Under The Mountain (6 page)

Rachel caught his shoulder. ‘I thought you weren’t coming. We’re in the sea.’

The air seemed almost liquid. He took it into his throat in long gulps. ‘I nearly – got stuck. I thought I was – a goner.’

‘It’s Thornes Bay. There are the rocks. Come on, Theo. Before they come after us.’

She let go his shoulder and started to dog-paddle towards the shore. He followed, using the same stroke. The water was silver with moonlight. Rocks were piled on either side of a short grey beach. They made for the nearer ones, less than a hundred metres away. The tide was at its lowest. Soon they were able to wade. They pulled themselves on to the rocks and crouched there shivering. The sky behind Rangitoto was gathering a faint colour between yellow and grey. It was almost dawn.

‘Let’s get home.’

Before they could move they heard the sound of a car coming down the road towards the beach. Lights glowed at the top of the bank.

‘Down. As low as you can get.’ Rachel was in charge now. Theo was dazed, still in a state of shock from his struggle to get through the jelly. He knelt on the jagged stone, feeling nothing, with his head buried in his arms.

Rachel watched between two walls of rock. The car lights went out, the engine noise stopped. A door opened and closed. The figure that hurried down the steps to the beach was one she could not mistake.

‘It’s Mr Wilberforce.’

Theo stirred slightly.

The man ran over the sand to the water and ploughed some distance into it. He knelt down. He was still and black as a rock. She guessed he was changing shape, getting ready to swim. In a moment he moved forward. She could not see what shape he had taken, he was like a black log on the water, making a silver wave. Then he plunged and was gone.

‘He’s heading towards the tunnel. Come on, Theo.’

He got to his feet. She helped him out of the rocks.

‘Now run. Straight for home. As fast as you can go.’

They ran. They ran. Across the sand, up the steps, past the black car, along footpaths, past hedges, gates, dark houses, through puddles of light under lamp-posts, thinking of one thing only – home.

They burst into the living-room. Rachel slammed the door behind her and fastened the safety chain.

The lights were on. Uncle Clarry poked his head out of the kitchen.

‘Where in God’s name did you two come from? I thought you were in bed.’

‘We went for a swim.’

‘At this hour? You pair of flipping idiots. In your clothes too.’ He looked at them closely. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘It was colder than we thought.’

‘Well, get into the shower. Both of you. I’ll make you a drink.’

Rachel brought down their pyjamas. The shower warmed them. Theo got back some colour. But he was groggy with tiredness.

Uncle Clarry took them into the kitchen and gave them a hot chocolate drink.

‘A friend of mine’s calling for me. We’re heading off for a day’s fishing. So you kids behave yourself. Don’t you go worrying Noeline with stunts like this.’

‘No, Uncle.’

‘OK. Off to the sack then.’

They went. They pulled their blankets up over their heads and slept as though they had been stunned with rubber truncheons.

6

HOW THE WAR BEGAN …

Aunt Noeline called them at nine o’clock. She told them she was disappointed in them for sneaking out. Didn’t they know it was dangerous swimming at night? And what would their parents have thought if they’d caught pneumonia?

They pebbled back and forth to keep up their spirits. When breakfast was over they set off for Mr Jones’s. They kept off side streets and went around through the town.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Theo said as they walked along, ‘those models – the big one in the house was a galaxy. The Wilberforces must own the part they’ve coloured black.’

Rachel shivered. ‘What about the other one?’

He looked at her. ‘A solar system. Not just any one. Saturn was there. Remember the ring? And the asteroid belt. The black one was number three.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It was the Earth. And the Wilberforces think it belongs to them.’

‘So the model in the big hall …’

‘Yes. Those mountains were the Himalayas. And the Andes. The Southern Alps were there.’

‘What were the glass things?’

‘Cities, maybe.’

‘Can they do it, Theo? All that mud? What are they?’

‘That’s what Mr Jones is going to tell us.’ He felt very grim.

They came to the white cottage. The gate jingled as they opened it. At once the old man’s face was at the window. They felt something jab into their minds. His face disappeared and a moment later the door flew open.

‘Come in. Quickly.’ He shunted them into the kitchen. ‘Sit down. Now tell me.’

It tumbled out: the slugs, the smell, the quacking, the voice that called for help – and the models, the cellar, the tunnels under the lake. Sometimes they pebbled together, but Mr Jones could hear it all. Once he groaned, and once his eyes filled with tears and he rubbed them away angrily with his hand. Rachel knew he was thinking of the twins who had died. But when they told him how they had driven the baby slugs away by making a beam of light with their minds his face began to get its colour back.

‘You can see the stones?’

‘A little bit.’

‘A bit.’

‘Why did we remember like that, after you made us forget?’

‘You’re stronger than I thought. But it was fear gave you the push you needed. They’ve helped us, our friends the Wilberforces. But they know now. They know what you are. I mustn’t be careless again.’

‘Would they have killed us?’

‘The way you’d crush a snail. I’m sorry, Rachel, I’m not trying to frighten you. But you must know these things.’

‘Will they come after us again?’

