The Swimmers

by Marian Womack

  They have learnt a new concept, a new idea: frost. They are complaining, complaining, complaining. My feet are frost, my fingers are frost, my cheeks are frost, they say. As if it were my responsibility, as if I could do something for them. I have become, somehow unofficially, the leader of their mission.

  It is clear that we will have to go around the compound: they complain once more. I point at the open land on which the lonely vessel sits, and suggest that we could not have left the vehicle any closer. But I know, I know. We have been walking for what feels like a long time to me as well, and they are so tired.

  I am exhausted too. Again, I look in the direction of the compound, try to concentrate on the task of finding a route. We will have to wait for darkness—it falls earlier here than where we come from. We are covered in all the wrong colours to get close to the vessels undetected. I am concentrating, looking and making some calculations, when I see something on a branch.

  A bird—luminous, peculiar, strange—all shades of indigo quivering on his feathers, and so alien to this place, to this landscape, that I gasp, uncomprehending, scared.

  What have we done, I wonder?

  What am I doing here?

  The creature is completely out of place, as much as my three companions, with their raw, coarse skin after endless days labouring in the fields under the sun; with their makeshift uniforms made up of dead animals, and their machetes, useless here. They had not believed me when I told them there would be no jungle, and that the few forest environments that remained had been conveniently and regularly kept in check.

  A bird. A blue bird. I think of Pearl, and wonder, is she up there now? The ring is no more than a flickering structure, translucent, hard to see in this grey dull light.

  * * *

  Hours later, success! We are testing our step inside the vessel. Alexander has proved his worth, for he is busy with the flickering lights, preventing the alarms from blaring. The interior of the vessel is like an anachronism, one of those we are so fond of at home: the crock-manufactured furniture lends everything a provisional look, the same rundown second-hand feeling that I remember from my arrival in Gobarí. But this is mixed with the dark metal and plastic of the doors, the command chamber, the keypads to open and close the air locks and rooms. It is a strange mixture; I do not recall being taken by it during my tour. Perhaps, as a mere tourist, I did not pay enough attention. Whereas now, now there is so much more at stake; something surely must be at stake, for what would we be doing here otherwise?

  I realise I still don’t know what we are looking for exactly. What is so important to Eli and her farm that she has sent us on a mission in which we are risking our lives? If we were found here, I imagine we would be shot. I look at my three companions. Only Alexander seems hard at work; the other two are perched next to the entrance and a little window, looking out for any sign that we have been detected. But Alexander carries on, diligently, pushing his commands, speaking orders, and drawing orders onto the bluish screens with his fingers. Only then I get a strange sense of déjà vu, and I wonder: has he been training, all this time, exactly for this moment, to do whatever it is that he needs to do here?

  But, even without alarms blaring, giving us away, I am restless. I also feel trapped, all of a sudden. The chambers and compartments are not very large, at least not here, in the downside of the vessel, shaped like a gigantic egg.

  ‘Someone needs to go up, and flare the automatic. Otherwise, the system is not letting me get any closer…’

  ‘I’ll do it!’ It is Bohemas who has spoken, probably as bored with the waiting as I am.

  ‘No! I will not be able to contain them, if I’m on my own,’ Vania says.

  ‘I will go,’ I say. ‘Just tell me exactly what I need to do.’

  It is then that I see it, not for the first time. For I have also seen it during the trip. I have seen it, but I have also ignored that I have, believing I could truly stay, I could make a home down here: Vania and Bohemas exchanging the slightest of looks between them. It is only a second, and I almost miss it. It could mean many things, of course.

  But here, this is what it means—that Vania was never happy with me lying with his sister. It means that, while Alexander is busy with the technical part of the mission, he and Bohemas come and push me into one of the vessel’s chambers. They come after me, and start punching me in the face and the stomach. Surprised, I fall. They are hitting me hard with their feet now.

  I hear Alexander saying something from the other chamber, I cannot catch what, but they stop momentarily, and Vania shouts something back. I take this opportunity to run. Somehow, I get up and scruffle past them to the next chamber. I play with the buttons next to the door until it closes. They both come after me, and smile at me through the window. They are also probing all the buttons on their side. I keep pressing some, trying to keep the door shut.

  And, just like that, I seal my fate.

  By the time I realise what is happening, it is already too late.

  Die, blue bird, die.

  Some lights go up. Their faces go pale in comprehension. Some more lights, a purring noise, a massive explosion. In fear, they fly to the exit.

  I try to open my door, and find it impossible.

  Minutes crawl by, painfully, in which I slowly, slowly, come to realise what is happening. I cry for Vania, Bohemas, Alexander, anyone. No one comes, of course.

  There is another massive explosion. The floor rattles, and suddenly my stomach floats up to my throat, as if I were skydiving faster, faster, as youngsters do with their first hovering cycles. Although I am not going down this time, but up, and up, and up.

  And there I go—a worthy sacrifice, I hope—swimming among the stars.

