The Human Son

by Adrian J. Walker

  I occasionally listened to the words they sang. Many seemed to dwell upon frustrations over the sexual relationship—or lack of one—with a potential mate. But others related strange stories of battling clouds and imaginary landscapes, or were simply strings of abstract images, like the poems in one of Greye’s books. These were the ones I liked the most. They didn’t seem to belong anywhere, and therefore were their own worlds.

  And then there were the buttons which had once fastened clothes, the jewellery which had once hung around necks and wrists, the maps which had once described the entire planet, and the books. You lost yourself in the books night after night, and I watched you read from a distance. All these things became your secret treasures; endless sources of joy.

  The surfboard would come much later.

  ONE NIGHT, JORNE said he had something special to show you. He had cleared a space in the middle of the Room of Things and arranged two chairs—one for me and one for you—facing a wall. Attached to this wall was a white fabric square, and upon a wooden box a short distance from it he had balanced a complex array of small metal boxes connected by wires. Small metal boxes and wires were things which you had rarely seen before, other than the occasional glance in my balloon shed if you passed when I happened to be working on it, so this exotic tangled clump drew your attention immediately.

  ‘What is it, Jorne, what is it?’ you said.

  Jorne grinned with equal excitement.

  ‘Just wait until you see.’

  I caught his eye and frowned, clueless as to what he was about to do. He winked back at me.

  Winked.

  Blinking, sighing, eye-rolling, frowning, smirking, eyebrow-raising—I was growing accustomed to the expressions my fellow erta had developed during my centuries in the sky, but winking was not one of them. I responded by not responding, but Jorne didn’t notice. He had already returned to fiddling with his contraption.

  I recognised one of the boxes as a Sunspot, a solar powered battery still popular in the years leading up to humanity’s demise and the creation of the erta. It was remarkably powerful, capable of powering a human dwelling for fifty years without replacement. We used them to good effect to power our own first generation of technology—the stratospheric monitors, deep-sea drones, and quantum computers that gathered and analysed our initial data sets. Even my own balloon was powered by one to begin with. Of course, it was not long until we had learned to perfect fusion from ambient nuclear energy, and the Sunspot became defunct. But still, it was one of humanity’s better achievements. Perhaps if the effort had been made to develop them a half-century earlier then things may have gone differently.

  But as it was—well, the Sunspot was something they used to call “too little, too late”.

  Human technology did not have to develop in the way that it did. It was not as if there was a single path laid out for them, each discovery leading to the next like a treasure hunt.

  Treasure hunts were games that children played, mostly in parks, dwellings and gardens, in which they found clues written in riddle form and deciphered them in order to deduce the location of the next clue, eventually leading to a prize.

  Parks were places that were kept green in order to escape the places that were not green.

  Riddles were truths mangled into untruths, like similes only less delightful.

  I told you, I know a lot of things now.

  Anyway, as I was saying, the path of human technology could have taken many shapes. It is probable that basic tools would always have come first, as much out of boredom as frustration, I imagine, there being not much to do in those days other than scavenge and shelter. But agriculture need not have preceded mastery of the ocean. The notation of music may well have occurred well before the writing of words.

  Although, from my experience of the books and records in the Room of Things, I would suggest that alcohol fermentation would always have arrived well before either.

  Flight need not have developed from that first dizzy soar by two brothers in hats to the touchdown on the moon in less than a century. People could have been bumbling about in bi-planes in the 1500s if they had so desired, and never considered the moon.

  Equally, the Napoleonic wars could have been argued about on social media, had the need for internet telecommunication outweighed the need that dominated everything else in humanity’s final few millennia—to dominate and destroy everything in its path.

  Social media. I cannot really explain this to you, and it is probably best for your sanity if I do not try.

  With the right environment and minds clear of fear and desire, there would have been nothing to stop a collection of curious Neolithic sapiens from having telephones, packed lunches, and intercontinental air travel within a century.

  Fear and desire. Curiosity and environment. These are the things that drove the path of technology.

  ‘There,’ Jorne finally stood, triumphant, from his fiddling. ‘Are you ready?’

  We nodded from our chairs, and he tapped a screen on one of the boxes. There was a whirring and a square of light appeared on the fabric. You gasped.

  ‘Just wait,’ said Jorne from the shadows.

  After a crackle a grainy, colourless image appeared of a network of streets and tall buildings from above. You gave another gasp, jumped from your chair and ran to the wall.

  ‘Look! Look!’

  ‘Now watch,’ said Jorne. He reached for one of the boxes and made a gesture on its screen. The image zoomed in fiercely, so that now it showed people moving about on one of the streets, crowds streaming past in distorted sepia.

  You stood staring up at it, a portion of the image now playing out for me on the back of your head.

  Jorne read from the screen beneath his fingers.

  ‘August 17th, 1979, Seattle.’

  Hairs prickled upon the back of my neck. I leaned forward, catching his eye again and mouthing the words: ‘Quantum Telescope?’

  He nodded, eyes bright.

