“Fancy a top-up, love?” she asks Waldo.
He looks up into her friendly face and can only think to say, “I need something stronger.”
Her laugh is cheerful. “Don’t you worry, my darling, your spoon will stand up in this brew.”
He lifts his cup. “Alright then. Stiffen my spine. I need it.”
As she pours Waldo looks directly at Belsa and adds, “We’ve a trip to plan.”
IT TOOK THEM weeks before they set foot on the island of Belsa’s birth. They shuttered the theatre (the ‘Under Renovation’ sign forestalled all questions), and settled personal matters. For Waldo that meant meeting his mother and concocting a story about a research trip to Scotland for a new puppet show. She pressed a woollen jumper on him, to keep his chest warm, and a St Christopher’s medal to protect their travels. He considered himself lucky that she didn’t insist on packing a bag and accompanying them. As far as his mother was concerned Belsa might be a business woman and an unconventional spinster, but she might still be capable of corrupting her son...
Belsa hired a couple of local labouring men to provide security for the warehouse, and make the building appear as if it was occupied.
She insisted they plot a meandering route up through England, taking busses and trains in a haphazard fashion. They often bought tickets for later destinations and skipped out of their carriage at an earlier station just before it departed. Belsa wore a long overcoat over her suit, tucked her hair under a trilby, spoke in a deeper timbre, and moved in an assured manner. She was often taken to be a man, which meant they were ignored as travelling business companions to casual observers. A well-deployed newspaper or book ensured only the most obtuse of passengers bothered them.
When they stopped by Glastonbury they stayed the night at a two-storied Guest House run by a plump and chatty widow. After midnight he heard Belsa leave her room next door. He looked out the window to observe her quick steps in the direction of the Tor, which cast a shadow over their building thanks to an almost full moon. He considered following her, but instead tackled her about it over kippers and tea in the dining room the next morning.
“I was paying my respects,” she said, and left it at that.
On their departure their landlady gifted them with small vials containing the red-tinged Chalice Well waters, guaranteeing it could cure gout or arthritis.
“The Martians never landed here,” she added enigmatically.
Waldo withheld his sarcastic comment about Martian indifference to English landmarks, and accepted her present with solemn silence.
Not only did the weather worsen the further north they travelled, but Waldo noticed Belsa became distant and colder. Once they entered Scotland they travelled more carefully, but their accents and clothing made them distinctly obvious. Everywhere they saw grim countenances and gaunt children, and a visible presence of police forces, even in villages. The locals were wary of people from Down South, and it was hard to win their trust—although Belsa’s generosity with funds tended to soften their defensiveness.
During one tense moment as they travelled to their lodgings in Wick, Belsa revealed that she carried a revolver. The would-be muggers backed away when they saw the glint of it in the street light, and the cool tone when she said, “I suggest you move on.”
They engaged a local fisherman to transport them to the island of Hoy under cover of a tempestuous night. Their small vessel chugged along the island’s westerly coastline, avoiding the massive military base at Lyness. Waldo was sick repeatedly as the ship dipped and rose over the gigantic waves of the North Atlantic Sea. The frigid gusts and salt water spray left his face raw as he leaned over the railing. The terrifying reality took hold in his head that they were a tiny spark rolling upon Stygian waters, and likely to sink into its indifferent depths if the storm intensified.
The captain shook his head at Waldo’s weakness and offered no succour.
Belsa stood at the prow of the ship and faced the wild, white-capped ocean as if challenging its dominion. The brutal power seemed to energise her.
In between vomiting he staggered to her side and noticed her relaxed posture and how she and the ship moved in concert.
“How do you do it?” he shouted into the roar of the Atlantic’s might.
“The ocean recognises its own,” she yelled.
She raised her arms. A silver light limed the clouds above, and Waldo though it was the moon slicing through the roiling clouds, but the mast of their ship lit up with an eerie violet flame which buzzed and crackled.
