Some Day Days Page 6

A Tuesday, Early September, Edinburgh

  Moss messaged to give him a call when I had a minute, so at noon I picked up several egg rolls and found a park bench in the sun.

  ‘Hey Moss, what’s up?’

  ‘Hello, Gallagher. Did I dream this, or did you mention playing a mission agent in Terratana Worlds Online?’

  ‘Well, I may have.... but I’m trying to give it up. Part of getting serious about getting into grad school and all that...’

  ‘Never mind about that now. The term will start soon enough. Give it up then. You’re pretty good, right?’

  ‘Well, I’ve been playing it for, what, almost eight years now... I think I know my way around The Terratana.’

  ‘Don’t be coy, Gallagher. What do you do, how do you rate?’

  ‘Well, I’m a special mission agent of the Blue Tower – my home world in the local game – I have a 90A-SM skill rating in the online game, hold a master’s star pilot ticket and own a customized tramp, plus a stealth ship and several smaller specialized flyers...’

  ‘How did I know you were a hot ticket? Do you have your Daydreamer with you, or are you just writing physics and philosophy papers in your free time?’

  ‘Well, you know, three weeks living out of a hotel can be a bit of a drag, especially on weekends...’

  ‘So your game unit’s on the desk next to your bed.’

  ‘Aye. But just for the occasional quick break...’

  ‘Great. What do you say to a raid on the Lamp Black Stars this weekend?’

  ‘You’re crazy. Those guys play for keeps, I’d lose my ship and my avatar, my online loot and my rating. I’m neither that good nor that crazy.’

  ‘Come on Gallagher, there’ll be no star roving for you soon enough. What do you care? You’ll be all grown up by the time you can find the time to play again...’

  ‘True. But still, you’re crazy. I won’t even ask how good you are, Moss. You can’t be good enough. No, I’ve worked too hard – for the better part of my life – to lose The Desperate Lark in one reckless weekend... even if I intend to mothball it... Sorry.’

  ‘What if I tell you that I’m offering probationary membership in a group of twelve hard bitten Terratanians, all who rate as high or higher than you in their special fields and who’ve raided the Lamp Black Stars eight times already? The last time we netted enough Lamp Black loot to sell at the auctions worlds of Cromitara and Fallone for almost ￡1,000 real world money. So what do you say? The Society pays for repairs to ships and equipment out of the loot before we divvy it up... Besides, what we need is your agent skills, not your precious ship.’

  ‘You’re kidding. I’ve heard of these things before, but I’ve never done anything but ad hoc raids and such...’

  ‘This is the real goods, lad. It’ll be an all-night mission. We’ve booked a room at the college with the fastest connection you can get. You’d have to get yourself down here though – we need to operate in the same room – remote coordination has too much lag... Can you swing it? You’ll know some of the team already. It will be blast. Kate’s going up to London, so it will be liberty hall all weekend.’

  ‘I’m tempted. I’ve heard of this type of operation, but I really do need to work on my papers...’

  ‘The operation’s been in planning for a year. We need exactly twelve players to pull this off, and one of the Hunt is on his honeymoon, of all the irresponsible things to do! We can really use a player of your calibre, Gallagher. Don’t let us down...’

  ‘Well... I’ve kind’a promised myself...’

  ‘I understand, Gallagher. I know it doesn’t compare to spending a rainy weekend alone in an Edinburgh Hotel writing a research paper...’

  ‘I’ll be down Saturday morning...’

  ‘Great. The walls have ears, so I won’t go into details over the phone, but you won’t regret it... Get sharp, Gallagher – we need you in top form, so start getting in shape now. Get to know a standard OSY -5 (Orbiting Ship Yard) blindfolded... I’ll email you coordinates to meet my ship in the Cluster on Friday evening and I’ll lead you to the mission’s assembly point so we’ll be set to go Saturday. Needless to say, no hint of this to anyone, the Terratana Cluster is riddled with Lamp Black spies...’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘See you in the Cluster on Friday then. Let me know your train. Maybe we can do some biking. See you in person on Saturday!’

  I said goodbye. I took a bite of my egg roll and wondered just what the hell I had just volunteered for...

  Saturday, Cambridge

  At least I had an excuse to email Beri, if only to let her know that I’d be in Cambridge staying with Moss over the weekend – per our understanding. Since she might still be in the South of France through the weekend, and Kate would be out of town, my email was just a fishing expedition to see if it would elicit a response. It didn’t. Beri doesn’t do things in half measures. We’d broken up, and broken up we were.

