GeneSys

by Roger Carter

  Part 5: Dragons

  Thirty Four

  As soon as she awoke in Eden the next morning, Donna jumped out of her chair and rushed to the window. The first faint rays of dawn were lightening the sky to the east, and the temple was glowing with its ghostly luminescence, casting a golden aura over the temple precincts. One glance was enough to convince her that the wall of the temple forecourt, which had been partially demolished by the aliens’ spaceship, had been completely restored, as had the crushed houses nearby.

  That was just as she had expected, for these neurospace structures were created anew each day by the Mind, which was the product of the dolphins’ entranced minds. And since none of them, apart from Donna herself, had witnessed yesterday’s destruction, there was no chance that the Mind would reproduce it now.

  But some trace of yesterday’s momentous happenings must surely remain. Something must have been culled by the Mind from her own vivid memories and reproduced in the darkness below. Perhaps the charred remains of some of the aliens littered the temple forecourt. She went out onto her small balcony and peered down, but so far as she could tell in the dim light there was nothing. Certainly there was no sign of the burnt-out flying saucer.

  So what about the golden portal? Was there any sign of that? The thought that it might suddenly reappear as mysteriously as it had disappeared, and that hundreds of giant wasps might pour from its doorway, bent on world domination and revenge, made her shudder. But there was no sign of it, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  She wondered if the two aliens who had escaped inside it were back on their home planet, reporting to their leaders. Perhaps even now preparations were being made for another long flight to Earth in another flying saucer, only this time they would be better prepared, for they knew what they were up against.

  She would share these fears with Dawn, who would be flying in soon for a debriefing session. Late yesterday afternoon she and Rick had visited Crocodile Bay to congratulate Donna on her great victory and to pass on the thanks of the Secretary General of the UN, but it had been a very unsatisfactory meeting as Donna could only respond by nodding her beak and waggling her fins. She couldn’t tell them anything about her heroic battle with the two aliens who had captured Karen’s mind, or indeed about much of her victorious attack on the great ship and its defenders. Donna smiled with pride at the memory. She couldn’t wait to regale Dawn with her adventures.

  But her most pressing concern was to get ready for the temple service. It would be the most important service she had ever conducted, for it was her first opportunity to enlighten the dolphin community about the alien invasion. She quickly dressed and sat down at her small dressing table to comb her black hair and apply her makeup. She was a youthful version of Dawn, and the lipstick and eyeliner were the same shades that Dawn would have used. It had of course been Dawn who had persuaded the Mind to reproduce them each morning.

  A few minutes later she was clattering down the steps leading from her quarters and crossing the temple forecourt. The new day was now lightening the sky, though the large doorway of the golden temple was still shrouded in darkness. Entering it, she saw that Clara, conscientious as ever, had already arrived and was busy with the candles.

  Although she and Jonah had been moved to the GeneSys dolphinarium, away from the rest of the dolphin community, they had today been fed the psychoactive fish that allowed them to share in the dolphins’ trance. Rick had insisted on that, as he wanted Clara to introduce herself to the community during today’s temple service, ahead of her transfer to Crocodile Bay later that afternoon. Now that it was known that John Anderson and the Watchers posed no immediate threat to the dolphins or the Mind, Jonah would be allowed to return home as well.

  “Good morning, Clara,” Donna murmured as she walked up the aisle. Although Clara was much younger than Clare, in the flickering candlelight she was her spitting image, which Donna found most disconcerting.

  “Good morning, Donna,” Clare replied with a smile.

  Bitch! Not content with stealing Jonah, Clara was now addressing her as an equal. It had been Ma’am before. Before long she would be trying to take charge of the place. That was only to be expected, of course: Clare, her mentor, was the most controlling person Donna had ever met. Apart from Dawn, that is.

  Donna toyed briefly with the idea of dispensing with Clara’s job completely, thereby removing her from the temple hierarchy and putting her firmly in her place. A few hours of concentrated prayer and fasting should be sufficient to persuade the Mind to make the candles come alight all by themselves as soon as the temple materialised each morning.

  Then Donna told herself not to be so unreasonable. It was absurd that she should feel so resentful towards Clara. The truth was that she herself no longer wanted Jonah, for Mort had replaced him in her affections, and Clara was really doing her a favour by stealing his heart. In any case, romance was a pretty tepid business compared to the excitement of being an all-conquering fire-breathing dragon. All yesterday afternoon, as she drifted around the lagoon, basking in the memory of her great adventures, she had become more and more convinced that these romantic entanglements were just a distraction and that she had a much higher destiny. She would be Earth’s ambassador to the stars.

  “Congratulations, by the way,” Clara said, interrupting her thoughts. “I understand you saved the planet.”

  Donna glanced at her in surprise. “Oh. Thank you. How did you know?”

  “Dawn told me about it privately earlier this morning, at the dolphinarium. She said that since I’m part of the team, so to speak, I ought to know.”

  “I see. Yes, I suppose you did ought to know.”

  “I hope we can be friends, Donna. Do you mind terribly that I’m having it off with Jonah?”

  Donna glanced at her in surprise. There was certainly no beating about the bush with Clara. She was as forthright as Clare. Donna’s opinion of her went up a notch.

  “I did mind at first,” she admitted. “But not anymore. The fact is, Jonah and I are incompatible, and I have other … interests now. I hope you’ll both be very happy.”

  “If I can help you, Donna, in any way at all…”

  Donna searched Clara’s face, trying in vain to read her emotions. Though it was obvious how she must feel, having been a solitary GM dolphin all her life, with only Clare to give her companionship. Donna felt suddenly very sorry for her, and she knew what she must do.

  “Thanks, Clara, I’m sure you will be able to help. I don’t exactly know what Dawn meant when she told you that you’re now part of the team, but why don’t you come back to my place after the service? Dawn will be there, and I’d really like you to join us.”

  Clara’s face lit up. “I’d love to come. Thank you, Donna.”

  “You can’t bring Jonah, I’m afraid.”

  Clara nodded. “I understand. John Anderson’s his mentor, and we don’t want anything to get back to him.”

  A thought struck Donna, and she gave Clara a hesitant glance. “The thing is, Clara, I have a secret that I’m not sure I can talk about in your presence. It’s an ability I have that must be hidden.”

  “If you mean your power of fire, I know about that.”

  “What?” Donna stared at her in alarm. “How did you find out?”

  “Dawn told me about it. She said you used it to incinerate the alien ship and most of the aliens. She told me not to tell anyone about your fire, not even Clare, otherwise she’d kick me out of Crocodile Bay and that would be the end of everything for me, including my frolics with Jonah.”

  Donna smiled. “That sounds like Dawn. I’m surprised she didn’t threaten to chop off your head and feed you to the sharks. The thing is, my fire makes me the top gun in neurospace, so if an enemy – such as John Anderson – ever found out about it, they might decide to kill my dolphin body. It would be easy enough for someone to get to me in Crocodile Bay.”

  Clara nodded, then looked thoughtful. “You can’t be sure that An
derson or someone else won’t discover your secret, especially after yesterday. If they wanted to kill you, they could easily do it when you’re in a trance. Like now, for instance. That’s when your dolphin body is most vulnerable. I take it Rick has arranged special protection for you?”

  “There are always several guards patrolling Crocodile Bay at those times. But there’s no one assigned to me specifically, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s exactly what I do mean. You have to tell him to organise that. It’s got to be someone totally trustworthy. And why not organize a rota of your dolphin friends to skip their visit to Eden to watch over you while you’re in a trance? Just in case someone tries to get to you underwater.”

  “I’ll do that, Clara. Thank you.” Donna smiled, and then, remembering how moved she’d felt when Karen had touched her arm immediately before the battle with the aliens, she put her hand on Clara’s arm.

  “I’m glad Dawn asked you to join the team,” she told her new friend. “It was definitely one of her better ideas.”

  Almost an hour later, the temple service over, Dawn joined them in Donna’s quarters.

  “Clare phoned me from Adelaide earlier,” she told them as she settled into the settee. “All the Watchers got back safely, apart from one who suffered a heart attack.”

  “The aliens killed him,” Donna told her.

  “I’d guessed that. Baby’s safe too, apparently. She’s been returned to the telescope, to monitor neurospace.” Dawn glanced at Clara, sitting beside her. “Baby’s the spirit detector,” she explained.

  Donna looked up from her stove, where she was brewing her fish tea. “Clare was with the Watchers when they returned to their bodies. Did she overhear what they said about the battle? What did they make of the fire-breathing dragon?”

  “They couldn’t stop talking about it, apparently. Clare didn’t mention anything about two dragons, so they obviously thought that the dragon they saw in the temple was the same dragon that saved them and destroyed the ship – which Clare and Anderson assume was me. Your secret’s safe, Donna.”

  “Thank goodness for that. And what about Karen? Is she OK?”

  “She was really upset and confused, apparently – much too confused to say anything sensible about what had happened to her. She spent most of the flight home crying and dozing, and she’s quite unsteady on her feet. Clare took her to the hospital in Adelaide for some tests, and they kept her in overnight. Clare thinks she’ll be there for a while.”

  Donna left off her tea-making and told them about the battle she’d fought in Karen’s mind. “I must have destroyed part of her mind with my dragon-fire. I suppose she’s suffered a kind of stroke.”

  “Hopefully she’ll recover,” Dawn told her. “The brain is able to grow new neurons – assuming it’s neurons you destroyed.”

  “What’s more worrying, she now knows that you have the power of fire,” Clara pointed out.

  “That’s true,” Donna muttered. She returned to her stove and the tea. “She’s bound to tell Anderson. I don’t know what we can do about that.”

  “You’ll have to talk to her,” Dawn said firmly. “Threaten her with total burnout. Tell her that if she breathes a word you’ll turn her into a mindless zombie.”

  Donna stared at Dawn blankly. “Talk to her? How can I do that?”

  “You’re going to visit her this evening, in Angela’s body. Everything’s been arranged.”

  “What?” Donna’s heart leapt with wild excitement. She would see Mort! Her resolve never to see him again and to devote herself instead to the far nobler enterprise of being Earth’s ambassador to the stars was swept away by the rush of endorphins and other potent chemicals surging through her sleeping dolphin body. Her hands started to shake, and she had great difficulty pouring out the tea without spilling it. The smell of oily fish arising from it seemed to take on the fragrance of all the flowers of Paradise.

  Fortunately she had her back to the others, so they couldn’t see the smile lighting up her face.

  “How did you manage to arrange that?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “I didn’t arrange it, Clare did. It was all her idea.”

  Donna spun round in surprise. “Clare? Why did she do that?”

  “Because all Karen wants is to see you. Clare got thoroughly fed up with her weeping all the time and going on about how wonderful you were. It made her want to puke, she said. So she contacted Mort, and he, it seems, was delighted to help. Which rather surprised her, as she couldn’t understand why he should want to help Karen, of all people.”

  Dawn shot Donna a meaningful glance, and it was obvious that she had no illusions as to why Mort was so eager to cooperate. Donna wondered if Clare had also twigged the reasons, but had chosen to keep quiet about it. She owed Donna a favour, after all.

  “I suppose you’ll want Rick to give you a whopping dose of the trance drug,” Dawn added resignedly. “So that you can remain in Angela after visiting hours and practise being a guardian angel to Mort!”

  “I shouldn’t mind,” Donna admitted, trying to pick up the cups nonchalantly. However, her hands were shaking so much that she made them clatter, and some of the tea spilled onto the floor.

  Dawn jumped up, trying to not laugh. “Here, I’ll carry those. All this excitement is too much for you!”

  If Clara was mystified by the spectacle, she was too polite to show it. Instead she complimented Donna on how good her tea smelt, and when Dawn handed her a cup she eagerly sipped some.

  “This is great, Donna!” she exclaimed. “You must teach me how to make it.”

  Donna glanced at her gratefully. It was a welcome change of subject. “I’m thinking of starting up cookery classes,” she told her. “On Tuesday mornings after the service.”

  “What a great idea! And later on you could introduce tea-making competitions, to see who could make the fishiest brew. You wouldn’t be allowed to take part, of course, ‘cos you’d run away with all the prizes.”

  Dawn took a sip of the ghastly stuff. She was beginning to identify with Clare’s desire to puke.

  “This really is delicious, you know,” Clara was saying, taking another sip. “Have you any other hobbies beside cooking, Donna?”

  Donna pointed to her clay models on the windowsill. “I like making models. And I’ve started inventing games. Board games.”

  “Board games? How exciting! We must play some of them. Better still, why don’t you introduce a games morning, perhaps on Saturdays? To try them out.”

  Donna’s eyes lit up. “Do you think I should? Well, let me tell you about my Alien Invasion game…”

  At the other end of the settee Dawn closed her eyes and wished that the communal mind would start to close down. Although she was glad that her fears that Donna and Clara would squabble had proved unfounded, the prospect of endless cookery mornings and games mornings and all this childish tittle-tattle was getting on top of her. Perhaps it was just that she was 30 and Donna and Clara were still in their teens, but for the first time in many years she was beginning to feel left out. Maybe it had been a mistake to include Clara in her little team.

  Thirty Five

  To Donna’s chagrin, she found that Mort had a visitor when she flitted into his house on her dragon wings at around 6 o’clock that evening. She had hoped to have him to herself. She flew around the fuzzy head of the visitor several times, but the features were too indistinct to tell who it was.

  She flew up the stairs and into Angela’s bedroom. The girl was evidently expecting her, for she was lying on her bed with several magazines open with what looked like pictures of Captain Bogey, her rock idol. Donna flew into her skull, and in no time at all she was in control of her body. She jumped off the bed and went down to the lounge.

  The visitor turned out to be Clare. Mort was sitting opposite her, on the settee.

  Donna had intended to flounce in with a witty comment or two, but she was all of a fluster with both her hearts
fluttering madly – the faintly-sensed throbbing of her dolphin heart back in Crocodile Bay, and the pounding of Angela’s heart as it pumped powerful hormones through her veins. For the first time in her life Donna was tongue-tied, and she silently sat down beside Mort on the settee and wished Angela’s body would stop blushing. She’d heard of female dogs being on heat, but she hadn’t appreciated that humans suffered similarly. Her cheeks were on fire.

  Clare, sitting opposite, was eyeing her with some amusement. “You look flustered, Angela,” she murmured. “Is it over some boy?”

  Donna shot her a murderous glance. Clare knew perfectly well that she wasn’t addressing Angela.

  “That’s right,” Donna said, as calmly as she could. “Angela’s been ogling some pictures of Captain Bogey. She has to do that to let me take her over.”

  “Donna!” Mort exclaimed. He grabbed her hand, which in the circumstances wasn’t at all helpful. The fire in her cheeks spread down to her neck, and the palms of her hands became sweaty. It was most embarrassing.

  “Don’t tell me you like Captain Bogey too,” Clare said silkily. “He must be quite something!”

  Donna took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. If she could wipe out a shipload of aliens, then surely she could get the better of Clare.

  “Captain Bogey?” She managed a careless shrug. “He’s OK, I suppose, but he’s not my type. I prefer someone with a tail and a couple of fins and a great big snout.”

  “Ah,” Clare murmured. She glanced away, evidently deciding to let the matter rest.

  Donna’s blush receded, but she felt annoyed with Clare and wanted her revenge. A sarcastic remark she’d heard in a film recently had come to mind.

  “You should have let me know you were coming, Clare. I would have so looked forward to meeting you again. Sadly, you’ve deprived me of that pleasure.”

  “God, you’re worse than Dawn,” Clare muttered. “Well, if you must know, I came to congratulate you. And to thank you.”

