They knew where they were and roughly what had happened, because Mindori had spoken to them a couple of times. But the blackhawk wasn’t very communicative.
“I think we’re landing,” Webster said.
“Sounds good,” Jed said. He got in a good kiss with Beth. Gari gave them one dismissive glance, and went back to watching the docking ledge.
“We’d better check on Gerald,” Beth said.
Jed tried to be a sport. At least the old loon would finally be out of his life after they landed.
Gerald hadn’t moved from the bridge since the amazing xenoc diskcity vanished abruptly and Loren’s possession had ended. For hour after hour during the stand-off he had stood at the weapons console, like some old-time mariner gripping the wheel during a storm. His vigilance never wavered the whole time. When it ended, he’d slithered down and sat there, legs splayed on the floor, back propped up against the side of the console. He stared straight ahead through hazed eyes, not saying a word.
Beth crouched down beside him and clicked her fingers in front of his face. There was no response.
“Is he dead?” Jed asked.
“Jed! No he’s not. He’s breathing. I think he must have some kind of exhaustion problem.”
“We’ll add it to the list,” Jed muttered, very quietly. “Hey Gerald, mate, we’ve landed. The Stryla came down with us. That’s the one with Marie in. Good, huh? You’ll be seeing her soon, then. How about that?”
Gerald kept staring ahead, unmoving.
“Guess we’d better ask for a doc to see him,” Jed said.
Gerald turned his head. “Marie?” he whispered.
“That’s it, Gerald,” Beth said. She gripped his upper arm tightly. “Marie’s here. Just a few minutes now and you can see her again. Can you get up?” She tried to lift him, stir him into moving. “Jed, shift yourself.”
“I dunno. Maybe we should leave him for the doc.”
“He’s fine. Aren’t you, Gerald, mate. Just knackered, that’s what.”
“Well, okay.” Jed leant over, and tired to tug Gerald up.
Several loud clanking sounds came from the airlock.
Gari ran in. “The bus is here,” she said breathlessly.
“It’ll take us to Marie,” Beth said encouragingly. “Come on, Gerald. You can do it.”
His legs twitched feebly.
Between them, they got him standing. With one on either side, and Gerald’s arms round their shoulders, they shuffled him towards the airlock.
Marie sat hunched up on the corridor floor outside the bridge. She hadn’t stopped crying since Kiera had been exorcised. The memories of what had happened since Lalonde were vivid, deliberately so. Kiera hadn’t cared about Marie knowing what was going on, what her body was doing.
It was disgusting. Filthy.
Even though it wasn’t her performing those acts, Marie knew she would never banish what her body had done. Kiera’s soul might have gone, but her haunting would never be over.
She’d been given her life back, and couldn’t see a single reason for living it.
The airlock cycled, and the hatch whirred open.
“Marie.”
It was a frail, pained croak, but it sliced right into her soul. “Daddy?” she moaned incredulously. When she looked up he was standing in the airlock, holding on to the rim. He looked dreadful, barely managing to stand. But his frail old face was suffused with all the joy of a father holding his infant child for the first time. She couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d gone through to be here at this time. And he’d suffered it all because she was his daughter, and that alone entitled her to his love forever.
She stood and held out both hands to him. Wanting a cuddle from Daddy. Wanting him to take her home where none of this would ever happen.
Gerald smiled wondrously at his pretty little daughter. “I love you, Marie.” His body gave way, pitching him face first onto the floor.
Marie screamed and ran forwards. His breath was juddering, eyes closed.
“Daddy! Daddy, no!” She pawed at him in hysterics.
“Daddy, talk to me!”
The steward from the bus was shouldering her aside, waving a medical block sensor along Gerald’s inert body. “Oh shit. Give me a hand,” he yelled at Jed. “We’ve got to get him into the habitat.”
Jed was staring at Marie, unable to move. “It’s you,” he said, enchanted.
Beth pushed past him and knelt beside the steward. A life support package had covered Gerald’s face, pumping air into his lungs.
“Medical emergency,” the steward datavised. “Get a crash team to the reception lounge.” The medical block datavised a violent alarm as Gerald’s heart stopped. He tore the wrapping from a paramedic package and slapped it across Gerald’s neck. Nanonic filaments invaded his throat, seeking out the major arteries and veins, pumping in artificial blood, keeping the brain alive.
Rather sheepishly, the participants from the Disco At The End Of The World were wandering across the concrete yard in a hungover stupor, watching dawn break over the arcology. It wasn’t something any of them had expected to see.
Andy was down there with them, datavising questor after questor into the segments of the net that were coming back on-line. Satellites were providing temporary coverage as the civil authorities began to re-establish some kind of control. Nothing he did could bring an acknowledgement from her neural nanonics. Every programming trick he knew was useless.
He started to walk towards the gate out onto the road. She was out there somewhere; if he had to search the whole arcology himself, he would find her.
“What’s that?” someone asked.
People were stopping and looking up at the dome. The sun had only just risen over the eastern rim; it showed a low bank of grey cloud washing in from the north. It reached the geodesic crystal structure and flowed gently round it. Not an armada storm; in fact Andy had never seen a cloud move so slowly before. Then it became curiously hard to see out through the crystal hexagons. The reason took a very long time to register, he even checked the now-fervid news shows to be absolutely certain.
