The War of Immensities (60 page)

“This is your
last chance to back out,” Harley said, to prove he didn’t have a
romantic bone in his body.

“My life is now
entirely in your hands, Harley,” she said softly. “And that is just
exactly where I want it to be.”

And she climbed
in the vehicle and drove away.

True, they had
slept together only once and no one had actually said anything to
anyone about love. Nor anything else much for that matter. But she
was on a mission and bundled him along, and to her complete
astonishment, although none of it went according to plan, still she
had learned everything about him that she might ever hope to
know.

At first, he
had been rather shy and embarrassed. “It’s been too long. I’m not
sure I can do it anymore.”

“They tell me
you never forget how.”

Determinedly
she led him by the hand toward the bedroom, and if he didn’t
actually dig his heels in, still he made a chore of it. “Oh, I
remember all right. It’s just that the physical side isn’t what it
ought to be anymore.”

“I do the
physical stuff,” Lorna said grimly. “You just lie back and take
it.”

Nothing like
that happened.

They stood in
the dimness of the bedroom and tried to be romantic. But she needed
something to stand on to kiss him and he didn’t seem to know how to
stoop.

“I just don’t
think I can take seduction seriously anymore,” he admitted, though
only when that was ridiculously obvious.

“Look,” she
said, getting irritated. “Let’s just take our clothes off quickly
and jump into bed and fumble about and do what comes naturally,
okay?”

There was no
fumbling.

He went at her
the very moment their flesh contacted, and seemed to want to devour
her completely. It was more like a bear tearing its prey apart in a
cave than making love. Never in her life had she experienced a man
so completely overcome by rampant passion and it frightened her at
first. All attempts to slow him down were futile—the biggest and
most powerful man of her sexual experience was completely out of
control and she was thrashed this way and that in the bed without
relenting. He was eating her, snorting and grunting furiously and
he seemed to come twice before he even entered her and three more
times before she knew what was happening. She calmed her panic
while he pawed and mauled every part of her body simultaneously and
finally she managed to go with the flow. The sheer power of the
moment brought on her own orgasms, not by any conventional means
but because suddenly she too was caught up in the animalistic
rampage. Then suddenly their passion went screaming into the night
and it was over.

He had
collapsed on top of her, his body still between her legs though at
about the chest region, his head on her breasts. Oh god he’s dead
she thought at first, but then her inner thighs told her of the
tremors that periodically racked his body. He convulsed, cried out,
settled again, and something wet dripped onto her right breast. To
her complete amazement, she realised he was crying.

Now this had
never happened before, and she truly didn’t know what to do. This
massive man was weeping in her arms and didn’t seem able to stop.
But slowly it came to her and she relaxed with it and still his
convulsions went on. In fact they continued unabated for over an
hour and she wrapped her arms and legs about him as tightly and
protectively as she could and stroked his wet hair and made
soothing noises. Eventually, every muscle in her limbs was aching
with strain and some were crushed to numbness by his weight but
still she held on, as if to a life-raft. And finally he eased off
her and slept beside her and she lay, caressing him, until her own
sleep came. He snored thunderously but she was so drained and
emotionally and physically exhausted by then that she didn’t
care...

In the morning
when she awoke, he was gone. Her body had scratches and bruises
everywhere and when she tried to rise, her legs had trouble
co-operating. Inwardly too, she was numbed by the shock of the
experience. He had wept in her arms, more profoundly that anyone in
her experience. It was a staggering emotional trauma shared, even
though only one of them had any idea what it was all about. With
shaking hands, she located her cell phone and pressed out his
number and he answered immediately, from wherever he was, near or
far, she never bothered to ask.

“Okay, Harley,”
she said. “I’ll die for you.”

