9781629270050-Text-for-ePub-rev (26 page)

Ceri shrugged. “I read a lot of science-fiction.”

Tom sighed. “Well, I’m no scientist and since we’ve not ventured further than the
Moon, we’re hardly in a position to argue. So what do you call this planet of yours,
anyway?”

“I was wondering when you’d ask. The closest English translation from our native tongue—again,
no coincidence—is Earth.”

Tom stared hard at Peter, waiting for some sign that he was joking. None came. He
glanced at Ceri. She was also staring at Peter, a mixture of wonder and something
else, maybe fear, in her expression.

“Okay,” said Tom, turning back to face Peter. “That’s enough hokum for one day. It’s
time for the answer to the sixty million pound question. We’ve skirted around this
long enough. What I and Ceri. . . .” He glanced at her again. She returned the look
and nodded. “What I and Ceri want to know is how, and why, the Millennium Bug?”

* * * * *

The rate of arrivals at Hillingdon Hospital had slowed somewhat. Those who had entered
the hospital and come back out again joined in the clearance and burning of corpses,
and the gathering of food. They moved slowly, but purposefully, pausing in their work
only to shamble off to one side to eat or to defecate where they stood. They showed
no interest in their surroundings or in each other. Though they had not lost the ability
to talk, they did not speak except to mutter some guttural reply to a barked command
from an overseer.

At night, they slept huddled together in their own filth in rows of houses already
cleared of the dead.

They had come in sufficient numbers to allow the non-humans to stop doing the dirty
work themselves and leave it all to the drones.

“Over six thousand have come from outside the city,” Grant informed Milandra, upon
his return from the short trip to Hillingdon. “Almost seven hundred from London itself.
There are still some arriving from Scotland—one man came in from Yorkshire while I
was there. He’d cycled all the way.” He glanced at Milandra as though expecting a
comment. She said nothing.

“Some have died from a disease they caught from the corpses,” Grant continued. “Kind
of ironic really. It’s been contained and we’re making them wear surgical masks. Oh,
and one was killed when he was attacked by a pack of feral dogs. But they won’t be
a problem again. We don’t want too many of the drones dying on us just yet.”

“No,” said Milandra. She was making a monumental effort at keeping her face expressionless
and to hide any hint that Grant’s words were sickening her. “We were able to get the
hospital generators working?”

He nodded. “Just as well as we were fast running out of car batteries. The generators
have enabled the, er, treatments to progress at pace. And, once treated, the drones
work well. Quite single-mindedly, you could say.” He laughed, but Milandra sensed
that his heart wasn’t fully in it.

“How about work on the Grid?”

“Well, there’s a team over at the electrical substation at North Hyde. They expect
to get it ready to be operational by tomorrow. It’s only needed replacement coils
and fuses; maintenance stuff, really. Then they’ll move on to the stations in the
centre. Battersea and a few others. London should be ready to be reilluminated within
a couple of weeks. Before we throw the switch back on, we need to get the drones switching
off as many of the millions of appliances that were running when the power went out
as we have time for. The more we can catch now, the fewer problems we’ll get when
the juice goes back on.”

“Millions of appliances? Many people were probably dead or dying when the electricity
went off.”

“You’re right. But many of them would have left the central heating switched on, TVs
on standby, that sort of thing.”

“Okay. But we can’t allow the drones to spend too long on that. They’ve more important
tasks to attend to.”

“I know. The Beacon.”

“Yes. The Beacon. Send word out that a hundred drones are to be placed in confinement.
They are to be kept clean and well-fed. Gentle exercise. The fitter they are, the
more effective it will be.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll
send
the word myself, from here.”

Milandra smiled. “Of course. You know, we’ve lived among them for so long, that on
occasions I forget who we are.”

“No,” said Grant. “You don’t. But sometimes I get the feeling that you want to.”

* * * * *

The helicopter flew from beneath the cloud cover and the world suddenly seemed sparklingly
white to Diane in the pale afternoon sun. The tracks below could now be made out even
more clearly and Bishop could afford to take the chopper up a little.

“Bit more height up here, little less noise down there,” he said. “We can’t be far
away now. I suggest you ready the weapons.”

