Of course.
Joshua let the information flow out of his mind and into the Consensus.
The airlock opened, and his crew came flooding out yelling raucous greetings.
Liol hugged him first. “Fine bloody captain you make! You abandon us there to have fun all by yourself, and the next thing we know we’ve got Jupiter’s SD command screaming at us.”
“I brought you back, what more do you want.”
Sarha squealed and wrapped herself round him. “You did it!” She kissed his ear. “And what a view.”
Dahybi slapped his back, laughing ecstatically. There were Ashly and Beaulieu, pushing at each other to get at him. Monica said: “Looks like you got it right,” without sounding too much of a grudge. Samuel chuckled at her obstinacy. Kempster and Renato chided him for cutting off their observations so abruptly. Mzu barely thanked him before asking about the singularity’s internal quantum structure.
In the end he held up his arms and shouted at them all to shut the hell up. “Party in Harkey’s Bar, right now, and the drinks are on me.”
Beth and Jed were pressed up against the big port in the lounge as Tranquillity expanded outside.
“It looks just like Valisk,” he said excitedly.
“Let me see!” Navar demanded.
Jed grinned, and they stepped aside. The lounge was weird now. The outlines of the steamship fittings ran through the actual walls and equipment, solid ridges cutting through composite and alloy alike. Hints of the false colours and textures were still there if he squinted hard and remembered what had gone before.
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.