Stark (49 page)

Authors: Ben Elton

Tags: #Modern fiction, #Fiction, #General

BOOK: Stark

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243: IF ONLY

I
f only,’ people sighed, ‘if only we had done something. Acted when we still had time, even just ten years ago,’ they said, ‘back in the late eighties, the early nineties when there was still time. The signs were all there, why didn’t we do something.’

But they hadn’t, back in ‘89, ‘90 and ‘91, the years when the decisions needed to be taken, nothing had been done. People had listened to the politicians’ empty rhetoric at election time but nothing huge, nothing drastic, nothing real had actually been done. Too much money was involved, it simply wasn’t economical. Nothing had been done and now the reckoning was upon them all.

244: PARTY TIME

A
fter the blast CD had tried to say ‘is it over, Zimm?’ but it is rather difficult to speak when you seem to have eaten about half of the Great Sandy Desert.

Spitting and spluttering dust out of his mouth he rose up to find Zimmerman, sitting on the prostrate form of Walter Culboon, rolling a ciggie.

‘We have to wait for Walter Culboon to come around man, I reckon I hit her a little hard,’ was Zimmerman’s reply. As they waited they saw a car heading out from what had been the launch site. Zimm presumed it was another hallucination and ignored it. For CD, as always, hope sprang eternal, and just this once it was justified in doing so, because it was Rachel.

It is a tribute to CD that the ecstatic relief he found in Rachel’s survival, and the discovery that she had remained loyal to the team all along, was only slightly tempered over the next hour or two by the dawning realization that Rachel’s experiences had not been sufficiently cathartic to shock her into wanting to sleep with him.

The four of them headed off together, away from the smouldering remnants of Stark, until they found Chrissy and Mrs Culboon. There they said goodbye to Walter Culboon and the remnants of EcoAction (in CD’s case, smouldering), headed on back to Bullens Creek. Back to the home that Mr and Mrs Culboon had bought so recently when they had thought their luck was in. Now Mr Culboon was gone and Durf s thugs had smashed most of it up. Anyway the earth was dying. The cat was OK though.

‘So what do we do now?’ said Chrissy.

‘Well, I reckon we should sell the hire car and buy some beer,’ said Mrs Culboon. ‘I could certainly do with getting a bit pissed,’ said Rachel. ‘Yeah, but it’s not really the time for a party is it?’ said CD, thinking of the friends they’d lost and the failure of what they’d tried to do. ‘Sure it’s the right time,’ said Zimmerman, ‘it’s time to party like there’s no tomorrow.’

245: HELL

A
nd the pioneers of Stark? Their lives were hell.

It was too much for poor Sly. After only one year, on yet another lonely lonely night, he opened a pressure door and allowed himself to float away to heaven. He was glad that Rachel had not come with him. He would not have wished the world that Stark had created on anyone, let alone someone he loved.

He was not the first to crack, and he would not be the last. The frozen embryos were destined never to be brought to life. The problem was not the conditions, it was not the work they had to do, nor even the food — the problem was the company.

The pioneers of Stark hated each other. They had created Hell in Heaven. They had escaped pollution on earth, only to discover that they had carried with them another pollution, a pollution that they could not escape. The pollution in their own souls.

Stark (49 page)

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