第 11 页

'I am an Earth Reptile. You are all Earth Reptiles. Today begins the dawn of our future.'

'Tautology, Baal.' Auggi punched a button on the console. 'Correct final paragraph,' she said to the computer screen. The last paragraph was immediately outlined in red. 'You'll need to rewrite that piece.'

Baal dragged a claw across the sensor pad. 'What about the whole thing, Mother? Is it what Chukk would call inflammatory?'

'Oh, I imagine so, Baal. In fact, I certainly hope it is. He could do with a shock. Your recital of this at Chamber tomorrow night will certainly give him that.' She stepped away from the computer. 'I shall leave you to rewrite the last part. "Beginning" and "dawn" mean the same thing in the sense you're using them.'

Baal stared at the text and then nodded his understanding. 'Thank you, Mother.' He looked her in the eye and held up his right hand, claws retracted, palm facing forward. She placed her palm flat against his and they bowed to each other.

'Good night, my dear.' With another slight bow, Auggi left the room and set off into the depths of the Shelter.

As she walked down the rough passageway to her quarters, she smiled. Everything was going to plan. Sula and Tahni should be returning from whatever task Baal had sent them on, while he was preparing his speech. And she was, well, waiting. Waiting for her moment, her triumph. After all these years... she stopped. 'After all these years'. Interesting phrase. To her and the others in the Shelter, it had only seemed about ten years. In reality, it had been many millions.

Millions of years during which their civilization had vanished without trace. The whole world had changed. Continents and land-masses had moved and split, and where once there had been only a few land masses, now there were many. Icthar and the Triad had told her and Chukk that thousands of their fellows had died, oblivious to their fate, as tectonic plates and continental drift had pulverized their Shelters, killing them while they hibernated.

Icthar and his Shelter had awoken around forty years previously, and through the Triad's researches, much had been learnt of the 'new' occupiers of Earth. The tiny planetoid that the Science Division had spotted had not swept past Earth. It had not sucked the atmosphere away with it, but had fallen into orbit around the Earth. Having failed to leave their solar system, it had not triggered the machines that would awaken the Earth Reptiles from their hibernation. And so, the Earth Reptiles had continued sleeping for millennia until the Apes had unwittingly awoken them.

Auggi recalled the most exciting communication she and Chukk had received from Icthar, sent from the Triad's base on the other side of the world.

'We have thrilling news, Chukk,' Icthar had said. 'The Triad has received salutations from two Shelters, both within your immediate vicinity.'

Chukk had immediately punched up the unfamiliar map of the world as it was now. 'Are they on this land mass, or this?' he had asked, pointing wildly at green blotches of Ape-infested land.

Icthar had indicated the uppermost one. 'About a third of the way up, in the centre. And Chukk?'

Chukk had twitched his fingers eagerly, exposing and retracting his claws in that annoying nervous habit that he had. 'Yes?'

It had been Scibus, Icthar's second, who spoke. 'It is your brother's Shelter. Okdel lives!'

Chukk had been overjoyed, and it had fallen to Auggi, as always, to return normality to the conversation. 'Let us not forget, Nobel Icthar, that it was Okdel L'da, Bokka K'to and their associates who consigned us to this prison in the first place. I am... gratified that they have survived these millennia, but I will not share any elation about the personnel that Shelter contains.'

Scibus leant forward, as if he'd only just seen Auggi on his screen. 'Is that you, Auggi D'jo? We have news for your spouse. Is he there?'

Auggi stared at the figure before her. 'My apologies, Scibus. I assumed that you had taken note of Chukk's plentiful messages, relayed to your Shelter at great expense to our power resources. My beloved Daurrix did not survive the hibernation. Only my son and daughters remain to welcome me into aged wisdom.'

Icthar took centre stage once again. 'Enough, Auggi. Of course we were grieved to hear of Daurrix's death. Scibus had momentarily forgotten.' He seemed to stare through the monitor directly and for a fleeting moment even Auggi felt his presence in the room, as if his wisdom and benevolence really did touch all of them. With an involuntary shiver, she disposed of that thought. 'Remember, in the years to come, all Earth Reptiles are as one family again.'

