“But I’m thinking you probably do remember Ilen and what happened to her, because it was all so traumatic for us, wasn’t it? You don’t forget anything about something that dramatic and horrible, not really. How can you? You have nightmares about it, it sneaks up on you even in the day sometimes, too. Do you find that? I get that. Sometimes it’s something really obvious, like seeing something on screen of somebody hanging by their fingertips over a drop, especially if it’s a woman. Of course in the screen they usually get rescued. Not always, but usually. But then other times what happened just… ambushed me. I’ll be doing something completely normal, with no… cues, no… stimulus that you can see any logical reason would trigger the memories, and suddenly I’m there, I’m back again, back in that big old motherfucker of a ship, with you and Fass and Ilen.
“Do you get that? I get it still, even after all these years. You’d have thought it would have stopped happening by now, wouldn’t you? Hell, even without all those stolen years near c, you’d have thought it should have, you know, withered, fallen away? Look at me; sixty-one years old, body-time, they tell me. Fitter than ever, still bedding guys a third my age, and — do I look sixty? Hope not. But I should have got over the whole thing by now, don’t you think? Time a great healer and all that. Just hasn’t happened.
“So, do you get anything similar? Is this ringing any bells at all? Really, I’d like to know. Maybe we’ll find out, one day. Maybe I’ll have got to ask this and you’ll never get to see this but we’ll have found out together. Maybe somebody else will get to see this. It isn’t really meant for anybody else, but, well, this is a high-risk occupation, and who knows what’ll happen after this is made?
“Anyway, point is: I know what happened, and I intend to kill you, Sal. Or, I did. As I say, if it is you who’s watching this, I’m dead and you’re still alive. But I want you to know it isn’t going to end there. Got serious intentions of pursuing you from beyond the grave, Sal, old son. Won’t be easy, realise that, but I’ve spent my entire career getting myself into a position of power. Making myself so powerful within the Navy that I can click my fingers and battleships power up, set course and ship out. Building networks, making friends, finding allies, taking lovers, taking exams, running risks, all so that I’ll have the power one day to challenge a man who, oh, must nearly own the system by now. The portal collapse nearly threw me — put my plans back a long way — but I reckon you’ll still be alive and loving life when I finally do get home, or when what’s planned to happen in the event of my death starts happening.
“Can’t tell you too much, obviously. No reason to give you any sort of warning at all. And all the advantages are on your side already, aren’t they? Well, maybe apart from surprise. You surprised now? If you’re listening to this, watching this? Wondering what’s going to happen?? Well, wonder away. Wonder away, Sal, and don’t stop wondering, don’t stop being frightened, because being frightened might keep you alive a bit longer. Not too long. Definitely not too long, but long enough.
“I suppose that’s enough now, don’t you think? Definitely the longest speech either of us ever delivered even while we were together, way back when, wouldn’t you say? Maybe almost more than we ever said to each other put together. Well, almost.
“Let me explain, in case you still haven’t got it: I saw the marks, Sal. I saw the three red lines on your neck, before you put your jacket collar up. Remember that? Remember pretending to shiver and saying, ‘C-collar,’ or whatever it was? Remember? Just one of those little false notes that you don’t notice at the time because of all the fear and adrenalin, that doesn’t start to nag at you until long afterwards. Kept that collar up afterwards, too, didn’t you? Kept the jacket on like some sort of comfort blanket until you could get to a bathroom and a first-aid kit, didn’t you? I remember. And when I was reaching down to Ilen, I saw her fingernails. With the blood under them. Saw them very distinctly. Fass didn’t; still has no idea, even yet. But I saw them. I wasn’t entirely sure about the marks on your neck, but then I checked. Remember that last farewell fuck, a couple of weeks later? Just checking. They were very faint by then, of course, but they were there all right.
“You always wanted her, didn’t you, Sal? Always so desired the beautiful Ilen. Did you think because she went into the ship with you she was saying yes? Did you? Did she, then changed her mind? Doesn’t really matter, I suppose. I saw what I saw.
“You know what’s funny, too? I was there, even if you weren’t. Ilen and I. Just the once, but that’s something else I’ll never forget, either. Oh, you’d have loved to have been there for that, wouldn’t you? Bet you would. I slept with Fass, too, afterwards, just to complete the set. Much better than you, by the way.”
The uniformed figure sat forward, right up to the camera, staring into it, voice going quiet and low.
“Iwas coming to get you, Sal. If you’re watching this then I didn’t make it, not personally, but even from beyond the grave, I’m still fucking coming to get you.”
The image froze, then faded. A hand, shaking only slightly, reached out and turned the viewer off.
FOUR:
EVENTS DURING WARTIME
It was a truism that there was not just one galaxy, there were many. Every variety of widely spread sentient life — plus a few creat categories which were arguably non-sentient though still capable of interstellar travel — and sometimes even every individual species-type tended to have one galaxy to itself. The Faring — a trans-category that covered all such beings able and willing to venture beyond their own immediate first-habitats -were like the citizens of a vast, fully three-dimensional but mostly empty city with multitudinous and varied travel systems. The majority of people were content to walk, and made their slow progress by way of an infinitude of quiet, effectively separate deserted streets, quiet parks, vacant lots, remains of wasteland and an entire unmapped network of paths, pavements, alleys, steps, ladders, wynds and snickets. They almost never encountered anybody en route, and when they got to where they were going, it would be somewhere very similar to the place they had departed from, whether that place had been a star’s photosphere, a brown dwarf’s surface, a gas-giant’s atmosphere, a comet cloud or a region of interstellar space. Such species were generally called the Slow.
The Quick were different. Mostly originating from rocky planets of one sort or another, they lived at a higher speed and could never be content forever plodding from place to place. That they had been forced to do so until a viable wormhole network had been established was regarded as quite bad enough. Wormhole access portals were the pinch-points of the worm-hole system — the city’s underground stations — where people of varying species-types were forced to meet and to some extent mingle, though given the tiny amount of time one spent near a portal or within a wormhole, even this seemingly profound tying-together made very little difference to the ultimate unconnectedness of the many different life-strands, and both before they gathered and after they dispersed, the users of the system still tended to congregate at places specific to their own comfort criteria, usually quite different from those of all the others.
Many people regarded the Cincturia as the equivalent of animals: birds, dogs, cats, rats and bacteria. They too lived in the city, but were not responsible for it or entirely answerable to it, and were often to a greater or lesser degree inimical to its smooth running.
Accounting for the Rest — the non-baryonic Penumbrae, the 13-D Dimensionates and the flux-dwelling Quantarchs — was a little like discovering that the ground, the fabric of the city’s buildings and their foundations plus the air itself were each home to another sort of life altogether.