contorted with rage.

The big man lunged forward and sank his jagged teeth into the top of Callum's ear. Callum squealed with pain. Then Dental lifted him up so they were face to face.

‘Listen, poodle-boy. I'm not one of your dads. I don't do sworn brotherhood. That's for Colony mugs like your old men. I'm not out to save the bleeding civilisation. I'm out for me, Dental. Got it?'

Holding his bloody ear, Callum nodded. Dental found a seat at the end of a bench and pulled Callum onto his knee, securing him firmly in place with one hand as he gathered up his playing chips. On the table were ingots of gold, silver and platinum, small clear bags full of pills and sticky substances, and small boxes of remnant technologies – microchips and computer hardware. Callum couldn't follow what the rules of the game were but there were a lot of small white squares with black markings moving around the table. As the night wore on, little beads of sweat began to gather on Dental's brow and drip down into his beard. He kept smiling his shark-tooth grin but it was clear he was losing. Callum felt a small rush of pleasure.

Late in the night, one of the gamblers pushed a bulging green leather wallet into the centre of the table.

‘You can't cover a bet like that, can you? I reckon you're out of this round, stranger.'

The other gamblers began pushing forward bags of pills and ingots of metal. The dealer checked each bid carefully before accepting them.

‘I'm not out yet,' said Dental. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a clear bag filled with a sticky black substance and tossed it at the dealer.

For a long, silent moment the wizened man sniffed through the contents. Then he threw Dental's stake back to him, shaking his head. ‘Too piss-weak.'

‘Not so fast. I got a sweetener here that'll round the bid.' He grabbed Callum by his torque and lifted him onto the table. ‘Heard you say how you like howlers around here. Heard your last one met with an accident. This one's a treat. He can bend too. Put him to any use you want. He's worth a lot to me. Good little performer. Take him as my stake.'

‘He's a bleedin' runt,' scoffed one of the men.

‘No, he's a little beauty. Still got his baby-boy voice – sweet, like.' Dental shoved Callum into the centre of the table. ‘Go on, Dog, howl,' he commanded.

Callum looked into the faces of the Outstationers and felt his throat constrict. For an instant, he thought of doing as he was told. But he had a creeping feeling that life would be even worse at this outstation than with the circus. He stayed mute.

‘Sing, you pig-child,' said Dental, jumping up onto the bench and shaking Callum by his neck. Suddenly, in a flash of inspiration, Callum knew exactly what he should do. It was a trick that had always scared his fathers. He contracted his stomach muscles and forced himself to belch so loudly that saliva and vomit filled his mouth. Then he let it drool over his lips. At the same time he furrowed his brow and rolled his eyes back in his head until he knew only the whites were showing.

By the time Callum had finished the trick, the gamblers were backing away from him, as if he was diseased.

‘Damn you,' said Dental. Quick as a ferret, he pulled a small blowpipe out from behind his ear and shot three darts, one into the face of each of the nearest gamblers. As panic ensued, Dental swept all the bids from the table into the folds of his black leather jacket. Grabbing Callum with his free hand and kicking chairs and benches from their path, he jumped back onto the Daisy-May. He slammed Callum down on the tank, shoved the stolen winnings into a saddlebag and gunned the accelerator.

Men were shouting and sirens wailing as the Daisy-May tore through the streets of the outstation, ploughing past the guards at the gates. They opened fire as the Daisy-May shot out into the desert. The bike shuddered and lost speed. Callum turned to see Dental's face contorted in pain as he fumbled for the switch that would bring the protective blue hood over them.

Callum knew this was his moment. All the months of learning to bend, of making his muscles stretch and flex in the ring, could finally serve him. Before he could feel afraid, he turned onto his back and lay flat against the tank, his legs curled against his chest. Grasping the handlebars of the motorbike with both hands, he employed a version of a stunt where he would put his feet against Floss's chest and then spring into a handstand. Now he put both feet squarely against Dental's chest and kicked out with all his strength. The Daisy-May careered to one side. Quickly, Callum struck again, this time bringing his heels sharply into Dental's chin. He saw a little spurt of blood as Dental's lip was pierced by his own front tooth. Then Dental was gone and the bike was fishtailing along the desert road with Callum hanging on wildly.

