by Silk, Avril
Jo closed her eyes to her father’s dream of a willow tree scattered with fairy lights and a laughing woman with hair of flame and eyes of green. They fell into those eyes to find Lethe standing in a laboratory, sterile, white and gleaming as she injected a test-tube with a bright green syringe and they were washed back to Jo’s castle beneath the sea.
‘You!’ shrieked the ghostly image of Everard Burnley, pointing a skeletal finger directly at Jo. The corridor stretched before her as the spectre loomed forwards, his deathly face elongating and craning closer.
Recoiling in horror, Burnley snapped his teeth closed where Jo had been moments before. She felt like she was swimming in treacle.
Still he bore down upon her and continued to grow in stature. As Jo was about to be engulfed she heard Sebastian’s voice as if from afar.
‘Close your eyes, Jo! Close your eyes!’
She did and the world went silent.
‘Where are we?’ whispered Jo. There was no reply.
‘Jo?’ called Sebastian, into the dark. Nothing.
‘Sebastian!’ hollered Jo, her words vanishing into the velvet blackness without even an echo.
Sebastian listened intently, wondering if he had gone deaf, so absolute was the dark.
With a sudden crack came a gunshot, and the sensation of falling. Ali screamed and fell through Jo as Lucy simultaneously fell straight through Sebastian like a cold wind. Terror dragged them down behind and the two of them found themselves together in a dark alleyway, with Jo desperately trying to stem the blood pouring from a nasty gash in Sebastian’s head.
Reg was still fighting sleep as he struggled with his fears. Fractured images of a city in flames as armoured police forced crowds of people into submission while Brenda desperately tried to stop the blood pouring from his head wound. Jo caught Reg’s eye exactly as Brenda locked glances with Sebastian and for a moment the two dreams overlapped one another before Sebastian and Jo were once more helplessly dragged further down.
Mary’s memories of living as Crazy Em also contained blood; running down the walls and in the sewers and over everything as she shrieked dementedly beneath an enormous flickering ultraviolet light. The Blaschko lines on Jo’s skin glowed briefly as they were dragged past the Deep Level Shelter and further into the darkness.
The man cradled in Mary’s loving arms also began to glow as they entered his dream. He too was dreaming of the sterile, gleaming laboratory and was staring directly at them. The sparks twinkled like fireflies as Sebastian and Jo were pulled ever deeper into the realm of dreams and nightmares.
One more sleeper left. Titus, still on his knees, slumped against the bed, reliving blinding light and choking dust and unimaginable, ear-splitting noise followed by wave upon wave of profound silence as he stumbled towards the ruins of the laboratory.
Sebastian howled in triumph and flew towards the blinding light, a dark silhouette, trailing his web of sparks and stars. The net opened wide and Jo was dragged along helplessly as he plunged into the heart of the light.
Far ahead, where the brightness softened into shadow, there was a door. A stainless steel door, with a magenta, three-bladed radiation warning symbol on a yellow background. At the heart of the symbol was a scorpion, and the words STIGMURUS ENTERPRISES – RESEARCH DIVISION encircled the symbol. Carved on a stone panel above the door were the words ATOMS FOR PEACE PROGRAM. As the two dreamers grew ever closer Jo saw an orderly queue of people waiting to be admitted. The door slowly opened.
A beaming Titus Stigmurus welcomed the visitors, a group of all ages and nationalities, leading them to a lecture hall. Each member of the party was issued with white hooded protective clothing and sunglasses.
Jo looked around – there was no sign of Sebastian. She could sense his presence, like a pulse, but no more than that. She wondered if anybody could see her, or if, like Sebastian, she was invisible, but a shout from an armed guard of, ‘Speed it up, Sonny-Jim,’ answered her question. Affronted, she wondered why the guard thought she was a boy, then realised that she was the only female not wearing a skirt. She quickly pulled on her jump suit and sunglasses, sat down, and looked around.
One wall was dominated with a huge photograph of a woman in an old-fashioned swimming costume decorated with something that looked like half a mushroom, half a cloud. Underneath the title, Miss Atomic Bomb 1957, someone had written, You’ve seen the Beast – now here’s the Beauty!
Another wall had a poster of a person she recognised. The handsome man was holding a book called Profiles in Courage. The caption read: Senator John F. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning author with the book he wrote while convalescing from back surgery.
As Jo scanned the room, one family in particular caught her eye – a man and a woman with two daughters aged about twelve. One of the girls was refusing to put on the protective clothing. She threw it to the ground in a temper. Jo clearly heard her say, ‘I do not want to look like a clown. Anyway, this is not a proper radiation suit. It’s pathetic.’ Her father said something short and sharp, and with an ill grace the girl bent down to pick up the hated overalls. When she stood up to put them on she turned her back on her parents, and looked defiantly at the people around who were watching her histrionics. Some were amused; others mildly irritated. She insolently out-stared them all.
