Stark (47 page)

235: THE MERC THE CHEVVY AND THE CENTREFOLD

O
utside, as Durf and the rest of the technical team began to marshal the bleary-eyed and rather terrified conspirators towards the transports that would take them to their rockets, two cars screamed to a halt in the pre-dawn half-light. Tyron was in the process of trying to persuade his centrefold, whose name was Suki, to put on her flight suit when he saw the cars. Understandably Suki was beginning to wonder what was going on. This did not look like the jolly, supersonic ride she had been promised, it looked like something much more serious…When Dixie Tyron got out of the first car, she reckoned she was right…

Despite her enormous sunglasses, Dixie seemed to be able to take in the whole scene at once. She spotted Tyron immediately and stormed towards him. Suki was terrified, she was well aware that the position of ‘bit on the side’ held very few rights or privileges once the wife turned up. Dixie was certainly an intimidating sight, appearing out of the shimmering heat, a cloud of silver-blond hair, tightly bound body thrust forward as if two invisible strings were attached to her nipples and were being wound in by some distant winch. Her blood-red mouth seemed to snarl crimson venom at Suki. It was as if she had eaten one or two of Ocker’s playthings already that morning and would be happy to devour a third as an early lunch.

Scuttling after her was Mrs Tyron. She emerged from the second car which had been chasing Dixie all the way from Bullens, waving a birth certificate.

‘I’m your mother, Ocker!’ she cried. ‘I’m your mother…sixteen hours of pain…I refused all drugs, I wanted to experience your birth in all its beauty…’

Dixie pushed Suki roughly out of the way.

‘Excuse me!’ said Suki who had her pride after all.

‘Listen, cow, one word! Just one word,’ said Dixie, pointing a talon that looked like it should have been scooping fluff out of the devil’s belly button, ‘and the next man fondling your scrawny body will be the police mortician…’

Durf tried to interject, he could still hear gunfire out at the perimeter and was desperate to hurry.

‘Ladies, please, I must insist —’ he got no further.

‘You zip up too, Mister,’ said Dixie, brandishing a second talon, ‘or you’ll lose the other eye…Hullo Ocker love.’ She turned to Ocker with a voice that nearly warped the rockets, ‘I think you forgot to tell me that we were going on a trip!’

‘Sixteen hours of pain, Ocker, I refused all drugs! Your own mother, Ocker!’ Mrs Tyron butted in, ‘I must just not have found your note…where did you leave it, darling?’

Dixie turned on her mother-in-law in fury.

‘Look! For the last time will you bugger off and leave me alone with the man I love, you ancient stinking old cow.’

‘Man she loves! Hark at the fat pig,’ countered Mrs Tyron. ‘I don’t notice that young delivery boy who always seems to take two hours to drop off the dry cleaning around here.’

‘You damn snake, you skunk, you…’

Cow, pig, snake, skunk, it was indeed ironic that Dixie and Mrs Tyron should be trying so hard to get onto the Arks because between them they seemed to represent most of the animal kingdom.

Just as Ocker was feeling that the situation could get no worse, Aristos emerged from his mother’s car.

‘Hi guys,’ he said addressing the assorted millionaires and their partners who were standing about in a rather bemused fashion. ‘Ciao Ocker,’ he said, turning to Ocker. ‘Been trying to get me? Sorry, I’ve had the girls hold all calls for days, meetings, meetings. Even turned off the earphones. I’ve got two now, you know, in the same car, different numbers. It’s such a godsend, don’t know how I managed. Hey Ocker,’ Aristos had noticed Suki, ‘fo-o-xy chick, and how! wow! woof woof!!!’

‘Yes, she is a pretty thing, Ocker,’ said Mrs Tyron with great malice straight at Dixie, ‘just your type — slim. Tell us her name, why don’t you?’

The etiquette of the situation was not easy for Ocker.

‘Uhm yeah, this is…’

But Suki saved him the trouble, she had had enough.

‘Don’t bother, Ocker,’ she said, ‘when I have affairs, I sort of prefer it when the fellah doesn’t bring his whole family along…Call me in Sydney.’ She turned and walked towards the little red jeep that Ocker had provided for her amusement during the week they had spent in the desert. Ocker watched her fabulous bottom swaying away from him.

‘Suki, wait!’ he shouted.

‘Ocker!!’ shouted Dixie and Mrs Tyron in unison, and Ocker’s courage deserted him. Even at this moment of destiny, he could not exorcize the lying hypocritical relationships that had been the one constant element in his life for three decades.

Suki got in her car and drove off towards Bullens. It wasn’t until about forty minutes later when her rear view mirror suddenly filled with the flame and smoke of burning clouds that Suki realized that she might have had a luckier escape than avoiding being punched by Dixie.

The whole embarrassing scene had only taken a few minutes, but Dixie could see that the people around her were getting restive and that there was a man with an eye patch who was clearly anxious to move things along.

