I have seen the man, Jorne, again. He lurks. He is a lurker. The place he generally lurks is the mess of rocks and caves between the cliffs and the sand. I know he is watching me. Or watching you—I do not know.
It is all right to not know something. It just means you do not have enough data.
‘What generation do you think he is?’ posed Haralia, who I see more often these days and, when she is not with Jakob, accompanies me on my walks.
‘I do not care.’
‘He must be from Dundee. Or Rio.’
‘Wherever he comes from, he should stay there, and stop making a nuisance of himself.’
She gasped and nudged my elbow.
‘Unless he is Sundra, of course!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Sundra.’
‘What?’
‘I am yet to meet a member of this Sundra. And therefore I have no reason to believe they exist.’
She leaned close.
‘Jakob told me they swim in the sea, eat crabs from their shells and run naked through the forests.’
‘Yes, well, Jakob would like everyone to run naked through the forests.’
‘Shall I visit again tomorrow?’
‘I would like that.’
One day he came to my door.
‘Hello,’ he said, as I looked past him for signs of anyone watching. ‘I am Jorne.’
‘I know very well who you are, my memory is perfectly intact, now what do you want?’
‘I want nothing.’ He looked over my shoulder. You were crying. ‘Is he all right?’
I stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind me.
‘Yes, he is perfectly all right.’
‘He wails.’
‘Perfectly normal. That is what infants do. Apparently. Now tell me why you are here.’
‘I am here to offer you help.’
‘Why?’
He hesitated, clearly taken aback by my hostility. In truth, I was finding it equally surprising.
‘Because you may need it,’ he said at last.
‘Why do you have such interest in him?’
He gave me that smile of his again. It was, I realised, like yours; uncomplicated by the centuries, free from subtlety.
‘He is human,’ he said. ‘That is why.’
‘He is data.’
He frowned at this.
‘Data?’
‘Yes. Now please leave us alone.’
I shut the door, but he called through the wood.
‘Remember, rocking helps to comfort them.’
‘You know nothing, go away!’
I stood with my back to the door, listening until I heard the slow, sound of his boot heels turning on stone.
I walked to the bed. There lying upon it—fed, clean and rested—you continued to bawl.
I picked you up. I rocked you. And it worked.
THE NEXT DAY Haralia returned, as promised, glowing.
‘You look tired again,’ she said.
This disappointed me, because I believed I had slept well. Or at least better than usual.
‘I feel fine. Nothing that a little fresh air will not help. Shall we go to the beach again?’
‘No.’ She smiled. ‘I want to help you.’
‘You are.’
‘I mean properly. I know I have been distracted lately and I am sorry. But Jakob is in the forest collecting wood, so I have the day to myself. You go to the beach, and I shall stay with the child.’
This made me pause. For a moment I could not think properly.
‘I don’t… I mean, I couldn’t…’
‘You need a break, Ima, and I am giving you one.’
‘But I couldn’t spend an entire day on the beach.’
I absolutely could.
‘Then do something else. Visit a friend. See to your horse. Walk. Run. Sleep. Do whatever you wish. The day is yours.’
There were no friends to visit, walking and running were not novelties. Sleep had become something distant and untenable. I had been meaning to check on Boron’s hoof. But there was something else.
‘I could fly.’
Haralia beamed.
‘Excellent idea. Go up in your balloon where you can be happy.’
I frowned at this.
‘Do not think that I am not happy. Please.’
‘That is not what I meant. You know that.’
‘But how will you cope? How will you know what to do?’
‘I have watched you enough. Feeding, changing, settling. I am sure we will be perfectly fine.’
‘It is more difficult than you think.’
‘But it is only for one day. Not even that, in fact.’
‘All right.’ I looked around the room, feeling suddenly weightless. ‘All right. The blankets are all clean and dry. Milk is fresh but you may have to warm it. There is tea and some herring in—’
‘Go,’ said Haralia, ushering me through the door. ‘Go, we shall be fine. Enjoy yourself.’
The door shut and I stood on my porch.
‘Rocking helps to comfort him!’ I called back, but she did not reply.
— SEVENTEEN —
AFTER CHECKING ON Boron, whose hoof I was pleased to discover was on the mend, I made for the sealed wooden shed near Fane’s paddock, in which my balloon is kept. I felt light again as I walked to it, glancing behind, sure I would see Haralia calling me back from the house. But all was still, there was no sound but for the sound of my steps in the wet grass.
I opened the door, disturbing some doves in the rafters, and stood in the dusty light. There it was—the machine which had flown me up into the far reaches of the atmosphere and allowed me to circumnavigate the globe over five thousand times. It is not large; a titanium hemisphere half the size of my dwelling, with a flat-bottomed hull. The deck is protected by a handrail, and above it the eolith hatch which allows entry into the control deck. The balloon itself draws out from a rear compartment when flight is initiated, a long bulb of transparent nano-mesh, almost unbreakable and strong enough to lift ten elephants with no struggle. Its surface draws power from the sun, which drives thrusters enabling the craft to fly with great speed and manoeuvrability.
