“Ow, sonovvabitch!” I exclaimed, shaking it out. I’d never been stung by a bee before, and it hurt a lot more than I’d imagined it would. “Take it easy, huh?” I said, veering away from another bee that whizzed past my face. “Just a tiny little bit of the good stuff is all I want, okay?”
Using the pocket knife, I sliced a small portion of the lower extremity of honeycomb away with as much haste as I could summon, copping another two or three stings on the fingers and one of the neck for my trouble.
“Dammit!” I gathered my prize and then scooped up the watering can, making a hasty retreat. “That’s the last treat for the kids involving bees, ever,” I muttered.
Arsha returned her attention from the expanse of the city and noted my discomfort as I exited the house. She couldn’t help but stifle a smirk.
“Next time you’re going in there,” I said to her, handing her the watering can. She took it from me, offering a comically doubtful look, then dumped the burnt contents out on the road and stamped them out.
“Hey, this was all your idea, Brant,” she said. “I’m happy for you to be the official bee handler.”
“So where’s the surprise?” Myron wanted to know at my hip.
I crouched again and spread out my palm, carefully slicing the honeycomb up into four equal parts.
“Right here.”
The children just looked at it, disenchanted. “Is it bee poo?” Loren said.
“Looks gooey,” Chidi said unhappily.
I laughed. “No. It’s called honey.”
“Like the bears eat in the stories?” Atlas said.
“The very same.”
“That’s going to be yummy,” he proclaimed, boldly reaching out and taking a slice and placing his mouth. As he did, his eyes widened, disbelieving, and he chewed on the waxy treat vigorously. “More!” he said, reaching out again.
“Not for you,” I said, lifting my hand away, and I offered my palm to each of the other three children in turn. They took a piece tentatively. Loren looked to Arsha for reassurance, and Arsha nodded with a smile.
The children had eaten sweet fruit before, but it was clear that the honey took things to a whole new level. They were all equally amazed and delighted by what assaulted their taste buds, and in seconds the sweet morsels had been devoured.
“More!” Chidi said, echoing Atlas from moments earlier and holding out her hand expectantly.
“I’m sorry, but there’s no more. The bees need their honeycomb too.”
“Aww!”
“Not fair!”
“Maybe another day,” I said, raising my voice to be heard above them. I glanced around uneasily, aware that we’d already spent more time on the street than I’d anticipated. “Now let’s go back to the house, huh? We’ll play some fun indoor games.”
They scampered up the road, where Mish and Ellinan were waiting. The humans flapped their arms and jumped about in typical exuberance, perhaps with even more exaggeration than normal with the sugary treat in their bellies. I began to follow them but stopped when I realised Arsha had gone very quiet.
“Arsha?”
She stood looking to the north again, out toward the storm. It was already growing more prominent, stark and black against the blue sky.
“It’s not a storm,” she said, her face ashen. “Goddammit, Brant, that’s not a storm.”
The gloom kept coming, spreading in from the north like an inexorable black tide. We gathered the children and ushered them indoors even more quickly than we’d intended, provoked by the ominous and preternatural darkness that was falling upon the city.
With the younger children being tended to by Mish and Ellinan in the bedroom, I joined Arsha back at the front window as we tried to make sense of it.
“It can’t be,” Arsha said, disbelieving. “It’s like…” She glanced at me, stupefied. “It’s like the Winter all over again.”
“No, it’s not that,” I said. “The Winter was darker than this.”
“In the end it was darker, sure, but it started like this. Just like this.”
“It’s not another Winter. It can’t be.”
“Why not? How do we know that people on the other side of the world didn’t start another war?”
“I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense. And this seems different to me.”
The sun poked through the gloom, a muted blue-yellow disc. For a moment the murk parted and light radiated from above, and I dared to hope that it was clearing up. The sky further to the north, however, the mouth from which this putrid smog spewed, gave no impression that it was relenting.
