In his office, Max waited, hoping for Avril’s return, praying for it, knowing that if she did not come back, he would still have learned what he needed to know.
For that, he hated himself.
TWENTY-SIX
EARTH, 2146 AD
They met at a restaurant specializing in nouveau Nihonjin, though Rekka and Simon planned to stick with traditional fare, perhaps mizo soup and vegetable tempura. Leonora and Alwyn were a couple, Hussein and Peter were colleagues, and they were waiting for Mary Stelanko and her partner Amber Hawke to arrive.
‘It’s good to be back,’ Rekka told them.
After the initial drinks, Alwyn - an artist from the Welsh Republic - restarted his ongoing debate with Simon.
‘See, every one of us is unique—’
‘Especially you,’ murmured Leonora.
‘—so there’s no such thing as numbers. They’re not real, because no two things are identical.’
‘So if you prepared lunch for us, expecting two people,’ said Simon, ‘and we turned up with four hundred of our best friends, it wouldn’t matter that we’re all different. Only that there’s four hundred and two of us.’
‘You’re wilfully missing the—’
And so on, harmlessly and without conclusion.
‘Shall we call them?’ asked Hussein finally. ‘I’m getting hungry, so I think we should—’
But at that moment the hubbub around them died, conversation attenuating to murmurs. This was New Phoenix (the city motto: We Rise From The Ashes) with plenty of UNSA personnel resident here, but still the sight of a Pilot caught everyone’s attention.
Amber walked with her arm lightly on Mary’s. UNSA provided guide dogs for Pilots, both for long-term companionship and for short durations; but Amber was not unusual in refusing them.
Highlights glinted off the steel sockets where her eyes had been.
‘Hi everyone,’ said Amber, sitting down. ‘Nice to see you all.’
The words were ordinary conversation, not ordinary. Everyone knew she would never see again, not in this universe. They also knew she experienced wonders in mu-space that they were literally incapable of imagining - or imaging - because their occipital and parietal lobes had not been virally rewired for fractal dimensions.
‘Good to see you, too,’ said Rekka.
‘Hey, congratulations. You bagged yourself a first contact.’
‘Uh-huh. Tell McStuart and the rest how good that was. He asked me what the pre in pre-contact might possibly mean, but he supposed they didn’t teach Latin where I come from.’
‘Bastard.’
‘I told him it derived from the preposition prae, as in pretentious .’
‘Good for you,’ said Hussein. ‘A toast. Congratulations to Rekka.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Cheers.’
But Simon was looking at Mary.
‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What’s that smile all about?’
Rekka remembered why she had fallen for him. He understood the unspoken in every conversation.
‘I was maybe going to mention it later—’
‘Come on, Mary. Tell us.’
‘But Amber and I are pregnant. Well, she’s the one doing the hard work.’
‘Wow.’
‘Well done, you two.’
Rekka was first in line to hug and kiss them both. There were excited embraces for the next couple of minutes.
Simon asked, ‘Are we hoping for Mary’s beauty and Amber’s brains, or the other way round?’
‘Don’t answer that,’ said Rekka. ‘I’ll punish him later.’
Finally, when the meal was underway, the conversation moved on to topical areas, and Pilots’ education came up. The Higashionnas - Robert and Luisa - were pushing for a new curriculum that emphasised UNSA control and discipline. Since all the youngsters now were natural-born Pilots, carrying the organelles nicknamed fractolons in every cell, their potential for self-determined lives was worrying conservatives.
Rekka noticed how quiet Amber was during the discussion.
After the meal, they said their farewells in the car park behind the restaurant. The night was warm, the desert palms were spiky shadows against dark sky, and the ever-present cicadas sang their insect song.
Mary saw Amber into their car, then walked back to where Rekka was standing. Simon was bantering with Hussein, Peter and Alwyn, while Leonora was trying to get them to call it a night. For the moment, Mary and Rekka were alone.
‘Is everything all right?’ asked Rekka.
‘Sort of. We—We want Amber’s son, our son, to be a Pilot.’
‘It’s a boy?’
‘Yes. But management said no to the treatment.’
‘They can be real bastards.’
Without fractolon insertion and related procedures, the child would be born fully human. Only natural-born Pilots gave birth to their own kind - and even then, the later stages of development had to take place in mu-space.
‘So we went ahead anyway. Don’t ask me how.’
‘Mary! My God.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But how will you—?’
‘That’s going to be the real trick, isn’t it?’
With Amber pregnant, and her an old-school Pilot rather than natural-born, she would be grounded for the duration.
‘What’s the cut-off?’
‘Six months, latest.’
Meaning that the last three months of foetal development, at a minimum, had to take place in mu-space, along with the birth itself.
‘You’ll never manage it.’
‘Some of the younger Pilots are real renegades, you know. Ro herself is.’
Ro McNamara had been the first Pilot born in mu-space. She was maybe twenty-three, twenty-four years old - Rekka wasn’t sure. The others of her kind, all bearing fractolons derived from hers, started to be born about two years after her.
Giving a twenty-year-old Pilot responsibility for a massively expensive spacecraft was a risk. No wonder UNSA were so concerned with education and training.
‘Let me know if I can help,’ said Rekka.
‘Do you really mean that?’
‘Yes. But if McStuart has anything to do with it, I’m grounded forever.’
‘Don’t count on it. Kilborn runs the schedules, and he hates McStuart.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Uh-huh. Plus, your friend Sharp will be flying home in a few months, and you’re to go with him. He wants it, Poliakov recommended it, and Kilborn’s insisting on it.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘You did good, girl.’ Mary hugged her. ‘A lot of us know it.’
‘Thank you.’
Later, as they drove across desert beneath a spectacular night sky, Simon asked what the private conversation with Mary had been about.
‘Girl talk,’ said Rekka.
Three months later, just past four a.m. on a Friday, a Pilot with glittering black eyes walked along an unlit corridor in Desert One. Then he paused before a locked door to which he did not have the code.
In his eyes, tiny golden sparks danced like fireflies. They faded as the door clicked open.
‘Hello,’ he said.
Inside, seated on a large couch, Sharp turned to see his visitor, his antlers looking hard and massive in the half-light.
‘You are the Pilot.’ The words came from his chest speaker. ‘It is good to meet you.’
‘Yes, Sharp. My name is Luís Delgado, and I’m honoured to be taking you home later.’
‘I will not see you during the voyage?’
‘No, that’s why I’m here now.’
‘Do you know Rekka?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Luís smiled. ‘And I like her very much.’
‘So do I.’
‘I’m glad I talked to you. Farewell, Sharp.’
‘Farewell, Luís Delgado.’
Luís nodded, and then walked out. The door automatically locked behind him.
Continuing through the xeno complex, he came to a door leading to an equipment bay. No automatic lights, as he walked the corridors, had activated. Now, the door failed to scan the person standing before it.
Once more, golden sparks glimmered in his eyes. The door slid open.