“Hey, good work, Oenone .”
“Thank you, Joshua.”
“Okay, how do you want to break up the stand-off? If I launch a combat wasp salvo from here, they’ll be forced to swallow out. We can combine to protect the cylinder. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll wipe each other out before they come back for it.”
“No, Joshua. We can handle the stand-off. You take off now.”
“Jesus, you’re kidding.”
“We can’t waste the time which protecting the cylinder is going to take; it’ll be days most likely. And we certainly can’t take the risk that we might both get damaged or killed in a fight with the hellhawks. You have to leave. Once the stand-off’s over, we’ll follow.”
“That’s very cold and logical.”
“It’s very rational, Joshua. I am an Edenist after all.”
“All right. If you’re sure?”
“Who better?” She relaxed serenely on her acceleration couch, sharing Oenone ’s perception of local space. Waiting. Lady Macbeth ’s jump registered as a sharp twist in spacetime, gone in a nanosecond.
Syrinx looked round at her crew, reaching out to them so their thoughts and regrets could mingle with hers. Sharing herself to achieve that cherished equipoise of their culture. It must have worked; for eventually she asked: “Anyone bring a pack of cards?”
Chapter 13
The two friends walked together along the top of Ketton island’s cliff, taking a few minutes alone together to say goodbye. Their parting would be permanent. Choma had chosen to join with Tinkerbell, sharing that entity’s voyage across eternity; while Sinon, almost uniquely among the serjeants, had decided to go back to Mortonridge.
I promised my wife I would return, that I would rejoin the multiplicity once more,he said. I will keep my word to her, for we believed in Edenism together. By doing this I will strengthen our culture. Not by much, I will be the first to admit, but my conviction in us and the path we have chosen will contribute to the overall conviction of the multiplicity and Consensus. We must believe in ourselves. To doubt now would be admitting we should never have existed.
And yet what we are doing is the pinnacle of Edenism,choma said. By transferring ourselves into Tinkerbell’s version of the multiplicity we are evolving the human condition, moving on from our origin with confidence and wonder. This is evolution, a constant learning curve, there is no limit to what we can find in this realm.
But you will be alone, isolated from the rest of us. What is the point of knowledge if you cannot share it? If it cannot be used to help everyone? The beyond is something the human race must face in union, we must know and accept our answer as one. If Mortonridge taught us nothing else, it was that. Towards the end I had nothing but sympathy for the possessed.
We are both right. The universe is big enough to allow us that.
It is. Though I regret what you are doing. An unusual development. I think I have become more than I was supposed to in this body. I believed such emotions would be impossible when I volunteered to join the Liberation.
Their development was inevitable,choma said. We carry the seeds of humanity with us no matter what vessel our minds travel in. They were bound to flourish, to find their own route forward.
Then I am no longer the Sinon who emerged from the multiplicity.
No. Any sentient entity who has lived, has changed.
I will have a soul then. A new soul, one that is different to the Sinon I remember.
You do. All of us do.
Then once again I will have to die before I transfer myself back to the multiplicity. What I bring to the habitat is only such wisdom as I can muster. My soul doesn’t follow my memories, so the Kiint say.
Do you fear that day?
I don’t believe so. The beyond is not for everyone, knowing there is a way through, or round, as Laton claims, is enough to give me confidence. Though there is some trepidation stirring within me.
You will overcome, I am sure. Never forget it is possible to succeed. That thought alone should guide you.
I will remember.
They stopped on the crest of a mound and looked out over the island. Long lines of people were picking their way over the cracked earth, the last refugees from the buried town heading towards the cliff top where Tinkerbell was pressed against the rock. The giant crystal’s opalescent light sent ripples of gentle colour slithering over the drab ground. Air had coiled into a topaz nimbus all around it.
How apt,sinon said. It looks as though they are walking off into the sunset.
If I have a regret, it is that I won’t know how their lives finish. They will make a strange group, these souls who are going to occupy serjeant bodies, their complete humanity always beyond their grasp.
When they came out of the beyond, they claimed all they wanted was sensation again. They have that now.
But they are genderless. Not to mention sexless. They can never know love.
Physical love, perhaps. But that certainly isn’t all the love there is. As with you and I, they will become whole in their own way.
I feel their disquiet already, and they haven’t even reached Mortonridge yet.
They can learn to adapt to what lies ahead. The habitats will welcome them.
Nobody has ever become an Edenist against their will before. Now you have twelve thousand bewildered, angry strangers grumbling away into the general affinity band. Most of them with a cultural background that will act against easy acceptance.
With patience and kindness they will find themselves again. Think what they have been through.
At last we come to the true difference between ourselves. I am restless and eager for the future, a voyager. You are ruled by compassion, a healer of souls. Now you see why we have to part.
Of course, and I wish you well on your splendid voyage.
Likewise. I hope you find the peace you search for.
They turned, and walked back slowly along the rocky line of the cliff. Tiny crystalline entities whisked about overhead, never pausing in one place for more than a moment. They had covered the whole island, making sure that every possessed knew there was now a way back, and what staying here meant. It was the end of Ekelund’s rule. Her troops had abandoned her, banding together defiantly to walk out of Ketton. Her threats and fury only hastened their departure.
