‘What’s a catalyst?’
‘A substance that accelerates a chemical reaction. Something that hastens change. I could spend a thousand years trying to explain the relationships between the array of systems connecting your board to the sky, and you could spend a thousand years trying to explain how it feels to surf, and no doubt we would both fail. We are different, you and I.’
‘No shit,’ you said.
I turned to you.
‘I have not heard that phrase before. Did you read it in one of Jorne’s books?’
‘No. I read it on people’s lips. They said it a lot in the later recordings.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘It means you’ve said something obvious.’
I absorbed this.
‘Sometimes it is important to say obvious things.’ I reached for your hand and gripped it tight. ‘I am sorry, Reed, for everything. And I love you more than I have ever loved anything. I spent five centuries putting the planet back together. I’ve seen and done wondrous things, but they all fade in comparison to any given moment with you.’
Your expression was like a mountain, ready to crumble.
‘Then how could you lie to me?’ you said.
‘You’ll be surprised how easy it is to lie to the ones you love. This may be hard for you to hear, but at the beginning, I thought you were going to fail. In truth, I wanted you to fail.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I had been lied to as well. I was given an idea of what humans were like, and it was wrong. Then, when you were three, something happened. You ran to me on the beach, straight into my arms, and everything changed. I changed.’
You frowned.
‘I remember that day. It was sunny. Jorne was there too.’
‘That’s right. It was a transition point.’
‘A catalyst.’
I smiled. ‘Precisely. From then on, the lie ate away at me. It was all I could think about. I dreamed of escaping it, and running away with you somewhere far away where nobody else lived. I thought if I did then I could protect you from the world. You could do all the things that made you happy, and never worry about being judged for them. But if I had done that, I would have been robbing you.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of your future. Of happiness. You would never have been able to convince the council of humanity’s right to exist, had you known the truth. And that was the only way you were going to meet other humans.’
You looked out to sea.
‘But that’s not happening anyway, is it?’
‘No, Reed. I’m afraid it is not.’
Your chest made shallow, nervous pumps.
‘There’s really nobody else out there?’
‘No. They made sure of it.’
‘What about underground? Or high in the mountains? Space? They had rockets. Maybe they went to a different planet.’
‘It is not possible.’
‘It must be. I can’t be the only one.’
‘I’m sorry.’
You shivered and dropped your gaze.
‘I’m scared.’
‘Come back with me, Reed?’
But your eyes remained on the floor, chest still pumping.
‘Reed? What’s wrong?’
With a sudden tightening of your torso, you slid from the rock, unconscious.
— FIFTY-EIGHT —
I BURST THROUGH the door of Jorne’s dwelling. He was awake and drinking tea at the table, but his smile dropped when he saw you in my arms.
‘What happened?’
‘He passed out.’
I placed you on the bed. Your eyes were still shut, mouth open, jaw lolling.
‘Is he breathing?’ said Jorne.
‘Yes, but he’s cold, pass me that blanket. Reed, talk to me, wake up.’
I slapped your cheek lightly, but you did not respond. Harder—nothing. I checked your pulse. It was weak.
‘What do we do?’ said Jorne.
‘I don’t know. I think he’s in a coma. They had medical equipment for this kind of thing. Payha told me—drips, monitors, drugs and what have you.’
‘What’s a drip?’ he asked.
‘It’s used to replace fluids; a sterile bag with a controlled intravenous solution injected directly into the…’
‘What?’ said Jorne.
I was already on my feet and halfway to the Room of Things.
‘Go to Payha’s,’ I called back. ‘She has some saline solution beneath her bed.’
I RANSACKED THE room. I knew exactly where to find a needle, for I had seen an ancient wooden medical kit tucked beneath some throws and cushions. Despite being almost seven hundred years old, the needle was, though a little rusty, still sharp.
The bag proved more demanding. Eventually I found a blue plastic bladder attached through a yellow tap to a tube, now hardened with age. It appeared to have once been part of a bag used for hiking expeditions.
I boiled everything in spring water in Jorne’s kitchen, attached the needle to the tube with some thread from a blanket, and hung it above the bed from a chair leg I slammed into the wall. When Jorne returned with Payha’s saline, he stared at the strange arrangement of antiques.
‘I shall not ask,’ he said.
Once we had filled the bladder, I sat down and pinched your arm in an effort to find a vein. The skin was pale and tight, but after some manipulation I found a blue lump and punctured it with the ancient needle. A bulb of blood grew and wobbled, but the needle held.
I opened the tap and stepped away from the bed.
Thunder sounded across the pines. The room had darkened and the hot air was thick with moisture.
‘There must be something else we can do,’ said Jorne.
‘Oonagh,’ I replied, finding my cloak. ‘I lost the vial she gave me in the fall. She said it was her last one, but maybe she has something else. It’s a three day ride, two if I don’t stop.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Jorne.
‘No, I’ll go, I’ve been before.’
He stopped me at the door.
‘I’m a faster rider than you, Ima. Besides—’ he looked at you ‘—you need to stay here, with him.’
