And All the Stars Read Online Free Page B

not hundreds of lives around the world. If this isn't an attack, then it's negligence
of–"
    The terse,
combative words reawakened Madeleine's headache, and she flipped channels until
she found a picture of one of the black needles piercing a grassy park. No sign of windows, doors, openings of any
kind: just a round, black column narrowing to a point. From a distance you couldn't even see the
stars.
    The picture
changed, showing the park without the tower, with a couple of joggers pounding
across it. And then a blink-and-you-miss
it moment, an almost instantaneous arrival which was then played again, slowed
down to demonstrate that the Spire had risen , not landed, and with far
less damage than anyone would expect from such an event.
    Aliens from
underground?
    "...clear
from viewing the Tokyo, Manila, and Sydney Spires that they are not
identical. A comparison to nearby
buildings shows the Sydney Spire to be some six hundred metres in height. The Manila spire is more than three times
this size, rising over a kilometre and a half above Villamor Golf Course. The narrow base of the
Spires compared to their height – in some cases not more than a hundred metres
across – suggests that they extend deep underground. At least one hundred – closer to one hundred
and fifty cities..."
    The Spire currently
on-screen – Madeleine had no idea what city it belonged to – began to vanish
behind a haze, a vagueness which thickened, extended, became a plume, a cloud,
an immensity which grew so quickly that Madeleine wondered how the entire
underground of St James Station had not been packed solid. It was clear, though, that the majority of
the dust was coming through at the top.
    The camera
recording the scene had to be kilometres away, but it soon showed nothing but
purple-tinted white, and then there was a time-jump in the playback and the
Spire began to appear again, looming out of the thinning cloud. Madeleine wondered how many people had been
coated as completely as her, and how many were still crammed into the nearest
shelter, waiting for the dust to settle. Searching themselves for the any sign of what would happen next.
    Singing, slow and
sultry. Madeleine shifted, then realised
she'd dozed off, and reached for her mobile, murmuring a response.
    " Maddie ? Sweetheart,
are you okay?"
    "Dad." Madeleine sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Fine – I was just resting. Did you and Mum get home in time?"
    "Don't worry
about us: we're all tucked up. Even got
the animals in. Listen, you're going to
have to sit tight there, at least till it rains. Don't go out while that stuff's still all
over the ground. And drink bottled
water."
    "Lucky there's
a coffee shop here." Madeleine muted
the television, hoping her father hadn't picked up on the noise, then poked at
laptop keys, trying to bring the screen to life. "How long till they know what the dust
does?"
    "That's
anyone's guess. I doubt a visual
examination will tell us anything – unless it's bacterial and already
known. Smaller animals would react to it
first, but of course not necessarily in the same way as humans." Her father, a devoted vet, sighed. "I have a great view of the Nguyen's
retriever. Racing up and down, showing
no signs of anything yet. It's nothing
like so bad out here though – you can only see the dust on dark surfaces."
    "But it blew
all the way to Leumeah." Her family
currently lived in an outlying Sydney suburb, more than fifty kilometres from
the city centre. "Dad...I'm
sorry. I–"
    "All that
matters is that you're safe inside." Her father's voice had thickened. "Though once this is all over, you're grounded till you're
twenty."
    Madeleine kept him
on the phone, asking questions he didn't have answers to, then talked to her
mother, making up more lies about the Art Gallery, and conversations she hadn't
had with Gallery staff. She'd been lying
to her mother too often lately, and usually felt quietly guilty about needing
to, but was glad for the moment to concoct a