The Islanders

Nelquay SLOW TIDE

A small, obscure and largely unvisited island, NELQUAY is situated in the cool northern latitudes, part of the Torqui chain of islands. The economy is agrarian peasant, although a speculative construction project is under way to build a marina, hotel and casino complex.

This controversial and ambitious development attracted scores of migrant workers from neighbouring islands — notably from the adjacent Hetta Group — many of whom remained on Nelquay when the construction work went into abeyance. The financial backers of the project were not known, and the marina became subject to scrutiny by Covenant administrators. It would have involved the building of a new harbour immediately adjacent to one of the military shipping lanes. As that put the island potentially in breach of the Covenant, the entire project has been put on hold until more is known about who is behind the project and what their intentions are.

After the murder of the mime artiste Commis, the search for the killers soon focused on Nelquay. This was because there is a direct ferry route between Nelquay and the town of Omhuuv, where Commis was killed. A group of itinerant workers who were known to have been on Nelquay for the marina construction were seen in the vicinity of the killing at the time. They left Omhuuv just after the murder and there were witness accounts of them boarding the ferry to Nelquay.

Officers of the Policier Seignioral from the Hetta Group visited Nelquay Town and raided the address where these men were known to have been lodging. None of the men was present — to date they remain fugitives — but a great deal of incriminating material was discovered in an outhouse at the back of the property. A lot of construction equipment and materials had been concealed there, and this included a sheet of plate glass, similar, according to policier forensic scientists, to the sheet that was used to murder Commis.

Later some men were arrested in Nelquay, but were released without charge.

A dry, blustering katabatic wind called the Sora, which rises in the cold plateau of the mainland not far to the north of Nelquay, sweeps across the island most nights. Livestock on Nelquay is hardy, the main crops are beets, potatoes, carrots, leeks, swedes.

Kal Kapes visited Nelquay once, seeking imaginative exposure to the colder, more undeveloped and therefore more challenging areas of the Archipelago. He had always responded to the myths of the barren north, the great quest sagas of the seas and the legends of the frozen heights. He stayed for three months but there was no university or library on Nelquay, no one he could talk to, nothing to inspire him but the cold sea, the grey landscape, the seabirds and an almost unvaried diet of boiled mutton. He persevered, but he was alone. One night, close to the harbour in Nelquay Town, he was beaten up and robbed at knife point. He departed the next day.

Currency: Archipelagian simoleon.