Read Online The Abrupt Physics of Dying by Paul E. Hardisty - Free Book Online

glared at Clay.
    ‘Fuck me, I do so hate this place,’ he said in a constricted wheeze. He spoke exceedingly slowly, hovering on each word, drawling it into the next like a Baptist preacher gone rogue. ‘Nothin’ but dust here. Goddamn place is from dust
made
.’
    ‘Hello Vance,’ said Karila, brightening. ‘You know Clay Straker, our environmental and community contractor.’
    Clay nodded. They’d met once, in Parnell’s office a year ago when Clay had first been contracted. Since then, he’d heard the rumours, of course. It was hard not to. But he’d ignored them, gone about his work, kept quiet. Time in the Battalion had taught him the percentage of bullshit that rumour usually contained.
    Parnell stuffed his inhaler back into his trouser pocket and stared at Karila, dark-marble eyes twitching in shallow sockets. For a moment he looked as if he was going to speak, but then he just closed his eyes and slowly shook his head, left to right, back again, muttering something that Clay could not make out. Then he opened his eyes and ran his glare over Clay. ‘My friend Karila, on the other hand, he loves it here,’ Parnell said in his thick Southern accent. ‘Ain’t that right, Nils?’
    Karila started to mumble a reply but Parnell cut him off, stared at Clay. ‘What the hell happened to
you
?’
    Clay glanced at Karila, back at Parnell. ‘I’ve been halfway converted, if that’s what you mean. Still an infidel though.’
    Disdain flashed in Parnell’s eyes. ‘No, that ain’t what I mean, Straker. I don’t give a goddamn about your journey spiritual.’ He shook his head, jowls swaying. ‘Stone-age religion for fucking Neanderthals, in my opinion.’ He pointed at Clay’s neck. ‘You’re bleeding.
That’s
what I mean.’
    Clay reached up and touched his neck. His fingers came away wet with blood. He looked at Parnell. ‘Cut my head.’
    ‘I can see that.’
    ‘With a flint hand tool.’
    Parnell glanced at Karila and raised his eyebrows. Or rather he raised the hairless flesh on the ridge above his eye sockets, where two arched brows, pencil thin, had been clumsily drawn in with some kind of makeup, like something a young girl might do using her mother’s compact. ‘I don’t really give a shit how you did it, Straker,’ he said. ‘I don’t want it showing up on our health and safety figures. You
got
me?’
    Clay said nothing, just stood staring at Parnell, thinking about Abdulkader.
    ‘Mister Straker has been visiting the villages in the expansion area,’ said Karila, quickly interjecting, the peacemaker.
    Parnell ran his index finger along the edge of Karila’s desk, streaked a line in the thin layer of brown silt that covered the wood, examined his fingertip, sniffed at it like a cur. ‘Well? Whatcha gotta report, Straker?’
    Clay swallowed and looked out at the ocean. ‘The villagers in Al Urush are complaining that their kids are getting sick.’
    ‘That’s all we goddamn need,’ Parnell said to Karila. He turned to Clay. ‘Well?’
    ‘There’s nothing obvious. But I did see a young boy …’ Clay trailed off, realising his error.
    ‘Go on,’ said Karila.
    ‘He looked bad. Ill, I mean. Ulcerous mouth, pallid face. He threw up.’
    The American laughed out loud, a deep, belly-shaking chortle that seemed to go on and on. He laughed until tears were streaming over his cheeks, finally erupting in a coughing wheeze that had to be doused with a shot from his inhaler. Parnell straightened in his chair, wiped his face on his sleeve, and took a deep breath. ‘Now
that’s
good, Straker,’ he said. ‘Fucking hilarious. Have you ever seen a Yemeni who wasn’t sick? Good one.’
    Clay ignored the American and reached into his backpack. ‘I took a water sample. It may tell us something.’ He put the bottle on Karila’s desk, imagining Parnell with a broken nose and a couple of missing teeth, then realising it might actually improve his appearance. ‘I’m going to have the lab