by Jack Dann
He climbed out of the impressionable-canvas and it slowly resumed its original shape. I came to my feet. Unsealing my top, I let it hang open then offered my hand. His fingers were hot and dry in mine. I led him to the cushion-laden divan where I had modelled for him so often. As I sank into its familiar depths I pulled him down after me and a kick of desire made my heart race for I meant to seduce him. Call me old fashioned but I’d have to edit the recording. I didn’t want to share this intimacy with my work colleagues.
Nathan nuzzled my breasts, reclaiming my attention. I delighted in the soft brush of his hair on my skin. He lifted his head and turned away from me to sneeze, covering his face with his hand.
A wry grin tugged at his lips. ‘Sorry. Must be coming down with something.’
‘Don’t worry.’ I wanted to laugh with joy. The primitive head-cold was the perfect carrier. Every breath Nathan expelled would propel the infection into the air. Everything he touched would hold a trace of the virus which could survive up to forty-eight hours outside the human body. ‘I love you, Nate.’
He reached for the catch on my pants and I lifted my hips so he could peel them off, stripping my lower half bare. His knee sank into the divan between mine. He lowered his head and inhaled my scent appreciatively, then sneezed again.
‘Sorry, Lill.’
I shook my head. He’d forgive me tomorrow. I pulled him down to me. ‘You’ll see. It’ll be like it was between us.’
I reached for him. He was so hot and ready, he groaned.
‘Like it was …’ he whispered. Then his eyes widened as the glaze of desire was replaced with comprehension then growing fury. He pulled upright. ‘You’ve created the antiviral? That was your good news.’
I nodded. I couldn’t lie. I held my arms out to him. ‘Be pleased for me, Nate.’
He brushed my hands aside. ‘You’ve infected me with it, haven’t you?’ His voice rose dangerously. ‘That’s why you think it will be like it was.’
I sat up, trying to put some distance between us, frightened by his intensity.
‘They warned me, told me to leave you. They said you were the tool of Satanus.’ His feverishly bright eyes fixed on me, all hint of the Nathan I loved banished by religious mania. Face flushed, he lifted large hands. ‘Truly, you were aptly named, Lillith.’
‘Oh, for god’s sake, Nate!’ I couldn’t keep the scorn from my voice. ‘Can you hear yourself?’
He lunged for me. I scooted off the end of the divan. He was fast. He tore the shirt off my back as I got away. I’d gone six steps when I glanced over my shoulder and tripped over the lip of the impressionable-canvas. I fell full length into it. Before I could pull myself from its sticky embrace he landed on me.
Betrayal burned in Nathan as he forced the heretic’s face into the impressionable-canvas. Outrage fired him and the defiler’s struggles only incensed him.
When the struggles ceased he dragged himself from the impressionable-canvas to stare uncomprehendingly at the body, stretched face down.
It did not move.
The heretic was dead.
Sad, but necessary, even inevitable. The heretic had refused when he’d suggested she give up her research. She’d turned her face away from the Mother, Father and Son towards Satanus.
He stood trembling, the heat of fever raging in him. Loss curled through his belly, painful and intimate. He’d intended this canvas to be a tribute to Mary’s Son, sacrificed to save human kind, now he had made the ultimate sacrifice for his faith.
If this was what Catholic Romanticism demanded of him, so be it.
Leaf-dappled sunlight played across the rise of her buttocks. The artist in him appreciated the effect. She’d always had the perfect female body, sweet curves and slender ankles. Her body had inspired him so many times …
In that instant he saw the perfect composition. Taking her limp form he rearranged it so that she became the archetypal female half-trapped, rising from the impressionable-canvas, all sinuous curves. Adding more mixture to support and encase the form, he used hard-light to set each layer.
The shafts of leafy sunlight moved across the floor from midday to midafternoon. As golden light filled the studio, Nathan lifted his latest piece, standing it upright. It was a bas relief.
