Starship Coda (4 page)

I thought back to what Antrobus and Sally had said. “I think about five years.”

Matt grunted, staring into his drink, “The people who have it done must see it as a trade off, I suppose. A few years of youth, born again, as opposed to perhaps as many years of old age…”

“I’m just glad I’ve learned to live with my wrinkles,” Maddie said, and laughed.

“What wrinkles?” Matt said. “You’re as beautiful now as when I first clapped eyes on you all those years ago.”

A while later Hawk and Kee excused themselves. They were due to make a delivery to Earth that night—via the Yall’s golden column—and Hawk had to ready his ship.

We remained drinking as the Ring of Tharssos sparkled overhead.

Maddie said, reaching across and touching my hand, “Are you sure you’re okay David?”

I smiled. “I’m fine. I’m sure tomorrow won’t be as bad as I fear.”

“If you need any moral support, call us over and we’ll make a party of it,” Matt said, hoisting his beer.

We turned in around midnight and, despite all the alcohol I’d consumed that evening, sleep was a long time coming.

* * *

The following morning I was edgy until around ten when, oddly, the feeling dissipated. I had confronted my demons in the past, after all, so what had I to fear now? Sally could rake up no further unpleasant memories, no guilty feelings long buried in my subconscious. All

she could do, at worse, would be to accuse me of cowardice when I’d hesitated before diving into the sea to try to save my daughter, and I’d long since acknowledged that charge.

Eleven o’clock came and went, and I must admit that I breathed a sigh of relief, despite telling myself that I was not fearing her arrival. Then, just as I was hoping that maybe she had had second thoughts about the visit, I heard the sound of an engine on the approach road and a big white roadster appeared beyond the fence past Matt and Maddie’s dome.

Gideon Antrobus waved casually from behind the wheel, and Sally hopped from the passenger seat, approached the gate and pushed her way through. The car started up and drove off; at least we would be spared the presence of Antrobus.

I left Hannah on the balcony and strode down the ramp, meeting Sally on the lawn.

She stood with her hands on her adolescent hips, staring up at the sleek lines of the starship. “So this is the famous
Mantis
,” she said. “I must say that it’s not as impressive as it was in the film.”

I smiled. “Everything in the film was a fake,” I said.

She looked at me. “Even the portrayal of yourself?”

“Especially that.”

Hannah leaned over the rail. “Would you care for a drink, Sally? A lemonade?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

“I’ll have a gin and tonic,” Sally said. “A large one, with ice.”

She turned to me. “Well, David, aren’t you going to give me a guided tour?”

We entered the
Mantis
and I showed her around. Hannah appeared with a G&T and a beer for me, then made an excuse and hurried away. I tried to catch her attention and indicate that I’d like her to stay, but I sensed that Sally unnerved her: it wasn’t hard to see

why.

The anomaly unsettled me, too, and it had nothing to do with the fact that the mind behind the sweet, tanned face was that of my ex-wife. Had I come across the child in any other situation, I would have sensed the strange aura that surrounded her, the forthright confidence she exuded at odds with my expectations of the demeanour of a little girl.

I gave her a quick tour and finished up in the lounge, uneasy at Sally’s presence in the
Mantis
: it was as if she were defiling consecrated ground. I suggested we go outside and sit in the sunlight.

She nodded. “You have quite a view from here. I’d like to take a walk to the end of the peninsula.”

I escorted her from the ship, across the lawn, and through the alien ferns to the very tip of the headland. The ocean stretched, shimmering, to the distant horizon.

I flapped at a dragon-fly that was hovering close by, aware that Sally was watching me closely. She sat on a rock and patted it. “Sit down next to me, David. Remember how we liked to sit side by side in the early days, staring out across the straits to the mainland…Ironic, wasn’t it.”

I remained standing, staring down at her. I found a palm tree and leaned against it. “Ironic?”

“That, years later, the straits would be where our daughter

died.”

Oh, Christ, I thought, here it comes…

“I thought it wouldn’t be long before you brought that up,” I said. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

She held my gaze. “Not at all. I came to see you and…”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to ask you about the film.”

