Helix (58 page)

They
crossed the courtyard, then passed beneath an archway that led to the outer
yard. Here a similar chaos reigned; it seemed that the entire staff of the
penitentiary had left their post the better to behold the aerial phenomenon.

Across
the cobbles, perhaps just fifty yards away, was the rubble of the breached
outer wall. Beyond were the ice canals, the promise of escape and freedom.

They
ran, clambered around the rubble. They heard shouts, but did not pause to learn
if the cries were intended to halt their flight or to comment upon the wondrous
light.

Sereth
felt her heart pounding as they moved from the precincts of the prison and came
to the ice canal. She had her skates around her neck, but Ehrin was without
his. To save time, she did not stop to put them on. Soon the ice would melt,
and skates would be the first of many things they would be able to do without.

Holding
onto each other, they made their precarious way along the canal and down a
side-alley. Here they paused, panting, laughing exultantly but not without
fear.

They
faced each other. Sereth reached up and removed the hood from Ehrin’s head, and
it was evident from his reaction that he had not looked up into the sky before
now.

He
did so, and bared his teeth in awe.

She
followed his gaze.

Overhead,
the immemorial grey clouds of Agstarn, the cover that had hidden so much from
the citizens for so long, were dissipating, dissolving as if by magic, to be
replaced by a beauteous, effulgent blue. As they watched, the clouds turned
ragged, driven by a high wind, and parted to reveal the great spiral arcs of
the helix as it wound upwards to the distant, life-giving sun.

“They
kept their promise,” Ehrin whispered to her, and they set off through the city
of Agstarn towards the temporary refuge of the mountains.

The
time of changes had begun.

Hendry and Sissy
Kaluchek left the control room housed within the core of the ziggurat. They
took the elevator up to the central chamber, then walked from the ziggurat and
boarded a ground-effect vehicle.

Sissy
drove, reminding Hendry of the time, which seemed like years ago now, when they
had left the wreck of the
Lovelock
and ventured across the ice wastes of
the first tier.

He
considered what, with the aid of the Builders, they had just done.

She
looked across at him and smiled. “What are you thinking, Joe?”

“I’m
thinking about Ehrin, and Sereth, and what might be happening down there.”

“We
should pay them a visit, in a while.”

He
smiled. “In a while, yes,” he said. And what might they find down there, he
wondered? A city in chaos, torn by revolution and civil war, or made safe and
peaceable following the downfall of the Church?

Sissy
braked the vehicle and they climbed out, stood side by side and stared down the
incline towards the valley. What looked like the beginnings of a small town
were in the process of being constructed beside a winding river. Hendry
recognised the containers from the
Lovelock
, the beetling shapes of the
ground-effect trucks moving from the hold of the Builders’ ship.

And
there were people, thousands of people, moving about their appointed tasks in
the skeleton of the nascent colony. They were human, and the sight of them
never failed to fill Hendry with joy and at the same time melancholy.

Off
to the side of the growing township was the designated grave-garden, where the
thousand colonists who had not survived the journey, including Chrissie, would
be laid to rest.

He
felt a hand take his. She squeezed.

“This
is where it all starts,” she whispered.

There
was so much to do in the weeks, months and years ahead... in the millennia
ahead, if they were to discharge their obligation to the Builders.

He
opened his mouth to speak.

“What?”
Sissy said.

“What
trust,” he said at last, moved almost to tears. “We made a mess of it the first
time, and yet they give us a second chance. What trust.”

In
the valley below, Hendry made out the tiny forms of Olembe and Carrelli. They
were sitting side by side on the greensward, taking a break from erecting the
habitat domes.

Hendry
lifted a hand and waved, then set off with Sissy to join them.

It
was year zero, and New Earth was coming to life.