Revelation

by Nigel Foster

  “Thirty whole-planet ones. Owned by humans. Around two hundred outposts on more or less friendlies. They co-exist with whatever was there first. Or shows up later. That’s the official list. Unofficial, maybe around five, six hundred. Some of them maybe made it to another galaxy.”

  Kara held up a hand to pause him while she thought. “So the city states are breeding grounds for the colonies?”

  “Way more people than in the Wild.”

  She nodded. “I always thought colonies were as much commercial, business.”

  “It’s how empires start out,” he said. “Only later does it become a sacred cause.”

  She looked hard at him. “So what about the bad human pre-cogs?”

  “They want the aliens to win,” he said shortly. “Been around a long time, like the good ones. Not so rich and powerful but ruthless.” He yawned again. “I’m for bed.”

  “You can sleep in the house. Breakfast here at 0600.”

  She saw him settled and went for a walk by the river.

  > What do you think? she asked Ishmael.

  < He didn’t lie.

  > Did he tell me everything?

  < You really want to know?

  > Let’s give him a little longer. She wasn’t sure why but it felt important. > Do we trust him?

  < Do we have a choice? His AI’s the same: obsessed with the mission.

  > That damn programme.

  < Maybe more. Maybe he’s trying to justify his wife’s death. Pushing the programme, even using his daughter, if necessary. Otherwise his wife died pointlessly. The star-drive trade. You humans love guilt.

  > So now I’ve got a psychologist in my head as well as an endocrinologist.

  < Nothing you don’t already know, or couldn’t work out.

  She recalled something Greenaway had said earlier, about the pre-cogs.

  > So you’re just an advisor who can whisper good advice into my ear?

  < I’m not a separate entity, Kara. I’m intertwined with you. We’re an “us”: a mutually dependent co-operative.

  > And what do you get out of it?

  The mental equivalent of a shrug. < Eyes, ears, mobility. Oh, and let’s not forget the entertainment value.

  > Why doesn’t he have a name for this alien pre-cog empire?

  < It’s real, not a comic book. You okay being empath of the year?

  > Does my brain look big in it?

  < Interesting. Your amygdala glows faintly when you think about it. As does your Broca’s Area. Do you want a diagram?

  A passing fox froze as Kara laughed in the night.

  > I wouldn’t understand and you know it. But I do miss Marc and Tatia.

  < And we’ll find them, Kara. Yes we will. Oh, Greenaway cares about you.

  > I knew that. She felt strangely pleased.

  < You fancy him.

  > Don’t be ridiculous. She remembered when they’d been held captive, beneath the Science Museum. How he hadn’t been ashamed to show vulnerability. How he’d trusted her to save his life. > He’s not like your average general.

  * * *

  Kara walked along the shoreline for a few minutes until she reached the bare-boned hulk where Greenaway had stood earlier. She took out a joss – mild Tangier grass and even milder Burma heroin – to help her relax and reflect. The river air was cool, the sky clear enough for a thousand stars to break through the haze of light from Bristol and Cardiff City States.

  Starlight reflected on the river. Out in the centre. Multi-coloured light.

  Kara froze as the river began to gleam with the same colours she’d seen on Dartmoor, when Haytor had become home to a predatory force.

  No, not predatory. She understood that now, since Marc had told her of his night in Scotland. These mysterious entities could kill, no doubt. And the one on Dartmoor did apparently collect human... intellects? Emotions? Bloody hell, she thought, is this where I start believing in a soul? But even if she did, it wouldn’t mean belonging to a sect, or tripping lightly on the dew-bejewelled dawn grass while wearing something flimsy and floating. No poetry, no belief in a saviour. Just an essence, a focused awareness that... maybe... was more similar to the entity now twinkling on the River Severn than most humans could ever guess. Or would ever want to know.

  The lights spun faster and faster, rose from the surface in a spiral and then vanished. Kara again knew sadness, as if something special and unique was gone forever. Were the entities humans had once called nature spirits or gods leaving Earth?

  She was aware of another figure close by. Anson Greenaway, staring up into the sky. She doubted it was at the stars.