Diane hesitated, trying to examine her feelings. She had not come on this trip expecting
it to be a pleasant Sunday afternoon outing, but the finale had seemed distant, something
that would involve others, not her. Now that it was close, she tried to see inside
herself, seeking the woman who was capable of pointing a gun at another living creature
and pulling the trigger. She could not find her, though that didn’t mean she wasn’t
there. When the time arrived, Diane would yank her from the depths, kicking and screaming
if needs be, and force her to the fore.

She unbuckled her shoulder straps and reached for the bag on the floor. She hefted
it to her lap and rebuckled the straps.

Opening the bag, she withdrew the pistol. The not unpleasant smell of gun oil filled
the cabin. Diane fitted an ammunition clip into the handle of the pistol and slid
it home with a click. She checked that the safety was on and placed the gun between
her knees. Then she withdrew the machine gun, checked that its safety was on and fitted
a magazine to that. Bishop brought his attention from the tracks in the snow below
long enough to shoot appreciative, almost hungry, glances at what she was doing.

“Yeah, baby,” he said in a breathy whisper. “That’s what I like.”

Diana held the loaded Uzi towards him and he grinned, baring his teeth like a dog.
She returned the weapon to the bag, leaving it unzipped, and placed it in the narrow
space between them, within his reach.

She picked up the pistol from between her knees and held it loosely in her lap, occasionally
lifting it a little to test its weight, trying to imagine shooting it.

Bishop’s voice came over her earphones, low and breathy.

“We are in business, baby. There they are. We’re going in.”

Diane followed Bishop’s gaze and saw a small row of buildings on the edge of another
village, surrounded by white fields. The tracks led to the buildings. Where they stopped,
she could see the roof of a bronze-coloured vehicle.

Her breath left her in a rush as Bishop brought the helicopter swooping down towards
the buildings.

* * * * *

Peter appeared lost in thought and Tom was about to repeat his question when at last
Peter spoke.

“Why the Millennium Bug? In some ways, this is the easiest of your questions to answer.
In other ways, the hardest. As I’ve already told you, we did not anticipate that we
would be here for so long without the rest of our people following. We did not anticipate
the rate at which humans would multiply. We did not anticipate the degree of complexity
and intelligence with which you would evolve. We did not anticipate the level of savagery
you would display to other species and to each other.”

“Hold on a minute—” started Tom.

“Hisht!” said Ceri. “Let him speak.”

“Tell me,” said Peter, looking directly at Tom, “how would humankind have reacted
to the appearance in the skies of a vast, black craft? To it landing and seventy thousand
aliens disgorging from it? They look just like you, but aliens they are and as aliens
they would be regarded by man. Would you—and by ‘you’ I mean humankind in general—would
you have extended the hand of friendship? Attempted to communicate with them? To understand
them? Or would you have reacted with fear and aggression, greeting my brethren with
bullets and missiles? I’m not a betting man, but I know on which side the odds were
stacked.”

“I would hope with friendship,” began Tom, but Ceri shushed him again.

“Nonsense. You know as well as I do that we would shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Yes,” said Peter. “That is precisely what we thought. We weren’t prepared to risk
being wrong. Don’t forget, we’re talking about the entire remnants of our species
arriving here on this planet. We would be too few, even seventy five thousand of us,
and you too many, to be able to influence your attitude towards us. And we are not
a violent species—we would have stood no chance against an armed assault by any one
of the major powers, let alone all of them combined. So we agreed on a plan that we
would put into action as soon as we received word that the Great Coming was underway.”

“A plan?” said Tom.

Peter reached into the bag by his feet, the one in which he had brought the camping
stove into the cottage. He withdrew a shiny silver canister that looked to Tom like
a thermos flask.

“The plan was hatched at the end of the First World War when it became apparent to
us that man’s warlike nature would never be moderated. When the Second World War broke
out, any doubters among us were silenced. We worked on developing a virus, one genetically
programmed to kill all but a very small percentage of mankind. One that would be so
virulent and so deadly as to make the great plagues of the past like the Black Death
seem like the common cold in comparison. As each new version of the virus was perfected,
we each received containers.” He turned the canister over and over in his hands. “This
was the most recent. This one has not been opened. All the others were and the contents—an
organic powder—disseminated throughout the planet.”

The room had grown so quiet and tense that the hissing of the paraffin lamps sounded
loud to Tom’s ears. He could feel his fists clenching once more, his finger nails
biting into the flesh of his palms.

