Day 138 - Babel - Chapter 34 (3060 words)

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BABEL

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 34

George was looking for a chance to get away and this was the only opportunity he could see that afforded him any real option of survival. Out in the gulf he was literally caught between the devil, Victor, and the deep blue sea of the Hauraki Gulf. On the mission to the Naval base at least he had the option to disappear into the land, hide from Victor and whatever madness he had planned. Given what he knew so far it was entirely possible that being too close to any potential crash or blast radius of the ship would have been equally dangerous as being underneath when it blew.

Victor had left Barbara and him alone on the island for two days, and for a little while at least George had daydreamed that perhaps Victor would not be returning. It was a false hope though and on the evening on the second day after being left alone with Barbara who was increasingly distanced from him. She had been treating him like the third wheel in relationship that only existed in her mind and therefore the frosty nature of he attitude towards George only intensified. They were part of that less than one percent that could still talk, still human and possibly the saviours of the human race and yet they barely spoke any words to each other.

She sensed but never asked to confirm that George did not trust Victor and the leadership role that he had assumed from George, without asking but by force of purpose alone. He had dropped hints about taking the boat away for two days and scouting out Rangitoto, getting under the belly of the beast and staring up into it's maw, looking for weak spots. He had as much as stated that he would be gone overnight, but when he did not return and it was silent and calm in his absence, George allowed himself a sliver of potential that Victor would be dealt with by the same Alien Hordes that they were working to defeat.

How the three of them, sat as they were on a flat and featureless bird sanctuary island, would be able to effect a coup of sorts of the alien overlords George did not even temperate to guess. They had no weapons and no advantages that they could think of, no resources and not much of a plan that anyone wanted to share with the group. Victor was always thinking and was always plotting in his own mind, George was sure of this from the way he spoke and the way he measured his thoughts before saying things to him and Barbara that sound true, but felt like lies, at least to George.

Barbara was watching Victor through binoculars as he approached the much bigger island, it's extinct volcanic cone rose steeply from the centre of the island, now lush with bush and wildlife, rising majestically in the middle of the Gulf a focal point for the eastern coast of Auckland from the far north to the far southern reaches of the cost line. But now with the ship hovering there, hundreds of feet, possibly thousands even, above the highest point of the island. Victor's plan, as much as he had told them was to get across to Rangitoto Island, take one of the tracks, perhaps if he was lucky find a four wheel drive in the Ferry Terminal port, or one of the DOC houses, like the one they had lucked into on Brown's island where they were now. From there take the summit track as far as he could, scaling the peak and getting a close up look at the Alien ship and figure out how to bring it down.

He disappeared from sight within an hour but she spent the better part of that day and evening sweeping back and forth across the mountain, the crested peak and the beaches to see any sign of life. She also kept a close eye on the saucer itself, not that there was anything that she could do if it suddenly burst into life or if swarms of alien warriors poured out of whatever barracks or defences it had, but none the less she watched it carefully for any sign at all. Even when darkness took them all into it's nightly embrace, she sat on the roof of the rangers station, climbing up there with a blanket and her binoculars to watch for any flashes of light or signs of Victor's progress.

The next day, she was up before George and he knew that she had not spent the whole night up there because he had heard her come in to bed in the middle of the night and had woken him up. He had jumped at first because he thought it may have been Victor, but he could tell without looking that it was her. The heaviness of the footsteps, the shuffling tired and shambling gait. Victor was very light on his feet, like every step he took was the one where you shifted your weight just before you break into a run. Barbara walked normally and shuffled when she was tired, Victor was like a cat, a predatory animal always on the lookout and ready to pounce or flee at the drop of a hat. George woke the next morning and the sun was already up and breakfast dishes were in the sink, no sign of anything leftover for him, and he could here Barbara on the roof.

He walked outside to see how she was, offer her a cup of tea but she didn't look at him when he asked, just kept scanning the horizon and the mountain that dominated it, while gesturing with her free hand that she had a thermos and was good.

