Part Three - Preparation
It’s still dark when Onwat meets Tikri outside Tradetown’s walls the next morning. He is about to speak when she holds her finger to her lips. They walk in silence, Onwat leading. Tikri notes the coils of rope slung across her body. They change directions three times and double back once before Onwat speaks.
“Do you know where we are now?”
“Sure.”
“Do you know how to get to this place you told me about yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“How long to get there?”
“2 hours”
“Lead the way. Be as quiet as you can. Stop us when we are one thousand meters away.”
Tikri scans the horizon. The first rays of sunlight leap over the eastern sky. They walk northwest. A pair of giant shadows lead the way. A tumblebag rolls past them, heading South. Tikri surveys the blank landscape and wonders how Doblo enjoyed their egg last night.
Tradetown is the only settlement within 10 days walk of anywhere. It has just enough humans to maintain itself through digging, farming, buying, and selling what can be found or produced. Only the margin of the market, its echo of what was, keeps the human flame from guttering out in a void. Beyond the town walls, all else is endless grey kibble. Microplastic sand covers most of the ground, an undulating, featureless vista stretching to the horizon. Anything metal or sizable has long since vanished from this landscape, uprooted and taken to Tradetown.
Tumblebags are the only movement, all the wild creatures are gone from this place where nothing grows. They tumble forever, without impediment, sometimes taking flight, beautiful and obscene white wraiths, dead plastic mimicry of dipping, twisting, living birds. Humans gather them, knotting and twisting them into inventive uses, from furniture to small floating platforms, nets and ropes. Anything of form or substance has value as humanity claws at knowledge and technologies from the past.
Tikri halts and turns around to Onwat.
“It’s another kilometre to the spot, about 220 degrees.”
Onwat smiles. She had taught Tikri the old secret of dividing the compass rose into degrees. She reaches into the folds of her robe and pulls out an ancient pair of binoculars.
“I found these digging once. I did not want to trade them. I knew they would be used for violence out here beyond the walls. I am glad I kept them.”
She looks through the spyglasses in the direction of the hole. Passes the binocs to Tikri.
“You don’t have to hold them right up to your eyes. It’s better if you don’t. I won’t say be careful, but I will remind you that this is the only pair of real binoculars I have ever seen in my life.”
She puts the strap over his neck and he peers into the glasses. He has seen this on TV Time so he knows what to do. At first Tikri thinks it’s not working. There’s no black binocular-shaped cutout in his vision. All he sees is endless plain. Then he gets the hang of it, sees black angular shapes against the horizon. Some of the rebar and concrete heaved up. He gasps.
“I told you Onwat. Let’s go!”
“Not yet. Are you hungry? I brought some bread.”
Onwat sits down crosslegged.
“Give me those binoculars Tikri. They’d get us killed if someone saw them.”
She tears a chunk of flatbread and hands it to Tikri. He hands over the priceless Before artifact and squats beside her. The flat bread has raisins and nuts in it. Onwat can enjoy small luxuries on a Trader’s income.
“Let’s wait a few minutes for full sun. Make sure no one else is out here.”
Tikri bites into his bread and savours the taste of the raisins and nuts. He looks across the horizon.
Onwat speaks softly.
“This isn’t the first Tradetown. There have been others. Some are still going. Some are gone.”
“Why are they gone?”
“Usually not enough stuff to trade. Nowhere nearby to grow food, or a few bad harvests and everyone left for somewhere with surplus. Sometimes the opposite. Too much stuff. That’s worse.”
“How can that be worse?”
“Too much stuff and people start to be selfish. It makes no sense. That’s humans for you. I want you to think about that before we go and look at your mall.”
“I have been thinking about that. I will only bring in a few things at a time. I have a plan”
“A plan!” a quiet laugh from Onwat. She shakes her head.
“Already you are thinking about keeping it for yourself only. This is what I am talking about.”
Tikri’s forehead creases. He sees Onwat’s point. You were caught between sharing and maybe losing everything, like Rakli and the bicycle, or not sharing and having to keep the secret, never getting the real treasure something like a mall would offer.
“Beware the symbol and stick to the simple.” Onwat laughs again. “Do you know the symbol for riches?”
She draws a symbol with her finger in the microplastic sand. $.
“That is the symbol they used to have for what we do in Tradetown. Only bigger. To build the cities and everything you see on TV Time, they needed to have that symbol. Find ways to work magic with it. It makes anything possible Tikri, but it brought humans the End. This is one thing the Priests definitely have right. Not simple at all.”
She points down at the $.
“It can’t be trusted.”
Onwat climbs to her feet and extends her hand to Tikri. She smiles.
“Let’s go and see what mysteries we may discover in this hole.”
Read Part One