ONCE HE had come over his shock, Rupert was delighted in his new role as a father. Indeed he was bonding with Leanne even more emphatically than he had before she was sent to Moscow.

Leanne was still weak, of course, but she did not seem to be showing visible after-effects of her ordeal at the ‘school’—nor of the crisis in the aircar. And as the weeks passed she gradually became stronger. She was able to walk around the compound, though not to assist in any strenuous work. Rupert devoted all the time he could spare from his animals in caring for her and attending to her needs. Indeed, he had delegated both Ruth and Ruby to take on some of the routine work on the Reserve.

Furthermore, he had taken on six trustworthy workers to help with some of the work. He had chosen them, not from among the Australian emigrés—despite Ruby’s insistence that the earlier ‘problems’ must have been out of character—but from an African community with which he maintained good relations. They came, not from the ‘rodeo’ village which appeared to now be deserted, but from a larger village to the south.

As part of their initiation, Rupert was very eager to show Ruth and Ruby the new white rhino calf who was now just over four months old. He did not activate the holo projector of course: the mother would be very protective and would quite likely attack any sudden apparition. Of course, the apparition being no more than a hologram, no-one would be put at risk. But Rupert wanted to minimise upsetting the mother as much as possible. So they used just the viewer in ‘invisible’ mode.

Both women were not slow, of course, to notice the change in Rupert’s character. Ruby, especially, was feeling more attracted to him than at any time since their separation. She wondered how he would take it if she offered to get together with him once more. She opened her heart to Ruth.

“First of all, Ruby dear,” Ruth began, “I want you to fully understand: there’s nothing between Rupert and me. Never has been. We’ve just been living together as friends, all these years. All right—you know Rupert as well as I do: yes he did try to come on to me once or twice—but I refused him. I’m quite a lot older than either of you, and it isn’t my ‘thing’ anymore. You do understand, don’t you, Ruby?”

“Yes, I understand. So do you think Rupert will take me back? It’s not just what I want—it’d be so good for Leanne. The world—human society—what’s left of it may be falling apart outside from here, but for Leanne to be part of a conventional nuclear family again—it would really help her along. And she needs all the help she can get…”

“Of course she does. I think you should approach Rupert. Be prepared for him to be ‘difficult’ about it though. He’s often told me, how angry he was when you left him for Hugh…”

“I’ll try. Oh, and of course, Ruth, I’m hoping you’ll still want to live with us—right up until the end of things. You’re such a pillar of support, and I need someone like you. And if you don’t live with us, where else is there for you to go?”

“In this … what this world has become … ” Ruth didn’t finish her sentence.

So it was settled. Ruby would try to get back together with Rupert.

*

Ruby’s approach was, perhaps, more direct than wisdom might have dictated. But it worked.

She waited until a clear moonlit night, when the cicadas were chirping even more loudly than usual. Rising from her bed around midnight, and wearing only a short thin nightdress, she tiptoed out of the room she shared with Ruth, and made her way to Rupert’s bedroom. Once inside, she slipped the nightdress over her head and let it fall to the floor.

“Rupert, darling, are you asleep?”

“Trying to. Those damn bugs, making such a racket: I’m finding it hard tonight.”

“Same with me. Like some company?”

Rupert opened his eyes for the first time. He turned his head and glanced drowsily at Ruby, whose outline was dimly illuminated in the moonlight shining through the window. Then he snapped wide awake. He drew in a sharp breath.

“Ruby! What the—”

“Don’t you like it, Rupert my love? You always liked to see me like this, when we were together.”

“Yes—of course! But I thought that was all finished.”

“Yes, Rupert, it was finished. But that doesn’t mean it can’t start over again. You do want me, Rupert, don’t you?”

Rupert gulped. He sat there on his bed, unable to move or speak, for almost a minute. This was all very sudden. Wasn’t he too old for this sort of thing? After all, the sight of a naked woman didn’t arouse him in the way it had in his more youthful days. But Ruby! His instincts were taking control of him. He realised what he had missed, all these years. Slowly he unbuttoned his pyjamas and took them off. Ruby tiptoed towards him and flung herself into his arms…

*

Rupert’s moment of blissful re-awakening was short-lived. It was only a few days later that Ruby, who’d been using the holographic viewer to explore round the site, came to find Rupert. She looked rather anxious.

