Triptych (11 page)

Gwen’s eyes got wide. “He was human?”

Basil nodded. “I think. I mean, I didn’t get a good look before you…it could have been a mask or, or plastic surgery maybe? Think about it — it’s only human Specialists who’ve been Aglunated have been targeted, yeah?”

“What about Derx?”

“
With
Barnowski. Pias, too.”

“What about…” she trailed off, swallowed once, “Kalp?”

By now Evvie was close enough to join the conversation. “He was a set up — a dummy,” she said softly. “To get you to turn against your own teams. Get the Institute fighting itself. To kill the trust between our people and theirs.”

Basil snapped his fingers, pointed at Evvie like a particularly bright student, and nodded. “Everyone on the bloody planet knew our bloody address, they could have
mailed
something and Aitken was just so keen…”

Gwen pressed her forehead against Basil’s shoulder, and Evvie resisted the urge to reach out, to rub her back in soothing circles.

“
Oh
,” Gwen whispered, voice weak and shaking. Her whole face turned a ghastly white and for a moment she appeared as if she was going to vomit. She swallowed heavily, hands suddenly shivering where she had them fisted into his tee-shirt.

Her knees went out from under her and for a second Evvie thought she’d fainted, but no, her daughter was stronger than that. She was just trembling too hard to remain upright. Basil held her up by winding his arms under hers, and looked with excited concern into her face.

“Gwen?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine I…
fuck
.”

Basil whispered quickly, excitedly into her ear. “Yeah? But it…it’s perfect, innit? There are enough people who don’t want them around. Enough
politics
. This is just one way to get the world’s attention. Get their voices heard without causing any actual genocide.”

“That’s horrible,” Evvie said. Misery and anger slid cold in her gut.

Basil snapped and pointed at Evvie again. “Of course, The Institute is the shining beacon of
integration
. Of accepting new ways. That’s gotta go, too.”

Gwen frowned, looked back up. Her cheeks were dry, and Basil’s words on her stubbornness flooded back to Evvie. Gwen still refused to mourn for Kalp.

“They picked Kalp because of
us.
Because
we were
 — ”

“ — 
exactly
. So it was all — ”

“ — and they would have to target people we knew, people they thought were the worst offenders — ”

“ — like us, like Kalp — ”

“ — set him up and put him in a position to be murdered, without the onus being theirs, the
bastards
 — ”

Gwen and Basil stared, gap-mouthed, at each other for a moment.

Basil reached down, fingers shaking, and wound them around Gwen’s hand tightly.

Gwen sniffed, her chin shaking. “I never cried for him,” she said, eyes shining. “I
hated him
and I never, I never
cried
…he died reaching out for me and I couldn’t…touch him.”

Basil pulled her flush against his chest, buried his nose in the thready curls below her ear.

Gwen wept, and all Evvie could think was
finally, finally, finally.

***

They returned to the house, Basil buzzing with caffeine and new purpose. Gwen retreated to the master bedroom to have some time alone, her eyes red and puffy, her face blotched, exhaustion and weariness and grief pulling at her shoulders. Evvie felt, strangely, both hollow and filled. Too filled.

Mark left Gwen the room and went to go start the dawn milking.

Eventually Gwennie woke and fussed for breakfast, disturbing Gwen through the baby monitor. She stumbled out into the hall, bleary and looking no more rested than she had when she’d gone to lay down. Mark was still in the barn, so that left Evvie to juggle Gwennie and her bottle. Gwen was willing enough to help, and held her squirming self at the kitchen table, watching the red face, the chubby fingers, the bandage on her head.

Basil came up the stairs sometime after Gwennie settled. He had a piece of metal, roughly a box, cradled in his arms, three empty mugs clutched awkwardly in one hand and his strange flat, unbelievably small computer in the other one.

“Cheers,” he said, when Evvie swooped in and took the mugs.

“Basil,” Gwen said, looking up from where she was holding the bottle to her younger self’s lips. “It has a big
red button.
”

“Yeah, I
know,
” he said with the excited grin of a child with the best shiny new bike ever. He was practically vibrating with geeky (endearing) excitement. “Cool, innit?”

Now, if only Evvie could get him to wear tight jeans and ask for a second helping of apple pie. Evvie had no pie to offer, so instead she said, “Shower? Breakfast before you go?”

