The Worm King Read online

  Evil. It was all around. Something of enormous consequence was happening but a groggy haze hung over, obscuring and confusing and leading him down false paths. Astray. The park. The park? People there had been tense and angry, but then again, the people around him now are . . . what time was it? He lifted his arm and saw only bare wrist, the worn strap finally having given way.

  ‘Mickey!’ he shouted. The muscles in his face tightened which felt refreshingly good so Lord Brown shouted again, louder, ‘MICKEY!!’

  Anger flashed in the girl’s eyes. She picked up a piece of wood, an old chair leg by the looks, and shoved it hard against his head. A warning. She obviously meant to club him if there was any more—

  More what? He wasn’t crazy; no more than anyone, but it always helped if they thought he was a little bit. Then they ignore you and you can listen, and that’s how one learns. But for the next fortnight he wouldn’t be doing much listening because he’d be crook. Oh yes. Crook enough to . . . perhaps die? Probably not. Had there really been a wave?

  Lord Brown had been through alcohol withdrawals many times before and knew it took at least two weeks. Two weeks, then he’d start springing right, sure as coconuts. One point two million seconds and counting. It wouldn’t all be plain sailing though, oh no. Often, he’d crack, falling to another brutal low, desperately in need of that crisp, soothing, amber fluid.

  ‘Drink?’ he whispered.

  She shook her head.

  ‘One million, two hundred and eight thousand, four hundred and . . . ’

  * * *

  Āmiria undid the top button of the old man’s shirt. He kept mumbling, eyes all stretched out wide and face bristly as a hedgehog. She could smell him, and it wasn’t a pleasant smell.

  When doing her First Aid badge there’d been quite a list of things to remember. Nothing sprang to mind from the list that might help with this. In the test the question she’d done best on was: “Explain how to recognize and treat fractures, sprains and dislocations. Improvise and apply splints.”

  She couldn’t work out where the splint should go. Perhaps one on his head, which appeared to be giving him a lot of trouble. Then another long one for the rest of his body. He probably needed food more than anything but they had none left. Maybe she should’ve just let him eat that sandwich, despite clearly having runny shit plastered down one side of it.

  The splint was repositioned against his neck. Amongst Leroy’s gear she found a piece of rope which seemed the perfect length to tie the splint on. She wrapped the rope twice around his neck then an extra loop around his head to be safe.

  For some reason, Lord Brown looked frightened.

  Mrs Sheng gave them two storage rooms but first they had to move a stack of boxes from the rooms and out into the corridor. ‘Can use one for boy, one for girl.’ She’d been especially pleased to see the van. ‘They still trying to get our cars working. Engine all fly.’

  John the Hat pushed the final carton from the room. ‘Fly?’ He straightened and stopped in front of her.

  ‘No. All flied. Not lurking.’

  ‘Shorted,’ explained Dr Aaron Zoy, the station manager overseeing the relocation. He was as bald as a beetroot and had been unfortunate enough to be born with no chin whatsoever. Almost a perfect curve from his bottom lip to his neck. ‘The electromagnetic surge circled the globe many times. It certainly caught our systems out and we had a few more hours notice than most. It shorted transistors, computer chips, fairly well everything. The circuitry on the vast majority of cars; probably on any vehicle from the mid-1980s on we believe. We could only get one car to start here. Darren in systems support has a lovely old mustang and had no problems starting it at all. He’s gone into Canberra to find out what’s going on.’

  ‘Where did it land?’ asked Winston.

  ‘Near the Azores. It was twenty-two kilometers or so across at its widest and sort of peanut-shaped we believe. Would’ve been mostly composed of black ice, some carbon and a mixture of trace elements. It blew up as soon as it hit the earth’s atmosphere, ten kilometers above sea level and was travelling at nearly fifty kilometers a second which is really moving, even for a comet.

  ‘The Azores?’ said Winston incredulously. Āmiria had never heard of Azores and wondered exactly where it was, but would’ve guessed either very nearby, or far away, given his reaction.

  Astrid also seemed surprised. ‘How could something only twenty kilometers big have that effect here!?’

