There came a kick on the door. It shook inwards. It wouldn’t hold for long. Luke clambered up onto the empty window frame, holding onto the corner with one hand, and reached his hand back to her behind him. Connie suddenly felt paralysed with fear. Up until now she had been worried, adrenalised; but she had never, truly, been in fear of her life. Not with Luke beside her, not wrapped in a carpet, or in a rattling train, or even running through a station filled with policemen.
The door clicked again. The lock was giving. She glanced behind her, then ahead of her, both options equally terrifying. Luke was watching her, seemingly perfectly calm, hanging halfway out of a railway carriage ninety feet up in the air.
‘I can’t,’ she said, her mouth drying up suddenly. ‘I can’t jump out there.’
Luke’s dark eyes stayed fixed to her patiently, as if they had all the time in the world.
‘Not alone you couldn’t,’ he said. ‘Alone, you’d die for sure. Or be terribly wounded.’
Connie breathed heavily through her nose.
‘Thanks.’
He beamed at her.
‘But fortunately,’ he said, ‘you’ll be with me. Do you see? So.’
He held out his hand. She looked at it and once again glanced desperately behind her, just in time to see the door burst open and a short, chunky train guard panting hard and very red in the face.
‘HEH!’ he said, just as, with one swoop, Connie, without thinking about it, ran and jumped, fleet-footed, straight up to the windowledge, and without missing a beat Luke caught her hand and, propelling himself from the window frame, pushed her bodily out of the window and clear of the train and the railway line and down, down, down, the meteors winking out over their heads, flashing across the sky as they fell; the guard, his mouth wide open, gasping at the window, saw them: frozen for an instant, caught in mid-air, Connie’s hair streaming behind her like a flag, her hands thrown out over her head; Luke’s arms already stretching out in the rushing air to take hold of her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sé sat at the desk in the windowless room. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was large, standard academic issue; you could see the second hand tick round with heavy thuds, the hands dunk from minute to minute. It was 11.36 p.m GMT. Come on, Connie, he thought. He assumed they didn’t have her already, which gave him some relief: he would hate to think of her in this room, with these men behind him making a show of preparing things.
Unless of course she was dead. His face twisted. Where could they be? If they hadn’t found them, what had they done? Anything could have happened. They could have tried to steal a car, been shot. They could be languishing in some foreign jail, or could have fallen off the back of a ferry. Anything could have happened. Perhaps the alien had killed her. Sé swallowed hard, but he would not cry. He didn’t understand it. He would never understand it. A man was killed in an alien way. And there was an alien in the building. He was mad to have let her go. Absolutely mad. And if they still had not found her… What was more likely – that a young girl and a strange alien with bad eyesight had managed to avoid all of Europe’s most elite security forces? Or that she was dead and he was gone?
His ankle was handcuffed to a chair that was bolted to the floor. He thought this was probably unnecessary. He was a grown man, but pain didn’t make people jump up and fight like they did in films. His father had shown him that. It turned them into children, rolled up in a ball: weeping, terrified babies who wanted their mothers.
Perhaps Connie had got there after all. Perhaps it had been a success. He looked at the clock again. But they knew. They knew about the three days. And they must have noticed the moon, what had happened. They must have known how much that escalated the stakes for them all. And they had not got in touch, and here he was.
He deliberately rubbed his ear with his right hand in the hopes that they would think that that was the hand he used, and take the finger from there. He looked at his long fingers splayed out in front of him. Perhaps it would not be a whole finger. Perhaps a fingernail would do. His fingers shook a little. He stared at them until they stopped. Then he looked at the clock again. 11.37 p.m.
‘It’ll take as long as it takes,’ said one of the men, sniggering. He had an American accent. Taking their time was all part of their job.
Nigel stood in the room. He could have left for this bit, he knew. Could have left a list of questions, come back when all the nastiest work was over, when the results were on an audio file only he would ever know the passcode to.
He would not do that. He had approved it. He would endure it.
He stood subtly by the door, back straight, staring ahead. He and Sé did not look at one another. Sé thought he was an evil monster. That was fine. He was, and this was what he deserved. He forced his voice to remain calm.
‘There’s still time, Sé. Tell us what the explosion was. Tell us what was in the message. Tell us what happened to Luke and Connie. We know you know.’
He leaned closer.
‘We know you and Connie had… a thing. Surely you want to make sure she’s okay?’
‘She means nothing to me,’ said Sé, staring ahead, eyes still fixed on the clock.
‘Does anybody mean anything to you, Sé?’ said Nigel. ‘Anybody in the world? Anything at all?’
