LORELEI HELPS WITH the milking while I feed the Knockroe chickens. Then we walk home along the shore, gathering a bag of sea spinach. Sandhoppers ping off my exposed shin, and oystercatchers pick their way between stones and bladderwrack, stabbing the mud for lugworms. A gray heron fishes off a rock twenty feet out and the sun emerges. The wind’s swinging around to the south, brushing up stragglier clouds, like sheep’s wool caught on barbed wire. We find a big bough of bleached driftwood that should keep the stove fed for a couple of days in winter. Below the cottage we find Rafiq fishing off the pier, a favorite sedative of his. We give him the edited gist of Max O’Daly’s story—he’ll hear it sooner or later anyway—as he helps us lug the driftwood up to the cottage. Mo is snoozing in Eilísh’s old chair, with Zimbra lying on her feet and a biography of Wittgenstein on her lap. Perhaps she’ll move into our granny flat now her own bungalow has no electricity at all. I had it built when I learned Aoife was pregnant so that she, ?rvar, and the baby could have a bit of privacy when they visited, but over the years it’s become a storeroom.
Zimbra gets up when we walk in, Mo wakes, and Lorelei makes us a pot of green tea with leaves she fetches from Mo’s polytunnel. I begin by telling her about Seamus Coogan’s death, then the rest of Max’s report on the massacre. Mo listens without interruption. Then she sighs and rubs her eyes. “Martin Walsh is right, unfortunately. If we want a quality of life higher than that of the Middle Ages ten years from now, we need to act like soldiers. The barbarians won’t turn on each other twice.”
My clock says five. Rafiq stands up. “I’d like to catch another couple of fish before it gets dark. Is Mo staying for tea, Holly?”
“I hope so. We ate her out of house and home at lunch.”
Mo thinks of her unlit stove and the useless lightbulbs in her bungalow. “I’d be honored. Thank you. All three of you.”
When Rafiq’s left, I say, “I’ll go into town tomorrow.”
“I’m not sure how wise that’d be now,” says Mo.
“I need to speak with Dr. Kumar about insulin.”
Mo sips her tea. “How much do you have?”
“Six weeks’ worth.” Lorelei keeps her voice down. “One more insulin pump, and three packets of catheter nozzles.”
Mo asks, “How much does Dr. Kumar have?”
“That’s what I want to ask.” I scratch an insect bite on my hand. “Yesterday’s convoy brought nothing, and after today … I don’t think there’ll be anymore. We have water, maybe we’ll be okay for food and security if we can act like a socialist Utopia, but you can’t synthesize insulin without a well-equipped laboratory.”
Mo asks, “Has Rafiq raised the subject?”
“No, but he’s a bright kid. He knows.”
Through the side window, a screen of late afternoon sunlight is projected onto the wall. Shadows of birds flit across it.
Some shadows are sharp, some shadows are blurry.
I’ve seen them before in another time and place.
“Gran?” Lorelei’s waiting for my answer to a question.
“Sorry, love. I was just … What were you saying?”
THE RADIO’S STILL dead. Mo asks Lorelei if she’s up to playing a tune on the fiddle after a day like that. My granddaughter chooses “She Moved Through the Fair.” I wash the sea spinach while Mo guts the fish. We’ll fry the puffball in butter at the last minute. If I was younger I’d be in town helping with the grisly business, but I wouldn’t be much use there at my age, digging graves for makeshift coffins. Father Brady’ll be busy. Probably he’s claiming the salvation of Kilcrannog was a case of divine intervention. Lorelei plays the ghostly refrain beautifully. She inherited her dad’s musical flair as well as his fiddle, and if she’d belonged to my or Aoife’s generation she might’ve thought about a musical career, but I’m afraid music will be one more nonsurvival pursuit that the Endarkenment snuffs out.
Rafiq makes us all jump as he barges open the door; something’s wrong. “Rafiq,” says Mo, “what on earth’s the matter?”
He’s panting for breath. My first thought is diabetes, but he’s pointing back down to the bay. “There!”
Lorelei stops playing. “Deep breaths, Raf—what is it?”
“A ship,” Rafiq gasps, “a boat, and men, and they’ve got guns, and were coming closer, and they spoke to me through a big cone thing. But I didn’t know what to say. ’Cause of—of what happened today.”
