Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,78

to explain things like I am to you. Isis was me, and we were Mandeville and Angel. We listened to my heart thundering, and felt Isis’s legs aching to run. We poured our own quick lives through the ghosts’ hands, into the slow pulse and sweep of the stone ship-creature. Moving it faster, dragging its reactions. Giving the alien our kind of time, those minutes left before the final siren.

We pushed up, all of us. Tumbling into the sky, throwing off the Earth and heading into the beautiful darkness of space…

“Gray! Isis! Get up! What are you doing?”

It took me a moment to adjust. It was a man’s voice.

I opened my eyes. Grey and white, blue above. A dot moving, getting bigger.

The quarry, the sky. Merlin running along the track, shouting at us.

“I told them! I had to! You’ve only got a few minutes before she’ll be here.”

I sat up, my hand still in Isis’s. She was motionless on the ground.

Merlin slowed to a jog, panting and clutching his side. “Man!” He gasped a breath. “I told them you’re in here – I had to so they wouldn’t do anything stupid, like pressing buttons. That Dr Harcourt…” he gasped a few more breaths, “she’s coming for you, man.”

I smiled, so big it made my mouth hurt.

“We’re nearly done—”

Weeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaa. The final siren.

And then the shivering in the ground. The horrible creaking of massive forces as the earth began breaking apart.

Merlin stared in horror around the quarry. “No! Dr Harcourt said they wouldn’t. She said the sirens are just to warn you – she said it was safe!”

The air filled with splinters of flying rock.

Chapter Thirty-four

Isis

She was made of star-born metals, her thoughts running in colour. She was arms and legs, muscles and a beating heart. She was nothing but spirit, the lightest of all.

Human, ghost, alien.

I feel like I’m stretching too far, holding all this together.

Whose thought was that? Hers, the human girl? Or hers, the vast alien? Or hers, the little ghost?

Don’t worry about it, my dear. A Mandeville thought.

There’s no time! Was that Gray?

No time! Not human time, not alien time. The explosion would be quicker than either. She had to move, fast as a heartbeat, fast as a human thought. Rise up, fly up, right now.

Now?

Now now now NOW!

The shaking rattled her eyelids open.

Blazing, teary light. A blurry shape. Gray was shaking her, trying to get her standing.

“We have to get out of here!” He was shouting, his words almost lost in the loud, relentless pattering, like a hailstorm. He pulled her by her arm. “Come on!”

Strange, unfathomable images filled her thoughts, and whatever part of her mind had been stretched when holding the ghosts and alien together, now it had ripped apart. Her legs were stiff, and the ground… it wasn’t Gray who was shaking her – everything was moving. A downward dance of pebbles was falling from every slope in the quarry; a boulder shook, high in the rock face above them, then tumbled out of place, crashing and cracking as it fell. Gray yanked Isis backwards as the boulder thudded into the dirt where they’d been standing.

Without warning the ground beneath her foot dropped away. She staggered, her ankle twisting sideways, and someone else grabbed her. Dreadlocks and a beard. Merlin.

“What’s happening?” Her words were a croak.

“They’ve set off the blast!” Gray shouted.

Merlin was clutching his dreadlocks. “But they know we’re in here, I told Dr Harcourt!”

“She’d do it anyway,” screamed Gray. “She’s one of them!”

“One of who?”

Another rock crashed out of the quarry face, spinning and splintering as it fell.

“Out!”

Isis ran, following Gray and Merlin, trying to reach the track, as the ground shuddered and shifted with every step, quaking so hard she could barely stay upright. Dust filled the air as an avalanche of rocks and boulders collapsed out of the quarry wall.

She ran faster. Don’t fall don’t fall don’t fall! A thunderous, cracking sound roared through the quarry, and Gray stumbled backwards, crying out. A deep gully had opened in front of them, the ground plummeting away.

“Look out!” screamed Merlin as a gaping rent appeared, just to their right. They scrambled sideways, the solid dirt they’d been standing on collapsing into a deep hole. Isis held onto Gray, onto Merlin, as the ground shook and shook beneath them, shuddering in every direction. A deep rumble filled the air, punctuated by loud popping sounds. Thick dust coated their throats and stung their eyes. Through the haze, up on the hillside, Isis saw trees