11.38 p.m. The two men came towards him from the back of the room, carrying towels and a black binbag. They were unhurried.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Attention all shipping, especially in sea areas Dogger, Bight and Humber. The Met Office issued the following gale warning to shipping at 22.45 today. German Bight: west or northwest gale 8 to storm 10, expected imminent. Fastnet Cromarty Wight Forties: west gale force 8, storm warnings force 7 all levels, unusual tidal activity.
That completes the gale warning.
The shock of the cold water entered at speed burst Luke out of his human shape in an instant: he practically exploded like an airbag, grabbing Connie and pulling her to him – into him – protecting her from the cold which to him was a balm but to her was like falling onto a knife.
Tumultuously, against the current, he swam upstream to the town in the mountains as Connie’s world turned into a burst of ice and lights and confusion, and she twisted round and round, under and inside him, plunging freely through the waves.
Finally she spluttered free as Luke made for a bank. It wasn’t until they were hauling themselves out of the water that Connie realised there were people sitting on the top of the waterside on a gorse-covered outpost beside some rocks.
It was a group of young men, mostly red-eyed. There were cigarette ends and empty vodka bottles scattered all around their feet. Evidently, they were watching the light display from the moon above. But now, they were watching them, with mounting horror.
‘Co do cholery?’ said one. Connie glanced at Luke, who once again was struggling to regain his human form, bent over at the waist in pain as his body solidified.
‘Um, it’s okay?’ said Connie, but they weren’t looking at her; they weren’t paying her the least bit of attention at all. All their eyes were fixed on Luke, who glanced upwards, his head gradually seeping in with colour. A few were scrambling backwards: one was clinging to his vodka bottle as if that would help; another was glancing at the light show in the sky then back to Luke, as if putting two and two together.
In his deep voice, Luke said, ‘Szklana pułapka,’ and after that, they really started to move. In fact, the young men jumped up and ran down the road as fast as they could manage.
Connie, out of breath, rested her hands on her knees and turned to him.
‘What did you say?’ she said. Luke’s face was pained, but he was back, weak and fragile-looking. He was wearing a puzzled expression.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I asked them if they wanted to “die hard”.’
Connie looked back at the bridge, up the valley. The train hadn’t moved, all its lights were on and there were distant shouts and torches showing as the guard
s searched for them downstream. She dried herself off as well as she could, which wasn’t very, and they scrambled up the little cove on to the road, although they stayed in the ditch by the side of it, out of sight.
Connie knew the time, but she checked her wristwatch anyway.
‘Do you have another appointment?’ enquired Luke. ‘Are you missing something on the square picture box?’
‘It’s 3.45 a.m. here’ said Connie. ‘That means it’s 11.45 p.m. in the UK.’
He looked puzzled.
‘It’s the end of day two,’ she explained. ‘At one minute past midnight, that will be day three. That’s our time up. Then Arnold can give the frequency codes to that guy and they can get in touch.’
‘I thought yesterday was day one.’
‘You’d think for a bunch of people who work with numbers we could have figured that one out a bit better,’ said Connie. ‘But, Luke, you know, with the moon thing, everyone will be going crazy. Oh God, I hope they haven’t called them in again. That prick Nigel, you don’t think… Oh God, Luke, I’m so worried about them. So worried. And I think come midnight… I don’t think we could ask any more of them.’
‘Yes,’ said Luke, staring straight ahead. ‘It’s due east: not far from here, but I don’t know if we could get there by midnight…’
Then they both saw it in the middle of the road: a very tattered, old Trabant car with its doors open and bottles scattered about its interior.
‘I think this might be those guys’ car,’ said Connie. ‘They’ve abandoned it for some reason.’
She looked inside. The key was still in it. She experimentally turned it.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘They must have panicked.’
Luke peered at the engine.
‘So, what, the key ignites a spark that sets the engine working?’
‘Um, I think so’ said Connie. ‘Or magic pixies, I’m a bit hazy on the whole thing.’
Luke opened his hand and let a spark of blue electricity leap from his fingers to the motor. Instantly, the engine sounded up.
‘That is WITCHCRAFT,’ said Connie, staring. Luke was confused. ‘But humans have electrical impulses and you use those things that need electricity all the time, for shouting and taking pictures of sandwiches.’
Connie gave it a second.
‘Oh, phones?’
Luke nodded. ‘It’s a pretty logical next progression. Don’t worry about it.’
Connie sat in the passenger seat.
‘We shall borrow it and bring it back,’ she decided. ‘We haven’t got the time.’
Luke sat in the driver’s seat. Neither moved.
‘Come on!’ said Connie. ‘Let’s go!’
