by Eric Brown
The day of his return came about, and there was a big crowd of locals in the reception lounge of the Onward Station that afternoon. His parishioners were out in force, ninety-nine per cent of them implanted; a gaggle of clergy was present, too. His Tuesday night friends formed a small knot among the crowd.
At three on the dot, the head of operations at the Station, Director Masters, made a short speech, and Matt stepped through the sliding doors and greeted us.
Matthew, in his late forties when he died, now looked a good ten years younger, his waistline slimmed down, the fat of his face pared—even the distinguished grey at his temples was gone. He looked leaner, fitter, somehow more full of energy, if that were possible.
He made the rounds, shaking hands, hugging, slapping backs; many of his flock were in tears.
I wondered if it was significant that he was no longer wearing his dog collar, or if he was undercover here, too.
“The beer brigade!” he greeted the Tuesday nighters. “God, I’ve missed a pint where I was…” We laughed.
One hour later, Matt was driven away by the officials of his Church.
As I watched him go, I thought over what he had said all those months ago about the Kéthani and their place in the scheme of things, and I wondered if Father Matthew Renbourn would slip quietly back into his old way of life in the village. I should have known the answer to that, of course.
That evening, just as I was about to call it a day, pack up my cornet, and slip out for a quick one at the Fleece, the phone rang.
It was Matt.
I couldn’t conceal my surprise. “Matt, great to hear from you. Look, do you fancy a pint? We’re meeting at the Fleece at nine.”
He made an excuse—he had a lot of work on. But, he said, he would like to see me.
I evinced my surprise yet again. “Well, of course. Great. Where?”
“Could you pop along to the church in ten minutes?”
It was high summer and a magnificently balmy evening. Not that I appreciated the sunset and the birdsong as I made my way down the lane to St. Luke’s. My head was full of my imminent meeting with Matt.
I found him in his office, seated behind his desk in the very same chair I’d found him in six months earlier.
He smiled at me. “Andy, sit down. I’d like to thank you for your work with the orchestra.”
“You’re welcome. It’s not the same without you… But that isn’t why you wanted to see me, is it?”
He grinned disarmingly. “Of course not. Doug told me that it was you who discovered the… my body.”
I nodded. “It was something of a shock,” I said.
“I can well imagine.” He paused and thought about what he was going to say next. “I think I owe you an explanation,” he continued.
I stared at him, not understanding. “About what?”
“About my death,” he murmured, “what else?”
I made a feeble gesture. “But what is there to explain?” I said. “You died of a massive coronary.”
“Officially, Andrew, I died of a massive coronary.”
I tried a smile. “And unofficially?”
“I’m not at all sure you’d believe me.”
“Try me.”
Matt leaned back in his chair and arranged his fingers in a fair imitation of a church steeple. “There is a lot we don’t know about, Andy. A lot happening in the big, wide universe out there that we, with our limited perceptions, cannot even guess at.” He paused, looked at his hands. “Do you recall those figures—the figures of light? I mentioned they were following me.”
“How can I forget?”
He nodded. “That night, six months ago, one came to see me, came here, into this very office. That night. Orchestra night.”
“What happened?” I asked, my voice far from steady. “What did it say?”
“It said nothing,” he told me. “It merely sent me on the next stage of my journey.”
I was suddenly aware of how loud my heartbeat was. “It killed you?” I murmured.
“It reached out,” he said, “and touched my chest, just here,” he lay his fingertips on his sternum, “and I felt a sudden and ineffable sense of joy, of affirmation, and I knew that my true quest had begun.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I understand,” I began.
“When I was resurrected on Kéthan, I was instructed. I learned many things about the universe, the various races out there, the many philosophies. I was given the option of returning to Earth, or going among the stars. They showed me a vast starship, due to explore what we call the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. They want me to be aboard it when it sails.”
I hardly heard myself say, “In what capacity?”
He beamed at me. “To spread the word,” he said.
“The Kéthani…” I whispered. “You said, a while ago, that they were but tools to achieve God’s purpose.”
He nodded. “And I think they know that, too, my friend.”
A little later he showed me to the door of the church and shook my hand.
“Goodbye, Andrew,” Matt said, and turned and walked up the aisle towards the altar and the figure of Jesus on the cross. I watched him kneel and bow his head in prayer.
That was the last time I saw Father Matthew Renbourn. In the morning he slipped quietly from the village, leaving behind him the mystery of his death and the even greater mystery of his mission among the stars.
That night, I left Matt praying to his God and made my slow way to the Fleece. There, I informed the others what Matt had told me, and we speculated long into the night whether our friend was blessed… or deluded.
Interlude
Fifteen years had passed since the coming of the Kéthani, and I often looked back and marvelled that so short a time had elapsed since that momentous day on the moors when I beheld the arrival of the Onward Station. I looked back, too, and found it hard to imagine life before the Kéthani. The world had been a vastly different place, then; but more, the human race had been very different. In the centuries and millennia BK, as we came to know it, humanity had schemed and grabbed and fought and killed on a global level, playing out imperatives that had their roots in individual neuroses: we were the descendants of animals, and within us was the conditioning of the jungle. We had feared death, and in consequence perhaps we had also feared life.
