Dark Matter

by Luke Donegan

  “Leave it!” cried Erys. “It is firmly secured.”

  The soldier tapped the glass casing with his baton. The embryos inside were unresponsive, although the glass shook dangerously with each knock.

  “Be careful. There are living creatures inside,” said Erys.

  “What is this?” asked a soldier behind him.

  The woman stood at a bench and investigated a zebra lying on its side.

  “It is part of the Museum’s collection,” said Erys. “I ask you not to touch anything.”

  She poked the animal with her baton, testing its texture. She had never visited the Nature Dome and she did not recognize the creature.

  “This is an Aberration!”

  “Please,” said Erys. “You don’t know what you are doing.”

  The soldier examined the tubes and pipes connecting the animal to its life-support system. Using the baton as a lever she tugged at the tubing.

  “No!”

  All of a sudden she ripped the tubes from the zebra’s torso. Fluids red and brown gushed from the tubes and from the zebra’s torso, spilling on the bench and the floor.

  “What have you done,” whispered Erys.

  The creature was going to die.

  In that horrible moment he understood that they had not come to discover what was happening at the Museum. They already knew. They had come with a different purpose.

  He looked at the doorway that led to the cistern. Soldiers continued to pass through.

  Darkness pooled behind his eyes.

  The worst thing he could imagine.

  A small group had gathered on the landing overlooking the blue-lit cistern – the Builder, the Taxidermist, the Scion-Taxidermist clutching Gregor’s robes. With them were the Captain, the Sergeant and four other soldiers.

  Erys surveyed the cistern. Soldiers moved throughout the cavern. Batons in hand they explored the contents of the capsules, examining the hibernating animals within.

  Erys gripped the railing.

  “This is a controlled environment,” said the Taxidermist. “You are placing them in jeopardy.”

  “Placing what in jeopardy?” asked the Captain.

  The Taxidermist’s mouth opened but he could not find the right words.

  Erys watched as a soldier in the Reptiles Section tested the catch to a capsule. The soldier released the catch and lifted the lid. A hiss of oxygen and vapour escaped.

  “They must not be opened,” insisted the Taxidermist. “You are endangering the subjects.”

  The soldier leaned into the capsule and carefully lifted a snake by its tail. The soldier held it up in the air to show the Captain.

  “They are fragile ...”

  “Silence!” ordered the Captain.

  The Builder moved towards the stairs.

  “No-one goes down,” said the Captain. “You will wait here until I receive my report.”

  “I do not follow your orders,” growled the Builder. As he strode towards the stairs the Sergeant blocked his path, raising his baton threateningly before the Builder’s face. The Builder snatched the baton and forced it away from his face. The Sergeant tried to test his muscle against the Builder’s strength. He was no match.

  The Sergeant raised his other fist and punched the Builder in his neck. As the Builder choked and staggered back, releasing his grip on the weapon. His assailant raised the baton high and swung it down against the side of the Builder’s head.

  A horrible crack echoed through the cistern.

  Clara screamed. The Builder collapsed on the landing. His ear was split and blood sprayed across the floor. He lay unconscious on the metal grating.

  As Erys moved to help him two soldiers caught him from behind and dragged him back. They pinned his arms behind his back and lifted him until his feet were off the floor. Pain lanced across his shoulders as they strained to rip from their sockets.

  Darkness surged within him. Dark Matter boiled up through his chest, tendrils pushed at his eyeballs.

  “Release him!” ordered a voice. “Immediately!”

  The voice was soft, but carried the power of command.

  The pressure on his shoulders abated. He staggered forward into the railing

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  Erys shook his head to clear the fog of pain. He looked around. Sian and the Curator of Nature stood in the doorway and it was Xia Tsang who had spoken.

  The curators paused to take in the scene confronting them. Sian glanced at Erys before crouching beside the Builder’s body. She checked the man’s pulse and looked back at Xia Tsang.

  “He is alive,” she said.

