Eggs.
Observing the domes and spires through which they were hiking, Cody could not banish the image from his mind: something a hundred feet high, or maybe two, having the appearance of solid, banded sandstone, suddenly rumbling and cracking and splitting wide open to release—what? Every image his brain unwillingly conjured to fill the void was more disturbing than the next.
Kelli helped to calm him. If the danger was that great, she argued, then surely Kuwarra would not have brought them here. There had to be a reason why their actual presence was required. If it was simply a matter of finding and gathering something, some special ingredient for a potion or pill, the elder could have come by himself, or in company with Oelefse, or Oelefse and Cody, just as her husband and his European friend had gone to fetch the blue leaves of the ilecc to bring her out of her coma.
Her rationale, Cody realized, was sound. But while he approved of the logic that led to an inarguable conclusion, he didn’t like it.
“You are perceptive, Coschocton Westcott, but you are not a member of the Society. There is work to be done here, and it is for my friend Tjapu and me to do.”
Cody nodded understandingly. “What about Kelli and me? What do you want us to do?”
“Stay out of the way.” Kuwarra’s eyes were roaming the sheer stone walls that enclosed them. “Stand. Watch. And be ready.”
“We can do that,” Kelli told him. “Where do you have to go next?”
“Where?” Kuwarra gestured expansively. “We are there, miss.”
Turning in a slow circle, Cody examined the handsomely banded, wind- and water-washed sandstone. It contained every earth tone imaginable, from deep magenta to bright yellow. He saw nothing but gravel, boulders, weathered stone domes, and sand. Since entering the range they had not seen a single Interloper. They were afraid of this place, their guide had explained. Of the bunyip. What in hell was a bunyip?
Did he want to find out?
Settling himself down on a cool patch of sand by the water’s edge, Kuwarra passed something to Oelefse. It was a half-foot long piece of wood, smooth on both sides, shaped something like a squashed banana. Intricate painted patterns decorated both flattened sides. At one of the two pointed ends, a stout knotted string passed through a hand-drilled hole. Oelefse held the string loosely, letting the piece of wood dangle near his ankle.
Taking up the hollow tube he had been carrying, Kuwarra put one open end to his mouth. Beeswax formed a smooth seal between lips and wood. When he blew into it the resultant drone, enhanced by the acoustics of the sandstone amphitheater, spooked every bird from its midday roost for half a mile around. Wings briefly filled the sky overhead before disappearing in all directions.
Within a banded beehive dome of a hill across the shallow water, something stirred.
Kelli took an unexpected step forward and pointed. “I can see it!”
“Where? I don’t see anything.”
“There—it’s right there!” She was gesturing emphatically. “Can’t you see it?”
Between a band of yellow and a band of mauve, the rock was parting, cracking open, widening to reveal a dark hollow place in the solid stone. To Cody it looked like a mouth opening wide as a pair of colossal lips parted. But that was all he could see.
“Oh—it’s coming out!” Kelli took several steps backward, compelling her husband to retreat with her.
“What? What’s coming out?” Anxious and frustrated, Cody stared so intently at the widening maw in the cliff that the backs of his eyes began to throb. “I don’t see any . . .”
There was a crack of thunder. A crack of thunder in a cloudless, clear blue sky. The two-hundred-foot-high dome split vertically, like a mound of rainbow sherbet cleaved down the middle by a hot butcher knife. From depths within emerged a bluish silhouette, grotesque and malformed beyond imagining. Shimmering and glittering with malevolent fire, it turned a thousand luminescent fangs the length of a man in the direction of the four tiny figures on the sand below. Without warning, preamble, or hesitation, it struck, a descending synthesis of all that was sharp and lethal.
Just before it attacked, Oelefse had begun to whirl the banana-shaped piece of wood over his head, like a loop on the end of a lariat. With each revolution the brightly painted wood thrummed through the air, generating a deep-throated humming like the whir of a colossal, contemplative bumblebee. As the mad aggregate of blue-tinged razors lunged at Kuwarra, the wooden bullroarer struck. Fangs exploded, bursting on contact with the ancient device in a shower of azure sparks that flamed briefly blue before sinking into the sand. Outraged and thwarted, the horrific visage withdrew preparatory to striking again.
The bunyip was reflected in her eyes.
“Kelli Westcott! Inhale! Take a deep breath. Now, as deep as you can! Do it!”
Questions flared like matchheads in Cody’s mind, but there was no time for thinking. Reacting to Oelefse’s command, a startled Kelli sucked in as much of the ozone-tinged air as she thought she could. Beneath her shirt her chest expanded with the effort. It coincided with the bunyip’s second attack.
“What happened?” Trembling with rage, he stared down at his stunned wife. “What did you do to her?”
“I can see you, Cody. I can see again. Everything.”
The fury went right out of him. Whatever hideous marvel he had just witnessed, it had restored her sight. Except for some initial, momentary shock, she seemed none the worse for the experience.
“Most people,” he muttered falteringly, “can get by with swallowing a lousy pill to cure what ails them.” Then he was bending toward her, his face inclining toward her own, his mouth and lips reaching for the warmth that was so familiar, staring into . . .
With a cry he fell back, stumbling away from her startled face, his trauma greater than hers. It was still there. The bunyip was still there—in her newly restored eyes. He had seen it—and it had seen him, staring murderously but impotently back from within the depths of his lover’s self and soul.
It wanted out.
Yet, as he gathered himself and struggled to deal with the shock of what he had just seen, it struck him that she seemed to be suffering no ill effects. What had happened, was happening? Did the bunyip now possess her—or she it?
Her expression was one of frightened bewilderment. “Cody, honey—what is it? What’s wrong?” She was oblivious to that which was now dwelling within her.
Slowly he walked back to her, putting a hand on each shoulder. “How do you feel? Anything unusual or irregular? What about your eyes?”