  PART II

  THE VESSEL

  24

  They fish for pearls in the depths of the ocean, they say down on the surface. They fish for pearls at the bottom of the sky; and also, it seems, at the end of the Universe, where I am heading.

  * * *

  The vessel is not exactly driving itself, but letting itself go, deep into space, endlessly drifting. The dark is an infinite void of silence, and I embrace it.

  * * *

  I hate to admit to this, but despite my Upper Settlement education, I realise with a pang that I am ignorant of many things: how the automatic systems work, how to manoeuvre this ship, how to turn it around. I did not pay attention in class when I was little. It could never be me, it would always be a child from the surface. Or so I thought. So every hour that passes I am gone a little more, I am gone a little longer, I am forever more gone. And then it hits me, with the shock of panic: this is forever, this is me, gone forever.

  * * *

  The deep advances upon me. And I picture him now, a leviathan that jumps out of the Three Oceans, entering space, where he swims next to me into the unknown. He accompanies me for a while, and afterwards he decides to return to Earth, and I can see him clearly until he dives back into the ocean, a ripple that reaches three different continents.

  Perhaps he was never there, perhaps he was nothing but a mirage, of the sort that old explorers had on the ice never-ending.

  * * *

  I am not on the surface, I am not in the ring, I am not on a found star that can house us—I am… nothing. I am weak. I am hungry. I am more alone that anyone has ever been. How long have I been here?

  * * *

  My journey is not into an abyss, it is into myself, into my own consciousness; there and back, the hope against hope of a safe return, and the panic that it repeatedly hits when I dare to say it out loud, to say it to myself: it will not happen. Until the panic stops, and a new realisation dawns on me: I had always wanted this, secretly, I had always hoped for this. There is nothing for me down there. My journey is into a dark sea, and I let myself go into its embrace, like a true swimmer. I am going to die. Not so bad a fate, I think. I have always wanted this, I insist, only to myself, for there is no one else here. I have always wanted to be fre
e.

  * * *

  After what might be hours, days, there is a bird here, with me. She is blue.

  The bird flutters around my face, in a repetitive fashion. It wakes me from my slumber, and I find myself lying on a corner, practically hidden below the desk of a control panel. Hiding like a child will hide. There is an alarm blasting and an overpowering red light, that comes and goes and illuminates everything, and the walls seem to be covered in the blood of a slaughtered animal. I think of Pearl, explaining, ‘Matanza; but nothing, nothing happened here.’ Nothing, nothing, is happening here either, except my own death.

  What is a blue bird doing here? Go! Run! Did she follow us inside when we climbed into our illicit operation and got trapped? Is she even real?

  I want to shout to the bird to please let me be, to spare me the annoyance: I am soon to be dead after all. I would like to be left to die in peace. Is that too much to ask?

  The blue bird comes and goes through the open door. I try to reach the controls to close that door, without moving from the floor. She quickly returns, attacks me furiously, pecks at my hand.

  I cry in fear and in pain.

  What do you want, little blue bird? Who has called you here?

  I eventually get up, with difficulty; first, I had scrambled to find straps. Now, I have reached zero gravity. I am floating in mid-air, and it is difficult for me to move without propelling myself by holding handles disposed for that purpose on the walls.

  The bird is pecking at my hair now; she is insisting now, I see that, as a dog would. She is insisting that I follow her.

  We traverse corridors with the same flickering red lights—warning lights—for the vessel is flying erratically, aided only by the emergency protocols. It doesn’t bother me; we are ascending without control, and without direction, and that is all fine. I am dead anyway. I propel myself as best I can, but everything takes so much longer in zero gravity. As if I am a swimmer in the ocean.

  She stops. There is a door with a small window. She is pecking the small window. Does she want me to peek inside? I peek inside. I look back at the bird, to thank her perhaps? I do not know any longer; I am too stunned to think. She is leaving now, going down the corridor; she is gone. Her mission is complete.

  Where are you from, little bird? Are you even here? Are you but a dream?

  On the other side of that door there is a short-range shuttle, an evacuation model. I want to cry. And I do.

  The little blue bird has saved me.

  I am saved.

  I didn’t want this after all.

  I return to the control room, as quickly as I can, which is to say advancing annoyingly slowly. I throw whatever is in my way furiously on the floor until I find it, the guide to the vessels, children’s edition. All the codes for all operations are at the back, as an afterthought—never meant to be used, it seems. I also now know where the shuttle can take me, and I am not disappointed.

  Only use in case of emergency. Think twice before use! The future of Humankind is in your hands. Ask yourself: do you really need to use the shuttle?

  Home. It will be a home, of sorts. I exit the control chamber, again with difficulty—the power is now upping frantically, all systems go, red, but also green, blue, white lights that anticipate the moment of calm before the storm, a crash. Floating, I make my way back towards the short-range shuttle.

  But before… Red flickering lights, green flickering lights. A sound like a click, the computer furiously beeping, cracking, a static noise in the middle of the rattle. A communication channel that opens. Is it possible? Is someone down there aware of what has happened to me? Am I about to be offered assistance?

