by Unknown
“I was one hundred and eighty-three. Little more than a boy.”
“And that was five thousand years ago.”
“Give or take a century.”
Tom snorted.
“How can that be possible?” asked Ceri. “You look about fifty.”
“Anatomically, we and humans are almost identical. Now that you’ve lost your pelts, and your foreheads have expanded to house your developed brains, and your jawlines have receded a little . . . But there are two major differences between us. The first is that we can influence lesser creatures with the power of our minds and can combine with others to exert greater power. The second is that we have the ability to regenerate, using almost any source of energy to revitalise our cells. The sun—the Earth’s sun in particular—is especially effective. We lived long lives on our home planet, but nothing as compared to here.” Peter shrugged almost apologetically. “It was not considered prudent to impart either ability when we created humans. Instead, you were given the ability to reproduce at will and a keen instinct for survival. Too keen, I have come to believe.”
“Can you be killed?” asked Tom.
“Oh yes,” said Peter. “If both our heart and brain are destroyed at the same time—through oxygen deprivation, trauma, fire, extreme cold—we die. Thus we have lost over half our number. But if only our heart is damaged, or only our brain, provided we have a power source that can be readily accessed—sunlight, for instance—we will recover. I fought in both world wars. Countless civil wars and conquests. I’ve been stabbed with dagger, spear and sword. I’ve been shot six times. But I’m still here.”
“What if your head was chopped off?”
Peter thought for a moment. “Yeah, that’d work.”
“If what you say is true,” said Tom, “how come we don’t know about you? How could you keep such abilities hidden from us?”
“It is easy to hide less than five thousand amongst seven billion. Of course, it was not always thus. Humans numbered far less in centuries past. We have not always escaped notice.”
“For example?” said Tom.
“Well, like I said, almost any source of energy will suffice for us to regenerate. In times long past, during long European winters when sunlight and food were in scarce supply, some of my compatriots grew sufficiently desperate for sustenance that they resorted to a ready supply of energy—human blood. Some were caught and killed. Quite effectively, too. Stake through heart and decapitation.”
“What, you’re bloody Dracula now?”
Peter smiled. “The cloves of garlic and fear of the crucifix are artistic inventions, but fresh human blood is remarkably rich in energy. Do not look like that, Tom. I have never indulged and have no intention of starting now.”
“Glad to hear it.” Tom jumped to his feet. “I’m going to the car to fetch a beer.”
“Bring the vodka, too, please,” said Ceri. “Listening to this stuff’s enough to drive anyone to drink.”
Peter watched Tom go, unruffled by his lack of belief. Before too long, Peter suspected that Tom would have every reason to believe everything Peter had told him. Better for Tom that it be delayed as long as possible.
* * * * *
Bishop steered the Sea King on a north-westerly bearing until they were well clear of Greater London and passing to the north of Oxford. Then he turned to face west and the Welsh border. As they passed over Gloucester, Bishop’s voice came over Diane’s earphones.
“Keep your eyes peeled from here on, darling. That’s Wales up ahead, where they were last seen. I’m going to meander up the border until we pick up their trail.”
His term of address once again grated on Diane, but she kept her thoughts to herself. She stared down at the ground, looking for tracks in the snow. They had already seen a few vehicles driving steadily south; four-by-fours, Bishop informed her, from the easy way they handled the snow. Diane nodded and said nothing; she wasn’t really sure what a four-by-four was—she had thought it was a cut of wood. They also saw one or two vehicles that didn’t look so steady, weaving across carriageways, progressing south in a series of jerking, sliding motions. The sight made Bishop laugh.
They flew low enough for Diane to be able to make out that a person got out of one car and stood watching them as they flew by. Bishop ignored them: they had been driving south so didn’t interest him.
They flew over a river—the Severn, Bishop told her—that didn’t seem as wide here as the two motorways she could make out from her vantage point. White, deserted motorways, dotted with the occasional dark knot of abandoned vehicles.
Bishop turned the helicopter and followed a main road towards Hereford. He circled the still town and then seemed to choose another road to follow at random. But when Diane glanced at the compass, she saw they were heading due north.
She had almost forgotten the purpose of the journey, was beginning to enjoy gazing down on the peaceful, white world, when she heard Bishop draw in breath sharply.
“There!” he said.
It took Diane a moment to spot it. Even when she did, it took her a moment longer to realise that it was what had excited her companion. A set of deep parallel lines in the road outside a small village.
“I can see tyre tracks,” she said. “But how do you know they’re theirs? The tracks could be leading south, into the village.”
“No. They’re on the right side of the road.”
“No, they’re not. They’re on the left.”
“I meant the correct side of the road. They drive on the left in Britain, darling, like in Australia. Ronstadt has lived here for at least sixty years. Even with the roads to himself, he’d instinctively drive on the left. No, those tracks are heading out of the village. North. But let’s make doubly sure.”
Diane gasped as the helicopter swooped around and down. Bishop brought it to a hover what seemed to her like mere yards above the roofs of the buildings.
“There!” said Bishop, a note of triumph in his voice. “That pub. The tracks start there. From next to that blue car—a Jaguar, I think. Yep. They must have stayed the night in the pub, it snowed overnight and they left this morning. We’ve got them, baby, we’ve got them!”
