The Khitan grabbed the tezla from the deck. ‘Now, do as you are told!’ he ordered. ‘Stand up and keep your hands on the table.’
Geoff got up slowly, helped Maura to her feet and looked into her eyes. She shook her head and sighed. Moving behind the table, Geoff defiantly planted his hands down on the open navigation chart, his fingers splayed to show he had no weapon. He looked around and his eyes alighted on the equipment on the bench behind Huang. The Becquerel radiation monitor was an old-fashioned piece of kit, about the size and weight of a nanowave cooker.
Huang neither heard Geoff raise the monitor in the air, nor the sound as it fell onto his unprotected head. The Khitan sank to the floor on top of the tezla, which discharged itself with the crack of a whip. A blue discharge corona snaked over his body for several seconds.
Geoff saw Maura’s face, white as pack ice. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked her nasally.
‘Better than you, by the look of you. You’re pouring blood. I think your nose is broken.’
‘I’ll deal with it in a minute. We’ve got to do something with Huang. He’s breathing okay – he could come round any moment.’
‘Can we drag him to the storeroom and lock it from outside?’
‘Okay, but I must take out the flares and the plasma gun first. We don’t want him causing any more trouble. Then we’d better get the hell out of this place.’
Four hours later there was still no sound from the storeroom. ‘I think I’ll take him some water,’ said Maura. ‘You can cover me with the tezla gun in case he turns nasty again.’
‘I’ll go in first,’ said Geoff. He unlocked the door and opened it slowly. Then, not seeing Huang, he kicked the door wide open and stepped inside with Maura following behind. There was a pool of blood seeping from under the storage racks. Moving as if in slow motion, Geoff peered behind – and saw Huang’s body.
‘Oh Christ!’ said Geoff. ‘I removed the harpoon gun, but I must have left a spear.’
‘Jaysis, he’s lying on his back! He didn’t just fall on it. He must have pushed it right through . . .’ Maura began to choke.
Geoff checked for signs of life, but after a few moments he stood up, staggering as he regained his feet. ‘Sorry, he’s gone. Did you know he was warrior caste? They can never stand being defeated. It means they’ve lost their honour.’
‘I don’t understand it. I can’t believe Huang wanted to harm us. He wasn’t evil. Perhaps we never got to know him well, but Chen looked up to him, and he was Kai’s right-hand man. Now he’s dead because of us.’
‘We’re not to blame. We only acted out of self-defence,’ said Geoff. ‘But I don’t know if Kai and Chen will believe us.’
‘Oh, sweet Jaysis, this is as bad as it gets,’ said Maura, holding her head in her hands. ‘It’s like something or someone’s corrupting our minds. Let’s get back to the surface. I need some fresh air.’
Geoff sat down next to Maura in the wardroom. ‘Did you get through to Atherlonne,’ he asked, ‘or whatever you call it when you’re telepathising?
‘I did,’ said Maura. Geoff watched her carefully. Her eyes seemed unfocused. He decided to ask something scientific to get her talking.
‘How does it work with the time lag?’
‘What time lag?’
‘Atherlonne’s on Europa. That’s at least six hundred million kilometres away. It’d take at least half an hour for a radio message to arrive.’
‘I meant to tell you,’ said Maura. ‘All the Thiosh still alive are now on Earth. The group that wanted to stay on Europa hadn’t reckoned on OPDEO’s obsession to find and kill them. Atherlonne and a few others had to escape while they could.’
‘So, they came through the wormhole as well? Where are they now?’
‘They’re in the North Pacific, but we don’t want Kai or Voorogg to know. Leona and I have been keeping it secret.’
‘It’s great Atherlonne’s on Earth,’ said Geoff. ‘Does she have any idea what Kai’s up to?’
Maura met Geoff’s eyes. ‘It’s not good,’ she said softly. ‘Atherlonne thinks Kai ordered Huang to hijack the whale-bot. Kai plans to use the rebel Thiosh to fight the Hesperians.’
‘Oh Christ! Are we on the run again?’
