And All the Stars (10 page)

"The Safe Zone model's gaining momentum," Fisher
replied. "Melbourne Trish got
through to the ABC, and once they start broadcasting links we'll catch the
majority." He saw Madeleine's
confused expression. "A sister site
of
BlueGreen
,
working a model which came out of Toronto. Establish safe zones, just as we have with
Rushies
. Remove corpses, manage food, identify
survivors with expertise, like doctors, electricians, and then gradually clear
outwards from your central point. We're
looking at seventy to ninety per cent mortality in high exposure areas, while
the fringe areas are full of people trapped in their houses. Even in cities which have had rain, like
Sydney, they'd be risking everything to go outside. Once the Blues and Greens have established
some organisation, we can look at trying to help the uninfected in the dust
zones. Not to mention working on some
kind of inoculation. There's Blue groups
in Berkeley, Beijing and London who are the primary focus for that research,
and we're feeding them as much information as we can."

His glance at Madeleine clearly put her in the category of
information to be gathered, but questions were forestalled as they pulled up
near the apartment elevator. Madeleine
was by now piercingly hungry, but all her attention was focused on retrieving
her backpack from Fisher, which she managed to do with minimum fuss as they
waited for the lift, drawing a startled look and stifled cough of laughter from
Noi.

"So are we all capable of trash compacting cars if we
put our minds to it?" Pan asked, as they travelled upward. "I mean, I know I'm not the only one
who's been playing with recreating the surge. I've felt tired afterwards, but haven't collapsed. Definitely haven't had any couldn't move
moments."

"Do you get pins and needles after?" Madeleine
asked, better able to engage with the situation now that her backpack was
safely in her arms, and Fisher was carrying innocuous bags of clothing.

"Nope." Pan
glanced around, but everyone shook their head.

"I haven't even tried," Noi said, unlocking Tyler's
apartment with the master key.

"Do you react like that every time?" Fisher deposited the bags he was carrying by
the couch, started to sit down, then said sharply: "Unmute that TV."

The television, which had been busily telling the world's
story to an empty room, currently displayed an unsteady image of two men
walking toward a Spire.

"What are they – is that a bazooka?" Gavin asked.

The pair had stopped, one man moving back to whoever was
filming while the other dropped to one knee and lifted the bazooka to his
shoulder. Noi found the remote in time
to give them sound as the man fired, a plume of white followed swiftly by a
sunburst of orange.

"That was perhaps not an entirely pointless
exercise," Nash said, as the fiery bloom died to a drift of smoke,
revealing a completely undisturbed Spire. "It gives us a gauge for what will
not
penetrate it, at least."

"Aliens always have impenetrable force fields," Pan
said. "Must be some kind of
industrial law. No invasions of Earth
until force field technology achieved."

"You still think it's an alien invasion?" Noi
asked, bringing water and a plate of sweets over to Madeleine, who gratefully
tucked herself into one corner of the couch and stuffed her face.

"I sure don't think it's the judgment of God. Did you hear that
dipweed
calling himself Pope? The one in Vienna,
I mean, not the one in Florence."

"No religion I've ever heard of has mentioned giant
starry pointy things," Gavin said. He glanced at Nash, who looked amused.

"Technically, there is no reason why Shiva or Kali could
not do such a thing. Why should any god
tread old ground?"

"Divine retribution via aliens then," Pan
said. "Still aliens.

"No, I don't mean about it being aliens," Noi said,
offering Emily a chair and pointing people toward the trays of sweets in the
kitchen as she muted the television again. "The secret government conspiracy idea never seemed likely, which
does leave gods or aliens. It's the
invasion part. If they're invading,
where the hell are they?"

"Laying their plans? Waiting for more people to die so it's safe to come out?"

"Or just watching." Gavin shrugged at Noi. "There's the aliens doing experiments theory. Think
The
Island of Doctor Moreau
, except we're
the animals being made into 'people'. I
think there's even a religion which already believed that – that humans were
uplifted by aliens. So all this, the
whole horrible thing, has been to make Greens and Blues, to create the next
evolutionary step of the human race."

