‘It’s 11.20, if that’s what you want to know.’
‘Okay. That means Deira will be working somewhere. Any ideas?’
‘I have been searching for the other AIs. There’s no sign of Swift anywhere, but Jiao appears to be in England.’
‘Probably Chayka’s lab. Okay, so if Tao’s with Juliette, we’ll start there.’
He immediately formed a fold and stepped through into the scanner room in Chayka’s lab, where Chard had located Jiao. Tao seemed to have just climbed off the scanner gurney, and was still hooked up to various monitors, and Deira was helping remove some of the wires. Some sort of experiment, obviously.
Suddenly, Deira looked up and saw him. He grinned and waved, expecting a happy welcome. Instead, she took one look at him and went ashen, her mouth gaping and eyes opening wide in shock. His grin disappeared. Was there something wrong with him? It was Chard, as usual, who gave him the answer.
‘You’ve been away more than eight weeks, Sol. The last time you spoke to Deira, you were on the fragment of Titan heading to Mars. She probably thought you were dead.’
‘Ohhh,’ he said, feeling incredibly stupid.
He began to say that it was alright, that it really was him, when two things happened simultaneously – Tao turned towards him and Deira collapsed. Juliette had been standing off to one side with Gary, looking through some of the recordings, but as she caught sight of him, she looked ill too.
‘Dad?’ she whispered.
Sol rushed over to Deira, lifted her off the floor, and placed her on the scanner gurney. He gently stroked her hair and face, but she remained stubbornly unresponsive. He glanced around. The effect of his sudden appearance had been almost paralysing on the others. Tao was rooted to the spot, apparently unable to believe her eyes. Chayka had given a brief, surprised lift of his eyebrows before his face returned to its usual passivity. Gary had frozen in place, his eyes on stalks. It was up to Juliette to make the first move.
‘DAD!’
She raced across the intervening distance and threw herself at Sol, and he was just able to steady himself in time before she hurtled into his arms. Then she was bawling her eyes out on his chest and holding him so tight he wondered how he was still able to breathe.
‘It’s okay, Jules. It’s really me. Sorry to give you such a fright.’
All he got was a series of sobs in return.
‘Sol?’
It was the merest whisper, but to Sol it meant the world. It was Deira. Her eyes were wide and staring. Gently, he pried Juliette free, leaned over and kissed her. There was no response. She seemed to be in shock. What had he done with his sudden, theatrical entrance?
‘Dee. It’s really me.’ He stroked her face again. ‘I’m not dead, and you’re not imagining this.’
‘Sol?’ Some light came back into her eyes, though she was still clearly unconvinced. ‘You’re here? I’m not dreaming?’
Sol pulled her to him and kissed her hard and long on the lips. Once again, there was no response.
‘Does that feel like a dream?’ he asked. Truth be told, he was scared his prolonged absence might have screwed things up irretrievably between Deira and himself.
He gazed into her eyes – those emerald green-eyes that had fascinated him from the moment he’d first met her – and finally saw them flash with fire, like he remembered. If anything, he thought they were brighter than he’d ever seen them. Then he realised the brightness was partly due to the tears that were only now beginning to flow.
‘No, it doesn’t.’ She smiled, a huge radiant smile that lit up her face like a supernova. ‘Do it again.’
Sol didn’t need any second invitation and, as she reached up and put her arm round his neck, he responded with an urgency that came from deep within. Things would have probably progressed from there if Juliette hadn’t intervened. She was still sobbing and put her arms round Sol again so that he was squeezed between the two ladies of his life. He gently pulled away from Deira.
‘Er, Dee. I think we’ve got a bit of an audience.’
Deira suddenly realised where she was and sat up on the gurney, staring wildly round. Tao came forward and offered Sol her hand.
‘Welcome back, Sol. You sure know how to make an entrance.’
Sol stared at the offered hand and ignored it completely. Instead, he pulled her to him and hugged her tightly.’
‘Thanks Tao. Not much into hand-shaking, I’m afraid.’ He glanced back at Deira and Juliette who were now hugging each other, then waved across at Chayka and Gary. ’No Josh, then? I thought he might have been with you.’
