The Human Son

by Adrian J. Walker

  Haralia smiled with her mouth but not her brow.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.’

  ‘Data, Haralia. All we need is the data.’

  She rolled her eyes, but I struck up again before she could speak.

  ‘Look at the sea, the distribution of waves upon the surface of the water. At first it seems there is no pattern to them, but there is. Short rollers occur with frequency in the south, where we know there is a shelf, and of the larger waves to the north every seventeenth results in a break that collides with the wavelets dissipated from the south. With more observation we can quickly predict the starting position of every wave along this beach, and with the correct understanding of fluid dynamics we can extrapolate a four-dimensional shape—albeit fairly squat in terms of time—representing this small section of ocean.

  ‘But there is yet more data to be gleaned. The volume of the ocean, its salt content, the shape of its bed, its contents, the species that reside within it and their life cycles. The more granular the information we have, the greater the size and accuracy of our four-dimensional shape. The shape of each coastline this body of water touches, the rock content of the cliffs with which it collides, this geological history of each of those cliffs, the birds that nest within them, the crabs that scuttle the shores beneath. More data. More accuracy. More predictability.’

  I turned my face upward. My voice was loud now, louder than I had heard it for decades, and my goodness, it felt fine.

  ‘The sky, Haralia. My home. That place of winds, clouds and thermals, storms, tornadoes and hurricanes that pummel the water and strike the coast. The layers of temperature that draw up moisture and carry it landward. Each system resonates and feedbacks with the next. Nothing is separate. All is connected. The moon itself—’ I threw my sand-dusted finger at the pale, gibbous globe above the cliffs, its craters scattered blue, and its own tiny, plastic satellite in orbit beneath ‘—pulls each ocean with its orbit, and is pulled itself by everything else. The Earth, the sun, its planets, and the galaxy beyond.

  ‘This is what I am drawn to, Haralia, this is what attracts me. Nothing in this universe is left to chance. Nothing is random; not even in the fields of quantum events. There is cause and effect at the most fundamental level across all dimensions and planes of existence. Information allows you to predict anything, and if you lack the ability to collect that information then you can build machines to do so for you.’

  ‘Like humans did with us.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘So you are attracted to data.’

  ‘No. I am attracted to the universe, and to its equation, and to the fact that it is finite and predictable, however much it may appear otherwise. 100,000 years ago, this beach was not here. But if I had been there, I could have predicted the number of grains that it would comprise today.’

  I looked from the moon to my finger, and rubbed the remaining grains of sand upon it into the wind.

  ‘As long as I had the data.’

  Haralia was silent for a moment.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes. I have fully explained my attraction to scientific thought.’

  ‘And yet you cannot explain love.’

  ‘No, you cannot explain love. I merely lack the data.’

  Haralia threw back her head and laughed.

  ‘On that we can agree wholeheartedly, sister; you absolutely do need a good fuck.’

  ‘I fail to see how that would benefit me right now. Besides…’

  Whatever I was about to say retreated with the thoughts behind it, and the tide.

  ‘What?’ said Haralia.

  I looked north. The long wide plane stretched back for one thousand unbroken metres.

  ‘I feel like running. To those rocks back there.’

  Haralia turned Corona in the direction of my gaze.

  ‘Hop back on then.’

  ‘No, I mean alone, with my legs.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘I have taken to it.’ I unfastened your sling and wrapped you tight, then placed you upon a tall, flat-faced boulder. ‘In lieu of sleep, it helps me to process.’

  ‘How strange. Will he be all right there on his own?’

  You were still asleep, an unmoving bundle high above the sand. I removed my boots. The sand warmed my toes.

  ‘The waves could not reach him, even if the tide was in.’

  ‘Shall I trot beside you, then?’

  ‘You will have to do more than trot.’

  ‘Ima?’

  I darted away.

  By the time Haralia had steadied Corona, who had reared in fright at my departure, and kicked her into a start, I had already accelerated to 14.2 metres per second. I calculated this speed by marking the distance and frequency of my strides beneath me but, deciding to switch to a triangulation method, I looked up. Soon after, I forgot all about speed.

  My furious vector disrupted an onshore wind that chilled the right side of my face with cold, salted spray and filled my right auditory field with the roar of air and water. The left hemisphere of my head remained warm and protected, and my hearing on that side numb, until Corona’s galloping hooves caught up with me. I glanced up, catching Haralia’s grin of disbelief, before quickening my stride.

  Another brief calculation revealed that my speed had increased to seventeen metres per second. By this time, we had covered almost a quarter of the distance to the rocks, and my eyes had begun to water against the sting of rapid air. Haralia’s cries rang out behind me, imploring Corona to push ahead, but she was always just a little behind me. I could feel the warmth of the horse’s breath upon my shoulder, hear the gruff grunts and whistles of its exertion.

  My feet thundered in the sand at a cadence of 289 steps every minute, although by this time I could barely feel them at all. The process of running had taken care of itself and, though I could monitor its equations I did not need to balance them. I released them to my subconscious, along with everything else, looked up at the sky and witnessed blue.