The sirens of the outstation grew louder as Callum flipped himself over. He could hear the roar of vehicles in pursuit. He gripped the handles tightly with both hands and let the throttle out. As the bike picked up speed, he lowered his body until he was lying flat along the seat, until he felt he was melding to the machine. To the west lay the circus, to the east, the Outstationers. He gunned the accelerator and turned the Daisy-May southwards.

6

LOST AND FOUND

Bo watched a silvery-grey dawn creep over the eastern horizon.
Keeping the roboraptors clear of the minefield, she paced the boundary until she came across the exploded landmine. The remains of an Outstationer and his broken vehicle lay scattered across the ground. She hung her head in a moment of silent respect, as Poppy had taught her. Then she scraped a shallow grave for his remains and set about laying a replacement mine further afield, marking out the distances between the old mines and the new, ensuring that nothing could cross the boundaries of Tjukurpa Piti without warning.

When she had finished, she looked back towards the hunting ground and sighed. She had taken every precaution before setting out in the dawn light. She had checked the sensors for any signs of human activity, and set the Wombator to work, programming it to dig another layer of tunnels beneath the upper burrow with emergency escape routes fanning out in two new directions. She knew she should turn back and hunt within the boundary of mines but the thought of bagging only another stringy feral cat again made her heart sink. There were no trees left inside her hunting ground, no desert fruits or roots to forage. Even though she knew Poppy would have disapproved, she herded the roboraptors through the minefield and into the wider desert. The morning was still and cool. It was the best time for hunting. The roboraptors were excited by the rising sun and gambolled along at her ankles making low purring sounds. The desert was her own.

She whistled two short commands and the roboraptors scurried ahead, fanning out into the low scrub, sending up little spurts of red earth from beneath their clawed feet. She hitched her string bag higher on her shoulder and picked up speed. She would have to walk for kilometres before she reached the old creekbed. It had been dry for decades but Bo knew that along its banks were the best places for digging out soft roots. An artesian well buried deep in the soil fed the long, stringy vegetables that she loved. She clipped some handfuls of greybeard grass and lined the string bag with it. It would be useful later for straining the sludgy black water that pooled in crevices along the creekbed. As she descended the rise above the creek, she pulled up a naked woollybutt tussock and added it to the string bag. It was small and dried-out but there was still enough seed on the long stems to make it worth taking home.

Reaching the dry creekbed at last, she squatted down on its banks and began to dig at the base of a withered tree. It took her twenty minutes to reach the root network that housed dead grubs and she was cross and sweaty by the time she found a finger-thick root and hacked it out. Her pleasure turned to disappointment when she peeled off the outer layer and found the grubs inside had turned powdery. She licked her fingers and dipped them into the chalky remains. At least the grub-dust was still sweet and nutty to taste.

She sat back on her heels and listened for the sound of the roboraptors. Last time they had ventured outside the hunting grounds, Mr Pinkwhistle had come back with a human hand in his jaws. Bo had scraped a hole in the nearest sandy patch of desert and buried it deep so the raptors wouldn't find it again. No matter how hungry she was, there were some taboos she would never break.

Bo noticed a flurry of dust on the rise above the opposite bank and the tips of the roboraptors' tails, erect and quivering. It seemed an odd place to catch something. Only a very stupid or sick animal would be caught on high ground where it was in clear view of approaching predators. Usually the roboraptors cornered their prey in outcrops of rock or chased them to ground on the flat plains.

Bo heard an unearthly cry. Seconds later, a boy stumbled over the crest of the rise and rolled down the sandy bank of the creek. Bo cried out in surprise. The roboraptors let out a group ululation of triumph and sped down the embankment to where the boy now lay motionless in the dry creekbed. Bo jumped to her feet and ran. By the time she got there Mr Pinkwhistle was standing on the boy's head while the rest of the raptor pack perched on other parts of him, sending out the whine that signalled for Bo to help them carry home heavy prey.