The Angels of Our Better Beasts

by Jerome Stueart

  He is angry that it took a painter to convey what he has been telling them for years, when men have been dying—only now will they listen.

  You put your hand on his arm. “Let’s see how much they will help you to help me. Let the celebrity work for you—let them care about you because of me. That is the way it happens for everyone in the rest of the worlds.” It was true. A mother loves you because of him; your boss likes you because you are associated with a school you both went to; everyone is helped by the favour of another face. Why not let your face get all of them favour?

  One would be well within rights to say no, if you can’t do it for the right reasons, don’t do it, but why not exploit the wrong reasons if they lead to the right actions?

  Finally, you are helping the miners in a way that could improve their lives.

  “Let’s get as much as we can,” you tell Ajax. “It will not cost us much.” You chuckle.

  He looks at you, and then away. “It could cost us our lives.”

  >?

  This is Ajax’s mechanical hand, the blue one, with translucent blue skin, so that you can see the gears, the pulleys and ropes, the cables, the tethers of his hand beneath.

  You were down on your knees, screaming for a medic when it happened.

  On the dais beneath the elevators, the broken cable whipped at your face, and Ajax reached across to catch it, or at least to protect your face, and the tether severed his hand.

  You held his arm, tried to staunch the blood, using the now-ragged sleeve of his groundsuit, until someone brought a kit, a tourniquet, a stasis cap. You can never unsee his face—his helmet holds his scream in, his mouth stretched wide, eyes clenched shut.

  You sit with him in the mining corp’s plastic infirmary, like nesting fish tanks around you, and you can see other injured men and women, their friends talking to them, sitting with them, though you cannot hear what they are saying. Ajax says, “I’ve been thinking about New Australia on Titan. They have forests there. I miss trees. I grew up with trees until I was nine. Maybe that’s why I like very big things all around me, watching me,” he says, nodding towards Jupiter outside the windows. “It would be nice to go back there again one day.”

  You sit uncomfortably in the cactus green chair and imagine the loved ones of the other injured men and women are saying similar things. I want to go far away from here. I can’t wait to travel to the casinos. To the pools of Europa.

  You are angry at those who own you both.

  “Where do you want to go in the end?” he asks you, and you forgive him because he’s under the influence of many drugs for the pain.

  >?

  What can this old face do for you? You will see.

  When they build a new hand for Ajax, they have to cut into his arm, and you ask to have the blood saved. Because this new work will have blood in it. You have them draw a pint of yours as well.

  You paint a portrait of the two of you, holding hands, looking at the viewer. In it, you hold his blue artificial hand over your own hand. We Break For You. The painting you did of the scene caused more controversy at the show on Antigone, and Marie tells you that if you are going to use your own blood, the Helios Mining Corp says it wants to bring you home.

  When she comes the second time, she sits on the edge of her chair, nothing of her quite touching the world around her. Except you—she holds your hand and pleads for you to return with her. “Eustachi has said they fear for their favourite artist, and I do, too. I don’t care about the art, love,” she says, wincing at what must be a betrayal to even voice, “but I don’t want you hurt.” She looks up at Ajax. “Would you let us take him to Antigone for a medical check-up, please?”

  You fear going with her, some uncontrollable fear that if you step with her into a Moonline transport, you will never see Ajax again. Even you cannot escape their gravity, not with all your celebrity. They want to pull you back into their control, and they use Marie to do it.

  You do not think she is aware of this. You love her like a father. You pat her hand. “Would you like more wine?” you say.

  “Will you go with me?”

  “I am not going to stop my work here until it is finished,” you say, pouring her a glass.

  “It will never be finished!”

  “Oh, yes. It will one day be finished.”

  “When? When will it be finished, tell me so that I can tell Eustachi and Helios. Tell me when my nightmare of losing you will go away. It is not like you to be so selfish. So many want you, want to see you. I want to see you.”

  She takes the glass and you let her explode like this all over your living room, because she needs to say all of this or she will not feel as if you know the pain you are causing her.

  “I know what this is. I know what you are doing,” she says, glancing at Ajax. “You are trying to run away from us.”

  “No, Marie.”

  “I can find a nice place for you and Ajax to live—some place that doesn’t kill you slowly. The radiation here is ten times what you would have if you were living on Antigone, on Daphnis—anywhere else. Both of you could have a lovely apartment, a house.” She listed things as if she were hoping to get a reaction from you, a light in your eyes, as if she might stumble on whatever it was you wanted.

  “I will tell you what I want,” you say. “I want to live here with Ajax, within the mining community that is our home. I cannot take the mines with me, can I? I cannot take the other miners with me, no? It would be absurd, yes?”

  “Yes, that would be absurd. The miners have to mine here.”

  “They choose to mine here, yes. And I choose to stay here with them.”

  She slaps the bed, shakes her head. “No, it is unacceptable for you to be here,” she says, tearing up. “Because I cannot be with you here.”