  “Oh. I see.” Donna stared at her, quite taken aback. “I don’t know what to say, Clare. Except that it’s really nice of you.”

  “Yeah, well don’t get carried away. I’m coming on the orders of Dr Song, and it’s her congratulations and thanks I’m delivering. Me, I just hate your guts.”

  Donna grinned. She understood the humour behind that remark. “Thanks anyway.”

  “I didn’t see what happened – I’d abandoned the spirit detector to look after Karen – but I understand you and Dawn managed to wipe out the aliens and their ship.”

  “Something like that,” Donna agreed. Although Dawn had told her that Clare had seen nothing of her fire, it was relief to have this confirmed.

  “I should tell you that it’s been decided, at the highest level, to keep the whole affair secret. The world will never know that we’ve been invaded by aliens, or that you and Dawn saved us. So I’m afraid this is all the thanks you’re likely to get.”

  “Not quite all the thanks,” Mort announced. “I’ve made you a fish pie.” He took her hand and stood up. “Come on, let’s go and eat.”

  When they reached the dining room Donna let out a gasp. Most of the table was occupied by a magnificent floral display. A mass of red flowers had been arranged on a wire frame in the shape of a dolphin, floating on a sea of blue with yellow flowers in the front representing a beach. It was the most amazing sight, and for the second time that evening she was lost for words.

  Mort put his arm round her shoulder and squeezed. “It’s to thank you. For everything.”

  “I told him you would prefer a few fish heads stuck in a vase,” Clare said. “But he wouldn’t have it.”

  Donna burst out laughing. If Clare hadn’t said that, she would probably have burst out crying. She had never been so overwhelmed with emotion.

  “Nobody’s ever given me flowers before,” she said, trying to keep back her tears. “In fact nobody’s ever given me anything. It’s wonderful, Mort, I think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Apart from beating you at Monopoly, of course.”

  He smiled. “You do like flowers, then? I wasn’t sure.”

  “Of course I like them, you silly thing. I’ve got a human brain. They’re really, really lovely. Thank you, Mort, this is something I’ll never forget.”

  Clare groaned. “Can’t we get back to trading insults? You’re putting me off my food.”

  “Ah yes, food,” Mort murmured. “The fish pie is in the oven. I’ll get it.”

  “I’m coming too,” Donna said, jumping up. “You know I like to help in the kitchen. I’ll bring the plates – I hope you’ve got them warming. And I hope you’ve remembered I’m very partial to parsley sauce. You must let me have your fish pie recipe, by the way, ‘cos I’m thinking of running some cookery classes. Classes for dolphins, of course, not humans.”

  Clare was staring at her with a bemused expression and shaking her head slowly. It was a gesture she’d seen on TV, and it implied that Clare thought she was mad. But why would she think that? There was nothing at all crazy about wanting to help in the kitchen, or about liking parsley sauce, or indeed about running cookery classes, even if she was a dolphin. Why Clare, or any other human for that matter, should think her crazy was beyond her.

  Clare left about an hour later, leaving Mort and Donna to visit Karen in hospital. That was the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where Angela had been kept, and it was only a short drive from Mort’s house. As they walked along the long corridor to Karen’s ward they bumped into a couple of nurses who Donna recognized.

  “You’re looking really great, Angela,” one of them said, giving her a hug.

  “Have you got a boyfriend, yet?” asked the other.

  “Mort’s the only man in my life. I can’t cope with any more.”

  “Why ever not? You could all play Monopoly together. That would be really fun.” The two nurses exchanged glances and giggled. Angela and Mort’s Monopoly games in hospital had been the source of considerable amusement.

  Donna frowned. “I don’t think that would be much fun at all. Additional players would severely reduce my chances of winning.”

  “She hates losing,” Mort told them. “She sulks.”

  “I don’t sulk! Anyway, I hardly ever lose, so you wouldn’t know.”

  “You two are always bickering,” the first nurse said, laughing. “Like an old married couple.”

  “We’re not like that at all,” Donna retorted. “We never bicker, we tease. That’s quite different. It’s what young couples do. I’ve seen it on television.”

  “How do you put up with her, Mr Lane? We wondered what had hit us when we had to look after her here.”

  Donna slipped her hand into Mort’s and looked up at him anxiously. “You enjoy having me, don’t you, Mort?”

  He squeezed her hand. “Of course I do.”

  She turned triumphantly to the two nurses. “There you are! We don’t bicker.”

  They burst out laughing and continued on their way.

  “Did I say something funny?” she asked Mort.

  “I don’t think so. I thought you were the model of sobriety.”

  “So why did they laugh?”

  “I expect because Angela’s my daughter. Father and daughter don’t normally behave like this together.”

  “And the dissonance amused them.” She walked on in silence for a while, her arm linked in his. “I can see I’ve got a lot to learn about human social interactions.”

  He patted her hand reassuringly. “You do pretty well. For a dolphin.”

  “But I’m not good enough. I want to do it perfectly. I hate it when people look at me like I’m crazy or laugh when I haven’t said anything funny.”

  “I like you exactly as you are, Donna.”

  “Really? Even when I sulk? Not that I do sulk, of course.”

  “Even when you sulk. Not that you have ever sulked, of course.”

  “We’re here,” she announced, pointing at the sign a
bove the large doorway. “Karen’s ward.”

  Karen was by herself in a small side room. Donna guessed that Clare had arranged that, to prevent anything that was said from being overheard. She was sitting up in bed leafing through a fashion magazine when they walked in, and she gave them a wan smile.

  “I wasn’t expecting a visit from you two.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

  Mort sat down on a chair by her bed and smiled encouragingly at her. “Why not, Karen?”

  Karen glanced guiltily at Donna. “Because of Angela. You must hate me for that – letting her rot in neurospace for all those years.”

  “Of course I don’t hate you. Things are working out pretty well, on the whole. Why don’t we let bygones be bygones?”

  Karen’s eyes filled with tears. “I really would like that, Mort. I want to put my past behind me and start again. With you and Angela and Dawn and everyone else.”

  “And with John Anderson and the Watchers?” Donna asked.

  Karen clutched at the sheet and started twisting it nervously. “I’m finished with them. I don’t want to see them ever again. Fortunately Clare brought me in here, and she promised she wouldn’t tell them where I am. She told me she was able to keep my presence here secret.” She glanced up at Mort. “So how did you know I was here?”

  “She told us. She asked us to visit you.”

  “Oh. She promised she would arrange for Donna to come.”

  Mort smiled. “Donna’s here, Karen. In Angela’s body.”

  Karen stared at her blankly. “What?”

  Donna took her hand. “Forget what I look like, Karen. Close your eyes if you like. I’m Donna.”

  “But you can’t be. Your voice … it’s Angela’s.”

  “Of course it is. I’ve got to use Angela’s vocal chords. How did you think I would be able to visit you? In my dolphin body, in a fish tank?”

  “I didn’t know. I thought maybe in Dawn’s body. You looked like Dawn, when we were at the temple in Eden.”

  Donna laughed. “In real life I look more like a whale. Forget appearances, Karen.”

  “Yes. Of course. I’m still a bit confused, I’m afraid.”

  “You suffered some damage to your mind, Karen,” Donna told her gently. “It happened when I exorcized the aliens who had invaded you. Do you remember that?”

  “I remember. You turned into a dragon, and there was a lot of fire. You burned him up, and then you set me free and picked me up and cuddled me and then I was in charge of my body again.”

  Tears filled her eyes again, and she grabbed a tissue from a box by her bedside and blew her nose. Remembering how Clare had put her arms round Karen yesterday, Donna leaned over and did the same. Karen buried her head in her chest and held on to her tightly, and she stroked Karen’s shoulders. A slight dampness started to seep through Angela’s top.

  Not that Donna was in the least concerned about a few tears dripping onto her. She was used to gallons of the stuff. She was more worried about what might be going through Mort’s mind, now that Karen had let slip that she was able to turn into a dragon and slay her enemies with fire. If was bad enough if your girlfriend turned out to be a werewolf, but this...

  “John would have let me die … or worse,” Karen was saying through her tears. “But you saved me. Thank you so much, Donna. I’m so sorry I was so horrible to you and to Angela and to everyone else. It all seemed OK at the time, but now I realise … Something’s changed in me, it’s not just my memories, it’s something else. I never want to go back to how I was.”

  “Some of your neurons got burned up when I destroyed the creature that had possessed you. I’m really sorry about that.” Donna wasn’t actually sure that any neurons had been destroyed, but she supposed that since love-goddess fire could influence the physical brain to make it produce the chemicals of love, so war-goddess fire could also affect it in an adverse way.

  “The brain’s able to repair itself,” she continued, trying to strike a cheerful note. “So you should get better pretty soon. Though if any of your memories have been lost, they’ll never be recovered. I guess that means you may have suffered some slight personality changes that won’t be reversed.”

  “I don’t mind that,” Karen said, releasing Donna and leaning back against her pillow. “In fact I’m glad. It means I can make a fresh start.”

  Donna sat back in her chair and surveyed Karen warily. Her eyes were still damp, but she seemed to have perked up slightly. “I’ll do anything I can to help you, Karen, but you have to promise me something.”

  Karen dried her eyes with another tissue. “I’ll do anything you say.”

  Donna paused for a moment, aware that Mort was sitting next to her and taking in every word.

  “My dragon-fire is a great secret, and I want you to promise never to talk about it again. Not to anyone. If word got out, my life would be in danger. Do you understand, Karen?”

  Karen nodded slowly. “You’re afraid of what John might do.”

  “Not just him. There are others as well. It’s not too difficult to kill a dolphin.”

  “I wasn’t lying when I told you that John had no plans against you or your communal mind–”

  “No plans that you know about. Do you believe he told you everything? Or that he told you the truth? You trusted him, and you almost paid with your life. Do you still trust him, Karen?”

  “No, I suppose I don’t. Anyway, I promise I won’t say anything. You can go into my mind and erase my memories of what happened, if you like. The less I know the better.”

  “I’ve damaged you enough already. I gather they’ve given you some tests. Have you had the results?”

  Karen nodded. “Mostly I’m OK, I think.”

  “That’s a relief. What did they find?”

  “Well, they told me my language and reasoning skills are fine, but they said something about peripheral memory impairment and coordination problems. But I won’t need a wheelchair or anything like that. I’m on medication for shock and trauma, and they say that provided I take things easy for a while and continue taking my tablets I’ll be OK. I can go home tomorrow, they said.”

  “Tomorrow? That’s really great!”

  Karen’s face crumpled, and her eyes became damp once more. “I’m frightened, Donna. I don’t want to be by myself.”

  Donna touched her arm sympathetically. “I’m not surprised. You’ve had a terrifying ordeal.”

  “It’s not just that. The Watchers will come calling – they’ll expect me back – but I don’t want to see them again. Or John might come. He’s got this power over me, I can’t explain it. It’s something about his eyes, they seem to reach right into me. If I go back to my apartment…” She looked at Donna appealingly.

  Donna recalled what Dawn had told her about Anderson’s piercing eyes. Even she had found them unnerving. “Don’t you have any family to stay with?”

  Karen hesitated. “There’s Rick. He’s my cousin. I was hoping that perhaps … I might come to Honiara. I’d be safe there.”

  Donna gasped. “To stay with Rick and Dawn?”

  “Please, Donna, you could arrange it. I could visit you every day in Crocodile Bay.”

  Donna looked at her doubtfully. “I don’t know … I suppose it would be OK for a couple of weeks. But they’re very busy people, and they like their privacy.”

  “What about your job, Karen?” Mort asked her. “You don’t want to lose that. Isn’t there someone in Adelaide you could stay with?”

  “My job? I don’t know whether I could ever … do my job again. My mind’s so messed up… I don’t know if I could handle all those people.”

  “You’ll recover, though. Anything you’ve forgotten you can learn again. You could work in a junior role for a while.”

  “I suppose I could. But who would I stay with? There’s no one here I would feel comfortable with. Or safe.”

  “Would you feel safe in my house?”

  Karen gaped. “Stay with you?”


  “I’ve got plenty of room, and I know Angela would appreciate having someone around. She gets a bit lonely. And Donna could visit us sometimes, like now. Couldn’t you, Donna?”

  Donna’s heart leapt. “Of course I could, Mort! Lots of times. I think it’s a great idea.”

  Karen stared from one to the other. “Are you sure that would be OK? What about your reputation – a strange woman living in your house?”

  “Don’t worry about that. It would probably enhance my reputation. You’re an attractive female, after all.”

  Karen gazed up at him for several seconds. “You won’t be getting any ideas, will you, Mort? There can never be anything between us.”

  Mort looked a little embarrassed. “Uh, I understand that. Clare’s told me … about you. And how about you, Karen? I hope you won’t be getting any ideas. Angela wants – and needs – a boyfriend.”

  It was Karen’s turn to be embarrassed, and she glanced away. “Don’t worry, Mort. I don’t want any … relationships. Not for a while, at any rate. I promise.”

  Mort looked relieved. “In that case, you’re more than welcome to stay with us,” he said heartily. “I’ll make arrangements to collect you tomorrow.” He frowned. “Tomorrow’s Friday, I’m tied up in meetings all morning. But I should be able to pick you up mid-afternoon. Is that OK?”

  Karen nodded, wiping away another tear. “You’re so kind. Both of you are so kind. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Donna told her. She was desperately trying to hide the huge elation she was feeling at the way things were working out. “I’ll arrange to visit tomorrow evening.”

  “Would you, Donna? To help me settle in? I’d really appreciate that.”

  “Donna makes a good guardian angel, doesn’t she, Karen?” Mort said brightly. “I’m sure we’ll all get on very well – provided you let her win at Monopoly, of course.”

  A little later, as they walked out of the hospital into the night and headed towards the car park, Mort asked: “Aren’t you going to tell me what you did to the aliens, Donna? I asked Clare earlier, but she didn’t know much. It must have something to do with that fire you were talking about.”

  Donna took a deep breath. The moment to reveal all had come. “I wanted to tell you earlier, Mort, but people kept getting in the way – first Clare, then those nurses, then Karen. We haven’t had a moment to ourselves.”

  He glanced at her with an odd expression. “You sound just like Sally. That’s what she used to say, and in exactly that voice. Angela talks like her, you know.”

  Donna glanced at him blankly, then remembered that Sally was the name of his late wife. “I’m sorry I remind you of her, Mort. Does it make you sad, remembering?”

  “No, I’ve got over it now. You’ve helped me a lot. I guess you’re as much my guardian angel as Karen’s and Angela’s.”

  He took her hand and squeezed it, and she blushed a little. He obviously liked the thought of having her as his guardian angel, and she very much liked that idea too.

  “I’m not that much of a hero, Mort,” she said shyly. “In spite of what Clare says.”

  “For Clare to admit that you’re a hero, you must be an absolute superstar!”

  She smiled at him, and then without more ado launched into her explanation. “When I told you I was a guardian angel, it was kind of true. Part of me was born in the stars, Mort. I’m more than dolphin, and Dawn’s more than human. We’ve both got dragon blood in us. Something from the heavens entered us at our conception. I know that sounds crazy, and I don’t really understand it, but it’s true. It’s because of what I am that I was able to defeat those alien invaders. I come from some kind of master race from…” she waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the bright orb of the moon overhead “… way out there.”

  He was silent for a moment, digesting her words. “You’re a dolphin with a human brain, you’ve got dragon blood from the stars, and at this moment you’re inhabiting the body of my daughter. I can’t imagine anything more crazy than that. You say it’s true, but how can you be sure? Have you met any other dragons?”

  “No, apart from Dawn. She deduced everything from her own experiences. She even figured out how to pass her dragon blood onto me, at my conception. It’s an amazing story, and I’ll tell you about it one day.”