For the first time in nearly five and a half centuries, snow was falling on London.
There was no sign now that humans had ever visited or been involved with the red dwarf star named Tunja. Joshua had moved the settled Dorado asteroids to the New Washington system along with all their industrial stations; the two Edenist habitats were to be found orbiting Jupiter. Nothing remained to tell the new inhabitants of the system’s infamous history.
Quantook-LOU had spent two days recovering from the effects of gravity he’d endured in Lalarin-MG. He remained immobile in his personal space, plugged into Anthi-CL’s dataweb, supervising the initial repair work. Conflicts between the diskcity dominions had ended, from surprise rather than agreement to start with. But he had mediated a new peace with the other distributors as they all examined and shared the images which came from sensors mounted on both sides of Tojolt-HI.
The bounty they revealed was almost beyond belief. Mastrit-PJ’s entire population of diskcities now orbited the tiny red star, packed together in equatorial orbit. And beyond them was a supply of raw cold matter that defied logic; a vast ring of particles over two hundred million kilometres in diameter. The Mosdva were suddenly drowning in resources.
They could leave the old worn-out diskcities, building new dominions independent from each other. As far as the distributors could tell, every Tyrathca enclave had been emptied at the same time the diskcities were taken from Mastrit-PJ. The conflicts which had cursed the Mosdva since the dominions were established would be over for all time.
Quantook-LOU also had the data from the humans, telling him how to build their faster-than-light ship engines. Other distributors were already mediating for favourable alliances with Anthi-CL, wanting to share the technology. This was a new part of space, strangely empty without the nebula which had dominated half of their old orbit. Billions of stars lay open to them. It
would be interesting to find the humans again, and other races of which Joshua Calvert had spoken.
The Ly-cilph’s perception field expanded slowly outward as its active functions returned out of their dormancy within its macro-data lattice. At first it believed it had suffered memory loss. It was no longer in the jungle clearing where the human sacrifice was conducted, instead it appeared to be floating in clear space. The perception field could find nothing within range. No mass existed for a billion kilometres, not even a lone electron, which was extremely improbable. The energy waves washing through the field were of a strange composition, one it had no prior record of. An analysis of this continuum’s local quantum structure revealed it was no longer in the universe of its birth.
A dense mass point emerged beside it, emitting a variety of electromagnetic wave functions. It was impervious to the Ly-cilph’s probing.
“We understand you are on a voyage to comprehend the full nature of reality,” Tinkerbell said. “So are we. Would you like to join us?”
Oenone ’s crew appeared in Harkey’s Bar amid cheers and boisterous hugs, and the party looked like reaching truly epic proportions. Genevieve loved every minute of it. It was noisy, hot, and colourful; nothing like parties at Cricklade. People were nice to her, she’d managed to drink a couple of glasses of wine without Louise noticing, and cousin Gideon even partnered her on the dance floor. But nothing was funnier than watching the antics of Joshua’s brother, who spent the whole time trying to avoid a very beautiful and extremely determined blonde lady.
Louise stuck by Joshua’s side the whole time; smiling more from fright than delight as everyone crowded round him, wanting to hear the tale of the naked singularity from his own mouth. Eventually he led her through the door, swearing he’d be back in a second. They took a lift directly up to the lobby and walked out into the parkland.
“You looked unhappy in there,” he said.
“I didn’t realize you had so many friends. I never really thought about it. I only ever met you and Dahybi before.”
He led her down a path lined by orange wimwillows, towards a nearby lake. “I never met half of them before today.”
“It’s so pretty here,” Louise sighed as they reached the shore of the lake. The water-plants had balloon-like flowers that hung an inch below the surface; green fish nibbled at the tuft of stamen coming from their crowns. “This must have been a wonderful place to grow up in.”
“It was. But don’t tell Ione, all I ever wanted to do was fly away.”
“She’s very beautiful.”
He held her closer. “Not as beautiful as you.”
“Don’t,” she said, troubled.
“I can kiss my fiancée if I want. Even Norfolk permits that.”
“I’m not your fiancée, Joshua. I just kept saying that because of the baby. I was ashamed. Which is so stupid. Having a baby is a wonderful thing, the best thing any two people can do. Fancy being prejudiced against it. I’ll always love my home, but so much of it is wrong.”
He dropped down on one knee, and held her hand. “Marry me.”
From the expression on her face she could have been in agony. “That’s very kind, Joshua, and if you’d asked that day you left Cricklade I’d even have eloped with you. But, really, you don’t know anything about me. It wouldn’t work; you’re a starship captain and unutterably famous, I’m a landowner’s daughter. All we ever were was a beautiful dream I had once.”
“I know everything there is to know about you. Thanks to the singularity, I’ve lived every second of your life. And don’t you ever call yourself someone else’s daughter again. You’re Louise Kavanagh, nothing else. I had one exciting flight, which was the result of thousands of people backing me up behind the scenes. You walked right up to Quinn Dexter and tried to stop him. It is not possible to possess more courage than that, Louise. You were astonishing. Those drunken buffoons in Harkey’s Bar look up at me. I stand in awe at what you did.”