The last time I had flown my balloon was ten years before, when the final readings were taken, and to see it now brought be as much pleasure as ever. I placed a hand upon its cold surface, brushing away a little dust. Then I pulled it outside.
The cells were low but they still held enough power to launch, after which the solar array would quickly replenish them. I held the joystick, allowing the systems to initiate. Then, with a last glance through the hatch at the house, I released the balloon and pulled up.
We rose gently and Fane shrank beneath me. I could still see my dwelling—would still be able to see Haralia if she suddenly dashed outside, waving a hand. But she did not. The spot that marked my house became small and the world around it grew, although neither of these phenomena actually occurred. They remained exactly as they were—it was I who was changing. All is relative. Even your dead ancestors knew that.
Soon, Fane was joined by Dundee, Rio, Tokyo, and three more neighbouring settlements, and the tracks that joined them appeared to contract like a tightening net. In another few seconds, Houston, Paris, Sydney, Istanbul drew in, followed by the remote settlements in the north and south—Toronto and Delhi—and finally, Ertanea itself, with its stone halls rising from the tree canopies. All of ertian life was beneath me—a civilisation, I supposed—and I could still just see my house. I looked up and soared into the shining blue, virtually weightless.
It was a curious feeling. Every flight I had ever taken had carried a purpose, whether to measure carbon readings, monitor the atomic nets or release catalysts. But this one was different; it was purposeless. There was nothing but to achieve but flight itself. No directive, no direction, no destination.
Where would I go?
I checked the weather beacons we had launched when we settled on the coast; spherical satellites t
hat roam high above our coastline, warning us of incoming pressure systems. Such events are unheard of, but not impossible, and with enough warning we can stave off dangerous weather with supersonic pressure drones and a cyclonic army of mites. One of the orbs had endured a rare collision—a bird, perhaps, or a meteor—that had set it from its path by some degrees. I reset its navigational systems and checked its siblings, which were without fault.
After I left the beacons to their business I went nowhere, merely following whatever thermals happened to exist. Then, as I saw the northern sea spread out beneath me, I turned west, aiming down. Soon, a large white continent—once called Greenland—seemed to rise out of the sea like a glacier. And all was ice.
All is relative. Water can be gas, liquid or solid, the same thing but in a different energetic state, where molecules conspire to move at different speeds and even time is warped by the change in density. I like ice. It is water at rest. Its energy has departed, leaving it at peace.
I followed the coastline and the ragged Arctic archipelagos beyond. I saw creatures—all white, all moving at their own speeds, and for an hour I hovered above a bear, absorbed in its hunt for a hare, which it finally caught and killed and ate.
Then I went further north, until I was directly above the pole. Here I stopped to pull on my insulation suit and oxygen mask, and I let my balloon rise. The horizon bent. The blue became black, the stars and planets and galaxies glittered, and the sea shone beneath me, disrupted by great fleets of clouds all busy with themselves. And above it all was me, and my awareness of it all.
So this was to be my destination; not really a place, but a feeling.
Curious. But not as curious as what happened next.
Slowly, I released the joystick, allowing the balloon to drift from its course. Now I was at the mercy of whatever thermals would take me, and in that vulnerable state I reached up, opened the hatch, and stepped outside.
On the deck I felt the shock of cold, thin air, and took two hesitant steps toward the guardrail. My right leg shook, seemingly of its own accord. This was fear, I realised, another feeling, and one I had no need for since I already recognised the perils of suspending a body of flesh and bone at such a height above a sphere of rock and fluid. I would be pulverised if I fell, I knew that, but still, but still…
Still that fear.
Which made what I did next the most curious thing of all. I took a breath, removed my mask, and removed my hands from the rail. Then I leaned over the side.
There was no sound but for the soft clang of an anchor’s hook against the titanium shell, and the light crackle of ice crystals forming on my skin, and in this silence I stretched out my arms and opened my eyes, looking down upon the sky.
I have never seen a blue so pure. And by pure I mean an undisrupted, unvarying field, 636 THz of unbroken light. It made me shake. I wanted to give myself to it. With awareness comes abandon, I thought, and blew out the oxygen from my lungs until I had no more, whereupon I stood and jumped down into the hatch.
Slamming it shut and rubbing the ice from my skin, I flew home.
WALKING FROM THE shed, where I had safely repacked my balloon, I felt a difference in my step. There was fresh air upon my face and the warm winds of early summer carried the scent of blossom down from the hills; I met the eye of every villager I passed in Fane’s square, even managing to give Magda a nod of greeting without drawing a scowl.
My door was still shut, with no noise from inside. I opened it.
‘Haralia, thank you—’
‘Here.’ Haralia thrust you in my arms. ‘He is asleep. Finally.’
She looked wretched, her hair bedraggled, her dress adorned with stains of yellow and white. One breast hung from its open neck.
