The Day of the Nefilim (42 page)

Reina whistled slowly. “That’s gotta be it, I reckon.”

Nibat fed more power into the engines.
‘We got away just in time. If we were there…’

“We’re lucky that we didn’t hang around dealing with that other ship. I wonder if Geoca and Sahrin made it out.”

“You heard Sahrin,” said Pig. “She said they were trapped. It sounded like that, anyway. I doubt that they could have got away.”

The black stranger, who had been talking to Bark, heard what they were saying. He came over and looked at the inferno that the mountain had become.

“Don’t give up hope. And remember, it was important – no,
vital
– that an end be put to their activities. There was more at stake than you know. I can’t tell you more. I’m afraid that once again, you’ll have to trust me.”

Bark wasn’t totally convinced, but there was nothing to be gained from arguing now. “I suppose we will, won’t we. Where to now?”

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” said Reina, “but I’d like to go home.”

* * *

REINA WAS LOOKING DOWN on Barker’s Mill.

“Home,” Bark said. The place felt almost familiar to him as well. Across the bay, the sand dunes above which they had moored the ship when they had first arrived shimmered under the clear sky. The memory of their ship, lying wrecked and burning on the ice, came back to him. For the first time, it brought pain with it. There had been an almost impossible amount of history wrapped up in that ship, and now it was just a slurry of charcoal and debris.

“Yeah, home,” Reina replied. It looked the same. The same houses, solid and respectable, the same small grid of streets sitting hard up against the edge of the bay, separated from it only by the road that came around the coast and continued on through the forest and around to the dunes. She wondered how Tommy was. “I know a good place for us to land. It’s just a little way out of town. A friend’s place.”

She showed Nibat the way. The ship made the expected impression on the inhabitants of the town, sending them indoors to look up through the gaps in drawn curtains at the humming brightly-colored disk that passed slowly over their rooftops.

They landed behind Tommy’s house.

Denise, the barmaid from the Red Lion, heard the noise and felt the vibration. She came out onto the veranda and saw the flier just as it was settling down onto the grass. She ran to the back door and called out. Tommy emerged a few seconds later, cradling his shotgun under his arm.

“No shit! What the fuck is this?”

The flier’s door opened and Reina stepped out. “Hi, stranger!”

“Reina! I thought you was history, mate!” He leaned the shotgun against a pile of firewood, went over to her, and gave her a long hug.

“I just about was a few times over, bro. And Bryce is. He’s gone.”

Tommy looked at the ground. “Oh. You know, I had a feeling.” He raised his head and looked past Reina, towards the flier. “Who’s that lot?”

Bark, Nibat, William and the black stranger were standing in front of the ship. Pig had jumped out as well, and was investi-gating one of the local hens, standing nose to beak with it, sniffing cautiously.

“Them?” said Reina. “They’re my friends. I think we just saved the world.”

“Ha! Yeah right. Of course you did. Tough work, I bet. Do you reckon they want a beer? It’ll be a bit warm, though, there’s been no electricity here for a while. Or what about a smoke?”

“Thanks, but later perhaps,” said Bark.

“Oh, mate, I’ll go the smoke,” said Reina.

“Sure. So you been flying around in that thing? It’s one of those alien things, yeah? Does it belong to that one there?” He pointed at Nibat.

‘Yes and no. I’m its pilot, so I suppose you could say that if anyone owns it, I do. But the ship has a mind of its own.’

“Mm. So does my truck. Well, it did. It don’t go no more.” Tommy didn’t seem to be at all disturbed by the Nefilim’s use of telepathy. “You know some folks reckon you alien types are all trouble, but the ones I’ve met have been OK.”

“You’ve met others?”

“Sure. There’s a few of them, staying down at the Hanson kid’s place. We thought it was a good place to shove them. Quiet and out of the way, you know, what with all the soldiers and everything that’s been going through here. Like a railway station, man. There’s been some total idiots running around the place.”

The hen gave a loud squawk and raised itself up, flapping its wings. Pig came running over to where the others were standing.

“Is that yours?” Tommy nodded in Pig’s direction.