‘Atherlonne said we should get away from Roosevelt Island, but we’ll have to go back there first to pick up stores and – more importantly – Leona. She’s Hesperian and we can’t leave her in enemy territory.’
Geoff closed his eyes to think.
‘Geoff?’
‘Okay, this is the plan. Do your sharing trick with Leona and get her to load the rocket-sledge with enough supplies for a long voyage. We’ll meet up at the edge of the ice shelf north of the island.’
‘How can we help Huang?’ asked Maura.
Geoff looked hard at her. She was speaking as if he was still alive. He knew they must give his soul some peace, and theirs too.
‘We’ll take his body ashore in the inflatable. If Leona brings the rocket-sledge, we can send him back to the whaling station on autopilot. We’ll attach a letter to Chen asking him to perform a ceremony appropriate for a deceased Khitan warrior.’
‘Thank you,’ said Maura. ‘But you said a long voyage? Where are we going to go?’
‘How about Oztralia?’ said Geoff. ‘And ask Leona to bring another radiation monitor from the lab. The Becquerel doesn’t seem to work anymore.’
Walkabout
Maura kept the whale-bot underwater, carefully following the contours of the Parramatta riverbed as they entered Port Jackson. She raised the periscopic camera and scanned the skyline.
‘I don’t get this,’ she said. ‘Where’s the Harbour Bridge?’
‘Pan round,’ said Geoff. ‘Shit, that looks like part of the Opera House roof, on its side. There’s a bit of a stump where the Sky Tower should be, but no sign of the Chifley or the MLC Centre. They’re just heaps of rubble.’
Maura gasped. ‘Jaysis, I’ve just done an external scan. The radiation’s at more than two thousand millisieverts per hour. That’s enough to kill you. Sydny must have been nuked. We can’t dock here.’
Leona sat cross-legged in a lotus position. ‘We must land somewhere else, a long way away,’ she said in a monotone. She seemed to sense Geoff and Maura staring at her. She opened her eyes and spoke in her normal voice. ‘There’s a place on the western coast where the desert meets the sea. That’s where we must go.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Geoff. ‘As far as I know, there’s nothing there. I don’t think we’re likely to find any help in the desert.’
‘I heard a calling from a very ancient place. But it’s a very long way from the coast. We shall have to go walkabout to get there.’
‘We’ll do it like the old Aboriginal people,’ said Maura.
‘Perhaps more like their spirits,’ said Leona.
The wind had reached hurricane force and the whale-bot was struggling to climb a mountain of water, only to plunge steeply down the other side of each wave. Maura took the craft down below the surface, where the sea was calmer.
‘Can we take a look topside again,’ said Geoff as they rounded South East Point. ‘Perhaps we can stop at Melborn and find someone in authority to speak to.’
The sea was much calmer now but it was soon evident from the periscope’s biometer that the wind from the city was carrying radioactive dust. They had no choice but to continue their course.
One thousand kilometres further west, Geoff asked Maura to enter the straits between Jangaroo Island and the Fleurien Peninsular. They extended the periscope and measured the atmospheric radiation.
‘Shit,’ said Geoff, ‘it looks like Adelayd’s been nuked as well.’
‘Sorry, Geoff,’ said Maura, ‘but we’ve got to do what Leona says. You have to accept she can see into the future. She’s had a vision. We should let her guide us.’
‘It’s really not a problem,’ said Leona. ‘We can’t escape our destiny, no matter how hard we try.’
�
�Okay, I give in,’ said Geoff. ‘If everyone’s happy to be irrational, that’s fine by me. Carry on up the western coast and we’ll see if we can land there.’
They did not surface again until they approached the North West Cape. They boarded the bot’s inflatable, taking just the minimum of survival equipment. Maura programmed the whale-bot to dive to the seabed in five hundred metres of water. Geoff’s biometer showed no significant levels of contamination, and they landed in a rocky cove. They knew they would need a cover story if they encountered any local residents. However, as they had become completely soaked sitting in the inflatable, they could readily claim their yacht had just sunk. They certainly looked the part.