And now that
the moment of dying had come, she was astonished to find she
remained without doubt. Of course, she knew that she wasn’t going
to die really—every precaution had been taken and her faith in
Harley was unshatterable. In any case, she would be in a coma, for
eight days or forever, what did it matter? That Harley himself was
unable to assume the obvious and needed to conduct this experiment
was just his exacting empirical scientific mind at work. Science
was never about obvious truths. It was about what you could prove
by experimentation and so the experiment needed to be done. There
was no doubt. A double dose of the Shastri Effect. Maybe she’d
sleep sixteen days this time. In any case, it was worth it. But
even had she thought it wasn’t, still she would have done it for
him.

“I do wish you
were here, Harley. It’d be so much easier if I could hold you in my
arms.”

“You do
realise,” Harley muttered, “that about twenty other people are
tuned in to this.”

“I don’t care
about the others. I only care about you.”

“This is
supposed to be a serious scientific experiment, Lorna.”

“Your adoring
guinea pig drools at the sound of your voice.”

The sun was
setting. She’d slipped out into the nearby jungle and cleansed her
inner self, as Chrissie might have put it. She did so with great
trepidation, snakes or spiders or scorpions might easily have bit
her on the bum but she persisted until it was all done. After all,
her Prince Charming was coming to find his Sleeping Beauty and she
didn’t want him to have to give her the kiss of life while she lay
in a puddle of excreta. A girl needed to offer her best at such
moments, when so helpless.

“Where the
bloody hell were you?” Harley demanded over the radio.

“I’m here,
Harley. Don’t yell at me or I’ll turn you off.”

“We should do
one last instrument check.”

“The
instruments are just dandy, Harles. Why don’t you tell me how much
you love me instead.”

“This is being
taped for posterity, Lorna.”

“All the more
reason why.”

She’d dressed
for the occasion, as if she was an Ancient Egyptian Queen expecting
her sarcophagus to be opened in some future paradise. A good strong
halter to make sure her breasts stayed up front as she lay on her
back, tight shorts, her favourite beret on the hair that she had
just spent an hour brushing assiduously.

“How are you
feeling?” he demanded of her.

“Deliriously
happy, my sweet.”

“Good luck,
kid.”

“Just the
thought that the next thing I’ll see will be your smiling face
sustains me still, darling.”

“Jesus, Lorna.
Try taking this a little bit seriously.”

“Would you
prefer I fretted as badly as you are?”

“I’m not
fretting!”

She sat on the
mattress in the back of the vehicle—temperature controlled until
the auxiliary battery ran out—took off her boots and lay back,
carefully arranging her hair so that it cascaded across the pillow.
She held a mirror up, to ensure everything was in its right
place.

“Are you in
position? It’ll be any moment now.”

“All set for
the missionary position, lover, should you be in a hurry.”

Her pendant—a
gold Project Earthshaker badge—on a chain around her neck, had
slipped sideways—she picked it up and dropped it so that it fell
neatly into her cleavage. All ready. She lay there waiting.

“Anything
happening?”

“Just my bosom
rising and swelling with love, dear one. Otherwise nothing...”

Nothing
happened for far too long. She began to sweat where her flesh
contacted the mattress. Of course she had scented herself
everywhere but think of the smell if it took them days to find her!
Maybe she should...

“Any minute
now. Hang in there.”

“I’m not a bat.
I’m taking it lying down like always and ...”

The pain was
like her entire body was crushed flat instantly. A tremor ran
through her and she opened her mouth to scream but held it back,
knowing he would be hearing it—and in the last instant of
consciousness, she was irritated that she would be found wearing a
dreadfully contorted facial expression.

But he did not
hear her scream. The radio went dead and Thyssen was left shouting
her name into infinity. The chopper swung wildly in the sky as the
shockwave hit them from behind, and the turbulence shuddered the
rotors violently. The pilots struggled to maintain control of the
wildly lurching aircraft and Thyssen was thrown this way and that
such that the jerking of his head almost caused him to lose
consciousness. Then came the detonation, so profound that he would
not have been able to hear her, had there been anything to hear. It
slammed into their eardrums and they were instantly deafened, and
the chopper whirled downward toward the sea as both pilots clutched
their helmets in agony. The explosion, in fact series of explosions
so close together that they sounded like one continuous burst, was
heard in Tasmania, in Cape Town, in Tokyo, in Honolulu. Over half
the globe, people stopped and looked at the sky, expecting to see
thunderheads.