Auggi had punched her hand onto the sensor, cutting the sound. Icthar was clearly still talking, but his well-meaning pearls of wisdom were lost to posterity.

Chukk had looked appalled. 'Auggi, that was rude. No, more than rude, it was a flagrant abuse of the privilege you have been granted.'

Auggi had been livid. 'Privilege? Just remember, Chukk, you are only leader of this Shelter because Daurrix is dead and your blatant fawning to Icthar in the old days made you something of a favourite with him. But know this' - she jabbed a claw towards the screen, where the Triad had realized they could not be heard and were peering at their monitors, trying to see what was going on - 'know this, it is my son and daughters prepared to risk all to save us, while the Triad sit and debate. My family is prepared to die if there is any chance for the rest of the young here to survive.' Auggi flicked the visual contact off. 'Don't you dare try to revoke any "privileges" you believe you have honoured me with. I am here to stay, Chukk. Here to ensure you do not betray the principles for which this unique Shelter stands, rather than ingratiating yourself with our "fellow" Reptiles who, a few million years ago, sought to exterminate us all.'

Auggi was still staring at him, daring him to respond, as visual and aural contact was renewed by the Triad.

'Come in Shelter 429, this is the Triad Encampment. Can you see or hear us?'

The angry mother punched the sensor again and stared directly into the monitor. 'Yes, Tarpok, we can hear you quite well. We had a power fluctuation, leading to a communications breakdown.' She shot a glare towards Chukk. 'Chukk believes it is now sorted out satisfactorily.' She stood up. 'I will leave you with him.'

Scibus spoke again. 'Before you leave, do not forget the news I had for you, Auggi. Your late partner's original colony has been awoken by Ape ships in the area, and has sent us a message. They are delighted that you are all alive and hope to speak to you shortly. They are located just below the central southern point on the same land-mass as Okdel's Shelter. If there are three surviving Shelters in such a small area, there must be more. Finding them must become a priority.'

Auggi nodded. 'If my beloved's family has any true honour, they will find a way to eradicate the Apes and return our planet to us.' She tugged her webbed robe tightly around her and strode out of the communications room.

Now she stood there again, six months later. Okdel was dead, along with everyone in his Shelter. The Apes had discovered them and destroyed them. According to one of young Morka's final reports to Icthar, Okde had betrayed them to the Apes and been removed from power. Morka had announced that they had used Bokka K'to's famous vermin virus on the Apes, but his last message said that the Apes had found a cure.

They never heard from the Shelter again. Icthar wanted to mount a rescue but, in an unusually sensible moment, Chukk pointed out that if neither his dishonoured brother nor Morka could have saved the Shelter, there was no point in risking discovery by travelling such a great distance on what would almost certainly be a fruitless mission.

Auggi thought it amusing that once again Icthar had suggested using Reptiles outside the Triad to investigate. And that when they refused, the idea of investigation was dropped. The Triad might be noble, all-powerful leaders of great quality and brilliance, but as far as she was concerned they were foolish cowards whose survival of the hibernation was nothing less than a tragedy for the rest of the Earth Reptile species. At a time like this, with the planet overrun by vermin, leadership would be better placed in the hands of one of the other Shelters - in fact, in the hands of anyone other than the Triad - or the aquatic military caste; the legendary Sea Devil Warriors.

Auggi's mind returned to Daurrix and his excommunication from the Sea Devil Warriors. Here they were, after all that disgrace, all that humiliation, expected to welcome the Sea Devils back as their brethren, as if nothing had happened.

Again, none of the Triad had ventured out of their Shelter to communicate with the Sea Devils themselves. That was hardly surprising. Icthar and the others were just as wary of the Sea Devil Warriors as everyone else. All those years of underwater inactivity had clearly addled their brains. Daurrix's uncle, an advisor to the Chief Sea Devil, had told her that they were planning an attack on the Apes using their traditional aquatic method: underside burning. Much as it pained Auggi to think along such lines, there was no getting away from the fact that Ape scientific progress had begun to mirror theirs. Another three or four hundred years and the Apes would be at the level Reptile society had reached before the Great Hibernation.

