Hunters: A Trilogy (122 page)

George was really angry now, and the rising tone of resentment in his cracking voice was starting to make Ken wish he hadn’t bothered to ask. But the old man hadn’t finished, not yet. With a flurry of words, George put paid to Ken’s desire of having a straight answer to the ‘G’ question.

He said, ‘God built your planet in six days, that is what they say, is it not?’

Ken felt Jane’s shoulder moving in time with her nodding head.

‘Yes…’ George said, ‘…and then he took a day off, is that also correct?’

Jane’s shoulders moved again.

George laughed, this time it was a laugh of derision.

With a sigh, he said, ‘And just because you have a little clock that ticks around in its twenty-four hour cycle, well…then I suppose it must have been as simple as that – God just built the world in seven of your days, ‘Boom-Boom’ and the job was done!’ He laughed once more and this time the anger was a clear as crystal. After a short while, he said, ‘Those bloody fools, did they ever once stop to think that if God
did
have some kind of a clock, and I seriously doubt that he does, that perhaps it works on a completely different scale to theirs?’

Ken almost heard him shaking his head in dismay.

Then the old man said, ‘Have they ever considered that one of God’s minutes would conceivably last somewhat longer than their measurement of a thousand millennia – hundreds of thousands of millennia? I wonder if they ever considered that in God’s idea of time, the development of planet Earth is probably at just around midnight, on the first day he created it! Do you think that is possible, their consideration of such things?’ There was no answer to that question.

As they sat in the prolonged silence, Ken began to wonder if George had stomped off in anger. Hoping that he hadn’t, Ken sat forward and was about to call out his mentor’s name when he noticed their surroundings had started to become brighter. The source of the unseen light seemed to be coming from above them. Looking across to Jane, Ken saw that she, too, had seen the light and was currently craning her neck upwards to investigate.

As they stared into the air above, the stunned couple were treated to an amazing display. Their surroundings were filled with a rushing sound, it only lasted for a few seconds and they were thankful for that, because it had been a deafening noise, the anger of a thousand tornados all wrapped-up in one, howling sound. Its departure left them in silence, but not in blindness – their vision became filled with so many awesome sights that it was impossible to keep up. Although George had let both Ken and his wife experience the sight of some wonderful things before, they were as nothing compared to this, the current display of unbelievably-beautiful sights that came rushing past in a stream of colour and light.

Huge planets dotted with molten geysers of lava, which rose into the air like fireworks, rotated past majestically. Racing comets came zooming by; long streams of frozen ice and rock locked in their wake – intergalactic children, scurrying to keep up with their onrushing mother. Vast clouds of beautifully-coloured gases rose in ghostly plumes, their size so large that Ken was able to see the many huge planets, which the towers of multi-coloured gas had totally dwarfed, drifting like tiny marbles under the shadow of their massive clouds; long arms of brilliant lightning reached out and filled the clouds with blue fire.

Great fields of nebulae spun their way lazily past, several containing the dread-inducing sight of spinning, black whirlpools. ‘Rips…’ the thought slid past Ken as easily as did the string of purple moons, each one smaller than the last – more kids hanging onto their mother’s apron strings. She rotated ahead of them: a giant, spinning-dervish of orange fire, ever-beckoning those plum-coloured children into the arms of her irresistible, fiery-embrace.

It was as though they, Ken and his wife, were in the best seats available on the world’s first space-safari, sitting and enjoying the awesome, mind-melting sights. Ken looked at Jane and saw that she was gazing at their surroundings open-mouthed, unashamedly letting the tears run down her face. With her cheeks shining in the light of those tears, glistening like multi-coloured jewels as the light from the passing stars reflected in them, she sat and laughed, clapping her hands like a child at the joy of being witness to the most amazing of visions that George, or God, had sent to underline the old man’s recent words. Ken felt his own tears tumbling down, but he made no attempt to stem their flow, instead, he merely sat and allowed the overwhelming feeling of joy to fill his heart.