  Kara walked towards him, not annoyed by his presence but strangely excited.

  “I couldn’t sleep...”

  His face was a blur in the dark but she heard the confusion in his voice.

  “Saw you, was going to go, and then that... that...”

  As before on Dartmoor her senses were heightened. His personal scent was like seasoned oak and hot metal. Under his confusion, in fact part of it, was a once-dormant but now awakened ecstasy, perhaps similar to the emotion felt by worshippers of Pan or the Eleusinian Mysteries. Kara’s fascination with the past extended far beyond hundred-year-old movies. If he moved towards her, Kara knew, if he held out his arms she’d be in them and they’d be coupling with the freedom and intensity of wild animals. And that would be both wonderful and a terrible mistake. Much as she distrusted Greenaway’s single-minded obsession with the programme, it was needed to help bring her people home.

  He held out his arms.

  * * *

  Colour danced on the ground, in the air around them.

  Colour danced in Kara’s mind, the night air cool on her naked skin, clothes abandoned around her, no memory of losing them, only the echo of cloth tearing, to be drowned by the sound of a frantic piping that was actually a nightingale, but no place for romance or beauty, only a savage want and need.

  Both naked they sniffed and tasted each other until Kara turned, dropped to hands and knees and presented herself as the colours danced on the river again.

  Each thrust took her closer to the entity. She snarled when Greenaway left her, the anger forgotten when she was twisted to lie on the ground, her thighs wide and welcoming, and instead of the entity she stared into Greenaway’s eyes which, like hers, were glowing. She pulled his head down, kissed his mouth as the first tremors powered through her.

  “Your eyes glowed,” she said, starting to get dressed then deciding what the hell, she wasn’t cold. “Not from netherspace. From whatever it was out there.” For the first time since her first time Kara felt a little shy after sex.

  “I’m a country boy.” He touched her cheek. “Are we going to talk about this?”

  “The sex?” In which she’d totally lost herself, something that never happened on a first date.

  “The glowing eyes.”

  “Mine are from netherspace. Yours were like the entity.”

  “Just a country boy,” he said again. Then, “It’s the Wild in me.”

  Bloody hell, she thought, now I’ve done dad and daughter.

  * * *

  And managed to turn an insistent giggle into a cough.

  Half an hour and a shared shower later they sat side by side outside Kara’s Merc. There was a glowing fire pit and mugs of chocolate laced with old dark rum. There was a new ease between them, the mutual acceptance of a growing affection. Kara knew there were many reasons why she should dislike and still distrust him. But she didn’t and it wasn’t only sex. Maybe it was empathy working overtime. Maybe it was because they’d both been possessed by whatever lived in the river. It was also the last night before the storm, so probably the last night they’d spend together. In a few days they could both be dead. Be good to die remembering happiness, no matter how brief. “Going to say it should never have happened?” she teased.

  “How could I?” The most explosive sex he’d ever known, and perhaps it was time to stop writing let
ters to his dead wife. “But what the hell was that thing?”

  “It’s like an elemental,” she said. “Nature, sex, birth, whatever. Creativity.” She looked calmly at him. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’ll still put you in danger.”

  “Offering me the choice,” she said. “My decision. You’re not my first general.”

  He half smiled. “I read your Army file.”

  “That’s your job... what does it say?”

  “Brilliant soldier, maybe too independent.”

  She punched him. “You know, right?”

  “How you avoided a court martial over that dead Gliese. Yes.”

  “We were fucking before then.” And that’s all it had been, for her. The general had talked about love. He’d talked about honour. Dignity and duty, too. None of that prevented him from asking to be spanked while wearing Kara’s bra and panties, which was when she’d decided the affair was over. Kara was as sexually experimental and out there as anyone, with a few scatological no-go areas, but catering to the general’s whiny needs – please Kara, oh please, please, you know I love you – would have made her feel like a whore.

  Greenaway’s face was expressionless. “The file said he was obsessed with you. People were worried about scandal. It’s why you were allowed to resign instead of being court-martialled.”