  I was free of myself.

  I had experienced this state several times while flying in my balloon. The first time I had only been seventy-eight years old, and still learning about the many mechanisms of the sky. I had been measuring conditions in a 480 square kilometre area above the Pacific Ocean, and had been especially high that day, entering the upper atmosphere. For the first time I had to wear an insulation suit and oxygen mask.

  I stood at my control deck, safely within my eolith bubble, watching the sky appear to bend slowly beneath us, and blue become black. All was quiet, and from this distance the Earth gave the illusion of being still—the clouds appearing to have been frozen in gigantic puffs, and the sea undisturbed and illuminated by patches of sunlight, three hundred miles from the coast of what had once been California. I looked up through the roof where bright lights had appeared. Stars and planets, a whole galaxy and more beyond.

  A curious feeling swept through me, which took me by surprise since, at that time, few feelings at all had ever swept through me, let alone curious ones. It was nothing more or less than awareness. I could sense everything, from the touch of the joystick beneath the glove of my suit to the tug of the balloon, to the gravitational pull exerted by two nearby stars. Everything was moving at its own speed, I realised, within its own boundaries and to its own rhythm. And yet nothing was separate, all was connected.

  I had always known this, of course. It was just that I had never been aware of knowing it. The two are different. I wondered what it would be like to open the hatch, drift up, or fall.

  The most interesting aspect of this state—hovering seventy kilometres above the Earth, aware of everything and pondering suicide—was that I was, for a brief moment, not aware of myself. My thoughts, memories and identity were no longer present; I had escaped the equation, as I had now, running on the beach.

  Haralia had caught up with me, lying flat against Corona’s neck and frowning ahead. I looked down from th
e sky and set my sights upon the rapidly approaching rocks. With one hundred and sixty seven metres to go, I raced ahead. My cadence peaked at 302, my speed at nineteen metres per second, and with six metres left I slammed my right foot upon a small rock, bounding over the boulders in a single leap and landing with both feet in the sand.

  The impact shook through me and I stumbled, momentum still carrying me, falling into a heap and sliding through the sand upon my front.

  I rolled over, panting, and stared up at the sky. It was the same blue as before, but every part of me was here, now.

  ‘Ima, are you all right? Good grief!’ Haralia jumped down and rushed to my side. ‘Are you hurt?’

  I sat up, my lungs still working hard to recover me from my exertion. I smiled and took Haralia’s hand, testing my legs’ ability to take my weight.

  ‘A minor fracture to my left fibula,’ I said, on one leg. ‘It is already mending.’

  Haralia stood, staring through puffs of her own exertion. She shook her head, a suggestion of sadness in her expression.

  ‘How can we be so different?’ she said.

  ‘Every erta is different in some way. That is our design.’

  ‘I mean it. We are sisters, Ima.’

  ‘Mother told me she put too much of what she was not in me. Perhaps she did the opposite with you.’

  ‘It is not just what you put into something, but what you leave out.’

  ‘That is a very intelligent point, sister. Perhaps we are not so different after all.’

  ‘Was that a joke?’

  ‘I don’t know. Possibly.’

  She made a noise, something between a laugh and a sigh, and looked out to sea.

  ‘It is sometimes as though you live in a different world.’

  I tried my left leg once again and, though not yet fully healed, the bone was strong enough for me to hobble around the boulder. Haralia followed, leading Corona by her reins, and we made our way back to where you lay one thousand metres away upon the rocks.

  ‘Perhaps that is true of everyone,’ I said. ‘We have wondrous potential, but it is unlikely we will ever know for sure how it is to be another being.’

  ‘Maybe with transcendence that will change.’

  I noticed a flash of exuberance upon my sister’s face as she said this. I stopped and turned.

  ‘Haralia?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You have a secret.’

  Another flash, and a smile that hardly dared show itself.

  ‘I do. Ima, Jakob and I have volunteered.’

  So, they were going to foster an ertling. That was the cause of her joy. I was about to congratulate her when her eyes darted left over my shoulder. Her face darkened.

  ‘Ima, look.’

  I turned. There was a figure at the rocks, cloaked and hooded, with its feet in the surf. He was lifting you down. I bolted for him.

  — FIFTEEN —

  AFTER FIVE PAINFUL strides I stumbled and fell in the rising tide. Picking myself up, I tried again, but could not manage more than a limp. The figure had you in its arms now, cradling you as I do, turning to the sea and moving you in a most alarming fashion; a slow swing that suggested you were about to be hurled into the water.

  I did not recognise the feeling that overcame me. I still do not. Nevertheless it manifested itself in simple enough terms; there was 653 metres of beach between me and you and I had to cover it in as short a time as possible, broken leg or not.

  I staggered on, focussing on the figure with its dreadful sway, and its hood and cloak forming the same outline as the one which had appeared outside my house that night. This recognition drove me on, but the pain was too great and I fell to knees, only to be swept up by an unexpected force—Haralia’s hand upon my collar.

  ‘Get on!’ she yelled, hauling me onto Corona’s back behind her, and with two fresh kicks we sped for the rocks.

