The Day of the Nefilim (16 page)

Tommy nodded slowly while Ortega put the question. “Well,” he answered, “I wouldn’t have a clue where they are, and from what you two guys saw down there, things were a bit dodgy. And now the place is crawling with soldiers again. Not looking too flash, I reckon. Be good to do something, but I don’t see how it’s possible. Maybe we should go ask at the base. Someone there must have an idea.”

The corporal shrunk away from the idea. “No, not me, not that. I’m a deserter as far as they’re concerned. I’d be history. Shot straight away. I’m not going near the place. And I wouldn’t go there if I were you, either. They’ve got way too much going on to be worried about either any friends of yours, or how nice they should be to troublemakers like you.”

“I heard talk in my unit that the scientists have worked out the aliens’ science. It was all just talk and rumors, of course. But I heard that the aliens are not going to have it their own way. There are some surprises planned for them.”

One afternoon, they went back to the rock ledge from which Tommy, Bryce, and Reina had watched the base before everything went pear-shaped. They sat there, drinking and watching. The base had been re-established. Helicopters were delivering new soldiers and more equipment.

Tommy saw his first Nefilim. The sight sent a chill down his spine and made his asshole pucker up a little. They were being led away in small groups to armored vehicles. There was something about the way the Nefilim were being led, almost herded, that recalled Ortega’s comments about them and their plans.

After a while, they got bored with watching the compound, and went back to Barker’s Mill, resigned to the fact that there was nothing to be done.

The days went by. It was hardly surprising that Tommy and Ortega happened to be sitting in the lounge bar of the Red Lion when the photon belt arrived.

* * *

SAHRIN HAD DISCOVERED that the mutant’s name was Geoca. The two small characters that lived in its torso also had names, but it was beyond her to distinguish between them. Geoca had tried to explain as they made their way along the damp length of the tunnel, but in the end she decided just to call them Geoboy and Geogirl. Daft names, but easy to remember.

Nothing much else was said, so Sahrin used the time to think. She was in a state of shock. Nowhere, in all of her travels, had she seen so much death and destruction in such a short period of time. And she had come to like Obirin.

The passageway was long. It didn’t twist or turn; it just kept going, step after step, in a long straight line through the darkness. They splashed through brackish ankle-deep water, hands on the rough sides of the tunnel for guidance.

After what felt like a long time, they came to steps. They were slippery with slime or moss or something, and they changed direction frequently as they rose to the surface. They led up to the back of a small cave set into the base of a cliff.

When they emerged, it took Sahrin a few seconds to get orientated.

The island was still visible out on the water, but it was slowly disappearing, dissolving into a fine mist that was rising from the sea. The beach curved around to form a bay, bound at each end by outcrops of rock that jutted out into the water. Behind them, barring their way, sheer walls of rock reached upwards, their tops far beyond reach.

“Well, this is just fine,” Sahrin said out loud and to herself. “What are we going to do now?”

Even as the question left her lips, she had seen it. At the far end of the beach, with its bow listing in the shallows and its prow dug into the loose sand, was the ship. Her ship.
Their
ship.

She hadn’t seen it at first because of the mist and the waves that were breaking around it, and, of course, because she wasn’t looking for it. It seemed to be in good shape. Too relieved and surprised to wonder at what it was doing here, she started towards it.

She saw people. One was standing on the deck, talking to two more on the sand.

“What is it?” Geoca couldn’t see anything. To him, the ship was invisible.

She told him. Geoboy and Geogirl twittered excitedly.

“They’re relieved,” Geoca said, “because your ship might be a quick way to the surface. We might be able to use the difference chimney.”

“The what...?”

“If we use it, you’ll see. If we don’t, it doesn’t matter.”

The people at the ship had noticed them. The two on the sand started walking towards them.

It was Bark! And the person with him looked familiar. It was one of the people from outside the place where the tunnels had been. She had seen him on the side of the sand dune, sitting with two other people. She didn’t know his name, but he was wearing one of her shirts.

