“That’s the difference between strangers and friends,” Judy murmured.
“I know,” Lemuel replied. “That’s why I remain a stranger.”
Judy gazed at him, and then suddenly she was crying again, though there was no reason for it. Lemuel waited patiently as she regained control of herself. Her tears formed little puddles on the stone floor. She smeared the pools with her foot, then took a deep breath.
“Has Frances put us all at risk because of me?” she asked.
“Not yet.” Lemuel looked up into the barrel vaulting of the ceiling. Judy had the impression he was looking beyond it.
“Judy,” he said, “three days ago there was an indescribably fascinating plant floating above the Earth, scattering seeds and BVBs in all directions. Now that plant is approaching the outer corona of the sun, where I hope it will have the decency to burn up and be utterly destroyed. The Watcher has had seventeen years to think and plan for how to deal with those plants. Even now, little black boxes skitter across the planet and across the Shawl, and we avert our gaze while lesser intelligences look at them and fix them in position before whisking them away to safety.”
“So we are safe?”
Lemuel pursed his lips. “I think we are slowly winning the battle, and all because seventeen years ago a boy and his father were sent to Gateway. The information gained from that expedition was enough to put in place countermeasures against just such an eventuality as the one that Frances precipitated. Taking that into consideration, I think that what the Watcher did on Gateway was the right thing, don’t you?”
Judy couldn’t reply. She could only think about the baby.
She pushed that thought from her mind. “So what now?”
Lemuel pointed to the front of the room.
The performer was coming to his final piece. Slowly, with much deliberation, he donned a microphone headset. Lights flickered on his keyboards as he changed the voice settings, and then he was still. The audience sat up a little straighter in anticipation as he held his position, and held it, and then finally he pressed his hands down. An organ chord filled the church, a note that seemed to sound out across the centuries, and then the performer sang, his voice emerging from the speakers as a full choir.
“Veni! Veni Creator Spiritus!”
Fumbling trumpets sounded.
Lemuel looked at Judy.
“What?” she said. “I don’t understand. It’s not as if he’s even that good.”
Lemuel arched an eyebrow. “Many of us consider him to be the greatest artist humankind has yet produced,” he said. Judy looked at him in disbelief.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, five centuries of music delivered by one man, daringly arranged, delivered to the very limits of his skill.”
“You can’t be serious. There are many human performers far better than him. Listen to his mistakes!”
“I can hear them. But I also hear the mistakes made by even the best human performer. Every human performance is imperfect, Judy, and still we observe them all. We nurture you all and help you to grow. That is why I am here. That is why the Watcher is here.”
“You don’t know that for certain!”
“I don’t, but still that is what we choose to believe. All you can really do is trust me when I say the Watcher’s motives are for the best. Tell me, do you trust the Watcher?”
Judy gazed at Lemuel for a long time. Did she trust the Watcher? She thought of Chris. He didn’t trust the Watcher. Why did he believe that Judy could be brought to think the same? Was it because the Watcher had programmed her to be a virgin? No. She couldn’t believe that was true.
But maybe she was programmed not to believe that.
She thought of her dead sisters.
Did she trust the Watcher?
She had spent her life working for Social Care, working to make people’s lives better and fairer. But who decided? The Watcher. Was it right? She didn’t know. And if her personality had been written by others, she could never know. Did she still believe it was right?
She looked inside herself. Yes, she realized with some surprise. Yes, she did.
She looked at Lemuel.
“Yes,” she said, “I suppose I do. Yes, I do trust the Watcher.”
Lemuel smiled. “That’s the spirit.”
Three days before…
…and not that far away from the church, just a little further along the coastline, the cannon on the top of the building near Peter Onethirteen’s apartment came to life and shot a beam of violet light at an approaching piece of debris. It flared in a glorious golden display of color that brought applause from the watching crowd. The applause gradually faded, along with the golden light of the falling object. A murmur of alarm sprang up as the object continued plunging down to Earth. Something grey and heavy. The cannon tracked it, pouring energy into the object to no avail. It was a threat, it must be destroyed, yet nothing seemed to affect it. The crowd began to scatter as the object came towards them, and then there was a surprisingly gentle popping noise and an understated thump as the object hit the ground, churning up a great wave of grass and earth.
The crowd picked themselves up and looked towards the impact point, thanking the Watcher for their lucky escape. Now that the immediate threat was over, the cannon redirected its attention to following pieces of debris, which, being wood, burnt beautifully, not that anyone noticed. They were all too busy looking towards the impact point.
Someone was calmly walking away from there. Someone, possibly dressed in dark grey, but too far away to make out clearly. Their attention gradually returned to the show taking place above them.
Chris looked up into the sky, at the great firework display that was the end of the World Tree.
And then he began to walk towards the apartment block.
About the Author
Tony Ballantyne grew up in County Durham in the northeast of England, studied mathematics at Manchester University, and then worked as a teacher, first of math, then IT, in London and later in the northwest of England.
Nowadays he enjoys playing boogie piano, cycling, and walking. In the past he has taught sword fencing at an American children’s camp, been a ballroom dancer, and worked voluntarily on conservation projects and with adults with low literacy and numeracy.
Visit Tony Ballantyne at www.tonyballantyne.com.
Notes
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