The War of Immensities (11 page)

Here, Jami
decided, her first real parallel lay. Was the momentary warning she
received something similar to the sensation that caused dogs to
howl and chickens to go off laying and fish to jump out of the
water and cows to refuse to enter the barn in the way that farmers
and peasants had reported they did a day or two in advance of the
first tremors.

All of this was
unsubstantiated evidence—the stuff of legends and myths—but it was
so universal that several major research teams were heavily
involved in exploring the behaviour of animals in unsteady
environments. And so it came down to cockroaches.

Here was the
most successful creature in evolution, unchanged for 250 million
years, which with its elementary nervous system and simple, well
known habits, was at the centre of such research. It was also the
cheapest laboratory animal imaginable both to feed and keep, and
they did seem to be able to detect earthquakes in advance. Not that
they needed to, for they usually survived them anyway, as they did
all other ecological disasters. Jami explored the cockroach
research until she came to a dead end. They still didn’t know how
the cockroaches—nor other animals—did it, but at least it proved it
could be done somehow. They would keep her posted.

She was
thinking that at the very moment when the e-mail indicator flashed
on her screen. Desperate for any distraction, she checked
immediately—the red indicator said it was urgent anyway. The
message was from the laboratory upstairs and from Pepe, who was on
duty.

“We got a hit!
Canary Islands. 1342 hours. Single shock at 6.5. Details
follow.”

The details
never followed. Jami was already out the door and bolting up the
stairs.

Beneath the
cliffs on the western side of Isla Gran Canaria, the fishing fleet
wheeled in wide arcs as they hunted for the shoals of pilchard
swept southward on the current. At Las Palmas, the capital, there
was a large trawler fleet that hunted Hake and bulk catches of
Sardines, but here on the rugged west coast of the island the
villages went out trailing nets from their small sailboats as they
had before the Spanish came, while above the cliffs the women and
old men tended the crude vineyards and tomato plantations. In
groups of several dozen, these fleets rode the cold waters of the
current, hardly ever out of view of the rugged headlands that
usually towered above the waves.

Today the sea
was calm, flat, and the air breathless, as if waiting for the
disaster to come.

Forced to their
oars, the fishermen were unhappy, for they had noticed that the
flocks of sea gulls that daily escorted their boats were missing,
as if there was no air up there to support them. The fishermen
looked about anxiously, and some, disturbed by voodoo demons, had
refused to sail, and others went back disgruntled. Those that
remained watched the signs, unnerved but unable to identify the
warning signs. The day was all but over when the sea began to
boil.

The turbulence
rapidly expanded outward from a single point as if a vast maelstrom
was forming and the panicking men turned their boats landward as
the huge ripples surged by them. Then the fish that had evaded
their nets began to float to the surface belly up, and steam
started to waft from the water until they were engulfed in a
sauna-like fog. Deep down, some thought they saw the red glow, and
then there was no more, then the surging sea was upon them.

Those fishermen
further away first noticed the waves rise and then saw the
mysterious fog emerging rapidly far out, and they rowed furiously
to safety, if safety it was. In the villages along the coast, the
earth shook and houses tumbled, landslides blocked roads and then
the fog doused them all in black rain.

It was like
someone had crept into his camp and punched him, in the stomach and
the head, and Brian rolled frantically, ignoring the pain and
nausea, to strike back and defend himself. But there was no one
there.

In a room at
the Shamrock Hotel in Bendigo, which was as far as the train could
take them that night, Chrissie awoke with a scream as a blinding
flash struck her eyes so violently that it sent a sharp pain
coursing though her bloodstream.

In the bed
across the room, Lorna was also doubled up in sudden pain. “Bloody
airline food,” she muttered.

Kevin Wagner’s
unconscious disturbance came to an end with such a violent
convulsion that it set off the alarms and brought the crash cart
team running, only to find him normal, and at peace for the first
time in thirty-five hours.