“You saw everything I did?” she enquired.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “Including last night.”
“Oh.”
He gently pulled at her hand, making her kneel beside him. “I don’t think I could marry a saint, Louise. And you already know I’ve never been one.”
“Do you really want to marry me?”
“Yes.”
“But we’d never be together.”
“Starship captains are a thing of the past now, just like landowner daughters. There’s so much we have to do in our lives.”
“You don’t mind living on Norfolk?”
“We’ll change it together, Louise. You and me.”
She kissed him, then smiled demurely. “Do we have to go back to the party?” she murmured.
“No.”
Her smile widened, and she stood up. Joshua stayed on one knee.
“I haven’t had my answer yet. And this classic routine is killing my leg muscle.”
“I was taught to always keep a man waiting,” she said imperiously. “But your answer is yes.”
“Anastasia, is that really you?”
“Hello, Dariat, of course it’s me. I waited for you. I knew you’d come eventually.”
“I very nearly didn’t. There was a spot of trouble back there.”
“Lady Chi-ri has always smiled upon you, Dariat. Right from the start.”
“You know, this isn’t what I expected to find on the other side of the beyond.”
“I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Can we see it together?”
“I’d like that.”
It was the last time Joshua would use the ability, and strictly speaking it wasn’t necessary, but there was absolutely no way he was going to miss out on seeing the Kiint home system in person just for the sake of virtue and dignified restraint. He materialized on the white-sand beach not far from Tracy’s chalet. The coast was exquisite, of course. Then he looked up. Silvery planet crescents curved away through the deep-turquoise sky.
“Now I’ve seen it all,” he said quietly.
Five white spheres erupted in the air around him. The same size as providers, but with a very different function.
Joshua held his arms up. “I am unarmed. Take me to your leader.”
The spheres winked out of existence. Joshua laughed.
Jay and Haile were racing over the sands to him.
“Joshua!”
He managed to catch her as she jumped at him. Swung her round full circle.
“Joshua!” she shrieked happily. “What are you doing here?”
“Come to take you home.”
“Really?” Her eyes were rounded with optimism. “Back to the Confederation?”
“Yep, go pack your bags.”
Greetings, Joshua Calvert. This day is filled with much joyfulness. I am much content.
“Hi, Haile. You’ve grown.”
And you have strengthened.
He put Jay down. “Well what do you know, there’s hope for all of us.”
“It’s been fab here,” Jay said. “The providers give you everything you want, and that includes ice cream. You don’t need money.”
Two adult Kiint appeared on the black teleport circle. Tracy was coming down the steps from her chalet. Joshua eyed them all cautiously.
“And I’ve been to loads of planets in the arc. And met hundreds and hundreds of people.” Jay paused, sucking on her lower lip. “Is Mummy all right?”
“Uh, yeah. This is the hard part, Jay. She’s going to need a day or two before she can see you. Okay? So I’m going to take you back to Tranquillity, and then you can go back to Lalonde with all the others in a little while.”
She pouted. “And Father Horst?”
“And Father Horst,” he promised.
“Right. And you’re sure Mummy’s fine?”
“She is. She’s really looking forward to seeing you, too.”
Tracy stood behind Jay, and patted her on the head. “I’ve told you to wear a hat when you play
out here.”
“Yes, Tracy.” The little girl pulled a face at Joshua.
He grinned back. “You go and pack. I just need to talk to Tracy for a moment. Then we’ll be off.”
“Come on, Haile.” Jay grabbed one of the Kiint’s tractamorphic limbs, and they hurried off towards the chalet.
Joshua’s grin faded when the youngsters were out of hearing. “Thanks for nothing,” he said to Tracy.
“We did what we could,” she said fiercely. “Don’t you judge us, Joshua Calvert.”
“The Corpus judges us, decides our fate.”
“None of us asked to be born. We’re more sinned against than sinners. And Richard Keaton saved your arse, as I recall.”
“So he did.”
“We would have made sure something survived. Humanity would have carried on.”
“But in whose image?”
“You’re proud of your current one, are you?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
She rubbed a white hand over her forehead. “I keep running comparisons. What the human race is compared to so many others.”
“Well don’t, it’s not your concern any more. We can find our own way now.” He turned to the adult Kiint. Hello Nang, Lieria.
Greetings, Joshua Calvert. And congratulations.
Thank you. Though this isn’t quite how I thought I’d spend my wedding night. I’d like Corpus to remove your observers and the data acquisition systems from the Confederation, please. Our future contact should be conducted on a more honest basis.
Corpus agrees. They will be removed.
And the medical help. We need that badly, right away.
Of course. It will be provided.
You could have helped us before.
Every race has the right, and obligation, to control its own destiny. The two cannot be separated.
I know, reap what you sow. We might be too aggressive, and not progress as fast as we ought, but I want Corpus to know I am immensely proud of our compassion. No matter how fabulous your technology is, what counts is how it’s used.
We acknowledge your criticism. It is one that is levelled at us constantly. Given our position it is inevitable.
The Naked God - Faith nd-6 Page 73