Five long queues waited before Tinkerbell’s looming surface, winding through the scattered remnants of the headland camp. Two of them made up from serjeants. The remainder (and keeping their distance) were the possessed. They waited in a strange subdued mood, their anticipation and relief that the nightmare was about to end tempered by the uncertainty of what lay ahead.
Stephanie was waiting right at the tail end of the longest queue of possessed, along with Moyo, McPhee, Franklin, and Cochrane. Tina and Rana had been amongst the first through. The crystalline entities had stabilized Tina, apparently repairing the damage to her internal organs. But they all agreed the woman’s body ought to be seen by human specialists as soon as possible. For herself, Stephanie decided she should be amongst the last. It was the responsibility thing again, she wanted to know everyone else was okay.
“But you’re no’ responsible for them,” McPhee had said. “They all flocked to Ekelund’s banner. It’s their own bloody stupid fault they’re here.”
“I know, but we’re the ones who tried to get Ekelund to stop, and failed miserably.” She shrugged, knowing how feeble she sounded.
“I’ll wait with you,” Moyo said. “We’ll go through together.”
“Thank you.”
McPhee, Franklin, and Cochrane looked at each other, and said what the hell. They all joined the queue, standing behind Soi Hon. The old eco-guerrilla was in his trademark dark jungle fatigues, with his felt bush-ranger hat tilted back as if he’d just finished an arduous job. He eyed them with wry amusement and bowed to Stephanie. “I congratulate you on remaining true to your principles.”
“I don’t think it really matters, but
thank you anyway.” She sat on one of the many boulders, resting her wounded hip.
“Out of all of us, it was you who achieved the most.”
“You held off the serjeants.”
“Not for long, and only to further an ideal.”
“I thought you valued ideals.”
“I do. Or I used to. That is the problem with this situation. The old ideals don’t have any relevance here. I applied them as did the political forces behind the Liberation. Both of us were very wrong. Look what we did to people, how many lives and homes we ruined. All that effort poured into conflict and destruction. I used to say I belonged to the land.”
“I’m sure you thought you did what was the right thing.”
“Indeed I did, Stephanie Ash. Unfortunately, I didn’t think enough, for it was not the right thing to do. Not at all.”
“Well hey, it don’t matter no more, man,” Cochrane said. “The fat babe’s been singing out loud for a while now. We’re like going home.” He offered Soi Hon his joint.
“No thank you. I do not wish to introduce poisons to this body. I am simply its custodian. I may soon even be held accountable for any ills I have inflicted. After all, past the end of this queue we shall be facing them again, will we not? And we will only be equals.”
Cochrane gave him a sour look and dropped his joint, grinding it into the mud under his heel. “Yeah, right, man,” he grunted.
“What about Ekelund?” Stephanie asked. “Where’s she?”
“Back at her command post. She refused the offer to return.”
“What? She’s crazy.”
“Undoubtedly, yes. But she sincerely believes that once the serjeants have gone, then this land will be free. She intends to found her paradise here.”
Stephanie looked back at the patch of scabrous land that was Ketton.
“No,” Moyo said firmly. “She has made her own decision. And she certainly isn’t going to listen to you of all people.”
“I suppose not.”
Even at the rate of one possessed every few seconds, it took over seven hours for everyone to be repatriated. The procedure was simple enough. Where Tinkerbell touched the cliff face, several oval tunnels had opened up, leading deep into her interior. Their walls shone with a soft aquamarine light that grew progressively brighter until it eventually filled the cleft. You just walked through, vanishing into the light.
Stephanie wasn’t the very last in. Moyo and McPhee had quietly and insistently stood behind her. She smiled in good-natured surrender and passed over the threshold. The air thickened in conjunction with the light, slowing the movement of her limbs. Eventually it felt as though she was trying to walk through the crystal itself. There was an insistent pressure exerted against every part of her. She felt the force move through her flesh, enabling her to speed up again. The aquamarine glow faded away, showing that her body had become transparent, a pattern of light conducted by crystal. When she looked round she saw the body she’d possessed standing behind her. The woman was holding her hands up, an expression of revulsion and satisfaction straining her face.
“Choma?” Stephanie asked. “Choma, can you hear me? There’s something I need to do.”
“Hello, Stephanie. I thought this might happen.”
Occupying a serjeant’s body was the simplest thing. One waited for her, immured in crystal, completely passive with its big head bowed. It didn’t matter which direction she walked in, she was always walking towards it. They merged, and it thickened around her, returning the opaque aquamarine light. The sensations were peculiar; the exoskeleton had no tactile nerves, yet it was somehow rigged to provide proof of contact. Her soles were definitely pressing down on a surface, air drifted over her as she moved forwards. The aquamarine light cleared from her eyes, allowing her to focus with remarkable clarity.
She walked out of the oval tunnel, back onto the crusty trampled-down mud of Ketton Island. The rivers of coloured light which emanated from Tinkerbell’s internal coruscations meandered over the ground. Nothing else moved.
