The Jovian Legacy (20 page)

Eleven
girls had each completed their own flower, one complete with a
caterpillar, and Jack was the elected judge. Each picture was very
different and all were so detailed that it was impossible for Jack to
decide which was best. With reluctance he singled out one that
Sakmet had done because its colours were so vibrant that it was hard
to tell it apart from a real flower. However, he still gave each of
the eleven girls a special present - a piggyback ride around the
grounds, which just about killed him. The girls were energetically
demanding, and he loved it.

He
and Megan had been invited to a reunion of people that had arrived on
Jovian as they had, through the Bermuda Triangle. Once again, Thebes
Government representatives would be in attendance doing the usual
welcoming speeches and such. Megan was keen, but Jack was rather
nonplussed about the whole idea. He wasn’t really big on all
the pomp and paraphernalia, regarding himself as a simple Kiwi boy.
Ben and Nancy decided to accompany them.

Jack
was introduced to a middle-aged man who had been on an ore carrier
called the Sylvia L Ossa that had ‘gone missing’ about
140 nautical miles west of Bermuda with a crew of thirty-seven. He
sat down by Jack and they immersed themselves in deep conversation
while Megan excused herself and set off to mingle with other people.
Ben and Nancy had been milling around all evening as they’d
already been to several of these reunions, so were fairly well-known
to many of the guests.

Megan
approached a group of people who became aware of her presence, and
keenly involved her in conversation. They knew who she was, as she
was
pretty much
a celebrity since she and
her clones had escaped from the wrath of the Jovian Secret Service.
A man and his wife introduced themselves who had been passengers in a
Cessna when it went missing in 1984. Larry and Helga Bitner told her
they used to live in Arkansas and had planned to travel around
America in their retirement. They had taken a scenic flight off to
Somerset Island. They were halfway there when their pilot lost
control of the Cessna. It had simply been pulled from its path and
into Jovian airways, where the pilot was ‘led the way’ to
land on Jovian soil. The runway was vast and had a rubber-like
surface which slowed the plane down quickly, guided by millions of
luminous green lights.

The
couple told Megan they took years to adjust to life without their
loved ones, and still hoped to this day that they would one day be
reunited. They showed her a photo of their daughter, their
daughter’s husband and young family. The photo had been well
handled.

“It’s
possible that that may happen,” Megan recklessly announced,
knowing that Jack was working on a project at that moment. Though
she was supposed to keep it a secret. The look on her new friends’
faces made her feel guilty for getting their hopes up, and
immediately wished she hadn’t said anything.

“Well,
we should never stop striving for our hopes and dreams, should we?”
she added, attempting to cover up but instead feeling herself redden.
She excused herself and moved on to mingle with other guests, with
the Bitners looking after her.

As
she socialised she took a look at Jack, who was still in deep
conversation with the middle-aged man. His name was Carlos Dimitri
and he’d taken on a contract with Mediterranean Shipping. He’d
been away from his family and at sea for six weeks on an ore carrier.
During that time he’d had word that his fiancée was
expecting a baby, so started making plans to marry his sweetheart as
soon as his ship docked at the Port of St George. The year was 1976,
and he didn’t feel it was right that a baby should be born out
of wedlock. He also didn’t want to continue his contract as it
was dirty work, and he hated being away for weeks at a time from his
immediate family let alone a new family. He still had four months to
ride out on his contract. He was, in fact, in the middle of
communicating with his fiancée over the R.T. when there was a
sudden bang and everyone was flung forward. The carrier had hit
something submerged and he thought it might have been a whale, or
even a container that had fallen off another carrier ship. It was
well known in bad weather that containers carrying various cargo fell
off ships and (because containers had air trapped inside) they would
bob about treacherously for weeks beneath the surface before sinking
and taken by currents into the path of other ships in transit.
Whatever it was was enough to put a giant hole in the side of the
ship, which began to upend itself and Carlos was forced to jump,
having barely enough time to scramble into a life vest before doing
so. However, the force of the sinking ship sucked him under, and he
knew he was drowning. He’d panicked when his lungs ached for
air, and then strangely felt a calmness slowly envelope him even
though he was still underwater. Then he found himself being sucked
up to the surface and felt the sudden change in temperature as he was
propelled out of the water and streamed skyward into a luminous green
beam of light. The next thing he knew, he was being looked after by
a team of nurses. He’d been rescued by the Jovian people. His
child, he said, would be nearly twenty-five by now.

“Carlos,”
Jack began, “I want you to see your family again. I’m
trying to set up a general communication link so that everyone will
be able to see their loved ones over a computer screen. That’s
what happened to me, how I first made contact with my folks. Now I’m
trying to adapt that link for world-wide use. Keep this to yourself
though okay, as it’s supposed to be kept under wraps. It’s
in experimentation at this stage.”

Carlos
became very excited. “Can I help?” he offered, keen to
be a part of it. Jack thought for a moment and said he’d
definitely let him know if he could. Carlos made Jack promise to
keep him informed on progress.

Chapter 16

J
ack
sat at his computer and decided to go on a ‘screening’.
He logged in and keyed in the date ‘1
^st
September 1981’ not really expecting anything to happen, as it
was months before he’d even been born. Jack keyed in thirty
minutes and hit the ‘enter’ key. On his computer screen
he saw images of his parents in a doctor’s room.

Cripes,
their clothes are so old-fashioned,
he
thought, amused.