And now, a decade and a half later?
I’ll employ a cliché: humanity was more humane. I witnessed more small acts of charity in my day-to-day dealings with people, more gestures of care and kindness. I saw less cruelty, less hatred. We were, perhaps, leaving behind the animal within us and evolving into something else.
So much change in fifteen years…
All this is a preliminary to the scene I’m about to relate, which happened unsurprisingly in the main bar of the Fleece.
It was a few days before Christmas, the fire was roaring, and the usual faces were gathered about the table. Conversation was good.
Then I looked up as the door opened, admitting a swirl of wind and a beautiful woman.
She was dressed in high boots and a black coat buttoned up to her chin, and the face I stared at was pale and elfin, with a midnight fall of jet-black hair.
She stamped her feet and brrr’d her lips, then looked over to our group, smiled and lifted gloved fingers in a little wave—and only then did I realise, with a start, who it was.
Dan Chester stood, crossed the room, and embraced his daughter, Lucy.
She hugged us one by one, saying how good it was to be back home. “Khal,” she said. “It’s great to see you!”
She sat down and sipped a half a pint of Ram Tam, and told us all about life at university in London.
It was perhaps two years since I’d last seen Lucy, and she had changed, imago-like, from a shy teenager into a confident, self-possessed young woman in her late teens.
She was studying xeno-biology and international relations, preparatory to leaving Earth. She had discussed her decis
ion with her father: it was the thing she most wanted to do, and though Dan had found it hard to accept that soon, within two years, she would be light years away among the stars, he could not find it within him to deny her dreams.
She looked around the group and said, “Did you know that the university is Kéthani-run?”
“What?” Richard Lincoln quipped, “the dons wave tentacles or pseudo-pods?”
Lucy laughed. “Perhaps I should say it’s Kéthani administered. All the courses are geared to students who have made the decision to leave Earth and work with the Kéthani.”
“I suppose it makes sense,” Sam said.
“There’s a wonderful atmosphere of… not only of learning, but of camaraderie. We’re about to do something wondrous out there, and the excitement is infectious.”
Andy Souter, our resident sceptic, said, “What exactly will you be doing out there, Lucy?”
She smiled and looked into her drink. When she looked up, I saw the light of… dare I say evangelism… in her eyes. “We’ll be taking the word of the Kéthani to the universe, Andy. We’ll be endowing as yet uncontacted races with what the Kéthani have given us; I’ll be working with pre-industrial, humanoid races, bringing them to an understanding of the Kéthani, rather than have them learn about the Kéthani as we did, with the sudden arrival of the Onward Stations. Other students will be liaising between disputing races or helping races who have fought to the point of extinction. Oh…” she beamed around the table, “there’s no limit to the work to be done out there!”
I could see that Andy remained unconvinced, but her enthusiasm won me over.
I said, “The human race has certainly evolved since the Kéthani came, Lucy.”
“Evolved,” she said. “Yes, that’s the word, Khal. Evolved. Everyone has changed, haven’t they, not only the returnees, but those who haven’t yet died.” She looked round the group.
“We no longer fear death, do we? That curse has been lifted from our psyches. We can… for the first time in existence, we can look ahead and enjoy being alive.”
I smiled. Years ago, I would have labelled her optimism as the product of youth; but now that optimism had infected all of us.
The door opened, and someone hurried into the bar and ordered a drink, a young man in a thick coat and walking boots. Lucy turned quickly and smiled at the new arrival, and it was wonderful to see the unmistakable light of love in her eyes.
I recognised the man as Davey Emmett.
Lucy said, in almost a whisper, “I, more than most, have so much to thank the Kéthani for…”
Davey carried his pint across the room and joined us. He kissed Lucy and sat down beside her, and I noticed that immediately Lucy found his hand with hers and squeezed.
Davey smiled across at me. “Khalid, it’s been a long time.”
I nodded. “Almost a year? How are you?”
He laughed. “Never better. I enrolled at the London uni. A mature student.” He looked at Lucy and grinned. “Amazing, isn’t it, that I had to travel two hundred miles in order to meet someone from the same village.”
I looked at Lucy; she seemed hesitant and oddly nervous. She cast a quick glance across at her father. Davey, beside her, gave her a subtle nudge, and I guessed what was about to happen.
She said, “Dad…” She coloured prettily, and turned and looked at Davey. “Dad, everyone, I thought it’d be nice to announce it among friends. Davey and I are planning to get married later this year…”
We cheered, and Richard Lincoln ordered a bottle of champagne, and we took it in turns to kiss Lucy and shake Davey’s hand.
It was the start of a long night, one of the best among many I’d experienced in the Fleece with my friends.
I thought back almost a year, to the last time I had met Davey Emmett and his remarkable mother.
Even now, not all the citizens of Earth chose to be implanted. Katherine Emmett had been one of these people.
For the most part I viewed these mavericks as misguided, or as short-sighted religious crackpots—though not Katherine Emmett. I had nothing but respect for the old lady and her decision to remain without an implant.
It’s a testament to the power of her faith, and her humanity, that she allowed her son the opportunity to make his own choice.
