A BEE-HUM can become a banshee-howl, almost drowning what June is singing with abandoned, sweating pa.s.sion-f.u.c.kyou Varroa forf.u.c.king-withus...cometo theVarroaf.u.c.k...comecomecome... comef.u.c.kcome... f.u.c.kingcome f.u.c.kinggo...

Double-beats from the drum machine are loudening and lessening like a disordered heart. Heterodyning, is that the word?

Is that the Varroa hum played backward now?

A LIGHT GLOWS silver, a hoop in the night. Sweet Christ, has this noise actually brought a hoop here? The players are gesturing, dancers are all turning to face the darkness and the ring of silver light which poises upright upon the lawn. Tony is pointing his phony imped, the digicam. "Oh dude," cries Svelte. I have to get a full team here- I shout into my mobile but I can't d.a.m.n well make out the replies. Svelte bellows into my ear the words, resonant frequency.

The hoop is expanding. We've never known a hoop behave this way before. The base of it is below ground invisibly, so what I'm seeing is a kind of archway rather than a circle.

In place of the nighttime that was beyond, now a shimmer of blues and greens and rose fills the area inside the hoop. It's like the membrane of some huge soap bubble about to be blown. I'm wondering if a sudden wind from beyond might in a moment propel a floating sphere out into our world-when of a sudden the s.p.a.ce inside the hoop becomes a view. Yes, an opening into a landscape-of bushes and trees that are white ostrich plumes and tails of peac.o.c.ks and adornments of birds of paradise and sulfur crests of c.o.c.katoos growing upward from ground that sparkles kaleidoscopically, ground resembling a mosaic of tiny crystals. The source of light is somewhere in a pale blue sky, unseen.

Otherworldly, strange, beautiful-we're seeing into another world. Never before have we seen elsewhere through a hoop.

Already us club-nighters are heading toward that magical scene-a surge of audience.

"Dude!" cries Svelte, and Tony Cullen knows that he needs to get closer too, and so do I, yammering into my mobile at Combi-Intel to come immediately, and so do priestly Alan and big black Daniel elbowing past us. In the forefront of flesh and glad rags of all kinds for a moment I glimpse Pete hustling Caz along with him toward that archway to elsewhere-he's seizing his chance to kidnap Caz no matter to where, and they're through, a half-dozen kids capering alongside them, and they aren't stifling or choking in some toxic alien atmosphere, or at least not yet. They're amongst the lovely alien vegetation. More and more of the audience follow.

I think the noise from the speakers has gone into a loop. QE were recording their live performance; the recording's replaying now. The stretched hoop seems to wobble. Before, it was precise.

"Hurry up!" from Svelte. She grabs me strongly from my good side so that I shan't risk falling over on account of my knee-cage, propelling me with her, for of course I must go through to see. This is like an a.s.sault by some motley children's crusade on some city with a breached wall, as people stream through. As when the Pied Piper reached the mountain that opened up for all the enchanted boys and girls...

"Tony, stay to brief the team that gets here-"

"b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, I'm not missing this. Enough impeds'll be left behind to tell-"

What I'm about to do may be madness, but I shall be adventuring with Svelte-oh, what am I thinking? It's my duty to investigate as fully as I can. What will we eat and drink, how will we ever get back again?

Just as we pa.s.s through, that midget chap pushes past. Almost immediately he stumbles, sprawling upon the sparkly soil. More like a beach of multi-hued mica, which his impact grooves. He doesn't roll or scramble up. Air smells faintly of burnt toast and vanilla.

"Wait, Svelte!" Stoop and press the pulse in the midget's neck. None there. Check his wrist. "He's dead."

"Too much excitement."

"No, why is he dead?"

An almighty pop, and there's no hoop anymore. Nor loudspeaker noise from any marquee, nor oval of nighttime, nor marquee, nor nothing of where we came from. The bright yellow-white sun dazzling high above the feathertrees looks smaller than... well, it's a different sun.

How many people are wandering about, with b.u.g.g.e.r all in the way of supplies or equipment? Two hundred of us? All impeded, too.

Why did the midget drop dead?

A couple of hundred of us, and no means of getting back. I know why we rushed through the archway-after the utter frustration that everyone has felt ever since the hoops arrived, an almost o.r.g.a.s.mic release of tension, a sense of exaltation. The prettiness of this-um, paradise?-contributed. People desired to cavort.

Orange T-shirt with head-cage kneels by the midget, turns him over, tries some first aid.

"Svelte, the midget didn't have any cage. And he died as soon as he came through."

"You mean having cages lets us into here? Why? No, he had a heart attack or a stroke."

"Maybe he had one of those because he didn't have a cage."

"Like, as a ticket? Or to protect him? Lot of excitement tonight. Small chap, he overdid himself."

"Jacko's definitely dead," announces the head-cage, and he stares at me hard.

"Look," I say to him, "you're security, right?" When he nods, "We have to organize all these people."

