Bandaka approached the cockpit again, paid his final respects to the dead pilot, then headed northeast towards his camp. He thought of the signs, certain they were warnings from the great spirits. The falling star, the dead pilot, the vanished eagle, the white men who failed to come, and the eerie silence that smothered the forest. They were as clear to him as the spoken word. They told him to hide, to melt away into the forest where the spirits could protect him.
Bandaka had learned long ago to always obey the spirits.
* * * *
Laura McKay gently placed the sleeping bird in a cage, then locked the small wire door. It would be morning before the rainbow lorikeet awoke to discover the white bandage and tiny splints holding its broken leg in place. The injured bird had been brought in from the surrounding forest by one of the aboriginal children, even though Laura ran a zoological research station, not a veterinary clinic.
Another eighteen-hour day, she thought wearily. It was past eleven PM and she’d been up since five, but she wouldn’t trade her remote little outpost for the best paid job at Taronga Zoo in Sydney.
She walked back down the narrow aisle between cages that were filled with a dazzling array of deadly and colorful creatures. She found it strangely paradoxical that the driest continent on earth should have one of the world’s most diverse ecologies. Unlike the Amazon or the Congo, the vast tropical wilderness of Arnhem Land found itself within the borders of a developed nation, an accident of history that ensured its survival. The eastern half had been an aboriginal reserve since 1931, while Kakadu National Park protected the great tropical wetlands to the west. This protection ensured the region escaped the catastrophes striking down tropical forests on other continents, and while tourists flocked to Kakadu, few outsiders were ever allowed into the ancient aboriginal lands to the east. When Laura had been offered the chance to run East Arnhem Land Research Station, she’d jumped at it, even though her family thought she was out of her mind. The isolated station possessed modern technology thanks to a small research fund, yet setting foot outside the compound was like stepping back a million years in time.
She returned to her desk as the door opened and her husband entered holding a glass of ice cold orange juice.
“Thanks,” she said with a tired smile as she took a sip.
“You should get some sleep,” Dan said.
“I will, as soon as I finish this report for the university. I’ve got to have it down there by Friday.”
“You should tell those kids to stop bringing you every half-dead creature they find.”
“I know . . .”
He watched her relax into the chair with a weary sigh, her eyes closing momentarily. Dan McKay was almost ten years her senior. He’d spent his entire life in the north, working mostly as a stockman. Now he used his talents to lead wilderness safaris for the few tourists daring enough to venture into this most remote of regions. He was tall, with sinewy muscles, dark hair and a tanned weathered face. When he smiled, it was like leather cracking, but it was the strange blend of quiet ruggedness and good humor that had drawn Laura to him. One day, he’d simply walked out of the forest as if he was strolling to the corner store. In the following months, his visits became regular occurrences, and before she realized it, they were the highlight of her week. Eventually, he moved his safari business to her station, only leaving to take tour parties out or bring supplies back. The rest of the time, he kept the machinery running, built new enclosures, and became the bed rock of her secluded existence.
“How’s the bird?” he asked.
“She’ll recover.”
Laura yawned, dragging her fingers back through her close-cropped red hair. She’d long ago given up the pretence of maintaining a hair style. Out here, she kept her hair short, her nails trimmed, and had all but forgotten what makeup was. Down in Sydney, she would have had a swarm of freckles on her face, but under the brutal Top End sun, her tan was complete. Dan thought the tan suited her, although he knew her naturally pale skin and flaming red hair was the worst possible complexion for the tropics.
“Any word on those assistants you asked for?”
“Yeah. A guy doing a PhD thesis is coming up for six weeks in September. He’s doing some interesting work on the myiagra inquieta.” Laura caught Dan’s blank look and translated, “Restless Flycatcher.”
“Right,” Dan said, nodding, “A bird.”
