by Eric Brown
“Oh, about a mile, maybe a little bit less.”
Standish halted his pint before his lips. “And you say you saw something. From that distance?”
Knightly glanced at his wife, then said, “Well, it wasn’t hard to miss…”
A helicopter, Standish thought, his imagination getting the better of him. A hot-air balloon?
“At first I thought it was a shooting star,” Knightly said. “I see them all the time, but not quite that early. But this star just went on and on, dropping towards the earth. I thought at first it was a beam bringing the returnees home, but it wasn’t heading for the Station.”
Standish nodded, wondering where this was leading. “Where did it fall?”
Ben Knightly shrugged his big shoulders. “It went down behind the trees next to the Roberts’ house.”
Standish looked at Lincoln. “A meteorite? I’m not very up on these things.”
“Meteorites usually come in at an acute angle,” the ferryman said, “not straight down.”
“I thought I was seeing things,” Knightly said. “But when I read about the murder…”
Standish shook his head. “I really don’t see how…” Then he recalled the melted patch outside the back door of the farmhouse.
The conversation moved on to other things, after that. A little later they were joined by more people, friends of Lincoln. Standish recognised an implant doctor from Bradley General, Khalid Azzam, and Jeffrey Morrow and Dan Chester, another ferryman.
They were pleasant people, Standish thought. They went out of their way to make him feel part of the group. He bought a round and settled in for the evening. The ferrymen talked about why they had chosen their profession, and perhaps inevitably the topic of conversation soon moved round to the Kéthani.
“Come on, you two,” Elisabeth said to Richard and Dan, playfully. “You come into contact with returnees every day. They must say something about the Kéthani homeworld?”
Lincoln smiled. “It’s strange, but they don’t. They say very little. They talk about the rehabilitation process in the domes, conducted by humans, and then what they call ‘instructions’, lessons in Zen-like contemplation, again taught by humans.”
Dan Chester said, “They don’t meet any Kéthani, or leave the domes. The view through the domes is one of rolling hills and vales—probably not what the planet looks like at all.”
Standish looked around the group. They were all implanted. “Have you ever,” he said, marshalling his thoughts, “had any doubts about the motives of the Kéthani?”
A silence developed, while each of the people around the table considered whether to answer truthfully.
At last Elisabeth said, “I don’t think there’s a single person on the planet who hasn’t wondered, at some point. Remember the paranoia to begin with?”
That was before the returnees had returned to Earth, miraculously restored to life, with stories of the Edenic alien homeworld. These people seemed cured not only in body, but also in mind, assured and centred and calm… How could the Kéthani be anything other than a force for good?
Standish said, “I sometimes think about what’s happened to us, and… well, I’m overcome by just how much we don’t know about the universe and our place in it.”
He shut up. He was drunk and rambling.
Not long after that the bell rang for last orders, and it was well after midnight before they stepped from the warmth of the bar into the sub-zero chill of the street. Standish made his farewells, promising he’d drop in again but knowing that, in all likelihood, in future he would do his drinking alone at the Dog and Gun.
He contemplated taking a taxi home, but decided he was fit enough to drive. He negotiated the five miles back to his village at a snail’s pace, grateful for the gritted roads.
It was well after one o’clock by the time he drew up outside the house. The hall light was blazing, and the light in the kitchen, too. Was Amanda still up, waiting for him? Had she planned another row, a detailed inventory of his faults and psychological flaws?
He unlocked the front door, stepped inside, and stopped.
Three big suitcases filled the hallway.
He found Amanda in the kitchen.
She was sitting at the scrubbed-pine table, a glass of Scotch in her hand. She stared at him as he appeared in the doorway.
“I thought I’d better wait until you got back,” she said.
“You’re leaving?” He pulled out a chair and slumped into it. What did he feel? Relief, that at last someone in this benighted relationship had been strong enough to make a decision? Yes, but at the same time, too, a core of real regret.
“Who is she?” Amanda asked, surprising him.
He blinked at her. “Who’s who?”
She reached across the table and took a photograph from where it was propped against the fruit bowl.
“I found it in the hall this morning. Who is she?”
It was the snap of Sarah Roberts he’d taken from the Station yesterday. Instinctively he reached for his breast pocket. The photograph must have slipped out last night when he’d tried to hang his jacket up.
“Well?” She was staring at him, something very much like hatred in her eyes.
A part of him wanted to take her to task over her hypocrisy, but another part was too tired and beaten to bother.
“It has nothing to do with you,” he said.
“I’m going!” she said, standing.
He watched her hurry to the kitchen door, then said, “Staying with… what’s his name? Jeremy Croft, in Hockton?”
She stopped in the doorway, turned, and stared at him. He almost felt sorry for her when she said, “I met him last year, Doug, when things were getting impossible here. I wanted someone to love me, someone I could love.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t find that with me.”
