GeneSys

GeneSys Page 6

by Roger Carter

Twenty Five

  The loudspeakers blared out across the lagoon. “Donna! Donna report to Pier One! Donna to Pier One!”

  Donna swung round in surprise. It was less than ten minutes since she had awoken from her trance, and she was wondering how to break the news to Jonah that he was to be excluded from the dolphin community and transferred to the dolphinarium at the main GeneSys site. She was expecting Dawn to visit that afternoon to make all the arrangements, but whoever was at Pier One was unlikely to be her as she also could only just have awoken.

  With a few flicks of her tail she surged through the water in the direction of the pier. A lone figure was standing at the end of it, obviously waiting for her, and obviously not Dawn. As she drew closer she saw that it was Rick, and she leapt into the air to greet him, performing a spectacular somersault.

  Rick had always made a great fuss of Donna. Although he was responsible for all the dolphins and was reluctant to show any favouritism, she was their leader and so he could legitimately give her a little more attention. Like Dawn, he had sometimes read her fairy stories when she was little and played with her, and the fact that he was male and she female had created a special bond between them.

  Now, though, he seemed too agitated even to stroke her snout. Kneeling beside her, he almost stumbled into the water in his hurry to get the words out. “The radio link to the spirit detector – it’s been buzzing! Baby must have spotted something in neurospace!”

  Donna stared up at him with her big eyes. This could mean only one thing: the Watchers were correct: extra-terrestrials really were on their way here. She waggled her flippers excitedly.

  “I woke Dawn from her trance to tell her,” Rick continued. “She’s having something to eat, then she’s going into a trance again. She’ll meet you here, in her spirit body, and then you’ll go together to Adelaide. Paul and Clare will be expecting you – Dawn’s phoned them. You’ll be occupying Angela’s body, of course.”

  Donna’s heart leapt. She was going to see Mort again! She felt like throwing herself into the air and splashing water everywhere, but she managed to restrain herself and merely waggled her flippers once more.

  “I’ve brought you some food,” Rick told her, indicating the bucket at his side. “It’s drugged, so when you’ve eaten it go straight to the isolation pens. It’s an extra dose, so you’ll stay in the trance for about four hours.”

  Donna shook her head at him, then hit her beak on the water eight times.

  “What? You want enough for eight hours. You want to spend eight hours in Angela’s body?”

  Donna nodded her beak up and down enthusiastically. Dawn would certainly disapprove, but she was going to make the most of this opportunity. Eight hours with Mort! That was enough time to do all kinds of exciting things with him, including another game of Monopoly. The last time they played – on Thursday evening after that meeting with Karen – he had wiped her out. Well, she would get her own back tonight.

  Rick gazed at her doubtfully, then shrugged. “OK, if that’s what you want. I’ll have to inject you with a top-up drug half-way through your trance. And you’d better eat every scrap of food I’ve brought you.”

  Donna wolfed the fish down, but she was too excited to appreciate what she was eating. Then she swam into one of the isolation pens where she wouldn’t be disturbed, and a few minutes after that she drifted into the trance. Dawn must have entered her own trance a little earlier, for the first thing Donna saw when her spirit left her body was Dawn’s flying VW Beetle. She climbed in beside Dawn, and moments later they were racing south above the ghostly Pacific Ocean towards Australia.

  Dawn had been unable to tell Mort and Angela about Baby’s discovery, for it was Sunday and they were attending Mort’s church in Adelaide, and Mort had turned off his phone. There had been a marked increase in attendance at the church since Angela’s dramatic recovery a week and a half ago, which had been widely hailed as a miracle. It was Angela’s first time there, and although she hadn’t been too keen on going, her father had insisted.

  She was very glad now that she had gone, for somewhat to her surprise there were several pretty yummy young men at the service, and the minister and the church elders had all made a big fuss of her, praying over her and everything, and the minister had even mentioned her during his sermon. As well as that, several people from the congregation had invited her and her father to meals at their homes. Life had suddenly become quite a party.

  When the service ended, lots of people came up to her, wanting to shake her hand, and the minister himself brought over a tray of coffee and biscuits. She resisted the biscuits – the presence of all those young guys made her even more determined to get her figure back – but she took the coffee.

  “You’re a miracle of grace,” the minister gushed, helping himself to a biscuit. The Reverend Green was a large man, about the same age as her father. “The trouble is” – he laughed – “I’ve had so many people wanting prayer for healing since your recovery. I’ve never been so busy.”

  Angela frowned. “I really don’t think I’m a miracle of grace,” she told him. “But I’ve got a guardian angel. She’s the one who saved me.”

  The Reverend Green smiled indulgently. “I’m sure we all have guardian angels, Angela.”

  “Really? I find that hard to believe. Anyway, my angel is really cool. She likes Captain Bogey, and she’s really good at kissing. At least, that’s what she told my dad.” She gazed longingly at a passing youth. “I’m hoping to make use of her services…”

  The minister’s smile had become a little forced. “She saved you, Angela, that’s the main thing, and we’re all grateful to her for that.”

  “You must meet her. Perhaps you would like to visit us next time she calls.”

  “Thank you, Angela. I’m sure it would be most enlightening.”

  “Enlightening? I shouldn’t think so. All she wants to do is chat up my dad and play Monopoly. Wait a minute … I can feel her now! You’re in luck, I think you’re about to meet her! Let me sit down, I need to relax. You don’t have a picture of Captain Bogey lying around anywhere, I suppose? It doesn’t matter, I’ll close my eyes and imagine him…”

  The Reverend Green stared at her in alarm. “Are you all right, Angela? Mr Lane, is your daughter all right? She says her guardian angel has come upon her.”

  “What? That’s wonderful! Don’t disturb her, she needs to relax completely for a few moments. Her name’s Donna, by the way – the guardian angel, that is. She’s great fun, I’m sure you’ll like her.”

  Angela’s eyes suddenly opened. “Hi Mort. How are you doing?” She looked around. “You’ve come to church, I see. That’s good. I approve of church. It took us a while to find you, though. You should have left a note in very large letters in the kitchen. Fortunately I spotted your flash car in the car park.”

  “This is the minister, Donna. The Reverend Green.”

  “Hi Rev, nice to meet you. Are you the guy who prayed for Angela, when she came out of her coma?”

  The Reverend Green nodded dumbly. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

  “Good man.” She stood up. “I’m sorry to have to leave you so quickly, but something’s come up and we’re running late. You must come to visit us some time. I’ll cook dinner for you.” She took Mort’s arm. “Come on, Mort, we’ve got to save the planet. And afterwards I’m going to slaughter you at Monopoly!”

  It took them about three-quarters of an hour to reach the SETI facility in the Mount Lofty range to the east of Adelaide. It was a beautiful spring day, though Donna hardly noticed, she was too busy chatting to Mort and telling him everything that had happened to her since they last met three days ago. She also told him that he had to be on his best behaviour, because Dawn was accompanying her and was observing everything from inside Angela’s brain.

  Mort greeted his unseen visitor, and asked her whether Donna ever stopped talking. To which Donna replied that he obviously didn’t appreciate how privileged he was to
be in her company, and that he should be hanging on to her every word. “That was Dawn telling you that, not me,” she added, which was of course a barefaced lie. He merely smiled, happy to let her prattle on.

  When they reached the site Donna saw that it was as large as the dolphin lagoon at Crocodile Bay. Its most prominent features were several large radio telescope dishes and two large domed observatories housing the linked optical telescopes. There was a high wire fence around the site and a guard at the gate.

  “We’re expecting you, Mr Lane,” the guard said after checking Mort’s identity card. “Park outside that large red building over there. I’ll tell them you’re here.”

  The red building was located midway between the two domes. Mort parked near its entrance, and because it was such a lovely day they got out of the car. Several birds of a kind that Donna didn’t recognize were singing their hearts out in a nearby flowering tree.

  “Nice place, Australia,” she observed. “You must show me round next time I visit.”

  “Glad to. How long could you stay?”

  “A good eight hours. That’ll give us bags of time.”

  He laughed. “Eight hours? To see Australia?”

  “What’s the problem? It’s only a two-dimensional place. Not like the ocean, which is up and down as well as backwards and forwards and side to side.”

  A nearby door opened. It was Clare, and she was out of breath. “It’s quite a climb,” she explained. “Hello, Mort,” she added belatedly, then glowered suspiciously at his daughter.

  “Which one do you think I am?” Donna asked her affably. “I’ll give you three guesses.”

  “God, it gets worse every time I see you. We’re three in one today, are we? That’s not very original, you know. Come on, Trinity, let’s go.”

  She led them inside the building, and then through an inner metal door. They were at the top of a spiral staircase that descended into the bowels of the earth. Dim lighting set into the wall illuminated the metal steps.

  “Take it steadily,” Mort advised Donna. “Hold onto the handrail. I’ll go first.”

  “Isn’t this exciting?” she whispered. “I can’t wait to see what Baby’s discovered.”

  “Is the spirit detector able to detect our space invaders in daylight?” Mort asked Clare, who was just below him.

  “I gather it was your idea to try that, Mr Lane. You were right, it seems.”

  “Can we still see the object?”

  “No, it’s passed below the horizon. But everything’s recorded.”

  “That’s good. What does it look like?”

  “It’s a single bright point of light, which means it’s a long way away.”

  “Do you know how far?”

  “We can’t tell. We might have a better idea tomorrow, when the object comes back into view. We’ll know how far the earth’s travelled in its orbit since the first observation, we’ll know the angle of the telescope, and simple trigonometry will tell us the distance.”

  “Except that it will have moved much closer to us by then, which will throw your calculations,” Mort pointed out.

  “True, we’ll only get an approximate answer. But if it’s in the same spot in the sky relative to the surrounding stars at least we’ll know it’s travelling towards us, and then we can adjust for its speed, which I understand could be around ten thousand times the speed of light.”

  She glanced up at them. “We’re almost at the bottom now. Are you OK, Mr Lane? Good. And how are the various inhabitants of Angela’s body doing?”

  “We’re OK too.”

  “Pity.”

  A few minutes later they reached the metal framework housing the optics that combined the beams from the two telescopes. In the semi darkness it looked like a scene from a science fiction movie. Dawn’s spirit detector had been attached to the framework and was pointed towards the mirror that was throwing the output of the telescopes into her lens, and Paul and another man were standing on a low platform peering into her small screen.

  Paul cast an enquiring glance in the direction of Mort’s daughter. “Best not to ask,” Clare told him. “There are three of them in there now.”

  “Christ!” he muttered.

  Donna clambered onto the platform and poked him in the ribs. “You must feel very honoured to have us all here.” He grimaced but said nothing. “So what have you got to show us?” she asked.

  “Your instructions for using this spirit detector of yours leave a lot to be desired,” he told her. “So I’d better let you handle it. I managed to track back to the thing your spirit detector saw, but it was a bit hit and miss, and now I’ve lost it again.”

  “You’re talking to the wrong person, I’m afraid,” Donna said. “I’ll let Dawn take over, she’ll know what to do.” She turned to Mort. “Hold on to me for a moment while we swap ourselves around.” She leant against him, and he put his arms around her, which made her feel quite hot and bothered. She hoped Dawn wouldn’t notice.

  “Swap around?” the man standing beside Paul asked. “What on earth’s she talking about?”

  “Like Clare said, it’s best not to ask,” Paul told him. “Just humour her. She’s got a split personality.”

  Dawn freed herself from Mort’s grip and scowled at Paul. “Don’t talk about me as though I’m not there! I’ve warned you about that before. I don’t have a split personality, and my instructions for using the spirit detector are perfectly clear.”

  She jabbed a finger at the sheet of paper she’d stuck on the top of Baby. “Look, Thicko, it tells you exactly what to do. Press this button once for the menu, then select Show Timer. There it is, at the bottom of the screen. Now select Go Back, then either select Amount Back or Rewind. OK, let’s choose Rewind. There you are, the timer’s running backwards. You can speed it up with the Advance button or slow it down with the Back button, or simply hold down the Back button to freeze it. Couldn’t be easier.”

  They stared intently at the screen as a succession of faint splodges of light appeared to one side, rushed across it, and then disappeared off the other side. Suddenly a bright, clear point of light appeared and moved across the screen. Dawn held down the Back button, and the image froze.

  “There’s our alien invader!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “It’s a neurospace entity that Baby’s seeing by telepathy. That’s why it’s so bright.”

  Then, remembering the gleaming COBRA flying saucer, she added: “It’s shining with its own light, not reflected starlight.”

  They peered at the tiny bright star. The rest of Baby’s screen was uniformly black apart from some scattered splodges of grey.

  “Those are ordinary stars, I presume,” Dawn said, pointing a finger at them.

  “Of course they are,” Paul muttered irritably.

  “What do you mean, ‘of course’?” Dawn flared. She was still cross with Paul for implying she was a nut case. “It’s not at all obvious that they’re stars. Nothing that we’re seeing is obvious. It was daytime when this recording was made, so why isn’t the sky blue? You grumble about my instructions, which were perfectly clear, but you’re making no attempt to explain this.”

  “OK, OK, keep your hair on. I’m sorry. We’re filtering out the blue light. That allows us to see at least something of the heavens.”

  “That’s better. And what other important bits of information have you omitted to tell us?”

  “God, she’s a sarcastic bitch,” Clare growled.

  “I haven’t omitted anything important,” Paul said.

  “Really?” Dawn said with heavy emphasis. “Have you nothing to tell us about our alien invader, Paul? For instance, does that bright point of light appear on an ordinary photograph?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Ah. That’s incredibly important, I’d say. It means there’s no physical light coming from it – which proves it’s a neurospace object.”

  “It’s obviously that,” he sneered. “Your spirit detector made that plain – the ala
rms sounded all over the site. I would certainly have informed you if there was anything to suggest that it wasn’t from neurospace – like if it had appeared on an ordinary photograph.”

  “And what other obvious things should you be telling us about?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said resignedly. “I suppose I should say that that object could have been visible for weeks, but we’ve never spotted it because this telescope’s doing a sweep of the entire central region of the Milky Way and it takes ages to cover everything.”

  “That’s certainly important. Bearing in mind that it could be travelling at ten thousand times the speed of light, that thing could have come an awful long way in that time.”

  “And the other thing I should mention is that if that thing is really travelling towards us at that speed, which I gather is the speed of telepathy and ESP, then presumably it’ll arrive at more or less the same moment that your spirit detector spots it. In other words, it could be here already.”

  There was complete silence for a few seconds as the others digested his words.

  “Oh,” Dawn said. “I hadn’t thought of that. Like if an ordinary object was travelling towards us at the speed of light, we wouldn’t see it until it arrived.”

  “Precisely. That’s assuming of course that relativity applies in neurospace, with telepathy and other forms of ESP taking the place of light. But maybe we shouldn’t assume that. Maybe if that object is travelling towards us at ten thousand times the speed of light, then information from it is travelling towards us at twice that speed.”

  “Or perhaps it’s only travelling towards at one thousand times the speed of light,” Dawn suggested. “In which case the spirit detector will sense it long before it reaches us.”

  Paul looked at her doubtfully. “Long before? If it’s travelling a thousand times the speed of light, it could be here tomorrow. Or by tea time.”