  You know this is the crux, the tiny key to all of this. That in moving away from the art world, from the demands and pressures of performing, you moved away from her—you took yourself from her.

  “I did not want to break your heart,” you say. She is quiet. “But I needed to do this, all of this, here. I am happy, my dear,” you tell her, but she stands and you can feel her cooling down suddenly, and it frightens you.

  She steps away from both of you, now hovering near the door. “Eustachi Group and Helios are refitting the shielding here. They told me you would not come home. They told me to tell you that they are wrapping the mining company in protective shielding. They are doing this for you, to preserve you. They do not want you to die, Renault.”

  You stand and she hugs you. She says, “I do not want you to die.”

  “I am going to die,” you say, and it comes out much worse than you thought it would, as if you are willing it, some incantation of death. Even Ajax looks horrified.

  She cries and heaves into your shoulder, grips you, her little hands turning into claws, holding your skin through your shirts.

  “I am going to die,” you repeat for all. “But my work will travel even more than I did.”

  She does not answer. She cries. Ajax stands and waits, and you hold Marie until she stops crying.

  She pulls back. “Think about coming home with me sometime, please.”

  >?

  You cannot stop thinking of Marie. You know she will come back, and that she will bring others with her. You are sure of this.

  You leap into your work, painting and drawing.

  The new shielding comes, and for two years they install it, starting with your wing of the mining colony. This is how you know they have come. You see them out your window, hanging above the moon, dangling in their Helios suits.

  A supply of those suits also comes with them.

  “See what my face can do,” you say to Ajax. He hugs you from behind. “New suits for your men. New shielding.”

  “What is it about your face?” he asks.
/>   “The problem with my face is that I have promise.”

  “And no one else’s face here does? Do they only value you?”

  “When I no longer have promise, they will tire of me.”

  You do not know how to make them value the miners more than what you are doing. “It’s insulting, I know. But we will take what we can get.”

  “And what happens when you die? Will their concern disappear?”

  You look at him, and you don’t know how to be more immortal than you are. “It looks as though I shouldn’t die then.”

  He comes to you, puts his arms around you and kisses you. “If Marie is right and you are being killed here, and you want to keep doing good for us, perhaps go for a check-up. You might live longer, do more work.”

  He doesn’t understand what he’s saying, you think. Instead you bask in the warmth of his breath.

  >?

  A celebration occurs on Ruckus for you and for the new supplies. The miners know it is you, and they are not upset. They do not know these things have happened to keep you safe, but believe you have negotiated with the mining companies, used your influence. Let them believe it.

  You paint the miners celebrating, and send just the image to Helios. Worth Every Penny, you call it. See their smiles and their mugs raised? you write in your letter to the mining companies. It is for you and what you do for them. You soon see the picture used in their marketing and recruitment. You bet the image is netting them a tidy little sum. They paid for it, you think, looking at the floating colony with the new radiation shielding. They paid a lot for it.

  Will they see the value in the miners now?

  >?

  The galleries are upset with you. You sent the image directly to the mining companies, bypassing them. It’s not in your contract to be so dilettante with your work. You explain to them that you were giving them something they could use, and there were still plenty of paintings and drawings for Eustachi to market. One made no difference. They mention the contract you signed for their exclusivity.

  You ask for their forgiveness on this one painting, telling them that you will pay the commission they would have received. On videophone, they look mildly assuaged. They have always looked mildly assuaged.

  “Who cares for your work like we do?” they ask.

  “No one. You have always been there for me.”

  “How can we care for your work if it does not pass through us first? We do not want your patrons to abuse your work. Or commercialize it,” they say with disdain.

  You imagine that one image has travelled all over the system by now. Worth Every Penny is the one everyone will see.

  >?

  You’re thinking about Uranus, and how the clouds speak to each other. You’ve finally seen the film The Lifetimes of Clouds, with Ajax and others in the bar last night. It’s about scientists trying to decipher the language of the clouds around Uranus—their multi-stratified conversations, the passing of light from cloud to cloud to cloud. How does language and meaning pass from a body to another body? How can we convey meaning without words? You’ve spent a lifetime trying to learn that elusive language.

  You’ve tried painting their lives as they live them—in danger, toil, and harsh conditions; you have painted their injuries and pain. You have humanized them. But this has cost the mining company money and public relations. Now to make the mining company happy, and to thank them for their gifts, you have painted miners as happy and content. This also gets you in trouble, but maybe it will help them. Still, if anything is done to help them, it is done because you are there with them and the miners receive residual benefits—leftover sunshine, spillage of the bounty.

  How can you make the miners themselves into what is cared for? After four years, you have done your best.

  It is in the mirror that you notice how thin you are. Ajax notices, too, and sometimes whispers in the cobalt violet night. “Are you well?” he asks. You say, “Yes, love,” every time, and he covers you with his arm as if to protect you from the lie hovering above.

  >?

  Marie comes.