  It actually was raining in Edinburgh when my train pulled out of Waverley Station, but merely overcast in Cambridge, so after a quick lunch I rented a bike at a bike shop and Moss and I went for a ride.

  ‘Don’t worry too much about the mission, Gallagher...’ Moss said as we rode along a country lane. ‘These raids have gotten to be almost routine...’

  ‘Right. Then why do you jump at every loud noise?’ I replied.

  He laughed. ‘I’m just primed. The mission’s a cert. We’ve spent years studying the Lamp Black Star Nebula. By the way, you’re now a probationary member of the Quantum King’s Hunt, but if anyone asks, it's the “Cavendish Chess Club”. anyway, the nebula is not the impenetrable curtain it’s made out to be. It’s riddled with constantly shifting rifts and passages which are not a barrier for a determined gang of physicists, astronomers and software engineers thinking in twenty-four dimensions. We’ve reversed engineered the nebula’s program and can track its randomness... It is, after all, only a computer program, nothing like real nature. We can, with a great degree of accuracy, predict where the passages will be at any given time and can walk into and out of the Lamp Black Stars at will.’

  ‘That almost sounds like cheating...’

  ‘Not at all. We’ve merely applied scientific method to studying the nebula, all from within the game, mind you. It’s not like we hacked the game... Anyone could do it if they spent the months we’ve spent on the problem...

  ‘Seeing that I’m going to be risking eight years of playing, I suppose I should not kick too much,’ I said.

  ‘No you shouldn’t. But you worry needlessly. All we're going to do is hijack a shipyard, Kimson’s World’s orbiting shipyard to be exact. It is a standard OSY-5 with some security upgrades. A 90A-SM wouldn’t break into a sweat breaching it and taking it down alone, much less with three other very talented agents. It'll be a piece of cake.’

  ‘But if that’s where they build their Black Star Alloy ships, it’s the key to their success. Surely they'd have it heavily guarded!’

  ‘Come on, Gallagher, they’re would-be pirates not would-be industrialists. I realize you’ve not played with us before, but I assure you we don’t take unnecessary risks. Over the last several years, we’ve slipped a whole fleet of stealth spy bots into the Lamp Black Stars – we know so much about them it’s as if we're members of the League. Kimson’s World’s shipyard relies mostly on its secret location for security – it's guarded only by its standard issue AI. These people play pirates and rely on their nearly indestructible ships for their success – not their brains. We – that is to say you and your mates – should be able to compromise the shipyard AI and lift the hulls before they ever catch wind of it... After which the rest of us will just grab the hulls and skip back to the nebula and safety... But just to be on the safe side, we’ll have a little feint going on the far side of the Black Star Nebula as well so even if they detect our raid, they’re unlikely to respond to our raid with overwhelming force since most of their ships will be either raiding or tied up fighting our li
ttle feint... One of the ships going in will be my Kate’s Folly, so believe me, we’re not taking any unnecessary chances.’

  ‘We’re planning to steal an entire Black Star Alloy hull?’ I exclaimed. These almost indestructible ships are central to the Lamp Black League’s raiding success. The hulls are so rare outside the Lamp Black League that they can only be obtained in deals conducted outside the game and using real world money, well over ￡300 per hull, engines extra.

  ‘You got it, only we’re going to lift five of them – we'll bring in five salvage tugs that we’ll attach to each of the hulls. None of the hulls have complete AI’s installed yet, so we won’t be fighting the ships themselves – they’re just hulls. We just slip in, attach the salvage mules to the hulls and make off. We’ll pilot all the salvage mules from the Kate’s Folly, and can ditch the hulls should the chase get too hot. If we can get away with two or three of them, we’ll be more than happy...

  ‘If we can pull this off, how are you going to sell them – the Lamp Black League will certainly hear of it.’

  ‘Don’t intend to sell them. We’re equipping the Quantum King’s Hunt with Black Star Alloy ships. You’ll get one too, your share of this raid, though probably not for a year.’

  ‘But if you keep raiding them, they’re sure to get wise... they can’t be that dumb.’

  ‘It’ll be too late, Gallagher,’ he laughed. ‘You see; the raid is half a feint itself. The other half of the mission – your part as a member of the penetration team – is to install a ghost program in the shipyard’s AI. This program will build one Black Star Alloy hull a month – off the AI's books and in the dark. The League will never realize that the shipyard is building our hulls, and it will even deliver the hull to a rift in the nebula for convenient pickup.’