‘Do you know where to go?’
‘I remember it. Look after him, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
He gave me a lingering kiss, grabbed his cloak and left.
‘There are lanterns,’ I called after him.
‘Then I’ll be careful,’ he called back. The door slammed on him, and you and I were left alone.
THE STORM BROUGHT dense cloud and rain that bounced. I lit candles in the room, and saw that they had done the same in Payha’s dwelling, where no doubt her two friends were sitting like me, listening to the world boom and clatter above.
I waited with you through the day, and it is a curious thing to wait. Your mind does not wait with you; it wanders into the past and future, exploring all the things that could have been and might yet be. If I had not raised my hand a decade and a half ago, you never would have existed. If I had not met Jorne upon that beach, perhaps I never would have discovered how much I loved you. Was that possible? Did love lie trapped, waiting to escape? Had it already been there inside me, inert, ready to be activated by a foreign chemical. Did love require a catalyst? Or just a face? The right set of arms outstretched?
If I had fled with you from the Halls of Gestation that spring night, and sped away on my balloon to some far flung land, would they have found us? Would they have looked? Or if I had told you the truth when you were young, would you have accepted it as easily as you accepted the lie? Would any of it have mattered, or would I still be beside some bed in a storm, head bowed over you as I waited for you to wake, no matter what I had done?
Somewhere in its journey, my mind stumbled upon the image of another bowed head; Roop, praying upon his pier beneath the Indian sun. I placed my forehead upon your palm and, lost for anything else to do, I did the same.
There was another
roll of thunder.
No, not thunder, horse hooves in the forest. Jorne? I stood. He should not be back so soon, which meant that he had failed.
But then I realised they were not the hooves of Jorne’s horse.
‘Benedikt,’ I said, opening the door to wild wind and rain. ‘What are you doing here?’
He pulled back his hood and looked about. ‘I cannot stay long. I heard what happened last night.’
‘Was Caige reprimanded for what he did?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? Payha was hurt.’
‘Because they have lost their minds. They are no longer interested in anything but achieving transcendence and leaving this planet without a trace.’
‘What will happen?’
‘In six months time almost everyone will be gone. They have already dismantled every settlement other than Ertanea, and in the final few days they will take apart the capital as well, followed by the weather stations, beacons, everything that we created. They have commandeered my lanterns and will sweep the land for anything that remains—Oonagh, the Sundra, this place, you.’ He looked past the door. ‘Him.’
‘Why do they delay? Why not just get rid of us now?’
‘Because they still expect you to join them. I assume that will not be the case.’
‘You assume correctly. What about you?’
He hesitated, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the dull light.
‘My place is with them. Listen to me, Ima—they will find you and destroy you, as they plan to destroy everything else. There is to be no trace of us left. If I were you I would leave. Save the child, at least.’
‘It may not matter either way,’ I said. His eyes flitted in confusion. ‘He is dying, Benedikt.’
He dropped his head, allowing rainwater to pour from his scalp over his brow and nose. ‘I am sorry.’ He reached into his cloak and pulled something out. ‘Here.’
He handed me a small vial—the one Oonagh had given me. I snatched it from him.
‘You found it?’
‘No. They took it from you, so I took it from them.’
He gritted his teeth.
‘You need to leave, Ima, go to the other side of the globe, find some impenetrable place to hide in. There is a chance that they will be so caught up in themselves by the end that they will not search further than the coast. Run with him and hide.’ Thunder rolled, and his horse danced, unsettled. He returned to his saddle. ‘I have to go.’
‘Benedikt?’
‘What?’
‘Why do you care so much? Why do you want him to live?’
He hesitated, relaxing his grip on the reins.
‘I told you once I knew exactly what humans were capable of. I saw it in the camps—grace, kindness, imagination, hope in dark places. That’s what we were supposed to be, Ima: hope in a dark place, but we failed. Maybe he won’t.’
A tremendous crack announced itself overhead, and with a cry, Benedikt pulled on the reins of his horse and disappeared into the trees.
— FIFTY-NINE —
I RAN INSIDE and stood before you, cradling the vial. You lay in the same position, deathly pale, the muscles in your face drawn in.
I retrieved the ancient medical set from the Room of Things and took out a pump with a curved handle. This I placed in the pot over the stove to boil. Oonagh had said the blood mites were activated with a flame, so I suspended the vial above the fire with some tongs. Gradually, the murky solution began to move and swirl in the heat, until it twitched and pulsed in all directions. Once the pump was as sterile as I thought I could make it, I poured the mixture in, sealed it and took it to your bed. There I hovered, considering what I was about to do. Would it work?
I had no choice.
Lightning—as if in blind encouragement—illuminated the sky. Pulling your drip from the needle, I plunged in the pump.
The handle creaked as I pushed. When there was nothing left in the chamber, I swapped it for the drip, and sat back with my hands to my chest, like a murderer.
For a while nothing happened. I watched your chest moving. Then it stopped.