Arsha placed a hand to her forehead. “This can’t be happening. After all we’ve been through, after everything we’ve done, it can’t end like this.”
“Let’s not go down that road just yet, okay? This could all be gone tomorrow.”
“Or it could last for a decade.”
“Well, if that happens, we’ll figure out how to deal with it.”
“Do you think it has anything to do with last night?” she said. “That thing in the sky?”
I’d considered the same possibility. “It could be, but I doubt it. Why would they go to so much trouble to block out the sky? If they wanted to come after us, why not just come here directly and annihilate us?”
She nodded. “So let’s think. What could cause this?”
“A fire. Something really huge.” I snapped my fingers as an idea popped into my head. “Maybe Ascension and the Marauders just had the mother of all battles, and part of a city was set on fire? Maybe a whole city. There could be thousands of buildings ablaze out there.”
“Yeah,” Arsha said, uncertain, but then her conviction grew. “Yeah. I guess that could happen. You could be right.”
“So we might have the sunlight obscured for a day, a week, but after that it will pass. There’s no way we’re going to run out of food for these children that quickly.”
“Right, but we’re going to need to keep a watch on our solar cells, especially over at M-Corp. We don’t want the cryotank running out of juice.”
“No problem,” I said. “I’ll take the Helios in tomorrow and check it out.”
“Are you sure about that? Do you think it’s safe out there?”
“Honestly? No, I don’t know if it’s safe, but if I’m on the Helios I can outrun danger. I can get back here quickly if something happens.”
“We need to be extra cautious now, Brant.”
“I know, but we also need to keep the cyrotank in mind. Remember, if we lose that, there’s no getting it back. I can head over, take a reading on the cells, and then come back. At least we’ll know how much time we have before the cryotank runs out of power.”
“Okay. What are we going to tell the kids?”
“We’ll just tell them that these are dark clouds. They won’t understand the difference.”
“Yeah.” She turned to me. “Do you think they’re coping?”
“The little ones don’t really know what’s going on. I think they’re okay. Ellinan and Mish are a different story.”
“Oh, I meant to tell you,” Arsha said. “This morning Mish came to me and asked me something weird. She wanted to know if you and me were…”
“If we were what?”
“An item. You know, together. Romantically.” Arsha seemed embarrassed by relating this.
I gave a little chuckle. “Uh, well… an innocent enough question, I guess.”
She grimaced. “You haven’t noticed, have you?”
“Noticed what?”
“The way she looks at you.”
I scratched my head. “Arsha, what on earth are you talking about?”
“The things that are happening with Ellinan – the way his mind is outgrowing his body – it’s happening with Mish, too, but in different ways.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at, Arsha.”
“I think she has feelings for you, Brant.”
“Are you saying sh
e has a crush on me?”
“If that’s what you want to call it, yeah. It’s probably harmless, and let’s face it, there aren’t many other guys around for her to focus her attentions on, but yeah… I think in some ways she’s trying to shed her childhood, just like Ellinan, and this might be part of it.”
“So what can I do about it?”
“Right now, not a lot. I just want you to be aware of it, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll, uh… add it to the list of things I need to look at.”
Arsha prepared dinner for the children later, and I kept a vigil at the front of the house. I wasn’t sure what I dreaded more now: the sound of Marauders in the distance, or the thought of the gloomy skies still being around tomorrow and the day after that. As the last of the day’s diluted sunlight slipped away, I thought I could see clearer skies to the north, and I dared to hope.
Inside, the aroma of cooked vegetables and the excited chatter of children around the dinner table helped to allay my fears. The yellow glow of candlelight and the cosy warmth only seemed to enhance the sense of togetherness. The place had never felt more like a home than it did right at this moment. How strange that such extenuating circumstances had been the catalyst to finally bring us all together.
Mish and Ellinan fussed around the kitchen, undoubtedly learning a few things about food preparation from Arsha that weren’t in my repertoire. As the children munched on steamed corn cobs and stalks of broccoli, the chefs busily added the finishing touches to some sort of baked-apple-and-cinnamon dessert.