“I’m not
anyone’s
,” Pig said, sitting down heavily. “I’m
with
these people. I don’t
belong
to them!”

“Jeez, sorry, mate.” Tommy finally looked surprised. Behind him, Denise laughed.

The Hanson farm was a twenty minute walk away. It was as Tommy had said; humans, mutants and Nefilim, over a dozen of them, were all happily coexisting, and busy repairing old farm equipment and buildings.

A Nefilim who had been carrying old planks of wood that had been scavenged from somewhere saw them coming. He left what he was doing and limped over to them. It was Anak.

“We weren’t expecting to find
you
here,” said Bark after Nibat and Anak had finished doing whatever it is Nefilim do when they greet each other. “We had no idea what happened to you after you left Sahrin and Geoca in the Stream. We assumed you’d done your job, though.”

“Yes, we did what we set out to do,” replied Anak. He was speaking aloud. “It wasn’t as we expected, though, in fact we didn’t know what we were going to do, but things worked out well. Their grid is dead, and there is no way they’ll be able to revive it. Where are Geoca and Sahrin? They’re not with you?”

“No. They’re… We don’t know. They could be dead. But we can’t be sure. They helped us at Mount Weather, but we think they were trapped in it when it blew up. It’s gone, totally. The UN won’t be reviving their headquarters, either.”

Anak looked sad, an expression you might miss unless you knew a Nefilim well.
‘I liked those two,’
he thought.

“I know,” said Reina. “We all did. We can only hope that they died quickly.”

Bark nodded. “There are still armies to worry about, you know. Human and Nefilim. They might be reduced to throwing stones and swinging sticks, but they could still be a problem. For everyone, not just each other.”

“It wouldn’t be a problem at all if they could just confine themselves to wiping each other out,” Pig said and turned away, going off to talk to some mutants. The closer to finished that this whole thing was, the better he liked it. He’d never had a chance to be a real pig before, and he wanted to get on with it. He’d seen a good looking mud hole on the way here. He was going to have a crap in the grass, then a roll in the mud.

“The Nefilim armies aren’t such a problem, actually,” said Anak. “They didn’t stay long after they took the control point and the base in the dunes. That attack was probably one of the last coordinated actions that their armies performed. A few hours later they melted away. They just disappeared into the forest or the dunes, and a lot of them turned up in places around here.”

“Here? Why? It’s not some sort of trick, is it?”

“I don’t think so. It seems that after their communications and weapons failed, the Nefilim soldiers realized what their leaders hadn’t; that they were fighting for a lost cause. There was a rebellion. Many of them have gone into hiding and changed into the cocoon state. They’ll stay that way, if they’re left undisturbed, until the home planet approaches again.”

“But Marduk won’t be close again for another thirty-six hundred…”

“Yes, but time like that is nothing to a hibernating Nefilim. Accidents or misfortune will befall many, it’s true, because Earth is a much more volatile place than Marduk, but you can be certain that many will survive. But there are some that have come here, rather than hibernate. They were treated with great caution at first, as you might expect, but they had been misled by their leaders, just as the human soldiers were misled by theirs. As soon as they realized it, and realized that the home planet had given up on them, they lost the will to fight.”

“You will find that there’s a new energy on this planet now,” said the dark stranger. “The time for fighting is passing quickly.”

“Sounds a bit new age for me,” said Reina, “but if it’s true, I’m all for it. I suppose I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“You’ll see it,” replied the stranger.

Pig interrupted. “Where’s the blue woman? Is she…?”

“Oh yeah, that blue chick.” Tommy looked around. “She was here yesterday…”

“She’s inside,” said Anak. He led them towards the barn.

She was waiting for them. She smiled at them all, but it was the black stranger who caught her attention and held it.

“It’s been a long time.”

“Far too long. But it worked.” The black stranger sounded relieved. They touched hands. Glowing auras the color of their skins spread out between them and mingled. It lasted for only a few seconds, and then faded away.

“You know each other, obviously,” said Reina.

“Oh yes,” they laughed. “For a long, long time.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised.”

* * *

A few hours later, the blue woman and Reina were walking through the forest near the farm.

