David had taken out a cigarette and was fiddling with it in his nervous way.
"Right. So it's possible we're all placing different interpretations on what we saw. I mean, we saw something. But our brains have interpreted it differently, because we are different in ourselves. It's like interpreting a poem. The words are the same, but different people can find different meanings in those words."
"I know what I saw," said Joanna. "I just can't describe it."
"So what do you think the Thing was?" I asked David.
He shrugged. "That's the problem. It could have been anything. But it doesn't have to be anything corporeal. A trick of the light. The gravity around the circle is totally screwed. Electromagnetic distortion is huge. It's the same all over the city. If there is something in the circle, it could easily influence our senses."
"That's what Max suggested about the split in the sky," I pointed out, hoping he would take this in the negative way it was intended. Where had the philosopher-physicist gone? "Something tried to pull me into the circle," I continued. "My leg disappeared. If it wasn't for Mr Sabatini..."
"I'm not saying there was nothing there," said David. "I'm just saying we are interpreting it differently. Of course you were closest to It. But we are no nearer to determining what It is."
"I take it there's another theory coming up?" This was from Joanna, in a blatantly sarcastic voice.
Her tone proved too much for Stuart. He had been driven back once; now he charged forward again, into the valley of death. "I don't hear you coming up with much," he said snappily. "Just a lot of unfounded stuff about - I don't know, magical energy and stuff. At least my idea is founded on scientific – ."
David put up a placating hand. "All right, all right," he said. "Please, this is not meant to be a debate about individual methods, just a discussion of ideas. Stuart, perhaps you should get these specimens into the spectrometer. Let us know as soon as you get something."
Stuart grabbed the leaf and the soil sample and headed for the door. He closed it a little too quickly and some delicate-looking instruments nearby rattled.
"A good student," said David. "But of course, still in the dark as far as our business is concerned. I apologise for him."
"I have perfectly valid theories," said Joanna, not backing down despite withdrawal of the enemy. "They're just based on different principles, principles you can't explain and therefore dismiss as invalid." Her tone was icy.
All right, it was my fault. I'd better be the one to spread the oil on the troubled waters in Room 122.
"Ok. Let's just remember we have a problem to solve," I said, my voice getting all hard and loud, which might have been commanding if there hadn't been a tiny trace of a tremor about it. "Now, as I'm at the centre of it all, I think I have some say. I'd like to hear from both sides about whatever theories are currently being tossed around. I won't judge either of them. And I don't want you to judge each other. Agreed?"
There were sulky nods from the antagonists.
"All right," I said. "Joanna. Do you have any ideas?"
Joanna nodded. "Thank you. I appreciate that not everyone has an easy time coming to terms with new beliefs. I also am well aware that not everything I believe is capable of scientific proof. But I fail to see why that should disprove it. Science operates along certain laws. It dismisses as impossible anything that does not operate in accordance with those laws. But perhaps some things just don't."
"Joanna, please," I said. I was starting to get a little edgy myself. "This is not what I asked. Do you have any idea of what is happening to me?"
She bit her lip and sighed. Then she said slowly, "Sorry. It's my belief you are the focus of a point of opposite alignment that is manifesting itself by the means we have seen. I believe it is encroaching more and more on our material world. I don't know if it is malign in intent, but I suspect it is. It is able to influence psychic abilities, both by screening you from them and by causing such peculiar events as the bogus horoscope you received."
That was all. I thanked her and turned to David. "And what's your theory?"
He leaned forward and clasped his hands in front of him on the desk.
"Very well. I – we – think that the circle and you are the foci of an inter-dimensional rip in the space-time continuum. Random occurrences of seemingly impossible physical events are being channelled through the circle and you. How this rip occurred or what will result from it I can't conjecture."
I sat back.
"Now," I said. "can anyone tell me how those two theories are different from each other?"
No one said anything.
"I thought so. You both think the same thing."
"No we don't," said David.
"Yes you do. You both agree that this is something powerful from outside the normal world that is influencing both me and events surrounding me."
David pouted. "I guess so."
"In other words, you haven't got a bloody clue."
David must have been really put out, because he fumbled inside a desk drawer, produced a cigarette lighter and actually connected the flame to the end of his cigarette. He took only a few puffs, though, before stubbing the cigarette out.
"The question is," I continued, "what do we do about it?"
The room went very quiet. And it stayed that way for some time.
***
Showtime.
Most of Brisbane was preparing to watch the sky split. News teams were setting up cameras and outside broadcast units. The road to the summit of Mt Coot-tha was lined with cars, although the view was going to be good everywhere. The Kangaroo Point cliffs were packed. Any open space was filled with people, many of them taking a few unofficial minutes off work to watch the display. The police were out in force and, in the true spirit of paranoia, emergency services had been put on alert. There was fear, too. Listening to a radio broadcast crackling with static and electronic howls, we heard of some people hiding, shutting their curtains and refusing to watch. It was Y2K all over again and there was a similar mix of expectation and uncertainty. The broadcast also told of similar scenes up and down the east coast of Australia, from Hobart to Cooktown. It was predicted, however, that the centre of the split was going to be over Brisbane, towards the south-east. No surprises there.