She’d tried undergraduates on vacation leave, but they’d proven more interested in their own mating habits than those of the animals and she’d sent them home. The few qualified scientists who’d come for no pay would stay just long enough to research a paper, then return to the air conditioned comfort and steady pay of the big southern universities. But then, what could she expect?
This isn’t exactly the Ritz Carlton, she thought ruefully.
Dan began gently massaging her shoulders, causing her to close her eyes, luxuriating under his strong hands. “Looks like that meteorite started quite a fire,” he said absently.
“Meteorite?” Laura said confused, then remembered what he’d told her at dinner. “Oh, the shooting star you saw this morning?”
“It was no shooting star. It was as big as a bloody mountain.” The massive fireball had streaked low across the northern sky, blindingly bright even through the tall trees encircling the station.
She smiled, patting his hand, knowing his tendency to exaggerate to make a story more interesting. “Sure it was.”
“No, seriously. Didn’t you feel the earthquake?”
“It was a slight tremor.”
“For a few seconds, I thought it was a dinosaur killer!”
“It appeared bigger than it was because it was close.”
Dan shook his head obstinately. “Nah. It was a long way off. And it was huge. It’s thrown a lot of stuff into the air, over by the Goyder.”
For the first time, Laura showed genuine interest. “How can you tell?” The river was a long way to the west, far out of sight of the station.
“Sky’s bright over that way. Bushfires must be burning where it came down.”
Laura straightened, alarmed. It was the dry season, when the forest was at its most vulnerable. “Which way’s the wind blowing?”
“There’s a bit of an easterly, but I don’t think it’ll reach us.”
“Have you reported it?”
“Nah. Darwin’s five hundred kilometers away. What are they going to do?” Dan knew as far as the Territory Government was concerned they might as well have been on another planet.
“They can get the air cranes up from the south!” Laura said as she tossed her white lab coat onto a chair and hurried out past the makeshift operating theatre into the yard. To her right, was their old wooden two-story house with its wide veranda and a leaky tin roof which made a hell of a racket during the wet season. The four-wheel-drive was parked in the garage beside the house, alongside the machine shed housing the generator and topped by the satellite disk. On the other side was the aviary, a nylon net thrown over several large trees and home to nearly a hundred brightly colored birds. Between the aviary and the machine shed stood two smaller buildings, the marsupial sanctuary and the reptile house.
Laura stepped into the middle of the yard, looking anxiously towards the west. A great column of dust rose high into the night sky and spread into the upper atmosphere where it masked the normally vibrant stars. The dust cloud glowed dull orange, lit by fires and radiant heat from the impact site below. She searched the sky in vain for clouds, knowing it would be months before the rains came.
Dan followed her outside, wondering what all the fuss was about. “See? It’s got to be over near the Goyder River.”
“I’ll call Darwin. They have to know.”
“They won’t do anything unless Kakadu’s threatened.”
She ran into the house, picked up the telephone and scanned the list of emergency numbers. If there was one thing she was afraid of, it was bushfires. If one passed their way, there would
be no place to run, nowhere to hide. She found the Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service number, then realized there was no dial tone. She tapped the phone several times, but the line was dead.
“Damn,” she whispered, slamming the phone down.
She turned, about to hurry back outside to get Dan, when a thought struck her. She switched on the TV, to be greeted by hissing white noise.
It’s not the phone!
Laura went back outside, her sense of urgency replaced by helplessness. “The dish is acting up again!” She said, knowing they were temporarily cut off from the outside world. To get the dish repaired meant following an overgrown dirt track thirty kilometers to the nearest satellite telephone, then waiting weeks for a technician to make the trip out from Darwin.
“It was working yesterday,” Dan said, mesmerized by the towering orange column of dust rising above the horizon.
“Typical! Just when you need the bloody thing, it goes on the blink,” she said irritably, never considering the satellite the dish was aimed at no longer existed.
He put his arm comfortingly around her shoulders. “It might burn itself out. I don’t think it’s as bright as it was a few hours ago.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“We’ll see what it’s like in the morning. If it’s still bad, we’ll drive down the track and make a call.”