A Soul in Purgatory. Lillith, the temptress, caught in mid-struggle, trying to pull free of her own sin. The pale veined faux-marble finish was perfect, sensual yet cool.
Immersing himself in the image and what it meant to him, he plugged the impressionable-canvas’s input leads into his Nodals to create the imprint. Intensity churned through him. He let it run its course. It was cadiartic, as always.
Pleased, he withdrew the Nodal leads and checked that the impressionable-canvas had made the recording. Now his audience would be able to plug in and immerse themselves in his Art.
To be sure, he had to test it. Steeling himself, he inserted the output leads into his Nodals and waited receptive, as he took in the beauty of A Soul in Purgatory. A wave of tortured emotion hit him, forming a sensory loop with the sculpture.
When he could take no more he staggered and unplugged. This piece was his best yet. No wonder his work had won so many converts to Catholic Romanticism.
And his new exhibition would do the same, taking his unique vision to the world. He glanced at the time. Nearly 2 pm. They’d be here soon.
Now that he wasn’t working he felt terrible, thick headed and feverish, so hot that everything wavered. A shower would help him freshen up. But first he lined up all his pieces for the exhibition and tested each one for nuance of feeling, arranging them in the order that they should be experienced. When he was done, he was certain that no one would be able to walk out of his exhibition without being moved. By this time he was feeling a little numb.
Still naked, he stumbled off to the bathroom and ran the shower … fresh water from the tank, solar heated. He felt no guilt letting it pour over his back and neck. In a kind of mental stupor he stayed under for ages until Aunty Flo warned him that he was seriously depleting their water store.
Bleary, he stepped out, dried off and dressed, running a comb through his hair. Why had he let it get so ragged? And he needed a shave. Why had he let himself go like this? No wonder Lillith had been dropping hints.
Lill … a cold sensation made his stomach lurch. They’d had a fight, another one, only this time he couldn’t remember what it was about or why. He’d been angry and that’s all he remembered.
At a run, he burst into the studio. It was alive with late-afternoon light that shifted constantly as the treetops writhed in the breeze. He paced the length of the exhibition where Lillith’s form was reproduced over and over in exquisite detail. Where was she?
He came back to the newest sculpture. A Soul in Purgatory.
Even though the artist in him could appreciate the sculpture’s lines, for some reason sick dread filled him the longer he looked at it.
He lifted the leads and slid them into his Nodals as he stared at the tortured figure trapped in the glistening faux-marble. A wave of vile emotion swept him and with it came the memory of the physical sensation as he thrust her face into the mix despite her futile, desperate struggles. His sick but loving, painstaking arrangement of her body as he encased her in the faux-marble came back to him.
With an inarticulate howl he pulled the links from his Nodals and staggered a few steps to stare at his new exhibition. Over and over the variations of that same perverse emotion appeared in his work. How could he have lost touch with reality? The horror of it filled him with revulsion. Only god could absolve him of this crime. But the thought did not resonate, uplifting him, instead it was completely hollow.
Devastated, he took several steps back, then ran for the nearest open window, leaping out into the treetops, crashing down through the branches to the bush floor four storeys below.
‘I’ll fast forward this bit,’ Yasmin said. She hit the button and caught Tri’s eye. Both of them were nervous, presenting th
e smart-house evidence to the Council of Social Engineers. The Director of their Facility had made it clear he’d washed his hands of them. Yasmin had to clear her throat before she could speak over the silent antics on screen. ‘Their smart-house closed the window when the wind rose. And it let the CR Activists in when they arrived. You can see them here, searching for Nathan. When they couldn’t find him they tried out the exhibition.’
On screen the ordinary looking activists plugged their Nodals into the artworks and reacted with fast-forward abandon that was almost comic.
‘Remember,’ Tri said, ‘the cold virus remains contagious for up to forty-eight hours and Nathan touched all of those artworks while he was infectious.’
The Social Engineers exchanged looks that Yasmin didn’t attempt to interpret. She just wanted to come out of this with her Careerist status intact.
