It was a full seven minutes before they were gone from overhead and had become a black feverish cloud in the distance, with only a few stragglers left behind striving desperately to catch up. The silence that followed was unnatural and somehow sinister.
Diane watched until the birds were no more than a broad wavering smudge on the horizon before turning to Rivers, awe in her expression and in her question: 'Where are they going?'
Rivers opened the car door before replying. 'Away from here,' was all he could tell her.
***
The storm broke as they were crossing the Erskine Bridge over the River Clyde. The wind was already powerful, but now it threw rain at the windows and buffeted the car as it crawled along the toll bridge behind heavy traffic making its way into Glasgow. By the time they reached the airport car park the wind and rain was merciless and quickly soaked them to the skin as they dashed across the road into the air terminal itself. There was some delay in departure time for Gatwick and Diane took the opportunity to call Hazelrod once more on a public pay phone. Mack answered, and informed her that Hugo and Bibby had left for the hospital to collect Eva some time ago and should be back soon: Everything was fine, he assured her, and indeed just the sound of his steady, dependable voice with its slight rustic burr was comforting, for it was the sane voice of reason and constancy in a time of doubt and grand disorder.
Josh was unusually quiet when eventually they boarded the European Airbus, displaying none of the excitement of the outward journey, and Diane felt his brow as she settled him into his seat, wondering if he might be coming down with something. His forehead was cool to the touch, though.
She kept an eye on him as the aircraft gathered speed down the runway and was surprised that even at lift-off he remained listless, his attention fixed uninterestedly on the seat in front. On her other side, Rivers was scanning the morning newspaper handed out by one of the blue-uniformed stewardesses. A glance over his shoulder at the headlines confirmed the worst for, whilst any normal day's national journal covered at least one disaster somewhere in the world (and over the past few years there had always been two or three), in this edition there were several: floods in Italy, Thailand and Korea; earthquakes in Armenia, Japan, China, Afghanistan, and the northern tip of Antarctica; a hurricane currently making its way across America's Midwest while tornadoes had devastated parts of New Guinea, Indonesia and Tahiti; a number of low-lying islands in the South Pacific had disappeared completely under the sea, and a massive tidal wave had wrecked a long section of Sri Lanka's coastline. There were smaller events that nevertheless shocked Diane: at least a hundred dolphins had deliberately battered themselves to death on the rocks just off Cornwall's shores; there was a small photograph of a great 300-foot tower of steaming water that had erupted in the main street of a city in India called Varanasi; huge belts of plankton were rising to the surface around the world's oceans, these mainly, but not solely, in the northern and southern regions. Rivers' face was grim when they exchanged glances, and Diane remembered the strange atmosphere she had been aware of but had taken little notice of in the airport earlier; there had been a buzz of anxious conversation and it was now obvious to her that its cause was the magnitude of these global calamities.
'You were right-it has already started,' she said to Rivers. He shook his head. 'No, it started a long time ago, Diane. I think what's happening now is a kind of metamorphosis. The planet's beginning to change itself, just as the old man said it would.'
She leaned closer and lowered her voice almost to a whisper. 'I'm so afraid, Jim. What's going to happen to us?'
He laid the newspaper down in his lap and linked his arm in hers. 'He said it all depends on the children-Josh and Eva, and many like them. We mustn't let Josh see how afraid we are.'
'But what can they do, how can they help?'
'He told me we had to trust in them. Trust in them and protect them, because they're our salvation.'
'I still don't understand how.'
'But you're beginning to believe in him?'
'The Dream Man?' Her smile was almost wan. 'I wasn't at all sure first thing this morning. I thought maybe you hallucinated the whole thing-you sounded pretty crazy last night. Then later I witnessed the earth tremor and the migration of birds for myself. Add that to the bizarre world catastrophes over the past decade, Poggsy's own version of the GALA theory, the way Josh and Eva have been acting for some time now-adding it all together makes taking the next step not quite so difficult. Let's just say I'm not entirely convinced, but I'm not rejecting what the Dream Man says either.' She quickly checked on Josh, who was now gazing out the window. 'But what really worries me,' she said, turning back to Rivers, 'is how much damage will be done to the human race itself. Are we going to survive this?'
