He looked sullen.
‘Seriously, shut up,’ said Evelyn. ‘If I have to answer one more question about whether we’re married and where our children are I’ll hit something.’
Arnold groaned.
‘How long does this thing go on for?’
‘Three days.’
‘Well,’ said Arnold, looking down at his shirt. ‘If this doesn’t make me drop a few pounds, I don’t know what will.’
‘Oh no,’ said Evelyn. ‘I think you’re going to like the food.’
There was a rustle in the temple and, to general, good-natured awestruck noises from the many guests, Ranjit was brought in on a golden chair carried by six of his relations. He was wearing a golden brocade jacket lined with what looked like precious stones, and a matching hat. On his feet were Gucci loafers, and several garlands of flowers adorned his neck. He was beaming from ear to ear. He spotted them in the crowd (not, Evelyn pointed out later, difficult) and waved frantically at them, mouthing, ‘Wait till you see her!’
Evelyn had already met her at the mehndi painting: little Rupi, twenty-one, petite and giggly, who thought Ranjit was the cleverest and funniest man she had ever seen in her life. Ranjit had taken up a professorship at University of M and neither of them could wait.
Evelyn settled back to enjoy the long, intricate ceremony. She gazed at her hands, decorated with the delicate mehndi that gave her a skin of lace. She turned to Arnold, pondering.
‘You haven’t heard from…?’
Arnold started.
‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Yes, I did!’
‘And you were going to tell me when?’
‘I have been VERY, VERY JET-LAGGED,’ said Arnold, pulling up his shirt and feeling in the large bumbag tied around his waist.
‘Hey, Homer Simpson, could you not do that?’ said Evelyn, covering her eyes. But Arnold had already located the postcard, had pulled it out and handed it over.
The stamp was Russian and there was a picture of a few brightly coloured huts among the snow. Here in the stifling dusty heat of a Mumbai October it was hard to imagine, Evelyn thought, that somewhere out there in the world it was freezing – since the moon explosion too, the tides had started to fall, and there was some evidence that this was having a positive effect on the Gulf Stream. But it certainly meant the cold places were staying very cold.
‘What’s she doing?’ she whispered, as the ceremony went on. ‘How come you hear from her and not me?’
‘I’m the one sending her work,’ said Arnold. ‘We’re still deciphering it, you know.’
‘Amazing.’
Evelyn had gone back to Cairo as soon as it had stabilised politically. She had had enough of the northern hemisphere. Arnold had stayed.
‘What does she do up there all by herself?’
‘Oh, she’s not by herself,’ said Arnold. ‘She’s got a Russian woman – Galine or something? Anyway, she lives with a woman.’
‘She really is a broad-minded girl,’ said Evelyn.
‘No, someone she knows, who’s sick. She’s looking after her up there. I think it works out all right. She fishes a bit. Lives quietly.’
‘I still can’t believe she got off prison,’ said Evelyn. ‘I can’t believe we all did.’
‘We basically saved the world, man!’ said Arnold. ‘You know, eventually.’
‘Hmm,’ said Evelyn. Then, ‘Ssh! This is the good bit.’
High above the Arctic Circle, just outside a tiny Russian fishing village called Tarana, sometimes the whales nest in the summertime. You have to be lucky, or patient, but in the long, white nights when sleep is difficult to come by, you can put on your Arctic down parka, take a steaming mug of something hot and a dog if you have one – possibly a stray rescued from an animal-testing facility – and go and sit by one of the many inlets where the ice has melted, and you wait.
And if you are patient, and lucky, then sometimes you will see a whale – sometimes even a school of them.
They plunge and turn in the freezing water, joyously at home in their environment, their great, heavy forms free and light and lithe in the cold, white light as they thrash and dive and swim, huge tails flicking back and forth, at home, happy, free, and the girl with the cloud of bright red hair sits by the side of the water, and she watches, a discarded wedding invitation by her side.
And in her palm she rolls a strange, thin filament of clear twinkling light, which does not dim.