  ‘I can’t believe you can do that! How can you build a hull without them noticing?’

  ‘Your team leader, Mia, is our group’s pet software engineer. She’s a genius, Gallagher. She’s designed a program that can be installed via the shipyard’s AI which will build hulls for us without it ever showing up on the Kimson’s World Shipyard’s records. We’ve already tried this out on other shipyards. It works.’

  ‘It almost sounds like you’re hacking the game...’

  ‘Maybe a greyish area. Don’t know how her program works, so I can’t say. But it can be justified since we’re working within the game, and it could be done in real life seeing that the shipyard is totally robotic... The League just picks up their completed ships at the shipyard on a schedule. It’s not like they’re gaming shipbuilding... As I said, they’re pirates, not manufacturers. Plus, we’re all putting our precious avatar’s asses on the line for this, so it’s not like we’re just sitting in our bedroom hacking. The long and short of it is that, if you guys don’t blow it, you’ll have a Black Alloy hull to fit out by the end of the year. Not shabby for a night’s fun...’

  Moss went on to describe all the work the Hunt put into the game and the mission – where they found the time for it, I don’t know. But I suppose they didn’t so much as play the game, as study it...

  After we stopped at a pub for lunch and a pint, Moss turned to another subject.

  ‘Kate tells me that Selina gave you the short and sharp the week after you were up.’

  I glanced at him wondering where this was going. ‘Yes and no. She feels that she has too much to do this term and I’m too far away.’ I admitted cautiously. ‘I’d be a distraction so she wants to put me, as she poetically said, in a box on the shelf for a while. We’ll not communicate during term to give her time to adjust and settle in.’

  ‘Kate also tells me that you and Selina had dinner the following weekend...’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like you’re in the box.’

  ‘A loop hole. I took our agreement to start when she arrives in Cambridge. We haven’t communicated since then, though.’

  ‘At the risk of telling tales out of school, Kate says that there are wheels within wheels, Selina and Kate have gotten to be best of pals over the past month... And since I expect to be a guide and mentor to Selina it would help me to know, well, what is what, so I can help you out, old chap.’

  ‘Oh please, Moss!’ I said, alarmed. 'Don’t help me. Yes, look after Selina, see that she doesn’t get too wrapped up in study and work to the exclusion of any social life. The reason she jumped at the chance Darneby offered was the friendly and social aspects of his program. Please make sure she’s part of it. Don’t take “no” for an answer. But for goodness sake, don’t try to help me with Selina.’

  ‘I'm wounded, Gallagher. You don’t worry about Selina, we’ll not let her be a stick in the mud. The Hot Club of the Cavendish will see to that... But I’ll also look out for our interest old boy. Trust me...’

  ‘Our interest?’

  ‘I have my reputation as a fortune teller on the line here, lad. If I’m to protect my impeccable record, our kids have to be playing together on the beach ten years from now.’

  ‘Oh, screw that, Moss. Leave it alone. Please. Beri can take care of herself, and the last thing I need is for her to get some crazy idea that I’ve talked you into acting as my sheepdog. She’d never tolerate that...’ I said, or rather pleaded.

  He grinned. ‘Trust me, I’ll be subtle...’

  ‘How come I don’t believe that? Please be so subtle that all you do is just leave everything alone. Seriously, Moss, I think everything will work out fine, left to run its course. I may know nothing about women, but I know what Beri was like during her last two years at Oxford, and I know just how much better I have it than all those other poor saps who chased her.’

  ‘If you’re broken up, you’re hardly in the chase anymore, you know...’

  ‘I believe I am. She feels we can’t go on like we’ve been without putting our studies and careers at risk. I haven’t a dozen older sisters like you, so I don’t know just what it all means, but I still seem to be in the game. My take is that I’m in a box on the shelf not because we don’t get along, but because we get along too well. I’d like to keep it that way. What else can I do?

  ‘So I’m asking you, Moss, even knowing that you are an expert on these things, just let things alone. Please.’

  He grinned. ‘Don’t worry, Gallagher.’

  Lord, I do.

  The Mission

  The mission started with dinner at five in the dining room of Darwin College where I met the other members of the “Hunt”. All are grad students who’d been conducting this type of operation in the online game for four or five years. I was cautioned this was a dark operation since there’s no way of knowing everyone at the university who played the game and who they played for... They owe their success to keeping below the radar. Moss seems to be their general leader – his outgoing nature generally dominates a gathering of physics students, but Lewis Noste was the mission leader. After dinner we retired to our activity room and set up our gaming kit.

