Free Kethani by Eric Brown Page A

moor, on the opposite side of the village to my father’s cottage where I lived. Inside it was luxurious: deep pile carpets, a lot of low beams and brass. The spacious kitchen was heated by an Aga.
    I stood on the doormat, conscious of my boots.
    “Just wipe them and come on in,” she said, laughing. “I’m not house-proud, unlike my mother.”
    I sat at the kitchen table and glanced through the door to a room full of books. I pointed. “Like reading?”
    “I love books,” she said, handing me a big mug of real coffee. “I teach English, and the miracle is that it hasn’t put me off reading. You?” She leaned against the Aga, holding her cup in both hands.
    We talked about books for a while, and I think she was surprised at my knowledge.
    Once I saw her glance at my left temple, where the implant should have been. I felt that she wanted to comment, to question me, but couldn’t find a polite way of going about it.
    The more I looked at her, and the more we talked, the more I realised that I found her attractive. She was short, and a little overweight, and her hair was greying, but her smile filled me with joy.
    Romantic and inexperienced as I was, I extrapolated fantasies from this meeting, mapped the future.
    “How often do you visit your mother?” I asked, to fill a conversational lull.
    “Four times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.”
    I hesitated. “How long has she been ill?”
    She blew. “Oh... when has she ever been well! She had her first stroke around ten years ago, not long after we moved here. I’ve been working part-time and looking after her ever since. She’s averaged about... oh, a stroke every three years since. The doctors say it’s a miracle she’s still with us.”
    She hesitated, then said, “Then the Kéthani came, and offered us the implants... and I thought all my prayers had been answered.”
    I avoided her eyes.
    Elisabeth stared into her cup. “She was a very intelligent woman, a member of the old Labour Party before the Blair sell-out. She knew her mind. She wanted nothing to do with afterlife, as she called it.”
    “She was suspicious of the Kéthani?”
    “A little, I suppose. Weren’t we all, in the beginning? But it was more than that. I think she foresaw humanity becoming complacent, apathetic with this life when the stars beckoned.”
    “Some people would say she was right.”
    A silence developed. She stared at me. “Is that the reason you...?”
    There were as many reasons for not having the implant, I was sure, as there were individuals who had decided to go without. Religious, philosophical, moral... I gave Elisabeth a version of the truth.
    Not looking her in the eye, but staring into my empty cup, I said, “I decided not to have the implant, at first, because I was suspicious. I thought I’d wait; see how it went with everyone who did have it. A few years passed... It seemed fine. The returnees came back fitter, healthier, younger. Those that went among the stars later, they recounted their experiences. It was as the Kéthani said. We had nothing to fear.” I looked up quickly to see how she was taking it.
    She was squinting at me. She shrugged. “So, why didn’t you...?”
    “By that time,” I said, “I’d come to realise something. Living on the edge of death, staring it in the face, made life all the more worth living. I’d be alone, on some outlying farm somewhere, and I’d be at one with the elements... and, I don’t know, I came to appreciate being alive.”
    Bullshit, I thought. It was the line I’d used many a time in the past, and though it contained an element of truth, it was not the real reason.
    Elisabeth was intelligent; I think she saw through my words, realised that I was hiding something, and I must admit that I felt guilty about lying to her.
    I thanked her for the coffee and made to leave.
    “How much for the work?” she said, gesturing through the window at the repaired wall.
    I hesitated. I almost asked her if