The
doctor had a jar of jellybeans on his desk; something that Jack used
to see when he was a kid. The doctor spoke to his parents quietly,
so he turned up the speakers. His mother was being handed a sheet of
paper. Jack zoomed in on the sheet of paper, making out the heading:
“List of Prospective Egg Donors”. Folios containing
handwritten pages were open on the desk, each with a small photo of a
woman’s smiling face fastened by a paperclip to the corner of
the page. Jack thought they were CVs, as if the women were applying
for a job.

Why
would they be applying for a job with my parents?

His
parents had seemingly reached
some sort of agreement with one
of the folios, and his father took out his fountain pen, signing
something. It was the same fountain pen his father reserved for
important documents, the pen that had its own special container and
was kept in the old bureau.

“What
the…?” Jack said aloud. He watched as his parents stood
up, his father shaking the doctor’s hand and thanking him.
Jack followed their movements out of the door and along the corridor.
His mother possessively clutched the folio, tucking it under her
arm, her other arm threaded through Ben’s. Jack could hear his
father saying that this would work out and before long they would
have a family.

A
pang of fear shot through him and he quickly logged out. As he made
his way outside to get some fresh air his mind was spinning.

Egg
donor?
he wondered, confused,
adamant that his parents had some explaining to do.

That
evening he told Megan he needed to talk to his parents alone but
couldn’t tell her why. At first she was a little offended, but
Jack assured her that it was merely something he had to do and not to
worry.

H
is
parents were saying goodnight to the girls. Jack apologised for the
hour, but said it was important and couldn’t wait.

“OK
you guys, there’s something I’ve seen today, and I need
you to explain,” he began, nervousness setting in. “You
need to sit down.” Nancy and Ben did so, and waited for him to
continue, now curious..

“I
went on a screen journey today. I keyed in a date that was a few
months before I was born. I didn’t actually think it would
work, but it did,” Jack paused, stopping to observe their
reaction.

His
parents glanced at each other, their expressions difficult to read.

“I
was taken into a doctor’s room where you both were and talking
to a doctor, and he was talking to you about egg donors and showing
you a list of donors.”

His
mother sighed heavily and slumped in her chair. She started to weep.

Jack
was taken aback. “Oh, Mum please don’t cry. I’m
not angry, I just want to know why.”

Ben
Dunlop gave his wife a hug and handed her a clean handkerchief. He
then turned to Jack and spoke with a look of sadness. “All
right Son, I think we owe it to you. I’m sorry that you had to
find out like this. After your mother had had three miscarriages
during our first year of marriage, and then we’d lost your
sister, Danielle, the doctors ran some tests and we discovered that
if your mother had another baby there was a high chance the baby
would be born with Canavan’s Disease. It’s genetic.
After finding that out we knew we couldn’t bring another baby
into the world, because if the baby was born with Canavan’s he
or she wouldn’t live very long. The disease is caused by the
lack of a particular, vital enzyme that leads to a defect in myelin,
and myelin is needed to protect nerves and allow messages to reach
the brain. Deterioration begins at only a few months old, and not
many babies live beyond infancy. That’s what your sister had,
we found out later. We were told at the time that she’d died
of cot death. The doctors didn’t know then that it was
Canavan’s. They had on her death certificate that she died of
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. When we found out that we couldn’t
try for another baby we were devastated. Your mother and I were
desperate for another baby, and when this option was offered we
jumped at the chance. It doesn’t mean that we love you any the
less. In fact, you’re very special to us. You were our
miracle baby and we loved you to bits. And probably a bit over
protective. Well, your mother was,” Ben said with a smile.

“And…we
were going to adopt Julia to make our family complete,” his
mother added gently.

Jack
shook his head in an attempt to get his head around it all. “So,
you aren’t my biological mother?” he asked her, feeling
like his heart had just been wrenched out of his chest.

“Jack,
I carried you and I bore you. You are my son, that’s all that
matters,” his mother assured him. “And also, your father
is your biological father.”

“Well,
thank you for explaining it now, I guess,” Jack said, not
really knowing what to say. He felt like he was sinking into his
dark hole again. His father, knowing how sullen and depressed Jack
could get, got up and poured them a drink.

“Here
you go Son, you’re old enough for one of these, and I think you
deserve one,” Ben said as he handed Jack the alcoholic drink.

It
didn’t take much for Jack to become tiddly. “Well, at
least I don’t have to drive home, aye?” he joked, the
drink numbing how he was really feeling. “I don’t care if
you’re not my real mum, I love you anyway,” he said,
wrapping his arms around her and planting a kiss on her cheek.

Around
midnight Jack went quietly into the kitchen to make himself a coffee.
He wasn’t ready to go to bed just yet; he wanted to do some
more thinking.

He
spotted Megan in the lounge, waiting up for him. “Megan! My
precious baby doll, how are you?” Jack asked, slurring a
little.

“You’ve
been drinking!” Megan exclaimed, surprised, as she had never
seen him inebriated before. She took his coffee mug from him, scared
that he might drop it, and took over making the coffee. She also
started to feel annoyed with him, and Jack noticed.

He
knew he’d better shut up, so he simply sat there on the kitchen
chair, watching her spoon coffee into two mugs. When Megan turned to
look at him because of the silence, he looked like a dopey kid that
had been told to go into his time-out corner. There was a silly
blank look on his face, his eyes as big as saucers.

“There’s
something I have to tell you, my love,” he said, his words
running together.

Megan
thought the better of it. “Not now. Tell me in the morning
after a good night’s sleep, okay?”

“Okaley
dokaley,” Jack answered obediently, a stupid grin on his face.

It
was late morning before a very dishevelled Jack traipsed into the
kitchen. He sat across from Megan who had come in to join him.

“Megan,
I have to tell you,” he began.