Gwen nodded, looking down at herself, sniffing surreptitiously. Then she said, “Ehg. Yes. Shower.”

Basil wrinkled his nose. “Oh, yes please.”

Evvie gestured at the stairs, then held out her arms for Gwennie. “I assume you know where the towels are?”

Gwen flashed Gareth’s twinkling smile at her mother. It was real and it was a relief, and to Evvie it felt like it melted a burden (guilt) away. Gwennie changed hands with nothing more than a perturbed blink.

“I’ll leave fresh clothes out on my bed,” Evvie said after them as they walked up the stairs wearily, and tried very hard not to think about the fact that she could distinctly hear both sets of footfalls walk into the washroom together.

Evvie busied herself with dishes and laundry and Gwennie.

When they came back downstairs, Gwen was wearing the dark jeans and the bright teal sweater Evvie had laid out for her. She was shifting her shoulders around, grimacing. “Shoulder pads?” she asked, gesturing at them. “They’re hideous.”

“Lady Di wears shoulder pads,” Evvie said, reaching out and adjusting them to sit properly.

Basil made an unflattering sound in the back of this throat. He was wearing his uniform pants, as none of Mark’s were big enough. A clean, machine faded tee-shirt stretched across work-sculpted pecs, and he actually looked quite dependable. Evvie already knew that he worked unreasonable hours, but she wondered if he had a good benefits package.

Did he bring home flowers?

***

Breakfast was a rather subdued affair: runny scrambled eggs that Evvie couldn’t cook properly because Basil had taken a piece out of the microwave without telling anyone, and toast that was slightly burnt for the same reason. The tea was hot because he’d had the good sense to leave the stove and kettle alone.

It had taken some convincing to get them to sit down for one last meal with the Piersons, and Evvie had a feeling that Gwen knew that she had ulterior motives. Motives that were harder to talk about than Evvie had assumed they would be. They sat there like a sixth diner in the corner, and hulked until she just couldn’t take the tiptoeing around them any longer.

“I want to apologize,” Evvie said.

Mark didn’t look surprised, nor did Basil. Gwennie was calmly and with great dignity giving herself an egg facial, and Gwen didn’t look up from her mug.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel…” Evvie looked at Mark, trying to search for the correct word in his face. He found it in hers first.

“Unwelcome,” Mark said softly.

Gwen put her mug down on the table and waited.

“I don’t hate you,” Evvie confessed. “You saved my baby’s life. You’re saving other people’s lives. You are doing work that’s helping people.”

Gwen snorted, and said into her mug, “Rocks and hard places have nothing on this.”

“I’m
proud
of you,” Evvie said softly. Gwen jerked her eyes up, and they were wide and suspiciously wet. Evvie gave Gwen her biggest, warmest grin, the one that matched Gareth’s. And Gwen’s. “I want you to do what makes you happiest, even if I don’t understand it. Even if I don’t get half of what comes out of your mouth.”

Gwen said nothing, ducked her head and butted it up against Basil’s shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, kissed her scar again, and went back to his eggs.

When the dishes were soaking in the sink and Mark was bouncing Gwennie on his knee, Evvie managed to talk them into one last cup of black, bitter coffee; nearly twenty-four hours without sleep had begun to tug at everyone’s eyelids and she had given up on tea having enough kick to keep them all on their feet. Basil tapped away on his TV-notepad-computer and when Mark asked what he was doing, he said something like, “Detailed mission report. Best to do it as it’s happening, then you don’t forget anything.”

And before Evvie wanted it to end, it was over. The kettle was empty, the day had fully dawned, and Gwen and Basil were cooing goodbyes to Gwennie in her highchair, shaking the Piersons’ hands with grins and a soft, genial “so long” from Basil.

“What, ‘so long’?” Mark repeated, startled. “That’s it? No advice? Not gonna tell me which stocks to play?”

“Can’t go changing the timeline,” Basil said with a cheeky grin. “That’s the Temporal Prime Directive, innit?”

“That’s ‘Star Trek,’” Mark crowed, triumphant. “I knew
that
one!”

Gwen punched Basil’s arm again. Basil conceded and added: “I’ll see you in twenty-nine years, maybe? Come for a proper family dinner, yeah? Uh, pay you back for the Betamax.”

