Red Claw

by Philip Palmer

  Then the picture vanishes.

  Then:

  A Two-Leg, flying, on fire. Flames coming out of body. Flying, flying. But also Gryphons flying. Carrying Two-Leg. Higher. Higher. Clouds. Wings flapping. Fire bursts from armour again. Two-Leg flies up high.

  Two-Leg in stars, flying!

  Saunders paused. He was exhausted with the act of visualising so precisely.

  Isaac was twitching his head. Happy? Unhappy? There was no way to tell.

  Then an image came into Saunders’s mind that was painful in its immediacy. Gryphons, a flock of them, flying high. Flying higher still. Flying among the stars. Until finally, he saw: Gryphons in flight in space.

  “No,” said Saunders. “Not possible. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t survive.”

  But the image burned his retina: Gryphons in space.

  “No . . . Ah!”

  The image burned him. Gryphons in space. Saunders finally understood.

  “Maybe,” Saunders conceded. “Maybe, one day?”

  And Saunders then did a wicked thing. He visualised a spaceship taking off from the surface of New Amazon. He zoomed up to the window. Inside the spaceship, comically, but credibly, was Isaac, and a score of other Gryphons, flying inside the vast spaceship in perfect formation. A Gryphon spaceship.

  One day, maybe. And that day was all the more likely, now that the seed had been planted, now that the idea was in Isaac’s mind.

  One day?

  DAY 30

  “Come!” called Hugo. They all gathered and stared up at the sky.

  “What?”

  “Shooting stars. Twelve of them.”

  “It’s begun.”

  “Yes,” said Hooperman, in Saunders’s head, “it’s begun.”

  “Hooperman, don’t do this,” Saunders told him calmly.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s no need. No purpose. Why save my life, just to kill me now?”

  “Because that’s more humiliating?”

  “OK then. If you want to kill me, then kill me. I’ve lived long enough, longer than I ever thought possible. But spare the others.”

  “Don’t go heroic on me now.”

  “And spare the planet.”

  “The planet! That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

  “This is a beautiful ecosystem. You can’t kill all these creatures.”

  “You mean, your talking birds? It’s about your talking birds.”

  “They deserve a chance.”

  “They could be the next Bugs. The next threat to humanity. Is it true they are telepathic?”

  “It’s true.”

  “Then I’m doing the universe a favour by killing them.”

  “Please. I beg you. I appeal to your humanity.”

  “I died thirty days ago, Carl. Whatever I am, I’m a long way from being human.”

  Saunders felt a shudder run down his spine.

  The earth shook and the Canopy burned. The Four Satellites were in alignment over the globe. The terraforming had begun.

  Hugo prepared himself. He stood in a circle with the rest of the team. The various time-honoured rituals were performed. The Soldiers spat at him and touched fists with him, and shouted “Glory!” The Scientists shook his hand, avoided eye contact and muttered platitudes.

  “I’m ready,” said Hugo.

  “Die well,” said Sorcha.

  “Die well,” said Tonii.

  “Go fuck Hooperman,” said Mary.

  “I will,” said Hugo. The knowledge of his destiny was exhilarating; Hugo felt more alive than he had ever done before.

  Saunders sat down with Isaac, and prepared himself to die.

  He wasn’t sure when he had made this decision. Last night, as he lay awake, brooding? Or in the morning with the glorious dawn?

  But he was sure of what had to happen next. He had to die.

  Because he’d seen the man Hugo had become. He’d observed, with astonishment, the way Hugo now inspired and unified the group. The way that tubby little man had given hope to Clementine, with her broken body, and how he energised and motivated Tonii, with all his hidden insecurities, and motivated David, and comforted Mia, and looked out for Mary. Even Sorcha had fallen under Hugo’s spell. She had been traumatised at the discovery that Saunders had tried to kill the Cheo. And she’d been even more traumatised at her subsequent inability to kill Saunders for his treachery.

