Omega

by Stewart Farrar

  'Next morning, hundreds of pupils set up a mass picket-line, with banners and placards already prepared. Miss Holroyd had clearly incited these children, for whom she shared responsibility, into deliberate, organized rebellion against authority.

  'And for what? In an attempt to keep morally poisonous material on the library shelves'

  Quentin White made the most of it.

  'The tip of the iceberg, Mr Speaker. Or should I say the crack in the sewer? For while honourable members debate whether or not to give His Majesty's Government the powers it seeks, the bearers of moral infection are busy below the surface, gnawing at the fabric of our civilization. Because one headmaster was on the watch, and took action, the underground menace – at one point only – took fright and struck. The result? Physical damage, certainly – to an important school and to the bodies of innocent children and adults. But who can calculate the moral and psychological damage?

  'More important, Mr Speaker – I have already emphasized that this has happened at one point only, where the spark of one man's integrity and one woman's breach of professional ethics – to say the very least – have detonated an explosion. Who can calculate the extent of the danger which is still concealed, still undetonatcd? At what point could local disaster erupt into national disaster?

  'I believe, sir, that the answer stares honourable members in the face. The moral threat could erupt uncontrollably, if we suffered just one more natural calamity like the wave of earth tremors from which we have barely recovered. The experts cannot assure us that it will not happen. They cannot even assure us that the next earthquake would not be incalculably worse.

  'If that should happen – and happen without warning -His Majesty's Government will be fighting on two fronts. Against physical disruption on an unheard-of scale – and against the spiritual saboteurs who would seize on that disruption with eagerness.

  'Mr Speaker, new as I am to this Mother of Parliaments, I urge honourable members to waste no time in arming His Majesty's Government with the powers that it must have, before the crisis which may break upon us any day, any hour'

  For the Prime Minister to rise, seeking the Speaker's eyes, in the middle of a maiden speech was so unthinkable that a tremor of astonishment ran through the House. Quentin White, quick-witted but still unsure of procedure, bowed towards the Premier and sat down in mid-sentence.

  'Mr Speaker,' the Prime Minister said, 'I must apologize to the honourable member, and to the House, for what must appear to be a quite unprecedented breach of courtesy. But I am sure the whole House, including the honourable and eloquent gentleman I was obliged to interrupt – with your permission, sir – will wish to be informed immediately of the news item which has just been handed to me… The whole of North America, and the northern part of South America, has in the past half-hour suffered widespread earth tremors of uneven distribution and varying intensity. Information is still incomplete, of course, but the Associated Press describe the disaster as being similar to, and at least as destructive as, that which recently affected Europe and parts of Asia.'

  As the Premier sat down again, Quentin White made no attempt to continue his speech; he knew he had no need.

  Under cover of the general commotion, the Premier whispered to the Chancellor of the Exchequer: 'Bertie, we're home and dry.'

  An hour later, the Commons passed the Emergency Powers Bill by 652 votes to eleven.

  8

  The American media being less compact and amenable to control than the British, the cables that flowed into AP's Beehive office in the first hour or two after the Western Hemisphere tremors were uninhibited. Eugene and Tonia's job was purely newsgathering for the New York office; the AP tape service to British customers was still put out by the Fleet Street bureau, but all that bureau's inflow and outflow was duplicated by teleprinters in the Beehive office, to keep it fully in the picture. Fortunately, some humane colleague in New York had found time to check with the London staff's next-of-kin, and to cable reassurance as replies came in; so within half an hour of the news breaking, Eugene and Tonia received a service message MAC-ALLISTER AND LYND FAMILIES OKAY HOMES UNDAMAGED, which at least made the trauma of national disaster slightly less personal. Only slightly; homes might be undamaged but home had been shaken to its foundations; families might be safe, but friends? – hundreds of them, from coast to coast?… Even Gene, normally a model of lofty composure, was pale and trembling, and Tonia doubted if she looked any better. Having nothing to do but read made it worse for them; what British news there was seemed, for the moment, confined to Surface.

