The War of Immensities (27 page)

“Erebus is
gone,” she cried over the radio. “It just isn’t there. Oh, hang on.
It’s obscured by steam. I can see lava flowing onto the ice shelf.
Oh wow, you ought to see this. It looks like there’s a great big
crack opened up in the west side of the mountain and great streams
of lava are gushing out. But there’s steam everywhere. Jesus, and
lightning in the cloud above. Is that usual?”

From the Orion,
Jami Shastri, to whom these reports were relayed, reported back
that it was not uncommon. She asked an array of technical questions
in response, but the poor woman peering out of a helicopter flying
in very rough and dangerous conditions, was not really able to
understand them. Jami understood. The volcano, the aurora, the
shattered ice shelf, in a chopper bouncing from one thermal to
another, out over the ice in the endless Antarctic night—any one of
these things would have made most people babble, all of them would
have been devastating.

And Jami was
thinking, Mt Erebus—only two thousand kilometres from the nearest
point of the Indian Ocean. Guess again, Harley.

In the chopper,
they were searching for the survival team, whose task, plainly, had
taken on a meaning far beyond their expectations. They were a young
fit group of athletes—four males and four females, all from
different countries. Kim Ah Cheung remembered their smiling faces
in the press photograph, standing in a line, all in the same
splendid ski-suits, Japanese, French, Malaysian, Indian, American,
African, Arabian and Swedish versions of the same person.

They crossed
and recrossed the terrain east of Erebus but it was plain that
their camp was well inside the zone of multi-hued seething steam
that had surrounded the mountain. Then one of the pilots spotted
the caterpillar tracks. They came out of the steam-ridden zone and
went straight out across the plain and the chopper zoomed low as
the pilot dived and chased after them.

Only to hover
helplessly when they reached the source of the trail. They should
have been able to make radio contact with the team but there was no
response. They dropped down to a few feet above the ice, running
beside cat and trying to shine their lights in the windows, but
they had fogged up.

“If they’re
fogged up, it means there are people breathing in there,” Kim was
able to tell them.

They could see
the green luminescence from the dash board lights. That made them
hopeful.

“Put me on the
ground and I’ll jump on it. It’s only going slowly,” Kim
suggested.“You can’t run at twenty kay on snow, Kim,” the pilot
snorted over the headset.

“Then drop me
on the roof and I’ll get in that way.”

The roof racks,
she could see, were empty and offered plenty of handholds.

They were
within five minutes of their fuel range before the pilot agreed to
let her try. Kim was chubby, thirty-eight, mother of four, but she
was very fit. As soon as she was out, swinging on the cable beneath
the chopper, she knew it was a bad idea. The wind howled and hurled
her every whichway. No part of her flesh was exposed but suddenly
if felt as if her protective clothing was rent in a dozen places.
Her goggles seemed to fog up. There was no air that was breathable.
She swayed and swirled everywhere, even though the drop was only
twenty feet. She was bashed against the side of the cat twice
before she finally got a grip on the roof rack, then had to let go
three times as the turbulent air wrenched the chopper away.
Swinging like a sack of potatoes, she was finally directly over the
roof and she closed her eyes and released the cable. Bruised and
battered, she lay on the rails of the roof rack for a few
minutes.

“That wasn’t
too bad,” she told herself.

In fact she’d
cracked two ribs and broken three fingers.

The cat swayed
violently and it rumbled along and the slipstream was buffeting her
furiously and now pain savaged her lungs as she tried to move. But
move she did. From the rack, she was able to get the rear doors
open and then, with a frantic, painful and very awkward scramble,
got herself in.

The eight young
people sat, three on each side in the back, two in the front, as if
going on a picnic. Icicles of condensation hung from the roof from
their breathing but breathing they still were, in steamy gusts now
that Kim had admitted the outside air. They just weren’t doing
anything else. She scrambled over their feet and leaned past the
one in the driver’s position and turned the engine off. The cat
slowly rumbled to a halt.

“End of the
ride, kids,” Kim smiled with relief. “You can wake up now.”

