Strange Attractors (1985)
Page 5
Clouis turned and said, ‘What a disgusting creature!’ Bernheddin demurred, defending Ilena, the female of the human species, but to Clouis she was inexcusable. W hat would either he or
Bernheddin want with such a beast? Was she really human?
Though reason indicated that for hundreds of thousands of years
females had been vital to the continuance of humanity, reason
merely annoyed Clouis. They were relevant no longer, he argued,
had not been for generations and generations. When Bernheddin
pointed out that Desousa society was exceptional, Clouis
demanded, ‘Then what do you see in her? W hat is she to you?’
‘Nothing, nothing,’ Bernheddin shook his head slowly, ‘nothing.’
‘Didn’t you stay out there talking to her? Didn’t you smile and
smile for her when we were talking about Earth?’ Clouis would not
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be diverted, and the fact that Bernheddin did not readily lose his
temper inflamed him the more. Bernheddin neglected him, Bernheddin did not love him, had dragged him away from Desousa to exile on a planet of reclusive self-interested heterosexuals. Bernheddin’s preoccupation with the time chair was dragged in —
Clouis jibed again that he was seeing some beautiful youth of a
decadent past age. And back to Ilena, for he had sensed something
between his lover and the Earthian girl.
Finally enraged, Bernheddin shouted, ‘She is a woman, yes, and
a m ature human being, which cannot be said for you. I kissed her
and she has gone. A kiss to her did not mean I have to tell her every
time I want to blow my nose now.’
Clouis was shocked silent.
Then said, almost whispering, ‘You kissed her? Oh you obscene
. . . obscene . . . obscene . . .’
It was a bad quarrel.
Ilena was the first woman Clouis had ever seen.
At last Clouis and he made up. In the night, after their passion
was spent, Bernheddin tried to explain his fascination with the
Rhynia, invader of land virgin and desert since the beginning of the
world; he tried to explain about the alternation of sexual and
asexual generations throughout the entire Earthian plant kingdom, through the ranks of the thallophytes, the bryophytes, the pteridophytes, the gymnosperms and the angiosperms; and he
tried to explain his vigil over the ripening sporangia. But Clouis fell
asleep.
Unable to sleep himself, Bernheddin slid from the sheets of the
low bed. He moved silently through the dark and alien house, feeling ahead for each step, touching the side of an arch. The time chair sat in the darkness awaiting him, uninvolved but sympathetic. He sank into its embrace, inhaled quietly in anticipation, touched the contact pads.
Night had passed from the sea and the lagoons. The newly risen
sun shone through an elongated window in strata of molten cloud
sprinkling wavelets and mudshoals with gold. The air over the
brown lands was dusty with light and the tiny thicket of Rhynia,
warmly lit, laid long stick shadows on the flat mud. Bernheddin sat
comfortably in his baggy pyjamas, letting the difficulties of a distant future drain away, letting the peace of the morning of the world fill him. His quarrel with Clouis seemed unim portant now.
The sun warmed him. That quarrel and others were past and gone;
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37
a new quarrel and probably a parting would come. He was tired.
The world was very still, dreamlike in the sunlight and the
absence of sound; there was not even a whisper of breeze and the
estuary lay glassy before him.
After a time he tried to stretch his bare feet from the chair-step
down to the damp-looking earth. Toed the cool earth; it was a sweet
sensation but awkward for his body.
Truculent, he sat back. He would leave the chair, he dared do it
— and what need had he of the future?
Then he was standing on the cool earth, one hand behind gripping the chair arm. He inhaled deeply, took a step. His heart was beating hard. Sunlight lay beautiful upon the enormous empty
shorescape. He was a mote between earth and sky. From half a
dozen paces he beheld the time chair with new eyes. It had a metallic functional rightness, and in a way completed the landscape like a tree in the corner of an empty Zen painting. The chair remained;
sun glinting on its back and head-rest. Clouis, sleeping several
hundred million years up ahead, after the rise and fall of the C arboniferous pteridophyte forests, after the birth and death of the dinosaurs, after the advance and recession of the great Pleistocene
glaciations, had not wakened, panicked and recalled it. But Bern-
heddin’s resolve, his determination to examine the Rhynia growth
closely, almost crumbled. He walked down quickly, feet in clasping
mud, mud squeezing between his toes, squatted by the plant, gazed
at the clustered stalks, noticing minute hairs upon them gold in the
sunlight, and the swelling sporangia. Then he rose and made
hurried steps back to the chair.
Relieved, he sank down into the chair’s comfort. Contemplated
his footprints, the only footprints, probably, in the whole world, in
a whole epoch. He felt a degree of regret at m arring the virgin
earth. As he studied the tracks they became less distinct, the spots
of shadow they harboured faded. Looking up, he saw that the sun
was vanishing behind the eternal cloud. But it was still warm, and
soon he slept.
