The Worm King Read online

  Francesco shrugged and Āmiria had a feeling he and Montabelli didn’t quite see eye to eye on the food requisition business. ‘The problem is, they talk of redistributing remaining food and everything to even out all we have left, or we won’t have enough. It is because this has never happened to any people before, so we gotta go back to scratch. Pool resources, that sorta thing. Is new problem, so we need new solution—’

  ‘Yes it has,’ cut in Lord Brown.

  Montabelli blew on his fingertips again. ‘Has what?’

  ‘Happened before. Granted it was a fair while back. Nearly thirteen thousand years ago, but yes, this has happened to other people before. Most certainly.’

  ‘What do you know about this old man?’ demanded Montabelli suspiciously.

  ‘It killed the Clovis.’

  ‘It killed the . . . what does who matter?’

  ‘It’s illustrative of the processes at work. And the range of probable outcomes.’

  Montabelli had to think about this for a few seconds. ‘Sounds like crapolla,’ he declared eventually.

  Before Lord Brown could reply, Astrid’s mother returned with tea. ‘Powdered milk,’ she confessed. ‘Ghastly, but what can you do.’ Montabelli knew exactly: he had five sugars, which was rather a lot thought Āmiria, for a man who’s already as big as a bloody house.

  Lord Brown stood, lifting his arms like he were holding some huge invisible bowl. It seemed an odd gesture, in the middle of afternoon tea in the dark. ‘There is undeniable evidence a comet struck Canada in 10,900 BC. It marked the end for the Clovis people. And many other animals gathered at the time. So most certainly, all this has happened before.’ He waved a bony left hand in the direction of the front window.

  Montabelli chuckled. ‘I know this religion! The spacecraft, she come down then everyone who is . . . yes, who has the cloves and the ginger hair, they are taken up to paradise.’ He laughed heartily while Francesco looked uncomfortably at Astrid and her father, the only redheads in the room.

  ‘I believe you may mean cloven hooves, and the link between those and ginger hair is tenuous at best.’ Lord Brown gazed down compassionately at Montabelli.

  ‘Tell us the way Lord. Testify!’ sang the Hat, punching a fist into the air. Winston sniggered.

  ‘The proof is in the soil,’ continued Lord Brown undeterred, although he lowered his hands. ‘It is a layer of dirt dated to exactly 10,900BC. This layer is as thick as one’s thumb and verily similar to the dried sludge that collectith at the bottom of a stove. It has been found in fifty sites and more, yes more, right across North America and as far away as Belgium.’

  ‘This may be,’ objected Montabelli. ‘But dirt is only dirt.’ He shrugged, unconvinced. ‘That’s why they call it that. Dirt. Is good for nothing.’

  The old man finally sat and Āmiria thought he was finished but he learnt forward, flashing a glance either side and lowering his voice. ‘Ahhhh, but this is very particular dirt. It’s packed with elements that are fantastically rare on earth, but common in debris and rocks from space. Within this layer they’ve found four different types of minute diamonds, born inside carbon blobules which could’ve only been formed in an explosive burst of heat. The concentration of the diamonds is a million times that of the surrounding earth layers, so it couldn’t have been part of the normal rain of space dust. This dirt layer also has an abundance of lonsdaleite, which is a type of hexagonal diamond you only ever find at meteorite impact spots. It contains iridium too, which only turns up in abundance with space rock. At the base of the layer is a much thinner film of charcoal, and burnt material, which almost certainly stem from the impact fires.’

  Āmiria’s interest was piqued by the talk of diamonds but she couldn’t quite see the connection with the Clovis people. ‘Did the Clovis used to wear the diamonds?’

  ‘Well . . . yes. In a way, they did.’ He nodded to himself, as though he’d just seen some new angle. ‘Although despite the free jewellery, it still would’ve been a pretty bad day for them.’ He turned back to Montabelli. ‘The point is, wouldn’t you think it’s just too much coincidence that the American Clovis tribes all disappeared, at more or less exactly the same time that this dense layer of extraterrestrial material turned up, which almost certainly came from an asteroid or a comet?’

  This seemed to give the councilmen a lot to think about, so ten minutes later they left. With extra butter.