  When we were ready, Noste gave his mission briefing. It took him an hour. I sat growing more and more alarmed. Not only did he cover every little detail and possible hitches, but he did it in the most round about fashion – never using one word when three would do. And he was the operational leader I’d be serving under! How we'd get everything done in the time we had to execute the mission, I didn't know. Yet no one else seemed alarmed, so I tried to quiet my misgivings and hope for the best. All I can say is that I pity all the poor students who will be sitting through his lectures in the decades to come. My heart goes out to them...

  Once the briefing was over, we broke up into three smaller clusters of players representing the operational grouping of the raid and spent four hours carefully manoeuvring into position to launch the raid – working the various ships through the nebula guarding the Lamp Black Stars. I was one of the agents who would penetrate and take down the shipyard's defences. Dao Zhang Mia, the designer of our ghost software that would be installed in the shipyard’s A
I, was our leader. Ben Hudson and Sandy Brant were the other members of the team. We were mere passengers aboard Noste’s (or Fiddler Green, the name he plays by in the game) ship, The Black Bird until we reached the ship yard – The Black Bird having adopted the id profile of an expected freighter which the Hunt had previously delayed elsewhere in the Terratana. We would then disembark using stealth suits, penetrate the orbiting shipyard's automatic defences, and disable the security measures that protect the hulls. I’ve been doing this type of mission for years, and in more securely guarded places than shipyards, so I was not too daunted – only the fact that we were dealing with the League made the mission iffy. Even though we were merely passengers for the first four hours, we hadn’t any free time. We donned our viewers and control gloves and spent the hours rehearsing our roles in the penetration – a virtual game within the game.

  Afterwards we donned our avatars and met within the game. Mia recognized my avatar, Captain Kee, and I hers, Jasmine Night – we had played together several raids within the first year or two I had started playing. The residual trust that still clung to those long ago encounters went a long way into easing me into the team – and more importantly, into the trust of the team.

  Just after midnight Fiddler Green eased The Black Bird in the guise of a robot freighter into the shipyard dock and it was time to go. A quick lav run for all and then my avatar donned his stealth suit and at the signal, Mia, Hudson, Sandy and I were off...

  The operation took less than an hour, things went pretty much as planned – not too many alarms and panics – shipyard defences penetrated, and neutralized, plus an unexpected sixth hull with a complete AI which had to be neutralized as well, putting us behind schedule. Kate’s Folly arrived and Hudson’s avatar left to work the remotely controlled salvage mules, leaving Sandy and me to keep watch while Mia hacked the ghost program into the AI. Once that was accomplished, we jetted up and boarded Moss’s Kate’s Folly for the run home, each of us at the controls of a salvage tug and its attached hull, (The fifth one was locked to automatically shadow Kate’s Folly). With The Black Star, Benson’s Star Viper and Marconi’s Quantum Dreaming as escorts, we hightailed it for the safety of the nebula. While the raid on Blue Cloud, the pleasure world of the Cluster, had created the planned diversion, the delay caused by the sixth hull allowed the League to react to our raid and we had four of the indestructible pirates hot on our tail us as we raced for the safety of the nebula, our five lifted hulls trailing behind. In the end we had to send two of the hulls – one of them being the one I was piloting shooting off towards a nearby star, forcing the pirates to choose between saving those hulls by chasing them down and capturing them with tractor beams, or continuing on in the hope of destroying our ships. The four Lamp Blackers cut their losses and slit their forces, sending two ships to save the two hulls, allowing us to ditch the two remaining pirates in the wilderness of the Lamp Black Nebula and bring out three hulls.

  Even typing that last line gives me chills – it was far, far from a sure thing, and while it was only my avatar on the line, when you spend six hours behind your view glasses living the avatar – you can’t readily tell where it and you leave off. But I will say this, however round about and indecisive Noste is in his speech, he acted in the game with amazing dispatch and decisiveness. We made it out only because he’s a superb star ship pilot and a master tactician – sacrificing our two hulls only in the last critical moment. After reaching the safety of the nebula, we then spent the next two hours laying down one false trail after another, discarding one level of disguise and camouflage after another – a necessary precaution because if the League could identify you within the game, they’d make it their business to ambush you every time they found you in the game.