‘Right,’ said Dixie, icy calm in her eyes. ‘Clearly my husband has made a mistake uhm…’

‘Durf, Madam, Professor Durf,’ Durf replied.

‘But the mistake has gone, and I’m here now,’ she put her arm through Tyron’s forcefully, ‘where are we sitting?’

This was too much for Mrs Tyron who kicked Dixie. Pushing Aristos forward she announced, ‘I’m his mother, he’s taking his proper family…’

Before Tyron could speak, Durf, desperate to get moving, interjected. ‘We are having a shortfall of five Stark members, there will be no problem accommodating all of you,’ he said.

Tyron could have killed him.

He was heading for the moon to be a part of the phoenix human race, rising out of the polluted ashes of its dead self. However, he was to be accompanied by his wife, his mother and Aris-fucking-stos. Ocker Tyron could scarcely believe this appalling turn of events.

As they awaited their final instructions his family huddled close around him, fearful that he would yet find a way of deserting them. But he had none.

236: PRISONER ONCE AGAIN

T
he site was eerily empty. All non-indoctrinated personnel were either on the perimeter or had been dismissed altogether. The actual conspirators were now milling about at the transporters awaiting the final trip out to the rocket silos which lay a few kilometres further on into the desert. Only Sly and Rachel were at large.

‘Please, Rachel, darling…uhm, love boat, honey bunch…For Christ’s sake they’ll be gone soon,’ he pleaded, ‘we’ll miss the fucking boat…Look we’ve got to go, there’s nothing left here on earth but hell…’

‘Nobody’s going anywhere, so shut up. We’re going to destroy the control centre,’ Rachel replied. ‘Your bloody friends can damn well try and save the world not run away from it.’

‘But it can’t be saved,’ Sly was desperate now. ‘Do you think if I really thought there was a chance I’d be going? God Almighty, Rachel, why the hell would I?’

Even though Rachel was behind him, Sly could feel a moment of tension and doubt descend upon her.

Just then, far away, on the perimeter, Zimmerman blew up the armoured truck. Sly knew that this was as distracted as Rachel was ever likely to get. He had to take his chance. He was fighting for his life, and hers. Besides, he didn’t think she’d shoot him.

She didn’t. Rachel never knew if she would have done, he was too quick for her. In the split second of distraction following Zimm’s blast, Sly swung around and grappled with her for the gun. In an instant, the tables had turned.

‘Right, we’re going to get in the fucking rocket,’ said Sly viciously.

‘You maybe. I’ve told you, I’m not going.’

Sly knew how little time he had. For a whole five minutes he tried to reason with Rachel, again explaining why the whole thing had to happen whether they liked it or not, telling her he loved her, but Rachel was adamant, she would not leave. Then, the final thirty minute count-down started. Zimmerman’s blast had also spooked Durf. He tried calling up the perimeter on the radio, but it had gone silent. Durf had no idea what the problem was and he had no wish to wait around to find out. He hit the button that activated the actual launch procedure.

Inside the control room, outside which stood Sly and Rachel, a tape began to turn.

‘Attention, attention,’ the pre-programmed NASA equipment boomed. ‘Clear launch site, final count-down commencing, minus thirty minutes and counting,’ continued the long-since recorded voice.

Sly grabbed Rachel roughly.

‘Listen you bitch, if you ain’t coming you picked a fine time to tell me. So I’m telling you! You are coming. I’m not going up there alone, without a companion, a woman, how can I? I wouldn’t be a man in the moon, I’d be a fucking nothing in the moon! You put me in this position, you’re what I’ve got and I’m taking you now. Move!’

‘I’m not going,’ screamed Rachel through her tears.

‘You are! Now move!’ replied Sly, brandishing the gun, ‘or else I swear I will knock you out and carry you onto the fucking rocket. Can’t you see girl!! Can’t you see! How could I go without you?…don’t even think about it, you’re coming.’ Rachel realized that unconscious she would be done for sure. She had to concentrate, there were after all thirty minutes left. Slowly, she turned, and got back into the car for the drive to the assembly point where Sly intended to force her, if necessary, onto the last transport out to the rockets.

237: VOICE ACROSS THE SAND

O
ut on the perimeter Zimm had just managed to tempt Walter Culboon back to where Mrs Culboon crouched in the desert. CD and Chrissy had assembled too. Having seen Zimm’s wild and ungainly charge away from the epicentre they all presumed, rightly, that things had fucked up somewhat and that they had got nowhere. ‘Don’t blame the camel man,’ said Zimmerman, ‘it’s not the camel’s fault.’

Just as the others were about to protest that they had no intention of blaming the camel, they saw a truck from another perimeter post approaching; the one that they had been attacking. Clearly their dash for the centre was now completely cut off. What’s more, it was obvious to the meanest intelligence that their enemies were not going to take the indignities inflicted upon them lying down.

EcoAction had exposed itself as the weakened force that it was. Now, yet again, it was they who were the hunted. ‘We’ll have to pull back,’ said Zimmerman, ‘but I don’t think those guys are going to make it easy for us.’