She shook her head. “Sometimes these things just don’t work, no matter how hard you try. You know that.” She hesitated, then said, “I hope you find what you want with…” She gestured to the snap of Sarah Roberts on the kitchen table, then hurried into the hall.
He opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of trying to correct her.
He heard her open the door and struggle out with the cases. He pushed himself upright and moved into the hall.
He pulled open the door and stepped outside. Amanda was driving away.
Strangely, he no longer felt the cold. In the silence of the night, he walked from the house and stood in the lane, staring up at the massed and scintillating stars.
Then he saw a shooting star—denoting a death, somewhere—and then he knew. It was as if he had known all along, but the sight of the shooting star had released something within him, allowing him the insight.
It made sense. Sarah Roberts, a woman without a past, living in a pristine house, empty of all the trivial products of the modern world. It made perfect sense. Perhaps, after all, she was an angel.
Laughing to himself, he staggered back inside and shut the door behind him. He moved to the lounge, collapsed on the sofa, and slept.
That night, not even the pulsing light from the Onward Station could wake him from his dreams.
He woke late the following morning, dragged from sleep by something indefinable working at the edge of his consciousness. He lay on his back and blinked up at the ceiling, recalling the events of the night before and sensing the start of a debilitating depression.
Then he became aware of what had awoken him: his phone, purring in the pocket of his jacket where he’d dropped it last night.
He pulled his jacket towards him and fumbled with the phone. “Standish here.”
“Inspector Standish? Director Masters at the Station. I wonder if you could spare me a little of your time?”
“Concerning Roberts…?”
“Not over the phone, inspector.”
“Very well. I’ll be right over.”
The Director thanked him and rang off.
He splashed his face with cold water, brushed his teeth and then made his way out to the car, his head throbbing from too many beers in the Fleece last night.
It was another sunny morning. He wondered what Amanda was doing now. As he drove through the quiet lanes and over the moors, towards the Onward Station, he imagined her in the arms of her lover.
At the sight of the rearing obelisk, he recalled what had come to him in the early hours, as he stood staring up at the spread of stars.
It seemed, in the harsh light of day, highly improbable.
He left his Renault in the parking lot and stepped through the sliding door. Director Masters himself was on hand to greet him.
“If you’d care to step this way.”
He led Standish along a white corridor. They came at last to a sliding door, but not that of Masters’s office.
The door eased open without a sound, and the director gestured Standish through.
He stepped into a small, white room, furnished only with a white, centrally located settee. He heard the door click shut behind him, and when he turned to question Masters he realised that the director had left him alone in the room.
A minute elapsed, and then two. Vaguely uneasy, without quite knowing why, he sat on the settee and waited.
Almost immediately a concealed sliding door opposite him opened quickly, and he jumped to his feet.
Someone stepped through the opening, backed by effulgent white light, and it was a second before his vision adjusted.
When it did, he could only stare in disbelief.
A slim, blonde woman stood before him. She was dressed in a white one-piece suit. Her expression, as she stared at him, was neutral.
It was Sarah Roberts.
He opened his mouth, but no words came. Then he looked more closely at the woman before him. It was almost Roberts, but not quite; there was a slight difference in the features, but enough of a similarity for the woman and Roberts to be sisters.
Standish managed, “Who are you?”
She smiled. “I think you know that, Doug.” It was the familiarity of her using his first name that shocked him, as much as what she had said.
“I was right? Roberts was…?”
She inclined her head. “This soma-form, and variations upon it, is how we show ourselves on Earth.”
His vision blurred. He thought he was going to pass out.
Was he one of the few people ever to knowingly set eyes on a member of the Kéthani race?
“Why? I mean—”
“We need to come among you from time to time, to monitor the progress of our work.”
“But this…” He gestured at her. “This isn’t how you appear in reality?”
She almost laughed. “Of course not, Doug.”
“What do you look like?”
She regarded him, then said, gently, “You would be unable to apprehend our true selves, or make sense of what you saw.”
He nodded. “Okay…” He took a breath. His head was pounding, with more than just the effects of the hangover. “Okay, so… what do you want with me? Why did you summon me here? Is it about—?”
She smiled. “The killing of the woman you knew as Sarah Roberts.”
“The light from the sky,” he said, “the patch of melted snow outside the farmhouse…” He shook his head. “Who killed her?”
“There is so much you don’t know about the Kéthani,” the woman said, “so much you have to learn. Like you, we have enemies. There are races out there who do not agree with what we are doing. Sometimes, these races act against us. Two nights ago, three enemy agents came to various locations on Earth to assassinate our envoys. They escaped before we could apprehend them.”
He nodded, let the seconds elapse. “Why do they object to what you’re doing?”
She smiled. “In time, Doug, in time. You will die, be reborn, and eventually go among the stars. Then you will learn more than you can possibly imagine.”
“Why have you told me this?”
“We want you to solve the crime,” she replied. “You will return to the farmhouse and search it. You will find a concealed space behind a bookcase in the main bedroom. You will assume that the killer hid there, emerged, and killed Sarah Roberts, stole her jewellery box, then escaped a day later using the cover of the tracks in the snow made by you and your colleagues.”
