The capsule crashed into the scorched earth with a bone-numbing impact. André gasped in shock at the pain transmitted along his spine. Even so, he was the first to recover, and flipped his strap catches open. The hatch was a crude affair, like everything else in the capsule. A wonder they ever got down alive. He pulled the release handle.
They’d landed in a broad valley with gently sloping sides and a fast stone-bed stream running along the bottom. The local grass-analogue was an insipid grey green, its monotony broken by a few wizened dwarf bushes. A cold wind blew against the capsule, carrying tiny grains of white ice. André shivered violently; the chill factor took it well below freezing. He had thought to simply collect his share of the survival equipment from the baggage lockers ringing the base of the capsule and hike away from his fellow exiles. That action would have to be reconsidered now.
When he looked along the other end of the valley, he was amazed to see the distinct globular shape of starship life support capsules embedded in the soil. He could see at least forty of them. A definitive count would have shown André that a total of sixteen starships had been involved in the incident which had seen them cast away here.
A lone figure was striding vigorously over the frozen ground towards the drop capsule: a young man in a black fur coat, with a crossbow slung over his shoulder. He stopped just below the hatch and put his hands on his hips to grin up at André.
“And a very good morning to you, sir; Charles Montgomery David Filton-Asquith at your service,” he said. “Welcome to Happy Valley.”
The bath water was imbued with the scent of tangerines; bubbles covered its surface to a thickness of ten centimetres. Ione sank into the blood-warm water with a contented moan, sliding down the marble until only her head was visible.
Ooh, that feels good.
You should relax more,tranquillity said. I am capable of supervising most activities.
I know, but everyone wants the personal touch; I’m starting to feel like a nursemaid rather than a dictator. And I still haven’t decided what to do about the Laymil project centre.
Most of its staff are on sabbatical from their university. Downsizing will be a simple matter.
Yes. But I feel we should make more use of its resources, turn it to something new. After all, you and I are technically out of a job these days.
A curious viewpoint.
Face it, we’ve got to find something else to do. I really don’t want to stay here.she allowed the images from the shell’s external sensitive cells shimmer up into her mind. Jupiter orbit was alive with starship flights, both Adamist and voidhawk. Two large industrial stations specialising in organic synthesis were being manoeuvred over to Aethra, where they could start repairing the damage to the young habitat’s shell. Joshua had transferred all forty-odd young habitats from the stage-one systems into orbit above the glorious orange gas-giant.
This star system is going to be the heart of the revolution,tranquillity said.
All the more reason we should go somewhere else. What’s our status right now?her consciousness drifted through the habitat, perceiving the state of the induction cables, the parkland, the light-tube, the vast ring of energy patterning cells. Fusion generators out on the docking ledge were still supplying seventy per cent of Tranquillity’s power. How do you feel about making another jump?
Where to?tranquillity asked.
I think it’s time you and I went home.
Home?
Kulu.
Is this some obscure bid to succeed the throne? Your royal cousins will have a collective heart attack.
But they can hardly refuse me, not after our contribution to the Liberation. Technically, we are a dukedom of the Kulu Kingdom. And there’s a lot of He3 mining activity around Tarron, I’m sure the cloudscoop crews would prefer to be billeted here. And we are an extremely valuable economic asset to any star system.
Why?
Carrying the revolution forwards. We are bitek, they are one of the most anti-bitek cultures in the Confederation. Yet they employed bitek at the first sign of trouble. That’s a chink, one we can prize open with our presence. This ridiculous technological segregation has to stop. It helps no one. This is the chance for that new beginning I spoke of. Another little change to add to the momentum for overall cultural reform.
It will not be easy.
I know that. But you have to admit, it’s been awfully quiet around here since Joshua left.
I still find that hardest to believe. Handing over the Lady Macbeth to his brother and giving up flying. Will he be happy living on Norfolk? It’s very peaceful there.
Ione laughed, and reached for a cut-crystal glass of Norfolk Tears. She eyed the fabulous drink as if it was the last drop left in the universe. I think it’s about to become a whole lot noisier.
Syrinx and Ruben stood patiently in the hospital waiting room as the psychology team assembled. Some of them she knew from her own therapy sessions, and exchanged warm greetings.
This is exciting, Oenone said. The last act we will perform in this saga.
You just want to go fly,she teased.
Of course. With the Confederation stars so close, there will be many more flights now.
I wonder what sort of flights, though. Now we’ve glimpsed Kiint technology, I doubt He3 fusion will last much longer. Perhaps we’ll go into the pleasure cruise business.
I will still love you.
She laughed. And I you, my love.her hand closed a little tighter around ruben’s. I think I might start having children now. We’ve faced the worst danger there is, flown to the other side of the nebula, and now life is changing. I want to be a part of it, to embrace what’s happening in the most human way possible.