“The contents of that canister killed my mother. My girlfriend. My children from school.
Ceri’s husband. Her son. Everyone we know.”

Tom could not tear his gaze away from Peter. For once, Ceri did not tell him to be
quiet. Tom felt a rushing of blood in his ears and a white hot rage surged through
him, one he could not remember ever experiencing before. He stood and took a step
towards Peter, his fists bunched and rising. . . .

Peter’s eyes widened, but they weren’t fixed on Tom. As though from far away, Tom
heard Ceri gasp and Dusty give a soft bark. He took another half a step towards Peter,
but stopped in confusion as a noise intruded on his anger.

The others had already heard it and risen to their feet.

The clatter of an engine and the whoomp-whoomp-whoomp of rotors.

Chapter Twenty-One

T
he line of buildings outside which the bronze vehicle was parked looked to Bishop
to be old stone cottages. Opposite, stood a similar row. He scanned the surrounding
area, looking for somewhere to land.

“That road’s a little narrow,” he said. “The rotor span is too wide. And there are
overhead wires. Might have to land in that field behind the cottages.”

“Okay,” came Diane’s voice, sounding a little breathless. “You’re the boss.”

“Better believe it, darling.”

Bishop chuckled. Adrenalin coursed through his body, making him feel vital and invulnerable.
If he’d been human, he reckoned he’d have a hard-on and the thought made him chuckle
more. If there was one thing besides alcohol that Bishop envied the drones for, it
was their sensuality—it looked kind of fun.

He brought the helicopter in lower still until he could see the fronts of the buildings,
keeping it horizontal so as not to stray near the cables that were strung across the
road from the end cottage. He carefully swung the machine around to face the row of
cottages outside which the vehicle was parked and hovered, watching. He daren’t go
any lower here: the road between the rows of cottages had probably been built in the
days before the petrol engine had even been dreamed of, this was such an antiquated
country, and there was definitely no room for him to risk landing.

“Look for movement in one of the cottages,” he told Diane. “If you see any, shoot.”

Diane’s voice came back in almost a squawk. “Shoot? How am I supposed to shoot from
up here?”

“That small window next to you. It slides open.”

A blast of icy air whooshed into the cabin as Diane slid the window open.

“Jiminy cricket!” she exclaimed. “It’s freezing!”

“Concentrate on those– There! Third one from the left. The front door’s opening.”

Bishop swung the Sea King slightly to the right, bringing it more side-on to the cottages
so that Diane could see them through the side window. The only problem was, his view
was now obstructed.

“What’s happening?” he demanded.

“Someone’s looking out at us. A man. Oh! And a woman.”

“Shoot them!”

“I can’t—”

“Shoot, you stupid woman!”

He held the helicopter steady, ready for the report of the pistol. It sounded shockingly
loud in such a confined space, even with headphones on, and he jumped a little, making
the helicopter jerk. Diane shrieked.

“Did you get them?”

“No . . . I’m not sure . . . I. . . .”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Bishop was almost shouting. “Unbuckle and take the controls.”

Diane’s mouth formed a perfect ring when she swung around to look at him. “Are you
crazy?” she shouted. “I can’t fly this thing!”

“You just have to hold it steady.”

“No! I can’t. . . .”

“Aaarggh!” Bishop put all of his frustration into the yell. His left hand, which had
moved to the buckle of his shoulder straps, went back to the controls. “Fine! We’ll
have to land.”

* * * * *

Peter ran to the front door and swung it open. He knew that he wasn’t exercising caution,
but had realised the moment that he heard the engine that they were undone. He hadn’t
counted on the pursuit coming by air.

He felt Ceri rush to his side.

“Peter, what are you doing?” she hissed, as though she might be overheard. “They’ll
see you.”

He glanced at her. It might have been the glare of the sun off the snow entering the
open doorway, but she looked as pale as milk.

“They know where we are,” he said. “They’ve been following our tracks in the snow.”

Ceri’s hand clasped over her mouth and her eyes widened.

Peter leaned forward and squeezed her other hand. “Be brave. I need to see what sort
of chopper they’re in.”

He moved to the open doorway and peered out. He was aware of Ceri standing alongside
him.

A bright, yellow helicopter was hovering about twenty yards in the air directly in
front of them. It was turned slightly away and he could see an arm protruding from
the open side window. Peter drew in a sharp breath; he hadn’t expected it to be so
close. They must have been too engrossed in their discussion to have heard it until
it was upon them, or the snow had deadened the noise of its approach. Probably both.

