The Serene Invasion

CODA ²⁰⁵⁵

SALLY WALSH SAT on the bench beneath the cherry tree as the guests mingled on the lawn, chatting and laughing and occasionally glancing into the sky. There was a sense of anticipation in the air, a charge of expectation. Sally had feared this day for a long time but, now that it had come, she realised that she had known all along that it was something that had to be lived through, and that in doing so she would be stronger.

She examined the grain of the wood beneath her wrinkled fingers, then the cherry blossom above her head, and then looked along the length of the crowded lawn to the house. It was hard to imagine that it was not the same garden where, almost thirty years ago, she and Geoff had sat out on summer nights drinking red wine and chatting. The house and garden were identical in every respect to the ones that she had left behind on Earth, and then on Mars; she had always accused Geoff of being a stick-in-the-mud, but she realised that she was just as guilty, to drag this shibboleth of old times across the solar system to this place, the first section of the Shell to be inhabited.

She watched Hannah playing with her daughter Ella; and nearby Ana and Kapil laughing with their teenage boys; Ana had aged well. In her mid-forties now, she was still handsome, with a streak of grey in her hair. She too had migrated to the Shell with her husband, together managing the vast farm that fed the colonists of the sector. Nina Ricci had moved from Mars and Natascha had made the trip with her.

Other friends from down the years had accepted her invitation to the party: Ben Odinga from Kallani, Uganda, in his eighties now and frail, and Yan Krasnic, the same age but still as massive and robust. Even Mama Oola, rubicund and ageless, had made the trip and smothered Sally in her laughing, all-consuming embrace. She wished that Geoff could be here to witness this gathering of friends old and new, but of course if that were possible then this gathering would not be…

The first few years of her life without Geoff had been harder than she could ever have imagined. Her friends had rallied round, and without their love and support she might not have made it through; she had wished herself dead on more than one occasion, then hated herself for submitting to such negative, selfish emotions. Geoff himself would have chastised her for such maudlin introspection, and anyway — even if suicide had been possible — how could she have consigned those she loved to a similar grief to that which she was enduring?

And down the years the burden of his absence had become a little easier to bear; she recalled the good times together, and they sustained her, along with her family, and the extended family of Ana and Kapil. She was, all things considered, a lucky woman… even if she was almost seventy-three and slowing down reluctantly, a grandmother now — how hard that was to believe! Inside, she often thought in amazement and regret, she was still the thirty-six-year-old who had gone out to Uganda with such hopes and high ideals.

She turned away from the house and stared across the rolling grassland that stretched towards the nearest township. A narrow lane crossed the meadow, and along it beetled a small electric car: a late guest, come to join the festivities.

She watched it pull up a hundred metres away, and stared as a small, female figure climbed out and regarded the house. Sally stood quickly, her pulse accelerating. Surely that was impossible, could not be… She made a few faltering steps in the direction of the figure, who was climbing the incline towards the garden now, and they met at the wooden gate.

“I’m sorry for surprising you like this, Sally,” said Kath Kemp. “Perhaps I should have called ahead.”

Sally opened her mouth, but the words would not come. At last she managed, “You… But you—”

Kath smiled. “Technically I am Kathryn Kemp’s… ‘iteration’ — a copy, if you will. Essentially I am the same person, with all her thoughts and memories.”

“But… ten years,” Sally managed.

Kath led her back to the bench and they sat down. “It took that long for the Serene to rebuild me, install all my old memories. I would have come sooner, but that was impossible.”

“They brought you back…” Sally said, her thoughts spinning, “in which case…?”

It was as if Kath were reading her thoughts. She shook her head, gently, and took Sally’s hand. “I’m afraid that some things are beyond even the capabilities of the Serene.” She paused, then went on, “His sacrifice was ultimate, which is why we celebrate his life.”

Sally smiled and squeezed her friend’s hand. “You will stay? I mean… not only for the party, but as a guest here for a while?”

Kath laughed, the warm chuckle Sally realised she had missed all these years. “I am coming to live and work in this sector, Sally. If you would like, we can resume where we left off, all those years ago.”

“I would like nothing more,” Sally said. “We have a lot to share, and a lot to catch up on.”

She stared into her friend’s laughing, human eyes. So what, she thought, that the being before her was but an iteration of the Kath Kemp she had known and loved. That Kath Kemp had revealed herself to be not human but a construct, and even that had failed to undermine the affection she felt towards the woman.

“But I’m being a terrible host!” Sally said now. “Can I get you a drink?”

“An orange juice would be lovely.”

Sally caught the attention of a passing waiter, who fetched Kath a juice.

She sipped the drink and said, “I came here to celebrate with you, Sally, to be with you — and to tell you a little more about the Shell.”

