by Luke Donegan
They walked carefully through the dark to the gallery exit. Jay felt a heavy melancholy that made it difficult to breathe. She no longer relied on him. He was not her Teacher anymore. It made him feel terribly alone.
He cooked chicken with spices. Aromas filled the office. Sian moved between the kitchen and tatami serving drinks and helping the Scion-Teacher. Rhada sat with the Teacher and the Builder, looking out over a city golden with sunset. The Builder was a big man and found it difficult to sit in the formal manner. He shifted his weight from leg to leg in discomfort.
“Can I help, Scion-Teacher,” he called to the kitchen. He was more comfortable with a task to do.
“I am helping,” Sian replied. “Be patient, Builder. Food will soon arrive.”
“I am not waiting for food.”
The flicker of a smile passed the Teacher’s lips. She turned to Rhada.
“How long have you lived at Ocean-Hearth?” she asked.
The woman intimidated Rhada. The Teacher was radiant and confident, and Rhada felt inconsequential before her gaze.
“I was there almost from birth,” she said. “My mother’s Passage came soon after.”
“You never knew your mother.”
“No, but that is not unusual.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“I’m not sure I understand?” asked Rhada. “My Hearth-Father gives me all the love I need, as well as the other children. We look after each other. They are my family. My parents, perhaps they should have had a child sooner, but they chose to use their lives for work, and for each other. I believe they did a generous thing by giving birth before the end of their lives.”
She took a sip of water.
“Many do not,” she finished.
“You are right,” said the Teacher. “Many choose not to. And this is a pity because our numbers are dwindling. But some who would like to cannot. For certain reasons.”
The Builder shifted with discomfort.
“Please Builder, sit as you will,” said Rhada. “I do not require formality.”
“As you wish,” the man said, relaxing his legs.
“Teacher, may I ask. Did you know your parents?” asked Rhada.
“I was too young to know them. When they died I went to Forest-Hearth.” She brushed her hair from her face. “I thank my parents for having me. Life is a generous gift. I am very grateful for it.”
“What about you, Scion-Curator?” she asked Sian who was kneeling on the tatami, clearing glasses.
“I was a child of the Repopulation Program,” she said. “I had no parents. The Museum is my home and the people who work here my family.”
Sian moved away and they sat in silence.
“And you, Builder?” Rhada asked eventually.
“I knew my parents well,” he said. “They were performers who traveled the ocean on a large circus boat. The boat sailed around this great land, performing shows in Sydon and Pars. My mother was a trapeze artist while my father was good at catching knives. I too became part of the show. I was the clown. I used to run around and trip over things.”
Rhada laughed. “Really?”
“You should have been a Teacher,” said the Teacher. “Telling stories like that.”
The Builder winked at Rhada.
Jay and Sian arrived bearing trays of steaming food. Jay saw Rhada laughing with the Teacher and the Builder. They looked like a family. He indulged a vision of what the past could have been, if he had been born into a different world.
As they ate and talked, Rhada watched Jay and Sian, searching for signs of attraction. Jay watched the Teacher and the Builder, trying to gauge their relationship. The conversation eventually moved to the subject of the Director.
“I knew him when he was the Curator of Science. Jack Gaunt was his scion,” recalled the Teacher. “I was Scion-Teacher then. He was a formidable man, very intelligent. Passionate for Science. He was a moral man and fought for the redemption of his discipline.”
“He became Director when the old Director died?” asked Rhada.
“Yes. He has been Director for eleven years.”
“But how old was he when he became Director? He must be well over thirty.”
“He was twenty seven when he became Director,” said the Builder.
“So he must be thirty eight,” Sian calculated.
“It is the same with the Mother,” said Jay. “Hearth-Father says she must be nearly forty.”
“Ascendancy imbues its members with long life,” said the Builder. “The responsibility of office holds back Passage, for a time.”
“What is the Director like?” asked Jay. “Do you know him? I haven’t seen him since I was interviewed.”
“You will not see him often,” said the Teacher. “Only at formal gatherings. And then he rarely speaks. Like all the Ascendants, the Director is concerned with things other than day to day concerns.”
“So he does not really run the Museum,” suggested Rhada.
“The Triumvirate run the Museum,” confirmed the Builder. “But the Director makes the big decisions. When the Director comes to Passage, one of the triumvirate will become Director.”
“Who?”
“Either Paris Aristotle,” answered the Builder. “Or Jack Gaunt. Xia Tsang is the youngest of the curators,” he said to Sian. “Her chance will come later.”
“Not with the Director’s long life,” said Sian. “She will die before she gets her chance.”
“Perhaps,” said the Teacher. “But you should not wish for ascendancy. It usually means Passage for another. So it was for all of us here. Even you, Rhada. You became Teacher of Ocean-Hearth because my scion died before his time.”
Rhada lowered her eyes.
“I am not saying you should feel guilty. Just do not wish for it.”
They wished the Teacher and the Builder goodnight. Sian walked with them to the foyer.
“It was nice to meet you,” she said to Rhada. “I hope that you come to visit us again soon.”
“It may be a while,” said Rhada. “I am a Teacher and that keeps me very busy.”