Two noises sounded almost at the same time. A dull
thunk!
as something thudded into the stonework above their heads, bringing down a light
shower of snow and stone dust; a
pop!
like the sound of a champagne cork being drawn in an adjoining room.

Peter grabbed Ceri’s arm. “Back inside!”

He pulled the door closed behind them and returned to the living room, meeting a dazed-looking
Tom coming towards them.

Ceri grabbed Tom, about-turned him and gave him a shove in the back that sent him
stumble-walking back into the room. He seemed to shake himself and turned to face
them, the stunned expression replaced by one of fear.

“What’s happening?” he said. “Is it them?”

Peter nodded. “But they’re in a search and rescue chopper.” Ceri raised her eyebrows.
“I was in the merchant navy,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Um,” said Tom. “So. . . . ?”

“It’s not armed,” said Peter. “Though the people on board have guns. They shot at
us.”

Ceri uttered a low moan and would have fallen if Tom, who was closer to her, hadn’t
flung out an arm to steady her. Peter felt a little relieved; at least Tom had come
around enough to perhaps be of some use.

“H-how many people?” asked Tom, his voice as unsteady as Ceri’s legs.

“Can’t tell. At least two.”

“Why don’t you speak to them?” said Tom. “You know, inside your head?”

“Too risky,” said Peter. “If I probe them, I’ll leave myself open. They’ll be able
to see our plan.”

Tom blinked. “We have a plan?” His eyes widened. “Do you have guns in the Range Rover?”

“No guns,” said Peter. “Besides, I haven’t fired one since 1945. I’ve forgotten how.”

“But you have a plan?” said Ceri. She seemed to have recovered a little poise and
shrugged off Tom’s hand after giving it a brief squeeze.

“It’s not much of a plan,” said Peter. “For a start, we can’t stay here. They’ll simply
land and walk in. We could barricade ourselves in, but we don’t know what sort of
firepower they have. A lot more than the popgun they just used, I’ll bet. Our only
chance lies in outrunning them in the Range Rover.”

“We can’t outrun a helicopter,” said Tom.

“Actually, we probably are faster than a Sea King, but not in this snow and we can’t
travel in straight lines like they can,” said Peter. “But they’ve come from London
in that thing and it’s unlikely they’ll be carrying spare fuel as it would be sort
of self-defeating: the more weight they carry, the worse the fuel efficiency. We topped
the Range Rover up less that ten miles back so it’s well over two-thirds full. So
long as we avoid wide open spaces where it can fly alongside us and they can shoot
at us from the windows, if we stick to country lanes and trees and steer clear of
main roads, we might be able to avoid them for long enough that they have to go in
search of more fuel.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“You were right,” said Tom. “It’s not much of a plan. They could have friends nearby
who they’re radioing as we speak to tell them our position. They could land near a
car and come after us by road. They could drop hand grenades on us. They could—”

“They could do all that and more,” said Peter. “But unless either of you can come
up with something better, it’s all we’ve got. And we need to get moving. Now! I can’t
hear the chopper.”

In a whirlwind of activity, they flung on their shoes and coats, Dusty bounding between
them and trying to lick Tom and Ceri. Peter extinguished the paraffin lamps and replaced
them in the bag, together with the camping stove and the silvery canister. He didn’t
bother switching off the calor gas heater.

“Ready?” he said and received two answering nods. “Tom, keep Dusty close. No looking
round when we get outside. Concentrate only on reaching the car and getting in.”

Peter strode to the front door, the bag clutched tightly under one arm. He opened
the door again and looked out. The sound of the helicopter was much fainter, coming
from somewhere behind the cottage.

“It sounds like they’re landing in the fields at the back,” he said. “Come on, then.
Let’s do it.”

In single file, Tom running in a half crouch so he could keep a tight grip on Dusty’s
scruff, they hurried to the Range Rover.

* * * * *

Placing the pistol between her knees, Diane gripped the shoulder straps tightly with
both hands as Bishop brought the helicopter in to land on the snow-covered field.
At the last moment, she closed her eyes, then allowed her breath to escape in a deep
sigh as he brought it safely to a halt. She drew it in again sharply when she felt
the machine lurch a little, but it was merely settling on the grassy tummocks that
must have lain beneath the snow.

