Part 6 (1/2)

'It isn't rock.'

She got up. 'How did you - what on Earth's that you've got there?'

'Portable spectroscope.' Among other things. 'j.a.panese. Still experimental.'

I crossed my fingers as I fibbed.

She nodded. 'I see. And your findings?'

'... Show this isn't rock. It's not even very similar to rock.'

'Well, what is it then?'

I hesitated, then decided to go for broke. 'It's changing.'

'Changing?'

'Disguising itself. At a molecular level.'

Dot scowled. 'You've been smoking one of Reefer's joints.'

I shook my head. 'It knows it's being scanned.'

Dot licked her lips. 'You mean it's alive?'

I shrugged. 'I don't know.' On a sudden hunch I stood up on tiptoe and peered through the hole drilled in the top of the stone. 'One thing's for sure: it might be old, but it's no meteorite.'

Dot placed her palm flat against the stone. 'Not a meteorite. Not from Earth.

Possibly alive. What the h.e.l.l is it?'

There was a long silence.

Into the silence a thought projected. I was looking through the hole and I could see Ararat. More specifically I could see the same outcropping that had caught my eye when peering through the first stone we had found.

Much more specifically - the outcropping was all I could see.

A thought struck 'me. 'Wait here. I'll be back.' Taking Dilaver and having temporarily relieved Reefer of his camcorder, I spent the next twenty minutes revisiting the sites of the other stones. I peered through each of the holes. I filmed what I saw.

The stones were all seated at different heights and varying depths in the ground. One was on its side. All were at different angles. Yet when I peered through each of the holes, I saw the same view I had seen through the first stone.

They were all pointing at Ararat. Precisely at Ararat.

Several tons of rock, spread over several miles of hills, six billion years old, all facing exactly the same place - as if they were aimed there. Like telescopes.

Or guns.

Guns aimed squarely at my husband.

Why do they make you care about them so much, the wretches?

I went back to the others, told them what I'd seen, showed them the video footage. Dot bit her nails. Reefer looked nervously up at the sky, as if expecting to see Martian cylinders appear over the rocky peaks.

I pulled out my hip flask. 'Anyone want a drink?' . Reefer looked at me with wide eyes. 'Abso-fragginglutely.'

I handed him the flask.

It was halfway to his lips when he fell over.

It took me a moment to register the sound of a rifle shot. By that time Reefer was motionless on the ground beside his still burning spliff, eyes wide and slowly filling with blood from the bullet hole in his forehead.

There was another shot. Dot fell over. Her foot twitched as she hit the ground, then she was still.

I moved towards her. At least I think I did. Everything seemed very distant.

Had I heard three shots or only two? Suddenly it was hard to remember.

I felt flushed. That was the shock of seeing two people I had just been talking with shot and at least one of them killed. I tried to look around, to see who. had done the shooting. It seemed to take a long time to turn my head. Then I saw a thin figure in black battle fatigues walking slowly towards me. His gun was aimed at me. I waited for him to fire. He didn't.

I fell over then, hand pressed to my side, surprise growing in me at the hot wetness there.

Oh, I thought as my face hit the ground. Three shots then. I thought I might black out but I didn't. Funny that, isn't it?

I remember all the old cliches but not very clearly and not necessarily in the right order.

I remember the man in black checking Reefer and Dot. I remember watching him turn them over and seeing the blood on their bodies.

I remember a salmon-and-avocado-and-goat's-cheese sandwich smeared across the ground.

I remember the soldier putting a bullet into both their heads for good measure.

I remember seeing my hip flask, hooch trickling out on to the parched rocks, a hand's breadth from my face.

I remember the man walking over to the camera, picking it up, rewinding the tape and peering through the viewfinder. I remember him grunting with astonishment, then irritation, then cursing in Iraqi.

I remember thinking, He shouldn't be here. He shot us because he thinks we caught him on tape. He shouldn't be here and - I must have made a noise. A laugh. A sob. Something that made him realize.

He's not on tape. That's why he's annoyed. He's made a mistake and committed himself and now he's going to finish the job.

I remember the man walking towards me, his feet shaking, the ground like giant's footsteps. I remember him pointing' his pistol at me when he realized I was still alive. I remember the thunderous click as he pulled back the hammer, how big the barrel looked as he knelt beside me and brought it towards my face.

I remember gripping my paintbrush as if it were the last thing in the world, thinking, I can't die. I ate the flower of Utnapishtim. The amomum. I'm going to live forever - I closed my eyes. The hammer fell. Nothing.

I opened my eyes. He was reloading the gun. The spent magazine was falling towards the ground. So slowly.

I kicked his legs, screamed from the pain in my side as I did so.