by Luke Donegan
Inside the capsule were newborn, petrified lizards waiting to be thawed and released into the wild.
“Once they were abundant in this part of the world,” said the Taxidermist. “Like most species they became extinct after Passage first manifest.”
The Teacher moved to the next capsule. In it lay scores of inch-long thorny devils. These spiny creatures lay with closed eyes on their bed of blue ice.
Erys followed the Teacher as the boy walked along the row of capsules. After ten minutes they reached the end and turned into another row. This section was devoted to amphibians. Capsule after capsule was filled with thousands of frozen tadpoles, with little visible variation from one species to the next.
“Let’s move on to mammals,” suggested Erys. “There are species you will not believe. We have elephants, lions, tigers ...”
“Elephants?” repeated the Teacher. “And they are all in stasis?”
“Yes,” said the Taxidermist.
“And they can all be revived? How?”
“By carefully reversing the process of refrigeration,” said a woman’s voice. “By injecting hormones and then applying electrical stimulus.”
On the landing overlooking the cistern stood the Curator of Nature. With the blue-robed woman stood Sian and Clara.
“It is a delicate process, but not as difficult as the original genetic engineering – finding the correct blueprint.”
Erys could see fear and trepidation in her gait as Sian descended the steps. She glanced briefly at the Scion-Teacher, questioning.
The three women reached the floor and approached the group. Clara was red-faced after running through the Museum in search of the curator.
Expressionless, Xia Tsang faced the Teacher.
“Teacher, what are your intentions?”
“That is a question I should ask you,” he replied.
Xia Tsang absently touched the orange sash of evil across her shoulder, betraying nervousness otherwise not apparent.
“I am in charge of this project,” she said. “The Taxidermist, Sian, Erys, Clara – they all answer to me. I ask that whatever you decide to do, you leave them be. As the responsibility rests with me, I will accept fully the consequences of this discovery.”
“Will you?” asked the Teacher. “Who else knows about this project?”
“Only those of us here.”
“And the Builder,” said Jay.
“Yes,” admitted Xia slowly.
“Who else,” demanded Jay. “Erys has told me much already. I want to hear it from you.”
Erys felt his face go red. He avoided Sian’s eyes, but he could feel them burning against his cheek.
“The four of us, the Builder. Lucien is our ... gatekeeper. Paris Aristotle. Jack Gaunt. They know, although they are not actively involved.”
The Teacher shook his head in bewilderment. “Does the Director know?”
“No,” said Xia Tsang. “No, he doesn’t.”
“You are curators,” said Jay. “You are supposed to uphold the Laws of Nature.”
“We are fighting to save the planet.”
“You are breaking the Law.”
Sian broke her silence. “The Law? Look at our poor world. What worth is the law if it does not protect the life this planet once nurtured?”
“You forget, scion,” said the Teacher, “that it was because scientists broke the Law of Science that the world became what it is. You were there when my Teacher told the story of Aberration. Did you not listen? Jasmin Jared broke the Law of Nature. She tampered with genetics, as you are doing, and she created creatures that killed millions of people. Millions of people.”
The Teacher eyed each of them one by one.
“Here you are, while the human race is hanging on by its fingernails, and you are doing exactly the same all over again. Have you learned nothing?”
He shook his head with disdain.
The Taxidermist clenched his fists. Clara hid her face in her master’s robes as the Taxidermist began to transform. The man fought to control his emotions. His eyes twice flashed to yellow points before he controlled his rage.
“The technology we are using here is the same as that used in the city’s Reproduction Program,” said Xia Tsang. “The Law can accommodate the artificial reproduction of people. Why not animal species?”
“It’s not about technology,” said Jay. “It’s what you do with it. It is the role of the Teacher to determine the appropriate application of the Law.”
“Ariel knew about the project,” said Erys. “Her interpretation of the Law was flexible enough to support what we are doing.”
Jay sighed. He looked with genuine sympathy into Erys’ eyes. “Ariel interpreted falsly,” he said. “I will not repeat her failure.”
“You think you know better than everyone,” said Erys. “Your arrogance blinds you.”
Xia Tsang broke the long silence that ensued. “I ask again, what is your intention.”
“I do not know. I need to deliberate on what I have seen.”
As he began to return to the stairs the Curator of Nature stopped him.
“Let me show you something,” she said.
She led him past row after row to a series of units containing the young of primate species. Most were no larger than Jay’s hand, curled up in foetal positions, a dozen to each capsule.
“This row contains the Order of Primates,” explained Xia Tsang. “There are three hundred and fifty six species. Homo sapiens, our species, is one of them.”
She paused before a capsule holding frozen tamarins. Fur the colour of sunlight burst from their sleeping faces, frosted with blue ice. The curator touched a control pad and with a hiss of air the lid of the capsule lifted up. She reached in and gently lifted a frozen tamarin into the Teacher’s hands. It was the colour of sunlight.