  The pattern of the incoming reports increased their frustration. The uninhibited phase did not last and unfortunately it coincided with the period when the information was provisional, confused and incomplete. As soon as hard facts and figures began to emerge, Tonia's professional instincts told her that the security blanket was beginning to operate. The trend towards clarity was suddenly reversed and imposed vagueness replaced mere unavoidable uncertainty.

  Nevertheless, some kind of overall picture had materialized. As in Europe, the tremors seemed partly related to natural features and partly and mysteriously unrelated. A major quake had hit the Colorado River all the way from the Gulf of California through the Grand Canyon and up into Utah; early cables quoted unconfirmed reports of serious damage to the great dams but these were not referred to again. Another tremor line, apparently less serious, ran up the Snake River valley from about Pocatcllo right into the Blue Mountains. The Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas reported a confusing pattern of minor tremors with only localized damage. Chicago, Detroit and the Great Lakes seemed unaffected, but from the Adirondacks to Maine and across the Canadian border to the St Lawrence, damage was heavier but still localized. Quebec was hit and hard news continued to arrive direct from Canada for some time after the States security clamp-down; initial estimates spoke of thirty dead in Quebec and twelve in Montreal, though northwards and westwards of that, Canada – and Alaska – were apparently unaffected.

  Down the Atlantic seaboard from Boston to Georgia, everywhere east of the Appalachians seemed to have escaped entirely; but from Florida all the way round the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean the emphasis was on freak tides and flooding. One AP cable, about earth tremor reports from Nicaragua and Costa Rica, stopped in the middle of a folio; the teleprinter was silent for fifteen seconds, then suddenly clattered out: CANCEL FOREGOING PARA, without explanation. Later, on the Lloyds' teleprinter, Tonia spotted PANAMA CANAL CLOSED ALL TRAFFIC FURTHER NOTICE – also without explanation, and no reference to the Canal appeared on the AP tape. Nor were the Mohowatt stations mentioned at any time.

  Early reports which included northern South America in the outbreak of tremors were said to have been premature and based on nervous misreading of local seismographs when the scale of the North American phenomenon was first realized. Beyond Venezuela, the coastal flooding rapidly died out, and although Colombia and Ecuador reported a few mountain landslides, only faint echoes of the disaster seemed to have been felt south of the equator.

  Gene and Tonia kept an eye on the Reutcr and UP tapes but they added nothing of significance. There was some British official reaction on the PA printer, but it was mostly formal sympathy, unoriginal and unmemorable.

  'It'll be tomorrow morning the fun starts,' Gene predicted sombrely. 'When the Stock Exchange opens.'

  Tonia, who for all her extraversion always had difficulty in articulating the deep love she felt for her own country, realized with a spasm of anger that she could not care less about the Stock Exchange or even Wall Street. What about 'Frisco and LA? – neither of them had been mentioned. What about the little farm in Maine where…

  Tonia Lynd said nothing but went on ripping off folios and adding them to the clip-boards.

  In the closed garage, Rosemary and Sally were going through kitchen equipment choosing a basic set from the three households' stock. Gregory and Dan had already done the same with the tools and were a
rguing whether precious space should be taken up with power-tools when the availability of power would be highly doubtful. Dan was against it but Greg was reasoning that the country was full of mobile generators and in the event of complete breakdown they might be able to commandeer one.

  'And if we did, think of the hours a few power tools would save.'

