Geoff Ryman - The King’s Last Song

Trouble is my girlfriend; I love Trouble; she comes up to me all slinky and says, you want to have a party? I don’t even need a dollar to pay her, Trouble loves me so much.

OK let’s go.

There’s no one at the gate of Army HQ.

Map’s bicycle crunches its way into the forecourt over the fine gravel. Lights blaze all along the long white veranda. One of the doors is open, full of light and talk.

Oh, my old friends will be so happy to see me. They will have a party with Trouble too. Map sticks his knife into his belt and strolls towards the room.

‘Are you all happy?’ he says, sticking his head through the door.

A flicking of safety catches and a dragging of chairs; soldiers leap up from around a desk.

One of them is Map’s old officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Sinn Rith.

‘You?’ Rith demands. ‘What are you doing here?’ He looks fatter these days. Meaner too, his face behind mirror sunglasses after midnight. Map thinks: maybe moonlight blinds you, Rith.

Map’s smile goes snake-like. ‘I hear you guys got my mentor kidnapped, so I came here to find out more about it.’

Rith makes a light, swift gesture: guns down, hold back. ‘We think you already know all about it.’

Map shakes his head. ‘No, like I said. I don’t know anything. That’s why I’m here.’

Rith looks grim but amused. ‘We were just thinking maybe you did it.’

‘That would not be clever. I kidnap my boss and lose all my money.’

Slowly, the guns creep back up. They really are still mad at me aren’t they?

‘It’s more like this, Private Tan Map. We didn’t tell anybody about the car. Nobody knew except the Army and the Frenchman. But at the right moment, on the airport road, out come two pick-ups from those unfinished houses side by side. One stops in front of us, one stops behind. They shoot some of our men. They take General Yimsut Vutthy and the Director of the UN project, who is an important man we are supposed to protect. We ask ourselves, who else would know when the car was going and what it was carrying? Who else would Grandfather Frenchman know and be stupid enough to trust?’

This is Trouble, all right. Trouble has strung up a hammock for me to stay overnight. All the safety catches are off, and they are all easing up to their feet.

‘I have another story,’ says Map. ‘You’ve got some old general over you and nobody is getting any promotion. Who is going to be so fast and good at kidnapping from the Army? Some Thai art dealers? Some farmers who only care that the Book is made of gold? How about some guys from the Army who want an old general out of the way?’

Rith is smiling and shaking his head. ‘Oh, I like that story. It’s a good story. A good theory, guys? So now we have two good theories. And we have you.’

The soldiers come towards Map slowly, like they’re digging out clay at the brick factory and their feet are stuck.

Map keeps smiling; he can’t help it. Bad as it is, this is his idea of fun. ‘All those guns, pointing at one little policeman.’

They stand around him in an arc but he’s backed into the doorway so they can’t surround him.

They really believe this shit. I’m going to get beaten up. I’ve been beaten up before. Then they’ll stick me in some hot little room until they can come up with something for a trial.

Also, they have reasons of their own for wanting to hurt me.

The soldiers start to hustle him backwards out of the doorway.

Aren’t we a dump of a country? Other places have spy satellites and missiles, we have angry little men and fists and rooms in the back. Doesn’t mean to say it doesn’t hurt.

There are certain satisfactions in life. One is not waiting until you are hit first. Another is hitting them hard out here in the motel light, where everybody can see that it’s eight to one.

Map kicks the knee of the guy closest to him. The guy sinks. Map head-butts the guy who was trying to sneak around behind him.

Then Map takes off. He runs, but to the right, not to the left towards the gate and his bicycle. He tears away, right and then around the back of the building.

My legs are my sons. He can hear their shoes on the gravel spurting off in the wrong direction and doubling back. You thought I’d go for my bike, but I’m going where there are no lights and I can make a straight run for the fence. You got razor wire round the top? That’s why I’m going for it.

Map is gleeful. It will take them a minute to find the perimeter lights. He sprints blindly in the dark for the fence. He hears shouting and whistling. Dogs. Sure they got dogs, I can outrun dogs and it’s a still night, no wind. There’s the moon, and he thinks this is fun too; he’s grinning down.

This is like the gang wars with the arrows when I was a boy. This is what I’ll do when I die. They’ll try to send me to hell, and I’ll climb up the fence to heaven anyway.

Fingers into mesh, and I hear the paws, the lovely padded paws of dogs. They’ll jump at the fence, so scamper Map, scamper like the day they told you Mom was dead and you ran away and forgot that they’d told you that. It’s vines, Map; you’re climbing vines, back to Mom, back to your brother, back to everybody.

The dogs bark, and here’s the wire.

Lightly as possible, as if vaulting on a hot skillet, Map pulls himself over the razors. They tear his hands and legs but he knows there will be leaves on the other side to wipe them clean.

I always shoot better with sliced fingers anyway.

You think I’ll stay on the roads for you? You think I’m not a local boy, so I don’t know how to keep out of sight?

The dogs are going crazy, they’re making hound music, and the big lights have snapped on and maybe you see me in pale light like a ghost, maybe you’ll shoot, so I’ll just duck behind the old TV station that’s empty now, like an empty snail’s shell.

The road.

Map starts to laugh. He imagines Lieutenant-Colonel Rith, swearing and stomping up and down. He imagines the guy whom he head-butted holding his bloody nose. Oh man, will they be after my liver for this! I’ll be sleeping rough on the moon after this! I’ll sleep under the hay! They’ll chase me everywhere; I’ll just be a ghost.

He darts across the scrub field towards the dry flood canal that roaring waters had gouged so deep.

Overhead the crazy moon laughs. Map laughs too. He’s home.

Map loves war.

Luc is on a boat.

It’s made of overlapping timbers, so water slops and gurgles against the hull with a noise like musical springs. The floor of the hull stinks of fish and is ribbed with joists that aggressively dig into buttocks, kidneys, ankles, and hips. Luc is jammed under the low deck. It’s impossible for him to sit up, let alone stand.

Tape covers Luc’s mouth and eyes; his legs and wrists are lashed with the sort of bungee cords that hold pigs and hens in place on motorcycles. He can do two things: hear and smell.

Outside, marsh birds warble, whistle or keen. Frogs make their odd beautiful sound like a cross between a gong and a flute. The boat rocks continually, and he can hear wind in reeds, so they are somewhere on the shores of the Tonlé Sap. Next to him, the General keeps groaning through the tape.

Luc smells cigarettes and fish being kebabed on the deck above. He hears the slosh of drinking water in a bottle; he hears boys making light and friendly chatter. Then one of them hisses and everything goes still.

Another boat putters towards them. The silence is long except for one whispered question. Then a calm voice calls clearly across the lake. The boys chuckle with relief and shout; feet thump onto the deck and there is hearty laughter.

A rough voice barks. ‘You should have seen it! It was a sight. They all thought the Khmers Rouges had come for them again! The whole town was running away. We shot a few extra bullets here and there to add to the party, and then all the power went, like it does every New Year, and all the women screamed.’