The Moth and the Candle

The suit wouldn’t lock. Moore struggled with the neck-clasps, pulling at the heft of the thin plastic with his gloved index finger. It remained stubbornly closed as his fingers scrabbled, trying to free the helmet from the dapper-suit that covered him.

- Fuck, fuck fuck!
- Stop cursing Moore, and concentrate.
- I would if I could.

He snarled. Snarled the last part. His partner grinned. Moore cursed him too, wishing just once he showed the fear even he knew the bastard felt. The trick, he had once told him while drunk, was to be afraid and not mind. The absurdity of that statement should have been laughable but funnily enough Moore didn’t remember laughing.

The Solnarx swung its craggy head around, the tendons of its neck standing out as it strained to find the prey it could smell but not see. The bangsticks they had thrown had done only half their job and blinded the creature. They hadn’t been powerful enough to penetrate the thick gray shaggy skin to the neural cortex at the base of the neck. All they had succeeded in doing was wounding it. And mightily pissing it off so now it ranged up and down the ravine in furious search for the two puny sacks of water who has thrown the damn things in the first place.

The creature’s front two arms felt along the ravine floor as the two median arms swung about the air, claws extended. The screech of its nails as they hit the gravstad deposits in the ravine walls was deafening. Thick curlicues of smoke trailed after the showers of sparks to make an impressive scene, fit for battle. Both men ignored it.

Somers Redshaw stepped in front of Moore and twisted the two neck clasps of Moore’s suit and pulled. The helmet came away from the suit, pulling some of Moore’s hair with it.

- OwwwWWW!
- Don’t be such a child.
- A fucking child? You try standing still while someone heks out your hair!

Redshaw pulled back a fist and punched him in the face

- Concentrate on the job! Your immature whining is going to get us killed!

Moore’s eyes spun for a moment. The solnarx was almost on them but once more he ignored it. When he could focus, he glared at Redshaw, his hands instinctively clenching. Just as Redshaw was about to shout another warning Moore spun around, opened up his chest-pak and pulled out a UTIS grenade. As the solnarx sloped toward them he ran left, drawing the creature away from his colleague. The solnarx turned and as it did so Moore twisted his leg mid-run and skidded to a halt underneath the creature. He planted the obdurator into the solnarx’s flank and ran. Redshaw threw himself to the ground and when he hit the world blew blood-red as the obdurator detonated. Smoke and sound and dust mingled into one world only as Redshaw’s eyes streamed with water and he rolled around on the ground coughing as his lungs fought for air. Moore was nearby, on his feet as always, checking for damage in a self-contained way.

Redshaw pulled himself to his feet and made his way over to him. Moore looked up and grinned. He put a hand to his mouth and pulled out one of his front teeth

- Would’ee look at that? The fat fucker took out one of my molars. I thought I had loaded it up a smidge lively.

- Moore, Redshaw shook with anger, you idiot, you nearly killed us both! How many times do I have to tell you to cut the charge longer when priming those things? I was almost out in the open when it blew!

Moore shrugged.

- It was then or’never. He was tracking our belling scent. Look around, he said sweeping an arm, there’s fuck-all cover here. He would have had us in a few minutes. I had to pull that off there and then. You punching me in the face didn’t help matters, don’t think I have forgotten that.
- That is fair enough, Redshaw nodded, but I was trying to make you take the situation seriously. I felt you needed it.
Moore threw back his head and laughed
- Somers me old flower, I hate it when we take things seriously. You need me to put some life into your life. And I need you….
- We both know why you need me and neither of us would laugh at that reason so let us leave it at that. Good work nevertheless. I have never seen a solnarx so thoroughly…dead

Moore looked at him suspiciously

- Was that a joke? Hesu, I’ll have to write this one into my diary. “dear diary, today I saved Somers’ life and the ungrateful condescending prick stood around afterwards making prim little jokes.”

Redshaw continued as if he had not spoken.

