Djo asks.
Nulight glances around the moor. A touch of paranoia creeps over his shoulders. "We're being watched," he mutters. "We're tools of Master Sengel."
The others don't reply, and Nulight takes this as tacit agreement.
"What do we do?" Djo asks. She seems spooked, looking around the ghostly moor as if for incoming lotuses.
Nulight takes an executive decision. "Okay, we gotta get in touch with Master Sengel. It's a bad deal just sitting here waiting for him to send the leather dude. Sengel's the boss dude, he knows what's going on." He tries to laugh. "Like, maybe leather guy strapped the parentship on his Harley and rode off."
Djo titters. "Us walk all the way to Glastonbury? That's a hundred and fifty miles easy. It'll take a fortnight."
Nulight turns away so they won't see his face. "We got three lotuses. I want you, Kappa and Zhaman to fly up and find the Master. We gotta know what to do, what's going on. We can't just sit here like dummies, however cool the plans are. Y'agree?"
They do.
Nulight scorns himself. He's turning into a fucking pragmatist already, just because he's frightened. Sad, sad bastard.
...Chalice in Wonderland...
Kappa it is who leads the trio, on account of her relationship with Master Sengel.
It has been some time, now, since restarting her love affair with Nulight in the fields of Cymru, and this is the first time they have parted since the abortive Berlin hit. She is nervous. She loves Nulight, despite his prickly paranoia, and she knows he loves her. So it is a bit of a wrench to make the risky trip on alien floaters up to Glasto. But it must be done. She knows they cannot stay isolated in Boscastle.
Zhaman it is who trips on the chemically depleted shaker seeds. (They need one flyer hallucinating because it is the only way they know to spot parentships at a distance.)
Outside the farmhouse, Kappa sits yoga stylee on her lotus and looks at the controls. It is weird to think that these things buzzed them at Stonehenge. A single finger like a plastic iris is all she can see; no displays, no other panels. Zhaman has already deduced how to move up, down, left, right and forward, but so far he has not worked out how to go fast. Kappa lifts the lotus by pulling gently on the finger. Woah! The lotus wobbles. She rebalances herself. It's a bit like riding a bike. She tries to intuitively balance, and suddenly she is able to move anywhere, left, right, forward, all by balance and nudges of the control finger. She tries a few alternative motions. Then she has it.
"Watch!" she calls. "You go faster by squeezing. C'mon!"
And they are away. She glances back to see Nulight, Sperm, and her parents waving. She is twenty feet up, Djo and Zhaman behind her. She turns the lotus east, and squeezes.
What a bizarre journey it is...
They have to avoid towns. The Wellington Inn minstrels sing of armed gangs and the rule of the gun, of crazed lords, of collapsing buildings, of glass and rubble and metal on the streets, of a desperate scrabble for non-perishable food while farming options are begun. The rusting hulks of tens of thousands of cars litter the Cornish countryside, and, because they see no bodies, this is the most eloquent, the most dreadful manifestation of civilisation's collapse. Flying at thirty feet, they see the sun glitter off innumerable smashed windscreens. The erstwhile farmland around them is overgrown or already transforming into meadows. Foxes and badgers roam free. There are many ducks in the rivers, harrassed by packs of feral dogs.
The minor roads are just about visible between grassy verges, like winding strings of tarmac. The larger roads are clearer, though strewn with car wrecks. They make for the A30 because they have no maps. Launceston consists of blasted outer roads and a central zone surrounded by a huge wall. This they avoid. They neither see nor hear anything human.
The A30 takes them into Devon. The tarmac bubbles. The higgledy-piggledy cars have a layer of dust
Nulight glances around the moor. A touch of paranoia creeps over his shoulders. "We're being watched," he mutters. "We're tools of Master Sengel."
The others don't reply, and Nulight takes this as tacit agreement.
"What do we do?" Djo asks. She seems spooked, looking around the ghostly moor as if for incoming lotuses.
Nulight takes an executive decision. "Okay, we gotta get in touch with Master Sengel. It's a bad deal just sitting here waiting for him to send the leather dude. Sengel's the boss dude, he knows what's going on." He tries to laugh. "Like, maybe leather guy strapped the parentship on his Harley and rode off."
Djo titters. "Us walk all the way to Glastonbury? That's a hundred and fifty miles easy. It'll take a fortnight."
Nulight turns away so they won't see his face. "We got three lotuses. I want you, Kappa and Zhaman to fly up and find the Master. We gotta know what to do, what's going on. We can't just sit here like dummies, however cool the plans are. Y'agree?"
They do.
Nulight scorns himself. He's turning into a fucking pragmatist already, just because he's frightened. Sad, sad bastard.
...Chalice in Wonderland...
Kappa it is who leads the trio, on account of her relationship with Master Sengel.
It has been some time, now, since restarting her love affair with Nulight in the fields of Cymru, and this is the first time they have parted since the abortive Berlin hit. She is nervous. She loves Nulight, despite his prickly paranoia, and she knows he loves her. So it is a bit of a wrench to make the risky trip on alien floaters up to Glasto. But it must be done. She knows they cannot stay isolated in Boscastle.
Zhaman it is who trips on the chemically depleted shaker seeds. (They need one flyer hallucinating because it is the only way they know to spot parentships at a distance.)
Outside the farmhouse, Kappa sits yoga stylee on her lotus and looks at the controls. It is weird to think that these things buzzed them at Stonehenge. A single finger like a plastic iris is all she can see; no displays, no other panels. Zhaman has already deduced how to move up, down, left, right and forward, but so far he has not worked out how to go fast. Kappa lifts the lotus by pulling gently on the finger. Woah! The lotus wobbles. She rebalances herself. It's a bit like riding a bike. She tries to intuitively balance, and suddenly she is able to move anywhere, left, right, forward, all by balance and nudges of the control finger. She tries a few alternative motions. Then she has it.
"Watch!" she calls. "You go faster by squeezing. C'mon!"
And they are away. She glances back to see Nulight, Sperm, and her parents waving. She is twenty feet up, Djo and Zhaman behind her. She turns the lotus east, and squeezes.
What a bizarre journey it is...
They have to avoid towns. The Wellington Inn minstrels sing of armed gangs and the rule of the gun, of crazed lords, of collapsing buildings, of glass and rubble and metal on the streets, of a desperate scrabble for non-perishable food while farming options are begun. The rusting hulks of tens of thousands of cars litter the Cornish countryside, and, because they see no bodies, this is the most eloquent, the most dreadful manifestation of civilisation's collapse. Flying at thirty feet, they see the sun glitter off innumerable smashed windscreens. The erstwhile farmland around them is overgrown or already transforming into meadows. Foxes and badgers roam free. There are many ducks in the rivers, harrassed by packs of feral dogs.
The minor roads are just about visible between grassy verges, like winding strings of tarmac. The larger roads are clearer, though strewn with car wrecks. They make for the A30 because they have no maps. Launceston consists of blasted outer roads and a central zone surrounded by a huge wall. This they avoid. They neither see nor hear anything human.
The A30 takes them into Devon. The tarmac bubbles. The higgledy-piggledy cars have a layer of dust
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