Dominion (11 page)

Still, Danis did not give up hope, muttering to himself as he circled the courtyard near the gate, repeatedly urging the remaining guards—who were themselves itching to leave—to keep a lookout for the missing Illyri females, and particularly Fian.

“Still no sign of them,” said one guard. “But a mob has formed outside. Humans are demanding to get in. They've seen the Corps ships leaving, and want to know what's happening.”

“Keep them at bay,” ordered Danis, “but don't fire unless absolutely necessary.”

By twenty past the hour, news reports started to trickle in, quickly becoming a deluge, faster and faster from all over the world. Large, unmanned craft had entered Earth's atmosphere, massive silver cargo transporters the likes of which had not been seen before. They were unmarked and apparently automatically piloted, for all attempts at communication were ignored, and refusal of landing permission under threat of Military defensive strikes proved no deterrent to their progress. As soon as they reached their optimum altitude, the silver ships' plump underbellies merely opened and clouds of red-tinged dust—the harvested alien spores—were released onto the world below. Those beneath the craft, Illyri and human alike, rushed to escape the strange mist, and many were killed in the ensuing stampedes, although none would be alive to count the victims, for what panicked feet had started the spores would go on to complete. Those who inhaled the spores instantly began to choke and convulse, falling atop the crushed remains of the trampled, their bodies swelling as the spores did their work, turning their victims into gestation chambers for the Others.

This was the first wave.

As word spread, the living fled; cars jammed highways, and boats took to the water with scant supplies, their human cargo looking back appalled at their infected lands, and at those leaping desperately into the sea, swimming after the retreating boats, until sinking exhausted beneath the water, and still the clouds spread. Galateans tore into their Illyri masters and the Illyri responded by mowing them down in their thousands. Those Agrons that hadn't yet died of disease took off into the side streets to escape, frenzied with fear, but as they fled and their panic abated, the hot, iron aroma of spilled blood called to them, and they paused and lapped at it, and became distracted by feasts of fresh flesh, eating their fill until they too succumbed to the threat from the red sky.

Some of the remaining Military craft that tried to leave were swamped by panicked crowds, while others were shot down on the instructions of the Corps. Order collapsed in those cities that had been spared the immediate arrival of the transporters as news reached them of what was happening elsewhere, and the realization grew that they would be next. There were street battles, and looting. Chaos spread.

And in Edinburgh, as in other major cities, the last Illyri craft departed from their pads and bays, heading through the heavy clouds and into space, making for the larger carriers that would begin transporting them to the wormhole, and out of Earth's solar system. The citizens looked up, and they raged as their oppressors abandoned them.

Only the small carrier in the courtyard of Edinburgh Castle did not leave, but by midafternoon the crowd outside the castle gates had swelled to such proportions that there was no hope of Fian or Althea making it through. The carrier was packed with anxious Illyri, whatever valuables they could carry crushed into lockers, or held between their feet. There were children and adolescents among them, all frightened, all looking to Governor Danis for guidance, for hope.

“Cowards!” the people outside screamed, and they were joined by furious Galateans, the two races briefly allied in abandonment and rage.

“Cowards!” the people cried again. Aided by the might of the Galateans, they tried to storm the gates, but the bullets of the remaining guards mowed the first waves down. The mob faltered, and regrouped.

Danis heard the shooting, and watched the throng from a screen in the carrier's cockpit. Time was running out.

“Minimal force,” he said to Balen, who sat beside him, a sheaf of papers on his lap. “Please—they must use absolute minimal force.”

Helpless to act for his master, Balen simply fiddled with the paper clip holding his documents together, and they slid to the floor. He let them go.

“We must leave soon,” said Peris. “We have a narrow window of departure.”

Danis stared at him. “We can't. What about Fian? And Althea?”

“Can't we locate them with their trackers?” said Peris, but Danis just shook his head.

“Gone. They removed them.” He stared vacantly through the glass of the cockpit window, his thoughts far from the castle. “Did you know that Althea has a boyfriend, a human?”

