The Orion’s engines apparently stalled then stopped when it entered the Zone—which appeared to be some kind of ‘inertial field’. Observers had seen the same thing Bub and Theresa had. The plane had gone dark and silent, then had reappeared, after banking without power out of the Zone. The pilot tried to restart the engines, but by that time the plane was too close to the terrain, and it crashed and burned.
Early interpretations of the crash opined that the Zone was a kind of soft solidity—people in boats on Tasman Bay reported seeing what they described as ‘thickened air’. But scientists had soon scotched that opinion, simply by watching the waves come and go. It was only living things the Zone recognised, or anything with an engine, a spark.
Parachute drops didn’t work because the jumpers became unconscious in the Zone—and, it was thought, possibly even dead in its depths, since the oxygen regulators on their breathing equipment would fail. The jumpers couldn’t free-fall, because gauges designed to make their parachutes deploy automatically failed to work in the Zone. The two attempts at parachute drops—one manned and one unmanned—had been monitored by satellite. A man was lost in the first jump, and the unmanned payload came down hard, in the Zone, after being nudged off course by wind during its long fall. It was decided that any further unmanned drops would be attempted again only as a last resort for the survivors.
The Sea Sprite had an even more horrible fate. It too entered the Zone and stalled, and was low enough when it came down that the crew survived the crash and lived for some time. But they couldn’t be retrieved. Another Sea Sprite had nudged up to where the Zone began, and its pilot watched the windows of the downed helicopter mist over with breath as night came and the temperature of the outside air dropped. But in the morning there was no sign of mist on the windows.
Those stories were available to the media—along with stern cautions to venturesome yachts and kayaks, which had been caught trying to assay the Zone from the wide open water of the Tasman Sea. All this was reported. And also reported was what the government had to say, and the arrival in the area of the Australian frigates and submarine, then an international military task force, and various experts.
‘Experts on what, exactly?’ said William.
Theresa was reading from a feature published in the Guardian on October the twenty-second—which an anonymous person had thoughtfully stuffed into a big plastic pickle jar with other pages printed off the web. ‘On “Zones of inertia”, I guess,’ said Theresa. ‘They have to say “experts”. And frankly, I pity the poor sods whose job it is to figure out what qualifies someone to make the No-Go their business.’
Bub had been quietly reading. Then his absorption turned into an agitated rustling. Finally he rose partway out of his chair and yelled, ‘Hey! Hey!’
William said, ‘Yes, Bub, please share your discovery.’
It seemed that, for fifteen days after Day One, the Zone had continued to spread—not beyond the ridges inland, but across the mouth of Nelson harbour, all the way across the isthmus of Cable Bay Road, and beyond the highest point of Pepin Island. It moved gradually, nudging sheep, wild goats, and the few people on that coast away from the coast. It climbed the steep weathered slopes, and didn’t stop till its border was well out of sight of Tasman Bay. Nelson was a closed port. This extensive Zone of exclusion was less exclusive than it was elsewhere inland, for during the period when military personnel had been clinging to those steep slopes across the bay, the soldiers been able to train their binoculars on tide pools and see movement—sea snails and healthy pulsing anemone. And insects had been seen penetrating space that was impenetrable to larger animals.
‘This explains their tardiness,’ William said. ‘It wasn’t just the technical problem of how to communicate, or the political problem of which of us was to be trusted. For at least three weeks the scientists and military would have thought Kahukura was ground zero for an invisible creature-killing force that, as far as they could tell, was going to continue to bulldoze its way across the face of the earth.’
For a minute the people around the table looked at one another, open-mouthed, while this sank in—all but Dan, who went on leafing noisily through a sheaf of print from another pickle jar. He was desperate for some good news. He said, ‘Apparently we have web pages.’ He smoothed a crackling paper and held it up. The caption was Survivor: Curtis Haines. The page had several photos of Curtis, including one with the Governor General pinning his medal for Services to Film onto the lapel of a dapper charcoal suit.
