Diejen held him back by the scruff. “But you are lonely, Gilliam Tripsilion Nulth.”
“Not at all. I am busy, busy, busy!” He swivelled his head around and nipped her wrist to make her let go.
“Ow.” She rubbed her wrist with a rueful air. “I am busy, too, ferrying these bloody priests from one corner of Earth to another, and even to the colonies. I’m not complaining. It cannot be said too often: peace is better than war. Yet I am lonely.” She admitted it with a simplicity that stunned Gil, to whom nothing was ever simple.
He cringed, said, “Perhaps you should get married,” and fled before she could slap him in earnest.
Her brother Dryjon had married a girl from Kisperet. There he sat in the front row of the laity’s side, with his wife and their two children. He winked at Gil and made a drinking gesture as the queazel undulated up the steps to the sanctuary. Pretending not to notice, Gil took the place of honor on the bench between Bridget Wilson and Axel Best.
The monks lifted the cask up the steps and placed it on a table. Father Campbell declared, “Here it is! The first cask of 2367 chardonnay from the Skye Wine Cooperative!”
Applause, and shouts of “Hope there’s more where that came from.”
Gil believed that life had to be about more than just survival. While the humans concentrated on staying alive, he—perversely, perhaps—had recruited a workforce of Ghosts to plant a vineyard. The climate of Skye was similar to the polar climate on Juradis, albeit wetter. He had never successfully grown grapes on Juradis. To his pleasure, they did better on their home planet.
“We have Gilliam Tripsilion Nulth to thank for this, so before we tap the cask, perhaps we could have a few words from you, Gil?”
“Certainly,” said Gil, who had prepared extensive remarks on the challenges of winemaking. He rose, stood on his hindmost legs, and accepted the microphone from Father Campbell. He described the labor of breaking ground, the trial-and-error process of selecting the best grapes for the soil, and the factors he had considered when opting to store his vintage in wooden casks rather than clay jugs (“although we continue to experiment with amphorae, a technique the Ghosts inherit from their Roman forebears”). The journey, from first inspiration to imminent drinking, had taken ten years.
As he spoke, he focused on the familiar and beloved faces in the audience.
Dryjon Lizp, of course, with his wife Ansier and their four-year-old twins. Dryjon was rarely on Skye. Having taught himself electrical engineering, he was now helping to restore Earth’s power grid.
Diejen sat on the other side of her sister-in-law Ansier. Even at forty-five she was still lovely, Gil understood, by human female standards, but her smile looked strained. He realized that it must actually have cost her rather a lot to admit to him that she was lonely.
He was not lonely. Oh, no. How could he be, with his workforce standing in the back of the church, and all his friends hanging eagerly on his words? There in the second row were six queazels, including three Nulths, who had travelled here on the third round-trip voyage of the Unsinkable. They were inclined to treat Earth as an exotic tourist destination, but Gil planned to rope them into the effort to restore Earth’s high-tech manufacturing capability.
It would be needed when the sentrienza attacked again.
FTL drones had recently brought news of a second assault on the Betelgeuse system. Admiral Hyland’s much-expanded fleet had barely defeated the enemy force. Meanwhile, the Ghosts continued to report on Walking Guns harrying the colony worlds. One planet had been lost already. The human-queazel alliance remained vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the sentrienza empire. And the Gray Emperor’s extinction protocol was still in effect, as far as they knew. The vast distances that the sentrienza fleets must cover to reach this tiny corner of space had given them time to regroup, but it would not last forever.
They ought to be focusing on ship-building. Not wine-making.
But only a few people had the expertise to build ships. And what was everyone else to do, while they waited for the blow to fall? Simply cower?
No, they must carry on living,
Gil had learned this lesson from one person above all: Megumi Smythe-Best. She sat in the third row, grinning at him and meaningfully tapping her watch. Beside her sat eight-year-old Phil and two-year-old Yuai. Meg had suffered the worst trauma imaginable: the loss of a child. One did not recover from something like that. But one could keep going, and Meg had shown them all how it was done.
