“You!”
“There’s no need for that, Alexis.”
Thead reached up and gently pushed the knife away. “It’s good to see you. And you should be pleased to see me. You need some help, it seems.”
Alexis suppressed the urge to take a step backwards. “Somehow I’m not surprised that you’ve survived all this, Thead.”
“You’re not? I am. Well, I almost am. My former friends pushed me off a cliff and left me for dead. They left me with this rather nasty wound.” He looked down at a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his thigh. “There’s loyalty for you. Now, time is short. You must come with me. There’s something that will interest you.”
He turned and limped towards a nearby ridge. She watched as he began climbing. I haven’t trusted him before, she thought, but that was mainly because he was a dork, and not for any particular reason. He’d never been less than eager, she had to give him that. And what else was she going to do? She was glad she’d wasted the Secretary-General, even if it had terminated that particular career path. The oversexed slob. The thought of servicing him made her flesh crawl.
She started climbing after Thead. Beneath them, the ground was shuddering constantly now. The meltdown in the power section was accelerating, turning the mountain’s interior into a mass of molten rock and steel.
She reached the top of the ridge. Thead stood waiting for her, a broad smile on his face.
She stopped, gaping. “Oh, sheeyit…”
They were looking down on a ship. It was hovering just below the crest of the ridge, so close that it was almost possible to reach out and touch it.
It wasn’t a Nefilim ship. She had never seen anything like it before. It was large, easily as big as one of the Nefilim cruisers, but not as sleek, and not as colorful. It was bulkier, and covered with external probes and attachments that looked as though they had been stuck on as an afterthought. And where the Nefilim ships were covered in detailed patterns, no two alike, this ship was painted a dark featureless gray.
Even though she’d never seen anything like it, she knew instantly and exactly what it was. On the side of the tower that dominated the top of the hull, there was a red rectangle, and inside that a white circle. In the white circle was a black swastika.
“Nazis!!??”
“I think that’s what they’re called, yes. They found me shortly after I’d dragged myself out of the ravine. We’d just seen the Secretary-General when the other flier arrived on the scene. We were about to intervene when you came along and drove them away. And of course, we were watching when you moved your motion of no confidence in the Secretary-General’s leadership. Come. Time is running out.”
He led her down to a ladder dangling from the belly of the ship.
“It seems that they’ve never been great fans of the Secretary-General,” he continued as they climbed. “You, on the other hand, have earned their approval. Along with myself, of course. Just put it down to our winning ways.” He turned and smiled down at her.
Alexis grunted and said nothing. Yes, if Thead was anything, he was a survivor.
* * *
Sahrin and Geoca
SAHRIN FELT THE HEAT increasing around her. Everything was shuddering, as though a force somewhere was building, pushing at the barriers that had been holding it back. A crack appeared in the walls of her prison. Bright light poured in through the gaps left by the pieces as they fell away.
The current outside was more turbulent than it had been before. Piece by piece her prison fell apart, the fragments carried away in the torrent of the mountain’s gathering collapse. She emerged from her cell like a hatchling from its broken shell. Geoca was waiting nearby, pulsing with impatience.
‘We have to go. It feels strange here. There’s something going on.’
‘Yes. Quickly.’
They sped along the buckling, twisting pathways of the system. It threatened to block them, distorting and collapsing, and more than once they were forced to retrace their path until they found another way. Finally, they saw the entrance ahead of them. The Stream was pouring in even faster than before, feeding the fires that were consuming the complex. They struggled against it, fighting their way towards the vortex.
They were thrown back. They tried again and again, and were repelled each time.
‘It’s no good. It’s too strong.’
‘Oh, no…’
The current around them began to boil. It became hard to think.
‘We’re finished?’ thought Geoca. He was beginning to fade.
Somewhere behind them there was an immense explosion, many times larger than any of the previous ones. Its pressure created a tidal wave that rolled over them, picking them up like leaves on a raging river. It flung them forward, searing them, threatening them with disintegration, and pushing them against the incoming flood of the Stream.
They didn’t know it, but they were participating in Mount Weather’s final moment. The gate to the Stream began to collapse, closing like a camera shutter. They crashed through an instant before it snapped shut.
They floated unconscious in the cool flow of the Stream, its current running through them and around them, healing them as they slept.
Sahrin and Geoca were home.
* * *
Reina decides to go home
THE MOUNTAIN WAS STILL VISIBLE, a small hill in the distance in Nibat’s monitor, when it erupted.
The screen was filled with a blinding white flash. Seconds later, the light was replaced by a rolling pillar of cloud, lava and fire. The lava surged towards the sky in slow motion, then curled over and collapsed on the disintegrating slopes of the mountain. The cloud took on a mushroom shape, as if a nuclear explosion had occurred. Bolts of lightning cracked through its upper reaches, reaching down to the destruction below.
Reina whistled slowly. “That’s gotta be it, I reckon.”
Nibat fed more power into the engines. ‘We got away just in time. If we were there…’
“We’re lucky that we didn’t hang around dealing with that other ship. I wonder if Geoca and Sahrin made it out.”
“You heard Sahrin,” said Pig. “She said they were trapped. It sounded like that, anyway. I doubt that they could have got away.”