“Which one?” I said. “There were three made, after all.”

“Two of them were cheap trash—”

“All three, in my opinion, were cheap trash.”

“But the Carmichael version garnered resounding accolades.”

I smiled, despite myself. It was odd to hear such words from the mouth of a child. I said, “Even Carmichael’s film got it all wrong.”

She looked up at me, her tanned arms embracing her tanned legs, her eyes a startling blue. The sight of her wrenched at something deep within me, echoing subconsciously, perhaps, with buried memories of similar occasions with my daughter all those years ago.

“I’m very interested in how you achieved…closure, David. How what you went through, here…” she indicated the bay to our right, “helped you overcome your guilt.”

I stared at her, my expression set, determined not to give her the satisfaction of seeing how much her words hurt.

When I remained silent, she went on, “The first film claimed that the Yall apparition entered your mind, altered something within… even erased the memory of our daughter’s drowning.”

“Rubbish!” I said. “The Yall would never stoop to such an easy…”

“And the second film,” she went on, “suggested that you, ever the hero, the Opener of the Way, after all, had no guilt to assuage. You did your best to save our daughter, jumped in after her and risked your own life, to no avail…But then that film was the worst of the three. While the Carmichael…”

I wondered how much more of this I could take. I leaned against the tree, trembling.

“I think of all three, the Carmichael came closest to the truth,” she said, “when it portrayed you as a washed-up failure, an alcoholic plagued by guilt at allowing our daughter to drown. Only the accidental fact that you bought the
Mantis
ensured your fame—it might have been anyone who came into possession of the ship and was called upon to ‘Open the Way’.”

I shrugged. “And in that I agree. The Yall would have used anyone, in the circumstances—but I was far from a washed-up alcoholic, as you put it, or a failure.”

“In the Carmichael film, David, you assuaged your guilt by saving the life of Matt Sommers, before the alien woman, his old lover, could shoot him dead. In that way you achieved some kind of closure…or so the film would have it.”

I stared at her. “What does it matter how I ‘achieved closure’?” I sneered. “Surely you couldn’t give a damn?”

“Of course I could!” she snapped, exhibiting unusual anger. “I want to know…because I have my own theory—”

“And that is?”

“I think that you’ve never got over what happened. You see, I think the guilt still festers inside you.”

I pushed myself away from the tree and strode to the rocky drop three metres away. Far below the ocean shattered itself against the shore, over and over. I turned to the woman in the child’s body and said, “You’re quite wrong. I did get over it.”

She tipped her head to one side in an oh-so-innocent gesture. “And how was that, David?”

“Mind your own business!” I cried out, batting aside another dragon-fly, the gesture sublimating the urge I had to slap Sally’s face.

“No…I think you should tell me. Because, if you don’t, then I assume that I am right, that you never did get over it.”

I relaxed, then, surprising myself. I leaned against the tree, folded my arms and smiled. I shook my head. “You’re not going to get me like that, Sally. I don’t have to tell you a damned thing, and you can think what the hell you like. It doesn’t bother me any more what you think about me. I know how I overcame the guilt, and that’s all that matters to me.”

She remained smiling at me, and an onlooker would have seen a little girl beaming up at someone old enough to be her grandfather…

“I have another theory,” she said in a quiet, menacing voice, which turned my heart to ice. “Would you like to hear it, David?”

“I suspect you’re going to tell me, whether I want to hear it or not.”

She jumped from the rock, stood upright, pert, and said, “I think you didn’t hesitate through fear all those years ago, David, as you claimed you did—to me and to the accident investigators. I think you—maybe subconsciously—
wanted
Carrie to die.”

I stared at her, barely controlling myself. “That’s
sick
,” I said.

“You wanted to be rid of Carrie, and me, and one way of doing that was to do nothing when your daughter was pitched into the sea…You foresaw being liberated, being able to leave Earth, to come to somewhere like Chalcedony and lead a carefree life.”

“What rubbish!” I cried, shaking with rage.

“But what I’d like to know, David,” she said, leaning forward, “is how you could live with the guilt?”

