The Secret Invasion of Port Isabel

by Mark Douglas Stafford

CHAPTER 4

  TOWN SQUARE

  They passed the museum that had had been destroyed by fire during the riot. Flossy and Larry hadn’t been inside, as everyone thought. They were asleep, safe and dry in a secret place Larry knew. There was so much confusion about pirates she had thought it best to wait until morning before letting herself be seen. Apparently humans were feared as much as dogs, and her clothes made everyone think she was a pirate too.

  One of the museum’s walls had fallen and large blocks of stone lay scattered in the Square like giant dice. Harry had called it Reginald’s museum. He had said that Reginald not only worked there, but that it was his life’s work. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose so much. Flossy watched Reginald for some sign of how he felt but as he was marching ahead of her she couldn’t see his face.

  In the middle of the ruins stood a strange silver tower that looked like it hadn’t been harmed by the fire. It was tall, tubular and had a pointy top with a spike. It sides were studded with bumps running in long lines and it seemed to glow in the pale morning light.

  ‘Reginald!’ called out Flossy.

  Reginald tilted his big head back towards her as he walked.

  What’s that?’ she said, pointing.

  ‘That?’ he asked, looking up. ‘We call it the Cylinder House.’

  ‘It’s a house?’

  ‘In truth, we don’t know what it is or what it’s for,’ he said.

  ‘Who made it then?’

  ‘We don’t know that either.’

  ‘Well then, where did it come from?’

  ‘The owls brought it here hundreds of years ago. They built the museum around it. We think they pulled it from the ice. If so, it’s an artefact from the Machine Age.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘The Machine Age?’ Reginald asked. ‘Well, it was certainly thousands of years ago. The House you belong to, and probably the House of Owl, ruled the world and made marvellous things like the Cylinder House. Then the ice came, and the war.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Flossy noticed a flock of sheep disappear down one of the alleyways adjoining the Square. One of them seemed to have a long black tail pointing up. She had never before seen a sheep with such a tail, but until recently, neither had she seen talking animals. It must be the way some sheep looked in this part of the world. Anyway, she’d only caught a glimpse so it might not have been a tail at all. Perhaps the sheep was carrying something. But it did look an awful lot like a tail.

  She shivered with cold as they marched. Her bare feet were like blocks of ice and her breath misted. Every surface was black and shiny wet from the rain.

  There were shops bordering Town Square, mostly closed. Food and other goods were displayed behind large, dull windows. The misty rain collected overhead on colourful canvas awnings and fell into puddles on the cobblestones. Two large, grey rhinos wearing body amour had taken shelter under one such awning. They turned to watch her pass by, snorting in misty plumes but saying nothing.

  The Square itself was longer than it was wide, so it wasn’t really a square in the strict definition of the word. At one end was the Stinging Nettle, the entrance to Zigzag Road that led down to Curiosity Quay, and the ruins of the museum. At the other, was an enormous, wide-fronted building capped by a copper-green dome and fronted with a grand staircase. This was probably their destination, as the black boar was heading straight for it. Navy-blue flags hung limply from tall, white flagpoles that stood either side of the staircase. There was a small, old-looking domed structure in front but Flossy couldn’t see it clearly through the misty rain.

  ‘Is that the Heat Tree you were talking about, Harry?’ She pointed out a leafless tree in the middle of the Square that glowed like embers in a fire. It looked like the branching pieces of bleached coral occasionally snagged in the Enterprise’s fishing nets, just much bigger and glowing. She could feel the warmth prickling her wet cheeks.

  ‘Yes, that’s a Heat Tree. You’ve not seen one before?’ said Harry.

  Three big crocodiles lay on a low stone wall encircling the tree, basking in the warmth. One of the crocodiles noticed her and lazily lifted its head.

  Flossy rested a hand on the pommel of her sword. ‘It’s hot,’ she said, keeping a wary eye on the crocodile. It quickly lost interest and lay back down.

  ‘Clever name, then,’ said Harry, smiling.

  ‘What does, “Curiosity has its own reason for existing” mean?’ Flossy asked. The phrase was cut into the curving wall beneath the crocodiles and was stained with age.

  Harry shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s always puzzled me. The owls, they’re the ones who built the wall and most of these buildings, had all sorts of strange sayings—like the one about the dead cat over the gateway at the quay. Curiosity was a big theme of theirs. Do you know, Reginald?’

  ‘I’ve pondered it for years,’ said Reginald. ‘You see, every day I would walk past the Heat Tree on my way from the school to the museum or the other way round. I think it means that curiosity exists for its own sake; that it doesn’t need some reason other than itself to be. I think the owls were saying that curiosity doesn’t come from some problem that needs solving; neither does it need to result in some solution. It just is, and that’s enough. What I mean is: it’s good to be curious and you don’t need a reason.’

  ‘And now you know why’s he’s the teacher,’ said Harry, laughing.

  ‘Are there many Heat Trees?’ asked Flossy.

  ‘You don’t have them in Australia, at all?’ asked Harry, surprised.

  ‘No. I’ve never seen them before or even heard of them.’

  ‘They’re all over, but usually grow in a reef rather than as single trees like that one. There’s a really big reef cutting off Thompsons Creek—that’s where I’ve been building the Serendipity—from Port Isabel; a problem because it means I’ve always got to go around. They hold back the glaciers in the North. They even grow under the waters of the Gulf, keeping it ice-free, so they say.’

