Medd arrived, finally, two hours late. He was not apologetic.

"You wished," he said, sulkily, "to speak to me, Patriarchus?"

"Yes, grandson," said the Patriarchus. "Come inside, please."

As they stepped through into the cool hallway, Medd said, "You will try to persuade me of the necessity of marrying Rhess. But I do not love her. Nothing you can say will change that."

"I think I understand," said the Patriarchus, "the nature of your feelings for poor Rhess. You have cut her deep, you know; cut her to the heart, with your rejection. Don't you think she loves you?"

Medd had never considered the question from this perspective. He followed the Patriarchus through to the sitting room, and took a chair. "I do not know," he said.

"There are many things you do not know," said the Patriarchus. "Things that I do know, by virtue of my position here as the Patriarchus. Shall we talk of them?"

It was on Medd's tongue to say I do not love her! again, but he checked himself. "You mean, not talk of Rhess?"

"Talk of the Unique," said the Patriarchus. "Are you not curious?"

Of course Medd was curious.

THEY DRANK YELLOW tea together and for a while sat in silence. Shortly the Patriarchus sat forward in his chair. "Have you thought much of the Unique?" he asked.

"Patriarchus," replied Medd. "A little. I have, a little."

"Of course you have. And what do you think will happen when she, or he, is born?"

Medd shrugged. "Miracles?" he hazarded.

"Grace," said Patriarchus.

"Of course, grace," said Medd. "We learnt all about that in kindergarten."

"All about it?" said Patriarchus. "I doubt that."

The room was long and narrow, with tall spire-shaped windows along one of the walls. A low table filled the s.p.a.ce between the chairs of the Patriarchus and Medd.

"I don't know," said Medd. "When the Unique is born-will the whole world shine with light, the glory revealed? Will the congregation of the blessed be able to fly through the sky? I don't know."

"Something very powerful will happen," said Patriarchus. "Twelve holy generations distilled down to a single person. The birth of this single person, the sum of these devout generations of ancestors, will be a powerful event. You know this to be true."

Medd said nothing. He stared at the floor.

"It is because the Unique is so powerful a prospect," the Patriarchus continued, "that you take a private joy in threatening to block it. For, without your marriage to Rhess and the begetting of your child, the Unique cannot be born. It flatters your pride to think that you can say yes or no to this thing."

"I do not-" Medd started sulkily.

"-love her, I know," the Patriarchus said. "Let us not talk of that. Let us talk of grace. What do you know of grace?"

Medd opened his mouth, and looked up quickly, ready with some sharp reply. But the words died on his tongue. "I know a little, Patriarchus," he said, humbly.

"Grace is what the Unique will be," said Patriarchus. "It is what the birth of the Unique will signify. A nova of grace. And do you think that grace travels through s.p.a.ce according to the logic of Einstein's constraints? Do you think that grace is something like light, or gravity, or radio waves, to pa.s.s only slowly through s.p.a.ce? No. Grace pa.s.ses instantly-spreads at once through the whole cosmos, spreading out from this person, at this time. Shad, bless his memory, teaches us so. Grace is part of G.o.d, and surpa.s.ses the physical laws of the cosmos. Grace is miraculous and instantaneous."

Somebody pa.s.sed by outside one of the windows, and Medd looked up. But, whoever they were, they had pa.s.sed on.

"But," the Patriarchus continued, "we still live in the Einsteinian universe. Grace may transcend that, but matter cannot, and you and I are matter as well as soul. We cannot travel faster than light, except through the Gateways. And travel through the Gateways is not instantaneous-harmonic multiples of light speed. We cannot accelerate faster than light in the s.p.a.ce of this cosmos, and we cannot travel instantaneously. Do you know why?"

"It is simply how things are," suggested Medd.

"True. But another way of saying so is that to travel instantaneously would violate cause and effect. We would arrive before we set off-because that is what time is, that ordering of cause and effect. That is why the Einsteinian constant exists, to preserve that, to preserve those things, cause, effect, happening in that order-"

Medd broke in. "But I do not love her," he said.

The Patriarchus twitched his nose, like a rabbit, perhaps in annoyance at the interruption. "To travel," he continued, undistracted, "instantly in our s.p.a.ce would be to travel back in time. Back," he added, holding up his forefinger, "in time."

"I am not talking of time," said Medd. "I am talking of love-"

"To travel five light years instantly would be to arrive five years in the past."

"Patriarchus," said Medd. "I appreciate your kindness in speaking to me-in explaining this to me-but-"

The Patriarchus's finger was still raised. "To travel a thousand light years in an instant would be to travel back a thousand years in time. To see a star a thousand light years distant is to see it as it was a millennium ago. And so you can see how grace, emanating from the Unique, will pa.s.s back through time as it pa.s.ses through s.p.a.ce. And to what end will it travel, forward in s.p.a.ce, backward in time? And to what end?"

