The Chrysalid Conspiracy (58 page)

Lucy had stood up to the questioning well. Amelia poured her mother another drink. “Here, get that down you,” she said. “That must have been hard to explain. I’m sorry to put you through this.”

“Actually,” said Lucy, “it’s the first time I’ve said it out loud and I’m glad it was to you. I still can’t get my head around it. Do you believe me?”

“Oh yes, mother, every word. There can’t be any other explanation. We have ourselves a murder.”

“Oh Amelia, you do believe me. Thank you. I wasn’t sure,” Sighed Lucy.

“Oh, I believe you Mum. I’ve lived it.” She then told her about her dream. “It’s a bit mixed up, that must be my own interpretation. But all the essential parts are there.”

“So you think she had time to track our movements and plan her attack?” asked Lucy.

“Yes Mum. Setting the car on fire sounds like the sort of thing Ryxyl would do if she couldn’t find what she was looking for.”

“It’s just as well she didn’t get the chance to move me,” replied Lucy. “My pelvis was smashed. But why would she do this? What does she want?”

Amelia’s hackles rose as her extra sense did a ‘double take’. It dawned on her that her mother wasn’t asking a question, she was merely making an enquiry. She already knew that Ryxyl was after the codex and wanted to know if her daughter did also. Amelia decided to let it slip by.

“I guess she wants to be Zanitor,” she replied brightly. “She’s a comic strip character, Queen of the Jungle, your friendly neighbourhood megalomaniac. And we’re in her way, somehow.”

Lucy reached out and took her daughter’s hand. “She wants to be the Sanddancer’? Well, there’s only one. One leader, loved and respected by those she serves. And I’m afraid that position has already been taken,” and she gave Amelia’s hand a knowing squeeze.

“But there’s so much I don’t know, Mum. And why me?” Amelia was almost begging for answers.

“We’re wandering into areas that I can’t discuss, my love. You’ll have to trust me. But I can tell you one thing. Your father was a Sanddancer, and as such he was concerned with the survival of mankind, which relies heavily on the survival of the Sanddancers. The conclusions to his work on this were that every ten or fifteen thousand years the population of Earth becomes too large to sustain it and billions die of starvation. He said he never believed the alien visitation theory, or the wars of self-destruction and self-inflicted annihilation.

The two species, us and the Sanddancers can’t interbreed. Your father being a Sanddancer makes you the first hybrid. You’re development has been guided more to normal human than Sanddancer, hence the chrysalid conspiracy You are unique, Amelia. You Rayn and Sheila are the genesis of a new species. A new species of the genus called ‘Homo Superior’.”

Amelia didn’t speak. She wasn’t capable. Her mind had shut down. There were no questions she could ask and no answers she would be able to comprehend. All the evidence she and Rayn had uncovered, plus their extensive logic, told her this was probably true, but her ordinary common sense said it was impossible.

“All we had to do was give you a human social upbringing,” said Lucy, “so that when your natural talents develop fully you could see things from both species perspectives. So Maddy dreamed up the ‘chrysalid conspiracy’. Enough now. Please keep this between you. The rest is up to Maddy, when she…”

“I know, Mum. When she thinks we’re ready. Don’t worry; I’m beginning to understand what she means. Thank you for this. I know how tough it’s been. I just want you to know how much I love you.” Amelia leaned forward and gave her mother a hug. “We don’t have to live a lie any more. I’m so proud of the things you’ve achieved, the obstacles you’ve had to overcome and the sacrifices you’ve had to make. I don’t know how Rayn and I are going to handle this New Species thing, but I promise we won’t go looking for the answers and give you more trouble. I gather there’s a lot more to come, but at least we now know enough to wait.”

“Thank you for that, my love.” There were tears in Lucy’s voice again as she looked at her daughter. “You are right, there is a lot more to come. And I promise you, it will go way beyond those vivid imaginations of you and Rayn put together. All you need is patience and, above all else, trust.”

They carried on talking after digging out some of the rolls left over from lunchtime. Both of them felt a lot more relaxed and Lucy told Amelia more about her father. “His work on the codex translations had revealed that Homo Natura, the Sanddancers, separated from modern man and it became impossible for them to procreate together for some reason. Maddy and her crew investigated this and came up with some theories. You see, the codex covers tens of thousands of years and at the moment we only have random chunks of it. In the later parts, some bitter home truths came to light and Maddy realised it was essential that the two species should one day combine. She set up a series of criteria that one of our females must fit to stand any chance of success.”

