She wandered back home. Because the house was so empty, she started going to the Merrie every night, though it wasn't very merrie. It was never more than half full, and people often asked for melancholy songs. Rolo and Gyrth had left. Yas was still around, perhaps because she seemed to be attached to Tom now, and he couldn't leave, being a policeman.
So who was with Dan these days? From the look of him the odd time he turned up at the pub, perhaps no one. He was Anglia's sole defense when the blighters arrived. Perhaps she should…
But she felt too fragile now. She thought she'd break under any pressure beyond even Dan Fixer's ability to mend.
Jenny was playing a Scottish lament when she saw the Urgent News! line scrolling across the message section of the silent screen. Ozzy switched the sound up, and she stopped playing.
"In a new move to put an end to the blighters," an announcer said, "all the fixers have been called to the front. Reports from Hellbane U…"
"What the heck's 'the front'?" someone asked.
"Old Earth war term," replied Ozzy. "The place where one army meets the other. Don't reckon it can be far from here now."
As if in answer, a map popped up, showing the red tide lapping at Anglia's borders.
"Pap," Ozzy said, muting the sound again, but he added, "Perhaps it's time to close the bloody dismal England."
Jenny could only think that Dan was going to leave. To fight blighters. And Gaia was losing the war.
"Any idea where Dan is, Ozzy?"
"Haven't seem him in a couple of days, luv. Perhaps he's on his way."
"No." Could she sense him, or was it wishful thinking?
She left her fiddle there on the bar and went in search. Stupid, stupid, to have kept her distance all these weeks! He was probably right about nature. He'd told her, hoping for understanding, and she'd walked away.
The pubs were quiet, the music somber, and Dan was nowhere to be found. Not in the square, not at his place, not at the hospital. Not at his family's home; his mother and brothers hadn't left but looked as if they already had news of his death.
Jenny stopped outside the house, fighting tears. Weeks ago he'd mentioned the experts from Hellbane U going to help the local fixers in the fight. Since then the blighters had only grown in strength. If the experts had failed, what could simple fixers like Dan do?
Die, that's what.
She remembered another old war term. "Cannon fodder."
Perhaps he was already on his way, but she wandered the streets looking for him, hoping against hope that she'd have a chance to say something, do something to help before he left.
Eventually, she gave up, stopping to lean against some railings. Then she realized they were the ones around the Public Gardens — the place where the one solitary blighter had dared to pop up in Anglia.
The perfume of herbs and flowers played sweetly on the night air, and she thought how strange it was that all of this — all the simulations of Earth they'd created — would survive when the people were ash.
4
She turned in through the wrought iron gates and followed the wandering path toward the lake and the statue of the little victim. And there, near the statue, stood Dan, tossing stones into the lake.
Jenny paused, purpose tangling into uncertainty. Perhaps he wanted to be alone. He'd have no trouble finding company if he needed it.
Then he turned and held out a hand. "Jen."
There was welcome in it, but there was more. After a teetering moment, she went forward and put her hand in his. "Are you going to have to go?"
"I am going."
"You haven't been called?"
"I'm not sure there's anyone left to call me."
"The news…?"
"I gave Angliacom that information."
He slid his hand free and went back to tossing stones into the glassy water. Plop. Plop. Plop. Each stone made a mesmerizingly slow arc, as if the air was denser than it should be.
"What do you mean, no one's left to call?"
"They're all gone." Plop. "The staff from Hellbane." Plop. "The fixers down south." Plop.
A chilly emptiness weakened her, and she sat where lawn met the lake's shingled edge.
Dan stopped tossing the stones. "There's just the ones in the northern and southern settlements. We've decided we might as well have a go, as they used to say."
It was like listening to nonsense. "Who used to say?"
He turned to her, and she thought he looked more relaxed than she'd seen him in weeks. But thin. Too thin.
"Men in war stories. It's usually men. I've been checking out books and films about war. Lawrence of Arabia. The Dam Busters. Reach for the Sky. Sirius V. Looking for suggestions."
"Did you find any?"
"Be brave, don't give up, and have the right weapons."
Tempting to think him mad, or joking like the old Dan, but he was deadly serious. Bad adjective, Jenny.
"What's going to happen, then?"
"I'm going to die. But," he added with an almost Dannish smile, "in the best tradition of English heroism, I'm going to keep a stiff upper lip and take as many with me as I can."
Jenny wanted to say no, to deny reality, but she knew it was the flat truth. "We're all going to die, I suppose. Is there anything the rest of us can do?"
"Give us reason to try, perhaps."
"If you fail, you die. Isn't that reason enough?"
He sat on the grass facing her. "I'm worn out by the waiting. In a way, I want it over."
She shivered, recognizing a reflection of her own state.
"Living and dying don't seem particularly important anymore," he said, "but Gaia is. I mean us, the people who've made Gaia home. I'm going to fight for that as long as I can. Perhaps I can make a difference."
She reached out and touched his hand.
"I know what it'll cost, though, Jen. You probably know, too. Why it seems easier to die now. Get it over with."
It was the ashes in the wind put into words.
Praying she read him right, she moved close and grasped his tense hands, then raised one for the lover's kiss, as he had done to her, so long ago.
His hand flexed slightly against her jaw. "Are you preparing to sacrifice yourself for the cause?"
"No." If he could face the blighters, she could face honesty. "Just hoping."
He closed his eyes, then drew her hand to his mouth. "I called you. Tonight. Bad form when you'd not taken up my offer, but… I need you, Jen. You. Now."
Breathtakingly, she didn't doubt it. There'd been no reason for her wandering search, and in fact she hadn't wandered, but had drifted here like a feather on the wind.
"How. How did you call me?"
He drew her close, and his lips traced her cheek, her ear, her jaw. "I'm practicing rusty skills. If I'm going to fight, I'm going to fight dirty."
"I don't understand."
"You don't need to…"
And she didn't. There was nothing rusty about his lovemaking skills, and she sensed the something extra. It was little to do with her, no matter what he said, but everything to do with magic, with death. With more than death.
It sprang from hovering annihilation. Fear of it surrounded them and played in the magic of their minds. Fear of a void, which he fought with fire.
She let him undress her because he wanted to, and because each incidental brush of his hands on her skin was like liquid pleasure. It flowed over her and into her, and she pushed off his shirt to get to his skin, to give back, to draw more.
When she was naked, she stripped him, stroked him, cradled him. Then he was in her, slow, relentless, eternal, building a dizzying power. She might have been afraid of dying if things like that mattered anymore. All that mattered now was the cauterizing conflagration, and the drifting postapocalyptic dream.