The Promised One

by David Alric

  In the morning the sun rose into a brilliantly clear sky and the camp looked clean and fresh as Richard and Lucy walked to the mess tent to meet the pilot for breakfast. The stranded drugs plane had been struck by lightning and was a smouldering wreck.

  ‘It’s as if nature has called an end to this wicked place,’ said Lucy, ‘and knows that today marks the start of a new era for the precious plants and creatures who live here.’

  After breakfast the pilot went to the plane to prepare for their flight and Lucy excused herself for a few moments. There were tears in her eyes and Richard guessed she was going to say farewell to the animals that had become so much more to her than just willing and loyal servants.

  ‘Just a minute, Lucy, I’ve something for you.’ He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a little case. Lucy opened it and inside were a pair of spectacles with bright green frames. She put them on.

  ‘Well, Dad,’ she said in a slightly embarrassed tone, ‘they’re an …’ she paused imperceptibly ‘… unusual colour, but to be quite honest they’re a bit small for me and they’re a bit blurred.’

  Richard grinned: ‘Of course they’re small because they’re not for you, and they look blurred because those aren’t lenses – they’re clear plastic.’

  Light dawned on Lucy.

  ‘You must have asked José!’ she exclaimed. ‘Your “boys’ talk”. And I suppose the vets brought them yesterday!’ Richard nodded, as she rushed over and hugged him. ‘You’re really cool,’ she said happily, ‘and the greatest dad anyone ever had.’

  She hurried off to the edge of the forest with Katy and Michelle. All the animals congregated around her and, looking across at the gathering, Richard prayed that Tom, the pilot, would remain engrossed in his plane for the next few moments; he wasn’t sure how he would begin to explain away the extraordinary scene should the pilot ask him. As he watched, his daughter hugged all the animals in turn and then, though he heard nothing, he knew she was speaking to them:

  ‘Thank you for all you have done. I can now tell you that this evil place will be destroyed and once again belong to you and all your kin. I also promise that one day, when I am a woman, I will return here and tell you of the changes I will then be making to benefit all animals in the world. Most of you who stand here today will not see me then, for the Great Silver One must wax and wane countless times before I return, but you can assure your young and their young that I will come.’

  She beckoned to Queenie. ‘You, O Queen, have been particularly helpful to me and I will always cherish the memories of our times together. Here is something that will remind you of our adventures and our quest.’ She handed the spectacle case to Queenie, who opened it and took out the glasses with an expression of delight and surprise on her face. She put them on and gave the case to Sophie who started opening and shutting it repeatedly. Clio tried to help but got her fingers trapped – not seriously – and she contented herself with removing the little yellow cleaning cloth from the case and putting it on top of her head, making Lucy laugh through her tears.

  ‘When I looked through the second eyes of the Promised One,’ said Queenie, ‘the world looked as though it were covered by the gossamer the arachnopods weave, but through these eyes it looks as it does on the clearest day. It cannot be right that I should have better second eyes than She Who Speaks.’ She tried to hand the glasses back to Lucy who stopped her and smiled kindly at her.

  ‘There are many second eyes made by the Tailless Ones and through them the world appears in many different ways. These eyes are specially for you and I hope they will give you pleasure and even greater status among your kin.’

  She then turned to the assembled group and gave Michelle, Katy and Melanie final cuddles.

  ‘And now I must bid thee farewell, for I return to my own kin in Albion, far across the Great Salt. I will never forget you all and what you have done for me.’ Tears streaming down her face, she turned and went to join Richard. He put his arm round her and hugged her but said nothing. They gathered their few things and walked to the plane where Tom was starting up the engine.

  Soon they were in the air and Lucy got butterflies in her stomach as the little plane lurched from side to side, buffeted by the tropical air currents as it climbed. She watched the campsite shrink to a tiny spot as they ascended higher and higher. Once again she was confronted with the breathtaking enormity of the rainforest stretching unbroken to the horizon on every side. This time, however, she was able to share her sense of wonder with her father and together they watched the unfolding panorama as the plane banked to pick up the Amazon tributary winding like a silver ribbon through the trees, the marker that they would follow as it joined successive tributaries on its way to the great river itself.

  ‘You really did form a very special relationship with those animals, didn’t you?’ said Richard.

  ‘Much closer than I ever thought possible,’ she replied. ‘They’re so refreshingly uncomplicated. They know that life is hard and unfair and dangerous; they know that medium animals eat little animals, and big animals eat medium animals. They accept the reality of life as it is and I suppose that’s why they’re so relaxing to be with. You know that they say what they mean, and mean what they say, and that they’ll never betray you. They’re so much nicer than most people.’

  Richard felt as though he were listening to an adult, so fluent and accurate was her language; then he remembered that she had always been good at language. She had learnt to speak fluently at a very early age and her vocabulary at three had already been that of a school-aged child. Perhaps … Richard started to explore in his mind the same ideas that Lucy’s grandpa had been through a few weeks earlier. For the very first time he began to realize that Lucy must always have been destined for this role and that her language skills must always have been related to some special pathways in her brain that were one day going to enable her to communicate with animals. She was, in effect, a super-communicator.

