Eric Brown - Kéthani

It reminded him of the early days with Amanda… Christ, was it really twenty years ago, now?

Ben Knightly said, “I read about the murder in this morning’s paper…”

Standish nodded. “We’ve got no further with the investigation, to be honest. We need all the help we can get. Richard mentioned you saw something.”

Ben Knightly was a big man with massive, outdoor hands. When he wasn’t holding his wife’s hand beneath the table, he clutched his pint, as if nervous. “I was working in the Patterson’s top field,” he said hesitantly. “I was just across the valley. It was around four, maybe a bit later.”

“How far were you from the Roberts’ farmhouse?” Standish asked, wondering exactly how far away “just across the valley” might be.

“Oh, about a mile, maybe a little bit less.”

Standish halted his pint before his lips. “And you say you saw something. From that distance?”

Knightly glanced at his wife, then said, “Well, it wasn’t hard to miss…”

A helicopter, Standish thought, his imagination getting the better of him. A hot-air balloon?

“At first I thought it was a shooting star,” Knightly said. “I see them all the time, but not quite that early. But this star just went on and on, dropping towards the earth. I thought at first it was a beam bringing the returnees home, but it wasn’t heading for the Station.”

Standish nodded, wondering where this was leading. “Where did it fall?”

Ben Knightly shrugged his big shoulders. “It went down behind the trees next to the Roberts’ house.”

Standish looked at Lincoln. “A meteorite? I’m not very up on these things.”

“Meteorites usually come in at an acute angle,” the ferryman said, “not straight down.”

“I thought I was seeing things,” Knightly said. “But when I read about the murder…”

Standish shook his head. “I really don’t see how…” Then he recalled the melted patch outside the back door of the farmhouse.

The conversation moved on to other things, after that. A little later they were joined by more people, friends of Lincoln. Standish recognised an implant doctor from Bradley General, Khalid Azzam, and Jeffrey Morrow and Dan Chester, another ferryman.

They were pleasant people, Standish thought. They went out of their way to make him feel part of the group. He bought a round and settled in for the evening. The ferrymen talked about why they had chosen their profession, and perhaps inevitably the topic of conversation soon moved round to the Kéthani.

“Come on, you two,” Elisabeth said to Richard and Dan, playfully. “You come into contact with returnees every day. They must say something about the Kéthani homeworld?”

Lincoln smiled. “It’s strange, but they don’t. They say very little. They talk about the rehabilitation process in the domes, conducted by humans, and then what they call ‘instructions’, lessons in Zen-like contemplation, again taught by humans.”

Dan Chester said, “They don’t meet any Kéthani, or leave the domes. The view through the domes is one of rolling hills and vales—probably not what the planet looks like at all.”

Standish looked around the group. They were all implanted. “Have you ever,” he said, marshalling his thoughts, “had any doubts about the motives of the Kéthani?”

A silence developed, while each of the people around the table considered whether to answer truthfully.

At last Elisabeth said, “I don’t think there’s a single person on the planet who hasn’t wondered, at some point. Remember the paranoia to begin with?”

That was before the returnees had returned to Earth, miraculously restored to life, with stories of the Edenic alien homeworld. These people seemed cured not only in body, but also in mind, assured and centred and calm… How could the Kéthani be anything other than a force for good?

Standish said, “I sometimes think about what’s happened to us, and… well, I’m overcome by just how much we don’t know about the universe and our place in it.”

He shut up. He was drunk and rambling.

Not long after that the bell rang for last orders, and it was well after midnight before they stepped from the warmth of the bar into the sub-zero chill of the street. Standish made his farewells, promising he’d drop in again but knowing that, in all likelihood, in future he would do his drinking alone at the Dog and Gun.

He contemplated taking a taxi home, but decided he was fit enough to drive. He negotiated the five miles back to his village at a snail’s pace, grateful for the gritted roads.

It was well after one o’clock by the time he drew up outside the house. The hall light was blazing, and the light in the kitchen, too. Was Amanda still up, waiting for him? Had she planned another row, a detailed inventory of his faults and psychological flaws?

He unlocked the front door, stepped inside, and stopped.

Three big suitcases filled the hallway.

He found Amanda in the kitchen.

She was sitting at the scrubbed-pine table, a glass of Scotch in her hand. She stared at him as he appeared in the doorway.

“I thought I’d better wait until you got back,” she said.

“You’re leaving?” He pulled out a chair and slumped into it. What did he feel? Relief, that at last someone in this benighted relationship had been strong enough to make a decision? Yes, but at the same time, too, a core of real regret.

“Who is she?” Amanda asked, surprising him.

He blinked at her. “Who’s who?”

She reached across the table and took a photograph from where it was propped against the fruit bowl.

“I found it in the hall this morning. Who is she?”

It was the snap of Sarah Roberts he’d taken from the Station yesterday. Instinctively he reached for his breast pocket. The photograph must have slipped out last night when he’d tried to hang his jacket up.

“Well?” She was staring at him, something very much like hatred in her eyes.

A part of him wanted to take her to task over her hypocrisy, but another part was too tired and beaten to bother.

“It has nothing to do with you,” he said.

“I’m going!” she said, standing.

He watched her hurry to the kitchen door, then said, “Staying with… what’s his name? Jeremy Croft, in Hockton?”

She stopped in the doorway, turned, and stared at him. He almost felt sorry for her when she said, “I met him last year, Doug, when things were getting impossible here. I wanted someone to love me, someone I could love.”

“I’m sorry you couldn’t find that with me.”

She shook her head. “Sometimes these things just don’t work, no matter how hard you try. You know that.” She hesitated, then said, “I hope you find what you want with…” She gestured to the snap of Sarah Roberts on the kitchen table, then hurried into the hall.

He opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of trying to correct her.

He heard her open the door and struggle out with the cases. He pushed himself upright and moved into the hall.

He pulled open the door and stepped outside. Amanda was driving away.

Strangely, he no longer felt the cold. In the silence of the night, he walked from the house and stood in the lane, staring up at the massed and scintillating stars.

Then he saw a shooting star—denoting a death, somewhere—and then he knew. It was as if he had known all along, but the sight of the shooting star had released something within him, allowing him the insight.

It made sense. Sarah Roberts, a woman without a past, living in a pristine house, empty of all the trivial products of the modern world. It made perfect sense. Perhaps, after all, she was an angel.

Laughing to himself, he staggered back inside and shut the door behind him. He moved to the lounge, collapsed on the sofa, and slept.