‘He will not feed. Not from me. I tried the bottle but it did not work. So I tried the other way.’ She thrust out her bottom lip and looked down sadly at her bosom, popping it back inside. ‘That did not work either. He has cried all day. And the excretions…’
Her voice shook. Upon the floor were strewn six filthy blankets, from which the familiar stench of your rear end rose up to greet me.
‘I tried to get outside, but he would not let me. He just would not…’ She shook her head and blew a wet ringlet from her face. ‘You were right, Ima. It is far more difficult than it seems.’
She busied herself, collecting her things.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘If nothing else, at least it was practice.’
‘Practice for what?’
‘For you and Jakob.’
She frowned.
‘Your secret. You said you had volunteered.’
Her eyes widened.
‘Oh my goodness. You thought we were going to foster an ertling?’
‘That was my assumption, yes.’
She released a hoot of laughter.
‘Whatever made you think we would want to do such a thing?’
‘I don’t know. You seem so happy.’
‘We are, and I can assure you that we have no intention of ruining that happiness with an ertling.’
‘Then what have you volunteered for?’
She took a great breath.
‘We are going to be the first, Ima. The first to leave.’
‘Transcendence?’
‘Yes. In a few years they will begin testing, and we are to be subjects. We are called the Devoted. Isn’t it wonderful?’
She smiled, displaying feelings that could not have been more at odds with my own.
‘Yes. Yes, it is wonderful indeed.’
‘Now I have a purpose too, just like you.’
She looked down at you.
‘No, I can assure you that neither Jakob nor I have any interest in being parents.’
‘Thank you for today,’ I said.
She sniffed.
‘My pleasure,’ she said, making for the door.
‘Will you be back soon?’
‘Of course,’ she called back, but as I watched her skip across the square to Jakob’s, I sensed this was not altogether true.
— EIGHTEEN —
I WAS RIGHT. I did not see Haralia again for some time, and in that time, things grew worse.
The first problem was that August’s broth harvest had not been as large as usual. This can, occasionally, happen. There is feedback in every system, whether sky or lagoon, which makes it difficult to predict.
Difficult, but never impossible, because data and patience: that is all it takes. Not that I had any inclination to remind my fellow villagers of this, so frosty that they were, so scornful were their looks. I avoided them, and this became a part of your equation too. Your walks would be cancelled because they were outside when I had planned to leave, or your feeds delayed because too many of them were gathered near the milk urn.
Besides the fact that their sleep was still disturbed by your cries, they blamed the lagoon’s imbalance on my blockage. And now they were hungry as well as tired. That is not a good combination.
I know this, for I was hungry too.
All this meant for unhappiness. In them, in me, and in you. Feedback mechanisms, you see, in every system, small or large.
I know they found food. Settlements are self-organising, but we do not let others starve, and I know they sought supplies from the next village—herring, vegetables, turnips. Somehow I was missed from the distribution of rations.
I took to the beach and saw Jorne three times from a distance, and each time he stopped and watched me. He gave me uncomfortable chills.
One day he turned up at my door again, unannounced.
‘I brought you these from around the coast,’ he said, holding up some herring which he had smoked. In his other hand he held a blanket. ‘And I made this. It is a softer weave, and lighter. It will be more comfortable for him.’
‘I have no need for them,’ I said, though I did.
‘Oh, that’s right, I forgot. He is just data, correct?’
That smile again, mocking me now.
> ‘Go away.’
I slammed the door, but the sight of my empty larder reminded me of my empty stomach and I opened it again, wordlessly snatching his gifts before banishing him once more. I gobbled the herrings whole, sitting with my back to the door. I think he was listening.
Your night time crying worsened, in spite of the new blanket and the trick of rocking you. Magda’s bangs and crashes worsened too, especially at night, when I paced the floor endlessly in the dark. Others joined her protestations, grumbles and shouts from other dwellings, candles lit, faces at the windows. More storms came in with the heat. The hills were drenched with rain and thunder shook the walls of my house every hour of every day.
In the day I saw them talking in the square, hushed and in huddles, flicking their gaze at my window. They were not themselves.
One night, as I completed my 372nd perimeter of the room with you wailing into my shoulder, I heard doors slam and footsteps on stone. Torchlight flickered through my window. My door hammered.
‘Ima.’ It was Niklas. Other voices murmured behind him. ‘Open your door.’
I did as he demanded. On my porch were fifteen of them, torches in hand, breathing hard. Each face carried a distinct vision of rage.
‘What do you want?’ I said. My voice was cracked with exhaustion.
‘You know what we want,’ said Niklas, directing his eyes at you. Magda scowled behind him. ‘Sleep.’
‘As do I,’ I replied.
‘But we cannot,’ said Magda. ‘Because of the noise that comes from your dwelling day and night. It must be stopped.’
The figures behind her shuffled and grumbled in agreement. I looked between their dark faces, full of shadows, seeking out some trace of the grace and intelligence that had once led them to save a planet from doom. They had become a witless mob.
‘I think I have been clear with you,’ I said. ‘This project is vital to the council, and to…’
‘Vital.’
Magda spoke the word in disbelief.
The Human Son Page 10
