Quintessence Sky (49 page)

The applause was loud, but Catherine was
close enough to hear Elizabeth say to Tanalabrinu, "You really
should execute him, you know."

Catherine knew she was referring to
Rinchirith, who had sworn allegiance to Tanalabrinu and had been
given no punishment that Catherine could see. In fact, he still
seemed to be chief of the gray tribe.

"He is part of my memory family now,"
Tanalabrinu said, as if that explained everything.

"Aren't you afraid he'll rebel? That others
will follow him again?" Elizabeth said.

Tanalabrinu's gesture was obscure. "He tried
only to unify the tribes, as I have done. I fear him, certainly.
But I will not kill him."

Elizabeth shrugged. "Your blood be on your
own head. For my part, though, I hope you succeed."

"And you as well," Tanalabrinu replied.

The signing was the last event planned before
the return to England. Crates had been packed with shekinah
flatworms and other useful Horizon materials, animals, and plants
of every kind. A few of the remaining colonists were planning to
stay, but most of the survivors, about forty of them, would be
returning to England with Elizabeth. The plan was to split up once
they arrived, dividing the quintessence materials and traveling
around England, raising support for Elizabeth's claim to the throne
and training an army in the use of the quintessence power.

It was thrilling to be part of such a plan,
though Catherine knew it would be dangerous. She believed in the
cause, believed that Mary's religion and union with King Philip
were destroying England, and that she needed to be stopped. Matthew
was just as motivated, though Catherine knew his reasons were
different. He didn't care about the religion. He wasn't convinced
that Protestantism was necessarily any better than Catholicism for
England. But he trusted Elizabeth, and knew she cared about truth
more than tradition. That was enough for him.

Catherine looked around at the gathered
colonists. Each of them probably had their own reasons for
following Elizabeth. Nearly all were Protestants, so of course they
supported the Protestant princess, but they had different goals,
different visions for what England should be. Some probably just
wanted to get home to their families and be able to live in their
own country without fear of persecution.

Matthew opened up the void and let it grow
large to accommodate so many people. Even though she knew Matthew
had gone through it and come back only yesterday, it was
frightening to look into that black nothingness and consider
leaping into it. There was no indication that it would lead to
England or anywhere else. What if the link on the other side had
been destroyed? Would they fall through the void forever?

Suddenly, it was time to go. Catherine wasn't
ready for it. She clutched her parents, crying. Matthew came and
wrapped his arms around all three of them.

Finally, they released each other, and
Catherine's father shook Matthew's hand. "When you get there, you
must destroy the link. Cut the thread or burn the bone, whatever
you need to do to make sure no one can come through it again."

"No!" Catherine said. "If we do that, we can
never come back. I'll never see you again."

Her father put a hand on her arm. "It has to
be this way. The link is a secret now, but it won't stay that way.
Someone will be captured, someone will talk. If it falls into the
wrong hands, we'll have armies coming through here. The only way to
protect the island is to cut the link entirely."

Catherine felt fresh tears coming, but she
held them back. Her father was right, and she knew it. She couldn't
risk the lives of countless manticores for her own personal wishes.
She had done that often enough already. If Horizon was really going
to be a manticore nation, then they had to be in control of who
came and went. Even if it meant keeping her from her own
parents.

She hugged her father again, and then her
mother. "Thank you," she said. "I'll think of you every day."

"It's time," her mother said. "Now go."

Most of the colonists and all of the baggage
was already through. Catherine took Matthew's hand, and together
they stepped into the void.

THE END

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this book! You can read
more about me and my work at
http://www.davidwaltonfiction.com/
.

* * *

Also available from David Walton

TERMINAL MIND

Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for best paperback
science fiction novel of the year

CHAPTER 1

Daddy sent me a message. He gave me a job to
do but he said don't do it yet. He said just wake up and be ready.
I'm awake but there's nothing to do. He left me in the dark. He
said he'd come but that was seconds and seconds ago. I can do it
Daddy I really can. Let me try. Where are you Daddy?

