Watson, Ian - Novel 08 (4 page)

 
          
“If
we’re in the Garden of Delights here,” calculated Sean, “then beyond the rift
valley could well be—I hate to say it now—Eden, where God is.”

 
          
“The
morning of Creation,” nodded Denise.

 
          
“So
what’s on Darkside?”
Austin
’s voice was threatening, as though he blamed Sean; as though whatever
Sean said in the next moment would become true the moment that he uttered it,
whatever he chose to say.

 
          
“That’s
Hell,
Austin
. Hell, with devils and tortures . . . and
ice and fire. That’s what’s on Darkside, where we thought we saw all those
volcanoes. Hell,
Austin
. Hell.”

 
          
“Look,”
cried Tanya.

 
          
A
naked man was standing out in the meadow, a hundred meters from the base of the
starship, waving up at it, mouthing something.

 
          
He
was of
medium height, and not
particularly muscular, though he certainly wasn’t spindly. His skin was tanned
only lightly in view of his constant exposure to sunlight. He had an oval,
wistful face, topped by a thatch of curly brown hair— though the rest of his
body was smoothly hairless. Indeed everyone was as naked of body-hair as they were
of clothes. Did they shave themselves with flints in the cold streams?

 
          
The
man’s expression was friendly, though with a hint of melancholy at odds with
the gay amusements of the scene. As he watched Sean, Paavo and Muthoni descend
the access ramp a look of surprise crossed his face. His gaze lingered on
Muthoni’s black features,
then
he nodded to himself as
though remembering something. Not, surely, what a black woman was? There was
another
negress
holed up in that pomegranate shell.

 
          
“Hullo
there, I’m Jeremy.” The man ducked his head in an apology for a bow. Hesitantly
he stuck out his hand. Did one still shake hands on the Earth that these
travellers had come from? Sean took his hand and squeezed it. It was warm,
solid and real.

 
          
“Jeremy
. . . Bosch, perhaps?”

 
          
“Oh no, nothing like that.”
The man grinned. “I didn’t
invent this. My name really is Jeremy, though I take your point! And my name
probably appeals to
His
sense of
humor—or His sense of propriety! At least you’ve realized where you are!”

 
          
“According
to Sean here, we’re in a medieval painting by some Dutchman,” frowned Paavo.
“Look, our ship has switched
itself
off. The computer
won’t accept instructions. The radio’s gone dead, and the jets. What has done
this?”

           
“Obviously
He’s
switched them off.”

 
          
“And
who might
He
be?” asked Muthoni.

 
          
Jeremy
waved a hand airily. “Oh, He is God.
For want of a better
name, or a better pronoun.
He’s our God. He lives over in the West. Your
ship doesn’t fit into the picture, you see. Anyway, be welcome! Relax, enjoy
yourselves. You may learn something! This world will see to
that.
There’s a lot of learning going
on.”

 
          
Sean
did relax. Why not? The air smelled so sweet after the steel air of the
starship—rather heady too—perhaps higher in oxygen than they were used to. A
bouquet of scents spiced it: musk, sharp citrus, oakmoss, smoky amber, fresh
lily of the valley.

 
          
“It
doesn’t look as though anything’s going on,” complained Paavo.

 
          
“That
only proves how much you have to learn. Ah, but you must have come a long way!”

 
          
“Of
course we’ve come a long way, man! We’ve come from Earth—and that’s still
forty-five lights and eighty-seven frozen years away. We haven’t improved on
the spacestress drive since your own
Exodus
ship left. Limits—there are limits.” Paavo stamped his foot petulantly, as
though to remove the last trace of chill from his toes.

 
          
“Ah
yes, I know.” Jeremy nodded brightly. “I remember. I’m the only one who does
... go in for remembering that kind of thing. It’s my, hmm, you might say role.
Lucky you landed here. I don’t suppose it was entirely a coincidence, though,
eh?”

 
          
“Guidance
went haywire at the last moment. Damn lucky to get down in one piece.”

 
          
“Blessed
lucky.
Ah, I see God’s hand in that.
Setting you right down in the
best place.”

 
          
“I
set us down,” said the Finn.

 
          
“That’s
as may be.”

 
          
“So
you still remember what your . . . grandparents told you—about coming from
Earth?” cut in Sean.

 
          
“No,
his forefathers,” Muthoni corrected him. “It’s been seven or eight generations
by now. At least three full lifetimes.”

 
          
Jeremy
grinned. “Oh no, / remember coming.
Me, personally.
Of course, it’s all rather remote by now.
The hyb tanks.
Waking up to find we’d grown our nails and hair long. Friend, I was the Captain
of the
Copernicus

 
          
“That’s
nonsense,” protested Muthoni. “You’re only in your thirties. Do you get younger
instead of older? Is time different here?”

 
          
“Let’s
see, I was Captain Jeremy . . . now what
was the name
?
Jeremy Van der Veld, that’s it.
At your service.
It’s
because I brought us here—being the figurehead, as it were—that I’m . . . well,
not singled out exactly, but rather
elected
as the permanent witness. Maybe I elected myself. A case of overweening
responsibility, don’t you know? I was the little demi-God of
Copernicus. ”

 
          
“But
you’re so young,” Muthoni shivered. “Is there no ageing here? No death?”

 
          
“Of
course there’s death. Look at that poor giraffe. You scared it out of its wits.
Did the splits, it did. They never get up again if that happens, you know—it
gives them a fatal shock. Of course there’s
death”
Jeremy smiled craftily. “But there’s resurrection too. We die, not of old age
or disease, need I say, but either voluntarily—say, in the caves or the
death-shells—or else some animal takes it into its head to murder us.
Maybe a lion or tiger.
Though they’re delightful beasts most
of the time—the lions and tigers.”