Mo, Lorelei, and me look at each other, confused.
“You’re not making a whole lot of sense,” I say. “Ship?”
“That!” He points out at the bay. I can’t see, but Lorelei goes over, looks out, and says, “Jesus.” At her astonishment I hurry over, and Mo hobbles behind. At first I see only the bluish, grayish waters of the bay, but then see dots of yellow light, maybe three hundred meters out. “A patrol boat,” says Mo, at my side. “Can anyone see a flag on it?”
“No,” says Rafiq, “but they launched a littler boat and it moved dead fast, straight towards the pier. There’s men in it. When it was near one of the men spoke through this cone thing that made his voice louder, like this.” Rafiq mimes a megaphone.
“In English?” asks Mo, just as Lorelei asks, “What did he say?”
“Yeah,” replies Rafiq. “He asked, ‘Does Holly Sykes live here?’ ”
Mo and Lorelei look at me; I look at Rafiq. “Are you sure?”
Rafiq nods. “I thought I’d heard it wrong, but he said it again. I just sort of froze, and then,” Rafiq looks at Lorelei, “he asked if you live here. He knew your full name. Lorelei ?rvarsdottir.”
Lorelei sort of clutches at herself and looks at me.
Mo asks, “Could you see if they were foreign?”
“No, they had combat goggles. But he didn’t sound very Irish.”
The patrol boat sits there. It’s big, with a tower and globes and big twin guns at each end. Can’t remember when I last saw a steel hull in the bay. “Might it be British?” suggests Mo.
I don’t know. “I heard the last six Royal Navy vessels were rusting in the Medway, waiting for fuel that never arrived. Anyway, don’t British ships always fly the Union Jack?”
“The Chinese or Russians would have the fuel,” says Lorelei.
“But what would the Chinese or Russians want with us?”
“More raiders,” Lorelei wonders, “after our solar panels?”
“Look at the size of the ship,” says Mo. “She must be displacing three, four thousand tons? Think of the diesel it cost to get here. This isn’t about swiping a few secondhand solar panels.”
“Can you see the launch?” I ask the kids. “The motorboat?”
After a moment, Lorelei says, “No sign of it.”
“It could be behind the pier,” says Rafiq, edgily. At this point Zimbra pushes through between my calf and the door frame and growls at the lumpy denseness in the hawthorn by our gate. The wind brushes the long grass, gulls cry, and the shadows are sharp and long.
They’re here. I know. “Raf, Lol,” I murmur, “up to the attic.”
Both of them start to object, but I cut them off: “Please.”
“Don’t be alarmed,” says a soldier at the gate, and all four of us jump. His camo armor, an ergohelmet, and an augvisor conceal his face and age and give him an insectoid look. My heartbeat’s gone walloping off. “We’re friendlier than your earlier visitors today.”
It’s Mo who collects her wits first. “Who are you?”
“Commander Aronsson of the Icelandic Marines, that ship is the ICGV Sjálfst?ei.” The officer’s voice has a military crispness, and when he turns to his left, the bulletproof visor reflects the low sun. “This is Lieutenant Eriksdottir.” He indicates a slighter figure, a woman, also watching us through an augvisor. She nods by way of hello. “Last, we have ‘Mr.’ Harry Veracruz, a presidential adviser who is joining us on our mission.”
A third man steps into view, dressed like a pre-Endarkenment birdwatcher in a fisherman’s sweater and an all-weather jacket, unzipped. He’s young, hardly into his twenties, and has somewhat African lips, sort of East Asian eyes, Caucasianish skin, and sleek black hair, like a Native American in an old film. “Afternoon,” he tells me, in a soft anywhere-voice. “Or have we crossed the boundary to evening?”
I’m flustered. “I … uh, don’t know. It’s, um …”
“I’m Professor Mo Muntervary, formerly of MIT,” says my neighbor, crisply. “How can we help you, Commander Aronsson?”
The commander flips up his augvisor so we can see his classically Nordic, square-jawed chin. He’s thirtyish, squinting now in the direct light. Zimbra gives a couple of gruff barks. “First, please calm down your dog. I do not want him to hurt his teeth on our body armor.”
“Zimbra,” I tell him. “Inside. Zimbra!” Like a sulky teenager, he obeys, though once inside he peers out between my shins.