Without switching off the engine, Bishop flung off the earphones, unbuckled his shoulder
straps and grabbed the Uzi from the bag.

“Wait here a moment!” he barked.

She watched as he jumped lightly to the ground and set off across the field towards
the back of the cottages. The snow came over his ankles. He made for the end cottage,
the one furthest away from where they’d seen the people, and climbed the wooden fence
that bounded the field. She saw him stiffen and crouch, raising the Uzi to shoulder
height. Diane tensed, her lips drawing tight.

Beyond Bishop, she saw movement. A large, bronze vehicle appeared beyond the end of
the cottage and passed quickly out of sight. Bishop lowered the Uzi and fiddled with
it, before turning and retracing his steps over the fence and across the field at
a run. He climbed back into the helicopter, his cheeks flushed, dropped the Uzi on
top of the bag and replaced his earphones.

“They’re making a run for it.” He sounded incredulous. “There’s three of them. Ronstadt
and two drones.”

He fumbled at the buckle of the shoulder straps, forcing the clasps home with clicks
loud enough for Diane to hear above the whirl and clatter of the helicopter.

“Did you shoot at them?” she asked.

Bishop glanced at her. To her surprise, she saw something that seemed quite out of
place in his expression: embarrassment.

“Tried to, but nothing happened.” Diane felt the blood drain from her face, but he
didn’t seem to notice. “I’d forgotten to remove the safety.”

She turned away so that he wouldn’t see her puff out her cheeks. She felt her stomach
lurch and watched the ground recede as Bishop took them back up.

It was easy to spot their quarry; it was the only thing moving in the landscape. The
vehicle was not too distant, appearing and disappearing momentarily as it passed between
houses at the other end of the village.

Bishop flew towards it and began to circle, keeping the bronze car in sight. But he
could not get close to it. The village was too cramped, the houses too close together;
too many power lines criss-crossed the air. Clearly, underground cabling was rare
in this part of the world.

The vehicle did not move quickly. From their height, it seemed to be crawling along.
It skirted the edge of the village and then took a lane out of the village. The lane
was bounded by skeletal trees on one side, and a row of electricity pylons to the
other. The pylons stretched away to the horizon, seeming to follow the line of the
lane for as far as the eye could see.

Bishop continued to describe lazy circles with the helicopter, unable to drop lower
due to the trees and pylons.

“Shit!” came Bishop’s voice through the earphones. “The sly bastard!”

“What?”

“Can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s taking a leisurely drive in the countryside,
making sure he sticks to lanes like this one with trees and pylons stopping us getting
too close. If he’s got plenty of gas in that four-wheeler then he can probably outlast
us.”

“How long can we keep this up?”

Bishop glanced at the array of dials in front of him. “Another hour or so, darling.
Two and a half tops. We won’t be travelling all the way back in this bird, either.
We’ve already used up more than half our juice.”

Diane let out a deep breath, hoping she sounded disappointed. She was still uncertain
precisely how she felt, still not sure why she’d volunteered to accompany Bishop.
Something like an inner voice, some instinct, had suggested it and she had obeyed.
When she’d met Bishop, she had immediately noticed the ready sneer into which his
mouth could twist and, without needing to probe, she felt cruelty wafting off him
like cheap aftershave. It had taken her back a little when he readily agreed to her
going with him. Now she was starting to feel a certain reluctance to see him get his
way.

“I guess we’d better turn back, then,” she said. “Get as far as we can and then put
her down. We should easily find a car to get us the rest of the way back to London.”

“Hmm,” said Bishop. “That would be a good idea if I was the sort of guy who gives
up easily. But I’m not.”

“But what can we do?”

“Well, I can get us close enough for you to blow out their tyres with the Uzi. . . .”

“I told you—I have no idea how to use one of those.”

“Yeah. Guessed you’d say that. That leaves only one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m gonna force them off the road.”

* * * * *

The Range Rover trundled along the lane, the snow crunching beneath its tyres as the
frozen surface churned. The softer snow beneath presented little challenge to the
vehicle’s road-holding capabilities at this speed and with the four-wheel drive engaged.
All Peter had to do was keep the vehicle in the centre of the narrow lane: at either
side, snow had banked into low drifts against the drystone walls that ran both sides
of the road.