They were waiting for him when he returned to the villa. So was
Ilena. It amused him in the confrontation that followed to see how
they avoided her, as well with their speech as with their eyes and
physically. He remained enthroned, within the inviolate circle of
metal, enrobed in voluminous pyjamas and the mists of recent
sleep. The others perched beyond on folding chairs that had been
brought from the terrace, Clouis had cried out, ‘They have found
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us, Bernie.’
Kommissionier 7 Ouoi Geffe stood to speak. His four companions also stood. Clouis watched them as if for a sign, but remained seated. The uniforms of the Desousans troubled Bernheddin; they
possessed no intrinsic power, but bore the taint of a humourless
culture with its unvoiced demands of submission. Ilena’s harlequin
gown of blue and yellow laughed by contrast.
Geffe spoke. ‘It is deposed that former Komptorier 3, Bernheddin Haase, has assumed a degree of self-direction that is unlawful and an abomination to the Desousa Body, that he has withdrawn
his individ from the place of being of the Desousa Body, that he has
denied his function to the Desousa Body, and that he has denied his
germ tissue to the Desousa Body, which is the rightful proprietor of
the bespoken individ and all its aspects; all of which is a great and
wicked treason against the rightful sovereignty of the Desousa
Body. Former Komptorier 3 Bernheddin Haase is therefore enjoined to return with us to Desousa and submit to assistive correction.’
Something was stinging the passages of Bernheddin’s nose. He
sighed and met Geffe’s pale eyes. ‘It is deposed,’ he said, ‘that I am
thirsty, that I will have a drink, and then sleep again.’ Clouis
watched him, large-eyed. The boy had showered and made up. He
was again wearing the ch
iton, or a similar one. He sat with his legs
casually bare and angled towards the Kommissionier.
‘Former Haase is enjoined to leave the machine and accompany
us to our lander.’
Former Haase. If he refused to be a cell of the Desousa Body,
then he did not exist, except that they were here and bent on his
capture. And Geffe, whom he had known well, was behaving as if
they had never met. He settled himself more comfortably in the
chair, smirked and said, ‘Former Haase chooses to remain in the
machine a while longer. I am still thirsty. Clouis, sweetheart, could
you get me something to drink?’ In fact his heart was thum ping and
he did not know what to do next.
Clouis said, ‘Bernie, please . . . We can do nothing. We had
better go back.’
Ilena stood in a swirl of blue and yellow diamond panes, smiled
at Bernheddin who alone seemed to notice her, and left the room
via the low arch. The light was strange. It must be day outside, yet
the light entering was not bright enough, and was an odd colour.
One of the Desousans, the heavy one, liberated an arm from the
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39
position of dedicated attention to stroke Clouis’s curls reassuringly,
and gave him half a small-eyed smile. Clouis met his glance, dipping lashes.
‘Will former Haase vacate the machine.’ Not a question.
Bernheddin shook his head deliberately.
‘Kresov, Skarlen.’ With a slight nod, or the noted empathy of
Desousans, Geffe sent two of his officers to Bernheddin.
‘Stop there . . . gentlemen.’ They hesitated. They were on the
disc. ‘If you come any closer I shall touch these contacts. I shall be
elsewhere, and you, if you are too close, may be hurt.’
The two unsmiling men looked to Geffe for direction. Heavy was
not paying attention; something said between him and Clouis
caused them to chuckle together. The fourth stood, feet apart,
hands behind his back.
Ilena came in carrying a glass. ‘T hat’s right’, she said. ‘You
mustn’t be on there when the chair goes.’ The Desousans glanced
quickly away from her, back to Geffe. ‘Your ears can be hurt, your
retinas. There can be genetic damage.’
Geffe nodded the two to block her passage, but she advanced
holding the glass, and they, unable to meet her eyes, backed
awkwardly until they again stepped upon the metal disc. Glances to
Geffe for help. In exasperation he nodded them away and Ilena
brought the drink to Bernheddin.
‘Here.’
‘Thanks.’
They spoke quietly. The others watched them. Fruit juice, cool
and tart. It cut away the acrid taste that lined his mouth. ‘Sulphur,
isn’t it?’
‘Yes, the cone is active.’
He found her eyes fascinating. Different from boys’ eyes. He
thought she was not much older than Clouis. ‘Smoky? This brown
light
‘It’s all across the sky. Haven’t you heard it?’
He realised that he had. Crepitations originating out in the bay.
They penetrated the walls and foundations of the villa.
They started to speak together —
She: ‘W hat are you going to . . . ?’
He: ‘W hat are you do . . . ?’
— and laughed.
‘M r Haase . . . ’ she said.
‘Yes?’
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Clouis and Heavy were eyeing them with particularly obvious
distaste.
‘I came, you see . . . Paused. ‘Vajo za Amzon did not tell them
where you were. They only had to ask the cybernex.’
‘Yes, I realised that. They got here very quickly.’
‘They must have been on their way. Why doesn’t he say
anything?’ H er marvellous eyes darting to Geffe. Geffe waiting,
predatory but rather wooden.
