by Sam Kates
“Yes. But on Earth Home.”
“I knew him here,” said Peter.
“Hold on,” said Tom. “Myrddin? Do you mean Merlin? As in the wizard?”
“Yep,” said Peter. “One of us. He was already old when we came to Earth Haven. A couple of millennia here drove him quite mad. He started using our influence over humans to convince them he possessed magical powers.”
“Jesus Christ! Are you being serious?”
“He wasn’t one of us, though one or two of our number played some part in that story. And, yes, I am being perfectly serious.”
Tom breathed out heavily. “Well, you certainly don’t seem crazy. . . .”
Peter gave a short laugh. “Ever the Doubting Thomas.”
“Back to the stones,” said Tom. “Why drag them all that way?”
“We used them because they are natural conductors of earth power.”
“What’s that?”
“Energy that runs in lines through the ground right around the world. About fourteen of these lines converge at the site of Stonehenge; it was already a revered place when we arrived. The stones conduct that energy. We divert it to the Keeper by touching the stones to complete the circle.”
“And that’s it? You touch the stones and they’re activated?”
Peter cleared his throat, but did not speak. He shifted a little in his seat. Tom looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror, but Peter did not meet his gaze.
“Tell me, Diane,” said Tom. “How is the signal activated?”
Diane turned to look at him. For a moment, she stared intently into his eyes.
“Are you certain you want to know?”
Tom nodded.
Diane shrugged and turned back to face the front.
“Sixty-three drones will be lined up, one in front of each stone,” she said. “If they are repeating the process that was employed the first time, each drone will stand in a shallow pit that will be dug in front of the stones. They will kneel at the edge of the pits so that their chests rest against the stones’ surface. A length of rope will be tied around them to keep them in contact with the stone.”
Tom swallowed. He didn’t like where this was heading. He glanced at Ceri. She had momentarily broken off her inspection of the passing scenery to listen. She grimaced at him.
“Then?” Tom prompted.
Diane’s voice remained low and passionless. “Behind each drone will stand a person, holding a sharpened blade. At a signal from the Keeper, each person will cut the throat of the drone in front of them.”
Ceri groaned and Tom felt his stomach twist.
“This will activate the Beacon,” continued Diane. “The Keeper will direct the main pulse of energy at Earth Home. When the blood has stopped pumping from their throats, the drones’ bodies will be untied and dropped into the pits in which they kneel. They will be set alight. The energy from their burning will keep the Beacon active for a few more hours. The Keeper and the people touching the stones won’t need to maintain their positions once the initial pulse has been sent. The stone circle will do the rest of the job on its own.”
“I feel sick,” muttered Ceri.
Tom glanced at her. She had grown pale.
“Get some air,” he said. “I could do with some, too.”
Ceri pressed the button that lowered the window and took great gulps of cold air. Tom breathed in deeply.
“Human blood. . . .” he mused. “Full of energy, right?” He glanced again at Peter in the mirror and at last Peter returned the look. He nodded grimly.
“Why do you burn the bodies?” asked Tom. “If the pulse has already been sent?”
Peter answered. “The pulse is a powerful, concentrated beam of energy. Think of it like a laser beam. If by some miscalculation the pulse isn’t picked up by our people. . . . There are many variables, not least being space curvature and the rate of universal expansion. If we have misjudged either, the pulse could miss. In contrast, the signal powered by the burning bodies will be less concentrated, less powerful, but will spread over a wider area and so should be detected even if the pulse is not. It will be more difficult to plot the source of the weaker signal, but it should nevertheless work.”
“Hmm,” said Tom, his mind churning with another thought. “Let me ask you this: according to your tale about the ancients and their flight from Earth Home, they were being hunted by a deadly enemy?”
“Ye-es,” said Peter slowly. The frown had returned to his brow. “That is what the markings on the black tablets they left behind told us.”
“So, according to your tale, there’s at least one other sentient species out there in space. A fearsome species at that. Scary enough to force an entire civilisation to up sticks and hotfoot it away across half of the universe.”
“Ye-es. What’s your point?”
“My point is this: how do you know that your signals won’t be picked up by that other species? Your people might arrive with warships hot on their heels. Earth could become the setting for a real life Star Wars.”
“Ah. That possibility was considered when we first constructed the Beacon. But it was firmly discounted. You see, the ancients existed many millions of years ago. We have existed for as long, or maybe nearly as long. Our collective memory begins within a century or two of the ancients leaving Earth Home when we arrived to a deserted planet.”
“You arrived? Where from?”
“We don’t know. As I have told you, we don’t keep written records. Our collective memory makes them obsolete. But why our memory begins when it does and where we lived until then, or whether we even existed, is not known.”
“Maybe the Keeper knows,” said Diane.
“Maybe,” agreed Peter. “She would need to search through many millions of years of memories and experiences to find the answers, which perhaps explains why no one has ever thought to ask her. It would be a monumental task.”
“Um,” said Tom, “about the scary aliens. . . .”
“They don’t concern us,” said Peter, “because throughout those millions of years of known existence, not once have we encountered this species or come across any evidence to suggest it even exists.”
“Apart from the black tablets,” said Tom.
