mind, Mr Kayes, we won’t be needing you any longer.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Kayes, flashing Erkrnwald a tight smile. ‘I was looking forward to a chance to chat with our famous friend here. It’ll pass the time while you
Something glinted in the political officer’s expression. ‘I’m sure Mr Dumont would rather gather his thoughts, given the circumstances. And I’m sure you have other duties to attend to.’
‘Do you mind us talking, Saul?’ asked Kayes, eyeing him with an innocent expression.
Saul tried not to smile at the look on Erkrnwald’s face. ‘I’d be happy to, Mr Kayes.’
‘Jackson, please,’ Kayes replied.
‘Jackson.’ Saul nodded.
Erkrnwald’s face turned red with impotent fury and, for a second, Saul thought he might have pushed the man too far. But, after a moment, Erkrnwald pushed on past the door without a further word, letting it shut loudly behind him.
‘Not tired yet of him trailing after you everywhere you go?’ asked Kayes.
Saul let out a sigh. ‘He spends half his time telling me who I can and can’t talk to. It gets old fast.’
‘That’s the Revolutionary Council for you. They’re turning out worse than the people they replaced. You know he’s scared that your daughter or her foster parents will try and brainwash you into joining us out here, right?’
‘Seriously?’ Saul laughed out loud, though shivering in the cold air. ‘Brainwash me how?’
A grin spread over Jackson’s face. ‘By offering you the chance to get away from people like Erkrnwald. See, he’s talking to the wrong people.
A little while later they ushered Saul inside, where he met Gwen’s foster parents in an anteroom. It was clear Gwen’s foster mother had been crying, the father clearly agitated and jumpy. Saul assured them he had no intention of taking their daughter away from them and, in truth, he knew it had been long enough for Gwen’s memories of him to perhaps have faded. Ten years was a long time, after all.
Even so, nothing felt more important to him than getting the chance to see her face-to-face, even if it was just the once. Saul caught Kayes’ eye and nodded, before following Erkrnwald through to what appeared to be a staff cafeteria, with only a young girl sitting alone at a chipped plastic table, a mug clutched nervously in both hands.
She looked, thought Saul, just like her mother. He picked up a chair and sat down across the table from her, waiting until Erkrnwald had exited the room, and realized suddenly that he didn’t know what to say. He sat there searching for something, for any suitable words at all.
‘I know this can’t be easy for you,’ he finally managed to blurt out.
‘You’re . . . my father?’ she asked tentatively. ‘They . . .’
‘Yes?’ he asked.
‘They told me you were dead.’
She wore a long overcoat, much like his own, and had pulled the sleeves down over her knuckles so that most of her hands were hidden except for the fingers holding to the mug. She then put the mug down and started playing with the hems of her sleeves. Like her mother she had a wide, round face, and even wore her hair in much the same way, parted down the middle into thick braids and tied back in a bun. Her skin was a light chocolate colour, not quite as dark as his own. Beneath the overcoat, he could see she wore the overalls of a platform worker.
‘No,’ Saul shook his head, ‘very much alive.’ He looked around. ‘You’re . . . working here? And living here?’
She nodded, then glanced past him towards the same door he’d just come through. ‘That man said I shouldn’t talk to you about anything I do here. Not about my work or any of it.’
‘Erkrnwald?’ Saul grimaced. ‘Ignore him.’
She nodded and smiled, a little less tentatively this time. ‘Dad is . . . I mean, my foster father’s a geologist. I’m at school, but I work too. Everyone here has to chip in.’
‘While I was waiting outside, Jackson Kayes told me a bunch of stuff. He claimed the Revolutionary Council don’t have much influence out here on the platforms. Is that true?’
Her eyes darted constantly between Saul and the fabric clutched between her knotted fingers. ‘Dad . . . Gregory wanted to come out here once the platforms declared themselves an independent republic. I was a lot younger back then, but everyone on the platforms votes on everything. We all get involved in the major decisions.’
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘about your mother.’
Her face grew red and she swallowed. ‘I . . . have trouble remembering. I was really small when it all happened. I think I just remember when you went away that last time, when we were living in Main Settlement, and I thought you weren’t going to come back.’ Her eyes glistened under the strip lights. ‘And then you didn’t . . . come back, that is. I’d almost forgotten about it, but then they told me you were the one on that ship out in orbit, and you’d been looking for me and . . .’
She did remember him, he realized.
He stood up, walked around the table and put his arms around her shoulders where she sat. She half-turned in her chair and pressed her face into his overcoat, breathing deeply. ‘There’s something you need to know about Mum,’ she said, her voice muffled.
‘It’s okay. I already know.’ Erkrnwald had already told him how the fighting had gone on for weeks following the collapse of the first wormhole – before the ASI forces trapped on Galileo by the collapse had been suppressed. A lot of people, it seemed, had got caught in the crossfire, and when they found Gwen, she’d been left all alone in their old apartment in Main Settlement for most of a week. Deanna had apparently gone out hoping to try and find food for them both, but she had never come back.
Gwen pulled back a little, her eyes darting up to hisback, tha then down again. ‘Are you . . . staying here?’
