Medora stands at the window, looking out at the unseasonal rain falling upon the courtyard, thinking of England, which she will never see again.
“It’s a time of revolution,” one of the other two women says. “According to Aldo, this is the year the world will change.”
Medora, painfully thin but strong now, turns slowly around. The woman who spoke, Alicia, is heavily pregnant. Seated by the pale stone fireplace, she rests one limp hand on the hemispherical bulge of her stomach.
I should no longer regard you, Medora thinks, as my servant.
She looks up at Aldo’s sister, Maria, and they share wan smiles. They grew fond of Alicia, when she came up from the village to help out, right from the very first days. Doing more work than she was supposed to. Chatting with Aldo about politics and history. Medora and Maria saw, long before Alicia and Aldo realized it themselves, that the young couple had fallen deeply in love.
All three of us are sisters now.
There is the family you are born into-in Medora’s case, a dark calamitous beginning: the Byrons are truly cursed-and the family which, if you are a survivor, you get to choose. It has taken Medora a long time to realize this, but she knows it is true.
“He’ll come back safely,” she tells Alicia. “Don’t worry.”
Alicia nods, but Maria turns away. Since Aldo rode off to fight, she has been subject to moods of deep introspection.
God will give me strength. Medora puts her hand against her chest, pressing the hidden crucifix against her skin. Even if I am damned, let me help these in need.
In the past, she was always so weak and useless, going to her hated aunt-and to the woman who is both her cousin and her half-sister, Ada, Countess of Lovelace-for handouts, in desperation. But now, in the modest vineyard, she no longer exists in the eyes of English (or European) high society. The sins of her parents are no longer public gossip: they are between her and God.
For Medora’s mother was Augusta Byron-the woman after whom Augusta Ada Byron, now the Countess of Lovelace, was named-and everyone knows, though no one says, that Augusta’s own brother, the famous, devil- driven poet, was the unacknowledged father of her bastard girl-child.
It was Ada who arranged for Medora’s relocation to this remote place. And now, since she sent this new child to be raised forever in secret, there has been no contact at all with England.
I pray to God that it remains so.
Here in southern France, Medora is known as the Widow Calzonni. Four-year-old Jean-Pierre, asleep upstairs, is supposed to be the son she bore to a dead fictitious husband; Maria was his wet-nurse.
Will they ever tell Jean-Pierre of his true parents? That his mother was Ada, the Countess of Lovelace, while his father was Dr. Crosse, son of the man said to have created life from base matter?
It is a decision Medora has not yet made.
“I dreamed of Aldo.” Alicia places both hands on her swollen womb. “He was bouncing our daughter on his knee, and she was laughing.”
“A sign from Providence.” Maria crosses herself.
But, in the event, it will be two years before they see Aldo again, although his child will indeed be a daughter.
He will appear in the courtyard, riding bare-back upon a weary half-starved horse. With his right leg shattered, he will be a changed man at first: bitter, given to drunken rages. But later, bolstered by the sight of his daughter’s beauty, his natural optimism will reassert itself.
By the time of his death, his little empire of olive groves and vineyards will be prosperous indeed. Those riches will remain until the eve of World War II, when disagreements with the local fascisti will cause everything to be lost.
But now, from the village church, the Angelus bell rings out.
“Time, my sisters”-Medora hands out well-worn missals-“to pray.”
Arm in arm, Gus and Ives strolled slowly along the boardwalk. Late afternoon, with the surf rolling in below, pale seagulls gliding overhead. Salt tang upon the air; the fresh sea breeze washing over their tanned faces.
“You know”-Gus stopped, let go of Ives, leaned over the balustrade, and pointed downwards-“I lost my virginity right about there.”
“Never.” Shaking with gentle laughter, Ives looked over. “After dark, I hope.”
“Oh, yeah. With a nice post-doc, since you wouldn’t oblige.”
“Right. I can still see the damp spot.”
“Ho, ho.”
They were celebrating, in a fashion: a deliberate way of experiencing today’s events as a positive step forwards. For Ives had come home last night to an empty apartment. Not even a note from his departed lover, Raoul: just empty closets and missing cash. And invective scrawled in toothpaste across the bathroom mirror.
And Gus had just finalized her divorce-her first divorce, as Ives ironically (and presciently) labelled it-and seen her ex-husband drive away with his new girlfriend: large-bosomed, wearing a gaudy, shocking pink short dress, and a triumphant smirk upon her face.
That’ll disappear, Gus reckoned, when she finds out who owns everything.
For the beach house and Sundriver-coupй skimmer were all hers.
“We’ve come a long way,” she said. “Hey, that sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?”
“Both of us.” Ives touched his new moustache: it had come out tinged with grey, and he was not sure whether he would keep it. “I’m glad I met you, sweetheart.”
“Likewise, dearest. Shall we walk to the end?”
“Why not?” As they walked on, he began to whistle softly-the Pattern theme, from Amber: The Musical -in counterpoint to the rolling surf.
“Listen.” Gus squeezed his arm. “Are you doing anything tonight?”
A middle-aged couple in matching Hawaiian shirts and baggy shorts were staring at her and Ives, close enough to hear. She should have known the kind of answer she would get.
“Wearing you out, all night long. There’s a position I’ve been meaning to-”
But the couple walked on then, offended, and there was no point in completing the sentence.
“Oops.” Ives raised his eyebrows. “Was it something I said?”
“Ha. Is it just me, or are people more repressed than when I was younger? Even here?”
“Probably.” Ives looked gloomy for a moment, then cheered up, and gestured at the wide ocean. “Look at that. Are we lucky to be alive, or what?”
“Yes, lucky.” She squeezed his arm again. “Thanks for being alive, my friend.”
She was nearly 25, and single once more.
Saved from a big mistake.
“We’re good for each other.”
“Oh, yes.”
Their minds were both similar and complementary. When Gus developed the concepts behind Fractal of the Beast, it was Ives who helped brainstorm the network of developing relationships among the characters. She devised the aliens’ forms, he worked out the structure of the shadow organization which fought them.
She coded the game; he negotiated the license rights.
From that first product, Ives insisted that he make no money directly. He already had his earnings from lucrative consultancy; she had nothing. “But I’ll be rich,” he said, as they signed a deal giving him 20 percent of earnings from any future games they might develop together. “And so will you.”
For the first six months, download figures were minimal. Then, in a fit of nostalgia or desperation, one of the big webnets started promoting a remake of the old X-Files shows, and the whole half-forgotten alien-invasion meme had come alive once more, and sales had rocketed.
Those fictional invaders would prove more important than anyone realized.
The alien hunt in the game proceeded through many levels. The stories were labyrinthine; a dark and gloomy