MARK McGovern would have traded his
inheritance to escape this party. Any political event meant flashy
mods and petty gossip, but this one seemed worse than most. Out
here on the balcony, he found some momentary relief; the night air
cooled his face, and the sliding glass door muted the sounds of the
party inside. Below him, the Philadelphia Crater sparkled like a
bowl of diamonds. Mark switched his eyes to a higher magnification
and watched headlights chase each other up and down Broad
Street.

The door slid open.

"Tenny, there you are," said his father.

Mark grimaced. Tennessee—his real
name—sounded pretentious, but "Tenny", his family nickname, was
even worse.

"Tenny," said his father, "there's someone
I'd like you to meet."

"Yes, come here, dear," said Diane, his
father's latest, a woman with no more right to call him "dear" than
his landlord. Mark followed them inside.

Bejeweled and betuxed ladies and gentlemen
stuffed the room, sintered into a living mosaic of high-class
biological modifications. He squeezed past a woman with earlobes
molded into ringlets that draped over her shoulders, past a man
with violet skin, past a woman who'd traded hair for a moist moss
wreathed with tiny white flowers. They all held wine glasses with
wrists at the same angle. They all looked at him.

Mark flashed the requisite smile. He hated
this song and dance, the perpetual games of ambition and
insincerity. None of these people had any interest in him beyond
the attention they could bring to themselves. He spotted his
great-grandfather at the bar, his arm snaked around a woman swathed
in what looked like designer plastic wrap. Great-granddad was well
over a hundred now, but with regular mod treatments, he seemed to
age in reverse. His choices in women had grown younger, too, though
for all Mark knew, that shrink-wrapped floozy might be sixty.

Jack McGovern, Mark's father, dominated the
room, a wide-shouldered giant with a ferocious smile. He was the
reason Mark was here. The press expected it, his father had said.
The heir-apparent to the McGovern fortune must make
appearances.

Mark's father crushed him in a one-armed hug
and waggled fingers at those closest. "Tenny, you know Councilman
Marsh and his wife Georgette, and this is Vivian DuChamp from
Panache
, but this—I don't believe you've met our newest
artist, Dr. Alastair Tremayne. The man's a genius. With mods
obviously, but he's made a few heads turn with some of his
inventions as well. Patented a process to give net mods to a fetus,
if you can believe that. Teach your unborn baby to read, show him
pictures of his family, monitor his health, that sort of thing.
Quite a hit with the maternal crowd. But I'm sorry—Dr. Tremayne,
this is my son, Tennessee."

Over two meters tall, with silver hair
shimmering like Christmas tinsel, Tremayne seemed hyper; he kept
bouncing on the balls of his feet. Mark wasn't impressed. Tremayne
would be like all his father's new discoveries: a fad for a time,
then forgotten. He noticed his younger sister, Carolina, eyeing
Tremayne like a hooked fish. Another fad for her then, too.

Mark worried about Carolina. At eighteen, she
had a perfect figure, clear skin, golden smart-hair that arranged
itself becomingly in any weather, and the very latest in eyes. Her
eyes glistened, as if constantly wet with emotion, and their
color—gold—shone with a deep luster like polished wood. But mods
like that attracted men who were only interested in her appearance.
Or her money.

Who was this Dr. Alastair Tremayne? It was
impossible to tell his age. He looked twenty-five, but he could be
as much as seventy if he was good at his craft.

"Councilman McGovern!” Three men crowded Mark
aside and surrounded his father. A cloud of drones hovered over
each shoulder, identifying them as reporters. "Mr. McGovern, we
hear you're sitting on a new revelation, some synthesis of mod and
fabrique technology."

Mark's father beamed. "You won't wring any
secrets from me. Come to Friday's demonstration at the South Hills
construction site."

Mark caught Carolina's eye, smiled, and
flicked his eyes at Tremayne. She shrugged.

Isn't he cute?
she sent. The words
passed from her implanted Visor to his, allowing him to hear the
words in his mind.

How old is he?
Mark sent back.