William gave a little ‘humph’ of cynical amusement.
Dan was still reading. He cleared his throat and read aloud, ‘It is rumoured that a video camera was recovered from a kayak found adrift in Cook Strait. The camera is said to contain footage of the survivors, and a straight-to-camera eyewitness account of events by filmmaker Curtis Haines. Officials deny the existence of such a video.’
William asked when the kayak was found.
Dan did some slow figuring. ‘Four weeks ago.’
Theresa stood to scrabble in the pile of papers in the middle of the table. ‘So, anyway, we know from the thumbnail photos at the top of Curtis’s page that there are other pages.’
Dan peered at the thumbnails. ‘Yeah. This is us.’
William said, ‘When did they publish our names?’
‘Dad says the newspaper was all full of the Zone, and the Orion and Sea Sprite, and the kakapo in Stanislaw’s Reserve—then for a while there was nothing much apart from the gathering of Military from Australia and the US, and unconfirmed rumours about how the No-Go kept growing. Then, he says, someone leaked a couple of satellite photos of the graves on the school playing field. Until then the public hadn’t much idea about what had gone on here.’
‘Have they published a death toll? They must have known almost right off that nearly everyone in the settlement was dead,’ William said.
‘There’s a difference between a death toll and confirmed casualties,’ Theresa said. ‘We always prefer to have proof positive before informing relatives.’ By ‘we’ Theresa meant the police. ‘The officials would have felt they needed bodies, or a decent interval. Besides, they could see us walking around so they knew some people had survived. The question is, when did they identify us?’
‘Why do you keep making excuses for them?’ Dan said. ‘We gave them our names in the first week.’
‘They would’ve needed to confirm that with their own observations. Officials can’t report people dead, or alive, till they’re sure they’ve got their facts straight. Besides, Dan, we can’t keep thinking we know better than they do,’ Theresa said.
William asked why not.
‘At least I’m not in the habit of thinking I’m smarter than everyone else,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ said Bub. ‘I’m with Theresa. Think how those people must have felt when the No-Go stopped up the mouth of Tasman Bay and kept on spreading. That would have been terrifying.’
Oscar said, ‘Dad says in his latest letter that the officials told them that, before they talked to next-of-kin, they had to run background checks. On us. They had to be sure none of us were somehow responsible.’
‘See. I told you,’ Theresa said.
Oscar muttered that these bloody officials could still have given his mum and dad their good news earlier. It’s not as if he would have been a suspect.
‘They just went all procedural,’ Bub said. ‘That’s the nature of the military and government. They have to put procedure between them and chaos.’
Oscar said, ‘Dad reckons no one knows he and Mum are sending messages. He says my cousins do the drops now, and one of them saw someone else on the wharf with a bag, looking shifty.’
‘Pickle Jar,’ said Bub.
‘From the different containers it looks as if there are maybe as many as five people doing it regularly,’ said Theresa.
‘And this is
the first news we hear,’ William said, ‘the low-tech way, from ordinary folk, rather than anyone with responsibility, or power.’
Bub was still fossicking. He froze, then stood up, speechless with excitement. He held out a sun-yellowed and damp-dimpled sheaf of papers.
Pickle Jar had sent them the Wikipedia pages on Morse Code.
That evening William joined Bub and Belle on the terrace. The gale had purified the air, and the dusk was coming with subtle gradations of gold that faded quietly to darkness. When the light before them was less than the light from the windows behind them, William finally spoke up. ‘Now that we have a real code, Theresa wants to file a very detailed report, on the monster and Myr—and Sam.’
Bub said, ‘I’m not comfortable about outing Sam either. But here’s another problem—if we let on that any information is getting to us, they’ll want to know how, and we don’t want them to muzzle the folks with the plastic containers. But if we don’t mention the plastic containers, then Oscar’s mum and dad won’t know he got their letters.’
‘It’s a quandary,’ William said.
