Eric Brown - The Serene Invasion

The figure was golden, and featureless, and its interior swam and pulsed with light.

It sat cross-legged, watching her calmly.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The figure — man or woman, she could not tell — stared at her even though its face did not possess eyes, and said, even though it did not have a mouth, “Do not be afraid, Ana Devi.”

“How do you know my name?” She felt strangely calm. “What do you want?”

She had the impression that the golden figure was smiling.

“We want you,” it said.

FOLLOWING THE KIDNAPPING, Sally spent the night at Mama Oola’s Guest House in the centre of town, a ramshackle Victorian building comprising bedrooms on two levels around a courtyard overgrown with bougainvillea and frangipani. Sally considered Mama’s a bolt-hole, an oasis of tranquillity in a noisy town and, on a metaphorical level, from the stress of her job. She often booked into the guest house when she had a couple of days free, to allow Mama Oola to mother her and to feed her up on the Indian curries that were her speciality.

She slept late, dreaming of her ordeal of the day before. The scar-faced Ali haunted her sleep. Once she awoke screaming, convinced that the man had somehow entered the room.

Late morning sunlight slipped in through the slats of the louvered window, waking her to the realisation that she was no longer imprisoned by the terrorists. She crossed from her bed and flung open the window, letting in a blast of sunlight and the scent of frangipani. Overhead, the sun created a slick highlight on the meniscus of the dome, reminding her of a more enigmatic imprisonment.

She considered what had happened in the tiny hut, and the arbitrary nature of the event that had saved her and Ben. The thought sickened her.

She washed in the refreshingly cold water at the stained sink, dressed and hurried downstairs. She would go to the medical centre, see if she could be of any help there until Geoff arrived.

Geoff… She felt at once a wave of guilt at having forgotten him in the melee of recent events, and then a buoyant joy at the thought that soon they would be together. She dug her mobile from her shoulder bag and tried to get through to him.

The line was dead, not even a dial tone.

He was due to arrive at some point this morning. After checking in at the medical centre, she would go to the wall of the dome near the road south and try to find Geoff there when he arrived.

Mama Oola bustled from the kitchen and hurried across the courtyard towards her. She was a gargantuan woman resplendent in colourful traditional costume and gold bangles. She was in her sixties, but her big, round face was as unlined as a babe’s.

“Sally! Sally!”

They hugged, and Mama’s breasts wobbled against Sally like packets of mozzarella the size of footballs.

“I heard about the attack! I wept when I thought of you, then this morning Jenny told me you were safe and sleeping upstairs. You don’t know how happy I was!”

She gripped Sally’s hands, beaming at her.

“Strange things are happening, Sally. The dome. And…” She leaned close, drenching Sally in her rosewater and patchouli scent. “And this morning, Papa couldn’t beat me…”

“Couldn’t…?” Sally echoed. It was a relationship that Sally found incomprehensible. Mama Oola and Papa had been married for almost forty years, and it seemed to Sally that their conjugal day did not start well if Papa failed to attack her and Mama Oola didn’t retaliate, giving as good as she got, with stentorian curses thrown in for good measure.

“Oh,” Mama went on, “he was angry, he said his porridge was cold, so he came for me…” She stared at Sally, wide-eyed. “And he just stood there, mouth open, shaking uncontrollably.” She laughed and slapped her ample thigh, then leaned towards Sally confidentially. “It was just like when Papa wants jiggy-tumble — he had the urge , but couldn’t do it!” Mama shook her head, ear-rings the size of ladles dancing. “And the oddest thing was, Sally, I wanted to go for Papa, too — give him a good slapping round that silly toothless face of his! But do you know something, for all I wanted to slap him, I couldn’t.”

Across the courtyard, Jenny the house-girl appeared in the door to the kitchen and called across to Mama. She squeezed Sally’s hand and shuffled away. “Come for coffee later, you hear? We have a lot to talk about!”

Sally promised she would and slipped through the flimsy metal gate that led from the courtyard.

As she made her way through the curiously deserted streets, she thought of what Mama had just told her, and considered Dr Krasnic and his abortive suicide attempts. And yesterday, the terrorists, unable to behead Ben, or pull the triggers of their weapons…

A cordon of soldiers and police stood before the fire-blackened gate of the medical centre. Dr Krasnic stood outside, in conversation with a tall Swiss woman Sally recognised as a Red Cross liaison officer.

When he saw Sally approach he excused himself and crossed to her.

“Sally, what do you think you’re doing here?”

“I thought I’d see if I were needed.”

“You booked five days leave, didn’t you, and after what happened yesterday… Look, take some time off. You deserve it. We’ve enough staff to cover you, and anyway there’s a relief team coming up from Kampala in the morning. I booked them after the raid, and before …” He gestured into the sky, at the glistening dome overhead.

“A lot of good a relief team will be if they can’t get in,” she commented.

He shrugged. “Like I said, we can cover you. If we need help, I’ll shout… I take it you’re at Mama’s?” He hesitated, then brought himself to look her in the eye. “Sally, what happened yesterday, when you found me…”

She interrupted. “That’s between you, me and Ben,” she said.

He shook his head as if in wonder. “I’d had a tough shift. After Kola’s death, and Mary taking it so badly. And then the raid, the soldiers… and Josef, what he did…”

“What happened to him?”

“He fled, but didn’t get far, of course. A unit of troops cornered him. They were seething with anger and wanting revenge. Only…”

“Let me guess. They couldn’t shoot him dead, right?”

“Couldn’t so much as lift a hand, though they tried, apparently. Lined up to shoot the traitor. They ended up escorting him to the police cells like a pickpocket.” He looked at her. “What the hell is going on, Sally? I’ve tried to reach HQ in Kampala, friends in Europe. Nothing. We’re completely cut off.”

She shook her head. “All the violence, the soldiers shot dead. And then…”

He said, “Ben thinks it’s a judgement from God.”

She snorted. “And you know my reaction to that.”

He looked up at the underside of the dome. “I don’t know. It makes you wonder, Sally.”

She made to leave. “If you’re absolutely sure you don’t need me…”

He shooed her away. “Go, go! Enjoy Mama’s curries and have a beer on me.”

She was walking down the street away from the medical centre when she looked up suddenly, alerted by what might have been a flash high above. She discerned a subtle shift in the quality of the light; the sunlight seemed suddenly brighter . She shielded her eyes and realised that the dome seemed no longer to be covering the town.

Heart thumping, she hurried to the main road heading south, along with what appeared to be the town’s entire population. There was a carnival atmosphere in the air, and the reason was obvious: half a kilometre ahead, where yesterday the sheer crystal wall of the dome had blocked the road, the barrier was no more.