Inspector of Wrecks
I’ll never forgive you. You’ve exposed me to shame.
Apprentice
Campion. Does she mean the public humiliation here, or something darker?
Inspector of Wrecks
Her mind is so angry that I can’t quite tell.
Apprentice
What I’m saying is, do you think that Gwydion is the father of the child?
Inspector of Wrecks
You’d know the answer to that, as you’re him.
Apprentice
He is, though he doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong.
Inspector of Wrecks
You wizards fuck anything you want!
This is typical old Earth morality. The women get shamed for exactly the same act as men, who face no consequences at all. Look! Math has picked up the boy and is cooing at him like a doting grandfather. He’s clearly going to take care of him, as he did the three children we conceived in the forest. And Aranrhod’s the one who carries the stigma.
Apprentice
Only because you tried to pretend you were a virgin.
Inspector of Wrecks
But this isn’t real life, it’s myth.
Apprentice
These are real children.
Inspector of Wrecks
Aranrhod only dropped one.
Apprentice
You were too busy striding out of the room with your nose in the air to see that you left another little something. I don’t know why, but I picked it up before anyone saw it and hid it under my cloak. Look, you can see it wriggling.
Inspector of Wrecks
Did anyone else spot what you did?
Apprentice
No, they were too busy naming the boy Dylan. I suppose if Math names the child, he takes responsibility for it, that’s how it works in these pseudo-medieval games.
Inspector of Wrecks
I’m puzzled about one thing. If, as you say, Gwydion was the father of the child – not to mention the thing that you have under your cloak – he must have known that Aranrhod wasn’t a virgin. So why did he try to tell Math that she was, when he knew she was bound to fail the test? See? Another instance of him being a compulsive liar, who secretly wants to be exposed!
Apprentice
He wasn’t to know that Math would test Aranrhod.
Inspector of Wrecks
He might have guessed. Math’s a magician and his life depends on the virginity of his footholder. Why would he risk dying for a white lie? He had to test her.
Apprentice
Math is our uncle.
Inspector of Wrecks
What difference does that make?
Apprentice
You’ve played female characters so often in here you’re beginning to forget how to think like a male. Gwydion was trying to get one over on Math, to see if he could trick him. Aranrhod would have enjoyed the status of being a virgin, knowing full well that she wasn’t. Even worse, they would have killed Math, leaving the way clear…
Apprentice
For Gwydion to take over the kingdom. Nice family, this.
I’ve just had a terrible thought. Could it be that Math was the father of Aranrhod’s child?
Inspector of Wrecks
No, that doesn’t make sense. Why would he have tested me? He’d know for sure that I wasn’t a virgin.
But what’s he doing with all these boys he’s adopting? What’s become of them?
Apprentice
I can’t find any information in my hinterland files about the three children from the forest. Do you have anything on Aranrhod’s son?
Inspector of Wrecks
Yes. Despite herself, she knows what happened to the boy. He was named Dylan and as soon as he was baptised, he made for the sea. He took on the ocean’s nature and swam like a fish. Perhaps he was a seal of some kind. The ancient Celtic myths have selchies coming ashore and living as humans. Oh.
Later, the boy Dylan was killed.
Apprentice
By whom?
Inspector of Wrecks
By his uncle, Gofannon. Another name beginning with G. Another sinister uncle, a brother to Gwydion and Gilfaethwy.
Apprentice
What happened?
Inspector of Wrecks
The files don’t say. Only that it was a great blow and most unfortunate.
I’m beginning to think that anybody who has anything to do with this lot is unlucky. The children don’t seem to do too well. Look at Aranrhod. She wants nothing to do with her own child. And yet you uncles adopt boys but aren’t able to look after them properly. We can’t know how they are because they disappear from the story.
What happened to the three live children and the dead Dylan? Do they move on to play other characters? Or are they like real people outside VR, having stopped playing their parts?
Apprentice
Where do the dead souls go, if all the characters we see are roles? Aren’t dead people just the same as those who, for whatever reason, leave the frame of the story? Are we their dead?
What does death mean in relation to this kind of VR?
Inspector of Wrecks
That, my dear, is a very good question.
*
Synapse Log 5 Feb 2210, 14:00
Apprentice
We’re out for a short meal break. He wants to carry on as long as we can stand it today.
Something occurred to me. We’re playing parts the dead people on this ship took often. Gives me the creeps, and yet it’s a thrill to feel the shadow of an entity that’s gone through the same gestures and emotions before. Like an orbit. It’s strangely stimulating that we don’t know at which point the part became fatal. Or perhaps I’m being absurd.
Right. He wants to go in again.
*
Joint Thought Channel 5 Feb 2210, 14:20
Inspector of Wrecks
Oh, look out. The focus is clearly moving to Gwydion now. You’re leaving us. Can you keep me informed of what’s going on while you’re out of my sight?
