“It’s autumn on the Gower right now,” I told Megan. “We’d be picking blackberries if we were home. The skies are grey and rain falls from the sky. The wind is crisp and the roads full of puddles.”
“Did you really go outside without goggles or anything?” Megan had never felt the air against her bare skin. We walked along the high end of the beach, safely away from the acid water. She begged me to tell her more about “the past,” as she called it: Wales was an unobtainable world that only existed in stories. I stopped correcting her after a few years went by. There seemed no point.
“Just an umbrella and sturdy shoes. Mind, we got flu and colds that lasted all winter long as well. You’re lucky in that respect.”
Illness is not common here on our sterilised colony and the medical centre is quick to treat any symptoms. They’ve spent thousands of hours trying to find the bacterium that killed our homecomers, but it appears to be inactive here, mutating to a malicious killer only in the Earth’s atmosphere. And they can’t just send people to Earth to die, even if the scientists on the ground were willing to risk themselves trying to do the research. They isolated the plague in California by cordoning off the entire desert, leaving the carriers to die alone.
“The sea was always cold, but by October it would be freezing. We would walk along the beach on the way home from school. We dared each other to run in and brave it. The water was so cold it felt as if it burned.” Sometimes it took a couple of sips of vodka to get the nerve. The cold would make your heart stop.
***
I wish I had a bottle of vodka now. The sun’s low in the sky. If I squint, I can almost pretend it’s a brilliant Swansea sunset, rays reflecting off the low clouds to turn the landscape red. I can almost pretend I’m at Oystermouth Road, standing at the long stretch of beach, Jacquelyn daring me to take my togs off and run into the waves.
Megan had the same enthusiastic curiosity about the world as her father the scientist. The dome was stifling to a young girl’s spirit. We explored the local area, but I didn’t dare go very far. Megan complained bitterly when it was time to return. It came to a head when she was caught sneaking out in the middle of the night, without authorisation, without the proper gear. Owen was furious, but I couldn’t blame her for rebelling against the rules and regulations.
“How can we learn more if we lock ourselves away?” she complained. “When I grow up, I’m going to live outdoors and I’m going to see the entire planet. I’m going to study the Homecoming Plague until I find a solution and we can travel again.”
“If you do, I’ll be on the first ship home. I’ll take you to the pier for ice cream.”
Ice cream was one of the few traditional treats that Megan recognized. She never had food except from a container: synthesised vitamins and American processed meat. “You could really just go someplace and get food? You didn’t have a canteen?”
“No. Well, we had restaurants, where we could meet up and have a meal together. It was a social thing. It was a choice.” She was bemused by the concept of choice. Our food is doled out in scoops. If you don’t go to the canteen, you don’t eat.
By her twelfth birthday, food was tightly restricted. We lived on carbohydrate dishes that tasted of cotton, with the tinned goods tightly rationed. Two unmanned ships had successfully reached us with supplies since the quarantine began. Many others failed. We had no idea when the next might come. I fought off the hunger pangs by telling Megan about my favourite dinners when I was her age.
“The beaches of the Gower are full of treasure,” I told her. “We’d go to the beach after school and fish for our supper. Mum would peel a couple of potatoes and fry our catch in butter and that would be dinner.” Mostly Mum heated up frozen dinners from Tesco, but I didn’t like to tell Megan that. Besides, when Mum was sober, she was a pretty good cook. She would always have a go at preparing anything we brought home. “I didn’t have the patience for fishing. My line was always getting tangled up and I hated touching the lugworms. But you could collect all kinds of shellfish at the changing of the tides. Nan used to take us out in the middle of the night with a thermos of whisky and coffee. We’d collect what we could find: oysters, mussels, even crabs.”
Megan’s mouth fell open and she stared at the distant beach disbelievingly. “So they were just there waiting for you to take them? Did you eat them?”
“We steamed them and then we ate them with just a squeeze of lemon juice. Lemons grow on trees, but we bought our fruit from the market.”
“How does steaming work?” It was hard for her to imagine the world I took for granted. Megan never had raw food so she didn’t understand about cooking. The closest she came to seafood was the tinned salmon they served on New Year’s Day.
“You have to steam them to force the shells open so you can get to the meat inside.” Megan looked disappointed. She relished the idea of a movable feast, food simply there for the taking. Our dependence within the colony was so constant; the concept of fending for yourself was a favourite source of wonder for her.
I liked to indulge her. “Sometimes you could catch them with the shells open. I caught buckets of razor clams at the estuary. Find a hole in the sand, that’s where they’ve dug themselves into. You just drop a bit of salt into the hole and then reach in and drag the clams straight out of their shells. They’re plump and meaty. If you were hungry enough, I guess you could simply eat them on the spot. In the old days, they had special knives to pry the shells open and eat them alive.”
“How would you know they weren’t poisonous?”
“There’s not much from the sea that will kill you, not if it’s fresh.”
***
Not in the Celtic Sea, anyway. I stare out at the poisonous waves of G851.5.32, a mystery to me. Who knows what beasts lurk within its softly glowing swells. The scent is sharp and chemical rather than the briny breeze of Swansea Bay. Everything here is toxic.