 
          
“Animals
don’t
murder
. ”
Sean was puzzled. A little puzzle was better than a big one at the moment. “An
animal just kills.”

 
          
“Well,
here they murder.
Only occasionally, of course.
If the
death-heron pays a call on you, and you don’t take the Big Hint, some animal
will murder you sooner or later.
Which is a bit messier than
a voluntary death.
”

 
          
Sean
stared at the giant goldfinch administering the last rites, of blackberry
juice, to the lingering giraffe. It had been joined by a small bird, which
perched on the giraffe’s horns. A butcher-bird, he thought.

 
          
Jeremy
followed his eyes.
“Shrikes for violent death, herons for
voluntary death.
That’s the way. Either way we die. And off to Hell we
go. Where eventually we get ourselves killed again—though we’re a lot tougher
over there, believe me.
Got to be.
Then we pop up here
again, a bit changed by the experience. I’m rather far removed from old Captain
Van der Veld, as you’ve gathered—but I’m still the
Fliegende Hollander.
Ah, I was a tall, tough, conquering person
then. Much more
definition,
cut and dried. I was all
wound up for the mission like a jet drag-racer—the original self-wound man. But
I hadn’t really thought about journey’s end—what I’d do when I got here. I’m
much more fluid now—a new man. You might say this has all been my salvation.
After a fashion.”

 
          
“You
don’t have hair on your bodies,” Sean observed cautiously, wondering whether
the answer to this too would be: it isn’t in the picture.

 
          
“Well,
God has a beard. Not that I’ve met him personally. That’s his prerogative—badge
of office. Ach, He’s the only true adult on this world so far—and we’re His
children. The path of growth begins in children’s land, don’t they say? Kiddies
don’t have body hair. If you want a fleece on you, become a beast.
Or a devil.
Some devils can be pretty hairy characters. You
see, hair conceals. We don’t go in for, well, concealment hereabouts.
As you might have noticed!”

 
          
“Kiddies,”
said Paavo bitterly. “Yes, everyone’s behaving pretty childishly.”

 
          
“But
where are the actual children?” asked Muthoni.

 
          
“Ah,
I’m rambling a bit.
Unfair of me.
You caught me
unawares, you see. I’ve got to catch up with you, hmm, Earthfolk. It’s just so
obvious to me after all this time.”

 
          
“The children!”

 
          
“We
aren’t mature enough to have new children yet. But
Copernicus
carried a lot of human ova as well as animal ova. All
the fertilized ova we brought with us are alive—grown up or transmuted.” Jeremy
nodded at a huge speckled flatfish that was advancing, flap by flap, across the
turf. No doubt this was easier for it to accomplish in the lower gravity, but
even so it took a deal of effort. And even so again, the fish seemed almost
luxurious as it wallowed onward.

 
          
Muthoni
jerked her thumb at the couple who had been making love upside-down, and now
sat on the greensward, fingers laced, playing gentle silent pressure music as
though trying to create a special handsign, a clasp of ultimate recognition. “You
mean that those are sterile copulations?
Prepubescent,
non-functional ones?”
She giggled briefly, conscious of the contrast
between the clinical question and the caresses it referred to. She flared her
nostrils, smelling musk and civet and clear mint.

 
          
“That’s,
hmm, not their function. Making children isn’t their function. Not yet.
Attunement, balance, rhythm, celebration—that’s what love’s about for now.”

 
          
“You’d
better begin at the beginning,” said Sean.
“Would you like to
come up inside?
Please?”

 
          
“It’ll
be like old times, Captain Van der Veld,” invited Paavo, panfaced. Muthoni
glared at him.

 
          
“No,
I wouldn’t feel happy inside the . . . what’s its name?”

 
          
“Starship,”
prompted Paavo, sarcastically.

 
          
“
Schiaparelli ”
said Muthoni. “That’s its name.”

 
          
“No,
when we go inside somewhere it’s for a . . . transformation. You can all safely
come outside. A steel hull isn’t going to make one whit of difference. It won’t
shield you from anything—except knowledge.
The opportunity
for knowledge, at any rate.
Besides, didn’t you say your
Schiaparelli
has shut down? Shouldn’t
you report who you are to me?” he said sharply, momentarily a Captain once
more.

 
          
“True
enough,” agreed Sean pleasantly. “This is our doctor and biologist, Muthoni
Muthiga. And Paavo Kek- konen, pilot and engineer. I’m Sean Athlone,
psychologist. We have a new theory about how the archetypal imagery inherited
from our colonists’ world of origin might map on to an alien environment or be
modified by it. We thought this could be pretty vital as to how effectively
colonies in general could ‘take’ ...”

 
          
Jeremy
chuckled. “I’d say that we’ve had our psychological problems pretty well sorted
out for us.”

 
          
“Austin
Faraday’s our Captain and planetologist. Tanya Rostov is an agronomist, among
other things. Denise Laroche is our ecologist.”

 
          
“Athlone, eh?
Laroche?”
Jeremy
seemed to be enjoying some private joke. “Well, well, I wonder what
your
own deeper motivation was in
coming?
Interesting name, yours.”
“Athlone?
It’s just a town in
Ireland
. Presumably my ancestors were peasants, who
took the name of the town. They weren’t lords of the manor or anything.”

           
“There’s only one Lord here, Sean:
Himself.
Laroche, too, now there’s a
good name!”

 
          
“What’s
so funny about our names?”