- Irrespective of the fact that you achieved your aim did you notice the scree at the crest of the ravine?
- The old workings? Sure I saw but I don’t think there will be anything left here. Look at the place, I doubt any scrimshaw miners have been here in 30 or 40 years.
- That is not what I meant. The workings were probably not abandoned because they were unprofitable or worked to exhaustion. I examined the scree carefully
Moore grunted.
- I know, I saw. I thought you were mad.
- Perhaps you should have done so too because if you had you would have noticed that there was extensive evidence of the presence of carbonite.
Moore stiffened.
- What? Where?
- I cannot say for sure but I have a feeling we may have wandered into a trap that the solnarx was not using. I think it was put here to guard it.
- Who the fucking sed ever used a solnarx to guard anything? They’re almost impossible to control, plus they’re as thick as your right arm. This place must have run to a fortune in its time, under the control of the Western Scas and no Sca in her right mind would do that.
- Perhaps not a Sca with an army behind her but someone who was desperate, who needed a stop-gap solution. Yet that is not what I am worried about now. The explosion was very powerful, more than powerful enough to create a firedamp…
- A firedamp blast? Noooooo…no I just don’t see it. Haven’t heard of one of those for years. You worry too much Reds. It just don’t happen anymore, the Revenant Field absorbs the dark matter you know that.
- Ordinarily, yes. But in rare cases the Field is overwhelmed by a sufficiently powerful release of energy in one place. This in itself would be enough to merely weaken the field but if combined with certain minerals…
- It’s carbonite isn’t it? You’re going to say fucking carbonite. Hesu Cunt! If I’d known that I would have used a pistol or a grappler or something.
- No I was not going to say carbonite. I was going to say drividium or melacthon or something of that nature. When I was at the University we conducted series of experiments to test the capacity of various areas of the Revenant Field to absorb dark matter under certain conditions. My professor called them ‘reverse stress tests’. The results were…unsettling. For quite a small reaction the Field itself would destabilise for a substantial period of time. We never used carbonite as it is so rare. But it would be sufficient…
- Fuck. Fucking Hesu Cunt cree fuck!

Moore grabbed the helmet of his suit and smashed it against the nearest boulder.

Redshaw watched him.

- So we’re stuck in the middle of a ravine in the middle of nowhere which is probably degrading due to destabilising dark energy… is that it?
- I do not know. Possibly.
- Let’s get the chudd out of here, come on.
- Wait….
Redshaw pointed at the ravine entrance. The air shimmered in the heat, creating waves and disruptions in their field of vision. Small points of light flickered in and out of the air. Redshaw grabbed Moore’s arm
- Move!
- Where??
- Anywhere that is away from that! He screamed, pointing a finger at the by now furiously boiling spectre that was expanding and seemingly engulfing the ravine boulder by boulder.

A low grinding sound like a slow drill on a particularly obdurate rock outcrop ran through the ravine reaching the pair now frantically running up the sides of the ravine in opposite directions to one another.

They couldn’t run fast enough. As Redshaw struggled over the broken ground the expanding mass overtook him and he disappeared. Moore cursed. He reached into his suit and pulled out a small black cube. He turned to the cloud and holding it aloft he twisted the cube to face the light. As the penumbra of the cloud reached him the cube emitted a piercing sound that made the air twist around him. And then it was black.


Redshaw awoke, sunlight on his face. He became aware of a wet guttural sound. He tried to open his eyes but the sunlight stung too much. Raising a hand to his mouth he felt crusts of dried skin and phlegm around its edges. He tried to speak but it felt like someone else’s voice. His neck and back ached, the muscles in his neck pulling at even the slightest movement, seemingly connected to the lobes of his brain in a tight agonised band. At the very edge of his vision in a blur of greys and blues he thought he saw someone and lifted himself up.

Moore pushed him back

- Take it handily enough. You’ve been under for a long time.
- Whurrr arr whee?
- We’re on board an open-air transport hulk going through NML. They’re carrying deox ore from the mines at Novo Gorinta. I split open the Fabric just after you were swallowed up by that…that…well, whatever the chudd it was. I know you said it was incredibly dangerous to do it without preparing first but the way I figured it we were dead if we didn’t do something. You were already brown for all I knew in any case.
- Whaaaat hpened thenn?
- Well I woke up a few minutes later about 50k from the ravine, thereabouts, in that place we passed through on the way, remember? The sally-port for the Deox? Anyway you were nowhere to be seen. My head was woozed from the shift so I sat for a while thinking about what to do next. I was in a bar not far from where I landed when someone came in talking about a breaker that had dropped out of nowhere onto his cousin’s stall smashing it to pieces and I knew that was you. So after paying off the cousin, the thieving Chelvy prick, I brought you up to the layaway station. I had no idea what to do other than get the chudd out of the town so I managed to find a group of long-distance men who were leaving that afternoon and negotiated a price for passage across the NML to some hick town on the other side. I had never heard of the place but then I figured if I hadn’t heard of it maybe it was a good place to keep our heads down. The long-distance men were a bit shifty when I asked them about it. All they would say was that it was Nie Dutch territory, administered by the NVOC for as long as they could remember and that it wasn’t a big place but big enough to hide in.