8. SLEEPERS AND PILGRIMS

She was just
getting into her act when she spied him in the audience—usually she
ignored them as individuals but there was no avoiding him, sitting
alone at a table amid the beautiful people like a gigantic member
of Santa’s elves. God knows how he got in—dressed as usual in plaid
shirt, jeans and hiking boots—although at that time only half the
tables were filled. Admittedly she was just the warm up act for the
megastars to follow but that didn’t mean they didn’t give her the
works—full orchestra, backing group, dazzling light show that
actually met her request to establish a rotating planet earth
behind her and she blasted through her routine. And she knew that
tonight she gave it a little something extra because Thyssen was
out there, watching. Whatever could he be thinking? she constantly
wondered.

This was the
Melbourne Casino, largest gambling complex in the southern
hemisphere they reckoned, and they had invited her—it was by far
her biggest gig yet. Amid all the glitter and excitement, the name
of Andromeda Starlight was becoming known in all the places where
it needed to be.

The unexpected
flight to nowhere over the Philippines returned her to Melbourne
with only a few days to spare to her opening night, and she was
still in the process of settling the act into this larger format.
On this the second night, the presence of Thyssen seemed to be the
little boost she needed to pull it together. The casino management
were very strict in regard to the personal conduct of the
performers and so she sent Tierney to collect Thyssen and arrange
for them to meet nearby in an obscure bar, an hour later.

“My, my, just
look at you,” she smiled as she walked in.

“Just keeping
my finger on the pulse,” Thyssen replied by way of explanation,
indicating her into a chair.

“So, how’d I
do?”

“Technically,
very impressive.”

“Take care,
Lover. I may swoon.”

He arched his
big furry eyebrows at her, and looked at her through one eye.
“Gaia, huh? Mother to all things. You’ve incorporated the idea
nicely.”

She found she
was remarkably relaxed with him. He had always been a group
experience until now. Even in the half-light, she could see his
face splattered with red blood vessels. She knew what that meant.
His skin too was pitted all over like a surface of the moon. Sweat
bubbled along his brow and upper lip. He was possibly the first man
she had ever liked that she didn’t want to touch.

“You thinkin’
you’ve created a monster, Harleykins?”

“A beneficial
monster, if that’s true.”

Joel Tierney
was catching on, looking from one to the other and figuring things
out. “So you’re the geezer who fed her all that earth-mother
codswallop,” he said.

“Are you
dissatisfied with your percentage, Joel?” Andromeda said
coldly.

“I think I need
a piss,” Joel said and left them.

Thyssen watched
him walk out of sight and then tilted his head and looked sideways
at her.

“I like your
friends,” he said with an ironic smile.

“A sorrowful
soul, Harley. But I didn’t want you leavin’ without a word.”

“Are all
managers as seedy as that?”

“All the useful
ones are.”

Thyssen nodded
and said no more.

She sipped her
drink quietly. She was in no hurry to get to the point of this,
whatever that might be. For there had to be a point—with Thyssen
there always was. The situation called for light chit-chat but a
man like him was hardly likely to be interested in that.
Surprisingly, he made an attempt.

“Harrandel
Thöensen Heuwenstrepp,” he said emphatically, turning to face her
directly now.

She
frowned.

“That’s my real
name,” he grinned. “I was nine years old before I was able to
pronounce it properly. Harley Thyssen was the invention of an
unimaginative immigration officer on Ellis Island.”

Andromeda
smiled and words avoided for a decade suddenly flowed from her with
ease. “Edna Krebbs.”

“I think we’d
both be well advised to stick to our alias’,” Thyssen chuckled.

She raised her
glass to toast him and he responded.

“How is it that
you have an American accent when you aren’t American?” he asked
pointedly.

“There was a
time when I got to thinkin’ it would be good for my image. But once
I took it on, it stuck. What’s your excuse, Lover?”

“Same as yours.
Except I didn’t plan it. Technically I’m Norse.”

“Well,
Vikingperson, so now that you know my deepest secrets, what is
there left?”

“A deal.”

“Deal?”