‘No. No, no, no.’ I reached for your shoulders. ‘Reed? Can you hear me?’
I shook you, slapped you cheeks.
‘Reed, wake up.’
Nothing. Another shake, harder this time.
‘Wake up.’
With a gasp your eyes shot open, and your hips shot up from the bed.
‘Reed,’ I cried, with tears of relief. ‘It’s me, Ima, I’m here, you’re all right. You’re all right.’
But this was not true. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
The spasm loosened and your body hit the bed, but your eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, bulging and glassy like huge marbles. Your neck, still taut with muscle, pulsed with enormous surges of blood, and a blue network of veins spread out across your throat and chest. You gripped the sheets with clawed fists, opening and closing your mouth as if you were caught in a vacuum. Then you let out a scream of pain, and fell upon the bed, unmoving, with your eyes still open.
I staggered away, certain I had killed you. But you began to breathe again.
I STAYED AT your bedside for three days, during which the storm circled above, and others joined it. I could get no response from you; nothing I said or did could move your eyes from their fixed spot upon the ceiling. Every hour or so your pulse would quicken, and your arteries would fill once again, and you would spasm and scream, and I would try to placate you, and eventually you would fall back again.
I kept you as dry and clean as possible, changing your sheets when you soiled them, and wiping you of urine, vomit and faeces. The nights were the worst, and your screams seemed louder in the darkness. I thought about lifting you, and carrying you around upon my shoulder as I had done all those years ago, but I was terrified of what might happen. Whatever battle was playing out inside your body, I did not want to disrupt it.
I tried to feed you by posting milk through your cracked lips, but it only spilled out. I had no stomach for it either, so the bowls stacked up by Jorne’s sink.
On the fifth night the storm disappeared, taking the heat with it, and in this new silence you lay wheezing, pulse faster than it had ever been, fists so tight your palms bled. I sensed another scream approach and readied myself. Sure enough, your body spasmed and you released that terrible cry, but this time no amount of placation would settle you. You writhed like a headless eel. The veins in your neck stood out, and froth appeared at the corners of your mouth. Left and right you thrashed, and there was nothing I could do to make the pain stop.
Although—this was not strictly true, was it?
I held my mouth at the thought, unable to move. Then one terrible ear-splitting screech drove me on, and I pulled the pillow from beneath your head. It was merely a matter of pressure and time, just a slow downward push and the pain would stop. You would stop. I trembled above you. You were silent now, contorted, eyes rolling. Mine were streaming, but slowly I pushed the pillow down.
As it engulfed your face, you made a sound. I paused. There was another, and another; three utterances squeezed from your constricted throat. I pulled the pillow away.
‘Reed? Did you say something?’
Your eyes continued to roll as I strained to hear, pillow still hovering inches from your face. There it was again, three sounds, this time joined by a fourth, and I realised what they were—not words, but notes. I gasped and dropped the pillow.
‘You’re singing. You’re singing, you’re singing, you’re singing, you’re—wait, let me try—’
I tried to sing them. The notes stuck in my throat, but on my second attempt they emerged in a clear descent. I waited, lungs full, hands raised, as you rolled and bucked. As the moments wore on my chest deflated and my hands fell, but then you sang again—four straight notes, pitch perfect and unmistakeable.
‘Reed!’
Somewhere in that mess upon the bed, you were struggling to get out, and I
could think of only one thing that might help. I dashed for the Room of Things, grabbed the gramophone and records and brought them back before your bedside.
The first in the pile was the brutal one I did not like, with all those sparse thumps and stabs like sticks being hit, and words about war. Too harsh. The next was the one with the lady singing about unusual things, like mountains and dinosaurs and words in a strange language. I watched you as she whispered and quivered through her fictions, but your straining continued. Next was the old thick record with just a man and his guitar singing about brooms and hell hounds. I saw some glimmer of change in you at this, but it wasn’t enough, so I left it on until it had finished. Then I proceeded to go through the entire collection, playing every song until I found that you had ceased your thrashing and lay still in a film of sweat, breathing hard, with your eyes wide and crusted. Eventually I found my own eyelids drooping, and as my head fell upon the bed I reached your hand, and fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of tide pools, troubled seas, and light streaming through battling clouds.
— SIXTY —
I WOKE TO a silent room lit by a clear sky outside. The gramophone needle had long since found the end of the last record’s groove, and my head was still slumped upon the blanket. The bed was terribly still and cold beneath me.
I squeezed your hand. But your hand was gone.
‘Reed.’
You were gone.
The bed was empty and the blanket drawn back.
‘Reed?’
I searched Jorne’s dwelling, but you were nowhere to be seen, not even in the Room of Things. I ventured outside. It was eerily quiet, just past dawn, and I had to shield my eyes from the low sun after having spent so long inside. I walked the perimeter of the dwelling, calling your name and feeling foggy and elsewhere. There was no trace of the storm, and the forested hills were bathed in searing light. At the rear wall I stopped. There was a nook beside the kitchen window in which you kept your surfboard.
The Human Son Page 31
