by Geoff Palmer
‘What shall we do?’
‘Split up. Hide,’ Tim said. ‘Now!’
19 : Stalker
Em called to Alice saying that Frank had made coffee and that they were having it on the back lawn.
‘I’ll join you in a moment,’ Alice said, reaching for the phone book and watching her sister go. She found the number she wanted and dialled.
‘Feather Willow Lodge. Daisy Robson speaking.’
‘Oh hello. Could I speak to Ms Starbrite please?’
‘Who’s calling please?’
‘My name’s Alice.’
‘Alice ...?’
‘Just Alice.’ Daisy Robson always was a nosy old biddy, Alice thought.
‘One moment, please.’
It was a long moment. It went on and on. Alice strained on the end of the phone cord, keeping an eye on the veranda in case Em or Frank came back in. Eventually, another voice came on the line, but it wasn’t Crystal Starbrite’s.
‘Eric Newcombe speaking.’
‘Oh ... I wanted to speak to Ms Starbrite.’
‘She’s not up yet, I’m afraid. Can I help?’
‘My name’s Alice Jones. We met yesterday at—’
‘The Townsend farm, of course. Sorry, I should have recognised your voice. How are you Alice?’
‘I’m well, thank you. Look ... I ... have some information. About what you came here for.’
‘Let me grab a pen and paper.’
‘It’s ... rather more than that. It’s things I’ve seen. Personally.’
There was a pause. ‘You didn’t say anything yesterday.’
‘No ... well ...I couldn’t really. Not then.’ She took another look at the veranda. ‘Not with my sister and brother-in-law around. They ... wouldn’t approve.’
‘You mean they’re hiding something?’
‘In a way, I suppose. But that’s not what I want to tell you.’
‘What do you want to tell us?’
‘Everything that’s happened. All I know.’
‘You mean an interview?’
‘That’s really why I called.’
‘And on a scale of one to ten, how big would you say this is?’
‘Oh, nine-and-a-half at least.’
‘Really? OK. Look, Crystal’s not up yet. She rarely surfaces before ten, but for “nine-and-a-half at least” I’ll put a stick of dynamite under her. Can we meet you somewhere? Not at the farm, obviously. How about the reserve? I want to try and catch those tourists too. We could meet you there at, say, ten-thirty. How would that work?’
Alice checked her watch. ‘Perfect. I’ll see you then.’
* * *
Tim, Coral, Alkemy and Ludokrus snatched up their packs and scattered to opposite corners of the clearing, diving into the dense bush. Whatever was pursuing them suddenly changed direction and headed Tim’s way.
Or did it?
He paused, wondering if it was an acoustic trick caused by the undergrowth. Perhaps the others were experiencing the same sensation. That whichever way they turned, the stalker seemed to follow them.
The crack of small branches and rustle of dry leaves sounded like it was directly behind him. He darted left around a clump of kanuka. The sound moved too. It was still directly behind him. And it was getting closer.
He worked deeper into the bush, moving as quickly and as quietly as he could, cursing the awkward pack and wishing he’d left it at the clearing. It wasn’t fair, he thought. He had to move carefully, but his invisible pursuer was doing the opposite. Charging through the undergrowth, heading straight towards him, whichever way he turned. As though it could see him right through the foliage. What’s more, it seemed to be taking at least two steps for every one of his.
He spun round looking for something to defend himself with, a weapon of some sort — a stick, a lump of wood, anything to fend it off — but as he did so, his backpack snagged in a tangle of supplejack and wouldn’t pull free. He tore at the buckles and loosened the straps as the crashing pursuit reached a crescendo behind him, and he’d just slipped one shoulder free when a hand shot out from the undergrowth and seized his arm.
‘Gotcha!’
‘Whoa!’ He almost jumped out of his skin before he recognised the voice. ‘Norman! Jeez! What the hell ...?’
Norman laughed, delighted with his prank.