Evvie felt panic, surprising and sudden. “That’s not… that’s not enough!” she said without thinking. “I want to know…you have to…”

Gwen stopped, looked at her, expression a cross between amusement, puzzlement, and perhaps the slightest hint of anger. “What?”

“Just tell me…tell me
why
,” Evvie asked, a little desperate. “Why can’t you quit? Why don’t you just walk away? Haven’t you lost
enough
?”

Oh, that look of shock on Gwen’s face. Of course Evvie knew what she had lost. Evvie was a mother. She may have been the product of a time before aliens and openness and the perfect slapshot, but she was not (obliviousbigotedhardhearted) stupid.

“I don’t want to have this fight again,” Gwen said softly. “I’ve already had it with you once.”

“Well, it’s the first time for me,” Evvie said. “So explain it. Why does it have to be you? My Gwennie?” She gave in to temptation, reached out, cupped Gwen’s cheeks in her palms. It was the first time Evvie had touched her. Her skin was soft, smooth, warm. And above all that, familiar. Evvie knew this face, this skin, had touched it before, caressed it, bathed it, soothed it.

This really was her baby.

The corners of Gwen’s eyes crinkled with a soft, sad smile, and she turned her head to press a gentle kiss into her mother’s palm. “You haven’t called me that since I was fifteen.”

“Why?” Evvie repeated miserably, not letting Gwen change the subject. “Answer me.”

Gwen sighed, sort of shrugging all over at once. “Because…who else is there? If not me, then who?”

“Really?”

Gwen looked down at her feet. “Revenge, maybe?” And with a last, sad smile, she stepped back, took Basil’s outstretched hand, squeezed his fingers once. “I hope that’s enough of an answer.”

“Call me,” Evvie said, desperate. “Please, call me when you get back. I don’t want to fight.”

“I…yeah, okay.”

Basil leaned over, murmured something soothing into her ear, kissed her cheek. Then he levelled one last calculating, quantifying stare at Evvie, as if she were some complex equation he could decipher by study alone.

With great deliberation, Basil depressed the red button on the surface of the device. There was a sudden flash of light so bright it left spots in Evvie and Mark’s vision, the afterimage of two strange people dressed in their clothing imprinted against the inside of their eyelids.

When the images cleared and they opened their eyes, Basil and Gwen were gone. Evvie turned in a slow circle, but there was no trace of them anywhere, no evidence that they had even been here beyond the tampered-with technology and a trashcan filled with dirty, destroyed uniforms, a bloody onesie, and of course, Gwennie’s cut. The scar.

And, winking in the fluorescent light of the basement, was a small lump of metal, curved and curled and strange, half hidden by the skirt of the sofa. It had the rainbow slick surface, same as the disc of music. It was
alien
.

Evvie looked at Mark. He was rubbing the corner of one eye with his blunt-tipped fingers. His lips curled up to match his wife’s, small smiles of hysterical wonder.

“Did that just happen?” he asked.

Evvie nodded. “I think so. I’m pretty sure.”

Mark nodded, too. Evvie looked down at her hands. They felt too empty. Mark picked up Gwennie; he must have felt the same, the strange void of knowing-but-not, the way that the whole world —  the future — had shifted around them and left them feeling impotent and futile. Evvie walked down the stairs, slowly, and approached the small configuration of wires and casing and the future. She felt silly, reaching towards it with slow fingers, as if it was a dog that might snap if she was too nervous. It didn’t, and she picked it up. It was lighter than she expected, and when she peered in through a gap in the side, it was filled mostly with air and a fine filigree of wires and plastic caps and bright green walls. There was a curved piece decending from the bottom, like a trigger, and several smooth round barrels and suddenly Evvie’s stomach swooped down into her knees, because she was pretty sure she was holding a weapon.

Basil must have taken it out of his vest pocket to make himself comfortable, or to access a tool, and forgotten to put it back in. Gwen wouldn’t have forgotten, but then Gwen was twice the soldier Basil had been.

Clutching it to her chest, Evvie went back upstairs and past Mark and Gwennie, who were doing a little dance together in the kitchen — Mark singing a sad but silly song about runny eggs — and into the little alcove off the mudroom that served as the farm’s office.

Revenge, maybe?
she heard Gwen say again in her mind.
No, it wasn’t enough of an answer. But it was all Evvie was going to get for the next thirty years.