Tao had been almost dead on her feet from her recent foray into sub-quantal space, and Sol’s unexpected appearance had almost pushed her into emotional overload. How she held it together she’d never know – she just knew she had to get everyone out of here.
‘Josh is on a mission,’ she said. ‘Can I suggest we all go back to your house? You guys obviously need some private time – and I badly need some food and sleep.’
Sol looked uncomprehending for a moment, then properly took in the situation and nodded.
‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘Home first, then pizza. You know, Tao, you look as if you might just fall asleep on your feet. What have you been up to?’
‘Not now.’ Tao gave a mighty yawn. ‘We’ll swap stories later, but for now – the pizza sounds good.’
Sol seemed to be the only fully-functioning agent so, following a perfunctory wave goodbye to Gary and Chayka, he formed a portal and they stepped through into the MacMahon living room. Sol immediately folded off to get the pizza and Tao slumped in an armchair, just about managing to stay awake. Deira was left holding Juliette’s hand.
‘
‘I didn’t just hallucinate all that, did I?’ she said, almost expecting Juliette to ask, ‘all what?’
Juliette didn’t think she’d ever felt so happy in her life. Despite being red-eyed and tear-stained, she simply couldn’t take the most enormous smile off her face.
‘You certainly didn’t,’ she said. ‘That was Dad, doing what Dad does best – surprising us. Mum – we’re all together again. Well, nearly, anyway. We thought we’d lost both Dad and Josh and they’ve turned up alive and well. ‘
Deira finally allowed herself to relax. In fact, she suddenly felt something like Tao – dead tired. She nodded contentedly.
‘Yeah. I’ve got my family back. Against all the odds.’ She yawned. ‘Now, anything’s possible.’
Chapter 23
So where have you been all this time?’ Deira said. ‘You’ve put me through hell – and then some. I even had a funeral for you, for God’s sake.’
Sol smiled weakly. He was so pleased to be back and to have Deira apparently recovered from the shock of seeing him that he could take any amount of telling-off. It just felt right – normal again after all the weirdness of the past weeks. They’d finished the pizzas a few minutes ago and Tao had crawled up the stairs to bed. The rest of them sat around the table finishing off a bottle of wine.
Deira had found a new lease of life after her post-adrenaline downturn, and Juliette appeared to be on a permanent high. She’d been to the bathroom to wash her face and was grinning so much Sol worried she might crack something.
‘I’m real sorry, Dee,’ he said. ‘I just got so tied up with things.’
‘Yeah, that’s what you do.’
Deira’s anger was a fleeting thing amid all the other conflicting emotions. Yes, she’d thought he was dead, and yes, she’d mourned him – but how could she be angry when here he was, alive and well? How could she be angry when her life had begun again in earnest. First Josh, and then Sol – thought lost and then found. Despite what she’d been through over the past weeks, she’d been incredibly lucky. Not many got a second chance like this.
They spent the next couple of hours updating each other on what they’d been through. Filling in the blanks, Sol called it. Since he’d been keen to know how Juliette had escaped Mars, tha
t’s where they started – the last few minutes of the asteroid attack. Sol puffed up with pride when he heard how she had saved everyone on Mars Base.
‘Hell, Jules, you’re a hero. How’d you do it?’
Juliette told him how Josh had helped her, only to get blown apart in the nuclear explosion. Sol’s face simply couldn’t be described.
‘He’s alright,’ Juliette swiftly followed-on. ’He’s stuck in sub-quantal space, but at least he’s alive.’
That, of course led on to Tao’s attempt to rescue Josh that resulted in her being stuck in sub-quantal space, too. Then, how she’d managed to escape on her own after talking to Josh and the sub-quantal entities. They’d forgotten just how much had happened – and that was before Sol started on his story.
Finally, it seemed they were up-to-date. Except – there was one big issue. Sol hadn’t said anything at the time, not wanting to interrupt the narrative flow, but he’d picked up on the fact that Josh, Tao and Deira appeared to think the sub-quantal entities required assistance, not realising the risk if they were to escape. He gazed around the little group, wondering how best to raise the issue.