Sian bowed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jay.” She turned and walked away.
Jay and Rhada walked out along Ocean Road. The air was cool. Night birds sang in the sparse bushes lining the road.
“I’m sorry,” said Rhada eventually.
“You could have been nicer. She has been very good to me.”
“I’m envious, I suppose. She gets to see you every day.”
“You see me every day.”
“For a short time. Not like before. I miss you.”
They walked for a while in silence.
“So, what do you think about the Teacher and the Builder?”
“The Builder is nice. He’s funny. The Teacher isn’t funny at all. But she is beautiful.”
“Do you think they are ... you know?”
Rhada pulled a face. “Of course.”
“How could you tell? They hardly said anything to each other.”
“Didn’t you see how they were sitting? Their legs were touching all evening. You’re so blind sometimes.”
She pushed him in the chest. “Let’s go for a swim.”
They ran across the sand hills and dove into the inky black water. Rhada slipped beneath the surface. For a long time she was gone. Jay waited until he felt the beginnings of anxiety. He turned around, searching, and was met with a face full of seawater and a young girl’s giggle.
Air from outside the dome heated the desert zone. Sian had been teaching Jay how to climb and abseil down the cliff face in the Nature Dome. They gathered up the climbing ropes and rested at the base of the cliff.
“What was it like to come through the Reproduction Program?” asked Jay. “Do you mind me asking? I haven’t met many people who did.”
“I don’t mind. But I don’t remember. They only keep babies until they are six months. I was transferred to the Museum. I was a workshop child until I showed a capacit
y for Nature and the Curator of Nature chose me as her scion.”
“And, do they … I heard they grow the children in vats?”
Sian smiled. “The vats incubate the foetus like a human womb. Nine months until we are ‘born’.”
“I don’t want to be rude, Sian. But, do you think the Reproduction Program comes a little close to the First Law of Nature?”
“You mean to breaking the First Law?”
“’One shall not create unnatural life’,” quoted Jay.
Sian looked at him with a flicker of annoyance. “Reproduction children aren’t unnatural. Our parents gave their seed to the Program for the good of humankind. Without children like me our population would have dwindled, possibly to extinction.”
“I did not mean offense. It is curiosity and ignorance. For children of natural birth like me, children brought up through Hearths, the Reproduction Program is mysterious.”
“Well, to me it was entirely natural. I am grateful for life. And I am thankful I was chosen by the Museum, and not by the Courthouse or by the Army. The majority of Reproduction children go to the Army. I would not have liked that life.”
They sat in silence for a while and Sian looped the climbing ropes into coils.
“I’m really sorry,” said Jay. “It is part of my role to be inquisitive. And to question all our actions in terms of Law. But I was not questioning you.”
Sian ignored him, looking away across the desert zone.
“Sian?”
“Oh my god,” she said, sitting up.
“What is it?”
Sian got to her feet. Across the desert zone a group of visiting children were playing amongst the animals. It was a few moments before Jay realized that the children were throwing desert rocks at one of the animals.
“No!” Sian cried. She ran towards the children.
Jay followed. As he approached a boy threw a stone which hit the animal, a kangaroo, in the face. The animal toppled to the side. Sian ran to the kangaroo and Jay placed himself between the animal and the group of boys. Some held stones in their hands.
“Stop,” he cried. “What are you doing?”
The children froze, realizing they had been caught misbehaving.
“This is a place of peace.” Jay snatched the rocks from their hands. “Who brought you here? Where is your Hearth-Teacher?”
The boys looked down. One little boy began to cry. Another pointed away across the desert zone. Jay saw a young man sitting on the desert about fifty feet away. The man was dressed in Teacher’s robes. Jay and the man locked eyes until the man looked away. Jay was about to confront the Hearth-Teacher when Sian demanded his attention.
“Jay, it’s injured. It’s been hurt.”
What do you mean hurt? he thought. It’s an object.
“All of you stand there,” ordered the children. “I will deal with you in a minute.”
“We have to get it to the Taxidermist quickly,” said Sian.
He knelt beside the Scion-Curator. She was caressing the kangaroo’s neck. One of the rocks had hit the animal in the eye. The eye was split and a dark, red liquid was flowing from the eye down its face.
Jay swallowed and held his breath. The kangaroo was bleeding.
Xia Tsang and the Teacher lectured the Hearth-Teacher of Desert-Hearth and his wayward children. Jay and Sian helped the Builder and his children carry the damaged kangaroo on a stretcher down to the workshops.
“They were throwing rocks at it,” explained Jay to the Builder.
The Builder placed his hand on the kangaroo. The eye was badly damaged and there were cuts to its face and body where other rocks had hit. The Builder sighed heavily as the elevator door opened and hefted the beast into the workshop. They carried the kangaroo into the Taxidermist’s workshop. The Taxidermist looked up from his workbench.
“Builder?” he asked.
The thin man sprang to the beast when he saw the damage. He placed his ear to its chest as if listening for a heart beat.
“How did this happen?”
“A group of children in the Nature Dome.”
The Taxidermist examined its eye.
“What terrible damage!” He looked angrily at Jay. “Is it not your job to supervise children in the Nature Dome?”