In Arsha’s typically conservative fashion, there wasn’t an overabundance of food. This wasn’t a feast, or a way of squandering our precious food reserves with the likelihood of tough times ahead. It was more of a small treat to help put the children at ease, to provide some comfort amid the turmoil and let them know everything was okay.
It was such a sweet, thoughtful display of parenthood from Arsha that I felt the irrational urge to stride into the kitchen and throw my arms around her in gratitude. Instead I just watched as she busied herself over the dessert bowls, her hair tangled and unkempt as she completed her work.
A couple of hours later we put the children to bed. Arsha and I waited over by the window in darkness as we had the night before, demons of uncertainty gnawing at us and keeping our senses sharp as razor blades.
“I don’t see any stars,” Arsha said.
“No. They’re hidden behind that smog, or smoke, or soot, or whatever it is.”
“Well, let’s look on the bright side. Maybe that fucking surveillance drone will get lost up there and crash into a skyscraper.”
I gave her a grin, but couldn’t bring myself to laugh. “You did a good job tonight, Arsha.”
“Huh?”
“With the kids. You could have easily just dished up something quick and easy for them to eat, but you made the effort to do something special to put them at ease. That was really smart.”
“It was nothing. It was kinda as much for me as for them. It was good to just immerse myself–”
There was a little wail from the bedroom, and Arsha stopped mid-sentence.
“I think that was Atlas,” I said.
“Yeah. Sounded like him.”
“I’ll go.”
I felt my way through the gloom to the bedroom and the boy’s voice sounded again, a grumbly, wordless noise of discomfort. I reached the children’s room and stopped at the door.
“Atlas? What’s up?”
“I’m scared,” came his voice meekly. I could barely see him outlined against the bed over by the right wall, where he lay with one of the other children.
“It’s okay, we’re here. Everything’s all right. Go to sleep, huh?”
“I’m scared and I need a big person to sit with me,” he insisted.
I sighed. This was probably a stalling tactic, since he was excited and didn’t want to sleep. But, in his defense, he was out of his routine, and that always disrupted his sleep. I decided to relent.
“One quick story, okay? Will that help?” I said.
“Okay.”
Lighting a candle, I retrieved his favourite story, a book called Hugs for Daddy which was a beautifully illustrated tale featuring a family of fuzzy brown bears. I sat on the side of the bed and Atlas snuggled in close, his hair ruffled and his cheeks ruddy from the warmth of the blanket, looking rather smug now that he had gotten his way. Out of the corner of my eye I noted three other pairs of eyes watching with interest, as well as thinly disguised delight.
“Hugs for Daddy,” I began, flipping open the cover. “It was time for Little Bear to go to bed,” I read. “First he put away his toys. Then he put on his pyjamas. Then he brushed his teeth. He gave a hug to Sister Bear, to Grandma Bear, and to Mumma Bear. But when Daddy Bear came for his hug, Little Bear put up his hand and said, No. No hugs for Daddy.”
The story progressed in this vein, with Daddy Bear trying to coax Little Bear into giving him a hug, which Little Bear steadfastly refused to do. Atlas drew out the experience as long as possible, stopping to point at the bear’s pyjamas and illustrations of stuffed toys in a box, and asking a series of inane questions like ‘Where does Little Bear keep his honey?’ and ‘Why isn’t Sister Bear going to bed?’
We came to the last page, where Little Bear was tucked in bed, reaching up to pat Daddy Bear’s furry face. Following his lead, Atlas stretched up and, with disarming gentleness, traced his tiny fingers along the cuts and lines that tracked across my cheeks, the result of years of harsh sun, abrasive sandstorms and battles with Marauders that had left me battered and scarred.
I stopped reading and just gazed down at him. He was such a loud, frenetic and excitable child that I always savoured rare moments such as these when they came along. His tenderness was almost hypnotic, in a way.