“And you fitted those criteria? Is that all your relationship was? Just scientific?” asked Amelia, shocked and scared.

“No,” reassured her mother. “I failed miserably. But we fell in love and your father threatened to abandon the scheme.”

“So what happened? Where did I come from?” Amelia was intrigued.

“Well, Maddy being Maddy, she went back to the codex and came up with more theories. It transpired that there were certain organic substances that might work, along with some corrective surgery to readjust my reproductive system. We thought long and hard about it, but we were too selfishly in love to deny the possibilities, and went for it. Win or lose. It’s something I make no apologies for, or say sorry about.” Lucy was quite adamant that she’d made the right choice. “It took a long time, was very dangerous and extremely painful. But we made it, and you were the prize.”

Amelia felt as if she were crying inside. She was so proud at what she’d heard. “So I’m one hundred per cent natural then? No genetic enhancement? A genuine new species?”

“Of course. Well, sort of. Once you were conceived, you just needed a little tweaking. And yes, you’re as near to natural as we could get. I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you, but what the hell. I did a lot of the work on my own alterations with Maddy, and I did warn her of the possibilities of over-advancement. You’ve progressed faster and more successfully than was anticipated. You still have many more, shall we call them ‘talents’, to develop. But I don’t think Maddy accepts that.”

“You must remember,” Lucy continued. “The Sanddancers are strange creatures. So let’s be careful. And the combination should help iron out some of the problems.”

“Problems? Is that a warning of some kind?” asked Amelia anxiously.

“No, nothing physical. More racial, in an evolutionary sense. The original Sanddancers are non-aggressive pacifists by nature. The new Sanddancers must be able to defend themselves if necessary.”

“Who against mum, who will we have to fight?”

“Anybody who wants to take what you have, the old story of ‘might is right’.

“But you said the human race is finished, so who is there to fight?” Amelia persisted.

“There will be survivors of both races my love; and the usual divisions will reappear, you can be sure of that. Who knows what will happen in the future. If conflict occurs then you must be ready for it, prepared and trained at all times to defend your people. In short; war. We just don’t want the Sanddancers to be the aggressors.” Lucy said.”

“This is all sounding highly improbable mum. Is this what all this fitness and training with Nigel has been about? To turn Rayn and I into warriors?”

“Not just warriors Amelia, super warriors. Remember, you and Rayn, and Sheila as well have been upgraded to Homo Superior. One day your descendants will be the dominant species and Homo Sapien will either be absorbed or go the way of Neanderthal and all the others. Hopefully, when that time comes, there’ll be no one to go to war with.”

“The theory sounds good mum, will it work?” Amelia asked.

“No idea,” Lucy shocked her daughter. “But with our knowledge of the past, surly it’s worth the risk to try and break the mould of repetitive destruction and save the future.”

“What about the alien visitation theory? Have you taken that in to account? Is there perhaps something else we’ve missed?”

“Probably several things,” Lucy surprised her daughter again. “But does that mean we shouldn’t keep trying. The breakdown is the lack of resources theory, that’s our best guess at the present time.”

Aliens, Avarice and famine. Three different theories from the same evidence?
Amelia’s mind whirled.
The eternal triangle meets a singularity? The immovable object and the irresistible force on collision course?

“Of course, then there’s my own theory,” Lucy was saying when Amelia came back into focus. “My studies indicate that when a species becomes too dominant good old Mother Nature takes a hand and comes up with some biological answer and cuts them down with a virus. She seems to feel the need to restore some sort of balance between all species that exist. The trouble with that one is there is no way to prove or disprove it.”

My God,
thought Amelia.
Yet another theory out there waiting to collide in some metaphysical battle? What do we call this one? Nature’s revenge? How many are there? What about Professor Melkins ‘message in the stars’? Where does that fit in? And who the hell is Hipparchus? That name that had been shadowing her conscious thoughts lately.

“All I can ask is that you keep an eye on the possibilities while your new talents emerge.” Lucy was saying.”

