T Southwell - Prophecy

Her parents had joined the revolution in twenty-twelve, when wages had been cut to food only, and so many had lost their jobs. It had been madness, not a real revolution. They had been killed in a riot when the troops had shot most of the crowd on the government's orders. Massacring crowds reduced the overpopulation that ruined the economy and threatened dwindling food supplies, as well as curbing civil unrest. People had become a burden, and the army had been ordered to sacrifice the many for the sake of the few. She and Rawn had been at home when their parents were killed, and ran away to avoid the looters who came afterwards in search of food.

Harvests had failed, and the erratic weather wrought havoc. Floods had washed away entire crops, while droughts hit other areas. Unseasonal hail storms had wreaked terrible damage, and freak winds or wild fires ruined what was left. Earthquakes had ravaged some countries, and the resulting famine and disease wiped out entire populations. Crops that had survived the weather became sickly, and the remaining livestock was slaughtered. The ozone layer had thinned, and millions starved. People had eaten their pets, turned on each other and abandoned their children to die in the streets. Mankind had turned to the last remaining food source and hunted whales and dolphins to extinction, wiping out fish stocks.

It had been a time of turmoil and terror. People had killed randomly, burnt and looted in their desperate search for food. The government had ordered the army to keep order and reduce the population, but the soldiers rebelled and went home to their families. The putrid stink of decaying or burning flesh had filled the air, and hospitals became charnel houses. All the while, the world had died.

Rawn had looked after her since then. They had run and hidden, trusting no one, two frightened children in a world gone mad. They had nearly been caught a few times, but survived.

Rayne frowned as a prickle of unease made the hairs on her nape rise, and glanced up. Years of being hunted had honed her survival instincts, and she never ignored her sixth sense. Her eyes flicked back down as a golden glow appeared about ten metres away, growing brighter until she was forced to squint. Seconds later it faded. A man dressed in strange white clothes, a tinted helmet hiding his face, stood there.

Rayne stared at him, frozen with shock and fear. If he had moved she would have run, and she sensed his scrutiny as she groped for and found a fist-sized rock. The stranger wore what appeared to be a weapon on his hip, and she waited, holding her breath as she wondered what use the rock would be if he chose to use his weapon. The stone dug into her palm, which grew damp with nervous perspiration, and she was forced to breathe again as her lungs burnt for air. The golden light shrouded the stranger again, and when faded, he had vanished.

After a while, she rose and limped to the spot where he had stood, searching for tracks. She found two footprints, which proved she had not been hallucinating, and she shivered, glancing up at the empty sky. The uneasiness stayed with her, and her neck prickled in warning, making her retreat to her fire and build it into a blaze. Her eyes darted around, vigilant for any sign of danger.

On board a ship that orbited high above the Earth, the man who had recently shed a white bio suit studied the image from the spy cam he had ordered to follow the girl. The wafer-thin crystal screen gave a sharp, perfect colour picture, almost as if he was still there with her, just a few metres away. He recalled his amazement when he had first caught sight of her. The shock had kept him rooted to the spot for several minutes, ignoring the growing urgency of the telepathic calls of his crew. He still thought it amazing to find such a creature on this dying, polluted world, where half the people had degenerated to shambling monsters and the other half were undernourished and diseased.

Although he had been sent to find her, he had not been prepared for his first encounter, and still marvelled at it. Her golden hair had gleamed in the weak sunlight and her grimy skin glowed with health. The sharp intelligence of her luminous eyes had startled him. They had been filled with suspicion and fear, while her thin, callused hand had gripped a largish rock, ready to hurl it at him if he made the wrong move. She exuded a kind of leashed savagery, the alertness of a wild animal mixed with the rational response of a civilised being.

This girl was the one. He was more certain of it than he had ever been of anything in his life. He turned to the book that lay on the desk's smooth white surface and ran his fingers over it. Soft leather bound it, and the gold that trimmed its edges also depicted the name inscribed on its cover.

The Olban, set down thousands of years ago, contained all the teachings and prophesies that had guided the Atlantean culture throughout the ages. This particular copy was, of course, a symbolic token. His home city's high priest had given it to him before he left on this mission. It signified the sacred duty imposed upon him and his crew; a constant reminder of their objective. The Olban's contents were, and always had been, available on the central data processor. Over the centuries, many prophesies had come true, affirming the wisdom of the ancient seers who had foretold them.

Now a grave and momentous prophecy was about to unfold, which could change the course of the Atlantean Empire's fortune. He opened the book to the marked page and read the short passage that had brought him to this dying planet.

'In the time of the junction of Perinus and Lodis, when the comet Vistar appears in the heavens, travel through the void to the dying world. Here will be found a golden girl child, pure of spirit and flesh, she who must be saved, so she may save Atlan.'

That time had come. On Atlan, astronomers had seen the two stars, Perinus and Lodis, melt into one, and the comet had drawn its fiery trail across the night sky. The council had sent out all available ships to search for dying planets, and he had found this one. This girl, he was positive, was the golden girl child of whom the prophecy spoke. All the other people were sick, dying or depraved, yet she was perfect.

Tallyn turned back to the screen as the girl glanced around as if she sensed the spy-cam, even though she could not see it. Remarkable. Her harsh existence must have honed her senses to the point where she could detect the slight static frisson of the spy-cam's shield. The spy-cam employed a fluctuating stress shield that warped the light around it, effectively making it invisible to the naked eye, and it floated high above her on a tiny anti-gravity coil.

Touching a crystal on the console, he called the ship's laboratory. Professor Rasham's mild, cultured face appeared on another screen, looking, as he always did, as if he had just been pulled through a hedge backwards, his thinning grey hair standing out in a wild halo.

Tallyn suppressed a smile. "Professor Rasham, have you the results of the air samples you took?"

Rasham's eyes brightened. This was his favourite subject. "Why yes, Commander. Basically, it's similar to our atmosphere still, in spite of the pollution, although that is a major difference, of course. There's less oxygen than is desirable, and the pollution factor is high. Methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide gases have been found in far higher concentrations than is good for a person. The ozone layer is breaking up rapidly now, and the ultra violet and infrared radiation is getting very bad. The result of many decades of rampant greenhouse gas emissions, of course."

"Projections, Professor?"

The professor harrumphed. "Ah, well, not good. The increased radiation is killing the, err, natives. Most suffer from malignant cancers, apart from a few who have avoided direct sunlight, and some have mutated beyond all recognition. However, it's killing off the vegetation now, and once that goes, the oxygen level will become too low to support life. The polar caps are melting, causing the seas to rise, and, of course, the increase in temperature is causing more water to evaporate into the atmosphere to form clouds, which are trapping still more heat -"