“You’re my daddy, aren’t you?” he said, and I was so caught off guard that I jerked away, clasping at his wrist.
“Uh, no, Atlas.” I patted him awkwardly on the head. “I guess I’m… I guess I’m like your uncle.”
“Uncle?”
“Yeah. Or like a friend.” He just looked at me, uncomprehending, so I tapped the book again. “Come on, let’s finish this, okay? Time for sleep.”
I read the last page, where Daddy Bear finally received his hug from the unnecessarily cruel Little Bear, and then I closed the book and tucked Atlas back under his blanket and kissed him on the head. Loren lay waiting for him with open arms, pulling the smaller boy close like a loving big sister. Blowing out the candle, I made my way out of the room, stopping briefly at the threshold.
“Good noot!” Atlas shouted facetiously, causing the others to giggle.
“Good night, now,” I said. “No more talking.”
“Okay. Night night,” Atlas called back. Then as I moved away, I heard him announce proudly to the others, “That’s my daddy.”
21
Dawn came the next morning, but it was hard even to call it that. A pall hung over the city, creating a diffuse, rusty glow that was both claustrophobic and unearthly. The smog roiled high above like a charcoal sea. To look out upon it was like seeing a city transplanted inside a dark cavern, lit only by magma that seeped up from the earth’s core.
A cold day in Hell.
“It looks worse today,” I said.
“Yeah, it does,” Arsha said. “Though, like you suggested, it might all blow over by tomorrow.”
I wasn’t convinced of that in the slightest, but said nothing.
The children were stirring, and while Arsha got them up and about I checked the solar cells in the spare room. There was a decent charge at our disposal, enough to provide power to the appliances in the dwelling for a decent duration should we need it.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t help us grow food.
I knew that, today, I’d need to get back to the lab at M-Corp to check the solar cell levels. If the cryotank there ran out of juice, the remainder of the human, plant, animal and insect embryos w
ould be lost, and that would be an unmitigated disaster. With the future now more uncertain than ever, I needed to assess our resources as quickly as possible and come up with some contingencies should we lose our main source of power – the sun – for an extended period.
I related my plans to Arsha as we prepared breakfast for the children, a meal consisting of bread smeared in mashed fruit, which we called ‘jam’ even though there was no added sugar. The children didn’t complain, gobbling hungrily at whatever was placed in front of them.
“I agree, we need to get in there and check the cryotank,” she said, handing a slice to Myron. “Do you think it’s safe?”
“It’s worth the risk. I need to see what’s happening there, no matter what.”
“What’s worth the risk?” Ellinan said, appearing at the kitchen counter.
“I’m going to head into the lab, Ell. I need to check on a few things.”
“I want to help,” he said.
I glanced at Arsha. “You’re needed here, Ellinan. Arsha is going to have her hands full with this rabble.”
“Well, maybe there’s something else I can do. I don’t need to just sit here.”
“I’ll have plenty for you to do, don’t worry,” Arsha said with a wink.
The boy slunk off with his head bowed, obviously not finding the answer he was looking for.
“Are you sure you’re okay with everything here?” I said.
“Yeah. Go.”
“I’ll take the Helios, then,” I said, grabbing my backpack. “Won’t be long.”
Out on the streets, the city had fallen into an early twilight even though in truth it was closer to mid-morning. The light had a tenuous feel about it, like it might slip into full dark at any moment, and the sun was little more than a dull red patch in the sky, impotent and aloof, like an ill-rendered forgery.
I coasted the Helios into its hiding place in the alleyway a couple of streets down from M-Corp, then made my way over to the lab. Up on the fifth floor everything was still and quiet, untouched since my last visit.
My eyes could not resist being drawn to the windows, and I looked out across the city and to the north. The similarity of that sky to the skies of Winter was too close to ignore. Now that I was alone, that facade of strength and certainty that I’d presented to Arsha was beginning to fracture.
The Seeds of New Earth Page 18