Lieutenant Eriksdottir pushes back her augvisor too. She’s midtwenties and intensely freckled; her Scandinavian accent is stronger and ess-ier. “You are Holly Sykes, I think?”
I’d rather find out what they want before telling them that, but Mr. Harry Veracruz says, with an odd smile, “She certainly is.”
“Then you are the legal guardian,” continues Lieutenant Eriksdottir, “of Lorelei ?rvarsdottir, an Icelandic citizen.”
“That’s me,” says Lorelei. “My dad was from Akureyri.”
“Akureyri is my hometown also,” says Commander Aronsson. “It’s a small place, so I know ?rvar Benediktsson’s people. Your father was also”—he glances Mo’s way—“a famous scientist in his field.”
I feel defensive. “What do you want with Lorelei?”
“Our president,” says the commander, “has ordered us to locate and offer to repatriate Miss ?rvarsdottir. So, we are here.”
A bat tumbles through the dark and bright bands of the garden.
My first thought is, Thank Christ, she’s saved.
My second thought is, I can’t lose my granddaughter.
My third thought is, Thank Christ, she’s saved.
The hens peck, cluck, and goggle around their coop, and the brittle, muddy garden swishes in the evening wind. “Magno,” declares Rafiq. “Lol, that massive ship sailed here from Iceland just for you!”
“But what about my family?” I hear Lorelei saying.
“Permission to immigrate is for Miss ?rvarsdottir,” Aronsson addresses me, “only. That is not negotiable. Quotas are strict.”
“How can I leave my family behind?” Lorelei’s saying.
“It is difficult,” Lieutenant Eriksdottir tells her. “But please consider it, Lorelei. The Lease Lands have been safe, but those days are over, as you learned today. There is a broken nuclear reactor not far enough away, if the wind blows wrongly. Iceland is safe. This is why the immigration quota is so strict. We have geothermal electricity and your uncle Halgrid’s family will care for you.”
I remember ?rvar’s older brother from my summer in Reykjavik. “Halgrid’s still alive?”
“Of course. Our isolation saves us from the worst”—Commander Aronsson searches for the word—“hardships of the Endarkenment.”
“There must be a lot of Icelandic nationals around the globe,” says Mo, “praying for a deus ex machina to sail up to the bottom of the garden. Why Lorelei? And why such a timely arrival?”
“Ten days ago we learned that the Pearl Occident Company was planning to withdraw from Ireland,” says the commander. “At that point, one of the president’s advisers,” Aronsson looks sideways at Harry Veracruz with something like a scowl, “persuaded our president that your granddaughter’s repatriation is a matter of national importance.”
So we look at Harry Veracruz, who must be more influential than he appears. He’s leaning on the gate like a neighbor who’s dropped by for a chat, making a what-can-I-say face. He tells me in his young voice: “Normally I’d try to prepare the ground better, Holly, but this time I lacked the opportunity. To cut a long story short, I’m Marinus.”
I’m sort of floating up, as if lifted by waves; my hands grasp the nearest things, which are the door frame and Lorelei’s elbow. I hear a sound, like the pages of a very thick book being flicked, but it’s only the wind in the shrubberies. The doctor in Gravesend; the psychiatrist in Manhattan; the voice in my head in the labyrinth that couldn’t exist, but did; and this young man watching me, from ten paces away.
Wait. How do I know? Sure Harry Veracruz looks honest, but so do all successful liars. Then I hear his voice in my head: Jacko’s labyrinth, the domed chamber, the bird shadows, the golden apple. His gaze is level and knowing. I look at the others. Nobody else heard. It’s me, Holly. Truly. Sorry for this extra shock. I know you’re having a hell of day here.
“Gran?” Lorelei sounds panicky. “You want to sit down?”
A mistlethrush is singing on my spade in the kale patch.
With effort, I shake my head. “No, I …” Then I ask him, in a croak, “Where have you been? I thought you were dead.”
Marinus—I remember the verb—“subspeaks.” Long story. The golden apple was a one-soul escape pod, so I had to find another route and another host. It proved to be circuitous. Eight years passed here before I was resurrected in an eight-year-old in an orphanage in Cuba, neatly coinciding with the 2031 quarantine. It was 2035 before I could get off the island, when this self was ten. When finally I reached Manhattan the place was half feralized, 119A was deserted, and it took three more years to connect with the remnants of Horology. Then the Net crashes happened and tracing you became nigh-on impossible.