“Rupert, dear, I think your pyromaniac’s at it again. Big column of smoke, over to the west.”

“Oh dear. Is it within the Reserve?”

“No, it looks like it’s beyond the perimeter fence.”

“How far beyond?”

“I couldn’t tell. Some distance, I think. Sorry, Rupert, I’m not very good at working with the viewer—not yet.”

“I’d still better go in person and have a look. I’ll go in the light aircar, and take Raphael.” Raphael was the foreman of the newly-recruited team of wardens, a giant of a man nearly two metres tall, who could be relied upon to pull his weight in a crisis.

“Can I come too?” asked Ruth, who had overheard the conversa­tion.

“Sorry, not a chance. I want to take some firefighting gear and there’ll be no room for another passenger. Anyway, the two of you need to take care of Leanne. Make sure she knows nothing of this: Raph and I are just ‘out on a routine inspection’, that’s all.”

*

Stolen story; please report.

Rupert was back in a little over an hour. He showed every sign of being alarmed and angry. He summoned all the workforce.

“It’s a good ten kilometres off. Looks like a forest fire. I need to take the heavy car—both aircars in fact. All right, Ruth, you may as well come along: you can go in the light car with Raph, while I take the heavy car with some tree-cutting equipment and a water-scoop. You two: Adam, Luke: you bring two of the groundcars along, as quick as you can. Go through no.5 gate and make for the smoke. The rest of you come with me in the heavy. There’s no way we can tackle anything that big—and we all know it’s no use calling the Guardians—nor whatever passes for a firefighting service these days! Best we can do is fell some trees, hope to create a firebreak and stop it spreading to the Reserve. Ruby, you need to stay and take care of Leanne.”

Having landed about five hundred metres from the wall of flames, where there were only young trees suitable for felling, Rupert and his team were soon busy at work with the chainsaws, but Ruth was keen to advance a bit further and take a closer look. She ran back to the light car.

“No, Ruth, don’t!” yelled Rupert once he realised what Ruth intended. But, realising that he couldn’t stop her, he shouted desper­ately “For God’s sake be careful then!”

But Rupert knew: Ruth was always the most careful and sensible one of their extended ‘family’, the least likely to panic in a crisis—she too knew that full well—but what she saw as she neared the blaze made her want to scream and throw up. In desperation she wheeled the car around and headed back to Rupert at full speed. Stumbling out of the car, her nausea overwhelmed her and she threw up. Seeing her plight, Rupert dropped his chainsaw and dashed towards her.

“Rupert,” she finally managed to gasp, “there are people there! People tied to trees! Waiting to be burnt alive!”

“There are what?”

“Like I said. People about to be burnt alive! I heard them scream­ing.”

“Have the flames reached them yet?”

“Not that I could see, but it can surely be only a matter of minutes. There’s a lot of smoke.”

“So you think there are people still alive?”

“Yes! But not for long.”

Rupert, with a further crisis to deal with, showed remarkable acumen as he barked out orders. “Right. Raph!” he shouted. “You come with me in the heavy: we’ll deploy the water scoop. I saw a pond about half a kilometre back: we’ll try to buy some time. The rest of you, put on smoke masks, take bolt cutters, and see if you can get to the victims. Don’t take any risks.”

By the time the rescue party got to the victims, the flames were very close and the heat was intense. Working as fast as they could, they cut the victims loose and carried them a little way back from the flames and smoke. At the same time Rupert and Raphael arrived with a scoop full of water and doused some of the nearest flames, giving them some respite. With further scoops of water, the fire was driven back a few hundred metres.

Then Rupert and Raphael landed the heavy car, and Raphael, with his immense physical strength, was single-handedly lifting the surviv­ors into the car. There were four women and two men—all of them middle-aged and all of them white. This set Ruth wondering…

But even as she pondered the implication or this, another of the party made a further grim discovery. Among the burnt and blackened stumps of trees, there were further bodies tied to them, charred beyond recognition but still clearly human remains.