"What's it to you?" Behind the visor, blue eyes, chaotic sandy hair-quite hard to comb!

Deep breath. "My name's Sally Adamson. I'm from Combined Intelligence. We were keeping an eye on your musical experiment tonight."

Tony Cullen is by my side to back me up, as is Svelte.

"I'm Bryce. There are more of you back at The Studio?"

Alas, no, at least not yet. I'm hoping that my yammering into the mobile raised the alarm. n.o.body ever could have reasonably expected this result from tonight's techno caper.

Why, pray, did I stage what amounts to a private surveillance, all on my own say-so? I ought to be for the high jump. Exactly how far have we jumped away from Earth?

"You have a radio with you?" Bryce demands. "Or a phone?"

"Do you seriously expect-?"

"Have you tried?"

He's right, so I pull out my phone.

"No signal."

"Dial anyway, see what happens."

Dee-du-doo-doo-du-do... followed by silence.

"Now you know for sure, don't you?"

"Why did you come through, Bryce?"

"Somebody in charge had to." Looked at from that point of view, I suppose he's more in charge than me. "Seeing as they already know me, the kids might pay some attention. You'd best stick to advising, hmm?" He eyes Tony and Svelte. "Got guns?"

No, and no.

He laughs shortly. "All you got is combined intelligence. Pretty disconnected right now."

People have spread out among the featherbushes, feathertrees. Partly concealed by ostrich plumes, two kids seem to be f.u.c.king. Getting to the kore of the problem, eh? That's unfair-they're true pioneers, the first human beings to have s.e.x on an alien world. That's one defiant one for the record book.

Svelte exclaims, "Look, how do we know this place is actual? Why not a virtual reality, and cages admit you into it? That's why Jacko couldn't take part, not his mind anyhow. Maybe the Varroa belong to some super-evolved combi-intelligence that hangs out in mind-s.p.a.ce."

"Yeah," sarcastically from Bryce, "like this thing dumps millions of tons of solid f.u.c.king cages onto Earth? And it's virtual?"

"Okay, just a thought. No birds or insects anywhere in sight, you'll notice. No ecology." Svelte's right, at least regarding the area nearby. "You mightn't expect birds as such, but there oughta be something besides a bunch of fancy feathers." Svelte really is very acrobatic in her thinking.

COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE. COMMUNICATE with the club-nighters, to get ourselves organized. Mustn't wander off chaotically. Food, drink, explore, communicate. Communicating with home is impossible. Or is it... ? I'm looking at Caz and Pete standing hand in hand, that black patch over her left eye, while Bryce and Svelte rally people...

If Benny can see through her eye back home- and Caz through his?-when they're apart from each other... How does it happen, what's the link? Advanced alien science, some sort of instant linked vision-at-a-distance, quantum stuff, a shortcut through s.p.a.cetime? How distant does distant have to be before it's too far?

My phone can display four lines of memo or text on its screen the size of my thumb.

"YOU'RE CAZ. I'M Sally, from Combined Intelligence-you understand?" Caz does. "And you're Pete. Caz, I know you and Benny can see what the other sees."

"How do you know that?"

"I was snooping. That's my job. We appear to be marooned here, wherever here is. You may be a way to communicate with home..."

PETE DOESN'T WANT her to co-operate. Small wonder. They've escaped together, and almost at once here's me asking her to let Benny see everything, supposing it's possible.

"Realistically," I say, "with no food or water we're probably going to die here, unless something different kills us first."

Pete hugs his Caz, as if he can preserve the two of them by pure wish and willpower. Wishes don't rule the real world.

I'm going to die too. Me and Svelte. I'll think about that later. The important thing is that Caz understands this. I know she heeds duties and obligations even if those frustrate her dreams. Only fair, isn't it? Wasn't that what she said?

"Caz, this is the first ever information we have about anything regarding where our invaders come from. Back home n.o.body will know anything unless..."

She nods miserably. Or bravely. There are different sorts of bravery. Women understand much more about self-sacrifice than men do.

Pete sits down with his back to us. Doesn't want to watch this. Or doesn't want to be noticed by Caz's Benny-eye? If Caz looks round, Pete's ginger hair will be very visible.

WELL, IT WORKS. It works. We're connected. Phone screen and Benny's displaced eye reading it at this end, Caz's eye in Benny's head at the other end perceiving a notepad he writes on. Hallelujah. But... I couldn't believe any man would exploit this situation for blackmail. Benny uses it. Oh he uses it. Benny won't tell anyone else a f.u.c.king thing unless Caz promises, promises, swears on the memory of her mother, to return to him. Obviously forget about torturing the cat-seems that wasn't sufficient to hold her. Oh and forget the extreme unlikelihood of her being able to return-unless, I suppose, when Combi-Intel gets its act together, they manage to control a hoop by the same method as CE used. My G.o.d, I must grill those two, the priest and the big black guy. Alan and June on their own may be able to give Combi-Intel enough guidance to re-open the hoop. Hey, there's hope, a possibility-why am I so blind and slow? Too much to think about, that's why. The same hope didn't enter into Bryce's head, or Svelte's. Or if so, they didn't say. That's because we aren't desperate yet. Only just got here. Novelty value still prevails.

