The kitten was more fun, their faces said. It didn't yet have a name, at least not one I'd given it.
It had plenty of its own.
Epilogue - Spoke Lavender
I remember the way Byron felt, Droover thought, his pink tongue and probing brown fingers. I remember life.
Pineapple dreams: they come in rings and segments, sweet, yellow, juicy and full of sunshine...
She stood in the shade of an awning listening to running feet, the captain's, Amy Jones a growing, solidifying mass of moon-grey and cloud-blue. Kate was someway behind her - Kate was here waiting, watching as Captain Jones slowed, folded a slab of gum into her mouth, its constitution a recipe of Stylo's, the poison she required so badly, his seed. All of which Droover knew, the truth an open page, the page from Spritzer's diary, the repairman plugged into a computer aboard Ernie's Engine, dreaming his dreams while mapping the complicated world.
It was a suitable punishment, a newly defined crime.
Kate stepped out into the street. Amy pulled up, face contorted, a fey smile, one shaped - in part - from alcohol.
‘Hey...’ The captain looked behind her, stood with hands on hips. ‘You're in two places at once,’ she said.
Kate replied, ‘Want to tell me about it?’
The other woman took a pace back...altered, as if through a pall of refractive gases: retrograde. ‘I think you know enough,’ she commented, adding hesitantly, ‘Kate, I'm sorry if I hurt you or anyone; I never wanted that.’
‘But?’
‘I'm dying.’ She laughed, girlish. ‘I'd be dead now - maybe I am; but this way I had a chance, you see? A chance to live, a closed loop, like orbiting the same star forever, or spending eternity in no-space. Unaffected, or so I imagined. At peace.’
‘Halfway between somewhere and nowhere...’
‘Right! It was a mistake. I got scared, that's all.’
Kate approached her, put her arms around Amy and gave her a hug. ‘Don't worry,’ she said, ‘it comes out...’ searching for the word, ‘it comes out fine.’
In the end.
She talked with Lumping Jack. They had no language in common, no words to write or say. Frozen Hound wagged her tail and mixed up the colours on the page, the page in this latest edition (#60) of Last Of The Earth Men.
There was a storm which passed, a spring storm smelling of new leaves, cherry blossom and daffodils, the wind driving it fresh and enlivened, raised from the mountains and the sea.
She closed her eyes and lay down. Around her the air moved, carrying upon its shoulders the odours of natural inks and earthy dyes, the scents of plant extracts, the indefatigable rhythms of the seasons. She was able after a while to comprehend their various tones and meanings, appreciate the harmony they favoured and the knowledge they sought, was, in just as short a time, communicating to them with a kind of halting emanation of her own.
Morgan gazed at her from his place in the comic, perhaps aware of her as yet rough delivery, the edges that caught and jarred. But he didn't quibble. Why should he? Frozen Hound and Dr Henry Grey were with him, nodding enthusiastically, offering advice, senses fine tuned as the aromatic exchange took on a clearer and more definitive shape.
It sailed on by...
Spoke purple and white. Spoke lavender.
And in the end, when each was - via channel or conduit, tunnel or passage - in touch with the others, it was plain they all had a lot to convey.
And so, relaxed, mouths shut, inhaled.
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