  And as a consequence, Sorcha had been on the verge of sinking into a deep and irrevocable depression. Saunders could see it happening, but was powerless to help. For suddenly, Sorcha stopped being Sorcha; instead she was listless, and rambling, and self-pitying. But every word of sympathy Saunders uttered seemed to make her self-loathing worse.

  Hugo, however, had totally and cheerfully ignored Sorcha’s melancholic state. He had offered no words of kindness or sympathy; instead, he had teased her and mocked her and insulted her, inventively. He even did an occasional silly little dance. And Sorcha had been baffled by him at first; then amused by him; and then, well, fond of him. And then she stopped hating herself and was able to laugh at herself, and at her own crazy conditioned obsessions.

  And then, once again, she began to embrace the glorious moment of each moment.

  Hugo did all this! And Saunders in consequence was in awe of him. And Hugo was also a brilliant scientist, and he was about to be married to Clementine, and they deserved each other.

  So Saunders made his decision: this man shouldn’t die. And none of the others should die either. Enough innocents had been killed already.

  It was time for Saunders to take his turn, to do penance for his sins. And now it began.

  First he conjured up a mental image of himself being carried through the sky by a Gryphon.

  Isaac cawed. He projected the same image back at Saunders; that meant the answer was still yes.

  Then Saunders cawed, a low rolling cawing sound that tickled the back of his throat. It was a perfect impersonation of the sound that the Gryphons used to imply urgent temporal imperative; in other words, it was their sound for Now!!!!!

  “Let’s go,” said Saunders, and Saunders got up, and he ran.

  The mega-exoskeleton with the seven rocket jets was stored inside the AmRover. Saunders let himself in, and strapped himself into the contraption. His own body armour would protect him from the heat. His oxygen implant would allow him to breathe. All he had to do was get up high.

  Then he stepped out of the AmRover, bulky and rocket-armed, and looked up. The sky was black with Gryphons. Isaac had done his work well.

  Saunders flashed an image at Isaac: Saunders in flight. Isaac sent the same image to the other Gryphons. And the Gryphons descended in formation. A half-dozen of the birds took a firm grip of the flying structure. Saunders braced himself. The Gryphons flapped and flew upwards, and Saunders jerkily took off.

  And in this fashion, Saunders was carried up into the atmosphere, on his technological chariot.

  The birds cawed as they flew, singing brutally in unison. And they shared a vision, an image that appeared in all their minds:

  A star, a bright star, burning over the planet.

  Hugo looked up and saw a dot.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Can you hear me, Hugo?”

  “I hear you, Professor. Where are you?”

  “Look up.”

  “That’s you?”

  “That’s me. I’m on my way to the Satellite.”

  “What the — How did you —”

  Hugo realised what Saunders had done.

  “You can’t do this,” Hugo screamed subvocally. “I volunteered. It’s my martyrdom.”

  “Don’t be such a drama queen, Hugo. You’re needed down there. I’ve had five hundred years, I’m all worn out.”

  “But —”

  “Come back, you bastard!” screamed Sorcha, as she realised what was happening.

  “Thank you for those kind parting words.”

  “I mean it! You
shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Humour me, Sorcha. This is the first altruistic thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.”

  “Then don’t do it. Come back. You can’t die!”

  “Everyone dies, sometime. Love you, Sorcha. Goodbye.”

  “Carl! Carl!”

  “ ‘Love you, Sorcha. Goodbye.’ That’s a hint by the way. You’re meant to say —”

  “You fucking fool.”

  “Near enough. So —”

  “I love you, Carl.”

  He cut the MI-radio link.

  Isaac and the other Gryphons flew as high as they could, to the upper limits of the atmosphere, carrying their human passenger. By now they were gliding upwards on thermal currents. But the air was getting thinner. Flight was becoming impossible.

  Saunders visualised Isaac releasing him, and Isaac and the other Gryphons released him. He fired up his seven rocket jets, initially at their lowest setting, then he slid it up to maximum and was crushed by acceleration. He roared up into space, towards the stars.