  It now dawned on him that the Promised One was always much more likely to have been a female than a male. He remembered a scientific article he had read just before leaving London for Rio. It had described the different types of human brain: type E for empathizing, type S for systematizing and type B for balanced. Most men were type S, leading them to understand systems and try to build them. Most women were type E which enabled them to perceive what another person was thinking and react to it appropriately. Lucy was an outstanding example of a type E brain. Richard thought that there should now be a new category, UE, or ultra-E, for those who could relate to animals as well as humans. At the moment Lucy was the only UE in the world.

  Richard pulled himself back from his daydream to their conversation.

  ‘I was amused by the vets,’ he said. ‘They just couldn’t believe how good you were with the animals. They said that with you just standing there the jaguars seemed to know in advance what they wanted them to do and one of them even held out his foreleg to receive the anaesthetic injection. All I could do was to say, rather lamely, that you had always liked animals. Anyway, they said that their operations had gone very well and that you knew what to do about their aftercare. Something about some tubes being removed.’ He suddenly stopped and frowned. ‘Hang on a minute – you didn’t know before they left that the camp was going to be closed down and that nobody would be there after today? I only found that out from José the same afternoon. What’s going to happen to the animals?’

  ‘Relax, Dad,’ said Lucy smiling. ‘You don’t think I’d leave them stranded, do you? It’s all arranged. Queenie’s going to pull their tubes out at the end of next week. She knows to do it when the moon is full, which conveniently happens to be in nine days’ time.’

  Richard gaped at her.

  ‘You what!’ he exclaimed, ‘I mean – you’ve left some monkeys to perform a veterinary operation?’

  ‘Don’t make it into a big drama, Dad. The tubes may fall out on their own and they only need a little tug if they don�
�t. Monkeys are just as dextrous as human beings and, as there aren’t going to be any people there next week, they’re the obvious ones to do it. Anyway, I think it’s good that animals learn to look after each other in some situations. Close your mouth, Dad, you look as if you’re going to dribble in a minute.’ Richard realized he was staring at her open-mouthed in amazement. He wondered if he was ever going to get used to his daughter in her new decisive and authoritarian role. She really was something special.

  Later in the day they began to fly over areas of forest that were already being developed, mainly near the rivers which were the only ‘roads’ in this part of the jungle. Soon they saw a haze covering the forest which, as they flew on, became so dense that it completely blotted out their view of the canopy.

  ‘What on earth is going on?’ said Lucy, peering down at the swirling fog of smoke.

  ‘They’re burning the forest to clear it,’ said Richard. He then told her all the depressing statistics he had learnt about the destruction of the jungle and the damage that was being done to the earth’s atmosphere and climate by uncontrolled deforestation. Lucy’s face grew pale with anger as she listened and looked down. She already knew some of the facts from Grandpa’s books about the Amazon but seeing the destruction in real life was much worse. They had emerged from one immense bank of smoke but now she could see another coming into view ahead of them.

  ‘One day, I’m going to stop all this,’ she said simply. There was a look of frightening determination in her eyes and Richard knew that this was no schoolgirl’s idle boast; no pre-teenage fantasy. This was something that she could, and probably would, actually bring about.

  ‘My animals can achieve almost anything,’ she continued. ‘All they lack is someone to co-ordinate and direct them. They just need – what’s that person called who bosses armies about?’

  ‘A general?’ said Richard.

  ‘Yes, that’s it! A general. And that’s what I’m going to be. I’ll command the largest army that anyone ever conceived of in their wildest dreams. I can’t help it because it’s been plonked on me, and I’m going to have to talk to you and the family about what I actually do. And I know I’ll have to finish school before I do anything – anything really big, that is.’

  Richard suddenly realized that he had been so busy that, until this moment, he had not really had time to think through all the implications of what he now knew about his daughter’s power and, in particular, the threat it posed to her safety. He knew that there was nothing that some people would stop at to control Lucy’s power by the use of money, promises or threats to herself or her loved ones. Those people included individuals from every walk of life: the greedy, the criminal and the insane; politicians; secret service agents; generals; bankers and captains of industry. And the threat was not confined to individuals: governments; tyrannical regimes; industrial concerns; traders – ranging from the corner shop to great international corporations; in fact any institution which could use Lucy’s power to better itself or diminish its opponents would not hesitate to do so once her secret was out.

  He turned to Lucy and tried to sound casual.

  ‘How many people have you actually told about your secret, Lucy?’

  She looked straight at him.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad, I can guess what you’re thinking about. I’ve told very few. There’s you, Clare, Mum, Grandma and Grandpa, and Helen and Julian. That’s all and that’s how it must stay.’

  ‘It’s Helen and Julian I’m worried about,’ said Richard. ‘They seem nice enough but they’re not family and when we talked to them I didn’t appreciate what I realize now that I’ve had chance to think about things.’