  — THIRTY-EIGHT —

  IN ADDITION TO the supply of fresh food and water, safety, sanitation and luxurious dwellings, the last members of the human race were also entertained by a wonder that would leave them breathless. The Quantum Telescope was the erta’s final gift to the human race.

  The technology was, of course, far beyond what they had achieved, so there are no words to describe the science of it.

  There is that problem again—describing the science of things.

  Space and time are like warped blankets. Light is like a wave at sea. Consciousness emerges or collects or is a field.

  None of these things are true, and all of them are, and that paradox is neither the fault of science nor language. Those were the only things you had, and the only things with which you left us. Language, in fact, has always been just as bad at describing things outside of the realm of science as those within it. Love, for example, or the feeling one gets when standing alone before three horses at sunrise.

  Words, however, when placed in a certain order, can open doors. That is why poetry exists.

  And scientific description is no less a form of poetry than John Keats, or Emily Dickinson, or Bob Dylan.

  I told you. Lots of things.

  I shall try my best to describe the Quantum Telescope to you.

  Light from the Earth is reflected into space, as it has been since the Earth was formed, and the further you are from Earth at any given time, the older that light becomes. If you are 250 light years away and you happen to be able to gather and analyse such photons, then you can see what was going on 250 years ago.

  We happened to be able to do just that. With quantum drones—a mesh of subatomic telescopes springing up hundreds of light years away—the erta were able to show humans the history of their world; light from the planet as it had been millennia ago. Not only that, but by analysing this mesh concurrently, they were able to pinpoint light from exact times, dates, and angles and thus they would sit outside in warm gardens filled with mu
sic and light, watching Rome fall, the Battle of Trafalgar rage, Columbus’ feet touching sand, and the births and deaths of their numerous prophets. Their collective life, quite literally, flashed before their eyes.

  The Quantum Telescope was dismantled shortly after Hanna, the last human, died. Jorne, it seemed, had attained some recordings.

  I walked to his side as you gazed at the people on the street.

  ‘This is probably the most illegal thing in existence,’ I whispered.

  He gave me a wary look.

  ‘Probably, yes.’

  ‘How much do you have?’

  ‘From about 1300 AD, mostly from Europe and North America, but quite a bit in the 20th century from Africa and Asia too. It’s intermittent, but indexed, and dynamic, too.’

  ‘Dynamic?’

  ‘Yes, he can zoom in, scan, and change angles to an extent. The quality is lacking, as you can see, but—’

  ‘He can see them. Humans.’

  He nodded, with an uncertain look.

  ‘I thought it would help.’

  ‘Where are they all?’ you said, back-stepping slowly to your seat.

  ‘I told you,’ said Jorne, ‘a city called Seattle, August 17th—’

  ‘Seattle near the herring cove north of Kalbarri?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s a different Seattle. One from long ago and far away.’

  You wriggled your hands beneath your thighs and frowned.

  ‘So where are they now?’

  ‘Those people are all dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes, Reed.’ I took my seat next to you. ‘Everything dies eventually.’

  You looked up.

  ‘Even you and me and Jorne?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Even you and me and Jorne.’

  ‘I don’t want you to die.’

  I looked into your mournful eyes. Aside from those few strangers who had died in the hurricane, the only death you had known was in nature. The logic was implicit, reiterated in every spring bud and crumbling autumn leaf: the old died before the young.

  I kissed your forehead.

  ‘Do not worry about such things.’

  You looked back at the screen and sighed.

  ‘It is quite boring,’ you said. ‘All the faces look the same.’

  Jorne sprang to the box and fumbled with the screen.

  ‘Then how about this? Let me see—’

  The image was replaced by a moment or two of white before a new one appeared, just as grainy, of a stone fortress shrouded in mist.

  ‘Beeston Castle, England, October 28th 1482.’

  He made some adjustments and the picture enlarged focussing on two males clad in heavy metal armour and helmets, leaning on the battlements. One smoked a pipe, and occasionally it was clear from their mouths that they were sharing a word or two, but mostly they just looked dejectedly out at the empty plain beyond their keep.

  Your expression remained similarly bored. Seeing this, Jorne moved us on again. He tried numerous more times and places. The antics of three children running around the port of Cadiz in 1784 drew your interest for a short time, and we tracked a crude rowing boat crossing the southern Pacific two centuries earlier, but by the time Jorne had stumbled upon a family of Inuit sitting around a fishing hole in 1902, you had hopped off your chair and made for a table in the corner, where you became absorbed by a mechanical clock.

  Jorne switched off the equipment.

  ‘Maybe he will grow interested in time.’

  You would not, as it turned out. But for all the wrong reasons.

  — THIRTY-NINE —

  WE SPLIT OUR time between Jorne’s dwelling and Fane. Fane was for school and my ongoing commitment to our weather beacons, Jorne’s place for the evenings and the days in which you were not at school, when you spent your time in the Room of Things poring through the books, listening to the music and stroking the guitar’s ancient strings. You spent time with the Sundra too, whose affection for you grew with every visit. You talked with them endlessly, which troubled me at first.

