He lifted his head and stared into the heavens, and I saw that his eyes were filmed with tears.
“I wonder if she’d forgive me?” he asked at last.
“Your mother was a good and forgiving person,” I said.
He stared at the cold, grey headstone. “Would things have turned out differently, for her, but for that incident?”
I said at last, “Who can tell?”
“I wonder if she is happy, wherever she is?”
I let that question blow away on the cold wind, and said instead, “Can I drive you home?”
He hesitated. “No. No, thanks, Khalid.” He pointed across the valley, to High Fold Farm. “It’s not far, I’ll walk.”
I shook his hand and made my way back to the car.
I thought of the way the Kéthani had remade us, and then it came to me that, since my return, I had never contacted Zara to apologise for how I had treated her over the years. I knew in my heart that it was my duty to do so, but even then I honestly doubted whether I would be man enough to go through with it.
The Kéthani improve us all, to varying degrees.
I drove from the cemetery, then braked on the road that climbs over the moors. I gazed down on a desolate scene of continuous snow and rank upon rank of headstones, those terrible reminders of the dead.
Davey Emmett was the only living figure in the vast and inimical landscape. As I watched, he opened the letter from his mother and read it slowly. Then he raised his head and stared into the sky, at the stars just beginning to appear in the heavens.
I looked at the road ahead, then started the car and drove towards Oxenworth and home.
Interlude
Over the twenty years since the coming of the Kéthani, the Tuesday night group of friends at the Fleece had grown, evolved, and become for me a second family… or even a first family, if the truth be told. I came to love these quiet, ordinary people, and I was heartened by the fact that my acquaintance with them would continue far into the future.
I arrived late at the Fleece that night, after a busy shift on the implant ward. It was almost ten o’clock by the time I shrugged off my coat, grabbed a welcome pint, and eased myself into my customary seat beside the fire.
Sam said, “Khal, we were beginning to think you’d never make it.”
“I was beginning to worry, too,” I laughed, taking a swallow of the amber nectar.
Over the years, my actual workload at Bradley General had decreased—there were fewer citizens to be implanted, these days, as more and more people elected to go out among the stars, or to stay out there immediately after their resurrections. I had cut down my hours in the ward to just four a day: today’s rush had been a statistical blip.
Dan Chester said, “I’ve just had this from Lucy. They’re…” he smiled and shook his head, as if in wonderment. “I find this hard to believe, but they’re aboard a Kéthani faster-than-light ship beyond the Nilakantha Stardrift, en route to their second posting on an Earth-like world orbiting a super-massive red giant… Anyway,” he finished, passing me an information pin and a screen.
I pressed play and stared at the screen.
Lucy smiled out at me, surrounded by passing humans in one-piece suits. She appeared to be in some kind of bar. It reminded me for all the world of a scene from one of the space opera shows I’d watched as a kid.
Davey sat beside her, an arm around her shoulders.
“Dad, everyone in the Fleece—if you’re still drinking there! Silly question! Where else would you be? Well, we’re aboard an FTL cruiser heading for Kalopia VII, to bring the word of the Kéthani to a race of just post-industrial humanoids. We’re well, and looking forward to the posting.” She talked about their work for a few minutes, then turned and looked into Davey’s eyes. “We’re very happy. It’s… I can’t begin to describe how amazing it is out here… Look, we’ve got to rush—can’t miss the last post. I’ll be in touch again soon. Love you, Dad. Take care!”
Davey waved and smiled, and Lucy reached out and cut the recording.
I shook my head as I passed Dan the screen. “My God… It doesn’t seem two minutes since the wedding.”
“Four years, Khal,” Dan said.
We were silent for a while after that, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
I looked round the bar. It was quiet, which was not surprising these days. Oxenworth was quiet. Half the houses stood empty. Not everyone had gone to the stars; many people had moved to the cities, replacing those who had decided to leave Earth.
Stuart Kingsley said, as if reading my thoughts, “I was in Leeds yesterday, and do you know… It seemed busy, but I was in a bookshop and I happened to look at a local history book, and a photograph of the Headrow in 2006. The crowds! There were thousands of people in the streets…”
Richard Lincoln finished his pint and said, “The world’s population has fallen by five per cent in the past five years, and the predictions are that it’ll continue like that for the foreseeable future.”
Elisabeth shook her head. “So… I’m no mathematician… how long before the world is empty?”
Stuart said, “Roughly a century, Lis. If the exodus continues at this rate.”
Ben looked at me and said, “What is it, Khal?”
I must have appeared to be miles away. I shook myself and said, “I don’t know… but for the past couple of years I’ve felt… I find it hard now quite how to describe the feeling…” I shrugged. “I know, on some subconscious level, that all I’ve taken for granted, all that’s familiar, is drawing to some kind of close.”
“Things are changing,” Jeffrey said. “Little by little, inevitably. Nothing is as it was before. Our way of life, which we’ve taken for granted for so long…”
That gave us pause for thought. We stared into our drinks, for once collectively silenced.
Something that Lucy had said in her communiqué from the stars repeated itself in my head. Dad, everyone in the fleece—if you’re still drinking there! Silly question!
I felt, oddly, very old then, as if we were the preservers of a way of life that was soon to change. I had the feeling that we were treading water, waiting… All we needed was something, or someone, to urge us on.
We didn’t know what that might be, at the time.
We didn’t know that we were waiting for a catalyst, and that that catalyst should prove to be a man called Gregory Merrall.
TEN
THE FAREWELL PARTY
Gregory Merrall had been part of our group for just three months by the time of the Farewell Party, though it seemed that we had never been without his quiet, patriarchal presence. He was a constant among the friendly faces who met at the Fleece every Tuesday evening, our confidant and king, some might even say our conscience.
I remember his arrival amongst us. It was a bitter cold night in early November and the village had been cut off for two days due to a severe fall of snow. When I saw him stride into the main bar—an anachronistic figure in Harris tweeds and plus fours—I assumed he was a stranded traveller.
He buttressed the bar and drank two or three pints of Landlord.
There were nine of us gathered about the inglenook that night, and as each of us in turn went to the bar to buy our round, the stranger made a point of engaging us in conversation.
“There are worse places to be stranded in than Oxenworth,” I said when it was my round. “The Fleece is the best pub for miles around.”