The Power of Five Oblivion

down to the galley to make a hot drink, as if we couldn’t tear ourselves away from the deck where we were standing. There were lots of things I wanted to ask. What was so important about the Sheerwall Tunnel? Did we have enough fuel to get there? Were there any more locks on the way? But I kept my mouth shut. I would find out soon enough.
    And slowly, slowly the night faded and the dawn arrived, streaks of pale grey spreading through the sky. Had I somehow fallen asleep on my feet? The landscape had completely changed. We were on the edge of a city. There were buildings all around us, the remains of factories with smokestacks and loading bays. I could see at once that they were deserted. The doors were hanging open, showing dank interiors. Most of the windows were smashed. There was debris everywhere: bits of old machinery, oil tanks, tyres and industrial bins lying on their side. The ground rose up ahead of us and I could see houses, squeezed together like some of the cottages in my village, sharing a front gate. But there were rows and rows of them, more houses than I’d seen in my life. I got the feeling that they were all empty. I don’t know why. I suppose there could have been people inside, asleep, but they just felt deserted.
    “We’re less than a mile away,” the Traveller said. He sounded exhausted. The bleeding had stopped but he had been up all night, wrapped in pain.
    “How much less?” Jamie was still steering. I don’t know how he found the strength. He too had had no sleep.
    “The Nexus will be waiting for us. They know we’re here.”
    They know we’re here .
    The words had no sooner left his mouth than I saw them. Three police helicopters were coming at us out of a sky that had gone from grey to white. They were flying in an arrow formation, still some distance away but closing in on us so fast that when I looked at them a second time, they seemed to have doubled in size. At the same time, Jamie cried out and pointed straight ahead. I followed his finger to a patch of empty land on the other side of the houses. At first I thought it was raining. Thousands of tiny black objects seemed to be falling to the ground. But then I realized that before they hit, they were slowing down. They were actually controlling their descent. They were living things.
    Flies. A gigantic swarm of flies was pouring down and even as I watched, it began to form itself, like black smoke, breaking up and taking on the shape of men on horses. I had never seen anything like it. It was like black wax being poured into a mould. The separate figures were forming themselves in front of my eyes. In a minute they would be complete and then they would ride forward, passing through the streets and down the hill to the canal.
    But there was the tunnel! It was right ahead of us, a circular entrance with a dark passageway leading into the hill, beneath the houses. Suddenly the Lady Jane , which had carried us steadily through the night, seemed to have slowed down to a crawl. The helicopters were getting closer and closer. I could hear the whirring of the blades. The horsemen were almost complete. We were trapped between them and no matter how hard I looked, the tunnel refused to get closer.
    “We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it.” For a brief moment I didn’t know who was saying that. Then I realized it was me.
    But was I right? And what difference would it make, anyway? I suddenly saw that putting any faith in the Sheerwall Tunnel was a waste of time. It was only about twenty metres long. I could see the circle of light on the other side. The helicopters could simply park beside the canal and wait for us to come out. Or the flies could break up again and come in after us. Even if the Traveller stopped the engine right in the middle, we couldn’t hide in there for ever. Why had he brought us here?
    The helicopters flew overhead, so close that I could see the screws underneath the cockpit, and the scream of the rotors and the blast of air almost knocked me off the boat. There was a flat area beside the factory – perhaps it had once been a car park – and one after another they hit the ground, rocking briefly in the air before touching down. Almost at once the doors slid open and uniformed men burst out – so many of them that I wondered how they had all fitted in. Not all men. The woman who was in charge of them was there too, her ginger hair blowing wildly around her face. Meanwhile, the fly-soldiers