Cochrane arrived, panting heavily. “Hey, Tinks, slow down, babe.” He rested his hands on his upper thighs, glancing up with
a crooked expression. “What’s going on here, man? Is she breeding?”
“We are attempting to open communications,” Sinon said.
“Yeah?” Cochrane reached up, his hand open. “Easy, dude.”
“Don’t—” Sinon and Stephanie said it simultaneously.
Cochrane’s hand closed round Tinkerbell. And kept closing. His fingers and palm elongated as though the air had become a distorting
mirror. They were drawn down into the crystal. He squawked in panicked astonishment as his wrist stretched out fluidly and
began to follow his hand into the interior. “Ho
shiiiiit—
” His body was abruptly tugged along, feet leaving the ground.
Stephanie exerted her energistic power, trying to pull him back.
Insisting
he return. She felt the serjeants adding their ability to hers. None of them could attach their desperate thoughts to the
wailing hippie. His body’s physical mass had become elusive, it was like trying to grip on a rope of water.
The frantic yelling cut off as his head was sucked within the crystal’s boundary. The torso and legs followed quickly.
“Cochrane!” Franklin yelled.
A pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses with purple lenses fell to the ground.
Stephanie couldn’t even sense the hippie’s thoughts any more. She waited numbly to see who would be devoured next. It was
only a couple of metres from her.
The crystal sparkled with red and gold light for a moment, then reverted to pure white. It shot off at high velocity across
the rumpled mudlands towards the town.
“It killed him,” she grunted in horror.
“Ate him,” Rana said.
Alternatively, it took a sample,
Sinon said to his fellow serjeants. The shocked humans probably wouldn’t want to hear quite such a clinical analysis.
It didn’t select Cochrane,
Choma said.
He selected it. Or more likely, it was a simple defence mechanism.
I hope not. That would imply we have come to a hostile environment. I would prefer to consider it a sampling process.
The method of capture was extraordinary,
Choma said.
Is it some kind of crystalline neutronium, perhaps? Nothing else could suck him in like that.
We don’t even know if gravity or solid matter exist in this realm,
Sinon said.
Besides, there was no energy emission. If his mass was being compressed by gravity, we would all have been obliterated by
the radiation burst.
Then let us hope it was a sampling method.
Yes.
Sinon conveyed a slight uncertainty with his thought.
Shame it was Cochrane.
It could have been Ekelund.
Sinon watched the crystal slicing freely across the land. It had become a cometary streak.
That may yet happen.
______
Annette Ekelund had established her new headquarters on top of the steep mound which used to be Ketton’s town hall. Rectangular
sections of various buildings had been salvaged from the ruins all around and propped up against each other; energistic power
modified them into heavy canvas tents printed with green and black jungle camouflage. Three of them contained the last remaining
stocks of food. One served as an armoury and makeshift engineering shop where Milne and his team worked repairing the rifles
which had been dug from the wet soil. The last, sitting right on the brow, was Annette’s personal quarters and command post.
She had the netting rolled up at both ends, giving her a good view out across the island’s blotchy grey-brown land right to
the scabrous edges. Maps and clipboards were strewn cross the trestle table in the centre. Coloured pencils had marked out
the army’s defensive fortifications around Ketton, along with possible lines of attack based on scout reports of the terrain
outside. Serjeant positions and estimated strengths were all indicated.
The information had taken days to compile. Right now Annette was paying it no heed; she was glaring at the captain who stood
to attention in front of her. Soi Hon lounged back in his canvas chair at the side of the table, watching the scene with no
attempt to hide his amusement.
“Five of the patrol refused to come back,” the captain said. “They just kept on walking, said they were going to pitch in
with the serjeants.”
“The enemy,” Annette corrected.
“Yes. The enemy. There was only three of us left after that. We couldn’t force them back.”
“You are pathetic,” Annette told him angrily. “How you were ever considered officer material I don’t know. You don’t just
go with your men on walks around the perimeter, you’re their leader for Christ’s sake. That means you know their vulnerabilities
as well as their strengths. You should have seen this coming, especially now you can sense their raw emotional state. They
should never have been allowed out to betray us like this. Your fault.”
