by Simon Toyne
‘Ah yes, so I did. You’re being very literal though, don’t you think? You’re ignoring the universal law that tells us energy never dies, it just turns into something else. Therefore, the end of one thing must also be the beginning of another. In point of fact you already know what Hubble saw, because you have seen it for yourself.’ Shepherd thought back through all the things he had come across since the investigation had begun but nothing came to mind that might answer his question. ‘You might want to start with the one thing you are sure is connected to the question,’ Kinderman prompted, ever the teacher.
‘The countdown?’
‘Exactly. Now in order to answer your own question you need to take a tip from Marcus Aurelius and ask: “what is it of itself?” – and don’t fall into your usual trap of making assumptions.’
Shepherd thought hard. What was a countdown? It was a steadily reducing measure of time, a prelude to something, like the start of a race or the launch of a rocket. Or was it? Kinderman’s question seemed to suggest it wasn’t the prelude to anything at all – it was actually the thing itself.
‘The countdown is what Hubble saw.’
‘Bravo, Agent Shepherd.’
Shepherd reached into his pocket, looking for his phone but his hand found something else. He pulled out the small, hard object – the woman’s small gun.
Shepherd dropped it back into the jacket and found his phone in another pocket. The countdown was still running, the numbers now almost at zero.
‘Not long now,’ Kinderman said, glancing at the screen.
Shepherd shook his head, confused all over again. ‘Not long to what? If the countdown is the thing itself, then what can come after.’
‘I already told you,’ Kinderman said, ‘a new beginning. Let me try and frame it a little. We are all effectively made of stardust: same atomic material, same physical properties, all linked by an energy and common origin, whether you call it faith or physics. For nearly fourteen billion years the universe has been expanding, from the Big Bang onwards, always heading out, always seeking the new. Everything in the universe has mirrored this inherent nature, stars, planets, even humans. As a species we have spread, conquered, always looking beyond what we already have to what we might attain, even if we risk destroying ourselves in the process: it runs through everything, from an overreaching emperor destroying his empire for the sake of one more conquered land, to the happily married family man risking his happiness for the sake of an affair. Ours is a destructive nature, often a violent one, but it’s not really our fault, we are merely exhibiting the same nature as everything else, the universal urge to expand and ultimately pull ourselves apart.
‘In many ways the Hubble project was no different. We have astonishing levels of child poverty on our planet and there are species beneath the deep oceans we have never laid eyes on. Yet rather than look inward so that we might know ourselves we think the answers always lie out there somewhere, past the edge of what we can see. I was as guilty of it as any. Through Hubble I was able to see further than any man had ever done before. I was gazing upon the ultimate horizon, the one beyond which nothing existed – except maybe God, if that’s the way your beliefs lie – taking measurements of the very first things ever created at the instant of the Big Bang.
‘I had been observing radiation and light at the very edge of the universe, taking measurements of its speed and rate of expansion. Then, just over eight months ago, there was a change. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing, it was so – immense. At first I thought I must have made a mistake so I asked Professor Douglas to check what I was seeing and he concurred. The universe, the constantly expanding universe that has been exploding outwards at ever-increasing speeds since the dawn of time, was slowing down.
‘We decided to keep our findings to ourselves, partly to prevent unnecessary hysteria and speculation and partly to buy ourselves time to try and work out what was happening. At about the same time we both started getting the postcards, which suggested someone was monitoring our work. This made us play our cards even closer to our chest.
‘We classified the data and kept monitoring the furthest edge of the universe as it continued to slow. And the more things slowed down on the furthest edge of space the more we noticed things changing here on Earth. All these migrations of people heading home, the birds flying to nesting grounds out of season, this increasing urge to head back to a point of origin, it’s all just an echo of the changing universe. So there is no great conspiracy or alien mind control at work. Nor is it the harbinger of some terrible divine judgement in the shape of God’s wrath or a rogue planet on a collision course with Earth. It is merely the linked consciousness and impulses that drive us all, fuelled by the energy of the universe, once rushing out to ultimately tear itself apart, now rushing inwards, towards where it originally came from. Back home. To some this is the place they were born, to others it is a person rather than a place, and to others it is somewhere much further back, the place we originally came from as a species.’ He opened his arms and gestured at the garden. ‘Eden.’
110
Liv felt she was drowning in pain.
‘There’s something wrong. You’re almost ten centimetres dilated already and the head is presenting. This baby should be coming.’ Dr Giambanco looked up from beneath the sheet draped over Liv’s legs. ‘Try pushing now.’
Liv was lying on the bed, sweat sheening her skin. She bore down, focusing her energy on her pelvic floor like she had once written about. The pain inside was so intense and total that it literally took her breath away. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘It hurts too much.’
She felt the girl’s small hand grip hers, surprisingly strong for such a tiny thing. ‘Can I see?’ she asked.
Liv nodded, not caring who looked so long as they could make the pain go away. Hevva moved to the bottom of the bed, squirting antiseptic gel on her hands as she went. She rubbed it between her fingers and worked it to the tips in a way that spoke of much practice, then she pressed one hand on Liv’s tummy and swept the other round the top of the baby’s head. ‘It’s a stargazer,’ she said. ‘It’s facing up instead of down. That’s why it’s hard to push out. The head is bending the wrong way so when you push it just gets stuck.’