It was his turn to smile. “But I know what really happened,” he began.
“You do now,” she said, “but when you leave the Station you will remember nothing of our meeting.”
He was overcome, then, with some intimation of the awesome power of the Kéthani, and his people’s ignorance.
“You are a good person, Doug.” The woman smiled at him, with something like compassion in her eyes. “Let what has happened to you of late be the start of a new life, not the end.”
He was suddenly aware of his pulse. “How do you know?”
“We know everything about you,” the alien said. She stepped forward and reached up.
Her fingers touched the implant at his temple, and he felt a sudden dizziness, followed by an inexplicable, heady surge of optimism.
“The implants allow us access to your very humanity,” she said. “Goodbye, Doug. Be happy.”
She stepped through the sliding door, and seconds later the door to the corridor opened and Standish passed through. Masters’s secretary escorted him towards the exit.
By the time he left the Station, Standish could only vaguely recall his meeting with Director Masters. He blamed the effects of the alcohol he’d consumed last night, and headed towards his car.
It came to him that he should check the farmhouse again. There had to be a rational explanation of what had happened there the other day. Murderers simply did not appear out of the blue and vanish again just as inexplicably.
He paused and gazed over the snow-covered landscape, marvelling at its beauty. He recalled Amanda’s leaving last night and it came to him that it wasn’t so much the end of his old life, but the beginning of a new phase of existence. He experienced a sudden, overwhelming wave of optimism. He recalled the invitation from Lincoln and the others to join them at the Fleece again, and knew in future that he would.
Smiling to himself, without really knowing why, Standish started the engine and drove slowly away from the Onward Station.
Interlude
That Tuesday, Zara came home in a good mood. That in itself was reason enough for me to be suspicious. These days she was usually quiet, uncommunicative. I’d ask her what was wrong, and she’d reply that she was tired, or stressed out at work. For a long time now we’d lived what amounted to separate lives, going about our own interests and concerns without involving each other. From time to time I’d make the effort, attempt to rekindle the spark of bur early relationship; but her rebuffs left me feeling hollowed and isolated. Often my enquiries escalated into full-blown rows, as if she resented the fact that I was questioning the state of our relationship. Perhaps she was feeling guilty.
So that evening when she breezed in and smiled at me, I wondered what was wrong. She had left the front door wide open, and before I could ask why, two overalled delivery men shuffled in carrying something heavy shrouded in bubble-wrap. They deposited it in the lounge and departed, and I asked, “What is it?”
She was still smiling. Without replying, she knelt and tore off the bubble-wrap, revealing a sculpture in dark wood. It was a half life-sized representation of a man and a woman, entwined in the act of making love.
She dragged it over to the corner of the room. “What do you think, Khalid?”
I didn’t look at her. “It reminds me of something,” I said. “Let me think… Ah, that’s it. It reminds me of the time when we used to make love… How long ago was that, Zara?”
She just stared at me. “And whose fault is that?”
“Well,” I said, working to maintain my temper, “it certainly isn’t mine. I’m game, any time. How about tonight? Tell you what. I won’t go t
o the pub. We’ll go to bed now, if you like.”
She looked away. “You know it’s my study group night.”
“So miss it for once. Make love to me, instead.”
She approached the sculpture, knelt and examined it.
She said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
I wondered if she were taunting me. She went on, “I managed to secure it for half its sale price. I know the artist. He comes to the study group.”
I tried to sound casual. “Oh? Who is he?”
“Simon Robbins. He’s quite famous. You might have heard of him…” As she said this, she reached out and caressed the sleek buttock of the male figure.
The name did ring a bell. “Wasn’t he the artist who was jailed for murder… what, twenty years ago?”
She nodded, abstracted. “He served his time, came out, and when the Kéthani came he killed himself. He… he didn’t like the person he was. He thought the Kéthani might cure him.”
I hesitated, then said, “And did they?”
She smiled. “Yes, Khalid, they did. He came back from Kéthan a changed man, became an artist. He’s a good person.” Her fingertips rested on the sculpture, and her eyes had a faraway look.
I crossed to her, touched her luxuriant hair. “Zara…” I was close to tears, for reasons I couldn’t quite work out.
She pulled away, stood hurriedly, and moved to the stairs. “Must rush. Can’t be late for the study group.”
She disappeared, and I fixed myself something to eat as she changed and left the house.
That night I arrived early at the Fleece and had downed three pints by nine o’clock before the others arrived.
“Khal,” Doug Standish laughed when he saw me. “Are you living here?”
I attempted a smile. “Feels like it sometimes.”
Elisabeth sat beside me and gave me a hug. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Long day at the ward.”
Dan Chester and Richard Lincoln blew in and Dan bought a round. They were talking shop. Apparently, Dan had been reading some paper put out by the government department that oversaw the running of the Onward Stations in England.