  The Curator stood before the Captain and repeated her question. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?”

  “I am here on the authority of the General and the Judge,” said the Captain. “I am to investigate a violation of the Law.”

  “This is a place of peace.”

  “It is alleged that employees of the Museum have broken the Law of Nature ...”

  “You have no right to be here.”

  “... and that through the illegal use of genetic research you have engineered aberrant

  creatures ...”

  “I must ask you to leave the Ark, immediately.”

  “ ... which are housed here in this cistern, this ‘Ark’ as you call it.”

  The Captain gestured at the cistern. “I have orders to search this area.”

  The Curator looked over the rows of animals, the sum of years of devotion and work. While she held her head high there was fear in her eyes. They had been discovered. When they had been so close.

  We only needed another few months, she thought despairingly. But now it was too late.

  The Curator of Nature breathed deeply. “These people are under my authority,” she told the Captain. “They are innocent. I take full responsibility.”

  “No,” said Sian, rising to her feet. She understood immediately that her master was sacrificing herself. “No, Curator.”

  The Taxidermist stepped to Xia Tsang’s side.

  “Captain, they worked under my orders,” said Xia. “I take full responsibility. Do you understand?”

  Erys pushed himself from the railing and joined the others by the Curator. The Sergeant slapped his weapon eagerly against the thigh-guard of his uniform.

  “That will be for the Judge to decide,” said the Captain.

  The Curator was about to respond when a soldier called up from the floor of the cistern.

  “Captain. The capsules are refrigeration units. They are controlled by that central junction unit, over on the south wall.” The soldier pointed at the terminal that controlled the life-support systems for more than a thousand dormant species. “In each capsule there are infant animals. These animals are alive. They are in stasis, but they are alive.”

  The soldier finished his report and waited for further instructions. The Captain turned to the Curator of Nature.

  “What did you expect to achieve?” he asked.

  “The future,” said Xia Tsang gently. Her eyes glistened with pity. Even in this moment, she had empathy for this man. You are like a child, she thought. Alone and small in this great empty world. And yet this decision will reach out beyond your life, beyond this age, and touch everything that will ever come.

  “I wanted to save the world.”

  The Captain studied her. The expression on his face was unreadable behind his black mask.

  She measured her thoughts. “Captain, our Director has full knowledge of this program. I am sure he will speak with the General. This can all be cleared up, peacefully.”

  “The Ascendancy has already issued their orders. I must do as I have been instructed.”

  He stepped past her and called out across the cistern. “Sar tao syne!”

  The soldiers throughout the cistern stood to attention. “Tao syne!”

  The Captain turned to the Curator of Nature. “You are charged with breaking the First Law of Nature – ‘
One shall not create unnatural life.’ I am ordered to take you into custody. You will be delivered to the Courthouse and incarcerated until the court places you before the Judge.”

  The Sergeant stepped forward. “Hold out your hands.”

  Her companions protested. The Curator held her hands out. “It is okay,” she said. “Sian. Gregor. Erys. Peace. Take care of the Builder. Tell the Director. Jack Gaunt will fix everything.”

  The Sergeant bound her wrists with cord.

  “It will be alright,” repeated Xia.

  “My second command,” said the Captain, “is to order the immediate destruction of this ... this pit of Aberration.”

  The words hit Erys like a physical blow.

  “Suom kre samras sdei!” cried the Captain.

  On his command a group of soldiers marched across the cistern floor to the life-support terminal. They raised their batons in the air.

  Erys saw Sian crying in protest. He could not hear her voice.

  He watched as the soldiers swung their batons into the life-giving machinery. Sparks flew and panels fell to the floor as the soldiers quickly reduced the terminal to a mess of broken housing, fused wires and shattered diodes.

  The background hum of life in the great cistern faded to silence.

  In the far distance he heard a lone creature cry out. A terrible wail of loss – of waste and desolation. The Taxidermist. The animal cry came from his lungs.

