by Sam Kates
Colleen appeared over the brow of the hill and came to a stop when she saw that Will wasn’t alone.
“Will? Who’s that you’re with?”
Will shrugged. The man hadn’t told him his name.
The giant straightened and slowly turned towards Colleen. She gasped and her eyes widened. Her hand came up to clutch at the neck of her blouse as if she had suddenly grown cold. Will looked from one to the other, bemused by the charged atmosphere. Then the man spoke.
“Hello, my beaut.”
* * * * * * *
The sun had risen, tinting the sea the shades of an old photograph. Jason Grant was waiting for Milandra on the stone bench overlooking the ocean.
She sat next to him and wrapped her arms about herself against the fresh morning breeze.
“That was quick,” said Grant.
“I’ve found the stash of memories I was seeking. I wanted to share the most recent with you so you can mull them over.”
“While you return…?”
Milandra nodded. “There are maybe another five or six in this hidden-away section to view. I think I’ll get the full lowdown once I’m done. Maybe another few days.”
“I’ll bring more food to the staging point next door.”
“Thank you. I’ll need it.” She sighed. “Though once again this sunlight is doing more good than all the best cuisine in the land could do, let alone canned meat and fruit.”
Grant chuckled. “Canned cuisine ain’t quite the same.”
“Especially canned strawberries. Why would anyone want to can a strawberry?” She pulled a face of disgust. Then grew serious. “About those memories. I know whose they are.”
Grant turned to look sharply at her, all signs of laughter gone. “You do?”
“Yep. I’ll come on to that in a minute. In the first memory I was in some sort of flying craft. Not exactly an airplane, or a helicopter, yet not a million miles away from either. Perhaps some sort of combination. Doesn’t really matter. What’s more important is where we were. And when.”
Grant’s expression changed to frank curiosity.
“It was Earth Home, but not like we’ve ever seen it. I believe that the memory was of an event that took place within a century or two of the ancients departing and we making the planet our home. When we lived on the surface, not burrowing beneath it like moles. It was covered in dense vegetation. Such vibrant colours, Jason. Trees as tall as the Empire State Building. Flowers the size of cars. And the fragrances…
“There were flying creatures. Huge, like Lear jets, with golden feathers of an eagle, the red crest of a rooster and beaks like the bucket of a digger. They soared above the jungle, scooping insects and smaller birds out of the air. I think they were essurgal.”
“Essurgal,” Grant murmured. “I thought they were the stuff of legend.”
“They existed. Large as life and twice as ugly. The person whose memory I was reliving wasn’t alone. Ten, maybe twelve, travelling companions. Grim-faced, on serious business. The flying craft came in to land in a clearing near a domed building. We went in, all on one side of a vast wooden table. Other people lined the opposite side. I think they were on the opposite side in more than one sense, judging from what each side said to the other and how they said it.”
“What language was it?”
“I’m fairly sure they were speaking Old Tongue.”
“Huh. You mean like we spoke on Earth Home?”
“We spoke a modern version. Theirs was archaic. It’s the first time I’ve heard it, but I could understand the sense of it even when I couldn’t grasp the detail.”
“Wouldn’t you be able to understand the language if it’s spoken by the person whose memory it was?”
“I don’t share her thoughts or emotions. I don’t become her. It’s more like viewing a movie track.”
“What were they talking about?”
“It was heated and grew nasty. Accusations were being thrown by both sides. I think the population of Earth Home had separated into two distinct camps. I was part of a delegation from the visiting camp.”
“Like a trade delegation?”
“More like a negotiating party.”
“What were they negotiating?”
“War.”
Grant’s eyes filled with unspoken questions.
“That’s about all I know so far, Jason. There is more to learn and I shall learn it during the course of the next few days.”
“You said you know whose memories you’ve been viewing?”
Milandra nodded. “She was dressing in front of a full-length mirror. An imposing woman. Tall, slim, but with an air of easy grace. Long, dark hair. Oval eyes, brown as chestnuts, but filled with sorrow. She looked like an Indian princess. A warrior princess. She clad herself in armour the colour of burnished copper. Every movement dripped with sadness and reluctance, as if she were resigned to going through with something that she regretted to the depth of her being.”
“And you know who she was?”
“I have an inkling.”
He waited.
Milandra hesitated. It was more than an inkling. A conviction.
“It’s Sivatra.”
Grant gasped. “Sivatra? The first Keeper?” He let out his breath in a low whistle.
“I’m almost certain of it.”
“But…” Grant frowned. “What does it mean? And why did she hide these memories away like she never wanted them to be seen?”
Milandra slowly shook her head. “Of that I am less certain. But I’ll continue to look. Something tells me…”
“What?”
It was Milandra’s turn to frown. “Not sure. But I think that it’s important I find what I’m seeking soon. Before the rest of our people arrive.” She stood and brushed herself down. “I still don’t know what it is, Jason. All I’m really sure of is that I’ll know it when I find it.”
* * * * * * *
They passed out of the spreading suburbs of Greater London to the south. Although they encountered no one, they did not feel safe to turn to the west until the city was far behind them and they could once more smell the sea.
