Flight of the Fantail

by Steph Matuku

  He had a couple of close calls. The worst was when he heard hooves and couldn’t work out which direction the horse was coming from. He dithered a bit, not knowing where to hide without being trampled on, and it was almost on top of him before he figured it out.

  The rider pulled up and the horse let out a whinny, pivoting to face the exact spot where Jahmin was lying. It backed up, shaking its head, and then bolted, the rider crying out in alarm. Jahmin lay still for a few moments more, until he was sure they had gone.

  As he ran, he alternately cursed Peter for catching him and himself for telling. Why had he given so much away? He’d received hardly any intel out of Peter in return. It was the uniform, Jahmin decided. Peter had looked so ridiculous, like an oversized baby in a black stretch ’n’ grow pretending to be a soldier. Jahmin had wanted nothing more than to wipe the smug grin off his face.

  But then again, if he was being truly honest, it was mostly because the secret was just too big to keep to himself. A spaceship! Biggest. Goss. Ever. Maybe Seddon Corporation could keep it quiet, but there was no way Jahmin could.

  It had been stupid to think Peter would keep his mouth shut about finding him. Jahmin had gambled on Peter not wanting to get into trouble for losing a survivor, and Jahmin had clearly lost. Now it was just a matter of time before they found the sinkhole, and there was no doubt in his mind what would happen when they did. He had to find Eva, Devin and Rocky before they did.

  He was fighting his way through supplejack vines when he thought he saw something moving just ahead. He eased behind a sapling that was too small to climb but offered cover, and squinted through the undergrowth.

  Nothing.

  He waited a moment longer, just to be sure, and then came the unmistakeable sound of a cough, quickly smothered.

  He crouched. There was the soft crackle of a footfall on dry leaves, then another. That was weird. All the Seddon people he’d seen so far had been in groups. And they were all dressed in black, whereas he could have sworn he’d seen …

  Pink. A pink cardy.

  He stood up, stepped into the open, and waved.

  ‘You stupid lesbo,’ he said, as Eva came running towards him. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She flung herself into his arms, almost bowling him over. He pushed her away a little and she winced. A blood-streaked pad poking out of the neckline of her cardigan made a gruesome complement to her red, swollen eyes.

  ‘What’s happened? Where is everyone? Did they find you?’

  ‘No, the dicks,’ she said. It took Jahmin a moment to realise she didn’t mean Seddon, but Rocky and Devin.

  ‘You left them?’ He grabbed her arm and tugged her back the way she had come.

  She yanked away. ‘I’m not going back!’

  ‘We have to. Seddon’s everywhere, they know we’re here. We’ve got to warn the others.’

  There was no mistaking the urgency in his voice, but she still stood, feet planted square, hands on hips.

  A memory surfaced, of the day Eva had declared to the whole world that she was gay and anyone who didn’t like it could stuff it. Her mother, red-faced and furious, had arrived to pick her up from school, and Eva refused to get in the car. It was the same obstinate stance, the same sulky pout.

  ‘No,’ she said, loudly. Too loud.

  ‘We can’t talk here. Come on.’

  He led her to a large tree with dense foliage starred with yellow flowers and gave her a leg up. Her left arm wasn’t working properly, but her gym training was evident as she hauled herself up with her other arm, the toned muscles in her legs flexing.

  When they were obscured from the ground by thick greenery, Jahmin told Eva what he knew.

  ‘So no one’s looking for us.’ Eva said flatly. ‘No Search and Rescue or anything?’

  ‘Nope. Just Seddon. And they’re all about the Search, not so much about the Rescue, if you know what I mean. Your turn.’

  She grunted and looked out over the mass of trees. ‘Okay, so Devin and Rocky got together, and while they were … doing whatever, Awhina-bloody-mentalcase-Thomas stabbed me and then killed herself. So I went, stuff this, hid out till morning and came to find you. The End.’

  Jahmin blinked. ‘Okay. Back up. What?’

  ‘They left me to it, so I left them. Fair exchange, I reckon.’