  Dawn shivered and glanced round into the surrounding darkness. “This is getting scary.”

  “It certainly is,” Clare agreed sombrely. “You’d better be on your guard when the communal mind comes to life tomorrow morning. ET might drop in on you.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll go to Eden as soon as it materialises, and I’ll stay there until it disappears. And I’ll make sure Jonah isn’t there, just in case that Dr Anderson gets any ideas. I’ll phone Rick to make arrangements immediately to isolate him.”

  “But you’re not even sure if that object is heading our way,” Mort interjected. “It could be light years from Earth, and completely unaware of our existence. There’s no need to panic yet.”

  “That’s true enough,” Paul agreed. “We’ll have a much better idea when it appears above the horizon tomorrow.”

  “It might be too late then,” Dawn pointed out. “It could already be here.”

  “Can you zoom the image?” Clare asked. “If increasing the magnification makes it look bigger, then we’ll know it’s close to Earth. If that’s the case, we know we need to start worrying.”

  Dawn pressed a button. “There’s a Zoom option on the menu,” she explained, selecting it. She held down the Advance button, and the areas of grey shot off the sides of the screen and some even fainter patches appeared. But the bright star remained in the centre of the screen as a point of light, finally breaking up into a cluster of pixels. Dawn held down the Back button until the point of light reformed.

  “It’s too far away to enlarge,” she told them.

  “So we’re safe for the moment,” Paul murmured.

  “Until tea time, at any rate,” Clare added.

  “Talking about tea time, I’m starving,” Dawn announced. “Angela hasn’t had any lunch.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it,” Clare muttered. “It’s about time you did some suffering. It restores my faith in the essential justice of the universe.”

  Dawn didn’t bother to reply. Instead she nudged Mort in the ribs and whispered to him that it was time to go. He led the way back along the dim passageway to the spiral staircase leading up to ground level.

  “We’d better tell Karen and the Watchers about this sighting,” she announced breathlessly as she struggled up the stairs in Angela’s unfit body. “We promised.”

  “God, those people will be swarming all over this place,” Clare grumbled below her. “They’re almost as bad as you.”

  “You should be counting your blessings,” Dawn retorted. “Wait till the extra-terrestrials arrive!”

  “Count my blessings, crap! Bug-eyed monsters will be a joy and delight compared to you.”

  “They might be humanoid in appearance,” Mort observed.

  “Whatever they look like, you won’t be able to see them,” Dawn told him. “’Cos they’ll be spirits. It’s a neurospace ship that’s heading our way, not a physical vessel. That’s why they can travel at perhaps ten thousand times the speed of light. Maybe more. We haven’t been able to measure the speed of telepathy accurately.”

  “So what happens when they get here?” Mort asked. “How will they communicate with us?”

  “They’ll snatch people’s bodies, that’s what they’ll do,” Clare snorted. “Like your daughter’s so-called guardian angels!”

  “We’re benign,” Dawn observed mildly. “Who knows what these extra-terrestrial spirits will be like.”

  Clare didn’t respond, and the party climbed the remaining stairs in silence, emerging shortly afterwards into the bright sunlight.

  “I take it you haven’t told Karen we’ve found ET?” Dawn asked Paul. He shook his head. “We thought you should check our findings first. I guess I should tell her now.”

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and moved a little away from the others to make the call. They wandered over to Mort’s car and waited.

  “Karen’s over the moon,” Paul told them when he rejoined them a couple of minutes later. “She can’t wait to get here. I told her there’s no point coming before early tomorrow, as the object will be below the horizon until then. But she wants to come now, to see the recording. She’s bringing Dr Anderson.”

  “In which case I’m staying,” Clare announced. “What about you, Dawn?”

  “Not in Angela’s body. And I can’t possibly get my real body here by then.”

  “I’ll phone if there’s anything to report,” Clare promised. “Like if ET is about to arrive.”

  “Phone anyway – I’ll be back in Honiara. Try to find out what Anderson’s planning. I want to know if he intends to use the temple in Eden as a portal. And if you get wind of anything else that Karen and John Anderson might be up to, tell me. If it’s anything big, I can get here in minutes on a spirit journey and invade Karen’s mind.”

  Clare nodded. “I approve of you invading her. Be sure to warn me, though, so I can do the necessary.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Get her sexed up, of course. That’s what you need to invade her, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yes. But how will you do that?”

  “I’ll make a few passes at her. She’s a lesbian. Couldn’t you tell, the way she kept glancing at me on Thursday?”

  “Oh. I see.”

  A few minutes later Dawn had departed and Donna was back in control of Angela’s body. Mort glanced at his watch – it was almost 3 o’clock – and asked her what she wanted to do. “We don’t have enough time to tour Australia,” he told her with a grin.

  “We’ll do that another day. We’ve got far more important things to attend to now. Angela’s body is really really hungry, and I’ve got to slaughter you at Monopoly.”

  “So I’m to be today’s sacrificial offering, is that it?”

  She laughed. “Goddesses are very high maintenance. Surely you knew that?”

  Twenty Six

  Donna watched the dice roll, her heart in her mouth. Eleven! She breathed a sigh of relief and moved her piece – the whale – safely past Mort’s houses. Now she would clobber him. She would have to mortgage a couple of properties to raise the n
ecessary money, but he was coming up to some of her houses and if she could increase the number on each site to three then the rent would shoot up enormously and that would be the end of him.

  The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Mort muttered.

  “It’ll be Shock and Awe when you return, I promise. Shock and Awe.”

  A few moments later she heard Clare and Paul’s voices in the hall. “Donna’s still here,” Mort told them as they entered the room.

  Clare eyed her sourly. “Dawn will be along shortly.”

  Donna stared up at her in surprise. “She’s flying here from Honiara?”

  “Of course not. She’s coming on a spirit journey. She’ll be taking Angela’s body over.”

  “Not until Mort and I have finished our game, she’s not! I’ve almost won! Come on Mort, throw!”

  Clare and Paul stared at the homely scene in astonishment. “You’re playing Monopoly!” Paul exclaimed.

  “Is that a problem? It’s much more fun than watching humans doing stupid things on television.”

  “But you’re a dolphin!”

  “So? Is there a ban on dolphins playing Monopoly?”

  “But it’s all about money and owning property and things like that.” He sounded exasperated.

  “And dolphins are too stupid to understand such things, I suppose. Well, if you must know, Dr Gibson, I intend to get into real estate when all this nonsense with extra-terrestrials is over. I’m going to be Mort’s financial advisor, and we’re going to make loads of money.”

  Donna was suddenly aware of Dawn’s presence. In a few moments she would be clamouring to take over this body.

  “Come on, Mort!” she urged. “Throw the dice, put an end to your agony.”

  He threw.

  “Gotcha! That’ll be 3,000 dollars.” She rubbed her hands in glee. “Come on, you measly human, pay up!”

  “Ye gods!” Clare muttered. “To think we were worried about extra-terrestrials taking over the planet!”

  Donna scooped up all of Mort’s money and most of his properties. The thrill of winning was tempered by the knowledge that Dawn was now present in the background of her mind, observing everything and itching to take Angela over.

  Mort laughed and ruffled her hair, then he stood up and opened the tin of biscuits on the coffee table. “Help yourselves,” he said to other two, motioning them to a nearby settee. He placed a couple of bottles of soft drink and some glasses on the table as well.

  “Thanks, Mort,” Clare murmured sitting down with Paul. Mort resumed his seat alongside Donna.

  “Any news of ET?” Donna asked the visitors.

  “Not yet,” Clare replied. “We won’t know any more till tomorrow morning, when the neurospace object appears above the horizon.”

  “And what about Karen and John Anderson? I take it they turned up to see the recording?”

  “They certainly did, and they were ecstatic about it. They even told us what they were planning.”

  “They confided in you? How did you manage that?”

  “I told them they had to, if they wanted us to give them the results of our calculations. Like when the spaceship – if that’s what that object is – is due to get here.”

  “And you think they told you the truth?”

  “I reminded Karen that Dawn would be invading her to check up on everything, and that if it turned out she’d been lying there’d be hell to pay. Paul told her about what had happened to him when Dawn invaded – the thought of that enormous dead rat crawling with maggots and oozing its guts out seemed to concentrate her mind very effectively.”

  Donna grinned. “So what are they planning?”

  Clare glanced at her watch. “Dawn should be here at any moment, so I’ll go over everything then. That’s the purpose of this little get-together – to discuss their plans and decide our response.” She leant towards the coffee table and helped herself to a biscuit. “Come on, Dawn,” she muttered. “You’re late.”

  “No, she isn’t, she’s already here. She didn’t like to interrupt, that’s all.” Donna turned to Mort. “Thanks for the nice day, Mort, I really enjoyed it. I hope you don’t mind being wiped out at Monopoly.”

  He smiled and squeezed her hand, and that was so exciting that her heart raced and the cheeks of Angela’s borrowed body went pink. Donna felt guilty about that, and she hoped that Dawn’s watching presence wouldn’t be aware of these physiological changes. It was totally absurd that she should be reacting in this way, for she and Mort belonged to different species, and as well as that he was old enough to be her father and this body that she was in belonged to his daughter. It was as if some mischievous fairy with a warped sense of humour had cast a magic spell on her. Dawn was right, it would be best if she never saw Mort again, for any attempt to take things further could only end in tears.

  Then the room flickered as Dawn took advantage of Donna’s aroused state to take over Angela’s body, and before she could even say goodbye to Mort she was pushed aside by Dawn’s powerful presence. Then she found herself sitting in the cathedral of Angela’s mind and gazing out at the world through the stained-glass window.

  Dawn withdrew Angela’s hand from Mort’s and pointedly turned Angela’s body away from him. “Right everyone, let’s get down to business,” she said brusquely . She had been all too aware of the strength of Donna’s feelings towards Mort, and it irked her greatly. It struck her that Mort was as much to blame as Donna for the emotional mess that she, Dawn, would one day have to clear up.

  “Clare, perhaps you can kick off by telling everyone what John Anderson and Karen are planning.”

  Clare glared at her. “Like I’ve told you before, the occasional please and thank you wouldn’t come amiss. We know you’re the Lord of the Universe, but try not to get up our noses too much. It’s very counterproductive, you know.”

  “I’m sorry. Please tell us what they’re planning.”

  “That’s better. What Dr Anderson said was a bit disorganized, but we finally got the gist of what he was on about, so here’s an edited account. And I promise I’m not leaving anything important out. Not knowingly, that is.” She stared coldly at Dawn, whose sarcasm at Paul’s omissions at the telescope earlier in the day evidently still rankled.

  “Anderson is confident that the extra-terrestrials are coming to Earth, and that they’re heading for your Eden,” Clare continued. “I asked him how he could be so sure. Was it because ET had visited the COBRA spaceship in the past? That threw him, I can tell you.”

  She smiled sardonically at the memory. “He didn’t know that we were aware of his COBRA past, let alone that we suspected that COBRA had made contact with extra-terrestrials. And if we knew all that, what else might we know about him? It put quite a damper on his high spirits. And Karen wasn’t much of an encouragement for him, she was too worried by the prospect of your imminent invasion of her mind. Hah!”

  “So was I right?” Dawn asked eagerly. “Did COBRA get their spaceship and their portals from ET?”

  Clare nodded. “In the end he admitted that they did. He said it all started with an alien abduction experience that the founder of COBRA had almost a decade ago, before COBRA started. It seems that this guy had been experimenting with trance drugs, and in one of his trances he met a couple of aliens who took him up to their spaceship. It was the same spaceship that you eventually destroyed, and they used the same portal.”

  “And did these aliens look like wasps? That was how they were depicted on the walls of the portal on the ship.”

  Again Claire nodded. “Anderson was told that they walked on their hind legs, and that they were taller than a man. Apparently they had humanoid faces with huge multi-faceted eyes. They sound pretty ghastly, but it seems they were quite friendly, and they gave this guy a tour of their ship. They told him that they were about to return to their own world via the portal, and that they were leaving the ship and its portal as a gift to Earth. To make use of the portal, all that was needed was to call
up a similar neurospace structure on Earth.”

  Dawn nodded in satisfaction. This confirmed her own suspicions. “That’s why the COBRA congregation surrounded itself with a golden five-sided temple when they entered their trance.”

  “Exactly. The wasps told him that they wanted him to bring together people from all over the world to form a new religious movement based upon out-of-body abductions to the ship. And that was how COBRA got started.”

  “Everything fits,” Dawn observed. “Anderson is telling the truth. Did you ask him why the wasps wanted to start this religion?”

  “I did. He thought it was to prepare Earth for eventual membership of a galactic federation. He said that was why he established the Watchers after COBRA was destroyed. He has no idea who or what destroyed them, by the way. He thinks it wasn’t human but some kind of angel.”

  “Really? Well, that’s a relief. It’s a good job I did destroy COBRA, by the sounds of it. If I hadn’t, it would have become the most powerful organization on the planet. Its leaders were top people in governments, in the military, in businesses, all over the place. To take over the earth, all those wasps needed to do was to set up COBRA, allow it to develop and grow, and then return to the earth and take over the COBRA leaders.”

  “Take them over?” Paul asked, frowning. “Like you’ve taken over Angela, you mean?”

  “Exactly. From what you’ve told me it seems quite likely that the neurospace object that Baby’s spotted is a ship carrying hundreds of giant wasps, coming here to take over COBRA. In which case their journey here has got nothing to do with my Passion plays.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” he said. “If that ship is travelling as fast as you say it can, it could arrive at any moment. And if it’s bringing giant wasps planning to take over the planet, we’re totally unprepared.”

  “I know,” Dawn muttered grimly. It had occurred to her that there might be something worse even than wasps on that ship. “What about the demons? Did Anderson say anything about their involvement in COBRA?”

  “We asked him about that,” Clare replied. “To begin with he flatly denied that there was anything demonic about COBRA. But when I told him that we knew that all the leaders had been demon possessed, and that they had demonic horns protruding from their foreheads when they were on the ship, and that demons had been seen emerging from them on the day that the ship was destroyed, he got really rattled and eventually he caved in.”

  Dawn gave a tight smile. “You’ve done a good job, Clare. It sounds like he was putty in your hands.”

  “I was only using the information you provided,” Clare replied with uncharacteristic grace. “The good news is, if that neurospace object is a shipload of wasps, there won’t be any demons on board. Anderson told us that there were no demons originally, but that a group of Satanists joined COBRA, and they brought them along. He said that it was the Satanists who introduced the sexual practices into COBRA, and he thinks it was because of this that COBRA was eventually destroyed. By that angel.”

  Dawn looked at her with relief. “Well, well. From what you’ve told us it seems he’s got quite a high opinion of these wasps.”

  “He certainly believes they’re benign.”

  “And what about the temple in Eden? Did you find out if he intends to use that as a portal?”

  “I deliberately didn’t mention your temple. I was afraid he might suspect that you were the source of my information about COBRA and its portals, in which case he might put two and two together and suspect that you were also responsible for COBRA’s destruction. If it is a portal, then he seems to have no plans to use it.”

  “Not even if ET makes landfall there?”

  “Not even then. The Watchers are going to travel there by more conventional means apparently. If you can call it ‘conventional’ – they’ve been training for spirit journeys.”

  “I see. Did he tell you what else he was planning?”