They had spoken less than ten words since Victor had left on his mini-mission as he had referred to it. George watched her for a moment and then went inside and fixed himself a simple breakfast to start they day, taking his time to enjoy the peace, quiet and lack of tension without Victor around. He contemplated escape, now that Victor was out of the picture for at least a few more hours, possibly a second day, yet no means of escape was affording itself. He was a halfway decent swimmer, but the options for a swimming escape were limited. Closest was Howick peninsula, and while the distance looked swimmable, George could see that there was plenty of activity there on the land, the Babel were very active there. He doubted he could get to the shore, close the gap from the beaches to hide in the golf course or somewhere else before being spotted. He had to find a place where he could not be seen approaching, and could not be caught as soon as he got out of the water. That eliminated the mainland as the coast was busy, whatever it was the Alien Invaders were doing with the Babel, or whatever weird gestalt being they had become, they were keeping them very busy. Waiheke was too far to swim, and Rangitoto was closer, but that was just following Victor so there was no way to make that work. Motuihe was quite some distance and the water between them seemed pretty calm, but there was nothing there, they had scouted the island the previous week and found nothing useful and no means of transport to anywhere else. The things they had found they had already stripped and brought back to Motukorea, Browns Island.

So he waited and as the day wore on and he felt well rested he heard Barbara exclaim from the roof of the shelter they had taken the last two weeks. He could not tell if it was a jubilant or distraught exclamation, and figured that one way or another he'd find out soon enough. Within the hour Victor was back and looking wildly excited with anticipation. Obviously he had found the chink in the Alien Ship's hull, the exposed hole or vent that they could magically “star wars” their way to victory with, but that did nothing to alleviate the foreboding of doom that George was getting from the situation. He just wanted to get out alive.

“WE need to go, now.” Victor stressed the word “we” heavily and was looking at George not Barbara.

She had not noticed. “Where? What are we doing? Did you find what you were looking for?”

Victor looked at her as if he had only just seen that she were there, and that fact had somehow surprised him. “Not you.”

“Oh.” Barbara sat down on the bench near the front porch of the rangers hut, deflated and dejected by a sharply spoken two word sentence.

“Get to the boat now George, we have some heavy lifting to do.” And with that he was gone again, disappeared inside the ranger's station and rattling about in there turning the place upside down looking for things.

He came out again and thrust a carry bag at George who took it and almost fell over at the weight of it, it was thick and laden with heavy metal objects. He looked inside and saw that it was every tool that they had scavenged together in the last two weeks, all in one bag jumbled together.

“Get those to the boat, George, now! Get on with it!”

He had stumbled under the weight but they were in the boat and motoring away from Brown's Island before he had a chance to think, ask or even comment on the fact that he had no idea what it was that he was doing. It was dark before they were even halfway to the city, Victor was steering the boat through the harbour, but not heading to the nearest part of the shoreline. Instead they were headed back to where they had stolen the lifeboat from, what seemed like an age ago from the docked frigates in Devonport Naval Base.

As they closed the gap to be big grey ship they could see that the main part of Auckland had lights in it, electricity was being used in patches in the houses on the hills overlooking they city, which itself was still dark and cold. The city though, the houses and the bigger buildings were occasionally lit up and flickering with signs of life and activity. George saw these and hoped that it was a good sign, that maybe things were righting themselves again, and perhaps there was some hope. Victor saw the same lights and tightened his resolve to end the alien oppression that was enslaving humanity.

He was muttering darkly about the lights, how no one was human anymore and that it would all end soon. George said nothing at all and did not engage in debate, agreement or even commentary with the man that was now officially more terrifying than the prospect of Alien Brainwashing or Body Snatching.

Devonport was devoid of life. All the activity was further inland on the other side of the bridge, if there were any Babel left on the shore they were not on the Belmont to Devonport peninsula. Victor was scanning left and right as they skirted the edge of the land, still no sign of any Babel or any Alien activity.

“They can't stand the water, that's what it is, the water.” Victor observed more than once.

George had heard this theory many times, and while he neither agreed nor disagreed with it, he had no proof one way or the other. This latest activity and the lack of attention they drew on the thing crust of land sticking out of the water that they now called home, backed up this assertion to some extent.

“Up here. Bring those.” Victor indicated the tools and they docked the boat near the larger frigate, the one they had stolen the lifeboat from weeks earlier.

It was heavy work carting the tools up onto the deck of the Frigate, but they stood in front of the deck guns and stared at each other.

