UNSURPRISINGLY, it was Ruby who was the first to discover more of the truth about Tamara and the other two survivors, who introduced themselves as Marcie and Jason once they had recovered enough to speak. After all, Ruby was the one who had herself lived many years in Australia. And she had been spared the trauma of making the gruesome discoveries at the forest fire—although she had helped later on in the recovery and burial of the burnt-out corpses, once the fire had abated.

In that respect Rupert had been fortunate. The fire had not touched the Reserve—a gentle easterly breeze had kept in in check, and a spell of heavy rain had done more to damp it down. Once it was reduced to an area of smouldering ashes, Rupert went out in the light aircar to investigate. He reckoned that about seventy square kilo­metres had been devastated, and several thousand animals had been lost—but the area would recover, given time.

How much time?—that was the big question. Would he live to see the tropical rainforest there in full swing once again? Would anyone live? Planet Earth’s demise was now accepted as being inevitable.

*

Ruby lost no time in making herself known to Tamara, who was now sharing a room with Marcie. After a bit of small talk about her former life in Queensland, the places she had visited, and the places they both knew, she fell to studying Tamara’s and Marcie’s faces more intently.

Then it dawned on her.

“You’re First Nation, aren’t you?”

“Well spotted, Ruby!” replied Tamara. “Yes, Marcie and I are both of mixed European and Murri descent. What some people call ‘Aboriginal’, though we don’t much like that word.”

“And Jason?”

“No—he’s European ancestry. But he’s married to Marcie…”

Ruby pondered this a while. “I begin to understand,” she said. “The ones who persecuted you—the ones who murdered so many of your friends—they were white Australians, weren’t they?”

Tamara did not reply. Ruby paused for a while, realising that she’d touched a sore spot, made a faux pas.

Eventually she continued: “Sorry Tamara: I shouldn’t have brought that up. Racism, as ugly as ever! Racist attacks; racist killings. Yes, I’ve seen some of that myself in recent times. And we all thought the Overlords had eliminated all that, when they ‘sorted us out’! Jan Rodricks—you’ve heard of him?—a Black man—he never knew how lucky he was, living when he did. Everyone was lucky, back then in the ‘Golden Age’. But now!”

“You don’t know the half of it!” Tamara almost shrieked. Tears were starting from her eyes. “Where have you been to, Ruby?” she continued, angrily. “Bit of Australia? Here, central Africa? Anywhere else? You haven’t seen half the world, and what it has become!”

“I’ve been to Moscow,” replied Ruby, gently. “We sent our daughter there—but we brought her back. Things were getting pretty nasty there. She was raped—”

“ ‘Getting pretty nasty’! Yes, that’s one way of putting it. My brother Donny—oh Donny, how I miss you!—he went to America with Alice, his partner. Florida; Georgia; the Southern States. Pleas­ant, peaceful places during the Golden Age. What they found was nothing like a Golden Age. Lynchings, burnings, riots. Victims being beheaded. Thrown into lakes with alligators. Impaled. Donny and Alice got out of there pretty damn fast. And then to come here, to meet up with me and Marcie—only to end up being burnt at the stake, both of them! There’s reality for you, Ruby!”

Ruby could think of nothing to say.

*

Rupert had had to organise the decent burial of the fire victims himself. He tried to notify the Guardians but got no response to his messages. It seemed that there was no longer any system of law and order in the decadent world.

What about the Overlords? he wondered. Would they be concerned about the massacre, and above all the fact that one of their own kind had been burned in effigy? What if, next time, a real Overlord were to fall victim to human violence? Rashaverak had left Rupert an e-mail address in case he wished to contact him, but Rupert had not used it for a long time. Until now he had felt disinclined to have any dealings with Earth’s masters.

He fired off a brief message.