  “Everything about you and Dawn and everything else that’s happened in the last few weeks has been amazing, so in a strange kind of way what you’re telling me now makes sense. It certainly explains why you two have such weird powers.”

  They reached the car, and they got into it in silence. Donna was on tenterhooks, wondering if what she’d told him would affect how he felt towards her. He’d called her powers ‘weird’, and they were certainly that. She wouldn’t blame him if he thought she was a witch who travelled around on a broomstick.

  “So although you act like an angel and you’ve got the body of a dolphin, you’re actually a dragon,” he muttered. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

  She nodded in the darkness. “But I’m only a dragon in neurospace. Dawn thinks that dragons only exist in neurospace. So don’t worry, I’m not about to sprout claws and wings and gobble you up.”

  He grunted. “And because you’re a dragon you’ve got this fire. The fire that destroyed the aliens and damaged Karen’s brain.”

  “That’s right. There’s something truly miraculous – divine even – about my fire. In neurospace it destroys life, but in the physical world it creates life. It’s what empowers those amazing kisses that floored Paul and Clare and anyone else that experiences them.”

  “Ah. I’ve wondered about those.”

  “Dawn calls them love-goddess kisses.” She touched his hand. “You ought to try them sometime, Mort.”

  He squeezed her hand briefly, then gently pulled his hand away and started the motor. “Not while you’re in my daughter’s body, Donna.”

  “No,” she sighed. “That would be most unwise.”

  They said nothing for a while as he concentrated on the difficult business of manoeuvring the vehicle out of the car park and through the maze of narrow hospital roads. He obviously felt he couldn’t trust its automatic navigation systems.

  When she had first travelled with him in his smart car she had quite fancied taking over the wheel, but she had come to realise that driving a car in Adelaide was much trickier than flying through neurospace. There was all that stopping and starting, and instead of being able to pass through walls and other obstacles you had to laboriously go round them.

  “So dragons are real,” he said finally. “All those legends from all over the world, they’ve got some basis in fact.”

  “They’re even mentioned in the Bible,” she said.

  “But the Bible links them with Satan.”

  “Those were false dragons,” she replied, repeating what Dawn had told her. “True dragons can breathe out fire, and none of the Bible dragons can do that. In the Bible fire belongs to God, not to Satan. True dragons are good, not evil.”

  “You must be seriously good to have saved the planet from those aliens!”

  “I’ve been itching to tell you about that,” she said proudly, and with great aplomb she spent the rest of the journey home recounting in graphic detail her conquest of the giant wasps. Mort was still coming to terms with the revelation that an essential part of the creature that he had come to love was a superbeing from the stars, and he let her prattle on, interjecting a few wows and goshes and other encouraging remarks, and she didn’t finish until they arrived back home.

  “I must teach you a new game,” he said as they entered the house. “It’s called Risk, and it’s right up your street. You’ve got to slaughter your opponent’s armies, take over continents, that kind of thing.”

  Her eyes lit up. “That sounds almost as good as zapping aliens. Let’s play it now.”

  He glanced at his watch. “We won’t have time. I’ll make some hot chocolate – I w
ant to talk some more.”

  She shrugged. “OK, if you think I’ll like hot chocolate. I’ve never tried it.”

  “Angela adores it, and you’re using her taste buds.” He led her into the kitchen, and she made herself comfortable on a kitchen stool while he heated up the milk.

  “What did you want to talk about?” she asked.

  He busied himself with the drinks before replying. “You’re obviously extremely powerful and really important, Donna. And not just on this planet. You’ve told me that you belong to a kind of master race, and that your fire is supernatural. In fact you used the word divine.”

  “I hope you’re not about to worship me, Mort. I should hate that. Anyway, Dawn’s much more powerful than I am.”

  “That’s not the impression I get. The thing is, if you’re this incredibly powerful being, why are you so keen to visit me to help in the kitchen and play Monopoly and Scrabble and Risk and stuff like that? It’s so incongruous. In fact, that’s the weirdest thing of all!”

  She stared at him blankly. “I don’t see any contradiction in saving the planet and wanting to visit you. What do you expect me to do? Float around on a cloud contemplating my navel?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just that you should be sorting out global conflicts and performing miracles and healing the sick. Things like that.”

  “But I’m a dolphin! In any case, the only miracles I can perform are my amazing kisses, and when I offered to possess you to kick-start your love-life, you turned me down flat. You could have had all the women in the neighbourhood gasping at your feet and pleading for more. So it’s your fault I’m not going around performing miracles. And the result? You’ve got precisely nowhere. There’s not a woman in sight!”

  He smiled. “OK, I take your point. But it still baffles me why you, a dolphin with these amazing powers, should want to visit me, a middle-aged man? It’s ridiculous. I really appreciate you coming, and I hated it the last time you left and it seemed so final, and, OK, I know you enjoy our little get-togethers too, but if you can’t work a real miracle and turn yourself into a woman, then there really isn’t much point to it. It can never lead anywhere. Can it Donna?”

  “No, Mort,” she admitted sadly. “It can’t.”

  She sipped her hot chocolate, but she was now too upset to pay any attention to its taste. He was right, of course. There really was no point trying to pursue a relationship with him. And although Angela had been very cooperative so far, before long she would have a boyfriend or two, and then the last thing she would want was to spend her evenings possessed by a spirit, even a spirit that could empower her kisses.

  Suddenly she became aware of her dolphin body floating beneath the stars in Crocodile Bay. “I’m waking up, Mort,” she wailed. “I don’t want to go yet!”

  He reached out and took her hand. “I don’t want you to go either. You’ll come tomorrow evening, won’t you?”

  “Of course I will. I promised Karen I’d help her settle in. I’ll come at the usual time, to help with the dinner, and we’ll play that new game of yours. And thanks again for the flowers, they were lovely.”

  “I wish you could take them with you.”

  “They wouldn’t do at all well in the sea, I’m afraid.”

  She didn’t catch his reply, for she was suddenly 2,000 miles away, floating under the stars in Crocodile Bay. Her only consolation was that Angela, who had so kindly let her borrow her body, would appreciate the cup of hot chocolate she’d left behind.

  Thirty Six

  “Dad, your red-hot momma’s back in town!” It was six o’clock the next evening, and Angela had just sensed Donna’s presence.

  She put down the carrot she was peeling. “I’d better leave this for Hotpants to finish!”

  She stood up and headed for the door. She was going to her bedroom, where she’d left her magazines. As she left the kitchen she turned and blew her father a kiss.

  “That’s your only kiss for the night, Dad,” she told him strictly. “Whatever you do, don’t let her give you one of those love-goddess kisses. And remember, I’m aware of everything that’s going on when she’s in my body!”

  A few minutes later Angela’s body returned to the kitchen. “Hi Mort!”

  Donna was trying to sound cheerful, though she had been feeling depressed all day. She knew that this could be her final visit here. Mort’s brutally frank assessment of their relationship last night, that it could never lead anywhere, had thoroughly quenched the elation she’d felt at her victory over the aliens, and now the only thing of any consequence was the fact that she was forever trapped in her dolphin body, with no place in Mort’s human home. She had been stupid to imagine that there could be any other outcome.

  “Did you collect Karen from the hospital?” she asked.

  He looked up from pan he was stirring and smiled. “I certainly did, a couple of hours ago. And a great pile of clothes from her apartment. She’s resting in her room. She seems very tired. She’s still suffering from shock, I think.”

  “I’m not surprised. Those aliens–”

  “Best not to talk about them. I did, and she burst into tears. It took her quite a while to calm down.”

  “But she’s all right apart from that?”

  “Seems to be. She’s certainly pleased to be here.”

  Donna felt a momentary stab of jealousy. Karen, who had brought so much heartache to this home, could simply walk in and stay, whereas she, the one who had rescued Angela and turned Mort’s life around, was forever barred.

  “Well, what can I do to help?” she asked. A few chores would at least keep her mind off her misery.

  “Everything’s done. Why don’t you see if Karen’s awake? She’s dying to talk to you again. To reach her bedroom turn right down the hall–”

  “No need to explain. Angela will show me.”

  “I suppose so. I gather that when you possess her, like now, she’s aware of everything that’s going on. She’s even started calling you Hotpants!” He smirked.

  Donna shot him a puzzled glance. “She must be referring to my hot dragon breath, when I pant out fire on my enemies. Quite a flattering nickname, don’t you think?”

  He resumed his stirring, and Donna had the distinct impression that he was trying not to laugh. “I suppose it is,” he agreed. “It’s certainly appropriate.”

  She frowned, realising that there must be something humorous about that name that had eluded her, then shrugged and went upstairs to Karen’s room, following the visual cues that Angela kindly provided. Karen was indeed awake, though she was quite drowsy. She was almost pathetically pleased to see Donna again and insisted on sitting up in bed and hugging her.

  “It’s very strange, talking to you in Angela’s body,” Karen murmured as she released her. “I suppose I’ll get used to it.”

  “I’m afraid you probably won’t get used to it. I won’t be coming here many more times.”

  Karen stared at her aghast. “Why not?”

  “I can’t expect Angela to keep giving up her evenings for me. She’s a grown woman, she’s devoting herself to her exercise regime and her lessons so she can get a life–”

  “And soon she’ll have a boyfriend etcetera etcetera.” Karen lay back and gazed gloomily through the window. “And then Mort will look for someone else to share his life with, and she certainly won’t want me around.”

  “Neither of us will be welcome then, Karen.”

  Karen turned to her, and her eyes were again filled with tears. “I just wish, somehow, we could be together, you and I. I feel safe with you, Donna. Are you sure I couldn’t stay with Rick and Dawn?”

  “It could only be for a short while, a couple of weeks at the most. What you want is impossible, Karen. I’m a dolphin, you’re a human, and there’s nothing in this world that can change that.”

  “I know.” Karen pulled out a tissue from the box by her bed and dabbed at her eyes.

  Donna was so overcome that she had to grab a tissu
e too, and she smiled sadly through the wetness at Karen. “We’ll be bawling our eyes out if we stay here. Dinner’s almost ready, let’s go downstairs.”

  She helped Karen up and into her shoes. “Have you seen the flowers Mort got for me?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful. “No? They’re really gorgeous.”

  A few minutes later, when they entered the dining room, Donna saw that the marvellous flower arrangement that had adorned the table yesterday was still there. Karen went into raptures, and when Mort came in carrying a tray of food she insisted that he take some photographs with her and Donna sitting on each side of the display.

  The meal started happily enough, but soon the conversation started to flag. Donna and Mort were both very aware that this might be their last meal together, and with Karen present it was impossible to express their feelings for each other. And as for Karen, while she was very grateful to be able to share Mort’s home, she was weighed down with the knowledge that this arrangement could only be temporary.

  But then, when the meal was almost over, Donna suddenly had an idea. It wasn’t just an ordinary idea, it was a seriously good idea. In fact, it was an absolutely brilliant idea. It was the mother of all brainwaves, yet it was so obvious that she wondered why she had never thought of it before. It was without doubt the best idea she had ever had.

  She bucked up immediately. “That was a great meal, Mort,” she said heartily. “One of the best. It certainly beats leaping into the air to catch raw fish being thrown out of a bucket!”

  He smiled at her. “I’m glad you liked it.”

  “You excelled yourself. The food’s great, the flowers are great, everything here is great. Don’t you agree, Karen?”

  “Why yes. It’s all wonderful.”

  “I know you’re really going to enjoy staying here, Karen,” Donna continued. “The evenings are such fun – Mort’s got loads of board games to play. Haven’t you, Mort?”

  He reached over and patted her hand. “I adore your enthusiasm for everything, Donna. But Karen’s 30, she may not want to play Monopoly and Risk and games like that.”

  “Of course she will. You will, won’t you, Karen?”

  “I expect so,” Karen answered doubtfully.

  “And Mort’s such a good cook. I really enjoy helping in the kitchen. It’s great, messing around with pots and pans and mixing up gravy and all that. You’ll enjoy that too, Karen.”

  Karen was looking a little dazed. “Will I? Oh, yes, of course I will.”

  “And Mort’s got this really flash car. Oh, I forgot, you’ve already seen his car. You’ll enjoy going shopping in that.”

  Karen perked up somewhat. “Yes. I’ll like that.”

  “Everything’s absolutely wonderful,” Donna concluded, giving them both the sunniest of smiles. “We’re going to be one big happy family together.”

  “Well, I’ll clear everything away,” Mort said, giving her an odd look. “Perhaps you and Karen would like to choose a game you’d both like to play.”

  “Sure thing, boss. We need to go to Karen’s bedroom first, though. There’s something rather important that she and I have to talk about.”

  It was about half-an-hour later that Karen walked into the lounge. She had made herself up with lipstick and eyeshadow, dabbed on her most expensive perfume, and put on her most glamorous dress. She walked over to the settee, sat down, and crossed her elegant legs. Mort put down his book and gazed at her open-mouthed, his eyes slowly taking in her hair and her lips and the curve of her breasts and finally, as if in a trance, resting on her legs.

  She smiled back at him. “What’s the matter, Mort?”

  He came to with a start, and pulled his eyes back to her face. “Um, nothing. Where’s Angela?”

  “She’s gone to bed. She was feeling tired.”

  His face fell. “Gone to bed? Has Donna left her?”

  “About 15 minutes ago.”

  “Oh.” He looked utterly forlorn. He picked up his book and stared down at it. “I thought she was going to spend the evening with us.”

  “Mort! Of course I’m spending the evening with you! Now stop messing about and let’s play something.”

  “Donna!” He gaped at her, dropping his book on the floor and managing to look bemused, delighted, and doubtful all at the same time, or at least in very quick succession. It was so funny that she burst out laughing.

  He laughed as well, though rather sheepishly. “Karen let you take her over?”

  “It seemed the best thing in the circumstances,” she explained when she’d managed to stop laughing. “We had a long talk and decided to share you.”

  “Share me?”

  “It’s a division of labour, you see. I’m going to play games with you in the evenings, ‘cos I’m really good at that, and she’s going to spend all your money during the day, ‘cos that’s what she’s good at.”

  He stared at her for several seconds, digesting this information. “Does that mean … you’ll be taking over Karen’s body on other evenings as well? Not just tonight?”

  She surreptitiously adjusted her dress to reveal a little more of Karen’s legs. She had the impression he liked looking at them. “Of course.”

  “You mean for several weeks?” He was struggling to grasp the full import of her words. “Karen has agreed to that?”

  “Not several weeks, loads of weeks. Hundreds of them in fact. Every night till death do us part. Assuming you can put up with me, that is. And Karen as well.”

  A broad smile crossed his face. “I guess I’ll manage. I just hope I don’t run out of money for Karen to spend.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ve threatened to haunt her if she’s too extravagant, and in any case she’s hoping to go back to work as soon as she’s recovered. You’re getting a bargain, you realise – two women for the price of one.”

  She patted the empty place next to her on the settee. “Come and sit here, Mort. I’ve got this great game for us to play. You’ll really like it.”

  He jumped up eagerly and sat beside her. “Your alien invasion game?”

  “No, it’s much better than that. Better than Monopoly even. It can be played by any species, not just humans. Dolphins, aliens, frogs, anyone can play it.”

  He laughed. “I can guess what that game’s called: ‘Survival of the Fittest’. You’d really enjoy that, wouldn’t you, wiping the board of every other species? The ultimate mass extinction.”

