LENNOX

Lennox floated above Ullapool inside Xander, looking down like a god. He saw Ava and Heather by the truck, Michael and Fellowes on the ground.

A column of Xander’s body extended towards the ground and Lennox felt himself slide downwards. Sandy came too, the pair of them drifting through Xander’s flesh.

They slowed and Lennox’s feet touched the ground. It was strange to be tethered to Earth, to feel gravity. What he’d felt in the space bubble stayed with him, he was part of a community with every other living thing on Earth. He thought about all the other planets and moons and star systems out there, so much interconnected life in the billions of miles of space. If there were already two ecosystems in this solar system, life must be crawling all over the universe. But what about those things that came to Enceladus? Where did they fit?

Lennox looked around. He was standing between Fellowes and the women at the truck. Sandy scuttled to Fellowes’ body, touched it with their tentacles.

<Sandy, is he dead?>

Sandy’s head swelled. <Fellowes-Sandy partial continues.>

Part of Lennox felt put out, he wanted to be the only one with a special connection to Sandy. But that was crazy, the one thing he’d learned was that everyone was connected.

Xander was still overhead, casting shade on everyone. Lennox heard a low hiss as they slid sideways. They moved until their whole body was over the loch, then lowered to the surface. They sat there taking up half the port like a blockade, colours shifting across their skin, intricate swirling patterns dissolving and reappearing.

Lennox walked over to the women. Ava was resting on the truck tailgate gazing at her baby. Heather stood with a gun loose in her hand. She stared at Michael lying in a large pool of blood and seawater. His eyes were open, staring at nothing.

‘Is he dead?’

Heather nodded then stuck her chin out at Lennox. ‘What happened to you?’

Lennox looked at the sky. He pulled his earlobe to wake himself up from this dream. ‘I went into space.’

‘And?’ Ava said, looking up.

‘It was crazy.’

‘More crazy than everything else?’

Lennox looked round. People were gathered along the stony shore, gawping at Xander. ‘Yes.’

<What happened?> He was shocked at Heather’s voice in his head. She seemed initially bemused too, as if she hadn’t meant to do it. So they were telepathic now without Sandy. Holy crap.

<Shit, I heard that.> This was Ava, staring at him and Heather. The three of them, connected forever.

Lennox never wanted them to leave his head. <They’re running from something. They’re refugees, fleeing for their lives. They’ve come here to live. There’s nowhere else.>

<What are they running from?> Heather thought.

Fellowes got to his feet, Sandy keeping him steady. He looked confused. He staggered to them at the truck, Sandy alongside. He looked from one to the other, at Michael on the ground. Then at Xander out to sea.

<Sandy, who are those creatures on Enceladus?> Lennox thought. <What do you call them?>

Sandy went to the truck and sat next to Ava. <Different life. Not like Sandy-Xander, not like Enceladus whole. Not like human. Other.>

Heather perked up. <Like robots? AI?>

A pause, Sandy thinking about it. <Unclear. Dark, no knowledge.>

Heather nodded. <Where are they from?>

Sandy wriggled a little. <You name it Proxima Centauri.>

Fellowes turned to look at them. ‘Are you talking to it? All of you?’

Lennox felt sorry for him, he just seemed like a lost boy left behind. The rest of them had evolved and Fellowes wasn’t a part of it. ‘Yes.’

‘How is that possible?’ Fellowes waved a hand at Xander on the loch. ‘And that too? Can you talk to that?’

Lennox swallowed. ‘It’s all part of the same thing, all one big organism or species. I don’t know how to describe it. We’re pathetic in comparison. Pissing around in our own little heads, shut off from each other.’

‘Why is it here, did it tell you that?’

Fuck that. Fellowes had tried to capture Sandy. He was playing by old, human rules that didn’t apply anymore. Everything had changed.

‘I guess you don’t have a cage big enough for Xander,’ Lennox said.

Fellowes gawped at Xander for a long time. Eventually he turned to Lennox. ‘You think I’m the bad guy, and maybe I’ve done things wrong. But I’ve waited all my life for this. To make contact with something from another planet. Something alien.’

You have no fucking idea, Lennox thought.

Fellowes looked at Sandy in the back of the truck, at Ava with Chloe, Heather with the gun. ‘You don’t understand, this changes everything. This is the dawn of a new age.’

Lennox hated how he spoke. Big ideas, grand proclamations, but he didn’t have a clue. Sandy had spoken to them, not him, there was a reason for that.

Xander made a noise then rose out of the water, stopping fifty feet up, water lashing off their undersides. Sandy came over next to Lennox. A tentacle folded itself into Lennox’s hand, suckers pressing against his skin. He wrapped his fingers around it.

Xander gave a low rumble then a high whoosh, like air blowing through a window. There was a moment of silence then similar noises came from higher in the sky.

Sandy’s suckers squeezed Lennox’s hand as he looked up. Thousands of jellyfish creatures like Xander appeared in the sky, small dots at first, quickly growing and revealing their shapes and intricacies, colours and lights. They filled the sky, bigger and bigger, countless other creatures connecting and intertwining between and beneath them. They continued to descend and spread out.

Lennox saw they were coming down over the water. He turned to the hills behind Ullapool and the sky was clear. But over the water, thousands of Enceladons continued to drift closer to the sea.

He smelled the same odour as the first night he met Sandy. But he didn’t feel faint and didn’t lose balance, just stared at the creatures in the sky. He looked round at the bystanders along the promenade, they weren’t affected the way Lennox had been with Sandy that first time, something was different now.

The Enceladons landed on the surface of Loch Broom and out to sea as far as the horizon. Their light displays were mesmerising, seemingly communicating with each other, colours and patterns flowing from one to another as far as the eye could see.

Fellowes stared at them all, slack-jawed.

Xander lowered themself into the water to sit alongside the others and joined in the light display.

Sandy squeezed Lennox’s hand. <Enceladons-Humans whole.>

Lennox looked around. Heather stared at the loch full of Enceladons, then turned to him and smiled. Ava looked up from Chloe in her arms and did the same. They all looked at Sandy, who was glowing and pulsing, indescribable patterns and colours, the most alive thing Lennox had ever seen.

The three of them had all been alone at the start of this, isolated and separate. Now they were three parts of something much bigger, three tiny elements of a new future. They were changed, they weren’t just human anymore, they were something else, something better.

<Wow.> This was Ava in his head, in their joint mind.

Heather grinned. <What now?>

Lennox turned to Sandy and squeezed their tentacle.