Blue Shifting (24 page)

LJ scratched his head. "Sounds crazy to me."

"We're in a crazy situation," Janner said. "Or rather,
I
am."

"What about you, miss?" LJ asked.

Katia opened her eyes. "I do not think anyone is hallucinating this, LJ" she said. "I think it is really happening. Nothing happens without the knowledge of God. I think God
must
be doing it for some reason. I do not know, but maybe he is punishing us. Maybe we have died, and we are waiting in purgatory for his judgement." She smiled. "I must say, some of these days have felt like purgatory."

"Interesting thought," LJ conceded. "No disrespect meant, miss – but I've never gone for religion in a big way myself. If there was a God, then I don't think he'd fool around with us like this. Seems damned cruel to me."

"So what do you think?" Janner asked. "What's your explanation?"

LJ cleared his throat. At this, Kim opened her eyes and watched the big American.

"It's my considered opinion," LJ pronounced, "that we're in the employ of aliens."

Katia made a have-I-heard-him-right? face.

Janner replaced the chessman he'd been playing with. He stared at LJ. "Aliens?"

"Sure thing, Greg. Why not? Look at the facts. We're being shifted around the face of the Earth like mad fools,
and
time's all awry-"

Katia said, "Pardon?"

"That's right, miss. Time's awry. Listen here, I was in Oregon when all this began. Then suddenly I was in Surabaya. Now Oregon's five hours in front of that area of Asia – I should know, I spent days in Nam wondering what the folks were doing back home. Anyways, when I wind up in Surabaya, it's five o'clock
local
time. Means I actually went back five hours. So not only are we a-travelling in space, we're a-travelling in time, too. Space and time. Now only aliens have the know-how to tinker with space
and
time."

"But aliens," Katia pointed out, "do not exist."

LJ looked exasperated. "Of course we
think
they don't exist, because nothing like this ever happened to anyone before – or else they're keeping mighty quiet about it."

"I'm not sure I follow your logic," Janner said.

"Listen, I read a story once, real weird thing. This guy wakes up one morning, only he ain't in his own body no more – he's somehow shifted into the body of this woman he knew. Next time he sleeps, he wakes up in the body of the person he'd slept closest to. It went on like this for a long time as he tried to get home to his own body."

"I do not see what this has got to do with what is happening to us," Katia said reasonably.

"But you see-" LJ continued, "-it turns out he's been taken over by aliens-"

"So you think we've been taken over by little green men?" Janner said. "Or by aliens do you mean foreigners – Russians, maybe?"

"I mean
aliens
– aliens from out there," LJ replied.

"I know that I have not been taken over by anything," Katia said. "I am still me."

"Ah-ha! But that's exactly what the guy in the story thought, too. It wasn't until the end that he found out the truth."

"Thanks for that, LJ," Janner said. "But I'm siding with Katia on this one. There's just some things I can't bring myself to believe."

LJ cocked an eye at him. "Would you have believed what's happening to you now, one week ago, say?"

Janner smiled. "Touche, LJ."

LJ sat back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his head. "Show yourselves, whoever you are!" he yelled. "I know you're out there somewhere!"

Janner looked at Kim. She saw him watching, and quickly closed her eyes.

~

They remained on the balcony all day, watching the world – or at least this small segment of it – go by: people walking dogs, shoppers, schoolkids returning home. Later, a football team practised on the oval, their shouts muffled, at this distance, in the warm evening air. The sun set in a brilliant array of blood red and tangerine banners.

Katia took Kim to their room at the front of the house, and then LJ announced he was in need of some shut-eye and left. Janner remained in his seat for a while, watching the sun disappear over the horizon. It had been, all told, a successful day – the first such, he had to admit, not fraught with fear and apprehension. He had never known the company of three other people to be less stressful. He wondered if his subconscious was hallucinating these three perfect travelling companions for him. He wondered, too, if he really believed what he'd told LJ earlier, about the last five days being an hallucination. He considered Katia and LJ's explanations, and dismissed them as even less plausible.

He yawned and decided to get some sleep.