At Fairhaven,
Joe Solomon had been sedated and there was no monitoring equipment
to record his disturbance, nor its sudden cessation.

And neither was
there any telling which of Andromeda Starlight’s hallucinatory
dreams suddenly stopped being about moving and instead became about
being still.

Padre Miguel,
who ran the mission station in the hills above Playa de la Nieves,
felt the tremor and prepared to move the patients outside but
already it was over. He walked out and saw the strange cloud rising
over the sea. In fact at first he felt relieved—the entire island
was a massive extinct volcanic cone but that wasn’t the direction
from which the cloud arose. It was plainly over there, far out to
sea—where there was nothing but the Atlantic Ocean. The sisters
flapped about him in a panic but he spoke calming words to them.
Sister Anna, his head nurse, came to stand beside him.

“Is it over?”
she asked in French because the fear tricked her into using her
native language.

“I’m sure it
is,” the Padre replied in Spanish. “Just a slight tremor.”

But he was
looking at that cloud of steam climbing steadily upward.

Over the next
hour, people with broken limbs or other minor injuries were brought
to the mission until it was overcrowded, but apparently no one had
been killed. He knew, though, that the disturbance of the water
table might cause typhoid or plague if they were not careful and
asked each visitor about the wells and rats.

By nightfall,
most of the victims had been released and the cloud had turned to
rain, a profoundly unseasonable deluge that left dark stains on the
clothing. We have known worse, the Padre told himself. But two
hours after dark, and three after the tremor, the word came to the
mission that most of the fishing fleet from the three villages
above the mission had failed to return.

Fear and
superstition gripped the villagers, who were now all gathering on
the rocks below the cliffs, gazing out into the strange green
twilight that hovered over a sea of dead fish. Many of the boats
could be seen bobbing on the water out there but it took some time
before the braver amongst the fishermen could be persuaded to go
and investigate.

“Take me out
there,” Padre Miguel said to Rogelio, who he regarded as the
bravest of the fishermen.

“It is a
graveyard of men and fish,” Rogelio replied coldly. “You ask me to
throw my net on men already in hell.”

“Then I will
take your boat,” the Padre snapped.

“You will make
my boat accursed. My net will be empty for eternity,” Rogelio
complained, but his options were narrowing.

“What does it
matter?” Miguel answered cruelly. “As you see, all the fish are
dead.”

They made their
way to the roadstead and took Rogelio’s skiff and rowed out of the
anchorage where usually two hundred such craft were moored. Rogelio
rowed strongly, while the Padre stood in the bow, holding a battery
lantern high, calling directions. The smell was indeed the
sulphurous odour of hell and the dead fish glowed like evil eyes
upon the surface of the dark water.

Soon they came
upon the body of a man floating face down, and the Padre tried to
snare the body with the pole and at least turn him and identify him
but he lacked the skills.

“It is
Pedrico,” Rogelio said. “See, there is his boat.”

Padre Miguel
raised the lantern high and saw the belly of the capsized boat
looking like a giant fish, and another further over and two other
bodies floating.

But he could
also see at least thirty boats floating, apparently empty. Or was
that an arm hanging over the side of that one?

“Leave him,”
Miguel said. “Take me over there.”

“You would
leave our friends to the sharks?” Rogelio asked mercilessly.

“The sharks are
all dead too,” Miguel said as if he knew. In reality, he was
remembering that he had forgotten the habit of a lifetime—to pray
for the dead.

“The ocean
itself has died,” Rogelio uttered, but he rowed.

They approached
the skiff where the arm dangled. Already he could see that the two
men were still in the boat, lying in the bottom amid the nets as if
they were their own catch.

“It is the boat
of Santiago,” Rogelio declared.

The Padre
reached awkwardly and grabbed the protruding arm of Santiago or
perhaps his brother, and immediately, though the skin was chilled
by the night air, he could feel the warmth beneath.

“Santa Maria,”
Padre Miguel gasped. “They are not dead but only sleeping.”

