And All the Stars (17 page)

"Technically,
Buddhisty-Catholicy
." Noi shrugged. "Usually I'm a bit laid-back about it all, but I'm having a
ping-pong
of faith at the moment." She gazed in through the patio door at the
boys cleaning up plates and putting them away. "It helps me when thinking about the people who are gone, but it's
not so comforting when considering the ones still around. Especially Gavin."

"Do you think we have any chance?"

"Every time I look at the TV the odds seem to go
down. From what we know now, yes,
there's a chance, but the body-hopping is a bad thing. If they're specifically looking for the
strongest Blues, well, you and I are some of the strongest Blues in the
city. That hidden room is a big bonus,
but we don't have much time to get to it after the alarm goes off, and
food-hunting is going to be a huge risk. One of the biggest dangers is boredom."

"Boredom?" Madeleine stared. Here in this
luxurious home, filled with games and books, half a dozen computers, and
multiple televisions screening an alien invasion?

"Yeah, boredom. The longer this goes on, the more we'll struggle – both keeping
ourselves ready to hide on short notice, and not taking more risks. Pan particularly – he's the energetic type
that finds it hard to just stay put. I'm
that way myself. Don't you want to get
out,
do
something?"

"I want to paint you and Emily."

"Really? Not
Science Boy?"

"Fisher..." Madeleine glanced quickly at the door, but no-one was close. "I need to know him better, understand
what it is I'd want to paint. If I had
unlimited materials, sure, but I've two canvases and I want to use them
well. You and Emily, I could really make
something."

A warm tinge deepened
Noi's
skin,
but she frowned. "Anyone coming
into the apartment would smell fresh paint."

"If I set the easel by the patio door, and move the
canvas to the safe room when I'm not working on it, it shouldn't be an
issue. And I'd work on sketches the
first couple of days. They're likely to
search Finger Wharf early on, aren't they?"

"Given who Sydney's new alien overlord is, yeah."

Without warning she hunched down, motioning Madeleine to do
the same. Madeleine slid out of her
chair to kneel on the patio deck, then turned to see why they were hiding.

A grey navy ship was easing backward out of the narrow
eastern part of the bay. Even though she
couldn't see anyone on the deck, Madeleine shifted underneath the edge of the
patio table, and Noi joined her, making a shooing motion at Min, who was
staring out at them.

"Blues escaping?" Madeleine whispered, though there
was no way they could be overheard.

"Green navy waiting at the headlands for anyone sneaking
out of the harbour?"

It was the more likely explanation. Madeleine and Noi waited until the ship had
gained reasonable distance, then slipped back into the apartment, joining the
others in watching through the glass.

"Chances are good they'll have something similar to stop
people going up-river," Noi said.

"Not an insurmountable obstacle, however." Nash hadn't slept very late for someone who'd
had most of the night watch. "A
small, unlit boat in the dark would have a good chance of–"

He broke off as Pan gripped his arm, and they all stared,
speechless, at a ribbon of light following the ship.

Snake-like and perhaps the length of three buses, it was
widest along the front third, where what seemed to be a dozen layers of
diaphanous wings marked a lazy, complicated beat. The wings were shaped like sails, triangles
of light which thinned to insubstantiality, just like the long trailing tail of
the thing. It swooped, lifted, glided: a
dandelion seed of a monster decorating the sky.

"Is there someone
riding
that?"

The distance made it difficult to be sure, but there did seem
to be two points of solidity near the very front, before the wings.

They watched until their view was blocked by the eastern
headland, then Min said: "So, no going out on the patio except at night?"

"And I was worried they'd have possessed some survivors
who knew how to fly helicopters." Noi reluctantly slid the patio door shut. "Until we have some better idea of how
often those things will fly over, and whether they happen to have night vision,
no going out at all."