She ran to Bark, and they hugged each other, Geoca and Bryce looking on and inspecting each other at the same time.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course. We’re down in numbers, though. And you? Are you all right?”

“Yes. I won’t go wandering off on my own again, though. I don’t know what possessed me.”

Geoboy and Geogirl made some of their chirping noises.

“How did you get here?” Bark asked, at the same time noticing the Geocas, and that there were three of them.

“A longish story. You’ll hear it all eventually, no doubt.” She introduced Bark to Geoca, and watched as surprise registered on his face. Geoboy and Geogirl must have put thoughts into his head, as they had done to her. That had been only a few hours ago. It seemed like eons.

“Geoca here says there is a way back to the surface. We have to get there; we have something to deliver.” She took the crystal from her pocket and showed it to Bark. “It’s something to do with making sure that the Nefilim and the human government don’t take over. It’s part of some kind of energy system. On the island, they called it the Stream.”

“Later. Look at this.” Bark was curious, but their immediate situation was his first priority. “The ship needs attention.”

* * *

As they worked, Bark told Sahrin how they had been dragged into the shaft behind the Pilot’s Station and how they had emerged from it to be thrown onto the beach, scattering themselves, their belongings, and the cargo everywhere. There was some reorganizing to be done, but luckily the damage was minimal.

Sahrin, in turn, told Bark everything that had happened to her after she had left them in the caves. She told him all that she could recall of Obirin’s history lessons, and what had been said about the photon belt, the Nefilim invasion, and the intentions of the human rulers. And she told him about Thead, and the slaughter on the island.

“None of them sound all that delicate, do they,” said Bark, shaking his head and wondering why they had to be involved in this at all.

The sound of gunfire was still coming from the island. Clouds of smoke drifted across the water. They could smell burning.

Geoca didn’t help the others work. He sat on the sand, arms folded on his knees, looking at his former home. He stayed like that, unmoving, until the others had finished and Sahrin called him up onto the deck. As he climbed up, she saw that not only Geoca, but also Geoboy and Geogirl had been crying.

“We need your help,” she said. They had seen a helicopter flying around again, after a few hours during which nothing had seemed to be happening on the island. The invaders were on the move again. It was time to go.

“Of course,” replied Geoca, pulling himself together. “We have work to do.”

He paused, his head lowered. One of the small Geocas was speaking to him. “We have the crystal to place. The route from here to the node is simple enough, though. Is your ship functional?”

It was.

“The difference chimney, then,” said Geoca.

“What?” Bark asked, as confused as Sahrin had been.

“I’ll explain, but in the meantime, head towards those rocks.” He raised a thin hand and pointed towards a distant formation protruding from the cliff face.

They raised the sails and tuned them as finely as possible, so as to catch the faint currents that drifted around them. The ship rose, hesitantly at first, as though it needed convincing, but Bark was doing his job well, and as the polarities shortened, they picked up speed. Carefully, so as not to imbalance the flow into the sails, they started towards the rocks that Geoca had indicated.

Rather than sail in a straight line, which would take them closer to the island than seemed advisable, Bark took them near the beaches, and low, gliding over the surface of the water, taking what cover they could in the patches of mist that floated above it.

Their progress was slow, and Geoca had time to do his explaining. Difference chimneys were anomalies in the planet’s magnetic field. The result was a pillar-shaped zone of either reduced gravity, or in a few extreme cases, a total reversal of gravity. They were scattered around the planet, with no apparent pattern, and the majority of them began somewhere in the planet’s depths and terminated at or below the planet’s surface.

There were a few – three, to be precise – that extended above the ground, up into the atmosphere and out into space, where they gradually faded away, along with the rest of the planet’s field. These ones were all full difference, in other words anti-gravity, and they were in far too much use by the military, and far too developed with bases and research facilities, for the curiosity of the population to be accommodated. Accordingly, their existence wasn’t known to the public, who of course weren’t told that there was a lot more going on in orbit around their planet than they suspected. So that it should stay that way, all the known difference chimneys were out of bounds to them.