She threw back her head and laughed.
Waldo shrank into his oilskins, gripped the St. Christopher’s medal around his neck, and whispered a childhood prayer. His stomach cramped again, and he wished he’d never agreed to this folly.
AFTER TWO MORE surreptitious nocturnal boat trips by local Orkney fisherman they land at a tiny, abandoned island. The dock is crumbling, but the captain ties a line onto it and warns them he will be gone by dawn.
Belsa hands the seaman a roll of notes as they disembark, and whispers something. He doesn’t reply but in the low light Waldo thinks he seems shifty.
The dock’s stone steps are slippery from a mat of seaweed but their rubber boots keep them steady. Their flashlights pick their way along the neglected path to the island’s few buildings. Belsa moves with the confidence of someone who knows the terrain. The previous day Waldo had picked up a small shucking knife from one of the boats they travelled on, and he’d hidden it inside his prosthetic arm. That morning as he rolled the fake skin over the metal joints and skeleton and he didn’t begrudge the falsehood.
The hamlet comprises miserable cottages whose thatched roofs have collapsed. During their travels among the islands they were informed that after the base was established in Lyness the underpopulated islands were emptied as labour emigrated to Hoy and Mainland, and the pollution affected the fishing. Smuggling has become one of the best, if risky, trades for the remaining locals.
Before they departed that night they’d witnessed the distant lightshow as a rocket blasted off from Hoy and a plume of flame pushed it upward through the atmosphere. Many Scottish mariners had joined up to journey in those space-faring vessels—viewing them as a new adventure on different seas.
They stood for a long time and watched the light diminish until it became another pinprick among the stars.
“God bless them,” Waldo said quietly, and meant it.
Belsa’s light bobs along a narrow, overgrown track.
“This way,” Belsa says, a frisson of excitement in her voice.
They move through utter darkness since the clouds obscure the moon and stars, and the only sound is the artic wind rushing through the grasses.
A bone-deep loneliness settles on Waldo’s chest, stirring panic. They are at the very edge of the world, surrounded by nothing. He longs for the familiar noise and lights of London. This is as unnatural to him as the planet’s atmosphere is to the Martians.
A filthy whitewashed cottage emerges from the darkness. It’s burned out, and the door and windows are blacked holes. Shattered stumps of rafters are like ribs of a broken beast.
“The islanders burned it after my father left,” Belsa says. “They believed he was doing the Devil’s work.”
She enters the dark doorway. Inside, new life has taken root—a crab apple tree has grown inside the front room.
Belsa stands by the scrappy tree whose branches have spread out to create a living roof, and lays her hand on its trunk. She smiles, and it is wondering and beautiful.
“It would have been sheltered from the elements. Perhaps an apple fell here, and it grew from its seeds. Maybe the villagers planted it to redeem the space.”
“That tree must be over a hundred years old...”
She strokes one of its branches. “At least,” she agrees.
The world has gone awry. Aliens with advanced technology invading Earth through the vastness of space: he accepted that—he’d experienced it. A
nineteenth century scientist creating an immortal person in some twisted experiment... that seemed more extraordinary.
The quiet, the darkness, the strangeness pours over him in a torrent. He reaches for the wall to brace himself and an urge to sprint outside rises, but the terror of getting lost on that lonely island, surrounded by the icy black ocean and blind night freezes his legs.
Belsa is by his side, her cool hand on his face, and her voice telling him, “Breathe, Waldo.”
He fills his lungs with the sea air and exhales it slowly.
“Sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“This island is like somewhere out of time and place,” she says. “No wonder he came here to produce something so unnatural.”
“You’re not—”
“I know who I am and why I was created. I have spent my long life trying to be more than that.”
She moves away from him, ducks under the low branches, and enters the other room. He hears her moving in there for a few minutes, shifting some rocks, before he follows her.
This room is longer, with a large fireplace. She squats before a moss-encrusted flagstone, wiggling it back and forth.
