The Serene Invasion (40 page)

She smiled at him. “Let’s do that, Geoff.”

They sat side by side in companionable silence as twilight descended and Mars twinkled above the horizon.

T
HEY WALKED ALONG
the tow-path hand in hand.

Sally recalled coming this way with Kath just the other day, and what had happened a little later. The sun beat down and butterflies jinked above the surface of the canal.

Sally selected a table in the beer garden while Geoff went to the bar and ordered beer and food. There were only three or four people in the garden beside herself. She watched the koi navigate the confined waters of the pool, occasionally nudging the surface for food.

“You’re miles away.” Geoff set the beers down on the table.

She smiled. “Just thinking about the past ten years, and how different it would have been if the Serene hadn’t intervened.”

He watched her as he sipped his drink.

She said, “I’d be dead, killed by Islamic terrorists back in Uganda.”

The silence stretched. Geoff said, “I’d be alone, no you, no Hannah. And the world would be plagued by wars, murders... the same old routine of mindless violence and not so mindless violence – which was probably worse. When you think about it, all in all, we are a pretty despicable race.”

“Are?” she asked. “Or were?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He frowned, considering. “I mean, if the Serene lifted the
charea
, then it would be back to square one, wouldn’t it? We’d be killing each other, invading countries, bombing.”

She took his hand. “It will take more than just ten years for us to be able to turn our backs on violence,” she said. “Perhaps in centuries... perhaps then if the
charea
was lifted we might have become civilised to the point where the need, the desire, to do violence would be no more.”

He looked at her. “Do you think it is a need, a desire? Or just a response to circumstance?”

She considered this, then said, “I’d like to think the latter. Maybe violence was the end result of our inability to work things out in any other way. And with the influence of the
charea
, we’ll learn over time that there are other ways to resolve conflict and settle differences.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” he said.

Their food arrived, cheese soufflés and salad, and Geoff ordered two more halves of Leffe.“Right,” he said, “Down to business, Sal. Mars. Pros and cons.”

“Cons first,” she said, puncturing her soufflé with a fork.

“We’d miss England, Wem, London, our friends. Nothing would be familiar – and that counts for a hell of a lot. Also, Hannah would miss her school, her friends.”

“As you said the other day, children are adaptable. She’d soon make new friends.”

“And...” he said. “And I think that’s it. No more cons.”

She nodded. “And the pros?”

“The pros,” he began. “Well, we’d be
living on Mars
.” She smiled at the big grin on his face as he went on, “We’d be experiencing life on another planet, part of humanity’s first outward push from Earth. We’d be... and I know this sounds corny... but we’d be pioneers. And it needn’t be forever. If we don’t like it, we come back.”

“And we can always return to visit friends.”

He nodded, looking at her. “The thing is, do you want to go?”

“Yes, Geoff, I do. And you?”

“Me too. I’m ready for a change, a challenge.”

She laughed as if with relief, squeezed his hand. “I’m glad that’s settled, then. We’ll talk to Hannah about it later. There’s bound to be tears.”

She stopped and looked up, aware of something in the air.

“Sal? What is it?”

“I don’t know... Don’t you feel it? Like before a thunderstorm, a charge in the air.”

He shrugged. “Sorry...”

She looked around the garden. It seemed to have filled suddenly with a dozen well-dressed drinkers, but she thought the sudden odd atmosphere had nothing to do with the newcomers. She looked beyond the garden, as if searching there for the answer.

She shivered. “I don’t know... for a second there I certainly felt something.”

The people on the next table, two men and two women Sally had never seen before, drank and chatted amongst themselves. As Sally’s gaze passed over them, a woman happened to look up and catch her eye. She looked away quickly, and Sally felt uneasy.

“Sal, are you okay?”

She had the strangest feeling of premonition, as if something was about to happen that should concern her – the strange intimation she’d had once as a student when Kath Kemp and other friends had thrown a surprise twenty-first birthday party for her.

Now she felt suddenly panicky. “Geoff, let’s get out of here, okay?”

“Sal?” His expression was a strange mix of concern and amusement.

“No, I mean it. Something’s not right.”

At the nearby table, the woman who’d caught her eye briefly stood and moved towards their table. Sally watched her. The woman was heading for Geoff. She seemed to be moving in slow motion, or Sally’s perception had been somehow retarded. Later she recalled thinking what a beautiful blue ring the woman was wearing...

A dozen figures appeared on the periphery of the garden. One second they were there, a golden enfilade of self-aware entities surrounding the startled drinkers, and then they were rushing inwards towards the woman who was approaching Geoff.

He looked up, startled, as a golden figure flashed by him, and Sally watched it collide with the woman who was reaching out with her right hand towards Geoff, her blue ring resplendent.

The golden figure slammed into the woman, seemed to absorb her. She noticed a man run towards Geoff, only he too was intercepted by a self-aware entity.

Screams filled the garden and innocent drinkers caught up in whatever was happening cowered behind tables or ran towards the pub. Geoff was on his feet, tugging at Sally’s arm.

He turned as someone said his name, a bearded man who smiled and reached out. He carried a small blue disc – which was inches from Geoff’s chest when a golden figure slammed into the man. One second he was standing there, reaching out, and the next second it was as if he had been replaced by the self-aware entity who spun in search of other attackers.