There was a pause
‘Oh LORD, I forgot.’ Connie shook her head. ‘You can magic electricity out of your fingers but you can’t drive a suddenly VERY USEFUL car.’
Luke didn’t say anything.
‘Fine, budge up.’
Luke pointed out roads as she drove at full pelt in the unfamiliar left-hand drive – the Trabant made an awful noise – and they headed out at speed. The roads were empty, but Connie no longer cared who saw or heard them. She imagined the drunk young men would have a story to tell in the morning anyway – assuming they remembered it – but for now, all she could think about was the panic of the meteor storm, and what would be happening to her friends.
At six minutes to three, Luke raised his hand.
‘It’s here.’
Sé had heard that drowning was a pleasant way to go; that it was not the worst by a long shot. But this did not feel like that. As his nose was stopped with a towel and water sluiced down him, as he was tied to a large piece of wood and his whole world turned into an agonising attempt not to breathe, and then, when it could no longer be avoided, taking the breath that filled his lungs with water, struggling, feeling his eyes roll up in his head, and the terrible, terrible burning inside, the tightness and strain of his lungs, battling to keep him alive, the red flashes in front of his eyes as he felt the blood vessels pop one by one, every nerve, every sinew straining, but no scream could come as he was filled, again and again… and just, finally, just when blissful unconsciousness was arriving, the black at the very edges of his vision – a memory of his father, making pol roti, throwing the coconut dough up in the air effortlessly with his four fingers – then he was brutally vomiting again and again, throwing water up all over the floor as the two men stood by and watched, taking big tearing breaths of oxygen, crying and heaving, his body trembling against the board.
Nigel’s touch on his shoulder was gentle and the tone of his voice was kind which made matters altogether worse for everybody.
‘Please, Sé,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘Please. We hate doing this. I don’t want to do this. Nobody wants to do this. Please just tell us. Please, then we can go home and stop all this. Please. We need to work on this together.’
Sé looked up at him, still choking and retching, his eyes red.
‘What… time… is… it?’
The meteors were still falling overhead but the world was almost entirely silent as Connie and Luke got out of the car. They were standing in a field, with trees at one end, in the shadow of a rocky hill and, further behind that, the great plains of Palyessye. Two fields over, some cows dozed by a water trough. An owl hooted in the trees. There wasn’t a building to be seen, apart from a distant barn. It was astonishingly peaceful.
Luke glanced around.
‘Can you see it?’ said Connie anxiously.
‘Thankfully, I don’t need to,’ said Luke. He moved confidently towards the undergrowth.
‘There’s nothing there!’ said Connie.
Luke held up his hand, pressed it lightly on the side of something – and then she saw it too.
‘Oh,’ she said.
The vast object hummed under his hands.
‘Come on, girl,’ said Luke. ‘You can do it.’
The object, faintly traced in glowing lights was completely clear and spherical. In fact, Connie thought, it looked like a gigantic soap bubble, nearly as tall as the trees, but completely invisible until Luke had brought it to life. She touched it: it felt like tough jelly. It moved a little, and the lights flickered up and down even more.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said in wonder. Luke beamed.
‘Isn’t she?’ he said proudly.
‘Can I go inside?’
He frowned.
‘Well, you could, but it’s full of…’
There was a long pause.
‘What?’ said Connie.
‘I don’t know. Closest I can get is… nutri-jelly?’
‘Urgh,’ said Connie.
‘Oh no, it’s…’ he saw her face. ‘No time.’
It was the oddest thing: he disappeared into the huge, clear bubble, seeming to pass through its walls – Connie pushed; she could not penetrate them – but once inside she could not see him. She stood back from the bubble, and as soon as she was a couple of feet away she realised she couldn’t see it at all. It was incredibly strange. And strange also in that, weirdly, it brought the very alienness of Luke much closer, that he was something so peculiar. She pulled her damp shirt closer round her shoulders: the night was clear and chill. She missed him while he was gone.
Connie didn’t know what she’d been expecting Luke to remove from the vessel: some kind of space telephone? Regardless, he came out with a small, smooth, round chunk of what seemed like – but couldn’t be, surely – glass.
They sat down cross-legged next to the ship on the ground.
It was Evelyn who started it. She took her enamel mug (she’d managed to bribe a constant supply of tea off one of the guards by helping him with, of all things some tricky integrals that he’d clearly known how to do way back in the halcyon days of his undergraduate years, but hadn’t needed since. He was a PhD student, working as a guard to supplement his meagre grants. Except he was slightly worse than the professional guards, because in between goi
ng over old ground, he’d repeatedly apologise and tell her she wouldn’t believe the things you had to do for tenure these days to which Evelyn could only grunt).
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