by Barry Klemm
“The official prediction, by the way, is here, north of Malagasy, in the Indian Ocean almost on the equator. They expect little damage and few serious effects. But we will proceed with the unofficial version. Thyssen has been right every time in the past and there’s no reason to think it will be different this time. We will establish our main base in Salisbury, which I know is a long way away, but Zimbabwe is about the only place where we can expect reasonably modern facilities and cooperation from the government. A task force base will be established at either Lilongwe or Zomba, which are the main population centres near the zone. In fact, either but not both are likely to be inside the zone. That will be decided immediately we know how it comes down.
“We turn now to the focal point of the pilgrimages,” Wagner said and on the screen above his head, the earth rotated to what might have been a space ship view, observed from some point over the Arctic Circle and rotating slowly around its line. Red indicators showed the locations of the pilgrims. Their own position in Italy, Chrissie thankfully still in Rome where she could not see this going down, Andromeda in Paris, the USS Barton sailors in the brig in San Diego, the Japanese back in their fields but apparently all tagged by Brian Carrick.
The control group—their medical usefulness now outlived and their legal status very much in question—had been released into Felicity Campbell’s custody and she handed them over to the project. Presently they were all in this room, ready to be dispersed to where-ever they could help out. The Buryats were either in a camp or returned to their fields but in any case could not have gone far. Lorna Simmons was doing television appearances in New York. From each point, the red lines converged.
“These are the present locations of the pilgrims and since Japan is roughly the same distance as Lake Balkai from the previous focal point, it will be in much the same place as last time. Latitude 84.6 degrees North, Longitude 118.3 degrees West. About 150 miles West-Nor-West of Cape Richards. Just a little closer to the North Pole in fact. But since our plan is for no one to go there, that should not be a problem. The Italians will follow the same route as last time, though perhaps a little more carefully under the guidance of Sister Christine. Those of us affected, including myself, will by then be in Japan where the greatest difficulties will arise. The decision has been taken to abandon vehicles there and move the 16,000 pilgrims by foot, which means after thirty-six hours, they will still be travelling the roads on the Honshu Island.”
Sixteen thousand Japanese peasants walking the road to nowhere, and after the 11th of December, perhaps more than 100,000 Bantus, abandoning their subsistence crops to take to the road. Where did it end, Joe wondered. The Apocalypse was coming but that was hardly likely to make any difference. More people involved each time, the time gap shortening, he’d done a little calculation that said the end of the world would be the 22nd June, which was just over six months away.
At the present rate of decrease, that would be when the two events came so close together that they occurred on the same day. Each would have a zone of influence would cover 5 million square kilometres, about the land area of the United States of America, or the average tectonic plate. By then, pilgrims would probably outnumber the unaffected on a global basis. Just nine months and an area the size of Africa would find nothing holding it up and fall into the core of the earth. If the Shastri Effect had not wiped out all humanity and destroyed the Earth by then, there would be three more events next day, each double the size of the one before. Why were they bothering?
Because it couldn’t happen, that was why. Because it was all too gigantic and catastrophic to contemplate. Because it was completely beyond comprehension. Admittedly, he was no scientist and his figures were rough as guts, but the progression at the present rates went something like that. Perhaps there would be some upper limit that a Shastri Event could not exceed, or maybe next time the bubble would blast an extra moon into orbit around the earth, incidentally drowning all life. The return of Noah and no one he knew was thinking of building an ark. Except maybe Kevin Wagner.
*
Mount Fuji was all but restored. Only the most avid admirer would have noticed a large chunk missing from the crater rim that had collapsed during the eruption. It was quiet again and had been since the Shastri Event of the 1st of November had burst it to thundering life. Only the usual white mist drifted from the caldera now, and the snows had returned, covering the black stain of ash on the slopes. Once more the symmetry of the most perfect mountain in the world was restored, and so by appearance had been the rural scenes on the plains below. But that, Wagner knew, was an illusion.
There was a house atop a hill with rippling ponds amid the landscape garden and those paper sliding doors and even some geishas provided by the government to keep the guests happy. The girls, and the visiting Japanese officials, had smiled warmly and bowed and called them honoured guests. They were rested, they had eaten well, they had been looked after to the highest degree of the fabled Japanese hospitality. All they couldn’t do was leave, and constantly out of sight but always present were soldiers with machine guns to ensure it remained so. They called it The House of the Golden Carp. In these perfect surroundings, they had nevertheless been prisoners.
“It’s become my natural state these days,” Brian Carrick remarked.
Well he might joke but Wagner saw nothing funny in it. They, Wagner and the four members of the control group he brought with him from the base, had been picked up when they arrived at Tokyo airport and brought here. The other four had gone to join Felicity in Malawi. Brian Carrick had flown in two days earlier and was waiting for him.
“I got a message to Felicity telling her to stay away,” Brian had assured him when he arrived.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” Wagner bit back.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Brian smiled in reply.
