Terminal (23 page)

‘Schnapps,' Jürgen replied, about to offer it to Elliott but then thinking better of it.

They had decided to return back to the base of the tower, not least because Elliott was in such a state. Will had never seen her this distraught before, and had been forced to help her all the way down the circular flight of stairs. As the two of them sat together on one of the fractured boulders, her head was buried in Will's shoulder. She'd stopped crying, although he could still hear her take the odd involuntary breath as if the tears weren't far away.

Jürgen glanced at the bushman, who was hunched over on the ground ten or so feet away from everyone else, then leant back against the tower and took another, even bigger mouthful from his flask. He swallowed noisily and then exhaled just as
noisily. ‘This stuff is jolly wizard for steadying one's nerves,' Jürgen remarked after a moment.

‘Jolly wizard?' Will repeated, wondering why all of a sudden the New Germanian's language had become so odd.

Jürgen grinned. ‘Sorry, that's probably something I picked up from the English books we had in the city library. The Jeeves and Wooster stories somehow found their way onto a helicopter when the first settlers flew in.'

Jürgen's radio suddenly crackled, and he pushed himself upright to fumble in a pocket and retrieve it. As he spoke to his brother in German he was waving his flask demonstratively in the air.

Although Will didn't understand what was being discussed, Jürgen's side of the conversation grew rather terse after only a short time.

Will used the opportunity to speak to Elliott. ‘Are you feeling better now?' he asked her softly.

She nodded but still didn't show her face.

‘It's all been too much for you – for all of us. You've had a bad shock – that's all,' he tried to rationalise to her.

She nodded again, simultaneously shivering despite the heat.

‘You don't ever have to go back inside again,' Will said. ‘No, maybe that would be for the best. We can leave this place – you and I – and never come back here again.'

Jürgen finished his conversation on the radio. He looked angry.

‘What's the matter? Are Werner and Karl going to join us?' Will asked him.

‘They are, but my brother says I must be mistaken about what we've found. He even went as far as to accuse me of
drinking too much when I described what we all saw. My own brother doesn't believe me.' Jürgen had been about to take another swig from his flask, but instead he suddenly jerked his head as if something had stung him. ‘What are we talking about here, Will?' He was silent for several seconds before he continued. ‘If we accept that the new, exposed pyramid and the tower are connected, and all indications point to that …'

‘And Woody's ancestors built on top of the pyramids many thousands of years ago …' Will put in.

‘… then we've just seen a display of technology that could
pre-date
us –
Homo sapiens
– as a species by … well, who knows how long? And the big question is how it came to be here. And maybe the right answer is that it's non-terrestrial.'

‘Non-terrestrial?' Will repeated with a frown. ‘But my dad's ancients must have been around at the time, because they saw those views of the planet.'

‘How do you figure that?' Jürgen immediately challenged.

‘Because they were able to draw their maps inside the pyramid from them. That's why they were so accurate,' Will replied. ‘So it follows that the technology was in use then.'

‘Maybe,' Jürgen said, holding up his flask as something occurred to him. ‘But talking about those views … they're from outer space … but from what exactly?' he asked, his voice oddly flat. ‘And from when? I mean, from what time?'

Will hadn't had the opportunity to examine the scenes in any detail as they'd circulated around the walls, but because of the size and appearance of London in the images it hadn't occurred to him that they were anything but current. He was about to comment on this when Elliott stirred.

‘From now,' she said, her voice barely audible because her face was still pressed against Will.

‘So they are from now? You mean they're live images? How do you know that?' Will asked her gently.

‘I just do,' she answered.

Jürgen had been staring out over the fields of soil that were gradually turning grey under the fierce heat of the sun, but now he swung his head towards Will. ‘It's evident that the technology … all the technology we've seen so far … appears to be have some form of empathy with your friend. Except for her, none of us has any degree of control over it. And the reason for that has to be because she has the blood of the invaders in her.'

‘You mean the Styx,' Will said, tightening his arm around Elliott to comfort her. He'd have preferred that she wasn't hearing any of this. But he also felt that it would be unreasonable to ask the now slightly inebriated New Germanian to put a sock in it, as he might take it badly.

And, besides, Will's mind was buzzing with all the possibilities too.

‘Yes, the Styx.' Jürgen took a single step forward as if bracing himself. ‘So, Will, does that mean that the Styx – or their predecessors – were …' His voice seemed to give out. He cleared his throat. ‘Are we talking about …?'

Will met the man's eyes, waiting for the next word.

‘Talking about …?' Jürgen half-whispered.

There in the shadowed lee of the tower, with just the calls of the birds and the odd snatch of Woody's muttered prayers reaching them, neither Will nor Jürgen felt prepared to say the word.

It was just too outlandish, too bizarre, and how did it tie in with the evolution of humans?

And with the history of the world?

The implications were too great to contemplate.

Will tightened his arm around Elliott again.

‘Aliens?' he said.

 

 

 

Chapter Ten

W
ith Stephanie tagging along at a distance behind them, Chester and Martha had been walking briskly down a fenced-off track between two fields.

‘Nearly home, my sweet,' Martha cooed, as Chester spotted the small farmhouse up ahead.

Then, as he happened to glance over the fence to one side, he stopped dead as something caught his attention. ‘My God! What on earth did that?' he gasped, recoiling at the sight of carcases of the dead sheep strewn around the place. They had been eviscerated, their bodies brutally ripped apart and all their organs strewn over the ground. ‘Armagi?'