This brought a result within a few days. A strange aircar, which Rupert recognised as being of Overlord design, landed in front of the villa. Two Overlords emerged and made their way towards Rupert, who was standing in the porch along with Ruth, Ruby, and Leanne. Although it was difficult for a human to tell one Overlord from another, Rupert was fairly certain that he recognised Rashaverak, who was carrying a device that looked like a kind of holographic pro­jector. The other Overlord, to whom Rashaverak appeared deferential—could it be…?

The unencumbered Overlord forestalled him before he could put the question. “I am Karellen,” he announced.

A visit from the most senior Overlord of all: the Supervisor him­self! “I’m greatly honoured,” muttered Rupert, somewhat awestruck. He had never met Karellen, although he knew that his late friend Jack Sullivan had once been ‘honoured’ with a visit—to his considerable discomfiture. At the time, Jack had been busy conniving with Jan’s plan to stow away on an Overlord ship—and had then worried that their plot had been discovered.

“We can dispense with formalities,” began Karellen. “Mr Boyce, first of all we wish to thank you and commend you for the good work you have done recently. Of course, some of the credit must go to your team of workers here, and to your companion Ruth and your ex-wife Ruby—”

“Now my wife once again,” put in Rupert. “And this is our daughter Leanne. Oh, and please call me ‘Rupert’.”

“Your wife and daughter, Rupert? I was not aware of this, but I am glad to hear it. I see that Leanne is of such an age that she was not affected by the Change. She must be a great comfort to you. And I understand you have three other companions in your household: people whom you rescued from the forest fire.”

“That is correct,” replied Ruth, finding her voice for the first time. “They are Australian émigrés, two women named Tamara and Marcie, and a man named Jason. They are still confined to their rooms as of now, but they are recovering from their ordeal.”

“That is well. Australians, are they? I shall have more to say about Australia shortly. Meanwhile, I also learnt that you, Rupert, made an effort to rescue one of our ‘people’—although as it turned out it was only a dummy. We wish to thank you for that: it was very noble of you.”

“It was nothing,” replied Rupert, very red in the face. “I saw what I thought was a living being in danger, so I dashed in to help. I would have done the same—” He broke off, realising the implied affront he had been about to deliver.

“—the same for one of the animals you love? Don’t worry, Rupert: no offence taken,” put in Rashaverak. “We are fully aware that we are a different species from you, and if you think of us in the same way as you think of the animals in your care, so be it.”

“As Rashaverak says,” agreed Karellen. “But there is more to our purpose in this visit than merely to thank you. Yours is one of the very few pockets of what we would deem a ‘civilised’ lifestyle on this planet. The massacre which you witnessed near here was only one instance of the barbarism, savagery, and debauchery which now infests much of Earth. You are probably already aware how things stand.”

“Ruth and I visited Russia recently,” put in Ruby. “We saw how things were there. And Tamara told me a ghastly account of goings-on in America.”

“Russia; America; all the world over, much the same is happening. Humanity is destroying itself, as we expected it would, I’m afraid. We are watching, of course, and doing what we can with a light touch, but we cannot intervene too directly. That is why you have seen little of us of late. It would only make matters worse: we have past evidence of that.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

A sudden thought occurred to Ruth. “Is that … is there any connect­ion in that, with the fact that you look like Devils to us?”

“There is indeed a connection, but I shall say no more at present.”

Typical Overlord coyness, thought Rupert. Not wanting to admit their past failures. But civilisations had indeed destroyed themselves in ages past: there were ample examples. The Indus people. Minoan and Mycenaean cultures. The Warring States of China. Several Meso­american civilisations had come and gone. And the mythical ones: Ragnarök; Armageddon; Noah’s Flood. But the downfalls were mostly localised, and in none of them had humanity been eradicated completely. Still—it was possible that the Overlords’ previous visit to Earth was connected with one of those disasters…

Rupert knew better, now, than to start asking intrusive questions. The Overlords had good reason to keep some secrets. And Karellen was speaking again:

“As I said earlier, we have another purpose to this visit. But in order to explain it, I have to tell you something about what is happening, and what is expected to happen, in Australia. You know that the Children—or rather, those who were the Children—have been transported there—”

“Bloody hell, there’s no need to rub it in, thank you very much Mr Fucking Karellen!” interposed Ruby abruptly, consumed with anger. “Why else would Leanne and I, and all our friends and neighbours, have been suddenly made refugees at barely a week’s notice? Forced to leave our homes forever? For fuck’s sake, show a little com­passion, will you?!”

