Tom Knox - The Marks of Cain

They were beautiful yet repulsive. Angus elaborated.

'Chrysaora Hysoscella. Namibian sea nettles. They always remind me of vaginas. The colour and movement. The peristalsis of female orgasm.' He gazed. 'But now they remind me of floating…wounds. Big floating red wounds.'

Angus looked at David. And then the scientist said, quite fiercely: 'I just let him die. Didn't I?'

'Sorry?'

'Alfie. My little Alfie. I let them kill him — that fucker Miguel.'

'No, Angus. You tried to save him.'

'But I failed. I failed…'

The Scotsman looked vulnerable; the chutzpah was gone, the persistent smile, the chattering self confidence. His face was twitching, close to tears.

'I was trying to think of a better way out! I really was. I was. And I did. The euphorbia. But it was too late.' The Scotsman knelt and picked up a beautiful seashell, a whorl of creamy porcelain veined with pink and yellow, and a thread of tenderest red. Tender and vulnerable.

The seashell lay nestled in his palm. Angus gazed down; he was choked, almost sobbing.

'This is why I believe in God, David. I mean. Look at this shell. Why is it so beautiful? Why? It's pointlessly beautiful, isn't it? Purposelessly beautiful, why make a seashell so beautiful? Who does that benefit? What's the point? It's excessive. Evolution is itself excessive. This is where creationists have it wrong, the universe isn't designed — it is inspired.'

He dropped the shell. He kicked it away. Again David didn't know what to say.

Angus was still talking.

'I lied back then, David.'

'What do you mean?'

'At breakfast, I lied.'

'How?'

'I'm not sure they will be stalled by the guards. The Society. Not for long.'

'So…' David felt the horror of the inevitable thought: Miguel still out there, coming for them. 'What do we do?'

'Nathan is too arrogant to listen. I tried to tell him earlier but he wouldn't listen. He thinks he is impregnable here, the Forbidden Zone. Safe in his dynastic fortress. The great Kellermans of the Sperrgebiet. But he isn't safe. Kellerman Namcorp is powerful, but not that fucking powerful. The whole church? If they want to get at us they will find a way.' The sunlight made Angus's red hair almost coppery. 'We need a plan. Because they will come. Tomorrow, a few days, next week. They are coming for us as we speak.'

David stared across the tarnished silver of the sea. The Scotsman was surely right: they needed a means of escape.

The barks of the seals on the island were carried by the hot and savoury breeze. Penguins were chittering in their colonies on the smaller islands. It was, David realized, a world of unwitnessed beauty, the beauty of nothingness, no one ever saw this: the dead quartz and glittering ashes, the agates and buried sandroses: a wasteland of loveliness.

Out there on the blue severe waves, someone was observing. David looked, hard. It was a man, standing on the deck of the skiff. A man with a pair of binoculars, or something. The man was standing and gazing through the binoculars — at the buildings on the shore.

This man was staring straight at them. And there was a man next to him, pointing. But the man wasn't pointing.

David felt the uncomfortable prickle of anxiety.

Now he realized: the man had some kind of…device. A long black shape. Directed their way.

Angus was heading for the sheltering rocks. 'Run! David!

Run!'

But David stood on the beach, gaping with the horror.

The first missile streaked eagerly through the clear blue sky.

The fireballs were huge and billowing: monstrous black clouds tinged with Satanic tangerine. Towers of pungent smoke filled the sky.

'Amy! Amy!'

David edged up over the parapet of sand: the complex of buildings was gone. Replaced by a hideous wall of flame and devastation; the air was shuddering with the heat of the blaze; secondary explosions added to the surging noise.

Angus was prone beside him. Lying on the sand. He put a hand on David's shoulder.

'It's the oil generator — the fuel's gone up.' The Scotsman turned on his back, and looked towards the sea. 'The boat…The bastard boat…Fuck — '

David was staring in horror at the destruction: anyone in or around the building would have stood no chance. No hope. No chance.

Angus muttered:

'They must have come from Walvis Bay? Maybe Oranjemund…'

'David?'

A softer voice. David swivelled.

It was Amy. She was unharmed. Standing in the sand. Trembling.

And behind her was Nathan Kellerman, bleeding profusely, and staggering.

Amy sank into David's embrace.

'I was coming down to see you…then I got knocked over…'

He hugged her close. Angus asked Nathan:

'Eloise?'

Kellerman's voice was slow, and wearied:

'She was engulfed.'

His suit was smeared with a tar-like substance; David realized it was blood. Kellerman was bleeding from a chest wound.

And now a new noise joined the tumult, cars were screaming to the shoreline, and men in blue overalls and desert boots were jumping out. David recognized Solomon and Tilac, the Kellerman Namcorp guards. Nathan lifted an arm:

'Shoot.'

The men obeyed: they unhoisted rifles and knelt in the sand, and took aim. The boat was already departing, churning south — job done. But the Namcorp men fired anyway, and the echoes of the crackling rifle fire joined the roar of the burning fuel dumps, and the soft explosion of buildings crumpling in the flames. The smell of burning petrol was vicious, greasy black smoke was fogging the oceanic sky. Amy was shivering now. Angus was remonstrating with Nathan.

David could barely hear their conversation. He caught the odd word: Amsterdam, helicopter, dinghy. He looked between the two of them. Nathan was handing something to Angus. It looked like a gun, a pistol — and something else: a small black velvet pouch. Despite his deep tan, Nathan Kellerman had a notably white pallor; and the blood was still oozing from some hideous wound, staining his soft linen jacket a blatant burgundy. Angus, by contrast, seemed energized; he turned to David and Amy.

'Nathan wants us to use the company boat, down there.' He pointed. 'He's right. We actually have a chance — let's take it.'

'What?'

Angus gestured at the wide black cloud now drifting down the beach. 'They'll have zero visibility for an hour or two. The guards can hold them off with gunfire.'

David protested:

'Eloise…'

'She is dead, David. Nathan wouldn't lie. Come on. They'll be watching the roads out of the Forbidden Zone, but if we take the boat to Luderitz — '

Amy said, very softly: 'I think he's right.'

Angus was already hoisting Nathan's sagging arm over his shoulder, assisting him down the beach. David and Amy swapped glances, then followed, stunned and frightened. A few more rifle shots smacked the hot air behind them.

Behind the next cove was a small pier, and a tethered rubber speedboat with a powerful looking engine.

Angus got in, and assisted his benefactor into the boat. But his boss's head was lolling, unsteady on its axis. Amy climbed in alongside; David swiftly followed. The oily smoke from the explosions blotted out the sun, turning the desert day into twilight. The Scotsman ripped the cord, the motor growled, and moments later they were speeding along the coast.

Flames and burning buildings receded behind. For a while they were silent, watching the dismal spectacle slowly dwindling, the dinghy buffeted through the blue choppy waves. They passed a disused diamond mine: a skeleton of eroding steel looming above the cliffs.

Nathan was almost whispering, as he lay back on the black rubber of the boat. His face wet with sweat, a Navajo smear of red blood across his cheek.