The captain gave her a look of incredulous dismay. “This is ridiculous. Everyone here is worried shitless. I could see that
in them clear enough. There’s no way of telling what they were going to do about it.”
“You should have known. You’re on null rations for thirtysix hours, and demoted to corporal. Now get back to your division,
you’re a disgrace.”
“I dug up that food. I was in the shit up to my elbows for two days working for it. You can’t do this. It’s mine.”
“It will be in thirty-six hours. Not before.”
They stared at each other across the table. Sheets of paper stirred silently.
“Fine,” the ex-captain snapped. He stormed out.
Annette glared after him, furious at how slack everyone was becoming. Didn’t any of them understand how critical these times
were?
“Well handled,” Soi Hon said, his voice verging on a sneer.
“You think he should go unpunished? You wouldn’t believe how fast things would unravel if I didn’t enforce order.”
“Your society would unravel. Not individual lives.”
“You think another kind of society can survive here?”
“Let go, and see what evolves.”
“That’s major bullshit, even by your standards.”
Soi Hon shrugged, unconcerned. “I’d love to know where you think we’re actually heading if not oblivion.”
“This realm offers us sanctuary.”
“Will you cut my ration if I make an observation?”
“It wouldn’t make any difference. I know you. You have your own little stash somewhere, I’m sure.”
“I have learned prudence, I don’t deny. What I suggest you consider is the possibility that the serjeants might be correct.
This realm might offer us sanctuary if we were on a planet. However, this island does appear to be terribly finite.”
“It is, but the realm is not. We came here
instinctively
; we knew this was the one place where we would be safe. It can be paradise, if we just believe in it. You’ve seen how our
energistic power operates here. The effects take longer to form, but when they do the change is more profound.”
“Pity they can’t slowly grow us some food, or even air. I’d probably settle for a little more land.”
“If that’s what you think, why stay with me? Why not run away like all those weak fools?”
“You have the food secure, and there is no bush for me to hide in. Not even a single bush, in fact. Which pains me. This land
is… not good. It has no spirit.”
“We can have what we want.” Annette was looking directly out of the open end of the tent at the sharp, close horizon. “We
can give the land its spirit back.”
“How?”
“By finishing what we started. By escaping. They’re holding us back, you see.”
“The serjeants?”
“Yes.” She gave him a smile, content that he understood. “This is the realm where our dreams come true. But their dreams are
of rationality and physics, the old order. They are machines, soulless, they cannot understand what we can become here. They
hold our winged thoughts back in cages of steel. Imagine it, Soi, if we rid ourselves of their restraints. This island expanding,
new land growing out from the cliff edges. Land that’s covered in rich green life. We are a seed here, we can germinate into
something wonderful. Heaven is what you make it: that’s such a precious destiny, every human’s entitlement. And we can see
it. Out there, waiting for us. We’ve come so far, they cannot be allowed to contaminate our minds with their dark yearning
to remain in the past.”
Soi Hon raised an eyebrow. “A seed? That’s how you see this island?”
“Yes. One that can bloom into whatever kingdom we want.”
“I doubt that. I really do. We are humans in stolen bodies, not embryonic godlings.”
“And yet, we’ve already taken the first step.” She lifted her hands up in a theatrical offering to the sky. “After all, we
said there was to be light, didn’t we?”
“I’ve read that book, but not many of my people did. How typically Euro-Christian, you think your origins and mythology populated
the world. All you actually gave us was pollution, war, and disease.”
Annette grinned wolfishly. “Come on, Soi, show a little levity. Get radical again. This place can be made to work. Once we
eliminate the serjeants we’ll have a chance.” Her smile faded as she sensed the babble of confusion and surprise emanating
from within the communal mind of the serjeants. Everpresent, it sat on the edge of her consciousness, a dawn refusing to rise.
Now their cool thoughts were changing, coming as close to panic as she’d known. “What’s upset them?”