“OK,” she said, watching the orange sky ominously, wondering if Dan could possibly have been right. Was it really as big as a mountain?
* * * *
The sound of Dan’s dog barking roused Laura from sleep. She lay with her eyes closed, hoping the dog would shut up, but he kept at it. She turned to see if Dan was awake, only to find his side of the bed empty. The clock on the bedside table told her it was a few minutes past four, which made her silently curse the dog for stealing her last hour of sleep before feeding time. The dog continued barking in a highly agitated manner, making her wonder what had spooked him.
A croc? She thought, snapping awake. Was that why Dan had gotten up?
The rest of the animals were strangely quiet, particularly the birds. If a croc was loose near the pens, they’d all be squawking. She heard Dan’s heavy footsteps down the hall, then the crack of his shotgun being opened and the click of shells being fed into the chamber.
“Is it a croc?” she called from her bed, sitting up.
“Maybe,” Dan replied as he headed for the back door. “Stay in the house.” She heard the screen door bang behind him, then he called the dog. “What is it, Blue? What you got, boy?”
Laura climbed out of bed and hurried to the window overlooking the track in front of the house. It was quiet and dark below. Whatever the dog was barking at was at the back of the house. She pulled her overalls on over her pajamas, quickly laced her boots and ran downstairs. When she reached the kitchen, she peered through the window. Dan had not bothered to put the outside lights on, but she could see him standing in front of the garage, holding his shotgun with both hands, not aiming at anything.
She sighed in relief. At least it’s not in the pens!
The research station was more than five kilometers from the river, but if the wind was right, the scent of the animals could carry that far. They’d seen crocodiles come inland during the wet season, when the ground was soaked and the streams were bursting their banks, but it was rare for one to travel inland this time of year.
She realized Dan was looking up, not down to where a croc would be lurking. The dog was barking nervously at something above them, while the birds in the aviary were starting to screech. A shiver of fear ran down her spine, as she wondered if the fire they’d seen to the west was approaching.
She flicked on the switch for the outside flood lights, but the frosted glass in the back door remained a rectangle of darkness. “Great! Danny, is the generator on?”
When no reply came she tried the hall light, but it was out too. Laura knew he checked the generator daily, but it had been old when she bought it and its resistance to the tropics was fading. She hurried down the hall to the storage cupboard, where she retrieved a large waterproof flashlight.
She switched it on, momentarily dazzled by its bright beam. “At least this works!”
The sound of shattering wood filled the night, as if a truck had ploughed through the house. The thunder of Dan’s shotgun sounded as she turned toward the back door and saw a brilliant white light fill the backyard. His shotgun boomed again as Blue’s barking turned to frightened yelping, which was suddenly cut off in a squeal of pain.
“Dan? Are you alright?” she called uncertainly as she realized the birds in the aviary had fallen strangely silent.
The brilliant white light cast sharp shadows through the windows as it moved toward the house. Metallic rattling in the kitchen broke the eerie stillness, then the entire house began to shudder. She approached the kitchen doorway, as the sink, oven and fridge all vibrated rapidly, fighting to break free of their restraints. The wail of tortured metal filled the house as the tin roof peeled off, then the bench top shattered as the sink and oven shot up as if fired out of cannon. They crashed into the ceiling, hurtling up through the first floor before vanishing skywards. Luminous white beams poured down through the holes they’d made, forcing her to shield her eyes as she glimpsed a metal surface gliding slowly above the house.
Laura stepped back into the hall in shock, staring at the cavities in the kitchen where the oven and sink had been. The water pipes groaned and twisted up, spraying water across the kitchen, then tore free and shot up towards the light. A moment later, the microwave flew skyward, then cutlery burst from the drawers like a shotgun blast, peppering the ceiling with dozens of small holes.
