“Gwendoline,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t really have any information about your history. We don’t even know your name.”
“Horatio. I’m Horatio Seymore. I lived in London. Right up until the day the Olyix returned.”
“You’re doing well, Horatio. It sounds like your memories are integrated. Can you tell me who Gwendoline is?”
“My wife.”
“All right. Well, here’s the good news. We’ve established a family tracking agency. If you can provide enough details, they should be able to tell you if she’s been re-bodied or if she’s still…awaiting the recovery process.”
“She…” He sank back down onto the curving bed. “She was on the Pasobla the day the Olyix returned.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, then she won’t be in any of the Olyix ships the armada brought back. The Pasobla left Delta Pavonis successfully and became part of the exodus.”
“She got away, then?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?” he asked softly.
“It’s been a long time. The Olyix enclave—their home star—was a considerable distance from Earth.”
“Just bloody tell me. How long?”
“Approximately twenty thousand years.”
Horatio wanted to yell that they’d got that wrong, or he’d misheard, or…But he knew he hadn’t. Twenty thousand years. The tears came then, and he couldn’t stop them.
NEW YORK
FAR FUTURE
Ten years after their starship returned to Sol, the four of them finally portaled down to their homeworld to visit what had been New York’s Central Park, and would be again. The ground was still boggy from the sea water that had covered it until seventeen months earlier, so they stuck to the temporary pathway that had been laid out along the exact line of the mall, walking in silence. On either side of them, an army of pasty white synthetic bioforms, like squirrel-size caterpillars, were plowing their way through the briny mud, amassing salt and other unwelcome oceanic minerals in bulging filter stomachs, leaving purified soil in their wake. Smaller, more mechanical, genten remotes skittered among them, examining the old tree stumps uncovered after Manhattan had been drained, sampling and analyzing the wood, ready to replant the correct genus when the landscaping was complete.
When they reached the slope littered with the red bricks that had once been Bethesda Terrace, they paused and looked northward. Skeletons of new buildings were spiking up into the chilly azure sky. The distant kilometer-high towers along the Harlem River were complete, home to the first batch of revived New York residents, while the rest of the city was still under construction, progressing south block by block.
Jessika took it all in, feeling a weird kind of nostalgia and pride. I helped these people. I did my job. Now I can finally live with them. Of course, it was always going to be a challenge rebuilding New York. As they came out of the re-life procedure—and a considerable amount of therapy—its old inhabitants set about doing what they did best: arguing loudly—about levels of authenticity, what to re-create, what to consign to history. A surprising number wanted something radically new, a statement of how they should face the future, while some, who took a long, difficult route to accepting their new existence, simply didn’t care.
She rubbed her hands against the cold, wishing she’d worn a thicker jacket. It was mid-August, but the winds blowing down from the glaciers covering the Great Lakes made summers here decidedly Nordic these days. But the ice was in retreat now, leaving behind a very different geography from what had been before.
Callum and Yuri had both gone in for the full rejuvenation process, spun off from the cocoon re-life procedure—itself a legacy from Neána biologic technology that she’d brought to Earth all those years ago. Jessika could only grin ruefully at the vanity her gift had enabled. Kandara, she was surprised to see, hadn’t tuned her appearance back to a perpetual twenties like the boys. She seemed content to settle in her biological forties, still imposingly physical, but with a whole tribal elder vibe going for her now. It helped that everyone on the planet knew who she was thanks to the legend of the Saints, and now her gatekeeper role in the alien assessment committee set up by the Alliance Parliament. People would stop and stare in nervous awe when they saw her, as if she might banish them to the other side of the galaxy as she had so many species.
I wonder if she’d do that to me? Jessika hadn’t confided in her friends—and certainly not to Kandara—but since the destruction of the Olyix enclave, she’d thought she was becoming more knowledgeable. There was information in her mind she was sure hadn’t been there before. Not some massive download triggered by the success of FinalStrike, but an awareness of more than she’d known before.
So perhaps Kandara was right all along, and there is some deep Neána control routine in my subconscious. Or maybe I’m just becoming as paranoid as ordinary humans.
“You’re looking good,” Jessika told Kandara. “Still got your peripherals?”
Kandara’s expression was contemptuous. “A couple of upgrades, yeah. I’m sure the corpus guys are doing a great job out there, blowing all the surviving Olyix shit up, but who wants to take the risk?”
“They’ll never get close to us again,” Yuri said. “Forty-two human settled worlds established. And fifteen hundred designated Alliance star systems beyond that, with another three thousand elected for potential bioforming. Now that’s what I call a solid boundary.”
“You mean buffer zone.” Kandara smirked.
“Those stars might be part of the Alliance,” Callum said, “but they’re going to belong to aliens once they’re fully bioformed. You don’t think that cages us in at all?”
“Now that’s the Callum paranoia we all know and love.”
“We have wormholes and portals stretching almost halfway around the galaxy,” Kandara said. “We are not and never will be ‘caged in.’ Stop thinking in pre-spaceflight terms.”
“News from the frontier,” Jessika said. “Another eight human habitat constellations have emerged to make contact in the last six months.”
