Kéthani

Interlude

“In the first five years after the coming of the Kéthani,” Stuart Kingsley was saying, “the population of Earth did inevitably increase.”

We were sitting in the beer garden of the Fleece and watching the sun going down over the moors in great orange and red banners; it was high summer, and the day had been blistering.

Andy Souter, the latest member of the Tuesday night group, had initiated this line of conversation by asking what the present population of the world might be. He wanted to know if any more resurrectees were staying out there to do the work of the Kéthani.

Stuart went on, “Now, thirteen years later, I’d say things have reached an equilibrium. The same number come back as stay out there.”

Richard Lincoln laughed. “What Stuart’s getting round to saying is that the world’s population stands at around five billion, give or take a few.”

Andy said, “But that wasn’t always the case, was it?” He shrugged and mopped a strand of ginger curls from his perspiring forehead. “I mean, in the early days how did we cope with the population explosion?”

Dan Chester pointed at him. “We had help.”

“Help?”

“Think about it. How could we have coped with a population growing by ten per cent every few months? How could we house these people, let alone feed them? We had help.”

Andy said, “The Kéthani?”

Richard nodded. “Didn’t you notice the fleet of white juggernauts coming to and going from the Onward Station all night long for years? The Kéthani beamed down all the provisions we’d ever need to supply a burgeoning population.”

“And now?”

“No longer necessary,” Richard said.

“In fact,” Stuart said, “the world’s population is undergoing a gradual decline. In a few years the place will be depopulated as citizens take to the stars…”

We sat and thought about this for a while, and then Sam asked if anyone had seen the latest computer-animated Bogart movie.

I turned to Stuart and asked if he’d thought any more about leaving Earth. After his and Sam’s resurrection, they had seriously considered the option.

He stared into his pint, then said, “It’s strange, but we had more or less decided that that’s what we were going to do. We still contemplate it, from time to time… Then,” he smiled sheepishly, “then we slip back into the old routine: work, the village, friends. I don’t know, maybe one day…”

Later, I chatted to Andy Souter about his music. He was a professional cornet player with various brass bands in the area, and in demand as a session musician. He was a shy, hesitant man in his mid-thirties and had recently moved to the village to look after his ailing mother.

He was implanted, but I received the impression that, even so, he held a deep distrust of the Kéthani.

That night, I remember, we chatted about how the aliens’ presence on Earth—or rather how what they had done to transform the planet—had come little by little to be accepted.

We noted how even religious opposition to the gift of the Kéthani mellowed over the years, as theocratic doctrine—as is the way—sought to accommodate itself to the exigencies of the modern world… or to compromise its principles.

I was to recall this conversation when, a few months later, as the scorching summer gave way to a compensatory winter of gales and snowstorms, we gained another—albeit temporary—member of the Tuesday night group. He was Father Matthew Renbourn, a Catholic priest convinced that his God still occupied His throne on high, and that the Kéthani were but part of His overall grand plan…

Andy Souter came to know Matthew very well, and is the best person to relate the priest’s remarkable—some might even say unbelievable—story.