‘Can’t say I can really. It maybe due to a long fault in the earth’s crust, or something the others did before they blew the whole place up. It’s anyone’s guess as far as I can see.’
Just then, their attention was taken by a low dark smudge on the horizon, seemingly in the middle of the river. At that moment the two men with their depth poles called out that the water was getting shallow, with only a metre and a bit beneath the raft.
Glyn gave orders to pole out into the main stream until they had a clear two metres of water under them, and this they did, but it meant going nearly into the middle of the main flow to achieve it.
The raft picked up speed in the deeper channel and the blob on the horizon grew in size as they watched.
‘At the moment we are heading straight for it, whatever it is,’ said Arki, ‘so do we bypass it or try for a landing to see what it is?’
‘Let’s go for a landing, we don’t get much excitement just going down the river.’ Glyn replied.
The island was fairly rushing towards them now, and it took all their skill not to get swept past it as the waters divided and accelerated around each side.
The raft finally ran up a shallow beach, jamming the forward logs firmly into the soft sand, and throwing three of its occupants off. The others had seen what was coming, and had braced themselves against the landing, although some left the raft in a slightly undignified manner as they lost their balance at the moment of impact.
Towering over them were the remains of a massive structure which at one time must have reached high into the brilliant blue sky above, but now there was only the broken stump to remind them of man’s once mighty achievements.
‘Do you think this was a building of some sort, like the one we left after the storm?’ asked Arki, gazing up at the crumpled remains.
‘Could well be,’ replied Glyn, ‘but this one was much bigger, in fact it must have been enormous, just look at the width of the base, it must have been even bigger than our ship and the complex which held it.’
Tell-tale brown stains on the huge concrete blocks told of enormous steel girders which had once held the building together, but something even mightier had descended from the skies and delivered a stunning blow to the structure, reducing it to a jumbled heap.
‘I’d like to explore it, if we have the time.’ Arki stated, and Glyn agreed, his curiosity also aroused by the sheer size of the remains. Stakes were driven into the beach to secure the raft, despite the fact that the front end was firmly lodged, and everyone stretched their legs on the soft golden sands, enjoying the ability to wander around freely after the constraints of the raft.
While the others lazed about on the beach, Glyn and Arki began the laborious climb up through the tumbled mass of blocks which they thought had once been a proud monument to man’s progress, they little knew what the true purpose of the building or its contents had been.
They were about a third of the way up when they found a gap in the blocks large enough for them to walk into, taking them towards the core of the ruin.
‘This part hasn’t been damaged,’ Arki pointed out, ‘it’s a solid square passageway, like those on the ship, except this is some kind of stone.’
‘I’m going back to get the light thing, I don’t think there will be enough natural light to go much further, and it could be dangerous,’ said Glyn, ‘you wait here, I’ll not be long.’ and he scuttled back through the tumble of blocks and out of sight. Being alone in a nearly dark pile of broken concrete wasn’t Arki’s idea of fun, and the more he thought about it, the more time dragged by.
At long last he could hear the scrambling footsteps of Glyn returning, puffing and panting as he came into the passage proper, his face red and perspiring with exertion.
‘Bet you thought I’d stopped off for a meal and a rest.’ gasped Glyn, trying to get his breath back.
‘Damn right I did, it seemed like ages, I’m sure I heard some movement in here somewhere.’
‘I doubt that very much. How could anything have got here, and if it had, how could it sustain itself, there’s no vegetation on this island. Anyway, I was as quick as possible, perhaps your imagination got the better of you.’ he added.
They managed to go a few more metres into the passage by letting their eyes get used to the gloom, but then they had to use the light projector.
Glyn found that by pressing the button on the end of the device the light would come on at full brilliance, and by accidentally twisting it, he found he could control the light level right down to a gentle glow.
‘Didn’t say anything about that in the instructions,’ he said, ‘perhaps if we run the light device as low as possible it will last that much longer, what do you think?’
‘Makes sense to me.’ Arki muttered, his eyes probing the darkness down the tunnel for anything which might pose a threat to them.
They had gone down the passage proper for about twenty metres when they came to a bend, and then the passage forked left and right, both sections looking identical.
Let’s go down here,’ Glyn indicated the passage to his right, ‘if it leads nowhere, we can come back and try the other one.’
‘Have you noticed there is much less in the way of sand and other rubbish in this section?’ Arki asked, scuffing his feet to make the point.
‘Yes, I would have expected more considering the time since this place last saw human feet, but maybe the curve in the tunnel and the jumble of rocks outside have something to do with it.’ Glyn replied, feeling he ought to say something although it was of little interest to him.
As their eyes adapted to the low light, Glyn turned the button again, saving the power source a little more of its precious energy.
Another slight bend and their way was blocked by a massive door set in a frame, both made of the same shiny metal Arki had used to make his cutting blade from.
‘There’s a sort of wheel thing on the door, do you think we should turn it?’ asked Glyn.