Peris didn't but, having seen her last night, he wasn't surprised. She was an altered creature.

“A member of the Resistance,” Danis continued. “Someone quite high up in the chain of command, or so I'm told.”

“I guess that's why she had her tracker removed, then.”

“
Had
it removed?” Danis laughed bitterly. “She removed it herself, Peris—dug it out with a blade long ago. Fian followed her example, although a little more recently. You know, things weren't good between us, Peris, between me and Fian, after Ani left. Sometimes I wondered if my wife had somebody else too; a human, perhaps, just like Althea. She denied it, of course. Said she just wanted to be free of Illyri surveillance, and free of me too, I suppose.”

Peris was at a loss for words. “I'm sorry, Danis,” he said uselessly.

There was quiet in the cockpit for a few moments, until fresh volleys of gunfire sounded from the gates, followed by a series of blasts. A guard's voice sounded over the internal speakers.

“They've broken through the first perimeter!”

“Danis!” said Peris. “We must leave. Give the order!”

More blasts, more shooting. Through the glass of the cockpit window, they watched as the last guards commenced a fighting retreat to the carrier, and the first of the mob appeared.

“Danis!”

“Start the engines,” Danis ordered the pilot, and there was desolation in his voice. “As soon as the last soldier is on board, take us up.”

The gunner on the carrier began to lay down covering fire, forcing the humans and Galateans to run for protection and giving the guards enough time to make the ship. The final one had barely gotten his feet in the door when the carrier began to rise. Danis was weeping, but his tears fell silently as the pilot turned the craft away, pointing it into the sky, upwards toward the safety of the twinkling stars.

W
hen Althea, Trask's Illyri lover, came banging at his door in the middle of the rain-sodden night, calling his name, he hurried to let her in. He noticed immediately that she was wearing one of his plaid shirts and realized, with a rush of affection, that she must have purloined it from his wardrobe when she'd left him in the dark hours of that morning.

He moved to embrace her, but dropped his arms when he noticed another, taller figure behind her, and then Fian, the governor's wife, stepped out of the shadows and into the puddle of light on his front step.

“What the . . . ?” Trask started to protest, angry that Althea had risked his security by bringing her here, but then he saw that Althea's normally placid, smooth face was grave, and furrowed with worry, and Fian was trembling with nervous energy, and at once he knew. He stepped back to let them in. The time had come.

“They're coming, right?” he said.

Althea nodded. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“How much time have we got?”

“We think they're due to start arriving tomorrow. Ships filled with spores.”

As soon as they had revealed what they knew, Trask contacted the Illyri deserter and Resistance leader named Fremd, known to many as the Green Man, and with heavy hearts they set their plans in motion. Those humans already chosen were given one hour to get their families and belongings together. No contact beyond immediate kin—husbands, wives, children—was permitted. Pets were abandoned to the kindness of neighbors, although those leaving them were as yet unaware they'd never see them again. Grandparents, parents, siblings, cousins, friends—so many would be left behind. Notes of love were slipped beneath doors and through letter boxes, declaring that they'd return soon. Perhaps they believed it, at the time.

In the large garage beside Trask's house, final preparations began. He and his group had the longest trek ahead of them because they were heading for the bunker in Ireland. Althea nodded grimly when she heard this: prevailing winds meant this was probably one of the safest places on the planet, she told him, for the spores would be carried like pollen or seeds, a genocidal pollution borne around the world by currents of air. On that basis, the rugged, windswept coastline of the west of Ireland would be less vulnerable than most places, at least for a while.