  ‘When it hit the earth’s atmosphere and exploded, it sent an enormous shock wave into the crust. The crust’s very thin under the oceans, so this wave went through into the mantle which is liquid, and bounced to the crust on other side. Here.’ Dr Zoy pointed his finger at the floor. ‘This caused earthquakes in lots of places that don’t normally have them, like Sydney. Because of this, large sections of the edge of the continental shelf have collapsed, causing massive underwater landslides.’ Zoy shook his head. ‘Sydney is very close to edge of shelf, so was hit by a series of big tsunamis. At least three massive ones over about an hour. That’s according to the husband of one of the scientists here, who arrived from there not long before you folks. Radio contact’s still out everywhere.

  ‘Anywhere on the coast will be the same. Melbourne may not be quite so bad, because the shelf’s further out, but they’ll still have had earthquakes which they’re not really prepared for. All those old brick buildings down there won’t have fared too well and they don’t have power, or transport and not likely to for, well . . . and obviously it’ll still be pretty dark.’

  Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. The guard poked his head around the door of the girl’s storeroom where they were assembled. Lord Brown was the sole occupant of the boy’s room next door. ‘Dr Zoy? Barney’s asking for you in com’s.’

  ‘Right,’ replied Dr Zoy, turning for the door. ‘Of course. Li, if could you organize some food, that would—’

  ‘Before you dash off,’ interrupted Winston. ‘When was this spotted? Why didn’t we hear about it earlier?’

  ‘How about I return and give you a rundown with dinner? But just quickly, the first hint of it was six days ago. Most of the next three days were overcast here, so we couldn’t do a lot. Unusual for this neck of the woods, happens though. We thought it had less than a fifty-fifty chance of hitting earth until four days beforehand, and then knew more or less exactly where it would land only twenty-four hours before. People certainly knew about it; our understanding was it was going through the channels, so to speak.’

  Winston: ‘So you were watching it?’

  Mrs Sheng: ‘Yes. Make big bang. You hear? Yes’aday morning.’

  Āmiria: ‘That must’ve been really loud for the people in Azores. Is that anywhere near Tamworth?’

  She was glad her father was a long way from Sydney, where the main trouble seemed to be, but maybe Tamworth wasn’t far away enough either! And what about her Aunty and Uncle at home? Āmiria hoped they’d know how to get out of the way of a tsunami, because their house at Manly wasn’t far from the beach. They would’ve been watching telly, to see her when she came on. She wanted to ask Dr Zoy if there’d been a warning on TV and then remembered she’d actually been on telly at the time and there had been no warning that she recalled in Mr Snow’s weather report. Dr Zoy and Mrs Sheng had left anyway, with Mr Snow hot on their trail.

  Astrid was miffed. No one had bought any food and everyone felt parched. The room seemed hotter too, and Āmiria doubted the air conditioning even worked. When they’d arrived the vent in the corner had a trickle of cool air seeping from it but now when she held a loose thread pulled from the hem of her skirt against the grill, it dangled limply.

  ‘How could it take three hours to organize food?’ complained Astrid. ‘I mean, you could just about grow it yourself in this time, honestly.’

  Āmiria stood. ‘I’m going to the loo.’ It was the third time she’d been in the last hour.

  Astrid squinted suspiciously. ‘Again?’r />
  She shrugged and stepped over the Hat making for the door. Thankfully there weren’t any more questions and three seconds later she was out. The toilet lay at the end of the corridor, not far past the entrance where the guard appeared to normally wait.

  Instead of turning towards the toilet and guard, she headed left. Twenty meters away a more dimly lit second corridor branched off the main one and she thought it’d be interesting to see what was down there. The problem being the guard could easily look around his little corner anytime and he’d spot her for sure. The cardboard boxes stacked along the wall varied in size and the boys had done a shoddy job of stacking them. The pictures on the sides suggested they’d once contained computer screens, or something computery. Maybe they still did? She pushed a carton tentatively but it didn’t budge. They definitely held something weighty.

  Āmiria stopped. A few paces to the left the boxes had a gap between them which it’d be easy to slither into, then she’d be able to get down to the second corridor with virtually no chance of being seen. She poked her head in, seeing another hole existed between the cardboard stack and the wall. Perfect! If she could just—

  ‘Hey! What’re you up to!?’

  Āmiria managed to turn her head, despite the tight fit, and smile at the guard. ‘I was just playing boxies. Yaaay!’

