Natascha sat forward. “Study us?”
“It was a long and laborious process. Within the obelisks, every month, we…” She paused, then said, “I will resort here to brutal terminology, but there is no other way of explaining what we did. Very well, in order to study you we had to take you apart, strip you down, and then build you back up. But in doing so we… we incorporated several fundamental changes in your molecular and genetic make-up.”
Allen sat back, heart racing. He said, “Changes…?”
“We made alterations in order to improve you, to give you capabilities that will serve you, the human race, in the decades and centuries to come.”
Ricci sprang to her feet and paced to the curving glass wall and back. She stopped and looked at Kath Kemp, and Allen was unable to work out if her expression was one of anger, resentment, or excitement. It seemed that all three reactions passed across her face in the seconds that followed, before she said, “You’ve changed us? Changed me? But into what?”
“To someone who will be better able to serve your race in the years to come,” Kath said.
Kapil glanced at Ana, then said, “And how will that be?”
Kath Kemp smiled. “To answer that, I must first answer a question that Nina asked me a month ago, about the diminution in the stars.”
Sally laughed. “But how can that be related…?”
“Please believe me, Sal — it is,” Kath said. “You see, it is all tied in to the need to protect you from the Obterek, and to do that we need to protect your habitat — the solar system.”
Nina Ricci cried, “You’re talking in riddles!”
Kath stared around the group, and seemed to be considering what she said next. “Very well, I think a practical demonstration is required. What we are about to do you might find shocking, unbelievable, but let me reassure you that you are at no risk whatsoever during the process.”
Several of them began to speak at once, but Kath held up a hand and said, “Please follow my instructions. Now, Ana, Nina and Geoff… If you would kindly stand and move into the centre of the room.”
Allen glanced at Sally, shrugged, and did as instructed, curiosity intermingled with a slight sense of foolishness; he was a schoolboy again, manipulated by the teacher in order to demonstrate some scientific principle.
He stood between Ana and Nina, and looked to Kath for further instructions.
She said, “Stand a little further apart, so that you are separated by about one metre.”
Ricci protested, “Just what is all this about?”
Kath ignored her. “Now, Sally, Kapil and Natascha, please join your partners and hold hands.”
Sally climbed from the lounger and joined him. Her hand found his and squeezed.
“Ana, Nina and Geoff, your softscreens are activated. I have initiated a program that will allow you to hear my instructions mentally.”
“But how the hell did you do that?” Nina murmured.
Kath said, “In five seconds, you will hear me ‘think’ a set of co-ordinates. You will repeat them to yourself, mentally. And that will initiate the procedure…”
Allen watched as Kath stepped forward and took Nina Ricci’s hand.
Before he could even begin to wonder what was going on, he heard Kath’s voice in his head. “75-438-779… Now repeat.”
Allen did so. He felt a split-second of disorientation, and then something flashed in his vision and he was forced to close his eyes.
He staggered, as if the ground beneath his feet had shifted, and then opened his eyes.
And he saw that he was no longer on Titan.
HE WAS STANDING in a sunlit vale or meadow, a warm breeze lapping over him. He was still gripping Sally’s hand, and turned to her.
Her face wore an expression of enraptured wonder that was beautiful to behold.
Then he saw that the others were alongside Sally and himself. All of them were staring around in awe, open-mouthed; they looked at each other and could not help but laugh.
Allen turned to Kath, who was watching them with amusement
“What the hell,” Nina Ricci said, “is going on?”
“Where are we?” asked Ana.
“This simple demonstration,” Kath Kemp said, “should answer your first and fundamental question: what was it that the Serene were doing with you representatives for twenty years, every month initially, and then every two weeks. We were, little by little, installing you with the ability to shift, as we call it — or perhaps you would prefer the term teleport.”
Allen felt dizzy and sat down on the grass. Sally flopped beside him and found his hand. Ana and Kapil were embracing. Nina and Natascha stared at each other and laughed.
“You’re kidding, right?” Nina said.
“I think,” Allen said, “that what we just did proves to us that this is no joke.”
“Let me explain,” said Kath. “We have invested in over ten thousand individuals — you human representatives — the ability to shift to any point within your solar system instantaneously. The science, the mechanics, of this we need not go into now; suffice to say that we have employed the same laws of quantum mechanics to effect this ability as we did to enable the charea edict. Programmed into your softscreens is an almost limitless cache of co-ordinates that will enable you, at the speed of thought, to select a destination and shift yourselves there. To access this cache you merely have to ‘think’ of your destination; for example a certain street in a certain city. Instantly the program will decode your thought and supply a destination code, which you will repeat. A nano-second later, you will find yourself there.”
Sally was shaking her head. “But how did I… and Kapil and Natascha…?”
“The shifter will have the ability to take with them a maximum of three other people, and will do so by the simple expedient of ensuring that all three are physically connected.”
“Right,” said Nina with determination. She was staring ahead, at a stand of trees some five hundred metres away.
Allen then had the disconcerting experience of seeing a human being vanish from before his eyes. Nina appeared, instantly, beside the trees half a kilometre away. She lifted a hand and waved.
A second later she was back beside Natascha, shaking her head in wonder at what she had just done.
Allen heard his heartbeat hammer out his shock and elation. He closed his eyes, and into his head came a vision of a pub garden, millions of miles away; the Three Horseshoes in Wem, Shropshire, where many years ago he and Sally had spent many a pleasant evening.
A string of co-ordinates entered his head. 32-779-043…
He opened his eyes and stared at Sally. “Hold my hand,” he said.
Tentatively, she reached out and took his hand, and Allen repeated the co-ordinates.
He heard Sally gasp, and then he was in the garden of the Three Horseshoes, seated beside the fishpond. It was early morning in England, and the sun was rising over the elms which bordered the garden.
“I’m dreaming this,” Sally said, “Please, Geoff, tell me I’m dreaming…”
“Then so am I,” he said, and reached out and hugged his wife.
“The thing is,” she said, “do you know your way back to the others?”
That was a point. He closed his eyes and recalled the grassy vale, and immediately the program responded with a string of co-ordinates.
Sally said, “Do you realise what this means, Geoff? In the wrong hands…”
“Shall we go back?” he said.