Sally shook her head. “But, I mean… why Mars? Why leave this planet? It’s not overcrowded, is it?”
“Planet Earth eventually will be. The Serene are looking at things long-term. And by that I don’t just means decades or centuries, but millennia. They see Mars as the first step on the long outward push from Earth, an inevitable start of the human diaspora.”
“But what will it be like? I imagine red sands, desolate, bleak…”
“Forget about everything you know, or thought you knew, about the red planet. The Serene have changed all that, as they have a habit of doing. Imagine rolling countryside not dissimilar to Shropshire, vast forests, great oceans… A temperate world that will easily accommodate two billion human beings.”
“This is… staggering.”
“I know. Hard to take in at first. That’s how I felt when I was told.”
Sally looked at her friend. “You’ll be going, too?”
She nodded. “Eventually, perhaps in a year or two, when my work finishes on the current project. Look, talk it over with Geoff when he gets back, give it some serious thought. I’ll leave you a few e-brochures, for your eyes only. I’ll call in again in a few days, on my way back from Birmingham, and we can all discuss it then.”
Sally nodded, “Yes. Yes, of course.”
Kath smiled. “Now, did you say you’re cooking dinner tonight? Mind if I give you a hand?”
Sally laughed. “I’d love it, and no doubt Hannah will join in too.”
They left the garden and Kath said that she’d hired a car in London. “I’ll drive you back.”
“It’s not far, about half a kay on the edge of town overlooking the vale.”
“Sounds idyllic.”
“It is,” she said, and thought: too idyllic to leave. But Mars… what an opportunity!
They walked from the pub garden to the quiet, tree-lined road that led into town. As they walked towards the car, parked a little way along the road, Kath asked, “Why Shropshire?”
“As ever, there was a job advertised. I grew up just a few miles south of here, so it was like coming home.”
Kath stepped into the road and moved towards the driver’s door. She looked at Sally over the curving, electric-blue roof, and smiled. “‘That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain’…”
“Meaning?”
“One can never go back, Sally. Only onwards…” She smiled again.
Sally would recall that smile for a long time to come.
The truck seemed to appear from nowhere. Sally saw a flash of movement in the corner of her eye as it swept past from the right. She heard a short scream and screamed herself as Kath was dashed away, rolled between her car and the flank of the speeding truck and deposited ten metres further along the road.
Sally ran to her friend and dropped to her knees, taking Kath’s limp hand to feel for a pulse but knowing what she would find.
Kath lay on her back, wide open eyes staring at the sky. She seemed physically uninjured, at first inspection; at least there were no wounds, no blood…
But the oval of her skull was misaligned, her jaw set at an odd angle, and the lack of pulse at her wrist confirmed everything Sally had feared.
She screamed, then scooped Kath into her arms and rocked back and forth, sobbing.
She looked down the road for the truck, but it had sped away as fast as it had appeared.
She fumbled with her phone, rang the emergency services and then just sat at the side of the road, holding Kath’s dead hand. There was no one else about, for which she was thankful. She did not want her grief intruded upon. It would be bad enough when the police and ambulance arrived, without the spurious sympathy of bystanders.
Memories flashed through her head, images of her time with Kath. They went back so far, had shared so much. It seemed so cruel to the girl and young woman Kath had been that, all along, her arbitrary end had awaited her like this in a future country lane.
What seemed like only minutes later an ambulance pulled up and two paramedics leapt from the cab and hunkered over Kath’s body. A police car pulled in behind Kath’s rented car and a tall officer climbed out, took Sally firmly by the shoulders and led her away from Kath.
Stricken, Sally watched the paramedics lift her friend’s body onto a stretcher, cover her face with a blue blanket with a finality she found heart-wrenching, and slide her into the back of the ambulance.
THE POLICE OFFICER was young, and seemed even younger in his summer uniform of light blue shirt and navy shorts. He indicated the pub garden and said, “You need a stiff drink, and I’ll take a statement. Did you see the vehicle that…?”
Sally shook her head. “Just a flash, then it was away.”
He nodded and moved to the bar. Sally chose a table well away from the fishpond. She slumped, dazed, still not wholly believing what had happened. She thought of the dinner they would have prepared together…
She gulped the brandy the officer provided, then almost choked as the liquid burned down her throat. She took a deep breath. The young man was speaking, asking her questions. She apologised and asked him to repeat himself.
She told him Kath’s name, her occupation. No, Kathryn Kemp had no living relatives, no next of kin. The only people to contact would be her employers… and at the thought of this Sally broke down.
The officer offered to drive her home, but Sally said she lived just around the corner and that the walk would help to clear her head.
She sat for a while when the officer departed, staring across the lawn at the fishpond.
She gazed at the bulbous koi, breaking the surface for food. She recalled something Kath had said, when they had met in London not long after the arrival of the Serene. They had strolled to a newly opened gallery, toured the exhibition, and later sat at an outdoor café beside a well-stocked fishpond. They had discussed the changes wrought by the aliens, and Sally had wondered about the changes that would affect the world’s economy.
Kath had indicated the fish cruising the pond and said, “A crude analogy, Sally. The Earth is a fishpond, with finite resources. The fish would survive for a while without intervention, eating pond life, but eventually their food resources, their economy if you like, would break down. But humans kindly feed them a few crumbs, sustain them…”
“So you’re comparing the human race to fish?” Sally had laughed.
“I said the analogy was crude.” Kath shrugged. “The Serene come along, save an ailing world, pump energy into the system. Our economies will collapse, but they were corrupt anyway, and will be replaced by something much better. We were in desperate need of the crumbs the Serene are throwing us.”
Sally recalled Kath’s smile on the sunny London day nine years ago, and all of a sudden she felt very alone. She wanted to go back to the house and have Geoff hold her, comfort her.
She left the beer garden. Instead of going by the road, which would have been the quickest route, she took the canal path behind the pub and cut across the fields on the edge of town. As she walked, she was aware of a sudden brightening in the air above her head, and looked up.
An energy pulse lit the heavens, dazzling. She looked away as the entire sky brightened and the pulse fell towards the energy distribution station to the south. A few crumbs… She laughed to herself, then wept.
She approached the house through the gate in the back garden, then stopped and stared across the lawn. The house was a rambling Victorian rectory, cloaked in wisteria, a little shabby but in a comfortable, homely way. The garden was typical ‘English cottage’, loaded with abundant borders and strategically placed fruit trees, pear, apple and cherry. At the far end of the lawn Hannah played on a swing, pushed by Tamsin, her child-minder. Sally leaned against the yew tree beside the gate and watched for a minute, preparing herself like an actor about to step on to the stage.