Apprentice
I’ll try. So something significant is about to happen. It’s to do with the little something I picked up after Aranrhod stepped across Math’s magic wand.
I go to Gwydion’s room. It’s gorgeous. All stained-glass windows and luxurious fabrics. Velvet bedspreads and solid oak furniture gleaming…
Inspector of Wrecks
Too much interior design. Get on with it.
Apprentice
I thought you said it was all significant; that no detail was too trivial to note. Gwydion’s wrapped the thing in gold brocade and hidden it in the chest at the bottom of his bed.
Inspector of Wrecks
It’s as if Aranrhod dropped a premature baby and Gwydion is putting it back in the womb. This is so interesting. I’ll tell you my theory in a minute, if I’m right.
Apprentice
I’m in a different chrono-passage here, and time’s flowing really quickly. Gwydion’s forgotten all about the baby.
Inspector of Wrecks
Typical Gwydion.
Apprentice
Now I’m in bed, just waking up, thinking of something else. I can hear a strange noise, like a kitten mewling, coming from the chest. There it is again. Suddenly I remember the little creature I picked up. I open the lid.
Inspector of Wrecks
I think I’m right! Gwydion’s acting like a surrogate mother, bringing the child to full term.
Apprentice
And there, instead of a squirming thing, is a boy, waving his arms at me and giggling. A lovely, sturdy, fully formed son!
Inspector of Wrecks
You see this a lot in late medieval mythology. The functions which previously belonged to the Goddess are taken over by men. Hence Gwydion’s male pregnancy.
Apprentice
I don’t see that matters in the least. What’s important to Gwydion now is that he has this starving child who needs to be nourished. No u
se turning to Aranrhod, she’s made it perfectly clear that she wants nothing to do with her offspring.
Inspector of Wrecks
But it does matter. These motifs are in the programme for a reason. Let me think this through. What we’re seeing is the change from matrilineal inheritance to a patrilineal system.
Apprentice
Whatever. I can’t think about that now, I have a practical problem. I may have a baby, but I don’t have breasts.
Inspector of Wrecks
What the story’s saying is that female creativity can be usurped by men. If mothers refuse to raise their children, or don’t acknowledge their existence, then men are in charge of both politics and the domestic realm.
Apprentice
I’ll find a woman in the village to suckle the boy.
Inspector of Wrecks
It makes me wonder about how the relations were between the three crew members. Two men and one woman. She would have to have been pretty canny not to be dominated by the men. I wonder if this is the trace of a power struggle between the three? One that might have destroyed them?
Apprentice
You’ve lost me now.
Inspector of Wrecks
But you’ve got to see how this is relevant, the whole ideology of the game. How can I say? It’s the male fantasy of taking over all creativity, even that which rightly belongs to the female.
Apprentice
All I know is that Gwydion’s devoted to the boy. For the first time he’s willing to take care long term of one of his offspring.
Inspector of Wrecks
If the men take over all creativity, what is there left for the women to do?
Apprentice
In fact, I feel quite fierce about this boy. I’ll do anything – anything – to make sure that he has what every child deserves.
I’m going to use my magic to its full extent to give him a life, to make him legitimate.
*
Synapse Log 5 Feb 2210, 23:45
Inspector of Wrecks
Of course! The audio cassette. I knew there was something we’d forgotten to log. It’s just possible that it’s still working. I’ll go there now.
Move softly so that I don’t disturb Nona in her hammock. She needs her sleep. She worked hard today. No need to put on the light, I can feel my way from foothold to handhold, I know the dimensions of this module so well, it’s as familiar to me as my own body. Though not the sight of another person sleeping. In the gloom I can see that her hair has worked its way loose from its band and spread out like a sea fan. Her hand twitches. In her netting she looks like a fish caught underwater.
Torch for the module. Close the hatch between the two vessels. Press tape in. Nothing. Or, rather, a background sound like something turning. So it’s not quite dead. I know, needs to be rewound. Tape may be fragile. Come on, come on.
As I’m waiting I notice little patches of mould growing on the hull. Our breath condensing against the cold bulwarks as we spend time in the VR machines. I bet the crew had to wipe the walls down with anti-fungals. Not like us with the chemicals built into the ship’s lining.
Right. Press Play. A woman’s laughter. A male voice in the background mumbling something. She has a light voice, full of joy. Says – what is it? – yes, ‘Come on Urien, don’t be shy. You know us all.’ Some applause then quiet, then a young voice – a child – begins to sing! Can’t make out the words. What? Bugger, what’s happening? Tape must have snapped. Rush to press Stop, but it’s all unspooling.