Sally stared at her. “I sense… something,” Sally said. “A revelation, a ‘the Shell is not all that you thought it was’ moment.”

Kath laughed. “You’re sharp, Sally Walsh! You’re as sharp as ever.”

“Well then…”

Kath said, “We told you the truth in that the Shell is necessary for the future of the human race, as a place of domicile for an expanding population. But it is something more.”

She touched the softscreen on her forearm, and in the air before them appeared a rectangular image of deep space, flecked with stars, and at its centre a great grey sphere. Towards it moved a hundred dark shapes, slow but relentless.

Sally looked questioningly at her friend.

“Upon sealing the Shell, five years ago,” Kath said, “we effectively prevented the Obterek from subverting the underlying reality maintained within it. The Shell acts as a shield, denying the Obterek access to the solar system. We have done this with many other systems across the universe, and always it is a race against time.”

Sally shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Kath said, “Many decades ago, when they discovered that we were planning to assist the human race, they sent off a war fleet of destroyers from their home-system across the galaxy, in the hope of arriving here before we could install the shield. Their ships are equipped with, for want of a better word, disruptors, weapons which would help the Obterek undermine the charea…” Kath gestured at the screen in the air. “This is not a true representation of the reality out there. In fact, the Obterek ships are many light years distant.”

“And when they arrive here?” Sally asked. “Do you, the Serene, have the means to…” She had been about to say ‘attack,’ but stopped herself.

Kath smiled. “To defend ourselves? The Shell will do that, Sally. We need not respond to their hostile advance with hostility of our own. We are adequately protected within the Shell, and the Obterek will realise this and, in time, after a token attack, will desist and move on.”

She paused before continuing, “And the human race, along with the Serene, will work to expand the charea beyond the confines of the Shell.”

Sally stared at her. “That is possible?”

“Your finest scientists, guided by the Serene, are working on it as we speak,” Kath said. “It is our hope, in a hundred years or two, that we will be able to spread the charea to link other races, across the face of the galaxy.”

Sally smiled at the thought, and realised that tears were rolling down her cheeks. She backhanded them away. “Look at me…”

“I know,” Kath Kemp murmured, “the idea makes me feel like weeping with joy, too.” She touched her softscreen, and the image of the Shell vanished.

Where it had been, across the lawn, Sally made out a hesitant figure, staring at her.

She half stood, unable to believe her eyes, and laughed.

Kath looked at her. “What…?”

“I don’t know if I can take much more of this,” Sally murmured. “Two surprises in one day. Please, excuse me one moment. I’ll be back.”

She stood slowly and made her way across the lawn to where the small, bowed man stood, looking at her with uncertainty and maybe even fear in his eyes.

Sally said, “It is! It is you…”

“I have found you at last, Dr Walsh. It has taken me a long time, but at last I have found you.”

Something caught in her throat, and she shook her head in lieu of words.

She stared at the old man’s face, his hooked nose, his hooded eyes. She would have recognised him even if it had not been for the jagged scar that ran like a wadi from his temple to his jaw.

“I have come to say that I am sorry for what I did thirty years ago, Dr Walsh. I have come to apologise. Perhaps later, on another day, we can talk a little more?”

Sally bowed her head. “I would like that, yes,” she said.

He reached out a tentative hand, and Sally smiled and, slowly, reached out her own hand and gripped his.

“Thank you, Ali al-Hawati…” she murmured, and watched him as he turned and moved slowly through the crowd and left the garden.

When she returned to the bench beneath the cherry tree, Kath Kemp had been joined by Ana and Kapil, Hannah and her husband and Ella.

“Who was that?” Hannah asked.

“Oh,” Sally said, sitting down beside Kath. “Just someone I knew, many, many years ago…”

Sally’s granddaughter tugged at her dress and said, “Nana, why are all these people here?”

Hannah hoisted the three-year-old onto her hip and explained. “We’ve come here to celebrate, darling. You see, ten years ago today, your granddaddy did a very, very brave thing, and today all humanity, across the system, will remember what he did for us.”

“What did granddaddy do, Mummy?”

Hannah jogged her daughter and looked into the sky. “He stopped someone destroying everything that was good,” she said.

“Who did he stop?”

Hannah shook her head. “We don’t know his name, darling, but he was working for the bad aliens, the Obterek.”

Sally smiled and caught the attention of a waiter. When everyone had taken possession of a full champagne glass, Sally looked around at her friends.

Somewhere in the garden, a man was counting down and the guests joined in, chanting, “Ten… nine… eight…”

Sally said, “I would like to propose a toast.” She smiled at Ana Devi, who returned her smile; then she turned to Kath Kemp and said, “To humanity…”

“To humanity,” her friends replied.

And seconds later, high in the sky above them, something exploded like a supernova and bathed the land with light.