THE RUNES 5^th and final part

 by Richard Banks

 He laughs, and I wonder if he has lost all reason.

         We have dinner at eight, after which we retire to the rooms we have been allocated. My window overlooks parkland, the dark shapes of trees shift gently in the breeze; a fox calls and I wonder if I too will become vermin to be hunted and made no more.

         I change into the pyjamas that have been provided and try to sleep, but my brain is buzzing with everything that has happened. Three o’clock comes and goes and I’m still awake, half past three it’s the same, but four I don’t remember and, without seeing the dawn, I wake up to find the sun shining through the curtains and making patterns on the wall. It’s eight thirty. I dress and descend the main stairs to the hall where I find Jones peering at a painting in a gilt frame. He seems to have slept better than I have and looks all the better for it.

         “Any news?” I say. He informs me that there’s none that matters. On TV the normal programmes are showing and the lead story in news bulletins concerns a Royal wedding.

         “The calm before the storm,” I say. Jones nods in a way that suggests he may know more than he is letting on.

         “Cheer up,” he says, while there’s life there’s hope. Let’s have breakfast.”

         Jones evidently believes that every man under sentence of death deserves a hearty meal and by the time we get round to dinner he’s onto his fourth. During the day the house has filled up with people. Jackson, the political activist, I recognise along with a few others but Jones tells me there are also twelve MPs, two former Ministers, and a High Court judge.

         At nine-thirty we pile into a fleet of dark windowed cars and make our way to the meeting place. Consistent with our status Jones and myself are in the last one and consequently the last to arrive. When we do we find everyone else out in the open, anxiously observing the sky above. There’s ten minutes to go; Jones runs back past the line of cars and vomits out his last meal, and probably the one before. A few others do the same, but the rest hold their ground, calmly waiting for whatever comes next.

         The Runes are nothing less than punctual and at 11pm exactly their craft appears on the horizon and within seconds is overhead, a hundred metres up. It is almost circular in shape but it glides not spins. There is a double row of amber-lit windows through which the movement of dark shapes can sometimes be seen. A hatch opens up in the belly of the craft and an object drops slowly to earth. It lands without appearing to fully make contact with the ground. Jackson strides out towards it at the head of a delegation that comprises himself and three other men. A door opens, they get in and are taken up into the ship which hovers above us. What looks like a mechanical eye peers down at us. We peer back. It blinks as though taking a photograph. There is a gasp of alarm but everyone stays where they are. Every minute seems like an hour.           

         Henderson appears and inserts himself between me and Jones. This is the first time we have seen him all day. 

         “So what’s happening?” I ask. It’s a silly question, a negotiation is taking place; if I think Henderson is going to give me chapter and verse I’m more stupid than the question, but Henderson, who should be saying nothing, replies with a single word, “danegeld.” He whispers the word softly so that only Jones and myself can hear. He’s like a small child with a secret he can’t keep to himself. He watches our reaction and ventures more words. “The biggest bribe in history, most of everything we have, gold, silver, diamonds, you name it, anything they want; no need for them to fight, no risk that we will lay waste to the planet; all they have to do is load up, fly off and leave us to ourselves.”

         “And will that work?”

         “Well now, did it work with the Danes?”

         The lesson from history is only too clear. Even worse, we don’t have the Government on our side. If the Runes do agree can we deliver what we offer?

         Henderson looks down at his watch. “Twenty minutes,” he says. That’s good, they’re doing well. Every minute now is a bonus.”

         None of this is making sense. We’re playing a poor hand with riches that are not ours to give, how can this be doing well? Henderson observes my confusion and seems to take satisfaction from it. “Let’s hope the Runes haven’t heard about HG,” he says.

         “HG,” I mutter and Jones looks similarly baffled. If Henderson is minded to say anything more he is saved the trouble by a chorus of voices announcing the return of the transit pod. Jackson and the others step from it and walk towards us without a backward glance at the alien ship which is leaving in the direction it came.

         “How goes it?” calls a voice from the crowd.

         “The worse bloody negotiation in history,” shouts Jackson, “a complete rickets. But I don’t care and neither should you. Let’s get back to the house; I’ll debrief you there, after that it’s drinks all round. It’s going to be OK, it’s all but over!”

                                                       *****

There were many like me who were at a loss to understand what Jackson was saying. Those who did, thought him too sure, too soon, and indeed he was. But who can blame him. He had entered the alien ship with every expectation he would die. Not only had he survived but been completely successful in what he set out to do.

         It was as the scientists predicted and in the following days the alien ships began to fall to ground. That this caused huge devastation with the loss of over five million lives can not be denied, or minimised, who would want to, but the rest of us, 7.9 billion at the last count, have survived, our lives unchanged but never more valued.

         Jackson was only one of many who contributed to their deliverance, but maybe no one was more important than the author, HG Wells who foretold that any ‘War of the Worlds’ would be decided in our favour by bacteria that our immune systems, over many centuries, had reduced to a minor irritant. Given the Runes technological superiority, it is unlikely that they would have been unaware of this danger to themselves in our atmosphere, a danger, however, not present in the airtight interior of their own craft. That’s when another literary device was remembered and made use of, the Trojan horse, which took the unusual guise of Jackson’s briefcase. Within it were germs culled from a hospital ward treating a minor outbreak of chickenpox, germs which when set free in the alien craft attached themselves to the Rune negotiators and travelled with them in the many red line transports between ships.

         The negotiation was, of course, a farce and our delegates soon exposed as impostors with an ill defined offer and no lawful authority to offer it. Having enraged the Runes, and been threatened with several life ending interventions likely to sully the décor, they were more than grateful to be shown the door. Indeed, had there been the alternative of an open window their return to earth might well have been more rapid than it was.

         Seven years later the story of the Runes has been told and retold many times, often by heads of Government claiming a major role in their defeat. According to North Korea’s ‘Dear Leader’ it was he alone who defeated them, while the Russians claim it never happened, that the devastation in Moscow was caused by the mid-air collision of two civilian airliners. To these fictions we must add the numerous inventions of conspiracy theorists.  But if you want to know what really happened read no more. I was there, and this is how it was.

                                                THE END      

Copyright Richard Banks