‘I think we should report everything,’ Belle said, ‘the plastic containers, Myr, the monster, and Sam.’
‘We don’t know in what way, if any, Sam’s situation is relevant,’ said William.
‘You’re not very convincing for a lawyer,’ Belle said. ‘Sam is as relevant as all get out.’
‘Belle’s right. We need the brainpower of all the boffins out there,’ Bub said.
William turned in his seat to look Bub square in the face. ‘Don’t you have faith in your own brainpower? You’re here, with your heart and nerves and gut. You can see things those boffins are never going to be able to see. Even if they had instruments that were somehow able to register the Wake as it roams about and occasionally concentrates itself.’
‘How do you know that’s what it does?’ Bub said.
‘You told me how Sam acted when Warren overdosed. How she kept asking, “What is that?” The Wake was there, making a meal of Jacob’s misery, and only Sam could feel it.’
After a moment Bub nodded. ‘Yes. You’re right. The boffins can’t possibly get what we do.’
‘Even if they had some flash science-fiction instruments showing the monster whirling about like a weather system, they’re never going to see how even my Sam can register its presence better than any instruments, or that the other Sam is like its high priestess.’
‘We should tell them,’ Belle said. ‘They might know how to use the information.’
‘How? Do you think they are going to want to control what she says to the monster, just in case she creates diplomatic incident?’
‘So, you’re saying we tell them about Myr, and the Wake, but not about Sam. And we don’t mention any folksy forms of communication.’ Bub made a summary of what he and William agreed on, and then stuck out his hand. ‘I can go with that.’
William took Bub’s hand and shook it.
‘Bub!’
‘William’s right, Belle. We have to make our own judgement calls, as if we’re in a fire fight and the radio’s broken and we’re the ranking officers.’
‘Theresa won’t like it.’
‘Theresa has left it to me to master Morse and compose our messages,’ Bub said. ‘She’s not going to be able to keep a close enough track of what I’m sending to know what I leave out.’
‘You can’t exclude her like that!’
William said, ‘Never mind Theresa. I have to protect Sam. I owe her that.’
Bub placed the rocker switch beside their messages, which were already translated into Morse and set out letter by letter and word by word on graph paper. He flexed his fingers.
Theresa said, ‘I hope you’re not going to spend the next half-hour sending tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou, katoa.’
‘Don’t be cheeky,’ Bub said, and commenced.
After half an hour Bub stopped sending to massage his cramping hand. ‘I keep wanting to add a dubious “He says” to that last bit.’
The message he was sending read: Invisible, intangible monster cause of casualties. Zone is quarantine made by man who follows monster inter-dimensionally.
Theresa said, ‘What do you want to bet they’ll fire thousands of questions at us—when they figure out how—and we’ll have to repeat all that, as if they think we’re having them on, or we’re nuts, or lying?’
William said, ‘In that case we can send a message saying: “We’re not going to change our story no matter how many times you ask”.’
Oscar said, ‘That last bit will get the string theorists all hot.’
‘What’s a string theorist?’ Theresa asked.
‘A physicist with theories about multiple dimensions—stuff in addition to space and time. Most physicists think string theory is pretty bogus.’
Dan had assembled a low pallet of flattened cardboard boxes. He was lying down just beyond the outer ring of the bull’s-eye. He said, ‘You know, when the lights are off, I can actually see the satellites. Dozens have gone over.’ Then, ‘When I was a kid there were mostly only stars up there.’
Oscar asked whether he could take a turn. ‘It’s like texting. It’s easy.’
Bub gave Oscar the switch and the next message. Oscar asked what it said.
‘Kakapo all good but running low on feed.’
Oscar set to work. His dots were much sharper than Bub’s.
Jacob got up and stretched. He asked if anyone wanted him to microwave them a frozen pie. Bub said yes, and a can of Coke would be nice, though not microwaved. Several other people put in their orders and Jacob edged past the bundle of cables running through the supermarket’s wedged-open back door.
