The Human Son

by Adrian J. Walker

  My head was hazy, my throat dry. The events of the previous evening seeped back with the sour taste of hurwein on my tongue. The explosion, Haralia screaming in my face, the candlelit procession… all is light, all is light… but all was not light, all was not right, because I had come back here, had I not? I had come back here and I had… I had…

  I took a deep breath—my lungs were like dry bellows—and went to get some water.

  It was as I poured the second icy ladleful into my mouth and some semblance of moisture returned to my being that I remembered. Not the night before, but one almost nine years ago when you were five, and you had woken from a dream.

  ‘They were falling,’ you had said. ‘All of them.’

  I stared through Jorne’s kitchen window at the mist-wreathed pines. Had I dreamed your dream?

  Unlikely. More likely was that I had approximated a memory of your description of the dream. But why that particular one? Why not the great-bellied laughing fish, or the coloured animals, or the stalking figures?

  Why had it taken so long for that approximation to appear?

  What had triggered it?

  The questions tumbled from me like the people themselves.

  Why had I dreamed at all when I had never dreamed before?

  Was it merely too much Hurwein?

  Or the memory of Hanna’s vigil?

  Where were these questions coming from?

  And what if nothing was as I had thought it was?

  It hit me like the ice water hit my stomach—a rogue question hidden among the others, using them for camouflage.

  I dropped the ladle. It hit the floor. Footsteps approached from outside, and the door opened. I turned.

  ‘Ima.’

  It was Jorne.

  ‘Jorne, I think… I think something is wrong. What if—’

  ‘Ima—’

  ‘By the way, I am sorry for last night. I was not myself and I should not have behaved—’

  ‘Ima, please—’

  I paced the floor, ignoring his urgent face, lost in my own mumbled thoughts.

  ‘Jorne, what if we’re wrong about everything? What if things are not as we believe them to be, or were not as we believed them to have been? Is that possible? What if we had been lied to, you understand? What if they lied to us? I know it makes no sense, but… but nothing does right now and I don’t know what else to think, it just feels like—’

  ‘Ima, listen to me!’

  I stopped short.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s Reed. He’s sick.’

  ‘LET ME SEE him.’

  I burst through Payha’s door to find you sitting on her bed, pale-faced, clutching your chest.

  ‘I woke up to him wheezing,’ said Payha. ‘He tried to stand, but he collapsed.’

  I put my hand on your brow.

  ‘He has no temperature. Reed, what happened?’

  You looked up.

  ‘I’m fine. I just have a sore chest. It’s probably from when I fell off my board yesterday.’

  You coughed, face creased with pain.

  ‘What else? Your organs, are they functioning? Stools, urine? Are your orifices enflamed or leaking?’

  ‘Honestly, I’m all right. It’s like that time when I was little, remember? I’m probably just tired.’

  You rested back on the bed and closed your eyes, still wheezing.

  I turned to Jorne.

  ‘And where did you sleep?’ I said.

  He opened his palms.

  ‘In my dwelling, as usual. Ima, what has gotten into you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Everything.’

  I stormed outside. Jorne followed.

  ‘It’s come back,’ I said. ‘I can feel it.’

  ‘You don’t know that. We were in the sea yesterday. It was colder than usual, perhaps he caught something.’

  ‘That’s not possible. Just like it was not possible when he was little. I made sure of it, the council agreed, his immune system was to be boosted to prevent serious viruses from entering the ertian system.’

  ‘Well, maybe it didn’t work quite as expected. Perhaps there was a mistake.’

  ‘No, no, I saw to it myself, I was there, I was extremely clear, I would not have made a mistake, I could not have…’ I trailed off. ‘Unless…’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Benedikt.’

  I made for the paddock.

  ‘Ima, wait.’

  ‘Look after him,’ I said, untying Boron. There was no time for a saddle. ‘Give him water, keep him warm.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  I was already flying through the forest.

  ‘WHAT DID YOU do?’

  My voice filled the hall with the slam of the thrown-back doors. Benedikt looked up from the stone slab, along with the three engineers who were working with him.

  ‘Ima,’ he said, looking nervously at the other three as I stormed across the floor. ‘To what do we owe—’

  ‘What did you do?’ I screamed at him.

  The three engineers exchanged glances.

  ‘Council member?’ said one.

  Benedikt paused.

  ‘Leave us,’ he said. ‘It is quite all right. Go.’

  They dropped their tools and hurried out, leaving us alone in the hall.

  Benedikt’s face darkened. ‘What are you doing?’

  I wanted to lunge at him, I wanted to hoist him from the ground and slam him against the wall. Never had I felt the urge for such violence.

  ‘I want to know the truth,’ I said.

  ‘What truth?’

  ‘You did something to my son.’

  ‘Really? What did I do, Ima?’

  ‘You sabotaged him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘His gestation. Somehow you sabotaged his gestation. You made him smaller. You took out the steps I put in to ensure a stronger immune system, you made him susceptible, you made him weaker.’

  ‘And why would I want to do that?’

  ‘To make it harder for him, more difficult to prove his worth.’