‘We can’t pull back,’ said CD in panic, ‘we haven’t got Rachel.’

‘Listen, man, will you just stop thinking about sex all the time,’ shouted Zimm ‘…I find it just totally insensitive. The chick made her choice man. Now listen, this place is blown. We have to move further up the wire. You people make for the station wagon. I’ll cover you, then I’ll follow on Walter Culboon.’

Walter Culboon could not speak English but she knew a worrying tone of voice when she heard one. More and more her keen camel instincts with their delicate sensitivity to the biorhythms of life were shouting at her, ‘You got a looney on your back!! You got a looney on your back! Buck the bastard into a dune and run like fuck.’

Walter Culboon was about to do exactly this when, like everybody else, she was distracted by the voice across the sands.

For just as Zimmerman was giving his orders, and just as the commander of the security unit that had lost its truck was about to commandeer the second truck, with the intention of ‘killing the fucking jerk on the camel’. Just as that morning’s biggest earth disaster was about to hit the first editions — flash flooding in Bangladesh put three-quarters of the country under water.

Just then, Durf pushed the button and the count-down started. The voice that Sly and Rachel had heard was clear as day across the desert — it was probably heard in Bullens Creek where, no doubt, they thought that the Moorcock leisure park was installing the sound-track for a new ride.

‘Attention attention,’ the recorded American voice spoke from the sky. ‘Clear launch site, final count-down commencing. Minus thirty minutes and counting.’

Everybody turned and looked. Attackers and defenders alike, turned and stared as one person towards the centre of Stark, all forgetting their differences and the battle which they had been fighting in response to this eerie voice.

In the clear light of the morning, ten, maybe fifteen kilometres away, the six rockets pointed upwards from their silos, supported by the spindly towers. It seemed impossible to comprehend, but the voice was referring to the rockets and it was being serious. The jaws of the security guards dropped lower and lower. The rockets had, after all, only been visible for a few days, and of course, being security guards they had seen it as a matter of professional pride that they had never questioned what it was that they were guarding. Now they had no choice…

‘Count-down has commenced. Final loading must be carried out immediately. Repeat immediately.’

‘Jesus,’ whispered Zimmerman. ‘They’re going to blow all six at once. Shit I guess I’m glad we didn’t get any closer man. I mean, we would have been fried man! Fried, as old Walter would have said, with a capital ‘F’. And that’s fucking fried.’

Zimmerman gave Walter Culboon a friendly pat, which nearly stunned her.

‘Man, if Walter Culboon hadn’t gone the wrong way I’d have been riding into that man, finding out what it feels like to be a meat pie looking at a microwave.’

‘Aren’t we safe, then?’ asked Chrissy more out of abstract interest than anything else. ‘I reckon we’re probably safe where we are,’ said Zimm, ‘but, oh boy, when those mothers blow you’re going to see a burning cloud roll across the desert like surf from Hades. It’s going to look like they dropped the big one right in our laps.’

Everyone, guards, officers, Eco-terrorists, had turned to stare across the desert at Stark. Mrs Culboon had fished out the high-powered field glasses taken from the helicopter ride and had wandered up to the top of the ridge behind which they had been sheltering. She felt no fear at exposing herself in this way. In a matter of seconds, the whole situation had changed. The launch count-down, floating across the desert, had made them all comrades in wonderment.

She steadied the glasses on a rock and peered.

‘Christ,’ yelled Mrs Culboon, ‘I can see the buggers queueing for seats, there’s funny kind of trucks taking them out towards the rockets. Jesus, God, Lord, Almighty, there’s that bastard Tyron.’

One by one, they all took a look, as the voice counted off the last thirty minutes to the blast. CD was last to get hold of the glasses. By the time he looked most of the passengers were heading for the rockets. There was only one bus left…the departure point was almost empty.

Almost empty that is. He could just make out two figures marching in single file — one of them had a gun.

Month in, month out, CD had studied her walk, he had ogled her legs, stared at her every move and posture. He had devoured the shape of her bottom, tortured himself over the tilt and movement of her breasts. He had longed and ached for every part of her, the way she held her head, the tiny bulge of her tummy that only showed with tight skirts and which she hated but which he desperately wanted to sink his face into. With the unique passion of the unrequited, CD had stored up her every little shape, tilt and movement of use in his private fantasies — to conjure up again when he was alone in his bed.

He had pictured her so many times, there was no way he could mistake her now, even over fifteen kilometres with the binoculars shaking with passionate anger. That was Rachel, and what’s more, she was being forced onto a rocket. ‘The bastard’ he screamed, ‘that bastard Moorcock is forcing her! Hang on Rachel, I’m coming!!’

He ran for the station wagon…Zimmerman saw him and shouted, ‘It’s too late man!! You won’t get half-way there, it’s eighteen minutes, you’ll fry, you’ll burn! CD there is no time!!’

But CD was in the car and away…