"A new world, a Blue world," Madeleine murmured,
and felt sick.

"I agree with Fish that we should not rush to
judgment," Nash said, paused, then repeated: "Fish?"

Fisher, who had been keeping a watchful, worried eye on the
television, looked up, then let out his breath. "Sorry. I've been trying to
find a way to ask Madeleine to take off her clothes. Everything I can think to say sounds
impossibly wrong." One corner of
his mouth twitched at their various reactions, then he added to Madeleine: "You're very blue, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Madeleine couldn't stop the rush of heat to her face, and wondered what
the patch around her eye looked like when she blushed. "Just a minute – I actually anticipated
that particular request."

"Oh, man, everything I can think to say right now sounds
impossibly wrong as well," Pan said as she stood up, then added on a more
serious note: "You want us to kick off,
Maddie
? Give you less of a crowd."

"It's okay." She collected the bags of looted clothing and, most importantly, the
backpack of looted other things, and headed into Tyler's walk-in wardrobe.

Noi followed her to check that Madeleine was okay, turned to
go, then returned to pick up the backpack and briefly clutch it to her chest,
bouncing in a circle of silent hilarity.

That at least left Madeleine smiling as she dug through the
bags to unearth a pair of very short shorts and a matching crochet halter top
which was a mere inch or two from being a bikini. Something she would normally never consider
wearing, since it made her look like a noodle, only emphasising her lack of
hips and how little she had to fill the top. But looking in the mirror she saw neither abbreviated black cloth nor string-bean
figure, only stars.

"Barely human," she murmured, and saw exactly the
same thought in the faces of those who waited for her in Tyler's lounge room.

"Damn," Gavin said. "But – damn."

Madeleine, resisting the urge to clutch the coat she'd
carried with her to her chest, turned so they could see her back, which had a
particularly brilliant display: her own tiny nebulae. She looked down, the handful of sticking
plasters on her arms and legs catching her eye.

"How are you still alive?" Fisher asked, sounding
breathless. He came close, putting on
his glasses, and she looked away as he bent to study her back. "Can I document this?"

"If you keep my face out of it," Madeleine said,
and stood unhappily as he circled her, taking pictures with his phone. She hadn't really processed the impulse which
had produced so many sketches of Fisher Charteris, but couldn't entirely deny
Noi's
conclusion, and so watched his face gravely as he
angled his phone to take pictures of her stomach. He was someone she'd only just met, and she
liked the bones of his face, and the cinnamon warmth of his light brown eyes,
and she wanted to do more than just sketch him.

Finished, he looked up, brows drawn in thought, and Madeleine
wondered if he made many enemies because the slightest frown made it seem like
he was seriously annoyed. He caught her
gaze, and paused to study her frankly in return, and that was a little too much
for Madeleine in front of an audience, so she retrieved the plum-coloured coat
and sat back down, trying not to curl protectively into a ball.

"I was at St James," she announced, wanting to
limit questions about that time. "The dust was knee-deep. I
walked out along the track. Higher
exposure, more stain."

"I don't know of any other very high exposure cases who
have survived," Fisher said, tucking
phone and glasses away. "Did you
eat anything unusual, take any medicines we could investigate?"

"I don't think so. I painted, and ate soup. I took
some aspirin early on because I'd hit my head. But–" She grimaced. "If there's anything really different
about me, it was that I'd touched the Spire."

Fisher paused in the act of sitting down, then completed the
movement, the lowering frown reappearing.

"Something you might have mentioned earlier!" Pan
said. "What was it like then?"

"Like us," Madeleine replied, uncomfortably. "Velvet. The same sensation as blue-stained skin. It was warm, too, and felt alive. Except solid as marble."

"That's...so not comforting to hear." Pan exchanged a glance with Nash, then
tangled fingers in his hair, feeling the shape of his skull. "Not pointy yet."

"I'd only just touched it when the force field came
up," Madeleine went on. "I was
knocked back, paralysed like I was this morning. Then awful pins and needles. Today I was a lot hungrier afterwards, but
otherwise it was the same."