Madeleine had taken to biting her nails, unable to settle to
anything, shifting from room to room, scouring the internet for news then not
wanting to read it. She had a most
wondrous portrait boiling inside her and couldn't let herself progress now the
sketch was transferred, couldn't immerse herself in paint and escape the new
world. Pan wasn't much better, debating
plans of action with Min, who seemed to delight in pointing out problems with
every idea, their squabbles getting on Madeleine's nerves until she realised
that Pan was less edgy after these minor spats.

The television delivered a constant stream of bad news. Stain appearing anywhere and everywhere,
infection blown on the wind. Families on
the fringes of dust zones where there'd been no rain, gambling with their lives
when food supplies ran low. Millions of
displaced overwhelming non-Spire cities. Fights over food, water, face masks. Glimpses of Moths making themselves at home while Greens buried bodies
and restored services, even travelling out of their cities on errands. New religions, and established ones grown
strange and angry, calling disaster a judgment, a test. Very occasionally a sighting of a creature of
light, every description different from the last.

To Madeleine's surprise, not a single government,
pre-existing or hastily formed, agreed to obey the Moths' demand for
Blues. Officially. But Blues were handed over all the same:
countless quiet betrayals.

Once, a spectacular battle on the fringes of Buenos Aires had
been streamed. Two girls running from,
then fighting back against a group who'd been discreetly drugging and
delivering up local Blues. The girls had
shield-paralysed most of them, and killed one, before stumbling into an army detachment. No-one seemed able to decide who should go to
jail.

The phrase "the greater good" reached
fingernails-on-chalkboard frequency, and the fourth day after the attack at the
beach the robotic
Warning! Warning!
of Min's walkway alarm came
almost as a relief.

Madeleine, sitting on the rug near the closed patio door,
glanced at the laptop set on an ottoman next to the television, but whatever
had triggered the alarm was already out of camera range, in the small foyer
where they would have a choice of doors, an elevator, or stairs.

"Go! Go!"

Nash, voice sharp and low, was already scouring the room,
while Pan turned off the television and bent to mute the walkway monitor and
switch the laptop to camera mode before tucking it out of sight. Madeleine grabbed her big sketchbook and
dashed to the main floor bathroom.

They'd made it a rule to wipe down the shower after use, and
by the middle of the day it had had time to dry thoroughly. It was quick work to swipe a handtowel around
the sink, and glance to ensure nothing looked out of the ordinary. Then a race for her bedroom, trying not to
pound the metal of the circular stair, to double-check her en suite, and close
the wardrobe doors before heading to the quickly-filling study.

She'd managed to be second-last, Fisher following her through
the door with the garbage bag of kitchen scraps, which he tucked into a
pre-cleared file drawer after pulling the bookshelf door closed. And then they settled in, Noi sitting next to
the computer, Pan underneath the desk, and Emily perched on top of the filing
cabinet. Min, Nash, Fisher and Madeleine
sat on the floor, legs in a tangle because there really was no room – they'd
had to remove the chair after the first practice run so they could all fit in.

The computer was already set split-screen between the walkway
and lounge room webcams. Neither showed
movement, and there was a frustrating wait while they all wished they'd dared
risk more cameras, and wondered if it had been a false alarm. Minutes ticked by with no sign of movement.

Pan, playing with a laptop and headphones, suddenly sat
upright, knocking his skull against the underside of the desk. The noise wasn't truly loud, but in the
strained silence it felt like a shout.

Rather than apologetic, Pan looked excited, waving the laptop
in response to frowns. Nash made a 'get
on with it' gesture, and Pan paused a moment to launch a word-processor and
type:

ALIEN OVERLORD SINGING
ON YOUTUBE

He waited till they had all had a chance to be properly
incredulous, then switched windows to show the Japanese Blue, the Core of
Taiee
. She seemed to
just be standing, smiling cheerfully at the camera, but when Pan passed the
headphone ear buds around they could all hear the oscillating song which was
presumed to be the aliens' language.

