“WHAT is going on? I don’t understand. Am I missing some­thing? Is horny Old Scratch playing at something new?” muttered Rupert, more to himself than to Ruth. His attention had been abruptly caught by one or two words in the broadcast, of which, up till that moment, he had barely taken in a word.

“ ‘Horny’? ‘Scratch’?” demanded Ruth, her attention momentarily distracted from listening to Karellen’s momentous broadcast by Rupert’s interruption. She paused the playback. Her brow was furrowed as she tried to make sense of what he had said. “Are you referring to Karellen?” Strangely enough, the appearance of Karellen and his fellow Overlords had become so familiar—so entrenched in the mind of the average human—that its most salient features passed almost unnoticed by most.

But not by Rupert.

“Yes. Of course I meant those things on his head—not his sexual prowess (as if we inferior beings even knew whether the Overlords have a sex-life). And ‘Old Scratch’—surely you know who that is?”

“Ah: ‘horny’ as in ‘horned’, OK. A bit disrespectful. But ‘Old Scratch’?” Unlike Rupert, Ruth was not well versed in occult and demonological topics—nor in the slang terminology that accom­panied such topics.

“Mr Scratch. The Devil. The Devil and Daniel Webster. Short story written in the 1930s—also a Hollywood movie made a few years after that.”

“Ancient history,” retorted Ruth. “But I see what you’re about, Rupert. Of course, you’d know all that sort of stuff wouldn’t you? However nasty and insulting when applied to Karellen. After all, he’s been doing a power of good for us humans. But as usual, I don’t suppose you care.”

“I do care. When he says what I think I just heard. Something about wiping out the whole of humanity. What’s left of it…”

Rupert’s choice of the adjective ‘horny’ was pertinent enough, referring as it did to the twin horn-like appendages which Karellen, like all the other beings of his species, bore on his head. Those horns, a little over four centimetres long, along with the leathery wings and barbed tail, certainly did endow the Overlords with a remarkably diabolic appearance—a fact which had aroused some consternation at the time of the first face-to-face contact between his species and humans. Some panic had occurred—but not overwhelmingly so. The Overlords had carefully prepared Homo sapiens for this event, and H. sapiens had taken it fairly well. And all this was just history now: the encounter had occurred nearly fifty years in the past and Earth’s people had got used to these strange beings.

Rupert, whose faith in the Overlords’ supposed benevolence had become sadly diminished of late, had taken to showing disrespect in some manner for the human race’s alien masters—at least when not in the presence of one face-to-face! Nor in Ruth’s hearing—until now. He had become annoyed at the number of times an Overlord—Rashaverak usually—had spoken to one or another of Rupert’s fellow humans—Ruth especially—about matters which passed over his head. The fact that Rupert behaved so often in a shallow, selfish, and naïve manner when he was interacting with his fellow humans—in marked contrast to the unselfish and tender devotion he bestowed on his beloved animals in the wildlife Reserve—this flaw in his personality had never registered with him.

But now it was scarcely annoyance: he had caught one or two words from Karellen which caused him to be struck dumb—if un­comprehending…

He and Ruth had been watching—no, listening: there was no video of Karellen, just soothing footage of waves splashing on a rocky shore—listening to the momentous and fateful final broadcast to the human race by Karellen, the supervisor and de facto leader of the long-term visiting Overlords. The broadcast which had blanketed every receiving device on the planet: every handheld, every phone, every wrist-computer, every pair of video-specs, every VR implant—even the few antique television sets that some old-fashioned people still cherished. Simultaneously broadcast in every language still spoken anywhere on Earth: it had been almost impossible not to listen to it.

The broadcast in which Karellen had revealed his purpose in coming to Earth, and the human race’s ultimate fate.

This was the point at which Rupert had been shaken out of his in­attentive daydream. Those ominous words of Karellen’s…

“Am I missing something important? Is he really thinking about destroying the entire human race?” wailed Rupert. “After all the Overlords have done for us?”

“If you’d only paid more attention,” replied Ruth, calmly, “you’d know that he doesn’t want to do that. Listen, I’ll replay that bit again,” and she rose from her favourite position, sitting on the carpet leaning back against Rupert’s knees. She reached for the controls and fiddled for a moment. Karellen’s voice started gabbling incomprehen­sible high-speed reversed English for a few seconds; then it resumed normal speech:

“…but it will be useless,” his deep resonant voice was declaring. “Greater powers than mine are wakening now: I am only one of their instruments. And then—what am I to do with you, the survivors, when your purpose has been fulfilled? It would be simplest, perhaps, and most merciful, to destroy you—as you yourselves would destroy a mortally wounded pet you loved. But this I cannot do. Your future will be your own to choose in the years that are left to you. It is my hope that humanity will go to its rest in peace, knowing that it has not lived in vain…” [see note]

“So there we have it,” explained Ruth, patiently, once the broadcast had ended. “It’s our own choice how we want to die.”