All the pain began to melt away and he felt the darkness leaving him, all those days, months and years of fear and despair, all the feelings of gut-wrenching sorrow and guilt – they all left his mind. And, as he had done when he first touched the little ship, the medal with those words ‘For Sacrifice’ etched into its metal surface, Ken was filled with the light of knowing. But, rather than just sensing those feelings, he was now seeing them, they were right in front of his eyes and they washed away any doubt he’d ever had about there being no purpose to his life. In that one moment, sitting before the greatest show in the universe, Kenneth Robinson had no doubt as to his identity, not one.

Gradually, the passing marvels began to slow and then, as though they were gazing through the eyepiece of a very powerful telescope, one with its controls cranked up to maximum zoom, their vision began to tunnel – the whole show focussing upon a tiny light that lay way ahead in the distance. With a blurring rush, and whilst millions of stars, suns, moons, and every other conceivable thing, all came rushing by in reverse, they found themselves looking at a picture of Earth, the beautiful, blue planet sitting serenely in the silence of deep space. The vision left them in no doubt whatsoever about the question of being alone, and the idea of them being ‘the only ones’, as George had so eloquently put it, now seemed to be nothing other than preposterous.

Finally, the show stopped, within the blink of an eye, and they did blink, several times, Ken and Jane were once more left in the darkness. This time it was not as frightening as before, not so unknown, for they now knew what lay beyond its blank canvas. Truly they did. After a few moments of utter silence, George’s voice wafted out to them. He seemed to be much calmer now, almost as though his own insightful display had somehow filled him with its peace.

He said, ‘And so you see, the wonder of our surroundings is almost too beautiful to comprehend, and let me tell you, there are far, far more things out there than it is possible to contemplate.’

He paused, before saying: ‘As for your big ‘G’ question, Kenneth – well, I am afraid that I do not have a definitive answer for you, and to be perfectly honest, I do not really have a definitive opinion of my own. No, I prefer to go along with those who see God as being in everything we have just witnessed, they see us as living within him, their idea is that God is in everything, that he
is
everything, that we reside within him and he resides within us.’

Waiting a while, George then said, ‘It is rather a good idea, do you not think? And given the choice of choosing between it, and trying to make sense of the total mayhem, lies and abject failure of the other options – the Hyenas and their claptrap – I know which side of the fence my vote will fall upon.’ He left those words hanging in the air for a while, remaining in silence whilst they sank in.

Ken was still stunned by all he had seen, he wished it would continue, even though he knew, according to George, that he had very little chance of ever remembering it. Finally, he allowed his thoughts to think of other, more pressing matters. All thoughts of any further theological discussions left his mind in a rush of reality. He reached over and grasped Jane’s hand. Giving it a tight squeeze, he looked into her face and said, ‘Are we ready, shall we just do this?’

She nodded and smiled at him.

Ken turned back to face the darkness, saying: ‘George?’

The reply was instantaneous. ‘Yes, you are quite right,’ George said. ‘And as is usual, your timing is impeccable – everything is ready. It is time for you to go. Be assured that you will be quite fine, you have my word. You will just sleep for a while and then you will be free once more.’ He breathed deeply, and they heard the emotion in his voice.

Reading their minds, George said, ‘Please do not say anything, you have no need to say anything further – there is nothing left to say. Words, at a time like this, would be so meaningless. You know how highly we all regard you, and you know how very sorry I am. But, I have learned that it is never too late to say that you are sorry, and it is never too late to go back and fix a mistake – even if you have to go back again, and again.’

There was a small moment of silence, during which Ken’s mind saw George conferring with his engineer. Obviously satisfied with what he had seen, George said, ‘You should go now – lie back on the couch and get comfortable.’

He waited patiently until they had done as he’d asked, Ken cuddling up to Jane and encircling her within his protective arms, laying there in fearful and yet happy anticipation, no words left to say, only time for leaving.

Then George spoke, and they were to be the last words they would ever hear him say. ‘You must go now,’ he said. ‘Now is the time for you to go. Go now!’

And go they did.

They went into the light, they went into the darkness, and they went quickly – flying through time, hurtling through those spaces in-between time, those places that lay in-between everything. Together they went to that special place.