  The thrust ripped and bruised his body and hurled him upwards. If it weren’t for the body armour he would have been burned alive. But instead, he shot up high, through the troposphere, into the cold vacuum of space. Then a rocket jet fell off. And other. The sheer power of the acceleration ripped the makeshift contraption into pieces. He hurtled onwards like a car falling to pieces under the pressure of its own speed.

  Then the final rocket died. He ripped it off by hand, the heat seared his gauntlet, and he tumbled weightless in space. Stars were all around him. He’d achieved escape velocity, and he was well above the planet’s gravity now, in free fall.

  He still had one set of rocket jets, the ones on his body armour, and they were enough to nudge him forward towards the Satellite. A tiny puff of power, a tiny puff more, and his velocity grew, and grew. He didn’t fly, he fell fast through space, in the direction of the Satellite, a shining dot in the blackness, which grew larger, and larger, and larger.

  Hugo revealed the locked and concealed cabinet in the AmRover and passed around the champagne.

  “There’s nothing to celebrate,” said David Go glumly.

  “No,” said Hugo. “But if the Professor fails, I intend to die drunk.”

  As Saunders soared towards his destination with effortless speed, he felt at peace. He had waited a lot of years for this moment. The moment of impending, certain, painless death.

  Saunders had loved many women, and even a few men, and he had married often. He had made many friends, and shared confidences with them, and he had loved them as friends, and they had loved him back. He had two younger brothers still alive, and parents who had lived into their two hundreds and who had been devoted to him.

  It all meant nothing.

  Only Hooperman mattered.

  For Hooperman held a unique place in his heart. Hooperman was more than a friend, more than a colleague, more than a father, more than a lover, or a wife, more than anything.

  Andrew Hooperman had for all these years been his enemy; and between men like Hooperman and Saunders, there was no closer bond.

  “Carl, nice to see you.”

  “Fuck you, Hooperman.”

  “I can see you coming. You’re a sitting duck.”

  Saunders fired his plasma cannon at the Satellite, from far too far away.

  “What a joke. How old are your eyes, Carl?”

  “Fuck you, Hooperman.”

  “Fuck you, ‘Professor Hooperman’, if you please.”

  “It ends here,” said Saunders, flying at full acceleration towards the Satellite. It was a long, slow charge and Saunders was getting bored. But he held to his course, and he thought about the ironies of life, and he found himself drowning in amusement.

  Hooperman fired a hail of plasma fire at Saunders. The body armour held. More plasma fire. The body armour held. But it was getting hot. Then the armour started to melt.

  A few more minutes and Saunders would be dead.

  “Ha!” A feeble last word, but it was all he could manage.

  Saunders went nova, and the Satellite exploded.

  Isaac cawed, as a new star was born in his sky.

  Sorcha stared up at the new star, her heart broken. She looked at the bewildered Gryphon, and she projected an image of Saunders exploding into fire.

  Isaac cawed. He understood.

  Carl Saunders had died to save them all.

  For Saunders had been wearing, strapped to his body, the Bostock battery that powered the AmRover. Enough potential energy to power the planet for an entire twelve months, released in tiny degrees via the battery’s filter circuit.

  But the battery’s filter had been disabled, and when the flame from the plasma bursts ignited Saunders’s body armour, the power in the battery was released all at once. The vast reserves of energy in the battery erupted in the space of half a second, and Hooperman and the Satellite were engulfed.

  Sorcha stared up at the nova, baffled by grief. Saunders had died, and she still lived.

  Why? She should have died. That was her job, her role, her destiny, to die a Glorious death. Why had she failed to fulfil her own destiny?

  Sorcha remembered:

  – Saunders happy, smiling. Arrogant. Funny. Marvellous.

  – Saunders angry, glaring. Arrogant. Dangerous. Marvellous.

  – Saunders fucking her, slowly and carefully, his face alight with

  delight.