‘Well,’ he said, slightly hesitantly, ‘we’ve all been very busy, haven’t we?’
‘But?’
Deira was scrutinising him. She’d picked up the tell-tale signs that he wasn’t happy about something some time ago and had wondered when he’d get around to talking about it. Sol gave a half-smile.
‘You know me so well,’ he said.
‘It’s not difficult. You’re completely transparent. Now, what’s the problem?’
‘Well – it’s to do with the sub-quantal entities. You say we need to help evacuate them.’
Deira frowned and bit her lip. ‘Yep. I thought we were all agreed on that.’
‘You’re all agreed on it. The problem is, the El think the exact opposite. They’re convinced these entities must stay in sub-quantal space if the universal constants are to be upheld. Hell, Dee, they’re part of a galaxy-wide, possibly even universe-wide, organisation that exists for that one single purpose. To keep them confined.’
Deira looked at Juliette in confusion. ‘What’s your take on this, Juliette?’
‘Well, Mum, we believe Josh because he was given the data mentalically by the sub-quantal entities – and you can’t lie with mentalics. So, the question is, what data do all these other races have that makes them believe the opposite?’
Now it was Sol’s turn to be confused. He’d been so sure while he was on the El ship, so convinced by the argument, that he hadn’t asked for access to the raw data. It had seemed so obvious – hell, it still seemed obvious – that if all these races thought the same thing it couldn’t be wrong. And Josh was, after all, getting his data from the very beings who were affected. Whatever you thought about the necessary truth of mentalics, this just didn’t seem right.
‘What data does Josh have?’ he asked. ‘As far as I can see, the only data available is the very small perturbations of the constants. It’s the interpretation of that fact that’s the issue. How do we reach a conclusion based on inadequate information?’ He raised an eyebrow and grinned. ‘What about that? I sound like Chard.’
‘Maybe we can’t,’ Deira said. ‘We might have to go with a hunch.’
Sol shook his head. ‘Dee, you know how much I love your hunches, but are you really prepared to risk the fate of the universe on one? Personally, I’d like to make a rational decision based on real data.’
Deira looked miserable. ‘I can’t argue with that. So, what do we do?’
Juliette had remained relatively quiet for the last few minutes, while she thought things through, but it seemed fairly obvious to her what their next step should be.
‘We get hold of both sets of data,’ she said. ‘Then we can compare one set with the other and see what the differences are. I’m sure Professor Chayka could help.’
Deira nodded. ‘That makes sense. I don’t think getting Chayka on board will be difficult, and we can easily get the sub-quantal entities’ data from Josh. The main problem is the El. Do you have any way of contacting them, Sol?’
Sol remembered his last few days on the El ship, and how desperate he’d been to escape. Becoming entangled with them again wasn’t exactly top of his to-do list, and he had no idea how to contact them in any case. Hell, he didn’t even know who might be in charge now, and what their intentions were.
‘They’re inside a moving ship that’s surrounded by a folded-space barrier,’ he said. ‘It’s just impossible.
‘Josh folded to a moving asteroid,’ Deira said, ‘and he got past a folded-space barrier on the Cthon planet.’ She looked suddenly doubtful. ‘I suppose putting the two together might be a bit of a problem, though. And Josh isn’t here anyway.
‘Tao is,’ Juliette put in. ‘I’ll bet she could do it.
Deira knew that Juliette hero-worshipped Tao, thinking she was capable of almost anything. She, herself, wasn’t at all sure. It seemed the whole point of the El strategy was to safeguard themselves from mentalic attacks – and they’d had plenty of experience in that matter. Sol obviously felt the same.
‘I just can’t see how Tao could do it,’ he said. ‘Chard and I had a brief chat about time-folding, but this isn’t like a planet-based barrier. You can’t fold back to before the barrier exists and walk across because the damned ship’s in a vacuum.’
Juliette wasn’t about to give up. ‘I still think Tao could do it,’ she said. That’s providing we can determine the exact location of the ship and its orbital characteristics. She’d need to fold to a position in time and space that would allow the ship and the barrier to form round her.’