Calmly, two golden figures walked towards Sally and Geoff, and she was startled to hear a voice in her head. “
Do not be alarmed
...”

The golden figures approached and did not stop, and Sally cried out as one of the self-aware entities came face to face with her and enveloped her in its warmth. She felt a sudden jolt of energy, a heart-stopping surge of power that made her gasp and cry out again.

Then she was moving, and before she knew it she had left the garden and was travelling at speed; trees and bushes passed in a blur. She tried to cry out for Geoff, and was aware of another figure at her side.

She had the impression of covering vast distances in an instant, and seconds later she passed out.

S
HE CAME TO
her senses and she was enveloped in blackness. She no longer felt the energy of the golden figure surrounding her. She was alone again, or rather not alone... She felt someone nearby in the darkness, reached out and with a thrilling sense of relief found a hand she knew to be her husband’s.

“Geoff!”

“Sal. We’re okay. As the golden figure said, don’t be afraid.”

“But where are we?”

It was a blackness she had never known before, total and unrelieved, and she felt nothing beneath her feet. She had the sensation of floating.

She repeated her question, and Geoff responded.

“I think I know...”

“But where?”

“Just walk.”

“How?” she almost wept.

“Move your feet. Lean against me and just move your feet.”

As she did so she had the strangest sensation of something gaining solidity beneath her shoes, as if the very action of walking had brought the ground into existence.

Light appeared ahead, an undefined brightness that suddenly exploded dazzlingly in her vision. She exclaimed and threw an arm across her face to protect herself, and she stumbled as solid ground came up to hit her feet.

Geoff steadied her and laughed aloud.

She lowered her arm and, when her vision adjusted to the sunlight, stared around her.

They were in the back garden of their cottage, beside the gate. Before them was the cherry tree and the bench. At the end of the garden the old rectory stood, mellow in the sunlight; Sally thought it had never looked so beautiful.

She stared at Geoff and whispered, “What happened?”

He shook his head in wonder. “We were saved. The golden figures saved us.”

She recalled the men and women bearing blue discs. “From what?”

“I don’t know, Sal. I honestly don’t know. All I know is that they saved us, brought us here – home... but not home.”

She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

In reply he pointed to the sky, and Sally looked up.

Only then did she see the gourd-shape of a silvery moon tumbling erratically through a sky that was a deeper blue than any she had ever seen on Earth.

Geoff took her hand and almost pulled her towards the house. They hurried down the side path, then down the garden path to the front gate.

There they came to a halt, and stared.

Their house, their one hundred and fifty-year-old rectory, was perched on an escarpment overlooking a vast rolling green plain, at once alien and yet oddly familiar. Gone was Wem; gone was the rest of Shropshire.

She turned and saw that their house was one of a dozen lining the very lip of the escarpment, each one of a different design. She made out domes and poly-carbon villas, A-frames and things that looked very much like giant snail shells.

No sooner had she cried out, “Hannah!” than a golden figure appeared on the path from the back garden, a sleeping child in its arms.

The figure approached, halted, and held out the small girl. Sobbing, Sally reached out and embraced her daughter.

The golden figure stood before them, silent, and slowly its swirling depths took on the appearance of a human being.

Kath Kemp smiled. “Welcome to Mars,” she said.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A
NA ARRIVED AT
the coffee shop on 34
^th
Street fifteen minutes early.

She ordered a mocha and sat in the window seat, staring out at the passing pedestrians. She had the feeling that she had closed a door on the old part of her life, and a new door was opening. She had found Bilal at last, and in that she felt a sense of accomplishment. She believed what he’d told her about not wanting to hurt the little girl she had been, and accepted that he’d had to take the opportunity of an education when it had been offered to him. What still rankled a little was that in the intervening years he had never really attempted to seek her out. She understood that, in a way; he had his new, exciting life, and as the years passed he must have looked back on his old life, and his sister, and thought them perhaps too painful to resurrect.

Whatever, now she had found him.

A big disappointment to her was finding what kind of person he had become. While most of the human race saw the great benefits of the Serene, a tiny minority still held out. And it was just her luck that her brother belonged to this defiant minority.

It was an aspect of his character she was determined to come to understand; only when she fully comprehended his mindset, and how it had got that way, could she even begin to work out how to show him that he was wrong. He would need educating, and Ana had resolved that her long-term project would be to show her brother how right the Serene were. She would invite him to India; they would revisit their childhood haunts together, and she would show him the wonders of the wilderness city.

It would take time, but she had plenty of that.

“Ana...” Bilal smiled down at her.

She stood and they kissed cheeks a little awkwardly, like strangers. While he was at the counter, she took in his sharp black suit, his white shirt and long ponytail. She knew she shouldn’t criticise his style of dress – especially as she was wearing Western jeans and a blouse – but in these less formal times she saw his business attire as a uniform harking back to former, pre-Serene days.

He sat at her table and smiled at her. He appeared today, unlike at their first couple of meetings, a little nervous. He gestured to his coffee. “Old habits die hard. I always liked my coffee milky and sweet in India.”

“You had coffee in India?” It was a luxury she had never tasted until ten years ago.

He shrugged. “In college,” he said.

“They must have looked after you well. Quite apart from giving you a good education.”

He shrugged again. She noticed that his hands, as he stirred his coffee, were shaking. He saw that she was looking at his hand, and self-consciously slipped it into his jacket pocket.