“It’s not a trap,” called Stephanie. “It’s for your own protection. You need to think sensibly about this, so as not to be rushed into an unwise decision.”
Armstrong scowled. “Who’s rushing us, Stephanie?” He raised his voice. “Claude, what do you mean when you say there is another way to live? Whose idea is this?”
Claude was scanning the sky. Up above, Maurice thought that he saw a pinprick of light drifting across the stars.
“Oh, some old guy from history,” said Claude distractedly. “I don’t remember his name.”
Maurice could see that Craig had now taken Saskia off to one side. He could hear the harshness in his voice as he berated her.
“What’s going on here, Saskia? Why did you tell them what we were doing?”
Maurice strained to hear Saskia’s answer, spoken in a self-righteous whisper.
“I didn’t want to tell them anything. Craig, you know what they’re like. Social Care always know what you’re thinking. But I promise, I didn’t want to tell them anything!”
Craig said nothing to that.
“Hey, you don’t suppose you’re the first person to come here, do you?” said Saskia suddenly.
“Claude’s been up and down the coast for the past week, looking for people to join his commune, or whatever it is.” She reached out and touched the bracelet that Craig had tied around his wrist.
“That’s a six plait,” she said. “I can do that.”
Something was dropping towards them. A sleek teardrop shape, the light of the cafe reflected off its burnished side.
“It’s the Borderlands,” said Claude. “This is my ship. You are welcome to come aboard with me. I can get the Borderlands to reproduce. Give you a ship of your own.”
“I’m coming,” said Donny.
“But Donny, what about your children?”
The disc holding the personality construct of Stephanie rolled on its side like a wheel, following them away from the cafe into the night and the noise of the waves that splashed invisibly all around them.
Donny clenched his fists. He was unshaven, his hair hung in greasy strands. The barely suppressed anger that had burned so brightly within him for the past weeks flared white-hot for a moment. With difficulty, he restrained it.
“Are you saying you would keep my children from me?”
Stephanie said nothing.
Suddenly he relaxed. He gave a laugh that made Maurice shiver with its wildness.
“This is all a bluff, isn’t it?” He walked back to the cafe entrance, where the silver bars had now grown to floor level. He took two in his hands and bent them apart easily. “Social Care doesn’t imprison us with bars and locks. You use words and gestures, wall us up behind our manners and upbringing, and then you beat us with our conscience when we stray from your path. You’re not going to stop us boarding this ship. You’re counting on us returning to you in a few weeks’ time, when you’ll be waiting for us with sympathy and kind words and then you’ll take us back into your stifling grasp.”
The Borderlands was sliding over the beach, dwarfing the cafes and bars of the seafront, the humming of its engines mixing with the splash of the waves. An exit ramp was dropping open halfway down its enormous length, a tongue of light shining out from the inward curve of the teardrop.
“Where are you going?” There was a note in Saskia’s voice that none of them had heard before. It almost sounded like terror. Armstrong, who was marching towards the ship with a determined look on his face, mistakenly thought she was speaking to him. He
