Read Online Rites of Passage by Eric Brown - Free Book Online Page A

accelerated, the headwind blowing the dust behind us. A great plain stretched ahead, rilled with expansion cracks and dotted with objects I couldn’t at first make out. As we drew nearer I saw that they were the rusted hulks and skeletons of ships, fixed at angles in the sea bottom. We passed into the shadow of one, a great liner red with rust, its panels holed but the sleek lines of its remaining superstructure telling of prouder times. I found it hard to imagine that so great a vessel could actually float on water: it seemed beyond the laws of physics.
    Danny pointed. In the lee of the ship’s rearing hull I made out a pile of white spars, like bleached wood. We drew closer and I saw that they were bones. The domed orbs of skulls sat amid a scatter of ribcages and other bones.
    I shook my head. “I don’t see...”
    “My guess is that there was a colony on the ship, ages ago,” Danny said. “As they died, one by one, the survivors pitched the bodies over the side.”
    “You think there’s anyone left?” I asked, knowing the answer even before Danny shook his head.
    “This was probably thirty years ago, at a guess. Back when the drought was getting bad and nations collapsed. Tribes formed, the rule of law broke down. It was every man for himself. People gathered on ships, while the oceans still existed – away from the wars on dry land.”
    I shook my head, thinking of the horrors that must have overtaken the shipboard colonies in their last, desperate days.
    We drove on, heading south.
    A couple of hours later, to our right, the sea-bed rose to form a series of pinnacles, five in all. They towered above the seared landscape for hundreds of metres, their needle peaks silhouetted against a sky as bright as aluminium.
    Danny glanced at his map. “They were the Balearic Islands, part of old Spain.”
    “People lived up there?” I asked, incredulous.
    He smiled. “They were small areas of land, Pierre, surrounded by sea. Islands.”
    I shook my head, struggling to envisage such a configuration of land and sea. On the summit of the nearest peak I made out the square shapes of dwellings, the tumbledown walls of others.
    We left the stranded islands behind us.
    Three hours later the sun went down to our right in a blaze of crimson. Ahead, indigo twilight formed over Africa, the sky untouched by magnetic storms.
    Kat called from the lounge, “Food in ten minutes!”
    Danny brought the truck to a halt and we moved back to the lounge. He unfolded one of his maps and indicated our position.
    Kat served us plates of fried potatoes and greens – rationing the meat. She was carrying a plate across the lounge for our passenger when Skull emerged from his berth and limped to the table.
    “Don’t mind if I join you folks tonight? I was getting lonesome back there.”
    I returned to my meal without a word. Edvard indicated a chair and Skull dropped into it, wincing.
    Danny stubbed a forefinger at the map.
    “This is where we are now, and this is where we’re heading – a hundred kilometres north of what was the coast of Africa, off a place called Tangiers.”
    Skull stopped chewing. He looked across at Danny, uneasy. “Let me see.” He leaned forward, peering.
    He looked up. “I don’t like the sound of it.”
    I took a swallow of water, aware of my heartbeat and the sauna heat of the room.
    Danny nodded, considering. “And why not?”
    “Like I said before, there’s feral bands down there. We’d best avoid them.”
    “There specifically, Skull?” Danny asked. “How come you’re so certain?”
    Skull chewed, not looking away from Danny’s stare. “I heard stories, rumours.”
    Danny lay down his knife and fork in an odd gesture of civility that belied the anger on his face. “Bullshit. Tell us straight – what the hell do you know?”
    Skull’s eyes darted from right to left, taking in Danny and Kat, Edvard and myself. He looked uneasy, a rat cornered.
    Edvard said quietly, “You didn’t come from