‘No, that was my Brights,' Martha answered proudly. She hadn't slowed as she headed towards the farmhouse. ‘They have to eat – just the same as us.'

‘Not quite the same as us,' Chester whispered. Remaining where he was, he continued to watch as, further along the track, Martha gave a couple of low whistles and waved her hand. She could have been directing sheepdogs, not the weird and strangely wonderful creatures from the depths of the Earth.

The Brights zipped over Chester's head, so fast that it was
impossible to see them clearly, like smoke or mist caught in a high wind. Martha whistled once again, then flicked her fingers in the direction of the field.

‘Oh, there they are,' Chester said to himself, as several of the Brights appeared over the field, as if they'd just materialised out of thin air. They were hovering some hundred feet up or so, and for once remaining in one place long enough for him to make out their long bodies and their white wings as they beat the air.

‘What are they doing?' Chester muttered, then noticed a small herd of sheep grazing directly beneath the Brights. The sheep stared vacantly in Martha's direction, probably wondering what the crazy woman was doing, making silly noises and waving her arms around.

They had no idea what was about to hit them. With another whistle from Martha, the Brights simply plummeted towards the ground as if in a deadfall. Chester had a glimpse of the nearest of Martha's
fairies
, its mouth wide open and displaying vicious rows of jagged spikes. With their ivory-white wings outstretched, each Bright landed on the animal it had selected and pinned it flat to the ground so that it was nearly impossible to make any of them out against the rime-covered grass. And it was also impossible to see what they were doing to the poor sheep under them, something for which Chester was very grateful.

‘That's sick,' he mumbled, looking at the mutilated sheep closer in the field once again as Stephanie stopped alongside him.

‘Yeah, gross,' she agreed, as she leant against a fencepost. ‘But I'm just so very glad I managed to catch up with you, Chester,' she said, smiling. ‘I really didn't think I was ever going to see you again.'

From where the nearest Bright was feeding on a sheep, there was that sucking sound that flesh makes when it's torn. As the Bright beat its wings once, then settled again as it continued to gorge itself, something glistening with blood was cast aside and came to rest in the frosty grass. Chester grimaced as he saw it was the sheep's heart. It was still beating.

From her lack of reaction, Stephanie obviously hadn't noticed. ‘And thank you for dealing with Martha back there. I didn't know she was like that,' she said.

Chester had been completely preoccupied by the grisly spectacle in the field, but now shot a glance at Martha to see if she was watching him and Stephanie, at the same time taking a hasty sidestep away from the girl.

‘But what did you, like, say to her?' Stephanie asked.

‘Not now!' Chester replied in a whispered growl, intentionally not looking at her. ‘Keep right away from me while she's around. She's jealous, and she'll bloody well kill you.'

‘Oh,' Stephanie said, and Chester immediately set off towards Martha in the direction of the farmhouse. Stephanie remained where she was for a moment or two, looking a little taken aback, then she too continued down the track.

It was a basic farm building of red brick, but after the night he'd had on the submarine and the revelation about Danforth, Chester was grateful just to be out of the cold and somewhere he could sit in quiet for a while. Without taking off his coat, he flopped onto the sofa in the main room, still holding the empty shotgun as he watched Martha light the fire. She fussed over it until there was a hearty roar warming the room. Stephanie, heeding Chester's warning, carefully chose herself somewhere to sit on the opposite side of the room where she was browsing through an old magazine she'd found.

‘So there was nobody in this place when you got here?' Chester asked.

‘It was all locked up,' Martha replied, moving towards the doorway. ‘Are you hungry?'

‘You bet. What's on the menu?' Chester said.

‘Sheep,' Martha answered. ‘That's the one thing there's plenty of around here.'

‘And you really mean
just
sheep?' Chester said, pulling himself upright on the sofa.

‘Yes, just sheep. Nothing else. I promise,' Martha said, giving him a crooked smile.

‘O … k … a … y,' Chester said through a yawn, as Martha scurried off to the kitchen.

As soon as she'd gone, Stephanie cleared her throat to get Chester's attention. As he turned towards her, she shot him a
what-was-that-all-about
frown, but he merely shook his head.

They could hear Martha crashing around in the kitchen at the end of the corridor. ‘She's busy in there – she can't hear us,' Stephanie whispered.

‘Don't count on it,' Chester whispered back. ‘It's not worth the risk.'

With a shrug Stephanie went back to her magazine and Chester dozed on the sofa until Martha finally reappeared with some bowls of steaming food, which they ate at the table in complete silence.

Well, almost complete silence. Chester was struck by the stark contrast between his two dining companions as they ate: Martha, with table manners typical of most Colonists, occasionally mumbled to herself as she slurped the juices from her spoon and chewed with her mouth wide open. The noise
was frightful, as if she was trying to make herself as repugnant as she possibly could.

And then there was Stephanie at the other end of the table, strikingly attractive, her manners impeccable as she daintily used her fork.

The only thing that the two of them had in common was their ginger hair – other than that they could have been from different species.

God, I'm beginning to sound like Will,
Chester thought to himself. And with that he began to think about his friend, hoping that both he and Elliott had survived their mission and were safe somewhere. Chester remembered the times they'd had together – although they'd by no means been easy, at least they'd shared the burden and endured them together. An aching hollowness inside reminded him how much he missed their companionship.

‘All right there, my dearie?' Martha enquired, as she noticed he'd stopped eating. Chester could see pieces of lamb stuck in the gaps between her dirty teeth.