The Disestablishment of Paradise (60 page)

Hera stood up.

She was aware of urgency now. She found her clothes and began to dress, but then an instinct told her that was not wise. Meshlite overalls were a clear sign of the alien. She would be better
dressed in Crispin or even hybla. But boots. She would need boots. She would be walking over stones. And she would need the small pack too, with the radio and first-aid kit. The pack also contained
two of her most valued possessions – Pietr Z’s copy of
Tales of Paradise
and the Shapiro notebooks. She would not leave them behind. She slung the pack over her shoulder and
picked up Pietr’s wishbone stick, and set out. She remembered seeing a large Crispin at the entrance to the Michelangelo’s labyrinth and she set out round the long curving path. Soon
she was running. She imagined Mack running beside her and knew that as long as she was in the labyrinth nothing could touch her. The danger would be outside.

She reached the entry portal and it took her less than a minute to pull down one of the large Crispin leaves. It had the texture of fine chamois leather but, unlike the leather, it turned away
rainwater and did not absorb it. She tore out the stalk to make a space for her neck and draped it round her shoulders. She punched holes for her arms and drew it close about her. Then she ran out
onto the open brevet.

While she had been inside, some Tattersall weeds had dragged themselves onto the path and the way up to Redman Lake and down to the umbrella tree plantation was closed.
So they’re
moving closer
, she thought.
Friend or foe?
It was impossible to tell. Then one of the Tattersall weeds stirred and threw two of its branches forward, dragging itself crabwise.

Hera sprinted ahead of it onto the path before it could cut her off. The path to the sea seemed open, no Tattersalls waiting, and so she ran as quickly as she could up the gentle incline. The
weed could not match her for speed and she had soon left it far behind. She stopped for a few moments to catch her breath and then moved on.

Several times, as she trudged along, she had the impression that someone was walking with her. They were not by her side, but behind her, where Mack had been when they were coming down through
the tuyau tunnel. And that, she realized, was a kind of message for her. She was not alone, but she was not dependent either, and she would make it under her own steam. Once she was prompted to
look up in the sky, and there was an oval cloud above the hill. It did not take much imagination to turn it into a face.

Soon she was at the crest of the pass, and from there she could look down to where the sea moved with an oily heaviness in the bay. In the misty distance she could see the
gaunt cliffs of Dead Tree Spit. She could not see the remains of the old Dendron.

Hera jogged down the hill. The sun was now high and no cooling breeze came from the sea. Without her hair to protect her, sweat started at her neck and ran down her back. How wise she had been
to make a Crispin cape. Meshlite overalls would have been chafing her by now.

Before reaching the bay the path became a zigzag, following the meanderings of the stream. This stream ended when it met a sandbank and formed a small clear lake. This had once been a
children’s swimming pool, in the days when families came to picnic by the sea. Beyond the dune was the bay, and Pietr Z’s small boathouse on the hill.

On impulse, Hera removed her cape, boots and backpack and waded in, sinking up to her neck in the cool water. Stage one complete. For some reason she felt safer now that she was near the sea.
She examined the blue-black smudges on her body and wondered how she would explain them: the marks of the alien.

Moments later, refreshed and dressed again in Crispin leaf, Hera made her way over the hot sand. The dune towered above her, and the fact that she could not see over it made her cautious. Also,
she had heard a sound of dragging, and that alerted her. Hera climbed the side of the sandbank slowly and peered over. The first thing she saw was a cluster of Tattersall weeds. They were standing
on the shore, not far from the slipway below the boathouse. Their flowers were all open – a sure sign they were alert. Innocent-looking indeed, but there was a warning inside her.

