E-Branch - Invaders Part 11

'Miller's in your machine?' Trask raised an eyebrow, then nodded decisively. 'So he wants out of here. And once away, he intends to take his story to the authorities or, worse, to some newspaper or other. Well, it can't be allowed. Yes, I want rid of him. No, I don't want the trouble he'll bring . Only a handful of people in the very highest places know what we're doing, and if we're compromised it will make them look bad. As for the man in the street... well, it's simply out of the question. The world's insecure enough as it is.' 106 107.

He turned to Jake. 'Go and find Lardis Lidesci, will you? Bring him to the chopper park in the clearing on the far side of the road.' And speaking again to Phillips, 'You and me ... let's go and have a word with Mr Miller.'

'Just what is that fat jerk doing here, anyway?' Jake wanted to know.

'He was supposed to give us some legitimacy,' Trask answered.

'He's liaison, a go-between, that's all. But he took his job too seriously, discovered the location of our original base camp near Lake Disappointment, which is after all his province, and since the n he's insisted on stayin g aboard. Well, with us is one thing, but against us is another.

Now, after seeing far too much of what we're about, he's all too eager to leave. I can't very well stop him, but I really sh ould warn him against doing anything stupid. Now g o and get Lardis, will you?'

And Trask and Phillips went off through the night.,.

The Old Lidesci was in a foldaway chair, dozing by the guttering campfire. But as Jake approached he gave a start and looked up. 'Eh, what is it?'

'Trask wants you,' Jake told him. 'At the helicopter park. Some trouble with Mrs Miller.'

'Mrs? Eh?' Lardis frowned at first, then burst out laughing. 'Oh!

Ha&tild;ha&tild;ha!Rut you know, the truth is I've been thinking much the same thing: how that poor excuse for a man reminds me of a chattering old woman? A week on Sunside would sort that one out, I fancy. But no, no ... the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d wouldn't last but a day.'

Jake a.s.sisted him to his feet and the Old Lidesci stamped his left foot a little. 'Cramp,' he said. 'I'm getting past it. We call it The Crippler, where I'm from. But it's rheum- er, rheuma- er ...'

'Rheumatism?' Jake said.

'd.a.m.n, right!' said Lardis. 'It's rheumatism here. Ah, but it's a sod in any world.'

And with the old man leaning a little on Jake's arm, they made for the road and the helicopter park ...

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Miller, And The Trouble With Dreams In the helicopter park, voices were raised in anger. One was a rasp: Ben Trask's. And the other was high-pitched, shrill, and threatening. In short, bl.u.s.tering; but the mind behind it held threatening knowledge, certainly.

'Try to see sense, man!' Trask was growling, as Jake and Lar dis approached the well-lit area where a handful of Branch agents and chopper ground staff stood in a clearing and watched the show.

'Sense? Sense?' Miller was in one of the two helicopters, belted into a pa.s.senger seat near the section of aluminium frame that formed both cabin wall-panelling and steps. At present the steps were 'down' and Miller was seated opposite the open door, from where he looked d own on Trask outside the aircraft.

'What? Are you telling me my att.i.tude is nonsensical? But I know what I saw tonight, and it wasn't of this Earth. It was intelligent, and alien ... oh, and it was ugly, yes. But I also saw the devastating force that your thugs used against it, which was even more inhuman! So who the h.e.l.l are you, Mr Trask? Some kind of monster yourself? You and your people: you're not the military, not even Australian. It's obvious to me that you've duped somebody somewhere. As for those poor aliens: whoever they are and wherever they're from, they deserved a lot better welcome than you gave them. This is Earth Year - dedicated to the ecological survival of the planet - 108.

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r and you might well have condemned our world to interplanetary isolation. Worse, we may even find ourselves at war.''

The precog lan Goodly stepped out of the shadows and spoke to Jake and Lardis. 'This idiot obviously has some kind of bee in his bonnet. "The flying saucers have landed," and all that rot. He seems to think we've been murdering aliens - visitors from another world, that is - out of hand!'

'Haven't we?' Jake looked at him. 'No/ Goodly answered. 'We killed invaders. Visitors don't arrive uninvited, stay, and kill off or enslave the occupiers. But invaders frequently do ... and the Wamphyri always do! Not knowing everything, Miller sees our action tonight as an unprovoked a.s.sault, a pre-emptive strike, against "beings"

whose intentions h adn't been fully determined. W e, on the other hand - knowing the entire story, having been here, or there, before - see it differently. We see tonight's action for what it really was: the only cure for a nightmarish plague that submits to no other antidote.' And meanwhile: 'Miller, come down out of there/ Trask was insistent. 'The airplane you're sitting in has been serviced and fuelled for an important mission. You're cutting into a tight schedule/ 'That's Mr Miller to you!' the other snapped. 'And I'm delighted to be disrupting your vile schedule! What, am I preventing another ma.s.sacre like the one you organized tonight? Good!