Before Diane had time to object to his latest form of address, her stomach dropped as Bishop brought the Sea King up sharply and turned it to face northwards once more. He set off in the direction of the tyre tracks.
* * * * *
Tom offered Peter a beer, but he refused. He seemed content with soft drinks. Ceri once more downed a large slug of spirit, but only sipped at the refill. It was she who asked Peter another question.
“Peter, what’s ninety-three multiplied by six hundred and twelve?”
Peter blinked. “I haven’t a clue,” he said. “Why are you asking?”
“Oh, just wondering if you’re really that much more intelligent than us.”
Peter smiled. “Ah, I see. Actually, we’re not more intelligent than you, at least not individually. We certainly were once, long ago, but not for centuries. Collectively, however . . . that’s a different matter. You see, we have no use for books or records or computers. Well, not for storing knowledge in any case. All our knowledge and skills and experiences, and those of our ancestors, are pooled and held by one of our number who is known as the Keeper. If we die, our memories pass to the Keeper and are added to the pool.”
“And if the Keeper dies?” asked Ceri.
“They will pass to another of our number who has been selected to succeed to the Keeper. She is called the Chosen.” He shrugged. “The titles aren’t important. What those holding them do is. They don’t have to be female, but tend to be.”
“What if the Keeper and this Chosen die at the same time?” asked Tom.
“The knowledge will pass to one of us, though he or she won’t be prepared to receive it. I don’t know how they would cope—it has never happened.”
“If you were to drown tomorrow, all your memories would pass to the Keeper?”
“Yes. Her name is Milandra. I last saw her before the Second World War, in Florida. I like her.” Peter smiled wryly. “Tom, I do wish you’d stop asking questions that involve me dying in some horrible way.”
Tom was struggling to keep his scepticism in check, but couldn’t help returning Peter’s smile.
“You mentioned a beacon,” said Ceri. “You said you made the drones build one in Salisbury?”
“We felt it prudent,” said Peter. “When we entered this solar system, there had been some debate about which planet was the right one. The ancients’ records were a little vague on this point. We obviously chose correctly, but didn’t want to run the risk of the rest of our people choosing incorrectly. Since we could no longer send messages home without our craft, a beacon was required. That’s why we called the drones to us and set them to work.”
“Ha!” said Tom. “I can guess what comes next. You’re going to tell us that the beacon is Stonehenge, right?”
Peter nodded. There was no hint of playfulness in his expression. “And it will need to be reconfigured. I suspect that this will be one of the tasks to which your fellow countrymen will be put.” Peter looked as though he was about to say more, but then changed his mind. He got up to refill his glass with orange juice.
Tom took the opportunity to relieve his bladder. When he returned to his seat, Peter was talking about his home planet.
“ . . . underground cities and pyramids and domes. It’s no coincidence that many of your own ancient civilisations erected similar buildings.”
“How far away is this planet?” Tom asked.
“Four hundred and seventy-nine-point-four light years, to be exact.”
“And the rest of your people set off, what, two or three weeks ago?”
“Yes. We expect them to arrive in around five months’ time. May or June.”
“Huh. Almost five hundred light years in six months. Not possible. It’s why they’re called light years.”
“Not possible within the normal laws of physics, no. But such laws don’t pertain outside the gravitational pulls of compact solar systems like this one and our home system. How can I explain? You’ve heard that the universe is expanding?”
“Ye-es,” said Tom. “So what?”
“Well, it’s true. Mankind has made huge strides in its scientific knowledge of late, though it has barely completed the first hundred yards of a marathon. But it has got this right: the universe is expanding and at a much faster rate than the speed of light. The ancients knew how to harness that expansion—to tag onto it. How best to imagine it? You’ve seen a leaf floating in a swollen stream, perhaps bobbing in slack water? Then, the current takes it and it’s swept away like a swimmer in a riptide. In order to be that leaf we needed knowledge and materials. The knowledge was provided by the ancients in their black tablets; the materials we already possessed. Of course, it wasn’t enough merely to know how to join the current; we had to know how to escape it again when we reached where we wanted to be. That knowledge the ancients provided, too.”
“Dark energy,” said Ceri. “You’re harnessing dark energy.”
Peter nodded. “Very good, Ceri. I’m impressed.”
Tom looked at her and raised his eyebrows.
Ceri shrugged. “I read a lot of science-fiction.”
Tom sighed. “Well, I’m no scientist and since we’ve not ventured further than the Moon, we’re hardly in a position to argue. So what do you call this planet of yours, anyway?”
“I was wondering when you’d ask. The closest English translation from our native tongue—again, no coincidence—is Earth.”
Tom stared hard at Peter, waiting for some sign that he was joking. None came. He glanced at Ceri. She was also staring at Peter, a mixture of wonder and something else, maybe fear, in her expression.
“Okay,” said Tom, turning back to face Peter. “That’s enough hokum for one day. It’s time for the answer to the sixty million pound question. We’ve skirted around this long enough. What I and Ceri. . . .” He glanced at her again. She returned the look and nodded. “What I and Ceri want to know is how, and why, the Millennium Bug?”