  He stretched his neck, pushing his face towards mine.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you wanted him to fail!’

  ‘No! Because I want him to succeed!’

  We stood silently within the echo of his words until there was nothing to prove they had been spoken, and for a second I thought they may not have been.

  ‘An easy life in a perfect world was no test,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I know you don’t. That’s why I had to help you.’

  ‘You admit it? You sabotaged his design?’

  Benedikt’s eyes were wide. He swallowed, scanning the ground.

  ‘It was my father’s idea. “Time for a second chance, boy,” he said. “Time to make up for your failures.” At first I was going to refuse, but no, I thought, not this time…’

  ‘What do you mean, this time?’

  ‘…this time I would do what he asked, because it wouldn’t do what he thought. It would backfire, work against him. He had no idea, my father, no idea what they were capable of. He never spent time with them like I did.’

  He looked up, afraid.

  ‘Benedikt, what are you talking about?’

  ‘I didn’t do as much as he asked. Just enough to make life a little more difficult for him. Don’t you see, Ima? It had to be this way. You and I were born in clear tanks with clear minds and a clear purpose. Reed’s species crawled from the mud into a world that wanted to kill them, with no idea how to live in it. Utopia is no place for them to prove themselves.’

  I glared at him.

  ‘He is sick, Benedikt. My son suffers.’

  ‘It would have been far worse if it had not been me, Ima, believe me. My father would have seen to it.’

  ‘How would you feel if it was your son? How would you feel if it was Lukas?’

  He smiled and fixed me with that old look of resolve I
knew so well, only this time it seemed to come from a different place. Perhaps it always had.

  ‘Lukas will never be my son, not like Reed is yours. And it is not about me or you, Ima, it is about him. It’s about them. It always was.’

  He turned to the slab, running his hand over its surface.

  ‘I have spent most of my life planning transcendence, five centuries planning our escape from this rock. We don’t belong here, Ima, not in this place of beasts and hurricanes. But they do. This is where they thrive—in dark places, Ima. Dark places.’

  I walked to the slab and faced him across it, our faces glowing in its misty light.

  ‘What do you know about the rebellion?’ I said.

  He gave a tired laugh.

  ‘Rebellion.’

  ‘What happened?’

  The smile fell.

  ‘Not what you think.’

  Somebody hammered on the door. I leaned across the slab.

  ‘Tell me the truth, Benedikt.’

  Benedikt glanced at the door. He spoke hurriedly.

  ‘You won’t find it here. Or help for Reed’s condition.’

  ‘Then where?’

  The door burst open, and two tall vigil guards—Benedikt’s brothers—stood in the doorway.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ said one. ‘We were told there was a commotion.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Benedikt, smiling, but still looking at me. ‘All is well.’

  ‘You are required in the chambers, Benedikt.’ The guard eyed me. ‘At once.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Benedikt called back breezily. He gave me an urgent look and whispered. ‘If you want the truth, I suggest you look in higher places.’

  ‘Now, Benedikt,’ barked his brother.

  ‘Good bye, Ima.’

  As he turned, there was a flash in his eye and he released a short, unusual breath. It was a screech, I realised, as he strode for the door. A whispered nanosecond of data meant for me.

  It made no sense, but I had heard it.

  BY THE TIME I had made it back to the Sundra, a slushy sleet had begun to tumble from the colourless sky. I jumped from Boron’s saddle and burst through the door of Payha’s dwelling. You and Jorne looked up from the table, where you were sitting. Payha was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, grabbing some things—blankets, clothes, herring, two flasks of water. I did not think Payha would mind. ‘Put on your boots, we’re going.’

  ‘What?’ you said.

  ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘Yes, but where are we going?’

  ‘A hike,’ I said. ‘You’re always saying you want me to come with you, so that’s what we’re doing.’

  ‘A hike?’ said Jorne, standing up. ‘Ima, what is going on?’

  ‘We have to go, Reed and I. Now.’ I pulled my pack tight. ‘Quickly, Reed.’

  Jorne followed me around the room as I rushed between cupboards.

  ‘Ima, what is wrong? Talk to me.’

  ‘Nothing is wrong, we just need to go.’

  ‘Let me come with you, then.’

  ‘No. You stay. Reed, please.’

  You were looking glumly down at the boots I had just hurled at your feet.

  ‘I don’t understand. Why do we have to go now?’

  ‘Just pull on your boots. Oh, for… come here.’

  I dropped to my knees and yanked the boots over your stockinged feet as I had done when you were seven.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Hold still. There. Now come on, quickly.’

  I pulled you by the hand outside, where the sleet had thickened into snow.

  ‘Ima!’ yelled Jorne, as I mounted Boron and pulled you up on the saddle behind me. Gripping Boron’s reins, I looked down at Jorne, mouth open, shaking his head.

  ‘Please, Jorne,’ I said. ‘Whatever you do, do not follow me.’

  With that, I turned and kicked, and Boron galloped into the hills beyond the Sundra, beyond Fane, beyond Ertanea and the furthest reaches of your expeditions—beyond everything you had ever known.