For a split second she looked directly at Jo before sweeping the rest of the audience with a contemptuous glare. Jo was left reeling. For a moment she thought she might faint with shock. Her head was spinning, her pulse was racing and her hands were clammy. It was like looking in a mirror. The angry girl had Jo’s auburn curls and green eyes. Instinctively Jo hid her own hair under the hood.
She was thinking furiously. Her mind seethed with questions. Who was the sulky girl? Where was she? Not only that, what year was it?
1957, dummy.
The petulant girl was staring at Jo again. Immediately Jo shielded. The other girl stuck out her tongue and it was all Jo could do not to laugh out loud. Somewhere in the back of her mind the date rang a faint bell, but the memory remained elusive.
A sharp reprimand of, ‘Behave yourself, Lethe, or you will miss the presentation,’ answered her first question. Jo was dumbfounded to realise she was staring at her mother and aunt when they were children, and their parents, the grand-parents Jo had never known. As she studied her handsome grand-father it was evident that he was the reason for the copper curls that ran in the family.
She was glad when the lights dimmed and covered her confusion. A single spotlight shone on Titus Stigmurus as he stood in front of a vast white screen.
He looks older in 1957 than he does now marvelled Jo. Whatever Mirabel does to stop him aging wasn’t happening then.
Everyone concentrated as Titus started to speak. His voice was compelling and his manner confident. He effortlessly exuded power.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Stigmurus Enterprises. As you undoubtedly know, the 1954 Atomic Energy Act promotes the peaceful uses of nuclear energy through private initiative, allowing the Atomic Energy Commission to license private companies such as mine to use nuclear materials and build and operate nuclear power plants as part of President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace programme. I am privileged to be playing a small part in this exciting work. Before our tour of this section of the complex, I intend to show a film of the origins of the nuclear industry and some footage never before seen. After a delicious lunch we will demonstrate our Borax-III reactor – hence the protective clothing. Better to be safe than sorry, although the dangers from nuclear fall-out have been much exaggerated. Only two years ago the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission assured us that the path of fall-out does not constitute a serious hazard to any living thing outside the test site.’
‘Tell that to the down-winders,’ shouted a man in the audience. ‘Tell that to the mothers who miscarried or delivered dead babies. Tell that to the observers with flash-blindness and the troops with bone cancers and leukaemia.’
Titus was u
rbanity personified. ‘You raise interesting points, my friend, but I fear you are misinformed. There is no evidence to suggest the nuclear testing causes the dangers you describe.’
‘There is no evidence,’ replied the protester angrily, ‘because there has been no research.’
‘Perhaps we can continue this fascinating discussion later, Mr …?’
‘My name is Silver Lightning,’ came the reply. Another jolt as Jo recognised the proud voice of her father’s uncle. ‘My tribe is Lakota. Our whole nation has suffered from the use of our land for your vile testing. Our crops, milk and livestock have been contaminated and our children sicken. The government and private companies like yours have disregarded and broken treaties, and ridden roughshod over our sovereignty in order to dispose of your nuclear waste. And now you and your kind add insult to injury with the Redwing Project and other tests named after my nation. Cherokee. Lacrosse. Seminole…’
Silver Lightning got no further. Armed guards converged on him from all directions and he was dragged from the room.
During the scuffle Jo heard a woman in front of her whispering to her husband. She said, ‘They’re not fit to be parents, those people. What those poor little Injun children need is to be reared with decent, God-fearing white folks, like us.’ Her husband, a thick-set man with a crew-cut, nodded agreement. That was when Jo realised the audience was almost entirely white, mostly men and, in a few cases, their families.
As his parting shot Silver Lightning could be heard shouting, ‘You have betrayed the Earth, and when the Rainbow Warriors rise, you will pay the price!’
Titus was clearly shaken. He tried to make light of the interruption. ‘Moving on from the comedy turn, or should I say Commie turn, I suggest we settle down without more ado and watch the film.’
Jo had already seen parts of similar films at school. After the opening credits, three sub-headings appeared on the screen.
The science of atomic radiation, atomic change and nuclear fission was developed from 1895 to 1945, much of it in the last six of those years.
Over 1939-45, most development was focused on the atomic bomb.
From 1945 attention was given to harnessing this energy in a controlled fashion for naval propulsion and for making electricity.
The opening narrative concentrated on physicist Enrico Fermi who discovered the potential of nuclear fission in 1934. Six years later he created the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction and in 1945 the United States carried out its first test of a nuclear bomb in the New Mexico desert.
When they were at college Jo’s parents marched with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in protest against the dangers of nuclear power. She remembered them talking about the atomic bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, when hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians died. Where Paul and Ali saw unnecessary death, destruction and disease, the military strategists of the time, and the makers of the film, saw an early end to the Second World War, saving the lives of countless troops and civilians.
Ali had struggled to be fair. ‘The Americans called for the Japanese to surrender, but their ultimatum was ignored. Some say they dropped leaflets warning the Japanese about the bombing. They certainly did give warning of other bombing raids, but it’s not clear that Hiroshima was leafleted. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed there and Nagasaki – so even if they had had a warning, where were so many people supposed to go? And what could they possibly have done? The nuclear bombs took so many lives – how do we know how many were saved? People are still arguing about that all these years later. In wartime, truth is the first casualty, and propaganda leaves you not knowing what to believe.’
