What're Those Things
The first step in the Waste Odyssey of Grub the Weyv
Grub hobbled through the corridor carved into the red rock of the Citadel, keeping his eyes pinned to the little clouds of dust puffing around Hoon's tattered, shuffling boots. The war boy'd yanked Grub away from the cliff face and shoved a metal dish loaded with the lightest pile of cloth Grub'd ever seen in his life. He marveled how the sun glowed in the weave before snatching away to the dim and dark of the tunnel, his eyes sliding to the guiding steps of the older boy leading him up and up, deeper into the tower than Grub had ever been.
Hoon stopped at a wall marked by a large circle of metal guarded by an Imperator. It caught Grub staring. The war pup flinched and pinned his eyes to the cloth in his arms. The Imperator yanked a handle jutting from the center of the circle and a low groan erupted from the wall. Grub marveled at the door appearing before him, the sunlight beckoning him from the other side, the sound of water splashing softly just out of sight. He trembled, By his hand! By his hand! was all he could think. Hoon shoved him forward as the Imperator stood aside, its eyes following Grub's every move, watching his tiny body lurch forward, his clubfoot dragging a ragged trail in the dust. Grub took a lurching step over the threshold and followed the pale daylight through the short tunnel into a cavernous room, biggest and cleanest he'd ever seen. The stone was carved into great vaulting ceilings, scattered with alcoves adorned with cloth like that in his arms, and glittering things, and boxes made of bootstuff and some sort of cloth stuff in its middle bits.
"It's just a pup," a gentle voice whispered. Grub whirled on the spot to find the sound and was frozen in terror upon sighting the owner. Two creatures sat in a pool of water, one of them stared at him with eyes like the Imperator. The other lifted itself from the water, its body, longer than any war boy Grub knew, was gripped by white cloth, its body was such a strange shape, so smooth and slow. It dripped water as it approached Grub, the floor muddying around its feet. Grub couldn't move, his grip on the dish became stone, he found himself shivering. The creature grasped the cloth on the dish with a damp hand and took it from him. Its eyes roved over him, taking a long look at his clubfoot.
"You're not going to be driving any day soon, are you?" It said, its full lips parting into a smile, a row of strong teeth glinted in the light. "Isn't that lucky." Another creature appeared on a landing above and peered down at Grub. Terror gripped him and he fled, nearly stumbling into the Imperator on the other side as it closed the door behind him. Hoon snatched the dish away from Grub.
"What're those things?" Grub asked, his voice clamped with fear. He thought he heard the Imperator snicker, but when he looked back, its face was unmoved. Hoon rapped a knuckle on Grub's head and gestured for the war pup to follow. They walked in silence back through the tunnel, down down... then to the bridge, over the chasm where all the wretched below wriggled and scrapped...
They came to the second tower, and entered a gaggle of war boys. "Hoon! Those things!" Grub's foot hurt.
"What things?"
"The things in there, in the big room. What're they doing up top, behind the projooz with the stuff coming out of their heads all shiny?"
A muscular war boy craned his neck to look at Grub and Hoon.
"Yer talking of weyvs? They're top secret property!" he said. Hoon took three quick steps to the boy and gave him a shove.
"They ain't property," he said with a grunt. "Them's guardians of the projuuz and the war boys." He turned back to Grub. "I heard one of them came down to the filth and the stink all by herself."
"Where'd you hear that?" asked Grub, wonder filling him.
"Ask Galah." the wonder curdled.
"Aw, Galah's fore-dead!" Grub whined. Hoon loosed a short roar and shoved him, knocking the war pup to the ground.
"Galah saw her!" Hoon tucked the dish under his armpit and stomped away.
⥈
Keeping his eyes on his own feet, Grub entered the lair of the Organic Mechanic, doing his best to be invisible. He passed war boys, slick with sweat and gasping for air, dozens of them crouched or draped over stone. Tucked in a corner, curled up with his pallid back to the room, was Galah. Grub clenched his little hands into fists and approached. He gave a small punch to the war boy's shoulder. Galah only grunted in response. Grub kept his focus on the back of Galah's head, afeared of the sores ripping a pus trail down the boy's spine. He punched again, this time the war boy slapped the fist away.
"Galah, you seen a weyv?" Grub asked in a whisper. Galah froze. Then he shifted, tilting his head to look up at Grub, his eye glassy with fever.
"Yeah," he said.
"What was she?"
"She was small." Galah winced as Grub punched again. "She hid herself. Covered her little arms with muck, but Galah knew her. Saw her eyes. They had starshine." His own eyes slid languidly to the wall.
"Why'd she come if she were stars?"
"She weren't stars," Galah said with acid. "She were to build the war rig. She built and brought it alive with her own shiny hands."
"How'd she do that if she were so small?"
"She were a weyv." Galah shivered. Grub felt a fear of fever and took a small step back. "She hid herself among us, she sneaked til she got big and strong and that's when she did it." The war boy hugged himself and drew his knees up close. A tear glinted round the rim of his eye and Grub knew it was time to go and let Galah burn up in his memory alone.
⥈
Grub trailed behind Hoon on a morning, the sun flooding his eyes with hot bright light. He excitedly yammered, kicking dust with his clubfoot, delighting in the spirals of filth puffing in the air.
"If a weyv came down to the muck and rolled in dust with the pups and even birthed the rig, weyvs gotta be real noble, they gotta be crazy!"
Hoon ignored him and quickened his pace. Undeterred, Grub hobbled after him.