Diane caught the slight tremble of his hand as he took it away from her arm, but otherwise Rivers appeared calm, and even resolute.
'I asked him the same question,' he said, 'and he could give me no answer. He told me he couldn't foretell the future, he could only sense the shift both in human consciousness and in the Earth itself.'
It was a breathtaking concept, and one which she had not yet come to terms with.
'I'm not…' Her voice faltered and she shook her head as if rejecting a multitude of thoughts. Then: 'What makes this man so unique? Why-how-does he have such knowledge?'
Rivers actually smiled. 'He told me there are many like him, spread around the world, there to serve as some kind of guide to the special children.'
'Special like Josh and Eva?'
He nodded. 'It seems some of these others, although similar to him have, well let's say, different values, divergent, even deviant, perspectives on the order of things. It's from these people the children have to be protected.'
Diane felt the chill dread of fear run through her anew. 'But how does he-and these others-know these things? You still haven't told me.'
'Apparently the knowledge is inherent within all of us, but we each have different psychic levels. A few of us choose to develop this extra sense-no, that's wrong, it isn't an extra sense at all. It's a very old one that's been obscured by centuries of civilization and scientific progress. I guess the human race eventually considered it unnecessary. Our sense of smell is no longer as keen as that of our forebears who had to hunt to live, nor is our eyesight as sharp. We're not as strong and probably not as fast. No doubt our hearing isn't as good as when we lived in caves and our enemies were the animals around us. God knows what else we've lost in our so-called development.'
Out of habit he was massaging his knee, but he stopped when he realized the pain was no longer there. 'Although we've never completely lost this ability-this sensing-it's oddly consistent that it should begin to revive itself to a noticeable degree during the last hundred years when the threat to our world has grown more and more critical. Clairvoyants, healers, mediums, psychics-they've almost become an industry in their own right.'
'You're implying something has triggered it off?'
'Oh yeah. Our own subconscious. Somewhere deep down in the human psyche the power still exists, and maybe now our natural instinct for self-preservation is drawing on it, gradually bringing it to the fore again.'
'But why hasn't it happened to all of us? Why aren't we all like the Dream Man or the twins?'
'According to him, it doesn't work that way. It can't be instant, it has to evolve again. It's like learning to walk after years of debilitation. The faculty's there but we've forgotten how to use it. It'll come easier to new generations once its presence is accepted, and to many, those like Josh and Eva, it'll come naturally. I suppose the Dream Man is a forerunner of the children who have the ability, a kind of combined prophet, sentinel and protector. An advance guard, if you like.'
Diane was silent as she tried to absorb what Rivers was saying to her. The psychic link between individuals had certainly become a proven fact over the past fifty years or so, and within the last decade the existence of the human mega-psyche, the collective consciousness, was beginning to be accepted both by scientists and academics alike. Even the once discreet government-backed organizations set up specifically to investigate such possibilities were no longer so coy in publishing their findings, most of which were positive if not absolutely conclusive.
She was distracted by a passenger across the aisle and two rows ahead who was calling urgently for a stewardess. One quickly attended him, listened to his complaint, took a peek under the seat in front of him, then went away. She returned moments later with a small canister and began to spray the floor beneath the seat in question. There was a shout when the cockroach was spotted and a further roar as the offended passenger himself brought his heel down hard on the scuttling creature. The air hostess swiftly swept up the remains with minimal fuss and everything returned to normal once more.
'Incidentally,' Rivers continued as if nothing had occurred, 'there's something else you should know about our friend up there in the Highlands.'
'Give me some relief and tell me he's crazy.'
