We are telling you this, Gail Turner, as we are also telling Seth Mallus, because it is time for you to go. Now is the time of Aniquilus, and it must not find any trace of us here.
Chapter 103
Gail and George left the Amarna Library in silence. The shock of what she had seen and heard, and of the chilling final thoughts of the Xynutian, had left Gail feeling weak and confused.
George helped her through the gaps in the rubble that led to the surface. Hands reached down towards her from above and pulled her up into the mid-morning light.
Sunshine, she thought as she squinted, her hand raised to shield her eyes.
“We thought you’d be here,” Ben said, in a mildly accusing tone. “What have you been up to?”
George made a sign for him to be quiet as he emerged from the rubble.
Zahra walked up behind Gail and touched her shoulder.
“Are you alright, Gail?” she asked softly.
Gail nodded her head and smiled weakly. She turned to the horizon in silence.
The sky was a deep grey with streaks of black and red. She knew there was something wrong with that but the others didn’t seem to notice the sky. Her mind flittered between different realities, straying from Xynutian time capsules to Egyptian prophecies, to the mad Seth Mallus hell-bent on the destruction of the world. Now, she was back at the Xynutians. They had known, all those hundreds of thousands, no, millions of years earlier, that Aniquilus was coming. Somehow, they had predicted it, and had protected as much of themselves as possible from it. And yet humans had been so oblivious that they had simply failed to save themselves. Instead they had done Aniquilus’ job for him. They had already destroyed themselves.
But it wasn’t just anyone who had destroyed humans, it was Seth: an emissary. Everything he had done had been because of that. And he was still alive. Even as she had been speaking to the Xynutian, he had been receiving a similar message. After so many years she could barely remember his face, but she fancied she could almost hear his voice, feel his presence. They were, after all, linked.
She had always known that she was different, after all, who isn’t? she thought. But from that to finding out that she had been sent by the Xynutians. To do what? Seth destroys the world, and I just get caught up in it all. And then it occurred to her, that somehow her innate intuition, seeded by the Xynutians, had led her to this very spot, to make her momentous discovery. And without that, Seth would have no book of Aniquilus, no Mars landing site, not even an Armana Stickman.
She was vaguely aware of George kneeling beside her, looking down at her with a worried expression and she realised that she was no longer standing, looking towards the horizon.
She was lying on her back, looking up into the sky. And she could feel herself slipping away.
EARTH, it thought as it entered the Solar System. Its myriad taste buds tingled with anticipation. The cold depths of inter-stellar space had made it weary and, more notably, hungry.
Nine years later, it passed Mars with a cursory glance, before a carefully calculated slingshot round the Sun brought it perfectly into orbit around the third planet.
It stayed there, observant, for several milliseconds, before unfurling six tentacles round the planet, to join on the other side in an astronomical embrace.
Moments passed, and then slowly, inexorably, it drew closer, tightening its grip on Earth until its body touched the outer fringes of ozone. Any closer would be deadly to it, and so it stopped.
Aniquilus let its senses run free in the thick atmosphere.
Trillions of filaments poured down from its vast body, connecting it with the land below. Most plunged into the depths of the seas, sending back countless readings that were processed and stored with interest. Evolution, intelligence, it seemed, was slow in the waters of this planet compared to others. However, future visits could still be worthwhile, it noted.
Many billions of the infinitely-thin filaments reached solid ground, some penetrating several hundred feet in their quest.
CURIOUS, it thought.
Aniquilus reeled in its first prey: a human.
The harvested mind was weak, both in terms of intelligence and knowledge. The energy gained from absorbing it didn’t even compensate for the energy used to harvest it.
Aniquilus knew that one of three higher species was likely to be dominant at this time. It was very hard to believe that with such an outlook after its last visit to Earth, the reality could be so different. In nearly two million orbits of this fertile planet around its star there should have been ample time for intelligent life to repopulate, evolve and expand. It already knew that there had been trips to nearby planets, from radio transmissions it had intercepted on its voyage.
And yet the mind that it had sampled was stale, devoid of nutrition.
It withdrew momentarily, to think things through, and then approached again for a more detailed analysis; it sniffed the ozone cautiously, the tentacles drawing it as close to the noxious atmosphere as it dared.
The upper atmosphere was full of heavy particles, and little light was reaching the ground. It was a miracle that any life had managed to survive at all.
WASTED, it thought, forlorn; a wasted crop.
It knew what had come about on Earth. It was one of those things that just happened sometimes. It was one of the undesired side-effects of intelligent life.
That creatures with so much at their disposal could be so preoccupied by the certainty of their own deaths that they simply forgot to live was one way of ruining a harvest: depression tasted awful.
And this was another undesired side-effect; with intelligence mostly came technology, but not always responsibility. In this case, it was a catastrophic combination.
There was nothing that could be done. It didn’t even dwell on the thought for more than a second.
Once more the filaments descended, but this time only as far as the upper stratosphere. They sucked away the pollutant particles and scrubbed the air. Several moments later, they withdrew, and Aniquilus pushed away from Earth.
CLEAN, it thought.
It orbited the planet one last time before heading to the Moon, which it used to slingshot out towards the Sun, which in turn it would use to slingshot to the next solar system, and the next world.
It left a bright blue planet behind, its shroud of deadly grey removed.
George cradled Gail in his arms and looked down at her in despair.
“It’s like someone’s opened a curtain,” she said weakly, looking up at the clear blue sky. Her voice sounded odd, as if she were drunk.
“Don’t try and talk,” he said. “Zahra and Ben have gone for some medicine. You need to rest until they get back.”
She looked up at her husband in adoration. Screw the Xynutians she thought to herself. My only purpose in life was you, George.
“Hold on, Gail. Everything’s going to be alright.”
“I love you,” she managed to say with a faint smile. A dull pain started to spread across the top of her head, and down her temples to her cheeks, causing her jaw to lock in pain. An involuntary spasm caused her teeth to grate violently against each other. The pain gained in intensity, until her vision blurred and a piercing whine filled her ears.