  'What'd be the use of a generator if there wasn't any fuel for it?' 'We might be able to hitch it to a waterfall.' 'Oh, for Christ's sake…'

  Moira, with Diana's enthusiastic but unhelpful help, was packing clothes. The boys had installed a zip-up plastic wardrobe in the van with a tallboy beside it; as they had good tents, they had abandoned all ideas of leaving sleeping-space in the vehicles in favour of maximum storage. One side of the van was wardrobe, drawers and built-in wooden shelves; the other, kitchen, with water-tank, sink, cooker and food storage. Bedding, tools and more clothing and footwear were in the station wagon. Greg had fitted both vehicles with roof racks for tents, petrol cans and a second spare wheel each. The van's roof rack created a problem; loaded, it would not clear the garage door. So they had its load stacked ready at the back of the garage, where it could be stowed quickly in the van's central gangway when the move seemed imminent; they had practised the loading drill and got it down to one minute and forty seconds. Once clear of danger, they could stop and transfer the load to the roof, leaving the gangway free.

  Sally and Rosemary had been stocking with milk and perishable foods daily, removing them for consumption next day and re-stocking, so that they would always at least start off with something fresh.

  The problem of weapons had led to their first deliberate theft. They had one legal gun already, because Dan was a member of a pistol club and owned a licensed.22 target pistol; scarcely lethal except at short range, but accurate, and Dan was a good shot. But they were determined that each vehicle should be armed somehow and Greg came up with an answer, though he said nothing to the others till he had achieved it. One of his regular customers at the service station was a big-mouthed character who boasted too much of his prowess as a poacher, and of what he would like to do to the witches – not knowing, fortunately, that Greg was one. The man was a bachelor living alone in a cottage out beyond Addlestone, and Greg had no difficulty in discovering his drinking habits.

  Next time he started his usual Friday-night session at the Swan by Staines Bridge, Greg quickly and expertly immobilized the man's car, drove to the cottage, broke in without a qualm, and soon discovered the double-barrelled folding 410 shotgun he kept under the bed, of all obvious places. Boxes of cartridges were beside it and Greg removed the lot.

  When he got home and showed the others his loot, Rosemary was only briefly shocked, and the rest not at all. 'I'd put our safety before that bastard's pot,' declared Sally, who knew the man from her days as a barmaid; Sally had been many things in her long life. Shotgun and ammunition were hidden in the van within reach of the driver's seat and nothing more was said, but all of them knew that with this uncharacteristic act and its acceptance they had crossed a kind of Rubicon. War had not yet been declared, but mobilization was in full swing. Would-be survivors could no longer afford illusions.

  'Have we got a knife-sharpener?' Rosemary was now asking. 'These things are going to have to last.'

  'The boys have an oilstone with the tools,' Sally said. 'I saw it.… Can-openers… bottle-openers… Where's Moira's garlic press? She'd be lost without it.'

  'We might not be able to get garlic'

  'Easy to grow. Plant it on the shortest day and lift it on the longest. Remind me to save some outside cloves of it to plant Oh, here's the press ' Sally raised her voice suddenly. 'Hey, everybody – we never thought of vegetable seeds!'

  'None in the shops this time of the year,' Dan called back.

  'Yes, there are. Little place up by the station – whole rack of 'em, covered with dust from the spring. You know, sort of shop that never clears out anything. I’ll get a few quids' worth tomorrow. Won't take up any room.'

  So it had gone on for days – selecting, remembering, reassuring. Diana had been told they were getting ready for a camping holiday and Moira couldn't help feeling that it had something of that atmosphere; which seemed an almost frivolous reaction to a two-pronged threat, natural and human, whose scale and degree of horror none of them could as yet foresee. To be actually enjoying the fun of equipping their little survival convoy of two vehicles and six people was surely unrealistic, irresponsible… And yet she knew it wasn't like that at all. The 'fun' was relief at having something practical to do and do together, in the face of the faceless; and the horror was never far below the surface. Dan had a new briskness, a new light in his eye, as their preparations went ahead; even an extra (and Moira had to admit, exciting) verve about his love-making; it was as though the prospect of a bedouin existence had sharpened his masculinity – and perhaps her own femalencss, too? She found it hard to judge… And yet there were times when he cried out in his sleep, grinding his teeth and tensing his muscles, and Moira would cradle him in her arms, crooning to him as she would to Diana, till he relaxed again. He had no conscious memory of these experiences when he awoke, because Moira would have known if he was deliberately hiding them – quite apart from her ever-alert sensitivity to his moods. Like most witches they took a keen interest in their own dreams and had the habit of exchanging them as soon as they were both awake. They still did so, as unreservedly as ever, and she knew Dan was not censoring his; he was simply unaware that the intensity behind them had surfaced as muscular and vocal reactions which they had never done before except when he was ill.