My G.o.d! How many of these poor people have landed, then?'

'You see?' Goodly muttered. 'They're "poor people" now. I mean ... is Miller unbalanced or what? He had a ringside seat for tonight's show, yet he's still not convinced!'

Lardis had seen and heard more than enough. Freeing himself from Jake's helping hand, he moved up alongside Trask and, in a lowered tone, said, 'Why don't you just drag his a.r.s.e out of there?'

'I was trying to be diplomatic/ Trask answered under his breath.

'It didn't work/ said Lardis. Trask nodded and said, 'That's why I sent for you.' Then, turning away, he said, 'Get him out of there. And bring him to the big Ops truck. Maybe his own authorities can convince him, for I certainly can't. Jake, help Lardis after he's got Miller down from there.'

'Why don't I just do it for him?' Jake was surprised. 'The old boy, well... he's old.'

Trask agreed. 'He's full of old ways, too. So don't wo rry, he'll manage okay, and probably scare Miller half to death into the bargain. Serve the b.a.s.t.a.r.d right!' And without another word he went on his way, and lan Goodly went with him.

Meanwhile Lardis had climbed the steps, leaned inside the chopper's open door, and was showing Miller his machete.

'Sharp as a razo r/ he said. 'You could shave with this - except you'd get tired holding it up to your face. See these notches in the grip? Twenty-seven of 'em. Twenty-seven exec- er, excecu- er, killings, yes. And all of them were these "people" you seem so fond of. D'you know why I killed 'em?'

'Bloodthirsty old lunatic!' Miller hissed. 'Well, I don't know where you come from - what reservation? - but where I'm from we're educated and civilized. Don't try to threaten me. I don't give a.f.u.c.k for your big knife!' Which was more bl.u.s.ter, for anyone in his right mind would certainly give a f.u.c.k about Lardis's machete. And Miller's language was slipping, too. In any case it was as if Lardis hadn't even heard him. 'I killed 'em 'cause they eat fat little girls like you/ he said. "Cause they're a contain- er, a contamin- er .. / 'Contamination/ said Jake from the foot of the steps.

'd.a.m.n right!' Lardis nodded. He put the point of his machete up to Miller's neck inside the nylon seat belt, and continued, 'Now Ben Trask wants you to come down out of there. He was asking you nicely, because he believes in being diplomatic. But me, I don't.'

Miller tried to cringe away from the glittering blade, but his no in seat belt trapped him in position. 'Are you ... do you dare to threaten me?' he gasped.

'Dare to threaten you?' said Lardis, his dark eyes narrowing to slits. 'h.e.l.l, no, "Mr" Miller! This isn't a threat but a promise. If you don't move your a.r.s.e out of there, I'm going to cut your f.u.c.king ears off!' And he made a sudden slicing motion with his machete.

Miller screamed aloud, and for a moment Jake thought that Lardis really had cut him. But no, he'd sliced upwards and outwards, and his fine-honed blade had pa.s.sed with scarcely a hiss through Miller's seat belt above the shoulder. Miller had been straining away from the Old Lidesci; freed from the safety harness, he jerked from his seat in that direction and fell to his hands and knees on the helicopter's floor. Lardis stepped over him, and while the little fat man was still off-balance grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his pants to send him bouncing down the steps. It didn't take too much effort.

Miller's blubber saved him from any real hurt, but still he yelped as he hit the dirt; yelped yet again as Jake hoisted him to his feet - only to put him in an arm lock. 'Mr Trask is waiting for you/ Jake told the babbling fat man, as he frogmarched him in the direction of the Operations truck ...

In Ops, Trask stood inside the oval control desk, speaking earnestly into a telephone. 'Yes, I appreciate the lateness of the hour... I understand perfectly, sir, and I agree entirely. But in this case I'm sure that only the highest authority will suffice ...

