Kethani Part 5

The following day an ambulance brought Claudine's mother home, and I drove her over to the farmhouse. She kissed me before climbing from the car, suddenly solemn. "See you at school," she said, and was gone.

Suddenly, the routine of school seemed no longer a burden. I could put up with the recalcitrance of ignorant teenagers and the petty in-fighting between members of staff. The sight of Claudine in the schoolyard, or seated at her desk, filled me with rapture. Her swift, knowing smile during lessons was an injection of some effervescent and exhilarating drug.

After school I would pull off the road, up some lonely and abandoned cart track, and we would make love in the little time we had before I dropped her off at home. She told me that she would spend the following weekend at my place- she'd tell her mother that she was staying with a friend-and the days until then seemed never-ending.

On the Friday, just as I was about to leave the building, Miller b.u.t.tonholed me in the corridor. "What the h.e.l.l's going on, Jeffrey?"

My heart hammered. "What do you mean?"

"Between you and the Hainault girl, for Chrissake. It's glaringly obvious. They way you look at each other. You're a changed man."

"There's nothing going on," going on," I began. I began.

"Look," he said. He paused, as if unsure whether to go on. "Someone saw you with her yesterday-in your car on the moors." He shook his head. "This can't continue, Jeffrey. It's got to stop-"

I didn't let him finish. I pushed past him and hurried out and across to the car park. Claudine was standing by the bus stop on the main road, and as I let her in she gave me a dazzling smile that banished the threat of Miller's words and the consequences if I ignored them.

On the Sat.u.r.day night we lay in bed and talked, and I told her what Miller had said to me.

"It doesn't matter," she whispered in return. "They can't do anything. We'll be more careful in future, I think. Now forget about b.l.o.o.d.y Miller."

We went for a long walk on the Sunday afternoon, avoiding the Station as if mutually fearing the argument it might provoke. Claudine was quiet, withdrawn, as if Miller's words were troubling her.

She wept quietly after we made love that night. I held her. "Claudine-I've decided to resign, quit school. I'll find a job in town. There's plenty of work about. You can move in here, okay?" I babbled on, a love-struck teenager promising the world.

She was silent for a time. At last she whispered, "It wouldn't work."

Something turned in my stomach. "What?" I said.

"Love doesn't last," she said quietly. "It would be fine at first, and then..."

At that moment the room was washed in a blinding beam of light as the dead were beamed from the Onward Station to the Kethani starship. I was appalled at what I saw in the sudden illumination. Claudine's eyes were raw from crying, her face distorted in a silent grimace of anguish.

"Like everything," she sobbed, "it would corrupt."

I held her to me, unable to respond, unable to find the words that might convince her otherwise.

At last I said, "But I can still see you?" in desperation.

She smiled through her tears and nodded; touched, perhaps, by my naive hope.

In the early hours she slipped from the bed and kissed me softly on the cheek, before dressing and hurrying home.

Next day at school I desperately sought from Claudine some sign that I had not spoiled our relationship with my demands of the night before. In cla.s.s, she smiled at me with forced brightness, a smile that disguised a freight of sadness and regret.

We had agreed that I would no longer drive her home, to scotch the rumours flying about the school, and that evening her absence during the journey was painful. I looked ahead to the weekend when we would be together, and the days seemed endless.

On Tuesday Claudine was not at school. I a.s.sumed that she had slept in and missed the bus.

During the first period I saw the police car pull into the school grounds, but thought nothing of it.

Fifteen minutes later the secretary tapped on the cla.s.sroom door and entered. I should have guessed that something was amiss by the way she averted her gaze as she handed me the note-but what seems obvious in retrospect is never apparent at the time. The Head had called a staff meeting at first break.

When the bell went I crossed the hall to the staff room. I recall very well what I was thinking as I pushed open the door. My thoughts were full of Claudine, of course. The next time I saw her in private, I would plead with her to live with me once I had resigned my post at the school; to her claim that love never lasted I would counter that at least we should give it a try.

The room was crowded with ashen-faced teachers, and a dread silence hung in the air. Miller made his way to my side, his expression stricken.