“What about the War?” I ask. “Did you—did we—win?”
The young man’s smile is ambivalent. Yes. One could say we won. The Anchorites no longer exist. Hugo Lamb helped me escape the Dusk, in fact, though what fate befell him I do not know. His psychodecanting days are over and his body will be middle-aged, if indeed he has survived this long.
“Holly?” Mo’s got an is-she-losing-her-marbles face. “What war?”
“This is an old friend,” I reply, “from … my, uh, author days.”
For some reason, Mo looks more worried, not less.
“The son of an old friend, Holly means, of course,” says Marinus. “My mother was a psychiatrist colleague of Holly’s, back in the day.”
Commander Aronsson receives a luckily timed message and turns away, speaking Icelandic into his headset. He checks his watch, signs off, then turns back to us: “The captain of the Sjálfst?ei wants to depart in forty-five minutes. Not long for a big decision, Lorelei, but we do not wish to attract attention. Please. Discuss matters with your family. We”—he glances at Lieutenant Eriksdottir—“will check you are not disturbed.”
Voles, hens, sparrows, a dog. A garden’s full of eyes.
“You’d better come in,” I tell Harry Marinus Veracruz.
The gate squeaks as he opens it. He crosses the yard. How do you greet a resurrected Atemporal you’ve not seen for twenty years? Hug? A double-sided cheek kiss? Harry Veracruz smiles and the Marinus within subsays, Weird, I know. Welcome to my world. Or welcome back to it, albeit briefly. I stand aside to let him into the cottage, and something occurs to me. “Commander Aronsson? I have one question for you.”
“Ask it,” says Commander Aronsson.
“D’you still have insulin in Iceland?”
The man frowns, but Marinus calls over his shoulder: “It’s the same in Icelandic, Commander. Insúlín. The drug for diabetes.”
“Ah.” The officer nods. “Yes, we manufacture this drug at a new unit, near the airbase at Keflavík. Two or three thousand of our citizens require it, including our minister of defense. Why do you ask? Does your granddaughter have diabetes?”
“No,” I reply. “I was just curious.”
BACK IN OUR kitchen, I put on the solar lamp. It flickers like a candle. Dinner is almost ready, but suddenly none of us is hungry. “Gran,” says Lorelei. “I can’t go to Iceland.”
This’ll be one of the hardest sells of my life.
“You’ve got to, Lol!” says Rafiq, and I bless him. “You’ll have a good life there. Won’t she, Mr. Vera—Verac—”
Marinus is already peering at the books on the shelves. “Those whom I respect I ask to call me ‘Marinus,’ Rafiq, and, yes, your sister will enjoy an incomparably better-nourished, better-educated, and safer life than on Sheep’s Head. As today has proven, I believe.”
“Then, Lol,” Rafiq says for me, “that ship’s your lifeboat.”
“A one-way lifeboat,” Lorelei asks Marinus. “Right?”
The young man frowns. “Lifeboats don’t do return tickets.”
“Then I’m not going to sail off and leave you all here.” Lorelei sounds so like Aoife when she’s making a stand, it wakes up my old grief. “If you were in my shoes, Raf, you wouldn’t go.”
Rafiq takes a deep breath. “If you were in my shoes, you’d be diabetic in a country without insulin. Think about it.”
Lorelei looks away miserably and says nothing.
“I have a question,” Mo says, lowering herself onto a chair at the kitchen table and hooking her stick over its edge. “Three, in fact. Holly knew your mother, Mr. Marinus, which is all well and good, but why should she trust you to do the right thing by Lorelei?”
Marinus puts his hands into his pockets and rocks on his heels, like a young man with supple joints. “Professor, I can’t prove to you that I’m the trustworthy, honorable human being that I claim to be, not in forty minutes. I can only refer you to Holly Sykes.”
“It’s a long, long story,” I tell Mo, “but Marinus—or his mother, I mean, it’s complicated, she saved my life.”
“There’s a Marinus in The Radio People,” says Mo, the careful and retentive reader, “who plays quite a major role. The doctor in Gravesend.” Mo looks at me. “Any relative?”