  “What scandal?”

  “Kara,” he said, so gently as to surprise them both, “Army Int recorded everything.”

  She stared into the fire, surprised by her own concern over Greenaway’s reaction when he’d seen the vids.

  “Powerful men often develop weird needs. At least,” he corrected himself, “those that require a great deal of sympathy and understanding.”

  Kara smiled to herself. “The men or their needs?”

  “It’s the same.”

  “So I’m the empath,” she said into the flames.

  “Not the same as sympathy. You can look at me, ouch!” as she punched him again, this time much harder. “Are you concerned?”

  “Because people drooled over the vids?” It was out there. Because you saw me naked and fucking.

  “He was a general. AI access only. No humans.”

  “Did you...”

  “Nope.”

  Kara didn’t believe him, but liked that he’d lied to avoid embarrassing her. “I also like women,” she said, suddenly aware that for this brief time she and Greenaway had become a couple.

  “So do I. Not men, though.”

  “There’s a few could change your mind.”

  “I wanted you the first time we met,” he said.

  “It was mutual.” She stood up and held out her hand. "Ready for bed?”

  “You have a plan. Like to share?”

  So she did and he couldn’t fault it, and knew that she’d still go ahead if he did.

  And later when they were in bed, Kara heard her own voice, as from the other side of her soul. “This might be our first and last time.” A soldier’s farewell.

  He knew what she meant.

  “But we’ll always have Paris,” Kara whispered against his neck.

  He thought to ask her what she meant in the morning but never did.

  3

  Marc Keislack, netherspace

  He had been floating in netherspace for an eternity, and for less than a second. Time made no sense. Everything is.

  Chaos.

  Or maybe near-chaos, because the things Marc and Kara called boojums were occasionally the same shape. Smell. Taste. They possessed a consistent inconsistency.

  Emotion.

  That had been the strangest thing: discovering that the boojums were emotion. Not emotional, but avatars of emotion. Sometimes pure, sometimes a mix. And some of those emotions weren’t even human. He’d been exposed to love, hate, fear and all the rest, yes, but also to feelings he couldn’t name or describe. Some of them had caused him to recoil in horrified nausea; others had made him reach out desperately and pursue them with a profound but uncomprehending desire. Most had just confused him.

  They had a basic intelligence, as he understood it, but they were probably closer to dog than to human. He wasn’t sure how he knew this. It wasn’t as if they had any conversations.

  Meanwhile he floated.

  It wasn’t as if they had names. Or any regular shapes that stayed the same for ... well, not minutes or hours because there weren’t any.

  Marc Keislack knew he had gone insane.

  It was a protective mechanism. He had to be insane in order to survive. So a voluntary insanity, perhaps. Elective insanity.

  It had seemed the obvious thing to do. Either open himself up, become one with them, as them, or cling onto his human sanity until it was ripped from him, leaving only a burned-out shell behind.

  How did/do/will I know that?

  Marc didn’t know why the boojums were intrigued by him. But they were, always around him, long tendrils of colourless colour reaching for him. Reaching inside him.

  Sometimes he slept. He didn’t feel hunger or thirst. What was left of his logical mind thought he was probably getting a direct energy transfer from the boojums, so didn’t need food or drink. That same mind also wondered if he was dead and simply hadn’t noticed.

  And all the time he clutched a piece of wood. He sensed happiness, hope, loss and sadness. Sometimes he dimly heard two voices laughing together. He couldn’t remember how he came to have it. Only that it was important.

  One time he tried to talk to his AI, without being too sure what an AI was. There was a memory, but fuzzy. He heard a voice singing “La-la-la-la-la-la” in E flat and never tried again. He was mildly pleased to have recognised E flat. It made him feel more independent.

  There was a moment when he understood.

  Another time when he sensed something infinitely wonderful, mysterious and seductive that somehow was beyond netherspace. He couldn’t tell in what direction it lay. Maybe there wasn’t one. So, perhaps another dimension whose splendour was so great that a little of it had eased into netherspace.

