Kethani Read Online Free PDF Page A

sun.
    He visited the Station perhaps four or five times a week, and never failed to stare in awe— struck not only by the structure’s ethereal architecture, but by what it meant for the future of humankind.
    He braked in the car park alongside the vehicles of the dozen other ferrymen on duty today. He climbed out and pulled the polycarbon container from the back of the Range Rover, the collapsible chromium trolley taking its weight. His breath pluming before him in the ice-cold air, he hurried towards the entrance set into the sloping walls.
    The interior design of the Station was arctic in its antiseptic inhospitality, the corridors shining with sourceless, polar light. As he manoeuvred the trolley down the seemingly endless corridors, he felt as ever that he was, truly, trespassing on territory forever alien.
    He arrived at the preparation room and eased the container onto the circular reception table, opening the lid. The farmer lay unmoving, maintained by the host of alien nanomechs that later, augmented by others more powerful, would begin the resurrection process. They would not only restore him to life, strip away the years, but make him fit and strong again; the man who returned to Earth in six months would be physically in his thirties, but effectively immortal.
    In this room, Lincoln never ceased to be overcome by the wonder, as might a believer at the altar of some mighty cathedral.
    He backed out, pulling the trolley after him, and retraced his steps. To either side of the foyer, cleaners vacuumed carpets and arranged sprays of flowers in the greeting rooms, ready to receive the day’s returnees, their relatives and loved ones.
    He emerged into the ice-cold dawn and hurried across to the Range Rover. On the road that climbed the hill behind the Station, he braked and sat for ten minutes staring down at the diaphanous structure.
    Every day a dozen bodies were beamed from this Station to the starship in geo-sync orbit, pulses of energy invisible during the daylight hours. At night the pulses were blinding columns of white lightning, illuminating the land for miles around.
    Lincoln looked up, into the rapidly fading darkness. A few bright stars still glimmered, stars that for so long had been mysterious and unattainable—but which now, hard though it was sometimes to believe, had been thrown open to humankind by the beneficence of beings still mistrusted by many, but accepted by others as saviours.
    And why had the Kéthani made their offer to humankind?
    There were millions upon millions of galaxies out there, the aliens said, billions of solar systems, and countless, literally countless, planets that sustained life of various kinds. Explorers were needed, envoys and ambassadors, to discover new life, and make contact, and spread the greetings of the civilised universe far and wide.
    Lincoln stared up at the fading stars and thought what a wondrous fact, what a miracle; he considered the new worlds out there, waiting to be discovered, strange planets and civilisations, and it was almost too much to comprehend that, when he died and was reborn, he too would venture out on that greatest diaspora of all.

    He drove home slowly, tired after the exertions of the night. Only when he turned down the cart track, and saw the white Fiat parked outside the cottage, was he reminded of his daughter.
    He told himself that he would make an effort today. He would not reprimand her for saying nothing about Barbara’s illness, wouldn’t even question her. God knows, he had never done anything in the past to earn her trust and affection. It was perfectly understandable that she had complied with her mother’s last wishes.
    Still, despite his resolve, he felt a slow fuse of anger burning within him as he climbed from the Range Rover and let himself into the house.
    He moved to the kitchen to make himself a coffee, and as he was crossing the hall he noticed that Susanne’s coat was missing from the stand, and likewise her boots