It was a long slog back across the island to its central town. Even in the serjeant’s robust body it took her an hour and a quarter. Tinkerbell departed when she was a third of the way there, arching away above her in a opalescent blaze, then shrinking at an improbable speed. Stephanie began to pick up her pace. The air was stirring, slowly expanding again now the serjeants had gone, a gentle breeze gusting out over the edge of the cliff. Their wishes remained for a while, of course, impregnated on the fabric of this realm. But without their active presence to reinforce them, what was normality here began to return.
It was a lot brighter when Stephanie trotted up to the boundary of the town. The air had thinned considerably now, allowing the continuum’s persistent blue-white glare to shine down with unrestrained power. Every step sent her gliding a couple of metres above the ground. Gravity had reduced by about twenty per cent, she guessed.
Ekelund’s headquarters were prominent at the very centre of the razed town, the big tent perched atop a mound, faintly luminous. She came out as Stephanie bounced her way up the slope, lounging against the tentpole, smiling softly.
“It’s a different body, but I’d know those thoughts anywhere. I believe we’ve had our last goodbye, Stephanie Ash.”
“You have to leave. Please. You’ll destroy Angeline Gallagher’s body and her soul if you stay here.”
“Finally! It’s not my well being you’re concerned about. A small victory for me, but I consider it significant.”
“Come back to Mortonridge. There are still some serjeant bodies available to host your soul. You can live a life again, a real life.”
“As what? Trite little housewife and mother? Even you can’t live your old life again, Stephanie.”
“I never believe that a baby’s future is preordained. After birth, you’re on your own to make what you can from life. And we are being born again in these serjeant bodies. Make what you can of it, Ekelund. Don’t kill yourself and Gallagher out of misplaced pride. Look around! The air’s all but gone, the gravity’s failing. There’s nothing here anymore.”
“I am here. This island will bloom again once it’s free of your influences. We came here to this realm because it offered us the sanctuary we needed.”
“For God’s sake, admit you are wrong. There’s no shame in it. What do you think I’m going to do, stalk you and gloat?”
“Now you get to it. Which of us was right. That’s what it’s always been between you and I.”
“There is no right. An entire army flocked to your banner. I had a lover and five mismatched friends. You win. Now, please, come back.”
“No.”
“Why not? At least tell me that.”
Annette Ekelund’s stubborn smile flickered. “For the first time ever, I have been me. I haven’t had to defer to anybody, to ask permission, to conform to what society expects. And I’ve lost that.” Her voice shrivelled to a hoarse whisper. “I led them here, and not one stayed. They didn’t want to stay, and I didn’t have the strength to force them.” A tear emerged from her left eye. “I was wrong. I got it wrong, God damn you!”
“You didn’t bring anybody here. You didn’t order us. We came because we desperately wanted to. I was a part of it, Annette. When we lay there on the mud after the harpoon strike, and the serjeants were going to throw us into zero-tau, I helped. I was so frightened that I poured every drop of my power into leaving Mortonridge behind. And I was glad when we got here. We are all to blame. All of us.”
“I organized Mortonridge’s defence. I brought about the Liberation.”
“Yes, you did, and if it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else. It could even have been me. We’re not responsible for the way to the beyond being opened up. Ever since that began, the outcome was inevitable. You’re not to blame for fate, for the way the universe is put together. You’re not that important.”
Annette had to suck hard to fill her lungs with air. The sky had become ver
y bright. “I was.”
“So was I. The day we took the children over the firebreak, I’d accomplished more than Richard Saldana ever had. That was how I felt. I loved it, and I wanted more of it, the way my group looked up and respected me. Typical human failing. You’re nothing special, not in that way.”
“Smug, smug, smug, God I hate you.”
Stephanie watched the dry flakes of mud lift gently from the ground, flicked up by the last wisps of air. They floated around in a lazy cloud, rebounding off each other, slowly moving higher. There was no gravity left, the only thing keeping her feet on the ground was sheer willpower. “Come with me.” She had to shout, the air was all but gone. “Hate me some more.”
“Would you die with me?” Annette yelled back. “Are you that fucking worthy?”
“No.”
Annette yelled again. Stephanie couldn’t hear her, the air had gone. Choma, Tinkerbell, come and get us. Quickly please.
Annette was clawing at her throat, gulping wildly as her skin turned dark red. Her desperate motions pushed her away from the ground. Stephanie kicked off after her and grabbed a thrashing ankle. Together they tumbled away from the top of the mound. The universal white light had turned the mud fields a glaring silver; crinkled cliff tops ignited into magnesium splendour. Ketton island melted away into the glaring void.
Stephanie and Annette soared ever onwards, drowning in light.
“Are they really worth it?” someone asked.
“Are we?”
Cold aquamarine light clamped around them.
Luca didn’t have to guide the horse; it simply followed the route he’d taken so many times before, plodding along without hesitation. A great circle round the middle of Cricklade estate: through the upper ford in Wryde stream, around the east side of Berrybut spinney, over Withcote ridge, taking the narrow humpback bridge below Saxby farm, the fire track through Coston wood. It gave him a good overview of his land’s progress. On the surface it was as good as any previous year; the crops were later by a few weeks, but there was no harm in that. Everyone had pulled together and made up for the lost weeks following the possession.
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