Goldenscale

Wednesday 5 April

Epilogue the First

The doctors said she was more or less better, that her prognosis was good, but they’d prefer to keep her under observation for a little while longer. So far she had been in hated inactivity for twelve days

‘I’m a fourteen year old,’ Beth said, hating them the way a prisoner resents his jailer. ‘I know I’m better.’ She jumped up and ran down the corridor, ran back, then touched her toes. ‘See!’ she puffed. They promised that they’d think about it in four days.

‘Eternity is shorter,’ Beth said, but no-one wins an argument with a person in a white suit.

She watched a lot of television, and saw the ragged hole that had once been Hemming Heights: at the edges of the zone of total destruction, roads amputated, trees sheared by projectiles and house tiles everywhere, like fallen leaves.

She also browsed news sites on her iPad. ‘Astonishing footage taken in the aftermath of a huge tremor in the sleepy township of Goolgoorook. The worst earthquake in Australian history, but strangely localised. Specialist geologists believe a giant sinkhole collapsed beneath the town of Goolgoorook. An entire housing estate was plunged into a one hundred metre deep abyss. Astonishingly, no deaths were recorded, and very few serious injuries. What could have been a great human tragedy is instead an insurance company’s nightmare and a geological oddity. Dr Paul Graydon of the CSIRO has been named as head of a state government-appointed panel of enquiry. His team will consider all possible causes for this catastrophe and interview witnesses and experts.’

Beth lay back. Dr Graydon and science would win out in the end. A coal seam fire or cave collapse or anomalous earthquake would be blamed. If enough time passed, she might come to agree. Very large reptilian creatures could never fly, and even if they could, they wouldn’t have enough energy to stay airborne. And as for ability to project flames, use odour to control people’s minds and live thousands of years — well, they were without precedent in the natural world.

Diary: Sam doesn’t really want to see me at the moment. He’s got tiny little burns all over his body. If he was a soldier, they’d call it shell-shock or maybe post-traumatic stress disorder. I think he wants to forget everything — and maybe he thinks D betrayed us. Somehow, I don’t feel the same way. D had a right to be free, and he never killed anyone — though that might have been more luck than design. He may have tried to destroy us at the last moment, but I prefer to think he was clearing his throat of the fungus. Burning it out before it could do its work. Or maybe it was all a self-defence reflex.

D’s going to need people again. He can’t survive without us. Somewhere in the world, in the Amazon or the desert, he must land, and make himself useful — perhaps hypnotise people as he did with us.

There’s a nice view from my room up here, a little like the one I had back home. Hard to believe I’ll never set foot in our house again, in my room. Sometimes I think I’m there, with my books, then I open my eyes.