Gil segued with renewed ardor into the section of his remarks that dealt with barrel-making. He was describing the pitfalls of forging metal bands—they had first had to build a forge! But it also came in handy for making horseshoes and pots and pans—when someone tapped his hindquarters. He glanced around. Axel whispered, through a solemn and attentive expression, “Maybe wrap it up? Not sure they need quite this much detail, and everyone’s getting thirsty …”
Oh.
Realizing that Axel was probably right, Gil skipped the section about their first four, failed, vintages. Everyone knew about those, anyway.
He had wanted to conclude on a personal note, by telling them how his adventures in wine-making had cured his own dependency on alcohol and drugs. Strange but true: making wine substituted for drinking it. Nor did he any longer feel tempted to take pills or inject himself with stimulants, in search of some vaguely imagined peace. But actually, his cure owed more to the community on Skye than it did to his new hobby. By immersing himself in human life, he had outgrown his taste for human vices. And he did not really need to tell them about that. They could see it for themselves. He mentally shelved that section, too, for some future occasion.
“This concludes my remarks.”
Heartfelt applause.
“I would now like to accord the honor of tapping the cask to a human we all hold in the highest regard …” Gil extended a forepaw to a silver-haired woman sitting behind him. “Daisy Mackenzie!”
Amidst cheers, Daisy rose. Still active at eighty-three, she was a universally beloved mother figure to the Skye community. She, too, had lost a child.
“Let’s be having it,” she said cheerfully.
After a ceremonial hammer-blow from Daisy, the cask was tapped by a brawny Ghost, a spigot inserted. Gil poured the first glass of pale chardonnay and handed it to Daisy.
She sipped. Her mouth pursed up.
“Sakes, that’s disgusting.”
Father Campbell was next to sample the vintage. “Crisp,” he said. “Light. Fine. It’s got potential.” He hurriedly handed the glass on to someone else.
After everyone had tasted the wine, Gil regretfully concurred with the consensus that it was undrinkable. This failure did not sadden him overmuch. They were getting closer to drinkability with every batch. And the Scots being Scots, and the Ghosts being Ghosts, the awful wine provided more fodder for merriment than a decent vintage would have.
“We can always use it for Communion wine,” Father Campbell said.
They were milling around in the body of the church now, sharing mugs of hoppy ale made by a cooperative in Portree. Gil had foresightedly got in several barrels of ale just in case the wine turned out bad. The children had hot milk with honey.
“I wouldn’t mind some of that,” rasped a Scottish voice behind Gil.
The queazel turned. He found himself facing an elderly human male in a long black coat. The man held a tabby cat in his arms.
“Welcome,” said Father Campbell, who clearly did not recognize the elderly man either. “Are you visiting the island?”
“This is my grandfather’s house, ye upstart.”
A cry pierced the hubbub of conversation. “Daddy!?”
Bridget Wilson hurtled through the crowd. Her face glowed.
“I don’t believe it! Daddy!” She embraced the elderly man, cat and all.
A heartbeat behind her was Daisy Mackenzie. She faced the elderly man squarely. Her eyes glittered with tears. “You don’t look a day older,
” she said.
He gently folded her in his arms and kissed the top of her silver head. “Neither do you, my love.”
CHAPTER 58
OUTSIDE THE CHURCH, COLM waited with Nicky in his arms, shivering in the twilight. The slanting light and the mildness of the air, tempered by an evening chill, felt like summer. Runner beans and redcurrants garlanded stakes in the back garden. Yet they had left in winter. It must have taken a full six months for them to travel to Elphame and back.
Oh well; he was just glad to see the Free Church Manse still standing. Looked like his family has made some improvements, too. Apart from the garden, which was coming on beautifully, they’d cut down those scruffy old pines and planted what appeared to be oak saplings. A new extension abutted the gable end of the house—an odd little lean-to with a child-sized door. The church had received a coat of paint, and a new cross surmounted its roof ridge. A diesel generator stood against the west wall of the church, rumbling quietly. That would be the power source they’d flitted to. He’d been a bit worried that there wouldn’t be one. Had been braced to wind up in the back of some abandoned truck a hundred miles from home.