Redshaw inched painfully upright. He looked out over the burned expanse of the NML. The transparent dome that covered the transport hulk seemed to capture the rays of the three suns and burn them into his brain. He couldn’t remember feeling worse. Moore looked and him. He passed over a canteen and told him to drink it. Redshaw drank greedily spilling most of it over his.

- Where is my suit??
- They took it. It was part of the deal I struck. The suits are valuable.
- I know they are valuable Moore! They have saved our lives in the past!
- Don’t fucking well start yelling at me. I had to bargain with something and the suits excepted I had fuck-all else to gel the deal with. They even threw in some clothes and weapons. We needed out Somers. This, he said gesturing to the metal bulkheads of the transporter, was it at such short notice. It was this or wait for the Administration to show up mob-handed and start blasting kells until they found us.
- That mine was not worked by Administration engineers. It had nowhere near their level of precision or sophistication. They clearly had not heard of the place otherwise they would have developed a pithead at least by now.
Moore shook his head
- Not the mine, though I’m sure if they knew they would swarm it. Us re-matting like that without authorisation caused a swell in the town. Word was buzzing about and sooner or later it would have reached the local Factor and then we were fucked. You know what they do to people who shuck their technology. So I cut the deal, bargained the damn suits away and now here we are.

Redshaw struggled to his feet and peered out into the great expanse of desert and scorched rock that marked the running battles that had taken place here. Although they were relatively safe this far up, and on The Link in particular this was still NML. Roaming bands of ex-soldiers and deserters still lived out here, scavenging a living among the blasted rocks. No one travelled overland anymore, the roads had long had the reputation of being too dangerous so NML’s inhabitants eked out an existence, you couldn’t call it a living, by salvaging what little weapons technology and scrap metal they could find and bartering it with various outposts. They were outcasts, banned from entering urban areas and for the most part the Administration turned a blind eye to the very limited system of exchange between the NML gangs and the towns. In the beginning they had tried raiding a few of the towns, even taking a hostage or two. The Administration response had been as swift as it was savage. Huge search parties roamed deep into the NML badlands and swept up gang after gang. Very few escaped. Every blasted earth gang member they took was publically tortured to death over days mostly by crucifixion, others by having flares attached to their extremities and left there to burn off, screaming into insanity. Some bit their tongues off in sheer agony and drowned in their own blood, others simply died of thirst and starvation, exhausted at the effort necessary to simply breathe. The crucifixes had not been placed near the towns. Rather they had been arranged in groups of twenty, inside their own former redoubts and bolt-holes. There they had lived and there they died.


The chase and capture took a little over a month to complete. By the end not a single NML gang had been unaffected and now they kept very much to themselves. They were not, however, afraid as he had heard some traders triumphantly boast as though the Administration response had been their idea. They knew they were doomed from the outset. The raids had been acts of stupid desperation. Redshaw had known some of the men who had been executed. They were not stupid.


He felt the pang of guilt survivors often feel as he looked down as the wide, barren expanse. There with what little grace they could muster go his former comrades, silent and alone. He was fortunate, he knew, not to have to join them. During the Barrier Wars demobilisation of the mercenary armies had been planned for from almost the first engagement. Not one of the Heeren XVII wanted a standing army of battle-hardened conscripts on their hands. They preferred NVOC volunteers from the Lowland shores to man their standing contingents. The conscript army was useful up to a point but beyond that, as one of his commanders had told him after a night of drinking fiery Jongevierer straight from the bottle, they were a threat to the security of the company trading links. And that was something that wouldn’t be tolerated.
So they were driven out, the chains of command broken up, each man offered a small amount of cash, a change of clothes and one-way ticket to wherever they wanted to go. After the ten long years of battles there was mass confusion among the ranks of demobilised soldiers as to what to do next.


The war had been so intense that the possibility of a peaceful existence simply did not occur to those whom it suddenly then faced. With over 200 direct engagements, on average, every year of that ten years and most of them involving multi-platform battle theatres all these men knew was how to survive and how to make sure their enemy didn’t. Killing and not dying, that was all they were good for even though some were so good they had brought the balance close to artistry it mattered little in the time after. They were never going to win the peace. Winning the war had been a matter of application, terror and ruthlessness, qualities that came easily to most of them. Winning the peace meant changing their very view of themselves and the world in which they found themselves. More than half of them, over a million ex-soldiers, committed suicide within the first six months. There was simply nowhere for them to be. The rest…well he was one of the successful ones who hadn’t found drugs, alcohol or a god or two to blind himself with and blot out the fact that not only had the entire universe changed it was embarrassed at his very existence.

Redshaw sighed and spat. Moore stared.

- We are here and it is indeed now. It could be far worse. Thank you for being the only one to think clearly enough activate the livecloud. I do not know what would have happened without it.