  “Hey, that’s not a bad idea! It would make a great game. We could have Random Mutation cards, which give you extra claws, venomous stings, vicious horns, that kind of thing, and then there would be Cosmic Catastrophe cards – asteroids hitting the earth, global warming, stuff like that – which wipe out 90% of the population of your species. You throw a dice to determine the number of genetic changes you’re allowed, and we’ll design a board with different ecosystems so that you can move from one to another. The possibilities are endless. We’ll have to work on it.”

  “It’ll certainly give us something to do in those hundreds of evenings we’ll be spending together. Anyway, back to tonight. What fate have you planned for me, if it’s not Monopoly, Risk, Alien Invasion, or Mass Extinction?”

  “Oh yes. Tonight. Well, the game I had in mind is one that I don’t suppose you’ve played for a long time. It’s called Mummies and Daddies.”

  Mort looked taken aback. “Um, no. I’ve not played that game for quite a while.”

  “Now, strictly speaking you’re supposed to be married before you play Mummies and Daddies. But that rule only applies if you’re a human, ‘cos other species don’t get married, they simply perform some kind of courtship ritual and then mate. So since I’m not human, I thought it was legitimate for us to play it. The people at your church could hardly frown on it, could they, seeing as I’m a dolphin. What do you think, Mort?”

  “Seems reasonable.” He had a rather dazed expression.

  “Though since you’re human, and since you’re likely to want to play
Mummies and Daddies on the hundreds and hundreds of other nights we’ll be spending together, then you ought to put things on a proper footing by marrying me. Or rather me and Karen, since we’re sharing this body.”

  “Yes. I suppose I did. Certainly.” He seemed to have difficulty keeping up.

  “Good. I’m glad that’s settled. I’ll leave you and Karen to sort out the wedding arrangements. Now, let me explain the game. There are three phases to it: the beginning, the middle, and the end.”

  His expression cleared. The game’s simple logic offered a welcome oasis in an increasingly baffling world.

  “That makes sense,” he said. “You begin at the beginning and you end at the end and there’s something in the middle.”

  “Exactly. The something in the middle is a dose of my super-duper ultra-spectacular love-goddess kisses. And you know what happened to Paul when I gave him one of those.”

  “It’s etched on my memory. I feared for my daughter’s innocence.”

  “I cut things short on that occasion, so nothing much happened. It’ll be a different story tonight, though. You’ll be consumed with bodice-ripping passion, leading in fairly short order to the end phase of the game. The trouble is, too much bodice-ripping can prove a very costly business. Karen is bound to want to buy replacements, and I hate to think what the price tag on a dress like this might be.”

  He ran his finger across the top of her dress, where it met the curve of her breasts. The momentous implications of Donna’s babblings had finally hit home. “I’m sure you’ve got an ingenious solution,” he said softly.

  “That’s the purpose of the beginning phase of the game. We avoid the problem completely by the simple expedient of removing the dress. You’ll cope with that, won’t you Mort?” He was stroking the top of her breasts now, and it was making her feel quite breathless.

  “It shouldn’t be beyond me,” he murmured. “There’s usually a zip down the back.”

  He moved his fingers across her bare shoulders and down her back. “Ah yes, here it is.” He started to pull the zip gently downwards.

  She leaned forward slightly to make it easier for him. “You humans are very strange, you know. I spent ages getting into this dress and making it look right, and almost immediately it’s got to come off again. What’s the sense in that?”

  He ran his fingers slowly across her bare back, and she became aware that a number of interesting physiological changes were starting to take place in Karen’s body.

  “Wearing a dress like that tantalizes the human male,” he murmured. “It makes him eager to find out what’s beneath it.”

  “Really? Well, I hope you won’t be disappointed by what you find. It’ll be very difficult for me to get hold of another body if you are.”

  He glanced down at her, and she noticed that he was getting quite breathless too. “I don’t think I’ll be disappointed, Donna. Not in the least.”

  “Karen’s body does seem to be remarkably well-proportioned, I must admit – for a human body, that is.”

  He smiled. “That’s not the most important thing, you stupid dolphin. The most important thing is that it’s got you inside!”

  Suddenly she was in his arms and he was kissing her cheeks and her eyes and her ears and her neck and her throat, and she was stroking his hair and his back. Then he placed his hands on her shoulders, pushed her gently away, and kissed her on the tip of her nose.

  “I’ve never met anyone who talks as much as you,” he declared, “and most of the time it’s utter claptrap. I don’t want to hear another word from you, young lady, not until the game’s over. And this time I’m going to sweep the board!”

  “Yes, Mort,” she murmured happily.

  Thirty Seven

  The next time she saw Dawn was a couple of days later, on the Sunday morning after the temple service in Eden. She had gone back to her room and was sitting at the table working on her alien invasion game when Dawn walked in.

  She jumped up to greet her visitor. “Hi Dawn! You must try these biscuits, I made them yesterday. They’re great. Mort gave me the recipe.”

  Dawn smiled. “Practising for your cookery lessons?”

  “I just wanted to make you something you’d like. To say thanks for everything.”

  “That’s really nice of you, Donna. I’m touched.” She took one and tried it. “This is really good!” She sounded rather surprised.

  She made herself comfortable on the settee. “Isn’t Clara joining us today?”

  “She’s gone down to the river with Jonah. I told her to, it’s such a lovely day. They might as well make the most of it. They’re so sweet together, it’s lovely to see them.” She skipped back to her stove and put on the kettle.

  Dawn frowned and eyed her suspiciously. “How are Mort and Karen getting on? Rick told me you visited them yesterday evening as well as Friday.”

  “They’re getting on really well. It’s been a great success.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  Donna busied herself with her tea-making, and Dawn noticed that she was humming to herself. She’d never heard her do that. “You seem full of the joys of spring.”

  Donna put down the cups and ran across the room to her and knelt down beside her. Her face was aglow. “I’m so excited, Dawn! Mort and I are getting married!”

  Dawn stared at her in silence. Donna had thought she might fall over backwards at the news or have a fit or maybe even pass out, but she seemed too stunned to be able to show any emotion at all.

  “Mort asked you to marry him?” she managed at last.

  “Actually, it was more that I told him he ought to marry me, and he agreed. With some enthusiasm, I might add.”

  “You told him he ought to marry you?”

  “Well yes. In view of what … happened between us.”

  Dawn closed her eyes. She looked as if she was hoping this was all a bad dream and that if she waited long enough she would awaken in her old familiar world.

  “Do you mean you … and Mort …?”

  “Yes! Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Wonderful? Good grief, it’s terrible! Angela’s his daughter!!!”

  Donna burst out laughing. “Don’t you understand? I take over Karen now.”

  “Oh. Of course.” Dawn opened her eyes. “It’s still terrible.”

  “Why? Karen’s not that much younger than Mort. 15 years younger, in fact. And he’s very young for his years – especially after one of those love-goddess kisses. Wow!”

  Dawn passed her hand over her brow. “Age is not the issue, Donna. It’s your species. You’re not even a primate, dammit! Dolphins can’t possibly marry humans. It’s ridiculous. In fact it’s illegal.”

  “It’s Karen who’ll be marrying him, Silly. There’s nothing ridiculous or illegal about that. She’s human and female and single – an ideal combination if you’re looking for a wife.”

  “But … but she’s a lesbian!”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? The plan is that I’ll take over her body every night, so it’s me that’s making love to him. You’ll tell Rick to give me those drugs every night so that I can do that, won’t you, Dawn? The future happiness of Mort and Karen and me depends upon it. Here, have another biscuit. I made them specially for you.”

  “And Karen’s happy with this arrangement?” Dawn was still struggling to get to grips with the situation.

  “Perfectly happy. Tell you what, why don’t you visit us tonight? I’m sure Angela wouldn’t mind you borrowing her body. Come early, before I arrive to take over Karen, to give yourself time to chat with her. Talk to Mort as well if you like.”

  “I think I’d better. I wanted to talk to Karen anyway, to pick her brains about John Anderson.”

  “Good idea. But you won’t stay too late, will you?"

  “Don’t worry, I won’t interfere with your marriage training.”

  “Thanks, I really appreciate that.” Donna jumped up. “I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. And have ano
ther biscuit. Have all of them.”

  She resumed her tea-making, then hesitated and glanced rather diffidently at her visitor. “Um, while we’re on the subject of marriage training, would you mind taking over Karen’s body one night? I’d be there in the background, of course, taking notes. The thing is, you’re such an expert, and I’m sure both Mort and I would benefit greatly from … you won’t? What about taking over Mort, then? OK, OK, I was only asking…”

  Karen was resting on her bed when Donna took possession of her at around six o’clock that evening. Angela was nowhere in sight, and she presumed that Dawn must already have had her talk with Karen. She got up, changed into a really slinky little number, then had second thoughts and put on a much more modest skirt and top. Any slinkiness could await Dawn’s departure.

  She found Angela a few minutes later sitting with Mort in the lounge. “Hi Mort. Hi … is it Dawn?”

  Mort smiled at her, and Angela’s head nodded. She was looking very serious, Donna noticed, and her heart sank. “Is anything the matter?”

  “Yes,” Dawn said grimly, speaking though Angela’s vocal chords with her Australian accent. “I’ve been talking to Karen.”

  Donna gasped, and she dropped into a chair. Her heart had descended like a dead weight into the pit of her stomach, and she felt slightly sick. “She’s changed her mind, hasn’t she? About Mort and me. She doesn’t want for us to get married.”

  “Oh, she’s more than happy about that. Everyone is more than happy about that. Including Angela.” Dawn permitted a small smile to cross Angela’s face. “Hotpants is the hero of the hour, it seems.”

  Donna breathed again, and her heart picked itself up and did a little dance. “So what’s up?”

  “John Anderson, that’s what’s up.”

  “Oh, him! Why don’t we simply invade his fat head and burn his brains out?”

  “It hasn’t come to that yet. Karen reckons that one of the first things Anderson will want to do is visit that telescope and check Baby’s memories. Of the invasion.”

  Donna shrugged. “So what? They’ll only show the ship landing and the aliens emerging.”

  “Maybe they will only show that, and maybe they won’t. Baby was lying in the grass while Clare attended to Karen, and Anderson was occupied with injecting the Watchers with that wake-up drug. Her lens might have been pointing at the battle – in which case she would have recorded you flying through the air and pouring out fire on the ship and everything else as well, including my own dragon fire, and then he’ll know there were two dragons. Simple deduction will tell him the rest.”

  Donna nodded. “He’ll figure out that I’m as powerful as you, and then he might take steps to neutralize me. And possibly you as well.”

  “Exactly. I’ve phoned Clare, and she told me that she carried Baby in her bag on the journey home, and that Anderson never got near her. And Paul has confirmed that Anderson hasn’t contacted him since then to visit the telescope.”

  “So no one’s looked at Baby’s memories?”

  “Not yet, so far as we know. I’ve arranged for us to go there this evening to check them – and to erase them if necessary. We’ve been waiting for you to get here.”

  Mort stood up and fished his car keys out of his pocket and rattled them. “I want to see your heroic antics for myself. To find out if you’re as hot when you’re flying through the air as you are when you’re writhing beneath the sheets. Come on, Hotpants, let’s burn some rubber!”

  She jumped up and took his hand. “Have you fixed the wedding date yet?” she whispered. “I’m starting to worry that Karen might change her mind.”

  “I arranged it with the vicar at church this morning. It’s in four weeks’ time.”

  She threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. “I love you, Mort,” she squealed.

  He squeezed her to him and kissed her fondly on the tip of the nose. He seemed to like to do that when he was in a playful mood. “I don’t know why you’re worried about Karen. She’s settling in really well. She was prayed for at church this morning, and that seemed to do her no end of good, and the vicar talked to her for ages afterwards–”

  “Just so long as he doesn’t get any ideas!”

  “Don’t worry, she’ll be a respectable married woman soon.”

  “Huh! I know what you humans are like. Even vicars. I watch TV too, you know.”

  “As you’ve pointed out before, you have ways of making her toe the line. Like haunting her. Anyway, as I said, she seems really happy with the way things are going. In fact she actually kissed me on the cheek earlier. I quite forgot myself and patted her on the bottom, but she didn’t seem to mind. I know she’s supposed to be a lesbian, but I get the impression she rather enjoys you taking her over. I think it’s those red-hot kisses of yours – she’s mentioned them several times.”

  “Good heavens! So when we make love–”

  “Come on, you two lovebirds!” Dawn growled behind them. “Let’s get moving.”

  They reached the SETI site in the Mount Lofty range about 40 minutes later, by which time the sun was sinking towards the hills in the west. The guard at the gate was expecting them and waved them through, and when they pulled up in the parking space by the red building between the two domed observatories both Clare and Paul were there to greet them.

  They didn’t look at all happy at being dragged out on a Sunday evening, and no doubt they were very puzzled as to why Dawn was so agitated about what the spirit detector might reveal. Dawn had reminded Mort to say nothing to them about Donna’s fire.

  Clare eyed Karen suspiciously when she stepped out of the car. Donna favoured her with a broad smile. “Guess who’s sitting in my body?”

  Clare groaned. “I might have guessed. And it’ll be Dawn in Angela’s body, I presume.”

  “Naturally.”

  “The two ugly sisters, fawning over Prince Charming Mort.”

  Donna glowered at her. “We’re not ugly! Are we, Mort?”

  “You’re certainly not. You’re my two gorgeous Cinderellas.”

  She turned triumphantly to Clare. “You see?”

  “Yeah, I see. Come on, Cinderella, let’s get this ball over with before it’s bloody midnight and we all turn into pumpkins.”

  Dawn and Donna exchanged glances. Clare and Paul evidently intended to view Baby’s memories too.

  They entered the red building and descended the dimly-lit spiral staircase to the underground tunnel housing the optics for combining the images from the two telescopes. It was then just a short distance along the tunnel to where the combining optics were housed. There was Baby, bolted to the metal framework immediately below the optics, her lens pointed at the mirror that reflected the combined image. They all stepped onto the low platform and crowded round Baby’s screen, which was glowing faintly in the darkness.

  The fuzzy images of stars were moving across it as the twin telescopes slowly tracked their zigzag route through the Milky Way, searching for invaders from across the galaxy. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack – though if a neurospace object did appear in the path of the telescopes, Baby would spot it immediately.

  “You’d better take charge,” Paul muttered to Dawn. “I still can’t get the hang of your crap menu system.”

  “OK.” Angela’s body pushed forward and pressed the buttons on the top of Baby’s casing. Dawn was very glad that Paul found the menus confusing, for it meant that Baby’s memories were a little more secure. This time she didn’t attempt to explain to him what she was doing. A date and time appeared at the bottom of the screen, and then the screen went blank as she rapidly tracked back a few days and hours, to the moment when the invasion began.

  Baby’s screen turned blue, and there was a bright point of light in the centre of it. They watched in fascinated silence as the point grew in size to become a small golden disc and then a very large flying saucer. It was difficult to see it clearly, because it was jiggling around the screen – Clare had been h
olding Baby, and her hands were evidently shaking. They saw the ship landing and the ramp open up, and then the golden pentagonal portal slide down it. Dawn paused the playback, and briefly reminded them of the purpose of such a structure, pointing out that this one was similar to the portals used by COBRA.

  “As you know, it’s a kind of teleportation device for spirits. Karen’s spirit went into it, together with two of the aliens, and she and they were immediately transported into her body. The COBRA portal was used slightly differently, to transport the COBRA members to their ship. That’s how their rapture experiences worked.”

  Dawn pressed a button and the playback resumed, and they saw the giant wasps walk down the ramp. On the small screen they looked far less menacing than in real-life, but even so Karen’s body reacted in a most disconcerting way, and Donna found herself starting to panic. Her pulse rate increased dramatically and her stomach started to churn. She imagined Karen’s spirit sitting in the cathedral of her mind, observing everything in that stained-glass window. Her traumatic reaction to what she was seeing was so strong that it triggered her brain’s fear response, despite Donna’s spirit being in control.