But here they were. “Here we are, Nicky. Home.” He smelled clover, and manure. Horses. The smell took him back to Kisperet, and for a debilitating second he didn’t know where was home and where was here.
Dhjerga came around the church. “Your father’s gone in,” he hissed excitedly. “Come on!” The doors stood open, and a happy buzz of conversation emerged. Colm felt reluctant to charge straight in, as Lloyd had done.
“Look at all those horse carts, Nicky,” he said, stalling. “And cars!” But Nicky was too tired to be interested in cars. He was riding on Colm’s hip, floppy with sleepiness, sucking his thumb. “Let’s go into the house,” Colm said. He felt ridiculously nervous.
The back door was ajar, the kitchen bustling and warm. Strangers stood around chatting. They raised their eyebrows at Colm, Dhjerga, and Nicky, and conversation ceased.
Colm smiled weakly. This was his house. What were all these strangers doing here? A teenage boy was pouring hot milk from a pan on the stove into mugs. Colm said, gesturing with his free arm, “I was just wondering could I have a cup of milk for the child …”
The boy dropped his pan on the floor. His voice cracked. “Uncle Colm?!?”
Colm backed away as the penny dropped.
This was Bridget’s son Ivor.
He was no longer a child.
He was almost grown up.
How long had they been away?
*
“Ten years,” Meg said. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen, holding a little girl the same age as Nicky. Axel, behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders. Both of them looked older. Gray in their hair. Ten bloody years? “You left ten years ago, Colm. We thought you were never coming back.”
“I’ve brought Nicky home,” Colm said, idiotically, as if Meg might not have noticed.
Meg’s face was stone. Then it cracked. Passing the little girl to Axel, she crossed the room and snatched Nicky from Colm. “Oh my sweetheart, my little love.”
“Mommy,” Nicky cooed, clinging to her. As far as he knew, he had only been parted from his mother yesterday.
Meg rocked him, her face wet. Nicky struggled and stretched out his arms to Axel. “Daddy!”
Ouch. Well, as far as Nicky was concerned, Axel was his daddy.
Axel and Meg held up Nicky and the little girl, face to face, playfully introducing them. Meg laughed excitedly— “Look, would you look at this, everyone, they’re the same age!”
“They are not,” Lloyd said, swaying in with a mug of beer. “Nicky’s ten years older.”
“Oh, I know, but look! It’s like we’ve got twins, honey.” She was speaking to Axel.
Bridget came in with a small boy who had Meg’s eyes and Axel’s fabulous cheekbones. It was just dawning on Colm that Meg and Axel had had more children since he left. Two more, in fact. “This is Phil,” Bridget said. “Named after Axel’s dad.”
“Hi, Phil,” Colm said. He rubbed his eyes, which were smarting. “I can’t wrap my head around this, Bridget.” She had gray hairs, too. She must be fifty. She was older than him now. She was supposed to be his little sister.
Axel squeezed through the crowd and pulled Colm into a hug. “You’re badass. Un-fucking-believable, man. So good to see you.”
Axel’s warm welcome seemed to be unfeigned. Colm had been braced for hostility. Thrown off-balance, he reminded himself that time heals all wounds. And Axel had had a lot longer to heal than he had. “Thanks for keeping the home fires burning. Any excitement while we were away?”
“Sure. You haven’t lived until you’ve lived on a farm. It’s not all wine-tasting and hymn-singing, you know. Try shearing sheep with a low-power laser!”
Colm smiled. His gaze travelled past Axel. Lloyd was sitting in his old place by the fire, recounting their adventures. His rapt audience included Meg, who was holding Nicky, rocking from foot to foot. Her face had filled out some, as well as acquiring new laughter lines and crow’s-feet. She looked confident. Grounded. “Axel …” Colm started, and didn’t know how to go on.
Lloyd said something that made everyone laugh. Meg, throwing back her head in mid-laugh, caught Colm’s eye. She came over to them, carrying Nicky. “Thank you,” she said to Colm. “You’re officially my hero.”
Then she passed Nicky off to Axel. She stepped closer to Colm and rose on tiptoe, so she could whisper into his ear.