Moore waved a hand irritably.

- No sweat. Our only problem now is going to be what the fuck we do when we reach our destination.
- Our destination? Where is the convoy train headed?
- Weeellll…that’s the mildly tricky bit. See, the convoy is going all the way into the Deep North to deliver its cargo to the shipyards at Termonten Bay. But…
- But what?
- Well, the thing is that I couldn’t negotiate passage for us all the way into the Deep North. We would have needed brand-new legends with backstop passports and that would have taken more time and money than we had so…this part of the convoy is going as far as a borderland town called Utopia Place.
Redshaw stared blankly at him.
- Utopia Place? I have never heard of it. Where is it, exactly? And what are we going to do there?
- Well that is one of the perfect things about the deal. It is on the very eastern tip of Fortitude Valley and, according to the Link pilot I spoke it, it used to be a…
Redshaw held up a hand
- Enough! For the love of Hesu do not say anymore. I cannot bear to listen to your cheery inability to take anything seriously. It will lead us to our downfall. You are so…damned irresponsible!
- It was the best I could do Somers, Moore said quietly. Stick or twist. Stick or twist. That was what I had to decide and I only had a moment to call it. You weren’t there. Dance around it as much as you like but you weren’t. If you had been compos we might not be having this discussion but you weren’t so we are. We’re alive, away from the flics and we have weapons and a spot of cash. We’ve been far worse off.

He hefted a rifle, working the pulse-chamber to ensure a full load and aimed down at a lone figure on horseback crossing the dusty plain far below. At this distance a direct hit would be something of a miracle, Redshaw thought as he watched Moore place a hand on the control panel and activate the dome. Moore placed the barrel of the rifle on the handrail and paused.

- There was one dead kell riding on the plain…..one dead kell riding on the plain…. and when one dead kell turned to face againnnnnn….

The rifle bucked only slightly in his hand as the energy weapon released. Moore hadn’t hit the rider or the horse. On the plain below about three metres from the rider a sudden explosion sent a cloud of red dust high into the surrounding air. The rider was thrown off the horse as it reared backward in fright and galloped into the distance. The rider lay flat on the ground, unmoving. At any other time Redshaw would have felt bound to stop him but Moore wasn’t intending to shoot the rider, he knew. If he had the rider would already be dead. He wanted to punish him by driving away his horse and make him walk the cracked and parched earth of the NML. Perhaps the horse would come back. Perhaps he would find other badlanders to help him. Moore didn’t care. What mattered was punishment being prolonged. Moore only took life when necessary and even then he neither gloried in its implications nor dwelled on the consequences. It was simply something that needed to be done and once it was there was nothing more to say. What he had just done was something entirely different. He…well enjoyed would be the wrong word. It satisfied him to carry out deeds like that, ticking off small bad deeds against even larger bad ones in the hope that somehow, somewhere a form of cosmic balance would be weighed out not at the end of things but in the act of their being committed.

- One less kell on a stolen horse now, he said cheerfully uncocking the rifle and settling back against the bulkead. I think I might get some sleep. We won’t reach this dump for another two days at least so we might as well try for sleep now. It’s as good a time as any.

He pulled the combat cap down over his eyes and went to sleep. Redshaw had always envied him that ability, to sleep anywhere no matter what the circumstances. He could only ever manage a few broken hours at a time. Exhaustion only made him angrier and more determined.

The fold-down of the hulk shuddered as it passed through the first of the Barriers, the milky-blue of its weird penumbra opening and closing as the object passed through it. Like a penis into a vagina, Moore had always thought, and grinned mirthlessly at the schoolboy simile. He stopped grinning when the Barrier shifted, its energy waves temporarily distorted. He cursed viciously, clinging hold of the nearest bulkhead and fighting the gorge that rose in his throat. He swallowed with difficulty, the acid burning at the back of his throat leaving a sour taste in his mouth. The transport shuddered again, the time slowing to an almost complete stop. The metal of the bulkheads whined and groaned under the sudden strain. Once again Moore vomited and once again he swallowed the result.

Redshaw turned in his sleep, muttering something Moore didn’t quite catch. He lashed a kick at Redshaw’s head but missed as the transport stopped dead in the air.

- Fuck! We’re stuck in the energy wash of the first Barrier! The chelvy cunts who run this line mustn’t have kitted out the fold-down properly. Sweet Hesu! Emmm…emmmm..think think think think…the EVA shoots won’t open while we’re in the Barrier…distress call?? Who the cunting fuck would hear it? Shitballs! When this is over I’m getting our suits back off those useless fucking kells!
- Once again calm down Moore. Getting excited in this situation is not going to achieve anything worthwhile. We should see what the rest of the Line is doing.
- Right, right, right. Yep you’re right. Ok let’s do it.

