by Alan Baxter
Then another voice rang out. A stream of words that sounded like a question, but in a language unlike anything I’d ever heard. Then the voice of Pietre Gans rang out and he answered in the same musical, ethereal way. A couple more sentences were exchanged and then Gans said, ‘Please, use our tongue. There are many here that would like to understand.’
The musical voice of the other, whatever it was, sounded again. This time it spoke our language, but it made our language sound more beautiful than I ever imagined possible. ‘I come to you with love,’ it said. ‘And I come to you with hope.’
Voices rang out around the camp, some the voices of Dem cops arguing with each other or barking out orders, others the rapt voices of Guides, crying out their supplication, convinced they were faced with the actual presence of the one true God.
The perfect voice rang out again. ‘Please, becalm yourselves. Put aside your fears, your dreams, your expectations. Please do not expect too much of me.’
Those people stuck outside of Gans’s magical barrier, like fish on the wrong side of a fish-tank, gasping and thrashing to get in, suddenly fell silent. Gans raised his hands. ‘Would you appear to us?’ he asked. ‘I would talk with you face to face.’
There were some gasps from around the area. I noticed that I could hear them as the rain and wind seemed to have died away almost completely. Slowly a dark patch appeared in the centre of the blazing sphere and a figure seemed to grow out from it. I heard sobbing and looked around to see some Guides on their knees, openly weeping. Some cops too. Everyone was mesmerised. I was suddenly and pleasantly surprised to see my Mrs Jones standing among the gathered DAP representatives. She looked at me and nodded curtly, then quickly turned her attention back to the main show.
The figure, dwarfed by the massive ball of light, slowly drifted through the air, directly towards Gans. Its arms were open, palms up before it in a posture of supplication. As it neared Gans, neared me and Saul, more details were revealed. It was a man, tall and lean, muscular without being bulky. He smiled.
But something was slightly weird about it all. His head seemed as long as his body was tall. His eyes were large, larger than any man’s eyes I’d seen before. They had bright purple irises. As he smiled he had no teeth. Or rather one wide tooth, one smooth cartilaginous line, at the top and another at the bottom. His skin seemed pale, almost a soft powder blue, and looked to be completely hairless.
The figure alighted on the edge of the crater, standing before Gans and towering over him. He must have been close to eight feet tall. Suddenly this was just too funny. The faces of the gathered Guides appeared to me now like comic book characters, drawn with expressions of dismay and fear over-emphasised in caricature. I began to laugh like a madman.
The figure from the blazing orb looked around at the gathered people pressed up against Gans’s invisible barrier, then at me and Saul, bound on the floor. Then his gaze fell back onto Gans again. ‘What is happening here?’
Gans made a gesture of innocence. ‘There were people that were trying to prevent this meeting. Others with an agenda of their own. Certain measures had to be employed to ensure my meeting with you went as planned.’
The figure nodded. ‘And these men?’ He gestured to a gathering of Guides, quickly huddled together, casting glances over their shoulders and talking over each other animatedly, sounding desperate and lost.
Gans looked at them. ‘They thought that you were going to be their god.’
The figure’s eyes narrowed. ‘God? What is a god?’
I missed the next several minutes of conversation, paralysed with laughter.
Epilogue
‘I’d better still be getting paid,’ I said, my voice daring her to deny me.
‘Well, you didn’t exactly catch Gans, but you led us to him, which is essentially the same thing. You’ll get your money.’
‘And the various things I may have had to do to get here?’
‘Forget about them. Your slate is clean, your bank account is healthy and your reputation firmly intact. If anything, your reputation is likely to be enhanced by this day’s work.’
Maybe she was right there. ‘So what’s happening now?’ I asked, nodding back towards the rapidly growing village that had been nothing more than a tiny camp just hours before.
Mrs Jones shrugged. ‘Gans has a sort of protection. This whole ruse is because they don’t want to negotiate with any government body or authority. Apparently they’ve had skills like our Magickers for centuries and have mastered them to a degree we can’t imagine. They all have skills like that. So they will only deal with humans like themselves and are claiming Gans as a kind of ambassador.’
‘Why him?’
‘Don’t know. Apparently they’ve been watching us for years, waiting for someone powerful and balanced enough to be the bridge between us and them.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Balanced?’
‘Apparently. Ironic, no?’
‘I’ll say.’ But I had personal issues that were more pressing. ‘Any chance of a lift somewhere any time soon?’ Jones looked at me, one eyebrow arched. ‘Well, I sort of borrowed a Sanctuary ship to get here,’ I explained, ‘and I think they’re having a bad day. I don’t really want to run off with their ship or have to spend any time with them at the moment.’
Jones nodded. ‘Fair enough. There’s another DAP Cruiser on its way here now. It’ll drop off delegates and then be returning back to active duty. It can take you along and drop you off somewhere suitable. They’ll be here in about four or five hours and leaving again almost immediately.’
I nodded, smiling. ‘Cool. I might go and find somewhere quiet and out of the way to wait. If I could just get my payment…’
Jones nodded and produced a cash-slide for me. Suddenly things started to feel normal again, at least in my own small world. I took the slide and shook her hand and walked quickly away. I’d meant it when I said I’d find somewhere quiet to wait. I wanted to avoid all this commotion.
I went back to the Sanctuary ship I’d arrived on and retrieved my bag, then headed out to the newly organised landing area. A delegate of Dem cops had been charged with managing the inevitable influx of vessels that would soon be descending and a kind of makeshift spaceport was already taking shape, shelters and shuttles demarking a large area of otherwise barren rock. I found a quiet corner in a shelter and sat down to wait for the Cruiser that would take me off this ball.
I had to be honest, there was a part of me that was glad to have been here. This was certainly an event that was going to change the ‘Verse forever. But I didn’t need to be a part of it any more.
And I had couldn’t help feeling just a bit sorry for the Sanctuary. Still, it was all a matter of perspective. It wasn’t their god this time, but that didn’t mean they were necessarily out of work. They had a whole new non-human thing to factor into their dogma now, but they were nothing if not experts at moulding themselves to fit the times. Most people had given up on aliens, and now this. In some ways, that could be construed as reaffirming the possibility of a god. We were obviously still a long way from knowing all there was to know or see all there was to see.
But it all meant very little to me. I had the warm feeling of a big fat cash balance and the knowledge that whatever else might happen, I’d never be out of work or short of something to do. I had a reason to exist and a vocation to follow, and there would always be a ‘Verse full of scum out there.
END
Also by Alan Baxter
REALMSHIFT
MAGESIGN
Available now from Blade Red Press
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