Noi snagged a notepad and pen from the desk and scribbled:
What's the text say?
Googletrans
plz
.

A few clicks later they could see the clip was titled:
"First" and the text below, posted by "
Taiee
",
said: "First challenge call: Lot-
nak
".

This was hyperlinked, and Pan followed it to a site – a blog
entry which was in Japanese but proved to also say "First challenge call:
Lot-
nak
" above a time and date, a map of a golf
course with a line drawn around its borders, a hyperlink to the video, and last
a picture of a small glowing ball which had just a suggestion of paws and
trailing ears.

"That's tomorrow?" Nash asked, then made an
apologetic face.

Noi held up her pad:
Why
are they using the internet? Can't they
use their ships to talk to each other?

Min took the pad from her:
Must have same limitations we do – without satellites, can't
communicate on other side of planet. Makes sense to use our tech, especially since they're in human bodies.

Maybe they can't use
their ships while in human form?
Pan
suggested.

Fisher, a warm presence at Madeleine's side, had been
browsing a tablet computer, and wrote:
This
place is in Manila. The Philippines
Spire is there.

She said they've come
to settle primacy. They're holding a
competition and this is round one.

Pad held high, Noi frowned because everyone's attention had
shifted to the computer monitor beside her. Four people had crossed the walkway, coming from the main building. Then, just at the edge of the screen,
movement in their apartment. Someone
heading up the spiral stair.

They sat frozen, not daring even to scribble notes, unsure
whether this was simply part of the Greens' search for bodies, or if their
presence was suspected, looked for.

A creak, not a metre away, and they held their breath as a
heavy step moved toward the master bedroom. Madeleine felt inexplicably invaded, even though it was not her home,
not truly her room. She hunched down
unhappily, and then Fisher shifted at her side, leaned a little closer. That was all, but it distracted her from the
person in her room.

The steps returned, heading toward the two superhero rooms,
but the pace was brisk, and after only enough time to glance in the doors the
person moved for the stair, and down. It
was a search for bodies then, not hidden Blues. They could relax, and wait it out.

There was no sign of anyone leaving the building, but Noi
guessed that it would be easier to remove bodies via the garage level rather
than take them over the walkway stairs, and so decided on a two hour delay
before emerging, in hopes that would be long enough for any
lingerers
to make their presence obvious. Everyone
had brought something to do, and once staring at the Manila Golf Course had
lost its early attractions they settled to their separate entertainments. Madeleine,
of course, had planned to sketch, but it was hard to drag her mind from the
canvas she planned for Noi and Emily, propped against the wall beside the desk,
ready for paint.

Fisher was reading the first book of
The Lord of the Rings
,
despite the movie marathon of the trilogy and prequels they'd held yesterday in
an attempt to take their minds off aliens. Madeleine liked him a great deal when he was wearing his glasses and had
that absorbed expression, so she began, through sideways glances, to capture a
small portrait which pleased her. She
moved on to fill the page with her companions, lingering over Emily
cross-legged on the filing cabinet reading the copy of
The Three Musketeers
she had discovered with great excitement in the apartment library.

A study of each of them finished, and nearly an hour to go,
she was hesitating over what to work on next when Fisher held out his hand for
her pencil. She'd been aware that he'd
stopped reading to watch her draw and, warmed by his interest, she'd been working
to do her absolute best. It was
inordinately difficult to not react to the faint brush of his arm against hers.

In tiny, precise letters he wrote:
Draw Emily as a
Musketeer
.

Usually she didn't like bright suggestions about what she
should draw, but this one sparked a response. She'd need a reference, though, so pointed at his abandoned tablet,
using it to look up clothing, sabres, stances. But then, as a different picture crept into her thoughts, she switched
the tablet to camera mode and held it above and a little before her, triggering
the photo button with difficulty from the angle. After a miscalculation which captured only
half her face, she managed a satisfactory shot of herself staring upward, and
handed the tablet to Fisher, gesturing for him to do the same.