  “I’d better leave,” Donna grunted. “Karen’s body is reacting violently. I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Clare gave her a sympathetic glance and moved aside. Donna pushed past and sat down on the edge of the low platform and stared along the dimly-lit tunnel and hoped that the nausea would die down. However, the darkness did nothing to soothe Karen’s tormented spirit, and Donna wondered what she could do to help.

  There was one thing she could do, she supposed. She cast her mind back 48 hours, to that moment when she was lying naked in Mort’s arms and about to deliver that first sensational love-goddess kiss. Their lips touched and seemed to merge together, and for a timeless instant it was as if all the energies in the universe were focussed in that merging, and fire boiled through her body as fiercely as the dragon-fire that had erupted within her at the battle of the aliens.

  And as she relived that moment of incandescent passion, Karen’s agitation died away, and Donna felt in its place a warm contented glow and a feeling of great love for her. And she knew then that Karen would forever want her guardian angel to come upon her each night and, in her body, make love to Mort.

  “Donna!” It was Angela’s voice, calling out from the shadows. “Are you OK? You’d better see this.”

  “Coming!” She jumped up onto the low platform and pushing past the others to peer at Baby’s glowing screen. The jerkiness that had marred the picture earlier had gone, and Donna realised that Baby was now lying on the ground, where Clare had dropped her in her haste to get to Karen. By chance Baby’s lens was pointing almost directly at the alien ship, and a red dragon – Donna – was swooping over it, raking it with a fierce blast of fire.

  “I’ve told them that the dragon’s you,” Angela’s voice whispered in her ear. Donna glanced at Clare and Paul, wondering how they were reacting. They were staring spellbound at the screen. It was now showing the dragon pulling out of her dive. Now she was flapping her wings madly as she climbed high above the ship, chased by dozens of the wasps. Reaching the top of her climb, she turned and hurled herself back down, fire blazing from her jaws, and cut a swath of destruction through the aliens to attack the ship again.

  They watched as her second line of fire crossed the first, quartering the ship so that its upper surface peeled away to reveal the enormous distended body of the alien queen. Above it the red dragon was throwing out fire at a swarm of wasps that were attacking her. They watched as the dragon fought her way through the swarm to rain down fire on the queen, and then they saw the second dragon – Dawn – join her, to spit more fire on the aliens.

  Then they saw a number of wasps break away from the rest and stream towards the golden portal. Moments later the first dragon plunged down towards them, but the wasps had a head start, and by the time she reached the portal two of them had made it inside. They saw the second dragon swoop down and pour out fire on the other wasps, and after that the sudden disappearance of the portal. Dawn paused the playback at that point. Donna had explained the implications of that event to her that morning in Eden.

  “I was too slow,” Donna murmured apologetically. “Those two aliens escaped.”

  “Slow?” Mort gave a short laugh. “I hardly think so. You were lightning fast!”

  “The trouble is, they’ve almost certainly been returned to their bodies on their home planet, and told all their little friends what happened. Before we know it, we’ll have another flying saucer on our hands.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dawn declared. “They won’t be back, I’ll tell you why. When I started to attack them, they knew exactly how to get the better of me. They had obviously fought dragons before. They came to Earth expecting it to be controlled by COBRA, instead they found dragons. That was a complete surprise. They know now that all their preparations have been thwarted, and that they can’t possibly overcome us, at least not without a very costly fight.”

  “I think perhaps you’re right,” Donna said, and she told them how the portal had disappeared the moment she touched it. “It was like it was programmed to recognise dragons. They know all about us, and they’re frightened.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Clare muttered in the darkness. “We’ll know soon enough. If in a few days’ time we see more ships heading towards us, we’ll know we’re in for it.”

  No one had any reply to that, and Dawn resumed the playback. They watched as Dawn destroyed the remaining aliens, and then they saw the ship wink out of existence. When it was over Dawn said: “I’m going to have to wipe that battle scene. John Anderson and the Watchers must never learn of Donna’s power. It would be so easy for them to kill her dolphin body.”

  Nobody disagreed, and in a very short while all record of Donna’s great victory was erased forever, and the fuzzy images of stars were once more moving across Baby’s screen.

  Mort put his arm round Donna’s shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. “You were amazing,” he murmured. Clare and Paul evidently thought so too, for there was a noticeable absence of any cutting remarks from Clare, and Paul was eyeing her with something approaching respect.

  “The next job,” Dawn announced, turning to Paul and Clare, “is to decide what we’re going to do about you two, now that you’ve discovered the truth about Donna.”

  They stared at her in alarm. “What do you mean?” Paul’s voice, Donna noticed, had a slightly higher pitch than usual.

  “I really ought to wipe out your memories of this evening,” Dawn told him. Although she was speaking with Angela’s vocal chords, she had managed to inject a hard edge to her voice. “The trouble is, wiping out memories is a rather hit and miss affair, and I’d do quite a bit of damage to your brain. You know what happened to Karen, and Donna was trying not to harm her. You’d probably spend the rest of your days in a psychiatric institution. It might be more humane to kill you.”

  “If you’re afraid we might reveal anything–” The pitch of Paul’s voice had gone higher still.

  “That’s precisely what I am afraid of.”

  “I promise I’ll say nothing. Why should I say anything? I can keep a secret as well as anyone.”

  “Well… If you really can keep a secret, Paul. Of course, if any of this leaks out, and I find that you’re responsible–”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t say a word.”

  “And what about you, Clare?”

  “It’s my duty to tell Dr Song,” Clare replied coldly. “Everything.” She obviously wasn’t at all fazed by Dawn’s threats, and Donna wondered if she was carrying a gun.

  “And who will Dr Song tell?”

  Clare shrugged. “No one. So far as I know.”

  “Very well. But impress on her the need for absolute secrecy. Donna is one of this planet’s most precious resources, and she must be protected at all costs.”

  “Of course.”

  Donna sta
red from one to the other in the half-light. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. She, a dolphin, was one of Earth’s most precious resources? But Dawn seemed completely serious, and Clare certainly wasn’t arguing the point. It made her feel very proud, but also rather worried. Being as important as that could have all kinds of unforeseen repercussions.

  She moved closer to Mort and slipped her hand in his. “Do you mind?” she whispered. “Me being one of Earth’s most precious resources, I mean?”

  He glanced down at her in surprise. “You’ve always been that to me, my precious. Ever since that first day, when you told me you were a guardian angel and very powerful. I knew then that you would be quite a handful.”

  “You don’t feel daunted by me or anything like that?”

  “Of course not. To me you’re just a very unusual and very lovable young lady who likes cooking and playing games and teasing and cuddling up to me. I think you’re adorable.”

  Clare and Paul were staring at them with expressions of total bemusement. Clare, for once, seemed lost for words.

  “It’s all right,” Dawn told them, “I haven’t pickled your brains and you’re not hallucinating, this is real. Believe it or not, they’re getting married!”

  “Heaven help us,” Clare gasped. “Next we’ll be hearing the patter of tiny fins, and then your precious resources will be bloody everywhere!”

  Donna was about to explain, somewhat indignantly, the precise nature of her relationship with Mort when the strident noise of an alarm reverberated around the chamber. It almost made her jump out of Karen’s skin. “What on earth’s that?” she cried.

  “It’s the spirit detector – I’ve hooked it up to our alarm system,” Paul shouted above the din. “It’s spotted something!”

  They all turned to the screen. Sure enough a bright, clear point of light was moving across it. Dawn stabbed at the buttons on the top of Baby’s casing and the noise stopped. “It’s another spaceship,” she whispered. “Those wasps are coming back!”

  Paul fiddled with a control panel at the side of the optics above Baby, and the point of light stopped moving across the screen. Donna realised he had locked the twin telescopes onto that tiny patch of sky.

  Dawn immediately zoomed the image, and the fuzzy points of light that were the stars moved outwards beyond the edges of the screen. The bright point of light at the centre widened and then split into two, and as she increased the magnification it split into several more, and by the time she reached maximum zoom and the image had started to pixellate there were perhaps a dozen bright points spread over the central part of the screen.

  “That can’t be a ship,” Mort exclaimed.

  It was Clare who stated the obvious. “It’s a bloody armada!”

  Thirty Eight

  By the time they left the underground tunnel and emerged onto the surface it was about 8.30 and night had fallen. As no one had eaten, they decided to drop in at a restaurant in town. Paul and Clare led the way in Paul’s car, and half an hour later they were sitting around a table in a secluded alcove. It was not the restaurant from which Paul and Clare had been so unceremoniously ejected a couple of weeks ago, Donna noted.

  By now Donna was quite at home with human dining rituals, and she wasn’t at all fazed by the array of cutlery laid out neatly in front of her nor the wine glasses nearby. She didn’t even glare at the waiter when he opened out the neatly-folded napkins and placed them on their laps, presumably because he considered his guests incapable of performing that simple operation for themselves.

  Mort, sitting opposite her, was perusing the menu. “I presume you fancy fish, my dear?”

  “No, I’ve decided to be more adventurous. I’m likely to be around for another 30 years – assuming those aliens don’t wipe us out – so I ought to get used to other food.”

  “Good idea.” He turned the page. “You’ve got plenty to choose from here.”

  “I think I’ll have wasps,” she said without bothering to look at the choices. “That seems appropriate in the circumstances. No, I think I’ll have bees, they look juicier. Do they do fried bees?”

  “I’m afraid they don’t. Humans in western societies don’t normally eat wasps or bees or any kind of insects.”

  “How extraordinary! I thought all omnivores ate insects. Well, that’s something we’ll have to put right. We’ll open the first insect restaurant in town, Mort. We’ll make a fortune. You’ve got a big garden for all those beehives, and we’ll use some of those spare rooms in your house to breed–”

  “Donna!” Dawn hissed. “Choose something. Or shall I choose for you?”

  “OK, I’ll have a bird. I know humans eat birds. Seagull will do. I’ve always wanted to try seagulls, but I could never catch one. Though I did get a cormorant once, when it was diving for fish…”

  “For heaven’s sake!” Paul growled, throwing his menu down in disgust. “Doesn’t she ever stop? She’s putting me off my food! Look, civilized people don’t eat that kind of thing. Order duck for her.”

  Donna scowled at him. “You are obviously unaware of the derivation of ‘omnivore’, Dr Gibson. Or if you are, you interpret ‘omni’ in a very restrictive way. The Romans, who were very civilized and who gave us the word, certainly understood it correctly. They had no qualms whatsoever about eating seagulls and bees–”

  “You’ve made your point, Donna,” Clare said tiredly. “This is supposed to be a war meeting, not a Latin lesson. Now let’s order our food so we can get down to business.”

  A few minutes later, when the waiter had taken their order, Clare asked the question that was uppermost on everyone’s mind – everyone, that is, apart from Donna, who was now rubbing her ankle against Mort’s leg under the table and wondering if lobster, which he had chosen, was an aphrodisiac.

  “So what are we going to do? There must be enough of those damn aliens heading our way to keep Donna’s insect restaurant supplied for the next thousand years.”

  “Except they exist only in neurospace,” Dawn pointed out. “They’re spirits, on spirit journeys. They can’t bomb Earth or anything like that.”

  “They can possess people. Like they possessed Karen. And if they chose the right people they could take over the world.”

  “Their victims would have to allow them in,” Dawn pointed out. “Spirits can’t just march into someone’s mind and take them over.”

  “Donna took me over easily enough, on my first date with Paul,” Clare muttered. “All that was needed was some trickery on your part.”

  “You’re assuming that what we’re facing is more of those giant wasps. These aliens might be from other planets. They might be benign.”

  Clare smiled grimly. “They might be – but I doubt it. We have to prepare for the worst, you know that as well as I do. So, we assume they’re hostile. What do we do?”

  Dawn shrugged. “It’s obvious. Donna and I fly into space and intercept their ships and blast them out of existence.”

  Donna pricked up her ears. This was the kind of thing that normally only happened in movies, and it sounded very exciting. Perhaps they would make a movie of it one day and she would be a film star and a celebrity. Though the trouble with being a celebrity was that everybody wanted to know about your love life, and in her case that could prove most embarrassing. It would certainly raise a few eyebrows at Mort’s church.

  “You could intercept them before they even reached here?” Clare asked. “And do your fire-throwing stunts in space?”

  Dawn nodded, and Clare breathed a sigh of relief. “In which case we don’t have a problem.”

  Dawn thought for a while. “It’s not as simple as that, I’m afraid. We don’t know if they’re hostile. I can’t possibly incinerate them until I find out.”

  “But that’s ridiculous!” Clare exclaimed, staring at her in disbelief. “You haven’t time for that, they might be only hours away. You can’t pussy-foot around!”

  Dawn stared back at her implacably. Although she wa
s staring through Angela’s eyes, they had taken on a strange steely quality, as though something deadly lurked within. A startled expression crossed Clare’s features. “OK, you can’t just wipe them out,” she muttered, lowering her gaze.

  “So how do we find out if they’re malign?” Donna asked, finding herself siding with Clare for a change. She couldn’t help feeling that Dawn was being somewhat pernickety in her reluctance to wipe out the invaders. That fleet of ships had to be more of those wasps.

  “I’ll intercept them, but instead of blasting them out of the sky I’ll attempt to communicate with them.”

  Donna gaped at her. “You mean board their ships? That sounds really scary.”

  Dawn shrugged. “Somehow I’ll find out what we’re facing. If they’re hostile, I’ll destroy them.”

  “They’ll destroy you, more likely!”

  “If they can destroy me, then there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them.”

  “I’m coming too,” Donna reminded her. “That’ll double your chances.”

  “No, you’re not,” Dawn replied firmly, “I need you here. If I’m to intercept those ships I need to set a very precise course, and I can’t do that without your help. Even so I might miss them, and then you’ll be needed to defend Earth.”

  “I was wondering how you thought you were going to meet up with them,” Paul grunted. “They could be dozens of light-years away, and completely invisible without a very powerful telescope.”

  “Will they be above the horizon at midday tomorrow?” Dawn asked.

  Paul did a quick mental calculation. “Yes. Just.”

  “Good. Now, this is my plan…”

  Just before midday the next day – Monday – they assembled again in the dark tunnel beneath the twin telescopes. As before, Dawn was occupying Angela’s body and Donna was occupying Karen. Mort had insisted on being present, although he had had to cancel a business meeting.

  Clare and Paul had been there most of the morning, and Paul now had a rough estimate of the distance of the armada and when it would arrive. The ships, he told them, “are coming straight for us.” He had calculated that the wasps’ flying saucer had been travelling at around one light-year an hour, and assuming that this armada was travelling at the same speed, the expected time of arrival was in the region of 30 hours. Given the large margin of error in his calculations, this meant that the aliens could arrive as soon as Eden appeared the next day, which was in 24 hours time, or at the latest the day after that.

  Clare had phoned Dr Song at the UN and told her the news, and she had also notified John Anderson. Apparently he was noticeably less enthusiastic about an alien encounter than before. He even told her that he did not wish to visit the SETI site to see the armada for himself. “He’s really had the wind taken out of his sails,” Clare commented.

  Joining Clare and Paul on the low platform beneath the optics, Dawn and Donna saw a faint scattering of fuzzy stars on Baby’s screen, with a clear bright point of light in the middle of them that was the alien armada.