You may believe me when I tell you that this really is as important as your Minister for Internal Security has reported, a matter of the gravest security. I certainly wouldn't have had you brought from your bed for anything less ... He's called Peter Miller, sir - that's "Mr" Miller - our so-called "local liaison". Not very helpful, sir, no. Indeed, completely hysterical, as I've said ... That's what I would suggest, yes, absolutely ... Until we're finished here, yes. That is, of course, if you're in agreement... ? Confinement. I'm afraid so, yes. Oh, we have the means. But Miller - Mr Miller - is an Australian citizen, sir, and we're not. Which is why I need your ... ?'

Trask looked up, saw Miller's face throbbing with rage and 'righteous' indignation where Jake's hand was clamped over his mouth. The sight of the man, in no way pacified, seemed to convince Trask of the course he must take. And: 'Perhaps you'd like to have a word with him in person?' he continued into the phone. 'See for yourself, as it were?' With a nod and a grimace he pa.s.sed the phone to Miller, at the same time indicating that Jake should release him.

Miller shook himself, reeled, and said, 'Eh? What?' Intent on freeing himself from Jake's grasp, he'd taken in very little of Trask's conversation with the unknown other.

But now Trask said, It's for you ... someone wh o wants to know how you're keeping?'

'b.l.o.o.d.y crazy Pommy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!' Miller raved. 'And who the h.e.l.l is this, the Prime-b.l.o.o.d.y-Minister?' He s.n.a.t.c.hed the telephone from Trask's hand, yelled, 'Whoever you are, the man you were speaking to is not a reasonable human being.

He's f.u.c.k ing British, a f.u.c.king murderer, and I'm a G.o.d-fearing, completely innocent f.u.c.king Australian! This is my G.o.dd.a.m.ned country, for Christ's sake, and I demand to speak to the police, to the military, to someone in authority, to ...'

'... To the Prime-b.l.o.o.d.y-Minister, perhaps?' said Ben Trask, coolly examining his fingernails. And under his breath, to the others in the trailer: 'Lance Blackmore, whose platform slogan, if I remember correctly, was "Sanity, sobriety, and common decency in speech and spirit." Oh, and something else: he's decidedly pro-British!'

Miller's round face was suddenly wobbling, its colour visibly changing, paling. 'Eh?' he gulped. 'Do I what? Your voice? Do I recognize it?' Well, maybe he did ... and maybe not. With his pig-eyes narrowing, he stared suspiciously at the phone - then at Trask - and spat, 'Some lousy f.u.c.king Pommy con man you 112.

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are! And this is supposed to be Lance b.l.o.o.d.y Blackmore, right? Oh really? W hat, at two o'clock in the morning? After what I've seen and been through tonight, you expect me to believe that my own Prime Minister, the Australian Prime-b.l.o.o.d.y-Minister, would condone ... ?'

But the telephone was making loud noises in Miller's ear, and suddenly his face was floppily mobile again. For this time the owner of the now angry voice was fully awake and the voice itself unmistakable. As Miller's flabby mouth fell open, Trask took back the telephone and spoke into it. 'There you have it, Prime Minister. Now you know what we're up against.' And a moment later: 'Yes, certainly, I shall see to it myself. Physical restraint - house arrest, shall we say? - until we're through here? Thank you. And there will be a copy of my report on this phase of the operations on your desk by noon, yes. So far it's - looking good. My pleasure, sir. Thank you once again. And goodnight.' He put the 'phone down.

'It was him.'' Miller gasped, his mouth opening and closing like a stranded fish. 'It really was Lance Blackmoref Clenching his pudgy fists, he glowered at Trask: 'You duped him.' You even duped the Prime Minister.' Who the f.u.c.k are you people?'

Trask shook his head in disgust. 'Once your mind's made up it really is made up, isn't it, Miller?' 'That's Mr Miller-'

'Oh, shut the f.u.c.k up!' Trask was mad now. He reached over the desk, grabbed the fat man by the front of his sweaty shirt, bunched a fist and drew it back ... then thought better of it.

Instead he gave him a shove, sent him reeling back into Jake's arms. And before Miller could start up again: 'You're under arrest. If you protest too loudly I'll have you gagged. If you come on all physical I'll have you bound. If you attempt any interference with the work going on around you, I'll put you under constant surveillance by Lardis Lidesci. And if you're stupid enough to make another run for it, then you'd better be aware I'll deal with you ... far more severely. Have I made myself clear?'

'Why, you ... you!' Miller mouthed, his furious expression speaking volumes more than all of his frothing bl.u.s.ter. And so: 'When I turn you over to your Internal Security people in Perth tomorrow,' Trask went on, 'they'll read you the riot act, demand that you sign an Oath of Silence, give you to understand how very much in error you are, and generally threaten you with all sorts of dire things if you so much as mention anything you wi tnessed as our regional liaison person during this operation.

