The man walked slowly forward until he was standing behind Dog, his clothes now glowing like the rising sun.
“And who the hell are you?” Luckman asked.
“My name is John Cutler.”
The name on the notepad in Paulson’s office.
“The ground upon which you stand is all of those words and more,” said Cutler. “It is a world unto itself. For thousands of years it has been a meeting place for the people of worlds divided by space and time. A place of safety, of communion, a meeting of minds. A United Nations of the soul.”
“I just thought it was Dog’s secret cave,” Pat admitted.
Cutler smiled.
“You’re one of the Others,” Luckman realised.
“I have come to show you my world.”
“You killed Father Clarence,” Pat fired back.
“He left us with no alternative.”
There was no deception visible in Cutler’s demeanour although Luckman suspected his own judgment might be lacking on that front.
“You say this cave has existed for thousands of years. How? And why?”
“The local people’s spirit warriors have long used it to communicate with other worlds. It is how Perrurle became known as Dog – he was a liaison with the worlds of Sirius. The lore governing this place has been zealously guarded by tribal spirit men. But from the earliest days of European settlement its power began to decay along with the culture from whence it emanated.”
“I think you mean it was corrupted,” Pat countered.
“I am here because Perrurle permits it,” said Cutler.
“Why do you want to speak to us, Mr Cutler?” asked Luckman.
“I have tried in vain to speak to you via other means.”
“Why not just knock on the door?”
“The world in which I live is not the same as yours. Its physical laws are different. If I returned now I would remember nothing of my time here. I would no longer be me.”
Cutler’s expression soured momentarily but he checked himself and seemed to choose his next words carefully. “I never wish to forget Altern. It is more fantastic – or I should say it’s precisely as fantastic as you can imagine.”
“Sounds like my sort of place,” Luckman admitted.
“I had hoped you might say that.”
“But you’re telling me I can’t move between the worlds without losing my memories?”
“If you venture to Altern your Earthly memory will remain intact. You will simply forget your time in Altern upon your return, as if awaking from a dream.”
“What have you done to everyone in Alice?”
“We manage their memories, and doing so we maintain order.”
“You have no right,” said Luckman angrily.
Cutler bristled. “We have saved them from themselves. While they remain under our protection they are safe.”
“Your protection won’t be much good to them if the Chinese decide to nuke the defence base.”
“It is up to you to persuade them not to.”
Luckman laughed. “Persuade them? America’s ready to go to war.”
“Neither country is responsible for the Flood.”
“You sound very certain.”
“It was we who caused the ice shelf to collapse.”
Luckman felt the ground tipping beneath his feet. “You? But… why?”
“To save the Earth.”
“By destroying it?”
“We have not destroyed the Earth, Mr Luckman. We have merely dealt with its greatest threat – humanity.”
“You mean you played God.”
“If by that you mean to characterise a flood of such magnitude as an act of god, then yes. To further the Biblical analogy, we used water to cleanse the world of pestilence.”
“You bastards are human just like the rest of us,” yelled Pat.
“No, that’s just it,” Luckman realised. “You don’t see yourselves as human, do you Mr Cutler?”
“We are not at all like the rest of you,” he concurred. “Humanity has for too long believed its dominion over the Earth was sacrosanct. Your wars, your economics, your politics all became more important to you than sustaining the very thing that keeps you alive. Human civilisation advanced so very far, yet it failed to conceive of a mechanism to prevent the terrible outcomes of its own expansion. And so while the climate shifted and forests fell and oceans were stripped of life, humanity’s only response was to keep doing what it has always done.”
Luckman was horrified, yet part of him was also strangely impressed. He had discussed such things so many times with his friends in the environmental movement, although it was a dialectic no-one ever dared pursue to its ultimate conclusion. To do so necessitated going way beyond the concept of eco-terrorism. This was nothing short of eco-extermination.
“Your response is entirely understandable,” said Cutler, “because it is predicated on the assumption that the species of homo sapiens sapiens is more important than everything else on this planet.”
“I’m guessing there are a whole lot of other species you’ve taken out as well,” said Luckman.
“Not as many as you might think. Did you know prior to the ice shelf collapse more than 900 species had become extinct on your planet – more than 100 of them since 2006? Human civilisation had overpowered evolution as the dominant force of nature. And it surely cannot have escaped your attention that humanity remains far from extinct. The current global population now is only nominally lower than it was at the time of Christ.”
“If you include the Blanks,” said Luckman.
“I do – don’t you?” Cutler replied.
“Father Clarence found out what you did and you killed him for it,” said Pat.
“This is the least of what Clarence Paulson knew,” said Cutler.
“Why did you kill him?” asked Luckman.
“He was demanding full disclosure from us. He delivered us an ultimatum. Either we revealed ourselves or he would do so for us. This was not in our best interests.”
Luckman’s head was spinning. He could no longer be sure of whether he was awake or dreaming. He felt as if he was venturing perilously close to the edge of sanity. His gaze fell upon Perrurle. The spirit man’s eyes held him to the spot. It was Dog who started Luckman along the path that led here. Everything that had transpired between them had led to this moment. In Dog, if nothing else, he could trust.
If he couldn’t hold onto that now he was already lost.
“You can keep your secret, I don’t give a damn,” said Luckman. “But tell me how you saved him. I can save millions of lives.”
Cutler shook his head. “The process was imperfect. We could not risk such outcomes on a larger scale. The results would be… unpredictable.”
That Cutler could place such little value on the future of the human race seemed incomprehensible. But as Luckman stared deep into the man’s eyes he knew contesting the point further would be a waste of time. He turned to Pat and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “Time for us to leave.”
“Outside this cave a chariot awaits,” Cutler called after him.
Luckman suspected whatever the Others had in mind would suit their purposes alone. He was no more than a mouse on a wheel to them, that much was clear. He looked down at the flames of the spirit man’s fire before gazing one last time into his eyes, but Perrurle was giving nothing away.
“Goodbye, John Cutler.”
They stepped back into the desert moonlight and he saw the chariot to which Cutler had referred. Luckman found himself gripped by a fearsome awe. The ship hovered just above the sand some 200 metres below them at the foot of the escarpment. It was saucer-shaped and lit up like an amusement ride pulsing through a neon kaleidoscope that painted the surrounding desert in mesmerising lights and dancing shadows. It made no sound, although Luckman heard the wind whistling sharply along the rocky escarpment like the land itself was wary of the craft’s presence. Part of him wondered if he should try to get closer. But above all else, the longer he stared the more he simply wanted to flee.