She swallowed. ‘By the time the Activists loaded the artwork onto their truck they were all suffering from the first signs of a head-cold.’ She switched off the recording, turning to face the long table. ‘From there some of them went to the airport. The rest went to their homes —’
‘To infect their significant others,’ Tri said, unnecessarily didactic, she felt.
‘And the exhibition?’ the most senior Social Engineer asked.
Tri left it up to Yasmin.
‘It was a long weekend here. We didn’t get the recording until we came in this morning. The Exhibition was flown overseas, set up and given a gala opening, celebrities, media … the works. Since then, thousands have plugged in to experience the “Catholic Romanticists Revival”.’
‘Those thousands will have infected tens of thousands. The antiviral is loose,’ Tri said, a shade defiantly. ‘You can’t stop it.’
Yasmin held her breath.
The senior Social Engineer glanced to her colleagues.
‘What will you do?’ Yasmin asked, mouth dry.
‘Nothing.’ The Social Engineer stood, signalling the meeting was over. ‘You’ll sign a Confidentiality Agreement and continue your work. Agreed?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Tri laughed.
Yasmin agreed, but she didn’t stop shaking until she was back at her desk. Then she switched on the religious media channel and waited.
AFTERWORD
‘Purgatory’ is one of a series of stories set in near-future Australia run by Social Engineers. The subject of religious mania, its effect on societies and individuals, has always fascinated me. Darwin waited twenty years to publish his theory on evolution because he knew it would change the way we saw the world. If we could inoculate people against religious fanaticism, would we hesitate?
— Rowena Cory Daniells
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MANANNAN’S CHILDREN
RUSSELL BLACKFORD
RUSSELL BLACKFORD is a Melbourne-based writer, critic, and philosopher who teaches part-time in the School of Philosophy and Bioethics, Monash University. He is Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Evolution and Technology and a Fellow of the US-based Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. His publications include three novels for the Terminator franchise, collectively entitled The New John Connor Chronicles. His most recent book is Kong Reborn (2005), a sequel to the original King Kong movie.
Blackford is an internationally prominent critic and scholar of the science fiction and fantasy genres. With Van Ikin and Sean McMullen, he coauthored Strange Constellations: A History of Australian Science Fiction. He is one of the main contributors to The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy and also wrote the entry on science fiction for a major on-line reference work, The Literary Encyclopedia. His philosophical and related work frequently deals with issues involving the relationships between science and society, and with humanity’s future prospects. This work has appeared in a wide range of journals and magazines, including Meonjin, Quadrant, Australian Law Journal, Journal of Medical Ethics, and American Journal of Bioethics.
Blackford’s work in the field of science fiction and fantasy has won him a swag of awards, including the William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review on three occasions, and both the Ditmar Award and the Aurealis Award for his 1996 short story, ‘The Sword of God’.
In ‘Manannan’s Children’, Blackford the philosopher examines the idea of immortality, while Blackford the storyteller sweeps us headlong into the living breathing palpable world of distant Irish myth and legend…
They’d chased a deer, which had bolted in terror from the forest, then run to a round grassy hill and vanished over the top. At the top of the hill, Finn and Oisin pulled back on their horses’ reins and wrapped their heavy cloaks more tightly against the bitter cold wind from the sea. Down on the shore was a lady, also on horseback, with the lapping waves and the sinking red sun behind her.
Oisin’s breath caught and his heart seemed to melt like heated gold within his ribs. She was incomparable!
The lady rode a majestic, shimmering stallion, as black as adamant. She called out to the heroes, father and son, and they rode down to meet her, white-bearded Finn going ahead. Oisin couldn’t take his eyes from her.
Her horse had a jewelled bridle of fine leather, but she rode without a saddle. She wore a long white gown, embroidered in crimson, which she’d gathered around her thighs, leaving her legs bare and free. Sea water dripped from her pale feet. Her hair was long and yellow, woven with gaudy flowers, crimson, gold and purple. Her eyes were blue as mountain ice, her lips full and red. On a golden chain slung round her neck, she wore a silver horn, scarcely longer than a man’s hand.