In the event, there was no one to be seen on the beach or in the surrounding area. They buried their craft in the sand and climbed through an apple orchard to a single-storey farmhouse with a corrugated iron roof. Even while they were some way off, it was obvious the residents had abandoned the building. Geoff knew the population in the area had never been great, but he feared the war might have taken its toll even here.
The front porch was littered with pots, pans, clothes, and even a com-phone. The occupants had clearly left in a hurry, but there was no clue as to where they’d gone. There was a truck in the yard, and drums full of fuel in the barn. The solar panels on the roof were still working, providing power to a desalination plant. At least they would have plenty of water.
After they’d nanowaved food they found in a freezer and enjoyed a hearty meal, they took it in turns to keep watch while the others slept. The next morning Leona reported she’d had another vision during the night. The Earth had spoken to her. It was mourning the destruction of the Oztralian cities, and the millions of inhabitants who’d perished. It beckoned her from Aiers Rock, called Uluru by the ancient Anangu people long since exterminated by European and Asian settlers. It was a sacred site, inhabited by a spirit who would help them, the Earth had said. Geoff was sceptical. He’d hoped to find some remnant of the Unified Nations within a big Hesperian city. In his opinion, trekking over the outback to look for a spirit was, at best, a distraction. But Maura supported Leona in her conviction they must go to Aiers Rock, and Geoff acquiesced. He hoped the population of Aliss Springs may have escaped the devastation that had befallen the coastal cities.
Later that day, they loaded up the truck and set off, with Geoff at the wheel. They headed east, following a track into the outback. Initial progress was good but, after twenty miles, the track petered out. They continued, zigzagging around rocks and scrubby bushes. It was a relief to stop at night, mix up gruel from cereals and chew on strips of dried meat, provisions they’d taken from the farmhouse. They drank black tea to replace the fluids they’d lost during the heat of the day, but they had no way of washing. They slept under the constellation of the Southern Cross, surrounded by the bright eyes of dingoes, attracted by their unwashed bodies. They carried on the next day, and the next, jolting over the uneven ground, until they felt their internal organs would be pulverised to jelly. The truck suffered three punctures and, each time, Geoff changed the wheel, using one from the spare set they’d loaded in the back. But what will we do when they’re all gone?
They were bumping down the bank of a flash-flood gulley when Geoff realised the vehicle was sliding out of control. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he swore as the truck’s progress was arrested by an irregularly shaped boulder. They all got out and stared, open-mouthed, at the radiator spraying water like a burst artery.
‘Can we repair it?’ asked Leona.
Geoff shook his head. ‘You’d need to braze it and we haven’t got the equipment. I’m afraid this is serious.’
‘Okay, we must keep calm,’ said Maura. ‘What are our options?’
‘It’s possible to walk in the bush,’ said Leona.
‘Ha!’ said Maura. ‘You told us we had to go walkabout.’
‘The Aborigines spent their lives doing it. We can do it too. But we’d have to leave virtually everything behind – even the water. We can’t carry jerry cans.’
‘Leona’s right,’ said Geoff. ‘My com-phone says it’s over forty degrees. We’ll have to travel as light as we can.’
‘We could walk at night,’ said Maura, ‘but, without shade, we’d never sleep during the day. I guess we’ve just got to do it, somehow.’
They filled their canteens and set off in single file. Geoff was in the lead, followed by Maura and then Leona. There was no path; Geoff had switched his com-phone onto solar-power and he used its compass to keep them heading east. The soil was arid coarse sand, punctuated by clumps of hummock grass and isolated bushes. They bivouacked in the twilight, conscious of their empty stomachs. Leona poked around under a saltbush. ‘That’s lucky!’ she cried, and she pulled out a white, tubular object. She wrapped it in a leaf and gave it to Maura to roast on their fire, while she set about finding two more. After their meal, Geoff asked Leona what kind of root it was they’d eaten. ‘It was a grub worm, Geoff,’ she told him, laughing.