I like you being truly happy. You are complete.
Only when we’re together.
The chief psychologist beckoned. We’re ready for you.
Syrinx walked over to the zero-tau pod in the middle of the room, standing by its head. The black field vanished, and the lid swung open. She smiled down. “Hello, Erick.”
It took only a day for the Kiint to cure Grant of his tumours. He submitted to the treatment of blue jelly with passive grace, meekly doing all that was requested of him. The massive xenocs were so overwhelming. Any sort of protest seemed appallingly churlish. They were only here to help, coming to Norfolk’s aid out of the kindness of their mighty hearts.
An enormous hospital had been built just outside Colsterworth. In less than an hour, according to those who saw it extruded. Little flying craft zipped across the wolds, stopping next to anyone they found and asking politely if they needed assistance, then conveying them back to the hospital for the ubiquitous treatment. Apparently Colsterworth’s hospital was the one dealing with all the cases on this half of Kesteven island. Another had been built at Boston to handle the city’s casualties.
Grant returned to Cricklade once his tumours had been flushed away, wandering round the big manor in a daze. The staff trickled back as they were discharged by the Kiint, looking to him to tell them what to do. That part of his reclaimed existence was easy; he knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
It was the reason for them doing it which had left him. He’d got his body back, not his life.
Marjorie returned on the second day, and they clung to each other in miserable desperation. There was still no sign of the girls.
Flying craft started to deliver the men from the militia who had remained in Boston after their possession, dropping down out of the sky at individual cottages and farm houses. The weeping and fragile laughter which came from each reunion was everywhere Grant went.
He and Marjorie drove back to Colsterworth to ask if the Kiint had found the girls. The computer at the hospital said no, but that they were still cataloguing Norfolk’s surviving residents. Tens of thousands were being added every hour, it told him, and he would be notified immediately (the Kiint had already repaired the entire planet’s telephone network). When he asked for a flying craft to
take him to Norwich the computer apologised, saying they couldn’t accommodate private flights, all the craft were needed for patients.
They went back to the farm rover, debating what to do next. A Kiint was walking sedately down the broad cobbled street outside, crazily incongruous amid the stone-walled cottages with their slate roofs and climbing roses. A gang of laughing children were running round it, totally unafraid. It kept holding thin tentacles of tractamorphic flesh just above their heads, flicking them away when the children jumped to catch one. Playing with them.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” Grant said. “We can’t go back to how it was, not now.”
“That’s not like you,” Marjorie said. “The man I married would never allow our way of life to be cast aside.”
“The man you married hadn’t been possessed. Damn that Luca to hell.”
“They’ll always be with us, just as we were always with them.”
Provider globes were drifting round the manor, ejecting replacements for items which had never been repaired or replaced. The staff followed them, fitting lengths of guttering, hammering new trellis sections onto the walls, mending fence posts, plumbing in sections of central heating pipe. Grant felt like shouting at the globes to go away, but Cricklade needed fixing up: for all Luca’s attention its overall maintenance had been pretty shabby during the possession. And providers were doing the same thing for every household in Stoke County. People were entitled to some charity and good fortune after what they’d been through.
He examined that thought, wondering who it had come from. Was it too kind for Grant, not liberal enough for Luca? In the end it didn’t matter, because it was right.
When he walked into the courtyard, another provider was repairing the burnt-out stable all by itself. Its purple surface flowed through buckled soot-clad walls and blackened timbers, leaving a broad line of clean straight stone and tiled roof in its wake. The process was like a brush painting detail over a preliminary sketch.
“Now that’s what I call a corrupting influence,” Carmitha said. “No one’s going to forget just how green the grass is on the other side of the technological divide. Did you know they can make food as well?”
“No,” Grant said.
“I’ve been working my way down an impressive little menu. Very tasty. You should try it.”
“Why are you still here?”
“Are you asking me to leave?”
“No. Of course not.”
“They’ll come back, Grant. You might have loosened up, but you still don’t give your own daughters the credit they deserve.”
He shook his head and walked away.
Lady Macbeth ’s brand new ion field flyer landed on the greensward in front of the manor the next day. Its bubble of golden haze evaporated and the hatch opened. Genevieve ran down the airstairs as they slid out, jumping the last couple of feet to the ground.
Grant and Marjorie were already coming down the portico’s broad stone steps to find out what the flyer was doing. They both froze when they saw the familiar little figure emerge. Then Genevieve streaked over and cannoned into her mother so hard she nearly knocked both of them over.
Marjorie wouldn’t let go of her daughter. She had trouble speaking, her throat was so choked up with crying. “Did . . . did it happen to you?” she asked in trepidation.