They inched their way across the creaking deck stepping over the open girders that ran the length and breadth of each transport. These ships weren’t built for comfort nor for carrying human cargo. As the pair made their way to the rear of the transport Redshaw felt for an open control panel and swiped a command onto the screen. A section of bulkhead became transparent. They peered out and watched as the Line disengaged slowly from their stricken transport. Exhaust intakes at the rear were vibrating wildly as they came into contact with the wash of the first energy fields of the Barrier. Redshaw did something he very rarely did and cursed under his breath. Moore, it seemed, had run out of curses. Although they were now immobile they were not in immediate danger. The hulk directly behind them and which had broken free of their moorings initially was not so fortunate. It was, as every fourth vessel on the link was, a manned hulk with a captain, first mate, chief engineer and so on. All in all the complement usually reached about fifteen vessels or so. The pair could see some of the crew in their EVAC suits scrabble frantically over the deck of the hulk trying to grasp hold of the mooring lines which now flailed freely, whipping back and forth. This was a measure of their desperation. One of them managed to catch a line but he was immediately whipped up off the deck and smashed back into it. He released the cable and slipped off the deck without pause into the air below.

Redshaw breathed. Moore blanched

- Fuckit. Looks like we’re up.

He pulled at the clasps of his EVAC helmet, his fingers clumsy in the thick padded gloves. Yanking at the stubborn metal he wrenched the helmet off his head.

- What are you doing? Redshaw asked, his calm a contrast to the chaos behind him.
- I’m going to have me a last smoke, one final cheroot before I die. I am the condemned man Reds, right before you!

This last part was accompanied by a gale of laughter as Moore dropped to the deck, pulling a tin out of the bag on his back. He laughed harder still when he saw that Redshaw was, momentarily, uncertain. Or so he seemed but in fact he was thinking, slowly, clearly. He nodded and sat down beside his partner.

- I would like one too if you please
- Since when do you smoke?
- Now would seem an opportune moment to start don’t you think?

Moore nodded sagely

- Right enough now, the condemned men ate heartily. Or at least I fucking well wish we did. I can’t remember the last time we ate a halfway decent meal.
He looked over the side of the hulk, peering into the swirling dust clouds.
- How far do you think we have to fall?
- Two, possibly two and half kilometres.

Moore leaned back

- That’s a long way down. A little too long if you ask me, not the time for introspection and wonder. I’ve loaded the double-aught with cannon shells. Halfway down I’m going to eat the barrel.

This was a day of firsts for Redshaw. He laughed, a sorrowful guttural laugh, the first Moore had ever heard from him.

- My dear Moore, halfway down and you will be barely conscious. If you can even remember how to pull a trigger I would be impressed.
- So that’s the way of it is it? Well, better to be semisleep I suppose. Who wants to watch a slow motion of their death play out in moments rather than years?
- Very succinctly put. And now may I have your lighter please?

Moore passed over the butane lighted his grandfather had given him nearly thirty years previously. It was an anachronism in an age of Delen crystals but he liked the feel of it, a reason he had rejected so many things about the life he had been supposed to lead. Redshaw examined it closely. He flicked back the lever and a bright blue flame shot out, hissing in the wind.

- The only thing left to do now is wait.

- Gonna to sleep with my baby, hold me down, smooth the fair-skinned frown, I hear the sounds of the very last town…

- Shut up Moore, he hissed.

Redshaw clamped his hand over his mouth. Moore’s eyes dilated. His fingers flexed. He turned his head and slipped off the decking. In two very simple movements almost faster than Redshaw’s eyes could follow he pulled a weapon from his belt and scanned the length of the deck. Even Moore was impressed.

- No waiting for the enemy to arrive eh Reds?

He turned and grinned. Pulling his lower lip over his teeth he bit down hard. Redshaw hasn't blanched at anything in years. In times past he had seen whole towns of dead, corpses piled higher than he could think but when the blood dripped off Moore’s chin and sizzled as it hit the scorching deckmetal his nostrils flared slightly. Moore noticed and his grin grew wider. Sucking at his own blood he tilted his head back and murmured in mock-prayer.

- Oh Hesu forgive us all for we know exactly what we do but we just can’t seem to stop doing it. I beeeeseech thee, allow us all to be as we are, as we were now and in the beginning forever and ever amen.

Redshaw watched. He stared him down. Even Moore’s irreverent violence simmered gently when baked by that stare.

- Just a joke just a joke Reds, just my little joke, he said evenly as the gun hang lightly by his side present but in no way a threat.