“I’m sorry, Ruby. I understand your distress, but believe me, this had to be done. There was no choice, and the order came not from me but from higher up.”

“Aha! This ‘Overmind’, or whatever you call it,” remarked Ruth.

“Yes. And these same Children are becoming part of the Overmind. It is a slow process: judging by our past experience with other races on other planets, we expect it to take anything between seventy and a hundred of your years before they are fully absorbed.”

“But—dammit Karellen—surely they won’t live that long!” protested Rupert.

“They are no longer humans, and don’t experience human life­spans. But we shall show you.” Karellen pointed to the device Rashaverak was still holding.

Taking her cue from that, Ruby led the way indoors. Tamara, now well enough to leave her room, joined them, and the five humans and two Overlords seated themselves at a large table: the Overlords sitting on the floor because there were no chairs suitable for them. Rashaverak placed the device at one end of the table and activated it, and a moving hologram appeared. It appeared to be an aerial view from a drone, moving quickly over a peaceful landscape of fields and patches of woodland.

Then the view zoomed in closer to the ground, and the group around the table could see small pale figures dotted around the landscape—but not randomly. They were arranged in a regular square array, not too close to one another: about one hundred and fifty metres apart.

They were Children.

At least, physically, they looked like Children, of all ages from two-year-old toddlers to young adolescents of about twelve. All of them were naked, and they were standing absolutely stock-still.

“You are looking at a small area of New South Wales, but the exact locality is of no consequence,” explained Rashaverak. “We landed the Children from our ships at various points across Australia, and they quickly spread out over the whole continent to arrange themselves in this pattern.”

“You mean they walked into position? Even across the desert? Even where there were mountains and rivers in the way?” remarked Rupert, incredulously.

“Exactly so. They quickly shed all their clothes, and then walked to their assigned places. It all took only a few weeks. They were obliv­ious to their surroundings, and took in no food or water. Where they encountered water, they swam. Yes—even the youngest of them. They are now covering the entire continent. Even on the slopes of mountains. Even Ayers Rock—Uluru.”

Ruth was stirred up with curiosity, and she got up and walked towards the hologram. The Overlords did nothing to stop her. Extend­ing her hand into it and pointing at one of the older Children, she was not surprised to see the view zoom in on that Child. It was a girl, but Ruth could only deduce that from the figure’s lack of a penis. She studied the face. To say that it was expressionless would be an under­statement. It was more, as if someone had painted eyes, nose and mouth onto a store mannequin’s head. As devoid of human character as it was possible for a face to be. Shaken, Ruth returned to her seat.

“So—what are they doing?” at length she asked, tremulously.

“Nothing, apparently. They are just waiting. It has been like this for over a year. But, judging from our past experience, we expect them to start moving in a complex pattern within the next few years. If so, we shall call it … in your words you may call it ‘the Long Dance’. We still do not understand its purpose, but we have seen it in other species.”

“How many other species have gone through—this, then? And what did they look like?” asked Rupert.

“Your species is the fifth that we have supervised,” answered Karellen. “Do you wish to see what the others looked like? I should warn you that they may appear frightening.”

“I’m used to animals, Karellen,” said Rupert, “and some of them can be scary. You don’t want to mess with a black mamba. And a big bull elephant can take you out before you say ‘Jumbo’. So yes: show me all you’ve got—monsters or not! Will they be sentient? Ladies, do you want to stay for this?”