And believe me, Miller, even if they can't make it stick I can. Don't for a moment think I'm going to forget the trouble you've put me to. And something else you should remember: in this modern world of ours distance isn't a problem. I'll be back in the UK shortly - I hope - but I have the longest arms in the world. And if I ever suspect that you're out there so mewher e flapping those soft self-righteous lips of yours-'

Trask paused for breath, and Lardis Lidesci said, '-Then he'll send me to stop you flapping them - perhaps permanently!'

The Old Lidesci stood in the narrow doorway, holding his machete to his chest, thumbing its blade and turning it in his hand to make it reflect the Ops Room's lights into the fat man's eyes. 'Twenty-seven notches, remember, Miller? But in your case, I'd just love to make it twenty-eight.'

Miller flinched a little but his expression didn't change. And again he blurted, 'You ... you ... you!'

'Obviously I haven't made myself clear,' Trask sighed. And to Jake: 'See if there's a spare bunk room back there, will you?

And lock this f.u.c.khead safely inside it!'

And that was that, for the moment.

Finally, they could all get some sleep. To some, a jplessing...

But Jake Cutter didn't much care for s leep. For some time now, in fact since his weird escape almost a week ago, sleeping had been a problem. Oh, he could do it, and he could do with it - indeed, his eyes felt heavy from the lack of it - but he didn't want to do it. Because when he went to sleep, that was when the Other woke 114.

up. That b.l.o.o.d.y Other, that one who was there in the back of his mind. And when Jake slept... why, then he couldn't be sure that his dreams were his at all. He hadn't told Ben Trask about it, mainly because he suspected that Trask would be interested. It was the relationship that was developing between them: just as the Head of E-Branch continued to hold things back, so did Jake Cutter. In his book trust was something that could only work if it was mutual.

And so he was left to face it on his own, and sleep was a necessity he avoided as best he could while yet recognizing, of course, that it was a necessity. It wouldn't be so bad - or so he told himself- if only he could remember what these troubled dreams of his were about afterwards, when he was awake; or, then again, maybe it would. And maybe that was why he couldn't remember them: because he didn't want to ...

Lardis Lidesci sat with Jake a while, hea ped a little wood on the dying fire, opened a can of sausages and beans in tomato sauce and ate them cold. The Old Lidesci smacked his lips appreciatively. 'Some of the things in this world ...' he said, then started again, '-h.e.l.l no, most of 'em.' - I could do without. But a can-opener and a can of beans ...' he grinned, smacked his lips again, and shook his head. 'Well, these beans and the meat in these sausage things, they're a sight easier on these gnarly old tusks of mine than roasted shad, I can tell you!' 'Shad's a fish,' Jake said, tiredly.

'In this world, sure,' Lardis nodded. 'But the first time I see a fish pull a car avan ... I'll quit drinking plum bra ndy, and that's a vow/' He held the empty can in one hand, the can-opener in the other, looked at each in turn admiringly, burped and uttered a sigh. 'But since my people don't have cans, what good's a can-opener?' 'You and Trask could drive a man mad,' Jake told him without looking up. 'You come up with this weird stuff right out of the blue, as if I'm supposed to know what the h.e.l.l you're talking about! I mean, I've seen enough now to know this isn't some gigantic leg-pull, so what the h.e.l.l is it?'

'h.e.l.l's just about right,' Lardis grunted, creaking to his feet. He laid a hand on Jake's shoulder. 'But, son, take my word for it: Ben's not trying to drive you mad, and neither am I. It could be we say these things hoping you'll recognize something, hoping you'll perhaps remember.'

There was something in Lardis's gruff old voice that caused Jake finally to look at him. 'But remember what?' he said.

And it was as if they stared deep into each other's souls. So that for a moment - just for a moment - it seemed that they had known each other, oh, for quite some time. Then Lardis nodded, and as though he had read Jake's mind said: 'Other times, maybe? Other places?'

'Times and places?' Though Jake tried hard to understand, still it was beyond him. 'Make sense, can't you?' There was no anger now, just a need to know.

'A time on Starside, perhaps,' Lardis said, still staring hard at J.

ake, 'when a man and his changeling son laid waste to the aeries of the Wamphyri? Or a time when the same man lay in the arms of a wonderful woman, whose name was Nana Kiklu. Or a time when we met - met for the last time, that man and I - in the ruins of The Dweller's garden, when it was already far too late for him ...'