“Yes,” I admit, badly not wanting to get into Atemporals now.
“That Dr. Marinus was my grandfather,” Marinus only sort of lies, “on my Chinese side. But Holly did a great service to my mother, Iris, and her friends back in the twenties. Which may preempt another of your questions, Professor. I owe Holly Sykes a debt of honor, and giving her granddaughter the chance of a pre-Endarkenment life is one way to repay it.”
Mo nods at Marinus’s correct guess. “And you’re so up to speed with current events on Sheep’s Head because?”
“We hack into spy satellites.”
Mo nods coolly, but the scientist within inquires: “Whose?”
“The Chinese array is the best, and the Russian satellites work well in clear conditions, but we stream our images from the last functioning American Eyesat. The Pentagon’s given up on security.”
Rafiq’s incredulous. “You can see what’s going on on Sheep’s Head, from space? That’s like … being God. That’s like magic.”
“It’s neither.” Marinus smiles at the boy. “It’s technology. I saw the fox attack on your chickens, the other night, and you,” he fondles the ears of Zimbra, who clearly trusts this stranger, “you killer.” He looks at me. “Some months ago L’Ohkna, our IT specialist, detected a tab signal from this area that corresponded to recordings of your voice, Holly, and of course I remembered that you’d retired here, but a chain of crises in Newfoundland distracted us. After the Hinkley Point reactor went critical, though, and we learned about the POC’s withdrawal, I acted with greater urgency, and here we are.” Lorelei’s fiddle catches Marinus’s eye. “Who is the musician?”
“I play a bit,” says Lorelei. “It was Dad’s.”
Marinus picks it up and examines it, like an instrument maker, which for all I know he once was. “Beautiful lines.”
I ask, “What are you doing in Iceland, Marinus?” My feet are hurting too, so I join Mo at the table.
“We operate a think tank. L’Ohkna named it—modestly—‘Prescience’ before I arrived. Roho, who kept an eye on Aoife during your Manhattan week twenty years ago, is with us, plus a handful of others. We have to be more interventionist politically than—than my mother used to be. By and large, the president values our advice, even if we occasionally put the military’s nose a little out of joint.” Marinus plucks the strings on Lorelei’s fiddle, one by one, testing its tone. “Only thirty minutes to settle Lorelei’s future, Holly.”
“It’s already settled,” my granddaughter declares. “I can’t leave Gran and Raf. Or Mo.”
“A noble and worthy response, Lorelei. May I play a few bars?”
Taken a bit aback, Lorelei says, “Sure.”
Marinus takes up the bow, puts the fiddle under his chin, and skims through a few bars of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” “Warm tone. Is the E-string a little … flat? Holly, a possibility is occurring to you.”
I’d forgotten how Marinus knows, or half knows, what you’re thinking. “If Lorelei left with you—if, Lol—she really would be safer?”
“Indubitably, yes.”
“So that ship in the bay is a lifeboat to civilization?”
“Metaphorically, yes.”
“Commander Aronsson said only Lorelei can go?”
“Technically, yes.”
“Could you turn that one space to two spaces? Using your … y’know …” I do a spell-casting gesture with my hands.
Marinus resembles a lawyer whose line of questioning is proceeding as planned. “Well, now. I’d need to enforce a powerful Act of Suasion on the commander and the lieutenant outside, as they wait; then, as the launch approached the Sjálfst?ei, I’d need to transverse to the captain and the first mate and enforce the same act upon them, to ensure poor Rafiq wasn’t returned to shore immediately. Then, during the voyage north, I’d have to renew the Act of Suasion continuously until we were past the point of no return, when all the protagonists would be wondering what had got into them. I won’t lie: It would be a tall, tall order. Only a truly adept follower of the Deep Stream could pull off a trick like that …”
I feel mild annoyance, gratitude, and hope. “You can do it, then?”
Marinus puts down the fiddle. “Yes, but only for Lorelei and Rafiq. Many of the Sjálfst?ei’s crew members have children of their own, so they’ll be unconsciously sympathetic, and much easier to keep suasioned. Perhaps Xi Lo or Esther Little could have squeezed you and the professor aboard, but I know my limits, Holly. If I tried it would all come tumbling down. I’m sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter. In Reykjavik, can Lol and Raf stay together?”