She seemed to gaze into Oisin’s heart as she spoke. ‘You are sad, heroes.’
‘Do you know who we are?’ Finn said impatiently.
‘You are Finn and Oisin, rulers in this land of Erin. Yet, your hearts are sorrowful.’
‘We were hunting to forget our cares.’
‘So,’ she said, ‘does a victor of battles have cares?’
Finn seemed to swell up even larger in his saddle. ‘Our cares are those of men who fought on the field of Gabhra, where Fenian betrayed Fenian. They’re the cares of men who went into the hell of battle and returned, leaving behind kinsmen who’d become the food of ravens.’
‘Then perhaps you should rest from them,’ she said in a voice of infinite kindness.
For a long moment, Finn was silent. Then he said bluntly, ‘Who are you, lady? What are you?’
‘I am Niamh. I come from a country far away.’
Surely, Oisin thought, this creature was one of the Immortals — reckless Manannan’s children. She showed no fear of the heroes who confronted her — tall, strong-armed Oisin and his mighty father. Nothing mortal could have stood for long against the pair of them. Finn looked like a huge dolmen stone with an iron helmet planted on top of it.
‘My father rules there,’ Niamh said, ‘as you do in the shores and towns and forests of this kingdom. His name is Aengus.’
‘Then what brings you here?’ Oisin said, finally discovering words to speak, as if a spell had broken.
Her chin lifted slightly at that. ‘I have chosen a man. King of the Fenians.’ Her breast heaved beneath her gown, but she spoke to Finn in an unwavering voice. ‘Oisin will be mine.’
Within his own breast, Oisin’s heart pounded like a madman’s drum. Manannan’s children were creatures beyond mortal notions of life and time and death. This one had chosen him! That might be a blessing or a curse, but what did it matter? He had only to look at her, at the beauty shining out of her.
‘Why choose my son?’ Finn said gruffly.
‘That’s for him to know, milord, if I lead him to make sense of it. But it’s not something I’m going to shout about all over the wide world of mortals.’
‘Is my son not mortal, then?’
‘If he dwells in my country,’ Niamh said, ‘he will live no life such as mortals understand.’ She spoke to Oisin directly. ‘Speak now, prince of the Fenians, will you give yourself to me gladly, with your whole heart?’
>
Years seemed to pass as Oisin dismounted from his horse, stepped quietly to her, then knelt at her feet. He drew his long iron sword from its leather scabbard and held it out before him, point downward, resting it in the sand. His giant hands knotted on its hilt. ‘I am yours,’ he said. ‘Lady, I am yours only.’
‘Then ride in my arms.’
One last time, Oisin glanced at his father. Standing, he sheathed the sword and leapt onto the back of the black stallion, sitting in front of the wondrous lady. Niamh leant into him from behind, her soft breasts pressing into him through his cloak. He was a hero of many famous battles, but his body trembled.
Finn made no gesture or speech to dissuade him, perhaps as enchanted as his son; the old, Unconquered king, who had fought relentlessly against monstrous creatures and beaten the assembled might of the Fir Bolgs, was powerless to oppose Niamh’s will.
‘We go now,’ Niamh said. ‘We have very far to travel. Farther than you can imagine.’
To Oisin’s uncomprehending senses, they appeared to ride across the sea itself, the green waves reaching up to their feet. ‘You are one of us,’ Niamh said.
‘I am yours now, Niamh, I belong to your father’s kingdom.’
Her arms wrapped around his chest; her breath was close to his ear. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not what I told you just now, hero of the Fenians. Listen to me carefully, Oisin. You are one of us. One of Manannan’s children. You always were. Think about that.’
‘My love, I hear you, but I don’t understand.’
‘Then let me give you understanding. For all his mighty strength, your father is old and white-whiskered —but he sired you in the lust of his youth. How long ago was that, then? You have lain with many women and made warrior sons of your own. By now, your face should be wrinkled and your hair as silvery as a herring.’