  “Memorize that pattern of stars,” Paul said to Dawn. He sounded very business-like, Donna noticed, as though he was quite enjoying the challenge they were all facing. “It’s below the main mass of stars of the Milky Way, and you should be able to spot it once you’re in space. It will help you to check your course – if you head out towards it at or near your maximum speed, which I suppose is the speed the wasps were travelling at, you should meet the armada in about 15 hours.”

  Dawn, in Angela’s body, stared at the pattern on the screen and nodded. “Rick’s going to drip feed my body with nutrients and the trance drug,” she told them. “I’ll remain in this trance for as long as it takes.”

  Donna took Angela’s hand. “Just make sure you come back, that’s all.”

  “Don’t worry. Just concentrate on what you have to do to get me there.”

  “Head off towards…” Paul checked the screen above his control panel, then gave her a GPS fix. “Then carry straight on through the upper atmosphere and into space. You’ll be within the field of view of the telescopes, and we’ll send you regular course corrections.”

  She nodded. “I’ll go pretty slowly to begin with, just a thousand miles a second or so, until you tell me I’m spot on target. Then I’ll hit the accelerator and head off as fast as I can – which as you say is probably about a light-year an hour.”

  Mort was looking distinctly unhappy. “If you’re travelling away from us that fast, and the aliens are heading towards us at a light-year an hour, how on earth will you stop and match speeds with them? As soon as you spot them you’ll be past them.”

  “There’s no momentum in neurospace,” Dawn told him. “I’ll simply slam on the brakes, turn round, and step on the gas. Like I said, driving my souped-up vintage Beetle is a piece of cake.”

  Clare rolled her eyes skywards but said nothing. Mort was still looking unhappy. “It’s a vacuum in space, and the temperature is an awful lot of degrees below zero. Even those aliens needed a huge airtight spaceship to come here. And you’re travelling in a car?”

  Dawn smiled at him. “I’ve travelled in space before,” she reminded him. “Everything will be fine. My engine takes everything from the bloodstream in my body, including oxygen.”

  She checked the time on Karen’s watch. “Eden should have formed by now. So unless there are any more questions I’ll be on my way.” She glanced around at the others.

  “You look after yourself,” Paul said gruffly, and Clare nodded and shook her hand. Donna took her other hand and squeezed it.

  Dawn turned to Mort. “Hold onto me, in case Angela collapses. And I’ll see you all … sometime.”

  Angela’s eyes closed and her body went limp in Mort’s arms. Almost immediately she blinked and shook her head a couple of times to clear it, then pushed herself upright.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she mumbled. “Dawn’s left me.”

  They all turned to Baby’s screen. A bright red object half-filled it, masking everything else, but it was shrinking so fast that within a couple of seconds the bright white point of light that was the alien armada had reappeared and the red dot was moving off to the right.”

  “Tell her it’s left hand down a bit,” Clare muttered.

  “I will, right away.” Donna replied, turning Karen’s body towards Mort. “Grab hold of me, Mort.”

  “No problem,” he smiled, slipping his hands round her waist. She wrapped her arms round his neck and cuddled up to him, and then, just like Angela, her eyes closed and she went limp. A couple of seconds later they opened again.

  “Our Donna’s quite a girl,” Karen murmured as she extricated herself from Mort’s embrace.

  A few moments later Donna’s spirit-world James Bond car skidded to a halt in the temple forecourt. Although Eden was still shrouded in pre-dawn darkness, she’d spotted the golden luminescence of the temple from afar. The car disappeared into thin air and Donna hurried into the temple. Clara had just arrived and was lighting the first candle.

  “You’re early today,” Clara commented when she saw her.

  “The aliens are back. Dozens of ships!”

  “What?” Clara almost dropped her taper. Although Donna had seen her earlier that morning in Crocodile Bay, she had been unable to tell her the news. Partly this was because of the limitations of dolphin language, but mainly because their whistles travel a fair distance through the water and it would have been impossible to prevent others overhearing.

  “They’ll reach us tomorrow or the next day – unless we destroy them.” Donna quickly explained Dawn’s plan to intercept them. “I’m going to send her course corrections telepathically,” she said. “By taking over the communal mind. Like Dawn takes it over on Passion-play Sundays.”

  Clara gazed at her in disbelief. “But will the Mind accept you?”

  “Dawn says it will, and I’m sure she’s right. I don’t think it can distinguish between the two of us. I can touch the altar quite safely, I’ve tr
ied it before. Watch!”

  She walked up to the great altar and boldly rested her hand on it. Clara jumped back in alarm, but there were no thunderbolts. There wasn’t even a threatening rumble.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to take the temple service today,” Donna told her. “Helena will have sorted out the hymns. Get everyone to pray for Dawn and me – say we’re on an important secret mission. I’ll be in and out during the service, but in the shape of a dragon. You’d better warn them – tell them it’s Dawn.”

  Clara nodded. She didn’t seem at all fazed by the prospect of taking the service, Donna noted.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to hurry,” she said. Before Clara could reply she had turned herself into a dragon, and with a great flapping of wings she leapt into the air and fluttered onto the great altar.

  As she sank into the altar, it seemed to Donna that her mind was expanding rapidly outwards to embrace the farthest reaches of space. It was of course an illusion, as also was the sense that she was somehow at one with the universe and aware of all its parts. Her oneness was with the amalgamated memories of the dolphin community. She was aware of Clara, and of the loneliness of Clara’s past and her desire for acceptance and her great delight in Jonah. She was also aware of Clara’s knowledge, gleaned from Clare’s mind, of the workings of the UN and of its secret tentacles across the planet.

  She was aware too of Jonah and his affection for her. She felt his pleasure in Clara, and she saw something of the depth of his knowledge of English social history gleaned from John Anderson’s mind. She also knew Jonah’s experience of the impenetrable wall surrounding part of Anderson’s mind in which was hidden his secret knowledge of the Watchers and their plans, plans that might include taking over the Mind.

  Donna was also aware of the vast dream that was flowing through the Mind, of Eden with its castles and farms and the town and the temple, and everyone waking up and getting dressed and preparing to attend the temple service or indulge in other human activities.

  At any other time she would have found all of this most fascinating, but she was in too much of a hurry to attend to it now. Dawn had explained to her exactly what she needed to do. She allowed fire to erupt in the depths of her being, just as Dawn did during her Passion plays, and focussed her thoughts on that picture of Baby’s screen showing the red point of light veering to the right away from the white point of light. She had to fill the Mind with that image, so that it would be pulsed telepathically into space. If aliens living at the heart of the galaxy could receive the Mind’s telepathy during those Passion plays, when it was empowered by dragon fire, then so surely could Dawn’s spirit aboard her vintage VW Beetle in near-Earth space.

  Donna held that image for a few seconds, and then allowed her fires to die down. Withdrawing from the Mind, she found herself fluttering above the altar, with Clara nearby and still lighting candles. Ignoring her, Donna flapped her wings and headed out through the open doorway onto the forecourt. Ascended high above it, she transformed herself into her human form and enclosed herself in her James Bond car. Then she spoke the GPS coordinates of the SETI site in the Mount Lofty Range into her satnav and hit the accelerator.

  A few moments later, half-way round the world, Karen gave a slight start. “Hold on to me, Mort,” she exclaimed. “Hotpants is back!”

  “Don’t call her that!” he whispered. “Clare might hear, and she’ll tease her mercilessly. Donna would never forgive us.”

  “Sorry,” she whispered back, and collapsed into his arms.

  “You’re preparing Karen for the big day, I see,” Donna observed tartly when she found herself in Mort’s arms.

  “She’s a keen student,” he replied, “and she’s quite dishy. It seemed a shame to miss the opportunity.”

  “Pig!” she exclaimed, and kissed him lightly on the lips. Clare, off to the side, was studiously ignoring them.

  Donna turned to Baby’s screen. The red dot was now at the extreme right of it, but was slowly edging back towards the middle. It was also moving slowly upwards.

  “It’s right hand down a bit now,” Clare said. “And tell her to stop going uphill!”

  “I hope I’m not exhausting you, Mort,” Donna murmured as she wrapped her arms around him and prepared to speed off to Eden again.

  It was about an hour later that Donna’s journeys between Karen’s mind and Eden came to an end. If Mort wasn’t exhausted, then she certainly was, for she had lost count of the number of times she had gone backwards and forwards in her mission to broadcast course corrections. The adjustments that Dawn had to make had grown increasingly smaller, and now the red dot was superimposed over the white dot in the middle of Baby’s screen, hiding it completely. It had been that way for several minutes.

  “That’s as close as we’ll get,” Paul announced. “You can tell her to step on the gas.”

  Donna departed on her weary way for a final time, and a couple of minutes later the others saw the red point of light suddenly shrink to nothing and the white dot was visible once more. Dawn was on her way to the stars and her rendezvous with the alien fleet at a speed that was impossible to comprehend.

  Thirty Nine

  As Dawn roared into the sky above the Pacific Ocean, her foot pressed down on the accelerator pedal, the units on the speedometer on the Beetle’s dashboard rapidly changed from hundreds of miles per hour to thousands of miles per hour to tens of thousands of miles per hour and finally to hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. She had no idea how it was able to calculate this, and could only suppose that, like the engine itself, it was using the mysterious capabilities of the dragon part of her brain.

  She lifted her foot from the accelerator and the engine went silent. She watched the moon slip rapidly behind her and then gazed through the windscreen at the Milky Way, a broad ribbon of stars stretched out before her across the blackness of space. The information from the real world reaching her brain was too sparse to distinguish the individual stars, instead it appeared as an amorphous luminous mass.

  Much more interesting was the telepathic imagery that she knew must be coming from the Mind. It was waking to the dawn, millions of miles below her in the Tienshan Mountains, and, powered by the fused minds of a thousand telepathic dolphins, broadcasting into space, perhaps reaching as far as the edge of the solar system. She had no idea why or how it was doing this, but whatever the reason, a confusion of images flickered through her mind. She glimpsed the temple and the township and the castle as well as some of the farms, as the Mind recreated them from the memories of the waking dolphins.

  So far everything was going according to plan: she had air to breath, she was comfortable, and she was picking up the Mind’s telepathy. All she could do now was wait for Donna’s course corrections. Able at last to relax, she leaned back in her seat, stared out at the bright fuzzy ribbon of the Milky Way spread out before her, and let the faint images of the Mind’s telepathy flicker across her vision.

  She wasn’t aware of the kind of weightlessness that astronauts experience, for spirits are always weightless. Instead she felt exactly as she would if she was in her car back on Earth. Her Beetle was generating its own neurospace equivalent of gravity, pulling her into her seat. She’d experienced the same phenomenon on the COBRA spaceship.

  The telepathy from the Mind suddenly strengthened, becoming so strong that it blocked out the images of space. Donna’s fire must be empowering it! An image of Baby’s screen filled her vision, with the red point of light that represented her vehicle moving away to the right. After a few seconds the image disappeared and the fuzzy stars reappeared in front of her. Dawn leant forward and pressed a button on the steering column: this released the steering, allowing her to twist the steering wheel a fraction to the left. She locked the steering again, sat back, and continued waiting.

  A few minutes later she received another blast of powerful telepathy with another course correction, and this time she had to twist the wheel slightly to the right and push it up a
millimetre of two. Over the next hour she received many more corrections, until finally she received a picture of Baby’s screen telling her she was spot on target. At last she was on course to intercept the alien armada.

  She pressed her foot down hard on the accelerator, and the Beetle’s massive engine roared into life. Keeping her foot held down, she watched as the dial on her speedometer climbed higher and higher, while the engine continued to roar. There was no sense of acceleration, for spirits, along with all other neurospace objects, have no mass. After a couple of minutes the speedo recalibrated itself to read in millions of miles per hour, shortly after that in tens of millions of miles per hour, and finally in tenths of light-years per hour. The needle continued to climb, and finally came to rest at 1.3 light-years per hour. This, she supposed, was the neurospace limit – the speed of telepathy.

  She released the accelerator, and the engine went silent. She was now far out in space, beyond the limits of the solar system, and the sun just another star in the middle of her rear-view mirror. Even the background telepathic imagery being broadcast by the Mind had disappeared.

  Settling back in her seat, Dawn was suddenly overcome by weakness, and she felt dizzy and breathless. She had the sense that something inside her had been left behind, but what it was she had no idea. Her breathlessness grew worse and she started to gulp in air. And then she realised, to her horror, what the problem was: the air inside her cabin was thinning!

  What could have happened? Had her vehicle been punctured? That seemed impossible, for any meteorites or other physical objects would pass straight through a neurospace object without leaving a trace. Certainly there was no hiss of escaping air.

  Slowly her breathing returned to normal, and she began to relax. The problem, she decided, was that her engine had consumed all her sleeping body’s reserves of energy and oxygen, leaving hardly any to support her vital functions. Fortunately Rick had rigged up a drip-feed to keep her bloodstream topped up with nutrients. She closed her eyes and waited for the tiredness to pass.

  After a while she opened her eyes again. She hadn’t exactly snoozed – she supposed that spirits couldn’t actually do that – but she had at least rested, and now she was feeling a little better, though certainly not her usual self. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost two hours since she had launched herself into space. Gazing out through her windscreen, she noticed that the fuzzy shape of the Milky Way looked exactly as it had earlier, as though she hadn’t travelled any distance at all. Then she reflected that even at her mind-boggling speed it would be another hour before she reached even the nearest star.

  Then she remembered Paul’s instructions to check for that pattern of stars within which would be the alien armada. She must be in a dazed state to have forgotten that! She fixed her gaze on the fuzzy splodges of light lying straight ahead, below the main mass of stars, and sure enough she could just make out the tell-tale pattern. There was, of course, no gleaming neurospace point of light in the midst of them, for it would be many hours before that would become visible. She closed her eyes again and dozed and waited for those life-giving nutrients to reinvigorate her spirit self.

  She opened them just over an hour later. She felt refreshed, though still not fully recovered. She noticed that a star off to her left was quite bright and was moving relative to the other stars. She realised that it must be close by, and she wondered if she might be pulled off-course by its gravitational field. But she quickly rejected that idea, for if she wasn’t affected by acceleration then she wouldn’t be affected by gravity either.

  She wondered where she was located in the vast galaxy of stars. It would be nice to have some kind of visual display, showing her route. She pressed the button on her satnav, hoping it might oblige, but the only message that appeared on its tiny screen was ERROR. She supposed it only worked in the vicinity of Earth.

  She settled back in her seat again. A visual display wouldn’t really show her anything that she didn’t already know, for in spite of her colossal speed, she had hardly moved at all from edge of the galaxy, where the sun and Earth were located.

  Slowly the hours ticked by. She still wasn’t her usual self, and she still had the feeling that she had left something of herself behind, though it was nothing she could put her finger on. Perhaps it was just her mysterious dragon self reacting to the fact that she was such an incomprehensibly vast distance away from home and Rick and Donna and everyone she loved .

  After a while she stretched her legs out across the passenger seat and leant her back against the door, only occasionally pushing herself up and glancing through the windscreen to check the heavens ahead. The tell-tale pattern of stars remained firmly fixed in sky ahead of her, and there was still no sign of bright point of light that was the armada. Most of the time her mind was a blank, though she did at one point wonder about her physical body back in her bedroom in Honiara, being fed nutrients through those tubes. Rick would be popping in occasionally to check up on her. She wondered, after all these years of marriage, whether he would steal a kiss from her sleeping lips. She very much hoped he would. She would be sure to be aware of it, and that would take away the sense of loss that was afflicting her.

  It was then that she made the awful discovery: she no longer had any sense of her physical body! Normally on a spirit journey she would have some awareness of it, but now there was absolutely nothing. Desperately, she felt around in her mind, trying to detect something, perhaps the breeze from the ceiling fan wafting over her sleeping body. But there was nothing, nothing at all. It must be the enormous distance she had travelled, she decided, it was too great to maintain those tenuous links.