“The Order of Primates is the pinnacle of evolution,” she continued. “They are highly intelligent, have thought processes, emotions, they experience love for their young, as we do. Before Loss and Decline they lived on every continent of the planet.” Here her voice shook, and for the first time she betrayed her emotions. “Now, they are all gone. Every single primate species, bar Homo sapiens, is extinct, because of us. Because of what we did.”
The Teacher passed her the tamarin, which she returned to the capsule. The lid closed and they continued down the row of frozen animals.
Towards the end of the row they came to the apes. Inside lay baby gibbons, orangutans, and chimpanzees, four to each capsule.
“We must return them to the world, Jay. Before it is too late.”
The final unit contained two baby gorillas curled up together. Sian and Clara leaned over the lid and gazed at the black furred pair. Tears rolled from Clara’s eyes and pattered against the glass.
“But it is too late,” said the Teacher. “This is a memory. You have created a memory of a world that no longer exists.”
The Teacher placed his lands on the lid of the capsule containing the gorilla cubs.
“What will happen when they awake?” he asked. “You do not know. The possibility is Aberration. And even if it worked the way you planned and nothing went wrong, Passage will destroy them again as it did in the past.”
He looked long and hard at the gorilla cubs. Eventually he turned to Xia Tsang and shook his head.
“I understand your intentions and I sympathise with them. But your plan is dangerous, and ultimately flawed. Think of those scientists who have come before you. Kafka Yellis and Jasmin Jared were not evil people. They believed their research would benefit the world. But regardless of their intentions, they broke the Law. And we have paid such a price ... such a terrible price.”
He regarded his companions with kind eyes. “This is the lesson that the Teacher tried to teach you, even if she did not fully understand it herself.”
The Teacher turned and walked from the group.
They watched the back of his white cloak receding away. Their plans, their drea
ms of restoration receded with him.
“You fool!” Erys cried after Jay. “You hater of life! You are no Teacher. Do you hear me? You are no Teacher!”
Clara wept openly into the Taxidermist’s cloak. Sian gazed hopelessly after the Teacher. Erys called for the Teacher to return until the Curator of Nature stopped him. She held her hands gently to Erys’ face.
“Peace, scion,” she whispered. “He does not know what he does.”
“But he will ruin everything.”
“Shh. Peace.”
With Erys calmed she turned and watched the Teacher walk away.
In the distance Jay stumbled as he climbed the stairs. He steadied himself with a hand against the railing and continued. He passed through the doorway and was gone.
The curator closed her eyes. She knew the price for breaking the law. She accepted this. But the greater price for the world, that her animals would never have the chance to breathe, to run. This price overwhelmed her, and crushed her dreams of a bountiful world.
Chapter 11 LAW
Erys found Jay in their office standing at the window. The buildings and streets below shimmered with midday heat. The question of what was real bothered the Teacher. He had travelled beyond the world and he suspected it was an illusion created by shifting spirits on the great wind. If so, did the laws matter?
“We need to speak,” said Erys.
“But I know what you would say,” Jay replied. “And it would seem the right course, what you are attempting. It seems honorable and courageous, even admirable. I would help you to bring life back to the planet, if I could. Why wouldn’t I? Like you, I want nothing but to heal this sorry world.” He took a deep breath. “But for the simple fact that what you are doing is wrong. How can I explain? Erys, you are betraying a principle that we must, above all else, preserve. We cannot break the Law. We cannot.”
As the Teacher moved, his hands involuntarily flinched to his chest. His wounds had not healed.
“I have sworn an oath to protect the world. Through Law. Because without it, we cannot survive.”
“Who do you think you are?” asked Erys between clenched teeth. “But for her decision I would have been Teacher. And if I had, I would have been courageous. If I had been chosen, I would have ...”
“What,” said the Teacher. “Broken the Laws?”
“No. Not that!”
“Then what? Because that is what you are proposing.”
No argument satisfied. His searching eyes caught sight of a globe of the world on a nearby desk. Erys strode to the desk. The globe shattered into pieces as Erys flung it against the opposite wall.
“Your passion betrays you,” said Jay quietly, “and it will get us into a lot of trouble.”
The Teacher climbed onto the tatami mats. “Join me,” he said.
Erys reluctantly sat opposite the Teacher. He found his rage exhausting. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. Anger would not change the Teacher’s mind. After a few moments he breathed deeply and opened his eyes.
“You do not have the right,” he argued. “If she had chosen me ...”
He realised then that his anger was directed at her. Not at the boy. What had she been thinking, to pass it onto Jay? When so much was at stake. What was she thinking?
“I understand the Law. But I am flexible, as is the Taxidermist and the Triumvirate. What makes you so sure you know better than us? What makes you so certain you are right?”
The Teacher did not answer, but stared at him for a long time.
I must get through to him, thought Erys.
“Millions of animal species were lost,” he argued in a calmer tine. “We are trying to bring them back. I ask you, Teacher. If the Law does not support what is right, what then is its worth? Perhaps there is something wrong with the Law."
