Transplant (20 page)

Someone had thoughtfully shaped a wooden handle for the new edition to their armoury, being two carved pieces of wood which they could bind together around the blade with thin creeper strands. It now only remained to sharpen the edge, and a hunt for the right kind of stone was under way.

Several different types of pebble were tried, and a fine grained flint like stone proved to be the best available. It was going to be a long and laborious job honing the edge, but Arki thought it would keep himself and several people occupied in turn on the next trip down river.

That night they kept the fire going in the chimney and tried baking some of the nuts on the hot stones. This made them much more palatable, and soon the remaining stock of nuts had been cooked and put on one side for the next day.

Baking the plum fruit didn’t work very well, the juice running down the side of the chimney had charred leaving a sharp burnt sugar smell in the air, and that was when they saw their first insect.

The body was about fifteen centimetres long and thicker than a finger, two sets of translucent wings beat at such a high speed that they were almost invisible, filling the air with a deep humming noise as the creature darted about.

It seemed harmless and a pretty thing as it hovered over the head of one and then another of the assembled group, the firelight reflecting off its almost invisible gossamer wings in a myriad of iridescent colours.

Brendon thought the burning sugar from the plum fruit had attracted it to their fire, but the general consensus of opinion was the light from the fire itself had drawn it to them.

After a while it flew away, and they were sorry to see it go as it was the only pleasant living and moving thing they had seen since leaving the ship.

They settled down for the night, and in the early hours of the morning something in the forest screeched in agony several times, and was then silent. Not many slept after that, and morning couldn’t come too soon.

After a quick meal, the raft was loaded up and they set off down river again, the current pulling the loaded raft out towards the centre, so a lot of work with the poles was needed to keep the floating log mass close to the shore.

Arki had begun to grind away the edge of his cutting blade, but it was very slow work and the blade had to be dipped frequently into the river, the water acting as a lubricant for the honing stone, but by keeping an eye out for the first signs of boredom among the travellers on the raft, he soon hoped to have some help with his blade forming.

By midday Arki had persuaded two others to help him with the blade grinding, and it wasn’t long before they could see some reward for their hard work. The first few centimetres of the blade was now honed down to a fine edge, and Arki demonstrated its cutting effect by slashing at one of the logs, cutting a great chip out of the wet timber which then flew over the heads of the onlookers with a buzzing sound as it spun in the air.

Once the object of the exercise was fully understood, Arki had many willing hands to help him with the blade, taking it in turns to grind away at the hard metal.

Glyn checked their direction at midday by the sun and found that they were still going due south, and although many kilometres had been travelled there had been no bend in the river as yet which he would have expected considering the distance they had gone, and as far as he could see, it carried on straight to the horizon.

‘Recalling pictures from the old books, rivers twisted and turned all over the place,’ he said to Arki, ‘and even on the maps of the earth, they were never in straight lines like this one. Can you account for it?’

‘Can’t say I can really. It maybe due to a long fault in the earth’s crust, or something the others did before they blew the whole place up. It’s anyone’s guess as far as I can see.’

Just then, their attention was taken by a low dark smudge on the horizon, seemingly in the middle of the river. At that moment the two men with their depth poles called out that the water was getting shallow, with only a metre and a bit beneath the raft.

Glyn gave orders to pole out into the main stream until they had a clear two metres of water under them, and this they did, but it meant going nearly into the middle of the main flow to achieve it.

The raft picked up speed in the deeper channel and the blob on the horizon grew in size as they watched.

‘At the moment we are heading straight for it, whatever it is,’ said Arki, ‘so do we bypass it or try for a landing to see what it is?’

‘Let’s go for a landing, we don’t get much excitement just going down the river.’ Glyn replied.

The island was fairly rushing towards them now, and it took all their skill not to get swept past it as the waters divided and accelerated around each side.