Redshaw shrugged. He caught up

- It is little to me if you laugh and snigger at anything, least of all things you do not understand. I am just here beside you as you are beside me.

Moore stopped laughing and nodded, his long unkempt hair whorling in the gathering winds. He reached down and pushed himself to his feet.

- And the remainder always knew what to say next. They would shuffle their feet and hang their heads like little boys lost in guilt and oh so delicious wrong but they knew alright. The worst were forever the loud ones, all foghorn mouth and snarling aggression. Usually because they didn’t know what to do with the fear inside of course but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with them. Or make them any less dangerous. Without passion, one told me once, we aren’t anything at all. He went first. Impaled himself on a length of armour metal taken from the wreckage of a landline tank. I remember all his mates stood there looking at him for about half an hour before one of them plucked up the courage and they all ended up going through his pockets. I can still see the smallest one running off with his dear dead friend’s boots tied by the bootlaces around his neck, running as fast as his legs could carry him.

Redshaw turned to look at him.

- What is the point of this Moore?

Moore dragged heavily on his cheroot, shards of black tobacco bursting into crackling flame
.
- Fucked if I know. I just watched them die, one by one until I couldn’t feel anything anymore. By then I knew it was time to leave and find some other occupation. Peace time was not for me. I found neither. Neither time nor peace in the place I was Reds.

- And the place you are in now? Try not to be flippant for once.

Moore spat and stared upwards, contemplative in the silence.

Redshaw shrugged.

- I have heard worse things than that.

- And aye, we have, you have, I have. Seen worse. Even done worse. I am thinking of that time we spent out at the border post on the edge of the NML with that bastard cuntchild of a customs commissioner who tried to have us all executed for smuggling weapons. Remember him? What was his name…Chancer? Geoff Chancer. That was it, man te se, he had balls but didn't he? Even with his men strung out in front of him, bloody and silent for the last time, he never gave an inch. That was the time when Drayton fired the last of his rounds at thin fucking air screaming about the people beyond sight and ran naked into the waiting darkness. He didn’t get more than fifty feet before what happened. Fuuuuck that was a bad one.

Redshaw said nothing. He had nothing to say. He had given the order to execute the customs commissioner. It shouldn’t have felt like anything really considering the deaths that could be laid at their collective doorstep. If he had fought or shouted or even spat it would have made it…simpler. But he just stared with contempt, his defiance made all the more galling for it having only a subtle outlet to demonstrate its worth. Even Drayton didn’t speak when he was hoisted from the broken spar over the barrier crossing. He could still see the man’s stare, cold and deadly, weighing them all and finding nothing.

It was Redshaw’s turn to stare. He turned to face the bow of the barge as it slowly broke up, parts of the bulkhead calving off to spin gracefully beneath his stare. He ran towards the bow. Moore shouted at him but he didn’t even turn. As he ran he pointed at the bow and shouted

- The tendril cables, Moore, look at the tendril cables. They have not been destroyed yet and look where they lead.

Moore frowned. He got up and ran after him. As he stood on the side rail and peered over. He saw what Redshaw was pointing frantically at. The patches of what looked like black smole from the the burning engines were moving, turning themselves insiude and out. Moore turned and said

- Hesu Redshaw are we that belling desperate? If we miss…

- If we miss we are no worse off than we will be in half an hour or so when the barge will disintegrate totally. We do not have many other options. Or indeed any other options expect to die here.

- Fucking good point Reds me old tres, he grinned, let’s jump and die. Or jump and live. How do you want to do it? Actually to fuck with it, let’s just go.

He swung one leg over the rail and jumped out into space. Redshaw shook his head, disapproving as always.

- Aim for the nearest cable on the left, I’ll try and take the one on the right. If we time it we should push into the middle of those dark matter clouds split seconds behind one another.

- We could land anywhere this time so if we do get separated head for Northern Bovar OK? Sally’s bar at the mining post closest to the NML frontier. From there we can decide what to do next.

- Got it. Fuck the cunts, let’s go!

Moore launched himself off the side rail, pushing as far out into space as he could. Redshaw ran to do the same, the arc on the left being tighter so he had even less to go. He jumped out and fell. As he did so his mind froze for only a fraction of a second. And then he was amongst the tendrils. He missed the first two although the second one caught him, smashing the visor of his helmet and drawing blood. He felt the third smack into his hand and he held. The momentum from his jump meant he swung around the bow of the barge towards the patches of oily black that lived on the edge of vision. As he did he could see Moore coming towards him from the opposite direction. He had never doubted he would. The ultraviolet tinges to the shifting edges of the dark matter clouds writhed unaffected by the air, dancing to a tune no one else could hear. Moore reached the largest one first with Redshaw not far behind him. As they came hurtling towards one another Moore, all maniacal grin and aching muscle, let go of the tendril cable as he pulled a UTIS grenade from his belt. He threw it into the non-space between them and it detonated just as they collided. Redshaw felt a searing heat wash over him, so hot it felt like being doused in ice water. This time, he thought, in a flash as sudden and intense as the blast-wave, they would not see each other for a long time.