“Let me,” Waldo says.
He peels back the skin on his left hand and retrieves the shucker. Holding it with his metal fingers he slices through the plant fibres and moss that seals it. He begins to lever the stone slowly out of place while Belsa keeps the flashlight trained on it.
“Easy does it,” he says to himself as the stone gradually lifts out of its old resting place. He slips his fingers underneath and his arm and shoulder work together to flip it out.
The torch’s spotlight shows something square and black. As Belsa reaches in, a congregation of millipedes rush away from the light, legs vibrating like the motor claws on a car.
She lifts it out and unwraps a thick oilskin cloth from a weighty red leather book. Embossed on the front are the gold letters “V. F.”
The sound of a rock skittering across the floor alerts them. They look up and Eldon stands by the stone lintel, wearing a green army greatcoat with a Martian ray gun pointed at them.
“Thanks for doing the hard work,” he says. His expression is a mixture of jubilation and spite.
Belsa stands and holds the book in front of her chest with both hands, drawing his attention.
“You were always a lazy researcher.”
“They’re going to dissect you,” he says coldly. “And I’ll get to watch.”
In the distance is the sound of an aircraft. A disc of light in the sky heralds its arrival.
Belsa looks up and Eldon follows her gaze.
“Gisela, I suppose?”
“She’s forged many alliances in British industry. Soon a robot will replace every last worker in British mines and factories. Productivity will soar. Prices will fall.”
“You’re such an idiot, Eldon. You’re replaceable too! Or has she told you that she loves you? Do you know what happened to her old master?”
His eyes deaden and his face settles into an implacable expression.
“Stupid bitches are easy to fool,” he says.
Belsa flings the book at his face and it hits him with such force that he is knocked through the doorway and into the next room. He roars in pain. In a blurred movement she is through the door.
Waldo picks up his knife and darts after them.
A searing beam of light flashes from a corner.
Briefly the room is illuminated: Eldon down on a knee, blood in his eyes, pointing and firing the gun in front of him. And Belsa, up in the branch of the tree, swinging around to kick him in the back of his head.
Waldo throws his knife. It lands with a wet thump in the base of Eldon’s throat.
The beam vanishes, but above a light is tracking toward the house. The sound of the aircraft vibrates the old stones.
“Are you all right?” Waldo yells over the noise.
“Get a flashlight,” she answers.
He stumbles back into the other room, and gropes for where he left it. But when he returns, the light is above the room. The tree branches are thrashing in the artificial wind.
She kneels with Eldon in her arms. Blood pours out of his throat and he gurgles. His wide, straining eyes are fixed on Waldo.
Waldo stands in the doorway until Eldon’s features relax and his animating force slips away.
A breath later Belsa is holding a corpse.
Waldo cannot believe he has killed a man.
She eases Eldon’s body onto the floor. Her hands are coated with his blood.
She looks up at the aircraft descending, and then down at Eldon’s weapon. She reaches for it.
An amplified voice above booms. “Drop the weapon!”
Belsa looks about and shouts at Waldo.
“Kick the book to me.”
He sees it, and punts it to her.
She points the weapon at the book.
There is a terrible rattling noise and a series of bullets punch through Belsa’s chest. A black substance oozes out.
She jitters and stumbles, but she doesn’t drop the gun.
Belsa fires and the book erupts into flame instantly.
She does not stop until it is reduced to ash.
Waldo runs to her and she collapses into his arms.
He holds her to his chest and rocks her. The pain in his heart is far worse than when he lost his arm.
Her mouth is by his ear.
“Take me to the water,” she gasps. “There’s a pier. Smugglers.” She lets out a cry of pain that chills his blood. “Behind the house. Follow the track.”
And she is dead weight.
Above him is clamour and shouted commands but he cannot think of anything but escape.
Waldo’s metal arm gathers her up. He stands, and runs into the darkness.