The black stranger, who had been talking to Bark, heard what they were saying. He came over and looked at the inferno that the mountain had become.
“Don’t give up hope. And remember, it was important – no, vital – that an end be put to their activities. There was more at stake than you know. I can’t tell you more. I’m afraid that once again, you’ll have to trust me.”
Bark wasn’t totally convinced, but there was nothing to be gained from arguing now. “I suppose we will, won’t we. Where to now?”
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” said Reina, “but I’d like to go home.”
* * *
Barker’s Mill
REINA WAS LOOKING DOWN on Barker’s Mill.
“Home,” Bark said. The place felt almost familiar to him as well. Across the bay, the sand dunes above which they had moored the ship when they had first arrived shimmered under the clear sky. The memory of their ship, lying wrecked and burning on the ice, came back to him. For the first time, it brought pain with it. There had been an almost impossible amount of history wrapped up in that ship, and now it was just a slurry of charcoal and debris.
“Yeah, home,” Reina replied. It looked the same. The same houses, solid and respectable, the same small grid of streets sitting hard up against the edge of the bay, separated from it only by the road that came around the coast and continued on through the forest and around to the dunes. She wondered how Tommy was. “I know a good place for us to land. It’s just a little way out of town. A friend’s place.”
She showed Nibat the way. The ship made the expected impression on the inhabitants of the town, sending them indoors to look up through the gaps in drawn curtains at the humming brightly-colored disk that passed slowly over their rooft
ops.
They landed behind Tommy’s house.
Denise, the barmaid from the Red Lion, heard the noise and felt the vibration. She came out onto the veranda and saw the flier just as it was settling down onto the grass. She ran to the back door and called out. Tommy emerged a few seconds later, cradling his shotgun under his arm.
“No shit! What the fuck is this?”
The flier’s door opened and Reina stepped out. “Hi, stranger!”
“Reina! I thought you was history, mate!” He leaned the shotgun against a pile of firewood, went over to her, and gave her a long hug.
“I just about was a few times over, bro. And Bryce is. He’s gone.”
Tommy looked at the ground. “Oh. You know, I had a feeling.” He raised his head and looked past Reina, towards the flier. “Who’s that lot?”
Bark, Nibat, William and the black stranger were standing in front of the ship. Pig had jumped out as well, and was investi-gating one of the local hens, standing nose to beak with it, sniffing cautiously.
“Them?” said Reina. “They’re my friends. I think we just saved the world.”
“Ha! Yeah right. Of course you did. Tough work, I bet. Do you reckon they want a beer? It’ll be a bit warm, though, there’s been no electricity here for a while. Or what about a smoke?”
“Thanks, but later perhaps,” said Bark.
“Oh, mate, I’ll go the smoke,” said Reina.
“Sure. So you been flying around in that thing? It’s one of those alien things, yeah? Does it belong to that one there?” He pointed at Nibat.
‘Yes and no. I’m its pilot, so I suppose you could say that if anyone owns it, I do. But the ship has a mind of its own.’
“Mm. So does my truck. Well, it did. It don’t go no more.” Tommy didn’t seem to be at all disturbed by the Nefilim’s use of telepathy. “You know some folks reckon you alien types are all trouble, but the ones I’ve met have been OK.”
“You’ve met others?”
“Sure. There’s a few of them, staying down at the Hanson kid’s place. We thought it was a good place to shove them. Quiet and out of the way, you know, what with all the soldiers and everything that’s been going through here. Like a railway station, man. There’s been some total idiots running around the place.”
The hen gave a loud squawk and raised itself up, flapping its wings. Pig came running over to where the others were standing.
“Is that yours?” Tommy nodded in Pig’s direction.
“I’m not anyone’s,” Pig said, sitting down heavily. “I’m with these people. I don’t belong to them!”
“Jeez, sorry, mate.” Tommy finally looked surprised. Behind him, Denise laughed.
The Hanson farm was a twenty minute walk away. It was as Tommy had said; humans, mutants and Nefilim, over a dozen of them, were all happily coexisting, and busy repairing old farm equipment and buildings.
A Nefilim who had been carrying old planks of wood that had been scavenged from somewhere saw them coming. He left what he was doing and limped over to them. It was Anak.
“We weren’t expecting to find you here,” said Bark after Nibat and Anak had finished doing whatever it is Nefilim do when they greet each other. “We had no idea what happened to you after you left Sahrin and Geoca in the Stream. We assumed you’d done your job, though.”
“Yes, we did what we set out to do,” replied Anak. He was speaking aloud. “It wasn’t as we expected, though, in fact we didn’t know what we were going to do, but things worked out well. Their grid is dead, and there is no way they’ll be able to revive it. Where are Geoca and Sahrin? They’re not with you?”
“No. They’re… We don’t know. They could be dead. But we can’t be sure. They helped us at Mount Weather, but we think they were trapped in it when it blew up. It’s gone, totally. The UN won’t be reviving their headquarters, either.”
Anak looked sad, an expression you might miss unless you knew a Nefilim well. ‘I liked those two,’ he thought.
“I know,” said Reina. “We all did. We can only hope that they died quickly.”
