“Tell your people I need them to sit down on the floor,” he said. “We won’t harm them.”
NELLIE ENTERED THE temple, the tank crew and Fusiliers filing in behind her and fanning out around the walls, covering the now seated and kneeling urmen. The Padre helped Riley and Tonkins dump kitbags containing the adapted chatt weapons and the knapsacks full of Signals equipment against the temple wall. Mercy and Pot Shot remained outside as sentries, along with Napoo, who wasn’t happy about entering another clan’s sacred space.
Unable to contain herself, Nellie rushed forward. “Alfie!” She honestly didn’t know whether to hit Alfie or hug him. Oh, dash it, of course she did. She hugged him, briefly, aware of the eyes upon them, then stepped back and tried to assume some semblance of public propriety, all thought of the troublesome silence outside pushed from her mind.
As if her reaction had given them permission, the tank crew surrounded Alfie and Nellie both, covering up their emotions with hearty slaps and bonhomie.
Alfie met their gaze. Their eyes were free of the black oil-slick glaze of petrol fruit fuel. He looked around at his crewmates, and knew them all. Days without constant exposure to the petrol fruit fumes had restored their natural selves. He breathed a sigh of relief. These were the men he recognised, the men he trained with at Elvedon, the men he fought with in France, the crew of the HMLS Ivanhoe. These were the men he was glad to see now, not the paranoids that they had become under the influence of the alien fumes. “Thanks for not giving up on me,” he said.
“If we’re being honest,” said Reggie, taking Alfie’s hand in both of his with sincerity and speaking for them all. “We could say the same. We weren’t ourselves.”
Wally coughed politely, and the rest of the crew began to drift away. Jack put a large hand on Cyril’s shoulder and steered him across the temple. “Come on lad, let’s give them a minute.”
“What for?” he asked.
Jack whispered something in the lad’s ear and Cecil blushed fiercely.
Alfie and Nellie stood awkwardly for a moment.
Nellie punched his arm. “You idiot,” she scolded. “You had us worried half to death!”
“Ow. We have to stop meeting like this,” said Alfie, scowling and rubbing his bruised bicep. He took her shoulders in his hands, pushed her to arm’s length, cocked his head and looked at her in the dark blue tanker coveralls. She looked more at home in them than she had done in the brown uniform of the FANY.
“There’s something different about you,” he teased. “New hair style?”
“Oh, you,” she said, giving him a playful shove.
“Whoa!” he yelped, pivoting round his splinted leg and overbalancing.
She caught his sleeve.
“Better let me have a look at that leg,” she said.
ATKINS WATCHED ALFIE and Nellie as she ministered to his injuries, envious of their reunion. Then, unable to look any longer, he turned away, seeing Jack approach. Judging from the tank gunner’s bearing, this was trouble.
“Did you hear, Alfie? These savages are descendents of people like us from Earth. Can you believe it, that there were others marooned here before us?”
Atkins looked around at the tank crew. They were looking for reassurance, but the Fusiliers nearby didn’t return their looks of confusion. Their glances slipped away. Embarrassed. Guilty. The solidarity of the two sections, which had been fragile at best, began to fail. Whether it was lingering paranoia from the petrol fruit fumes, or justified outrage at being lied to, Atkins wasn’t sure.
Norman turned to Atkins, a dangerous edge to his voice. “What, this isn’t a surprise to you, either?”
“Not exactly,” he mumbled.
“You knew? You fucking knew? How long have you known?”
“A few weeks. Since the Nazarrii edifice,” said Gutsy.
“But we were there. You kept it secret?”
“You see?” said Pot Shot. “I knew this kind of thing would happen.”
Mercy’s brow furrowed with annoyance. “Come on, you lot weren’t exactly playing with a full deck out there, now were you?”
Norman ignored the barb. “Who the fuck else knows?” he demanded.
“Nobody,” said Atkins. “Everson ordered us not to say anything to anybody.”
“You’re all missing the point,” said Wally. “Everson knew, they knew. What else aren’t they telling us?”
Everson, noticing the altercation, marched over sharply, his face stern and resolute. “Nothing. I just wanted to avoid exactly this kind of situation, until I was absolutely sure.”
The crew of the Ivanhoe, subdued by the presence of an officer, were reduced to sullen glares.
“You would have been told,” said Everson, “along with everyone else, when the time was right.”
“When?” demanded Norman.
Nellie looked over from where she was resplinting Alfie’s leg. “For goodness’ sake!” she said in exasperation. “You know about it now. This is why Lieutenant Everson is searching for Jeffries, to find a way home. We’re all in the same boat, so stop it, all of you.”
There was a stunned, shamed silence.
“Miss Abbott,” said Everson. “I’d be thankful if you stopped telling my men what to do.”
“I’m sorry, is it bad for their morale?” she asked in a scathing tone.
“It’s bad for mine.”
RANAMAN STEPPED FORWARD, a religious joy flooding his face, to address the urmen sat before him, like a congregation at a Sunday service, eager to bear witness to the unfolding events. He threw his arms wide and high.
“This is a day long to be remembered; that so many of the sky-being’s brethren should appear together at such a time is an omen of great fortune not witnessed in generations. The words of our ancestors are fulfilled before our eyes. Did they not say that at the time of Croatoan’s Torment a party would gather here to enter the underworld to abate his suffering? Already one has gone before to confer with the ancestors, those who dwell in the Village of the Dead in the hinterlands of the underworld. They who petition Skarra for mercy and await the day of Croatoan’s release, when the Fallen One would be reunited with his broken heart once more. And now, my kin, the time of Croatoan’s salvation is here!”
All around him, the urmen wailed in a ritual response.
Atkins heard the words with something akin to despair, and let out a low moan. He felt the weight of another prediction bearing down. It seemed that the more he struggled towards his goal of returning to Flora, the more the damned skeins of fate drew tighter in around him. Was there no way he could escape them? Besides, they promised only vague generalities, never specifics. Where was the one that could have prevented Porgy’s death?
There was another flash. Atkins glanced up out of a loophole. Another discharge. Nearer, this time. He saw the perverse lightning bolt punch up, writhing restlessly into the sky. Then came the crump of thunder.
The urmen flinched as one, and some wailed and ululated, as if in grief.
“It’s another–” Atkins groped for the word.
“Telluric discharge,” Riley offered.
“–Telluric discharge, sir. Nearer, this time, by the looks of it.”
“They are the Anguish of Croatoan as he is punished in the underworld by Skarra on GarSuleth’s decree. His cries made manifest,” declared Ranaman.
“Tell me what you know of Croatoan,” asked Everson.
The chieftain’s face beamed with pride as he spoke, white teeth against a tanned weathered skin. “We are the devoted servants of Croatoan. We have kept the faith of our forefathers.” He turned and beckoned towards the fractured rock. “Come, I will show you.”