“And a hell of a show,” a man agreed. “Glad I saw it for real.”
Greenaway wanted to shout that this could be, it was the beginning of the end. Even if they believed him, what good would it do? If Earth was to be lost – and there was still a Kara Jones-shaped chance for survival – let the people be happy for as long as possible. Instead he returned to his office.
“No interruptions,” he told his latest PA – the last one had been murdered when he was kidnapped – and for the first time wondered how she saw him. “Unless the world ends.”
“It wouldn’t dare!” She saw him as an attractive man in his mid-fifties who looked fifteen years younger. So many people did these days, another benefit from alien tech. Looked and biologically were younger, part courtesy of their personal AIs, and part from serums developed from the native plants found on several of the colony worlds, which had the effect of shocking the human body into rejuvenation. No one was sure of the long-term effects, or if there were any. People assumed that if there were problems, they’d be cured by more alien tech: Mummy would make it better.
Wrong.
The PA liked Greenaway’s salt and pepper hair, his eyes green as the North Sea, the strict mouth that never quite hid humour and sensuality. She wondered when he’d "proposition" her. HR had used the word without being precise. Only that he might and wouldn’t be upset if she said no. She’d almost walked out – why the fuck should he be upset? And proposition was very old-fashioned, as if she wouldn’t be expecting or hoping to be asked, like a dumb-ass heroine on a vintage vid. Glad she took the job, though. It was time to do some propositioning herself.
* * *
For Greenaway there was enough time to write another letter to his long-dead wife. Letters that were burned as soon as finished... for the secrets they held, for the weakness they betrayed.
He took out the hand-made paper and old-fashioned graphite pencil. Poured himself a seventy-five-year-old Talisker malt. Thought about the first sentence.
Nothing.
Writer’s block.
Instead thoughts of Kara Jones sidled into his mind.
He knew why. It was obvious. His work was done and now it was up to Kara and Marc and Tatia – when they got back together – to save Earth, as his dead friend Tse had forecast. Greenaway’s only friend had been the "good" precog who’d masterminded the resistance against the alien pre-cog civilisation who, along with their human allies, wanted Earth owned and changed.
* * *
“How,” Greenaway had asked many years earlier, “could three people make such a difference?” Which was when he learned that pre-cognition never showed the why, only the events and way stations necessary for success. In fact even trying to discover the why affected the possibility/ probability matrix that underlay reality.
It was then he also learned the major players had been bred to their roles, including himself. It had made him feel alone.
“Never so cold-blooded,” Tse had soothed. “A precog saw that if a couple had a child, and that child met a specific person and they had a child, then chances were that one day their descendant would, somehow, defeat the alien pre-cogs.”
“So only somehow. Hell of a gamble.”
“All we had. Have. Kara Jones, Marc Keislack, Tatia Nerein. One day they’ll be in a position to save us. And you’ll have put them there.”
But nothing guaranteed. Pre-cognition was never that precise. The way stations to success could change. Other human pre-cogs wanted Tse and his people dead. They were very old money, determined to be in control.
* * *
He didn’t like to think about Tatia. His daughter, given up for adoption in order to save her life. Save the world. So noble the first reason, what any loving father would do. The second? Problematic. Greater love hath no man than that he give up his child for the common good. Never Tatia’s choice, though. Instead she had been nudged by probability, as read by Tse and other good pre-cogs, throughout her life. An oh-so-minor action here, a faint influence there until she was ready to go Up and experience the nightmare of aliens slaughtering humans for no apparent reason. She’d come through, as Tse had predicted. She’d become a leader. Had developed those psychic powers necessary to defeat the alien pre-cogs. Had matured from spoilt princess to responsible woman...
... had become the Trojan horse she was always meant to be, the virus that would destroy the prime alien pre-cog race, wherever and whatever it was.
As the head of GalDiv, a man who’d devoted his life to protecting Earth, Greenaway knew satisfaction and pride. But as a father he only knew guilt, regret and a deep longing for the daughter he’d never really known.
* * *
One last action: to persuade Kara to go back Up, find Marc who’d been seduced by Netherspace and whatever lived there. Find Tatia who’d gone wandering with the Originators, driven by a compulsion she didn’t understand. Three people with unique, individual talents they barely understood.
Very soon now he’d brief Kara on her last mission.
Still blocked from writing.
Greenaway thought about the humanity he was dedicated to save.
They’d gone to the stars as if born to it. Humans loved to discover new places where they could be themselves. Be as outrageous, dull, creative, boring, evil or good as they could get away with. Humans were driven by curiosity as much as survival. He’d once said so to Tse, who’d laughed.
“You want to look up Club 18-30,” he’d replied. “Back in the nineteen eighties.” Tse was well over a hundred. “Someone once described the British Empire as like the Club, but with pay.”
Greenaway did so, and found the comparison strained, but even so...
* * *
There are thirty known, official, colony planets and at least as many unofficial ones. Space flight is that easy. Fraught, often dangerous, but essentially a “point-and-go” process. All colonies trade with each
