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Authors: David Wingrove
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fully encased now, its cosy shape disguised by the huge, white insulating layers. Only at the front, where the door to the garden was, was its smooth, perfectly geometric shape broken. There they had put the seal-unit; a big cylinder containing the air-pump and the emergency generator.
A dozen suited men were fastening the edges of the insulator to the brace of the frame. The brace was permanently embedded in the earth surrounding the cottage; a crude, heavy piece of metal a foot wide and three inches thick with a second, smaller ‘collar’ fixed by old-fashioned wing-screws to the base.
The whole strange apparatus had been devised by Ben’s great-great-greatgrandfather, Amos – the first of the Shepherds to live here – as a precaution against nuclear fallout. But when the Great Third War – ‘The War To End It All’ as the old man had written in his journal – had failed to materialize, the whole cumbersome isolation unit had been folded up and stored away, only the metal brace remaining, for the amusement of each new generation of Shepherd children.
‘Gift-wrapped!’ Shepherd joked, beginning to climb the slope.
Ben, following a few paces behind, gave a small laugh, but it was unrelated to his father’s comment. He had had an insight. It had been Amos who had designed City Earth. His preliminary architectural sketches hung in a long glass frame on the passage wall inside the cottage, alongside a framed cover of the best-selling PC game, World Domination , he’d created.
Nearer the cottage the soldiers had set up an infestation grid, the dull mauve light attracting anything small and winged from the surrounding meadows. Ben stood and watched as a moth, its wings like the dull gauze of an old and faded dress, its body thick and stubby like a miniature cigar, fluttered towards the grid. For a moment it danced in the blue-pink light, mesmerized by the brightness, its translucent wings suffused with purple. Then its wing-tip brushed against the tilted surface. With a spark and a hiss the moth fell, senseless, into the grid, where it flamed momentarily, its wings curling, vanishing in an instant, its body cooking to a dark cinder.
Ben watched a moment, conscious of his own fascination; his ears filled with the brutal music of the grid – the crack and pop and sizzle of the dying creatures, his eyes drawn to each brief, sudden incandescence. And in his mind he formed a pattern of their vivid after-images against the dull mauve light.
‘Come, Ben. Come inside.’
He turned. His mother was standing in the doorway, beckoning to him. He smiled then sniffed the air. It was filled with the tart, sweet scent of ozone and burnt insects.
‘I was watching.’
‘I know.’ She came across to him and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s horrible, isn’t it? But necessary, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’
But he meant something other by the word: something more than simple agreement. It was both horrible and necessary, if only to prevent the spread of the disease throughout the Domain; but it was just that – the horrible necessity of death – that gave it its fascination. Is all of life just that? he asked himself, looking away from the grid, out across the dark, moonlit water of the bay. Is it all merely one brief erratic flight into the burning light? And then nothing?
Ben shivered, not from fear or cold, but from some deeper, more complex response, then turned and looked up at his mother, smiling. ‘Okay. Let’s go inside.’
The captain of the work party watched the woman and her son go in, then signalled to his men to complete the sealing-off of the cottage. It was nothing to him, of course – orders were orders – yet it had occurred to him several times that it would have been far simpler to evacuate the Shepherds than go through with all this nonsense. He could not for the life of him understand why they should wish to remain inside the cottage while the Domain was dusted with poisons. Still, he had to
A dozen suited men were fastening the edges of the insulator to the brace of the frame. The brace was permanently embedded in the earth surrounding the cottage; a crude, heavy piece of metal a foot wide and three inches thick with a second, smaller ‘collar’ fixed by old-fashioned wing-screws to the base.
The whole strange apparatus had been devised by Ben’s great-great-greatgrandfather, Amos – the first of the Shepherds to live here – as a precaution against nuclear fallout. But when the Great Third War – ‘The War To End It All’ as the old man had written in his journal – had failed to materialize, the whole cumbersome isolation unit had been folded up and stored away, only the metal brace remaining, for the amusement of each new generation of Shepherd children.
‘Gift-wrapped!’ Shepherd joked, beginning to climb the slope.
Ben, following a few paces behind, gave a small laugh, but it was unrelated to his father’s comment. He had had an insight. It had been Amos who had designed City Earth. His preliminary architectural sketches hung in a long glass frame on the passage wall inside the cottage, alongside a framed cover of the best-selling PC game, World Domination , he’d created.
Nearer the cottage the soldiers had set up an infestation grid, the dull mauve light attracting anything small and winged from the surrounding meadows. Ben stood and watched as a moth, its wings like the dull gauze of an old and faded dress, its body thick and stubby like a miniature cigar, fluttered towards the grid. For a moment it danced in the blue-pink light, mesmerized by the brightness, its translucent wings suffused with purple. Then its wing-tip brushed against the tilted surface. With a spark and a hiss the moth fell, senseless, into the grid, where it flamed momentarily, its wings curling, vanishing in an instant, its body cooking to a dark cinder.
Ben watched a moment, conscious of his own fascination; his ears filled with the brutal music of the grid – the crack and pop and sizzle of the dying creatures, his eyes drawn to each brief, sudden incandescence. And in his mind he formed a pattern of their vivid after-images against the dull mauve light.
‘Come, Ben. Come inside.’
He turned. His mother was standing in the doorway, beckoning to him. He smiled then sniffed the air. It was filled with the tart, sweet scent of ozone and burnt insects.
‘I was watching.’
‘I know.’ She came across to him and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s horrible, isn’t it? But necessary, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’
But he meant something other by the word: something more than simple agreement. It was both horrible and necessary, if only to prevent the spread of the disease throughout the Domain; but it was just that – the horrible necessity of death – that gave it its fascination. Is all of life just that? he asked himself, looking away from the grid, out across the dark, moonlit water of the bay. Is it all merely one brief erratic flight into the burning light? And then nothing?
Ben shivered, not from fear or cold, but from some deeper, more complex response, then turned and looked up at his mother, smiling. ‘Okay. Let’s go inside.’
The captain of the work party watched the woman and her son go in, then signalled to his men to complete the sealing-off of the cottage. It was nothing to him, of course – orders were orders – yet it had occurred to him several times that it would have been far simpler to evacuate the Shepherds than go through with all this nonsense. He could not for the life of him understand why they should wish to remain inside the cottage while the Domain was dusted with poisons. Still, he had to
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