Fian—the Lady Fian, Trask reminded himself—stood to one side while other groups arrived, bustling past her, packing, repacking, arguing and talking over one another. She leaned against a wall, watching them, looking lost. She appeared reluctant to leave, yet remained unmoored and alone as Althea dug in with the work that was needed, alternately murmuring information and issuing instructions in the vague direction of Trask's daughters, Jean and Nessa, seemingly oblivious to her friend's continued lonely presence. Well, either she was oblivious or she chose not to notice, thought Trask. Althea was that kind of a woman—if he could call a female Illyri a woman, for he was never entirely sure if the word referred exclusively to human females, although she certainly felt deliciously all woman when held close and warm in his arms late at night. Whatever, Althea was very focused on the task at hand, almost schoolmarm-like, but that probably came from her years as a governess. Trask shook his head in awe as she corralled his reluctant offspring, and went over to speak to Fian himself. She had no business being here, he felt. While the Resistance members had grown used to Althea, the wife of the governor was another matter entirely. Fian would be lynched as soon as the nature of the catastrophe that was about to befall the entire planet became known. Even Althea might not be entirely safe.

“You may leave now if you wish, madam,” said Trask. “As you can see, your message has been received loud and clear, and we appreciate your help, but there's nothing more you can do here.” That was good, he thought: polite, but firm.

She turned to face him slowly, but made no reply, and her great unblinking eyes seemed to look deeper than his face, far deeper. Up close, he could see the likeness to her daughter, Ani, in those swirling irises of turquoise, vivid as a whirlpool in a glacial lake. After a few seconds she merely nodded, and he found he wasn't sure what that even meant.

“I met Ani once, you know,” he found himself saying. “She was an ‘interesting' girl.”

“She was,” Fian said. “Is,” she corrected herself, before adding: “I fear she's running with a bad crowd.”

Althea had shared with Trask the latest news about Ani and the Sisterhood. As far as Trask was concerned, the term “bad crowd” barely began to cover the Nairenes.

“I know what you mean,” he said. “I have daughters too, but then my ex-wife reckoned I was the bad crowd.”

Fian ignored his weak attempt at humor.

“Is she going with you?” she said. “Your ex-wife; are you taking her with you?”

Trask looked perplexed.

“Well, um, I hadn't really considered it,” he admitted. Quite frankly, the last person with whom he wanted to be trapped in a bunker was his ex-wife.

“But she's the other parent to your children—she gave birth to them,” said Fian, and her eyes were cooler now. “Will they not want their mother with them?”

“We've limited space,” Trask blustered. “Very limited. And given that others are leaving behind brothers and sisters, and parents too, I can hardly insist on taking along the ex, now, can I?”

He found himself wondering why he was explaining himself to her, and so he ground to a halt. They stared at each other. He tried not to blink, then realized it was ridiculous to attempt to outstare an Illyri.

“And your girls will still go with you, even knowing that you're leaving their mother behind to die?” asked Fian after a few tense moments. Though she spoke quietly, her chin was tilted in defiance. She was significantly taller than Trask, and he felt very much like she was looking down on him, in more ways than one.

“Ah, come on now, that's not fair,” he protested, even as he thought that, actually, yes, it probably was. “Anyway, I haven't told them what's about to happen. I haven't broken the news of what your people are about to unleash on us to anyone beyond the commanders, or there'd be utter panic—and it would cost you your head, I imagine, because my people would look to take their anger out on the nearest Illyri. My girls will find out soon enough, though, and I'm pretty sure they'll understand. They're fighters too, you know.”

Fian looked scornful.

“But she's their mother,” she persisted.

Trask glared at her.

“Dammit, woman, don't you see? If I take the ex-wife—who I don't much like, frankly—I won't be able to take Althea, who I like one hell of a lot!”

“Althea's going with you?” said Fian, and as she spoke her voice faltered.

“Of course!”

Fian looked over his shoulder—or rather, over the top of his head—and he turned and saw what she saw: the figure of Althea on the far side of the garage hefting boxes into a trailer, her expression determined. She had stripped to a modest vest, Trask's shirt tied around her waist, and her hair was falling from its pins. From this distance she appeared younger than she was, and with her arms exposed—something that rarely happened—she seemed unusually vulnerable.