The Lily Hand and Other Stories (29 page)

‘But
you
!' I howled at him. ‘If this is true, for God's sake, what do you think you're doing?
Anti-matter!
If you even touch her hand.'

‘I know!' he said, and he smiled. ‘Goodbye, Francis!'

His face flickered out.

I went scrambling and leaping up the companionway and into the control-room, I shouted at them what he'd said, what he'd done. I should have known, I should have guessed before, when the two soundless voices melted from counterpoint into unison, when he talked of mutually destructive particles, and of the mirror-image of man that was at once his twin and antithesis. I should have known when he spoke of adding will and purpose to the collision of opposites, so that annihilation might become as it were union, and the generation that resulted might launch upon creation new particles of matter, the first fruits of reconciliation. I should have known when the woman said no, and no, and no, while all the time her eyes were saying yes.

We rushed to the screens, we called and called him. The Commodore ordered him back to the ship, but he never made any answer again, and he never looked back. What more was there we could do? We set course outward at speed, and withdrew into space, and still we hung over the screen and watched the thin silvery fish recede from us.

‘He'll never touch ground,' said the Professor, wringing his hands over the dials. ‘He'll burn up as he enters the atmosphere.'

‘She's coming to meet him. He said so. Coming to meet him, clear of her world. They know, they both know. They don't want to be saved.'

‘They'll both die. There's no other possibility.'

Gennadi would have said: What is death? Gennadi would have said: But something new will be born, never forget that. Something new will be born.

We watched the iris-blue curve of Parthenope's zone, where a scintillating point of silver had soared and hung in air. She was coming as she had promised. They drew towards each other in two great arcs, flawlessly, and then his hull touched the atmosphere and sheared into it like a glowing knife, leaving a trail of fiery light behind. They were good hulls, triple-proofed and made to survive high speeds. He lived to meet her, though the outer shell of his craft was molten fire by then. Parthenis I had a new star.

What could we do but hold our breath and watch, as they came together? They had slowed to touch, and in the instant that the two light-shells kissed there was a blinding flash that turned all the limpid dark to day. The sound came late; it was in silence that the shell of metal glowed from orange to white, and disintegrated from round him. In the heart of the unbearable brightness we saw the two small ships drip into liquid, and the golden drops consume away in the heat before they even had form. We saw them embrace, those two terrible lovers, a fused shape of shadow in the heart of the aurora, a man and a woman locked in each other's arms, Gennadi and Parthenope matched and mated for the first and last and only time.

They were the core of a new sun, and then they were light itself, and a cry, and the following thunderclap was like a fanfare for their incredible marriage.

One instant, and then we saw them no more, we could not look, the brightness burned our eyes, we hid our faces and clung to our controls, and ran and ran from the cataclysm, out of the galaxy, scorched and limping, back towards our own maimed world. But long hours afterwards, when we dared to look back, there was a lamp still blazing in the place where they had vanished, and outward from its deep, red heart, eddying away on their own inscrutable courses, spark after glittering spark went curving and flying, outward into orbit, outward into space, the firstborn of the children of light.

About the Author

Ellis Peters is a pseudonym of Edith Mary Pargeter (1913–1995), a British author whose Chronicles of Brother Cadfael are credited with popularizing the historical mystery. Cadfael, a Welsh Benedictine monk living at Shrewsbury Abbey during the first half of the twelfth century, has been described as combining the curious mind of a scientist with the bravery of a knight-errant. The character has been adapted for television, and the books drew international attention to Shrewsbury and its history.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1965, 1994 by Edith Pargeter

Cover design by Barbara Brown

Illustrations by Karl Kotas

ISBN: 978-1-4976-8091-3

This 2016 edition published by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

180 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

www.openroadmedia.com

EBOOKS BY ELLIS PETERS

FROM
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA