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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.
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She laughed. <
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The chief psychologist beckoned. <
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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