The raft finally ran up a shallow beach, jamming the forward logs firmly into the soft sand, and throwing three of its occupants off. The others had seen what was coming, and had braced themselves against the landing, although some left the raft in a slightly undignified manner as they lost their balance at the moment of impact.

Towering over them were the remains of a massive structure which at one time must have reached high into the brilliant blue sky above, but now there was only the broken stump to remind them of man’s once mighty achievements.

‘Do you think this was a building of some sort, like the one we left after the storm?’ asked Arki, gazing up at the crumpled remains.

‘Could well be,’ replied Glyn, ‘but this one was much bigger, in fact it must have been enormous, just look at the width of the base, it must have been even bigger than our ship and the complex which held it.’

Tell-tale brown stains on the huge concrete blocks told of enormous steel girders which had once held the building together, but something even mightier had descended from the skies and delivered a stunning blow to the structure, reducing it to a jumbled heap.

‘I’d like to explore it, if we have the time.’ Arki stated, and Glyn agreed, his curiosity also aroused by the sheer size of the remains. Stakes were driven into the beach to secure the raft, despite the fact that the front end was firmly lodged, and everyone stretched their legs on the soft golden sands, enjoying the ability to wander around freely after the constraints of the raft.

While the others lazed about on the beach, Glyn and Arki began the laborious climb up through the tumbled mass of blocks which they thought had once been a proud monument to man’s progress, they little knew what the true purpose of the building or its contents had been.

They were about a third of the way up when they found a gap in the blocks large enough for them to walk into, taking them towards the core of the ruin.

‘This part hasn’t been damaged,’ Arki pointed out, ‘it’s a solid square passageway, like those on the ship, except this is some kind of stone.’

‘I’m going back to get the light thing, I don’t think there will be enough natural light to go much further, and it could be dangerous,’ said Glyn, ‘you wait here, I’ll not be long.’ and he scuttled back through the tumble of blocks and out of sight. Being alone in a nearly dark pile of broken concrete wasn’t Arki’s idea of fun, and the more he thought about it, the more time dragged by.

At long last he could hear the scrambling footsteps of Glyn returning, puffing and panting as he came into the passage proper, his face red and perspiring with exertion.

‘Bet you thought I’d stopped off for a meal and a rest.’ gasped Glyn, trying to get his breath back.

‘Damn right I did, it seemed like ages, I’m sure I heard some movement in here somewhere.’

‘I doubt that very much. How could anything have got here, and if it had, how could it sustain itself, there’s no vegetation on this island. Anyway, I was as quick as possible, perhaps your imagination got the better of you.’ he added.

They managed to go a few more metres into the passage by letting their eyes get used to the gloom, but then they had to use the light projector.

Glyn found that by pressing the button on the end of the device the light would come on at full brilliance, and by accidentally twisting it, he found he could control the light level right down to a gentle glow.

‘Didn’t say anything about that in the instructions,’ he said, ‘perhaps if we run the light device as low as possible it will last that much longer, what do you think?’

‘Makes sense to me.’ Arki muttered, his eyes probing the darkness down the tunnel for anything which might pose a threat to them.

They had gone down the passage proper for about twenty metres when they came to a bend, and then the passage forked left and right, both sections looking identical.

Let’s go down here,’ Glyn indicated the passage to his right, ‘if it leads nowhere, we can come back and try the other one.’

‘Have you noticed there is much less in the way of sand and other rubbish in this section?’ Arki asked, scuffing his feet to make the point.

‘Yes, I would have expected more considering the time since this place last saw human feet, but maybe the curve in the tunnel and the jumble of rocks outside have something to do with it.’ Glyn replied, feeling he ought to say something although it was of little interest to him.

As their eyes adapted to the low light, Glyn turned the button again, saving the power source a little more of its precious energy.

Another slight bend and their way was blocked by a massive door set in a frame, both made of the same shiny metal Arki had used to make his cutting blade from.

‘There’s a sort of wheel thing on the door, do you think we should turn it?’ asked Glyn.