‘Where the ...? What ...? How did you ...?’
Norman held up the receiver cradled in his left arm. He’d obviously been studying it, oblivious to his surroundings. His face and arms were scratched, there were twigs and leaf litter in his hair, and he was panting with the effort, but he didn’t seem bothered by any it. He looked around and said, ‘Where are the others?’
Tim explained as they worked their way back to the clearing.
‘You know you were heading in a circular direction?’ Norman said.
‘How would you know?’
‘Apparently people do that when they don’t have clear visual references, like when they’re lost in fog or dense bush. It’s because most of us have one leg slightly shorter than the other. In your case it must be your right leg because you were going clockwise.’
‘What?’
The others responded to their calls and returned to the clearing. Coral glared at the new arrival. ‘What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay in the caravan.’
‘I thought you could use some help.’
‘Listen, any time we want—’
‘I think you should listen,’ Tim said. ‘He did just track us down. In this.’ He gestured at the bush.
‘Track you down, you mean. What was it? Did you leave him a paper trail or something?’
‘Nope,’ Norman beamed. ‘I used this.’ He held out the receiver. ‘I figured out why Albert changed the design. I thought you might be interested.’
‘It doesn’t even work!’
‘Ah, but it does. Sit down and I’ll show you.’
They arranged their packs in a semicircle. Norman sat cross-legged on the ground in front of them, the receiver perched on his knees. He tapped the on-off switch and the column of figures appeared. The last entry still read 14:22.
‘This is the original display. It lists messages received from the scanner blocks and — hopefully — the timing of the signals. With some fancy calculations and a bit of triangulation, we’d be able to work out a map reference. But we’d need a separate map, right? Which is why Albert borrowed Mum’s map book. He rebuilt the receiver to incorporate the map.’
Norman dipped a finger into the shallow basin formed by the sides of the device and made a circular gesture. The figures vanished, replaced by a glowing display of whorls and lines that filled the interior space and seemed to rise above the dished surface.
‘Remember you said you thought the figures were actually harder to read in this version?’ he said to Tim. ‘You’re right. They are. And that got me wondering why he went to the trouble of making something inferior. The rest was just a matter of experimenting.’
He made a flattening gesture with his hands and the image zoomed out to reveal what at first looked like a weather map made up of a series of concentric circles, but when he tilted the device and showed it from the side, they could see it was a profile of the terrain.
‘Oh wow!’
‘It’s a kind of holographic 3D effect,’ Norman said.
Tim stared at the image, moving his head from side to side. It looked like a finely detailed wire-frame model sitting in the bowl of the receiver. He could make out the shape of the hillside they were on. A pair of targeting arrows pointed to a glowing dot.
‘Is that us?’ he asked.
‘You, actually. Did you have a scanner block left over?’
‘No, but I picked one up at the dump.’ He took it out of his pocket.
‘Good job you did because that’s how I tracked you,’ Norman said. ‘I saw it moving.’
He plucked it from Tim’s hand and studied it, then threw it over his shoulder into
the bush behind him. ‘Whoops, lost it.’
He got to his feet, turned round and, guided by the receiver, retrieved it again. ‘But not for long.’
‘OK, very clever. But what use is that?’ Coral said.
Alkemy hunched forward and peered at the screen. ‘You can see where is Albert from the block he carry?’
‘Not quite, but look at this.’
He put the receiver down where they could all see it and zoomed the image out until the jagged edge of coastline became visible. There were three bright clusters of dots within it.
‘This thing picks up all the scanner blocks we’ve put out. You can see the clusters. There’s the ones around the farm. Those one’s there are round the caravan. And over there are the ones around Rata.’
‘Got it!’ Tim said, his excitement rising. He could see where this was leading.
Norman put thumb and forefinger around the second cluster and expanded them. The receiver zoomed in until each individual dot was visible.