* * * * *
The rate of arrivals at Hillingdon Hospital had slowed somewhat. Those who had entered the hospital and come back out again joined in the clearance and burning of corpses, and the gathering of food. They moved slowly, but purposefully, pausing in their work only to shamble off to one side to eat or to defecate where they stood. They showed no interest in their surroundings or in each other. Though they had not lost the ability to talk, they did not speak except to mutter some guttural reply to a barked command from an overseer.
At night, they slept huddled together in their own filth in rows of houses already cleared of the dead.
They had come in sufficient numbers to allow the non-humans to stop doing the dirty work themselves and leave it all to the drones.
“Over six thousand have come from outside the city,” Grant informed Milandra, upon his return from the short trip to Hillingdon. “Almost seven hundred from London itself. There are still some arriving from Scotland—one man came in from Yorkshire while I was there. He’d cycled all the way.” He glanced at Milandra as though expecting a comment. She said nothing.
“Some have died from a disease they caught from the corpses,” Grant continued. “Kind of ironic really. It’s been contained and we’re making them wear surgical masks. Oh, and one was killed when he was attacked by a pack of feral dogs. But they won’t be a problem again. We don’t want too many of the drones dying on us just yet.”
“No,” said Milandra. She was making a monumental effort at keeping her face expressionless and to hide any hint that Grant’s words were sickening her. “We were able to get the hospital generators working?”
He nodded. “Just as well as we were fast running out of car batteries. The generators have enabled the, er, treatments to progress at pace. And, once treated, the drones work well. Quite single-mindedly, you could say.” He laughed, but Milandra sensed that his heart wasn’t fully in it.
“How about work on the Grid?”
“Well, there’s a team over at the electrical substation at North Hyde. They expect to get it ready to be operational by tomorrow. It’s only needed replacement coils and fuses; maintenance stuff, really. Then they’ll move on to the stations in the centre. Battersea and a few others. London should be ready to be reilluminated within a couple of weeks. Before we throw the switch back on, we need to get the drones switching off as many of the millions of appliances that were running when the power went out as we have time for. The more we can catch now, the fewer problems we’ll get when the juice goes back on.”
“Millions of appliances? Many people were probably dead or dying when the electricity went off.”
“You’re right. But many of them would have left the central heating switched on, TVs on standby, that sort of thing.”
“Okay. But we can’t allow the drones to spend too long on that. They’ve more important tasks to attend to.”
“I know. The Beacon.”
“Yes. The Beacon. Send word out that a hundred drones are to be placed in confinement. They are to be kept clean and well-fed. Gentle exercise. The fitter they are, the more effective it will be.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll send the word myself, from here.”
Milandra smiled. “Of course. You know, we’ve lived among them for so long, that on occasions I forget who we are.”
“No,” said Grant. “You don’t. But sometimes I get the feeling that you want to.”
* * * * *
The helicopter flew from beneath the cloud cover and the world suddenly seemed sparklingly white to Diane in the pale afternoon sun. The tracks below could now be made out even more clearly and Bishop could afford to take the chopper up a little.
“Bit more height up here, little less noise down there,” he said. “We can’t be far away now. I suggest you ready the weapons.”
; Diane hesitated, trying to examine her feelings. She had not come on this trip expecting it to be a pleasant Sunday afternoon outing, but the finale had seemed distant, something that would involve others, not her. Now that it was close, she tried to see inside herself, seeking the woman who was capable of pointing a gun at another living creature and pulling the trigger. She could not find her, though that didn’t mean she wasn’t there. When the time arrived, Diane would yank her from the depths, kicking and screaming if needs be, and force her to the fore.
She unbuckled her shoulder straps and reached for the bag on the floor. She hefted it to her lap and rebuckled the straps.
Opening the bag, she withdrew the pistol. The not unpleasant smell of gun oil filled the cabin. Diane fitted an ammunition clip into the handle of the pistol and slid it home with a click. She checked that the safety was on and placed the gun between her knees. Then she withdrew the machine gun, checked that its safety was on and fitted a magazine to that. Bishop brought his attention from the tracks in the snow below long enough to shoot appreciative, almost hungry, glances at what she was doing.
“Yeah, baby,” he said in a breathy whisper. “That’s what I like.”
Diana held the loaded Uzi towards him and he grinned, baring his teeth like a dog. She returned the weapon to the bag, leaving it unzipped, and placed it in the narrow space between them, within his reach.
She picked up the pistol from between her knees and held it loosely in her lap, occasionally lifting it a little to test its weight, trying to imagine shooting it.
Bishop’s voice came over her earphones, low and breathy.
“We are in business, baby. There they are. We’re going in.”
Diane followed Bishop’s gaze and saw a small row of buildings on the edge of another village, surrounded by white fields. The tracks led to the buildings. Where they stopped, she could see the roof of a bronze-coloured vehicle.
Her breath left her in a rush as Bishop brought the helicopter swooping down towards the buildings.
* * * * *
Peter appeared lost in thought and Tom was about to repeat his question when at last Peter spoke.