Final Days

THIRTY-TWO

Galileo Colony, 94 Aquarii System, Four Months Later

‘This way, please.’

Erkrnwald, polite as ever, indicated a series of steps, cut into the cliff face, which descended towards a shoreline of pale-grey sand far below.

Saul glanced back at the transport and saw it reverse away from the cliff edge, before turning and heading back, presumably, in search of the nearest charging port. Further inland, he could see rows of agricultural buildings stretching into the distance, each surrounded by fields of experimental crops specially designed for the Galilean soil and atmosphere.

He turned back to Erkrnwald and nodded, the young political officer’s expression politely bland as he placed one hand on the railing that guarded the steps down. White-capped waves thick with yellowish-blue algae crashed constantly against the shore, beyond which dozens of drilling platforms were visible, stretching out to the horizon. A motorized launch waited for them below, rising and dipping with the tide.

‘Is there a reason we couldn’t just fly out there?’ he asked.

‘Not at this time of year.’ Erkrnwald shook his head. ‘We’re coming up to drift-spore season, so too much risk of getting our engines clogged.’

Saul nodded and they began to descend the steps. The air away from town smelled different, lacking that particular odour all of Galileo’s larger settlements seemed to share. It wasn’t quite the smell of the sea back home on Earth, but close enough. He tasted salt on his lips as the wind carried a thin spray of sea water up towards the cliff top.

A few dozen metres out from the shore, a submarine whale’s single eye pushed up from the water on its rubbery stalk, glancing briefly around in a typically comical fashion before once more sliding beneath the waves.

The launch was a one-piece fab job, low and sleek, its lines distinctly organic. Anor man, older than Erkrnwald, waited on the shore close by.

‘I’m Representative Kayes,’ he said, stepping forward to greet them. He glanced at Erkrnwald the same way Saul had seen most people here do, with a mixture of cautious respect and unease. ‘And you must be Mr Dumont,’ he said, addressing Saul. ‘I’ve been following you on the news ever since they brought you down from orbit last month.’

‘To be honest, if heading out to the platforms means I can get away from all the press attention, that’s enough reason to be here, all on its own. And, please, call me Saul.’

Kayes chuckled in sympathy. ‘Still, it can’t have been easy for you. You were stuck on that starship for Lord knows how many weeks before it reached Galileo.’

Saul smiled wanly. ‘It could have been worse.’

‘When they first contacted you, I was glued to the feeds,’ said Kayes. ‘I know there’s still people don’t believe your story, but I believe it. I listened to every word you said during the interviews. If I could have been there when they brought you down from orbit, I would’ve been.’

‘About the girl,’ said Erkrnwald, an impatient tone to his voice, ‘does she know?’

‘Yes.’ Kayes nodded, turning back to the officer. ‘There was still some uncertainty over her identity until this morning. We’ve asked her to take the afternoon off from her duties.’ He glanced at Saul. ‘She . . . she doesn’t know you’re coming, though she should by the time we get there.’

‘You’re absolutely certain it’s her?’ asked Saul. ‘Definitely her?’

‘You must understand it took quite some time to sort through the Revolutionary Council’s records,’ Kayes explained. ‘So many government records were destroyed in the early days, before the fighting ended.’

‘I’ve been thoroughly informed of the political changes since the first gate failed,’ Saul replied drily.

‘Then I’m sure you understand why it took quite so long to be sure,’ Kayes continued. ‘But we are now quite sure.’

Saul felt momentarily dizzy. He stepped over to the launch that had been pulled up on to the beach and placed a hand on its hull. It felt very slightly slick to the touch. ‘You’re absolutely sure?’

Kayes nodded. ‘It’s your daughter, Mr Dumont. There’s no doubt.’

To his consternation, Saul found that by the time he had arrived on Galileo he was already something of a cause célèbre. Once the Revolutionary Council had realized an invasion force was never going to come pouring through the starship, they had allowed Saul greater freedom, although he was accompanied always by Erkrnwald and other men who served the Revolutionary Council.

He quickly discovered that the Council had been working hard all those long years at reverse-engineering the technology within the defunct Galileo Array, so that they might learn how to create their own paired wormholes. Once they had heard Saul’s story, the Galileans began talking excitedly about reconnecting with the other surviving colonies, all now stranded from each other with the destruction of the Lunar Array.

Sometimes, on those rare occasions he had a moment to himself, Saul would look up at the night sky and wonder if Olivia and Jeff were still alive. Even though he had no way of knowing, he felt somehow sure the answer was yes.

Sometimes, he thought, the one thing keeping him sane in the face of all that he had witnessed was the single goal remaining to him, coming ever closer as they crossed the choppy waters towards the nearest of the platforms.

They moored amid the tangle of rusty girders, conduits and concrete posts supporting the platform. The Galilean sun was like a pale spectre as it shone through a dense freezing mist that still clung to the surface of the ocean. They ascended in a steel cage that rattled and jerked as it was drawn upwards. Erkrnwald clapped his hands together, his breath frosting, a heavy coat wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Kayes, clearly of a hardier nature, eyed the political officer with a touch of disdain whenever Erkrnwald wasn’t looking his way.

They’d awoken her that morning without explanation, it turned out, at just about the same time that Erkrnwald had also roused Saul from a sleepless night. He wondered how Gwen was taking it. He kept trying to picture how she must look now: she’d be sixteen, very nearly a full-grown woman. But, when he tried to picture her as an adult, he kept getting her mixed up with his last memories of Deanna. In his mind she was still the same little girl he remembered from ten years before, frozen in time like a snapshot, barely much more than a baby back then.

Kayes led them up a series of ladders to a walkway lined by doors with rusting latches, the air thick with the odour of burning petroleum. Kayes stopped at one of the doors and began to push it open.