  ‘Well, I thought about it at the time, Dad, and it was a difficult decision which I had to make quickly on the spot. I don’t think there was any way we could have saved ourselves and them, without their knowing my secret. I had a long talk with Helen about it and I’m sure they’ll never do anything that would endanger us. We did what was right at the time and all we can do now is to trust them.’

  Richard was relieved by what she said, and then remembered something else that had occurred to him when Lucy took over the camp and the airstrip:

  ‘Lucy, those ants and hornets – can you talk to any animals or insects?’

  Lucy started to answer but stopped abruptly and looked at the pilot. Richard followed her gaze. The pilot had taken his headphones off and was no longer speaking on the radio. Richard, who could see him better than Lucy, saw that he was writing some data in a log book and was not listening to them. As Richard watched he finished what he was doing and replaced his headphones. Lucy relaxed and started talking again. The incident brought home to Richard just how aware Lucy was of the need for secrecy and how alert she was to dangerous or unguarded situations. Richard himself hadn’t even noticed the pilot taking his headphones off and realized that he was going to have to be much more careful.

  ‘Anyway, as I was saying,’ Lucy continued, ‘I’m most comfortable with mammals – much more so than with reptiles or birds, but even with them I can easily hold a two-way conversation. Insects, spiders and worms are different. I get nothing back from them at all and they are very unpredictable: sometimes they respond and sometimes they don’t even seem to notice me. I’ve noticed, though, that insects that live in colonies like bees and ants – I think they’re called social insects, aren’t they?’ Richard nodded. ‘Well, they respond to my commands much better than individual insects. Grandpa thinks that it’s something to do with their brains being geared up to responding to group orders.’

  ‘What about even tinier creatures?’ asked Richard. He couldn’t bring himself to say straight out what he was thinking; the implications were too great.

  ‘I know what you’re getting round to Dad, don’t be shy! What you really want to know is whether I can control bacteria and viruses, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well – yes,’ said Richard, smiling.

  ‘The short answer is no. They seem to be just too primitive and Grandpa says bacteria are more like plants than animals. In a way I’m relieved, because otherwise I couldn’t justify not spending the rest of my entire life in hospitals, curing people of their infections.’

  Richard was relieved at what he had learnt. The thought of her being able to cure infections and yet being unable to help more than a fraction of the millions of patients who could benefit from her powers, even if she worked twenty-four hours a day, was too frightening to contemplate.

  21

  A Flutter on the Stock Exchange

  Richard was exhausted by the emotional and physical stress of the past weeks and the past few days in particular. At last he felt able to relax, and against the background of the soothing drone of the plane’s engine he quickly fell asleep. As he drifted off, his mind was full of his discussions with Lucy and soon he was lost in one of the most vivid dreams he had ever experienced.

  Five years had elapsed and he was sitting in the lounge of their home in London. The room looked somehow different and it took him no longer than the average man – several minutes – to realize that it was because there was new wallpaper, a new carpet and new chair covers. It was late in the evening and he was waiting for Lucy. Clare was away on a gap-year trip after finishing at university and, as it was the school holidays, Joanna had taken Sarah and cousins Ben, Henry and Christopher to stay with her parents down at the coast.

  He heard the front door slam and Lucy came in. She was now tall and her beautiful hair had been cropped very short. She came into the lounge and flopped down on to the sofa. She had been getting increasingly angry and frustrated over the failure of the government to honour the commitments it had made at successive international conferences, starting with the Kyoto Conference, to reduce national emissions of carbon dioxide and a variety of toxic pollutants.

  ‘Are you going up to London tomorrow, Dad?’ said Lucy.

  ‘No, I’m staying at home to finish a scientific paper I’m writing,’ said Richard
.

  ‘Good,’ she said, ‘because there’s going to be chaos.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Richard.

  ‘Well, you know that one of the things I’ve been doing to help the animals is to minimize climatic change?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Richard.

  ‘I issued an anonymous ultimatum to the government a month ago. If they didn’t take some definite action by today I was going to show them the kind of things that might happen. They haven’t done anything, so tomorrow I’m going to use the animals to close down the Stock Exchange.’ She briefly explained what she was going to do and how easy it would be.

  ‘But –’ Richard didn’t know where to begin ‘– how could any government respond to an anonymous threat? It could be just anyone trying to stir them up.’

  ‘I gave them a code,’ said Lucy, ‘so though they don’t know who I am they’ll know when I give them the identical code tomorrow that it’s the same person who spoke to them a month ago.’ Richard thought for a moment. The Stock Exchange was one of the world’s leading financial centres. To close it unexpectedly would cause unthinkable confusion and financial instability.

  ‘You just can’t do this!’ said Richard. ‘It will cause financial ruin for millions and damage the City’s reputation, the government and the country.’

  ‘Just watch me!’ said Lucy. She seemed colder and harder than the sweet girl he used to know.

  ‘But you’d be breaking all the rules of civilized behaviour,’ protested Richard. ‘It’s a kind of anarchy and many innocent people will suffer from your actions.’