‘Looks as if that’s what it was intended for,’ Arki replied, ‘let’s give it a try, I doubt we’ll have much luck moving it after all this time though.’
Glyn put the light device on the floor of the passage, pointing it at the shiny door, and then they noticed some faded lettering just below the wheel.
‘Can you read what it says?’ asked Arki, straining his eyes in the dim light.
‘No, it would seem to be in a language other than ours, I can’t make any sense of it. Let’s see if we can open this door.’ Even with both of them gripping the wheel and putting all their weight behind the effort, it still refused to move.
‘I know this might sound silly, but how about we try turning it the other way?’ Arki raised his eyebrows to emphasize the question, which was totally lost on Glyn in the dim light of the lamp.
‘OK.’ he grunted, swinging his arms to loosen the muscles after straining them against the reluctant wheel.
The wheel turned a few millimetres, but they weren’t sure if it had really moved or whether their hands had slipped.
‘Come on, let’s try again.’ said Arki encouragingly, and strained until his eyes bulged from their sockets. When Glyn added his effort to the wheel, it moved, making a very high pitched screeching noise as bare metal rubbed on bare metal for the first time since the pulse missile had scored a direct hit on the complex so long ago.
When the wheel had been turned as far as it would go, there was a loud clunk, and when they pushed the door it groaned opened, just a little.
They both put their shoulders to the door and it creaked fully open, a cold draft of sterile air gushing into their faces, and taking them both by surprise.
‘That air has a strange smell to it.’ commented Glyn.
‘A bit like the air in certain parts of the ship, when we found the service tunnel.’ Arki added, briefly recalling the comparative comforts of their former life.
‘Well, we’ve got it open, so we may as well see what’s inside.’ Glyn turned the littl
e button on the lighting device, increasing the light output so that nothing would be missed which could pose a threat to their exploration.
The passage was featureless, just solid stone like walls, glass smooth and dust free, their footsteps echoing eerily.
After several twists and turns they came to another door, with the same type of wheel in its centre. This time it spun without much effort and the door opened easily.
Stepping through, they found themselves on a gallery which circled around a gigantic pit, in the middle of which stood a rocket of such enormous proportions that it made them gasp, and it was in pristine condition.
‘Do you think this was the kind of thing they used to batter each other with?’ asked an incredulous Arki, hardly able to believe his eyes.
‘Certainly looks like it,’ Glyn replied, ‘small wonder there’s so little of the world left intact if both sides had such huge weapons, and I have little doubt that they did.’
‘According to what I read in the books, there were three main blocks of power, so if each of them were armed to the teeth with these, no one stood a chance of survival, so why start a conflict in the first place?’ Arki was still trying to come to terms with the total insanity of the situation which must have prevailed at the time.
‘They must have known what would happen once a war got started, and could foresee that it was inevitable, hence the project we were involved in.’
‘So, as far as we know, all human life on earth was wiped out, and we are in effect the seeds preserved through time to repopulate what’s left of the planet. Just about everything else must have been destroyed at the same time, I suppose.’ Arki continued, desperately trying to see some reason in a totally unreasonable scenario.
Glyn remained silent, turning the light device up to full brilliance and gazing at the massive weapon of destruction poised in its silo, still looking ready to deliver its deadly payload of oblivion to some unsuspecting section of the earth’s crust.
‘Don’t worry Arki, I can’t make any sense of it either,’ he said at long last, ‘some life forms must have survived, and probably mutated in the overwhelming wash of radiation which must have been present at the time, or we wouldn’t have anything growing here at all. What a terrible waste though.’
They stood there for some time, just looking at the beautifully streamlined shape of the missile which concealed such a hideous cargo within its gleaming shell.
‘Well, we at least know what this place was all about, and it looks as if someone else did also, and got their poke in first. Want to go down that stairway and see what’s at the bottom?’ Glyn asked, keen to see how such a terrible weapon was controlled.
It took quite a time for them to descend to the lower level of the silo, and in the last few metres they had to enter another doorway with its ubiquitous wheel.
The passageway wound downwards, eventually coming out into what they supposed was the control room, a vast array of blank screens and key pads sat on desks protruding from the walls.
‘It seems hideously strange that people sat here and decided which section of the opposing force’s country they would obliterate, and then pressed a button and sat back to watch a section of earth seared out of existence. How could things have got into such a terrible state?’ Arki asked.
‘The history of Earth I read in the books didn’t go right up to the point where it all went wrong, but I could read between the lines and see the trends forming which would lead to outright total war, if no one put the brakes on, and it seemed no one did.’
They wandered around the missile control room, marvelling at the equipment and trying to figure out how it worked, but were afraid to actually touch anything, in case it did.
The journey back up to the outside was long and arduous, and it was a very tired pair who eventually joined the others in the warm sunlight on the beach to recount their find, and try to explain how it figured in the general scheme of things.
After telling their tale, it seemed as if the sun had lost some of its warmth and the sands weren’t so soft and golden. Glyn called for the evening meal to be brought forward to cheer everyone up a little.