-Keep thy faith, the old woman said.

She held out a fully half-clenched fist of fingers gnarled by arthritis, the tissue around the joints thickened and swollen. Macken always felt guilty when he saw her hands yet he never knew why. Regarding them induced one emotion but that was entirely overwhelmed by what he felt on the rare occasions he took hold of one or other of her hands, the warm, bony, urgent fists encouraging him to be whatever he felt himself to be. They were reassuring hands. Reassuring in that they displayed something obvious and familiar but were secretly and shockingly strong at the same time. They were a mother’s hands, the hands of the only mother he ever knew.

-Keep thy faith. Tis’ the only thing worth having in the end. Every mother’s son will let you down but your faith will keep you boy. In here, she said as she smacked his chest with the flat of her left hand, in here is where what little all of us have is kept until it is counted.

Macken never knew what to say at these moments. It was ever the same, standing there in front of her, as her gaze scrutinised him, feeling twitchy and hot, the way he did when he had to speak in public. The feel of a bead of perspiration running down the clefts of his spine usually made him angry and resentful but in these circumstances he never minded. He knew, after a few false starts, that she was not appraising him or passing judgement but rather she was searching for issues or problems she could help him with. Like her touch it was reassuring but in the same, distantly observed kind of way.

-well? Are you listening to me boy? I know you had trouble in the past with things…that…well, things that don’t concern us here now but you mark my words. Don’t let the faith you have die. Don’t! she finished with a fierce crack, a look into his soul that came from deep within her being and it burned to look at. Madness always does.

- I will, I mean, I won’t Ma, he said, gently pulling her hand away and taking them both, pressing them into her sides. I have too much of it y’see. That’s always been my problem, too much faith, not enough substance, he said, laughing as he looked over her shoulder.

She followed his gaze and saw nothing. Angrily she shook her head

-don’t mock me boy, don’t you ever mock me.

She shook with anger at first, he thought but it was only when she wrapped her scarf in a tight knot around her neck that he realised she must have been freezing in the icy wind that whirled down the promenade and in off the harbour. He hadn’t even noticed it.

-ma, he said, ma look at me. I don’t think I will ever lose that. It has kept me going this far and even with all that has happened look at me.
He spread his arms wide and turned in a circle before his mother, terminating the circle in an elaborate, clownish half-bow. Capering now, he thrust his hand out in an invitation to dance

-may I mother? He said in an atrocious drawl

She blushed, she even blushed. Practically no one did that anymore except for his mother

-go away with you, she said, suddenly abashed and shy, the years falling away to push the hardchaw fanatic out of the way and allow the young girl to step into the light.
He danced some more, placing his hand above his head and twirling his fingers like a matador practicing his routine.

-I say, come now, the lady shall dance.

He held out for her hand and she laughed and called him an idjit and stepped in time as he waltzed her across the worn flagstones using the steps she had patiently taught him years before. One-two-three…one-two-three… one-two-three…one-two-three… one-two-three…one-two-three… one-two-three…one-two-three.

Dancing together, he with intent on having her enjoy herself, she with laughter and some concern that he get the steps right for the future that was already here, they moved off down the promenade to the bemusement of passers-by. The townspeople stopped in ones and twos periodically, pausing briefly to stare. Some smiled, others watched intently staring at the incongruous dance partners in hopeful malice.

- There will be no dancing here!

Thundering out of the crowd, thrusting unnecessarily aside the few knots of onlookers, a large bearded man strode towards the elderly woman and her son. He shook with rage and the long thick beard under his chin moved back and forth as his jawbone worked. He reached the couple and towered over them. Despite his proximity the old woman simply stared back, not flinching as the bearded man glared at them both.

- Tis past time and time past you and yours were got gone from this town Bodymaster Lemont. I never knew you to heed any opinions but your own and those of the tatty clatter you call the Circle of Elders

- You shouldn’t speak so ill of me nor of the Circle Mistress Perec, I….

- Mother Perec will do. I saw you brought into this world which was more than your poor mother did. A life for a life a that time and what a poor return on the investment, she sneered as she looked him up and down.

Leaning forward she spat, drilling a long thin gobbet of greenish spittle onto the toecap of his right boot.

