the planet’s own mysterious energies. She could sense its myriad descendants even in the heart of the barren Ethiopian wilderness. There was not a corner of the planet that the offspring of the primordial DNA had not touched.
She kept her focus on the statues. If her desperate plan had any chance of working, she needed to learn how to control the power running through them.
And quickly. Through the maelstrom of unworldly sensation she heard Warden’s voice: ‘Take them to the meteorite. Now!’
Nina opened her eyes. The statues were not levitating; her hands were tightly clasped round their bases, holding them together, but she could feel the bizarre pressure as they tried to lift away from her. She moved towards the meteorite, everyone following with expressions of awe or expectation.
With two exceptions. Sophia took the opportunity to pick up Eddie’s gun . . . and Eddie himself kept a close watch on Nina, waiting for the cue to make his move.
Whatever that cue might be.
Nina reached the meteorite. The statues’ glow was now almost dazzling – and there was a strange charge in the air, as if the giant rock were humming in anticipation of the return of its long-separated splinters. She looked back. The faces of the surviving Group members were filled with rapacious greed.
‘Do it!’ Warden ordered again, but she didn’t need the prompt, already drawing a nervous breath . . . and touching the three statues to the sky stone.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the coating of sulphur and ash sizzled where the figurines met the meteorite as if dissolved by acid, centuries of grimy volcanic deposits flaking away. The purple rock beneath was revealed . . . and it too began to glow.
The entire ledge suddenly shook, everyone on it battling to remain standing. Nina shielded her eyes as a blizzard of dirty dust cascaded off the meteorite, repelled from its surface as the unearthly light grew brighter. The onlookers staggered back.
Slowly, impossibly, the stone began to rise.
It creaked and crackled as its weight shifted. Small pieces broke off, maintaining their glow for a few seconds before the earth energy they were charged with dissipated and they clattered to the stony floor.
Nina felt the power running through her body – and somehow knew, an instinctual certainty from deep within, that she could channel it, direct it. She willed the enormous rock to move . . . and it began to glide lazily away from the centre of the circle of statues. Another mental urging, and it slowed with the ponderous weight of a freight train, hanging silently two feet above the ledge.
Warden stepped forward, feet crunching through the sloughed-off dirt, and raised a hand to the meteorite – but held his fingertips an inch short, as if afraid that his touch would let gravity reclaim its hold. ‘We have it,’ he said in awe. ‘We have it all. Earth energy, the progenitor DNA . . . we can do it. We can carry out the plan.’
Both Brannigan and Meerkrieger were caught up in his growing excitement. ‘No more conflict,’ said the Australian woman, moving closer to examine the shimmering rock. ‘No more waste. We’ll have control over every single person on the planet.’
‘Total control,’ added the media baron. He signalled for Nina to lower the meteorite; it responded to her mental direction, settling on the ledge with alarming groans and snaps of overstressed stone. She stepped back, breaking contact by separating one of the statues from the others, but the huge rock remained aglow. The larger the object, it seemed, the longer it could hold its earth energy charge. ‘This is incredible!’
Warden was already making plans. ‘Once we get out, we’ll bring in more people, set up lines down into the volcano. We’ll cut the rock open and extract the DNA samples. As soon as we’ve got those, we can complete the sequencing process and release the virus. This is it,’ he said to his two remaining colleagues, his patrician scowl for once overcome by genuine euphoria. ‘This is our moment. We can remake the world – remake humanity! Everything that happens from now on will be according to our design.’
‘Not your design,’ said Sophia unexpectedly from behind them. ‘Ours.’
The Group members whirled – and were cut down as she opened fire with Eddie’s gun. Meerkrieger took two bullets in the chest, convulsing in agony before slumping lifelessly to the floor. Brannigan fell as another pair of shots tore into her. Warden was hit in the shoulder