John Brosnan - The Sky Lords

To my Mother

Not far away, something began to shriek in terrible agony. Jan looked at the guard. The guard shrugged her tanned shoulders and said, “Sounds like a big reptile’s been caught by a whip tree.”

Trying to ignore the nerve-jangling screeching, Jan turned her attention back to the panther. “I’ve told you,” she called down to it. “We don’t need a cat, but thanks anyway.”

The black panther made no move to go but remained sitting on its haunches looking up at her. “I work good for you, catch vermin, patrol your walls at night,” it said in its high-pitched, hissing voice.

Jan studied the animal more closely. It was a powerfully built beast seemingly in good health. Conditions in the blight lands must be getting really bad if such an animal was willing to demean itself by offering to work for humans. She noticed a long scar down its right flank. It looked fresh.

At her side Martha said nervously, “Don’t like. Make go away. Martha don’t like. …”

Jan patted the chimp on the head. “Don’t worry. It can’t hurt you.” The guard hefted her cross-bow. “Shall I put a bolt through its shoulder to speed it on its way?” she asked Jan.

Before Jan could answer the panther turned its head towards the guard and said, “Fire weapon and I be up wall very fast. Take your throat away with me. That mesh like grass to my claws.” Then, in a calculated display of indifference, it sprawled on its side, exposing its belly to them. Jan saw that it was male. She raised her hand to the guard, who had reddened at the panther’s threat and was likely to do something foolish. “Don’t, Carla. Leave this to me.” Martha, meanwhile, had started to whimper.

The panther eyed Jan with what might have been feline amusement. “You very young to be boss-man.”

“I’m not a boss- man ,” said Jan. “I’m the daughter of Headwoman Melissa and it’s my turn to be in charge of the wall defences this week.”

The panther gave a human-like shrug of its powerful shoulders and said, “Like I say, you boss. So why you not let poor cat into settlement?” Its pronunciation of the word ‘settlement’ was preceded by a long hiss.

“We have a strict policy as to what animals we allow to live with us,” Jan told the panther. “You must know that.”

“Times are hard. Getting harder. We need to work together. Like old days. When my forefathers served your forefathers.”

“Fore mothers ,” corrected Jan indignantly. “And that was a long time ago. When you big cats could be trusted.”

“You don’t trust me?” The panther tried to look innocent.

“Of course not. I’d be foolish to. In the same way that a carrot could trust me not to eat it.”

“So,” said the panther. It quickly got up. “You make mistake,” it said as it turned and, swishing its tail in annoyance, stalked off down what remained of the trail that had led to the corn fields before the blight lands had overwhelmed them. The panther soon vanished from view. Martha jumped up and down with excited relief. “Nasty cat. Nasty . Martha don’t like. …”

Jan sighed and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. A glance at the sun revealed she had at least another hour of duty to go. She looked at Carla, who was frowning. “You should have let me shoot it, Mistress,” she told Jan. “Arrogant beast. Arrogant male beast.”

“You think it’ll come back?” Jan asked her.

“It had better not. It’ll get my bolt between its eyes instead of its shoulder.”

Jan doubted if Carla would find it so easy to despatch the sly carnivore, but she didn’t voice her reservations. The wall guards needed to indulge in such bravado—Jan knew it helped to keep up their morale in what was an increasingly discouraging task.

“Sound the alarm if it returns,” Jan told her. “I’ll be on the east side.”

Carla gave her a perfunctory salute as Jan, followed by the still excited Martha, headed off eastwards along the wooden parapet. It was only then that Jan realized that the reptile, if that’s what it had been, had stopped screaming. She wondered why the encounter with the panther had disturbed her so much. It was a bad omen , she told herself and whispered a quick prayer to Mother God.

There was only one more incident during Jan’s last hour of duty. An elephant creeper had penetrated the mesh barrier on the east perimeter and was threatening to bring down a section of the wall. Jan had supervised the squad of fifteen guards who, with flame throwers and axes, had destroyed the slowly writhing tendril, which measured over four feet in diameter at its widest point. Afterwards she watched as Martha and the other chimps clambered up the mesh fence and, with their customary speed, repaired the damage caused by the vine. Just as they were finishing, Alsa arrived to relieve Jan. Jan was only too glad to hand over to Alsa the gold-plated branch of authority which she’d kept tucked in her belt.

“It’s all yours,” she told Alsa gratefully. “I’m exhausted.”

Alsa surveyed the repair work in the fence. “Been busy?”

“No more than usual.” Jan beckoned to Martha who scurried down the mesh, putting her pliers away in the tool-bag tied around her waist as she came. “We go home?” she asked.

“Yes.” Jan patted her on the head. Then to Alsa she said, “You may have a visit from a smooth-talking panther. Wants to work for us in return of shelter. Be careful of him. He’s not a happy cat. He may try something desperate.”

Alsa smiled at her. “Don’t worry. You know me. I never take chances. Coward to the core.” She leaned forward and embraced Jan, kissing her on the lips. “Take care, little one.”

As Jan climbed down the ladder leading from the parapet she couldn’t help bridling over Alsa’s use of that embarrassing term. She knew that, as always, it had been meant affectionately but she was sensitive about her size. It hadn’t been bad when she was younger; she’d believed her mother when she’d said that she would eventually catch up with her contemporaries but now that she’d reached eighteen it was clear she was not going to grow any taller. Alsa and her other friends towered over her by some four or five inches. It was galling for her to be the same height as the average man.

The sky was clear of clouds and the sun was hot as Jan and Martha cut through the vegetable gardens that were crammed into every available space between the wall and the outer buildings of Minerva. Martha, Jan noticed, kept glancing nervously upwards.

“He’s not due for another two weeks,” Jan said, “so relax.”

“Can’t help it. Sky Lord scare Martha. Don’t like.”

“You’re not alone there,” said Jan grimly. She was dreaming about the Sky Lord almost every night now. The dream took the form of her first childhood memory of the Sky Lord Pangloth . It had seemed to fill the entire sky above Minerva and, as it descended closer to the town, its great eyes had fixed on the five-year-old Jan as she cowered beside her mother on the official dais in the tribute square. She had screamed and screamed in terror and had tried to bury herself under her mother’s kilt … but in the dream her mother disappeared, leaving her alone.

Jan found herself automatically scanning the empty blue sky. I’m being as silly as Martha , she told herself guiltily. Pangloth was nothing if not punctual. It was, as her mother said, all part of the Sky Lord mystique.

A shrill, shouted obscenity distracted her. They were passing near the male chimp compound and several of the male chimps had come to the bars to shout insults. Most of them were directed at Martha but a few of the more reckless chimps hurled abuse at Jan as well. Martha chittered angrily back at them, jumping up and down and waving her arms. Jan said, “Don’t waste your time on them. Come on, I’m in a hurry. I badly need a wash and a cold drink.” She continued on. Martha, after a final, angry riposte complete with gestures, followed her. It was a pity, Jan reflected, that the male chimps, unlike the female ones, became so unpredictable after a certain age. Not all of them, true, but enough to ensure that every adult male had to be segregated for safety’s sake. It hadn’t always been like that, she knew; once male chimps had remained as reliable as the females, but about forty or fifty years ago things began to change and the first signs of male chimp unpredictability had appeared.