Hera remembered the bay well. It was the place to which the tides carried all the flotsam and jetsam from the Dead Tree Sea and the waters round the Largo Archipelago. It was a natural slow
whirlpool which trapped and never released. And there was a lot of rubbish now, bobbing in the swell and cast up on the shore. No doubt the last two-moon tide would have carried much of it,
clearing the sea and casting the rubbish up on the strand. Looking closer, Hera realized with a shock that she was seeing bodies. Human bodies. Tangled heaps of them. Varnished, lacquered,
embalmed, enamelled – use what word you like – they were there in their thousands. All who had died at sea in this region had found their last resting place, mixed with the rubbish cast
from ships. What a mess and what a tangle. Pools of oil. Rusting canisters standing amid their voided contents. Broken crockery. Wire. Excrement. Children’s toys. Plastic mesh. Books. What a
place of death and ruin, but the air smelled sweet, no stench of decay.

Hera climbed over the top of the dune and began to make her way towards the boathouse. She knew she could outrun the Tattersalls easily if they showed any interest in her. She passed between the
piles of bodies with their frightful faces. The answer came to her then, why the Tattersall weeds were here: they were learning about death.

When she was about halfway to the shed, she saw one of the larger of the Tattersall weeds suddenly hoist its root and take two heaving leaps towards her. At the same moment another Tattersall,
one that she had not seen, heaved itself down onto the shore. It was now between her and the boathouse. Hera stopped. She saw both weeds gather to make another stride. Clearly their ability to move
had improved.
Were they trying to imitate human behaviour?
This was no time to speculate. There was no doubt in Hera’s mind: she was under attack.

While aware that she could still outrun them easily, it suddenly occurred to her that of course a Tattersall weed could not move in water, for their claws could find no purchase there. She
changed direction and ran straight down to the sea. There she stepped as carefully as she could over and around the floating bodies clustered at the edge. Perhaps it was the effect of the seawater,
but the bodies that lolled in the small waves looked like statues moulded from chocolate.

Behind her she could hear the
thump
and
scrape
as one of the weeds tried to follow her.

Hera closed the watertight seals on her backpack, thrust her hand through the thong on her stick, plunged into the sea and dived. The cape billowed and floated and she was able to swim under it,
pulling strongly with her arms. When she broke the surface she swam on until she was about fifty metres from shore. There she trod water and watched as the Tattersall weed, in a kind of frenzy,
beat the water to lather as it cast its branches forward, raking and tearing the corpses but making no headway itself.

Hera swam round to the slipway with the cape draped around her and dragged herself up. She crawled up the slipway until she was on dry wood. There she sat for a moment and checked that the seals
on the backpack had not leaked. It was fine.

She felt something strike the frame of the slipway. Peering over the edge she could see other Tattersalls on the move. One had cast a branch up onto one of the supporting crosspieces and was
preparing to climb. Another was close and a third was starting to coil, intent on casting its seeds. Hera climbed as quickly as she could, but carefully, for the slipway treads were uneven and
narrow.

It was only when she was almost at the boathouse that she looked up and there saw another Tattersall weed waiting. This was the one she had seen before, when she flew over this part of Paradise
at the start of her vigil. It had now grown right over the shed. One of its branches had poked in a window and a big blue flower looked out from inside.

Now why did that look funny? Why did that make her want to laugh? She had no idea. She climbed to the little landing in front of the shed and raised her stick. Nothing, nothing was going to stop
her. And if this Tattersall proved to be a rogue . . .

She was amazed to see its flowers closing one by one. What this signified she did not know.
Could it smell her determination? Was it closing down in the face of her aggression? Was that a
welcome?
As the flowers closed they filled the air with their fragrance. The smell, so astonishing and sweet, reminded her of the poultices that Mack had made a lifetime ago to heal her
wounds. And she remembered Mack’s statement that not all Tattersall weeds were afflicted in their roots. It might even be protecting the boathouse. Perhaps something of the spirit of old
Pietr Z had rubbed off onto the Tattersall. Who could know any more?

She was in front of the doors now. She slammed the bolt back and the twin doors folded open, swinging outwards. Hera glanced back down at the Tattersall weeds on the beach and was in time to see
the one that had been coiling release its seeds. Its branches flung wide as they uncoiled. But since it was standing close to the uprights of the slipway, these effectively chopped each branch off
at the elbow and the seeds went everywhere. She felt the structure shake but that was all. More worrying was that the other two weeds, almost in the manner of Mack’s little story, had managed
to heave themselves up onto the lower supports of the slipway. One had its upper branches already over the edge of the slipway. However, its lower branches were entangled with the other Tattersall
weed, which was attempting to climb up on the other side of the slipway. In effect, each was trying to climb up on the other, and neither was gaining.