Caz opens her right eye, and tears jerk from it. Tiny discs of water fly as if she's expelling contact lenses one after another. I've never seen anyone cry quite like that, projectile tears, tears so pent up that they don't trickle but fly for a few seconds at least. Then she shuts her own eye tight.

"I can't see the phone now," she reminds me. "Write: I promise." And I peck at the keys with my fingernail.

Pete tells her fiercely, "You can break any promise extorted by a threat."

"I'm sorry. It's a personal thing. A promise is a promise."

"A s.h.i.tty vicious threat to keep knowledge from the whole world unless he can hang onto you like a dog in the manger!"

"You can't really blame him. We have so much personal baggage, him and me. What would become of him?"

Is Caz a coward, or is she very brave, able to sacrifice the hope of personal happiness for the sake of many other people who will never even realize?

"s.h.i.t." Pete doesn't try to interfere as I hold the phone screen up to Benny's brown eye.

"Varroa-!"

A hum coming closer. Soon we're being inspected.

BEFORE LONG A second Varroa comes. As us club-nighters stare up, many chattering to each other, the mutual hum of the Varroas modulates, seeming to search through a spectrum of sound. Soon I think I'm hearing thrumming echoes of human words, words that evade meaning as if played backward, half-words.

"f.u.c.king h.e.l.l," says big black Daniel, "they're sampling us. I'll swear it." Indeed he has already sworn.

"Or like they're tuning in," says Svelte.

A comprehensible sentence emerges: Why you bring child must die without zzzwzz without without cage? This is the only time a Varroa has ever communicated anything. But no child is here...

"It thinks Jacko's a child. The dead body isn't a child!" I shout out at the Varroa. "The dead body is a very short adult, too short to receive a cage!"

How you open zzzwzz open open hoop?

Daniel prods one finger upward defiantly at the Varroa. "With our music, that's how! You want to buy a memory stick?"

Unready.

"Yeah, don't have no memory sticks here, do I?"

Unready.

I have a sense that the Varroa are lower-level intelligences compared with whatever may have created them. Bred them. a.s.sembled them. I think sheepdogs-times ten as regards capabilities.

Above us, the two Varroa begin to circle. No, that circle is spiraling outward.

Very soon they're racing around, dodging the tall feathertrees, looping around all of us. Their hum is loud, MUM-UM-MUM-UM. A curving line of bright light begins to follow each now like contrails, two lengthening arcs of light, which soon join up. Those Varroa are guiding the huge horizontal hoop encompa.s.sing all of us-suddenly intensifying as it flashes toward the ground, which is of rough short moonlit gra.s.s, and I do keep my footing while a fair few around me are tumbling because of impeds or disorientation. As the afterimage of the ring of light fades, an expanse of flat concrete stretches into the distance where I'm making out large low buildings and silhouettes of big parked planes, pa.s.senger jets. And a half-full Moon's in the sky amidst clouds and stars. Already people are struggling up or being helped. We've been dumped unceremoniously at a huge airport near an unlit runway, though further off are a fair number of lights. We conserve power nowadays where possible. Someone's whimpering about their ankle, twisted or broken.

"It's Heathrow!" shrills a girl.

Airports are anonymous, yet that could easily be Western Avenue over there on the perimeter, where any hotels remaining open won't have many guests these days. This may well be London's Heathrow, nowhere near so busy as used to be.

Of a sudden the runway lights come on-on account of us arriving? Shall we pretend to be a planeload of pa.s.sengers, newly descended from Sirius or some other star? Please proceed to pa.s.sport control-what, no baggage? People begin heading toward the illuminated runway but Bryce bellows, "Stay here, everyone! The runway's dangerous. A plane'll be landing."

"There's no plane-"

"Idiot, they don't switch the lights on at the very last moment. Plane'll be ten minutes' away." Of course he's right.

Svelte's shining a slim torch, here, there.

"Lost something?" Tony asks her.

"Looking for feathers."

I see none in the beam from Svelte's torch. The Varroa or the big hoop must have retained any alien vegetation in the process of returning us-to a big empty flat s.p.a.ce where we wouldn't collide with anything.

"Everybody stay right here," I call out. "I'll have us collected, bussed back to The Studio."

Now there's a signal for my phone. Dee-du-doo-doo-du-do... ring ring.

"THAT PLACE WAS artificial," Svelte insists to me as our crowded coach, the foremost of three, finally nears Lambeth. Combi-Intel persons on each coach are busy doing preliminary interviews of the club-nighters. There'll be a lot more interrogation by and by, especially of Daniel and Sean and Alan and June, although I suspect that neither QE nor anyone else will be able to control a hoop again by that same method. For we are unready.