Kéthani

by Eric Brown

  I stopped again, staring at my big, clumsy hands on the tabletop. “His criticism, his snide comments, his lack of love… they made me feel worthless and inadequate. I hated being alive. I’d often fantasise about killing myself, but the only thing that stopped me was the thought that my father would gain some sick satisfaction from my death.” I looked up, tears in my eyes, and stared at Elisabeth. “He turned me into a lonely, socially inept wreck. I found it hard to make friends, and the thought of talking to women…”

  She reached out, gently, and touched my hand.

  I shook my head. “Ten years ago he had his first stroke, and I had to look after him. The bastard had me just where he wanted me, and he made my life even worse. I dreamed of the day he’d die, freeing me…

  “And then the Kéthani came, with their damned gift, and he was implanted, and the thought of my father living forever…” I took a long, deep breath. “I wasn’t implanted, Elisabeth, because I wanted to die. As simple as that. I hated being alive, and I was too weak and inadequate to leave and start a life of my own.”

  “But now?” she asked, squeezing my fingers.

  “But now,” I said, “he’s coming back next week.”

  We went to bed, and held each other in silence as the white light streaked into the air above the Onward Station.

  And Elisabeth whispered, “Don’t be afraid any longer, Ben. You have me, now.”

  I left the van in the car park and approached the Station. I had never seen it at such close quarters before, and I had to crane my neck in order to see its sparkling summit, five hundred metres overhead.

  I felt as cold as the surrounding landscape, my heart frozen. I wanted to get the meeting over as soon as possible, find out what he intended to do.

  I passed the letter to a blue-uniformed woman at a reception desk, and another woman led me down a long white corridor. A cold, sourceless light pervaded the place, chilling me even further.

  With the fixed smile of an air hostess, the woman ushered me into a small, white room, furnished with two sofas, and told me that my father would be along in five minutes.

  I sat down. Then I stood up quickly and paced the room.

  I almost panicked, recalling the sound of his voice, his silent, condemnatory expression. I was sweating, and felt a tightness in my chest.

  A door at the far side of the room slid open and a figure in a sky blue overall walked through.

  All I could do was stand and stare.

  It was a version of my father I recalled from my teenage years. He looked about forty, no longer grey and bent, but strong and upright, with a full head of dark hair.

  For so long, in my mind’s eye, I had retained an image of my father in his sixties, and had vented my hatred on that persona. Now he was the man who had blighted my early years, and I was the young boy again, abject and fearful.

  He stepped forward, and I managed to stand my ground, though inside I was cowering.

  He nodded and held out a hand. “Ben,” he said.

  And the sound of his voice was enough. I had a sudden memory, a vivid flash of an incident from my youth not long after my mother’s death: he had discovered me in my bedroom, crying over the faded photograph of her I kept beside my bed. He had stared at me in bitter silence for what seemed like an age, and then, with his big, clumsy hands, he had unbuckled his belt and pulled it from his waist. His first, back-handed strike had laid me out across the bed, and then he had set about me with the belt, laying into me with blows that burned red-hot in time to his words, “You’re a man, now, Ben, and men do not cry!”

  His beatings had become regular after that; he would find the slightest excuse in my behaviour to use his belt. Later it occurred to me that my beatings were a catharsis that allowed him to vent his own, perverted grief.

  But, now, when he stepped forward and held out his hand, I could take no more. I had intended to confront my father, ask him what he intended, and perhaps even tell him that I did not want him to return. Instead, I fled.

  I pushed my way from the room and ran down the corridor. I was no longer a man, but the boy who had escaped the house and sprinted onto the moors all those years ago.

  I left the Onward Station and stopped in my tracks, as if frozen by the ice-cold night.

  I heard a voice. “Ben…” The bastard had followed me.

  Without looking round, I hurried over to the van. I fumbled with the keys, my desire to find out his intentions forgotten in the craven need to get away.

  “Ben, we need to talk.”

  Summoning my courage, I turned and stared at him. In the half-light of the stars, he seemed less threatening.

  “What do you want?”

  “We need to talk, about the future.”

  “The future?” I said. “Wasn’t the past bad enough? If you think you can come back, start again where you left off, spoil the life I’ve made since you died…” I was amazed that I had managed to say it. I was shaking with rage and fear.

  “Ben,” my father said. “My own father was no angel, but that’s no excuse.”

  “What do you want?” I cried.

  He stared at me, his dark eyes penetrating. “What do you want, Ben? I have a place aboard a starship heading for Lyra, if I wish to take it. I’ll be back in ten years. Or I can stay here. What do you want me to do…?”

  He left the question hanging, and the silence stretched. I stared at him as the cold night invaded my bones. The choice was mine; he was giving me, for the first time in my life, a say in my destiny. It was so unlike my father that I wondered, briefly, if in fact the Kéthani had managed to instil in him some small measure of humanity.

  “Go,” I found myself saying at last, “and in ten years, when you return, maybe then…”

  He stared at me for what seemed like ages, but I would not look away, and finally he nodded. “Very well, Ben. I’ll do that. I’ll go, and in ten years…”

  He looked up, at the stars, and then lowered his eyes to me for the last time. “Goodbye, Ben.”