  It was half-light by the time Moss and I made our way wearily back to his flat. Of course, once I was on the sofa I found I was still too wound up to sleep, no matter how tired I felt, and the day had long since dawned before I stopped replaying the events of the game and drifted off.

  Sunday Cambridge

  We were up by noon, sore and achy – they don’t call it virtual reality for nothing. Made some coffee and had a bit of breakfast all the while reliving our mission to the Lamp Black Stars, tension gone, feeling only the elation of having done something rather amazing.

  Kate called Moss about three o'clock, home from London.

  ‘Kate, my love, so good to hear your sweet voice... No, my dear, I’m not hung over. We did have a rather late night... but we were just playing a game with a few of the guys... No, not at all. Why we never had more than a glass or two the whole weekend, did we Gallagher?’

  ‘Sober as a judge the whole weekend, Kate,’ I called out.

  ‘No, I don’t have a butter knife to his throat... Say Gallagher, when does your train leave?’

  ‘7:47,’ I replied.

  ‘You’re a dear Kate. I love you. We’ll be over shortly. With bells on... Er, love, you are actually going to make something to eat this time, or should we stop and pick up a carryout? Just asking... See you soon.’

  He turned to me, ‘Tea’s on.’

  As we were walking to Kate’s flat, Moss said, ‘I know this sounds paranoid, but we don’t want word of our exploits getting out... So keep all talk causal... A friendly game with some of the guys – as few names as possible. The pirates of Boskone are our usual rivals... Best let me do most of the bragging...’

  I gave him a sceptical look – but then, these guys are playing for higher stakes than I ever did. ‘Right.’

  Then we were at Kate’s door.

  ‘You’re a feast for my lovelorn eyes, Kate, my love!’ said Moss as she opened the door to our knock. He swept her into his arms and gave her a long kiss. ‘It was such a weary, bleak life without you, my dear. Don’t know how I ever survived.’

  She laughed and pushed him tenderly away. ‘Pull the other one, Phil.’

  Moss muttered something like ‘I intend to’ under his smile as Kate turned to me, ‘Hello Hugh, it is so good to see you again.’

  I took her hand and gave her a cheery kiss on the cheek. ‘It’s great to see you again' Kate, and since Moss didn’t mention it this time, you look dashing. Thanks for having me over.’

  I didn’t see her until I’d stepped inside and Kate had closed the door. Even my heart, usually such a reliable indicator, was caught napping. It just stopped, stunned before it leaped like an eager puppy.

  She was standing on the other side of the small kitchen table before the doorway to the kitchenette, apron on and a pleased smile. ‘Hello Gallagher. Two can play the surprise game.’

  I skipped across the small sitting room and slipped around the table, took her hands lightly in mine and looked into her eyes. ‘Hello, Miss Beri,’ I said softly, gave her a chaste kiss on her cheek and stepped back a little, smiling.

  ‘Don’t be an ass, Gallagher,’ she said and stepped closer and put her arms on my shoulder.

  I just slipped my arms around her and drew her close and we kissed until she pushed me away, since I was content to make hay while the sun shown.

  Somewhere Moss was saying, ‘Would you look at that Kate – and just friends. I blush to think of what we would be witnessing if they were.... ouch.’

  I stepped back so that I could look at her, holding one of her hands.

  ‘This is a wonderful surprise. It never crossed my mind. I didn't expect you'd be up until tomorrow at the earliest,’ I said. A stray thought did cross my mind, ‘You did see my email about being here, didn’t you?’

  She may have blushed a little, ‘Yes, Gallagher, I knew you were here. However, since Kate was in London for the weekend and I was eager to get to work – I found the south of France lovely but not conducive to mathematical speculation – we arranged to travel back together. So here I am.’

  Despite the qualifiers, I felt grand.

  ‘Do give me a chance to say hello, will you Gallagher? Hello, Selina. Welcome home,’ Moss said with smile and
a kiss. For all his nonsense, Moss knows just what to say, sometimes.

  Beri smiled happily. ‘Why, thank you, Phil. It is good to be home.’

  ‘And you will be happy to know that your Gallagher here, proved his mettle last night in our Terratana game. A flawless performance. Nerves of steel. His looks belie his daring nature,’ Moss said giving me a hearty slap on my back.

  Beri raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘I must confess, I’m astounded. The only time I watched Gallagher play that Terratana game he ended up in a smoking pile of ash – and that in his own ruler’s throne room...’

  ‘No kidding! Why if I’d know that... In his own ruler’s throne room, you say. How did you manage that Gallagher?’