Despite himself, Rivers grinned. 'I'm afraid not. I think he's the sanest man I've ever met. No, this is something else. He's blind.' She looked at him incredulously. 'But how could he survive up there on his own?'
'He seems to manage. He has groceries delivered every month from the nearest village-about twenty miles away that'd be. They're left at the end of the track where he collects them for himself. And then he has his own small vegetable plot at the back of his cottage, as well as a goat for milk, hens for eggs.'
'But if he can't see…?'
'He gets by, that's all I can tell you. He told me his other senses more than compensate for his lack of sight. People from other crofts in the area help him out from time to time and they also bring him food-the Highlanders are well used to hermits.'
'Surely he needs money to pay them though?'
Rivers shook his head. 'He's a healer, Diane. Animals, sick children from the village, bunions on toes, bronchial complaints, infertile livestock-he treats them all and is paid in kind. The old barter system still thrives in those parts.'
The plane was suddenly rocked by a violent gust of wind and several passengers looked around anxiously. A hostess, at that moment pushing a drinks trolley down the aisle, smiled sweetly and said to no one in particular, 'Bumpy ride today.' The comment, light enough to be soothing, drew nervous laughter from those within earshot.
Rivers peered past Diane to check the weather conditions outside for himself. Rain lashed the windows and the clouds were a deep, tumbling grey. He folded his newspaper and tucked it into the back pouch of the seat in front, then unbuckled his seat-belt. 'I'm going to call the Met Office and talk to Sheridan.'
Diane held on to his arm. 'You can't discuss all this on the phone.'
'I don't intend to-he thinks I'm neurotic enough already. I'll arrange to see him, then he can tell me I'm mad to my face. At least I'll have done all I can to warn them.'
She was about to say more, but he was already gone, making his way towards the nearest of the Airbus' passenger cardphones.
She put an arm around Josh, who was still quietly staring out the window, and asked him if he would like a drink or anything to eat. He gave a desultory shake of his head. Diane brushed hair from his forehead, a guileful way of checking his temperature again; his skin was still cool to the touch.
The soft announcement chime of the PA system preceded the pilot's relaxed voice: 'Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is Captain Linacre, your pilot for flight 484, Glasgow to London Gatwick. Sorry about the rough weather out there, but our current altitude is 33,000 feet and I'd hoped we'd be above the storm. I'm reliably informed it's even more disagreeable up ahead, so I think we'll make a small detour to miss the worst of it. This will only add a few minutes to our expected arrival time which, as you know, was going to be a little late anyway because of our delayed departure. I hope you'll bear with me on this one, but it'll ensure a smoother flight for all of us. Uh, this means we'll be flying over the eastern seaboard, so for those of you who haven't already observed it from the air before, it'll give you a chance to see the damage the winter floods of '96 did to our coastline. Thank you for your patience, and if there's any more news to report during the flight, you can be sure I'll let you know. Might I suggest you'd be more comfortable with your seat-belts on. Thank you, enjoy the rest of the journey.'
A buzz of conversation among the passengers followed the announcement, with many of those in the middle or in the aisle seats leaning over fellow-travellers to view the weather conditions for themselves. Diane did the same, but there was nothing other than a continuous mass of rolling grey to see.
By now the drinks trolley had reached her and she ordered a vodka and tonic for herself and a Scotch for Rivers, with coffee for them both to follow. She insisted that Josh had a glass of milk and some biscuits and he reluctantly acquiesced, nibbling uninterestedly at the biscuits and gulping down the milk as if to get it over with quickly.
Rivers returned and accepted the whisky gratefully, but declined the choice of biscuits or nuts.
'You heard the announcement?' she asked.
'I caught some of it while I was on the phone. It won't delay us much.'
'Did you speak to Sheridan?'
'He wasn't at the Met Office. His secretary told me he's over at Pilgrim Hall today, so we could go straight there from the airport-it's not far out of our way.'