  I grab the control panel so as not to fall in this erratic flight, and advance towards the comms area. Static. Static. Voice. Static. Longer voice. The message is not coming from the ring. The message is not coming from the surface. I do not know where the message is coming from. The message is coming from what looks like a lifetime away; the message is coming from an impossible distance.

  I play the message. I cannot understand the words.

  I move quickly back into the shuttle area, holding myself to the walls as I advance. The warnings are becoming more urgent, the alarm even quicker, the lights flicker faster. All systems gone, the vessel powering up towards its unmanned end.

  I am going to die, I am not going to die.

  No, I am going to vomit.

  I cannot stand these lights, this shaking, this crashing. The air is getting hotter around me. I cannot see it, but I can sense it: the vessel is going to disintegrate.

  I reach the shuttle, prepare myself to be expelled from Hell, enter the selected destination: the ring. No more fantasies about a surface life for me now. Before the shuttle detaches, as an afterthought, I transfer the message, the coordinates of the message [0 08’ 13’ / 0 04’ 08’ QW (M3000)], record them both. I prepare myself for the pain, strap myself in as well as I can. I hold the armrests in fear. I click my acquiescence to this possible death—I have never manned a shuttle, but everything around me reminds me of hovering vehicles, and I am hopeful—feel myself falling into the void.

  How far away from home I am? I am farther than anyone has been, at least anyone that has gone with the intention of returning. Luckily, the shuttle remains within range of civilisation.

  A thought strikes me then. And I replay the message once more. I think I understand it now, its meaning, for all of us down there. It is simply that I cannot quite believe it.

  25

  [A click: communication channel operative]

  Forgive our silence…

  [The cracking voice of an old woman]

  The silence of days, months, years…

  We have landed.

  [Faint static noise]

  Explorers, in the old days, chartered their progress with such efficiency, opening new routes to a river’s source, to the poles, to the top of mountain ranges. But not the travellers. They had different reasons to want to disappear. They signed their letters ‘July, maybe August, 1898’, or ‘Unknown region. Rocky mountains’, hardly distinguishing the solid world from dreams.

  On a dream we were sent; we thought we were explorers, but we weren’t. We were travellers, allowing the unknown to guide us. We have reached it now, we have landed.

  Please, forgive our silence.

  [Faint static noise]

  Like them, those travellers from aeons ago, we have preferred to chart by getting lost. For they found their way eventually. But they got there making circles, drawing endless spirals, twisting and twisting over each other’s steps, endless little islands they were. They got there, eventually; they got there almost by chance.

  We are here now, we have found our here.

  We are an island.

  Please join us.

  We need you.

  We wait for you.

  Crew of Vessel 20003-XN, NEST programme,

  Launched from Earth in the year 2346

  EPILOGUE

  Then

  Quickly, quickly, before I forget it all… She had been mixing memories with dreams, with songs and fables. How could she remember now?

  Little blue bird, little blue bird. Where are you going, little blue bird?

  Little blue bird, little blue bird. Where have you gone, my little blue bird?

  Do you want to know the truth, little blue bird?

  There is a star so far away, waiting for you all.

  You may need to die to get there. Not much, just a little death.

  Little death, little death, what have you done to me…

  Die, blue bird, die.

  For the children are waiting in their brown world,

  And they need your blue feathers to survive.

  She went backwards, willingly, much further than she had before; only then she would understand what had happened.

  It went like this: she and Verity were playing on the coast; it was Kon-il, for there were no rockpools in Old Town, only in Kon-il. Ver
ity had been crying: she had cut her feet on a rock. But she wasn’t crying for that reason, she was crying because she was scared of the vessels, quiet and translucent at the edge of their vision.

  ‘I don’t want to!’ She was saying, or was she? Yes, yes. That was it. She was crying because she didn’t want to go up.

  Was that what had happened? Was Verity going to be sent in a Jump?

  What did Pearl do? How had she comforted her friend?

  It all came to her now, like a torrent of images; as if someone had opened a faucet up in the ring, an outpouring of tears. She was crying now, because she had finally remembered.

  What was it? What had she done? She had imparted her knowledge, piecemeal and infantile, snippets of conversations dropping from Urania, her father, the lady who visited them often. She had said it: ‘Swim! Fly away into the stars!’ And Verity had gone, into the water. She had gone smiling, as Alira had done, all those centuries back; or perhaps she was terrified. But bravely she had walked into the water, farther and farther, until she was no more than a dot upon it, far away from the safety of the shore, but so far away still from the section of the wall which she would never reach. When Pearl’s father had got to her and brought her back it was too late already, she was long gone.

  Now

  The little bionic bird brings its master, and so she is found. She stops what she is doing, feeling that she is being observed. Slowly, she raises her head, and then she sees him, looking in her direction from between the crowd of people. For a moment, neither of them moves.

  Pearl fears Arlo may disappear if she does, another hallucination.

  He starts advancing in her direction.

  Arlo, in the ring. Arlo, wearing rich clothing. Arlo, smiling at her, bionic bird floating at his side.