  Francesco returned the next day, alone. Astrid’s father greeted him without enthusiasm. Nathan had been outside with Lord Brown for the last two hours collecting firewood. Both men were chilled to the bone and had just stopped shaking when he arrived. Winston and John the Hat were in at Griffith hospital, visiting Azziz who was helping out with the sick.

  Francesco looked glum. ‘More news from Canberra. The fires are all out, but they’re turning it into some sorta small, armed state.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Which I suppose it was anyway. But there’s martial law, all kinda stuff goin on. Four hundred prisoners got out of Goulburn gaol. We heard they just let’em go because they couldn’t look after them anymore. Even the bunch they usually keep in that special super-max wing. They’ve all ended up in Canberra, apparently. Everyone is still leaving what’s left of Sydney, which isn’t much. The Council here say we gotta protect ourselves too.’

  ‘You came to tell us this?’ said Nathan, clearly not encouraged by the news.

  Apparently not. It transpired he actually came to say Azziz would be sleeping over at the hospital again and he was just passing the message on. Winston and the Hat were due back in an hour, and they could’ve told them this, so Āmiria thought Francesco had wasted his time.

  ‘I also wanted to also make sure you all okay and everything.’ He smiled at Astrid but it looked peculiar because one of his front teeth was missing and his nose might’ve been broken sometime, so his smile had a huge kink in it. ‘I asked about them girls again, but no one’s heard. Sorry.’

  Astrid thanked him and said if there was anything she could do, don’t hesitate to . . . oh, of course . . .

  He left with more butter.

  Āmiria was thinking about Ngaruawahia. Her mind drifted back to the footy park on the north side of town, by the main road bridge heading towards Auckland, where the swirling, muddy waters of the Waipa River merged with the mighty Waikato. You could nearly always see trout flashing in the current near the edge, ducking and weaving but you had to know what to look for because they’re hard to spot with their speckled backs. The rugby clubrooms were right beside the river and one wall of the building was covered with this enormous mural of a war canoe surging through the water. The warriors in it looked ferocious as they paddled like demons straight at some unseen enemy. Unbeatable.

  She wondered if her father would be angry that she hadn’t made it to Tamworth yet. Sometimes his angry face really scared her, not that he often did get angry and almost never with her. Most of the time his face was completely expressionless, or perhaps more serious when explaining something complicated, and very occasionally smiling if something funny happened, but hardly ever angry. The odd thing was, over the last two weeks since it’d been dark all the time she’d increasingly only been able to remember his angry face. Even stranger, was that it always seemed to be in conjunction with a nightmare she used have. This dream first started after her dad took her to Murawai beach late one night when they’d been back home for a holiday. For several months after that night, every time she drifted off to sleep this awful image would flash into her mind of the cliff at Murawai, and she’d be falling off into the ocean and looking up to see her dad’s receding face staring down at her. The worst thing about it was that he didn’t look distraught, or the least bit concerned she was falling, just angry—really angry—and glad to see her go. She’d hardly been able to sleep for ages after that night, and he’d asked her what was wrong numerous times, but she never mustered the courage to tell him. Eventually the dreams faded, forced out by more pressing concerns about exams
and hockey and Guides and what that skank girl Tara McMasters in 4E was saying and a million other things.

  Now the dreams were back.

  Lord Brown gently placed a plate on the floor in front of her, then sat opposite. Canned spam chopped up finely and mixed with canned spaghetti; a diced, near-rotten onion; and quarter of a carrot, all heated to a boil in one pot on the ancient woodstove in the kitchen. John the Hat sat on the sofa with his plate resting on his knees. Winston, Astrid and her parents had already eaten and gone to bed.

  Āmiria shoveled a few quick mouthfuls down, then paused thoughtfully. ‘Those Clovis, how did all that go for them again?’

  ‘Fairly average by the sounds’ said the Hat.

  ‘The Clovis,’ replied Lord Brown, ‘invented the fluted spear point. The Clovis Point it’s called. It’s very distinctive and has a lovely aerodynamic shape. It was a huge technological breakthrough at the time. In the spear-making world that is, and spears back then were—’

  ‘Like the invention of the jug,’ interjected the Hat.

  ‘Indeed. But instead, useful.’

  ‘Maybe they just run out of food,’ she suggested, ‘if the spear was that good and stuff.’