'I thought you had retired to rest, Auggi.'

She turned at the voice, and a chill went through her body. 'Good evening, Krugga. What brings you to this level so late at night?'

'Night?, Day? Do we really think about such things, Auggi? Your greeting - so antiquated, so unreal.' Krugga strode in. Auggi stared up at him - even by reptile standards, he was huge, seemingly composed entirely of vast muscle. He wore a breastplate, like those worn by the Triad. No matter how hard the armourers had looked, they had been unable to find one entirely large enough for him, and the plate was ridiculously small against his bulk. He crossed the communications room in three strides, and began to check the equipment. Despite her sudden chill, Auggi was outraged. 'Are you checking up on me, Krugga?' She pointed at the communicator and console monitor. 'Who do you believe I was talking to? The Sea Devils? The Triad?'

Krugga shrugged, his breastplate creaking with the movement. 'I never suggested anything, Auggi. I am merely doing my job, as requested by Baal. The experiments are approaching an important peak and I need to ensure that your daughters can contact us when they are ready. Feel free to leave now, I am preparing to await their messages.'

Feeling dismissed, but also aware that arguing with Krugga was pointless, Auggi bowed. With a sarcastic bow back, Krugga raised his right palm, claws retracted, in the traditional gesture of friendship.

Auggi stared at him for a moment, her third eye glowing red in anger. Seeing a slight jerk in Krugga's form, she left the room, satisfied that she might have pushed him back down a peg or two.

Ten minutes later she was in the elevator returning her to the hibernation level, where the Earth Reptiles still kept their personal quarters. A few minutes after that, she was on her damp bed of seaweed and lichen, curled up and fast asleep.

---

The blond man with the suntan was not a very nice person to know. His wife would have confirmed that, if he had not beaten her to death. If he had not been knifed in a gangland killing, watched by his then 21-year-old son, his father might have agreed.

Very few people had a good word to say about the blond man, which suited him fine because he had very little good to say about anyone else. The only people that mattered to him were his targets. Seeing them die at his more than capable hands was not just his job, but his hobby. His vocation.

His obsession with death had begun when he was a teenager, down at the local flea-pit cinema where he could watch cheap American movies heavy with gratuitous carnage and emotionless sex. The sex had never interested him; he felt almost embarrassed by watching it, and by the similar noises coming from the seats behind him. He went there for the violence. The power that came from aiming a gun at someone, pulling the trigger and ending a life so abruptly and succinctly. Who needed sexual gratification when there was death to be dealt out? Front row, centre seat, with every shot, every gun, every death in close-up. He revelled in it.

With the money from his first job, he began to buy every book and magazine he could find about weapons and death. Within a year, he had emptied his bedsit of anything that did not relate to weapons: knives, swords, explosives and firearms. Firearms were his favourites, and they became his true love.

He married a local girl he had met at a fairground. She had been impressed with his marksmanship at the shooting range, despite the mis-aligned sights on the air rifle. He gave her the fluffy elephant he won that night; she took his virginity. Two months later they got married. It had seemed like the thing to do, and for about six weeks it was a satisfactory arrangement. Then she began nagging him about getting a proper job and so he found one through his father, running errands for the underworld characters who ruled a majority of London's East End in the fifties. He liked the work, and his bosses liked him. The first person he killed was an accident; the second wasn't. The morning after, they gave him a gun and a photograph. He came back that afternoon with blood on his shirt, a smile on his face, and an extra two hundred pounds in his bank account.

Execution after execution followed: sometimes a bullet in the back of the head for disobedience or arrogance, sometimes straight assassinations in bars and clubs, cars and parks. He became known for his discretion and professionalism. The police knew he was the culprit but could not pin so much as a parking ticket on him.

He only ever made one mistake. He had returned home one night after disposing of two particularly unreliable police informants. His wife had been angry over something simple. Was it food for the dog? Was it that his dinner was cold? Had he forgotten her birthday or their anniversary? He could not really remember. It all seemed so insignificant at the time. She had yelled, screamed and thrown things. He had followed her up to the bedroom, pushed her onto the bed and pistol-whipped her around the head.