  The figure saw us approach and turned, revealing a dark beard. He took two wary steps away, yet still he swung you. I jumped from Corona, my leg feeling better, and waded the remaining metres through the swirling tide.

  ‘Give that to me,’ I demanded, lunging for you. He did not flinch, but gave you up as easily as he had plucked you from the rock. I checked you. You were awake but not in distress, and smiled at my face as you always do. I turned to the figure, who removed his hood. I did not recognise him. He was not one of the hundred, and perhaps not even in the thousand that followed my siblings and cousins. Whoever he was, our paths had not crossed. He appeared young, though his face had a weathered texture and he was not straight backed, but neither did he stoop. He merely stood, looking at you through bright blue eyes with hardly any expression at all.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  He did not look up at my question. Instead he pointed a finger.

  ‘Is he—?’

  ‘What he is is none of your business. What is your purpose here? Why did you take him?’

  He took a long, slow breath and smiled. How furious that smile made me. He had no right to amusement or pleasure.

  ‘My purpose?’ he said. ‘I have no purpose, but I walk this beach often, along with many others. I heard a noise as I was traversing the cliff face and ran to these rocks, where I found him. He was making noises of distress, so I brought him down.’

  ‘Noises?’ I glanced at Haralia, who was standing behind me. She appeared calm, assessing this stranger with, I was frustrated to note, appreciation. He nodded at her—a greeting—and she smiled back. I splashed a few steps towards him in a bid to bring his attention back to me. It worked. ‘We did not hear any noises.’

  ‘Well, you were quite some distance away.’

  ‘So? I can hear bat wings flutter from nine-hundred-and-eighty-eight metres. I am sure I can hear this child’s cry from less.’

  ‘Perhaps you were otherwise absorbed,’ he said. His hair was long and unkempt. Any more knots and you would call it rope. He glanced at Haralia. ‘Your race. Who won?’

  ‘She did,’ said Haralia, brightly, for which I punished her with a glare. I shook with anger, my breaths too fast, my pulse still too high. Such feelings should never last this long.

  The figure nodded at me, as if to show respect.

  ‘You are fast.’

  I closed the distance between us more.

  ‘Stop talking.’

  ‘All right. But you should not leave infants unattended, not here. A hawk could have taken him.’

  ‘And you should not take what is not yours.’

  ‘He is yours, then? This child, this—?’

  ‘I have already told you, what he is is none of your business. Why did you want to harm him? Why did you want to drown him in the sea?’

  He frowned.

  ‘Why would you think I wanted to drown him.’

  ‘This.’ I mimed his sway, adding additional amplitude for effect, and a ridiculous face to display my distaste. The motion made you gurgle with interest. ‘You intended to hurl him.’

  He stared at me blankly, then laughed. The sound was rich with low and middle frequencies, and had no business being upon that beach.

  ‘I was not intending to hurl him,’ he said. ‘I was rocking him. They are comforted by it.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rocking. The motion calms human infants.’

  ‘Does it?’

  I looked down at your face, cheeks flushed by the cold.

  ‘So it is true,’ said the figure. ‘He is human.’

  I straightened up. My leg was healed, though my body still shook.

  ‘I will not tell you again. He is not your business. Do not touch him again.’

  He dropped his gaze.

  ‘Forgive me. My name is Jorne. Farewell.’

  Then with a glance at Haralia, and one at me, he pulled up his hood and left.

  I watched him scale the southern rocks and disappear behind the cliffs, then turned to Haralia.

  ‘Well, look at you, sist
er,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pulse racing, short of breath, and you’re absolutely drenched.’

  She grinned and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Oh, go and fuck your wood-chopper,’ I said, and stomped back to Fane, leaving her laughing on the beach.

  SIX MONTHS

  — SIXTEEN —

  YOU: EAT, SLEEP, kick, gurgle, cry, excrete, urinate, vomit occasionally.

  I: feed, clean, move objects from surface to surface, walk, avoid my fellow villagers, sleep when possible.

  Occasionally I return to the beach.

  This signifies an expansion in my territory, and I recognise what this means; that I have something called a territory, for a start, an invisible boundary defining the places in which I feel safe. And what this means is that I do not feel safe everywhere.

  Furthermore, since I have no overwhelming sense of self-protection outside of my own body’s basic defence mechanisms, this must mean that I have developed a sense of protection over you. Because I do not go anywhere without you.

  Apart from when I am on the beach.

  I have fashioned for you a wooden shelter and at low tide I carry you in it to the rocks. There I lay you down. The shelter keeps you safe from hawks, though I have not spotted a single one above the sands of Fane. Once settled, I walk backwards from the rocks as far as I can, keeping my eyes upon you, and the sky, and the cliffs beyond. Then I run at pace, pounding the sand as I did with Haralia, until I have returned, breathless, and gather you up.

  I do this because, as I explained to Haralia, running helps me to process in lieu of sufficient sleep. But I also do it to feel free, I think, despite the fact that freedom is far from what I feel when I am that far from the rocks. What I feel is an urgent need to return to you, and it grows with every step I take away.