On the way back to his room he heard a noise from LJ's bedroom. He paused by the door, listened. He heard an in-drawn breath, followed by sobs, muffled as if LJ was burying his head in a pillow. Janner reached for the door handle, stopped himself. What might he say to ease the American's pain? He hardly knew the man, much less his problems. He remained beside the door for perhaps a minute, then continued to his room. He felt as he had yesterday, when he had given Katia just a hundred dollars to buy Kim and herself some clothes: a feeling of betrayal, that he had not given enough – though, in this case, he had given nothing at all.

He was a good while getting to sleep.

He was awoken almost instantly, it seemed. A hand gently rocked his shoulder. "Greg," Katia whispered. "Greg, it is almost five o'clock."

He opened his eyes. Two wall-lamps cast meagre illumination across the room. Kim was already seated on the floor, her koala backpack in her lap. Janner got up and gathered his possessions, packed them into his rucksack. LJ shuffled into the room, giving a little wave and a grin to his fellow travellers. His carrier bag tucked under his arm, he joined Kim on the floor. Katia and Janner sat beside them.

"I have tidied the rooms and locked all the doors," Katia said. "The owner will wonder where we have gone."

Janner considered their 'disappearances' from around the world. At least two – his and LJ's from police cells in Varanasi and Surabaya – would have been noted by the authorities. And then there were these disappearances, vanishings from hotels and the like, leaving owners and managers perplexed. He wondered how long it would be before someone in an information gathering Government bureau, somewhere, came across rumours, reports, or definite evidence of their mysterious translocations? How long before the CIA were on their trail?

With just minutes to go before five, Katia took Kim's hand, and then LJ's. Hesitantly, Janner reached out for Kim's hand and the American's, to complete the circle.

"See you all at the nearest GPO," LJ said.

4

Janner shouldered his rucksack and hurried down the alleyway between skips overflowing with garbage. The buildings on either side were high – maybe even skyscrapers – and though they shut out much of the morning light, Janner could see from the street at the end of the alley that dawn was breaking. The air was humid, sultry, and the rotting vegetation in the skips was beginning to stink.

He arrived at the end of the alley and halted. The three-lane road was deserted. He stood and listened for a time; the first thing he had heard upon materialising was a series of loud reports like fire-crackers. He heard them again now, closer, and knew the sharp, rapid cracks to be machine-gun fire. He ducked back into the alley as a camouflage-painted armoured car raced along the empty street, three black soldiers riding shotgun. Africa, he guessed; one of the many states suffering internal strife at the moment. When the vehicle had passed, Janner ran across the road to the central, palm-planted reservation. He crouched beside a tree and tried to get his bearings. His immediate worry was Kim. He balked at the thought of her wandering the streets of this hostile city.

He judged that if they had materialised in a similar formation to that in which they'd arrived at Townsville, then Kim would be somewhere across the road – down one of the many side-streets, or perhaps even inside a building.

After ensuring that the way was clear, Janner sprinted across the road. The gunfire sounded even closer now, loud in the eerie silence that held the city. Just as he was debating whether to run right or left, he heard a commotion down a street to his right: the squeal of brakes, much shouting, the sound of boots on tarmac. He ran to the corner, peered down the street. Half a dozen soldiers jumped down from an armoured car and surrounded someone, pinning them up against the wall. Four soldiers stood back, smiling to themselves, while the other two attended to Kim. One held her chin in his hand, pushing her head back against the bricks, while the other tipped the contents from her koala bear backpack.

Even at this distance he could see that Kim's eyes were wide open in a combination of terror and entreaty.

When the soldier searching the 'pack found nothing of interest, he turned his attention to the girl. He kicked her legs as far apart as the hem of her dress would allow and frisked her, running his hands down her body and over her hips. Then he stood, turned and spoke to an officer squatting on the armoured car. At the officer's reply, something changed in the attitude of the six soldiers. It was as if, suddenly, at consent from higher authority, the soldiers had turned from men to beasts. They would be absolved from blame for their consequent actions; the girl would be nothing more than yet another casualty in a conflict to which they had become inured.