  He didn’t look convinced.

  ‘The lady in there said I could!’

  ‘Come on, get outta there.’ He waggled a forefinger and Āmiria obligingly scrambled out.

  The guard escorted her back and as soon as they got in the door he looked accusingly at Astrid. ‘We’re still working on the electrics and it’s dangerous in some places, so don’t let her wander around like that please.’

  ‘I thought the electrics were all shorted?’ retorted Winston.

  ‘That’s why we’re working on them.’

  ‘When’s Dick coming back?’ Astrid snapped.

  Yep, she’s pretty miffed alright.

  Mrs Sheng arrived with dinner. Or it could have been lunch, or even breakfast; the stew in the pot she carried would’ve been equally yuck at anytime of the day. Mr Snow returned with her and fortunately he brought a bottle of tomato sauce. A healthy squirt lifted the gloopy mess to something approaching food.

  ‘You not eating?’ Winston asked Mr Snow.

  ‘I just had a bite with the mechanic outside. They wanted a look at our engine. Zoy thinks they’ve just about got their 4WD going. He’s out with the mechanic now but he’ll be in in a minute.’

  Mr Snow and Mrs Sheng remained standing in the doorway, watching everyone eat. Lord Brown was still asleep by himself in the boy’s room next door and Āmiria wondered if she should go and get him, before all the food went. Soft footsteps in the corridor announced the arrival of Dr Zoy. ‘Here he is!’ said Mr Snow, stepping aside to let him enter.

  Things obviously hadn’t improved for the station chief. She could see bright red streaks running through his eyeballs which hadn’t been there before and his shoulders were more stooped. He seemed taken aback to see so many people squeezed in the one room. Āmiria shuffled along slightly, pushing into Winston so Dr Zoy had a space to sit if he wanted. Slightly to her surprise, he immediately stepped over Azziz to the spot she’d vacated and slid down next to her, looking pleased to be off his feet.

  ‘Yes, making progress, certainly,’ he said, although no one had asked him a question.

  ‘Have you nearly got it all fixed?’ asked Āmiria hopefully. She took a guzzle from the plastic drink bottle, grimacing at the murky, off taste.

  He smiled. ‘Nearly.’

  ‘Is the power back on? asked Azziz.

  ‘No. That’ll soon be the biggest problem too, when the diesel for the generator runs out in a fortnight.’

  Another two weeks! Surely it won’t be dark that long? From the startled expressions Āmiria could see the others were surprised too.

  Dr Zoy elaborated: ‘They’ve known for many years any decent explosion sends out an electromagnetic pulse. But this one was big enough to take down everything electrical, and with no starting point it’s going to be hard to get anything back up. Ruddy hard. Back to square one, I’m afraid. Still, we should’ve guessed it and I’m kicking myself now. America was letting off high altitude A-bombs in the 1950s that shorted street lights in Hawaii from 800 miles away, so this pulse effect has happened before and has been widely known, just on a much smaller scale.’

  Azziz was puzzled. ‘So you were expecting this?’

  ‘In a way. It was only a matter of time; pieces of rock and ice whizzing around space all the time. Always going to happen, just a matter of when.

  ‘At first they thought it was an asteroid, the observatory in Arizona that initially spotted it that is, then they worked out it was a very fast, long period comet, coming more-or-less in our direction. These things travel on huge elliptical paths that can get disturbed by the gravity of other planets, or collisions with smaller asteroids.’

  Natasha sat against the opposite wall, diligently taking notes. Her sister leant over and whispered something in her ear. ‘You idiot, I’m not asking that, they’re completely different!’

  ‘What is it dear?’ said Dr Zoy.

  ‘Our dad had haemorrhoids and Krystal wants to know if they’re anything like asteroids.’

  The doctor looked confused. ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘She’s right!’ interjected the Hat. ‘The raw panic, the anal bleeding, it’s all there! The link you’ve been looking for!’ Winston laughed. Mr Snow scowled.