Dr Giambanco peered around Hevva’s narrow shoulders. ‘I think she’s right. We might have to do an emergency C-section.’
Liv felt sick at the thought, but the pain was so all encompassing she would do almost anything to make it stop.
‘I could try and turn it,’ Hevva said. ‘My hands are small. I’ve done it before.’
The doctor shook his head. ‘I don’t think we should risk –’
‘Yes,’ Liv cut in. ‘Let her try.’
Dr Giambanco nodded and moved aside.
‘Could you push against the leg,’ Hevva said, her serious face angled up at the doctor. ‘And you,’ she turned to the other medic, ‘you push against the other, but only when I say.’
She turned back to Liv, squirting more gel on her hands, making them as slippery as she could while she waited for the next contraction. Time stretched and the sounds of the night and rush of the fountain filled it.
Liv breathed. Tried to relax, then the burn of the pain started rising again.
‘Now. Push now,’ Hevva said and everybody obeyed. Then her hands slid forward and around the crown of the baby’s head.
The numbers on Shepherd’s phone continued their steady tick down. ‘What do you think will happen when it hits zero?’
‘Nothing, at least not immediately. I think the changes we have already felt and witnessed will continue. The stardust in everything will respond in exactly the same way as before, only the effect will be different. I imagine we will no longer seek to conquer and discover, but become more reflective instead, our eyes will turn inward, just as Hubble has turned its gaze towards the Earth. I hope that after an entire history blighted by war and violence – manifestations of the destructive imperatives of an expansive
universe – we can look forward to an equally long period of peace and calm.
‘On a fundamental level, everything is bound to change: human nature, politics, science, even religion. The end of days may be upon us, but only the end of the old days, the new ones will number the same as those that have gone before as the universe contracts – fourteen billion years, the exact same time frame as its expansion.’
The number on Shepherd’s phone got smaller and he could almost feel a calm flowing from it. Smaller was good. Smaller was simpler and much more comforting somehow than the concept of the infinite.
A noise made him look up, the sound of a diesel engine, approaching low and heavy like a truck. It got louder and the wash of headlamps cut through the trees, bouncing up and down as the wheels caught the ruts in the road. It swung directly towards them, the light blinding them, before slowing to a stop behind the parked jeep.
The engine shuddered to a standstill and silence flooded back. The rear canvas flaps of the truck peeled back and people started to drop to the ground, stretching their backs and looking in wonder at their new surroundings.
‘More people answering the siren call of the changing universe,’ Kinderman said. ‘And just in time too.’
Shepherd looked down at the countdown again just as the numbers tumbled to zero and immediately started to build again with a minus sign in front. At the same moment two things happened: the ambient light levels jumped slightly as all the stars became a little brighter; and a deep, almost animal cry split the night as Liv gave one long, final push. Then there was the tiny mewl of newborn.
111
The first thing Gabriel heard when he climbed stiffly from the back of the truck after the long journey was the cry of a woman.
He was naturally conditioned to respond to signs of distress and cries of pain but there was something in the sound that he recognized. His senses snapped to attention and he reacted quickly, moving along the side of the truck, heading to the source. The sound had come from a screened-off area by the water’s edge, with light coming from behind the screens.
He pushed past a staked sheet of canvas and squinted against the sudden brightness of the stand lights.
Liv was lying on a makeshift bed in the centre of a group of people. She looked tired and drawn but was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She seemed to glow in the lights. A young girl was at her feet holding a newborn baby that squirmed and cried. She wrapped it in a towel and handed it to Liv.
A baby – Liv’s baby.
Shepherd saw the man get down from the truck – and head straight for the canvas screens. Hevva was in there, he couldn’t see what was happening, he was too far away. The man disappeared behind the screens and Shepherd broke into a run, his feet slipping in the soft earth of the shore.
Over by the truck someone else started to move with the same sense of purpose the first man had displayed. He was wearing a bulky jacket, like a soldier’s tunic, and there was something about it and the stiff way he walked that set alarms ringing in Shepherd’s head. The man reached the screens and turned briefly before disappearing behind them, the light from the truck’s headlights catching his face. Shepherd stared. Shocked.
It was the Hubble control technician from Goddard. It was Merriweather.
112
Liv saw Gabriel appear at the edge of the light and walk towards her. She thought it must be some kind of hallucination brought on by hormones or pheromones or endorphins or any combination of the three.
She felt the weight of the baby as it was placed on her chest and she looked down at it – this tiny, perfect being. She had never really believed in love at first sight but in that first moment she saw her baby she loved it more than she had ever loved anything in her life. She would die for it right now if she had to.
She looked back up, expecting the vision of Gabriel to have gone but he was still there, solid and real. He too had tears in his eyes and he was looking down at her and the baby.
Liv smiled and wept all at once, holding the baby’s velvety head close to her mouth. ‘It’s your daddy,’ she whispered. ‘He came back.’