  ‘No, about Awhina. She was there?’

  ‘The ship got to her. It completely screwed her up. And guess what? She was the one Liam saw. Not Eugene. He was following her. And then he died.’

  Jahmin’s mouth twisted and his eyes prickled. He’d known Liam forever. He’d thought he always would.

  Eva’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Awhina said there are things in the ship.’

  ‘Things? You mean aliens?’

  He was stunned. He’d never thought it was inhabited by living beings. He’d assumed everything on board was dead or gone and that the ship was just sending out random signals of its own accord.

  ‘She used this Māori word, patu-pie, or something. Rocky knew about them. He called them fairies, but what if they’re really aliens? They landed here years ago, and the olden-day Māori people found them and named them? Maybe this wasn’t the only ship. Or maybe some of them got out.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘She heard them talking to her. She said they want to leave and need our energy, our life force, to do it. She tried to kill us to help them, and when it didn’t work, she killed herself instead. Maybe she killed Liam too.’

  ‘You’re just guessing. You don’t know how much is real. You said yourself she was screwed up.’

  ‘But it makes sense! The ship got a massive energy boost when the bus came down and everyone died, all at once. Enough to wake it up, but not enough to get it going. So they messed up everyone’s heads so they could steal our life force.’

  ‘Yeah, but you were just hallucinating about Mandy. You weren’t running around throwing rocks at people.’

  Eva’s lip trembled.

  ‘But the more I saw her, the more I wanted to be with her. What if it got to the point where I wanted to be with her permanently? Because right now, believe me, it wouldn’t take much.’

  Her shoulders shook with silent sobs. She was too high up to hug, so Jahmin had to settle for patting her leg, feeling a little as if he were petting a dog.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll go and get Devin and Rocky and then we’re gone.’

  ‘But what happens to you?’

  Jahmin shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. If Seddon catch up with me, I’m dead. Well, deader.’

  ‘If we get home, everyone will want to know what happened. If we say nothing, Seddon will be after us to make sure. If we do talk, the authorities will take over and silence us too. Cos if it gets out – well, it’s a threat to national security, isn’t it? There’s no way little old New Zealand could stand up to a superpower wanting a piece of alien action. We’d be in the middle of a worldwide shit-storm. We’re stuffed. If we stay or we go, talk or don’t talk. No matter what happens, we’re stuffed.’

  She pounded the branch she was sitting on. ‘I wish we’d died in the crash, you know? I wish we’d all died together. Bloody Seddon. Making money out of misery and death, making out they’re the good guys. I wish that thing would just do us all a favour and disappear–’

  She broke off, eyes narrowing, lips curving into a diabolical smile. Jahmin knew that smile. It didn’t mean anything good.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he said.

  ‘What if there was no spaceship? What if it just …’ She blew on the palm of her hand, and they both watched the invisible kiss fly off.

  ‘How?’

  The smile faded. ‘You know how.’

  ‘No. No way. Awhina probably had it all wrong.’

  ‘She didn’t.’

  ‘I can’t kill anyone.’

  ‘It’s them or us.’

  ‘We need to get Devin and Rocky. See what they think,’ Jahmin said, half
expecting Eva to demur.

  But she didn’t. ‘Fine. We’ll need the help.’

  ‘And then what?’

  A burst of laughter sounded nearby, and they fell silent. A small team of searchers came into view. Jahmin counted. Only six. The smallest group he’d seen so far. They were passing round a greasy paper bag of what looked like doughnuts. Slowly they moved off out of sight.

  Eva was about to speak, but Jahmin held up a warning finger. Two stragglers appeared, a lock of mahogany hair poking out from under one of the helmets.

  Eva climbed down to Jahmin’s branch. It bowed under their weight and Jahmin clutched at it for balance, registering with alarm the pocket knife in her hand.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed.

  She grinned, and made a quiet noise that sounded suspiciously like the buk-buk of a chicken.

  He grabbed at her, but she’d already dropped to the ground, and he had no choice but to follow.