Levente drove across the rolling South Downs, sticking to minor roads whenever possible. They did not know where they were going; there seemed no need to hurry, except to put distance between themselves and whatever had happened back there.
The roads were empty, except where they had to squeeze past a tangled wreckage of blackened cars. The vehicles had welded together, making it difficult to tell where one wreck began and another ended. The surface of the road had bubbled and melted around the accident site, lending it the look of a petrified tar pit.
Animals were a more prevalent hazard. Cows often lay on the tarmac, enjoying the sun-warmed surface. They raised their heads to lazily watch the car pass, but made no effort to move out of the way. Sheep ambled across the roads, moving to fresh pastures, which lay in abundance in the meadows and moorland all around. Foxes, squirrels, rabbits, a weasel or two, and the occasional dog and cat darted away or watched them pass with a considering glance. Dormice and hedgehogs scurried along the verges, lately awoken to a markedly different world to that in which they had retired to their long winter sleep.
When the petrol gauge dipped towards red, Levente turned onto a main road and drove along it until they came to a filling station. He rummaged in the boot of the car and extracted a tyre iron, which he used to smash the glass in the entry door, allowing them to squeeze into the shop. While the Hungarian rooted around behind the cash desk, muttering to himself, Aletta looted the shelves of foodstuffs: packets of biscuits, bags of crisps and bars of chocolate. She considered the rows of wine bottles and beer cans. Shrugging, she added a few bottles and a couple of four-packs to her stash.
Uttering an exclamation of triumph, Levente emerged from behind the cash desk clutching a bunch of keys. He unlocked the door to make it easier for Aletta to transfer her goodies to the car, then proceeded to the forecourt where he use
d one of the keys to unlock a metal cover.
“Benzin,” he said in response to Aletta’s enquiring glance. “Er, gasoline?”
“Ah. I believe the British call it petrol.”
“Yes. Petrol. Jó.”
In the shop they found several plastic fuel containers, each capable of holding five litres. Levente grabbed a flashlight—a torch the British called them, thought Aletta—and fiddled with batteries. He grinned when the torch lit up. Grunting with effort, for he wasn’t a small man, Levente climbed down the metal staples set into the brick wall of the narrow shaft revealed beneath the metal cover. Aletta passed a container down to him and listened to his muffled curses. Just when she thought his endeavours must end in failure, the curses were replaced by the rhythmic sound of a hand pump.
The Hungarian’s smiling face reappeared in the opening and he handed to her a heavier, and sloshing, container.
Aletta returned the man’s grin and passed him another empty container. While he disappeared to fill it, she emptied the container into the car’s petrol tank. She didn’t have to wait long by the shaft entrance for Levente to reappear with another full container.
In this way, they refilled the car and placed eight full containers in the boot.
They drove until sunset and stopped overnight in a small village west of Southampton. They didn’t know it, but they were less than twenty miles from Stonehenge from where the voice that called them to the U.K. had originated.
Neither of them felt much like talking. They shared a bottle of wine and spoke haltingly about the earlier events in London, but could make no sense of them. They agreed that they had not imagined their minds being invaded by some external intelligence, which had nearly succeeded in taking over their wills, but could agree on little else and fell into a brooding silence.
Aletta drifted to sleep with the image of the Italian woman’s knees folding and body crumpling playing across her mind.
After a restless night, they took to the road again under a brisk spring sky.
Still uneasy, afraid of running into people like those they had encountered in London, if ‘people’ is what they were, they kept to minor roads. The green and yellow shoots of weeds poked through potholed surfaces as nature began the slow but inexorable task of reclaiming its territory.
As the morning wore on and they had seen no sign of human, or quasi-human, life, they began to relax a little. When they passed a blue sign that bore a white symbol and ‘M5’, Aletta said, “Let’s go on there. It’s a motorway.”
“Motorway?”
“A wide, fast road. Maybe we will find clues to what has happened here.”
The signs indicated that they had a choice: the road ran to the south or to the north.
“I think north,” said Aletta after consulting a roadmap she had picked up in the filling station. “South there is Devon and Cornwall. Nothing else.”
“Where we now?”
“Er, in Somerset, I think. To the north lie many cities.”
Levente glanced at her. His expression made the hair on her arms rise and the skin pimple. The man, so big and strong, looked terrified.
“Cities bad.”
“London was bad. We don’t know about the others.”
He shook his head. “No cities.”
“Okay. But we’ll go north. If there are answers, maybe that’s where we’ll find them.”
Levente did not look convinced but took the slip road signposted M5N. As they drove onto the motorway, Aletta began to giggle. The Hungarian glanced at her in concern.
“Sorry,” she spluttered. “We’ve come onto the north side, but we could have gone onto the south side and still gone north.” She waved her arm at the three lanes that stretched away into the distance. “The road is empty.” To their right, on the other side of a narrow strip of rough ground and a crash barrier, the three southbound lanes were also deserted.
Levente snorted and some of the tension seemed to drain from him.
“North,” he said. “Correct side of road. Like good people. Even though is really wrong side.” He shook his head. “Crazy British to drive on left.”