“This is your home. But it’s my home, now, too. And Axel’s my husband.” He saw the ring on her finger then. “We tied the knot last year; it was about time. So don’t get any ideas about revisiting the past, ‘kay?” She slyly pinched his cheek. “You’d be a sucky father, anyway. You’re much better at wasting aliens than changing diapers.”
Both shocked and relieved, Colm laughed out loud. “You’re all right, Gunny.”
“Just leave the diaper-changing thing to the Marines,” Axel said with a grin.
“Spoken like a true hero,” Colm said. He could not take his eyes off Nicky’s little face on Axel’s shoulder, sticky eyelashes sealed, rosebud lips open. He felt a wrenching pang of loss. But he couldn’t make any noise about his paternal rights. This was justice. Nicky had been his son for only a day. He had been Axel’s all his life.
“OK,” Meg said. “Now here’s what you need to know in terms of the overall security situation.” Suddenly she was all soldier again. “We’re doing pretty good here, but we’re living on borrowed time. We are anticipating the arrival of a sentrienza fleet from the Orion Nebula in roughly nineteen months.”
“The Gray Emperor’s dead,” Colm said in disbelief.
“Is he?”
“Yes! I killed him.”
Over by the fire, Lloyd was recounting Colm’s feat with the Walking Guns. “He turned them on their own masters …”
“Nice job,” Meg said. “Problem is, the news hasn’t reached the rest of the sentrienza empire yet.”
Colm remembered that he’d come home at the speed of thought, which was much, much faster than any FTL drone. He wondered just how far away Elphame really was, and shivered. He might’ve been on the far side of the galaxy.
“And when they do find out you whacked the Gray Emperor,” Meg continued, “how do you think they’ll react? Think mayyybe they’ll be even madder at us?”
“Oh Christ. I’ve screwed up again, haven’t I?”
“Nah. Destroying Elphame was a big win. But we’re going to have to keep winning … again … and again …. and again. We have to win every time. They only have to win once.”
“Well, what’s our operational status?”
“One ship. No, you didn’t hear me wrong. We have one ship: the Unsinkable. Everything else is at Juradis, or the colony worlds. The Rat—who’s pretty much the leader of humanity now, I have to warn you—already had to fight off one fleet at Betelgeuse, and that didn’t go so well.”
“We survived. Barjoltan didn’t.”
Colm stiffened. “This is stupid, but … Gilliam Tripsilion Nulth?” He had a horrible vision of the queazel dying at his post on Barjoltan. “Do you know if he survived?”
Axel laughed. “Gil? Colm, he’s here!”
“He is?!”
“Yeah!” They all glanced around the kitchen. No furry Slinky was to be seen.
“He’s probably drunk off his ass somewhere,” Axel shrugged.
“Speaking of which, you deserve this.” Meg put a mug of beer into Colm’s hand. “So what it comes down to is, we’re operationally on our own. I don’t wanna make this sound like a guilt trip … but we could seriously use your help.”
“Right.” Colm felt like slitting his wrists at the very thought of going back into action, again. “There isn’t anyone else?”
“There isn’t any other mage who can pilot a spaceship.”
There was Dhjerga. But Dhjerga’s idea of piloting a spaceship was a combination of flitting and suicidal button-mashing. He rubbed the left side of his head. “Where’s Dhjerga gone, anyway?”
CHAPTER 59
GIL LAY ON THE floor of his house, worrying the nails of his left forepaw with his teeth. His other legs were curled up and tucked inside the coil of his body. His house was the extension built onto the end of the Free Church Manse. It had two storeys of queazel height, and a door so low that human beings had to crawl to get through it, unless they were less than four feet high. Generally, the only people who visited Gil at home were children.
But now someone was knocking at his front door, and the children never knocked.
He uncoiled himself and scurried up the ladder to the second floor. He did not want to see anyone.
Colm was back, and with him had come the crushing weight of Gil’s guilt. He was a coward, a hopeless coward. He hid under his bed.
The front door opened, and a voice that was not Colm’s called, “Queazel, are you there?”
The Nuclear Druid Page 33