  71

  The Seddon Camp was near empty. The few remaining people were down at the river. Roped together for safety, they crawled about the cliff face above the ship like flies, hand-drilling holes ready to be filled with explosives.

  Griff peered at the crumpled map in his hand. ‘One good blast and the cliff and the road will come away and cover the entire area.’

  ‘It’s gonna screw up the river,’ Moses remarked.

  Griff coughed, the dust tickling his throat. He coughed again. There was something lodged deep in his throat, a fat little larval body burrowing into his flesh … he coughed and spat.

  ‘Who cares? Rivers change course, flood out, all the time. We’ll just be helping nature along.’

  The three men went back up the track to the big tent. Once inside, Griff went straight to a green duffle bag and took out a bottle of whisky.

  ‘You know what I saw this morning? A little girl.’

  He offered the bottle to the others, and when they refused, poured a generous measure into a plastic cup.

  ‘My little girl, with maggots in her mouth. Spitting them out, spraying them all over my feet. Blinked and she was gone.’ He shrugged, took another swallow. ‘She was only seven when she died. Leukaemia. Destiny knows all about it.’

  ‘It’ll be covered soon, boss,’ said Jesse. ‘The visions will stop when it’s buried.’

  ‘And nothing will happen to it?’ said Moses anxiously. ‘It won’t be damaged? You’re sure?’

  Moses loved Destiny. He’d loved UFOs since he was a little kid in glow-in-the-dark alien pyjamas. But unlike some of the others, he hadn’t hallucinated a damn thing. Everything he’d seen so far had been real. He hadn’t told anyone, though. He wanted to keep that to himself.

  Griff swirled the amber liquid in the cup. ‘They tried to get rid of it back in the ’50s. Nothing happened to it then. Nothing will happen to it now. Destiny is indestructible.’

  He sipped, changed the subject. ‘Then we can focus on getting the bodies back to the families. Are there any Maoris in camp? It might be good for them to do some spiritual wailing or a prayer or something, when the kids are brought in.’

  ‘I’ve got a bit of Māori in me,’ Moses commented, but Griff shook his head impatiently.

  ‘Too white. See if there’s a brown one around. And you,’ he addressed Jesse, ‘make sure your camera’s ready. Your pictures – well, I want to say they look beautiful, but that would be wrong. Striking, I suppose. Artistic.’

  Jesse acknowledged the compliment with a polite nod. ‘It was a good light.’

  ‘We’ll send the pictures back tonight. Get the ball rolling. They’re holding a memorial service, did you know? Not sure when. Soon. They’ll want some actual bodies to memorialise, what do you think?’

  He could feel himself loosening up. Everything was going to plan. Except for that runaway kid. That kid. The plastic cup crackled in his grip. If that kid got away, everything would come undone.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Moses soothed. ‘He won’t get away.’

  It wasn’t the first time Moses had surprised Griff by commenting on something Griff hadn’t articulated. At first, Griff had thought it was just coincidence. But now …

  He looked into Moses’s brown eyes and thought, Get me a drink.

  Moses automatically reached for the bottle and then hesitated, dropping his hand. But it was too late. Griff had already seen. So Moses was an Exception, someone who had escaped the mental damage the ship could inflict, someone who had been affected positively. His grandfather’s journal mentioned two Exceptions back in his day. Cousins, they were. Exceptions were rare, but here was another one. Under his nose the whole time.

  Griff turned away and deliberately changed the direction of his thoughts, focusing on the kid, letting his anxiety come to the fore. As soon as Destiny was covered, Moses was going to find himself the subject of some rather intense scrutiny, and he wasn’t going to like it.

  One of the guards popped his head in the tent flap. ‘Excuse me, sir, just had a message radioed in, sir.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Good news. They’ve found the boy …’

  Moses grinned. Jesse’s mouth twitched in a vague approximation of a smile, and Griff blew out a liquor-laden sigh of relief.

  ‘... and a girl.’

  Griff’s shoulders slumped. ‘Two of them?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The team’s bringing them in now.’