Bark nodded. “There are still armies to worry about, you know. Human and Nefilim. They might be reduced to throwing stones and swinging sticks, but they could still be a problem. For everyone, not just each other.”
“It wouldn’t be a problem at all if they could just confine themselves to wiping each other out,” Pig said and turned away, going off to talk to some mutants. The closer to finished that this whole thing was, the better he liked it. He’d never had a chance to be a real pig before, and he wanted to get on with it. He’d seen a good looking mud hole on the way here. He was going to have a crap in the grass, then a roll in the mud.
“The Nefilim armies aren’t such a problem, actually,” said Anak. “They didn’t stay long after they took the control point and the base in the dunes. That attack was probably one of the last coordinated actions that their armies performed. A few hours later they melted away. They just disappeared into the forest or the dunes, and a lot of them turned up in places around here.”
“Here? Why? It’s not some sort of trick, is it?”
“I don’t think so. It seems that after their communications and weapons failed, the Nefilim soldiers realized what their leaders hadn’t; that they were fighting for a lost cause. There was a rebellion. Many of them have gone into hiding and changed into the cocoon state. They’ll stay that way, if they’re left undisturbed, until the home planet approaches again.”
“But Marduk won’t be close again for another thirty-six hundred…”
“Yes, but time like that is nothing to a hibernating Nefilim. Accidents or misfortune will befall many, it’s true, because Earth is a much more volatile place than Marduk, but you can be certain that many will survive. But there are some that have come here, rather than hibernate. They were treated with great caution at first, as you might expect, but they had been misled by their leaders, just as the human soldiers were misled by theirs. As soon as they realized it, and realized that the home planet had given up on them, they lost the will to fight.”
“You will find that there’s a new energy on this planet now,” said the dark stranger. “The time for fighting is passing quickly.”
“Sounds a bit new age for me,” said Reina, “but if it’s true, I’m all for it. I suppose I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“You’ll see it,” replied the stranger.
Pig interrupted. “Where’s the blue woman? Is she…?”
“Oh yeah, that blue chick.” Tommy looked around. “She was here yesterday…”
“She’s inside,” said Anak. He led them towards the barn.
She was waiting for them. She smiled at them all, but it was the black stranger who caught her attention and held it.
“It’s been a long time.”
“Far too long. But it worked.” The black stranger sounded relieved. They touched hands. Glowing auras the color of their skins spread out between them and mingled. It lasted for only a few seconds, and then faded away.
“You know each other, obviously,” said Reina.
“Oh yes,” they laughed. “For a long, long time.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised.”
* * *
A few hours later, the blue woman and Reina were walking through the forest near the farm.
“I can’t tell you where I’m from,” the blue woman was saying. “And I can’t tell you why I can’t tell you. I’m not much use, am I? I’m sorry. I can tell you that you’ll understand one day, though. And sooner than you think.”
“But you’re not from here, are you?” Reina paused and looked at the blue woman’s face. It was shifting and changing beneath its blue surface, as though something was shimmering, just beyond the edge of perception. She seemed almost familiar, Reina noticed for the first time. But from where?
“Don’t be impatient, Reina. You’ll understand everything in time, I promise. Now, this is important. You must stay with Bark. There’s a
future there.”
Reina laughed and felt her face flush. “I had a feeling there might be. We’ll see…”
“With you two together, the others will stay, and you’ll need them. And they’ll need you. You’ll see.”
* * *
At the same time, Bark and the dark stranger were having a similar conversation.
“I gave the map to your ship because I had to make sure that you were here to release me, and to see that the work here was completed,” the stranger was saying.
Bark was slightly more confused than he was going to admit. “It sounds far-fetched, but I’m not going to disbelieve you. And I suppose our work here is done.”
The stranger smiled, a slow smile that hinted at things that he wasn’t going to discuss.
“Here, yes… for now. What you say is true, strictly speaking, Bark, but there will be more to do. It’s not all bad, though. The future, I mean.”
Bark felt as though he was being singled out for something. “Why are you choosing me? You know, I was quite happy as a simple trader. It was a good life.”
The stranger laughed. “I know. Believe me, I’ve got no choice in the matter. Your life as a trader is over. Now, you must build a new ship. I know it’s what you were thinking about doing anyway, so just accept this as confirmation, or encouragement if you like. It has to be done. Reina will help. The others will help. Even the flier we traveled here in will help, you’ll see.”
“You’re right, I was thinking about a new ship.”
Bark was looking up into the sky at the pale sphere that was Marduk. It was growing smaller now, only half the size of the moon. It was swinging around into the outward leg of its orbit, out toward the long dark night that would last three and a half thousand years.
“Good. One more thing. You should know this – Sahrin and Geoca are safe. It’ll be a while before you hear from them, but you will. Now, shall we go back?”
They returned to the farm.
Bark realized that the blue woman and the black stranger had deliberately spoken to Reina and he separately, getting them away from the others, and impressing on them both the need for co-operation and a new ship. He didn’t doubt their good intentions; he could feel that they were to be trusted, but what was motivating them? And who were they? What were they?
The Day of the Nefilim Page 33