  She would miss him. That was her tribute to him. Her special homage.

  For she had never before, in her entire life, missed anyone.

  Space was ripped and torn by the blast. The wreckage of the Satellite drifted in orbit around New Amazon, with some of the blackened remnants spiralling down as shooting stars.

  New Amazon was a dense green globe floating in black darkness, with tiny pinpricks of blue peeping through the branches and leaves of the Ocean-Aldiss-Tree. Tens of millions of species thrived on this planet. It was rich, it was fertile, and it now had a future.

  Then, in the deep darkness of black space encircling the verdant planet, came a sound, a voice.

  “Can you hear me, Carl?” Hooperman’s voice whispered.

  And out of the blackness came an echo.

  “Yes,” Saunders said. “But —”

  “Where are you, Carl?”

  “You know, I’ve been wondering about that.”

  “Nowhere, that’s where!”

  “Not possible.”

  “Possible.”

  “Then —”

  “When you die, Carl, something remains. Even when there is no human body, even when there is no robot brain to act as the repository for the human mind, something remains. Not much. Just this. And I don’t know for how long.”

  “Ah.”

  “Indeed.”

  “A presence.”

  “A spirit.”

  “So what do you think —”

  “Wait! I can sense —”

  “What?”

  “I — I have a feeling that I don’t have long. Not long.”

  “Andrew?”

  “Goodbye, Carl.”

  “Andrew? —” But Hooperman’s voice was gone, for ever.

  “Andrew!” Saunders screamed. “Andrew! Don’t go!”

  No one had ever liked Andrew Hooperman.

  But at the moment of Hooperman’s death, Saunders missed him, terribly, and mourned him, deeply. And he wished, looking back, that they could have been better friends.

  He wished, too, that they had never fought, or feuded.

  And he wished, with all his heart, that so many innocents had not died.

  Then Saunders finished mourning, and he wondered how long he was going to survive.

  But one thing was for sure: he was going to enjoy it while he could. So he willed himself to move and he moved.

  He willed himself to fly through the atmosphere of New Amazon and he flew.

  He willed himself to exist in the trees, in the
animals, in the plants, in the plant-animals and animal-plants, in the semi-sentient clouds, everywhere, somewhere.

  And though he existed in all those places, all at the same time, the special thing that made him “him” remained intact. A pinprick of consciousness, enveloped in more than half a millenium’s worth of memories. But for how much longer?

  “I think,” Saunders thought, “therefore —”

  He let the thought drift. He expected death to creep up on him. He waited for it, for the creep of death.

  But death did not come.

  Hope started to twitch.

  He let himself drift. He flew through jungle and into Flesh-Webs and down into the soil and back again, then he flew into the air and saw Gryphons flocking and he flew through them but they couldn’t see or feel him or in any way acknowledge his existence.

  Saunders realised, this could get very boring.

  But then it occurred to him, boring was so much better than dead.

  He wondered: was he immortal?

  And he decided to linger on the joy of every moment. For that was all he had, for now, and for ever, or at least until that instant when his consciousness was extinguished.

  He could see, but he couldn’t feel, he couldn’t touch, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t communicate. He was, but he had no why.

  And yet, this was a marvel, and a wonder. For Carl Saunders had evolved into a jewel of consciousness in an ocean of moments, surrounded by a planet of extraordinary beauty and varied marvels.

  And as the truth of his situation became vivid to him, and as he thought about the implications of his strange state, his curiosity started to stir and twitch, and to nudge up against hope.

  What would happen on this planet, in the many years to come? Would the Cheo send more troops from Earth? Would Sorcha defend New Amazon, as he had told her to? Would he live long enough to see the Gryphons evolve? Would he see them becoming tool users? Would he see them become a spacefaring species?

  And would he see Sorcha and the other survivors build a new civilisation?

  Would he see Sorcha fall in love again, and have children, by some other man? Would he have time for all that? Could such a thing be possible?