  He held out his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation I took it.

  Then he turned and walked back into the Station, and as I watched him go I felt an incredible weight lift from my shoulders, a burden that had punished me for years.

  I looked up into the night sky, and found myself crying.

  At last I opened the door of the van, climbed inside, and sat for a long time, considering the future.

  Much later I looked at my watch and saw that it was seven o’clock. I started the engine, left the car park and drove slowly from the Onward Station. I didn’t head for home, but took the road over the moors to Bradley.

  It was nine by the time I arrived at the Fleece.

  I had phoned Elisabeth and told her to meet me there, saying that I had a surprise for her. I’d also phoned Jeff Morrow, Richard Lincoln, and the Azzams, to join in the celebration. They sat at a table across the room, smiling to themselves.

  Elisabeth entered the bar, and my heart leapt.

  She hurried over and sat down opposite me, looking concerned and saying, “How did it go with…?”

  I reached across the table and took her hand. “I love you,” I said.

  She stared at me, tears silvering her eyes. Her lips said my name, but silently.

  Then she moved her hand from mine, reached up and, with gentle fingers, traced the outline of the implant at my temple.

  Interlude

  I renounced my religion soon after my eighteenth birthday and was a committed atheist when the Kéthani came. When I met Zara Zaman she still believed, though she practised a liberal form of Islam which had come about after the East-West troubles in the early part of the century. The coming of the Kéthani sorely tested her faith, as she watched the hard line taken by the imams of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Over the years, as a belief in God became untenable with the fact of the Kéthani, I saw her faith erode, to be replaced by a ferocious intellectual quest to understand everything possible about our extraterrest
rial benefactors.

  That particular Tuesday evening, she reminded me that she wouldn’t be coming to the Fleece tonight: her study group was meeting in Bradley and she was giving a presentation.

  I tried to hide my irritation, but failed.

  She stared at me across the lounge. “I told you, Khal, last week.”

  “So from now on Tuesday nights at the Fleece are out?”

  “For me, yes. No one’s stopping you from going.”

  “You’ll be missed. Zara. You could at least come once a month, say.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think you understand how important this is to me, Khal.” She paused, then said, “Or do you resent my doing this? Learning, bettering myself?”

  “Of course not!” I said, a little too quickly. I wondered, deep down, if this was the source of my unease: she was learning more and more about areas of Kéthani study which I should have found interesting—especially considering my line of work—but which in my apathy I didn’t. Also, she would be meeting other people, other men, and I must admit that this rankled. In retrospect, I admit to being shallow and jealous.

  “Khal, you ought to come along.”

  And miss the company of my friends, I thought. The idea didn’t appeal.

  She went on, “I’m giving a talk on how the changes have affected international relations. Did you know, for instance, that incidences of espionage have almost ceased since the Kéthani came? And wars—the world is enjoying a period of global peace for the first time in recorded history. Khal, we’re studying the reasons for this. It’s truly fascinating.”

  “Well, you can fill me in when you come up with all the answers.”

  She pulled on her coat. “You cynical bastard!” was her parting shot as she hurried from the house.

  I just stood and watched her go, feeling sick.

  Something had happened to our relationship over the years. Our mutual passion, our love, had tempered, changed into something that was hard to define, still harder to name. It would be clichéd to say that we had drifted apart, no longer tethered by the tie of mutual interests; our conversations these days centred on day-to-day platitudes. We never discussed real issues. This, I had to admit, was fine by me. I was happy. But Zara, I knew, wanted more. It sickened me to look ahead to the time when she realised that I was no longer the man she had loved, all those years ago.

  I found my coat and made my way to the Fleece.

  Ben and Elisabeth were already ensconced in the main bar, and were halfway down their first pints. Richard Lincoln was carrying more drinks from the bar, assisted by the new addition to the Tuesday night group. Dan Chester was a ferryman up at the Station, and we’d got to know him soon after his arrival in Oxenworth that summer.

  He was a small, dark, thin-faced handsome man in his late thirties. He was divorced and shared the custody of his daughter Lucy with his ex-wife. He’d spoken briefly about his relationship with her—she was a devout Catholic, and considered the Kéthani the minions of Satan.

  As we settled ourselves around the table, Richard pulled a copy of today’s Guardian from the pocket of his tweed jacket and slapped it on the table. It was folded to a page reporting the Pope’s recent and unexpected volte-face on the issue of contraception.

  “Seen that, Dan?” he asked.

  Dan scanned the report. He grunted. “Tell me when the Vatican changes its mind on the Kéthani,” he said.

  Dan’s daughter Lucy was eight years old, and she was not implanted. To say that she was the mainstay of Dan’s life would be an understatement. He was devoted to her. He was also, for reasons that were obvious, paranoid about her health and safety.

  We chatted for an hour about the medievalism of the Catholic Church.

  Dan was quiet. He was going through a difficult period with his wife and Lucy, which I found out about in the most dramatic fashion a few weeks later.