To the place where they imagined they had always been.

Jane once said something along the lines of: ‘But, I get Déjà Vu all the time, George – all the time!’ It was something like that she said, wasn’t it?
She was a pretty smart woman, was Jane.

It was the noise that disturbed him, someone was shouting up at the window from the pavement outside the apartment: ‘Ken, Kenny, hey you, lazy-bones, come on, wake up!’ The clamouring racket was as welcome as a gunshot in a church, but he was damned if he was getting his arse out of bed to go and see. He drifted off for a few seconds more, curled up in the blackness, he was so comfortable, so warm and so very content. He didn’t want to get up.

Noisy bastard just wouldn’t let it go. The voice continued shouting.

Ken turned on his side. ‘Who is making such a racket?’ he thought, reaching out for Jane, fumbling in the darkness for the feel of her soft touch. She was there and the bed was warm. Ken’s waking thoughts flared with anger. ‘Who the hell is shouting? Goddamned idiot, what the…it’s the middle of the bloody night!’ He tried to cover his head but the sound just wouldn’t go away.

The voice started to become clearer. ‘Hey you, numb-nuts, wake up – come on, we’re freezing out here! Let-Us-In, please let us in, we’ve lost the keys to the front door – Oh, Kenny, oh, Janey-baby, pleeeease let us in!’ The unceasing noise of the intercom’s buzzer finally gave Ken the energy to open his sticky eyelids. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Jane?’ he said, hoping that it would be she who ventured into the hall and dealt with the problem.

Jane rolled over to face him. Opening a bleary eye, she said, ‘Ken, for God’s sake! Just get up and go push the damned button, will you? They’ll just keep ringing and ringing otherwise – they always bloody do!’

He nodded his head in the direction of the front door, a clear indication that if she thought it was such an easy job then Jane should feel completely free to go and carry out the task herself.

Seeing his look, she giggled loudly and jerked the covers firmly up beneath her chin. Her gesture was one that stated that in no way was she ever going to face the terrors of freezing ceramic tiles upon bare feet, especially at this ungodly hour. Peeking over the top of the quilt, she said, ‘Come on then, tough guy! It’s only a few steps…’ and then ducked beneath the covers completely.

With a sigh, Ken threw the covers back, levered himself out of the warm bed and plodded into the hallway. Reaching across to the intercom, he pushed the button with an extended forefinger, talking into the speaker as he did so.

‘Suzy, Jacko – you’re nothing but a pair of dirty stop-outs! It’s the middle of the night, you bleeding lunatics!’

The slightly slurred reply crackled over the intercom: ‘Ah, but you love us, don’t you, Kenny? And we love you too...Jacko says he’s cooking tonight, so why don’t you and Janey come down and join us? It’ll be our treat!’

Ken grinned, it was hard not to as their inebriated neighbours were actually good fun. Hearing the main door slamming, and silently praying that they hadn’t lost the key to their own front door as well, Ken padded to the bedroom to slide back under the quilt. Jane was waiting for him, and she was lovely and warm.

***

Later, they sat around the glass dining table, picking at croissants and sipping on their coffees whilst gently browsing the Sunday papers. As was usual, the increasing noise of traffic began to filter up to their window.

Ken looked up and said, ‘I reckon that we should make a move out of London, this bloody place is starting to do my head in – I mean, just listen to that!’ He looked angrily across at the window, muttering: ‘It’s not even ten o’clock yet and I can’t hear myself think!’ Slapping his paper down, he swivelled the laptop around, and with a grunt, started banging away at the keypad.

Jane grinned from behind the cover of her paper and continued with her reading, and what she read made her grin broaden. She treasured these moments of togetherness, Ken was always working abroad and since his last contract had ended just four days ago – apparently something had gone badly wrong in Pakistan – she knew that it would be a few more weeks before he went and found himself something else to do. Although, what it was he did, exactly, Ken never really discussed with her, not unless he was really sloshed, and even then he just skirted around the edges. Either way, she knew that his was a tale that could well make her hair curl.