“Yes. Apart from the tablets left behind by the ancients. If what they hinted at in those tablets is true, that there is a fierce, warlike species that hunted them, we have seen nothing of it. Perhaps, if it did exist, it has died out.”
The Range Rover had reached Wick. Tom fell silent as Peter drove back to the hotel where they had stayed.
When they got out, Dusty barked excitedly as though he recognised his previous home. He sniffed around the front door, tail wagging like a turbocharged metronome.
“The children!” gasped Ceri. She ran forward and burst into the hotel, the others close behind.
“Are they here?” asked Tom as his eyes tried to adjust to the interior gloom.
“No,” said Ceri. Her shoulders sagged.
Peter strode to the kitchen that lay beyond the bar. The others followed.
“They’ve been here,” he said. “Some food has gone. And one of the spare camping stoves.”
“Thank goodness,” said Tom. “At least we know they’re safe and have some provisions.” He walked over to join Peter so he could look him squarely in the eye. “Promise me, Peter, that you’ll look for them. At least for the rest of today.”
“I will,” said Peter. He glanced at Diane. “We will.”
Diane nodded.
“Find them, please,” said Ceri. “Take them with you to Anglesey. Keep them safe.”
It was lighter in the kitchen than the bar; Tom could see in Ceri’s eyes tears welling like blown glass.
“You two could come to Anglesey,” said Peter. “You can still have your own car—we’ll stand more chance of finding them that way—but I urge you one last time: please, please, turn from the path you seem so set on. I repeat that there is absolutely nothing the tw
o of you can do to prevent the Beacon being activated.”
Tom looked at Ceri. She looked back at him, tears running freely down her cheeks. For a moment, he thought she was going to cave and his stomach flipped at the thought of continuing alone, but then her lips thinned. She nodded grimly.
He turned back to Peter.
“We have to try.”
Part 3:
He Who Would Valiant Be
Chapter Twenty
Repositioning of the bluestones had not been without difficulty, but by mid afternoon of the fourth day, the Beacon was ready to be activated.
Around eighty stones had been quarried and transported to the site all those centuries past. Of those eighty stones, only forty-three had remained visible. Some of the missing stones had been broken up to create healing amulets and the like, or as building materials in nearby settlements. The rest had gradually become grown over and disappeared beneath the ground like sinking ships. Many of the submerged stones had formed part of the original Beacon and still thrummed with power to those who could sense it. Locating them had been a fairly simple task; removing them from the icy clutches of the earth proved trickier. The bulldozers once more demonstrated their worth.
Digging out the pits had also been arduous. Drones worked in shifts with picks and shovels. When their shoulders began to droop with exhaustion and broken blisters on their hands dripped with blood, fresh drones took their place. Each of the sixty-three pits that had not already been excavated by archaeologists still contained the charred skeletons of the drones who had powered the first beacon. Milandra felt a strange sensation as she gazed down at the huddled remains.
“History repeating itself,” she murmured to herself, a phrase that had often been bandied about in support of the operation that would become known as the Cleansing in the days when the question of whether such an operation was necessary had still been a debatable point.
Thanks to the crane, raising the bluestones had been relatively easy. When the sixty-third stone thudded into place, the work was accomplished. In truth, it could have been finished sooner if they had worked through the nights. Grant had located a council depot with floodlights and diesel-powered generators.
“Use those and we could be done in two days,” he told Milandra.
“Hmm. Saving a couple of days is neither here nor there now,” she said. “A council depot, you say? Do they have equipment for highway maintenance?”
Grant was ahead of her. “Plenty of bitumen,” he said. “I think they call it ‘tar’ over here. We can fashion pitch torches like we used the first time.”
Milandra smiled. “It has a certain symmetry.”
“I’ll get people right onto it.”
They had greatly overestimated the number of drones required. Half of them had already been sent back to London. The other five hundred were making ready to return that afternoon, which would only leave the hundred. Around one hundred and fifty people would stay; enough to control the hundred and perform the activation. Afterwards, twenty of the surviving drones would remain behind with Milandra, the Deputies and Rodney Wilson. The final seventeen would accompany the rest of the people back to London, while Milandra’s party would make for Cornwall.
Sixty-three bluestones had been used in construction of the original Beacon because sixty-three proved to be enough to garner earth power in sufficient concentration. Now sixty-three bluestones once more stood in a circle, pointing to the sky like accusing fingers. Some of the stones were huge monoliths, similar in size to the sarsen stones that now lay off to one side where they had been dumped by the crane. Many more were not a great deal larger than a man. Big or small, the gaps between the stones were uniform: wide enough for a person to stretch out their arms and touch the stones to either side.
In front of each stone was a pit about half the size of a grave. A coil of rope lay on the ground next to each pit. The scratch-whizz-scrape of steel on stone punctured the calm as sixty-three knives were sharpened in readiness.
Milandra nodded, satisfied that all was as it should be.
“Might as well send the crane and ’dozers back, too,” she said.
“Is there any point?” said Grant. “There’ll be plenty more in London if we need them.”
“True. But at least have them removed off site. All that metal and paint doesn’t belong in this place.”