  He wanted it. Oh, how Marc wanted it! He would give anything, anyone to be with it. He tried moving up/ down/sideways towards it, and felt the boojums become alarmed; all flashing colourless colours, formless tentacles lashing at him. From somewhere a remembered phrase that someone he knew once said: Looks like we hafta click our heels together. He wasn’t sure what a heel was or if he had one. Or more. Or how to click it, them, if he did. But he had to move from the location-less place in which he drifted and towards where it was. Had to find a way to go to the wonderful, the awesome. Had to think...

  A sudden tearing sensation. Anger? Dismay? Fading in his mind.

  Intense cold, and something hard against his back. Marc lay in the darkness, body scrunching into a foetal position, mind numb.

  Blood oozed from where his hand was impaled on the piece of wood.

  A thin tendril of light appeared to dissolve the blood away.

  * * *

  Kara Jones and Anson Greenaway, the River Severn

  Breakfast was fresh eggs and bacon from a local farm. Neither Kara nor Greenaway said much, made thoughtful by what lay ahead, still a little surprised about the previous night. Both hoping it would happen again. By the river it had been animal passion, in her bed they’d discovered each other. Had felt free to say what they liked and wanted. Had called each other “love” and fallen asleep still joined.

  She packed a lightweight combat bag, said goodbye to the house, locked the SUV and climbed into the jitney’s front passenger seat.

  “Spoke to the Wild?” she asked when Greenaway had settled himself in.

  “All set. There’s fighting on the border.”

  “Which border?”

  “Most of them.”

  “I’m sure you’ve got it covered,” she said.

  He wondered if she was being sarcastic. “Pointless knowing if you can’t do a damn thing.”

  She leaned across and
lightly kissed his cheek. “Don’t be so damn sensitive. We’re both Spec Ops. Chaos is us.”

  “I could be a target,” he said abruptly. “So could you. I’ve no idea how strong the opposition is.”

  “Pretty formidable, I’d say.” She knew he was offering her the chance to walk away. Equally, that he knew she’d never take it. But the formalities had to be observed.

  Two minutes into the flight, Kara informed Greenaway that she wanted to know his history.

  “You know mine,” Kara said. “I’m putting all my trust in you. We said total honesty.” Maybe he’ll talk about his dead wife, she found herself thinking, and mentally slapped her own wrist. The interest was more personal than professional. “How you got involved.”

  He nodded, as if the demand was expected. “It doesn’t come easy.”

  “I’m not going to judge you, Anson. Whatever it is.”

  The first few words were halting, then became more fluent and with a wealth of detail. It was as if he’d rehearsed for a long time, was relieved the moment had come and determined to get it right.

  4

  Thirty-five years earlier, Portland Wild, former USA

  Mid-morning, sun-dappled trees thrilled by May birdsong. A tall man with shoulder-length dark hair strides along an ancient trade-path, faint smile on his face and death in his heart. There are roads and a once much-loved motorbike that would reduce the journey to less than an hour, but he needs solitude and time to say goodbye to the Wild. Time to discover whether the rage and hate will lessen into a civilised need for closure and justice? He hopes not. There should be no room for police and judges. When the moment comes he will pull the trigger, sink the blade or snap the neck without flinching. He isn’t too fussed about the method, although a faint, ancestral voice whispers a blade is more honourable and his enemy should die in his arms, staring vengeance in the face.

  * * *

  Besides, the bike would be taken and sold to pay for the funeral, the city states had all these rules, and no way he’d contribute a coffin or cremation. He noticed the birds had stopped singing, at least those close by, and guessed why.

  The alien was sat, or could be standing, no way to tell, next to an old cracked oak. It wasn’t an alien he’d seen before... over the past ten years the Gliese, Cancri and Eridani had dominated human/alien trade, but others still showed up from time to time. This one was a warty, grey-green-skinned sphere about two metres across, wearing a metallic belt with various pouches and containers. It appeared harmless – most were, any immediate damage done by accident, or so it seemed. He ignored it and strode on past, wondering how birds knew that an alien was all wrong.