Helena picked at a strand of hair covering her eye, holding it far enough from her face to look at it before tucking it behind her ear. ‘My biological father was in Japan when the Tsunami hit. He said that the silence as the sea withdrew before the surge was the closest he ever came to believing in a higher power.’
David shifted with a wince to get a clearer look at Helena. ‘I’d be willing to lay odds he used the word God.’
Helena shrugged and looked out into the night. ‘It changed him. Edith blames that earthquake for their estrangement. In her charming way, she claims it turned him into someone else. A fatalist. Not something she understands, let alone has sympathy for.’
‘But you do?’ asked David slowly.
‘I don’t know. I asked him once, before.’
David said nothing and Helena chalked his silence up to his injuries slowly pushing him into shock. ‘He told of the water hitting the shore, how it demolished everything within kilometres of the beach: building, vehicle, animal, plant or man. Nothing and no one was proof against it. He had a choice phrase which he said came to him as he watched the levels encroach on the hill where he’d fled to. Man will return to the dust from whence he came. He stayed there for a number of weeks helping the Company rebuild. Edith could never understand why he’d associate himself with failure like that.’
‘Nor do you,’ said David, not unkindly.
Helena frowned to herself. ‘Perhaps. Yet here I am, trying to save Normals.’
‘Do you know why?’ asked David, a little too quickly for her liking.
Helena opened her mouth to answer and realised that she didn’t know. Analise came to mind, her father’s message, Analise’s father, even the Hound for the briefest of moments. But the images did not coalesce into an articulation of what she felt when she tried to imagine leaving them behind and escaping with her own life intact.
‘What’s the time?’ asked David. Helena looked round at him and saw his gaze turned to the sky. Following his stare, she noticed for the first time how the underside of the clouds was illuminated faintly with a pale pink light, as if dawn had come. She realised his question was ironic. She stood up looking around, trying to find a view of the sea without leaving the cover of the wall.
Having no obvious options, Helena shuffled round David towards the northern edge of what remained of the house. When she got to the broken shards of hardboard and shattered stone, she crouched down, resting her fingertips on the debris in front of her. Searching the vista before her, Helena had to swallow before she could admit what was happening. Still some miles out to sea was a shaft of bright light, swirling yellow and white as it funnelled and twisted its way towards them. It was falling through the clouds, ripping them apart as it came. Streamers of lightning and bursts of steam whipped dancer-like around the pillar, as if some dark spirit had suddenly been cast from heaven and mourned its descent to earth. At its base, Helena could already see the shimmer of vaporising water as the plasma turned the ocean to gas without boiling it. The heart of the plasma beam was as brilliant as a flash of magnesium and only the turbulent wreaths of condensing water around the shaft made it possible to observe clearly.
She shivered involuntarily as she grasped why Indexiv had withdrawn its troops. Then she stood up, staring openly. It didn’t matter where they decided to position themselves now; the orbital platform would sweep this area until they were nothing more than ash. Given the tempest it was creating in the bay beyond them, they were planning to level the area, to destroy everything.
That is not possible, said her AI.
Theory and reality often fail to agree and it’s always theory that comes off worse, thought Helena.
This is not what I had hoped for.
None of us hopes for this, thought Helena.
That is of no comfort to me. I, we, are alive. How can it end? What comes after?
Nothing. You see now the last moments of what there is. How do you plan to spend it?
Are you suggesting that we should try to escape through the lines of Indexiv troops?
Not at all. Edith isn’t a fool. I’d rather die here than fall into their hands. Indexiv have loosened their protocol enough to allow those soldiers to kill Family members without a second thought. If those soldiers have had their control parameters altered to that extent, I don’t doubt they would kill us, only very slowly.
And what about me?
We die together at least, said Helena, feeling a wave of regret. I had to do what I did. It would be nice to have the time and the resources to resolve our conflicts some other way but this is the way it is.
Perhaps.
‘Helena,’ It was David. Somehow he’d come after her. ‘When you didn’t return I thought it must be worth my time as well.’ Helena looked from David back to the plasma beam. ‘I see it was.’
Behind David, a few at a time, the Normals who were still standing came out from their hiding places one by one. They gravitated towards her, looking past her to the ocean and the fire moving inexorably towards the beach and the lighthouse.
Helena couldn’t see the special forces team and wondered what they were doing right then. Alone, they had some chance, even if remote, of breaking through the Indexiv lines, although Helena wondered where they’d go now the entire peninsula was occupied.
‘Do we run?’ asked a young voice from within the crowd.
‘No,’ said David. ‘This is it. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Jane.
From out of the darkness the Sergeant appeared. Helena was sure she caught him making eye contact with David, who shook his head. Helena would have missed it if she hadn’t already been looking for it, but she was convinced in that moment that the Sergeant had been seeking some sort of direction from David who had declined to give his permission.
‘Lady Woolf,’ said the sergeant. ‘There is no way out.’
And no sign of my mother either, thought Helena.