“It is not Jay’s fault,” said Sian. “Their Hearth-Teacher left them unsupervised.”
The Taxidermist gestured the children away. “Get out, all of you,” he said. “Lucien, find my scion. The rest of you, get out.”
Jay retreated with the Builder’s children. He caught a last glimpse of the Taxidermist leaning over the kangaroo, tears on his anxious face.
The next day, Jay spoke with the Teacher.
“The Taxidermist was so upset. It seemed an over-reaction.”
“People can be very attached to their work,” responded the Teacher. “Particularly creative people. I remember when I was a Scion-Teacher telling a story in the Science Dome. The children yawned and it was evident my story bored them. I was upset for days.”
The Teacher rubbed her face.
“Teacher, I don’t understand why he let them do it. He was watching while the children threw the rocks.”
“I understand why,” she said. “The Hearth-Teacher is called Jaresh, the Teacher of Desert Hearth. He was the other Hearth-Teacher I interviewed for the role of my scion. Jaresh was disappointed and angry.”
They sat in silence, looking through the window at the city.
“Teacher, what will happen to him?”
“He will be disciplined by the Hearth-Mother of Desert-Hearth.”
She stood up and stretched her back. “It is Middle Day and I need to rest. You need to rest also.”
“I am not tired, Teacher. I will read.”
Jay found it difficult to concentrate. He could not get the image of the bleeding kangaroo out of his head. There was something they were not telling him. He closed the book he was reading and rode the elevator to the ground floor. The foyer was empty but for one person. Ismet Paza the red-suited attendant staffed the reception desk.
“Hello Scion-Teacher. Why are you not resting?”
He smiled and shrugged. Through the foyer doors the bright day blazed. The buildings of the Ascendancy shimmered in the distance.
“I’m on middle day roster all this week,” she said. “It’s so boring. No-one comes. We may as well be closed.”
He approached the statue, his footsteps on the marble floor echoing in the empty foyer.
“How do you like the Museum?” asked Ismet. “Do you know your way around yet?”
“I’m learning.”
“If you need a guide, I can show you. I know my way around better than most. I could even show you a few places that the Director probably doesn’t know.”
“Like what sort of places?” asked Jay.
“There are underground tunnels that go beyond the exhibition workshops. A lot of the collections are stored there, things that belonged to the Museum hundreds of years ago. For example, there are rooms filled with stuffed animals not used in the Nature Dome. There are tunnels beneath the History Dome that link up to other galleries. Workman’s tunnels from when they built the Museum. I know a way up the tower. There are stairs and ladders that most people are too lazy to use.”
Ismet was like a doll, hair perfectly combed and tied beneath the red cap. Her blue eyes round and large. He stood before her for a long time.
“Scion-Teacher?” she quizzed.
“I’d like to explore around the workshops and Taxidermy without being seen.”
The girl had a spirit for adventure. Jay did not have to convince her to help him.
The next day they met in the antechamber of the History Dome. They passed into the dome. Halfway along the entry corridor they came to a service grill set into the floor. They lifted the grill and the girl quickly jumped into the dark space below.
“Come on,” she said impatiently from the tunnel.
Jay lowered himself down
and closed the grill behind him.
“How did you find this?” he asked.
“It is just a service corridor. All the attendant children and the workshop children know them.”
He followed her along a network of tunnels. At times they were in complete darkness and followed by the sound of her footsteps. At times they passed windows that looked into exhibit rooms. He saw the occasional visitor exploring the History Dome.
A circular stairwell spiraled down into gloomy shadow. “This leads to the hydraulics room under the History Dome,” said Ismet. “It will lead us to the workshops.”
The railing guided them down. After several complete turns they emerged into a massive chamber. Huge mechanical structures filled the space, great arms and levers that re-arranged the corridors and rooms of the gallery above. They ran across the room past these structures. Jay stumbled as the structures sprang into motion, the massive arms clanking and shunting, moving the floors.
“It’s okay,” reassured Ismet. “Someone has entered the dome.”
They left the chamber and followed a stone-hewn corridor. The sounds of distant hammering and hissing steam emerged from the workshops nearby. Peace, he thought, trying to calm himself.
They passed doorways in the rock. Red light seeped from beneath the door jams.
“Here,” whispered Ismet. Iron rungs led to a vent in the tunnel ceiling. Ismet put a finger to her lips and whispered: “Shh,” then climbed up. At the top she opened the vent and disappeared through the ceiling.
The voice of the Builder cried out from beyond the door: “Not like that, child! It will shatter!” Followed immediately by an earth-shaking crash as something broke into many pieces.
Jay scurried up the rungs and into the ceiling.
They clambered along a twisting tunnel barely wider than their bodies. At points they had to cross iron grills set into the floor. The main workshop was visible through the grills. Jay rushed across each grill, fearful of being seen.
He paused. Through a grill he could see the Builder. The large man crouched on the workshop floor, surrounded by shattered glass. He held a child at arm’s length, examining the girl for cuts.
“You are lucky not to have been sliced into ...”
The Builder stopped. He rose to his feet, scanning the room. Then slowly he turned and looked up.