‘The caravan’s about there, see?’ He pointed to a neat cluster centred on the reserve then moved the image down to one on its own. ‘That’s us. Or rather, Tim.’ He dragged the image down further. ‘So what are those?’
A trail of dots led away to the southeast.
The others looked at each other in puzzlement.
‘It’s Albert!’ Tim exclaimed. ‘He went out last night placing more scanner blocks, remember? He’s left us a trail!’
20 : Bonus
‘Earth Eater is through. Look, camera nine. We have the synthetic!’
‘See? Didn’t I tell you they’d resort to desperate measures to get at our transmitter?’
‘You did, and you were right. Now to retrieve its memory unit and see what they’re really up to ... Hmm, that’s odd. It appears to be booby-trapped.’
‘Booby-trapped?’
‘Sensors indicate it’s inaccessible to anyone but an Eltherian. If we try to extract it, the synthetic will self-destruct.’
‘That is odd. They aren’t normally wired like that.’
‘The fact that this one is suggests it’s valuable. And important.’
‘If it’s that valuable and important, perhaps we can use it to attract the others?’
‘Then self-destruct them all together!’
‘Perhaps. Or there is another possibility. This memory unit might be of value to our masters. If we can retrieve it, that is.’
‘But how can we do that and fulfil our mission to eliminate the Eltherians?’
‘By killing — and I do mean killing — two birds with one stone.’
* * *
They plunged back into the undergrowth following Norman who, unburdened, set a cracking pace. He forged ahead, following a straight line towards the next scanner block, careless of the terrain. Several times they came across rocky patches which he’d had simply scrambled down or jumped — not so easy carrying a heavy pack — and they were forced to skirt around them and work their way back. They’d find him, leaning against a ponga or waiting for them in clearings, grinning. He’d barely give them time to regroup and catch their breaths before saying, ‘All set? This way,’ and go crashing on ahead.
Tim suspected he was having a little revenge for being left behind, but without him, without the receiver, they were lost. It was obvious from the terrain that they’d gone down one hill and partly up another, but he had no idea which way they were heading or how to get back to the reserve. He thought of Albert the previous evening, going through here on his own. Yes, he was part machine and probably had in-built satellite navigation and night-vision eyes, but with the sun going down this place would have been pretty creepy.
Where was he heading anyway? This wasn’t going-out-for-a-stroll terrain. He must have had some aim in mind. Tim thought of the map book back at the caravan and wondered.
He heard a shout somewhere to his right, muffled by the bush. ‘This way!’ He changed direction, pushed past long ribbons of supplejack and shouldered his way through a stand of horopito to find himself climbing a short steep bank that opened on a narrow grassy clearing. He staggered to a halt, dropped his pack and sat on it, gasping for breath. The others emerged behind him and did the same.
‘Good place for morning tea,’ Norman said, looking around.
He was right. The clearing was narrow and flat and curved around the side of the hill they were on. One side was in shade, the other in dappled sunlight — a welcome sight after the gloom of the bush, even if it meant shielding your eyes while they adapted to the glare.
‘Bit early for morning tea.’ Tim checked his watch. ‘We’ve only been going half an hour.’
‘You’re kidding!’ Coral groaned. ‘It feels like we’ve been going half the day. How far is the next block?’
Norman checked the receiver and pointed up the hill. ‘In a straight line it’s about two hundred metres that way. Over that ridge then down the other side.’
Coral looked up at the densely bush-clad slope above the narrow clearing and blew out her cheeks.
‘Although ...’ He swivelled left and right and looked around. To the right, the clearing ended in a jumble of rocks. A recent landslide by the look of it. Norman walked over and began climbing the reddish coloured jumble. Tim followed.
‘Although what?’
‘I was wondering if this might be some sort of track. Look.’ He held out the receiver and traced the line of dots stretching ahead of them. ‘This wire-frame model makes it look like the scanner blocks follow a contour line along the hills, but maybe not.’
They got to the top of the slip and looked ahead. He was right. There was a track, overgrown but still distinct, winding away into the hills.