“Oh no,” Genevieve said breezily. “Louise got us off the planet. I’ve been to Mars, and Earth, and Tranquillity. I was scared a lot, but it was really exciting.”
Louise put her arms around both her parents and kissed them.
“You’re all right,” Grant said.
“Yes, Daddy, I’m just fine.”
He stepped back to look at her, so wonderfully self-confident and poised in her smart-cut travel suit with a skirt that finished well above her knees. This little Louise would never meekly do as she was told, no matter how much he shouted.
Bloody good thing too, as Luca might have said.
Louise gave both her parents an impish grin and took a deep breath. Genevieve started giggling wildly.
“I’m sure you both remember my husband,” Louise said in a rush.
Grant stared at Joshua with complete disbelief.
“I was bridesmaid!” Genevieve shouted.
Joshua put his hand out.
“Daddy,” Louise scolded firmly.
Grant did as he was told, and shook Joshua’s hand.
“You’re married?” Marjorie said faintly.
“Yes.” Joshua gave her a level stare, and planted a small kiss on her cheek. “Two days ago.”
Louise held up her hand, showing off the ring.
“Oh look,” Genevieve said. “Our stuff. I’ve got so much to show you.” Beaulieu, Liol, and Dahybi were struggling down the flyer’s airstairs, laden with cases and departmentstore boxes. Genevieve gallivanted back to help them, her duster bracelet spilling a shiny cometary tail through the air behind her.
“Bloody hell,” Grant murmured. He smiled, knowing resistance was useless and being rather glad of it, too. “Ah well, congratulations, my boy. Make damn sure you look after my daughter properly, she means everything to us.”
“Thank you, sir.” Joshua grinned his grin. “I’ll do my best.”
Space was different now. A hint at what was to befall in a few billion years.
Galactic superclusters no longer expanded away from each other; they were returning, drifting back to their place of origin. The quantum structure of space-time altered as the dimensional realms began to press in, flowing back towards the centre of the universe.
The wormhole terminus opened, and Quinn Dexter emerged to look out upon the multitude of forces gathering at the end of time. His body dissolved painlessly, freeing his possessors. They fled away from him, free to move as they chose amid the dense energy strands flooding the cosmos. Life pervaded space all around them, the aether ringing with the song of mind. Liberated, they joined the throng, sailing in towards the omega point.
Quinn watched galaxies being torn apart a million light-years ahead of him, their arms streaming out behind the core as they accelerated into the irresistible black mass. Star clusters flared white, then purple, as they sank below the event horizon, vanishing forever into this universe’s final Night.
His serpent beast howled for joy as he saw his Lord’s expansion into the dying universe, absorbing every atom, every thought. Triumphant at the very end, the Light Bringer was growing at the heart of darkness, ensuring all which was to follow would be different to everything that had gone before.
EPILOGUE
Jay Hilton
Gatekeeper’s Cottage
Cricklade Estate
Stoke County
Kesteven Island
Norfolk
My Dearest Haile,
Mother is making me write this with a pen which is a real bore. She says I have to practice my formal writing skills. As soon as I get neural nanonics I’m never going to touch a pen again.
I hope you’re well. Don’t forget to thank Richard Keaton for bringing you this letter.
The cottage we’re renting is really pretty, far better than anything I ever saw on Lalonde. It’s got thick stone walls and a thatch roof, and there’s a real fireplace that burns logs. The snow is up to the ground floor windows. It’s great stuff, you’d love it. Snowmen are much more fun than sandcastles. I can’t get out much, but that’s okay. There’s lots of interactives to play with, and Genevieve is teaching me how to ski. We’re good friends now.
We all stayed up last night to see New California appear. It was due a couple of hours after Duke set, and happened really quickly. It’s very bright in the sky, and you can just see it during Duchess-night if you know where to look. That makes five stars visible now. Can you believe that in another fifteen years I’ll be able to see all the stars of the Confederation cluster? Isn’t that just fab?
Mother is working at the school in Colsterworth, introducing didactic memories. Kesteven council voted to allow
them. Joshua Calvert proposed it. He was elected to the council two months ago, and is already the deputy chairman. People here are really proud that he has chosen to come and live at Cricklade when he could have gone anywhere in the Confederation. He has lots of plans for things he wants to see happen, which the council are drawing up. Everyone’s really excited about them. Marjorie Kavanagh says it won’t last, and he’ll be lynched before spring.
Louise had their baby last month. It was a boy, and they’re calling him Fletcher. Father Horst is rushing round to get the family chapel ready for the Christening.
I hope you’ll visit soon (hint!). Genevieve says the butterflies here are quite wonderful in the summer.
Love and hugs,
Jay
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The Naked God - Faith nd-6 Page 75