Wagner’s chagrin was all the worse that Brian seemed so completely at home in The House of the Golden Carp.
“I’ve looked in all the ponds in the garden,” Brian said sadly. “There are no carp, golden or otherwise.”
“I don’t think the number of fish in the garden is the hot issue here, cobber,” Wagner seethed.
“No, you’re right. I should have brought more books,” Brian said. “I’m through all the stuff in my luggage.”
“Are you going to take this situation seriously or what?” Wagner often found Brian’s casual attitude annoying, but never more so than now.
“Why? There’s nothing we can do. They’ll let us go on the thirteenth when the event has passed.”
“And how are we going to cope with the thirty-six hours of the linkage?”
“As irritably as you’re behaving now, I suspect.”
“It is only three days away.”
“The stock of Saki should see us through,” Brian said.
But Brian was right. The Red Cross and the UN Emergency Corps had dealt properly with the sleepers and they were all tagged and prepared. Brian said he had been no more than an observer and that the locals seemed to have matters under control.
“We are not officially involved,” Brian pointed out.
“Do they realise that without us they are going to have sixteen thousand zombies roaming the countryside?”
“They know it, but I don’t think they believe it. They’ve told the local population that there’s to be a festival at Shibata on the north coast and that they’re to go on foot from their homes to make offerings to the shrine there. It sounds like a perfect plan to me.”
“Oh yeah. And maybe we oughta get Saint Chrissie to lead them?”
“The Japanese take their festivals and shrines very seriously, Kev. They’ll all go, nice and quiet, as far as anyone can figure.”
“So what the hell are we doing here?”
“They aren’t masters of the world for no reason, Kev. They want to do it without involving us, but still keep us around in case it goes wrong.”
“Why didn’t I stay in Italy?”
Wagner muttered in disgust.
But because their cell phones and all other outside communication had been confiscated, there was no way of knowing how the others were faring.
The link was due at midnight on the 11th and by dawn next day, three senior officers of the Imperial Army were on their doorstep. Wagner was roused and went unsteadily to the central room where the officers paced. Brian was already there, and Kenitsu, who was their translator and also a pilgrim from the control group. Each of them was agitated, but still dulled by their tranquilliser of choice.
“We’ll see what happens when they wear off,” Brian had said. His had been Saki.
“It is a great disaster. You must come and help us,” General Matusu, who spoke some English, declared.
“I was just beginning to feel the urge to mosey along,” Wagner replied dreamily.
The bus had been provided and within minutes, the six pilgrims from The House of the Golden Carp were in it, dressed and bewildered, drinking coffee with great care as the bus jolted them down the road. The General and his officers, and the Chief of Police and his men, and the three government gentlemen who had been so officious earlier and now were humble beyond words.
“They came out of everywhere and just started walking,” the story went, mostly through translation. “They ignored roads and orders from our soldiers. They just walked, blindly, all going in the same direction but spread across a front of about three kilometres. They walked straight into people’s houses and some were assaulted. They fell in rivers and some drowned. They walked straight in front of traffic and some have been injured. There is no ordering them.”
“It’s too late for us to do it now,” Brian said.
Wagner knew it was true. This was the effect Felicity had warned them about.
“They would have followed us, had we been allowed to lead them,” Wagner said bitterly. “But they needed to know that in advance. Now, Brian is right. There is nothing we can do.”
“The soldiers have had to shoot some of them, when they refused to deviate from their course even slightly.”
“All your men can do,” Brian said, “is work on clearing the path in front of them.”
“There are problems there too. In towns lying in the path of the pilgrims, the word has come that the human locusts, as they are called, are advancing. Gangs of armed men are coming out to meet them.”
“Your soldiers must clear the armed men from their path.”
“And at Shibata, the local population has formed a human barricade to protect their shrine.”
“But the shrine was an invention, wasn’t it?”
“Still, now that they know it exists, they are determined to defend it.”
Wagner was studying the map at the time, realising it was important.
“In any case, they won’t go to Shibata now. They would only have gone there if we had led them. Now they will head toward a point just a few degrees west of due north from each person’s original starting point. I’ll get an exact fix for you in a moment, but it looks like the vicinity of Takada. The path must be cleared to that point, right away.”
“What happens when they get there?”
“It’s two hundred kilometres. They can’t walk that far in a day and a half.”
“They are stealing cars, and bicycles. Any sort of vehicle they can find.”
“Yes,” Brian put in. “Felicity said they will go by whatever is the best transport means to hand.”
“Boats must be provided for those who make it to the coast, or else they will just walk into the sea,” Wagner was saying, getting into his stride now.
Already, traces of the event were beginning to show. There were fires burning up ahead, and ambulances and police rushed along the roads. In some places, injured people were being treated at the road side. When they arrived, they were near a town that fiercely defended itself from the invaders. There was a great commotion of voices and dust rose everywhere. Young men mostly, threw themselves into a pitched brawl with great frenzy while riot police tried to control them.