“I can’t tell you where I’m from,” the blue woman was saying. “And I can’t tell you why I can’t tell you. I’m not much use, am I? I’m sorry. I can tell you that you’ll understand one day, though. And sooner than you think.”

“But you’re not from here, are you?” Reina paused and looked at the blue woman’s face. It was shifting and changing beneath its blue surface, as though something was shimmering, just beyond the edge of perception. She seemed almost familiar, Reina noticed for the first time. But from where?

“Don’t be impatient, Reina. You’ll understand everything in time, I promise. Now, this is important. You must stay with Bark. There’s a future there.”

Reina laughed and felt her face flush. “I had a feeling there might be. We’ll see…”

“With you two together, the others will stay, and you’ll need them. And they’ll need you. You’ll see.”

* * *

At the same time, Bark and the dark stranger were having a similar conversation.

“I gave the map to your ship because I had to make sure that you were here to release me, and to see that the work here was completed,” the stranger was saying.

Bark was slightly more confused than he was going to admit. “It sounds far-fetched, but I’m not going to disbelieve you. And I suppose our work here is done.”

The stranger smiled, a slow smile that hinted at things that he wasn’t going to discuss.

“Here, yes… for now. What you say is true, strictly speaking, Bark, but there will be more to do. It’s not all bad, though. The future, I mean.”

Bark felt as though he was being singled out for something. “Why are you choosing me? You know, I was quite happy as a simple trader. It was a good life.”

The stranger laughed. “I know. Believe me, I’ve got no choice in the matter. Your life as a trader is over. Now, you must build a new ship. I know it’s what you were thinking about doing anyway, so just accept this as confirmation, or encouragement if you like. It has to be done. Reina will help. The others will help. Even the flier we traveled here in will help, you’ll see.”

“You’re right, I
was
thinking about a new ship.”

Bark was looking up into the sky at the pale sphere that was Marduk. It was growing smaller now, only half the size of the moon. It was swinging around into the outward leg of its orbit, out toward the long dark night that would last three and a half thousand years.

“Good. One more thing. You should know this – Sahrin and Geoca are safe. It’ll be a while before you hear from them, but you will. Now, shall we go back?”

They returned to the farm.

Bark realized that the blue woman and the black stranger had deliberately spoken to Reina and he separately, getting them away from the others, and impressing on them both the need for co-operation and a new ship. He didn’t doubt their good intentions; he could feel that they were to be trusted, but what was motivating them? And who were they?
What
were they?

The blue woman said it was time for them to go.

“Go where?” Pig asked. Bark could have told him not to bother.

“Just go, that’s all,” said the blue woman. She leaned closer. “I have to admit, Pig, that I misled you. I’m not really a mutant. Not in the way you might expect, anyway.”

“I thought as much,” Pig replied, even though he hadn’t.

“I’ll be seeing you again. Stick with those two…” she nodded towards Bark and Reina. “They’ll be needing you.” She went and stood beside the black stranger.

“You’ll understand one day.”

Bark looked around. What was supposed to happen now? There was no ship; not even a device of any kind. He looked into the sky above them. Nothing.

He looked back to see the two figures slowly turning transparent. After a few seconds, they became ghosts, growing fainter and fainter, until finally they were gone altogether.

No one said anything for a few seconds.

“Well, fuck me,” said Tommy.

“You get used to it,” said Reina. “I have no fucking idea.”

* * *

OUT NEAR THE MOON, the black ship went into an orbit that would take it over the Sinus Roris area.

An officer had taken Thead and Alexis to the viewing area, a bubble that hung from the underside of the ship like the cabin area of a zeppelin. The moon’s surface slid silently beneath them.

They saw markings that stood out among the natural chaos of rocks and craters. They had been partially covered by drifts of sand and dust over eons of time, but were still visible. There were small grid patterns, larger rectangular objects, and other things that looked like designs carved into the surface.

Alexis felt like a fish out of water. She was used to being in charge, but here she had nothing to do except be a passenger. She asked the officer whether the objects on the ground had anything to do with their destination. The officer laughed and said no, those were ruins that had been there for thousands of years. No one knew exactly how old they were, or who or what was responsible for them. As for their destination, they would be seeing that soon.