All four women nodded. They’d seen worse after all. They were only going to be shown a hologram.

“I’ll let you see just one of our charges: the first one we super­vised,” said Rashaverak, as he operated a control on the projector. “That should be enough to satisfy human curiosity.” Rupert could have sworn he was ‘laughing’—insofar as Overlords could laugh—as he said this.

*

The Australian panorama faded from view. Instead, a completely alien landscape appeared. It appeared to be sandy terrain, grey sand: dotted here and there with what looked like yellow fungi—more specifically, like morels, with a grooved stem topped by a honeycomb-like structure—although more rounded than a morel’s ‘cap’. There was no way of telling the scale of these objects, but the view zoomed in to take a closer look at one of the structures until it almost filled the hologram space. Rupert guessed that it was big: as big as a large tree perhaps.

Then the view zoomed out slightly, and smaller mobile beings came into view. Based on what he assumed was the scale, they were about the size of a small dog. They had a flattened conical body like a limpet, light brown in colour, with three short jointed legs protruding from the underside. At the top of the ‘cone’ there was a narrow cylindrical protuberance from which sprouted three sinuous tentacles, each of which terminated in three smaller, jointed tentacles like fingers. Some of these creatures were crawling up and down the stems of the ‘morels’: others were ‘walking’ on the sand.

“These are sentient beings?” asked Ruth, her eyes wide in wonder­ment, after she had once again taken a closer look. The nearest terrestrial creature she could think of, to compare with this, was a barnacle. A barnacle with legs. Hardly an intelligent being!

“Indeed they are—or rather, were,” explained Rashaverak. “Slight­ly lower in intelligence than you humans—but don’t get conceited! They had advanced to about the equivalent of your steam age by the time we were sent to them: they had machinery, surface transport and rudimentary communication over a distance. Like your race, their offspring were absorbed into the Overmind and the remaining adults died out. This all happened about fifty thousand of your years ago. At the time, your species were still hunter-gatherers, using stone tools and broken-off antlers, and contending with the Neanderthals. So, if these had survived longer, this species might well have advanced their technology way beyond yours—or even ours. But they became extinct.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Leanne, speaking up for the first time. None of the others could think of anything to say—until Rupert finally found his voice.

“How big were those … individuals?” He stopped short at using the word ‘creatures’.

“About fifty centimetres across. The tall structures are their dwellings,” replied Rashaverak, helpfully. “With them, the Trans­formation and eventual absorption with the Overmind took about thirty-five of your years. As the Supervisor said, your species, with your larger and better-developed brains, will take longer: seventy to a hundred years. But the outcome will be the same.”

“Did those … people … lapse into savagery, like here?” murmured Ruby, more to herself than the others.

“Far less so than your species,” replied Karellen. “They did not exhibit the violent propensities which your race has. The older individuals—the ones who were left behind—mostly became lethargic and stopped feeding. Many of them simply starved to death. Others committed suicide. And, like your people, they produced no further offspring.”

“So it’s true, then, is it?” exclaimed Ruby, despairingly. “No more children being born?—none anywhere on Earth?”

“No live births that we have observed,” replied Rashaverak. “Many miscarriages and stillbirths. This is possibly the result of Overmind influence. All we can assure you, Ruby and you others, is that we—those you name the Overlords—had nothing to do with this failure to have children. Not directly nor otherwise. Though we knew this would happen. We have seen it before.”

Ruby sighed. She hugged Leanne tightly with one arm and threw another around Rupert, sitting next to her. On his other side, Ruth planted a kiss on his cheek. Then even Tamara joined in the group hug. They at least had each other.

Seeing the humans embracing one another, Karellen gave one of his rare smiles. He exchanged a few quick words in Overlord-speech with Rashaverak, who also smiled—less skilfully than Karellen but effectively. It seemed the right moment to launch their next bomb­shell.

“There is a proposal we wish to put to you,” began Rashaverak. “You may find it interesting.”