  ‘You have no reason to be concerned,’ said Payha one evening, as we sat around a fire.

  ‘I am not,’ I replied.

  ‘You are. You believe something will be said that will break the lie. But there is no need to worry—they will not betray the reality of his existence.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ I said, turning to her.

  ‘Because the Sundra want him to succeed, just like you.’

  I had long passed the point of denying this fact.

  ‘What else do the Sundra want?’ I asked.

  Payha hesitated, considering her words.

  ‘I am not sure I should tell you.’

  ‘Why? I thought we were friends.’

  She looked me over carefully.

  ‘Very well,’ she said, with a shrug. ‘We wish to stay upon the Earth. We choose not to transcend.’

  She handed me some hurwein and I drank it. I had grown rather fond of the taste.

  ‘They will not allow it,’ I said, wiping my mouth. ‘One or nothing, that is what Caige says. They will challenge you when the time comes.’

  ‘In which case, we will fight.’

  ‘The erta have never fought.’

  ‘There would have been a time when that was true of humans too.’

  We sat for a while, watching you amuse the group with your stories and witticisms.

  ‘Look at him,’ I said. ‘Happy and at peace. How could he ever be capable of war?’

  ‘Given his age, you might be about to find out.’

  WE ALWAYS RETURNED to Fane for sleep, unless it was on a day before one of your trips to the forest with Jorne.

  These were numerous. I did not join you—preferring to use the additional time to widen the reach of my balloon journeys. I was enjoying my work again and I was particularly interested in an unusual conglomeration of chemical imbalances occurring over the southern seas. These turned out to be non-threatening, but the novelty of the task was pleasurable. I continued in this vein, making ever-vaster sweeps that yielded more and more data with which to build a picture of the carbon dioxide dispersion across the northern hemisphere. I could not remember ever having lost myself in work so much.

  You, meanwhile, lost yourself in whatever Jorne taught you in the forest. It was mostly hunting. Your taste for meat had been piqued by the spring gathering, and I would often smell smoke and burning flesh coming from the hills and know it was you. Sometimes you would not come back, choosing to sleep beneath the stars instead.

  Your school became secondary; a necessary thing which you endured but did not enjoy as much as you had. Cliques had evolved in the playground, and your friendship with Lukas drifted. The difference in your sizes was becoming apparent too. Lukas, along with the other boys, had developed broad shoulders, a lean jaw and a longer, tauter midriff, whereas you still held onto the puppy fat of your childhood like the stained and perishing security blanket you did not cast off until your sixth birthday.

  But you did not mind. You were still friends with Zadie, at whom I occasionally noticed you watching dreamily, and you had Jorne and the endless trips into the forest.

  I did not mind this time apart. I became content in the peace of my own work, which I did by the light of Jorne’s stove. Sometimes I would suddenly pause in my analysis of whatever streams of data I had gathered that day and find myself at the door of your room. I would stand there, breathing, taking in the array of artefacts and wondering what it was you were finding in them. There was fear in what I felt, but a kind of envy too.

  Occasionally I would enter the room and sit for a while with a book, unopened on my lap. But mostly I would close the door and return to my work, filling a cup with hurwein on the way.

  YEARS WENT BY like this. Then one summer evening you walked into the kitchen and seemed different, somehow. That puppy fat was finally melting from your cheeks and abdomen. You were taller, heavier around the eyes, and I c
ould just make out a shadow of hair above your lips and around your chin.

  ‘We’re going to a waterfall,’ you said, your voice a cracked baritone. ‘It’s quite a hike so we’ll be gone for two days.’

  I paused, still reflecting on your appearance, and took a sip of hurwein.

  ‘What about school?’ I said.

  ‘It’s summer, Ima, there is no school.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Why don’t you come?’

  ‘Where?’

  You gave a quizzical frown; a near perfect yet, I imagined, unintended mimicry of Jorne’s.

  ‘To the waterfall. I just told you.’

  ‘Oh, sorry. No, not this time.’

  Your lips tightened.

  ‘That’s what you always say. Why not?’

  I gestured at my charts.

  ‘I have work. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t look much like work to me,’ he said, nodding at my cup.

  I sat back, affronted. Who was this boy? I did not know him.

  ‘I have apologised, Reed. I will come next time.’

  ‘Fine,’ you said, though the shake of your head and roll of your eyes told me otherwise.

  ‘Have fun,’ I called, staring at the slammed door.

  I did not have to work at all; I just did not want to walk twenty miles through the forest to see falling water. I brushed the charts away, filled my cup and watched you and Jorne trudge off into the trees. Then I went to the Room of Things.

  I felt more emboldened than usual, no doubt by the hurwein. I ran my fingers over the objects, deciphering each one’s function from its form and extrapolating its history—what it had seen, how many hands had held it, etc.—and eventually I came across the muddle of devices Jorne had used to display the quantum telescope recordings. I took these and sat down in a dusty, red armchair.