  You’re wearing your best, bulky burgundy silk robes to hide the fact that you have lost weight. You’ve opened the screens to get full view of Ganymede, and Jupiter, vague and mystical in the distance. You’ve opened a wine. You know why she is here.

  When she enters, there are two others representatives with her. They are tall, sallow men, wearing expensive little hats and dark robes.

  She nearly trips running over to you, trying to run ahead of these hounds she has set upon you. “Oh, sweet Renault, do not hate me. These men are doctors. Real doctors. I know you will not go with me to Mars, so I brought them here for you. Please, it is the least you can do. Humour me.”

  The doctors first must tell you how honoured they are to meet you, what you have done for all of Sol—knitting together the system in paintings, keeping the face of humanity present, making sure that no one is forgotten. They ask for your autograph, first for themselves, for which you use your special pen, and then, yes, just one here on a form. It is just a form saying that you give your permission to being examined.

  But you don’t trust it and won’t sign it.

  Marie crosses her arms. “You must sign it, my friend, please. It is the only way that Eustachi and Helios will be assured that you will finish your project.” She taps her foot because she’s nervous. She suspects, you think, that you have tricks up your robe.

  You act affronted. “I did not sign a contract with them guaranteeing the completion of a project, only that they had exclusive rights to work I produced.”

  She pulls out a contract as if it were sitting on the very top of the bag. She points to a phrase: “will own the complete project Together.”

  “When it is finished it will be complete,” you say.

  “If you were to die, the work would not be complete,” she says.

  “If I die, the work is completed automatically.”

  “That is not how the contract reads. You promised to complete the project. So you must complete it. Then you are no longer under contract.”

  “So I am their employee until I finish? And if I don’t?”

  “The doctors are here to make sure that you can finish, and if they find you are not in good health, they will recommend that you be sent to Mars for treatment, or at least to Antigone. Please, please, it is for me.”

  She seems overly proud of her use of lawyers to define the word “complete.”

  “It is commonly known among artists that death is a completion.”

  “It is not commonly known in contracts. Death is default.”

  “Default? Well, I don’t think that any contract, in that case, is sound. Everyone will die leaving their lives ‘incomplete’ and their body of work unfinished.”

  “It would be much easier if you allowed the doctors to examine you.”

  You back away. “Eustachi owns my body of work. They do not own my body. No contract I signed gives them that authority.”

  She pleads with you now. All pretense of being in charge is dropped; all tête-à-tête is gone. “Renault, this is the compromise I am making with you. I can see the spots on your arms, and you are thinner. Let them check you.”

  But you are not listening to her; you are re-reading your contract, scanning for important phrases—important life-altering phrases. Care for the life of your work in perpetuity. Eustachi owns all of your work, yes, but must take care of whatever they do not sell to private collections, or lend to museums, forever. Forever.

  You look at Marie, and you do your best impression of a man finally giving in to reason. “Let them look.” You give yourself over to their scans, their murmured ponderings, their analysis, but your mind is thinking about that clause in the contract. You draw a plan. A careful plan. All while she is talking to the doctors.

 
The doctors, of course, do not find anything they didn’t expect. They find high levels of radiation; high levels of lead in your body. What other miners deal with on a regular basis all cause a mild panic when it is you. “I will not receive any treatment unless everyone on this colony receives the same treatment,” you say.

  Marie says, “You must come with me to receive treatment. It requires equipment they do not have here. I cannot take every miner from this facility to Mars. I am only authorized to bring you.”

  “Tell Eustachi and Helios they should build the machines here for this infirmary.”

  “That will take a year.”

  “Then I will take the treatment in a year.”

  She sees your game. You will not budge. She stares you down, but you are doing this for something so much bigger than yourself.

  “I am trying to save your life,” she whispers. “You are not making it easy.”

  “Until they see every miner here as they do me, I won’t be saved.” She begins to cry. You speak softly, almost like a prayer. “I have become a part of this place, and you can’t take me out of here without killing me. You must save the place, the whole place. You must be my advocate to the art world, to Helios. You must tell them I am no longer an artist alone. I have become a colony.”

  The doctors take various equipment from their floating bags, administer shots and rays, some a brilliant green, others emitting a deep cerulean blue. They admit that they can only do so much if you do not go for treatment.

  “As long as I am here, I make a difference. Marie, help me make that difference. Be my accomplice. Be my partner-liaison to the others. Make them listen. They have already done so much and I thank them, but the day I die, they will forget about the needs of the miners.”

  She puts her fingers on your face, holds your cheeks and your ears and wants you to look her in the eyes. Bring Ajax and come live with me on Persévére. She dines with you that evening. Come be a part of the life we once had together. She witnesses the turning of the Ganymede day from the balcony of the bar on Ruckus. She holds your hand as Ajax drapes his arms around you both. Remember when we used to set the planets on fire? she says. When she was first assigned to you twenty years ago, and she couldn’t speak because she believed she would only prove herself stupid in front of the Great Renault, and how you passed gas at the table. And you knew I was just another old fart, you say.