‘They’ll be waiting their chance. But don’t worry. I’ll be guarding you. I’ll be watching every minute. If we’re careful there’s nothing they can do.’

‘Why do they want to kill us? Is it to stop us telling people?’

‘The stones,’ Theo said.

‘Yes. The stones. Because you can use them. You told me yesterday, Rachel, they were a weapon. But they’re not a weapon just for anyone. Only you. Only Theo.’

‘Against the Wilberforces?’

‘Against the Wilberforces.’

‘Why, though? Are they hurting anyone?’ But as she said this she remembered the model of the Earth reduced to mud, and knew the answer. Mr Jones nodded. ‘That’s what they plan to do, Rachel, not only here but right through the universe. And the only people who can stop them are you and Theo. I know, it makes you feel helpless. Two children on an unimportant planet. But that’s how it’s fallen out. If you succeed, your race has a future. If not – the Wilberforces.’

‘Isn’t there anyone who can help?’

‘No one, my dear. No one.’

She felt tiny, like an insect, like a creature on which some huge crushing weight might descend at any moment. Her skin seemed to shrink and turn cold. Mr Jones reached out and touched her hand. But the warmth travelled only to her wrist. It had no strength against the dread that filled her.

Theo, meanwhile, had been on a different course. The two white stones rested on the window sill. The left-hand one flickered like a blinky neon tube. That was his. It took momentarily a pale blue colour and a seven-sided shape. He wanted an explanation. And an explanation for the Wilberforces. It was more than time.

He said, ‘What are the Wilberforces? Can you tell us? And what are you?’

Mr Jones smiled. ‘Theo the practical one. You were very brave last night, Theo. Even if you weren’t very sensible. You too, Rachel. But you want an answer. What are the Wilberforces?’ He sighed. ‘What are they? I can’t tell it – not in words. I’ll have to show you. Open your minds. And don’t be frightened. I’m here.’

They saw a huge blue sun and, turning majestically about it, a single planet. They swooped down on it like birds and hovered over the surface. It was a world partly of mud, partly stone – a black and iron-grey world: seas of mud, continents of stone. Huge worm-like creatures wallowed in the shallows and along the estuaries. They were the size of battleships, yet the twins guessed their brains were peanut-sized. They were blind, mouthless, iron-skinned, indestructible.

‘They have no name,’ Mr Jones said. ‘They don’t need a name. Harmless creatures – they simply existed.’

‘What do they live on?’

‘The mud. It’s full of minerals that filter through the skin along their bellies. So really, you see, they’re swimming in their food. They had no future. They would have died out like your dinosaurs if it hadn’t been for these creatures on the land.’

They swung inland, over the continents of stone, and here, in caves, in tunnels, in the dark, were the slug-creatures the twins had seen at the Wilberforces’. They were nomadic, they lived in bands, they used their bodies as men use weapons and tools.

‘But they had no future either,’ Mr Jones said. ‘Their world was too barren. They were in a blind alley. Until they discovered these creatures in the sea. It was many millions of years ago, Rachel. But when they found them it was like finding a new world. The …’

‘Yes?’

‘Have you heard of symbiosis?’

‘A sort of joining together?’

‘Two organisms joining, each one depending on the other. The Wilberforces joined with these big worms in the mud. It took many thousands of years. But what they decide on they do. They became the brain in a huge body more powerful than any machine ever made, in a sea of food that seemed to have no end. And then after thousands more years they began to spread out through the stars. They’re creatures of tremendous will – no imagination, no feeling, no conscience. They remind me of some of the leaders of your race. But ambition, will – there have never been creatures like them. And all turned to a single cause – to destroy, to multiply. Their name, well, call them the Wilberforces – although Wilberforce is too good for them. You could never pronounce the name they gave themselves, but it means
People of the mud, who conquer and multiply
. See how they spread.’

The twins saw grey-domed cities rise on that planet of mud. They saw mighty star-ships leap out. They saw new stars, with green planets turning about them. The ships landed, the blind worms wriggled out, each ridden by its brain. Devastation, death. And from the huge factories that sprang up there trundled fantastic machines that chewed each planet to mud. On and on it went, across a whole arm of the galaxy. The planets turned from green to brown to grey.

‘There was nothing left when they finished with a world. Not an insect. Not a blade of grass. Just mud and stone. And the Wilberforces. Nothing could stop them. Until they landed on one of the planets where my people lived.’

The twins sighed. They had been waiting for this. It was all that had stopped them from curling up. Mr Jones sighed too.

‘I can’t show you much. We’re a people dead and gone and memory is painful. But look.’

They saw a world like their own – green continents, blue seas. And small cities, each like a filigree of silver, shining in valleys and along the sides of lakes. The old man took them no closer. Yet they had a sense of life flickering in those cities, moving like blue and yellow flames, swiftly and lightly.

‘That is where we began. We spread out too, to other planets, but more in curiosity than conquest. We didn’t go very far, there seemed no need.’ He sighed again. ‘We believed we had the secret of eternal life – and so we had no young. There seemed no need for that either.’ He laughed. ‘We were a dying race, although we didn’t know it. Well, the Wilberforces gave us a little extra time. We came alive for a spell – long enough to stop them in their tracks and turn them back.’