  “He was quite open about his plans. Obviously he knows no more than we do about the neurospace object that we’ve spotted, and even if it is heading our way there’s no way of knowing if it’s carrying the wasps that set up COBRA. Our visitors might be a completely different species, from a different part of the galaxy. Karen can’t wait to meet them, wherever they come from, but Anderson’s much more cautious. He doesn’t want to put himself or too many of his Watchers at risk, so he’s decided that just 40 of them should come to Eden, to welcome ET. He’ll be there too, but not in a trance state.”

  “He’s coming in his physical body, you mean? But he won’t be able to see ET or the temple or anything else in Eden.”

  “He’s hoping you’ll let him to use your spirit detector to watch what’s going on. The thing is, he’s worried that ET might turn out to be hostile, in which case he’ll need to pull his Watchers out of their trance quickly. I’ve told him that I’m also going along in my physical body, to keep an eye on things, and he seemed quite happy with that.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I’m happy. I don’t mind him borrowing my spirit detector, but as for allowing his people into Eden and the temple…”

  “Why not? If those aliens are hostile, let the Watchers face them. Why risk your dolphins? Or your own life, for that matter.”

  Dawn studied her thoughtfully, weighing up the options. “I guess you’re right. OK, I’ll go along with it – provided you’re there to keep an eye on him.”

  “Don’t worry,” Clare said with a satisfied smile. “I’ll be carrying a gun – and I know how to use it.”

  “I bet you do. Now, what about Dr Song and the UN? Do they know what’s going on? Are they going to tell the planet we’re about to be invaded? Mankind has the right to know, and the dolphins have as well.”

  “We’ll keep it to ourselves, until we know for certain that the neurospace object is heading our way,” Clare replied firmly. “As soon as we know that, I’ll inform Dr Song. She’ll tell the Secretary General of the UN and it’s up to him what he does with that information. The planet’s not in any physical danger, because everything’s happening in neurospace and it’s not a physical invasion.”

  “But the dolphins and their communal mind are definitely in danger, from the Watchers as well from extra-terrestrial invaders. I need to make arrangements to protect it.”

  Clare grunted. “What have you in mind?”

  Dawn hesitated, uncertain how to answer. Several half-formed ideas had been floating around in her mind, but she’d been too taken up with Clare’s news to formulate a sensible strategy. But as she fished around in her mind for ideas, she became aware of Donna’s presence, clamouring urgently at her. “Hang on a minute,” she said to the others, “I think Donna wants a word.”

  With some relief she closed her eyes and relaxed her grip on Angela’s body. The others, watching curiously, saw a slight shudder pass through Angela, and then her eyes opened again. She glanced around the room.

  “Hi everyone, it’s your favourite dolphin again,” she announced chirpily. “I’ve got this awesome plan.”

  “Heaven help us,” Clare muttered under her breath, but Donna was too pleased with herself for having thought up such a brilliant ruse to care what Clare thought. She surreptitiously twisted her body towards Mort and their legs touched.

  “This is what I propose,” she said importantly.

  Twenty Seven

  Much later that night Donna lay in the quiet moonlit waters of Crocodile Bay, near the artificial reef, gazing up at the stars. In a few hours that mysterious neurospace object would appear above the horizon, though she wouldn’t be able to see it with her physical eyes. Dawn’s spirit detector would see it, two thousand miles away in that gloomy tunnel beneath the twin telescope outside Adelaide, and then the alarms would sound. Paul and the rest of the SETI team would make some frantic measurements, and then they would know how far away the object was, whether it was heading for Earth, and if so when it would arrive.

  We are not alone! Only a handful of p
eople on the planet were aware of this amazing discovery, and there was no reason why any others should ever know, for no extra-terrestrials were arriving in any physical sense. What Baby had seen was no more than a spirit presence, a ghostly ship carrying disembodied creatures that lived so far away that any physical contact between them and the inhabitants of Earth would forever be impossible.

  She should be feeling hugely excited, more excited than Karen and John Anderson even, for she was at the heart of these momentous events. These alien spirits, if they were heading for Earth, would arrive at the temple in Eden, and she was its high priest and, assuming nothing went wrong with her plan, Earth’s representative. But instead of feeling excited at the prospect, she was consumed by an aching loneliness. The galaxy might be teeming with life, but she had never felt so alone.

  Her only companions for the night were the tiny wavelets lapping against her sleek body. Although there were hundreds of other dolphins sharing these quiet waters, the one who was closest to her, Jonah, had been removed and was now several miles from here in the GeneSys dolphinarium.

  Her best friends were in fact humans. In Eden, Dawn had always treated her as an only child, and here at the lagoon Rick had taken on the role of playful father. And now, of course, there was Mort. She had spent most of the day with him, and it had been the happiest of her life. Her feelings for him had grown each time they met, but it hadn’t struck her until today quite how strong they had become. Her mind went back to that moment in the tunnel beneath the telescope, when he had held her close while Dawn took over Angela’s body and her pulse had raced, and again to that moment last night when he had smiled fondly at her and squeezed her hand, and later when they said their final farewells. Dawn was right: it would be best if they never saw each other again, for their relationship was doomed. He was human and she was dolphin, and nothing could ever change that.

  If extra-terrestrials were on their way here, then at least it would take her mind off this sad, unalterable fact. With the dolphin equivalent of a sigh she pushed all thoughts of Mort from her mind, concentrating instead on trying to imagine what that ghostly spaceship might be like. Would it be a flying saucer like the one Dawn had destroyed? More importantly, what would the aliens travelling in it be like? Would they be those wasp-like creatures? Her near-human brain found the thought repellent, and she shuddered. She hoped they would be dragons, for then she and Dawn would at last be able to mingle with their own kind and, perhaps, discover their true destiny.

  How long had the aliens’ voyage lasted, she wondered? If they had journeyed half-way across the galaxy, then even travelling at ten thousand times the speed of light it could take them several years to get here. And if they could cross the galaxy, would she be able to do the same? Perhaps one day she would be Earth’s ambassador to the Galactic Federation, and a celebrity on a thousand worlds.

  As she floated in the warm, dark water, fantasising about the space adventures that awaited her, her thoughts became incoherent and she drifted into unconsciousness.

  “Donna! Donna report to Pier One! Donna to Pier One!” The command from the loudspeaker roused her abruptly from her slumber. It was early morning, and the sky was barely light. She twisted round in the water and with a few powerful strokes of her tail surged towards the pier. This rude awakening could mean only one thing: the SETI people in Adelaide had made their measurements on that neurospace object and the results had sent everyone into a panic.

  Sure enough, Dawn was standing at the end of the pier, waiting for her. She knelt down as the dolphin drew up alongside her. “They’re coming, Donna,” she whispered, keeping her voice down so that the other inhabitants of the lagoon wouldn’t hear. “The aliens are heading for Earth!”

  Donna couldn’t respond in any human manner. She wanted to know exactly what the SETI people had seen, how fast the aliens were travelling, how soon they would be here, but all she could do was to express her excitement by waggling her fins.

  But Dawn could guess what was going through her mind. “Two days, Donna. Paul thinks ET will arrive in two days. On Wednesday. But don’t tell anyone!”

  Donna nodded her beak vigorously to show she understood.

  “Clare’s been in touch with Dr Song at the UN, and Dr Song has contacted me,” Dawn continued. “She wants me to fly to New York to address a UN committee. It’ll be a secret session, because they don’t want to cause a panic. I’ve got to leave now. A special plane is taking me there, and it’ll bring me back tonight. So I’ll see you in Eden tomorrow morning. We’ll firm up our plans for Wednesday then.”

  This is so unsatisfactory, Donna thought. There was so much she wanted to ask Dawn, but the dolphin language of whistles was too limited to express her worries, and in any case Dawn wouldn’t understand it. She wanted to ask her what she thought of the plan she’d outlined to the others yesterday evening, and to say how staggering this contact with an alien civilisation would be. At the very least their own lives would be in danger if the aliens turned out to be hostile, and probably the lives of many others as well.

  But her worries were trivial compared to those facing Dawn. Addressing the UN would be the least of them, for the welfare of the entire planet was at stake. Donna nodded her beak again, to assure Dawn that she understood everything and that she hoped all would go well for her in New York.

  Still kneeling, Dawn leaned over and stroked her head. “I love you, Donna,” she murmured. “I know you’re sad about losing both Jonah and Mort, but I’m sure things will work out in the end.” Then she stood up and walked briskly away.

  The next 30 hours were the longest in Donna’s life, but eventually Tuesday morning in Eden arrived and the temple service was coming to an end and soon Dawn would be joining her in her room. Donna had never before minded conducting the temple service, but today it seemed nothing more than an irksome ritual and she couldn’t get it over with quickly enough.

  She had paid hardly any attention to the hymns, or indeed to the congregation, for she had been taken up with glancing around at the murals on the temple walls and the images in the stained-glass windows, as well as at the carvings on the pillars and the arches. Partly this was because she was too agitated to concentrate on her religious duties, and partly because she was wondering if any details were missing, for Jonah was now excluded from Eden, and most of the temple design had been drawn from the information deposited by John Anderson in his brain. In fact there was nothing missing, which was just as Dawn had predicted. Dawn had always insisted that the temple details would by now be firmly entrenched in the minds of the other dolphins, especially in Donna’s mind. The corollary of that was that if John Anderson had designed this temple so that it served as a portal, then excluding Jonah wouldn’t affect that function either.

  If the others had noticed that she was distracted, they would put it down to Jonah’s exclusion from the community. Only Clara, her temple assistant, knew that aliens were on their way to Earth. Donna hadn’t actually spoken to Clara about the matter, but she assumed Clara knew, for she was Clare’s secret agent, and Clare must have passed this crucial information on to her.

  Immediately the service ended Donna left the temple and hurried back to her room to await Dawn’s arrival. Normally she would have busied herself by doing something with her hands – making clays models, or, latterly, working on her alien invasion game – but such pastimes were unthinkable today. Instead she occupied herself by doing some rather aimless tidying and brewing up her fish tea.

  At last there was a tap on the door and Dawn walked in. Donna greeted her eagerly. “You’re late!” she exclaimed. “How have you got on?” What happened at the UN? What have SETI discovered? What are the Watchers up to? I’ve been waiting ages to find out!”

  Normally Dawn would have been amused by Donna’s youthful impatience, but today she seemed burdened by worry. “I’ll have to be brief,” she said, perching on the settee. “The most important thing is, the aliens will definitely be here tomorrow, which mean
s we’ve got to start our preparations immediately.”

  “What’s their ship like? Has SETI seen it yet?”

  “No, it’s still only a point of light, and please don’t interrupt! I gave a presentation to UNCATE – that’s the UN Committee for Countering Anomalous Threats to Earth – and explained to them about neurospace and exactly what this invasion implied. I told them there was absolutely nothing we could do to counter it, which made them very alarmed. I assured them it was no worse than being haunted – a bit scary, but not at all dangerous provided they keep their cool and don’t do anything silly like dropping a bomb on the target zone – here.”

  “So what are they going to do?”

  “I persuaded them to do nothing, apart from keeping the Secretary General of the UN informed. Everything’s being kept secret, at least for now. If they broadcast the news that spirits are about to arrive from outer space then everyone will start seeing apparitions and thinking they’re possessed by demons and heaven knows what else besides. It’ll be mayhem.”

  “But won’t the UN call in tanks and helicopter gunships and rocket launchers to surround the target zone? That’s the way humans usually respond to any threats.”

  “I managed to persuade them it would be a complete waste of time. They’re going to leave everything to us. And to the Watchers.”

  “Fat lot of use the Watchers will be if those aliens prove to be hostile!” Donna scoffed as she poured out the tea. “Not that they’re expecting any trouble. No doubt they’re celebrating the aliens’ arrival.”

  “I’ve been in touch with Karen. She’s really excited, ‘cos she’s one of the 40 chosen ones. They’re flying here tonight.”

  “Flying to the Tienshan? On spirit journeys?” Donna was so surprised she almost dropped the tea cups that she was carrying. “But it’s a huge journey!” she exclaimed, her eyes round with wonder. “It’s half-way across the world. Are they travelling here on broomsticks, or are they able to conjure up jet planes like us?”

  “They’re coming here in the flesh – in their physical bodies. They’ve chartered a plane that will fly them to Almaty airport today, then helicopters will ferry them the rest of the way. They’ll be camping in the valley overnight.”

  “What?” Donna’s eyes grew rounder. “Coming in the flesh? What’s the point of that? They won’t be able to see alien spirits with their physical eyes, and they certainly won’t be able to invade Eden with their physical bodies. They won’t be aware anything except for some tufts of grass and a few scrappy trees and some bare rocks.”

  “It’s a precaution. Tomorrow morning, before the aliens arrive, they’ll use their trance drugs to enter the disembodied state, and then they’ll join you and the other dolphins in the temple for your morning service. John Anderson won’t be joining them in the trance, but he’ll be observing everything on Baby’s screen. If the aliens turn out to be hostile, he’ll inject them with a wake-up drug that will pull them out of their trance immediately. Back in their physical bodies they should be perfectly safe. That’s the theory, anyway.”

  Donna carefully placed the teacups on the small table by the settee and sat down beside Dawn. “That makes sense, I suppose. Thankfully Clare will be on hand to make sure he doesn’t get up to any funny tricks. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of whatever weapon it is that she’ll be carrying!”

  Dawn smiled. “You reckon we’re safer in neurospace, facing the aliens, than battling it out with her?”

  “I certainly do. At least we can turn ourselves into dragons in neurospace.”

  “Which brings us to your plan for protecting the dolphins and the Mind. We’ve not had a chance to discuss it.”

  “I know. But you heard me going over it with the others on Sunday night?”

  “Of course. I was sitting in Angela’s brain, listening to every word.”

  Donna glanced at her anxiously. This was the first time she’d devised anything as important and complicated as this, and it was important to her that Dawn approved of her efforts. “So what do you think of my plan?”

  “If I didn’t like it, I would have let you know soon enough. I thought it was brilliant. I told Rick about it, and he’s making all the necessary arrangements.”

  Donna breathed a sigh of relief. “Just so long as Anderson doesn’t suspect anything. He might not be too happy if he found out what we’re up to.”

  “Clare’s the only person in the know that he’s in contact with, and she won’t give anything away. She’s as hard as nails.”

  “What about Mort? He knows. And Angela was also listening in to your discussion. Karen could have paid Mort a visit and wheedled something out of them.”

  “Karen? She’s much too busy to go visiting. In any case, Mort knows not to tell her anything.”

  “All the same, it might be worth phoning him when you wake up from this trance, just to check.” Donna wished she could be the one to talk to him, but that would be impossible in her dolphin body. “Give him my love,” she added.

  “OK, I’ll check with him. Now, let’s run over your plan. Tomorrow comes, you wake up in Eden to find Karen and the other Watchers already here, presumably waiting in the temple, and then that alien ship appears in the sky above the temple.”

  “Clare will be present in the flesh, with John Anderson, monitoring everything on Baby’s screen, and she’ll report what’s happening to the UN on her mobile phone. John Anderson knows she’s going to do that, but what he doesn’t know is that her call will also be routed to Rick in Honiara.”

