I took charge of the rehearsals at the village hall, and in spring we staged the first and what would turn out to be the last of the concerts in the church itself. It went down well, but something was missing-Matthew. The orchestra was a dying thing. In six months, I guessed, it would be gone, with no hope of resurrection, Kethani or otherwise. Only when life became eternal did I truly appreciate the fact that nothing ever lasts forever.
Matt was missing from our Tuesday night sessions, too; our gatherings just weren"t the same without him.
The day of his return came about, and there was a big crowd of locals in the reception lounge of the Onward Station that afternoon. His parishioners were out in force, ninety-nine per cent of them implanted; a gaggle of clergy was present, too. His Tuesday night friends formed a small knot among the crowd.
At three on the dot, the head of operations at the Station, Director Masters, made a short speech, and Matt stepped through the sliding doors and greeted us.
Matthew, in his late forties when he died, now looked a good ten years younger, his waistline slimmed down, the fat of his face pared-even the distinguished grey at his temples was gone. He looked leaner, fitter, somehow more full of energy, if that were possible.
He made the rounds, shaking hands, hugging, slapping backs; many of his flock were in tears.
I wondered if it was significant that he was no longer wearing his dog collar, or if he was undercover here, too.
"The beer brigade!" he greeted the Tuesday nighters. "G.o.d, I"ve missed a pint where I was..." We laughed.
One hour later, Matt was driven away by the officials of his Church.
As I watched him go, I thought over what he had said all those months ago about the Kethani and their place in the scheme of things, and I wondered if Father Matthew Renbourn would slip quietly back into his old way of life in the village. I should have known the answer to that, of course.
That evening, just as I was about to call it a day, pack up my cornet, and slip out for a quick one at the Fleece, the phone rang.
It was Matt.
I couldn"t conceal my surprise. "Matt, great to hear from you. Look, do you fancy a pint? We"re meeting at the Fleece at nine."
He made an excuse-he had a lot of work on. But, he said, he would like to see me.
I evinced my surprise yet again. "Well, of course. Great. Where?"
"Could you pop along to the church in ten minutes?"
It was high summer and a magnificently balmy evening. Not that I appreciated the sunset and the birdsong as I made my way down the lane to St. Luke"s. My head was full of my imminent meeting with Matt.
I found him in his office, seated behind his desk in the very same chair I"d found him in six months earlier.
He smiled at me. "Andy, sit down. I"d like to thank you for your work with the orchestra."
"You"re welcome. It"s not the same without you... But that isn"t why you wanted to see me, is it?"
He grinned disarmingly. "Of course not. Doug told me that it was you who discovered the... my body."
I nodded. "It was something of a shock," I said.
"I can well imagine." He paused and thought about what he was going to say next. "I think I owe you an explanation," he continued.
I stared at him, not understanding. "About what?"
"About my death," he murmured, "what else?"
I made a feeble gesture. "But what is there to explain?" I said. "You died of a ma.s.sive coronary."
"Officially, Andrew, I died of a ma.s.sive coronary."
I tried a smile. "And unofficially?"
"I"m not at all sure you"d believe me."
"Try me."
Matt leaned back in his chair and arranged his fingers in a fair imitation of a church steeple. "There is a lot we don"t know about, Andy. A lot happening in the big, wide universe out there that we, with our limited perceptions, cannot even guess at." He paused, looked at his hands. "Do you recall those figures-the figures of light? I mentioned they were following me."
"How can I forget?"
He nodded. "That night, six months ago, one came to see me, came here, into this very office. That night. Orchestra night."
"What happened?" I asked, my voice far from steady. "What did it say?"
"It said nothing," he told me. "It merely sent me on the next stage of my journey."
I was suddenly aware of how loud my heartbeat was. "It killed you?" I murmured.
"It reached out," he said, "and touched my chest, just here," he lay his fingertips on his sternum, "and I felt a sudden and ineffable sense of joy, of affirmation, and I knew that my true quest had begun."
I shook my head. "I don"t think I understand," I began.
"When I was resurrected on Kethan, I was instructed. I learned many things about the universe, the various races out there, the many philosophies. I was given the option of returning to Earth, or going among the stars. They showed me a vast starship, due to explore what we call the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. They want me to be aboard it when it sails."
I hardly heard myself say, "In what capacity?"
He beamed at me. "To spread the word," he said.
"The Kethani..." I whispered. "You said, a while ago, that they were but tools to achieve G.o.d"s purpose."
He nodded. "And I think they know that, too, my friend."
A little later he showed me to the door of the church and shook my hand.
"Goodbye, Andrew," Matt said, and turned and walked up the aisle towards the altar and the figure of Jesus on the cross. I watched him kneel and bow his head in prayer.
That was the last time I saw Father Matthew Renbourn. In the morning he slipped quietly from the village, leaving behind him the mystery of his death and the even greater mystery of his mission among the stars.
That night, I left Matt praying to his G.o.d and made my slow way to the Fleece. There, I informed the others what Matt had told me, and we speculated long into the night whether our friend was blessed... or deluded.
Interlude Fifteen years had pa.s.sed since the coming of the Kethani, and I often looked back and marvelled that so short a time had elapsed since that momentous day on the moors when I beheld the arrival of the Onward Station. I looked back, too, and found it hard to imagine life before the Kethani. The world had been a vastly different place, then; but more, the human race had been very different. In the centuries and millennia BK, as we came to know it, humanity had schemed and grabbed and fought and killed on a global level, playing out imperatives that had their roots in individual neuroses: we were the descendants of animals, and within us was the conditioning of the jungle. We had feared death, and in consequence perhaps we had also feared life.
And now, a decade and a half later?