‘No,’ said Erkrnwald, stepping up next to Kayes. ‘I should speak to the girl’s foster parents first. If you don’t mind, Mr Kayes, we won’t be needing you any longer.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Kayes, flashing Erkrnwald a tight smile. ‘I was looking forward to a chance to chat with our famous friend here. It’ll pass the time while you talk to them.’ Saul didn’t miss the emphasis in Kaye’s tone.

Something glinted in the political officer’s expression. ‘I’m sure Mr Dumont would rather gather his thoughts, given the circumstances. And I’m sure you have other duties to attend to.’

‘Do you mind us talking, Saul?’ asked Kayes, eyeing him with an innocent expression.

Saul tried not to smile at the look on Erkrnwald’s face. ‘I’d be happy to, Mr Kayes.’

‘Jackson, please,’ Kayes replied.

‘Jackson.’ Saul nodded.

Erkrnwald’s face turned red with impotent fury and, for a second, Saul thought he might have pushed the man too far. But, after a moment, Erkrnwald pushed on past the door without a further word, letting it shut loudly behind him.

‘Not tired yet of him trailing after you everywhere you go?’ asked Kayes.

Saul let out a sigh. ‘He spends half his time telling me who I can and can’t talk to. It gets old fast.’

‘That’s the Revolutionary Council for you. They’re turning out worse than the people they replaced. You know he’s scared that your daughter or her foster parents will try and brainwash you into joining us out here, right?’

‘Seriously?’ Saul laughed out loud, though shivering in the cold air. ‘Brainwash me how?’

A grin spread over Jackson’s face. ‘By offering you the chance to get away from people like Erkrnwald. See, he’s talking to the wrong people. I’m the one who’s going to try and brainwash you.’

A little while later they ushered Saul inside, where he met Gwen’s foster parents in an anteroom. It was clear Gwen’s foster mother had been crying, the father clearly agitated and jumpy. Saul assured them he had no intention of taking their daughter away from them and, in truth, he knew it had been long enough for Gwen’s memories of him to perhaps have faded. Ten years was a long time, after all.

Even so, nothing felt more important to him than getting the chance to see her face-to-face, even if it was just the once. Saul caught Kayes’ eye and nodded, before following Erkrnwald through to what appeared to be a staff cafeteria, with only a young girl sitting alone at a chipped plastic table, a mug clutched nervously in both hands.

She looked, thought Saul, just like her mother. He picked up a chair and sat down across the table from her, waiting until Erkrnwald had exited the room, and realized suddenly that he didn’t know what to say. He sat there searching for something, for any suitable words at all.

‘I know this can’t be easy for you,’ he finally managed to blurt out.

‘You’re . . . my father?’ she asked tentatively. ‘They . . .’

‘Yes?’ he asked.

‘They told me you were dead.’

She wore a long overcoat, much like his own, and had pulled the sleeves down over her knuckles so that most of her hands were hidden except for the fingers holding to the mug. She then put the mug down and started playing with the hems of her sleeves. Like her mother she had a wide, round face, and even wore her hair in much the same way, parted down the middle into thick braids and tied back in a bun. Her skin was a light chocolate colour, not quite as dark as his own. Beneath the overcoat, he could see she wore the overalls of a platform worker.

‘No,’ Saul shook his head, ‘very much alive.’ He looked around. ‘You’re . . . working here? And living here?’

She nodded, then glanced past him towards the same door he’d just come through. ‘That man said I shouldn’t talk to you about anything I do here. Not about my work or any of it.’

‘Erkrnwald?’ Saul grimaced. ‘Ignore him.’

She nodded and smiled, a little less tentatively this time. ‘Dad is . . . I mean, my foster father’s a geologist. I’m at school, but I work too. Everyone here has to chip in.’

‘While I was waiting outside, Jackson Kayes told me a bunch of stuff. He claimed the Revolutionary Council don’t have much influence out here on the platforms. Is that true?’

Her eyes darted constantly between Saul and the fabric clutched between her knotted fingers. ‘Dad . . . Gregory wanted to come out here once the platforms declared themselves an independent republic. I was a lot younger back then, but everyone on the platforms votes on everything. We all get involved in the major decisions.’

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘about your mother.’

Her face grew red and she swallowed. ‘I . . . have trouble remembering. I was really small when it all happened. I think I just remember when you went away that last time, when we were living in Main Settlement, and I thought you weren’t going to come back.’ Her eyes glistened under the strip lights. ‘And then you didn’t . . . come back, that is. I’d almost forgotten about it, but then they told me you were the one on that ship out in orbit, and you’d been looking for me and . . .’

She did remember him, he realized.

He stood up, walked around the table and put his arms around her shoulders where she sat. She half-turned in her chair and pressed her face into his overcoat, breathing deeply. ‘There’s something you need to know about Mum,’ she said, her voice muffled.

‘It’s okay. I already know.’ Erkrnwald had already told him how the fighting had gone on for weeks following the collapse of the first wormhole – before the ASI forces trapped on Galileo by the collapse had been suppressed. A lot of people, it seemed, had got caught in the crossfire, and when they found Gwen, she’d been left all alone in their old apartment in Main Settlement for most of a week. Deanna had apparently gone out hoping to try and find food for them both, but she had never come back.

Gwen pulled back a little, her eyes darting up to hisback, tha then down again. ‘Are you . . . staying here?’

Saul fought to hold back the great swell of emotion that threatened to swallow him up. Kayes had already offered him a chance at a better life than anything Main Settlement could possibly offer him, and he had accepted the offer. Erkrnwald would wail and protest, but that would make no difference. He would be returning to the mainland alone, and damn the Revolutionary Council.

‘Yes,’ said Saul. ‘For good, this time.’