But the populations of the underworld were under no such restrictions, and they made much use of the chimneys. Among other things, they used them to travel to and from the surface. The chimney they were heading towards, Geoca said, was a major thoroughfare to the surface, frequently used by the mutants and rebel Nefilim. It was also one of the biggest, he said, easily large enough for the ship to fit inside.

While Geoca was speaking, the two smaller Geocas had left their place in his torso, and had climbed up and perched on his shoulders like parrots, looking around at the ocean over which they were traveling. One of them squealed and started pulling Geoca’s hair to attract his attention. The mutant leaned over the rail and looked down. Something swimming in the water was in trouble, and floundering.

Geoca turned to the others. “We have to pick up a friend of mine.”

Bark, who had come over to look, rubbed his chin and considered the situation. Of course, they could cope with another passenger, but the process would be time-consuming. “We can lower a rope,” he said.

They came to a stop. The creature stopped swimming and trod water, looking up at them as the rope descended.

“But he won’t be able to hold it,” said Geoca. The creature tried to grasp the rope between its teeth, but it couldn’t get a grip. Geoca inclined his head towards one of the small Geocas.

Geogirl slipped down his arm and out onto the rope. She swung downwards, letting the rope slip through her grasp until she had reached the mutant. She dropped into the water and disappeared, holding the end of the rope. When she reappeared, the rope had been tied around the mutant’s body.

On Geoca’s signal, Bark, Bryce, and the Senator began winding the rope in. The mutant at the other end of the rope was heavy, and the winding was hard work.

It was a pig. A large boar, to be precise, with a long, heavy snout and large curved tusks, and massive flanks covered with coarse, black hair. It was almost unconscious when they heaved it onto the deck.

Geogirl scurried to Geoca and climbed back up to join her twin.

Geoca bent over the pig. The others stood back, surprised. This didn’t look like any mutant at all. It looked like an ordinary, everyday pig.

The animal stirred, coughing up water. It turned its head towards the circle of faces above it.

“It’s you,” it said to Geoca. “I thought I was finished. Are we safe?”

“A talking pig?” In a day of firsts, it was yet another one for Bryce.

“Yes, a mutant, he’s one of us. And yes, Pig, we will be safe soon.” Geoca smiled and smoothed the coarse hair on the animal’s brow. “These are friends of ours, and they are helping us.”

The ship had begun moving again. Pig coughed more water and sat up. He looked around at the others as they went back to their posts. He felt reassured; this was infinitely preferable to drowning.

Bryce went below deck to check on Reina. She had fallen heavily when they had landed on the beach, and she had a bruise on the side of her head. Luckily there was only a small cut, and not much blood at all, but she had been unconscious since her fall. He went to where she lay and sat down beside her.

She was coming around. He stroked her forehead, brushing hair away from her face.

She opened her eyes. “Shit, my head…”

“You knocked yourself out, mate. You’ve had a bit of a sleep.”

She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him groggily. “Where are we? Did we make it all right?”

“Yeah. There’s no damage to the ship. In fact that bump on your head is the worst of it. And we’re away again now, but we have to be careful; those helicopters followed us here, and they’ve trashed a whole town full of people and set fire to the place.”

“Why would they do that? Are they total assholes or something?”

“They must be. They tried hard enough to waste us, didn’t they?”

“Yeah.” Reina shook her head and stood up. “Psycho fucks.”

“Yeah. And this girl Sahrin showed up just before we took off. She’s a friend of Bark’s. She seems OK, Pretty cute, actually…”

Reina laughed, almost. “Fuck, my head. Stick to the plot, greaseball.”

“She had this total freak with her. Name’s Geodesa, or something. You wait till you see him. He’s got this hole in him, with these two little dwarfs in it, and they can get out and run around.”

“No shit. Somehow I’m not surprised.”

“And then we picked this pig up out of the water.”

“You mean something almost normal happened?”