"What?" I began, my stomach turning.

The Head cleared his throat and began to speak, and I heard only fragments of what he said.

"Claudine Hainault... Tragic accident... Her body was found in the reservoir..."

I felt myself removed from proceedings, abstracted through shock from the terrible reality unfolding around me.

Teachers began to weep. Miller gripped my arm, guided me to the nearest chair.

"The police think she slipped... went under... It was so cold she was paralysed and couldn't get out."

I wanted to scream at the injustice, but all I could do was weep.

"Such a terrible tragedy..." The Head paused and stared around the room. "As you know, she refused to be implanted."

I made myself attend the funeral.

I drank half a bottle of whisky before leaving the house, and somehow survived the service. It brought back memories of another funeral, just over two years ago. Claudine was buried in the Oxenworth village churchyard, just three graves along from Caroline, beneath a stand of cherry trees which would flower with the coming of spring.

A television crew was present, along with reporters and photographers from the national press. So few people really died these days, and Claudine's being young and attractive made the story all the more sensational. Relatives flew in from France. Her mother was an inconsolable wreck. I tried to ignore Miller and his begrudging words of commiseration; his att.i.tude was consoling and at the same time censorious, unable to condone my love for Claudine.

I watched the coffin being lowered into the black maw of the grave, finding it impossible to accept that Claudine was within it. Then I slipped away and walked to the reservoir. A pathetic spread of wind-blown flowers, left by pupils and stricken locals, marked the spot on the bank where she had fallen.

That night I wrote a letter of resignation to the school authorities. It would be impossible to go back to the place where I had first met Claudine, to the cla.s.srooms haunted by her absence. I considered selling the house and moving from the area. Claudine still seemed present, as if she might at any second emerge from another room, smiling at me.

That night I drank myself unconscious.

In the morning, waking from oblivion to face the terrible fact of her death anew, I dressed and made my way downstairs and saw the letter lying on the doormat.

I read my name and address in Claudine's precise schoolgirl hand.

With trembling fingers I ripped open the envelope and pulled out the single folded sheet.

I sank to the floor, disbelieving. I moaned with grief intensified, made more painful than I ever imagined possible.

I read her note a second time, then again and again, as if by doing so I might change what she had written, and what it meant.

My Dear Jeff, she began, and continued with words I would never forget, she began, and continued with words I would never forget, I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry-but I can't go on. I love you, but it can't last, nothing lasts. I've known joy with you and perhaps it is best to end that joy at its height, rather than have it spoil. I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry-but I can't go on. I love you, but it can't last, nothing lasts. I've known joy with you and perhaps it is best to end that joy at its height, rather than have it spoil.

And I wanted to cry, no! no! I wanted the chance to vent my anger and tell her how very wrong she was. I wanted the chance to vent my anger and tell her how very wrong she was.

You know I don't want immortality. Life is so very hard to bear at the best of times. To face life everlasting... I feel at peace when I contemplate what I'm going to do-please try to understand. She was going to leave her house- She was going to leave her house-had left her house-and walk to the reservoir, and give herself to the frigid embrace of the water... How could I understand left her house-and walk to the reservoir, and give herself to the frigid embrace of the water... How could I understand that that? How could I understand an act so irrational, an act of violence provoked by fears and pressures known only to herself? How often since have I wished I had known her better, had been a lover capable of being there when she needed me most?

I can hear you asking how could I do this to you. But, Jeff, you will survive-you have all the time in the universe. In a hundred years I will be a fleeting memory, and in a thousand...

They say that time heals all wounds.

And she had finished, With all my love, Claudine. With all my love, Claudine.

I spend a long time contemplating the events of the past, going over my time with Claudine and wondering where I went wrong. I blame myself, of course, for not persuading her to undergo the implantation process, for not being able to show her how much I loved her. I blame myself for not giving her reason enough to go on living.

I am haunted by her words, You have all the time in the universe... You have all the time in the universe...

At night I sit in the darkened lounge and stare out at the rearing edifice of the Onward Station, marvelling at its beauty and contemplating the terrible gift of the Kethani.