‘Which means the next block should be over there.’
They made their way down and, fifty metres on, found it wedged in the fork of a tree.
‘That was easy,’ Tim said, looking back the way they’d come. ‘Instead of going up and over the hill in a straight line, we’ve come around it.’
‘I reckon this is an old miners’ track.’
‘Meaning it leads to an old mine?’
‘That would explain why we can’t see a collection of scanner blocks at the end of the trail. We should if Albert had any left.’
‘You mean he’s gone underground? Maybe looking for the Sentinels’ transmitter?’
‘There’s only one way to find out.’
They hurried back and told the others.
‘If the rest of the track is like this, it’ll be easy going from now on,’ Norman said.
‘How far?’
He checked the screen, measuring off the distance with his thumb and forefinger. ‘About eight kilometres.’
‘Eight kilometres?’ Coral said. ‘There’s no way we can walk that.’
‘It’s not that far,’ Tim said. ‘Two, maybe two-an-a-half hours?’
‘And back? Possibly with an injured man? Then back down through the bush to the caravan?’
She was right. A sixteen kilometre round trip, just to get back here. They were already exhausted.
‘From what you said about Albert, that would have taken him about half an hour,’ Norman said. ‘Which ties in with what he told Alkemy.’
‘Except he didn’t come back,’ Tim said.
Ludokrus studied the receiver, tracking back and forth along the line of dots. ‘I can see where this track lead. But where does she begin?’
Norman peered over his shoulder and scrolled the display, tracing back with his finger. ‘It must branch off Rata Road about three K from the reserve. But there aren’t any side roads there. Not even walking tracks.’
‘Old path, so maybe the entrance is overgrown,’ Ludokrus said thoughtfully, handing the receiver back. ‘How far to go back along this track?’
‘Hard to say,’ Norman said. ‘Maybe four or five kilometres.’
‘Plus three more to the reserve. Quicker, I think, to go home in the straight line.’
‘Home? You
mean you’re giving up?’
‘No, but I have idea. Less work. But first we need resource, so must go back.’ He opened the top of Alkemy’s backpack and took out her pink school pack. ‘Need only the calculator.’
‘What about the other gear?’
‘Leave. Collect later.’
‘We’re going down and coming back again?’ Coral groaned.
‘Yeah, but travel back in style. You wait.’ He looked around for Norman. ‘Lead please. Quickest path.’
21 : Wired for Sound
It was easier going without the packs, especially the downhill sections, but they were all relieved to finally emerge in the open ground behind the rubbish dump. Ludokrus directed them to the pyramid of appliances and dragged an ancient washing machine from the stack.
‘Need more like this. Four at least. Bring here and make five separate pile.’ He marked out an area on the grass with the toe of his shoe. ‘Tim and Norman can do this please?’ They set to work. ‘Then help Coral and I to collect more resource from the tip. Need old tyre, plastic, metal, fabric and electronic.’
‘And me?’ Alkemy said.
‘You also, but first we need the green bag from the awning. Inside is leftover from the build of the Temporal Accumulator. Very useful. You will fetch, please?’
She headed off as the others began ranging far and wide over the tip face, which lay in a shallow depression. There was lots of smelly stuff, mostly in plastic bags so it was easily avoided, but they had to be careful where they stepped because the surface was unstable. Most of the things they were after were easily recovered, although at times it took two of them to drag them free.
The five mounds grew quickly. Ludokrus paused now and then to run the calculator over them and call out requirements to the others. Then Alkemy came bounding back, breathless but empty-handed.
‘Could not get,’ she said. ‘The TV peoples are there. And the Aunt Alice. Looks like they are making film.’
Coral set down a box of glass jars she was carrying ‘What, of Alice?’ The others stopped and joined them. ‘What’s she doing with Crystal Starbrite?’
‘She has been acting a bit weird lately,’ Tim said. ‘We should check it out.’
