Five long queues waited before Tinkerbell’s looming surface, winding through the scattered remnants of the headland camp. Two of them made up from serjeants. The remainder (and keeping their distance) were the possessed. They waited in a strange subdued mood, their anticipation and relief that the nightmare was about to end tempered by the uncertainty of what lay ahead.
Stephanie was waiting right at the tail end of the longest queue of possessed, along with Moyo, McPhee, Franklin, and Cochrane. Tina and Rana had been amongst the first through. The crystalline entities had stabilized Tina, apparently repairing the damage to her internal organs. But they all agreed the woman’s body ought to be seen by human specialists as soon as possible. For herself, Stephanie decided she should be amongst the last. It was the responsibility thing again, she wanted to know everyone else was okay.
“But you’re no’ responsible for them,” McPhee had said. “They all flocked to Ekelund’s banner. It’s their own bloody stupid fault they’re here.”
“I know, but we’re the ones who tried to get Ekelund to stop, and failed miserably.” She shrugged, knowing how feeble she sounded.
“I’ll wait with you,” Moyo said. “We’ll go through together.”
“Thank you.”
McPhee, Franklin, and Cochrane looked at each other, and said what the hell. They all joined the queue, standing behind Soi Hon. The old eco-guerrilla was in his trademark dark jungle fatigues, with his felt bush-ranger hat tilted back as if he’d just finished an arduous job. He eyed them with wry amusement and bowed to Stephanie. “I congratulate you on remaining true to your principles.”
“I don’t think it really matters, but thank you anyway.” She sat on one of the many boulders, resting her wounded hip.
“Out of all of us, it was you who achieved the most.”
“You held off the serjeants.”
“Not for long, and only to further an ideal.”
“I thought you valued ideals.”
“I do. Or I used to. That is the problem with this situation. The old ideals don’t have any relevance here. I applied them as did the political forces behind the Liberation. Both of us were very wrong. Look what we did to people, how many lives and homes we ruined. All that effort poured into conflict and destruction. I used to say I belonged to the land.”
“I’m sure you thought you did what was the right thing.”
“Indeed I did, Stephanie Ash. Unfortunately, I didn’t think enough, for it was not the right thing to do. Not at all.”
“Well hey, it don’t matter no more, man,” Cochrane said. “The fat babe’s been singing out loud for a while now. We’re like going home.” He offered Soi Hon his joint.
“No thank you. I do not wish to introduce poisons to this body. I am simply its custodian. I may soon even be held accountable for any ills I have inflicted. After all, past the end of this queue we shall be facing them again, will we not? And we will only be equals.”
Cochrane gave him a sour look and dropped his joint, grinding it into the mud under his heel. “Yeah, right, man,” he grunted.
“What about Ekelund?” Stephanie asked. “Where’s she?”
“Back at her command post. She refused the offer to return.”
“What? She’s crazy.”
“Undoubtedly, yes. But she sincerely believes that once the serjeants have gone, then this land will be free. She intends to found her paradise here.”
Stephanie looked back at the patch of scabrous land that was Ketton.
“No,” Moyo said firmly. “She has made her own decision. And she certainly isn’t going to listen to you of all people.”
“I suppose not.”
Even at the rate of one possessed every few seconds, it took over seven hours for everyone to be repatriated. The procedure was simple enough. Where Tinkerbell touched the cliff face, several oval tunnels had opened up, leading deep into her interior. Their walls shone with a soft aquamarine light that grew progressively brighter until it eventually filled the cleft. You just walked through, vanishing into the light.
Stephanie wasn’t the very last in. Moyo and McPhee had quietly and insistently stood behind her. She smiled in good-natured surrender and passed over the threshold. The air thickened in conjunction with the light, slowing the movement of her limbs. Eventually it felt as though she was trying to walk through the crystal itself. There was an insistent pressure exerted against every part of her. She felt the force move through her flesh, enabling her to speed up again. The aquamarine glow faded away, showing that her body had become transparent, a pattern of light conducted by crystal. When she looked round she saw the body she’d possessed standing behind her. The woman was holding her hands up, an expression of revulsion and satisfaction straining her face.
“Choma?” Stephanie asked. “Choma, can you hear me? There’s something I need to do.”
“Hello, Stephanie. I thought this might happen.”
Occupying a serjeant’s body was the simplest thing. One waited for her, immured in crystal, completely passive with its big head bowed. It didn’t matter which direction she walked in, she was always walking towards it. They merged, and it thickened around her, returning the opaque aquamarine light. The sensations were peculiar; the exoskeleton had no tactile nerves, yet it was somehow rigged to provide proof of contact. Her soles were definitely pressing down on a surface, air drifted over her as she moved forwards. The aquamarine light cleared from her eyes, allowing her to focus with remarkable clarity.
She walked out of the oval tunnel, back onto the crusty trampled-down mud of Ketton Island. The rivers of coloured light which emanated from Tinkerbell’s internal coruscations meandered over the ground. Nothing else moved.
It was a long slog back across the island to its central town. Even in the serjeant’s robust body it took her an hour and a quarter. Tinkerbell departed when she was a third of the way there, arching away above her in a opalescent blaze, then shrinking at an improbable speed. Stephanie began to pick up her pace. The air was stirring, slowly expanding again now the serjeants had gone, a gentle breeze gusting out over the edge of the cliff. Their wishes remained for a while, of course, impregnated on the fabric of this realm. But without their active presence to reinforce them, what was normality here began to return.
It was a lot brighter when Stephanie trotted up to the boundary of the town. The air had thinned considerably now, allowing the continuum’s persistent blue-white glare to shine down with unrestrained power. Every step sent her gliding a couple of metres above the ground. Gravity had reduced by about twenty per cent, she guessed.
Ekelund’s headquarters were prominent at the very centre of the razed town, the big tent perched atop a mound, faintly luminous. She came out as Stephanie bounced her way up the slope, lounging against the tentpole, smiling softly.
“It’s a different body, but I’d know those thoughts anywhere. I believe we’ve had our last goodbye, Stephanie Ash.”
“You have to leave. Please. You’ll destroy Angeline Gallagher’s body and her soul if you stay here.”
“Finally! It’s not my well being you’re concerned about. A small victory for me, but I consider it significant.”
“Come back to Mortonridge. There are still some serjeant bodies available to host your soul. You can live a life again, a real life.”
“As what? Trite little housewife and mother? Even you can’t live your old life again, Stephanie.”
“I never believe that a baby’s future is preordained. After birth, you’re on your own to make what you can from life. And we are being born again in these serjeant bodies. Make what you can of it, Ekelund. Don’t kill yourself and Gallagher out of misplaced pride. Look around! The air’s all but gone, the gravity’s failing. There’s nothing here anymore.”