Interlude Five years had pa.s.sed since the coming of the Kethani, and after the first two years of turbulent change-two years of rioting and protest around the world-order had been restored. Hundreds of thousands of returnees came back to Earth, and though they had been subtly changed by the experience of dying and being reborn, none were the zombies or monsters that the Jeremiahs and prophets of doom had forecast.

Slowly, things began to change on Earth. So slowly, so gradually, that it was almost unnoticeable.

That evening-after a long day on the ward where I worked as an implant surgeon-I was enjoying a pint in the Fleece when Jeffrey Morrow said, "I don't know if you've noticed, but over the past few years things have got better on Earth, don't you think?"

We looked at him. Jeffrey had greyed in the years since I first got to know him, which wasn't at all surprising, considering what he'd undergone. He was a quiet man, much given to introspection and thoughtful silences. After Claudine's death, we had persuaded him to remain in the area, to stay on at the school in Bradley, to face the terrors of his past and not to run away.

Considering what Jeffrey had experienced in recent years, this latest p.r.o.nouncement was a little unexpected, to say the least.

"Got better?" I said. "How do you mean?"

"I came across an academic paper the other day," Jeffrey said, "by some high-up in the UN." He was on his fourth pint, and his eyes were distant. "It was a breakdown of the incidences of conflict around the world. And do you know something-since the coming of the Kethani, cases of armed conflict have decreased globally by almost seventy per cent."

Richard Lincoln nodded. "I've heard the same. Not only that, violence in general has fallen around the world. For instance, murder rates are in decline."

That led us to speculate about the reasons for this gradual amelioration of the human condition...

Richard said, "Well, you know what I think-"

Zara laughed and hummed the spooky opening bars of the Twilight Zone. Twilight Zone. "The aliens are amongst us, Richard?" "The aliens are amongst us, Richard?"

He pointed at her, mock stern. "Oh, ye of little faith. The Kethani have powers which we can't even dream of, so it stands to reason that they'd come among us to help us along the way."

I thought about that, then said, "I'm not saying you're wrong, Richard. But I think that that might be unnecessary."

Richard downed half his pint. "Go on."

"Think about it. We die. They transport us to their homeworld. They bring us back to life. And we come back-changed. I've heard it said that people come back... I don't know... better, better, improved." improved."

Richard objected, "But that doesn't disprove my thesis, Khalid!"

"No-what I'm saying is that if things have got better on Earth, if there is less conflict, then maybe it's caused less by the activity of the Kethani down here and more by what the Kethani did to us up there. Maybe it's the mentality of the returnees that is changing things." It was a nice thought-and how was I to know that, in a few years time, I would have first-hand knowledge of just how the resurrection process could render change in an individual?

Zara said, "Whichever it is, we have the Kethani to thank."

For the first time that night, Ben spoke up. He was the only one among our group who was not implanted, and we had never questioned him as to why this was so. Some things, we thought, were just too personal to share.

"Perhaps," he said, "the people who come back, the returnees, aren't really the people they were. Perhaps," and he smiled as he said this, making me think that he wasn't entirely serious, "perhaps they're aliens in disguise?"

We laughed and argued amongst ourselves for a while, and then Ben said, "I've often wondered about the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who die and come back. I mean, the really evil people. Killers, despots, psychotics. They come back changed-I know that. But who's to say that they are who they once were?"

Zara smiled. "You don't really think...?"

Ben laughed. "Of course not. I've read enough to realise that the maniacs are somehow mentally altered up there, for the better. Made humane." He shook his head, his gaze lost in the leaping flames of the open fire. "It makes you wonder, though, exactly what does happen..."

Talk drifted onto other subjects.

Ben remained quiet for the rest of the evening. It was only later-a year later, to be precise-that he told us the reason why he was not implanted, and why he wondered at the process of transformation undergone by the returnees.

THREE.

THE KETHANI INHERITANCE.

That winter, two events occurred that changed my life. My father died and, for the first time in thirty years, I fell in love. I suppose the irony is that, but for my father's illness, I would never have met Elisabeth Carstairs.