Deira and Sol were less than convinced.
‘Is that possible?’ Deira asked.
‘Don’t think so,’ Sol said. ‘That ship’s orbiting within the Martian atmosphere – or what used to be the Martian atmosphere – and the temperature outside is several hundred Celsius. Wouldn’t Tao have to first fold to a point in space and then fold forwards? If so, she’d never survive the temperature, even if she was wearing a space suit.’
‘I don’t think it needs to work like that,’ Juliette said. ‘I think she could do it all in one go. Then she wouldn’t be exposed to the conditions outside the ship at all.’
‘Hell, Jules,’ Sol said. ‘That’s three impossible things to do before bedtime.’
‘Ask her when she wakes up. I’m sure she could do it.’
‘Okay, hon. We’ll do that.’ Deira had begun to pace as she considered things. ‘The problem is, we only have one Tao. She’s the only one who can come and go to sub-quantal space, as well as the only one who can get past the Eich barrier. Now we’re suggesting she might be able to get to the El ship as well. The poor girl can’t be everywhere.’
Juliette’s face fell. ‘Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. Look, we’re trying to second-guess things here. Why don’t we just wait and get Tao involved when she’s awake?’
‘That’s about the best suggestion I’ve heard so far,’ Deira said. ‘I’m getting a headache thinking about all this anyway, so why don’t we adjourn until tomorrow?’
Everyone agreed that this seemed to be the best way forward in this highly complex scenario, so they all made their way upstairs. Sol closed the bedroom door and gazed at Deira, who’d begun to get ready for bed.
‘Got a headache, you say?’
‘Oh.’ Deira stopped undressing and contrived to look surprised. ‘Sorry, I’d forgotten about you. I’ve been so used to having the bed to myself, I’d …’
‘Come here.’ Sol walked the few metres that separated them and swept her off her feet. Luckily, the rooms in the old house were relatively soundproof, so Juliette didn’t hear the giggles that ensued. Nor did she hear the other, somewhat louder sounds, as Sol and Deira got re-acquainted. Truth be told, she wouldn’t have minded if she had. She was just so happy to have everyone safe again.
§
The next mor
ning was characterised by a general sense of well-being, even Tao feeling refreshed and ready for anything again. After a hearty breakfast, they settled themselves round the dining room table intent on putting some flesh on their rather skeletal plans from the night before. First thing was to update Tao on Sol’s adventures with the El and his assertion that the sub-quantal entities should be forced to remain in sub-quantal space. Then they told her what they’d discussed in terms of a plan – and how she seemed rather central to that plan. She sat for a moment, contemplating the idea of a time-space-fold to the orbiting ship.
‘I can do an all-in-one time-space-fold, but I’ve never folded to a small moving object before. That’s one thing at least that Josh has got over me.’
‘You can’t do it, then?’ Deira asked.
‘No, I’m saying I can’t do it now.’ Tao smiled. ‘I’m sure I could learn how, but why bother when Josh is available to show me?’
‘So, you’re saying … what exactly?’
‘We’ll check in with Chayka first. Then I’ll visit Josh to find out how to fold to a fast-moving object. I’ll see if I can get the data the sub-quantal entities are working from at the same time, then I’ll take a trip to see the El and get hold of their data too. Once I’ve got both sets, I’ll drop them off with Chayka. Job done, I think.’
Deira and Sol exchanged glances, both having similar thoughts about this incredibly able young woman, who might well end up as their daughter-in-law if everything turned out. They found it hard to believe she could talk about such complex actions in such a throwaway manner. It demonstrated such a level of ability it was almost scary.
‘And you’re confident you can do this?’ Deira said.
‘Piece of cake.’ Tao grinned, and stood up. ‘Shall we get going?’
Deira had that unmistakable feeling of being organised again. She, herself, was an organising sort, but Tao took it to a whole new level. How would that work with Josh, who tended to be much more of a free spirit, like his father? She didn’t know, but since such a relationship had obviously worked with herself and Sol, there was no reason it shouldn’t for Josh and Tao.
Gods of Titan- The Cosmic Constants Page 18