We chose to watch it at the University, because David wanted to be close to his computer. Despite the electromagnetic interference that still plagued all communications systems, he had established a fairly good landline with Parkes Observatory and he wanted to keep it open. We assembled in the courtyard outside the Physical Sciences building: me, Joanna and David, and a number of other staff and students. Someone had brought a carton of beer and was handing them around. A few people were sitting in folding chairs. There was a building between us and the south-east, where Microscopium lay, although our view in that direction was still fairly good. A few clouds had moved in from the west, but they were not going to trouble us.
Most of the spectators there were scientists, with a sprinkling of postgraduates and a few from other faculties, and most were curious about me. The word had spread that I was rather special. I received some interested glances but no one pestered me, for which I was grateful. I still felt a bit like a specimen, though. Joanna stayed beside me and gave warning stares to anyone who came too close.
"Ten minutes," said David, standing at the centre of a group of students, Stuart among them.
He was sipping a beer and setting up a pair of binoculars on a tripod. "Want one?" he asked. I declined; I was feeling nervous and the thought of gassy beer in my stomach made me sick. Joanna accepted one from the man passing them out, popped the tab and drank straight from the can. I admired her cool.
"Are you getting anything psychically?" I asked her, mainly for the sake of making conversation. I wasn't sure what the hell she was supposed to be "getting" – wasn't even sure what my sentence was supposed to mean, for that matter – but it was good to talk.
"No," she said. "But I'm
not trying. I know people who are, though, and they'll let me know if anything happens. In the meantime, I'm just here for you."
That made me smile.
"Thanks," I said.
"Five minutes," said David. He was consulting a piece of paper. "According to Max, the centre of the split – the widest part that is – should appear over that building there, just near the satellite dish."
"How long should this thing last?" asked a man nearby.
"Not long," said David. "It lasted six and a half minutes the first day, ten minutes yesterday. Maybe twenty or so."
I stared at the top of the building over which the split would appear. There were a couple of people there, looking to the south-east like we were. All of the city, all over the east coast of the country, thousands and thousands of eyes were straining into the bright blue. Through the media, eyes all over the world were watching live broadcasts.
Joanna drained her beer and belched quietly. It was good to hear her being so down-to-earth. I thought maybe I should have one. Perhaps it would calm my nerves. I looked around for the man with the beer, but he was busy talking to other people, and couldn't see me.
"Almost time," said David.
The conversation subsided. Everyone turned and stared at the innocent patch of sky above the satellite dish. The world was still.
Pause.
Then:
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord," sang someone. There was a groundswell of laughter. I silently wished he would just shut up, as I strained my eyes into the south-east.
Then:
A twist of air; distortion; a sort of heat haze effect, very brief, almost invisible.
"Did you see that?" I asked Joanna.
"Yes."
Another near-invisible twist in the blue. It could have been an illusion produced by eyestrain, if only others weren't seeing it too. Then, a few seconds later, a black dot appeared in the sky.
I remembered lying back on the beach a couple of years before, sun blazing, staring up at the endless sky, and seeing an eagle high, high above me, no more than a pinprick in the cloudless expanse, so tiny it had been the merest chance I had seen it at all. But once I had seen it, I was able to follow its flight, as long as I didn't blink or look away. If I did, then it would take a careful search to locate it again. This black spot was like that, only it stayed still, and was almost too small for my eye to focus on it.
It stayed that way for a minute, perhaps two. Some in the crowd had spotted it, others were trying to find it, following the pointing fingers of those who had. David was madly twiddling the focus knob on his binoculars. "It doesn't magnify at all," he said.
As if on cue, it started to swell. After another minute, it was quite visible, a black dot apparently only a few millimetres across and still growing. Everyone had seen it now. A collective sigh went up.
When it was an apparent two centimetres across, it changed shape, extending along its north-south axis. Soon it was a strip of night, pushing back the blue of the day. I looked for stars within the split, but the rest of the sky was still too bright to see any.
The strip lengthened and widened. It was much bigger than when I had first seen it, expanding even more, opening a dark gap in the sky.
Stars appeared in the split as more day-sky was consumed. "That'll be Alpha Gruis," some enlightened soul said. I hoped he knew what he meant.
The ends of the split had almost touched the north and south horizons now. More stars were visible. It was much wider than before, with almost a quarter of the daytime sky obscured. And it was still growing.
"David," I said. "I don't like this."
He glanced at me sharply. "How do you feel?" he asked.
"Fine. I mean, I don't feel odd in that way. I'm frightened."
And I was. Joanna grabbed my hand. "You want to sit down?" she asked.
I shook my head. "It's nothing like before. The first time, when I saw the split, I wasn't afraid, just curious." I remembered I had been more concerned about the traffic accident than myself. "But this - it's..."
It was like being in the circle, when the Thing had grabbed me.