  ‘That’s always been one theory.’ He nodded, smiling at her deduction. ‘But the number of animals that disappeared at exactly the same time was just too . . . too much for a differently shaped spear. When you’re up against some four-ton mammoth and it all comes down to the crunch, you’re still just holding a pointy stick.’

  The Hat jabbed his fork into the air a couple of times then tilted his head in contemplation. ‘I bet plenty of them, right at that crunch when you had your mammoth cornered would’ve been thinking: Fuck!! Wish I’d gone for the berry gathering option today, rather than this. This is a really shit job. And wish I’d carved a few extra flutes on my pointy stick too. ’Cos this cunt looks big!’

  Outside the wind had picked up and leaves and rubbish were rat-a-tat-tatting on the glass. ‘There would’ve been this single, dazzling flash in the sky,’ said Lord Brown grimly. ‘The Clovis would’ve just had time to glance up, and see other flashes bursting quickly until the entire sky was a massive, seething fireball. But before the heat of it could get to them, the shock wave would roar over, flattening trees, breaking legs, backs. Everything.’

  ‘Steady on,’ objected the Hat.

  ‘So what else did it get, besides the Clovis? she asked. ‘Maybe they all just . . . ate each other. If my Uncle Monty had’ve been there and they were running out of food, he might’ve done that, I bet.’

  ‘No evidence for cannibalism that I’ve heard with the Clovis. At the same time sabre-toothed cats disappeared; so did mastodons, which were similar to an elephant; American lions; giant bears; giant sloths; and terrahorns, which were meat-eating birds with a wingspan longer than a car. Anyway, at least thirty different types of animal disappeared at a stroke. The human population, going by the number of arrowheads, dropped by more than three-quarters virtually overnight. The arrowheads after the Clovis were a mixture of different shapes, as though new tribes had moved in to take up the vacant space. World temperatures plunged enormously too, just like they’re doing now.’

  ‘How long did it stay cold for, back then?’

  ‘A thousand years.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Getting Wood

  The fallen eucalyptus loomed slowly and ghostly from the gloom. It’d dropped across the fence, breaking the top wire but the next one had held so most of the tree remained supported.

  ‘It happened around here,’ said Winston.

  ‘If it was this paddock, this’ll be it,’ confirmed Nathan. ‘There’s no other trees down that I know of, and I’d done a circuit right ’round this one, looking for wood just beforehand. Well, only a couple of hours before at the most.’

  ‘Where was she?’ Lord Brown asked Winston.

  ‘On the other side. I’d put down my torch to try’n find some rope in my bag, and I heard her scream. I grabbed the torch, yelled “Āmiria” then ran around the tree in time to see some guy holding her but he bolted when he saw me.’

  Lord Brown stood at the exact spot of the attempted abduction. He eased to one knee and bent over to get nearer the ground, then shone his torch in an ever widening semi-circle although completely unsure of what he expected to find. A fine grit covered the dead pasture. He scraped at it. It was like a grey talcum powder. More scraping revealed yellow grass stems which broke apart under his fingernail. This place must’ve had its share of droughts, awful ones, but this . . .

  Squeak! The fence. None of them had been touching it, so something must be moving along the wire. He flicked off his torch and whispered to Winston, ‘Turn off your light.’ Click. The darkness swallowed them, and there was no sign of light in either direction the fence ran. It must be an animal, perhaps a sheep or a roo lying against it. Squeak.

  Squeak. Squeak. It had an odd regularity.

  ‘Might be best to head back,’ Lord Brown suggested quietly.

  The news regarding the tighter security arrangements wasn’t greeted well. Nathan, Winston, the Hat and Lord Brown had decided the girls should no longer go outside by themselves. That meant Āmiria, Astrid and Nathan’s wife were confined indoors unless they had an escort. It was decided in a quick, hushed conversation during a rare moment when none of the girls were present in the lounge, although none of the “boys” were keen to pass it on either.

  Nathan had already had a sniff of trouble. ‘Do you want to tell Āmiria she can’t go outside anymore? She called the last meal I served up “shit-arse” and said if she’d dished that up at home, her father would’ve “torn her a new one.” I can’t even imagine where a girl that age would pick up that kind of talk! A new one? Astrid never found it necessary to use language like that, I can tell you.’