  But it couldn’t be that. She was still linked to her body, for oxygen extracted from her bloodstream was continuing to flow into her cabin. The sense that something had gone missing from inside her had hit her almost at the start of her journey, immediately after that period of rapid acceleration when she passed out of the neighbourhood of the solar system and its surrounding stars. And then she knew what it was: either the prolonged acceleration, or her departure from that region of space, had cut the bonds between her spirit and her physical body, just as Angela’s spirit had been cut off from her body four years earlier!

  The implications were terrifying. For it meant that her physical body was now in a coma, and even if Rick injected a wake-up drug she would not return to it. She was marooned in space!

  No wonder those wasps were so desperate to reach their portal, willing even to risk Donna’s fire to do so. They too had been cut off from their sleeping bodies, and with their ship destroyed and much of their hive as well, that portal was their only route home. And if there was such a thing as a galactic civilisation, then it too could not exist without portals.

  One thing was certain: without a portal, she would never find her way home unaided. Her satnav didn’t work this far from Earth, and it would be impossible to point her car in exactly the right direction. She would be at least ten degrees out, which would translate into a vast distance over the course of her return journey. The sun would be just one of a million stars surrounding her. Her best hope was to locate those alien ships and travel to Earth with them. It meant that she could not destroy them, or at least not all of them, even if they were hostile.

  She looked at the dashboard clock. She was now almost 12 hours out, and according to Paul’s calculations it would be another three hours before she would intercept the alien fleet. Well, his calculations had a large margin of error, and she ought to keep her eyes fixed on that pattern of stars ahead of her, to make sure she didn’t miss the alien ships.

  And so she sat upright in her seat and concentrated her attention on the sky ahead. The minutes passed, and stretched into an hour, and nothing changed. One or two stars around her slowly moved relative to the others, eventually slipping behind her, but there was nothing else to relieve the boredom. There was no cause for alarm that she still hadn’t spotted the alien fleet, of course. For she was
still more than an hour away from the probable contact time.

  After a while it occurred to her that she should reduce her speed, otherwise she would be past the alien ships almost as soon as she spotted them, and then she would find it impossible to catch them up. She gently pressed the brake pedal, keeping her foot down until the units on the speedometer were showing just tens of thousands of miles per second.

  Now she searched the heavens all around her, for if the ships were close by they wouldn’t necessarily be directly ahead. It would be a miracle if they were, for it would have meant that the course she had set while near the earth would have been spot on.

  And then, about ten minutes later, she spotted it, a clear bright point of light to the left of the windscreen. She immediately slammed on the brakes, and, unlocking the steering, she twisted the wheel hard to the left, then hit the accelerator. The engine burst into life, and she headed not for the point of light itself but well to the left of it, so that she would cross the path on which it was travelling. After a few minutes, when she reached about a quarter of her maximum speed she cut the engine and coasted, her eyes fixed on the tiny point of bright light. The expenditure of energy had left her slightly out of breath.

  The bright dot slowly moved left across her field of view. She twisted the steering wheel a little to the left again and hit the accelerator. She was still a little off-course, but after several further manoeuvres the point of light wasn’t moving to the left or right or upwards or downwards but coming straight at her. She hit the brakes again, keeping her eyes fixed on that point of light. It remained motionless, right in the centre of her windscreen, heading directly for her.

  It must still be a huge distance from her, for it wasn’t growing in size. But how far away? There was no way of telling, but once it did start to grow in size it would almost immediately split into a number of individual points and seconds after that the ships would streak past her and converge to become a tiny single point in her rear-view mirror. If that happened it would take her ages to turn round and get up speed and catch up with them. In fact, if they were travelling at the maximum neurospace speed she would never catch up with them.

  She couldn’t risk that. Gently pressing the accelerator, she pulled down hard on the steering wheel so that the car did a tight turn. She twisted in her seat so that she could keep her eyes on the point of light, and as soon as it appeared in the rear window she turned the wheel in the opposite direction. A few more adjustments, and the point was in the centre of the window. That meant that she and the armada were heading in the same direction.

  The bright dot was now in the centre of her rear-view mirror, so she was able to watch it without twisting her head. For about five minutes it sat there motionless against the black backdrop of space, and then, quite suddenly, it grew larger and split into a small cluster of dots. She immediately hit the accelerator, and the engine roared into life once more. She held her foot down, keeping her eyes fixed on that mirror. She watched the points of light fan outwards as the armada slowly caught up with her.

  The bright points drew level with her, and she cut her engine. Now she could count three points to the left and four to the right, and she supposed there were probably others out of sight above and below her. She glanced in her mirror, and there was a point directly behind her. It rapidly expanded and became a luminous disc, and then it grew so large that it filled her mirror. She hit her accelerator to match its speed, and a few moments later it drifted past her, on her right side.

  It was, she saw, a golden flying saucer, just like the saucer that had arrived on Earth a few days ago. There were round windows dotted around the rim, and on its underside was the outline of a rectangle which would open outwards to become a ramp. None of which was in the least bit encouraging.

  Dawn matched her speed to that of the huge flying saucer, and then transformed herself into a dragon. Her vintage Beetle was comfortable and had protected her human form from the vacuum of space, but she felt much safer encased in those thick scales and with the power of fire at her disposal. As a dragon, she could survive a vacuum.

  The ship was less than 100 metres away, and it filled her vision. The windows glowed brightly, and she scanned them for signs of life, but could see nothing. Nor were there any guns or other weaponry protruding from ship, and certainly no indication that it might be about to attack her. So far as she could tell, its surface was smooth and featureless, and there was no sign of any doorway or airlock apart from the outline of what she assumed was the ramp.

  If she was to board that ship then it had to be through the ramp. She couldn’t simply float through the walls, for it was a neurospace structure, not a physical one. First, though, she would take a peek through one of those glowing windows. Keeping a wary eye out for any sign of attack, she flapped her wings to reach the ship.

  To her surprise her wings had no effect. However hard she flapped them, she remained rooted to the spot. Then it dawned on her that wings wouldn’t work in a vacuum, instead she needed rocket propulsion, something along the lines of the engine of her car. That shouldn’t be too difficult, for that engine drew on her dragon nature, belching out smoke and fire. Her jaws could surely perform a similar function.

  The dragon blood flowing through her body provided sufficient oxygen for a small amount of fire, and twisting her head so that she was facing away from the ship, she opened her jaws and let out a brief blast. A tongue of fire and some smoke streamed out, thrusting her in the opposite direction, towards the ship. She gave another small blast to correct her course, and then she was drifting towards the nearest windows.

  She hit the ship with a thud, bounced off, and had to blast out more fire to bring herself to rest beside it. She was afraid that the sound of that first impact might have set off an alarm inside the ship, but there was still no movement. She was now alongside one of the windows; it was she supposed, about a metre in diameter. Cautiously, she stretched out her neck and peered through it.

  She could see nothing at all save that bright glow. Whichever way she looked, it was the same. The window must be made of some opaque substance, she decided, or at any rate it was opaque when viewed from the outside. She withdrew her head quickly, in case whatever was inside had spotted her. The only way to find out what was inside the ship was to board it through the ramp.

  Another short blast from her jaws, and she was drifting down the side of the ship towards the outline of the ramp, and with a further couple of blasts she managed to park herself just a few feet away from it. There was, she saw, a large red button in the wall of the ship to the immediate right of the ramp, and it took one more tiny blast to bring her alongside it.

  There was no lettering on the button or any indication of its purpose, though that, she supposed, was hardly necessary. A button like that was asking to be pressed. Glancing around nervously, she lifted a claw and pressed it.

  Something moved, and she jerked back in alarm. It was the ramp beginning to unfold from the ship. She kicked herself away the ship, afraid of what emerge. As she drifted away, the ramp slowly descended and she was able to look up its length into the dim interior. There was no movement within or any sign of those wasps. In moments the ramp was fully open.

  She continued her slow drift from the ship, but still there was no sign of life. So once again she twisted her head and emitted another rocket blast, and now she was heading for the base of the ramp. In less than a minute she had closed the gap, and then she bumped against the foot of the ramp.

  Instantly she felt the tug of the ship’s gravity, and she had to struggle to hoist herself up onto the ramp. She crouched on it, her claws extended and as much fire as she could muster in that vacuum at the ready in her belly. But in the darkness at the top of the ramp there was no movement, indeed nothing at all there that she could see. Cautiously, she crept up it.

  When she reached the dark space at the top of the ramp, Dawn found herself in what she supposed was an airlock, for ahead of her was another door with an
other red button set in the wall beside it. This would lead to the interior of the ship, and with her heart in her mouth and her fire at the ready, she reached out with a claw pressed that button.

  She detected through the wall of the ship the hum of machinery, and behind her the ramp slowly started to rise. Her exit to the outside world was closing, trapping her inside the ship. The space in which she was standing grew darker as the ramp rose higher, cutting out the starlight, and then, as it locked into place with a clunk, she was left in complete darkness. There was a sudden hiss as the atmosphere of the ship blew into the darkness, and she took a cautious breath. It seemed to be ordinary air, or at least an atmosphere that her dragon body was comfortable with. She gulped in as much of the air as she could and felt the fire within roar into vigorous life. It was a most reassuring feeling.

  There was the hum of more machinery and the inner door began to slide slowly aside, letting light into the airlock. Sucking in even more of the ship’s air to fan her flames, she opened her jaws wide, ready to face whatever lay beyond that widening gap. Wisps of black smoke spurted from her nostrils, and the smell of sulphur filled the airlock.

  The door was now wide open, and she found herself staring into a vast cavernous space. It was lit by the glowing luminescence of the domed roof, just as the COBRA flying saucer had been. But there were no winged angels or giant wasps on any other creature facing her, in fact there was nothing there at all. The ship was completely empty! No wonder she could see nothing but glowing light through that window, for that was all there was. Even the floor was glowing.

  She had been half-expecting the ship to be honeycombed with small compartments, like those that she had seen on the wasps’ flying saucer a few days ago, perhaps with a huge queen at its centre, but there was nothing at all threatening here, and she relaxed and let her fires subside a little. It seemed that the creatures that had sent this great armada were not wasps but were from a different world, or worlds.

  She stepped cautiously out of the airlock doorway and into the interior of the ship. And now she could see that it wasn’t entirely empty. Off to the side was a golden pentagonal structure – a portal! Mystified, she stared around the vast space again. Was there nothing here but a portal? It seemed that the sole purpose of this mighty vessel was to transport a portal to Earth. And what of the other ships in the armada? Were they also empty apart from portals?

  And then the truth hit her. It should have been obvious all along that she would only find portals on these ships. The extra-terrestrials who sent them wouldn’t board these ships until they were much closer to Earth. Then they would step into a portal on their home planet and step out on board a moment later. What’s the point of enduring months or possibly years crossing the galaxy on a spirit journey when you can use a portal?

  Her epic journey through space to intercept this armada had been a complete waste of time. She was no wiser as to the identity of these extra-terrestrials, or whether they were friendly or hostile. The only way to determine that was to remain on this ship until they reached Earth and creatures emerged from that portal, and although she might be able to destroy hostile beings that emerged into this ship she certainly wouldn’t have time to destroy those that emerged into the other ships as well.

  And yet … these ships couldn’t be completely empty. They were, after all, mental structures, the products of someone’s imagination, and that someone had to be on board or at least close by to maintain the ships’ existence. Without such a presence they would wink out of existence – just as Eden disappeared when the dolphins woke up. These vessels could no more exist apart from the minds that had created them than her vintage Beetle could exist apart from her. Someone had to be on board each ship, enduring this huge spirit journey.

  She sucked in air again, opened her jaws a fraction, and carefully scanned the vast interior of the ship again. She was looking for a single, solitary being.

  This time she spotted the creature almost immediately. She hadn’t seen it before because it was so small. It looked like a red dragonfly, just a few centimetres long, and it was hovering a short distance away. She twisted her body to face it, jaws wide and breathing smoke. Immediately the dragonfly grew in size and became a real dragon, poised in mid-air. Thrashing its wings frantically, it crashed down on its hind legs.

  A dragon! She stared transfixed at the magnificent creature. It could be her spitting image, with those hard red scales and vicious claws and that fearsome blade at the end of its tail. But what transfixed her was not the awesomeness of the sight, but the knowledge, the stupendous knowledge, that her longed-for dream had finally come to pass.

  She had encountered her own kind!

  Forty

  The dragon carefully folding his wings. Dawn had automatically categorised the creature as male, though there was no reason to do so. The question of gender was in any case irrelevant, as dragons are asexual.

  “Hello,” he said. “You must be Dawn.”

  She was gobsmacked. First, by the fact that he could speak at all, for it had never occurred to her that dragons might have vocal chords. Second, by the fact that he spoke in English. And third, by the fact that he knew her name. He could not have picked that up by reading her mind, for only emotions and images can be communicated telepathically.

  He was gazing at her, obviously expecting her to return the greeting. Such pleasantries were clearly just as important where he came from as they were on Earth. She would have to try using her vocal chords, though she had no idea how. All she could do was trust her dragon instincts.

  She imagined herself clearing her throat in preparation for speech. Immediately a blast of superheated steam erupted from the base of her throat and whistled up through it, clearing out all the accumulated soot. At least, that was what appeared to happen, for a great puff of steam laden with black particles spurted from her nostrils. She formed her words carefully, as might a young child learning to speak.

  “I’m ... delighted ... to ... meet ... you,” she said. At least, that was what the human part of her brain said. The sound that actually emerged from her jaws was an odd mixture of grunts, snorts, and clicks.

  How odd, she thought. And then she realised that the other dragon had spoken in grunts, snorts, and clicks too. Somewhere in her brain, probably at the interface between the human and dragon parts of it, translation had taken place without any conscious awareness. No doubt the same process was happening in the brain of the dragon facing her – his brain was translating her dragon grunts into whatever language his physical body used. For she had no doubt that he did have a physical body, asleep on some distant alien planet. Only by such a mechanism could dragons, born of races from a thousand different worlds, communicate with each other.

  She wondered what this dragon’s physical body looked like. He might even be one of those wasps – in which case he was a false dragon, on his way to enslave the earth. Well, that at least was easy to check. Only real dragons could breathe out fire. She breathed in more air to feed her fire, in readiness for a possible attack.

  “Are ... you ... a ... real ... dragon?”

  In response he turned away from her, sucked in some air, and breathed out a small red flame. It would barely have killed a fly, and indeed anything more might have caused some damage to his ship, but it was undeniably fire.

  The dragon must have sensed the mixture of strong emotions that were flooding through her, for she caught a sense of benign amusement coming from him. He had sensed her utter delight at meeting one of her own kind, and her wonder that there really was a race of superbeings like her, and the fact that she was gobsmacked because he knew her name.

  The dragon let his fire die down and turned back to face her. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said. Or that was what her human/dragon brain interpreted his grunts and snorts to mean.

  She stared back at him in astonishment. How could he have known she was coming? A picture appeared in her mind, evidently projected telepathically from him,
of a red point of light moving towards a white point of light against a black background. Donna’s telepathic course corrections, projected by the Mind!

  That telepathy, powered by Donna’s fire, had not only reached her while she was still in the vicinity of Earth, it had travelled far out to the stars at the speed of thought. It had gone ahead of her, and had been picked up by this creature perhaps an hour ago, and he had realised that such a powerful signal must have the same source as the other telepathic messages – her monthly Passion plays – that were drawing this armada to Earth.