“What about Rayn?” was all she could say. Her brain had turned to porridge. “Will her talents emerge as well?”

“I’m afraid you can’t tell her yet,” said Lucy.

“Sorry Mum, that’s not how it works. We don’t keep secrets or withhold information. I will tell her,” said Amelia, glad of something for her mind to get its fangs into.

“All right then,” said Lucy. “I can’t discuss any details, but we had learned a great deal with you and I, the amount of your genetic material she absorbed makes her at least your half-sister. You may have different parents but she’s as much a ‘Superior’ as you. But there you go again my love. Looking for the worst case scenario.” Lucy tried to rein her in. “I told you, it’s not healthy. And by the way, we have plenty of biological evidence that the Sanddancers are indigenous to the planet Earth. In other words; purely home grown. Have a little faith for once.”

“But I’m not strong on faith mum,” Amelia leaped to her own defence, “and that’s what you told me when Rayn and I were questioning the conspiracy we found ourselves in, and look how that turned out. Something tells me you need to look again and again until you’re absolutely certain you have it right. Changing the future is one hell of a responsibility, even though we won’t be around to assess the results.”

“Thank you for being so candid Amelia. But we need something a little more than a hunch to stop now, even if we wanted to. It’s late, let’s sleep on it. I’m sure you’ll see it more clearly in the morning.”

Sleep didn’t come easily for either of them that night.

Amelia woke early the next morning. Her little green clock seemed to be smiling at her. Another new experience.

“You knew, didn’t you? Well, I forgive you,” she said to it and smiled at herself.

Still in her nightclothes, she went down and made coffee, then took it back up to her room. The temptation to tidy up was strong, but she managed to overcome it. There was something nagging at the back of her mind, as if she’d forgotten something important. Unable to place it she did some work on her laptop.

She was comfortable with her mother’s revelations the night before, they had given her direction and confidence in her motivation, and she’d drawn great strength from the knowledge that she was the product of a true love story. The only feeling she had about Ryxyl was one of anger. However, this was appeased by the thought that Ryxyl now knew that the daughter of Solomon Jaxson was out there and ready for her.

She wondered about Rayn. She hoped she hadn’t given her mother too hard a time. Amelia knew how defensive she could be, and the temper she had to back it up.

Thinking of Rayn brought her to another question. How come, after the amount of wine she had drunk the previous evening, she didn’t feel tired or hung over? On reflection, alcohol just didn’t seem to affect her, apart from the initial relaxation. She decided to just accept that one as part of her new ‘hybrid’ status.

Sheila turned up a little later carrying, at Lucy’s invitation, a bag of washing. The three of them sat around the little antique table in Lucy’s bedroom. Lucy looked as if she had been dragged through a brewery, and denied the very existence of food while Amelia and Sheila tried to bottle their cheerful enthusiasm over this new deal.

On a sudden whim, Amelia asked her mother a question. “Why is it that alcohol doesn’t seem to affect me? I know I said I wouldn’t ask questions, but it’s raised an ethical issue that needs resolving. You see, I was going to just accept it as part and parcel of everything else. But it occurred to me that acceptance without investigation is how religions and wars materialise. If you can’t answer, it doesn’t matter really.”

“You’re not making this easy, are you?” replied Lucy. “That’s a bit deep for this morning, don’t you think?”

“Would you like me to leave you alone for a while?” asked Sheila, not wanting to get in the way.

“Don’t you dare,” said Amelia. “You’re part of the family now. I’m sure this is harmless, anyway.”

“You’ve just answered your own question, Amelia,” said Lucy. “Sheila is part of the family, in a way. You see, baby Rayn had very high alcohol content in her metabolism that was effecting her development. Her mother does like a drop now and then, and who can blame her?” Lucy and Amelia laughed. “So we, er…took some ‘genetic stuff’ if you like, (well you did say not to get too technical remember,) and knocked it up into a cocktail. It was in that ‘cough mixture’ you both used to take. It made you almost immune to alcohol and other things. You can still enjoy a drink, but you’d have to go some to lay one on. Later we added to it to include other addictive substances to cure you Sheila, which makes you at least a second cousin. Now, will you leave me to suffer in peace?” Lucy put her head back on her pillow and sighed.