  He was a reasonable man caught up in a wholly unreasonable situation.

  FOUR

  TUESDAY’S CHILD

  I crested the hill, pulled the Range Rover into the side of the lane and stared through the windscreen. There was something about the freezing February landscape, with the westering sun laying a gold leaf patina over the snow-covered farmland in the valley bottom, that struck me as even more beautiful than the same scene in summer.

  I took a deep breath and worked to control my anger. It was always the same when I collected Lucy from Marianne. I had to stop somewhere and calm myself.

  I was on call for the next hour, but calculated that the chances of being summoned during that time were slight. Marianne would object to my early arrival, but Lucy would be eager to get away.

  I told myself that I arrived early on these occasions so that I’d have an extra hour with my daughter, but I wondered if, subconsciously, I did it on purpose to spite Marianne.

  I started the engine and cruised down the hill. Three minutes later I entered the village of Hockton and pulled up outside a row of cottages, each one quaintly bonneted with a thick mantle of snow.

  A light glowed behind the mullioned window of Marianne’s front room. Lucy would be watching a DVD of her latest favourite film.

  I pressed the horn twice, my signal to Lucy that I was here, and climbed out.

  Lucy had hauled the door open before I reached the gate, and only the fact that she was in her stockinged feet prevented her rushing out to meet me.

  She was a beautiful skinny kid, eight years old, with a pale elfin face and long black hair. My heart always kicked at the sight of her, after an absence of days.

  She seemed a little subdued today: usually she would launch herself into my arms. I stepped inside and picked her up, her long legs around my waist, and kissed her nose, lips, neck in an exaggerated pantomime of affection which made her giggle.

  “Love you,” I said. “Bag packed?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Where’s your mum?”

  “I think in the kitchen.”

  “Get your bag and put some shoes on. I’ll just pop through and tell her I’m here.”

  She skipped into the front room and I moved towards the kitchen, a psychosomatic pain starting in my gut.

  Marianne was peeling carrots at the draining board, her back to me. “You’re early again, Daniel,” she said without turning. She knew I disliked the long form of my name.

  I leaned against the jamb of the door. “I was in the area, working.”

  She turned quickly, knife in her hand. “You mean to say you have a body with you?”

  She was a small, pretty woman, an adult version of Lucy. In the early days of our separation, alternating with the anger, I had experienced a soul-destroying sorrow that all the love I’d felt for this woman had turned to hate.

  I should have seen what might have happened before we married, extrapolated from her beliefs—but at the time my love for her had allowed no doubt.

  Lately she had taken to wearing a big wooden crucifix around her neck. Her left temple was not implanted and neither, thanks to her, was Lucy’s.

  “Not all my work involves collection,” I said. “What time should I bring her back on Thursday?”

  “I’m working till five.” She turned and resumed her peeling.

  I pushed myself away from the door and moved to the lounge. Lucy was sitting on the floor, forcing her feet into a pair of trainers. I picked up her bag and she ran into the kitchen for a goodbye kiss. Marianne, the bitch, didn’t even come to the door to wave her off.

  I led Lucy to the Range Rover and fastened her into the middle section of the back seat. When I started collecting her, a year ago, she had said that she wanted to sit in the front, next to me. “But why can’t I?” she had wailed.

  How could I begin to explain my paranoia? “Because it’s safer in case of accidents,” I’d told her.

  I reversed into the drive, then set off along the road back to Oxenworth, ten miles away over the moors.

  “Enjoying your holidays?” I asked.
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br />   “Bit boring.”

  I glanced at her in the rear-view mirror. “You okay?”

  She hesitated. “Feeling a bit rough,” she said, and to illustrate pantomimed a hacking cough into her right fist.

  “Did mum take you to the doctor’s?”

  I saw her nod.

  “And?” I asked.

  “He gave me some pills.”

  “Pills?” I said. “What did he say was wrong?”

  She looked away, through the window. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have the pills with you?” Perhaps I’d be able to determine her ailment from the medication.

  She shook her head. “Mummy said I didn’t need them.”

  I decided to ring Marianne when we got back, find out what was going on. Or was this yet another manifestation of my paranoia?

  We drove on in silence for a while. Cresting the snow-covered moorland, we passed the glittering obelisk of the Onward Station. It never failed to provoke a feeling of awe in me—and I saw the Station every working day. Quite apart from what it represented, it was perhaps aesthetically the most beautiful object I had ever seen.

  I wondered if it was the sight of it that prompted Lucy to say, “Daddy, the girls at school have been making fun of me.”

  I glanced at her in the rear-view mirror. “Why’s that?”

  “It’s because I’m not implanted. They say I’ll die.”

  I shook my head, wondering how to respond. “They’re just being silly,” I said.

  “But if I have an accident,” she began.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, marvelling at the fact that she was only eight years old, and yet had worked out the consequences of not being implanted. “You won’t have an accident.”

  Then she asked, “Why aren’t I implanted?”

  It was the first time she had ever mentioned the fact, and it was a while before I replied. “Because mum doesn’t want you to be,” I said.

  “But why doesn’t she?”