  “I’ve discussed with him exactly what steps he has to take once he gets that call. Just to be sure, let’s go over them again…”

  Twenty Eight

  Next morning, in the artificial lagoon at Crocodile Bay, Donna drifted alone, deliberately eschewing the company of others. The sky was overcast, which matched her sombre mood. A few days ago the prospect of extra-terrestrials visiting Earth had excited her enormously, but now that they were almost here her human brain was making her feel sick with anxiety and overwhelmed by guilt. The trouble was, the scheme that she’d dreamed up put the lives of 100 of her fellow dolphins at risk, and many of them were her closest friends. It had to be that way, for her plan demanded that they should be regular worshippers at the temple.

  Donna had wanted to risk fewer lives, and Dawn had conceded that half that number might have sufficed to form a viable communal mind and create Eden. But there had been no time to experiment, and since it was essential that John Anderson should suspect that nothing was amiss, Donna had finally agreed that the full 100 should go.

  Rick and several of his staff had arrived just after daybreak in trucks loaded with equipment and metal netting. Crocodile Bay, where the dolphins lived, formed a V-shaped incision in the Guadalcanal coastline, and the trucks had been parked near the tip of the V, at the furthest point from the artificial reef enclosing the mouth of the bay. A number of the dolphins had swum over to watch their preparations, and in the end Donna decided to abandon her solitary drifting to join them. Snippets of their whistled conversation reached her clearly through the water. “What they do? … I see Rick … Ask Donna, she know.”

  Donna did indeed know, for the humans were only putting into effect the plan that she had devised, and she whistled a response. “They put net in water. You go away. Go to reef, away from net.”

  Somewhat reluctantly, the dolphins backed off, but only a short distance, and then they continued to watch. They realised what was happening, for on a couple of occasions in the past, when there had been some sickness in the dolphin community, the men had created a quarantine area at the tip of the V.

  Several of the men were unrolling metal netting from the back of one of the trucks, manhandling it around the tip of the V so that it trailed into the water. More and more of the netting was unrolled from the truck, while the men split into two parties, one advancing along one side of the V while the other advanced up the other, pulling the netting taut between them so that
it formed an underwater barrier, cutting off the entire area of water at the tip of the V from the rest of the lagoon. The water was quite shallow here, and the netting, being about three metres high, extended from about two metres above the surface all the way down to the sea bed, so that it formed a barrier through which no dolphin could pass.

  Just off the right-hand shore, about 50 metres up from the tip of the V, a large concrete post had been set into the sea bed, so that there was a gap of several metres between the post and the shore, wide enough for the dolphins to pass through. It was to this post that the men attached the end of the netting, so that the only access the dolphins had to the water at the tip of the V was through this gap.

  To finish off the job, some men in boats now fixed the netting firmly in place with metal rods pushed vertically through it into the sea bed, while others fixed a metal gate to the concrete post, spanning the gap between the post on the shore. With the netting in place and this gate shut, the dolphins were cut off from the area of the lagoon at the tip of the V.

  By the time the men had finished these preparations many more dolphins had arrived on the scene, and now more questions were being whistled between them. “Who sick? What sickness is it? No one sick, why they do this? Does Donna know why they do this? Why don’t they tell us? Why don’t they tell us, Donna?”

  “It is secret,” Donna whistled back. “The men don’t know. Only Rick knows.”

  A few weeks ago there would have been no need for such secrecy, but the knowledge that there was at least one spy in their midst – Clara, the UN agent – had been a wake-up call for Rick and Dawn. Now they were acting on the assumption that one or more of the dolphin project staff might be agents of the Watchers.

  One of the men back at the trucks had changed into diving gear and was now walking into the water. Donna knew that his task was to check that the metal netting was properly in place so that it formed an impassable barrier to the dolphins. She could have easily carried out this check herself, of course, but lacking hands she would have been unable to reposition the net if it had snagged on rocks or other obstructions.

  It crossed her mind that this diver might be the Watchers’ agent, in which case he would realise what they were up to and try to sabotage their plans. She immediately dived beneath the surface and swam slowly in his direction, until she could see him clearly with her sonar, then she glided to a halt and observed him while he worked. At this distance he would be unaware of her presence, for she was outside his visual range.

  She kept pace with him as he slowly moved along the net, watching his every move. It soon became clear to her that he was entirely trustworthy, for he was checking everything with great care. However, when he had finally completed the work and had swum back to the shore, she swam along the entire length of the netting, inspecting it closely. Satisfied at last that everything was in order, she swam through the gap between the concrete post and bank, into the enclosure formed by the netting, and checked that no dolphins had somehow got in there and been trapped. When this final check had been completed, she swam back to the gap and took up her position as sentry.

  Although Rick would have been unable to see any of this underwater activity, he knew that she would be on duty at the gap, and a few minutes later he appeared on the shore above her. She surfaced and he knelt down by her head. “Is everything OK?” he whispered.

  She nodded her beak at him.

  “Good. I’ll shut the gate to seal off the enclosure.” He checked his watch. “We’ll start processing the dolphins in an hour from now.”

  She nodded again, then with a flick of her tail swam off to join the other dolphins. She had been aware all morning of an unusual amount of dolphin chatter – bursts of staccato whistles – and she knew they were becoming restive. They had expected an announcement over the loudspeaker system explaining what was happening, for Rick invariably gave plenty of warning before an operation such as this, but today there had been nothing. Donna’s earlier message that something secret was going on had been passed backwards and forwards, and now all kinds of rumours were being bandied about.

  One theory was that a batch of even more advanced GM dolphins had been engineered, and they were now old enough to be introduced into Crocodile Bay, though protected by the netting. Others suggested that the time had at last come for an opening to be made in the artificial reef so that part of the dolphin community could be released into the wild, and that those who were to stay behind would be held behind the netting.

  Donna decided that the time had come to tell them what was really going on. Not everything, of course, and certainly not that lives were being put at risk, but just enough to calm them and prepare them for what was about to happen.

  Almost an hour later the loudspeakers finally came to life. It was Rick’s voice. “Donna! Donna! Take up your position at the gate.”

  She swam to the concrete post at the end of the metal netting, then leapt into the air a couple of times to tell the men that she had arrived.

  “Open the gate,” the loudspeaker instructed. Two men were standing on the bank nearby, and they immediately pulled back the metal gate. Donna positioned herself alongside the post, where she could check everyone in.

  “The enclosure is now ready,” the loudspeaker announced. “Adrian, Andy, Beverly, go to the enclosure! Adrian, Andy, Beverly!”

  Moments later three dark shapes approached, swimming beneath the surface. Donna recognized them, greeted them, and let them pass through into the enclosure. She hated doing it, for those three might never come out again. The last thing she felt like doing was to leap into the air, but that was what she then did, to signal to Rick to call the next three on his list.

  “Brian, Chloe, Christa, go to the enclosure! Brian, Chloe, Christa!”

  Three more dark shapes approached. Again Donna checked them in, and with heavy heart leapt into the air again to signal to Rick. Then another three unsuspecting victims were called, then another three, and so on, until eventually the full quota of 99 dolphins had been assembled behind the netting.

  Finally Donna herself swam through the opening into the enclosure, and the guards pushed the gate into place, ramming it home against the concrete post with a thud.

  Now the next phase of the operation could begin. There was a small jetty in the enclosure, with several small boats moored there. One of these boats had been loaded with 200 of the psychoactive fish – enough to send the 100 dolphins into their trance – and Rick and two of the men climbed onto it. One of the men started the motor, and the boat chugged to the middle of the enclosure, where the dolphins lined up in three orderly queues to be fed. The humans fed each dolphin exactly two fish, and a couple of minutes the job was done. Shortly after that the first dolphins to be fed drifted into their trance, and on the other side of the world the temple and the township and the surrounding countryside of Eden began to magically appear.

  Twenty Nine

  Donna jumped out of her chair as soon as she awoke in Eden, rushed to her window, and peered up at the blue-black of the pre-dawn sky. That bright point of light that she had seen on Baby’s screen at that telescope in Adelaide must by now be visible to the naked eye. Or rather, to the naked spirit eye.

  But the only object in the sky was the moon, which was shining weakly and fuzzily on the horizon. The alien ship was too far away to see, perhaps it had only just reached the outer limits of the solar system. Even so, if it was travelling at thousands of times the speed of light it could be here any minute.

  She gazed around at the jumbled roofs of the dwellings round about, illuminated by the golden glow from the temple, and then leaned out of her window and studied the temple itself. There was nothing amiss, everything seemed completely normal. Dawn had predicted that 100 souls would be more than enough to recreate this part of Eden, for they jointly held in their memories almost every detail of it, and she was right. Not a brick or tile was out of place.

  She checked the sky again – still nothing – t
hen hurried over to her wardrobe and dressed for the temple service. It was essential that she and the other dolphins behaved normally, for no one – Watchers or extra-terrestrials – must realise that anything out of the ordinary was going on. Most important of all, the communal mind must continue broadcasting its telepathy into space. Although it wasn’t the intensely powerful telepathy that emanated from Dawn’s Passion plays, it should be strong enough to act as a beacon once the alien ship reached the vicinity of Earth.

  In rooms across the township the other 99 dolphins would be waking up, blissfully unaware that extra-terrestrials were about to invade. If they had known, then their alarm would surely permeate the Mind’s telepathy, and the aliens would know that they had been spotted and that preparations had been made for their arrival. This would not be a problem if the aliens were dragons or some other benign species, but if they were hostile then they would be forewarned that defensive measures were in place.

  And if John Anderson and his Watchers suspected that something was up, then they might take some pre-emptive action against the Mind, which could be disastrous. Dawn, Donna and Clare were the only ones here to know what was happening, together with Rick in Honiara, and of course Mort and Paul in Adelaide.

  Donna let herself out of her quarters and clattered down the flight of steps to the temple forecourt. The sky was lighter now, and it was apparent that everything about the temple precincts was just as it should be. Not a cobble stone was out of place.

  She crossed the forecourt and entered the temple. To her surprise and consternation it was almost pitch black inside. Why were no candles alight? Where was Clara? Where were her other occasional helpers? She realised, belatedly, that none of them were among the 99 chosen dolphins.

  Cursing herself inwardly, Donna hurried behind the great altar, to the covered shelves, and searched them frantically in the darkness for the wooden box containing the wax tapers and matches, feeling every corner with her fingers. It was a couple of years since she had personally lit the candles, so she wasn’t sure where to look. It was even possible that it hadn’t actually been recreated by the Mind this morning, because there was no remembrance of it in the minds of the limited number of dolphins who were here today.

  But then, to her huge relief, she found the box, in a recess in the wall behind the altar, exactly where it had been when she last used it. The Mind was obviously drawing upon her own memory to reproduce it just as she remembered it. She opened the lid and felt inside, and supposed there was the precisely same number of tapers and matches in it now as there had been two years ago, when this memory had been formed.

  Putting the box down on a chair, Donna extracted the matches and a taper. She carefully lit a match, then the taper, and then she began lighting the candles around the great altar. As each candle came alight and the shadows lifted, more and more temple features emerged from the gloom, but Donna was too intent on her task to notice. She didn’t even notice that there were some people already in the temple, sitting nearby.

  “Good morning, Donna,” someone said. Donna started, almost dropping her taper. A woman was walking towards her out of the shadows. Donna didn’t immediately recognize her, though there was something familiar about her.

  “Can I help you with those candles?” the woman asked in a tone of faint amusement.

  “Karen!” Her spirit presence was the spitting image of her real, immaculately turned-out self.

  “You were expecting me, surely?” The voice was mocking now. “And the other Watchers as well.” Karen gestured towards the shadowy shapes seated behind her.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “You look just like Dawn,” Karen continued in that slightly mocking tone. “If John Anderson hadn’t warned me, I would have thought you were Dawn.”

  “Warned you? Of what?”

  “That you dolphins take on the physical appearance of your mentors, when you’re in Eden.”

  “Oh. Yes, we do.”

  “Here, let me finish lighting these candles for you,” Karen took the taper from her. “I’m surprised you don’t have someone to help you.”

  “I do usually. A girl called Clara is my assistant. Unfortunately she can’t be here today.” Donna cursed herself again for forgetting to include an assistant in the 99 chosen dolphins. Karen would be sure to suspect that something was up.

  “Where are your physical bodies?” she asked, hurriedly changing the subject.

  “Right here,” Karen replied. “Behind the altar.”

  Donna realised she must have walked right through their bodies while she was searching for the box of tapers, but it had been too dark to see them. Leaving Karen to light the candles, she walked behind the great altar and took another look. Now, in the flickering candlelight, she could just make out the ghostly shapes of the entranced bodies lying on the ground.

  Returning to Karen she said: “That’s good. It means you can escape back into them if the extra-terrestrials turn nasty.”

  Karen glanced up from her candles. “It’s an unnecessary precaution, I’m sure. Our prophecies – the messages we’ve received from space – were all very positive. Full of love and joy and promises of a great kingdom.”

  “Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they.”

  Karen’s face hardened. “You’ll see. You and that Dawn!” She almost spat out the name. “She acts like she’s the queen of heaven, invading my mind. She’s got a nerve!”

  “As you say, we’ll see,” Donna said calmly, relieved that Karen no longer seemed interested in her lack of helpers. “Where is Dr Anderson, by the way? And Clare?”

  “Just outside the temple, in the forecourt. They’re watching out for the arrival of the extra-terrestrials.”

  “Using Dawn’s spirit detector?”

  Karen nodded. “A very useful device.”

  Donna glanced towards the temple entrance. She hadn’t noticed anyone in the forecourt when she’d crossed it earlier, but it had been dark and it would be easy to miss the insubstantial forms of Clare and Anderson’s physical bodies.

  It was now much lighter outside, and through the entrance she saw the first worshippers crossing the temple forecourt. Half-an-hour ago, back in the enclosure at Crocodile Bay, she had told the 99 that it was essential that they all attend the temple service, so no doubt the rest would not be far behind. It was essential that everything should appear normal to the Watchers.

  She turned back to Karen and studied her curiously. She had brown hair and was of medium height. Mort had said he found her attractive, and Donna had to admit that she was quite pretty, though in a prim, humourless sort of way. She certainly couldn’t imagine her playing Monopoly with Mort or teasing him or being much fun in the kitchen. Or much fun in bed, for that matter. Clare had reckoned she was a lesbian – something which, as a dolphin, Donna found utterly incomprehensible.

  Karen was surveying her with a sardonic expression. “What’s so interesting?”

  Donna thought quickly. “I was wondering … what do you intend to do when the alien ship appears? Dawn’s spirit will be outside in the temple forecourt, watching for it, and she’s going to signal to me, and I’ll make an announcement. Will the Watchers wait in here, or will they go outside to greet them?”

  “Our plan is to wait in here, as we’re assuming the extra-terrestrials will head for the altar. That’s the source of the telepathy they’ve been homing in on. But we’ll see how things develop.”

  Helena, the organist, entered the temple and hurried down the aisle. At least I didn’t forget to include her, Donna thought. Donna nodded a greeting as she passed, and Helena nodded back. Then, without a word, she inserted the hymn numbers she had chosen into the wooden holder near the pulpit. They were old faithfuls: Donna had warned her earlier that there would be a fair number of visitors at the service and that she should choose hymns that everyone knew. Donna had in fact chosen the first hymn herself, and she had made sure that Helena had practised it thoroughly yesterday, after the servi
ce, so that there wouldn’t be any missed notes or other mistakes.