“What does it taste like? Food you find on your own, I mean.” By the time Megan was thirteen, I’d given up all hope of returning home. We were “self-sufficient” and a perfect test bed for the colonies of the future, with sterilised capsules transferring data back to Earth. All wonderful research, except that I’d never signed up for this, never wanted to spend a lifetime in space, never would have started a family if I’d known the antiseptic life in the colony was all she’d ever see. Megan’s curiosity became insatiable as she begged for details of a “normal” life, of what she’d missed. I told her about wine and thunderstorms and aeroplanes and guitars. I taught her church hymns and Bonnie Tyler songs and rugby chants. Megan continued to sneak out of the dome, “taking liberties with her safety” it said on the reports. Colony security wasn’t designed to hold in rebellious teenagers; she didn’t find it difficult. I never said anything. How could she grow up in this barren collection of plastic buildings? She needed to explore.
Owen grew distressed. “You are making her homesick for a world she’s never known,” he told me. I didn’t care. I wanted her to know, to understand where she had come from. So I kept telling her the stories, answering her questions. I never noticed how often we returned to the subject of food.
“Shellfish tastes better than anything else in the universe,” I told her. “Especially if you caught it yourself. The fresh air seasons it, we say. But it’s because you put the effort in, you made the food happen.”
“But specifically, what is it like? What do cockles and mussels taste of?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. She had never eaten anything that wasn’t full of preservatives and salt. “They taste like the sea. They taste slick and primordial. They taste of brine and dark blue depths. It’s an Earth flavour. I can’t explain.” She glared at me and stomped out of the room. She wanted facts, not metaphors. She wanted to know and I wasn’t helping. She wanted to go home and taste them for herself.
***
The silt of the shore is soft and powdery, nothing like the golden sand of Swansea Bay. When I pre
ss my fingers into it, the edges of my gloves begin to singe against the damp soil underneath. Everything about this planet is poison. It was never meant for families.
The day Megan told me she had a stomachache, I didn’t think too much about it. “Have you finished your school work?” I asked her. She had daily one-on-one tutorials, taught by some the best scientists of our time, not that an education was any use up here. Still, we stuck to the routines, pretended there was a future.
“I don’t feel well at all,” she said. Those were her last coherent words. She collapsed before I made it across the room to feel her forehead. I carried her to the med station myself, her long legs dragging along the polished hallways. Megan’s eyes opened as I screamed for the nurse to help me. She twisted and began to vomit blood as they pulled her onto the bed and wheeled her into the back rooms. Within a few hours, she was dead.
Owen found refuge in process. He told me they thought she might have the same bacteria that stopped us returning to Earth, that she might be the key to finding the cure. I turned away as he stuttered platitudes, that maybe they would solve the quarantine, that maybe her death wouldn’t be in vain. I couldn’t stand to hear him try to make sense of the tragedy. He stayed at the medical station, signing consent forms, overseeing the process as they cut her open and examined her insides.
I went home and sat in her room, touching her things. I bunched her favourite dress in my fists, hoping to banish the last sight of her, flesh pale as marble, splattered with blood, blue eyes colder than any ice. I collapsed onto her bunk. Once the tears slowed, I ran my fingers over her stuffed octopus like a blind woman, touching the ragged cloth and glassy eyes as if it might hold some of her essence.
The sharp edges of something under her pillow stopped me. I opened my eyes and moved the pillow to see a pair of stolen protective gloves, singed away at the tips, and half a dozen blood-red shells. Two of them were cracked and pried open; the insides sparkled like mother of pearl, wiped clean. Licked clean.
Owen told me that Megan’s death was not preventable. It was an unknown illness, he said, there was nothing that we could have done. He cried as he told me that she’d ingested some sort of parasites. They had rampaged through her flesh, feasting on her organs. He promised me that it was quick, as if I didn’t already know that, as if that was a consolation. I took the shells she’d hidden under her pillow and said nothing.
***
I press my bare toes into the powdery silt of the barren shore of G851.5.32. It stings, a million pins and needles pricking my flesh. When I was a girl, we would dare each other to dash into the frigid waves of the sea, the water so cold that it burned.
I wonder if it will feel the same, in this alien sea so far from home. I clench the broken shells in my fists and run forward into the breaking waves.
I think it will feel just the same.
© 2013 by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley.
The Sex Adventurer's Handbook to Kuiper Belt Resorts, by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
Dear Author,
I picked up your book, The Sex Adventurer's Travel Guide to the Kuiper Belt, on sale at a used book bulletin on frugalspacefarers.com. I now recognize that this was my first mistake. However, although I was aware that the book might be out of date, it didn't occur to me that it could possibly be so wildly inaccurate so as to get me into serious trouble.