“I know,” Yuri said.
“Of course you do,” Callum said, and saluted mockingly. “Adjutant-general, sir.”
“Hey, they’re my headache,” Yuri shot back. “We have to assess what kind of culture they’ve developed. Emilja was a little too successful with her breakaway neolibertarian movement. There are some very strange ideas on how people should live out there.”
“Well, let’s just thank Mary she’s not around to hear you call it that,” Kandara said.
“Could be worse,” Callum said. “They could be like the Jukuar.”
Even Jessika shuddered at the memory of last year’s crisis—the first quasi-military action the Alliance had been forced to launch upon one of their own.
“Mary!” a thoroughly pissed Kandara snapped, staring at Callum. “One mistake, out of over three thousand evaluations. Okay?”
“It wasn’t a criticism,” Callum mumbled.
“How was my team supposed to know the adults could produce subspecies? The original Jukuar batch we revived agreed to the diplomatic framework of the Alliance, with all the non-aggression articles. Binding articles! They didn’t need to birth a soldier caste.”
“Scorpions,” Yuri said.
“What?”
“You all know the morality tale. Scorpions do what they do because that’s what they are. Jukuar families have their soldiers because that’s their nature.”
“Yeah, well, we know that now,” Callum said.
“You can’t blame them.”
“To analyze the Jukuar genetic code to an extent that showed us they have a selective subspecies breeding ability would be phenomenally difficult,” Callum said. “We’re having enough trouble bioforming worlds for aliens with even moderately different biochemistry to o
urs. We’ve got to synthesize organisms from scratch to provide them with the nutrients they need.”
Kandara gave Jessika a thoughtful stare. “Be nice if we had some help. Any sign of the Neána showing themselves?”
“No,” Jessika said. “Not yet, anyway. But they will. One day.”
“Well, they certainly know what we’ve done,” Kandara said. “Every planet humans have settled in this crazy old Alliance of ours is broadcasting their opinions loud and clear across the galaxy. It makes the old solnet allcomments look sane. We’re well and truly in the post–Fermi Paradox era now.”
Callum chuckled. “So much intrigue, so many politicians demanding a democratic voice. He would have loved this, you know.”
“Yeah,” Kandara agreed. “He would.”
“Damn right,” Yuri said. “He was a DC man to the core.”
“True,” Jessika said, and looked around. To the south, along the markers for West 59th Street, the first few foundations had been sunk into the frosty black silt, displacing the old concrete pilings. Carbon girders were already rising up, assembled at impressive speed by genten construction remotes. “Do you remember when we were up there?” she asked. “On the Connexion tower roof, looking down at all the people praying on this terrace?”
“The birth of the incredible Calmissile idea,” Kandara said.
“Oh, bloody hell, will you ever let that go?”
Jessika laughed. “The missile that won the war.”
“Is this why we’re here?” Callum asked.
“No,” Jessika said. “We’re here to remember him. Because no one else will.”
“He’s one of us, a Saint,” Kandara protested. “Nobody will forget any of us. Mary, do I ever know that!”
“But they didn’t know him, not like they do us. The four of us are practically the only government anyone can name.”
“Us and Yirella,” Kandara added gruffly. “If we’re Saints, she’s a fucking angel to the rest of the galaxy.”
Callum gave a sheepish nod. “What do you think we should do, build a memorial?”
“Fuck no,” Yuri said. “He would have hated that. He was a spook; he lived in the shadows. He lived for the shadows.”
“It’s enough that we come here for him,” Kandara said. “Not every year, that would be maudlin, and I’m not lighting candles or crap like that, either. But we will keep doing this when we can. He would enjoy the inconvenience it causes us, if nothing else.”
Yuri smiled. “Then here’s to the inconvenience of Saint Alik Monday, with thanks from the galaxy he liberated.”
YIRELLA2
LONDON
Yirella loved the snow. Even after living on Earth for two years, she still relished going outside to experience it falling magically from the sky. That was why she insisted their house be on the northern edge of London, giving her a panoramic view of the subarctic landscape. In its new incarnation, the ancient capital city was an amalgamation of cozy villages, intended to provide residents a strongly knit community, which was essential for those recovering. For all they were now blessed with perfect new bodies and a post-scarcity interstellar civilization, the shock and abrupt transition from the invasion was overwhelming.
The village they’d settled in was called Lavender Hill. Homes were either solitary lodges, like theirs, or long stone terraces patterned in authentic Georgian style. The quaint architecture made her laugh, but the character did have a certain elegance, and it belonged in her mental image of London.
Standing in front of the curving bay window, she watched daylight fading from the comatose gray sky. The curving street outside was wide, with discreet lighting hidden amid the tall spruce trees. Snow had been cleared from the central pathway, but everywhere else it was a good thirty centimeters deep and compacted, while the boughs and twigs of the trees and bushes were varnished in tough ice. Autumn and winter lasted for a good seven months, and spring was often delayed. Everyone walked around wrapped in thick coats and long scarves, and moaned a lot about the cold. Yirella, who’d grown up in the tropics, relished all the snow and ice, the frozen lakes and frosted trees. For her, the vista was a romantic winter wonderland. Her only disappointment was that they were too far south to see the glacier that covered most of northern England.