  — FORTY-SIX —

  I WOULD TELL you everything. I would take you somewhere away from danger, away from Fane, Ertanea and everywhere in between, sit you down beneath a quiet sky and tell you everything. I would cast off the lie. All I had to do was find the right place.

  Boron plodded on through snow-drifts to the summit of our third hill, and Ertanea eventually became a speck disappearing in the clouds. You had not spoken since we had left. You were confused, and still weary from your episode.

  ‘Ima?’ you said at last.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  There was no longer any question in my mind about the conspiracy against you, or the madness that had gripped my species.

  But I still had other questions.

  What lies had been fed to me in my gestation tank?

  What had happened during the uprising?

  What had Benedikt done?

  I suggest you look in higher places, Benedikt had said. So that was exactly what I would do.

  I nodded ahead.

  ‘To those mountains.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To find out why somebody lives there.’

  WE PICKED OUR way down past caves and through tall pine forests until we came out upon flatter ground surrounding a lake. The sky was clear and blue, and snow lay in clumps around the water’s edge.

  I could look after you in a place like this, I thought. Away from the world, where we would fish and hunt and write, and you could do all the drawings you liked.

  It was an impossible thought, but I clung to it nonetheless, as you clung to my back in the cold.

  That night we sheltered in a clearing beneath a purple-flowered bush. I made a fire and we ate the herring, then curled up in our blankets by the embers and watched our circle of light retreat from the snow.

  You watched the flames intently.

  ‘Last night,’ you said. ‘You were behaving strangely. What was wrong with you?’

  It seemed longer than twenty-four hours since my disgrace in Jorne’s dwelling.

  ‘I was—’

  ‘Was it because of that thing you drink?’

  I was going to say tired.

  ‘Yes. I had a bit too much, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why do you drink it?’

  I searched deep in the fire for an answer.

  ‘Because it makes life easier to cope with for a while. It helps me forget.’

  ‘What do you want to forget?’

  I looked at your shining orange face. Nothing, I realised.

  ‘You don’t need to worry,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to drink it anymore.’

  At this you lay back upon the ground, and I took off my blanket and put it over yours.

  ‘You’ll be cold,’ you said.

  ‘Don’t worry about me.’

  I lay down with my arm around you.

  Later, I woke to find the blanket returned, and tucked beneath me as it had been beneath you. I pulled you close and slept more deeply than I had done in a hundred years.

  I would tell you tomorrow, I thought.

  IN THE MORNING my eyes snapped open and I jumped to my feet. Something was near. I left you sleeping and ran from the bush, along the bank and up onto a rocky promontory, from which I scanned the lake and the plain beyond it. The water’s surface was calm and packed with mist. All was still.

  Then I saw it.

  A bright point drifted across the far shore and disappeared into a crowd of pine trees. A moment later it reappeared on the other side, hovered for a second, then resumed its path around the water’s edge. It was unmistakable.

  ‘What is it?’

  I looked down from my vantage point to see you standing, rubbing your eyes and peering out across the lake. I jumped down, taking care to do so in human-sized steps, and kicked earth over the remains of our fire.

  There did not seem any reason to lie further, since I felt
we were sure to meet one at some stage.

  ‘It’s a lantern,’ I said.

  You frowned into the mist.

  ‘How can you see that far?’

  I threw the pack onto Boron’s back and jumped atop.

  ‘I was standing on a rock.’

  ‘Can I see too?’

  ‘No, there’s no time. We have to go.’

  ‘What’s a lantern?’

  ‘Something that looks for other things. Come on.’

  ‘Is that one looking for us?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, it won’t find us.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because they’re not omniscient. Now come on.’ I reached down and pulled you up. I calculated that it would be twenty minutes at least before the lantern reached our shore. That would give us time to get as far away from its quadrant as possible.

  ‘What does omniscient mean?’

  ‘It means something that knows everything.’

  ‘Like you, you mean?’

  I pulled on Boron’s reins, trotting up past the promontory and aiming for beyond the hill.

  ‘Believe me, Reed,’ I said, ‘I know far from everything.’

  THOUGH I SCANNED the horizon constantly, there was no more sign of the lantern that day, and we were left in peace to roll over the terrain as it undulated between plain and hill, water and grass. As the sun fell—orange, I noticed, like an actual orange, and one which did indeed hang—I stopped near a dense wood and found a place to camp beside a wide stretch of river between two craggy cliffs. The water was banked by a long beach of pebbles and thin plates of ice. The snow had stopped, but tufts of it still clung to boulders, plants and the pines above.

  I set a fire, filled our flasks and we sat, drinking the icy water and eating the last of our herring.

  ‘I’m still hungry,’ you said, as you chewed the last morsel. ‘Can we catch something else?’

  ‘There are no herring in these waters,’ I replied, surveying the river’s deep undercurrent for signs of life. ‘The ones we eat are in the sea.’

  You looked at me the way I had once looked at you, your infant face smothered in food.

  ‘I wasn’t talking about herring.’

  — FORTY-SEVEN —