  The Taxidermist raised his fists. His entire body was clenched as tight as a spring as he began to transform. Skin became scales. Mouth became jaws. Eyes became yellow slits. His nostrils flared. His jaws opened wide, exposing a thick, blue tongue that wagged as the reptile man hissed with rage at the Captain.

  Reptilian musk soaked the air.

  The soldiers backed away, raising their batons in defense. One soldier swung his weapon. The animist deflected the blow. With lightening speed his jaws flashed forward and clamped across the soldier’s shoulder. He twisted his jaws, dragging the soldier to the floor. He faced the remaining soldiers and hissed.

  “Gregor,” mouthed Sian’s silent voice.

  Instantly the Sergeant and the soldiers were upon him, swinging their batons against his head and body. He caught the arm of another soldier in his jaws, but batons hammered his face before he could inflict any harm.

  Blow after blow landed. Slowly his body sank towards the floor, first on one knee, then on two – hands attempting to ward away the blows – then on his elbows, his reptile face shying right and left to avoid the attacks. A blow landed above the Taxidermist’s eye, splitting the eyelid.

  Sian and Erys struggled to his aid. The Sergeant caught Sian’s arm and flung her to the floor.

  Darkness erupted.

  Thick, black strands of smoke poured from Erys’ eyes and hands and swept towards the Sergeant like snapping serpents. The air crackled with energy. Thick bands of smoke coiled around the Sergeant’s limbs, pulling him from Sian. He dragged the Sergeant to him, lifted the man’s face within inches of his own. The terrified Sergeant recoiled from Erys’ face of writhing darkness. Erys opened his jaws and roared, pouring fire and Dark Matter down into the Sergeant’s lungs.

  He located the Sergeant’s Spirit. But just as he was about to drag that Spirit from the soldier’s body, something slammed into the back of his head.

  Darkness descended. A thick curtain dropped across his sight. For a moment he glimpsed vague figures, animals, flying into the air above the cistern floor.

  Spirits rising.

  They too disappeared, and he fell ... but he was gone before he hit the floor.

  Only a moment passed. He opened his eyes.

  The world was on its side. He saw the Taxidermist leaning against a vertical floor. He was in human form apart from his eyes. One eye was open and it stared directly at Erys. A yellow, reptile eye. There was no life behind it.

  Clara held the reptile man. She lay across his chest, wailing silently.

  The Builder lay unconscious on the landing, a few feet away.

  Erys saw the Sergeant. The man attempted to lunge at him but was held back by two other soldiers. His black mask had fallen and the man’s face screamed silently with rage.

  The Curator of Nature stood at the railing, hands tied before her. She held her chin high as she surveyed the cistern. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She closed her eyes.

  Erys felt hands on his body. Sian pulled him to a sitting position. Together they looked across the Ark. He could hear, far in the distance, the pitiful sound of her cries.

  The horror of this moment!

  Soldiers were smashing the life capsules with their batons. Glass flew. Blue light dimmed. The soldiers moved slowly along the rows, destroying everything in their path.

  As he watched, one by one the frozen animals in the Ark were utterly destroyed.

  He finally understood what aberration meant. It was not Erys or the scientists who were aberrations, nor the breaking of the Law of Nature, nor the genetic research and the creation of life. It was this. This human wave of violence! This unreasoned annihilation of the heritage of the world!

  There was nothing he could do but watch as the Spirits of the future world, like tears falling into a great river, were swallowed by the dark currents, flowing out into the brooding, endless and desolate ocean.

  Gone forever!

  Chapter 16 SORROW

  Erys stood on the beach and faced the ocean. The ocean was like a breathing, crouching creature, watching him with a careful, studied eye.

  It’s not deep enough, thought Erys. Not deep enough or wide enough to contain this sorrow.

  The sun pitched towards the western horizon. Fragments of sunlight glanced across the ocean’s surface, chasing ripples like diamonds thrown across a polished floor. Seagulls circled above the beach, their calling the only sound in that empty sky.