"Hoon, I'm gonna be a weyv!"
Hoon whirled around and clamped a calloused hand on Grub's tiny shoulder. The pup yelped in pain. Guilt flickered across Hoon’s face and he loosened his grip.
"You're not gonna be a weyv. No one but the Immortan can make a weyv," he shoved Grub away. "and he's not gonna pick you." Grub opened his mouth to speak, only for Hoon to stuff his knuckles in, shutting the pup up. "You're trajected to Gastown, and there ain't no weyvs in Gastown." He removed his hand and wiped the spit on his trousers.
"I'll be the first weyv of Gastown." Grub said defiantly. Hoon shook his head.
"Weyvs only work where there's green and water and there ain't none of that beyond the Citadel."
⥈
Grub delighted in being sent to tend to the milkers. He'd brush their hair and keep some strands to himself, crumpled in the waist of his trousers and stuffed in his boots. He'd pack them into clumps on his head with clay. He’d carefully trail a finger down the lengths, fearful to not a strand be lost. He couldn't figure how the weyvs and the milkers managed to keep these on, Must be a trick taught by the Immortan, he was the only other what Grub knew to have such abundance sprouting.
The day came when combing the greying curls of a milker that Grub mustered the courage to ask for the secret trick. The milker guffawed, nearly dropping its poppet in the dust. The outburst startled the war pup. He yanked a tangle and it slapped his hand away.
"It's called hair, it grows from the skin." it told him. It slid its palm over Grub's head. "You wouldn't know." it added with a giggle.
Hair.
At night, Grub turned the clod of muck and strands over in his hands. He'd never grown anything from the skin but lumps and sores. Must be for a weyv to learn once you've been indocternated. He wondered what it was for.
⥈
Grub held a bowl of clay as barzerkers shaved themselves around him. The eldest, Snag, scraped a blade over his scalp. "Some of us got hair, none of it indocternating." He glanced around. "All barzerkers got it." Snag plunked a hand into the bowl and took out a fistful of clay. Grub watched him massage it over his head, wipe his hand, then carefully maneuver the blade around the tumors blooming from his groin. Snag pointed to Grub's crotch. "But yer just a pup." With a misshapen grin, Snag slapped more clay over his crotch and down his legs. "If Gastown's got green, I'll tell you." Naked but for a rusting iron band around his neck, he sauntered away into the dark tunnels leading down, down to the rig and interceptors. Do weyvs make interceptors too? Grub wished Galah hadn't croaked, he probably could've asked. Grub stood, lost in thought, as barzerkers shaved and grabbed globs of clay from the bowl to smear on their bare bodies.
⥈
No longer a pup, Grub stood in a row with other mint war boys. Gastown had sent some of their own, come to inspect them, and take ones the Immortan had allowed to go. Grub resisted the urge to rub his eyes, the black stuff Hoon had smeared round his sockets felt thick and made his blinks sticky. He could smell the diesel and sweat clinging to the Gastown boys, wondered at how some were painted yellow. One of them knelt and grabbed Grub's clubfoot, nearly toppling him over.
"This one can't drive," he said.
"That's lucky!" Grub blurted, remembering what the weyv said when it saw his foot. Another Gastown boy came over and took Grub's wrists, raising his arms above his head. He nodded to the kneeling boy, and jerked his head at a yellow-painted one, beckoning him over.
"Lookit how broad this one is," he said. The yellow one tilted his head from side to side, studying Grub's body. Suddenly, Grub felt very aware of how much he was not like a weyv at all. Where a weyv was long and sleek, Grub was lumpy, wide. Rough and unclean. His heart sank. The yellow-painted war boy clapped a huge hand on the crown of Grub's head.
"This one'll make a quality napalm nonny," he said. The two Gastown war boys inspecting Grub grunted their agreement, the kneeling one slapped Grub's foot in delight and stood. Grub heard Hoon give a little whoop of delight from somewhere behind him. The yellow war boy addressed Grub. "You afeared of fire?" Grub shook his head.
"Afeared o'nothing!" he answered, his voice cracking. The yellow war boy laughed and gave Grub's head a playful tousle.
"Hear him growing on the instant!" He gave a sharp whistle. "Dardy! Grab this one, get him on to go." A lanky Gastown war boy sprung from a seated position and strode to Grub with long, easy steps. That one could be a weyv, Grub thought as Dardy clapped a hand on the back of Grub's neck and led him to the cluster of Gastownies.
⥈
Engines rumbled and dark plumes of diesel smoke billowed around Grub as he sat packed in with half a dozen other young war boys on the flat bed of a souped up truck. Two Gastown war boys stood guard at the rear, laughing and shoving each other as the truck rumbled away from the Citadel. Grub's body swayed with the vehicle and he gazed up at the green pouring from the tops of the towers of the Citadel. He felt his throat catch as he watched the bridge leading to the weyvs' stronghold grow smaller and smaller.
Snag never said anything about green at Gastown. There are no weyvs at Gastown. Grub was trajectored for a napalm nonny, trajectored for Gastown just as Hoon said. Grub's heart broke at the knowing of it all. He looked away, twisting in his seat to peer into the vast all and nothing of the Wasteland, to Gastown. He slipped a hand into a pocket of his trousers and felt the clump of hair and clay he'd kept these past years, wrapped in a scrap of that white cloth. It'd grown dirty and greasy but so'd that weyv all back then. Grub'd keep the craft of the weyv in him, a guardian god known and trusted only by the Immortan himself. There were no weyvs beyond the Citadel yet.