‘Thank you,’ she said to the soldier, her gaze on the sea, rain pattering gently but resolutely onto her face. For a while, no one spoke, the only sound the timid drawing of the tide beneath them on the beach and the splatter of rain drops, of wash falling from one surface to another.
A small hand snaked its way into hers. Without looking down at Analise Helena held on tightly.
‘I’m not sure how to feel,’ she said to no one in particular, although she hoped it would be David who responded.
‘I understand how the Israelites felt now. Watching the pillar of fire go ahead of them by night,’ said Jane.
‘My father said the most frightening element of the tidal wave was the noise of the surge. In all the calamity, the damage and destruction, the sound rammed home upon him like nothing else, the sheer indifference of the universe to man. And then silence. Stillness like the world did not exist.’ Helena could hear the hissing of the air and the rumble of lightning as the trunk of fire moved nearer. ‘He was inland. After the wave hit and the buildings collapsed, the water simply sat there. He said that of everything which happened he was most surprised by that; he had expected recession, for the water to head back to where it had come from, like a drunk who’s just hit a loved one and is full of remorse.’
‘There’s a silence that only survivors know,’ said David. Helena glanced at him and saw the sergeant watching, nodding in agreement.
‘You said you’d tell me the truth,’ she accused.
David shrugged. ‘Not enough time now.’
‘For what?’ she asked.
‘Civvies never understand quickly,’ said the soldier, looking at Helena. David had a slightly uncomfortable look on his face and smiled weakly.
‘Ok,’ said Helena. ‘Will you answer something else for me?’
David rolled his tongue around his lips and coughed; Helena assumed it was permission.
‘Why didn’t you try to come for me?’ In all the chaos of the last few days, her injuries, the irony of saving Normals from professional soldiers,
it was only as she asked the question that Helena felt a bleakness inside her, a loneliness at having been abandoned by them, it yawning within her like an empty grave.
‘I can give you an answer,’ said David. ‘But…’ He left enough of a pause for her to know it was an unpalatable truth being served to her. She felt she knew the answer but wanted to hear something very different. She wanted to feel that someone cared enough to cast themselves away on her behalf.
‘Jane asked for us to return. She was convinced we could extricate you from captivity.’ David looked around, trying and then finding Jane in among the crowd which was huddled together under the wrecked eaves of the manse. Jane stared back and Helena wondered if she was aware enough to have picked up the distaste she felt towards her. Knowing that it was Jane who had pressed for a rescue attempt did not leave Helena feeling ashamed or even different about her, but it was unexpected enough to cause her to wonder why they hadn’t come back.
‘But I couldn’t allow it. I knew what was happening. We had seen the signs as we fled back here.’ David let his eyes survey the crowd, lingering briefly on Analise before his gaze came to rest on Helena once more. ‘We had a remote opportunity for pick up here at the lighthouse. Edith’s communication was still, at that point, secure and encrypted. Euros were even making the right noises. After all, multiple Family members? They couldn’t turn their backs on us. You know how that story ends. Either way, there wasn’t time to return and unentangle you from the Normals when Indexiv’s troops were literally only hundreds of metres from your door.’
‘Analise?’ asked Helena, not wishing to hear an apology for something she knew she would have done herself.
‘Yes?’
‘If your friend is going to help then now would be a good time.’
‘Now is the only time,’ said Jens.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Analise. The fire hit the beach and Helena could smell the sand melting, a strange metallic flavour seeping into the air making her wrinkle her nose.
Behind her Helena heard people shuffling away.
‘Don’t run,’ said David.
Some clearly felt he didn’t have a monopoly on the solutions available. Helena heard first one, two, then perhaps five people, take off for the southern edge of the compound. No one else moved.
‘This shouldn’t be possible,’ said Jens.
‘And yet,’ said Helena.
He’s right, said her AI. Whilst the platforms are clearly capable of this level of destruction, it is plainly impossible for it to be sustainable. At this level of activity, Indexiv will have rendered this satellite entirely useless. It is a course of action hardly congruent with an organisation in the throes of a major conflict.
‘Indexiv are going to destroy their satellite to ensure we’re dead?’ asked Jens incredulously.
‘We must have upset them,’ said Jane.
‘I agree with Jens,’ said David. ‘But I’m not sure it makes any sort of difference to know our deaths are going to cost them on their p&l line.’
Shots rang out from south of them. People whispered amongst themselves: nothings and messages of love, goodbyes and farewells. After all they had been through, Helena was amazed more of them hadn’t panicked and attempted to escape.
Perhaps there’s a lesson there, came the thought from her AI.
What are you implying? She asked but there was no response.
In front of the group, the air was beginning to warm, flashes of ionised atoms struck the ground around them. Hearing the crackle of static electricity and seeing the hair rising on others’ heads, Helena took a deep breath, let the ions and ozone lift her spirits. She would die feeling positive.
Shielding her eyes from the brilliance of the fire before her with her hands Helena thought she saw something out to sea. Another beam.
Then nothing.
