Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (56 page)

Stewart collapsed gratefully into the seat of the Toyota, his mind whirling. The idea of aliens invading the planet was too crazy to be true, and yet it made a horrible kind of sense: to hit the cities first, to use a widespread plague of machines to contaminate the environment, to hide in a comet, where no-one would ever think to look ...

The comet had swung past the Earth once, perhaps to survey the territory, then had changed course during perihelion. The whip of the sun’s gravity had dragged it back for one more visit, to drop its deadly cargo into the atmosphere. Maybe just a handful of snow-particles at first, breeding, self-replicating in the upper altitudes, until enough existed to cover the major cities of the Earth. And then it had started falling: snowflakes, innocent and unexpected,
everywhere
, unstoppable.

It did make sense. And, even if the theory was wrong, the facts remained, indisputable. Adelaide was buried and crumbling beneath the snow. Judging by the rate the woman’s body had dissolved, the city wouldn’t last long.

He glanced at his watch; the storm had ended just four hours earlier. It seemed like a life-time. His hands shook with delayed shock; a coldness was spreading through his mind, numbing the part of him that wanted to scream. Through the growing fog, it became, strangely, easier to think. Although the terrible coldness appalled him, he knew that it was a defence mechanism: he needed to think rationally if he was going to survive.

If Jacqui was still alive, then there was nothing he could do to reach her. Better to assume that she was dead, that everyone in the city was dead. And, as the snow of the initial fall spread and grew, the area around the city wouldn’t be safe for long. His weekend of comet-spotting might have saved his life in the short-term, but how long would it be before the snow spread to encompass neighbouring towns?

And how long before the entire world succumbed?

With no clear destination in mind, certain only that he had to move somewhere, he started the car and headed back up the freeway.

The last bottle of compressed air emptied with the fifth bottle of scotch, and he was down to his last cigarette. It was four days since the snow had started to fall. The roof was sagging under the weight of the stuff that had settled upon it; white tendrils crept through the gaffer tape, wormed across the worn carpet.

It was Christmas Day, and he had run out of anaesthetic.

As the bubble burst and grief poured in to fill the empty space in his chest, he realised that this was what he had been waiting for all along. This was why he had come back to Barnard’s shack, where he and Jacqui had spent their first week of marriage together. Not to forget or to hide, but to grieve. To say goodbye.

The last time he had spoken to Jacqui, the telephone line from Port Germein had been faint but clear. He had been amazed by how much he had missed her, even though he’d only been away two nights. Her voice had been a poor substitute for the real thing and, now, all he had was a memory of her voice. The woman he loved was gone. The assumption had been easy to make, but the realisation of the fact had taken time.

Tears burned his eyes. He didn’t try to fight them any more. Maybe he had been waiting for them to come. The pain made it easier to cut free from the world that had ended and to which he could never return.

By the time his spasm of grief ebbed, half an hour had passed. The air was thickening again, curdling before his very eyes.

Rising from the chair, he drew back the curtains. The valley and its native scrub had disappeared. In its place was a world drained of colour. The snow had formed delicate spires and towers, upraised to greet the sun. The alien forest was still and lifeless, but he could sense a vitality stirring through it, as though the snow itself was alive.

The Earth wasn’t dead, but
changed.
It no longer belonged to its previous owners. Already, he felt like a trespasser. An unwanted intruder, witnessing the birth of a new world. He wondered if he was the only one.

On the heels of this thought, there came a noise from the rear of the shack: a rattle of rocks, loud in the stillness of the valley. Turning his back to the view, he went to the kitchen window and peered out.

Something was moving down the hill. The creature looked at first like a giant spider, with legs over five metres long, crawling ponderously towards the cabin. As white as the snow it traversed, it moved with all the precision of a surgical instrument. Limbs swivelled and folded neatly to match niches and holds buried beneath the snow. There was no wastage of movement, not the slightest hesitation or inefficiency. He was unable to decide whether it was a machine or a living creature.

When it came to a halt not five metres away, the legs collapsed along its sides and it became a giant flea, two metres high. Stewart could see no eyes in the knobbled, ugly “face”, but sensed that it was watching the shack intently, as though waiting for him to make a move.

“How long?” he had asked Gary, just days earlier. He remembered the biker’s reply:

“Ask the aliens.”

If phase one—the snow—had already ended, then the creature in front of him was part of phase two. Probably the creatures were not aliens themselves, but motile drones programmed to scour the surface of the planet. Robots. The colonists themselves would come later, perhaps resurrected from frozen genetic material, to assume their roles as the new masters of the Earth. And then the invasion would be complete.

An invasion without war. Just the silent, peaceful fall of snowflakes.

The process might have been repeated on a thousand worlds, and might be on a thousand yet to come. Wherever the comet passed, it would leave the legacy of an unknown race behind, spreading like a cancer from star to star. How many other civilisations had died in order that this one might live? How long would it be before the comet encountered a race that was able to fight back?

The creature didn’t move. To Stewart’s eyes, it seemed puzzled, as though uncertain what to make of the shack and its occupant; as though its programmers had not told it how to deal with a belligerent native.

Maybe, thought Stewart, the conquering race had never encountered another civilisation anywhere in its travels. Maybe it had assumed that none such was to be found anywhere in the galaxy, and that all suitable planets were therefore fit for terraforming. Maybe the destruction of the human Earth had been a mistake. And maybe it wasn’t too late, after all ...

He guessed he wouldn’t have to wait long for phase three. For one wild moment, he imagined that he could survive to explain the mistake—if he rationed his food and breathed shallowly, if he could keep the snow from destroying the shack around him. There had to be others who had survived, like him, by holing up and doing nothing.