‘Looks as if that’s what it was intended for,’ Arki replied, ‘let’s give it a try, I doubt we’ll have much luck moving it after all this time though.’

Glyn put the light device on the floor of the passage, pointing it at the shiny door, and then they noticed some faded lettering just below the wheel.

‘Can you read what it says?’ asked Arki, straining his eyes in the dim light.

‘No, it would seem to be in a language other than ours, I can’t make any sense of it. Let’s see if we can open this door.’ Even with both of them gripping the wheel and putting all their weight behind the effort, it still refused to move.

‘I know this might sound silly, but how about we try turning it the other way?’ Arki raised his eyebrows to emphasize the question, which was totally lost on Glyn in the dim light of the lamp.

‘OK.’ he grunted, swinging his arms to loosen the muscles after straining them against the reluctant wheel.

The wheel turned a few millimetres, but they weren’t sure if it had really moved or whether their hands had slipped.

‘Come on, let’s try again.’ said Arki encouragingly, and strained until his eyes bulged from their sockets. When Glyn added his effort to the wheel, it moved, making a very high pitched screeching noise as bare metal rubbed on bare metal for the first time since the pulse missile had scored a direct hit on the complex so long ago.

When the wheel had been turned as far as it would go, there was a loud clunk, and when they pushed the door it groaned opened, just a little.

They both put their shoulders to the door and it creaked fully open, a cold draft of sterile air gushing into their faces, and taking them both by surprise.

‘That air has a strange smell to it.’ commented Glyn.

‘A bit like the air in certain parts of the ship, when we found the service tunnel.’ Arki added, briefly recalling the comparative comforts of their former life.

‘Well, we’ve got it open, so we may as well see what’s inside.’ Glyn turned the little button on the lighting device, increasing the light output so that nothing would be missed which could pose a threat to their exploration.

The passage was featureless, just solid stone like walls, glass smooth and dust free, their footsteps echoing eerily.

After several twists and turns they came to another door, with the same type of wheel in its centre. This time it spun without much effort and the door opened easily.

Stepping through, they found themselves on a gallery which circled around a gigantic pit, in the middle of which stood a rocket of such enormous proportions that it made them gasp, and it was in pristine condition.

‘Do you think this was the kind of thing they used to batter each other with?’ asked an incredulous Arki, hardly able to believe his eyes.

‘Certainly looks like it,’ Glyn replied, ‘small wonder there’s so little of the world left intact if both sides had such huge weapons, and I have little doubt that they did.’

‘According to what I read in the books, there were three main blocks of power, so if each of them were armed to the teeth with these, no one stood a chance of survival, so why start a conflict in the first place?’ Arki was still trying to come to terms with the total insanity of the situation which must have prevailed at the time.

‘They must have known what would happen once a war got started, and could foresee that it was inevitable, hence the project we were involved in.’

‘So, as far as we know, all human life on earth was wiped out, and we are in effect the seeds preserved through time to repopulate what’s left of the planet. Just about everything else must have been destroyed at the same time, I suppose.’ Arki continued, desperately trying to see some reason in a totally unreasonable scenario.

Glyn remained silent, turning the light device up to full brilliance and gazing at the massive weapon of destruction poised in its silo, still looking ready to deliver its deadly payload of oblivion to some unsuspecting section of the earth’s crust.

‘Don’t worry Arki, I can’t make any sense of it either,’ he said at long last, ‘some life forms must have survived, and probably mutated in the overwhelming wash of radiation which must have been present at the time, or we wouldn’t have anything growing here at all. What a terrible waste though.’

They stood there for some time, just looking at the beautifully streamlined shape of the missile which concealed such a hideous cargo within its gleaming shell.

‘Well, we at least know what this place was all about, and it looks as if someone else did also, and got their poke in first. Want to go down that stairway and see what’s at the bottom?’ Glyn asked, keen to see how such a terrible weapon was controlled.