“Feeling a tad sentimental?”
“A tad, maybe. When we return in the morning, will it be too cold to walk here?”
Grant glanced at the sky. “It’s clear at the moment. If it remains so, it will be extremely chilly.”
“Well, send word that we and the hundred are to be dropped off, but the buses and coaches are to return to Amesbury. It might be sentimental, but this place is so. . . . elemental, that I don’t want the ambience spoiled by reminders that we live in the age of the space shuttle and microchip. Oh, and the same goes for guns. Concealed handguns are fine. Anything else remains in town.”
Grant shrugged. “Can’t see why not,” he said. “It’s not like we’re going to be attacked. All the same, I’d feel happier if we post a couple of guards overnight. Don’t want all our hard work spoiled by unexpected guests.”
“Okay then.” The noise of sharpening steel had stopped. “It sounds as though everything is ready. Let’s get back to the hotel. We’ll rest and feast. Tomorrow’s the big day.”
* * * * *
The postcard-pretty village of Shrewton lies a little over two miles to the west, and a touch to the north, of Stonehenge. Tom did not dare take the car any closer to the ancient monument. The roar of car engines had become so out of place in this silent new world that even the faint sound of a distant engine was bound to be noticed.
Ceri had grown as silent as the countryside. They had spent two days driving around Scotland and the north of England, searching in vain for Bri and Will. On the third morning, Tom insisted that they head south. As it was, he was afraid that they might be too late; that the Beacon had already been activated. Ceri protested, had wanted to continue their fruitless hunt, and withdrew into herself when Tom refused. For the last day and a half, she had barely spoken two words.
In the coldness of Ceri’s silence, Tom missed Dusty all the more. He had held the dog’s head between his hands and told him that he must go with Peter and Diane. The dog licked his face as if to signify that he understood and jumped into the Range Rover at Tom’s command. When only the people he didn’t much like, Peter and Diane, had joined him inside, he hadn’t protested. He gazed out of the window at Tom as the vehicle pulled away. Although Tom knew it was for the best, part of him felt like it was tearing in two.
Before they parted company, Peter handed to Tom two familiar items: a coiled length of plastic garden hose and a screwdriver. Tom’s throat muscles spasmed as he recalled the fiery taste of petrol.
“My syphoning kit,” he said with a nod of thanks and a wry smile.
“Don’t forget,” said Peter, “choose older models. Less likely to have anti-syphoning devices.”
Ignoring the desire to go looking for a Ferrari on the grounds that it would be impracticable if they did find the children, and remembering how he’d found the light blue Jaguar in pristine condition in the garage of a neighbour’s house, Tom concentrated on the residential areas of Wick in his search for a vehicle. He soon found one: a black Nissan saloon around nine years old but with only thirty thousand miles on the clock. Tom’s nose told him that the previous owner lay upstairs quietly decomposing. He found the car keys hanging from a hook by the back door. Although it couldn’t have been used in weeks, the engine thrummed into life at the first attempt. Tom gunned it. Aside from a little hesitancy that would soon be blown away on the open road, the engine sounded in good nick.
So it proved. Although the car would not have won many awards for speed or style, it carried them reliably on their search around the north and then on their long trek south.
Tom parked the Nissan at the edge of Shre
wton and killed the engine. It was a couple of hours after noon and they had been on the road since first light. He was looking forward to stretching his legs and relieving his bladder. Beyond that, he was trying not to think too far ahead.
He turned towards Ceri. “This is close enough,” he said. “We walk from here.”
Ceri grunted.
“Look, Cer,” he began. “I know you’re upset because we couldn’t find Bri and Will, but it’s not my fault. We need to stick together if. . . .”
Ceri was shaking her head. She turned a grim face to Tom.
“It’s not just that,” she said. “It’s that they didn’t feel safe with us. They felt they needed to sneak away in the middle of the night. If we can’t look after our young, maybe we don’t deserve to survive.” She sighed and laid a hand on Tom’s arm. “I know it’s not your fault. I’m sorry.”
“Well, I haven’t given up on finding them yet. It’s obvious when you think about it.”
“What is?”
“Where they’ve gone. Bri was adamant that she wanted to try to do something about stopping the Beacon. They left that same night after we’d refused to allow her to help.”
Ceri’s eyes grew wide. “You think they’ve come here?”
Tom nodded.
“No,” said Ceri. “That’s impossible. They can’t drive. It’s too far to cycle.”
“Hmm, I’m not so sure. They’re young and fit—”
“Bri’s got a brain injury that’s slowly killing her!”
“But she’s otherwise as fit as a fiddle. And Will was telling me how strong his leg muscles have become after cycling to Nottingham from London. With empty roads, dry weather and a little luck. . . .” Tom shrugged.
“In a way, I hope you’re wrong,” said Ceri. “I hope they’re hundreds of miles from here. And yet. . . . something tells me you’re right. Damn it!”
They dressed warmly and carried the shotguns tucked under their right armpits, the broken barrels resting at an angle on their forearms. Loose shells filled the pockets of their outer garments. Otherwise, they travelled light with just food, water, a road map and a pair of binoculars in the small backpack slung over Tom’s shoulder.