The Book of Strange New Things(55)

‘Really?’ said Grainger. ‘You’re done?’

‘Yes, I’m done.’

She leaned across him and replaced the Shoot in its slot. He could smell the fresh sweat inside her clothing.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s hit the road.’

They spoke little on the remainder of the drive. They’d discussed the essentials – or agreed not to discuss them further – and neither of them wanted to part on bad terms.

The Oasan settlement was visible a long time before they reached it. In full daylight, it glowed amber in the light of the sun. Not exactly magnificent, but not without beauty either. A church spire would make all the difference.

‘Are you sure you’ll be OK?’ said Grainger, when they had a mile or so to go.

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘You might get sick.’

‘Yes, I might. But I’d be surprised if I died.’

‘What if you really need to come back?’

‘Then the Lord will make it possible for me to come back somehow.’

She chewed on that for a few seconds, as if it were a dry mouthful of bread.

‘The next official USIC visit – our regular trading exchange – is in five days,’ she said, in an efficient, professionally neutral voice. ‘That’s five real days, not days according to your watch. Five cycles of sunrise and sunset. Three hundred . . . ’ (she consulted the clock on the dashboard) ‘ . . . three hundred and sixty-odd hours from now.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. It seemed impolite not to make a note of it, if only on his palm, but he knew perfectly well that he was unable to calculate three hundred and sixty hours into the future, when he’d be sleeping and waking up at various points along the way. He would have to take everything as it came.

At the final approach, C-2 appeared deserted. Their vehicle pulled up at the outermost of the settlement’s buildings, the same place as before, marked with the white star. Except that the building was now marked with something else as well: a large message, freshly painted in white letters three feet tall.

WEL COME

‘Wow,’ said Grainger. ‘Didn’t know they had it in them.’

She stopped the car and flipped open the hatch. Peter got out and fetched his rucksack from the boot, strapping it onto his shoulders so that his arms were free. He wondered what the correct way of taking his leave of Grainger might be: a handshake, a courteous nod, a casual wave, or what.

The crystalline curtain that veiled the nearest doorway sparkled as its trails of beads were brushed aside to allow someone through – a hooded figure, small and solemn. Peter couldn’t tell if it was the same person he’d met before. He remembered the Oasan’s robe as being blue, whereas this one’s was pastel yellow. No sooner had the person stepped out into the light than another person followed him, parting the beads with his delicate gloves. This one’s robe was pale green.

One by one, the Oasans emerged from the building. They were all hooded and gloved, all daintily built, all wearing the same soft leather boots. Their robes were all the same design, but there was scarcely a colour repeated. Pink, mauve, orange, yellow, chestnut, faun, lilac, terracotta, salmon, watermelon, olive, copper, moss, lavender, peach, powder blue . . .

On and on they came, making room for each new arrival, but standing as close together as a family. Within a few minutes, a crowd of seventy or eighty souls had gathered, including smaller creatures who were evidently children. Their faces were mostly obscured, but here and there a whitish-pink swell of flesh peeped out.

Peter gaped back at them, light-headed with exhilaration.

The frontmost of the Oasans turned to face his people, raised his arms high and gave a signal.

‘Amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . . ’ they sang, sweet and high and pure. The vowel floated for five, ten seconds without pause, a grand communal exhalation, sustained so long that Peter interpreted it as an abstract sound, unrelated to language or melody. But then it incorporated a consonant – albeit an unidentifiable one – and shifted in pitch: ‘ . . .??iiiiiiing graaaaaaaa??e! How??weeeeeee??? a ??ouuuuuund tha??? ??aaaaaaaaaaaaved a wreeee? liiiiike meeeeeeeeeee!’

In synchronised obedience to an energetic hand-gesture from the frontmost Oasan, they all stopped at once. There was a huge intake of breath, a seventy-strong sigh. Peter fell to his knees, having only just recognised the hymn: the anthem of fuddy-duddy evangelism, the archetype of Salvation Army naffness, the epitome of everything he had despised when he’d been a young punk snorting lines of speed off piss-stained toilet lids, of everything he dismissed as stupid when he was liable to wake in a pool of congealed vomit, of everything he considered contemptible when he was stealing money from prostitutes’ handbags, of everything he laughed off as worthless when he himself was a toxic waste of space. I once was lost, and now I’m found.

The conductor gestured again. The choir resumed.





II


ON EARTH





10


The happiest day of my life


Peter hung suspended between ground and sky, in a net, his body covered with dark blue insects. They weren’t feeding on him, they were just using him as a place to be. Every time he stretched or coughed, the bugs would hover up from his skin or hop elsewhere, then settle back. He didn’t mind. Their legs didn’t tickle. They were quiet.