Eric Brown - Kéthani

And now, a decade and a half later?

I’ll employ a cliché: 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 buttoned 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 Kéthani-run?”

“What?” Richard Lincoln quipped, “the dons wave tentacles or pseudo-pods?”

Lucy laughed. “Perhaps I should say it’s Kéthani administered. All the courses are geared to students who have made the decision to leave Earth and work with the Kéthani.”

“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… in her eyes. “We’ll be taking the word of the Kéthani to the universe, Andy. We’ll be endowing as yet uncontacted races with what the Kéthani have given us; I’ll be working with pre-industrial, humanoid races, bringing them to an understanding of the Kéthani, rather than have them learn about the Kéthani 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 Kéthani 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 Kéthani 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.

I was in the Fleece on Tuesday night when Richard Lincoln buttonholed me about old Mrs. Emmett. I’d arrived at seven and ordered a braised pork chop with roast potatoes and a pint of Landlord.

Sam was serving behind the bar. “You’re early, Khalid.”

“Hard day at the mill,” I said. “I need to wind down.”

“Well, the Landlord’s on form tonight. I’ll just go put your order in.”

She disappeared into the kitchen and I took a long draught of ale. Sam was right: it was nectar.

I’d had a tiring day at the hospital. Usually the implantation process went like a dream, but that afternoon, just as I was about to start the last implantation, the patient decided that he’d had second thoughts. He wanted a little time to consider what he was doing. It had been after six before I’d been able to get away.

I was the first of the Tuesday night crowd to arrive, but the others were not far behind. Ben and Elisabeth came in first, looking frozen stiff after the long walk through the snow; then the ferrymen Richard Lincoln and Dan Chester blew in, talking shop as usual, followed by Jeffrey Morrow. Next came Doug Standish and Andy Souter, and last of all Samantha’s husband, Stuart Kingsley. Samantha finished her shift at the bar and joined us.

I thought of Zara and the many happy Tuesday nights we’d spent at the Fleece with our friends, before my wife walked out on me and I killed myself, over ten years ago now.

I was on my third pint when Richard Lincoln returned from the bar with a round and sat down beside me.

Richard wore old-fashioned tweeds and liked his beer, but far from being the conservative country type he so much resembled, I found him liberal and open-minded. He lived next door to me along the street from the Fleece, and I considered him my best friend. Certainly he was the only person I’d told about what had really happened ten years ago.