Just as the ceremony was beginning, an elderly man limped up the temple aisle and stopped before them. Evelyn noticed he was missing two fingers on each hand.
‘Excuse me,’ he said in heavily accented English. ‘I think I’m meant to sit here?’
They both leapt up.
‘Mr Weearasinge, sir,’ said Arnold. ‘Ranjit is going to be so glad you could make it’
And there, right behind them, was Sé: only a slight stiffness in his shoulder and a limp betraying his injuries. He glanced around – still doing it; couldn’t help it.
‘She’s not here,’ said Arnold shortly, passing over the postcard.
In the end, Galina had changed Connie’s mind.
The little taxi rickshaw had moved remarkably deftly through the insanely crowded and bustling city streets. Once upon a time Connie would have been frightened – or excited, maybe – by the experience.
The wiry man delivered her to the temple door with a grin and she tipped him lavishly.
‘Why so sad, lovely lady?’ he said, but Connie just smiled quietly at him. She didn’t think he would really want to know.
Outside the temple doors she took a deep breath. The noise, the richness and colour and smells of Mumbai were almost overwhelming after the quiet of the life she led now. Once upon a time, she knew, she would have adored it. And Galina had absolutely urged her to come: to be there for her friends, who had been there for her, for her and Luke, who had never doubted them, who had never let them down even for a second, who had risked their lives for her. She would be with them. And she knew they would understand, they had been there; they would hug, and laugh and cry and talk about it, and at least for a short time, at least for the duration of her trip, she could remember.
She readjusted her cotton tunic, took a deep breath, turned the great handle of the temple, and pushed open the door.
Transcript of name: LUKE BEITH message to Sen.1678 patrol vessel 6.4.8.556
I have one thing to say. I don’t care what you do to me. I don’t care about incitement or fomenting a revolution or being hailed as a saviour or being made an example of. I don’t care about any of that. Whatever you tell me to do I will do. Anything you need for peace. Just leave the Earth. Leave. Save her. Whatever it takes to do it, whatever you want I will do willingly. I will submit. I shall not flee and I shall not challenge you. Just leave. Please. Leave. Save her. Whatever it takes.
/message ends
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, can I thank Edmund Harriss PhD, mathematician, artist and teacher at the University of Arkansas, and Alex Bellos for recommending him to me. Edmund has helped me immeasurably with his suggestions and work on this book. Any time the maths doesn’t make sense, it will be because I have deviated from his path.
When Edmund was very busy in the summer (doing – are you ready for this? – he invented a new curve! I KNOW! Who does that? It is called the Harriss Spiral, and is extraordinary in both its mathematics and its beauty, and here it is:
(More at maxwelldemon.com)
Anyway, during that period we were also massively helped by the rather brilliant and talented Wren Robson, Consulting Mathematician, who also gave me a lot of the clever stuff. Thanks due also to the elfin James Harkin, who managed to take time off profoundly kicking arse on Only Connect to connect us up.
Tim Holman and his terrific team have made us feel so welcome at Orbit, and it has been a joy working with my wonderful editor Mrs Anna Jackson; Gemma Conley-Smith and Joanna Kramer too.
And the wider te
am of course at LB: Ursula McKenzie, David Shelley, Charlie King, Emma Williams, Victoria Gilder, the sales team, Hannah Wood and basically everyone who took up the challenge of me sidling up and saying, ‘Well, I have something a little different.’
Also: the Bees, the board, Deborah Schneider and Mallory, D; Marcus Gipps; Tom Holland; chums, family and a special mention to the DW mob – Paul Cornell, Albert de Petrillo, Rob Shearman, Matthew Sweet, Lee Binding, Tom Spilsbury, Gareth Roberts, Justin Richards, Mark & Cav et al – for being so welcoming, and teaching me how to live safely in a science fictional universe.
And a very special thank you to the frankly marvellous Jo Unwin, to whom I might have erroneously suggested, when she very kindly took me on as a client, that I ‘wasn’t that much trouble’.
Resistance is Futile Page 33