  Worshippers were now streaming into the temple and taking their seats near the front, immediately behind the Watchers. The spectacle seemed to amuse Karen. “You dolphins are very keen on your church services,” she observed. “I hope the extra-terrestrials don’t spoil the show.”

  “Aren’t you at all frightened?” Donna asked her curiously. “We’re about to meet beings from another world, who for all you know want to enslave us, and you act like it’s a Sunday school picnic.”

  Karen gave her a condescending smile. “I’ve waited a long time for this moment, Donna. All the Watchers have. Of course I’m a little nervous, who wouldn’t be? But I have the assurance of all the prophecies we’ve received. They’re words from the heavens, we’re certain of that. They tell us we’re about to enter a glorious kingdom – well, some of us are about to enter that kingdom. Of course, I can understand why you might feel a little frightened…”

  “Because I’m a dolphin. A second-class citizen.”

  “I didn’t say that. The extra-terrestrials aren’t human either, so I don’t suppose it makes any difference whether you’re human or dolphin. It’s because you’re not a Watcher. You haven’t been preparing for the great coming. We have.”

  “Preparing? How?”

  “By meditating on those prophecies, and by prayer – telepathic prayer – and by spiritual exercises.”

  “By attending your meetings and going into trances, you mean, and practising spirit journeys.”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “So what’s the difference between what you do and what we do? We’re on spirit journeys too, and we have temple services when we sing hymns and everything. And it’s our Mind – the dolphin communal mind – that the aliens are heading for.”

  Karen gave her an uncertain glance. “There are huge differences,” she mumbled. “You’d have to attend our meetings to see.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Donna told her, seizing the offensive. “The aliens will be here any minute, and they’ll be the final judge. Which will they choose, I wonder? The Watchers or the dolphins? Probably they won’t distinguish between us.”

  She gave Karen an impish smile and added: “Though I expect they’ll separate the males from the females, ‘cos they’re bound to want to mate with us. That should be an interesting experience, don’t you think?”

  Karen blinked nervously. “Shut up,” she muttered. “Of course they won’t want to mate. Why don’t you get on with your service? Look, the place is almost full.”

  Donna glanced round. The temple was indeed filling up, and the last stragglers were settling into their seats, though to describe the place as ‘full’ was a bit of an exaggeration. There were only 100 dolphins present plus a few dozen Watchers, and the temple would hold three or four times that number. It appeared almost full only because everyone was sitting near the front.

  A solitary figure appeared in the entrance and gave her a wave. It was Dawn, newly arrived on her spirit journey. She would have travelled half-way round the world in her Beetle in just a few minutes. Donna nodded back to her, and Dawn disappeared outside.

  Karen threw Donna a questioning glance. “She’s watching out for the alien ship,” Donna explained in a low voice. “She’ll let us know when it appears.”

  Donna turned to ascend the pulpit, then paused. “When that ship does finally appear, you’d better stay close to your physical body,” she murmured. “Just in case those aliens take a fancy to you and abduct it.”

  “Shut up!” Karen hissed.

  Although the dolphins in the congregation must have been itching for her to tell them what on earth was going on, Donna made a point of conducting the first part of the service as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening. She began by welcoming “our human visitors” and explaining to them that since this was a paradise from an earlier age it lacked computers, canned music, surveillance cameras, motorized transport, mobile phones and all the other trappings of 21st century civilization. Not that any of these things counted for much in the spirit world, she hastened to add.

  Then she led the congregation in the first hymn, a rousing rendition of ‘Land of hope and glory’ with ‘England’ replaced by ‘Eden’. She had chosen this particular hymn for the benefit of the aliens who must by now be approaching the planet and who would surely be picking up the mind’s telepathy. Such a hymn would send out exactly the kind of message that she wanted, of a joyous, unsuspecting people.

  Throughout the hymn she kept glancing towards the temple entrance, waiting for that signal from Dawn. Helena was bashing out the notes for all she was worth, and the whole congregation responded magnificently, so that their singing reverberated around the building, and the thought that the emotions behind it were being broadcast to the heavens filled Donna with pride. She glanced at Karen, who had taken her seat at the front, and even she seemed impressed.

  When the singing had died down Donna announced that more visitors were expected. She didn’t mention extra-terrestrials, for that would alarm the dolphins and affect the telepathy being broadcast into space, instead she told the congregation to remain in their seats when the visitors arrived, unless she or Dawn indicated to them that they should move to the side of the temple, in which case they should proceed in an orderly fashion. Then, before anyone could interrupt with questions, she launched into the second hymn.

  There was still no signal from Dawn, and Donna was becoming a little concerned. It was now almost half an hour since the mind had formed and begun broadcasting its presence, and although she didn’t relish the thought of meeting extra-terrestrials, the last thing she wanted was for them to delay their arrival unduly. There would be considerable unrest among the dolphins if today’s performance had to be repeated tomorrow.

  Had Paul and the people at SETI miscalculated?. Perhaps the neurospaceship had been further away than they thought, or travelling at a slower speed. In which case it might well not arrive until tomorrow. Or perhaps 100 dolphins were not sufficient to generate the strength of telepathy required. Even worse, the aliens might have got wind that something was up, because something was amiss with the mind’s telepathy. There could be a dozen reasons why they hadn’t appeared.

  Helena continued banging out the hymn with commendable energy, and the dolphins in the congregation continued to respond enthusiastically, but the Watchers in the front were becoming visibly restive, and some of them were glancing backwards towards the temple entrance. There was still no signal from Dawn, and Donna began to nervously bite her lip, something she always did in her human spirit body when things weren’t going right. She normally gave a short sermon after the second hymn, and today she had prepared nothing, for she’d assumed that by now the aliens would have appeared. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury would have skipped his preparations if his address was to be cut short by visitors from the stars.

  She decided that if she did have to preach, she would use the opportunity to put Karen and her Watchers soundly in their place. She would remind the congregation that the Bible stated in no uncertain terms that in the coming kingdom the first would be last, and the last first, and that those who were weak and of no account in this world would be greatest in the next. Hah! That would make Karen squirm. Though maybe that wasn’t such a great idea, she reflected, because it would put Dawn in her place as well, not to mention yours truly…

  Suddenly something red and huge and definitely not weak and of no account appeared outside the temple entrance, and a scaly dragon head poked through and winked an enormous eye at her. That was the signal: the aliens were here!

  Thirty

  Rick’s phone rang. It was Clare, and her message was curt and to the point.

  “ET’s arrived!”

  Rick stood up and waved to the men in the five boats that were moored at the small jetty in the enclosure at the V-shaped end of the lagoon. “Get going,” he yelled. Electric engines hummed into life,
and the boats slid through the water away from the jetty.

  Although the men knew nothing of the drama unfolding on the other side of the world, they understood exactly what was required of them. The bodies of the sleeping dolphins had been lined up into five groups, and each boat now moved along its line of dolphins, stopping at each animal in turn. Protruding from the side of each boat was a specially constructed seat to which was attached a console housing diagnostic equipment, syringes, and other items of medical equipment, and the medical technician occupying this seat took a loaded syringe from the console, carefully located the injection point in the dolphin’s neck, and pressed home the syringe. He then signalled to the pilot, who immediately moved the boat along to the next dolphin to repeat the procedure.

  Barring any accidents, Rick had calculated that it would take about ten minutes for all the dolphins to be injected with the wake-up drug. It would take about five minutes for the drug to take effect, so that by the time the boats were half-way down the lines of dolphins, those injected first would already be stirring, and all the dolphins should be awake within 15 minutes of Clare’s phone call. The men did not know why that was important, they just knew that the animals’ lives might depend upon them achieving that target.

  One of the sleeping dolphins – Donna – had been separated from the rest, and she would not be injected. She was to remain in her trance, to face the alien invaders.

  Dawn trotted up the temple aisle towards the altar. At least it felt like she was trotting, though no doubt the congregation would have used a different verb to describe the formidable advance of her massive reptilian body with its thick red scales and fearsome jaws. A verb that spoke of menace, awesome power, and the clank of steel claws on the temple floor. Thud perhaps, or thunder, but definitely not trot.

  The Watchers were completely unnerved by the spectacle, and those seated by the aisle tried desperately to scramble out of her way, knocking over several chairs in the process. Doubtless they thought that she was an extra-terrestrial – which, in a way, she was.

  The dolphins, of course, were not at all alarmed, for they had seen this many times before, and several of them clapped and cheered. Dawn always put on a good show, and they probably assumed that Donna’s warning that more visitors were to join them referred merely to her arrival together with the magical puppets of her Passion plays.

  “Stay calm, everyone,” Donna called out from the pulpit. “The dragon’s not an extra-terrestrial, she’s one of us. She’s here to guard the altar, which as you know is the focus of the Mind.”

  Dawn took up her position at the front of the congregation and surveyed the sea of faces. Part of her task was indeed to guard the altar, in case the Watchers tried somehow to use it to invade the Mind, but she was also there to keep the dolphin members of the congregation safe for next 15 minutes, that is until they awoke from their trance and the Mind closed down. They were seated furthest from the front, she noted, and closest to the temple entrance, which meant they were most at risk from an alien attack.

  Her gaze wandered over the Watchers. They were seated in the first two rows, and they were eyeing her ferocious body with considerable apprehension. All apart from Karen, that is, who instead of looking apprehensive was glowering darkly at her. She had obviously cottoned on to the fact that this impressive monster was in fact Dawn. John Anderson had seen her in this guise when she had disturbed him in Angela’s brain, and no doubt he had warned Karen. But why was she glowering in this way? Was it because Dawn was guarding the altar, thereby foiling some plan to invade the Mind? Or was it because, as the most impressive being in the temple, she was the one who would attract the aliens’ interest? It must be the latter, she decided.

  “I’m going outside to greet our visitors,” Donna announced from the pulpit. There was no hint of nervousness in her voice, Dawn noted with satisfaction, though she must be feeling extremely apprehensive.

  “The rest of you remain in your seats,” Donna continued. “While I’m gone the dragon will entertain you with a short flying display.”

  Dawn glanced at her in surprise. A flying display? That wasn’t part of the plan. Donna had obviously judged that a diversion was needed to prevent the congregation from getting restive and perhaps taking a peek outside to see what was happening. Well, a few aerial acrobatics would do no harm – she could swoop down to the altar quickly enough if it was threatened.

  Karen immediately jumped up. “I’m going out to greet them too,” she announced. “As the representative of the Watchers.”

  “Of course,” Donna agreed smoothly. She had been expecting that. What she hadn’t expected was that Karen would let slip that she and the rest of the humans here belonged to the Watchers. Most of the dolphins had probably never heard of the Watchers, but those that had might put two and two together and realise that extra-terrestrials were about to land. Not that this mattered much now, for Donna’s main concern was to keep everyone entertained for a few more minutes, and to keep the aliens out, until the dolphins awoke from their trance and regained the safety of their bodies back at Crocodile Bay.

  Dawn unfurled her wings and flapped them loudly up and down a few times, then she hurled herself into the air, beating them furiously, and circled round the temple. Suddenly she swooped low over the heads of the people below, at which many of the Watchers cried out in alarm, ducking and covering their heads with their hands. Then, while Donna and Karen hurried to the temple entrance, she soared up to the ceiling and circled high above them, twisting and turning around pillars and through arches.

  The Watchers were awestruck by this display, and the rest of the congregation clapped and cheered. Dawn was tempted to belch out smoke and fire, for then her display would have been really impressive, but she thought it best to keep those abilities a secret. Otherwise Karen or another of the Watchers might connect her with the fire that had destroyed the COBRA flying saucer.

  Meanwhile, with Karen at her side, Donna emerged from the temple entrance into the brightening day. Before them, in the temple forecourt, were the fuzzy forms of Clare and John Anderson – fuzzy because, unlike the temple congregation, they were not in the spirit but present in the flesh. They were gazing up at an object that Clare was holding above her head. Although this was fuzzy too, Donna knew that it had to be the spirit detector, its screen giving Clare and Dr Anderson a window into neurospace. Depending on where they pointed its lens, they would see the temple and the forecourt and all the buildings round about, as well as any spirits that were present such as Karen and Donna. They were, in fact, pointing it at the sky.

  Donna looked up, to see what they were looking at. She saw nothing at first, just the uniform blue of the sky. Then she spotted a bright point of light, directly overhead. She nudged Karen and pointed at it.

  “How do you know it’s not an ordinary star?” Karen asked curiously. “It could be Venus.”

  “Venus would look fuzzy to us. It’s got to be a neurospace object.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  They stared at it silently. “It’s not moving at all,” Donna observed after a while.

  “Perhaps it’s descending towards us, but it’s still very far away.”

  “Perhaps.” Donna wished the aliens would hurry up and land. If they delayed too long, the dolphins would wake up and the Mind would shut down and then the temple and everything else would disappear and the telepathy would cease and then the aliens might become suspicious and back off and the Watchers would know they had been tricked and her carefully crafted plan would turn into a disaster.

  “Why don’t they hurry up?” she muttered.

  “Look!” Karen exclaimed excitedly. “It’s getting larger!”

  Sure enough, the point of light was now a tiny disc. As they watched, the disc grew larger, and soon it almost filled the heavens, a huge flying saucer glowing with a golden luminescence. Now Donna could see what looked like viewing ports dotted around its rim, and she could imagine alien monsters standing behind th
em gazing down at the houses and streets of the township. She instinctively backed away, retreating from the forecourt into the shadow of the temple entrance, and Karen did the same. Clare and Anderson remained motionless, in the middle of the forecourt, watching the approaching ship on Baby’s tiny screen. That miniscule image wouldn’t do justice to the awesome sight of the approaching ship.

  “This is truly amazing,” Karen murmured as they watched the massive flying saucer descend slowly and silently to the ground. “Our first contact with the great galactic civilization. We’re very honoured, Donna.”

  “I suppose so.” Donna was so relieved that the ship had arrived while the township and the temple were still intact that the thought that she should feel honoured hadn’t occurred to her.

  The alien ship was perhaps 100 metres in diameter with a dome-shaped roof, somewhat like the fictional flying saucers that Donna had seen on TV. Was this vessel constructed on the same lines as the COBRA flying saucer, she wondered? And if so, were its passengers those giant wasps that Dawn had seen pictured within it?

  The ship slowly dropped the final few metres to the ground. It was far too big to fit into the temple precinct, and it was obvious to Donna that it would crush part of the precinct wall as well as many of the houses beyond. Fortunately everyone was inside the temple, or they would be crushed too. Donna briefly wondered if the ship would remain hovering a few metres above the ground, to avoid any damage, but it was not to be. There was the sound of crunching masonry and of bricks and tiles crashing to the ground, then more crashing as dozens of buildings collapsed, and finally the alien spaceship came to rest in a huge cloud of dust.

  “They’re lousy drivers,” Donna observed mildly as the air cleared. “Even I could do better than that.” Karen shot her an irritated glance but said nothing.

  The damage was immaterial, of course, as everything would be magically restored tomorrow, when Eden materialised again. She was the only dolphin who had witnessed this destruction, and her memory of it would be masked by the memories of a thousand other dolphin minds.