But Medd didn't care to what end. He spoke his talismanic words, the words that distilled his own will to refuse. "I do not love her."

He rose to go. And suddenly the walls seemed to spring at him from three sides, rubbery membranes cast from apertures in the walls and trapping him in a muscular web. He tumbled to the floor, wrapped tightly. "Patri-" he cried, suddenly very afraid.

The Patriarchus had not moved from his chair, and looked down at the wriggling bundle at his feet. "You do not love Rhess," he said.

Medd struggled, but the membrane only tightened around him. It filtered light poorly, pinkly, and he couldn't make out the Patriarchus's form. Suddenly hands grabbed him on two sides, and he was lifted. m.u.f.fled, the Patriarchus's voice came again.

"But we do not need your love," he said. "We only need your sperm, and that is easily harvested. Rhess will give birth to your child."

"Patriarchus!" Medd called, chokingly. "Pa.,.! Pa...!"

"When so much hangs in the balance?" said the Patriarchus. "So much-should we allow your teenage emotional vagaries to interfere with the plan? With Shad's divine plan?"

Medd felt himself carried, b.u.mpily, and deposited on some surface. The Patriarchus's voice accompanied him.

"You know how far this world is from Earth. Did you think it was a coincidence that Shad, bless his memory, brought us to this world, of all worlds? That G.o.d provided this planet at exactly two thousand seven hundred and seventeen light-years from Earth? Can't you guess when the Unique will be born? Can't you see how far back in time his grace will pa.s.s? And only think of the events it will make blossom as it pa.s.ses instantly past innumerable worlds! The mystery of it, the necessity of it, the beautiful strangeness of it. Understand the universal significance of the effect it will have upon one particular fetus on one particular planet, on the home world, a long time past!" the Patriarchus chuckled. It was difficult for Medd to hear through the constricting material of the membrane that wrapped him. "When you understand the final purpose of Shad's plan," the Patriarchus continued, "perhaps then you can see how foolish it is to set your glandular vagueness against such a plan-such a cosmic plan. Can you see? What can your desires, or even your life, weigh in the balance against such an outcome?"

Medd felt something sharp cut through the membrane and press against his groin. "I'm sorry," said the Patriarchus again. "This isn't what I want. This is necessity."

"I HAVE BEEN worrying, lately," said the Patriarchus. "About one aspect of the teaching."

"At your age too!" said the Episcopus, mildly. "Don't you find yourself surpa.s.sing worry as you get older? Shad, bless his memory, has provided for everything. I find that a comforting thought."

The Patriarchus and the Episcopus were sitting on the broad patio of the Patriarchus's house, with a view down over gardens and fields all the way to the plum-tinted mountains on the horizon. The white moon shone like a second sun as the evening grew. Their table was laid with gla.s.ses of wine-lees tea, and dozens of tiny baked m.u.f.fins no bigger than thumbnails.

"Shad," said the Patriarchus, eventually, "bless his memory," and he paused. Then he looked at the sky, and spoke carefully. "Shad wrote that the creation of the Unique would sum all the genetic qualities of the twenty-forty-eight holy people who settled this world."

''Genetic qualities," agreed the Episcopus.

"And if," the Patriarchus went on, cautiously, "instead of merely genetic qualities-what if the Unique is the sum of all qualities? Of every action and thought of all of the people who have ever lived on this world?"

The Episcopus grunted as he lifted his tea-gla.s.s, which might have been a confirmation or a reb.u.t.tal.

"Such seems to me," the Patriarchus continued, "not only possible-but, since we are talking of the divine-it seems to me necessarily true. Don't you agree? A necessary function of divinity?"

"Necessary," said the Episcopus, "because we are talking of the divine?"

"Exactly. The divine is more than the genetic. Of course. Shad-"

"Bless his memory."

"-his memory-would have agreed with that, surely."

The Episcopus was silent for a while, watching the gathering sunset. "And then?"

"Well. I worry, perhaps, that all the thoughts and-actions-of all the people who have ever lived, or who live now, on this world will be distilled into the Unique. The bad as well as the good. The violent and death-dealing as well as the pure. And will this not flavor the grace that pa.s.ses out?"

"Perhaps so," said the Episcopus, after a long pause.

"And does that not worry you? So much violence, kneaded into the dough of this grace?"

"I find," said the Episcopus, eventually, "that, as I get older, I trust more and more to Shad. He knew how his plan would work out. He must have antic.i.p.ated the bad as well as the good. Both must be necessary. Perhaps a messiah must possess a will to destroy, as well as a will to love. Perhaps we need also a messiah with a whip. A messiah who is a torturer. Or perhaps your worries are misplaced. It is not I," he said, looking straight up at the evening sky, "not I who knows the answer to that."