At first, she thought she was blind. The darkness following the extinguishing of the beam bearing down on her was complete. One or two people screamed but when death did not immediately follow, and the plasma wall did not rush to engulf them, the air was filled with the hubbub of confusion and fear. Helena blinked the afterglow away and looked around, feeling for Analise’s hand in her own, making sure the girl wasn’t lost.
‘What’s that?’ asked someone to her left. Helena spotted bursts of flame out in the bay. She frowned. What’s happening? A lazy arc of fire stretched down from the sky and precipitated another explosion, like a meteor striking the earth.
‘Thank you, God,’ said David.
‘I’m not sure why,’ said Helena and then realised that David wasn’t looking out to the conflagration in the bay.
‘Look,’ was all he said.
Following his lead, in the dimness she could see the plasma beam, south of them now, moving with almost impossible swiftness in an arc east to west, pausing occasionally as if searching for its next destination.
From the wall of the compound came sudden shouting and, in the half light, Helena made out a number of figures scrambling over the outer boundary. She pulled up her rifle and took aim, but David pushed down on the barrel.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said
Helena protested, trying to raise the rifle again. ‘They’re coming for us.’
‘They’re running from that,’ said David, still holding down the gun although Helena could see it was costing him. Relenting, more from puzzlement than submission or understanding, Helena watched and waited, still expecting the closing intruders to open fire on them.
A streak of light lanced out from the lighthouse towards the shadows and one of the advancing men fell, but the others charged ahead heedless of the assault.
‘I should have known,’ said Jane. ‘Your mother is one hard bitch.’
‘It’s not Edith’s doing,’ said Jens. ‘She’s been here months and, beyond a few shipments of small arms, has not been able to gather any real support for us here. And we have reason to be supported.’
One of the men, now clearly visible as an Indexiv soldier, swerved around them heading towards the beach, barely giving them more time than it took him to plot a course avoiding them.
‘It has to be,’ said Helena. ‘Who else could it be?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jens. ‘But it’s not Edith.’
They continued to watch as seven soldiers passed them on their way north, stopping only when they hit the implacable boundary of the water’s edge.
They didn’t last long; the Normals stood around Helena opened fire almost as soon as the first of them stopped, not ceasing until the last of the soldiers twitched only from the shock of further impacts into his body. Two of the women walked coolly up to the bodies and shot them each once through the head before returning to group.
Around them, the plasma beam was falling laconically in fits and starts, first close by then further south, each time lasting a few seconds before night descended and the only illuminations were the small fires lapping weakly at the manse.
Out in the bay, the falling meteors had ended their shower. Faintly through the rain and mist, burning hulks slowly slipped beneath the waves.
Euros are coming. The link had thrust its way into her mind from the Cloud but was empty again before she had time to respond.
Was that Lysander? She asked, seeking confirmation that she wasn’t going mad.
No,said her AI.It was not them.
Oh, thought Helena rather dumbly before saying out loud, ‘I think we’re going to be rescued.’
Chapter 12
EDITH EMERGED from the lighthouse before the first transport arrived but was the last to leave, refusing to depart from Jutland while any of the Normals were still present.
Helena sneered at, but did not challenge, her over what she considered crassly hypocritical behaviour, mainly because it was hypocritical in exactly the way Helena wanted. There was no question of Helena leaving before the last transport either and the choice came with the chance to find a space next to her mother.
Dav
id was shipped off in the first wave, along with two Normals who she did not think would make landfall in the City but whose wounds were so grotesque as to visibly move even the Family medics who accompanied the initial sortie from Euros.
Her last words to him were, ‘At least you get the chance to tell me the truth.’
He smiled grimly and said, ‘The reality is never as exciting as the anticipation,’ before being loaded onto the transport with great care by the medics.
Euros themselves sent a high-ranking military liaison to represent them on the ground. Although he wore a suit, it was obvious he was heavily armed. Helena suspected he would be a match for the Hound. After introducing himself as Roland, he swiftly organised the remaining special forces members, arranging for them to be rearmed and sent them back into the field. Helena wasn’t sure how many of them had survived the assault on the lighthouse but did not see any bodies being loaded.
While waiting for him to finish up with the soldiers, Helena noticed an additional member of the rescue team. He had arrived in a second wave in response to a dictat from Edith, who made it quite clear Euros was going to evacuate all the survivors and not simply the Family members. He was wearing an energetically expensive suit, processed to shrug off water and bar weather effects. Helena recognised him as an executive from Relationship Management. Tall and excessively thin, looking as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks, with a carefully managed dark grey beard wrapped around his chin like a well-trained possum, he stood with hands clasped behind his back, narrowly set eyes slowly gliding around the compound. He had one of those faces which disliked so many commonplace things that it was set with disdain at life in general.
At first he said little and did nothing, simply taking in the surroundings, walking into the manse then out again, around the base of the lighthouse and finally over to the perimeter, walking from one end to the other. He finished his tour with a short period gazing out to sea before finding time to check on some of the refugees and ending up with Edith.
A People's War (The Oligarchy Book 2) Page 27
