‘These-objects-are-proscribed-in-this-area. It-is-necessary-to-remove-and-destroy-them.’
One of the spheres emitted a thin beam of bright blue light from a point on its underside. It played over the objects on the ground. After a few seconds, they smoked and vanished. The spheres formed themselves into their original formation and silently drifted away into the mist. Billy slowly turned to the other three. His face had gone slack.
‘Did that really happen?’
Nancy nodded.
‘I think so.’
A.A. Catto looked round helplessly.
‘Why did they take all our things? We had little enough to start with. Now we’ve got nothing.’
Billy frowned.
‘They didn’t take our clothes.’
Reave fished in his pocket and pulled out his gravity knife.
‘They missed this.’
He snapped it open. When he came to close it, however, the mechanism no longer worked. He scratched the back of his neck.
‘This place is too fucking weird. I …’
He suddenly received the impact of what the spheres’ removal of his collar meant. A.A. Catto no longer had any physical control over him. He shot her a single intense glance. She pretended not to notice, and spoke quickly to Billy.
‘Have you ever seen anything like them before?’
Billy shook his head.
‘Never.’
He thought for a moment.
‘It seems like they took away anything to do with technology, all mechanical things. They left our clothes and Reave’s knife, but the mechanism on that doesn’t work. I wonder if …’
Nancy cut him short.
‘Could you do your wondering when we get some place that’s warm?’
A.A. Catto joined in.
‘Let’s go somewhere. I’m dying of cold.’
Billy nodded and, without another word, started down the slope. His face was set and thoughtful. Suddenly he stopped and bent down. He fished something from a tuft of grass and held it up.
‘Whatever those things were they didn’t get this.’
‘What is it?’
‘A gun, it looks like my gun.’
He held up a compact .70 recoilless.
‘It must have dropped here after we fell through the nothings.’
A.A. Catto looked grimly pleased.
‘At least we’re armed.’
Billy nodded, and carefully tucked the gun into the holster under his coat. They carried on down the hillside.
The going wasn’t hard. The ground was even and downhill, but the cold became the exhausting factor. Even while they maintained a brisk pace, the freezing damp cut through their thin clothes and seeped into their bones. A.A. Catto’s teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. She massaged her bare arms and looked desperately at Billy.
‘I c-can’t take m-much more of this.’
Billy did his best to be reassuring. He too was half frozen.
‘We got to come out of this in the end. It cant go on for ever.’
A.A. Catto pursed her now blue lips.
‘Anything’s possible.’
Reave flashed her a wry grin.
‘If it don’t stop, it’ll be the end of us.’
A.A. Catto gave him a long hard look, but said nothing. They went on walking. Billy was thankful for the downhill slope. It did at least prove they weren’t going round in circles. Apart from that single fact, they could easily have been back at the point they started from. Nothing appeared to change.
Billy was about to give up hope when, abruptly, they came out of it. The transition was so sudden, it took them totally by surprise. One moment they were trudging through the same thick mist, then for a few paces it thinned and suddenly they were out in the sunshine. The sky above their heads was a clear blue, and the air smelled sweet and clean. All four of them stopped and just drank it in. A.A. Catto raised her chilled arms to the sun.
‘Oh god. It feels so good.’
She turned and hugged Nancy, and they sank down on the short springy turf kissing each other enthusiastically. Billy looked at Reave, and they both shrugged. They turned their attention to their surroundings. Behind them was the wall of cloud completely concealing the upper slopes. In front of them, however, the view was breathtaking. Below them was a wide green valley. It was watered by a slow meandering river. A number of small tributary streams sparkled in the sun, Billy grinned at Reave.
‘This really don’t look too bad.’
Reave nodded.
‘Sure looks good to me. Look at those trees, all that grass.
I could get behind laying up here for a while.’
He peered intently into the distance, and pointed down the valley.
‘What do you think that is?’
Billy shaded his eyes and stared in the same direction.
‘It looks like a building of some kind.’
Billy could just make out a black structure, beside the river, far down the valley. It seemed to have a broad base and then narrow off towards the top. It was surrounded by patchwork squares of different-coloured vegetation. Billy assumed that they were cultivated fields. Reave turned to Billy.
‘Do you suppose we ought to head for that place?’
Billy nodded.
‘I don’t see anywhere else that looks inhabited.’
‘It looks real big, that place.’
‘And a long way away.’
Billy walked over to where the girls were lying entwined on the grass.
‘Come on, you two. I think we’ve found civilization.’
A.A. Catto disengaged herself from Nancy.
‘Civilization?’
‘There’s some kind of big building down in the valley.’
A.A. Catto propped herself up on one elbow.
‘Is it nice?’
Billy shrugged.
‘It don’t look hostile. It’s a long walk, though.’
A.A. Catto scowled.
‘I thought there’d be something wrong with it.’
‘It’s a nice day for a walk.’
‘I’m getting sick of this place.’
Billy grinned down at her.
‘We might as well get moving.’
‘We have to walk?’
Billy nodded.
‘We have to walk.’
A.A. Catto smiled sweetly at him.
‘I had an idea. Why don’t you and Reave walk to this place? Then when you get there you could send out some transport for Nancy and me.’
‘I didn’t see too much that looked like transport.
A.A. Catto sat up.
‘Where is this place?’
Billy pointed out the building in the distance.
‘There.’
‘You don’t expect me to walk that distance? You’re crazy.’
‘You can stay here.’
A.A. Catto beamed.
‘And you’ll send someone to fetch us?’
‘I doubt it.’
A.A. Catto’s expression turned venomous.
‘One day I’ll get the chance to really make you suffer, you little punk.’
‘I’ll do my best to avoid it.’
A.A. Catto climbed grudgingly to her feet. Nancy did the same. They started down the hillside towards the river. A.A. Catto sulked at first, but the walk proved to be no hardship. Very soon she and Nancy were walking along together chattering and giggling. Billy and Reave were slightly in front, deep in their own thoughts. They had been going for about ten minutes. A.A. Catto and Nancy had dropped some way behind. Suddenly Nancy yelled out.