Part 17 (1/2)

Tim looked at Mrs Wilding. 'Good question. I didn't realize she'd actually sealed the hyper reality nexii up. But you think there's one near by, in 1994.'

'Bright light, bright light,' Dent piped up and broke into a fit of giggles. Mrs Wilding casually reached out and slapped the back of his head.

'Hey.' Polly was infuriated. 'Don't hurt him.'

'I'm not hurting him, girl. His synapses are weak, a quick knock gets his neuro-peptides working again. For a while, anyway.'

Dent spoke again, but in a calm, reasoned voice.

'Tarwildbaning is correct, child. My brain is damaged and I can only remain well reasoned for short whiles. Pity her - her entire existence has been wasted looking after me.'

Mrs Wilding - Tarwildbaning - suddenly looked upset and clasped his hand in hers. 'It is not a waste, my love, how many times must I tell you?'

130.

Polly's heart suddenly went out to these people - a couple locked together in love but with one of them not being the same person ninety per cent of the time. How awful, she thought.

Dent continued. 'Atimkos, this is important. I don't think the two of us dare try to enter your time - my body is weakened and although immortality is a sound idea, we all know that if the body is destroyed, that is it. My body is, effectively, dying. Our RTC units are not enough to help us any more.' Polly could not hide the fear on her face. 'Hush, child - our deaths are not like yours. Imagine your body wasting away but over millions of years, not tens. That's how it is for me. I am dying and it cannot be prevented.

However, I do not wish to accelerate it by using the RTC units, my injuries have a reverse effect on them. The chronons are agitated to the wrong frequency by my disturbed neural paths.' He looked at Mrs Wilding. 'We will stay here now - the jaunt into your time severely damaged me.'

'Could you go back?' Polly asked.

Mrs Wilding shrugged. 'If we could remain in the hyper reality where G.o.dwanna is, we would not only be safe but prolonged exposure may help.' She squeezed Dent's hand.

'Remember when we were Aboriginals, how the pain stopped for longer periods. If we didn't have to keep fleeing to avoid her . . .'

Dent put his hand up. 'Let us discuss this if Atimkos is successful. Have you found the songlines yet?'

Tim shook his head. 'They are disrupted. We haven't been able to work out why. Or if Thorgarsuunela has, she's understandably kept it from me.'

Polly frowned. 'Songlines? They're Australian, aren't they?'

Simon nodded. 'Yeah - but they don't really go beyond that.'

'I thought you used ley lines?'

Tim nodded. 'Yes, they're all the same.'

131.

'No, they're not - that's the point, they're cultural. Or adopted by cultures. And they're everywhere - not just on one straight line. How long ago did you land here?'

Tim looked at his fellow travellers. 'I've lost track.

Mankind was reasonably new.'

Mrs Wilding shook her head. 'Nonsense - mammalian life existed but mankind didn't come along until you were on your way.'

'That's right,' Tim remembered. 'We stayed in the area for only a few thousand years. Then moved on once we discovered mankind.'

Simon suddenly spoke. 'You landed in Australia, right?

You gave the Aborigines the songlines, the dreaming, right?

OK - what did Australia look like when you landed?'

'Green. Lovely green vegetation.' Dent's voice betrayed his slipping back into idiocy.

'And when you met the first Abos?'

'I don't remember,' said Tim. 'It was quite arid I think.

Yes, hot - the trees were gone. I a.s.sumed we'd moved around a lot.'

'You had,' said Simon. 'And you came back after the continental s.h.i.+ft. Australia moved away from Asia while it was rain forest and hit the Antarctic before drifting back up to where it is today. That's when you met the Aborigines.

Your ley lines, songlines or whatever were in a straight line.

You walked around the entire Earth once, but when you came back everything across the globe had s.h.i.+fted behind you.'

'Of course,' said Polly. 'That's why she can't trace the line.

It's no longer there. It's not a line but a pattern, all over the planet. How could you miss the obvious?'

'We . . we never realized how far we'd walked.'

Jayde stood at the doorway to the Grange and blasted the door off its hinges. She enjoyed that. She strode in, sniffing the air but she could not smell the humans. She walked through the hallway and into the kitchen, pausing to note 132 that the computers had been switched off. She opened the back door then jumped back.

'Baaa,' bleated a creature covered in soft white curly fur.

'Baaa.'

Jayde sniffed at it - it smelled good.

'Baaa.'

It would smell better cooked. She altered the setting on her rifle-blaster to microwave inducer and fired at the creature. It started to bleat again but died before it could get the noise out. Putting her gun to one side, she bent down and bit into the rump, tearing a large chunk away. It tasted good and she mewed in pleasure.

A noise - from inside the house like a rush of air. The scent of humans was back.

Grabbing the rifle-blaster, Jayde ran into the house, pausing to wipe warm blood from her jaws. Standing outside the room she had been barred from last time by some sort of force wall was a group of humans. With a hiss she raised her blaster.

'Stay where you are or I'll kill you!'

One of the humans, who smelled different, turned to face her. Jayde recognized the smell - it was like Thorgarsuunela. This had to be the other of her race that she was told to kill. He was holding a book as if it would protect him.