East of the Sun, West of the Moon

Epilogue

Picture a tropical beach, light waves of aquamarine water washing pink coral sand. Palm trees. Sea breezes carrying the scent of clean water and a hint of ozone and salt. A volcanic cone rises in the background, its sides cloaked by virgin tropical forest and speckled by waterfalls.

Between two of the palm trees a very large hammock sways lightly from side to side. Beside the hammock is a table holding two stemmed goblets whose sides drip condensation. Straws jut from the top of the goblets and they have little parasols, one blue, one pink. Four feet are visible at one end of the hammock, two quite small and ladylike with brightly painted toes pointed up and two rather larger pointed down. The ladylike feet are crossed at the ankles, apparently pinning the larger from the outside.

A small, ladylike hand, with pink painted fingernails, languidly appears over the side of the hammock, fumbles around for a bit and then encounters one of the goblets. By luck, it is the one with the pink parasol. Goblet is lifted. Goblet disappears over the side of the hammock. There is some movement and a sucking sound.

“I like it here,” Megan said.

A large, heavily muscled male arm terminating in a prosthetic appears over the side of the hammock. The prosthetic encounters the remaining goblet, closes on the rim and the goblet is lifted over the side of the hammock. There is some movement and the female ankles, reluctantly, separate to let the male feet rearrange. A blue parasol flies over the side of the hammock to litter the sands. There is a sucking sound.

“Yup,” Herzer replied.

There are some thoughtful sucking sounds from the hammock.

“What is this stuff?” Megan asked.

“Piña colada,” Herzer replied.

“’S good.”

“Yup.”

“I could get used to this.”

“Yup.”

“We should move down here after the war. Get a little place.”

“Yup.”

Slurp.

“Where’d you learn about piña coladas?” Megan asked.

“Edmund,” Herzer said. “He likes the islands.”

“Me too,” Megan said, musingly. “I wonder how much of the ship survived.”

Picture a space ship, its hull wracked by the titanic forces of reentry. Two of its massive fuel bladders are punctured as the weight of its hull drags the shattered ship into the third deepest oceanic trench in the world.

The third, however, is unharmed and brimming with enough helium three to run all the world’s reactors at full output for a year.

“I really wonder what happened to Reyes’ Key. You think it survived?”

“Dunno.”

Picture a half-melted armored body drifting in space. Picture a chain around the neck of the body and on the end of the chain a strip of titanium. Picture the long, slow, orbit that the body describes around the Earth, approaching, then swinging back out, over and over again in an extended elliptic.

Picture an electronic entity, her processors and memory ranging from the most advanced nanochips to the mating flight of bees, metaphorically stroking her chin as she considers the ramifications of the sinking ship and watches the long flight she is constrained not to interrupt.

There was another thoughtful silence, punctuated by the occasional slurp.

“So,” Megan said, “heard from Bast lately?”

“Megan?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Picture a tropical beach, light waves of aquamarine water washing pink coral sand. Palm trees. Sea breezes carrying the scent of clean water and a hint of ozone and salt. A volcanic cone rises in the background, its sides cloaked by virgin tropical forest speckled by waterfalls. Two stemmed goblets litter the ground, the remnants of piña colada melting into the pink sands.

Picture a hammock gently rocking back and forth as dolphins, dragons and mer-folk disport in the waves.