  The leading edge of the flying saucer was about 80 metres from where they were standing in the temple entrance, while the remainder curved away over the fallen debris to the left and the right. It had narrowly missed her quarters, off to the right, Donna noticed. The rim of the saucer was about a dozen metres off the ground, with the viewing ports – if that was what they were – set into the hull below.

  “Look!” Donna whispered. A dark line about ten metres long had appeared on the underside of the saucer, near the rim. This line rapidly grew wider to become an opening in the ship’s belly, and Donna realised that a hinged segment of the vessel was being lowered to form a ten-metre wide ramp leading from the interior of the ship down to the temple forecourt.

  “It’s like those old sci-fi movies,” she murmured. “We’re all hanging on to our seats, wondering what’s going to come trundling down that ramp. I bet it’ll be a robot with flashing eyes.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Karen spat. “Mankind’s waited centuries for this, and all you can do is crack juvenile jokes.”

  Something moved in the darkness at the top of the ramp, and moments later a large square object about as wide as the ramp and several metres high appeared and started to slide down it. It had a golden metallic sheen, and as it descended Donna saw that it wasn’t actually square, rather it had five sides, and set in the nearest side was what looked like a large door.

  The golden object slid off the bottom of the ramp and came to rest on the temple forecourt, just in front of the ship. Donna stared at it, mystified. Was this some kind of vehicle? It didn’t have wheels or wings or any obvious means of propulsion. With that door it looked more like a building. A golden pentagonal building.

  “It’s a portal!” she exclaimed. “It’s got five sides, just like the portal that transported the COBRA people to their spaceship!” She was about to add that Dawn had told her all about that portal, but stopped herself just in time. Dawn’s visit to the COBRA flying saucer was a closely-guarded secret, and it was important that Karen didn’t find out about it. The fact that Donna knew about the COBRA portal would be no surprise, for John Anderson had admitted its existence when Clare had tackled him about his COBRA past.

  “You’re right,” Karen gasped. “So the Church of the Blessed Rapture was visited by aliens!”

  “And now they’ve returned. They’ve come because they think that COBRA must have taken over the world by now. They want to take over the COBRA leaders, because then they will control the world.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Karen flared. “Why does everything have to be either a big joke or doom and gloom? Why can’t you accept this encounter at face value? The first portal was a gift to COBRA, this portal is a gift to the Watchers. It’s a symbol of their good will, a message to say that they come in peace.”

  “Hmm. I can think of nicer gifts than that. What on earth are the Watchers going to do with it?”

  “Use it as a portal, of course. Can’t you see the possibilities? It’s a gateway to the other planets of the Galactic Federation. There must be a portal on every one of them. It means that people can go instantaneously from one world to another. Step through that door, and you step out into another world.” Karen’s eyes were shining now. “That’s why the aliens have come here, and why they’ve brought that portal. To allow us to be part of the Federation.”

  Donna gazed at the gleaming pentagonal structure standing silently in front of her, with the massive flying saucer behind it, and wondered if Karen might be right. Looking at the scene, it almost made sense. Karen and the Watchers had been receiving messages from space for years, and they had confidently predicted this alien visitation. Would their other predictions also come to pass? If so, her own plan to shut down the mind and return the dolphins to their bodies had been a big mistake, for she would be denying them a heaven-sent opportunity to welcome the aliens as the representatives of this planet and to participate in the galactic councils.

  Suddenly there was a movement at the top of the ramp, in the dark interior of the ship. Donna stared up at it intently, and she saw there a number of tall figures.

  Karen clutched her arm. “Here they come,” she breathed. “The extra-terrestrials!”

  Thirty One

  Donna and Karen watched from the temple entrance as the aliens emerged from the ship’s interior and descended the ramp onto the temple forecourt. They were walking upright on two legs, like humans, and they were about the same height or a little taller. In other respects, however, they were not at all human, or like any other kind of earthly mammal. Evolution on their planet had clearly taken a quite different route.

  They were more like insects, with three pairs of bony limbs, the hindmost of which they used for walking. They were completely naked, with yellow wasp-like bodies. Most hideous of all were their heads, which had insect-like mandibles and bulbous eyes. Donna was too far from them to tell whether their eyes were multi-faceted, like those of flies and other insects, or whether they had pupils. But she could clearly make out what looked like wings folded down their sides.

  She was unable to stop a wave of revulsion sweeping over her. It made her feel very guilty, for she supposed that the galaxy must be inhabited by all kinds of bug-eyed monsters, most of which were probably benign, and she supposed her near-human brain had inherited humanity’s instinctive fear of spiders and stinging insects. What mattered was not her impulsive reaction to these creatures, but the fact that they matched Dawn’s description of the pictures she’d seen on the COBRA spaceship.

  “They look like wasps,” she said to Karen in a low voice. “Just like the creatures that gave COBRA their spaceship.”

  Karen nodded. “Dr Anderson was half-expecting that they would.”

  “If they are the same species, it means they must think that our temple is a COBRA construct, ‘cos it’s got the same five-sided shape as their portal, and it’s gold as well. It’s a
safe bet that they believe it’s the headquarters of COBRA on Earth, especially as it’s been broadcasting telepathy into space. In which case they’ll assume that you and I – the welcoming committee – are COBRA leaders.”

  “So what’s the problem with that?”

  “It’s a very big problem if they want to take over the earth via COBRA. They’ll assume that COBRA now controls the earth, and so the first thing they’ll want to do is take control of us.”

  Karen didn’t take umbrage at this suggestion, instead her lips pursed in a nervous smile. Donna guessed that she too was repelled by the creatures’ wasp-like appearance.

  “I’m sure they don’t intend any such thing,” she said, trying to inject a note of confidence into her voice. “If you’re worried, stay out of the way. Dr Anderson will inject the Watcher’s bodies with a wake-up drug if the aliens start acting suspiciously.” She glanced towards Anderson’s fuzzy form, then added, “He’ll inject me first.”

  Donna followed her gaze. Anderson and Clare were huddled over the spirit detector, which they were pointing directly at the aliens. Was Anderson also repelled and alarmed by what he saw?. It was impossible to tell. Certainly he wasn’t making any moves to inject the Watchers.

  More and more giant wasps were emerging from the ship and marching down the ramp. The first arrivals were spreading out across the temple forecourt in an arc, facing the temple entrance, with the portal in front of them. When the last of the wasps reached the foot of the ramp there must have been some 300 of them lined up in several rows in what looked like a military formation. With their large black pupil-less eyes and yellow bodies they looked more than a little menacing, and Donna gripped Karen’s arm tightly.

  “Be careful,” she whispered. “I know we’re not exactly friends and we don’t belong to the same species, but we’re both mammals and we share over 95% of our genes. Compared to those monsters we’re virtually sisters. I’d hate it if they…”

  She felt a sudden powerful urge to go towards the ship. It was telepathy, she realised, emanating from the wasps, tugging at her emotions. Was it an invitation or was it a command? Certainly there was no menace in it that she could detect, but nor was there any goodwill.

  Two of the wasp-like creatures broke ranks and marched towards them, coming to a halt when they reached the portal. One took up a position to the right of its door, the other to the left. Then they gestured with their forelimbs towards it. The meaning was clear: they were inviting the two humans standing in the temple entrance to approach the portal and go inside – no doubt to be transported in the twinkling of an eye to a distant world.

  Donna tugged at Karen’s arm. “Don’t go!” she pleaded.

  Karen turned to her, and although her face was grey with fear, Donna saw in her eyes a dogged determination. “I can’t chicken out now,” she whispered. “This is what I’ve been waiting for, it’s what I’ve always wanted. It’s my destiny.”

  Reluctantly, Donna let go of her arm. “If anything … untoward … happens, Karen, remember that I can help you.”

  Karen threw her a questioning glance, and, on the spur of the moment, Donna revealed part of the great secret that she had sworn never to reveal to anyone: “I can turn myself into a dragon, like Dawn.” She was careful not to reveal the other part of the great secret, namely her dragon fire.

  Karen stared at her in surprise, and Donna detected relief flooding through her.

  “Thanks, Donna,” Karen whispered gratefully, and she touched Donna’s arm. It was only a fleeting touch, but it left Donna feeling strangely moved, for it seemed to convey an acknowledgement that, compared to the aliens, they were indeed genetic cousins – and that Donna was her equal.

  Then Karen turned and resolutely walked out of the temple entrance into the forecourt and towards the portal and the line of waiting aliens.

  “Good luck!” Donna called after her. She couldn’t help but admire her courage.

  The powerful telepathic urge to go outside to the ship hit Dawn as she was looping the loop high above the congregation. She immediately swooped down to the great altar and landed in front of it, then she marched down the aisle, between the rows of seats, her great body blocking the way of anyone who might be tempted to obey that command.

  The seats behind the Watchers were now much less crowded than before, she noticed. That was good news, for it meant that the wake-up drug that Rick had injected into the dolphins’ bodies was taking effect, and they were beginning to wake up from their trance. In less than ten minutes they would all have disappeared from Eden.

  When she reached the entrance, she paused just inside it, in the relative darkness, and surveyed the scene outside: the huge flying saucer, the curved line of 300 or more giant alien insects, the golden portal with two aliens standing by it, and Karen walking across the temple forecourt towards them.

  She realised immediately that these were the same aliens who had visited the COBRA ship many years before, and that their return was almost certainly not in response to the communal mind’s telepathic broadcasts of her Passion plays. The mind’s telepathy must have acted as a homing beacon, but that was all. As she gazed at the aliens with their hideous wasp-like bodies and bulbous eyes, she felt very glad indeed that the dolphins would soon all be gone.

  Donna glanced at the dragon snout poking out beside her and whispered a greeting. Their usual roles, where she was the mute dolphin able to respond only with gestures, was reversed. She quickly told Dawn what had happened.

  “John Anderson and Clare are right by the ship, you probably can’t see them ‘cos they’re too fuzzy, but they’re watching everything on Baby’s screen. Anderson isn’t acting suspiciously, he seems to be on the level. I don’t think you need worry about him. How about our people? Have they started to disappear?”

  Dawn nodded.

  “Thank goodness for that. I’ll watch out for Karen. You look after the other watchers.”

  Dawn nodded again, then retreated back into the temple. Now that she knew that the Watchers intended no harm, she would do all she could to protect them. Assuming, of course, that the aliens were hostile and they needed protecting.

  Outside, Karen faltered and paused a short distance from the golden portal with the two aliens standing beside its door. Donna, watching from the temple entrance, wondered what was going through her mind. By now she must be quite frightened, though the aliens weren’t acting in a menacing manner, in fact they hadn’t moved at all. They were simply standing there motionless, watching her.

  Then Karen raised her hand in a greeting, and the two aliens responded with a similar gesture. That seemed friendly enough, and Karen plucked up courage and took a couple of steps forward. The aliens responded by gesturing towards the portal door, and again there was nothing menacing in the action. Donna wondered again if Karen had been right, and this portal was indeed a gift to the people of Earth.

  Then one of the aliens reached sideways to the portal door and touched it, and the door slid silently open to reveal its dark interior – so dark, in fact, that from where Donna was standing it looked like a gaping void. The creature gestured again to Karen, and there was no mistaking its meaning: she was to go inside.

  Karen stepped hesitantly forward. Donna watched nervously, trying to imagine the thoughts that must be racing through her mind. If she went in there, what was she letting herself in for? Would she ever come out again? Karen glanced round, first at Donna and then at the fuzzy shapes of John Anderson and Clare, who were still watching everything on Baby’s screen. Staring straight at them, Karen tapped her finger meaningfully on her arm. Get ready to inject my body with that wake-up drug, she was saying.

  John Anderson raised his arm and waved to her to show he understood, then he continued watching the unfolding drama on Baby’s screen. Donna wondered what he was thinking and what plans he had hatched. Ever since the demise of COBRA he had devoted himself to this project, setting up the organization that was to become the Watchers as well as tryin
g to influence the dolphin communal mind through the information he was depositing in Jonah’s brain.

  Perhaps he had always known that the Mind would act as a telepathic beacon, calling the aliens here, and now he was doing his utmost to turn that to his advantage. No doubt, like Karen, he really believed that there was a Galactic Federation, and that by welcoming the aliens here he would gain status and power. Even so, he wasn’t prepared to risk his own skin, for it was Karen who was entering that portal, while he remained safely out of reach in his physical body.

  Donna watched Karen walk slowly towards the open door of the portal. Then, with a single backwards glance, she stepped into the dark interior. Donna couldn’t help but admire her guts. But as for John Anderson, watching everything from the safety of his body, she felt only contempt.

  The two aliens followed Karen into the portal and the door slid shut behind them. Watching the drama unfold, Donna waited with baited breath for what would happen next. What could be happening to Karen? Had she by now stepped out onto another world? Would she return in a few minutes with tales of the wonders she had seen, and lead all the Watchers into the portal to fulfil their supposed destiny? But the golden portal was silent and unmoving, and the lines of aliens spread out behind it were unmoving too. They, like her, seemed to be waiting for something to happen. She tried to sense telepathically if there were any emotions, benign or malign, emanating from them, but there was nothing. Even the telepathic urging to go towards the ship had ceased.

  As the seconds passed Donna started to relax slightly. The dolphins inside the temple would be returning to their bodies on the other side of the world at the rate of one every five or six seconds, and she had calculated that by now more than half of them must have disappeared. A few minutes more and they would all be gone, and then the temple and the forecourt and all the buildings round about, which were the product of their minds, would vanish. She wondered what the aliens would make of that.

  Donna turned her head to glance back inside the temple. She saw that Dawn, no longer concerned about protecting the Mind from the Watchers, had transformed herself back into her human form and had mounted the pulpit and was addressing the congregation. No doubt the Watchers, who were still sitting there, thought that she was Donna.

  She was telling the Watchers to remain in their seats, and that they weren’t to be worried that people were disappearing into thin air all around them. What was happening to the dolphins was no different from what would happen to them, should Dr Anderson decide to inject them with the wake-up drug.

  Donna turned back to watch the ship and the aliens. A movement at the edge of the temple forecourt caught Donna’s eye. The blurred forms of Clare and John Anderson had twisted round and they appeared to be staring at the temple. Not via Baby’s screen, but with their naked, physical eyes. That meant they weren’t actually seeing the temple, for that was an invisible neurospace object, rather they were be staring through it, at something in the physical world beyond its walls.

  They started backing away in alarm. What on earth had they seen? Donna couldn’t see anything amiss, for the temple was blocking her view, and even if the temple suddenly disappeared whatever was bothering them would be no more than a ghostly apparition to her. The only way that she would really be able to see the source of their alarm would be to invade Clare’s mind and observe the world through her physical eyes.

  Donna glanced back at the portal and the line of aliens, waiting beneath the massive bulk of the golden ship. There was still no movement. Closing her eyes, she transformed herself into her dragon form, though rather smaller than usual, to about a tenth of her normal size. She hoped that the aliens, at the far end of the forecourt, wouldn’t notice something that small. Opening her eyes, she gave an experimental flap of her wings, then leapt into the air and sped off towards Clare.