The creature unfolded its legs and moved towards him.

He backed away from the window, thinking of the last thing Gary had said:

“How do you fight
snow?”

The answer, of course, was that you couldn’t. It had taken him four days alone in the shack to come to terms with the fact.

He opened the cocks on the butane bottles and waited until the smell of hydrogen sulphide had vanished, swamped by another, more potent smell.

There came the sound of glass shattering in the kitchen, followed by the breaking of solid stone.

He closed his eyes and lit the cigarette.

<>

~ * ~

INTRODUCTION TO:

...........................................THE MASQUE OF AGAMEMNON

I enjoy collaboration. Thirteen novels and seven short stories are proof of that. I’m often asked how these collaborations work, and the answer depends entirely on who I’m writing with at the time. Shane Dix and I start with an idea that I write into a quick first draft, which he then knocks into shape. One more pass by me and it’s done.

Simon Brown and I have tried several different methods, and eventually settled on one that works successfully for both us. Every writer has stories they can’t finish or fix. These stories can sit on the hard drive for years, until either the solution becomes obvious (finally) or they’re forgotten forever. I have about forty stories in the latter category: too flawed ever to salvage, and too embarrassing to inflict on an unsuspecting world. There are, however, some that I could never quite let go, even though I know I lack—and will most likely always lack—the skill or spark to fix them. Giving some of these stories to another writer so they get to do the dirty work has a
lot
of appeal.

“Atrax” was one such. So was “The Masque of Agamemnon,” but in this case the process worked the other way. Simon handed me an opening he’d always wanted to do more with and told me to go for my life. It really was just a fragment: maybe a couple of thousands words, setting up the characters and the world. But from that seed grew something that startled both of us. Its initial electronic publication in
Eidolon
was quickly followed by reprints in
Year’s Best SF
and
Year’s Best Australian SF & Fantasy
and translation into various languages. It’s undoubtedly our best-known story.

While I’m very proud to have played a role in Simon’s much-lauded
Troy
cycle, I should confess right now that the long-standing passion for Homer was entirely his. And I can’t even remember where the Melville reference came from. “Groenig” might be my doing, since the real-life Matt Groenig is an avowed fan of the late Frank Zappa, but who can be sure? The wonderful thing about collaborations is that finished story belongs to all the authors involved, and yet at the same time to none of them. They stand apart, and are all the more magical for that.

~ * ~

THE MASQUE OF AGAMEMNON

WITH SIMON BROWN

Not long after the Achaean fleet gathered at the periphery of the Ilium system, the area sensors on the great ship noted a phenomenon its sentient matrix could neither accept nor explain. An owl appeared in the middle of the fleet, circled around it three times-its wings eclipsing the distant point of light that was Ilium’s sun-then headed straight for
Mycenae
; just as it was about to smash into the ship’s hull, there was an intense flash of blue light and it disappeared.

Internal sensors picked it up next, a bird the size of a human child, dipping and soaring within
Mycenae
’s vast internal halls and corridors. Before any alarm could be given, the sensor matrices received a supersede command: the owl was a messenger from the goddess Athena, and it was not to be interfered with.

Seconds later, the owl reached its destination, the chamber of Agamemnon, Over-captain of the entire Achaean fleet. What happened therein is not recorded, but an hour later Agamemnon announced to his crew he was going to hold a grand ball.

His wife, Clytemnestra, attributed the idea to his love of games and his penchant for petulant, almost child-like, whims. She thought the idea a foolish notion, but she did not argue against it; she loved her husband and indulged him in all things.

Arrangements were quickly made, and maser beams carried messages to all the other ships of the fleet, demanding their captains attend the Great Masque of Agamemnon.

~ * ~

“Your brother should spend more time worrying about the Trojans,” Helen told her husband, Menelaus.

The captain of Sparta grimaced. He disliked anyone criticising his older brother, but in this instance he had to agree with his wife. Agamemnon was spending a large amount of the fleet’s energy and time to throw his ball, energy and time that could have been better spent prosecuting an attack against the Trojan’s home on Ilium.

“Nevertheless, he has commanded the presence of all his captains and their wives, so we must go.”

“But why a masque? He loves his games too much. And I suppose we will end up spending the whole time with Nestor.”

“Nestor is the oldest among us, and his words the wisest.”

“The most boring, you mean. Oh, Menelaus,” she pouted, “I wish we didn’t have to go.”

Although Menelaus agreed with Helen’s sentiment, he would not allow himself to say so.

~ * ~

Achilles had made a silver helmet for his friend Patroclus to wear to the ball. When Patroclus saw it he could not find the words to thank Achilles; it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Then Achilles showed him the helmet he himself would be wearing, and to Patroclus’ surprise it was exactly the same as the one he had been given.

“I don’t understand, Achilles. Are we going as brothers?”

Achilles laughed. “As lovers, dear Patroclus. But there is more to it than symbolism.”

Patroclus looked blankly at his friend, which made Achilles laugh even harder. “We are the same size and shape. With these helmets, and wearing the livery of my ship, no one will be able to tell us apart.”

“A game?”

Achilles shrugged, gently placed one of the helmets on Patroclus’ head. He leaned forward quickly and kissed his friend on the lips, then closed the helmet’s plate, hiding his friend’s face entirely except for his eyes and mouth.

“A game of sorts, I suppose, to match Agamemnon’s own.” Achilles put on his own helmet, closed the face plate. “We are, behind these disguises, nothing but shadows of ourselves, and as shadows at the Over-captain’s masque, who knows what secrets we will learn?”