The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 45

The silence was representative. The town was in ashes. Lazarus’s spontaneous reaction to the sight of the smoldering wharves—for Cleopatra’s benefit, but I overheard—was that there had been another failed revolution that had consumed itself with blood lust. He said he had heard of a “liberation struggle” there in the 1980s, that this must be the latest outbreak. His smugness did not suit the facts. The ruin was total. Studying Sao Tiago, in that dense weather, under the moonlit profile of those volcanic peaks, it was clear to me there had always been famine and turmoil there, even in good years. It was as clear to me that only man could have reduced everything so maliciously. The few victims we spotted camped at the waterline scampered away like vermin. The muggy doom unnerved us. The near shore was littered with dark lumps being picked over by dogs and birds. The evening’s land breeze, as it shifted, poured a stench over us, that sweet, clinging, dizzying smell of death. We moved twice to avoid that stench, finally dropping anchor a hundred yards off an unburned pier. We made our plan quickly: me, the Furore brothers, Otter Ransom, Tall Troll, and Skyeless, plus Iceberg as scout, going ashore in the jolly by relay. We needed water, food, information. I waited on deck for my turn in the boat, did not talk with Israel and Guy, who stood behind me mumbling heavily, nor did I acknowledge Earle as he went forward to man the automatic weapon. I thought my conduct appropriate impertinence at the time, expressing my anger at them for not heeding Grandfather’s advice to try for America on a northern route. I see now it was more honestly an expression of disloyalty to my family.

When I got ashore, I sent Iceberg ahead. Not one of us was bold enough to pause beneath the banner that some desperate official had strung like a shroud across the pier’s main pylon, which read, in Portuguese, danger quarantine. We had vowed we would not be turned away by men, and this meant the diseases of men as well. Lazarus found the other news, once we had gotten off the pier and formed a skirmish line, at Otter Ransom’s direction, to walk into town. Painted in black tar across the concrete sea wall was a sinister Portuguese graffito; Lazarus translated literally, “Enter into despair.” In English, Lazarus said, that would be “abandon hope.”

I thanked Grandfather’s Lord God that it was night, sparing us from seeing most of what a tropical climate—we were fifteen degrees north of the equator—does to a massacre, for that is what we found. Iceberg growled steadily, her hair up, teeth bared, blood sense alert. We soaked handcloths in Otter Ransom’s whiskey flask and held them to our faces, fended off the flies as best we could.

There were survivors, those either too ill or too beaten to have fled. We stayed on the main avenue, making our way by moonlight, listening to the cries, low and not necessarily human. Iceberg marked the rats. We found signs of a battle near the central square, unburied human parts, burned-out vehicles. We did not examine the heap beside the town hall, instead turned away when we saw the main well was poisoned by corpses. It took us some time to locate an artesian well, down a side street, whose water Tall Troll tasted, pronounced potable. As we filled our casks, a man walked out of one of the huts, right toward us. He was old, withered, drunk. Several other ancients followed him, and they gathered to watch us. Lazarus started a conversation with them. I did not pay mind until our work was done and we were ready to leave. The chief informant gave no name, seemed older than the corpses we had seen. He spoke to me as I approached; Lazarus translated nearly simultaneously, “This is my ghost. I am dead and buried.”

The ancient also answered questions: “They came in howls. There were many, many, like ants. We beat them. Then the sickness. They took our food. They came again. They took everything. The shit! They could not eat our food. They ate it and died. What men cannot eat food? My son, he told me these are devils. That was what the priest said. That Hell was full. Satan has returned them to the earth. From long ago, the priests say, the worst sinners, Pontius Pilate and Judas. They were little. They were hungry. From Hell. That is why they could not eat our food. The priest said. We begged them to leave us. They died. It burned! It was Satan. Mother of God, our cathedral burned like a stable. Only the shit did not burn. What sort of shit is it? It moves!”

We ran back to Angel of Death, as fast as I hasten to close this episode. I am hard-pressed, even now, to recall the first shocks of those times. Also, I do not want to dwell on Port Praia, because it was not extraordinary. I can suppose there are accounts of worse elsewhere in the Atlantic that are unavailable to me; if not, I shall tell things that make that island seem merciful. We gathered our water. Port Praia gathered nothing.

Goggle-Eye died while we were ashore. He rolled over in his bunk and melted with fever. Wild Drumrul came to the rail to tell me. I looked to Israel for guidance; he ignored me, holding Molly close. Peregrine and Charity were of no use to me, remaining huddled below. We stowed our water casks, then wandered about the deck. We talked in spurts, me to Guy, Otter Ransom to Thord, Lazarus to Cleopatra, then we fell into a silence that matched the night’s. Dawn surprised me, a thick soup over the sun, the onshore breeze stirring the cinders in the ruins into new fires. It did seem as if an evil force raced through Port Praia