  It took her about a minute to reach her destination. Clare must have sensed her presence immediately, for Donna had the feeling that she was welcoming her with open arms. Hard-as-nails Clare must have been seriously alarmed by whatever she was witnessing to be so welcoming. There was a momentary sensation of swirling shapes and colours as the cathedral of Clare’s mind formed around her, and then she was standing in the nave, staring at the stained-glass window at the far end showing Clare’s view of the world. Flapping her wings, she sped towards it, landing at the top of the steps immediately in front of the altar that was the seat of Clare’s consciousness.

  She gazed up at the window. There was, of course, no sign of the temple or the forecourt or the great ship or the aliens or any other neurospace object, instead what she saw was the wiry grass beneath Clare’s feet, the distant mountains ringing the valley, and, in the foreground, about 40 metres away, the bodies of the Watchers, asleep on the ground. Standing next to her was John Anderson. Donna had never seen him before, except as a fuzzy image, but she couldn’t fail to recognise him. He looked exactly like Jonah.

  Clare’s gaze was fixed on one of the bodies – a woman – who was lying apart from the rest. The body suddenly convulsed, leapt up, and then fell back twitching. Karen! Donna recognised her immediately.

  And then the awful truth dawned. That was how the portal worked. Whatever its location, it connected that point in neurospace with the physical body of any spirit that entered it. When she had stepped into it, Karen’s spirit had been instantaneously transported to her physical body, and the two aliens had travelled with her. It wouldn’t matter where in the galaxy her body was, she would still have been instantly transported to it. It was the ultimate teleportation device, though these wasps were using it for their own sinister ends.

  And now those wasps were inside her, fighting her for control of her body. That was the reason for those convulsions. Whereas she might be able to hold her own against one, she would be overwhelmed by two. Donna imagined that one would pin Karen’s spirit down while the other would take control of her unfamiliar human functions. That was what the rest of the aliens lined up in the forecourt were waiting for, the outcome of that battle. If their two colleagues could overcome Karen and control her body, then they would know that they could do the same with the other human spirits assembled here. They would herd them into the portal, take over their bodies, and then, hidden inside them, begin their conquest of Earth.

  Karen’s body convulsed again, and her arms flailed wildly. Then the convulsions ceased and she sat up and gazed around, taking everything in: the bodies of the other Watchers lying on the grass beside her, the grass and trees of the valley, and Clare and Anderson watching her intently. A ghoulish smile contorted her lips, and she stood up.

  She looked just like Karen, indeed she was Karen, but the set of her face and the look in her eyes was nothing like the Karen that Donna had known. Although that Karen had not been particularly to Donna’s liking, she had at least been human. This Karen was altogether more sinister.

  Thirty Two

  Clare and Anderson were transfixed. Wasting precious moments, they watched spellbound as Karen rose to her feet and lumbered drunkenly towards them. She had a grotesque grin on her face, and she dragged her feet in the manner of a zombie. Donna, observing her progress in the stained-glass window of Clare’s mind, tried desperately to devise a course of action that might avert the impending catastrophe.

  For if two of the aliens could take control of Karen’s physical body, then the rest of them would certainly be able take over the remaining Watchers. They would believe that they had taken over the COBRA leadership, which should by now be occupying positions of power and influence across the planet. Thanks to Dawn, COBRA had been destroyed, and the aliens couldn’t possibly use this bunch of pathetic Watchers to take over the Earth. Nevertheless, they could cause a great deal of trouble, and if they returned to their home world there was no knowing what other devilish plots they might hatch.

  Donna’s mind was working feverishly. The aliens must know that there were others waiting in the temple, and that, like Karen, their physical bodie
s were asleep nearby. They were standing in motionless lines, waiting patiently to assess the results of this initial foray into a human mind. They would have seen nothing of Karen’s awakening, for they were in neurospace and she was hidden from them by the temple walls, but in moments she would stagger through it onto the forecourt, and then they would know that their invasion of her mind had been successful. They would only see her physical body as a ghostly image, of course, but that would be enough. Then they would swing into action, rounding up the spirits of the other Watchers and herding them into the portal.

  Her most urgent task was to protect those Watchers from the fate that had befallen Karen, and the only sure way to do that was to inject their sleeping bodies with the wake-up drug. She was tempted to leap on the altar below the stained-glass window and try to take over Clare’s body, but Clare would almost certainly resist her, which would waste even more precious seconds. She would have to spur John Anderson into action by other means.

  She formed an image in her mind, of Anderson standing by the sleeping bodies of the Watchers with a large syringe in his hand. It appeared like a vision in the stained-glass window of Clare’s mind, blotting out everything else. Donna held it there for a couple of seconds before allowing Clare’s normal vision to return.

  Clare understood her message immediately. “Inject your damn Watchers!” she hissed at Anderson. “Now! Good God, man, can’t you see what those aliens have done to Karen? They’ll make zombies of you all!”

  John Anderson gave a sudden start, glanced at Clare with wild eyes, and then stared back at Karen. The alien spirit that had possessed her was evidently gaining a better mastery of her body, for now it was staggering towards them in a bandy-legged fashion, though still with that ghastly grin. It was an unnerving sight. But Clare’s words had the desired effect, and John Anderson darted off at an angle, obviously intending to skirt round Karen to get to the Watchers’ bodies. Karen’s body came to an abrupt halt and her eyes watched him race by, her mouth still contorted in a grin. Then she turned and started after him. The creature controlling her must have guessed what he was up to.

  Donna breathed a sigh of relief. This diversion gave her a little time to get her own act together before the main body of aliens realised what was happening. Although they would have seen John Anderson’s ghostly form run off and disappear through the temple wall, they wouldn’t have seen the rest of the unfolding drama, for it was hidden by the temple. So they’ll continue patiently waiting, Donna reasoned, and while they’re waiting I’ll go inside Karen and destroy her invaders.

  Turning from the stained-glass window and Clare’s view of the world, Donna closed her eyes, flapped her wings, and flew out of Clare’s skull into the open air. Opening her eyes again she saw in front of her the giant flying saucer and the lines of wasp-like aliens, still patiently waiting to see the outcome of the battle for Karen’s body.

  Suddenly the houses round about began to flicker, and some of them disappeared, and in moments they were all gone. Beyond the town, other parts of Eden would be disappearing, from the glacier at the head of the valley and the river Chilik that flowed from it to the fissure in the rocks and the other end of the valley. Donna turned, and saw that part of the temple vanished, and moments later the rest of it went too. Now everything that had been hidden by its walls could be seen. There was Dawn, back in her huge red dragon body, sheltering the spirits of the 40 Watchers, and nearby was the ghostly form of Karen’s physical body giving chase to an equally ghostly John Anderson.

  The disappearance of the dolphins’ dreamworld was good news in that it meant that they had all awoken and returned to their bodies, but very bad news indeed in that it meant that Donna’s time had run out. Now the watching aliens could see that Karen’s body had come alive and that their invasion of her had been a success. Sure enough, as if prompted by an invisible signal, the wasps all suddenly sprang into action, streaming forwards towards the great red dragon and the 40 human spirits of the Watchers.

  If John Anderson could inject the bodies of the Watchers and get them awake, then they would be safe. Although the two aliens controlling Karen’s body might not have been certain what his intentions were when he started running forward, they were determined to stop him anyway. They were forcing Karen’s body to give chase as fast they could.

  Clare, observing this, started after her, though she was hampered by the spirit detector. She was carrying this, and kept pointing it in the direction of the line of advancing aliens, checking their progress on its screen.

  Donna was torn by indecision. She could either rush to Dawn’s assistance and attempt to protect the Watchers’ spirits from the advancing aliens, or she could help John Anderson and Clare in their efforts to revive the Watchers’ bodies by entering Karen’s skull and attacking her invaders. In the end she decided on this second course of action. Partly this was because she was afraid that the spirit detector might get damaged if there was a fight, and partly because she felt a duty towards Karen. A tenuous bond had grown up between them while they had stood together at the temple entrance, watching the great ship arrive and the aliens disembark, and she had promised to protect her if things turned nasty. And her lumbering gait and the grimace contorting her pretty face were very nasty indeed.

  Flapping her dragon wings furiously, she gave chase to Karen, catching up with her just as she reached John Anderson and the sleeping bodies of the Watchers. He was wrestling with the straps of one of the large rucksacks that were lying on the grass beside the bodies, and Donna supposed that these held the syringes filled with wake-up drugs. Did they also contain weapons? Anderson was sure to take such precautions – in which case he might be tempted to eliminate the spirits controlling Karen by the simple expedient of shooting her in the head. It made Donna’s own rescue mission doubly urgent.

  Without more ado Donna dived into Karen’s head, and moments later she found herself standing at the end of the nave in the cathedral of Karen’s mind. She was still in her dragon body, and tensing her legs and wings so that she could leap away if attacked, she glanced around warily.

  Everything looked completely normal. There was the stained-glass at the far end of the cathedral, showing the view through Karen’s eyes – it was of Anderson, catching his breath after his unaccustomed exertions and feverishly trying to open the rucksack. Below the window was the altar which was the seat of Karen’s consciousness – though now under the control of an alien consciousness – and to each side of the nave the doors leading to Karen’s memories.

  Donna’s eye caught a movement in the shadows at the foot of the steps leading up to the altar. An alien! She felt a stab of fear. Immediately her dragon reflexes took over, forcing her to suck in a huge draught of air, and she felt a wave of heat spread through her belly as her internal fires roared into life.

  It was a new experience for Donna, for although she had known the fires of passion, she had never before breathed out the deadly fires of war. Although Dawn had promised that she would one day give Donna some military training, she had always insisted that her protégé was still too young, and that in any case the basic skills were hard-wired into her dragon brain. This was indeed the case, as Donna now discovered. She found she knew instinctively how to control her fire so that it remained firmly within the confines of her belly, and she felt certain that, when the moment came, she would be able to release that fire to deadly effect.

  Reassured by this discovery, she advanced down the nave towards the dim form of the alien. When she had covered about half the distance she realised that the creature was guarding what looked like an enormous ball of white cotton wool. A few steps nearer, and she saw that the fluffy ball was some kind of cocoon with a body encased inside it. It must be Karen, she suddenly realised, trapped like a fly within! The aliens hadn’t killed her, for that would result in the death of her body, instead they had immobilized her spirit. And now one of them was guarding that spirit while the other controlled her body.

  Sud
denly, without any warning at all, the alien leapt at her, a blur of whirring legs and wings. He twisted his body as he came, so that his back was facing her, and strands of white gossamer thread billowed from his abdomen, weaving through the air towards her. Before she had time to jump aside, the threads were all over her, clinging to her wherever they struck and wrapping themselves around her legs and her neck. She tried to leap backwards to escape their sticky grasp, but she was too late, and in moments she was so entangled that she could scarcely move. And still the gossamer threads kept coming like a mass of tenuous ectoplasm, completely enveloping her. A few seconds more and she would be as thoroughly immobilized as Karen, unable even to open her jaws to use her fire. And whereas the alien had been careful to keep Karen alive, he would have no compunction about killing her.

  She forced her jaws open sufficiently wide to gulp in more air. Something like a volcanic eruption exploded inside her, the valve at the bottom of her neck flipped open, and a bolt of intense heat shot up her neck. Black smoke billowed from her nostrils, her tongue automatically flipped back out of harm’s way, and a powerful jet of fire burst from her jaws.

  She waved her head around in every direction, instantly shrivelling to nothing the engulfing strands of sticky thread. She couldn’t reach it all, but enough had gone to allow her to move her limbs. The alien had leapt backwards, away from her fire, and now he danced around before her, moving so fast that her flames could not touch him. As he leapt this way and that and she tried to spear him with her fire, it seemed as if he was somehow able to anticipate each twist of her head, for he was always a step ahead of her.

  She cut her fire and tried to study his intricate manoeuvres. It must be possible to get the better of him. Immediately his forelegs – there were four of them – flashed out at her, and she saw that they were tipped with sharp claws. Before she could jump back he was upon her, and there was a searing pain across her chest, and another in her right forelimb. Two of the blades had struck home, slicing through her tough scales.

  She gasped with the pain, and immediately her internal fires erupted again, flinging more flames up through her throat and out of her jaws. She swung her head from side to side and up and down, hoping that by chance that the flames pouring out of her would get him. She wondered briefly if her fire was incinerating any of Karen’s brain cells, but there was no avoiding that if she was to save herself.

  At last her fire struck home, raking the lower part of his body. He screamed in agony, and then what was left of him was no longer prancing before her but thrashing around on the floor, trying desperately to get away from her. With great satisfaction she played her fire mercilessly over his remains, so that he writhed and shrieked, and then there was silence and all that remained was a cloud of acrid black smoke.

  Her satisfaction quickly gave way to a feeling of guilt. For as the smoke dissipated she saw that the floor of the nave where she had finished him off was charred. That could only mean that her supernatural fire must have destroyed something of Karen’s mind. Donna had no way of knowing whether or not the damage was severe, or what functions might be impaired. Perhaps it was equivalent to a minor stroke, in which case her mind might recover. Donna very much hoped that this would be the case.

  But the battle was only half over. Karen’s spirit was still entombed in her ball of gossamer, and the second alien was still controlling her body. Somehow Donna had to wrest control from the invader, and then destroy it.

  First she had to release Karen from her cocoon. Gulping in air once more to feed her fire, Donna opened her jaws a fraction and allowed a thin jet of fire to erupt. Very carefully, she directed her fire at the gossamer threads encasing Karen, but avoiding Karen herself. It took almost a minute, but eventually most of the gossamer had shrivelled away and Karen was able to struggle free.

  Slowly and gingerly Karen rose to her feet. Watching her, Donna thought that she looked a broken woman. Her earlier resoluteness and confidence had clearly been shattered, and although she knew that the fearsome dragon standing in front of her was Donna, she cowered in front of her, unable to meet her gaze. Donna’s heart went out to her, and she transformed herself back into her human form.

  “Don’t be afraid, Karen,” she said gently. “You’re safe now.”

  Karen stared at her blankly, and then with a great sob she crumpled forward and fell into Donna’s arms, burying her head in her shoulders.

  Donna stroked her hair tenderly. “We’re going to destroy those aliens, Karen. But there’s no time to waste. Try to pull yourself together, ‘cos we’re going to start by getting rid of the creature who stole your body.”

  Karen lifted her head. “OK,” she sighed weakly. “I’ll try to help.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Donna said heartily. “I’ll turn back into a dragon, then we’ll fry him for supper.”

  Donna stepped back a couple of paces and transformed herself back into a dragon. Then she picked up Karen in her scaly forelimbs and, holding her as gently as she could, she flapped her wings furiously and leapt into the air. Moments later they were fluttering down onto the altar, and then they were sinking into it.

  Suddenly she was seeing the world through Karen’s eyes and the landscape was reeling and Clare and Anderson were in front of her and trying to wrestle her to the ground, and at the same time she was involved in a desperate clash of wills with the alien usurper who had taken over Karen’s body. With her human-like brain she was more at home in this body that he was, and she forced herself outwards, filling the consciousness of Karen’s brain and squeezing him back, and all at once he was gone and she was in control of Karen’s arms and fingers and legs and toes.

  She was immediately and painfully aware of Clare manhandling her, dragging her to the ground. She went down with a bump, and Clare immediately jumped on top of her and pushed down hard on her arms.