  ‘How do you keep them hot?’ she asked.

  ‘They just stay hot. Reginald, do you know how?’

  Reginald slowed so Flossy and Harry could catch up. The black boar was now well ahead of them. He had almost reached the bottom of the wide staircase. ‘We believe the roots go deep down into the ground and bring the heat up from there.’

  ‘Like our volcanoes,’ said Flossy.

  ‘I suppose so, yes. Just a little less destructive, I should think,’ said Reginald, smiling.

  They were passing the old-looking domed structure she had noticed earlier. It was a kind of rotunda with a railing running round. Inside was a large brass bell suspended under a decorative roof. Flossy guessed it was the bell that had led to all the confusion last night. Two curious heads poked out from under the railing. They belonged to fawns, baby deer. One had stumps that would become antlers when it was older. They watched wide-eyed as Flossy walked past with the others.

  Sergeant Boar reached the end of the Square and began climbing the staircase.

  ‘Is the Mayor in here?’ Flossy asked, awed by the size and grandeur of the building that towered over them and cast a long shadow.

  ‘Yes, this is Town Hall. Impressive, isn’t it?’ said Harry.

  ‘I’ll say. It looks old too.’

  ‘Very,’ said Harry. ‘It was built by the owls too. They didn’t doing anything by halves and they built to last.’

  They followed the black boar up the stairs. On either side were huge statues of armoured war elephants in the heat of battle. Bronze arrows protruded from their stone hides and their eyes were wild with rage.

  Reginald noted Flossy’s interest. ‘My cousins,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ said Flossy, awed.

  ‘He’s only joking,’ said Harry, laughing. He rested an affectionate paw on Flossy’s shoulder, which was about as high as he could reach. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Reginald’s got a sense of humour as dry as stale bread. It takes a b
it of getting used to.’

  At the top of the stairs they walked across a narrow landing and passed between stone columns as thick as tree trunks, these held up a high roof.

  It was good to be out of the rain. The black boar led them through the building’s entrance, so large it even dwarfed Reginald. Huge wooden doors carved with animal figures of all kinds hung open either side.

  ‘This space is called the Hall of Greeting,’ said Harry. ‘Look up.’

  Flossy looked up. Sunlight poured through rainbow windows set into the domed ceiling, which was higher than the Enterprise’s tallest mast and wider than the ship was long. It occurred to her that the Enterprise would actually fit under the dome with room to spare. Hundreds of golden wall niches housed statues of animals in various poses: some making war, some caring for infants, some gazing down at them with curious eyes like witnesses.

  ‘They tell the story of what things were like before Port Isabel was founded,’ explained Reginald, taking the tone of a schoolteacher. ‘In those days, the world was marked by cycles of violence. Animals killed and ate according to their kind, even though they knew it was immoral.’ Reginald pointed up with his trunk. ‘Notice that the wall niches are nodes defining a double helix reaching from the floor to the dome above.’

  ‘Nodes? Double what?’ Flossy asked, turning to look around.

  ‘Think of nodes as points connecting lines. The lines are parallel helices intertwined about a common axis,’ said Reginald, elaborating.

  ‘Huh?’ said Flossy.

  Harry helped. ‘A helix is a spiral, helices are two. A double helix is two spirals. Is that right, Reginald?’

  ‘Top of the class, Harry.’

  Flossy could see what Reginald meant. The wall niches spiralled up from the floor in two long lines. Instead of just hundreds of statues scattered up the walls, they were lined up as if they were supposed to be looked at in order; as if they told a story. She had no idea what story, though.

  Flossy was impressed by the scale of the structure. They had nothing as large in Australia, nor as beautifully decorated. When you lived near volcanoes you lived with earthquakes. When you lived with earthquakes, you quickly learned to build low buildings you could get out of quickly. Nothing on this scale would survive the next earthquake in Australia.

  ‘Wow!’ she said, looking up at the detailed frescos adorning the dome. She felt giddy and a little awed. ‘There are humans up there.’

  ‘Yes, humans are there,’ said Reginald. ‘And notice that humans and owls are always shown together. There are no other animals with them.’

  ‘Yeah, I see what you mean. Why?’ she asked.

  Reginald had stopped in the middle of the hall, directly under the dome. Under his feet a colourful and ornate compass rose, showing north, south, east and west, was skilfully set into the tile floor. He turned to face her. ‘We don’t know for sure. But the theory is that owls and humans were the first thinking, talking animals. The rest of us followed.’

  ‘But how? Who?’ asked Flossy, fascinated. She hadn’t been taught anything like that at school before she left Australia, or on board the Enterprise in what passed for school.

  Reginald shrugged. ‘I’ve spent most of my life trying to answer that question, Flossy. It was so long ago. The answers are locked up in the ice. I just don’t know.’

  Harry was still looking up. ‘It’s something, isn’t it?’ he said, voice lost in wonder.

  Flossy turned around, taking it all in and wondering if clouds ever formed under the dome.

  Sergeant Boar snorted impatiently and stamped a trotter, which clattered off the dome above. He stood by a set of tall doors to their right. These were plated with golden metal and set into the curving wall of the hall. Identical doors were at the rear and to the left of where they stood.

  Reginald led Flossy and Harry across the floor towards the black boar.

  Harry’s voice dropped to a whisper so that Flossy had to tip her head to hear: ‘This way leads to the Hall of Deliberation; the Mayor’s formal audience chamber,’ he said.