They tried to make their water last, but soon their canteens were dry. Geoff became mesmerised by the shimmering mirror that appeared periodically before them. It galvanised his muscles and he had to will himself not to run. It’s only a mirage, he told himself.
Eventually they reached Hopkins Lake, a baked salt plain devoid of any moisture. They collapsed by a rocky outcrop, their disappointment draining the last vestige of energy from their limbs. Geoff reached out for Maura’s hand. He had a flashback to the time they’d sat in the bathyscaphe, trapped on the seabed, expecting to die. It was then that Leona started listening to the ground. She crawled around the boulders, placing her ear to the soil. She broke off a reed and embedded it in the sandy earth. As she sucked, she inflated her cheeks and then spat liquid into her canteen. Soon there was enough to share. It was dark and gritty, but tasted delicious.
Geoff realised his boots were turning into flip-flops, as the tips of the soles became detached. Maura’s and Leona’s footwear was less damaged, presumably because they were lighter on their feet. Geoff led them on, his boots bound up with strips of cloth ripped from his shirt. When the sun went down, they foraged for food: roots, berries, even spiders. They were up at dawn to suck dew from crevices in the rocks, before trekking onwards. Their skin was peeling and blistered, and their tongues so swollen they could barely speak. It was sunset on the seventh day when they saw a streak of red on the horizon. ‘Uluru,’ Maura croaked, and in tacit agreement they continued walking through that night.
By dawn they reached the bottom of the sandstone monolith rising three hundred and fifty metres above the surrounding bushland. They skirted around the perimeter and, pouring from the mouth of a cave above them, they found flowing spring water. Moët & Chandon could not have tasted better. They laughed with relief. As they continued to climb up a steep gulley, a bush turkey ran clumsily past, flapping its wings. It rose a few feet in the air, only to fall to the ground again, its neck at an unnatural angle. ‘What are you looking at me like that for, Maura?’ Geoff asked, but he could not conceal his smile.
Later that evening, they sat by the mouth of the cave, taking it in turns to rotate the turkey on a makeshift spit. Drips of fat fell in their open fire, its bright yellow flame casting their shadows deep into the cave behind them, while the trickling spring water glinted in the starlight. They slept well that night.
Revelation
Geoff got up while the others were still sleeping and caught a rabbit. There were enough edible roots and wild herbs around to make a stew but, without a cooking pot, they could only roast it. After they’d eaten, they swept up the ashes and spread dust over the area where the fire had been. ‘We mustn’t do anything to damage the environment,’ said Leona. ‘This is a sacred place, and we mustn’t despoil it.’
‘Can you sense what it’s trying to tell us?’ asked Geoff.
Leona shook her head. ‘No, but I think it’s right we came here. The Anangu told a legend about two tribes who’d been in
vited to a feast, but were distracted by a group of “Sleepy Lizard Women”. The hosts became very angry, and there was a terrible battle. The leaders of both tribes were killed, along with many of their followers. Those that survived ate the dead bodies of their foes. The Earth rose up in grief because of what had happened, and created Uluru.’
‘That sounds familiar,’ said Geoff. ‘Two tribes at war – these days it’s the Khitans and the Hesperians.’
‘There must be something here we’re supposed to find,’ said Maura. ‘Let’s climb to the top and look around.’
‘Hey, what’s that up there?’ said Geoff. ‘It looks like a dish or an aerial.’
‘It’s probably military,’ said Maura. ‘Is it a distraydar scanner?’
‘No, it’s too big. Would you believe it? It’s a radio telescope.’
‘I haven’t heard of any astronomers here. Let’s take a look.’
As they drew closer, Geoff saw a building built into a gap in the sandstone ridge. At that moment, a man appeared, climbing down from the dish. They hurried to the foot of the ladder to meet him. He was old. Even with regenerative drugs he must have been at least eighty. But he was tall, his face seemingly carved out of red bloodwood.
‘Hooly dooley!’ said the man, pushing up the brim of his bush hat. ‘What are you dropkicks doin’ here?’
The Hesperian Dilemma Page 14