“I know we’ve all got to die sometime,” protested Rupert, rather unnecessarily. “But the whole human race dying off? Phhhtt! Just like that? Impossible! It must be some mistake. How could Earth come to deserve this—after all that’s been done to make Earth a better place?”

“I don’t quite understand that bit,” replied Ruth. “But it does seem so. I guess there will be no more children—and no children means extinction. Perhaps those parents whose children have ‘transformed’ will be afraid to bear any more; perhaps they’ll fear that any future children will go the same way.”

“Loopy, you mean.” Rupert had never really understood the cata­clysmic transformation—the ‘Change’ people were calling it—that had overcome every single child up to the age of ten on the planet. A Change which meant that they were all in the process of melding into a ‘group mind’, and were no longer capable of communicating by any means with ‘normal’ adults who still retained their individuality. Children who, their parents felt, were ‘lost’ to them… Ruth had been doing her best to explain this circumstance to Rupert, but, notwith­standing his passionate interest in occultism, he had found it hard to take it in.

“Rupert, my dear, it’s not that the Children are ‘backward’,” she protested (like many others, she had grown accustomed to speaking the word as if it began with a capital ‘C’). “In fact,” she continued, “the group mind—Karellen calls it the ‘Overmind’—which they are joining up with, is maybe billions of times more intelligent than any single human being. It’s just that you and I cannot interact with that mind—with the Children—in any way. We are forever sundered from them. We should count ourselves lucky that you and I have no child­ren ourselves—if you persist in disowning Ruby’s daughter—so we have lost nothing compared to what other people have lost…”

Rupert, somewhat cowed at Ruth’s strong rebuke, checked himself and sat in silent thought.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Ruby had been his second wife—before Maia—but the marriage had not lasted long. She was a charming and attractive, but somewhat disingenuous young woman: he had married her for her looks. But he had soon discovered that she was having an affair with an Australian dentist—Hugh Midgley by name. Then she had become pregnant—and flatly refused to disclose who the father was. That was enough for Rupert: he had let her go with her lover to Australia, and assumed that the daughter Leanne must be Hugh’s. How old would she be now?— around fourteen he reckoned: perhaps too old to have been caught up in the Change. Good luck to them!

Rupert Boyce—wild animal reserve warden, conservationist, and super-vet par excellence, with ten thousand square kilometres of mixed tropical forest and savannah under his care—was more at home with animals than with some of his fellow-humans. He had, whether from ignorance or intent, chosen to dismiss as much as he could understand, of the news of the Change enveloping the Children. ‘If it’s really happening, it doesn’t apply to me’ was his maxim: ‘I don’t have any children—I don’t like children—especially those that break into the reserve and mess with my animals’. This last had a grain of truth in it—several times he had had to repair a breach of the boundary fence—the fence that was supposed to be both animal- and human-proof—and the breaches had definitely looked like the work of two-legged, ten-fingered animals.

And then of course there had been the boy from a nearby village who’d broken in, approached a herd of female African Buffalo with calves, caused them to become alarmed, and was promptly gored to death. Serve him right, was Rupert’s initial—and very uncharitable—reaction. But he’d got into a lot of trouble over this—and not just for that remark. There had been considerable pressure on him to close down the reserve altogether. In the end, much to his surprise, it was the Overlords who intervened: decreed that the reserve should remain open, albeit with a request to strengthen and electrify the boundary fence.

Why the Overlords had taken sides with him on this dispute—why they had saved his job for him, to put it bluntly—Rupert couldn’t guess. But his esteem for the Overlords—already boosted by Rasha­verak’s extended visit—had risen somewhat.

Until now. Until Karellen’s fateful broadcast.

Rupert knew that Ruth was doing her best to soothe him, to reassure him, to ward off the panic-attack that he was likely to lapse into in his confusion. It was his reflection on how much of a comfort Ruth had been to him, over the past few years, that finally calmed him down.

Ruth Shoenberger had come to live with him, acting partly as a sort of housekeeper to him, partly as a sort of nurse to him, not long after the death of her husband Benny, drowned in a boating accident off Barbados. She had felt isolated and lonely, and she knew that Rupert was feeling lonely too. She had insisted that they would live together ‘as friends’ only—and after Rupert had once suggested that they might embark on a more intimate relationship, and been firmly rebuffed, he accepted the state of affairs. He had had too many women in his life, and it had never worked out. Perhaps he was getting too old at forty-five?

The break with Maia, his third and last wife, had hit him especially hard. Although it had seemed to be going so well, the friction had really started only a few days after their marriage. That ghastly party! Well, the party itself had been fine: guests from all around the world had been mingling freely and amicably; the food had been good and the drink was flowing freely: both were much complimented on; even Rashaverak had put in an appearance, much to everyone’s amazement. Only Rupert’s friends George Greggson and fiancée Jean Morrel had seemed to be ill at ease. And then…!