  I may have even blushed. ‘I’m afraid the details of that affair are under seal and you’ll have to wait fifty years after my death to discover the details...’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think I’ll have to wait quite that long...’ he replied with a wink at Beri and Kate. ‘Nevertheless, we had fun this weekend, biking yesterday and playing Terratana worlds last night. I know you girls are dying to hear of your men’s bravery and dash, but we can relate all over tea, can’t we, my dear? I’m rather famished.’

  ‘...so you see, we’d cut our margin of error to just about zero... All we could do is run for the safety of the nebula, and run as fast as we ever could. I overrode all the safety controls and pushed my dear Kate’s Folly as fast as she ever has been pushed. We could do little to keep them at bay – we had to rely on our speed. I don’t mind telling you it was touch and go... It was only my skill at evasion that kept us from being blown to atoms, wasn’t it, Gallagher?’

  ‘You were good, Moss. I don’t believe I could have done better myself.’

  ‘That remains to be seen. However, though outnumbered, we out manoeuvred them and reached our bolt hole in the nebula, their treasure safely in our hold... And, well, here we are today, your bold heroes, hail and hardy... a casket of Eritia diamonds richer.’

  Coming from the kitchen Kate applauded. ‘Oh my! You are so brave, Philip!’ And she leaned over and gave Moss a mushy kiss. ‘I am so glad you weren’t blown to atoms and got out with all those Eritia diamonds! Can I have just one, my dear? Just a small one.’

  ‘You can be as sarcastic as you wish, my love, as long as you kiss me like that!’

  Dinner was ready and with that, conversation became general, lots of talk, catching up on everyone’s doings from the sunny Mediterranean coast to the grey stones of Edinburgh, the weekend with friends and shopping, and the journey home. After we ate, we sat around the small sitting room talking until it was time for me to say goodbye and catch my train for Edinburgh.

  Beri walked with me to the train station in the falling twilight, though not without Moss making a mock fuss about wanting to see me off at the station himself... How we all should go, ‘it’d be so jolly...’ He only relented after extracting a promise from Kate to make it worth his while to stay home. ‘...with a dish of ice cream or something...’

  ‘I don’t have any ice cream in the house....’ said Kate.

  ‘Then I’ll just have to settle for something...’

  'You'll have to settle for just the memory of me, if you don't watch out,' she replied.

  ‘It was great to get together with Kate and Philip again,' I said as we walked towards the station. 'Just like old times.'

  'We've only known them for a month,' said Beri, 'But, still, it was so nice to be all together again. I owe them a great deal already for all they've done to make my move to Cambridge easy.'

  'You and I together seems like old times too,' I ventured.

  To my surprise, she hooked her arm undermine. ‘Yes, Gallagher. My life since I walked in on you has changed rather dramatically for the better.’

  ‘Mine, too...’

  'Still, I wouldn't want to give you the wrong idea. I’m quite fond of you. I'm comfortable with you. And if you don't let it go to your head, I'll admit that I missed you this past fortnight.'

  'I certainly missed you...' I admitted.

  'But nothing has changed. This was all just a whim of mine...'

  'And a very nice one...'

  'Quit flirting. My work begins tomorrow and I'm determined to focus on it from here on in.'

  'But not to the exclusion of a social life as well,' I said giving her a stern look.

  'Don't worry about me. I've learned my lessons, so you needn't say any more.'

  'Okay, and don't worry about me either. We have our deal and I intend to live within it. I really can't kick. This – being with you now, having you as a friend and everything that's gone before – is far more than I ever thought possible.'

  She gave me a measuring look. 'Just don't get carried away.'

  'You keep saying that, but I can't help it when I'm with you.'

  'Quit that, Gallagher. Just be a friend.'

  'Right. I really can do that...' I said.

  She gave me another long look, and she nodded. ‘I hope so.’

  So do I.

  We then walked in companionable silence for a while before I decided I'd better prove I could be just a friend by asking her about her plans for moving in and settling down. And while we waited for the train we just talked physics shop talk – mostly about the cram physics course Beri was about to undertake with Moss, Noste and others in the next three weeks until the formal start of term. And then, all too soon, the train was whooshing to a stop a few meters away and I had to leave her.

  We said our goodbyes. I kissed her, as a friend, and reluctantly climbed aboard the coach and found a seat to watch her on the platform until she slid out of view and the train carried me back to Edinburgh through the twilight of late summer.