She and Soi walked over to the end of the tent, and looked over at the dark mass of serjeants clustering in the foothills
of Catmos Vale’s lost walls.
“Well, they’re not charging at us,” Soi said. “That’s gratifying.”
“Something’s wrong.” She brought up her field binoculars, and searched the serjeants’ encampment, trying to spot any abnormality
amid the large dark bodies. They were sitting calmly together as always. Then she realized every head was turned to face her.
The binoculars came down, allowing her to frown back at them. “I don’t get this.”
“There, look.” Soi was pointing at a bright spark rushing over the town’s perimeter fortifications. The soldiers below it
were shouting and gesticulating wildly as it soared imperviously overhead.
It hurtled towards the mound at the centre of town.
“Mine,” Annette said warmly. With her feet apart, she brought her hands together in a pistol grip. A squat black maser carbine
materialized, blunt barrel lining up on the approaching crystal.
“I don’t think that’s a weapon,” Soi said. He started to back away from Annette. “It didn’t come from the serjeants, they’re
as puzzled as us.”
“It doesn’t have permission to enter my town.”
Soi started to run. A slim flare of intense white fire spewed out of Annette’s gun, darting towards the approaching crystal.
It veered effortlessly aside, arcing over Soi. He stumbled as the spires of light pirouetted around him.
Smoothly and methodically, Annette turned to follow the invader. She pulled back on the trigger again, flinging the most potent
bolt of white fire she could muster. It had no effect. The crystal whipped round in a tight parabola above Soi and accelerated
back the way it came.
The serjeants watched it return. This time it never even slowed down as it tore through the air above them. Once it was over
the cliff it began to curve downwards. Delvan rushed up to the very edge and flung himself flat on the crusted mud, head just
peeping over. The last he saw of it was a glimmer of light descending parallel to the crinkled cliff-face before disappearing
underneath the antagonistic planes of fractured rock.
______
The traders hooted and clanked their way along Cricklade’s drive in seven big lorries. Steam hissed energetically out of the
iron stacks behind their cabs, while gleaming brass pistons spun the front wheels. They growled to a halt in front of the
manor’s broad steps, dripping oil on the gravel and wheezing steam from leaky couplings.
Luca came forward to greet them. As far as he could tell, the thoughts of the people riding in the cabs were amicable enough.
He wasn’t expecting trouble; traders had visited Cricklade before, but never in a convoy this size. A group of ten estate
workers were on close call, just in case.
The traders’ leader climbed down out of the lead lorry and introduced himself as Lionel. He was a short man with flowing blond
hair tied back with a leather lace, wearing worn blue denim jeans and a round-neck sweater: working clothes which were almost
an extension of his forthright attitude. After a couple of minutes’ conversation, sizing each other up, Luca invited him indoors.
Lionel settled appreciatively into the study’s leather armchair, sipping at the Norfolk Tears Luca offered him. If he was
concerned about the restrained, moody atmosphere grumbling around the manor, it never showed. “Our main commodity this trip
is fish,” he said. “Mostly smoked, but we have some on ice as well. Apart from that, we’re carrying vegetable and fruit seeds,
fertilised chicken eggs, some fancy perfumes, a few power tools. We’re trying to build a reputation for reliability, so if
there’s something you want which we haven’t got, we’ll try to get hold of it for our next visit.”
“What are you looking for?” Luca asked as he sat down behind the broad desk.
“Flour, meat, some new tractor bearings, a power socket to recharge the lorries.” He raised his glass. “A decent drink.” They
grinned, and touched their glasses. Lionel’s gaze lingered on Luca’s hand for a moment. The contrast between their skin was
subtle, but noticeable. Luca’s was darker, thicker, a true guide to Grant’s age; Lionel maintained an altogether more youthful
sheen.
“What sort of exchange rate were you thinking of for the fish?” Luca asked.
“For flour, five to one, direct weight.”
“Don’t bugger about wasting my time.”
“I’m not. Fish is meat, valuable protein. There’s also carriage; Cricklade’s a long way inland.”