If only he had not brought out his absurd ‘ouija’-like contraption! thought Rupert. The Table entirely covered with a sea of ball-bearings, upon which the planchette could slide virtually without friction. He had invited the remaining guests (it had been late in the evening) to take part in the séance—only Ruth had refused, he recalled. Along with Rashaverak—but then one could hardly expect an Overlord to join in humans’ silly games…

Rupert knew—well, almost knew—in his heart that no supernatural ‘spirits’ would actually be summoned—since there was no such thing as a supernatural ‘spirit’. All the ‘messages’ arising from the séance would be due to perfectly rational influences: the participants’ sub­conscious minds exerting tiny influences on their hand movements. At least he had been convincing himself of that hypothesis, and hence that there was nothing wrong in the ‘game’—until Jan had butted in.

Jan Rodricks: Maia’s brother and hence, for a short while, Rupert’s brother-in-law. He had put the simple question ‘Which star is the Overlords’ sun?’. At that point Rashaverak, his curiosity piqued, had moved closer to the Table, but he had not touched it nor any of the participants. And an answer had emerged—although it seemed gibberish at the time.

And then Jean had fainted—and in the confusion Jan had stolen a page from Ruth’s notebook: the notebook in which she’d been recording all the ‘answers’.

Maia had been upset at the outcome, and even more upset as she observed the change which it had appeared to have wrought on her brother. She had taken Rupert to task for engaging in that silly ‘experiment’ in the first place, and had refused to have anything more to do with his investigations into the paranormal.

Rupert had tried to be contrite, but still insisted that it was ‘just a game’. If that final ‘message’ had had enough meaning to disturb Jan—well, they would just have to wait and see.

It was only some months later that Rupert and Maia had learned the truth: that there was some meaning to the incomprehensible message. In his fateful letter to Maia, Jan had disclosed that the ‘message’ was in fact a catalogue reference to the Overlords’ home star system. And worse—he had contrived to stow away on board one of the Over­lords’ ships, in the hopes of reaching that system. Because the round trip would take at least eighty years, by Earth’s reckoning, Maia would never see him again.

And their mother! She had been devastated upon learning of Jan’s escapade. Her health had broken down completely, and Maia had gone to live with her, to care for her in the few months left to her. After her mother’s death, Maia had sent an e-mail to Rupert, saying she wasn’t coming back. Their marriage was over.

So: how had this ‘message’ on the Table originated?—Rupert had at first asked himself. It was evident that, without that circumstance, Jan would not have absconded on his crazy exploit. And Rupert recalled that he had unwittingly helped Jan on his way, by revealing to him what his friend Professor Sullivan, the marine biologist, was plan­ning. The delivery of an entire sperm whale carcass for the Overlords to ship to their home planet.

The whale in which Jan had concealed himself.

Yes—Rupert knew that he was in some measure to blame for Jan’s escapade—and for losing Maia.

But how? Somehow Rashaverak must have influenced the Table remotely. That was the only logical explanation. No doubt the Overlords possessed controlling powers over inanimate objects that humans could not even dream of. But why would Rashaverak have seen fit to disclose the location of their home planet—if it was the location of their home planet? The Overlords had always been very coy about revealing this sort of information.

Well—Rashaverak might have had a reason. Who could fathom the mind of an Overlord? Rupert now wished he’d never invited Rashaverak to spend so many months ensconced in his vast library—crammed with thousands upon thousands of books dealing with occultism and the paranormal. He’d never really understood why Rashaverak had wanted to read all his books—as it seemed he had.

Until now. Rupert hadn’t really taken in Karellen’s speech, but Ruth was explaining the situation to him carefully. The Overlords were indeed engaged in an extended study. A study of humans’ super­natural powers—powers that really existed after all. Rashaverak’s ensconcing himself in the library was all part of it.

Then, just a few days after Karellen’s broadcast, came the bomb­shell. An e-mail from, of all people, Jean Morrel—Jean Greggson now! Rupert had barely been in touch with George and Jean for many years: ever since they’d moved to that absurd island colony in fact. But he knew that they had two children: a boy about eight or nine years old, and a much younger girl. Both children, it seemed, had succumbed to the Change. They had been the first—but now it affected every child—and the Children were being evacuated. But this was not the eye-opener which really took Jan by surprise.

It appeared that Rashaverak had revealed to the couple that it had been Jean who had somehow conveyed to the Table that answer to Jan’s question. Not Rashaverak himself. Was the Overlord lying? And what was more, the information had come via Jean’s unborn son. A son not even conceived. On a somewhat inebriated occasion, long ago it seemed, George had confided to Rupert, in private, that the first time he and Jean had slept together was the night after the party. And Jean had been a virgin until then.

Impossible, thought Rupert. Rashaverak must be spinning a yarn—to cover his own indiscretion, maybe.

But, whoever was to blame, Jan was gone. And Maia was gone. That was what mattered most to Rupert. At least he had Ruth.