Then she saw movement, directly behind Gabriel.
Merriweather stepped into the blaze of light and beheld the bizarre nativity: the woman on the bed, holding the false prophet in her arms – the un-doer of everything, the Antichrist.
He stepped forward, unbuttoning his tunic and letting it fall to the floor, no longer Merriweather, now revealed as his true self – the Novus Sancti. He opened his arms to form the cross with his body, revealing the ritualized cuts in his flesh, and the packs of explosives strapped to his chest. In one hand he held a gun, in the other, a wire connected to the explosives.
Now he could complete his transformation and become the instrument of mankind’s delivery, the first martyr of the reborn church, ending this Satanic rebellion before it had even begun.
Gabriel saw the fear in Liv’s eyes and turned to see what had put it there.
He saw the bomb, the outstretched arms, the ritual cuts of a Sanctus.
His instinct was to just hurl himself forward and knock him away from Liv and the baby. But the Sanctus was too far back. Gabriel would be shot before he covered the distance. But he was also too far away from Liv and the baby and he could see by the look in his eyes that they were his target. He would move closer, to try and close the gap between himself and everyone else to make sure the bomb blast was effective. That was when Gabriel would do it.
Then someone stepped into view, and the Sanctus reacted, spinning round to point the gun at the newcomer. The gunshot was like thunder. The man fell back, thrown by the impact of the bullet. Gabriel threw himself at the Sanctus, hitting him hard and sending them both to the floor. He pinned his gun hand down beneath the weight of his body and grabbed for the hand holding the wire, digging his thumb hard into the wrist tendons, seeking the pressure point that would weaken the man’s grip. In a detached part of his mind he remembered his grandfather doing something similar to save him and his mother from a grenade. He had smothered the blast with his body, giving his life in exchange for theirs, and now he must do the same.
The Sanctus roared in pain as the thumb dug deeper. He tried to twist away and brought his arm down hard on the top of Gabriel’s head. Once, twice the elbow driving the full force of the blow into his skull.
Gabriel held on, weathering the blows as best he could, unable to raise an arm to protect himself. He had to keep hold of the Sanctus, if he let go then they were all lost. The blows continued to rain down and the jarring movement of them caused Gabriel’s hand to slip. The Sanctus pulled his wrist free and the button fell from his numbed hand.
Gabriel kicked hard with his legs, digging into the earth and pushing them both a few inches further from the bed and the precious people on it.
He reached for the hand again but the Sanctus had twisted it away far enough to keep it out of reach. The hand found the button and Gabriel kicked again to try and jar it free or gain a few more precious inches.
But it was not enough.
He saw the hand close around the button and he shut his eyes, bracing himself, hoping the ground and his own body would absorb enough of the blast to protect Liv and his child.
Shepherd came through the canvas screens on the opposite side to where the others had entered. The rider who had greeted them was lying on the floor, a gunshot wound bleeding in his chest. Hevva was by the bed, her eyes fixed on the violent struggle taking place on the floor. He stepped forward. Saw the hate burning in Merriweather’s face, saw the bomb, the newborn baby, the mattress out of place, even the light on the stand burning like the sun had burned from the poster – all of it so familiar from Hogan’s Alley and the other dark basement.
He raised the small gun he had taken from the woman and aimed it at Merriweather’s head, trying to put all that had happened before from his mind.
The bullets are real – he told himself – and so is the bomb.
A
nd Hevva is standing right by it.
His finger tightened on the trigger but Merriweather jerked away, swinging his other hand round. Shepherd saw the gun in it, saw it angle down towards the man he was struggling with. He took a step forward, not caring about getting shot, only about narrowing the gap and improving the accuracy of this tiny gun he had never fired.
The explosion was so loud Gabriel thought he must be dead. Even so he still clung on. He felt that if he could brace himself against death, even for an extra few microseconds, it might make a difference to the living.
So much flashed though his mind in that moment, fragments of the life he was about to lose. He saw the baby he had barely glimpsed growing into a – what? He didn’t even know if he had a son or a daughter and he would die not knowing. He would have liked to have known his child and spent his life with Liv by his side. But this was not such a bad death, if his death meant life for them.
Then the echo of the gunshot rang away into the night.
And Gabriel opened his eyes.
113
Shepherd sat on the edge of the water, tossing in stones. They sank beneath the surface, leaving no ripples, a tiny marker of the new universal order.
After everything Kinderman had said about the new age of peace, killing Merriweather had seemed like a particularly obscene and revolting act. He knew it had been unavoidable, but still …
He had drifted through the aftermath of the shooting on auto-pilot, clearing the area as if it was just a normal crime scene and backup was on its way. But he was on his own out here and he felt the sadness settle on him like his darkest depressions had done in the past. But there was one bright shaft of light shining through it all. Hevva was OK. He had saved his daughter.
Once the bomb was made safe he had called Franklin, old habits dying hard, and told him everything, using his partner like an old-time priest who might hear his confession and forgive him his sins. And when Franklin hung up, promising to call back with more news, he felt like he was all talked out and empty. He had handed on the baton of responsibility. He was free.