A Sudden Wild Magic

She was right there. Just beyond the hatchway, the corpse of a good- looking boy lay half-across that of a comely young woman. Tod stepped over them and took a look along the capsule to make sure. And found Sandra had made a mistake. The best-looking one of all — an absolute wow-wow! — was coming slowly down the metal gangway carrying an infant.

“Not dead after all then?” Tod said to her. The infant responded with a broad, companionable smile.

“Ike boo how,” it remarked.

Zillah saw with interest that this cheerful young man, whose face gave her a feeling it was encased in an invisible nylon stocking, only hesitated an instant before correctly translating Marcus. “Like the blue house, do you, laddie? Well, that makes one of us. Your son, is he?” he asked Zillah.

She nodded. “Marcus. I’m Zillah. We were up the other end.”

There was more to it than that, Tod suspected. Why, he hadn’t even seen her until she was most of the way down the gangway. Nor, it seemed, had the other women. When Zillah climbed out through the doorway, she was greeted with astonishment.

“Good Lord! It’s Zillah — and Marcus!”

“Zillah, what the hell are you doing here? Why are the others dead?”

“Who is she?”

“Zillah Green, Helen — she’s Amanda’s sister.”

Zillah mumbled some reply, sounding so embarrassed that Tod turned away to the nearest corpse and began hauling it along the floor. But a man does not have six elder sisters for nothing. He did not make nearly as much noise dragging the dead young man as the castaways thought. He clearly caught the rapid whispering between the two brunettes and Zillah.

“Look, Zillah, how much do you know?”

“Well, the outline — What killed them? I don’t know—”

“Not the cover story and all that?”

“Obviously she doesn’t. Suppose they question us?”

“They’re bound to. Zillah, keep quiet and play dumb, there’s a love!”

“We’ll talk a lot. You just follow our lead.”

Ay, ay! Tod thought, backing from the door with the dead young man’s ankles in his hands. What are you up to, sisters? If you’re up to no good in Arth, then that’s fine by me. I won’t say a word to stop you!

It amused him the way they all sprang to help him, to allay his suspicions just in case he had heard anything. Flan and Roz jumped to the corpse’s arms, while Helen and Sandra raced inside to collect the girl. Zillah put Marcus down beside Judy. “Marcus, look after Judy. Mum’s got to go and help. Judy, have a go at holding Marcus — he’s awfully comforting to hold.” As she climbed into the capsule, she asked Tod, “Are you all on your own? Isn’t there anyone else in this castle to help you?”

Tod shot a look at the dark, filmy screen between them and the Brothers. They were all watching in there, and it looked as if they were now doing some kind of decontamination work. They were not going to risk plague. The platform was alight with small flashes, each representing the death of a microbe. “Oh, I’m in disgrace,” he said cheerfully, struggling rather to drag the dead young man to one side, out of Judy’s line of sight. He did not look plague-ridden to Tod’s eye, but why crossing to Arth should have killed such a healthy specimen was beyond Tod to say.

Here the Brotherhood condescended to lower the weight of things out on the platform. The heavy bodies suddenly became quite easy to handle. Tod found he could manage the next on his own, and Judy, sitting cross — legged with Marcus in her arms, was hanging on to the child as if she thought he might float away. In fact, had it not been for the sad gruesomeness of the work — which Tod saw was upsetting all the women— he would have enjoyed himself. Here were six new people to talk to, and females at that — with all the while the chuckle welling up inside him at how wonderfully awkward this was for Arth.

But of course, it was over quite soon. Five minutes hard work later, Tod’s suit became a fizzing scintilla of dying germs. Oh, so they did get around to me! he thought angrily. Simultaneously the dark screen cleared and busy, blue-clad Brothers rushed forth to deal with the capsule. Others swiftly shrouded the sad row of corpses, speculating in murmurs as to whether the cosmic storm or oxygen-loss could have killed them. Tod and the living ones were ushered through ranks of staring mages and goggling cadets, to where the High Head was standing, cloaked and mitred and stately.

The look on the High Head’s face, Tod thought he would never forget. It was almost horror, as the High Head realized all the survivors were women.

V Arth

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