Yet still, although what little history that wrote itself in this town seemed to hold its breath and expect some everyday laws to assert themselves, the bearded man called Domonic Servian Lemont did nothing. In fact he did. He stepped back before the old man, his rage at her previous behaviour frozen. His face betrayed little of his emotions but told a larger story for all that. The old woman had showed no fear, none whatsoever. It wasn’t even contempt. She had merely turned and reminded the man of her authority over him and he simply tipped his hat and nodded at the truth of it.

Such is true power.

Mistress Perec took Macken’s limp hand and danced the final steps of the waltz that had been interrupted.

- I don understand, he said. Why was he so angry?

Mistress Perec looked back at the tall man, standing still and staring.

- Because, she sighed, he thinks I stole his wife away from him. And he thinks I blame him for his mother’s death.

Macken held both of her hands in his and squeezed. He felt compelled to ask. Something within him revealed the desire to be both desirable and true so he did.

- Did you? Do you?

She held him back and eyed him through gimlets.

- You have become borne up strong these few years gone. I hadn’t noticed this before in you.

- I hadn’t noticed it in myself, he said quietly.

- To answer you no I never blamed him. It was a thing that was done to both but by neither and that was the way of it. No bendy thinking of mine would fix that. She lost herself and he lost a mother. He grew that way too, lost in both minds, in himself and in his relations with others. He makes a great show of knowing but he knows the devil and fuck all.

- What about his wife?

- Oh there he has me. I fucked her. Many many times. She was not the only one and she wouldn’t be the last.

- A man’s wife, Macken said, you should not. I think…

- Oh I know what is said by all, that I bewitch them, that they know not what they do, that my seduction is based on sorcery or drugs or blackmail but tis all less than so. Tis a much simpler thing, one they all know but won’t acknowledge. They like it. They like to lie with another woman who treats them kindly and sensibly and with tenderness and an expectation that does not focus solely on themselves. Men in this place know nothing of anything other than duty and devotion to a life learned less expansively than the narrowest of them can think. I release trapped butterflies and let them live. Men like Lemont, well…look’see. He is not evil, principally down to a lack of imagination but he does call forth a less than charitable manner for all.

Macken stood there, listening but not believing. He opened his mouth to call the old witch a filthy, disgusting animal but the words wouldn't come. A cramp-pain hit his stomach. Bad food, he idly thought, until he looked down and saw the blood.

Mistress Perec watched him try to pull the blade from his lower chest. She shook her head and said

- Tis triangular, tha'll never get it out, she said as he slid to the ground, his boots slick with red. She watched him quiver and shake, like a man in a fever yet he never made a sound as he died. He breathed his last breath with a look of puzzlement on his face at the end. She nodded.

- Just like tha father.

Brendan Behan. Writer. Drinker. Raconteur. Republican. Ex-convict. Bon Vivant. Irish. Dubliner. What is left over after pouring him into all those categories? How much of the man, of the person could there be to breathe free of the constraints he walked and talked himself into and which were placed upon him? My father was a doctor from north county Dublin. He was the son of a doctor and grew up in a solidly middle class background albeit living a peripatetic life as his father moved from post to post before finally ending up in a practice in the seaside village of Clontarf on the north shore of Dublin Bay. (For more click on the title)

Streets of the empty line the maps
Portraying the city as lived-in

Light flows in smooth, straight lines
It illuminates the mind for a single moment

Huddled together, crushing for warmth
The group shivers and twists in anticipation

The sounds and smells of ten thousand war machines
Invade my solitary head an pervade all my dreams

Following the last as the one before
Travelling in a well-worn direction

Recognise your own utility in the hands that turn this page

Bursting pain, flashing lights and strange shapes
The senses subtracted by one

There is a man with the pain of a thousand years
Listed on a face haggard with the suffering

Before I was blind and now I can see
Before I was weak and now I am strong

Detailing a new panorama
Or spelling out an older view

The blank disc spins, round and round and round
Crackling but discernible the sound pours forth

Future lives of our own
Past deaths we have known
Shimmer in the distance
Like so much background noise

He was found more dead than alive
But one was there to live and to thrive

A symbol it is of times past, gone and forgotten
A symbol of a once mighty empire now well in decline

Growing up, side by side, neighbourly
Friendships tested and evolved in a shared sense of place

Simple things simply put
Turn complicated in an instant

Liberate me from the dross of commercial excess
From buying things I can’t afford and don’t need

We each send signals to the observer

In blood and death they came
And for blood and death they stayed

Hot shine shimmer in the air, squinting straight sunlight
Demasked people smiling loud and happy in the bright