Kéthani

Interlude

Five years had passed since the coming of the Kéthani, and after the first two years of turbulent change—two years of rioting and protest around the world—order had been restored. Hundreds of thousands of returnees came back to Earth, and though they had been subtly changed by the experience of dying and being reborn, none were the zombies or monsters that the Jeremiahs and prophets of doom had forecast.

Slowly, things began to change on Earth. So slowly, so gradually, that it was almost unnoticeable.

That evening—after a long day on the ward where I worked as an implant surgeon—I was enjoying a pint in the Fleece when Jeffrey Morrow said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but over the past few years things have got better on Earth, don’t you think?”

We looked at him. Jeffrey had greyed in the years since I first got to know him, which wasn’t at all surprising, considering what he’d undergone. He was a quiet man, much given to introspection and thoughtful silences. After Claudine’s death, we had persuaded him to remain in the area, to stay on at the school in Bradley, to face the terrors of his past and not to run away.

Considering what Jeffrey had experienced in recent years, this latest pronouncement was a little unexpected, to say the least.

“Got better?” I said. “How do you mean?”

“I came across an academic paper the other day,” Jeffrey said, “by some high-up in the UN.” He was on his fourth pint, and his eyes were distant. “It was a breakdown of the incidences of conflict around the world. And do you know something—since the coming of the Kéthani, cases of armed conflict have decreased globally by almost seventy per cent.”

Richard Lincoln nodded. “I’ve heard the same. Not only that, violence in general has fallen around the world. For instance, murder rates are in decline.”

That led us to speculate about the reasons for this gradual amelioration of the human condition…

Richard said, “Well, you know what I think—”

Zara laughed and hummed the spooky opening bars of the Twilight Zone. “The aliens are amongst us, Richard?”

He pointed at her, mock stern. “Oh, ye of little faith. The Kéthani have powers which we can’t even dream of, so it stands to reason that they’d come among us to help us along the way.”

I thought about that, then said, “I’m not saying you’re wrong, Richard. But I think that that might be unnecessary.”

Richard downed half his pint. “Go on.”

“Think about it. We die. They transport us to their homeworld. They bring us back to life. And we come back—changed. I’ve heard it said that people come back… I don’t know… better, improved.”

Richard objected, “But that doesn’t disprove my thesis, Khalid!”

“No—what I’m saying is that if things have got better on Earth, if there is less conflict, then maybe it’s caused less by the activity of the Kéthani down here and more by what the Kéthani did to us up there. Maybe it’s the mentality of the returnees that is changing things.” It was a nice thought—and how was I to know that, in a few years time, I would have first-hand knowledge of just how the resurrection process could render change in an individual?

Zara said, “Whichever it is, we have the Kéthani to thank.”

For the first time that night, Ben spoke up. He was the only one among our group who was not implanted, and we had never questioned him as to why this was so. Some things, we thought, were just too personal to share.

“Perhaps,” he said, “the people who come back, the returnees, aren’t really the people they were. Perhaps,” and he smiled as he said this, making me think that he wasn’t entirely serious, “perhaps they’re aliens in disguise?”

We laughed and argued amongst ourselves for a while, and then Ben said, “I’ve often wondered about the bastards who die and come back. I mean, the really evil people. Killers, despots, psychotics. They come back changed—I know that. But who’s to say that they are who they once were?”

Zara smiled. “You don’t really think…?”

Ben laughed. “Of course not. I’ve read enough to realise that the maniacs are somehow mentally altered up there, for the better. Made humane.” He shook his head, his gaze lost in the leaping flames of the open fire. “It makes you wonder, though, exactly what does happen…”

Talk drifted onto other subjects.

Ben remained quiet for the rest of the evening. It was only later—a year later, to be precise—that he told us the reason why he was not implanted, and why he wondered at the process of transformation undergone by the returnees.