Duncan Barford

Damon leant naked into the gale. The wind at the cliff’s edge blasted him and waves boiled on the shore. His wings billowed with the power of the air-torrent, but instead of launching himself he dug his hooves into the soil and waited for Morgana’s summons.

He tuned his implant to the nanobots and listened to their chirping. The air of this reconstructed world was so pure! His yellow eye-slits narrowed. The oxygen burnt his nostrils, and he couldn’t decide which was more terrible: the death of a species, or this - its new beginning.

Hours earlier, a swirl of pink particles bounced inside a brick-lined pit, dug into a flag-stoned floor. In these underground compartments, flaming torches were the cathedral’s only light-source. The particles danced, resolving into an unclothed human, whom the nanobots lifted to the pit’s rim.

The man’s eyes opened. He focused on Damon and started to scream.

‘Lord, help me!’

Damon said nothing. He’d learnt that reanimations went more smoothly when he stayed silent. Seconds passed, and as the human realised he wasn’t under immediate threat he calmed a little.

‘Forgive me,’ the human gasped, hiding his reproductive organs behind his hands. ‘I never believed I’d truly come face to face with God Almighty. Or with you, for that matter.’

Damon was quietly impressed. When they prostrated themselves, it only tended to embarrass him.

‘Your world is ended,’ he explained to the man. ‘Your species is gone.’

The human’s eyes glimmered with comprehension.

‘We’re extinct?’

‘We’re rebuilding you,’ Damon said.

The human peered behind himself, into the darkness of the reassembly pit.

‘May I ask why?’ he shuddered.

‘Because native species are best adapted to a planet. You shall tend this world and we will live with you.’

‘Is there a choice?’

‘Those who do not comply will not come back.’

The human gave a bitter laugh. ‘We work as a race of glorified gardeners, or stay dead forever. Is that it?’

‘We’re rebuilding your world…’

‘We won’t be slaves!’

Less than half Damon’s size, and dead for the past twelve thousand years, the human was in no position to argue, yet he beat his fist defiantly against his palm.

‘We won’t put up with this!’

Damon stepped back in surprise from the squawking creature and jabbed a talon at a control panel. The human’s face convulsed and broke into dust. His particles fell and scattered, like frost shaken from a branch.

* * *

In common with all females, Morgana was three times taller than the largest male. Black hair cascaded over her monumental shoulders, forming tendrils that curled against her breasts.

She unfurled her wings, a gesture that denoted formal communication.

‘What do you mean: the Rebuild cannot happen?’

‘I mean it should not,’ Damon answered. ‘These creatures are different. I recorded what it said -’

‘I heard it before.’ Morgana’s voice rumbled disdainfully against the cathedral wall. ‘They won’t accept their world is over. They cannot comprehend we are their saviours.’

Damon knew his thoughts were heresy, but he had to speak.

‘Are their lives ours to give? Why must we colonise dead worlds?’

Morgana’s head rolled back. Her laughter was like organ chords.

‘A world where nothing ever lived is not fit for life! It is a boon for mortal species to share our immortality.’

‘But we do not share,’ protested Damon. ‘We enslave, so that we may live comfortably.’

‘No!’ Morgana boomed, her eye-slits dilating with irritation. ‘Now, will you assist me, or do I send for a replacement?’

He lowered his head. He’d proved his worth to Morgana on many occasions, but knew that this time he’d overstepped the mark.

‘Let us bring life to this dead planet,’ Morgana said, her tone softening.

She folded her wings, a sign that the conversation was ended.

* * *

Across the planet, each nanobot sounded. Individually, each was only an atom vibrating. Yet collectively they formed a planetary chorus, binding the globe in an ascending pulse.

The call roused Damon from his reverie. Its brassy tone gathered in intensity as he leapt from the cliff and spread his wings. He glided inland with the gale at his back. He’d jumped with seconds to spare. Below him, arms and legs erupted from the soil, clutching at air in showers of mud. Bare feet kicked, desperate for purchase on solid ground. Naked humans floundered to the surface like worms.

Damon soared overhead, wondering about the man, who was down there somewhere - not at the cliff’s edge, he hoped, averting his face from the grim spectacle of those falling to a second death. Even more were dying underfoot, crushed by the panicking mob. Wherever Damon’s winged shadow fell, the crowd screamed and cowered.

Let Morgana replace me! he thought. He couldn’t endure this cruelty any longer. Revolving his control pad, he pressed a sequence of keys. Instantly the nanobots’ song splintered and faded to silence. In its place rose a tide of sighs and whispers, screams and shouts of fury. Damon flew higher, but couldn’t escape. He’d discovered the trumpet-call’s true purpose: it drowned out the sufferings of the reborn.

‘Fool!’ Morgana’s voice hissed from his auditory implant. ‘Report at once!’

‘We must turn them back to dust,’ he stammered. ‘Leave this planet in peace…’

‘You have cost us our control! It will be hours until the nanobots can re-group...’

He thought it was the noise from below drowning Morgana’s voice, but now he realised - the sound of the crowd was coming from inside his implant.

‘They’ve broken through!’ Morgana gasped.

The spires of the cathedral rose toward Damon over the seething horizon. Humans were thronging the walls. Some had scaled the buttresses, climbing onto others’ shoulders, scrabbling at the stonework. Most of them fell and were trampled.

The rosette window dominating the main façade suddenly exploded. Shards of deadly glass showered the crowd.

‘Morgana!’ Damon screamed.

One arm thrown up to protect her face, she beat her wings and struggled for lift, her hair streaming like a pennant. Humans dangled from her legs. The dive through the window dislodged some, but many clung on. This extra weight was preventing her from rising. Gradually, she was sinking and the crowd, overcoming its fear of her wings, reached up to pull her down.

Damon plummeted, aiming to strike the clinging creatures away. They snatched at her wing tips. They hadn’t the strength to hold on, but were robbing her of momentum, and she sank even further. Before he could reach her, her wings touched earth. And then the crowd leapt, bringing her down. They swarmed over, biting and tearing.

Her arms were wrapped about her head too tightly for him to see her face. The last trace of her was a ripple in the mass of bodies.

Damon struggled skyward before the humans caught him too. Acid tears dripped from his eye-slits as he fled. The only chance was to fly - as high and far as he could. It might be days before others came, and until then no piece of land was safe.

He headed for open sea. There, he could escape the clamour of the suffering. But once he grew too tired to fly, he knew he’d drop - like his tears had dropped - down into the Hell he’d created.