Thyssen jolted
forward in his seat and stared from the dome of one pilot to the
other, to assure himself they were still conscious. The co-pilot
lolled for a moment but then regained control—the pilot opened his
mouth a bellowed a rage that none of them could hear and worked
frantically at the controls. Below, the Timor Sea spiraled up
toward them and Thyssen fought back bile, as indeed the pilots did.
The water, deep blue when he last looked, had now turned a dirty
green, and the wave crests all clashed together, having lost their
current as completely as the pilot had lost control of his machine.
The chopper shuddered fiercely again as the engines surged and then
they levelled out, only a few hundred feet from the erratically
broiling sea.

“Can anybody
hear me?” Thyssen was bellowing into the microphone.

“Yes, we can
hear you, Harley,” Felicity Campbell said from a vast distance
away. “Turn your volume down. You’re too loud.”

Thyssen fought
for self control, every bit as much as the pilot had. His ears were
ringing now and a dulling pain replaced the numbness, but he didn’t
touch the volume—he knew he was loud because he was bellowing.

“We’ve lost
everything here,” Harley was saying. “What’s your status?”

“Bit shook up,
but we’re fine. We’ve lost all contact with Lorna though. And
there’s only static coming through from all land stations.”

It was not
surprising that the Orion had come through unscathed; it was a
remarkably stable flying platform; that was why they had chosen
it.

“You’ve lost
her completely?” he asked, his lips pressed firmly together.

“We lost
everything for a moment. There must have been some sort of pulse.
But some of it is coming back up now.”

“Anything of...
any indication...” but he just couldn’t get the words out.

“Harley, I’ll
let you know as soon as I have something. Anyway, you know where
she is.”

Thyssen nodded.
The pilot knew her last known position and had already plotted his
course and now, hearing Felicity’s words, turned in his seat and
gave Thyssen a smile and a thumb’s up sign. Meanwhile, the list of
panicky co-pilot priorities had worked down to internal
communications and he got that on.

“You read me,
Prof?”

“I do,” Thyssen
said, his ability to get a grip on his surroundings expanding all
the time. “And you’re bleeding from the right ear, Bill.”

“Yeah. I reckon
I perforated an eardrum. Hurts like hell. I’ll switch earphones
when I get a minute. Meanwhile, I’d appreciate it if you guys
whispered.”

“That sure was
one hell of a bang,” the pilot said. “You didn’t warn us about
that.”

“I thought we
were far enough away,” Thyssen said.

“We ought to be
at Lorna’s location in just under two hours,” Gordon the pilot was
saying—relaxed now into that typical calm pilot mode.

“And we’ll be
on the ground at Makasar by then,” Felicity chimed in. “Providing
the runway is still useable. Meanwhile, have a look to the
south.”

Since they were
flying due north, rear vision was not easy. Gordon diverted
briefly, allowing them a southern perspective.

“Holy shit look
at that!” Bill gasped, and then groaned as he hurt his ear.

Right along the
horizon, a huge black cloud was building, billowing furiously as it
advanced. It stretched the whole distance, from east to west.

“Gordon.
Whatever you do, don’t let that cloud catch up to us,” Thyssen said
menacingly.

“Sure thing.
How fast you reckon it’s approaching?”

“Six hundred
miles per hour is average for them.”

“We can’t go
that fast.”

“Put your foot
down. It’s already come hundreds of miles offshore. No telling how
much further before it dissolves.”

“What is
it?”

“Flying mud at
about a thousand degrees.”

“Holy
shit!”

“Yeah, that’s
exactly what it’s like.”

The nose of the
helicopter dipped as Gordon laid on the acceleration.

“Felicity,”
Thyssen asked. “You get that?”

“We are
scurrying north as fast as we can go, Harley.”

“What sort of
ground readings are you getting back there?”