  She did not tell him because he would have worried, but she spoke of it to Rosemary. Rosemary smiled and said 'Greg, too'.

  The five of them were all together when the Prime Minister made his television statement of 29 July. They had taken to reading and watching the news with close attention because if they did have to 'take to the woods', speed of reaction to events might well make the difference between success and failure, and the last few days, with the American tremors and the passing of the Emergency Powers Bill, had made them even more watchful. For such things they had been prepared, but what had shocked them was the Commons' almost panic reaction to the Wolverhampton affair and the ease with which the Emergency Powers debate inside and outside Parliament – originally and reasonably concerned with the possibility of further earth tremors – had become confused with the anti-witch hysteria. The Bill had received the Royal Assent that morning, and the day after tomorrow was August Eve, the witch festival of Lughnasadh; so they listened to the Premier with foreboding.

  He began with the predictable platitudes about the grave times through which this nation and, indeed, the world' was passing, the British tradition of standing together in the face of (unspecified) danger, and the need for calm. After a few confused and homespun references to Agincourt, the Armada and our grandparents' defiance of the Blitz, he suddenly came to the point.

  'At such a time, nothing must be allowed to happen which could provoke public disorder or conflict. You will remember that when the unpredictable calamity of the earth tremors hit this country five weeks ago, it coincided with the grave and fatal events on Bell Beacon, the full nature of which is still being investigated. Now I am not one of those who would go the whole way with people who claim that what happened on Bell Beacon was Divine retribution; but His Majesty's Government would be failing in its duty if it did not recognize that such a view is widely and sincerely held, and that the public conscience has been aroused – even among those who would not go so far – by these unashamedly pagan celebrations in our midst. Freedom of worship, even when it takes bizarre forms, is of course one of the cornerstones of British liberty. But this cannot include the freedom to offend and provoke, especially at times of national crisis; if that is allowed, freedom itself is in danger.

  'And this, my friends, is a time of national crisis. Our American cousins – an old-fashioned phrase, I know, but when n
atural disaster strikes, all the world is kin – our American cousins have just been through what we went through at Midsummer, and it could happen to us again, at any moment. It is to be ready for such a blow that the people's representatives have, almost unanimously, entrusted His Majesty's Government with emergency powers – which that Government must therefore be prepared to exercise in the public interest.

  'Most of you are aware that in two days' time the small minority of witches all over Britain would, according to their peculiar calendar, be publicly celebrating the next of their seasonal festivals. It is the Government's view -which I am sure the great majority of you will share – that to allow such public gatherings, in the present situation, would lead inevitably to conflict and casualties and possibly to further loss of life.

  'An Order in Council has therefore been made, under the Emergency Powers Act, forbidding them. The full text of the Order is being published in tomorrow morning's newspapers. In simple terms, what it amounts to is this. All public religious gatherings and all private religious meetings of more than six persons, are banned with effect from midnight tonight, with the exception of those held under the chairmanship of an ordained clergyman of one of the Christian churches, or of one of the equivalent functionaries of the Jewish, Moslem or Sikh religions. A list of the authorized denominations is included in the Order.

  'Responsible worshippers – that is to say, followers of the traditional religions of the several communities of which this country is composed – will thus be able to pursue their devotions and hold their services entirely as normal. I am sure everyone will wish this to be so; I have already pointed out that we are in a crisis situation and the solace of genuine religious belief and practice is a pillar of strength and a contribution to stability in such times.