Jay nodded slowly. “I once asked the Teacher a question. Does evil reside in intent, or in the result of breaking the Law? She did not know the answer. At that time, neither did I. But now I do. You are a good person, Erys. But if you break the Law, Aberration will follow. This is how our universe is designed. Aberration will follow and we will all suffer. About that, I have no doubt.”
Erys shook his head. “How do you know? Where is your proof?”
Jay seemed to rise up before him, and grow in stature. He leaned close to Erys and grasped the young man’s head between his hands. Erys tried to flinch away. The boy held him firmly.
“On Restoration Day when Passage came for my master, I followed her. Ariel showed me something that scared me more than anything ever has before. Although master and scion share all things, it is a cruelty to show you this. But it seems I will not convince you otherwise.”
Erys tried to look away but the boy forced his gaze. Reluctantly he looked into the boy’s eyes.
They were dark, oily pools of midnight. Jay’s eyes sucked him in and his mind fell away into a cold, empty space.
Erys flew on the great wind. Space and stars rushed past his ears. His whiskers buzzed with the energy of the universe, sensing much more than his eyes could see. A gas cloud passed by, and he sensed the birth of new stars within its depths.
He growled, and fire rumbled up from his belly. Smoke spilled from his jaws. Spirits, millions of spirits, were flying on the great wind. A humming, like the chattering of a million animal voices in his ears. A silver cloud composed of dragons and other creatures, soaring towards something ...
There it was. Before him hung a sphere of darkness, an empty space where no stars shone. A negative, space! Vast, light years across! It seethed and bubbled and moved like a living thing. And he understood now that the spirits on the great wind were not flying towards this darkness. They were trying to fly away from it, but it was dragging them in. Its pull was like gravity, and their efforts to escape as futile as those of a falling man grasping at the air. The calling of their spirit voices were cries of fear and panic, as wave after silver wave of spirits fell in their thousands into the sphere of Dark Matter and were consumed.
He roared, flinging great gouts of fire into space. His long body of silver light twisted as he tried to escape the pull of this sphere. But it had him. Slowly, inexorably, he fell towards its surface. It bubbled and seethed, and a stream of Dark Matter exploded from the sphere and splashed against his tail. Like oily hands it pulled him further ...
Coldness chilled his heart. His fire went out as the heat chambers in his lungs filled with blue ice. He roared and roared, but there were no flames. His death had come, and eternal life on the great wind was nothing but a pathway to oblivion and darkness.
And then came a sound like the soft cooing of a bird. His panicked, ice-blue eyes saw a creature in space beside him. A bird! A mighty bird, with eyes of amber, with wings spread wide, feathers of all colours, and flames roaring across its wings.
This creature gripped him with its talons ...
... he struck out, slapping the Teacher across the face. The Teacher collapsed to the mats as Erys opened his eyes and found himself once more in the office.
A burning sensation pained his chest. Through blurred vision he saw the Teacher lift himself to his knees.
“What did you do to me?” he demanded.
“You asked me why I am so certain. I showed you what words could not describe,” breathed the Teacher. “I showed you what you needed to see.” The Teacher touched his cheek where he had been struck. “Dark Matter.”
The Teacher clutched his chest.
“Dark Matter,” he repeated. “An Aberration. The consequence of breaking the Law. Two thousand years ago it began. Dark Matter entered our universe. It is the cause of Passage, and the bane of our existence. It is the ruin of our world, and of countless worlds across the sky. That is why I must stop you. If you break the Law of Nature and release these animals, who knows what new evil will be unleashed into the world.”
The Teacher slumped to his side on the mats. Blood seeped between his fingers, soaking the thread of his white robes.
He watched blood spread through the woven mats. He knew he should run for help. But the thought occurred to him: If the boy dies, I will become Teacher, and my authority will protect the Ark.
Could he allow Jay to die, to protect the animals?
He would never know.
Sian entered the office. She absorbed the scene and ran to Jay’s aid.
“Why are you just sitting there?” she asked incredulously. “He needs help.”
She knelt beside the Teacher and tried to lift him. His bloody body slipped in her hands.
“Help me Erys.”
Erys slid his arms under the blood soaked figure. He lifted the Teacher and looked at Sian as if to ask: What now?
“To the Doctor,” said Sian.
He was mute. He followed Sian along the corridors and up the elevator to the Doctor’s rooms.
Erys lay the body on a bed in the emergency room.
“What happened?” asked the Doctor as he checked the Teacher’s pulse.
Erys stepped back from the red-soaked body. The Teacher was not breathing.
“Answer him!” demanded Sian.
“Passage, I think. A semi-Passage.”
“Scion,” said the Doctor to his apprentice. “Massage his heart while I breathe.”
The doctors fought to bring the Teacher back to life. Erys stood paralysed by inaction, watching the activity.
The Doctor breathed deeply into the Teacher’s mouth. Glimpsing Sian and Erys out of the corner of his eye, he motioned them away.
“Come on,” said Sian. She took his hand and pulled him from the room. They stopped in the corridor.
“What happened? What did you do?”
Erys shook his head. Before he could answer, the Builder appeared at the entrance to the next ward.