NINE
A CHOICE OF ETERNITIES
I was in the Fleece on Tuesday night when Richard Lincoln buttonholed me about old Mrs. Emmett. I’d arrived at seven and ordered a braised pork chop with roast potatoes and a pint of Landlord.
Sam was serving behind the bar. “You’re early, Khalid.”
“Hard day at the mill,” I said. “I need to wind down.”
“Well, the Landlord’s on form tonight. I’ll just go put your order in.”
She disappeared into the kitchen and I took a long draught of ale. Sam was right: it was nectar.
I’d had a tiring day at the hospital. Usually the implantation process went like a dream, but that afternoon, just as I was about to start the last implantation, the patient decided that he’d had second thoughts. He wanted a little time to consider what he was doing. It had been after six before I’d been able to get away.
I was the first of the Tuesday night crowd to arrive, but the others were not far behind. Ben and Elisabeth came in first, looking frozen stiff after the long walk through the snow; then the ferrymen Richard Lincoln and Dan Chester blew in, talking shop as usual, followed by Jeffrey Morrow. Next came Doug Standish and Andy Souter, and last of all Samantha’s husband, Stuart Kingsley. Samantha finished her shift at the bar and joined us.
I thought of Zara and the many happy Tuesday nights we’d spent at the Fleece with our friends, before my wife walked out on me and I killed myself, over ten years ago now.
I was on my third pint when Richard Lincoln returned from the bar with a round and sat down beside me.
Richard wore old-fashioned tweeds and liked his beer, but far from being the conservative country type he so much resembled, I found him liberal and open-minded. He lived next door to me along the street from the Fleece, and I considered him my best friend. Certainly he was the only person I’d told about what had really happened ten years ago.
“Cheers, Khalid,” Richard said, dispatching a good quarter of his pint in one swallow. “I wanted to talk to you about something. Another reluctant customer.”
On my return from Kéthan, I had told Richard that I’d decided to stay on Earth and spread the good word about the implantation process. From time to time he put me on to people he came across in his line of work who were reluctant, for various reasons, to undergo the implantation.
“Old Mrs. Emmett, up at High Fold Farm,” Richard said. “She has a son, Davey. He’s mentally handicapped.”
“And he isn’t implanted, right?”
“That’s the thing. Mrs. Emmett isn’t implanted, either. She’s no fool, Khalid. No addled hermit living on the moors. She might be in her seventies, but she’s all there. A retired university lecturer. She isn’t implanted on religious grounds.”
“Always the hardest to convert,” I said.
“The thing is, Davey is dying. Lung cancer. He was diagnosed a couple of months ago. I sent a counsellor from the Onward Station to talk to Mrs. Emmett last week, but she was having none of it.”
“And you think I might be able to talk her round?”
“Well, she does think highly of you,” Richard said.
I looked at him, surprised. “She does?”
“You treated her in hospital way back. She remembers you. I saw her in town last week and happened to mention your name. Actually, I asked her if you could come and talk to her about the Kéthani.”
I smiled at his presumption. “And she agreed?”
“When she heard your name, she relented. I was wondering, if you didn’t have a lot on…”
“Why not? You never know…” I thought hard, but couldn’t put a face to the name. It had been years ago, after all, and the workload of your av
erage intern even back then had militated against the recollection of every patient.
Last orders were called and the final round bought, and it was well after midnight before the meeting broke up.
When I said goodbye to Richard outside my front door, I told him I’d visit Mrs. Emmett at the weekend.
High Fold was no longer a working farm. Like many once-thriving sheep farms in the area, it had suffered in the economic recession in the early years of the century. Its owners had sold up and moved away, and Mrs. Emmett had bought the farm, converted it at great expense, and lived there now in retirement with her son.
The snow was so bad on the Saturday morning that I had to leave the car on the main road above the farm. I struggled down the snow-filled track, towards the sprawling stone-built house on the hillside overlooking Oxenworth. By the time I reached the front door I knew I would never be cut out to be an Arctic explorer.
Mrs. Emmett answered my summons promptly, took one look at my bedraggled figure, and smiled. It was only then that I recalled the woman I had treated as a patient all those years ago.
The smile. Some people smile with just their mouths, others with all their faces. Mrs. Emmett’s smile encompassed all her face and emanated genuine warmth. I recalled the experience of feeling like a favourite nephew as she welcomed me.
“Dr. Azzam!” she said. “Khalid, it’s lovely to fee you. Come in. It’s terrible out there.”
I stepped into a spacious hall, removed my coat, and stamped the snow from my boots on the mat, then followed her into a lounge where a wood-burning stove belted out a fierce, furnace heat.
“I seem to remember you prefer coffee. I’ll just go and put it on. You know Davey of course.”
She left the room, and I sketched a smile and a wave at the man seated at a small table beside the stove.
He looked up briefly, but didn’t respond. He was absorbed in a world of his own. Davey Emmett was nearing thirty now, a chubby, childlike man, in both appearance and manner. I had never treated Davey—his affairs were looked after by a local doctor—and I had no idea of his medical history, whether his condition was congenital or the result of some childhood illness.