‘They would rush us if they were less uneasy about the presence
of a female, an Earthian female. They may yet.’ And louder: ‘Ouoi,
my old friend, why don’t you take your boys and wait outside? I’ll be
out shortly.’
‘Have you decided?’ said Geffe harshly. ‘Then come now. W hat
can you have to say to this Earthian . . . lady?’
Bernheddin drawled, ‘Oh, we may wish to discuss the weather —
Earthian in comparison to Desousan. Are you — ’
T hunder cannonaded across water and cliffs, through the villa.
Then a vast hissing.
Recovering, Geffe said, ‘Come.’
‘Not for a minute.’ Bernheddin shook his head.
Geffe took a step forward. Ilena blocked him. He looked past
her. ‘We shall see what it is like,’ he said. ‘Be with us quickly.’ And
went out.
‘Amazing!’ said Bernheddin.
The other Desousans followed him, except Feet-apart-hands-
behind, who did not move and wore no expression.
‘Are you going?’ she asked Bernheddin.
‘No.’
She whispered in his ear, breath, lips, hot and moist, touching
his skin. Coordinates, midnight, a shrine of Athene in the hills outside the Athens of Pericles. Wait for her.
His enjoyment of these moments of intimacy turned to fear. ‘No.
You know I cannot do anything for you,’ he said. ‘You know I cannot
love you.’
‘Why do you think I chose Athens?’ Still she caressed his ear, arm
around his shoulders.
‘Then why do you have to come?’
‘To bring you clothes and money, silly.’
‘Is that all?’
‘W hat have you heard about Earth people? You know we do what
we want.’
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41
‘Not this. Lord za Amzon would scarcely approve;
‘T hat’s got nothing to do with it.’
‘Could you get back?’
‘O f course.’
But she would have to be persuaded.
‘Will you go?’ she said.
‘Fetch me Clouis.’ And when she hesitated, ‘To say goodbye.’
The floor was trembling as Clouis came in, and the chair which
Rernheddin would not leave.
The boy was distant. After a moment he said, ‘Well?’
‘Clouis, I want to say goodbye.’
Outside the Earth roared.
‘I don’t think / want to say anything to you.’
It was a stomach blow. Bernheddin could think of no reply.
Clouis turned and passed beneath the arch, which was shaking.
It got suddenly darker. The immobile Desousan slid his eyes
whitely towards the arch just as Ilena ran in. H er dress seemed
faintly luminous, the colours bizarre.
‘Bernheddin!’
‘Yes, I’m going. You must get away from here.’
She fell on him, kissed him. ‘You will meet me?’
‘Yes, yes.’
There was a tremendous explosion that rolled and reverberated
around sky, sea, islands.
‘Go, Ilena, go. O r I shall get out of this chair and give it to you.’
‘I won’t be long,’ she said.
The arch had cracked. Something crashed elsewhere in the villa.
Geffe and his men swirled around Ilena as she was leaving.
‘Bernheddin, get away!’ she shouted.
They
were on the disc, Geffe foremost.
He touched the contact pads.
Sat on the edge of the silent estuary, gazing bemusedly at the
silent lagoons. He seemed to hear a scream echoing across millions
of years, over Pleistocene ice fields and Permian deserts, down the
aisles of Carboniferous swamp forests.
His relief was tangible, his body warm. A cloud passed —
cumuli were herding across the sky — and the sun warmed him
more. It would be sometime after midday. All sense of urgency was
draining away. When he was quite rested, quite restored by the expanse of his silent shore, then he could journey up the ages of the world to the shrine, persuade Ilena to return to her own time and
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perhaps settle in classical Greece. He would need to learn the
language.
His footprints were there, yes, almost shadowless now with the
sun high. Dried mud still stuck to his toes. Something about the
Rhynia plants caught his eye. They stood, shadowless, green spears
in the desert of brown that stretched from the water’s edge to the
mountains and on to the interior deserts of the continent. Spears of
an advance cadre of an army that waited with monumental
patience to overrun the land. The tips of two or three had a ragged
appearance.
Bernheddin descended from the chair, down the bank and across
the flat mud to kneel by the stems. Wavelets from the quiet water
washed the roots of the furthest plants and slid almost to him.
Three sporangia had burst, a golden brown dust clinging down the
stems though most of it must have blown away. Other pods were
swollen and ungainly. Soon to go. Bernheddin was pleased, contemplating the spread of the plant, the sprouting of tiny prothalli where the spores landed, the cycle of the plant’s generations, the
rise of new thickets of spears further and further from the water.
Behind him there was a soft pop. He looked around. The time
chair was gone. He was neither surprised nor horrified, though his
stomach felt a certain hollowness.
For a long time he stared at the Rhynia. Then he stood. There
were fish and invertebrates in the sea; perhaps he would be able to
eat those. He walked off along the beach lost in visions of the rise of