Laura felt her right hand lift beside her as the flashlight was pulled upwards. She tried to drag it down, but it was held in a vice like grip by an unseen force. She wrapped both hands around it, holding onto it with all her strength, but it lifted her off her feet. When she was half a meter above the floor, she let go. The flashlight smashed through the ceiling, then the fridge rocketed up, opening the way for another column of light to spear down into the kitchen.
The house began to fill with pained squeals. Nails in the floor boards shuddered violently, working their way up out of the wood, then shooting up like bullets. She threw herself against the wall to avoid being speared by them, then felt the wall behind her vibrating. She stumbled away as electrical wiring whipped out of the walls, slashing long lines through the plaster before lashing up through the roof. Laura held her hands over her head as flailing wires lashed the ceiling, showering plaster and wood chips over her.
She fell into a corner in terror as the white light winked off and the house fell silent. Laura blinked, temporarily blinded in the darkness, shaking with fear as she looked up at the shattered remains of the house. Pieces of torn plaster and splintered wood fell as the old building groaned, close to collapse. She jumped to her feet and ran toward the back door as the walls teetered. The door stood crookedly in her path, its metal hinges and lock missing. She smashed it aside with her shoulder, staggered out onto the veranda, then dived out into the yard.
Overhead, she sensed rather than saw a dark mass blocking out the stars. It glided silently to the south, like a black curtain being pulled aside to reveal the night sky, then it vanished. A short distance away, the walls of the house folded like collapsing cards and fell in upon themselves. It was then Laura realized that she was surrounded by ruin. The garage had collapsed. Its old doors lay flat on the ground, with hinges and nails torn away. The land cruiser was gone, and the garage roof had a gaping hole in it where the four-by-four had crashed through it. The generator, and the other equipment stored in the crumpled machine shed were gone, as was the satellite dish. All that remained of the metal fuel tank was a pool of burning gasoline beneath the wreckage of the machine shed. Laura knew she should try to put the fire out, but there was no firefighting equipment left. She could only hope the fire breaks around the compound would be
enough to stop the flames spreading.
Behind her, the laboratory split apart and fell to the ground. Like the house, its corrugated iron roof had vanished, as had all its metal components. Laura took a few steps toward it, afraid for the birds and animals in her makeshift hospital, then she saw tiny bodies strewn throughout the wreckage, shredded by flying metal cages. Several small animals and birds had somehow survived, and were now picking their way through the wreckage intent on fleeing into the safety of the forest. On the far side of the yard, the marsupial sanctuary and reptile house were also wrecked. Even the old metal water tank that had collected rain water from the building’s roofs was gone.
Laura surveyed the devastation in shock. Only the aviary, made of nylon fiber netting, survived.
“Dan? Where are you?” she called with rising alarm. “Can you hear me, honey?” The silence was chilling as she realized her husband and the dog had both vanished.
The clatter of shifting wood snapped her attention to the remnants of the marsupial sanctuary. “Danny, is that you?” she called as tears began to trickle down her cheeks.
She saw several small animals frantically crawling and hopping to freedom. They were fleeing for their lives as a slow, dark form moved through the shadows, effortlessly pushing aside broken beams.
The crocs are out! she realized in shock, coming to her senses. Feeding time was only an hour away, which meant they were hungry.
The reptile house held several smaller crocs under four meters, and a big one over seven. She knew the small crocs, twice the size of a man, could easily kill her, let alone the big brute which could crush a horse with a single bite. As she peered apprehensively into the shadows, a terrified squeal sounded from the wreckage of the marsupial sanctuary. Several broken planks were hurled clear, whipped by a long powerful tail during the frenzy of an attack. When silence returned, she heard the crunching of breaking bones as the big croc devoured its hapless prey. She felt a pang of sorrow for the smaller animals, but her need to survive told her they would buy her time. With the kangaroos on the run, she was acutely aware that she was now the single largest piece of meat in the area.
The Mothership Page 3