Early next morning they were on there way again, after a bit of a struggle getting the raft afloat. Glyn gave orders to try and get the raft over to the right-hand side of the river bank once they had got underway, so that fresh water could be found and the supplies of food replenished, but this proved to be a little more difficult than giving the orders.
The current caused the raft to twist and turn as the uneven river bed guided the water hither and thither, and those using the poles found that one moment they could get a good purchase and push the raft on course, and then there was deep water beneath them and the poles were useless.
This caused one unfortunate to fall overboard as his pole found nothing solid beneath it, and he toppled over the side amid much laughter. He was only saved by the quick reaction of Arki who threw him a length of creeper.
Once they had got clear of the strange island and its under watercurrents, the river returned to its old self and the raft drifted along in a more soberly fashion, being gradually guided by those with the poles across towards the bank, although they occasionally found an extra deep channel and had to let it drift where it chose.
The shallow water nearer the bank gave them much more control over the raft, and it was now just a matter of finding a suitable cove or inlet in which to beach the craft.
After an hour or so, the only inlet which looked at all promising had a solid wall of forest coming right down to the water’s edge and was inaccessible for landing.
‘Let’s try poling up the tributary a bit.’ Glyn called out encouragingly, and got a series of dirty looks from those with the job of poling the craft against the current.
Slowly the raft lumbered up the stream and around several bends, and there before them was a perfect landing place.
A gently sloping bank of sand swept down from a grassy lawn behind which could be seen clusters of the black berry bearing bushes.
‘Right, let’s go for that.’ called Glyn, swinging his arm out to indicate the beach.
The raft had doubled its speed by the time it reached the shore, and then ground to a halt catapulting several of its passengers prematurely onto the soft sand amid shrieks of laughter from those who saw what was about to happen and had braced themselves for the impact, remembering what had happened the last time.
The water in the tributary was fit to drink, and everyone had their fill before breaking up into little groups to gather food from the nearby forest, and firewood to keep the chill night air at bay.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the fire was blazing merrily, everyone had eaten as much of the bounteous gifts of the forest as was deemed sensible, and the emergency rations had been spared once more, much to Glyn’s relief.
As darkness crowded in around them like a silent black cloak, the fire was stoked up, sending twisting clouds of sparks spiralling up into the cold night air and casting dense elongated shadows of the sitters around the fire on the surrounding sands, like the spokes of a wheel.
Stories were told to entertain the younger ones, Mia got Glyn to feel the kicking bulge of the baby growing inside her, insisting it was trying to get out despite what he said, and everyone agreed it had been a very good day, except Brendon who had eaten too much fruit and spent most of the evening trotting back and forth to the bushes amid ribald comments from just about everyone.
They were just getting ready to sleep when a piercing scream rent the otherwise still night air, and all motion froze for a moment as no one was quite sure where the wail of death had come from.
‘That’s much too close for comfort,’ Glyn said quietly, his eyes straining into the impenetrable darkness of the night, ‘we’d better spend the night on the raft, mooring it a few metres out in the stream.’
‘How about some soft bedding to sleep on, those logs are damned hard.’ someone suggested.
‘I
t’s too dark to risk fumbling about looking for ferns,’ Arki replied, muttering to himself, ‘I don’t believe this.’
‘How about your lighting device?’ the same voice rejoined.
‘We’re not wasting that on a few ferns, you’re amply covered to withstand a night on the logs, just think about those who aren’t.’ Arki spat back, having identified the voice as the one who had recently returned from the bushes.
The firewood stock was quickly carried to the water’s edge, flaming brands from the old fire soon created a new one on a spit of sand which jutted out a little way into the river, and the raft was eased off the beach, the two mooring creepers being attached to staves driven into the sandbank.
‘OK, everyone onto the raft, Glyn softly called out, ‘I want two guards with sharpened staves, one facing the water and one facing the bank. Keep a sharp lookout, if anything moves, I want to know about it. As soon as you feel drowsy, wake someone else up to take your place, we can’t afford to make any mistakes. Oh, and someone should go ashore to stoke the fire up whenever it needs it, we need to be able to see if anything fancies us.’
With the raft moored several metres off shore, they felt a little safer, but it was difficult to get to sleep, and not just because of the hard logs.
What little sleep they did achieve was rudely broken twice during the long night, as something became a meal for something further up the food chain, and Glyn decided that food gatherers in the future would have to be accompanied by guards armed with pointed poles as there was no way of judging the physical size of the new threat to their existence.
Dawn broke none too soon for the sleep starved travellers, and all were a bit grumpy as they ate the remains of the fruit and nuts from the previous night. After the terrifying sounds emitted from the forest during the hours of darkness none were too keen to get more, despite their hunger.
‘Top up your water supplies and let’s get the food replenished. Remember, no one goes into the forest without armed guards in future until we know just what’s in there.’ Glyn was just as keen to move on as everyone else, the anguished shrieks of last night still echoed in his mind.
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