  And that, of course, explained why he knew who she was. She was the dragon from Earth. The dragon who had sired her, some 30 years ago in her mother’s womb, had probably been a human like her. At any rate, he – or she – would certainly have remained on Earth after her conception to watch over her progress and perhaps to nurture her, just as she had watched over Donna. And no doubt he had access to a portal, and so he was able to visit the community of dragons and keep them informed of the situation on Earth. That was how this dragon knew her name.

  So why had her dragon parent abandoned her? The only reason she could think of was that he had died, just as she herself would one day die. She was about to ask her dragon host about this when a giant wasp suddenly appeared in front of her. She jumped back in alarm, her questions forgotten. The wasp vanished as quickly as it had come, and she realised that it was merely an image conjured up in her mind by the other dragon. Dragons were evidently masters of telepathic communications, and she made a mental note to practise those skills on Donna.

  “They came to your planet?” the dragon asked.

  Again she stared at him in surprise. Didn’t he already know the answer to that question? Was he unaware that less than a week ago the wasps had invaded Earth? Didn’t he realise that this was why she was checking out this alien armada? Was the close proximity of these two alien encounters no more than a coincidence? It seemed inconceivable that this should be so.

  “They ... came,” she told him, still speaking slowly and carefully. “We ... destroyed ... them.”

  It occurred to her to try out the telepathic skills that dragons evidently possessed, and she brought to mind the pictures she had seen on Baby’s screen of Donna’s slaughter of the aliens and the destruction of their ship. She sensed very clearly the satisfaction the other dragon felt at this imagery.

  “Good,” he said.

  She formed the image of the wasps’ flying saucer, which was the same as the COBRA flying saucer and which was etched in her memory. Then she waved a forelimb, indicating the glowing walls of the dragon’s ship. “The same kind of ship,” she observed, speaking with more confidence now.

  “They were with us before,” he explained. “But now they fight us.”

  “Us? Who is us?”

  A picture flooded into her mind of stars with planets spinning around them, and a kaleidoscope of different life forms, mostly humanoid, marched past. There clearly was some kind of galactic federation, just as John Anderson and the Watchers had always maintained.

  No doubt the Watchers and their predecessors, COBRA, had received visions along these lines. They knew, and now she knew too, that these were not figments of their imaginations. Perhaps COBRA had received those messages from the wasps, which John Anderson had confessed had visited and influenced them. What he and the other COBRA leaders hadn’t known was that the wasps were renegades and not the emissaries of that great confederation of species. The wasps had deceived them into believing that, when they returned, the COBRA leaders would rule the earth and take their seats on the galactic councils.

  Although COBRA had been destroyed, John Anderson believed that the wasps would one day return, and he had drawn up plans to meet them as the representative of Earth. That was why he had set up the Watchers, why he had developed in them the ability to pick up telepathic communications from the federation, and why he perhaps intended to take over the dolphin communal mind through whatever it was he had put into Jonah’s brain. If all those preparations came to fruition, he could indeed present himself to the aliens as the most powerful person on the planet.

  Except that the wasps, when they had finally returned, weren’t interested in any of that. Their intention was to take over the people they had deceived, and through them to take over the world. Dawn wondered how many other planets they had conquered in that way.

  Her immediate and most pressing question had been answered. This armada of ships was not about to attack Earth, they had come in friendship. The presence of this dragon guaranteed that. She had countless other questions, of course, for she had waited so many years for this moment, but these could await the dragons’ arrival. The main thing now was to get back to Earth and make whatever preparations were necessary for that great encounter.

  But there was one question she had to ask. “Why are you travelling to Earth?”

  A sequence of pictures appeared in her mind that she recognised instantly. They were scenes from the plays she had performed in Eden on Passion Sundays and which the Mind had broadcast to the stars. That was the reason for the armada, to see her Passion plays!

  So the Watchers were wrong. This epic voyage was not to incorporate Earth into a galactic federation or anything like that, though that could be a by-product, it was just to see a play. It was really weird, and she shook her head in disbelief, but he just stared straight back at her. That was the reason for the visit.

  “I have to go now,” she told him. “To prepare for your arrival.” And prepare she must, if she was going to entertain these alien visitors with one of her mind-blowing shows.

  The dragon responded by turning and pointing his snout at the portal. Apart from accompanying him to Earth on board this ship, that was her only way back. She nodded at him to show she understood, then turned to go to it. To her surprise, at that very moment the door of the portal slid aside and another dragon trotted out. He stared at her in surprise.

  “This is Dawn,” her host explained. “She’s come from Earth. To check up on us.”

  “Ah,” the newcomer said, evidently satisfied by this explanation. Behind him, the door of the portal slid silently shut.

  Her host turned to her. “My name’s Zapfyre, by the way. My shift’s ended, and Warblitz here is taking over.”

  “Nice to meet you both,” she said. She hadn’t thought about it before, but obviously there would have to be some kind of shift system to keep an epic voyage like this going.

  Zapfyre pointed his snout at the portal again. It was evidently time for him, and her, to go. All her unanswered questions would have to await their arrival on Earth. She trotted over to the portal, with Zapfyre close behind, and touched the door. Whereas the wasps’ portal responded to Donna’s dragon touch by disappearing into thin air, this portal responded in much more welcoming manner: the door slid silently aside, revealing an interior that was as black as space. With only a slight hesitation, she stepped inside.

  Dawn was instantly transported back to her bedroom in Honiara. She was floating above her bed, gazing down at her sleeping body. She was still cut off from it, for she could feel nothing of her physical self, but she knew that once inside her brain that connection would be restored. She dived into her skull, waited for the cathedral of her mind to form around her, then flew onto the altar. And then she was in possession of her body once more.

  It was like being in charge of a vegetable. Although her mind was alert, her body was so heavily drugged that she couldn’t wake it up. She couldn’t move her legs or her arms or her fingers or anything else, she couldn’t even open her eyes. Somehow she would have to contact Rick and get him to administer a wake-up drug.

  She withdrew from her body and, floating above it once more, gazed around the room. Although her bedroom and its contents were very fuzzy to her spirit eyes, she could tell that Rick was not there. She flitted through the house, looking for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. If he had been around she would be able to fly into his brain, and
he would have sensed her presence and known that she had returned from her mission.

  She flew through the wall into the garden outside. The sun was low in the sky, and she could tell by its position that it was about 8 am: he must have left for work. She toyed with the idea of flying there to look for him, but then decided it would be quicker and more satisfactory to phone him from Adelaide. It would be about 7 am there and Mort’s household should be stirring.

  She immediately transformed herself into her Beetle, spoke the GPS coordinates of Mort’s house into her satnav, and less than a minute later was streaking over the northern Australian coastline and heading inland. A few moments later she came to a halt outside Mort’s house, and shortly after that she was walking into Angela’s bedroom. Angela was still in bed, but snoozily awake and dreaming of romance, and Dawn was able to slip into her mind and immediately take her over.

  She crawled out of bed and went over to the sink to splash the sleep out of the girl’s eyes. Then she put on Angela’s dressing gown and padded down the long hallway in search of Mort’s bedroom. She had no idea which door was his, and Angela was no help, for although she was observing everything from the recesses of her mind, she had no idea what Dawn was looking for.

  She was about to ask the question out loud when a door opened and a bleary-eyed Karen emerged. She looked decidedly the worse for wear, with her normally immaculate hair all over the place, and Dawn couldn’t help wondering what Donna had been up to last night.

  “Hello, Angela,” Karen mumbled groggily. “You’re up early.”

  “It’s Dawn. I’m back!”

  “What?” Karen blinked herself awake. “Great! What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. Where’s Mort? I want to ask him if I can use the house phone.”

  “It’s over there.” Karen pointed to the far end of the hall. “Just use it, he won’t mind.”

  Dawn walked over to it and dialled Rick’s wristpad, and he answered immediately.

  “Rick!” she squealed. “It’s me!”

  “Who’s me?”

  “Dawn, you idiot!”

  “What? You don’t sound like Dawn. You sound Australian.”

  “That’s because I’ve borrowed Angela’s body. Go home and wake me up, my pet.”

  “Oh. Right. How did you get on?”

  “Everything’s fine. I’ll tell you when you wake me. Bye!”

  She replaced the receiver and turned to Karen, to tell her what had happened in space. Then it occurred to her that it would be much better to wait a few moments so that she could tell everyone in the household at the same time.

  “Get Mort!” she told her, and turned back to the phone and dialled another number. Karen padded off down the hall. After a few moments Clare answered the phone.

  “Clare, it’s Dawn. And don’t say I’m not Dawn because I don’t sound pommy enough. I’m in Angela’s body.”

  “Does that poor girl ever get her body to herself? I’d hoped we all might be dancing on your grave by now, but it seems you’re still in the land of the living.”

  “’Fraid so.” Dawn waved to Mort, who had just emerged from his room with Karen in tow, and beckoned them over. She quickly explained to Clare over the phone and to the others what had happened. “Several species of extra-terrestrials are coming to Earth. There does seem to be some sort of galactic federation, just as the Watchers claimed. They’re coming to visit Eden, to see my Passion play.”

  “Just to see that?” Clare asked in astonishment. “Don’t they want to incorporate Earth into this federation of theirs?”

  “I suppose they do, though nothing was said about that. But they’re friendly, that’s the main thing.”

  “Hm. We’ll see,” Clare said sceptically. “You just be on your guard, that’s all. And don’t agree to anything on Earth’s behalf without consulting me and Dr Song.”

  “Of course not. Has Paul worked out when the ships will arrive? I reckon it will be around 15 hours from now.”

  “Yeah, that’s roughly what he worked out. It means they won’t arrive in time for your Eden’s materialisation today, but they’ll be in good time for tomorrow’s show. I’ve already told Dr Song, and she knows you’ve gone into space to intercept them. I also told John Anderson. ”

  “You had to tell him, I guess. What did he have to say for himself?”

  “He was very intrigued, of course. He asked me to let him know what you discovered.”

  “Don’t tell him too much! If he knows that the aliens are friendly and that there really is a galactic federation out there, he’s going to pull out all the stops to show them that he’s the big cheese around here. He’ll plan to take over the communal mind, that’s for sure.”

  “So you say. Karen isn’t so sure, and she knows him better than anyone.”

  “Well, we’ll see. Did he say if he’s planning to bring a planeload of Watchers to Eden again”

  “He is, despite last week’s fiasco. They’re leaving this evening.”

  “And you’re going with them? With the spirit detector?”

  “You bet I am. It’ll be the same routine as last time.”

  “Watch him like a hawk. As soon as he finds out that the aliens are friendly, he’ll make his move. If it’s to take over the communal mind, he’ll have to put himself into a trance. If he does, make sure you inject him with a wake-up drug.”

  “Don’t worry. One false move and I’ll pull a gun on him. I hate him almost as much as I hate you.”

  “That’s my girl. I just hope he doesn’t pull a gun on you first. I’ll check that you’re OK when I arrive in Eden tomorrow. I’ll be coming as a spirit, so the only way you’ll see me is with the spirit detector. If you miss me, I’ll touch your mind. If you want me to take you over, you know what to do.”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Dawn. ”

  “Phone me before you get on that plane tonight. I’ll let you know what I’m planning.”

  She put the phone down and turned to the others. “It’s great to have you back,” Mort exclaimed, giving her hug. “Donna was so worried about you last night.”

  “Not that it dampened her spirits much,” Karen murmured, eyeing her tousled hair in the hall mirror. She seemed quite her old self, Dawn thought. Donna’s frolics were evidently having a therapeutic effect.

  Mort gave Karen a sheepish smile. Seeing it, Dawn was consumed by curiosity, and she glanced from one to the other. “How are you getting on with Donna?”

  Mort gave a slight laugh. “Very well. I’ve never met anyone quite so … enthusiastic. About everything.”

  “You can say that again!” Karen remarked with some feeling.

  Dawn wasn’t sure how to respond. “Perhaps I should have a word with her…”

  A flicker of amusement crossed Karen’s face. “Don’t worry, everything’s fine.”

  “We all think she’s wonderful,” Mort added. “She’s transformed all our lives. She really is an angel.”

  He paused and looked at his visitor thoughtfully. “Let’s go into the kitchen and have some breakfast. There’s something I want to ask you.”

  Dawn followed him in, wondering what was on his mind. She hoped Donna hadn’t put any ideas into his head about ‘marital training’.

  “I’m really worried about Donna’s safety,” he said as he bustled around putting out the breakfast things. “She’s told me her dolphin body is defenceless when she’s in a trance.”

  “She’s in a protected environment, in Crocodile Bay. There are always guards on duty.”

  “She says the Watchers could have infiltrated the guards. And if they found out about her fire–”

  “Which they haven’t.”

  “Even so,” he persisted. “I’m worried. I’m wondering … if perhaps we could all visit Crocodile Bay. We’d like to meet Donna in the flesh, and it might be helpful from a security angle. As you know, security is my business.”

  “That would be wonderful, Mort! Of course you can come. You can
stay at our house, if you like – provided you and Karen don’t mind sharing a room, that is.”

  Mort glanced at Karen doubtfully. But she didn’t seem at all disquieted by the prospect, and smiled back at him. “If we’re going to be married, we might as well get used to it. It’s not much fun staggering back to a cold bed after Donna’s finished with my body, I can tell you. I’d much rather stay with you.”

  Dawn kept her thoughts to herself and concentrated on her muesli. She hoped her choice of cereal suited Angela. “So when were you thinking of coming, Mort?”

  “As soon as possible. You said you were afraid that John Anderson might make some move against you when he finds out that these aliens are friendly, which means that Donna could be at risk tomorrow. I’d like to be at Crocodile Bay then. I’d feel much happier if I was personally guarding her body. I’m scheduled to meet a couple of clients, but I can easily put them off till next week. And Karen and Angela are both free.”

  Dawn gazed at him thoughtfully. “That’s not a bad idea. I’d feel much happier too with you guarding her. Can you handle a gun?” He nodded. “I’ll get Rick to organize something for you.”

  “Thanks. I’ll try and arrange a flight for this afternoon. It’s Tuesday, so there should be some business class seats free.”

  Dawn nodded. “Phone me when it’s booked, and I’ll tell Donna. And I’ll tell Rick to personally guard her body today, while she’s in her trance.”

  Mort sat down next to Karen and helped himself to some cereal and milk, and Dawn couldn’t help noticing that Karen turned her body fractionally towards him. It was very slight, and she probably didn’t even realise that she was doing it, but Dawn wondered how long it would be before she started to have mixed feelings about sharing him with Donna. Hopefully the thrill of participating in those astounding love-goddess kisses would preserve the status quo.

  Suddenly the room started to sway, and she had the impression that someone was shaking her by the shoulder. She put down her spoon and finished her mouthful of cereal. “I’m waking up,” she announced. “Mort, you’d better come round and hold Angela’s body.”

  “Right,” he said, jumping up. He was just in time, for the kitchen scene faded from her vision and she found herself lying on her bed and gazing into Rick’s eyes.

  For some reason she became acutely aware of her dragon nature. Perhaps it was because she had just met that dragon in space, and she knew that she would shortly be meeting more, or perhaps it was because of what she’d been learning about Donna’s youthful passions. Whatever the reason, a volcano seemed to erupt in her belly and travelled rapidly up her throat and into her mouth. Flinging her arms around her husband’s neck, she dragged him down onto her, and, placing her lips firmly on his, delivered an absolute scorcher. Something like a bolt of lightning arced from her lips, touching and energising every part of her lover’s body and igniting the pleasure centres of his brain, and for a while all thoughts of aliens and John Anderson and the fate of the planet were pushed from her mind.

  Part 6: Apocalypse