It wasn’t an opinion Dellian shared. He never complained. But she knew.
A figure was moving cautiously along the central pathway, checking all the buildings. He stopped outside the lodge, staring up at it. Yirella used her direct meld with the civic net to pull basic information on the stranger. His name was Horatio Seymore. According to his file he was a London resident, captured in 2231, re-bodied a couple of years ago, and currently working as a therapist for newly restored kids—the most difficult cases.
She watched him glance around, then open the iron gate and start up the front path. “We have a visitor,” she called out.
Dellian glanced around from the hanging fire in the middle of the room. It was a Scandinavian design—a metal saucer with a copper top, suspended by an iron flue. She’d included it in the lodge more as an aesthetic statement than anything practical, but it threw out a surprising amount of heat. Not that the logs Dellian was shoving in were real wood, of course; these cylinders were a self-oxygenating burner that was CO2 neutral. After all, nobody wanted to disturb the delicate rebalancing of Earth’s climate now that the ice age had been coaxed into retreat.
Dellian used a poker to rearrange the logs, lunging as if he were fencing with a far more skillful opponent. “Who?”
“Don’t know him.”
“Saints!” A shower of sparks erupted from the fireplace, and he started stomping on them as they bounced across the polished parquet flooring.
The door sensor sent her a polite notification of presence. “I’ll go find out.” She held back a frown as she walked past him. As usual, Dellian was in his constable’s uniform, which wasn’t the most welcoming for guests, but there’d only be an argument if she mentioned it. Again.
Yirella opened the front door and found it easy to smile a greeting at Horatio Seymore. He was very handsome, and taller than Dellian, but it was more than that; something about him just made her feel comfortable. She knew he’d be perfect for helping troubled kids. Shame he looks so troubled himself.
“I’m really sorry to intrude,” Horatio said straight away, “but I’m looking for my wife, and you’re the only person on Earth who can help.”
Yirella hesitated. “I’m afraid I’m only a part-time advisor to the Alliance alien assessment committee these days,” she said. “I have no official status. And anyway, you’ll need the family tracing agency for that.”
“No, I don’t need to trace her. I already know where she is.”
“Where?” she asked automatically.
“Sanctuary.”
“You’d better come in.”
They settled on a long couch facing the fire, Yirella and Dellian cozying up close at the end nearest to the fire and Horatio at the other end, straight-backed and tense, ignoring the Darjeeling tea a remote had poured for him.
“If you’ve been in a cocoon since 2231, how do you know your wife is in Sanctuary?” Yirella asked.
“Gwendoline was on the Pasobla when the Olyix came,” Horatio told them. “It portaled out of Delta Pavonis and became one of the exodus fleet. They established a string of generation worlds.”
She felt Del’s arm tighten around her at the mention of the Pasobla. “That’s the same exodus habitat Emilja and Ainsley were on,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Wait—” Her meld extracted a whole batch of files. “Gwendoline Zangari? She was your wife? You’re Loi’s father? Loi who was Saint Yuri’s assistant, who stole the entanglement node at Salt Lake City?”
Horatio nodded. “That’s her. And my boy.”
“You were snatched
by the Olyix once, years before the invasion. Yuri found you.”
“Yep.”
“You’re practically a saint yourself,” Dellian said in admiration.
“Hardly,” Horatio said. “I’ve spent every waking second since I was re-bodied reviewing files. There are tens of thousands of public records. But with filters, I’ve managed to build a strategy. The key was Lolo Maude.”
“The Factory warship?”
“Yes. You see, I knew Lolo as well, back in the Blitz2 days.”
“You’re kidding!”
“No. Sie used to come to a community kitchen I helped run.”
“Wait! If you knew Lolo, you must have met hir boyfriend, Ollie, as well. Ollie Heslop?”
Horatio frowned. “I don’t think so. Lolo’s boyfriend was Davis Mohan.”
Yirella grinned in delight. “That was Ollie’s alias! He was on the run during Blitz2.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just— You’re living history, you know. We learned all about this in school when we were taught about the Saints.”
“Right. But the point is, Lolo obviously made it to the Factory. After that, sie became a warship like Ainsley.”
“I know. We picked up Lolo’s signal on the Morgan.”
Horatio leaned forward, his eagerness overcoming lingering apprehension. “Once I learned about Lolo, I ran checks through the Morgan’s records. Ainsley said something to you.”
“His granddaughter,” Yirella exclaimed. She smiled down at Dellian. “Remember? Ainsley said that when the Factory alliance broke up, his granddaughter joined the Katos mothership to establish Sanctuary.”
“That’s Gwendoline,” Horatio said.
“Of course. He told me she was there when he transferred his consciousness into the warship.” Her delight faded. “I’m sorry, Horatio. You’re right, Gwendoline must be at Sanctuary. But—”
“They called it that for a reason,” Dellian said firmly. “Best guess is that it’s hiding between the stars, the same as a Neána abode. A place the Olyix could never find. Nobody can.”
The Saints of Salvation Page 52