Above them, an automated jet-plane left its trail on the zenith, like a white slit in the purple sky. Only very faintly, and seemingly not connected with its slow pa.s.sage, could the faint rumble of its scramjets be heard.

Last Contact.

Stephen Baxter.

March 15th.

CAITLIN WALKED INTO the garden through the little gate from the drive. Maureen was working on the lawn.

Just at that moment Maureen's phone pinged. She took off her gardening gloves, dug the phone out of the deep pocket of her old quilted coat and looked at the screen. "Another contact," she called to her daughter.

Caitlin looked cold in her thin jacket; she wrapped her arms around her body. "Another super-civilization discovered, off in s.p.a.ce. We live in strange times, Mum."

"That's the fifteenth this year. And I did my bit to help discover it. Good for me," Maureen said, smiling. "h.e.l.lo, love." She leaned forward for a kiss on the cheek.

She knew why Caitlin was here, of course. Caitlin had always hinted she would come and deliver the news about the Big Rip in person, one way or the other. Maureen guessed what that news was from her daughter's hollow, stressed eyes. But Caitlin was looking around the garden, and Maureen decided to let her tell it all in her own time.

She asked, "How're the kids?"

"Fine. At school. Bill's at home, baking bread." Caitlin smiled. "Why do stay-at-home fathers always bake bread? But he's starting at Webster's next month."

"That's the engineers in Oxford?"

"That's right. Not that it makes much difference now. We won't run out of money before, well, before it doesn't matter." Caitlin considered the garden. It was just a sc.r.a.p of lawn really, with a quite nicely stocked border, behind a cottage that was a little more than a hundred years old, in this village on the outskirts of Oxford. "It's the first time I've seen this properly."

"Well, it's the first bright day we've had. My first spring here." They walked around the lawn. "It's not bad. It's been let to run to seed a bit by Mrs. Murdoch. Who was another lonely old widow," Maureen said.

"You mustn't think like that."

"Well, it's true. This little house is fine for someone on their own, like me, or her. I suppose I'd pa.s.s it on to somebody else in the same boat, when I'm done."

Caitlin was silent at that, silent at the mention of the future.

Maureen showed her patches where the lawn had dried out last summer and would need reseeding. And there was a little bra.s.s plaque fixed to the wall of the house to show the level reached by the Thames floods of two years ago. "The lawn is all right. I do like this time of year when you sort of wake it up from the winter. The gra.s.s needs raking and scarifying, of course. I'll reseed bits of it, and see how it grows during the summer. I might think about getting some of it relaid. Now the weather's so different, the drainage might not be right anymore."

"You're enjoying getting back in the saddle, aren't you, Mum?"

Maureen shrugged. "Well, the last couple of years weren't much fun. Nursing your dad, and then getting rid of the house. It's nice to get this old thing back on again." She raised her arms and looked down at her quilted gardening coat.

Caitlin wrinkled her nose. "I always hated that stupid old coat. You really should get yourself something better, Mum. These modern fabrics are very good."

"This will see me out," Maureen said firmly.

They walked around the verge, looking at the plants, the weeds, the autumn leaves that hadn't been swept up and were now rotting in place.

Caitlin said, "I'm going to be on the radio later. BBC Radio 4. There's to be a government statement on the Rip, and I'll be in the follow-up discussion. It starts at nine, and I should be on about nine-thirty."

"I'll listen to it. Do you want me to tape it for you?"

"No. Bill will get it. Besides, you can listen to all these things on the websites these days."

Maureen said carefully, "I take it the news is what you expected, then."

"Pretty much. The Hawaii observatories confirmed it. I've seen the new Hubble images, deep sky fields. Empty, save for the foreground objects. All the galaxies beyond the local group have gone. Eerie, really, seeing your predictions come true like that. That's couch gra.s.s, isn't it?"

"Yes. I stuck a fork in it. Nothing but root ma.s.s underneath. It will be a devil to get up. I'll have a go, and then put down some bin liners for a few weeks, and see if that kills it off. Then there are these roses that should have been pruned by now. I think I'll plant some gladioli in this corner-"

"Mum, it's October." Caitlin blurted that out. She looked thin, pale, and tense, a real office worker, but then Maureen had always thought that about her daughter, that she worked too hard. Now she was thirty-five, and her moderately pretty face was lined at the eyes and around her mouth, the first wistful signs of age. "October 14th, at about four in the afternoon. I say 'about.' I could give you the time down to the attosecond if you wanted."

Maureen took her hands. "It's all right, love. It's about when you thought it would be, isn't it?"

"Not that it does us any good, knowing. There's nothing we can do about it."

They walked on. They came to a corner on the south side of the little garden. "This ought to catch the sun," Maureen said. "I'm thinking of putting in a seat here. A pergola maybe. Somewhere to sit. I'll see how the sun goes around later in the year."

"Dad would have liked a pergola," Caitlin said. "He always did say a garden was a place to sit in, not to work."