  Somewhat surprisingly, Astrid turned out to be most upset by the new regime, startling all by shouting, ‘No way, who’s going to get your bloody wood then!?’ Even Āmiria was taken aback by the outburst. ‘Anyway, I have to go to Canberra and make sure those twins are alright.’ Her mother gasped and clutched both hands to her mouth.

  ‘Can you drop me at Tamworth on the way?’ asked Āmiria immediately.

  This caught Astrid off guard. ‘I thought you’d wait here? I . . . I thought I’d try and find out about your father at the station as well, you’ll have to give me the details, and if I don’t have any joy we can give Tamworth a go after that?’

  Āmiria scowled and folded her arms, the issue clearly not resolved.

  Nathan stood wearily and picked up the scarf draped over the back of his chair then wrapped it twice around his neck before tucking it down the front of his woolly jersey.

  His wife watched him anxiously. ‘Where’re you going?’ He was breathing heavily and it occurred to Lord Brown that Nathan probably needed looking after when he was outside a lot more than the Māori girl did.

  ‘Fishing,’ he replied, dredging up a smile. ‘I’ll get the wood. Don’t worry darling.’ He stepped over and bent low, kissing her on the forehead although this didn’t seem to reassure her much.

  ‘A breath of fresh air sounds spot on,’ said Lord Brown, standing and tightening the belt around his coat. Within seconds the Hat was on his feet too.

  ‘Alright for you fūllas,’ grumbled Āmiria.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ said Winston, reluctantly.

  Nathan lit the spare kerosene lantern using a tightly turned screw of newspaper which he first dipped into the tiny flame of the lantern already burning on the table, then touched it against the wick of the spare. When this was done, Lord Brown and the Hat followed him into the hall and out towards the rear of the dwelling. At the front of the house was a small tearoom-cum-cafe from which Nathan and his wife earned a subsistence living but they’d closed this off to keep the place warmer. The trio exited via the back door. The garage was tucked behind a row of dead lemon and mandarin trees, and linked to the house by a narrow g
ravel path. Nathan entered the garage through a side door which he had to unlock first with a large Yale key. The entrance would’ve normally been well hidden, if the trees had had leaves. He held up the lantern; a wooden dinghy took up roughly half of the available floor space. It sat on a trailer on a series of rollers and padded supports, the supports being covered by strips of carpet in the same pastel-yellow as in the house.

  Nathan walked down the side of the boat, stroking the wood with one hand and holding the lantern high with the other. ‘It’s a clinker. I modeled it on a Newfoundland whaleboat, three-quarter size.’ The varnish gleamed as the light passed over it. Lord Brown and the Hat walked behind. Nathan stopped at the bow where a coconut-sized figurehead jutted proudly. On closer inspection Lord Brown realized it was an elaborately carved mermaid holding a miniature wooden sword and shield against her chest. The face of the figurehead looked remarkably similar to Nathan’s wife. ‘The planks are Sydney blue gum and the ribs are silver ash from Queensland. I used blackwood from Tassie for the thwarts, and the keel and knees are jarrah from West Australia. The only imported piece is some New Zealand kauri for the figurehead here, because someone gave it to me and it’s such a rare, beautiful wood that I wanted to use it somewhere and it fitted just perfect there.’ Nathan caressed the timber, running his fingers over it like a man might stroke a woman he loved more than . . . well, absolutely anything. ‘Took me five years to build from scratch. Each plank was more than two day’s work to plane down and fit. The only metal, apart from the outboard when I’ve got that on, is the rod-holder.’ He walked down the port side and laid his hand on the polished brass tube bolted near the stern.

  Lord Brown felt the wood and despite the cold air, it seemed warm to the touch. ‘What do you catch?’

  ‘Murray cod. Golden perch every so often.’

  The Hat stood at the bow, studying the figurehead. ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Usually the Murrumbidgee River, because it’s so close. Two years ago I got first prize in the Lake Mulwala Cod Classic with a giant that went 92cm nose to tail. It was tucked in behind a big snag on the Murray and nipped out to eat this live scrub worm I’d tossed out. Took ages to get’im in and I knew it was a winner straight off.’