‘What are you called?’ Theo asked.

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter now. A name. It meant
The People who understand
. We suffered from pride, you see. Jones will do very well now.’

‘How did you fight them?’

‘With magic. With spells. That was our science. We had learned to harness the powers of the mind. But magic is what we must call it. And we simply tied the Wilberforces up, we dropped a net of magic over them. They were paralysed until the end of time – or so we thought. We traced them back planet by planet, caught them in our net, left them – and the planets turned green again. New life appeared, and the Wilberforces lay about like so many petrified logs.’

He let them see that: the greening planets, the huge worms lying where the spell had caught them – soon under the shade of trees, tangled in creepers, scurried over by small new furry creatures.

‘And then we began to die ourselves. Our immortality was a dream. Our fight with the Wilberforces had kept us alive, oh, for many more thousands of years than we deserved, but it had taken the last of our strength as well. Almost the last. We came back to our home planet, the few of us who were left. And there we learned of the cunning of the Wilberforces. We had taken them too lightly. We had not studied them well. But they had studied us – and at the end a few, very few, had begun to master our science. They had learned magic. A rough, crude magic. But enough to manufacture a counter-spell.’

He walked about the room. He suddenly seemed very frail – a small withered old man with nothing special about him.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Rachel said.

‘We had been so pleased with ourselves, for so long. And so arrogant.
The People who understand
. Well, the Wilberforces taught us a lesson.’

‘What did they do?’

‘There were only seven of them, the ones who had learned. But of course we knew nothing of that. We had tracked them down, along with all the others. A family – the father, the mother, three sons, two daughters. On the farthest planet of all. The smell – you’ve smelt it, Rachel, Theo. It’s in your minds, not real for other people. But it spreads across the stars and by following it we can find the Wilberforces. And we had found them here, on this isthmus. Burrowed in. The father here, see, and the mother here …’

They were hovering over a wooded neck of land between two harbours. It took them a moment to recognise it – no city, no wharves, no bridge. Rangitoto had a different shape and trees grew on the slopes of Mount Eden and One Tree Hill. The Maori had not arrived. A dreadful stillness shimmered in the air – and the smell of the Wilberforces floated up.

Again they did not see the Joneses, but they saw lines of light so dense it seemed to be liquid. A net of light floated in the sky, knotted in seven places. As they watched, it settled down gentle as rain and melted into the earth and into the sea. Where the knots descended they knew the Wilberforces were hidden: under North Head and Mount Victoria, under One Tree Hill, Mount Wellington, Mount Eden, under Rangitoto, under Lake Pupuke.

‘We bound them. And then we left,’ Mr Jones said. ‘We thought our job was done. But even before we were out of your atmosphere their counter-spell was working.’

‘What was it?’ Theo whispered.

‘Rough magic – primitive. Compared with ours it was like a stone axe alongside a laser beam. But it worked. Like everything the Wilberforces did.’

‘How?’

‘It freed them cell by cell, like unravelling knitting. Time means nothing to them. It has taken thousands of years. They wait – they simply wait. And cell by cell they break out of our spell. The brain comes first – the part you call the slugs. And they are able to free themselves from the bodies, the giant worms. When those are free they’ll join again, and breed, and turn your world into mud. And set out again to destroy the universe.’

‘How long have we got?’

‘They’re close, Theo. Very close. The Wilberforces are getting careless. They know they can’t be stopped. It might be as close as months, or even weeks.’

After the thousands of years, the isthmus without people, the Rangitoto that had not finished erupting, it did not seem possible to be so near the end.

‘But somebody must have seen them before – in all those years. The Maori. The settlers. There’s half a million people here.’

‘They’ve only come out in the last few years, Theo. Two of them have learned to take human shape – the father and the mother. It takes tremendous effort but they can do it. They can take any shape you like to name – a tree, an animal, a man. The policeman you see in the street could be Mr Wilberforce. They want to find out about the surface, you see. So that when they come up they’ll know what they have to face. What is it, Rachel?’

‘Can’t we talk to them? Can’t we persuade them to go away? To another planet? If there are so many planets?’

‘They don’t want one, they want the lot. They want to breed. Remember their name –
The People who conquer and multiply
. There’s no room for anyone else.’

‘But if we could talk to them –’

‘You might just as well try talking to a school of sharks.’

The example made her shiver. It disturbed the old man too for he turned away sharply and said, ‘There are things I don’t want to remember. Let me finish my story.’ He came to his chair and sat down.

‘We learned what they were doing. We could still smell them, you see, across all those light years of space. And we made our last effort. Our dying effort. We poured all of our knowledge, all of our skill, into a weapon that would destroy them. Not simply throw them into a sleep until the end of time. Destroy. We made the stones. Those two pebbles on the window-sill. We poured into those all the remaining energies of our race. And then the last two of us, the only ones not on the point of death, set out again to find the last of the Wilberforces. We came here. The war had come down to that. Seven Wilberforces, two Joneses.’