Aletta relaxed back into her seat. Lulled by the steady thrum of the engine, her eyes drooped closed and she began to sink into slumber, only to be jerked forward against her seat belt as Levente brought the car to a screeching halt.
“What–” she began, but was thrust against the belt again as he slammed the vehicle into reverse and began to career backwards.
Aletta glanced wildly around, convinced with an abrupt and irrational certainty that the people who had chased them in London were now bearing down on them. But the road ahead, behind and to either side was empty.
She was thrown back into her seat as Levente once more brought the car to a sudden stop. He unbuckled his seat belt and thrust open the door.
“Levente! What’s happening?”
He seemed to become aware for the first time of how frightened she was.
“Excuse. Come.”
He didn’t wait, but was out of the car and striding to the side of the road where a huge sign indicated that the northbound lanes led in the direction of strange-sounding places with names like Bridgwater and Weston-super-Mare.
Aletta fumbled at the catch of her seat belt.
“Mare?” she muttered. “Like a horse?”
The Hungarian stood in front of the gigantic sign. In the bottom right hand corner, at eye level, a clear plastic wallet had been attached with tape. Inside the wallet, written on paper in thick black ink was the message:
Go west—M4. KEEP AWAY FROM LONDON!
Levente raised a bushy eyebrow. “M4? Another—how you call them—motorway?”
Aletta nodded and read the message again.
“Keep away from London,” she murmured. “A little late for that. Well. Shall we find this M4?”
The Hungarian pursed his lips. “If trap, why say ‘keep away from London’? Or maybe that why is trap. Trick us two times.”
“Double-bluff.”
He looked at Aletta. “What you think?”
“Let’s find the M4 and follow it west. But slow. Careful.” She thought of the two military rifles that Levente had acquired in London, which lay on the back seat of the car. “First, though, I want to be sure I can use those guns.”
Late the following morning, another blustery spring day, Levente brought the car to a halt on the empty westbound lanes of the M4 on the outskirts of Newport. In silence they regarded the spreading, modern hulk of a building that sat on a hill, dominating the landscape. A sheet attached to a road sign billowed in the breeze. A multi-hued arrow scrawled on the sheet pointed towards the building.
Aletta was the first to speak.
“I guess that is where we will find out what is going on.”
“Or we find our end.”
Aletta shrugged. “Que sera, sera.”
The Hungarian gave a thin smile. He put the car into gear and drove towards the motorway exit.
* * * * * * *
The surface of the Atlantic Ocean resembled a gigantic, grey carpet being relentlessly shaken. The Lady Jane rode the swell with ease, maintaining the steady nine knots at which they had kept her since putting out from New Jersey almost two weeks before. Their stock of food and water was holding up well, the supply of diesel even more so. The cruiser had been built to cross oceans; her fuel capacity had not yet been depleted by half and they should sight land within a few days.
By Zach’s reckoning, they were now well into March. They should land on mainland Britain with spring having taken a firm grip on the island. He still longed to feel warmth on his back. From what he had heard about Britain’s climate, he was more likely to feel rain than sunlight, but even that would be an improvement from the snow and ice of the White Mountains in Maine.
Zach entered the pilot’s cabin carrying two steaming mugs. He handed one to Elliott, who sat at the controls maintaining the east-north-east heading that should take them into th
e English Channel.
“My grandfather was from Portsmouth,” Elliott had informed them a few days into the voyage. “He came over to the States in the 1920s. Unless anyone has any objection, that’s where I’d like to make land. If I get chance, I’m going to pay a visit to the village where my grandfather was born.” No one had objected.
“Thanks,” said Elliott, accepting the mug from Zach. He took a sip. “Ah! Hits the spot. Strong enough to dissolve iron—just as I like it. How’s Amy?”
“Not throwing up for once. That girl is surely no sailor.” Zach grunted. “Sarah is throwing up.”
“Morning sickness in the afternoon, eh? You know, I’ve been wondering about her pregnancy.”
“Like whether the foetus will die of the Millennium Bug?”
Elliott glanced sharply at him. “You’ve wondered about it, too. So, what do you reckon?”
Zach shrugged. “I was a grunt and an alcoholic and a recluse.”
“And I was a high school English teacher from Philly due to retire next year. I intended writing the next Great American Novel. Maybe I’ll write about the end of the human race instead. Hmm, yes, when we reach Britain I’ll start keeping a journal in case someone, somehow comes after us. Because if that babe Sarah’s carrying does perish from the Millennium Bug, whether because the virus is still active—I don’t think that’s likely, but then I’m no microbiologist—or because the mother’s a carrier of the disease, then the human race is doomed.” He uttered a short laugh. “I’ve a feeling that the baby could be born healthy and we’d still be doomed.”
“I guess we’ll find out in six or seven months. If we have that long.”
Both men regarded each other for a moment. Elliott spoke first.
“You and I have been thinking along similar lines. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a lot smarter than you appear. I think the gruff mountain-man exterior hides a keen intellect.”
Zach took a long sip of his coffee. “Don’t know ’bout that. What I do know is that the voice I heard mentioned something ’bout some reckoning. That don’t sound like we’re heading to anything good.”
“‘A final reckoning for mankind.’ Those were the words I heard.”