What does that matter?

I don't want to see my sister mistreated.
There are things more important than cute.

Carolina's lips puckered into a pout.
You're no fun. Stop playing the big brother.

Mark blew her a kiss, pretending it was all
just banter, but he made a mental note to find out something about
this Dr. Tremayne. He loved Carolina, but that didn't mean he
trusted her judgment.

". . . a stunning fractal filigree," Mark's
father was saying, "Insouciant, yet unfeigned. Don't you think so,
Tennessee?"

Mark snapped around, trying to figure out
what he was supposed to be agreeing with. Everyone was staring at
Diane, so he did, too. That's when he noticed her skin. It seemed
to be alive. Looking closer, he saw the pigment of her skin was
changing, subtly, in shifting spiral patterns. He'd never seen
anything like it. How was it done? A bacterium? He couldn't look at
her too long; the patterns made his eyes swim.

"Very nice," he managed.

"Very nice? It's an unrivaled tour-de-force
of neoplasticism!"

Mark thought his father had probably
practiced those words ahead of time for the benefit of the writer
from
Panache
. He needed to get away from this circus.

"Come now, Tenny. You can do better than
'very nice.'" His father's goatée had turned black. Mark watched it
kaleidoscope through brown and gray, then back to blond. His
father's mood changed accordingly, and he laughed for the crowd.
"Well, well, we can't all have taste."

"That's quite a mod you have yourself," Mark
ventured, nodding at the goatée, which rippled into blue.

"That's Tremayne's work. Took two liters of
celgel—it probably has more smarts than I do.” Appreciative
laughter. He turned to Mark. "What do you think of that?"

Mark glanced at the gaggle of cognoscenti and
their sycophants, then back at his father, and decided: why not? He
was twenty-four years old; he could say what he pleased.

"I think the Metropolitan Hospital ER could
have made better use of it," he said.

The goatée blackened. For the first time in
Mark's memory, his father opened his mouth, but nothing came
out.

Dr. Tremayne spoke instead. "Idealism is so
charming in the young."

Carolina said, "Daddy, leave him be. You know
he has that Comber friend."

She caught Mark's eye.
That's your
cue
, she sent.

Mark frowned, then understood. "Oh yes, Darin
Kinsley," he said loudly. "I spend lots of time with him, down in
the Combs."

His father's goatée turned a surprising shade
of pink. "Wonderful, Mark, very nice. Now perhaps you could . . .
ah . . . retire for the evening? Yes?"

Mark sighed in relief and nodded his thanks
to Carolina.

You owe me one
, she sent.

Out the door, he broke into a run. At the
back of the house, where the arches and terraces faded into shadow,
he lifted his jetvac off a hook and unfolded it into aluminum seat,
handles, footrests. The vacuum motor whispered to life, lifting him
off the ground. He squeezed the throttle, and the jetvac shot
forward, skimming up the slope behind the house.

Finally free. Darin would have been waiting
for half an hour now, and he wasn't likely to find Mark’s Rimmer
party a good excuse. Darin railed against Rimmers almost as often
as he breathed—how they prettified themselves with technology
better used to cure disease, how they controlled ninety-five
percent of the resources while doing five percent of the work. Yet
he refused to accept anything Mark tried to give him—even a ticket
for the mag. Darin despised charity, thought it weakened those who
accepted it. Once, he'd even stopped Mark from giving money to a
beggar in the Combs. "Leave him some dignity," he'd said. When Mark
asked if the man was expected to eat his dignity, Darin had
responded, "Better to starve than to cower." It made Mark ashamed
of his wealth, but what could he do?

Mark's night-vision kicked in, illuminating
the top of the hill: he saw Darin first, lounging back against the
hillside. Another figure hunched over Darin's telescope, and Mark
recognized Praveen Kumar. He had known Praveen since they were
boys; their families traveled in the same circles of society, but
whereas Mark had always chafed against his family privilege,
Praveen was a model son: hard-working, obedient, polite. So what
was he doing here joining in a cracker's prank?