There was something in the sky, some Thing that was related to what had been in the circle. I felt very alone and helpless and obvious standing there in the courtyard, staring back at it. There was a sudden pain in my foot where my lesions were. I was trembling all over my body. Joanna looked at David.
"Should we get her inside?" she asked.
I shook my head. "It won't make any difference." I forced myself to look at the dark split, at the stars impossibly shining there in the day, at the rip in the sky through which something was coming: inexorable, huge, eternal. In contrast to it, the whole world was a speck of dust, a mote of cosmic nothingness that circled a tiny sun in an obscure galaxy in a very ordinary part of infinity. Everything, everyone, all of history, all the achievements of humanity, all the suffering, all the intelligence and stupidity, was absorbed into the vastness of the Thing that was approaching. The world would be trampled on, tossed aside, crushed without recognition, of no more concern than a bacterium to the consciousness that was moving through the void. The Earth did not matter: It moved towards me. I was the focus, the centre, the hub of Its motion and purpose.
I fell to my knees. Joanna and David were beside me in an instant, and they lay me down on the ground. The split continued to grow, filling half the sky. The myriad stars grew brighter. The western edge was approaching the Sun.
"Ok," said Stuart, noting this fact. "This is going to be interesting."
As the darkness met the Sun, it seemed to slow very slightly, but soon it was crossing the solar disc, not with a curved shadow like the moon does in an eclipse, but a straight line. I stared at the horrible sight longer than I should, until my eyes hurt. When I shut them I could still see the half-eaten sun, red and black, under my eyelids. I opened them again and forced myself to look at the rest of the split.
Already the light had dimmed. It was twilight in the early afternoon. But, after a while, it seemed to darken no more.
"The sun is just keeping ahead of it," said David. "The splitting must have slowed."
He was right. The Sun was moving westwards, and the edge of the split was following it, still half eclipsing it, the rate of expansion now matching the apparent motion of the Sun across the sky.
"How are you, Emily?" said Joanna. I was lying on the ground. A cold drop of sweat fell off her forehead onto mine. She was as frightened as I was.
"Never mind me," I said. "I don't like the look of you."
We lay there for a long while under the half-dark sky and wondered what would happen next.
When Next did happen, it took everyone by surprise. If that was still possible.
"Um, I could be mistaken," said Stuart, "but I think one of the stars just went out."
He pointed up vaguely into the sky, like we could all follow his finger.
Nevertheless, we all looked. There were so many stars visible now it was quite impossible to tell if one was no longer there, but then it happened again. I was looking at one big one, near the centre, when it just winked out, like someone had flicked a switch. Then another beside it. Other people were calling out when yet another star disappeared.
One by one, they were turning off.
I couldn't help feeling just the tiniest bit responsible.
Soon they were all gone. The strip of darkness was unrelieved, velvety black and menacing. Darkness had descended. The darkness of hell, the darkness of oblivion.
Almost.
There was the night of the third day to come, and I will deal with that next. But don't panic, your hapless heroine is still with you. Just.
PART THREE
QUANTUM SEX
Branwell’s Third Law: Reality is just the beginning.
I see no reason to break with tradition. I started the last two parts of this book naked, and you seemed to like that idea, so I’ll do the same with this one. Instead
of starting, as I was going to, with me having changed my clothes and preparing to talk with David, I’ll start a few minutes before that, with me actually naked and about to put new clothes on. Of course, I didn’t really take all my clothes off and stand there completely unclothed before adding new items. No one does that, unless they have a shower or sex in between. But let’s call upon some artistic licence and pretend I did.
Imagine me, therefore, pausing after removing my clothes and having another look at the lesions on my foot. They were quite black now, accompanied by a dull, throbbing pain that was bearable but persistent. Prodding them produced more pain, but no sparks such as we’d seen when Joanna had done the same thing. I tried to ignore them, but every so often they would twinge and remind me they were there.
I dressed after ruminating on this fact for a moment, in something more all-purpose this time: chinos and a black sleeveless top. I plaited my hair too, a single braid down the back. Things were moving quickly and I had to be prepared for anything. If you’re going to be defending the universe, the last thing you want is hair getting in your eyes.
So there, all dressed again. Hope you enjoyed it.
***
The gang was once again assembled at Joanna’s house.
What is the proper collective noun for reporters? A press? A shove? Whatever, there were a lot of them outside, taking photos of anything that moved (and a lot that didn’t). And how about the collective noun for spectators...a goggle? They were there too, drawn to Joanna’s place like they had previously been drawn to mine, pushing up against the fence, having a great time. We kept the curtains closed and stayed away from the windows. The police were there, too, which was actually all right by us as they kept people outside the gate and prevented unwanted intrusions. I don’t think that’s why they turned up in the first place, though: the authorities had decided I could no longer be ignored. They knew that I had unofficially excused myself from hospital by walking through a wall, and it was suspected that I was linked somehow to the split in the sky. So the police were there partly for our benefit, and partly to see what stunt I would pull next.
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