“This isn’t the way,” Brian shouted at the generals. “The soldiers must not try to stop them. They must clear the path.”
And Wagner, angered by the scenes before them, of bloodied bodies and huddles of weeping people, turned to General Matusu and said. “And you must tell them that this would not have happened, had we been allowed to lead them.”
Even as they watched, a gang of men came out of a village on the rise before them, and the riot police were gathered in a line to meet them. There was no hesitation, the two forces clashed without breaking stride. At that moment, rocks and other objects began to crash against the side of the bus and riot troops were forced back by the mob.
The rock hit the window and everyone in the bus went for cover, diving down below the level of the backs of the seats. Wagner already hated himself for doing it—it was an unavoidable reflex but that didn’t make it any less a blow to his self-image. He bobbed up again so fast that no one could possibly have noticed, except the only person who mattered. Brian raised his eyes from the cushion of the seat opposite and was chuckling.
“Nerves of steel,” he murmured ironically.
Wagner was reasonably sure Brian was referring to his own reaction, but the joke was not funny across the aisle. Wagner had already twisted his head and saw the jagged hole with his spiderweb of cracks. Not a bullet hole, to be sure and anyway, there was no way the skin and seating of the bus would offer the slightest protection if it was. In the other seats, the occupants all began poking their heads up like a meerkat colony.
Now, Wagner shouted an order which the language barrier could not defeat clear comprehension. ‘Get us out of here,’ he roared and the driver—a Japanese Corporal—looked several different ways at once as she crashed through the gears, revved the engine and blasted on the horn. But they weren’t going anywhere, except possibly onto their roof. The heavy thud of bodies against the front and side of the bus rocked them violently. Out there, most of the scene was now lost in a furious fog of dust, but when he risked pressing his cheek against the glass, Wagner could see the black uniforms, shining helmets and Perspex shields of the riot police as they were back up against the side of the bus, fighting the mob furiously.
“I think we need to revise the plan,” Brian said, eternally seeking humour where there wasn’t any.
Wagner was moving toward the back of the bus where, conventionally he hoped, the rear window served as an emergency exit. Not that he was planning to go out there unless he had to, but it might be handy if they went over. He saw the way was open and turned, shouting. “It’s clear back here.”
From halfway down the aisle, Brian relayed the message to the driver. “Bung her in reverse and go like fuck, luv.”
One of the Japanese managed a translation, the girl ground the gears and they lurched backwards. The riot police, deprived of the wall their backs had been against, spilled across the dust shrouded scene out the front and sides. The girl reversed them wildly across the square and then swung into a blind turn and the passengers were thrown this way and that as she lurched them around and finally they were heading back down the road they had come, climbing the hill out of the valley where, behind, wild scenes of confusion continued unabated.
At the top of the hill, they came to a halt and it was time to let the panic subside.
“You see it is as I said,” the Japanese official said, not quite proudly.
“You see it is all completely out of hand,’ General Matusu added dismally.
“We see,” Brian murmured.
They stepped out of the bus to survey the scene and regather their wits, and each of them made some gesture or remark of appreciation to the driver as they passed. The girl remained behind the wheel, knowing she had found her vocation.
From this point, they could see right across the valley and at five different places they could see the dust rising, signifying trouble. In the village they had just escaped, the police seemed
to be getting the rioters in hand but still there were momentary images of frenzied action as bodies hurled this way and that. From this point was offered a splendid view of Mount Fuji, not as good as the one from the House of the Golden Carp, but not bad either. They might as well take in the scenery, Wagner knew, for all the good they could do otherwise. As the man said, it had all got out of hand, but that was their own goddamned fault. In this defeat, there was also victory, for Wagner at least.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you put us in charge,” he snapped at General Matusu, and the soldier cowered, knowing it was so.
“We were not informed it would be like this,” the general glowered at the Chief of Police.
But Wagner knew who to blame—not those who followed orders but the three gentlemen from the government who each already had their heads bowed in shame, as if waiting for the emperor to have them chopped off.
“We did, and we warned you, and instead of listening you locked us up in that bloody brothel.”
If the abuse was justified, the offence was not. Brian placed himself in front of Wagner and placed hands on both of his shoulders.
“Cool it, Kev. Can’t be helped now.”
Wagner felt the peak of his anger slip by, but still irritably shrugged off Brian and turned away, looking back toward Fujiyama.
“This must not happen again,” Wagner uttered bitterly.
*
The sun dropped toward the horizon, building up for another spectacular African sunset, only this one was going to beat them all. It was the perfect spot, to be standing on the tallest mountain in the range with a three-sixty degree view of the dusty world below. To the south the cruel capitalist state of Malawi where for thirty years a crazy dictator with an allegiance to South Africa had built skyscrapers and super-highways and railways to please the rich minority and created the poorest population in all of Africa. Though what Jami could see of it from her vantage point was only the shimmering beauty of Lake Nyasa, stretching away three hundred miles to the south.