“Yes,” and he
paused, looking toward the men’s toilet to determine that Tierney
was not yet returning. “An arrangement that you may not want your
manager to be in on.”

“Joel, believe
it or not, is an honest man,” she pointed out.

“There are some
concepts too incomprehensible for even so vast an intelligence as
mine.”

“Tell me about
the deal.”

“I want to
employ you. That is, take you on as a member of Project
Earthshaker.”

“And there I
was thinkin’ I was just another lemming.”

She found
herself very proud of that, especially because he stopped and
chuckled before continuing.

“That’s the
point. Felicity’s medical team have taken over the new sleepers
from Antarctica and are keeping them in isolation as a control
group. Which means you guys—the original six—are now redundant,
from a medical research point of view, that is. You’ve all been
tainted and contaminated by your subsequent experiences.”

“I am aghast.
Should I be checkin’ out my health insurance, Sugar?”

“That may be
completely pointless. But you have been living normal lives out in
the real world rather than being safely quarantined in an isolation
laboratory like you should have been.”

“You scientists
sure have a funny way of looking at the world.”

“Don’t I know
it. Anyhow, what it all means is that it’s likely that your period
of usefulness as a research subject is ended or at least minimal.
But I want to keep you around. So I’m suggesting we take you on the
staff.”

“You’re
offering me a job? Doing what?”

“What you
do.”

“I don’t get
it.”

“I want to
incorporate your act as part of the project.”

“Just a moment.
The germ is returning.”

Joel Tierney’s
timing was impeccable as usual, for as he made his unsteady way
through the tables toward them, it gave her time to think.
Unfortunately, thinking it through did not make things any clearer.
Perhaps he misunderstood what she did.

“Take a seat
over there for a moment, Joel,” Andromeda called, and Tierney
immediately sat on the chair nearest him.

“You’ve trained
him like a dog,” Thyssen mused.

“Explain to me,
Harleykins, how a li’l’ ol’ night club singer like me can possibly
be regarded as a component of a scientific project.”

“Well, you’ve
already incorporated the project into your act. Why not go the
other way?”

“Ain’t soundin’
reasonable so far, Honey.”

Thyssen leaned
back, lighting a cigarette, thinking, not wanting to explain
himself so deeply. “We will pay you five thousand US a month.
Anything you earn over and above from your performances is
yours.”

She regarded
him as suspiciously as she would any promoter. “For which you get,
what?”

Thyssen
couldn’t look her in the eye—instead he played with the crescent of
fluid left on the table by his glass. “I’d like to be able, from
time to time, to offer further ideas for you to make use of on
stage.”

“Do I have a
right of veto?”

“No.”

So it wasn’t a
soft-sell then.

“How come I get
the feelin’ that ain’t all of it, Sugar,” she was sure.

“It is.”

“You want to
use my act as some sort of promotional tool for the project.”

“Why didn’t I
think of putting it like that?”

“And that’s the
deal?”

It wasn’t. The
tiny puddle before him got another work over. She was realising
this was the basis of his charm—being able to swing between
Tyrannosaur and naughty child at will.

“I might want
to have some power to arrange your venues and locations.”

“You can do
that?”

“I have some
interesting contacts.”

It was her turn
to think about it. When she did, the answer was fairly obvious,
although she hated herself for having to admit it. “Harleykins,
there ain’t no need for you to pay me for this. Why, I figger it’s
an honour to work with your ideas, and I’d go anywhere and do
anythin’ for you.”

He looked up.
His eyes, at all times, carried a great sadness. “That might not
always be the case. I’ll have Christine draw up a proper
contract.”

“Chrissie?”

“I’ve taken her
on as project administrator.”

“Oh fine. That
I can understand. I just don’t see why you need me.”

Thyssen was
nodding. He gave it a lot of thought and then seemed to suddenly
decide to be more candid than he had originally intended. “Okay.
Consider this. I believe that the population of Planet Earth is
facing a catastrophic disaster. Humanity is going to need to be
strong to face the threat. There will need to be the sort of
strength that Londoners showed in the blitz, and you will be the
Vera Lynn who symbolises that strength. You see?”