I"ll employ a cliche: humanity was more humane. I witnessed more small acts of charity in my day-to-day dealings with people, more gestures of care and kindness. I saw less cruelty, less hatred. We were, perhaps, leaving behind the animal within us and evolving into something else.
So much change in fifteen years...
All this is a preliminary to the scene I"m about to relate, which happened unsurprisingly in the main bar of the Fleece.
It was a few days before Christmas, the fire was roaring, and the usual faces were gathered about the table. Conversation was good.
Then I looked up as the door opened, admitting a swirl of wind and a beautiful woman.
She was dressed in high boots and a black coat b.u.t.toned up to her chin, and the face I stared at was pale and elfin, with a midnight fall of jet-black hair.
She stamped her feet and brrr"d her lips, then looked over to our group, smiled and lifted gloved fingers in a little wave-and only then did I realise, with a start, who it was.
Dan Chester stood, crossed the room, and embraced his daughter, Lucy.
She hugged us one by one, saying how good it was to be back home. "Khal," she said. "It"s great to see you!"
She sat down and sipped a half a pint of Ram Tam, and told us all about life at university in London.
It was perhaps two years since I"d last seen Lucy, and she had changed, imago-like, from a shy teenager into a confident, self-possessed young woman in her late teens.
She was studying xeno-biology and international relations, preparatory to leaving Earth. She had discussed her decision with her father: it was the thing she most wanted to do, and though Dan had found it hard to accept that soon, within two years, she would be light years away among the stars, he could not find it within him to deny her dreams.
She looked around the group and said, "Did you know that the university is Kethani-run?"
"What?" Richard Lincoln quipped, "the dons wave tentacles or pseudo-pods?"
Lucy laughed. "Perhaps I should say it"s Kethani administered. All the courses are geared to students who have made the decision to leave Earth and work with the Kethani."
"I suppose it makes sense," Sam said.
"There"s a wonderful atmosphere of... not only of learning, but of camaraderie. We"re about to do something wondrous out there, and the excitement is infectious."
Andy Souter, our resident sceptic, said, "What exactly will you be doing out there, Lucy?"
She smiled and looked into her drink. When she looked up, I saw the light of... dare I say evangelism... evangelism... in her eyes. "We"ll be taking the word of the Kethani to the universe, Andy. We"ll be endowing as yet uncontacted races with what the Kethani have given us; I"ll be working with pre-industrial, humanoid races, bringing them to an understanding of the Kethani, rather than have them learn about the Kethani as we did, with the sudden arrival of the Onward Stations. Other students will be liaising between disputing races or helping races who have fought to the point of extinction. Oh..." she beamed around the table, "there"s no limit to the work to be done out there!" in her eyes. "We"ll be taking the word of the Kethani to the universe, Andy. We"ll be endowing as yet uncontacted races with what the Kethani have given us; I"ll be working with pre-industrial, humanoid races, bringing them to an understanding of the Kethani, rather than have them learn about the Kethani as we did, with the sudden arrival of the Onward Stations. Other students will be liaising between disputing races or helping races who have fought to the point of extinction. Oh..." she beamed around the table, "there"s no limit to the work to be done out there!"
I could see that Andy remained unconvinced, but her enthusiasm won me over.
I said, "The human race has certainly evolved since the Kethani came, Lucy."
"Evolved," she said. "Yes, that"s the word, Khal. Evolved. Everyone has changed, haven"t they, not only the returnees, but those who haven"t yet died." She looked round the group.
"We no longer fear death, do we? That curse has been lifted from our psyches. We can... for the first time in existence, we can look ahead and enjoy being alive."
I smiled. Years ago, I would have labelled her optimism as the product of youth; but now that optimism had infected all of us.
The door opened, and someone hurried into the bar and ordered a drink, a young man in a thick coat and walking boots. Lucy turned quickly and smiled at the new arrival, and it was wonderful to see the unmistakable light of love in her eyes.
I recognised the man as Davey Emmett.
Lucy said, in almost a whisper, "I, more than most, have so much to thank the Kethani for..."
Davey carried his pint across the room and joined us. He kissed Lucy and sat down beside her, and I noticed that immediately Lucy found his hand with hers and squeezed.
Davey smiled across at me. "Khalid, it"s been a long time."
I nodded. "Almost a year? How are you?"
He laughed. "Never better. I enrolled at the London uni. A mature student." He looked at Lucy and grinned. "Amazing, isn"t it, that I had to travel two hundred miles in order to meet someone from the same village."
I looked at Lucy; she seemed hesitant and oddly nervous. She cast a quick glance across at her father. Davey, beside her, gave her a subtle nudge, and I guessed what was about to happen.
She said, "Dad..." She coloured prettily, and turned and looked at Davey. "Dad, everyone, I thought it"d be nice to announce it among friends. Davey and I are planning to get married later this year..."
We cheered, and Richard Lincoln ordered a bottle of champagne, and we took it in turns to kiss Lucy and shake Davey"s hand.
It was the start of a long night, one of the best among many I"d experienced in the Fleece with my friends.
I thought back almost a year, to the last time I had met Davey Emmett and his remarkable mother.
Even now, not all the citizens of Earth chose to be implanted. Katherine Emmett had been one of these people.
For the most part I viewed these mavericks as misguided, or as short-sighted religious crackpots-though not Katherine Emmett. I had nothing but respect for the old lady and her decision to remain without an implant.
It"s a testament to the power of her faith, and her humanity, that she allowed her son the opportunity to make his own choice.
NINE.
A CHOICE OF ETERNITIES.
I was in the Fleece on Tuesday night when Richard Lincoln b.u.t.tonholed me about old Mrs. Emmett. I"d arrived at seven and ordered a braised pork chop with roast potatoes and a pint of Landlord.