  Dr Zoy pressed on. ‘Asteroids are mostly rock, rather than ice and they travel much slower. Slower than a comet, that is. We use Doppler radar to measure the speed and what they’re made of. Each time a comet passes any sun, and if they keep going long enough they pass one eventually, they heat up a little, some of their ice melts and they change shape so their direction alters as they tumble through space. The one we just had may’ve last come past a million years ago, missing us by a whisker when no one was here to see it. No people, I mean. As they get nearer a sun, its gravity gives the comet a minute wobble, making it hard to pinpoint the direction precisely.’

  Āmiria was puzzled. She’d never heard her father talk about using Dopplers or any of this business? ‘Did all this happen near Tamworth as well?’

  Zoy turned in surprise and everyone else stared at her too. She felt embarrassed and resolved that before asking any more stupid questions, she better find a map and see where these places were.

  ‘This one probably came from the outer edge of the Ort cloud,’ Dr Zoy continued, sidestepping the Tamworth question. ‘It’s an envelope of comets surrounding our solar system. A bit like a cloud of moths around a streetlight. Most of them circle, not-too-close, not-too-far, forming a rough kind of ball. Occasionally one bumps another, or something else, and whizzes off in a slightly different direction.’

  So the map needed to show Tamworth, and Sydney, compared with Azores and Ort. Āmiria wasn’t sure if she’d remember all this and hoped Natasha was getting it down properly.

  ‘Does this happen often?’ Winston asked. ‘I mean, if they were—what’d you say? Whizzing. Wouldn’t people have, you know, got some stuff ready and that?’

  Dr Zoy had to lean forward to see Winston who sat squashed between Āmiria and Azziz. ‘No one I know has any particular “stuff” that might do it. There’ve definitely been close calls in the past. The Hyakutake comet passed Earth in March ‘96. And that was only discovered two months beforehand by a Japanese amateur astronomer with binoculars. It got as close as fifteen million kilometers—and that’s very close—only 40 times the distance to the moon. In 1983 a comet called Ariki-Alcock got three times closer than Hyakutake—just thirteen times the distance to the moon. The closest on record was a comet in 1770. That zipped past and apparently at its closest was only six times the distance to the moon, about two million kilometers.

  ‘That veeeeerly close,’ confirmed Mrs Sheng.

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nbsp; ‘We know comets can hit planets, because the Shoemaker-Levy comet struck Jupiter in 1996. That strike was a lot more pronounced than anyone expected and the impact scar was massive, easily visible from earth with any kind of decent telescope.’

  Winston persisted. ‘But have any actually landed here before?’

  ‘The last comet of any size to actually hit earth was in Siberia, in 1908. At Tunguska, which is luckily miles out in the wops. Nobody’s ever found any pieces from it, but something exploded five or ten kilometers above the ground, completely flattening large trees in a circle three hundred kilometers wide. The explosion was equivalent to a ten megaton bomb. It was almost certainly a small comet. The Russians spent ages trying to find it but all they found was a small, round swamp; below where the impact should have been, right in the middle of the big circle of flattened trees.’

  ‘A swamp?’ asked Āmiria, forgetting her earlier promise about no more dumb questions.

  ‘Swamp suspiciously have no bottom,’ said Mrs Sheng. ‘This velly strange, say Russian. American say, can we have looksy? Russian say, you come over here, we drop bomb on your head. Hahaha! So everyone only get chance to look at Tunguska last twenty or thirty year. Hey! You creepy boy.’ She stepped back from the doorway because John the Hat appeared to be trying to look up her dress.

  Winston ignored the interruption. ‘So the one the other day was like that Russian one?’

  Mrs Sheng cautiously returned. ‘No. This big one.’ The Hat began inspecting a piece of wall near the door, cunningly trying to look like that was what he’d been staring at the whole time.

  ‘The one we’ve just had isn’t dissimilar to the Chixibulb asteroid,’ said Dr Zoy. ‘That landed in the Caribbean, sixty-five million years ago.’

  Mrs Sheng elaborated. ‘That one kill all the dinosaur. Plenty animal survive after though, so we be okay. No worry.’ She smiled at Natasha who kept scribbling while Krystal looked over her shoulder.

  Āmiria felt short of breath and even a little dizzy. The room was so stuffy! She couldn’t understand what all this meant and needed a drink, so got to her knees and hobbled across to the twins, who had the remaining water bottle sitting in front of them. As she grabbed the bottle she stretched up to see how much Krystal had written.