Gorgon

CHAPTER 26

‘I think I got it, Jack.’

Gerry Harris fed the images through to Hammerson’s office. Hammerson’s screen flickered and then he saw the dark mass moving along the Izmir street. It was like a fog bank with a solid center. He noted its size in relation to objects it passed — it was big, over seven feet tall, and broad.

‘Still not clear, Gerry. Can you give me any more clarity?’

‘Sorry, Jack, that’s as good as it gets. The computers dismantle the original images, then reproduce them as a simulated best guess, building them up pixel by pixel. Takes a helluva lot of processing power to make it real time. You’re seeing it without really seeing it. Also, the thing is literally giving off that gas that surrounds it.’ There was a pause. ‘Let me try something.’

The screen darkened, then flared, as Harris swapped between infrared and thermal. In thermal view, there was nothing but a cold outline.

‘Giving off very little heat,’ he said.

Hammerson grunted. ‘Like a reptile.’

He narrowed his eyes as the images changed again. Harris moved to light enhancement, shadow management, and then contrast adjustment without any improvement. He went back to the original image. ‘Nope; that’s it, I’m afraid.’

‘Okay, Gerry, good work. At least we can see the bitch now. I want this program sent down to Walter Gray in R&D. We need to fit it into something mobile for the field team so they don’t have to fight blind.’

The creature stopped at the tip of the peninsula of a fishing village called Çeşme, which had been there since before the time of the Trojans. A cloud swirled around the dark figure, but its central core never wavered as it stood at the water’s edge. Around it, plants wilted, moths fell from the air, and small lizards shuddered, froze, and then turned milky white.

In its mind it saw a land that had ceased to exist many millennia before. Gone were the songs of the priests, the race of bull-jumpers, the souls of a hundred other races down the centuries. They were all gone, washed away by wind and rain and sand a hundred thousand times over. Its loneliness was like a disease eating it up inside. It longed to be among its own kind, or back in its home so far away. Chronological time meant nothing to a creature that measured its life in many thousands of years, but emotions could last an eternity.

The dominant beings here had barely advanced. It had seen inside their minds — they were still primal, aggressive and weak. But there had been one in the desert that was different; that was unique, and alone, like it was. The brief meld with this mind — or two minds, one rational, the other primitive — had made it long for its own kind again. Sadness almost doubled it over, and then the pain racked it again — pain and hunger. It needed more energy, needed to consume more of the smaller beings. Its job here was not done; its people also needed to be fed. It must return.

It sensed the rays of the sun before the yellow orb appeared at the horizon. It would rest soon. Like the small beings that lived here, it was made of billions of living cells. But unlike them, each cell was an individual entity, which cooperated and worked together with the others. The sunlight broke the cohesive bonds between its cells, allowing them to flow free.

The dawn’s light bathed it, and almost immediately it seemed to fragment and then collapse, its elements drifting away, like dust … or a swarm.

At sun-up, the curfew ended and the residents of Izmir emerged. Delivery vans started their rounds, cars, trucks, and bikes clogged the roads, and boats were rigged and the crews threw off lines and headed out in pursuit of the day’s catch. In another hour, no one would remember what the fuss was about.

Mustafa Kamalak edged open his front door, and peeked out. The radio had said the threat was gone. The dark sense of foreboding Mustafa had felt the night before was just a memory. It was as though a storm had blown up, but passed over without doing any damage. He stepped fully outside and sucked in the morning air. He grinned, and turned to shout for his two sons.

In no time, he was gripping the boat’s wooden wheel, one eye closed against the stinging smoke from the thick cigarette of reeking tobacco in his mouth. His face showed a thousand lines, each one carved by wind, weather, and adversity. Fishing was hard, and even harder now that the large-net boats trawled the open waters. Today, he would go far out, past the islands of Mikonos and Ios. If the big Greek boats wanted to scoop up all the fish from his home waters, then he would travel to theirs.

Kamalak grinned and shook his head. His two sons were below deck, playing music so loud it hurt his ears. Though he scolded them daily, they were his pride and joy. Their laziness, girl-chasing and bad language reminded him of himself when he was a boy, and made him love them all the more.

He peered through the greasy window to look up at the sky. A few heavy clouds, dark and thick — maybe rain later. He caught sight of the mast, and frowned. There was a large mass clumped on the pole about ten feet up, like a swarm of bees. He cursed; he’d heard that bee swarms, and even wasp colonies, could take up residence in boats for years. People had been stung to death.

He tied a rope over the wheel to keep it steady, and left the cabin, walking with the wide-legged gait of all men moving about on a small boat at sea. He approached the mast, keeping his eyes fixed on the dark clump, then bent to lift a boat hook that was lashed to the rail. The mass wasn’t moving like bees; it looked solid, but jelly-like. It was certainly something strange.

He spat his cigarette over the side and concentrated. He couldn’t hear buzzing, but there was definitely a sound — soft, like … sobbing. A knot of foreboding balled in his gut.

He lifted the boat hook and got on his toes, drew his arm back. It was hard to concentrate on the mass as it seemed to move and shift, staying where it was but never remaining still. He grunted as he plunged the brass hook into its center. The tip sank in easily, as if the strange blob was something glutinous. He went to draw the boat hook out, but it stuck. The pole vibrated in his hands, and he gripped it harder, bracing himself to give it a good yank.

The sky darkened as a huge cloud covered the sun. Almost immediately the mass flowed down the pole like a torrent of sparkling ants. Before Mustafa could take his hands away, his arms were covered to the elbows. The mass surrounded him, light like dust, but prickling as it seemed to work its way into his very pores.

His hands were now welded to the pole. As the stinging substance grew up over his face, he saw it flowing toward the hold — toward his boys.

A seagull squawked its outrage as Mustafa Kamalak’s boat crashed into the shore west of Heraklion and just a few miles short of Panormos. The coastline was rugged, and even though the sea was calm the vessel struck hard, partly beaching itself. The sharp rocks and the motion of the waves, even though they were small, would soon ensure the old wooden boat was broken down completely.

The bird kept a beady eye on the craft, always on the lookout for a meal. The mast with its strange growth floated for a while, before wedging itself among the oyster-covered rocks. The tide would soon expose it. Of Kamalak and his sons there was no trace; no sign that anyone had been on board. The life jackets and buoyant rings were some of the first items to wash ashore, all unused.

Above the hiss of the waves and the creak of timbers there was another noise — sobbing. Unsettled by the strange sound, the seagull took off, circling the boat once and then leaving it far behind. Some instinct told it to be far away when the sun went down in just a few hours’ time.