God! They had a child on board. Nothing about him – it sounded like a boy – in the log. And the company sounded, from the applause, like far more than four. But even in the most primitive of Earth space vehicles, they could have got to Mars in nine months. They started out with three crew members. Even if the woman was heavily pregnant when she came on board (and there was no mention of that in the log, you’d expect it to be noted), they still took longer than nine months to get to Mars. What had they been doing? Did they stop somewhere along the way?
It’s no good, I can’t figure it. The timeline just doesn’t make sense. This case seemed so straightforward at first, but the more I look at this little ship, the stranger it is. And the story in the VR. Why is it like that? With all the fluidity between categories of human and animal? Not unusual, of course, in early mythology, but it’s very unexpected in a Technological Age vehicle. You’d expect it all to be about warfare and aliens.
I’d like to wake Nona to talk this through, but I can’t, it’s far too late. There’s something fragile about that girl, even though she’s so feisty. I thought she was going to hit me the other day when she thought she might be attacked again in the game. For God’s sake, it’s only VR. This generation’s forgotten that there’s real life outside the Virtual Field. They never have any cause, it seems, to leave it. Still, for a young one, she’s pretty good value. I’m beginning to feel quite fatherly towards her. That’s allowed. If I had her for a year I’m sure I could turn her into a half-decent Inspector, and that’s saying something.
I’m watching her as she sleeps. She makes small movements, like the leaves of a plant responding to the tiniest variations in light and temperature. In her dreams, she’s leaning towards a sun about whose nature I have no idea and no way of knowing.
Try to sleep, now. Settle down. Funny – the body never gets used to the lack of gravity. Lean against something and you push yourself away. My limbs get lonely without the feel of things pressing against me.
Restless. Every time I start to fall asleep, I hear that tiny, high-pitched voice, singing a song I don’t know from a part of myself that I’ve completely forgotten. It shocks me awake every time, familiar and alien at the same time. And it makes me want to cry.
9
Name
Joint Thought Channel 6 Feb 2210, 09:05
Inspector of Wrecks
This looks quite different. Like one of those primitive wizard games.
Apprentice
I know. I’ve seen them in the Virtual Museum. You each have a series of gifts and talents that you can trade in order to make your way through a landscape.
Inspector of Wrecks
Gwydion again. Why don’t I take his part this time, for the sake of variety?
Apprentice
Why not? Do you want me to be the boy by his side?
Inspector of Wrecks
Let’s wait for a second until we see what challenge presents itself. I’m assuming that, in the old-fashioned way, we’ll be given a task to complete.
Apprentice
That must be the child that Gwydion has reared. He’s grown much taller. Aged about – what – eleven, from the down on his lip?
Inspector of Wrecks
Difficult to tell. Remember, we go through puberty a lot earlier than the old Earth inhabitants did. He could be anything from nine to fifteen. The boy’s big, though. He’s like his half-brothers. Their years in the forest seemed to add up to more human years than the actual time they’d spent there, which was only one season, after all. This boy has the shadow of another realm on his development.
Apprentice
But surely he’s got no animal in him.
Inspector of Wrecks
No, that’s not the suggestion. From what I remember from Irish myth, physical size is a way of describing the heroic. Cú Chulainn was huge and his physical prowess exceptional.
Apprentice
Cú- who?
Inspector of Wrecks
Oh surely you’ve heard of him, the most famous…
Apprentice
Yes, as it happens I have. A long time ago I played a lot of a game called the Táin. Just winding you up.
Inspector of Wrecks
Here she comes, Aranrhod. Why don’t you take her part? The boy hasn’t been on the scene long enough to have much to teach us yet.
Apprentice
All right. I’m in.
Inspector of Wrecks
This’ll be inte
resting. The first time we’ve seen the siblings away from the court. Perhaps we’ll learn some more of their secrets.
Apprentice
Her world is dark. As if I’ve put on indigo lenses that cut out the sun and yet make everything much more focused. You wouldn’t believe the detail I can see. The boy’s complexion, the shadows in his suede jerkin, darts in his undershirt.
Inspector of Wrecks
She was a bit like that when I played her yesterday. But I don’t remember the eyesight thing.
Apprentice
I feel she’s been brooding, all on her own in her fortress and is ready to wage war against her brothers. At this point she has nothing to lose. She doesn’t know who the young boy is, and asks Gwydion.
Inspector of Wrecks
Look how the décor reflects the nature of the interaction between the characters. That’s very sophisticated for an early programme. We’re on a beautiful chequered marble floor, like a chessboard. Perhaps we’re about to play a power game. That’s a lovely perspective effect, a visual logic. First move, Gwydion: ‘This boy is a son of yours.’
Apprentice
This part of the game is formal, courtly. Aranrhod replies, ‘Alas man, what has come over you, putting me to shame, and pursuing my shame by keeping him as long as this?’
The Meat Tree Page 5