I rushed forward and grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her until her head jogged back and forth, and I knew I was in danger of doing her real harm. Then I pushed her away, and she staggered back against the rock and sat down suddenly.

She looked up at me, smiling, and said, “So, David, how
do
you bear the guilt?”

“I told you what happened many years ago,” I said, determined not to break down. “As the ship went down and Carrie was pitched into the sea, I hesitated. I had no subconscious desire to be without Carrie, or you—I loved you both, damn it. I loved her! But…but I was frozen by fear, unable to…For just a few seconds…But by the time I did dive in, it was too late.”

“And, years later, here at Magenta Bay…?”

I sobbed. “There was a storm, a summer storm. Maddie thought that the alien had killed Matt, and she…she flung herself into the sea.”

I heard a sound beyond Sally. I looked up. Matt pushed through a stand of palm, followed by Hannah and Maddie. “You don’t have to tell her anything, David,” Matt said.

I stared, uncomprehending, as Hannah crossed to where the little girl stood, open-mouthed. She took the girl firmly by the upper arm and said, “You’re coming with us.”

I stared at Matt. “What…”

He crossed to me, put an arm around my shoulders and led me back towards the
Mantis
. I was shaking and close to tears.

Another surprise was awaiting me on the lawn before my starship. Hawk—who I thought was on Earth—was kneeling on the lawn with a pistol drawn, and he was directing the weapon at the lower back of Gideon Antrobus who lay face down on the grass.

“One wrong move,” Hawk said, “and I’ll take great pleasure in freezing your kidneys—and I’m told the pain is exquisite.”

Sally, still in Hannah’s grip, struggled futilely until my wife shook her into immobility.

I stared at Matt. “What’s going on…?”

But Matt just turned and hurried across the lawn to his studio.

Then I saw Hawk’s roadster drawn up in the driveway. Kee was in the back seat, her fingers to her lips as she stared across at the tableau on the lawn. Beside her was a woman, a woman whose face I really should have recognised…

Hawk said, “The controls, damn it! Where are they?” He shook Antrobus, who mumbled something into the grass.

Hawk felt in the man’s suit pocket and pulled out a small silver disk. He pressed its surface, and I was peripherally aware of something falling through the air.

I looked around quickly, confused—and saw three dragon-flies drop straight onto the lawn. Maddie hurried around, stooping to retrieve the fallen insects and then, to my amazement, snapping off their wings.

I spread my arms wide. “Would someone please tell me,” I appealed, “what the hell is going on?”

Before anyone could answer, Matt returned from his studio carrying an emotion mobile. He hung it on the underside of the
Mantis
, then nodded across to Hannah.

As I watched, she propelled the protesting girl across the lawn until she was standing beneath the
Mantis
and the mobile.

“What are you doing to me!” she protested.

Hannah pushed her so that she was directly underneath the emotion mobile, and Matt lowered the scintillating chandelier over her head.

Then he turned it on.

We stood in silence and watched…and nothing happened

Nothing happened…

I shook my head, beyond mystification now.

“Let me go!” Sally screamed at Hannah. “I said, let me go!”

Hawk yelled into the ear of the prone Antrobus, “The code, damn you! What’s her deactivation code?”

Antrobus spat something, and Hawk repeated the string of numbers to Hannah who leaned close to Sally’s tiny ear and repeated them.

And how to describe what happened then?

Sally, or whatever the hell Sally was, suddenly
died
…Or so I thought at the time. Some vital spark of animation left her, fled; she slumped by degrees, her head falling forward, her limbs hanging slack, her startling blue eyes losing their lustre. She folded, and, assisted by Hannah, sat on the ground cross-legged and remained motionless.

Antrobus began to struggle, but he was no match for Hawk.

“I’ve done nothing wrong, you bastards! I was searching for the truth!”

Hawk stabbed Antrobus in the back with the muzzle of the pistol. He looked up at me. “I thought the whole Age Reversal thing sounded a little screwy, David, so while I was on Earth I did a bit of detective work.”

Maddie came up to me and opened her hands. The mechanical dragon-flies lay mangled on her palms. “Holo-cams, David. Filming you and Sally.”