This was the
right place, no doubt about it, except it wasn’t anymore. It was
gone in a instant, and then this was no longer the place to which
he had come, but nowhere, just the middle of an empty paddock.

Brian Carrick
knew immediately the waiting was over, although nothing had
changed, and it was time to pack up and go home. Mostly he felt a
strange sense of freedom, liberated by senses that had forced him
to come here, apparently by mistake.

He remained for
a while, making coffee and squatting by the fire, to be sure, but
there was nothing left for him here. The sun was preparing to rise.
He pissed on the ashes to make sure no fire remained, shouldered
his pack—his humpy—and started back toward the truck.

It had been a
clear night, almost full moon, the Milky Way prominent, Mars and
Jupiter high. He had enjoyed the night time best, when he lay,
looking at the stars. Next time, if there was a next time—and
somehow he sensed there would be—he resolved to know them all. It
was the first time in his life that he had ever had the time or
been relaxed enough to lie in the dark and study the stars. He was
awed.

Now they were
dimming out in the lightening sky and he gave them a final glance
and a smile as he marched toward the truck. He felt good. He would
drive through the morning and be home at lunchtime, and then would
come the tricky bit when he tried to explain all this to Judy.

After
breakfast, they stood in the glorious morning sun outside the
Shamrock Hotel in Bendigo and wondered where to go.

“It’s gone,”
Lorna said.

“What’s gone?”
Chrissie gasped, checking their suitcases.

“We don’t have
anywhere to go,” Lorna said, frowning, looking up and down High
Street. The morning traffic was on the move in Bendigo, people and
cars and trams hurrying between the drab grey buildings.

“You mean this
is where we were going?” Chrissie said in disappointment and
disbelief.

“Apparently.”

“Can’t be.”

“No. It isn’t
either. It’s just the feeling has gone.”

“Yes. You’re
right.”

In Bendigo,
they found the hotel, planning to continue their journey in the
morning only now there was nowhere to go. They stood in the busy
main street, the tall redheaded girl and the slight Asian one,
frowning at the morning traffic.

“Well, what
now?” Chrissie wondered.

“I suppose we
go home again,” Lorna said with a shrug.

“That’s silly.
We can’t have come all this way just to spend a night in a flea
bitten hotel in Bendigo, wherever that is.”

“You have to
admit it was different.”

“Different from
what?”

“Imagine how
our friends will admire our spontaneity and adventurous
spirit.”

“I’m not
telling anyone about this. They’ll have us locked up.”

“Maybe we can
justify it by doing some shopping in Melbourne.”

“Can we?”

“Sure. Best
retail therapy in the Southern Hemisphere, they reckon.”

“Well, why
didn’t you say so sooner. Direct me to the train.”

After breakfast
while the kids readied themselves for school, Felicity flicked on
the television to check the time and the weather and the news while
she got the dishes out of the way. Balance of payments, political
anarchy in Eastern Europe, more strikes threatened, more government
cut-backs; she yawned as she stripped off the plastic gloves and
apron.

Wendell came in
from pulling the car out of the garage and began to shuffle through
his briefcase, making sure he had everything he needed. She barely
noticed where they said the eruption had happened, under the sea
anyway and some fishermen somewhere. It was odd the way the word
volcano snapped into her attention these days... “...one by one,
the rescuers found the fishermen unconscious in their boats. Over
sixty islanders remain in a coma at the mission hospital tonight,
most of them otherwise uninjured...”

She was looking
toward Wendell desperately. “Wennie, did you hear that?”

“Hear
what?”

“It’s the same
damned thing. I’m sure of it.”

“Same
what?”

“Same thing
that happened last time.”

“Would you care
to make some sense, my love?”

She paused to
think. The news report had moved on to other matters. She tried
desperately to gather in her head the little she had apprehended.
“Canaries? That’s what they said. The Canary Islands. Where are
they?”

Wendell
regarded the small cage in the corner grimly. “I don’t know. Why
don’t you ask the canary?”