Authors: Eric Brown
Starship Coda (5 page)
Hawk said, “ Gideon Antrobus, or Rafael Santorini to give him his real name, is a film-maker. He wanted to get the definitive story of what happened here, all those years ago…and the bastard would stop at nothing to get it.”
I stared across at the stilled girl who, until just minutes ago, I had been convinced was my ex-wife.
Maddie murmured, “An android, David, hired by Antrobus from Mitsubishi and programmed to enact Sally’s part in Antrobus’s little charade.”
I shook my head. “They had me fooled,” I said quietly.
In the driveway, the rear door of Hawk’s roadster cracked open and the woman stepped out. She walked across the lawn towards me.
I stared at her, and the years seemed to fall away.
Hawk said, “I took the ship to Vancouver, David, and on a hunch looked up your ex-wife.”
The woman paused before me, smiling uncertainly. “David,” she said, “it’s so good to see you again.”
I murmured her name, then turned and hurried across the lawn, away from everyone. I pushed through the ferns to the headland overlooking the ocean. I needed to be alone for a time with my thoughts; I needed to calm myself, convince myself that my dialogue with the android posing as my ex-wife had no more meaning than a dream…or a nightmare.
Minutes later I heard a sound behind me and turned. Sally stepped through the ferns and approached me.
She smiled, the lines of old age around her eyes and mouth contrasting, in my mind, with the android impostor’s perfection—and I thought she looked beautiful. She said, “Maddie told me what the android said to you.”
I stared at her. “We…me and you…we parted badly, all those years ago.”
“I’m as much to blame as you, David, so don’t berate yourself.”
“And…you no longer blame me for—?”
She reached out a forefinger and pressed it against my lips, silencing me. “Of course not. What I said all those years ago…that was said
in anger, David, and in grief. I’ve…” she smiled at me. “I’ve learned a lot since then. I have no hatred any more, and I don’t blame anyone.”
She took my hand and pulled me back through the ferns. “Matt’s cooking a meal,” she said, “and he’s invited me to dinner. Come and introduce me to Hannah and your friends.”
* * *
The following Saturday we were sitting on the deck of Matt and Maddie’s dome, drinking coffee and chatting, when Hannah said, “It doesn’t feel like a week ago that you received the holo-cube from Sally.”
I laughed. “No, it feels more like a lifetime ago.”
Maddie said, “That’s because so much has happened in that time.”
I looked across at Hawk. He stretched out in his chair, his long legs extended before him, hands clasped behind his head. Last week he’d driven Antrobus—or rather Santorini—to Mackinley and told him, in no uncertain terms, to leave the planet and never return. Santorini had, as he’d claimed, broken no specific laws, so criminal charges were out of the question.
I said, “If you hadn’t looked into Antrobus, or rather Santorini, on Earth, and then found Sally…”
He shrugged and smiled. “The least I could have done,” he murmured.
“Santorini would have got what he wanted,” I said. “His film would have kicked off a hell of a lot of interest again, and I would’ve been left feeling…cheated, betrayed.”
Hannah reached out and took my hand. “But look at what did happen. The real Sally proved to be everything that Santorini’s version wasn’t.”
My ex-wife had stayed at the
Mantis
for a few days, and it was good to get to know her again. She had remarried, and had a son who was almost twenty now, and Hannah invited Sally, her husband and son to come and stay with us at some point in the near future.
Since she left, a couple of days ago, I had experienced an intense sense of happiness, a deep gratitude for what I had with Hannah, Ella and my friends, and a sense of…completion, for want of a better word.
Now Matt announced that his exhibition of emotion mobiles was starting next week, and we were all invited along for the opening night.
I recalled the mobiles and how they had represented Hannah and my friends. “I think the mobiles are the best thing you’ve done for a while.”
“I want you to experience a mobile again, David, this time in more favourable circumstances.”
I lifted my coffee cup. “I can’t wait.”
Kee leaned forward and pointed. “Look,” she said.
A silver InterWorld courier van passed the dome and halted outside the
Mantis
. Two men climbed out and, as per instructions, collected the packing crate from beneath the starship’s nose-cone.
“Isn’t this where it all started?” Maddie murmured. “And where it finishes…”
I had contacted the Mitsubishi corporation and explained the situation, and they had arranged to collect the quiescent android. All week she had remained, like some eerie, ultra-real statue, seated on the lawn—the thing that looked so much like my dead daughter, and which I had convinced myself was my ex-wife…Then Hannah had draped a sheet over the figure, consigning it and all it represented to history.
Now the delivery men lifted the crate into the back of their van and drove away.
“And good riddance!” Maddie declared, and I raised my cup to that.
Later we said goodbye to our friends and walked hand in hand along the beach. At one point I looked back at the
Mantis
and, next door, Matt and Maddie’s dome.
I was choked suddenly by an unnameable emotion.
“What?” Hannah asked, watching me.
I laughed. “I’ve just realised how incredibly lucky I am,” I said.
Hannah smiled. “Come on, you. I’ll buy you a beer at the Fighting Jackeral.”
We strolled along the beach to Magenta Bay with the Ring of Tharssos lighting the way.
Starship Coda
Copyright © Eric Brown 2016
First published by PS Publishing in 2016. This eBook edition published in April 2016 by PS Publishing by arrangement with Eric Brown.
All rights reserved by Eric Brown. The right of Eric Brown to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-84863-366-7
Cover design by Tomislav Tikulin
PS Publishing Ltd
Grosvenor House, 1 New Road
Hornsea, HU18 1PG, England
www.pspublishing.co.uk
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