After a short panicked flight he stumbles and falls into a ditch, and it saves their lives. A barrage of gunfire and puffs of air slice the ground nearby.
They roll into brackish water, and an over-cropping boulder shadows them. Above, the light searches, but it tracks around the houses and back to the harbour.
When it is far enough away he picks up Belsa again and staggers in the direction she sent him. He wanders for what seems like hours, unsure if she is dead, but grateful for his prosthetic and the enhancements that Belsa has made to it. After a time a lightening at the horizon allows him to see the old track.
He speaks to Belsa constantly, about their work, about the Mob, about plans for a new play for telly involving a special international league of heroes who fight off a variety of aliens invading the Earth.
“And they are led by a daring commander, and it turns out she’s an alien, who has fallen in love with the Earth, and wants to ensure its people survive.”
He finds a stony beach and a short pier which is well maintained. His legs are shaky from exhaustion, and he lays her down on the pebbles.
A peach glow lines the horizon. Soon, they will be visible to anyone searching from the air.
The boat they’d hired appears and slides next to the pier. Waldo can just make out the captain in the gloom. He waves at them urgently.
Waldo places his warm hand against Belsa’s cheek. It is cool, and her eyes are glassy and wide open.
The pupils contract briefly.
“Waldo,” she breathes, so quietly he leans in close. “I like your idea.”
He reaches to lift her up.
“No!” Strangely loud.
“But you’ll die,” Waldo says. Uttering that terrible truth hits his heart with a hammer blow. His eyes well up.
“They are coming for me.”
The glow is not the sun, but a new ship. It glides into view with a square white sail, moving at unnatural pace.
It slides far up onto the beach, and in his stunned state Waldo notices that it is flat bottomed but seems to hover above the ground on a bed of light.
Four women wearing robes of glistening white st
ep lightly off the vessel and onto the beach. Behind them another woman, clad in silver raiment and bright like a star, approaches him.
“Goodman,” she says, “we will take care of her now.” The sound is both in his head and all around him.
The four women lean down and easily pick up Belsa.
He cannot move and he cannot protest.
“She will return,” the beautiful lady says. “When you need her most.”
They bear her to the boat, and settle her within it. The five women climb in.
He cannot bear this leave-taking. Tears slide down his cheek.
The ship eases back into the water.
The radiant woman raises her hand in the air, shimmering.
To Waldo it is a farewell, and a promise.
Wonderful Things
a tale of discovery, by
JONATHAN GREEN
“BY JOVE, CARTER, do you realise precisely the significance of this find?” Lord Carnarvon said as the two men sat in the shade of the awning, watching the Egyptian diggers traipsing in and out of the tomb in the valley below.
“Better than anyone,” Howard Carter said. “For one thing, you haven’t wasted your money after all.”
“And you haven’t wasted your life,” Lord Carnarvon laughed, raising his gin-and-tonic in a toast. “Here’s to King Tut!”
“King Tutankhamun!” The pair chinked glasses. “May the sun never set on his bounteous beneficence.”
They were silent for a moment as they sipped their drinks in the shadow of the pyramidal mountain that stood like a guardian sentinel over the Valley of the Kings.
The landscape was bleached almost white by the desert sun, and even in the shade of the awning the two men still had to take out their handkerchiefs now and again to wipe the sweat from their brows.
“Isn’t it wonderful that in this modern age, with all the wonders that the Martian invasion gave us, a dead desert king who reigned more than three thousand years ago can still surprise us by offering up such wonderful things.”
Announced by purr of an engine and the clatter of multiple mechanical legs moving in a wave-like undulation, a car appeared at the entrance to the valley and scuttled along the road towards the dig-site. Its drumming claw-feet raised a cloud of dust behind it. Wisps of noxious green mist—a by-product of the normal functioning of its Martian science-powered engine—mingled with the ochre dust cloud, giving it a sickly cast.
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