Kim screamed – the first sound Janner had heard her utter – and he dropped his rucksack and ran down the street, hands in the air. At the sound of his approach, the soldiers turned, halting him in his tracks with raised machine guns.

"She's my daughter!" he cried. "Let her go!"

The officer, squatting on his vehicle, stood and snapped an order at the two soldiers who had Kim against the wall. They released her, and she slid to the ground, knees against her chest. The others motioned with their guns for Janner to join her. Hands raised, he edged along the wall. As he came within range, he felt the girl grab his leg and hang on, sobbing.

He tried to see some compassion in the faces of the soldiers watching him, but all he saw was hatred and suspicion.

"Papers!" shouted the officer, jumping from the vehicle.

Janner shook his head. "I – I'm a tourist. My papers are back at the hotel." He was stammering.

The officer approached, halted a metre before him. "What is your name?" he asked in perfect Sandhurst English. Janner released a pent-up breath. It seemed that, with the establishment of communications, the possibility of his murder became less real.

"Janner, Gregory Janner. New Zealand national."

The officer glanced at the girl. "And you claim to be her father?" There was a sneer in the question.

"My wife, she's Chinese..." Simplify things to eliminate all possibility of misunderstanding, he told himself.

The officer regarded Kim. "And what is
your
name?"

Kim's grip tightened on his leg. Janner closed his eyes. These bastards, he thought, will have no qualms about shooting me, raping and killing Kim, and then ditching our bodies on the outskirts of town.

"Your name!" the officer yelled.

Kim replied in a whisper little more than a croak.

Janner opened his eyes, hardly able to believe what he'd heard.

The officer said, "Louder!"

"Kim Jan-ner," she called weakly, between sobs.

"And where do you come from?"

A delay. Then, "New Zea-land." A tiny voice.

Janner wanted to bend down and hold Kim to him, never let her go – but the machine guns were still levelled on his midriff.

The officer said, "Where are you staying?"

Janner had anticipated the question. "At the Hilton."

"Why did you decide to ignore the curfew?"

"I... Kim left the hotel when... while I was sleeping. She knew nothing about the curfew. I set out to find her."

"In future, Mr Janner," the officer said, "I would look after your daughter with more care, if I were you. Now get back to your hotel!"

He snapped an order to his men, who retreated, swarmed back on to the armoured car, covering Janner with their guns all the way – and at that moment, when it came to him in an overwhelming tide of relief that he was going to live, he felt an extraordinary surge of inexplicable gratitude towards the officer who, just minutes before, had calmly sanctioned Kim's violation.

As the armoured car started up and spluttered off down the street in a cloud of reeking diesel fumes, Janner's legs collapsed from under him. He slid to the ground, held Kim in his arms, and wept.

~

Later, as traffic started to appear on the main road, Janner released Kim and helped her gather the scattered contents of her backpack. Hand in hand they walked to the corner of the side-street and Janner shouldered his own rucksack. An old man was raising the shutters of his grocery store, and Janner asked him for directions to the GPO. It was close: a hundred metres down the main road, turn left, and the building was fifty metres along the street, opposite the park. Janner took Kim's hand and they walked slowly, saying nothing. He thought of Katia and LJ, hoped they had made the rendezvous point without mishap. He realised, suddenly, both how hungry he was, and how tired. He was beginning to shake from the delayed shock of what had happened in the side-street. He wondered how many more life-threatening situations he might find himself in before this cruel test of nerves was over.

The street outside the Post Office, when they arrived, was deserted. From across the road, in the park, Janner heard, "Yo, Greg!"

LJ stood and waved over a short hedge. Janner and Kim crossed the road and entered an enclosed lawn dotted with circular, white-painted tables beneath Campari parasols. Katia and LJ sat at a table, food stacked before them.

"You guys certainly took your time," LJ said, tucking into his breakfast.

Katia, sensing something amiss in Janner and Kim's attitude, was on her feet, her face ashen. "What? What is wrong?"

LJ halted his fork in transit to his mouth, a
what-have-I-missed?
expression on his face.