Resolution (91 page)

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[16]

Further highlights from the life and times of Kian McNamara:

Kian worked hard at his ordinary career - inasmuch as any Pilot could be called ordinary - as well as setting policy, and negotiating with UNSA on his people’s behalf. Senior management recognized the position he held among the natural-born Pilots (and many of the older ones) without ever giving him an official title.

No-one in the halls of power used the word
Admiral.
Not where they could be overheard.

Kian’s ship was a near-twin -
ha! -
to the one Dirk had stolen. Polished bronze and banded with lustrous purple (not blue-green), it looked magnificent, and when Kian flew it he felt a deep singing joy he could never express to anyone.

No matter how political his career became, he would always find time to fly missions for his UNSA bosses. Kian never arrived late; his cargo was never damaged in transit; his passengers awoke with clear heads, not splitting migraines, at their destinations.

And if his disfigurement caused him to hate normal human beings, nothing in his actions ever indicated that.

Once, over supper in a restaurant overlooking Puget Sound, Paula - having polished off her third beer - remarked to Kian that he was the new Mahatma Gandhi ... at least as far as his two thousand-plus protégés were concerned. Deirdre shook her head and put down her fork, waiting for Kian’s reply.

‘Gandhi was a great human being,’ said Kian, ‘but he could be a sarcastic bastard. How does the old story go? A reporter asked him what he thought of western civilization; Gandhi considered a moment, then said:
“That sounds like a good idea.”’

Deirdre smiled, but Paula was not to be put off.

‘But you are a pacifist,’ she said. ‘Just like him. And leader of your people.’

‘Some people say I am.’

‘Y’know’ - Deirdre poked at her food: some kind of spinach-and-cheese pasta thing - ‘forget Gandhi. You sound more like the Dalai fuckin’ Lama every day.’

‘Why, does
he
think Gandhi was a sarcastic bastard?’

Paula threw her head back and laughed hard enough to fart, which escalated the hilarity, while the other diners pretended not to pay attention. (It was a very high-priced restaurant.) But their waiter remained pleasant throughout, without a hint of snootiness; the tip they left him was probably the largest he received that year.

And they tumbled, still laughing, back to Paula’s and Deirdre’s house in Queen Anne Gate, where they talked until the early hours of the morning. Then Kian went into the guest room while Paula and Deirdre went to theirs, and all three of them were asleep within minutes, paying no attention to the surveillance drones which hovered above the building, keeping an eye on UNSA’s single most precious asset while he moved among the ordinary folk.

During the couple’s first year in Seattle, Paula worked what she called ‘joe jobs’: stocking shelves and working an espresso machine and selling goods with a smile - things that an untrained ordinary joe could do.

There was an obvious pun there, but every time Paula mentioned joe jobs in Kian’s presence he just smiled, not taking the bait. He did the same on one occasion, when they were sleepy and drunk after a Thanksgiving curry, and Paula said: ‘So what do you do for sex?’ (Deirdre made her suffer for that, practically until Christmas.)

In their third year together, Paula opened a tourist-trap boutique, selling goods from across the world. Although she was officially
‘persona non
bloody
grata’
as Zoë said, being a former UN Intelligence worker gave Paula interesting contacts (some with an eye to their own retirement plans) in two dozen countries.

Deirdre’s research interests shifted away from the popular focus of her contemporaries. She did a small amount of teaching at Washington State, earning enough money to finance the occasional exotic vacation for the two of them, while Paula’s income paid the mortgage.

Once, they made it to Scotland, and spent an idyllic week in a stone cottage near the shore of Loch Lomond. Then they strolled through Glasgow - Paula had never even heard of Rennie Mackintosh, but she loved the architecture on first sight - and took a skimmer to Edinburgh. She made contacts in two tartan-ware shops interested in increasing their exports.

At night they climbed the cobbled slope to Edinburgh Castle, which was as forbidding as it ought to be with its black wrought-iron portcullises and ancient stones. Later, in a party of twelve, they toured the haunted tunnels and cellars below the streets. Something cold and insubstantial drifted through the group and Paula shrieked while Deirdre laughed, determined not to play the gullible tourist.

But their guide, when they climbed from the cellar, looked ashen-faced.

Then they made the trip north to Aberdeen and met up with Orla, niece of Dr Claude Chalou who had been a tutor at Oxford when Dirk was there, and had disappeared around the same time.

An old grey-flecked retriever called Sam bumped his way over to them, tail wagging as soon as they entered the sitting-room. They sat around drinking tea for the whole afternoon, comparing notes, picking over painful memories. Deirdre could see an odd, discomfiting jealousy rise in Orla’s eyes when they talked about Kian, the brother who still lived, whom Orla had never met.

On the journey home, Deirdre and Paula decided not to mention this part of their holiday to Kian.

They brought him back a set of self-playing bagpipes - one would have to look very closely to see that the ‘player’ was not doing it for real - and he would use it, grinning broadly, on every New Year’s Eve for decades to play ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

During the first five years of Kian’s admiralship, thirty-eight new Pilots made the grade. They took their shining ships into mu-space, plied the trade routes which UNSA devised, and produced great profits despite the cost of commissioning their vessels.

During that period, five other fledgling Pilots each managed to fly a ship into mu-space once, but refused to try a second time. Mu-space called to them - sang in their veins so much they could not withdraw sufficiently to concentrate on their vessels’ systems.

Twelve others washed out in the early stages of training, because they were unsuited to long solitary voyages or simply had other overwhelming interests, despite all their background and opportunities.

An hmail joke that pervaded UNSA ran like this:

Q: When is a Pilot not a Pilot?

A: When they’re scared shipless.

Kian found it amusing. (There was a weaker joke, about mu-space being the speed a cow walked at, that never quite caught on.) Still, he could see that the question of vocation was long-term and difficult. In the meantime, UNSA was happy to subsidize a dozen young Pilots in other careers: for those of scientific bent, the agency’s labs made research posts available. Ilse Schwenger created a renewed funding programme for the Pilots’ schools: the last decisive act in her long career.

Everyone, save the occasional anti-xeno agitator in the outside world, was happy.

Kian was careful not to abuse his privileges. When McGill University organized an academic conference entitled ‘Cultural Emergenics and Xenological Zen’ to take place over Labor Day weekend, he used his position to ensure membership, but travelled by public suborbital. Though he did not ask for bodyguards, two fit-looking men were seated behind him all the way.

In Montreal Shuttleport the Arrivals concourse was crowded. Kian looked around for his baggage drone, ducked into the crowd, and for half a second he was out of his bodyguards’ sight. That was when a narrow glass blade came arcing towards his neck from behind.