And another, larger body, also burned, which wasn’t human…

“Rupert!” screamed Ruth, after staring at the charred remains from where she stood. “Look! Over there!”

Following her gaze, Rupert realised what he was looking at. The large body, almost twice the size of a man. The little horns still visible on the defaced head. The stumps of what could have been wings, pressed against the tree trunk…

Could it be true? Could humans have actually captured an Over­lord, tortured him and put him to death by immolation? Surely that wasn’t possible! The Overlords were too powerful to permit that.

Or were they?

For a brief moment Rupert was rooted to the spot. Then he made up his mind, and sprinted across the smouldering ashes to the tree to which the ‘Overlord’ was tied. The body seemed to be charred all over: could the Overlord possibly still be alive? How resistant were they to physical harm? Tentatively he reached up with the handle of his hatchet and touched the arm.

The arm instantly broke off at the elbow, and what looked like charred sawdust poured out of the stump.

Rupert looked up at the ‘horns’ and then it dawned on him: they were merely sawn-off buffalo horns, attached to the ‘head’ with wires. For a moment he laughed—for some reason one of Desperate Dan’s ‘cow pies’ sprang to mind. Then he collected himself.

“It’s only a dummy!” he yelled at the others. “A burnt effigy. Like Guy Fawkes! I repeat—it’s not a real Overlord!”

He quickly checked over the other burnt-out bodies: these appeared to be real humans but clearly beyond all help. There might be more still enveloped in the flames which were beginning to spread again. Clearly the scene of some monstrous massacre, and Rupert felt ashamed at having laughed. He returned to the others.

“We’ve got to shift these trunks and branches to one side, to create a firebreak. But how are the survivors?” he called to Raphael.

“Three of the men are goners, I think,” shouted Raphael. “But I think the two women and one of the men might make it. We must get them back to the house quickly.”

“Right. Darren, you take the heavy car back with the victims. Ruth, you go with him and see what you can do for them. The rest of us will stay to continue the clearing, and shift some of the brushwood while we wait for the groundcars. Then we need to drag the heavier logs out of the way.”

Very efficient when under pressure, Rupert has become, thought Ruth as she clambered into the aircar.

It was nearly an hour before the groundcars arrived. By then the team had felled a strip about two kilometres long, but the raging fire was only about two hundred metres away. They had to work fast, looping cables round the logs and using the cars to haul them clear.

“The fire will probably spread past the ends of our firebreak,” remarked Rupert, once the work was finished. “But it’ll buy us some time. We’ll have to hope for some heavy rain.”

*

Once back at the villa, Rupert immediately went to find Ruth.

“Three of the men died, I’m afraid,” was her report. “The ones Raph said were ‘goners’. But the remaining man and the two women will pull through, I hope. I’ve given them oxygen. One of the women seems well enough to talk, Rupert: you’d better go see what she has to say. Though she’s obviously in a state of extreme distress.”

“We’ve done all we can: at least you’re safe now,” were Rupert’s first words as he came to the woman’s bedside. She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You a doctor?” she murmured weakly. Her voice had a noticeable Australian accent.

“No, I’m a vet,” Rupert replied. “But we have people here who can look after you and the others…”

“The others! Brian? Donny? Alice?”

“I’m afraid only one other woman and one man survived. I’m awfully sorry. We did all we could.”

The woman was silent for a while. Tears were starting from her eyes. “I expected to die,” she muttered. “We all expected to die. And the others would have died eventually. We’re all going to die event­ually…”

“But not just now. You still have a life to live. I’m Rupert, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Tamara,” she replied, weakly.

“Are you from Australia?”

“Yes. All of us are evacuees from Australia. And other people hate us!”

“So—it was local people—who did this to you?”

“No. It was some of the other Australians. There’s feuding among us. But no-one thought it would come to this…”

But Rupert knew better, now. Anything was possible in this world of chaos and anarchy. But he kept his thoughts to himself.