Eric Brown: Kéthani

We read every novel he’d written, some fifteen in all. We were enthralled, captivated. We must have presented a strange picture to outsiders: a group of middle-class professionals continually carrying around the same books and discussing them passionately amongst themselves. We even arranged another night to meet and discuss the books, to spare Gregory the embarrassment, though we didn’t forgo our usual Tuesday outings.

Only Andy Souter absented himself from the reading group. He was busy most nights with his brass band, and he’d admitted to me on the phone that he’d found the novels impenetrable.

One Saturday evening I arrived early and Stuart was already propping up the bar. “Khalid. Just the man. I’ve been thinking…” He hesitated, as if unsure as to how to proceed.

“Should think that’s expected of you, in your profession,” I quipped.

“You’d never make a stand-up comedian, Azzam,” he said. “No, it struck me… Look, have you noticed something about the group?”

“Only that we’ve become a devoted Gregory Merrall fan club—oh, and as a result we drink a hell of a lot more.” I raised my pint in cheers. “Which I’m not complaining about.”

He looked at me. “Haven’t you noticed how we’re looking ahead more? I mean, at one point we seemed content, as a group, to look no further than the village, our jobs. It was as if the Kéthani didn’t exist.”

“And now we’re considering the wider picture?” I shrugged. “Isn’t that to be expected? We’ve just read a dozen books about them and the consequences of their arrival. Damn it, I’ve never read so much in my life before now!”

He was staring into his pint, miles away.

“What?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Reading Gregory’s books, thinking about the Kéthani, what it all might mean… It brings back to me how I felt immediately after my resurrection. The lure of the stars. The dissatisfaction with life on Earth. I think, ever since my return, I’ve been trying to push to the back of my mind that… that niggling annoyance, the thought that I was treading water before the next stage of existence.” He looked up at me. “You said as much the other week.”

I nodded. After Zara left me, and I killed myself and returned to Earth, I withdrew into myself—or rather into my safe circle of friends—and paid little heed to the world, or for that matter to the universe, outside.

The door opened, admitting a blast of icy air and the rest of the group.

For the next hour we discussed an early Gregory Merrall novel, The Coming of the Kéthani.

Around ten o’clock a familiar figure strode into the main bar. We looked up, a little shocked and, I think, not a little embarrassed, like schoolkids caught smoking behind the bike shed.

A couple of us tried to hide our copies of Gregory’s novel, but too late. He smiled as he joined us.

“So this is what you get up to when my back’s turned?” he laughed.

Elisabeth said, “You knew?”

“How could you keep it a secret in a village the size of Oxenworth?” he asked.

Only then did I notice the bundle under his arm.

Gregory saw the direction of my gaze. He deposited the package on the table and went to the bar.

We exchanged glances. Sam even tried to peek into the brown paper parcel, but hastily withdrew her hand, as if burned, as Gregory returned with his pint.

Maddeningly, for the rest of the evening he made no reference to the package; he stowed it beneath the table and stoked the flagging conversation.

At one point, Stuart asked, “We were discussing your novel.” He indicated The Coming of the Kéthani. “And we wondered how you could be so confident of the, ah… altruism of the Kéthani, back then? You never doubted their motives?”

Gregory considered his words, then said, “Perhaps it was less good prophecy than a need to hope. I took them on trust, because I saw no other hope for humankind. They were our salvation. I thought it then, and I think so still.”

We talked all night of our alien benefactors, and how life on Earth had changed since their arrival and the bestowal of immortality on the undeserving human race.

Well after last orders, Gregory at last lifted the package from beneath the table and opened it.

“I hope you don’t mind my presumption,” he said, “but I would very much like your opinion of my latest book.”

He passed us each a closely printed typescript of The Suicide Club.

Two days later, just as I got in from work, Richard Lincoln phoned.

“The Fleece at eight,” he said without preamble. “An extraordinary meeting of the Gregory Merrall reading group. Can you make it?”

“Try keeping me away,” I said.

On the stroke of eight o’clock that evening all ten of us were seated at our usual fireside table.

Stuart said, “I take it you’ve all read the book?”

As one, we nodded. I’d finished it on the Sunday, profoundly moved by the experience.

“So… what do you think?”

We all spoke at once, echoing the usual platitudes: a work of genius, a brilliant insight, a humane and moving story…

Only Andy was silent. He looked uncomfortable. “Andy?” I said. He had not been part of the reading group, but Gregory had posted him a copy of the manuscript.

“I don’t know. It made me feel… well, uncomfortable.”

A silence ensued. It was Sam who spoke for the rest of us, who voiced the thought, insidious in my mind, that I had been too craven to say out loud.

“So,” she said, “when do we do it?”

Andy just stared around the group, horrified.

I tried to ignore him. I wondered at what point I had become dissatisfied with my life on Earth. Had the ennui set in years ago, but I had been too comfortable with the easy routine to acknowledge it? Had it taken Gregory Merrall’s presence among us to make me see what a circumscribed life I was leading now?

Sam and Stuart Kingsley were gripping each other’s hands on the tabletop. Sam leaned forward and spoke vehemently, “Reading Greg’s books brought it all back to me. I… I don’t think I can take much more of life on Earth. I’m ready for the next step.”

Beside her, Stuart said, “We discussed it last night. We’re ready to… go.”

They turned to look at Doug Standish, seated to their left.

He nodded. “I’ve been waiting for something for ten, fifteen years. Unlike you two,” he smiled at Sam and Stuart, “I haven’t been resurrected, so I’ve never experienced that lure… until now, that is. I’m ready for… for whatever lies ahead.”

He turned to Jeffrey Morrow, on his left. “Jeff?”

The schoolteacher was staring into his drink. He looked up and smiled. “I must admit I’ve never much thought about my own leaving. I had all the universe, and all the time in the universe, ahead of me—so why rush things? But… yes, it seems right, doesn’t it?”

Beside him, Richard Lincoln said in a quiet voice, “Earth holds very little for me now. I suppose the only thing that’s been keeping me here is…” he smiled and looked around the group, “the friendship of you people, and perhaps a fear of what might lie ahead, out there. But I feel that the right time has arrived.”

Ben and Elisabeth were next. They glanced at each other, their hands locked tight beneath the table. Elisabeth said, “We’re attracted to the idea. I mean, you could say that it’s the next evolutionary stage of humankind—the step to the stars.”

Ben took up where his wife had left off. “And we’ve noticed things on Earth… The apathy, the sense of limbo, of waiting for something to happen. I think by now it’s entered our subconscious as a race—the fact that life on Earth is almost over. It’s time to leave the sea.”