“We’ll find a way.” Marinus’s young eyes are big, gray, and as truthful as Iris Fenby’s. “They can stay with me. We’re housed in the old French consulate. It’s roomy.” He tells Lorelei and Rafiq, “Don’t panic. I’m a more experienced guardian than I look.”
The clock ticks. We have only twenty-five minutes now.
“I don’t quite understand, Holly,” says Raf.
“One moment, love. Lol, if you go, Raf can go with you, up to the land of insulin. If you don’t go, sooner or later there’ll be a medical emergency and … nothing to treat him with. Please. Go.”
Upstairs a door bangs shut. The evening sunlight’s a mandarin color. Lorelei’s on the edge of tears, and if she starts, there’ll be no stopping me. “Who’d look after you?”
“I’ll look after her!” Mo acts grumpy to stop Lorelei crumpling.
“And the O’Dalys,” I tell her, “the Walshes and the all-new, fortified Sheep’s Head Republic. I’ll get myself elected Minister for Seaweed, so they’ll give me a guard of honor.” Lorelei’s face is unbearable so I look away at the smiling, fading dead, watching me from the mantelpiece from safer worlds, from beyond wooden, plastic, and mother-of-pearl frames. I stand, and press both kids’ heads against my old, aching sides and kiss the tops of their heads. “I promised your mum and dad, Lol, that I’d look after you, and I promised you the same, Raf. Getting you two on that boat, that’s keeping my promise. Nothing will give me more peace or—or,” I swallow, “joy, than knowing you two are safe from all of—all of,” I sweep my hand in the direction of the town, “oh, what happened today. What’s to come. Please. My two treasures. Give me this. If you—” No. If you love me sounds like blackmail. “Because you love me,” my throat’s so tight I can hardly say the word, “go.”
OUR LAST MINUTES together were rushed and blurred. Lorelei and Rafiq hurried upstairs to pack for the two-day voyage. Marinus said they’d go shopping in Reykjavik for warmer clothes, as if shops are the most natural thing in the world. I still dream of shops: Harrods in London, Brown Thomas in Cork, even the big Supervalu in Clonakilty. While the kids were still upstairs, Marinus sat in Eilísh’s chair, shut his eyes, and Harry Veracruz’s body and face went still and vacant, while my psychosoteric friend’s soul went outside to implant a strong, false, urgent memory in the minds of the two officers. Mo watched, fascinated, muttering only that I’d have a lot of explaining to do later. Moments later, Marinus’s soul was back in Harry Veracruz’s skull and the two Icelandic officers appeared, saying that the captain had just that minute told them the president was extending his offer of asylum to Lorelei ?rvarsdottir’s foster brother, Rafiq Bayati. Both appeared just a trifle dazed as they spoke, like drunk people trying their best to act sober. Harry Veracruz thanked Commander Aronsson and confirmed that both youngsters would be taking up the president’s offer—and would he kindly have the sea chest sent up from the launch at the pier? The officers went and Mo said that she could think of three laws of physics that Marinus had apparently broken but, given time, she was confident of coming up with a few more.
Soon after, two marines arrived with a carbon-fiber trunk. Marinus unpacked it in my kitchen, taking out ten large sealed containers, each with eighty vacuum-packed tubes of powder inside. “Concentrated field rations,” Marinus said. “Each tube has fifteen hundred calories, plus nutrients and vitamins. Mix with water for supergoo. I’m afraid the only flavor the depot had in stock was Hawaiian pizza, but if you can ignore the pineapple and cheese, they’ll last the two of you nearly three years. Better yet …” He took out a pack of four sheathed tabs and handed me one, explaining they were ethered to one another, so they wouldn’t need the Net to thread a connection. “One for you, me, Lorelei, and Rafiq. Not the same as having them in your kitchen, of course, but this way they’re not gone from your life once we round the headland. They’re powered bioelectrically just by holding them, too, so they’ll function without solar panels.”
Rafiq’s head appeared between the banisters. “ ’Scuse me, Mr. Marinus? Do you have toothbrushes in Iceland?”
“A lifetime’s supply. Dentists, too. And it’s just ‘Marinus.’ ”
“Cool. Okay. Holly, what’s a dentist again?”