"Did that happen during your surge?" Fisher asked,
very intent.

"No."

"Go look at the bathroom," Noi said, and pointed
the way. When they returned she added:
"I was surprised you aren't more cut up, seeing all that."

Madeleine explained briefly how the shards of glass and tile
had bounced off her during the surge, the cuts simply the result of picking
herself off the floor afterwards.

"Personal force field," Pan said, excited. "Can we do that? Okay, yeah, it makes us even more like the
Spire, but
so cool
. But why the
paralysis?"

"Some controlled, less spectacular experiments might
answer that," Fisher said, not taking his eyes off Madeleine. "Something I wanted to organise anyway,
somewhere away from anything we can damage, but even more so hearing this. It's more than worth investigating whether
your survival is intrinsic to you, or a result of the shock soon after
exposure. Have you heard from your cousin?"

"No. But he had
just flown in when the Spire arrived, and was safe from the dust for a long
while. The last time I heard from him he
didn't have the stain."

"Leave a note," suggested Pan. "Forward the apartment phone to your
mobile." He grimaced. "The senior dorms are set a little
apart, and it makes a real difference to know there's not a body in the next
room. I'd be all manly now and say you
girls should let us protect you, except you just gutted a car, and I think Noi
would throw those boots at me. But we're
good company, and wash most days."

"How're your Greens?" Noi asked, a note of regret
in her voice.

"Up and about, all but a few of them. Not quite ready for a marathon, but you
wouldn't be walking into playing nurse or anything."

"I mean how's their attitude? To you and your plans. To these stories of Blues killing
Greens."

All four of them hesitated, which was answer enough.

Noi sighed. "Look, I'm all for teaming up, community, good company,
whatever. But even if nothing else
happens we're facing a world divided into three parts. The uninfected. People doing Kermit imitations. And people who can gut cars. Some of whom seem to think they've been
promoted to the top of the heap. Give
Maddie's
cousin another couple of days and then we'll come
over, but we need to think contingency plan."

"Fair point," Fisher conceded. "Any suggestions?"

"If nothing else, we'll try to find the keys to some of
the spectacular array of boats lined up outside. Some of those things are practically floating
mansions. Driving out of the city to any
of the surrounding towns would mean competing with the thousands who've already
done that – and potentially being isolated and locked up for being Blue. Not that I have the least idea of how to
drive – or is it pilot? – a boat, or any suggestions on where to go. But it's a first step."

"Nash knows boats," Pan said.

"Sailing," Nash corrected, but they all stood and
went out on the balcony to survey the gently bobbing array.

Madeleine stayed where she was, just turning so she could
watch them. Fisher was self-contained,
withholding judgment, while Gavin was clearly more optimistic, reassuring
Emily. Nash's shoulders were slumped,
and Pan was keeping a concerned eye on him. He reached up and put a hand on the taller boy's shoulder, and Nash
seemed to gain strength from the gesture, straightening, but then moved away.

Noi came back inside, face pensive, but grinned when she
spotted Madeleine drowsing. "Hey,
it's barely midday! Not nap time
yet." She sat down on the coffee
table. "They want to get together
day after tomorrow for some shiny new super powers tests. At a park or a beach, where there's lots of
space. Okay with you?"

"Do you really think it'll turn into a Blues versus
Greens kind of thing? Particularly at
that school – they saved lives there."

"I don't think it's inevitable," Noi replied. "I just think it's..." She paused, deliberately inspecting
Madeleine's glimmering legs. "I
think it's human."

"Morning, kiddo."

"Tyler!" Madeleine almost dropped the phone. She settled for depositing her shoulder bag on the floor, and sitting
beside it. "I'm – I'm so
glad!"

His bubbling laughter enveloped her. "So am I. You didn't sound too hot last time we
spoke."

"Are you okay? Are you–?"

"Now in technicolour? Very much so. Embarking on a
brave blue world, or what have you. Have
you noticed the potential for a soundtrack?" he added irrelevantly. "
Blue Hotel
.
Blue Velvet
. So many songs, such a dreadful wealth of
puns."