Starship Summer (Starship Seasons, #1)(28)

Matt laughed.

Hawk turned to him. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Matt said. “It’s almost as if we’ve been chosen—chosen by the Yall. But what if we’re as deluded as all the crackpot cults back there?”

I said, “You mean, we’re just another bunch of cranks?”

Maddie was shaking her head. “I know what I felt,” she said with conviction.

For the next hour or so we drank and chatted. Matt told us about the planets he’d visited, and Hawk matched this with stories of his piloting days, though he said nothing about the Nevada run. Maddie told us about her childhood in England, and I waxed drunkenly about the beauty of British Columbia. To their credit, none of my friends asked about Carrie.

At one point Hawk said, “I’ll drop by tomorrow afternoon, go over the crate again.”

“And if the apparition visits you again tonight,” Matt said, censure in his eyes, “ask how you can help it, okay?”

I smiled. “Yes, sir.”

In the early hours, with no evidence of apparitions that night, I left them drinking and dragged myself off to bed.

In the event I spent a restful, dream-free night.





TEN



The storm season came swiftly to Magenta Bay.

On the morning after our pilgrimage to the Golden Column, I woke late and dragged myself through to the lounge. I expected to find my friends sprawled out on the couches, the worse for drink. But the lounge was empty, the debris of the night before cleared away. I made breakfast and ate it staring through the viewscreen at the dark clouds piled a mile high out over the bay. The rains had already started, pocking the sands and reducing visibility to around ten metres, and the waters of the bay heaved and churned sickeningly. An hour later the wind picked up, became a gale that howled around the contours of the Mantis.

By noon, however, the cloud had dissipated and the rains stopped; the sun was out, drying up the rainwater and giving Magenta a sparkling, pristine aspect. This would set the pattern for the next month, morning storms followed by brilliant afternoons, until the hot season of high summer set in for six months.

I checked the monitors, but found nothing. I wondered how I might fill the afternoon ahead, then recalled Matt’s invitation to view his latest creation.

Matt lived in a secluded, wooded area beyond the Community Centre dome, at the end of the opposite headland. He always took the short route into Magenta, diagonally bisecting the bay on his wave-hopper. But the thought of taking the ground-effect vehicle over the water, even though now it was as calm as a mill pond, filled me with dread. I left the ship and drove the long way around the bay instead, passed the Community Centre and cut through the pineanalogues to the beach and Matt’s split-level dome.

It was an impressive sight, sparkling like a dewdrop in the light of the sun, backed by verdant woodland and fronted by the rouge sweep of the beach. I came to a halt before the timber steps that led up to the big veranda, with views of both the open sea and the circle of the bay.

I climbed out and walked up the steps, the sun hot on my face. I thought back to the tiny package I had delivered to Matt a couple of days ago, the artist’s materials from Mintaka, and I wondered what he had managed to create in the interim.

Matt was sitting at a small table, shaded by an awning. A pot of coffee stood before him.

He smiled as I crossed the deck and he raised a hand in a lazy wave. “David, glad you could make it.” I looked at him. His voice sounded gravelly, off-key—and it was not the wisdom of hindsight that made me notice this.

“Help yourself to a coffee,” he said, gesturing to the pot.

I sat and poured myself a small cup, glancing at him as I did so. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something wrong.

“What time did you leave the ship this morning?” I asked. “Around three. Nothing to report, sadly.”

“I’ve checked the monitors,” I said. “I wasn’t visited by the apparition.”

“Maybe tonight.”

I glanced at my friend. His responses were oddly delayed, as if he had to think extra hard about what I said. Also, his gaze seemed to focus on something beyond me.

“Matt,” I said, “is everything okay?” He smiled. “Fine,” he said.

Then another voice came from the entrance of the dome beyond the awning. “David, did you see through my little show?” Startled, I looked up.

Matt Sommers, smiling at my confusion, stood before the dome. I looked back at the Matt seated across the table from me. They were, as far as I could tell, identical.

The second Matt stepped from the dome and took a seat at the table, and the sight of him, sitting next to his double, was disconcerting to say the least.

“Matt,” I managed at last, “What the hell’s going on?”

“You said you wanted to see my latest work,” the second Matt said, gesturing to Matt number one. “Remember the package you brought from the Station the other day?”

Before I could reply, he reached out, across the table, and I watched with incredulity as his hand entered the head of his doppelganger and clenched. Instantly, Matt number one disappeared.

He squeezed the thing in his hand, turning it off, then held it out on his open palm for my inspection. “The latest in Mintakan technology.”