I spent a large amount of money on the flight here and on four-star hotel accommodations, eager to take advantage of the "cornucopia of sexual delights" that your book assured me was "there for the taking" on Ceres for any human male with good credit. I also purchased a large amount of gifts based on your recommendation that Cerian women would come flocking to me if I brought a lime green feather boa with me and carried it around on display. I'm not sure what Cerian is for "snigger" but I'm pretty sure I now recognize the local phrase for "What an idiot."
Quite frankly: I originally found it hard to believe that you had ever been in the Kuiper Belt, as you claimed in your introduction, let alone ever set foot on Ceres. Your advice to be effusive and outgoing to good looking young women meant I was undone before I even started. Eventually I discovered that what is considered a common way to let a woman know she is hot in New York City apparently translates to "help, help, my genitals are on fire" to the average Ceresian. This would have been a useful thing to mention in your guide.
When I attempted to compliment a young woman with more subtlety by telling her she smelled of jasmine, I used the translation app in your book, which told me the correct transcription was [symbol][symbol][symbol], which I am now aware means "a rotting three-legged beast found only in the outer reaches of the stone swamp." This, not surprisingly, was not taken as a flirtatious and friendly opening.
Apparently, it is not actually possible to tell the female of the species by the fronds on her forehead as you claim in Chapter Three. I say this with some confidence because the two Cerians who I then found myself in an encounter with most definitely had male parts. That was when I discovered that your "useful phrases" did not include "You are not my type," "I've made a terrible mistake," or even "Stop that right now." This is clearly an unforgiveable gap in your translation app but as a result of my later encounters, I can at least confirm that "I'll call the authorities" is [symbol][symbol][symbol].
In Chapter Seven, you continue to describe the women of Ceres as "easy to please" and the text surely gives the impression that it is easy to find passion and excitement in the Cerian resorts. The reality appears to be that they are, in fact, more than happy to report unfortunate travelers who are so bold as to ask about sexual encounters.
I have to admit that you did cover Sadomasochism and Bondage in Chapter Nine so I was not completely unaware of the possibilities. But quite frankly, although I enjoy a little bit of ridicule, this is above and beyond what I expected.
Sargassian Prison is cold, damp, wet and the food tastes like processed silicon. Some of the guards appear to be female but they are neither "there for the taking" nor "easy to please," I can assure you.
The imprisonment is not as bad as one might think (although I would hardly recommend it as a holiday resort). At least I have free wifi. And of course, I have your book, which I am now rereading with something akin to amusement.
As you can imagine, there is not a lot to do when locked up for charges that all seem to use the terms vulgar and salacious in their descriptions (as handily translated by your app). They say that I will be released in a week but only if I depart the planet immediately and with no refund of the funds I invested into this trip.
So while I am stuck here, I have done some research and contrary to my belief that you are just stupid, I have discovered that you are, in fact, [symbol][symbol], of Cerian descent. Apparently, you are so out of touch with your own culture that you do not realize how completely wrong your advice is.
I have posted to various travel and sex adventure message boards recommending that your book be AVOIDED at all costs. And for that matter, that Ceres and probably the entire Kuiper Belt best be avoided too. I will continue to tell everyone online what I think of you and your people until I am finally free.
I hope you are happy.
George Egglesmith III
Regarding Your Unexpected Visit to the Surface of an Apparently Only Mostly Uninhabited Planet, by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
Dear Sir/Madam/Other,
We regret to inform you that the damage you have claimed to your spaceship, mainly the ingestion of asteroid dust and various dents and newly ripped fuselage, is not covered in your insurance policy.
The damage done to the space ship as you traveled through the asteroid belt could be classed as negligence, as it is quite clearly documented in the manual that it is unsafe to attempt to navigate through debris of any kind. This is specifically because of the risk of such maneuvers. However, we do understand that you felt that the situation was an emergency.
The critical engagement light is a known defect that only comes up for very few
of our customers in a very specific set of events. Specifically, on models ranging from serial number 210t51A to 232q17B (you can find out your serial number by checking the plate set by the undercarriage), if you have been traveling for long distances without an appreciable atmosphere and the outer temperature has fallen below 100 kelvin while the inner temperature is still at a livable standard, then there is a risk that the temperature discrepancy--as per standards document 7656v53--would lead to a false display which, as you saw, gives the impression that the temperature gauge is no longer working and leads to inaccurate readings of the critical engagement light and eventually causes the alarm klaxon to sound with visual and aural warnings to land immediately before the ship explodes.
I can assure you that there was no danger of explosion in this circumstance and the space ship was completely competent to continue its flight.
The fact that the resulting resolution advisories resulted in your diving into the midst of flying asteroids is unfortunate, but I'm sure you can understand that, if you hadn't been near the belt in the first place, the maneuvers recommended by your safety system could not have led you into it.
You have further gone on to complain that you have an issue with natural predators in the area where you have crash landed. I must be firm that your policy does not include damage to you or the space ship as caused by animals, even two-meter high clawed beasts that survive on iron. It is interesting to me that you managed to land on one of the rare natural habitats of this beast, which is the only known predator of our space-faring vehicles. If you would like to bring back specimens, that would be useful for our further research.
Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two Page 354