  Without a word, Moses took the bottle and handed it to Griff. You didn’t need to be a mind reader to do that.

  72

  In the soft green glow of the ship’s life-lights, the Medic moved among the others, checking for signs they’d woken. It was the Engineer they were waiting for. The energy the ship had absorbed was enough to initialise the ship’s systems, but it wasn’t nearly enough to wake everyone, no matter how often the Designer poked at the Engineer with his long pale finger, as though that would reanimate his life-force.

  Which of course it didn’t.

  So they waited, the Medic, the Designer, and after another surge of energy, the Disruptor had awoken, grumpy and brusque. The Disruptor was responsible for acquiring more fuel, for sending out signals and absorbing other signals, a simple energy exchange that would power the ship and reanimate the others.

  The Designer had tried to manipulate the simple life forms outside so that the Disruptor could do her job, but some kind of interference was thwarting the process. A few signals were seeping through, especially the ones that resonated most powerfully with the receiver, but not enough. It was frustrating.

  The Medic slipped quietly past the sleeping Guide and Navigator. At the far end of the ship lay the remainder of the Colonists. The ones who had disembarked centuries before were long dead. They’d mated with the original inhabitants of the land, and their life force had been absorbed and diluted through the generations. The Designer could feel a few of them close by, with the remnants of that shared blood. The ship’s signals would affect them too, but in a different way to the others. It was strange, knowing they were out there. Strange, but comforting. Like having a living ancestor watch over them.

  The Medic reached down to touch a little girl’s face, smoothed the red hair, pressed a kiss against her daughter’s pale cheek.

  Waited.

  73

  The footsteps approaching the compound sounded completely different from the footsteps of the departing personnel earlier that morning. Those had been heavy, purposeful, solemn. These were light, relaxed, and accompanied with jubilant chatter and bursts of laughter.

  Griff leaned against the gate, woozy from the alcohol. Moses reached out to steady him, but Griff held him off with a stern look. He wasn’t drunk. He just had a headache. The whole business was extremely aggravating. He took one or two deep breaths, preparing to confront Joshua Worthington, the kid who knew. Griff remembered meeting him some months earlier, a cheeky-faced kid with logo-emblazoned clothing and a mop of ginger hair that should have been cut off long ago. His father, Kane, wa
s on the brink of being welcomed into the inner circle. The threat of what might happen to his kid if either of them blabbed might be just enough to keep him there.

  He forced a smile as the group came towards the gate. The smile faded as the group parted and two ragged figures appeared: a handsome Māori boy and a hollow-cheeked girl with long strands of blonde hair poking out of her black helmet. Her green eyes were vacant as she took in the people, the horses, the mud.

  Neither of them looked anything like Joshua Worthington.

  Acid flooded the pit of Griff’s stomach. One of the searchers came forward, smiling.

  ‘Look who we found! Safe and well, sir.’

  ‘Great work!’ boomed Griff, his voice a little too hearty. ‘We’ll get them inside, get them checked out.’ He beckoned to the man who had spoken. ‘Tony, is it? Come with me. And the rest of you, good job! Bonuses all round and a little relaxation time, I think … yes …’ he finished vaguely, slinging his arms around the two teens and ushering them away from the group.

  ‘They were wandering just out of the Zone, have been for days, haven’t you?’ continued Tony, hovering around the trio.

  The girl gave no sign she’d heard, and the boy stared straight through him as if he wasn’t there.

  Tony beckoned Griff out of their earshot. ‘They haven’t said much, sir. I think the electromagnetic waves might have affected them in some way. I don’t know if they can remember anything. They haven’t even told us their names.’

  ‘We’ll get the medical team on them straightaway. The doctors are saying that with all the exposure to the radiation, these kids …’ Griff shook his head.

  Tony gasped. ‘But they look so healthy!’

  ‘On the outside, maybe. Who knows what damage has been done to their internal organs? It’s happened before, you know. No way of telling how long these kids have got. Tell your team they must keep quiet. If word gets out to the families they’re alive, and then they’re not, well …’