Visitor

• Epilogue •

The Ryph turbines and the navy jet engines scream in harmony. Steel cables hang taut from two craft built for dogfighting but now converted for commercial use. Swinging from the end of the cables, and hovering over the shore of the Chesapeake, is an old lighthouse. The stonework is intact, but the crown and foundation will take rebuilding.

I’ve spent countless hours staring at a picture of this lighthouse, a giant wave crashing up its spine, an old man standing there back when those rusted stumps were the stanchions for steel railings. I can almost see the ghost of the old man there, smiling at me.

When I got back to Earth from the Yata Peace Council, the first thing I did was track the old lighthouse down. I found her like a battered old soldier standing out in the waves, the foundation ready to go at any moment. Soon, she would have been lost for good. And so I decided to save her. I did the opposite of what those old wreckers used to do who demolished for profit. It took calling in some favors, but there’s very little a planetary governor-elect and old war hero can’t do.

The crew marrying the old lighthouse to its new foundation are a motley bunch. The foreman in charge of the project is Tryndian. There are two Hokos on his crew, three humans, and one of the pilots up there is a Ryph. A Ryph on Earth. Races that grew up warring among themselves and with each other now concentrate on the job at hand. And the job at claw, I suppose.

Reading my mind, Claire slips her hand into mine. Her other hand rests on her belly, which is full as the moon. Ten paces away, Cricket slinks into the tall grass, only her tail visible, stalking something only she can see.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with contentment. Sometimes I question what I did. Laughter and sobs still orbit too close to one another for comfort. But it won’t be my challenge to forgive my actions. That’s a test for the next generation. It shouldn’t be easy; that’s the whole point. I remember what I felt after the attack on Delphi. I remember the anger that caused me to enlist. The last thing in my mind was forgiveness. With the end of the war, someone tallied the total cost of all those little decisions, and it came to just over eighteen billion dead.

Half a billion of those are on me.

Claire pulls me close, places her hand on the back of my hand, holding my palm where the baby is kicking, is trying to distract my thoughts and redirect them to life. To renewal. The old lighthouse settles onto its foundation, the work crew tight and organized. I can feel the lacework of scars beneath Claire’s dress. She’s been trying to convince me that the boy should have my name. I haven’t liked the idea. I don’t want him to turn out like me.

But maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll do my name proud. And so I squeeze Claire’s hand and I agree. I test it out, whispering my own name in Claire’s ear, but the syllables are lost in a sudden breeze, and the soft sound is carried far out to sea, where it will swirl and mingle and be lost and present for all the rest of time.