Meanwhile, at the water’s edge, the Tattersall that had attacked her first was in trouble of a rather gruesome kind. In its efforts to reach Hera it had managed to get its thorns stuck in
some of the corpses in the water, and had lost traction. It was now thrashing about, turning on the spot and gradually drifting out to sea.
They were all so intense, these Tattersall weeds. So
serious
, and again she found herself wanting to laugh. But . . .

She threw her backpack and stick into the boat and climbed in after them. There she stripped out the battery leads linked to the solar charger on the roof and connected them to the torque
engine. Everything came alive.
Great.
She looked round and could see nothing else to be done. Typical Pietr, everything neat and in its place, and even a chair carved from wishbone for the
helmsman. He had modified all the controls so that he could lower it himself, controlling the speed of descent while seated. Hera did not have time for refinements or to learn the ropes. All she
now wanted was to get the cutter into the water as quickly as possible.

She pulled the boat’s knife from its holder and simply cut the rope that held the craft in place. It lurched forward; she fell back. In this she was lucky, for otherwise she would have
banged her head on the top of the door frame as the boat rolled out. It tilted at the top of the ramp and then began to run down the skids, gathering speed. It hit the first weed just as it was
heaving itself up, and sent it tumbling down over the side of the slipway. There it landed on the now branch-less Tattersall that had cast its seeds. The cutter struck the second Tattersall weed,
and the effect this time was more like a knife, as the running bar sliced through its branches. It too fell, but its root ball caught in the frame of the slipway, and it ended up hanging upside
down, waving its branches aimlessly.

Hera, meanwhile, was crouched in the bottom of the boat and holding on to the carved seat, her legs wrapped round its supports. The boat hit the water at speed and sent up a great plume of
spray. The water slowed the cutter quickly and its backwash slopped over the side and struck Hera just as she was standing up. She sat down again in the water. ‘Enough,’ she shouted,
having noticed another oval cloud, innocent in the sky.

In no more than a minute the engine had warmed and Hera was steering slowly across the still water of Dead Tree Bay, watchful for anything submerged. Carefully she picked her way out through the
hulks of long-dead Dendron, and then, when she was in deeper water, she pushed the cutter to maximum and locked the tiller.

Hera removed the small radio from the backpack. She extended its aerial and spread the small solar panels in the sun. She switched it on and, with relief, heard the familiar tracking sound and
the crackle as it made contact.

‘Hi. Dickinson here. You receiving me, Mack?’

‘Not Mack. It’s Hera. Your signal is very weak. Can you boost?’

‘Hera! Hold it there.’ She heard him call off mike. Then he was back. ‘Sorry. I’m on emergency now. We’re in the shit up to our haircut. Is Mack—’

‘Mack met with an accident. I have to tell you he’s dead. I buried him myself this morning. I’m on my way home alone. Things are bad down here. I’ll give you all the
details when I see you. Is Inez . . . is Captain Abhuradin there?’

‘Yeah. Eiderdown’s just coming. Tania’s getting her. Well, that’s bad news to go with everything else. There’s going to be a big empty space at our table
now.’

‘Mine too.’

Abhuradin’s voice cut in on remote. ‘Inez here. Can you hear me, Hera? Are you all right?

‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m just rounding the point at Dead Tree Bay. I’m in one of the lifeboat cutters. I’m on a direct course for New Syracuse.’

‘Got you. We’ve been trying to contact you for a day and half. All hell has broken loose up here. We have orders to evacuate. I’m getting the women and children out now.
We’re breaking up, Hera. Do you have an ETA for New Syracuse shuttle port?’

‘I’ll have to call you when I’m closer. Say twelve hours, give or take a bit.’