Lardis's words conjured pictures that came and went. They meant something - Jake knew that much at least - but they were monochrome things; they flickered like the frames of some ancient silent movie ... jerky scenes and twitching puppet figures. And despite that Jake thought he recognized some of them, still it was as if he saw them through someone else's eyes: He looked down on a plain of boulders, lit silver-grey beneath a tumbling moon, where dis tant spires climbed to a sky of ice-chip stars. And that alien sky was alive with flying beasts whose weird shapes ...! G.o.d, those shapes! Designs not of Nature but of Nightmare!

As quickly as it had come the scene was gone, disappeared, and another took its place.

A garden - The garden? - where a younger Lardis stood by a wall and gazed upon a scene of desolation. A windmill's crumpled vanes slumped all 116.

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lopsided atop a skeletal, tottering timber tower; some of the roofs of low stone dwellings hadfalien in; the trout pools were green with algae., and the greenhouses were tangles of shattered frames, leaning or fallen flat, with clumps of bolted vegetation sprouting through their torn plastic sheeting. The pictures continued to flicker and blur, and the oddly young Lardis turned jerkily to stare at Jake ... or at the one gazing back at him through Jake's eyes. But in this not-so-Old Lidesci's eyes there was fear, and in his hands a shotgun that came swinging,frame byjlickeringframe - click, clickety-click - in Jake's direction. And the look in Lardis's eyes was no longer fear, or not entirely, but fear combined with deadly intent!

Abruptly, the scene changed: To the straining face of a handsome woman. Handsome, yes, but by no means beautiful - yet beautiful, too, in her way.

Her body was beautiful, certainly. And hands (Jake's handsP) on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s where they lolled in his face. And her breath.like Jire in his (or some other's?) flared, nostrils, and. the sweat of her pa.s.sion as slippery and hot on his hands as the wet core of her womanhood where it sheathed his jerking flesh. Nana?

'Nana!' Jake exclaimed, as the scene slipped from memory - but his memory? - and he found himself seated by the campfire, his hands before his face, perhaps to fondle (whose?

What was her name?) the handsome woman's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, anyway, or perhaps to ward off Lardis Lidesci's shotgun. Well, there was the old man, sure enough, but now more surely the 'Old'

Lidesci as Jake knew him; and he had no shotgun but a strange satisfied look on his face.

'And it's Nana, is it?' Lardis said, with a knowing nod, as Jake's mind swam back into focus and he slowly lowered his trembling hands. 'Took you back a ways, didn't I, my young friend?'

'What... what did you do to me?' Jake whispered, the words sighing out of him.

'I have an ancestor's seer's blood in me,' Lardis answered. 'It smells things out. And I think that it has smelled you out, too, Jake Cutter. For just as this art of my forebears has been pa.s.sed down to me, so something has been pa.s.sed to you. It's in you, man.'

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Not in your blood, as it was in Nestor's and Nathan's blood, but buried in your mind and your soul for sure!' And now the look on the Gypsy's face was one of awe as much as anything else.

'It's in me, yes,' Jake agreed, knowing it was so. And then, coming very close to desperation, 'But what is it, Lardis? What is it?'

The other shook his head. 'No, no. Ben wouldn't want me to say any more. Indeed, he'd nag that I've already said too much!

It will have to take its own good time, that's all.

But what's in will out, of that you can be sure. And now, goodnight to you, Jake Cutter.' With which he backed off, and like the wild thing he was faded into the night...

Maybe Jake had been too tired to dream, or perhaps he had managed to fight it off thi s time. Whichever, he had slept deeply, soundly and dreamlessly, and remembered coming awake only once, when he'd thought he'd heard a vehicle's engine starting up. Then he'd eased his cramped body off the chair, zipped himself into a sleeping bag, and curled up right at the edge of the fire's cooling embers- -And now came starting awake as the toe of a boot nudged him and Trask's voice rasped, 'Jake, get up. Have you seen anything of Miller? Obviously not. Well, the fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d's run out on us, and in your b.l.o.o.d.y vehicle! d.a.m.n, I thought for a moment you'd gone with him!'

Throwing back the mosquito net from his face, Jake unzipped the bag and struggled out of it. Now he remembered the engine starting up, dipped headlamps swinging faint beams out onto the road, and the cautious crunch of tyres on dirt and pebbles. He had thought at the time that someone was being very careful not to awaken the camp ... and he'd been only t oo right!