  He turned back to his companions on the beach. The Museum rose above them, beyond the sand dunes.

  Sian, her hand wrapped in bandages. Her hair tied back. She was all business, her face set like stone, focussed on the work and on supporting the children.

  Don’t let them see it in you. Not a bit. Or else you will crumble and fall.

  The Builder was a large, broken man. A dark red welt spread from his ear to his neck. Crusted blood remained on the lobe. His face was a dark hidden place, his eyes lost and wild. Erys could not bear to look at him.

  Clara wept openly. Erys had to stop himself from snapping at her. Get yourself in order, he thought. You are the Taxidermist now. Set an example for the children. Like Sian. You don’t see her weeping, do you? But he did not say these things.

  With them were some of the older children, Felicity, Nazreth and a handful of others, those the Builder thought capable of doing this soul-raking work. Although they had known of the Ark, they had never revealed their knowledge. Whey felt the sorrow around them and shared some of it, they did not understand the completeness of the loss.

  Nothing left, thought Erys. Nothing left to save.

  He examined the pile of bodies on the beach. A patchwork of textures - smooth scales, skin, soft fur and feathers, browns, reds, greens and greys.

  Most of the animals were pitifully small and had been quick to move. The larger animals like the bear cubs, lion cubs, horse and zebra foals, had taken longer. Erys and the Builder had struggled carrying the infant elephants, hippos and rhinos from the Museum to the beach. One large infant per trip, carried on makeshift stretchers put together by the workshop boys.

  A long and hard day.

  Sweat poured from his brow. He wiped his forehead, eyes squinting in the bright day. Sunlight and heat beat down on the pile of bodies. Flies buzzed in the air as a cloying sweet smell of flesh began to seep along the breeze.

  Ignoring the pain in his chest and the pain at the base of his neck, he lifted a stretcher and balanced it across his shoulder.

  “Let’s go again,” he said to the group.

  Most were tired be
yond belief. They wanted relief, from the endless lifting and carrying, from the heartbreak. They did not want to go back to the cistern.

  Sian looked at him with heartbroken eyes.

  “It must be finished today,” he apologised.

  Sian nodded. She looked again at the pile on the beach, then took a deep breath.

  “Children,” she said. “Come on. Clara, come on now.”

  Together the group, hefting their stretchers made their slow, uneasy way through the sand dunes, back to the Museum.

  The seagulls called behind them. The ocean glistened with dancing sunlight. A few of the gulls swooped low and lit on the water’s surface, unaware of the extent of the dark and empty void beneath their fragile, feathered bodies.

  Erys and his companions descended into the cistern and picked their way through the devastation to the Mammals Section, the last section to clear.

  The children filled their stretchers with the carcasses of smaller mammals - marsupials, rodents, insectivores and bats. While Sian and Clara loaded the bodies of monkeys onto their stretcher, Erys and the Builder forced the lid from a capsule containing the bodies of six baby chimpanzees.

  Erys leant into the capsule. The chimpanzees looked to be asleep. He lifted one into his arms. Its smooth fur was soft and delicate, and he felt the ridiculous hope that its eyes may open. That it had somehow survived.

  He carried the chimpanzee to the stretcher and lay it gently on the canvas.

  “Shall we take them all?” Erys asked the Builder as the man lay another chimpanzee by the first.

  “Yes.”

  They filled the stretcher.

  “The gorillas next trip,” said the Builder.

  They heard weeping from the next row. Clara held a Golden Tamarin in her hands, the delicate form limp and lifeless. As she looked at the tamarin, her tears broke, flooding like a collapsing dam.

  “Clara, come on,” said Sian, holding the girl’s shoulders.

  But the girl’s tears were flowing now. She had passed her breaking point.

  “Clara. We have work to do.”

  Sian gently shook the girl’s shoulders. Clara hugged the golden form to her chest, closed her eyes and wailed. The other children stopped their work, turned to the commotion. They too began to cry.