Ooh, that feels good.
You should relax more,tranquillity said. I am capable of supervising most activities.
I know, but everyone wants the personal touch; I’m starting to feel like a nursemaid rather than a dictator. And I still haven’t decided what to do about the Laymil project centre.
Most of its staff are on sabbatical from their university. Downsizing will be a simple matter.
Yes. But I feel we should make more use of its resources, turn it to something new. After all, you and I are technically out of a job these days.
A curious viewpoint.
Face it, we’ve got to find something else to do. I really don’t want to stay here.she allowed the images from the shell’s external sensitive cells shimmer up into her mind. Jupiter orbit was alive with starship flights, both Adamist and voidhawk. Two large industrial stations specialising in organic synthesis were being manoeuvred over to Aethra, where they could start repairing the damage to the young habitat’s shell. Joshua had transferred all forty-odd young habitats from the stage-one systems into orbit above the glorious orange gas-giant.
This star system is going to be the heart of the revolution,tranquillity said.
All the more reason we should go somewhere else. What’s our status right now?her consciousness drifted through the habitat, perceiving the state of the induction cables, the parkland, the light-tube, the vast ring of energy patterning cells. Fusion generators out on the docking ledge were still supplying seventy per cent of Tranquillity’s power. How do you feel about making another jump?
Where to?tranquillity asked.
I think it’s time you and I went home.
Home?
Kulu.
Is this some obscure bid to succeed the throne? Your royal cousins will have a collective heart attack.
But they can hardly refuse me, not after our contribution to the Liberation. Technically, we are a dukedom of the Kulu Kingdom. And there’s a lot of He3 mining activity around Tarron, I’m sure the cloudscoop crews would prefer to be billeted here. And we are an extremely valuable economic asset to any star system.
Why?
Carrying the revolution forwards. We are bitek, they are one of the most anti-bitek cultures in the Confederation. Yet they employed bitek at the first sign of trouble. That’s a chink, one we can prize open with our presence. This ridiculous technological segregation has to stop. It helps no one. This is the chance for that new beginning I spoke of. Another little change to add to the momentum for overall cultural reform.
It will not be easy.
I know that. But you have to admit, it’s been awfully quiet around here since Joshua left.
I still find that hardest to believe. Handing over the Lady Macbeth to his brother and giving up flying. Will he be happy living on Norfolk? It’s very peaceful there.
Ione laughed, and reached for a cut-crystal glass of Norfolk Tears. She eyed the fabulous drink as if it was the last drop left in the universe. I think it’s about to become a whole lot noisier.
Syrinx and Ruben stood patiently in the hospital waiting room as the psychology team assembled. Some of them she knew from her own therapy sessions, and exchanged warm greetings.
This is exciting,Oenone said. The last act we will perform in this saga.
You just want to go fly,she teased.
Of course. With the Confederation stars so close, there will be many more flights now.
I wonder what sort of flights, though. Now we’ve glimpsed Kiint technology, I doubt He3 fusion will last much longer. Perhaps we’ll go into the pleasure cruise business.
I will still love you.
She laughed. And I you, my love.her hand closed a little tighter around ruben’s. I think I might start having children now. We’ve faced the worst danger there is, flown to the other side of the nebula, and now life is changing. I want to be a part of it, to embrace what’s happening in the most human way possible.
I like you being truly happy. You are complete.
Only when we’re together.
The chief psychologist beckoned. We’re ready for you.
Syrinx walked over to the zero-tau pod in the middle of the room, standing by its head. The black field vanished, and the lid swung open. She smiled down. “Hello, Erick.”
It took only a day for the Kiint to cure Grant of his tumours. He submitted to the treatment of blue jelly with passive grace, meekly doing all that was requested of him. The massive xenocs were so overwhelming. Any sort of protest seemed appallingly churlish. They were only here to help, coming to Norfolk’s aid out of the kindness of their mighty hearts.
An enormous hospital had been built just outside Colsterworth. In less than an hour, according to those who saw it extruded. Little flying craft zipped across the wolds, stopping next to anyone they found and asking politely if they needed assistance, then conveying them back to the hospital for the ubiquitous treatment. Apparently Colsterworth’s hospital was the one dealing with all the cases on this half of Kesteven island. Another had been built at Boston to handle the city’s casualties.
Grant returned to Cricklade once his tumours had been flushed away, wandering round the big manor in a daze. The staff trickled back as they were discharged by the Kiint, looking to him to tell them what to do. That part of his reclaimed existence was easy; he knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
It was the reason for them doing it which had left him. He’d got his body back, not his life.
Marjorie returned on the second day, and they clung to each other in miserable desperation. There was still no sign of the girls.
Flying craft started to deliver the men from the militia who had remained in Boston after their possession, dropping down out of the sky at individual cottages and farm houses. The weeping and fragile laughter which came from each reunion was everywhere Grant went.
He and Marjorie drove back to Colsterworth to ask if the Kiint had found the girls. The computer at the hospital said no, but that they were still cataloguing Norfolk’s surviving residents. Tens of thousands were being added every hour, it told him, and he would be notified immediately (the Kiint had already repaired the entire planet’s telephone network). When he asked for a flying craft to take him to Norwich the computer apologised, saying they couldn’t accommodate private flights, all the craft were needed for patients.
They went back to the farm rover, debating what to do next. A Kiint was walking sedately down the broad cobbled street outside, crazily incongruous amid the stone-walled cottages with their slate roofs and climbing roses. A gang of laughing children were running round it, totally unafraid. It kept holding thin tentacles of tractamorphic flesh just above their heads, flicking them away when the children jumped to catch one. Playing with them.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” Grant said. “We can’t go back to how it was, not now.”
“That’s not like you,” Marjorie said. “The man I married would never allow our way of life to be cast aside.”
“The man you married hadn’t been possessed. Damn that Luca to hell.”
“They’ll always be with us, just as we were always with them.”
Provider globes were drifting round the manor, ejecting replacements for items which had never been repaired or replaced. The staff followed them, fitting lengths of guttering, hammering new trellis sections onto the walls, mending fence posts, plumbing in sections of central heating pipe. Grant felt like shouting at the globes to go away, but Cricklade needed fixing up: for all Luca’s attention its overall maintenance had been pretty shabby during the possession. And providers were doing the same thing for every household in Stoke County. People were entitled to some charity and good fortune after what they’d been through.