  “It’s me!” she yelped. “Clare, it’s me! I’m back!”

  Clare gaped at her in surprise and tentatively relaxed her grip. At the same moment Donna relinquished control and pulled herself back into a tight mental ball so that Karen could take over and become one with her body again. Immediately Donna found herself ejected back into the cathedral of Karen’s mind, standing before the altar, and all around her was the malign presence of the alien.

  Donna had been expecting this, and she immediately thrust herself into the air and flew down the nave, at the same time gulping air. As her internal fires erupted she sped above her opponent then dropped to floor and spun round to face him, at the same moment opening her jaws to release the deadly inferno. He was coming towards her, a blur of dancing motion, and, as it happened, directly in her line of fire.

  The flames completely engulfed him. There was no escape, and his screams lasted only a second before they abruptly ceased. She instantly cut her fire, to minimise any further damage to Karen’s brain. All that was left of the alien were a few blackened scraps and a whiff of black smoke.

  Donna glanced up at the stained-glass window to check what was happening in the physical world beyond Karen’s skull. Karen was evidently now sitting up, for Clare was crouching beside her with her arms round her, apparently trying to comfort her. Donna couldn’t imagine Clare comforting anyone – though she supposed that Clare probably couldn’t imagine her, a dolphin, doing anything like that either.

  Several metres away, at the periphery of Karen’s vision, were the prone bodies of the Watchers, and near them was John Anderson. He was kneeling by a box of syringes that he must have removed from one of the rucksacks. At last he was preparing to inject his Watchers with that wake-up drug..

  So what was happening to the Watchers’ spirits? Had Dawn been able to fight off the giant insects, or were they even now herding the Watchers into the portal? The only way to find out was to leave the relative safety of Karen’s body and join the fray. Donna closed her eyes, and, leaping into the air and flapping her wings madly, propelled herself into the neurospace world beyond Karen’s skull.


  Thirty Three

  Donna emerged into what can only be described as a scene from hell. Dawn, spitting fire, was surrounded by dozens of smouldering alien corpses, while many more of the wasp-like creatures were buzzing angrily around her, enveloping her with those clouds of sticky gossamer that spewed from their abdomens. A short distance away the petrified Watchers were being herded towards the portal by a battalion of 50 or more aliens, who were leaping around them in a dizzying dance, menacingly flashing their dagger-like claws.

  As she watched, one of the Watchers broke free and tried to make a run for it. A giant wasp gave chase and was immediately upon him, blades flashing. There was a shriek, and the man fell to ground, both arms sliced off, though there was no blood, and then the head came off too and rolled away.

  It was a sickening sight, but there was no physical reality to it. The man’s physical body was lying intact on the ground a couple of hundred metres away. His death would be real enough, though. His spirit had been destroyed, and so his heart would have stopped beating.

  She glanced towards the sleeping bodies of the Watchers. Like everything else in the physical world about her, they were ghostly and blurred. John Anderson’s ghostly form was finally administering that wake-up drug, for he was kneeling beside them with what looked like a carton of syringes. A few metres away was Karen, sitting on the grass, with Clare kneeling beside her. None of them were aware of the horrifying drama being played out around them in neurospace, for Baby, their window into that world, was lying on the ground several metres away. All they could see was the grass beneath their feet, the encircling mountains, and the golden rays of the dawn sun striking the slopes of the mountains to the west.

  Donna turned her attention back to the battle. Dawn was now hopelessly entangled in the sticky threads, so much so that she was completely engulfed and could hardly move, and more clouds of it were still settling over her. Donna’s first thought was that she should fly to her assistance. Raining fire on Dawn’s assailants would certainly throw them into disarray and kill quite a number, but their speed and agility would mean that most would jump out of the way and quickly return to the attack, and if they managed to entrap her then all would be lost.

  She decided instead to cause a diversion by attacking the flying saucer and the golden portal. Although these were neurospace objects and therefore constructed out of the aliens’ minds – and presumably easily replaced – they might contain within them something that was very precious and irreplaceable. Something that was the equivalent of the great altar in the temple, which if attacked could seriously damage their community.

  Although Donna had the form of a dragon, the aliens hadn’t yet spotted her, for she was still only a fraction of her usual size. Well, it was time to change that, and closing her eyes she visualised herself in her normal dimensions. There was a stomach-churning wrench, and she immediately opened her eyes and flapped her suddenly-enlarged wings and sprang into the air.

  Flapping with all her strength, she ascended rapidly into the air. Now the huge alien ship was below her, with the portal nearby and the line of terrified Watchers being herded towards it. A little way off was the large cottonwool ball that was Dawn’s sticky prison. She had been thoroughly defeated.

  The aliens that had overwhelmed her must have spotted Donna as soon as she upped her size, for they had abandoned their prisoner and were now flying up towards her. But in the open air she could easily outstrip them, and in a few seconds she was high in the sky above the golden disc of their great ship.

  Turning, she dived down towards it, flapping her wings furiously and gathering speed. The aliens changed course and tried to intercept her, but they were too late. Sucking in a bellyful of air, so that her fires exploded into life, she hurtled towards a point on the circumference of the ship. At the last moment she pulled herself out of the dive and, opening her mouth wide, streaked over the dome of the ship, raking it with fire.

  She cut a line right across it. The dense black smoke spurting from it told her that she was doing some damage, but she was flying too fast to see what. Then she was streaking upwards again, still madly flapping, and once safe above the angry wasps she circled around to survey the scene. The ship’s dome had been sliced open, as if by a knife, and the two halves were starting to peel apart. She felt hugely elated. This was even more exciting than winning at Monopoly!

  She became aware of distant shrieks of anger, and to her immense satisfaction saw that the aliens herding the Watchers had abandoned their victims and launched themselves at her. She had guessed correctly: there was something within that ship that was very precious to them, and they had to protect it at all costs.

  The Watchers were staring transfixed at what was happening. No doubt they thought that she was the same dragon that they had seen earlier in the temple, for Dawn, trapped inside her cottonwool prison, was completely hidden from their view. Then they became aware that they were no longer captives, and with one accord they turned and raced back the way they had come, away from the portal and the ship. Had they but known it, now that they were free of their captors, they could have entered the portal in perfect safety and been returned immediately to their bodies.

  Gulping in another draught of air, Donna hurled herself once more down to the great ship. This time the wasps were ready for her, and she was met by an angry cloud of them, blades flashing at her and sticky gossamer threads thrown across her path. She sucked in air and belched out a broad jet of fire, punching a hole right through them and killing a large number, and in an instant she was past and sweeping across the dome of the ship with a second line of fire, at right-angles to the first.

  As she sped over the mid-point of the ship and the smoking line of her first pass, where the dome was peeling apart, she saw something moving in the heart of the damaged vessel. There was too much smoke and she was flying too fast to catch more than a glimpse of it, but she could see that it was alive and very large. Was this what the aliens were so desperate to protect?

  Moments later she had completed her second pass and was once more thrusting herself upwards, flapping her wings furiously. Now several dozen aliens were in hot pursuit, and out of the corner of her eye she could see many more swarming above the mid-point of the damaged ship, desperately trying to protect whatever lay within.

  High above the ship she came out of her climb and hovered for a moment, assessing the situation. Angrily circling some way below her were a number of wasps, keeping their distance for fear of her fire. Below them, on the ground, the spirits of the Watchers were running away from the battle, heading for a large outcrop of ghostly rocks, no doubt hoping to hide behind them. As she watched, one of their number suddenly vanished, and moments later two more disappeared into thin air. John Anderson’s wake-up drug must be very fast-acting – either that, or humans reacted more quickly to the drug than dolphins. Soon they would all be gone.

  A little way from them a wisp of smoke was curling up from Dawn’s cottonwool prison, and she realised that Dawn had managed to work her jaw free and was burning her way out. As for the great ship, Donna saw that its dome, which had been quartered by her fire, had now peeled away to reveal hundreds of hexagonal compartments. She had no idea what their function might be, but it made the interior of the ship look like a giant honeycomb. Perhaps the aliens really were a kind of wasp, and this ship served as their nest. As for the large living thing that Donna had seen moving at the centre of the ship, that was now obscured by aliens swarming all over it.

  About half of their number had now been destroyed. Although those that remained were a formidable foe that could still overwhelm her, victory was in sight. The Watchers were fast returning to their bodies, Dawn would soon be free, and the aliens and their giant ship could not withstand her all-powerful fire. It was really great being a dragon, she thought, even if it did play havoc with one’s love life.

  She twisted her great body in readiness for her third dive, gulped in air, and hurled herself down towards he
r quarry. Immediately several wasps rose up from the swarm to meet her, spreading out to attack her from all directions. Some wasps that had been circling immediately below her also closed in on her, and in moments she was surrounded by them. She twisted and turned to escape their whirring blade-like claws and sticky gossamer threads, but they were fast.

  She felt a sharp sting at the base of her tail, and her dragon reflexes kicked in, flicking her tail violently. A wasp spun away, claws flailing wildly. There was another vicious sting, and then another, making her body twist this way and that. As well as that, strands of thread were adhering to her wings, slowing her down. But her assailants were few in number and she was quickly through them.

  Kicking out with her legs and flapping her wings as hard as she was able, Donna sucked in more air as she hurled herself towards the main swarm and the thing they were so desperately defending. In moments she was surrounded by dozens of wasps, and everything was a confusing mass of flailing claws and gossamer threads and giant wasps criss-crossing her path. But she held her fire and tried to ignore the stabs of stinging pain, resolutely driving down to the damaged ship with its mysterious cargo.

  She gulped in a final draught of air. What felt like molten lava was now churning inside her, and the pressure was so great that she was at bursting point. And then, as the last of the protective swarm rose up like a whirring cloud to meet her, her dragon instincts cut in, opening the valve at the base of her neck and flipping back her tongue. A plume of red-hot lava erupted up her throat, and as the creatures converged upon her a huge cascade of fire and smoke exploded from her jaws, instantly vaporising the whirring heart of the swarm and scattering the rest.

  The massive explosion of fire acted like a rocket, slowing her down with a strong reactive force. She hastily shut off her fire, otherwise she would have been propelled backwards, perhaps into more wasps. She found herself hovering about 50 metres above the exposed interior of the ship, with the alien swarm scattered, and at last she had a clear view of what it was they were trying to protect.

  It was a huge wasp, about 20 metres long with a bloated torso. If the ship was a hive, then this creature was surely its queen. Donna supposed that an entire nest of aliens must have made this spirit journey from their distant home to Earth, and that this was their leader. Destroy the queen, and the invasion would be over.

  Donna glanced round. The aliens had regrouped and were coming at her in a three-pronged pincer attack, one group flying at her from the left, another from the right, and a third from above. Some distance away was Dawn, free at last of her sticky prison and launching herself into the air. The Watchers had finally disappeared, all safely back in their bodies. The end was in sight.

  Swallowing more air, Donna twisted her body and dived straight down, aiming directly at the alien queen. The wasps, now almost upon her, shrieked with rage and followed her down. Ignoring them, she let the full force of her fire explode onto swollen monstrosity. Flames enveloped the creature, making it steam and hiss. Then, with a load crack, the creature split open and belched out a cloud of black smoke. At the same moment an ear-splitting scream reverberated through Donna’s mind, and then there was silence.

  Donna immediately twisted her body and swerved away, expecting the remaining wasps to be all over her, but they had abandoned the attack and were flying aimlessly around. They seemed to be dazed and at a loss to know what to do now that their queen was gone. And now Dawn had taken up the attack, and was picking them off one by one.

  With the battle almost over, Donna was suddenly overcome by weakness. Even her wings felt heavy. It came to her that her energy reserves had been exhausted by all that fire, and as well as that her body was a mass of wasp stings. She had read about humans being attacked by swarms of bees, now she knew exactly what that felt like. The best thing she could do now was to get out of the way and leave the mopping up to Dawn.

  She circled round the ship, giving the remaining wasps a wide berth, and headed back towards the spot where Clare and John Anderson and Karen would be, together with the waking Watchers. She wanted to make sure that they were all safe. To her left was the golden portal, and she noticed that a number of wasps were now on the ground and hurrying towards it. She watched as a couple of them reached it, opened the door, and went inside. They must be seeking shelter from Dawn’s fire. The door closed behind them.

  They weren’t going to use it as a shelter, Donna belatedly realised. It was their route home! On entering it they would be translated back to their sleeping bodies on their home planet, and then they would call up reinforcements. No doubt this was the primary purpose of the portal, to provide a gateway between their world and this. She should have incinerated this contraption before attacking anything else, but it was too late for that now.

  She had to do something to stop the other wasps reaching it. Twisting her body and flapping her weary wings, Donna threw herself into a steep dive, crashing down with a mighty thud immediately in front of the portal door. Righting herself to face her foes, she opened her jaws and summoned up sufficient strength to let out a blood-curdling roar. The wasps, who were almost upon her, skidded to a halt and retreated a few steps, eyeing her cautiously. Most of their brood had been killed by that deadly fire, and they had no wish to share their fate. Except that her fire was spent, and if they got wind of that they would be on her immediately. Somehow she would have to bluff it out and hold them at bay until Dawn was able to rescue her.

  She sucked in a lungful of air, hoping that this would fan what remained of her fire into life. Even some smoke wafting from her nostrils would be enough to scare them off. But there was only the smallest hint of warmth within, and now the wasps were inching nearer, suspecting perhaps that she had been weakened by all those stings. She searched her brain desperately, hoping that her dragon self would come up with something. Perhaps if she spun round and lashed out with her tail...

  Above her, at the edge of her vision, a dark shape appeared. Suddenly what seemed like sheet lightning enveloped the wasps. In an instant they were ablaze, and in moments all that remained were a few blackened scraps and wisps of smoke. Dawn! She had understood Donna’s predicament and rushed to save her.

  Gratefully, Donna surveyed the smoking remains. No more of the creatures were heading for the portal, and now Dawn, who had flown back to the ship, was pursuing the few remaining wasps who were still buzzing aimlessly over it.

  She turned her attention to the portal, wondering about the two aliens who had already entered it. Were they still inside, or had they already been returned to their bodies on their home world? Perhaps even now they were mustering reinforcements, and soon thousands more of the creatures would pour out of it. She reached out a claw to open the door.

  She touched it, and immediately the portal began to glow with a kind of inner luminescence. Donna jerked her claw away, startled. It reminded her of how the temple glowed first thing in the morning, while all about was still dark. Certainly this strange object and her temple had much in common. Could it be that this portal had reacted to her presence, her dragon presence?

  There was a loud plop of imploding air and the portal disappeared. Mystified, she stared at the empty space where it had been. Surely it had sensed her touch! Perhaps it had transported itself back to the aliens’ home planet together with the two aliens who were inside it. She decided it didn’t really matter if they had gone back, the main thing was that the portal was no longer here on Earth. The doorway to the alien’s world had gone, and therefore no reinforcements would come.

  Dawn was still circling above the damaged ship, picking off the last of the aliens. With their queen dead and the portal gone, they had lost the will to fight, and in a very short time Dawn had destroyed them all.

  As the final wasp crackled and died in her scorching fire, the great ship, which was the product of their alien minds, winked out of existence.

 

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