Bub told Oscar to stop, and turned the page. He tapped the paper. ‘Send this for ten minutes. It says: Could you signal us by bouncing light off clouds out to sea?’
‘Which shows that Bub does think he’s more savvy than the officials,’ William said.
Oscar began rattling again. Two light bulbs popped. Oscar stopped and looked at Bub. Bub got up, covered his hand with his sleeve, unscrewed the blown bulbs, and replaced them. He said, ‘Good to go,’ and Oscar began again.
‘Whatever they send back—from wherever—other people will be able to see it,’ Theresa said. ‘That’s why we can’t expect them to answer right away. They’re going to have to think about the ramifications of broadcasting our conversation to all and sundry, given the inter-dimensional monsters and aliens. We might have to wait for a time while they deliberate. Meanwhile everyone can give Bub their brief personal messages.’
‘That won’t be happening,’ said William.
Bub said, ‘Don’t you have anyone you want to send a message?’
‘Nobody who wouldn’t be acutely embarrassed. My friends and acquaintances are very private people.’
Dan, visible as a lumpy patch of shadow beyond the flickering field of light said, ‘Bub—William means his friends earn more than you do.’
‘Everyone earns more than me. But I’m asset rich. I have Dad’s boat, and his quota, and his flat in Stoke.’ Bub addressed this to Belle, who smiled. ‘I rent,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got a bean. I haven’t even paid off my student loan.’
‘We can sell our stories,’ Warren said. ‘They’ll be bidding for them.’
‘So—we aren’t going to die?’ Dan said, tentative.
‘Opinions vary,’ William said. Then, to Oscar, ‘Be careful not to run the words together.’
The last thing they sent was a list of names. Their own, and their dead.
Kate couldn’t be angry at the others for hoping for the best. She’d always been a forward-looking person herself. When her children tried to open a discussion about Enduring Power of Attorney she’d given them short shrift. They spent far too much time listening to earnest talk about such th
ings on the radio and television. Enduring Power of Attorney, indeed. She’d put an end to the discussion by saying, ‘However did people manage their arrangements before someone came up with Enduring Power of Attorney?’
It had always been in Kate’s nature not to reflect upon the past, but to have the next day in view, the next week. Manageable periods. When she was still living independently she planted bulbs in April and took her frost-sensitive pot plants indoors. She put in her broad beans in May, and her tomato seedlings in October. She bottled her peaches and her tomatoes and made a batch of breakfast yoghurt every Sunday. Each morning she checked the TV Guide and would circle any programme she might want to take a look at. She hadn’t wanted a video recorder or a DVR—if she missed something then it couldn’t have been that important.
Holly had thought Kate inconsistent in this. Wasn’t recording a programme the same as bottling tomatoes? But of course it wasn’t. The talk, the spectacle, all that only wiled away time, and arguably wasted it too. Preserves were for nourishment, and against waste.
Kate’s room at Mary Whitaker was always orderly and neat. The cleaners would dust and vacuum, but they knew to respect Kate’s arrangements. Kate had a place for everything, and she believed there was a time for everything too.
It was one thing to wait on the pleasure of the Almighty, and quite another to wait for a monster to get around to picking the bones of your character. This in mind, Kate had taken herself off all her heart and blood pressure medications. Now she was waiting. Waiting and hoping for a quick calamity that couldn’t be alleviated by anyone whipping her off to hospital. That blessed No-Go was her Enduring Power of Attorney.
Kate had made her plans, but she did feel a little uncomfortable about her sons, though neither of them was under fifty, and if they couldn’t take care of themselves by now then they’d never be able to. Anyway—she wouldn’t be sending them any messages. She couldn’t face making an explanation, about Holly, about what the others said Holly had done (while exonerating Holly from blame, since, of course, the blame lay with their monster). Let someone else tell Holly’s story. After all, all that Kate could think to say was that she didn’t know what had come over her daughter. She didn’t understand it.
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