Victor broke into a grin and rubbed his hands together with glee. He fished out a torch and in the moonlight, with the aid of the flash-light he started disassembling the Missile Launcher on the foredeck.

George was feeling faint, this was madness. He picked up a wrench and moved to where Victor was standing, thinking that perhaps the best thing to do would be to just kill Victor and leave. He was that scared that murder crossed his mind, and it made him feel sick and weak just wavering on the point of being able to take action.

“Just sit down George, leave it to me. I need you to help me carry the things, not pull them out. You'd just as likely set them off.”

George sat down on the deck with a thump and dropped the wrench, his moment and opportunity gone. Victor started talking, to himself or to George he could not tell.

“Sea Sparrow, surface to air missiles. They have a range of 10 miles, but we have no guidance capability. You'd have to get up real close, and find the right spot where the maximum damage would be done, without the accuracy that most would be thinking of. You want each one of these puppies to put out their 40 kilo warheads out put in the best way. Exploit a weak spot, times the explosion by four, and then, hope for the best, a chain reaction.”

Victor had one of the four missiles loosened and he clanged the end with a wrench, the same one that George had been intending to crush Victor's skull with. “Come on then, these things weigh a few hundred kilos and we have four of them to move.”

“This is why you didn't want Barbara.”

“Heavy lifting is for the lads, you should know that George.” He spoke to him like he was a child on the bus being reminded to let the elderly have his seat.

Victor had a dolly ready and they heaved the missile onto it before hitting the ramps off the deck, off the ship and down to the docks. It took them about an hour to extract, move and load the missiles on to the boat. Each missile dropped the waterline on the boat a little more and before the third one was on there George already knew that only one person would be making it back on the trip to Motukorea.

“I guess I'll be staying here then.”

Victor was surprised by the statement but his eyes narrowed shrewdly and his hand lifted slightly towards his pocket, not quite reaching for the gun they both knew was there.

George raised both hands placatingly. “We have one more missile to bring down, so we could take the three back to base and be satisfied with three. Or we could load the fourth but then one of us would not be able to make the trip, the boat is pretty low already, we'd have to ditch the tools and the oars and any extraneous weight. So I stay behind and you either come back for me or I get another lifeboat and row back to the island, that seems like the best option. Four missiles and you, I follow by rowing a lifeboat.”

Victor nodded but said nothing, and George knew that his chance was going to be necessary to take as soon as the last missile was secured.

Less than forty five minutes later they stood next to the boat, all four missiles and Victor were in it and it was dangerously low in the water. George started to walk away back to the Frigate to make a show of looking for a lifeboat he knew he was never going to use.

“Where are you going?” He heard Victor's voice behind him and the audible click of the gun chambering a round.

He did not hesitate and dove head-first off the dock and heard the crack of the bullet as Victor took a snapshot from his sitting position in the boat. The water was cold and hard as he hit it blindly, in the dark he could not even tell where the water started and the night ended. He went down, down and as far as he could underneath the dock itself, pulling himself along the pylons of the wharf. The last time he had done this it was to save Victor's life, the man who was trying to kill him now.

He surfaced and despite the burning of his lungs, and the ice stinging at his eyes, he did this as silently as he could and gave nothing of his position away.

A few minutes in the cold and he started to shiver, but Victor gave up on searching for him quickly and started the motor on the boat, cautiously heading away from the area in the moonlight nightscape of a calm harbour sea, heading out to the home base and destiny.

George waited until his limbs were almost too numb before climbing out of the water and onto dry land again. He saw blood on his arm and wondered if he had been nicked by Victor's bullet or if he had cut himself in the water or during the dive. He could not see the wound and the cold made him too numb too care.

When he was standing on the beach trying to see if he could see any sign of Victor's boat heading away from the shore, he saw lights of a car and then the sound of an engine approaching where he stood. He was too cold and tired, possibly in shock from whatever wound was bleeding on his arm and had lost any will to resist so he stood there and waited patiently for the driver to stop. When the door opened he was ready to surrender or embrace zombification or whatever it was that was coming next.

He was not expecting her to get out of the car they way she did just at that moment when the engine stopped, greeting him with a smile he never expected to see ever again.