“They feel fine. I can see again. They ache a little, and I’m kind of nauseous, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” In her voice, confusion was paramount. “What’s the matter? You look so strange, Cody. Almost as if you’re frightened of me.”
Still holding her, his expression grim, he turned to confront the other members of the little party. They were observing in silence. “Well? What just happened here? Should I be frightened of her? Should we all?”
Oelefse nodded. “All surgeries have side effects, my young friend.”
“The bunyip is not an Interloper.” Oelefse explained patiently. “It is something else.”
“Of course we will exorcise it from her.” The elderly German’s tone was soothing. “But if you are willing, not here. There is a better place.”
Oelefse sighed heavily. “From before the beginning, my friend.”
“Don’t call me that!” Cody was beyond irate.
“Your call for help was not the only one considered, you know.” Picking his briefcase off the sand, the old man opened it and withdrew a small towel from its depths. As he spoke, he wiped paint and stain from his face and body. “But because of your backgrounds it was decided that you two would be the least vulnerable to the revelations that were bound to follow.”
“‘Any cost’.” Cody’s tone was mocking. “You mean our cost. Kelli’s cost. Not yours.”
“We are all at risk,” Oelefse said adamantly. “You remember the ilecc?”
“As I recall, I was busy with other things while you were picking leaves.”
“A tea brewed from the stems of the ilecc would have been enough to restore your wife’s sight to normal. In contrast, the tea of the blue leaves left her vision altered and her self open. Open and able to receive and store almost anything. Such is the power of the ilecc shrub. Now she has her sight back, and additionally from now on will be able to perceive Those Who Abide as well as you or I. Only one small thing has been added.”
“It is only temporary,” Oelefse assured her. “Tjapu and I can coax it out at any time.”
“Then bring it out now. Right now!” a furious Cody demanded.
“Nobody say that.” The aborigine elder continued. “No lies now, mate. There’s risk to us all. Anytime you got to deal with something this big and bad, there’s always risk.”
“It’s still there, but it’s not getting any worse.” She hesitated. “At least, not so far.”
Kelli replied before her husband. “I remember you talking about it. The town of Hall’s Creek.”
It was a struggle for Cody to remain focused on Kelli’s tribulation and not to show interest in Oelefse’s words. “So what? They’re big, all right, and I guess sometimes they’re bad, but what’s that got to do with us? Or with your Society, for that matter?”
“That makes senses,” the archaeologist conceded grudgingly.
Cody thought back, remembering. With a shock he recalled that the scholarly German had even mentioned India at the time. “So this is what you were talking about? Something that’s going to happen in India or Pakistan?”
“It will take place in neither country, and in both. You have heard of Kashmir?”
“Their existence must please the Interlopers,” Kelli presumed.
“It does not just please them.” Wiping the last of the paint from his calves, Oelefse neatly folded the now deeply stained towel and slipped it back into his seemingly bottomless briefcase. “It excites them. It tempts them, it draws them together, it sets them to the most malicious scheming and planning. They have been conspiring for some time now.”
“Much the weaker country, but with a highly trained and well-equipped military, the Pakistanis will respond immediately. They will be driven off by the entrenched Indians. Extremist Muslim elements within the government and the army will then demand that the ‘honor’ of the nation be upheld.” His gaze unwavering, Oelefse was staring hard at the archaeologist. “You can guess what will happen next. The Pakistanis will employ tactical nuclear weapons in the field against their Indian adversaries. The Indians will be driven back from the border into Kashmir, but they will not be driven out.
“But that is not the worst of it.” Oelefse waited patiently for a response.
“There’s worse than that?” Kelli had momentarily forgotten her nausea.
“That may bring your country, and mine, and the rest of the developed world into the conflict. At that point no one can predict what might happen, except to say that Those Who Abide will grow sleek and contented. It is not the Black Plague, or perhaps even the Second World War—but it could be very, very bad. All of this, of course, from the military buildup in northern India to its projected conclusions, has been aided and abetted by those humans infested with Those Who Abide. Without their incitement, such a confrontation would be unlikely, if not outright impossible.”
“You say ‘may’ and ‘could.’ ” Cody’s earlier anger had fled and he was much subdued.
“The Society’s predictors cannot see much beyond the initial clash between the subcontinent’s dominant countries. Subsequent to that, all is hazy speculation. But as to the course of the initial hostilities, they are confident.”
“How can they be?” Kelli’s expression was anguished. “How can they know all this is going to happen? Can some of your Society people see into the future?”
“No, not exactly.” The old man smiled gently. “Several thousand years of knowing one’s opponent and striving to outthink it leads to specific techniques useful in forecasting certain trends. Also, we have people in all countries, those of the subcontinent included. We have been tracking this secret military buildup on the part of India ever since it was initiated. We know their plans and have recorded their stratagems. From there, extrapolation can be made with a reasonable degree of accuracy.”
“And you,” Cody had already realized, “you and the Society, you plan to try and prevent this from happening.”
Both elders nodded simultaneously. “We must.”
“And for that you need something like a bunyip. What for—to frighten the troops and keep them from advancing?”
Oelefse smiled cheerfully. “You will see, when we get to Hoskins.”
“Hoskins?” Kelli made a face. “Is that near Perth? Or Darwin?”
“Somewhat farther north,” the German told her. “On the island of New Britain, which is part of northern Papua New Guinea.”
“New Guinea!” Overwhelmed by seemingly unrelated places, persons, and events, Cody was too exhausted to object. “I thought the danger was in Kashmir?”
“So it is, mate.” A relaxed Tjapu Kuwarra casually slung his didg over a shoulder and started back down the narrow rock-walled gash in the Earth that led toward their waiting four-by-four. “But the Hook ain’t.”