‘Propaganda?’ The word was new to Jo.
‘Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state,’ answered Ali. ‘At least according to Noam Chomsky.’
‘Who’s he?’ asked Jo, struggling to keep up. Now as well as being in the dark about the word propaganda she wondered about democracy, bludgeon and totalitarian. And Noam Chomsky.
‘An amazing man. A critic of American foreign policy; a linguist; a philosopher; a scientist. Just for starters. He calls himself a traditional anarchist. I studied him when I was at college. He said that intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, and their hidden intentions. He’s worth reading.’
Jo remembered their conversation as she watched the film. The commentary seemed to her to treat killing as a cause for celebration, but a lot of the audience members agreed, cheering whenever another huge explosion sent the mushroom cloud of deadly dust and debris high up into the atmosphere. A few people, like Jo’s grand-parents, did not join in the whooping, but they were out-numbered. The massive fireballs, the radio-active rain, seemed as exciting to this audience as Jo had found playing Galaxians in the video arcade. It’s just that Galaxians was a game, and nuclear bombing was anything but.
After the main film, Titus showed some shorter clips. First he showed extracts from Duck and Cover, an early Civil Defence cartoon aimed at children. Bert the Turtle was used to demonstrate that crouching under your school desk might protect you in the event of a nuclear explosion. Jo was incredulous, unsure whether the film was hopelessly naïve or a slick public relations exercise cynically designed to reassure and distract people so they didn’t panic. She came down on the side of cynicism.
Introducing the next clip Titus said, ‘This is the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes - Minnesota - a Dakota name meaning sky-tinted water. The scientists are spraying zinc cadmium sulphide to discover dispersal patterns of air-borne toxic substances. As the compound is fluorescent, it can easily be seen.’
There was an interruption from the audience. ‘Are you saying the authorities allow a poisonous compound to be sprayed on American towns?’ The speaker was Lethe and Ali’s father.
Titus laughed in a patronising way. ‘Delighted to hear from you, Doctor Lake. Rest assured, Zachary, there is no evidence to suggest that zinc cadmium sulphide is in any way dangerous.’
‘Has there been any research?’ demanded Doctor Lake.
‘I am sure there has,’ replied Titus smoothly. ‘I will ask my personal assistant to present any relevant documents to you.’
‘I doubt any will be found. Do me the courtesy of believing me when I say that zinc cadmium sulphide is highly toxic. One more question. Do the people living in these places know what is being done? That they are being used as guinea-pigs?’
‘You unpatriotic Limey son-of a bitch!’ roared the thick-set man in front of Jo.
Doctor Lake laughed. ‘As a Limey, I can hardly be accused of being unpatriotic to your country,’ he observed mildly. ‘And my mother was a woman of impeccable character.’
‘Don’t try to be smart with me, you Commie pinko degenerate! Coming over here, a guest of our fine country, looking down your nose at us with your snooty Brit sneers.’
‘You misunderstand me, sir. Like you, I believe this is a fine country. But I also happen to think the population has a right to know what is going on.’
‘Not when it comes to national security it doesn’t,’ countered the speaker. He was a man in his mid-forties, with a military bearing. His face was red with anger.
‘Gentlemen,’ interrupted Titus, ‘let us agree that this wonderful land of opportunity and freedom leads the world in the pursuit of liberty, and end on a lighter note. This snippet of film, an unofficial souvenir of Operation Plumbob, has not been shown in public before today. It never fails to make me laugh. Needless to say, it is completely off the record and you never saw it!’
The lights dimmed and the screen was filled with hundreds and hundreds of pigs. Jo was confused. Is this about the Bay of Pigs? she thought. But that hasn’t happened yet!
A voice-over talked about the latest recruits, ready and willing to serve. The hand-held camera panned in on half a dozen pigs. To the great amusement of most of the audience, some of the pigs were wearing clothes – some had summer frocks; others wor
e jackets; others were in hazard suits, not unlike the ones the audience members were wearing. There was a close-up of a pig in a flowery dress. ‘She won’t win a beauty contest,’ declared the narrator, ‘but she will bring home the bacon when it comes to valuable information about the effects of blast and flying debris!’
Realising what was coming, Jo watched in horror as the pigs were loaded up and taken to the centre of the test site.
‘This little piggy came to Plumbob,’ giggled the speaker as the detonation took place and the dust cloud rose above the Nevada desert ‘and this little piggy went BOOM.’
Jo noticed that well over half the audience was laughing fit to bust, roughly a quarter looked ill at ease, and the rest like her, were visibly shocked and distressed.
Titus, ever the showman, was aware that some of his audience were feeling deeply uncomfortable. ‘Allow me to reassure you that the vast majority of the pigs survived,’ he said.
‘With eighty per cent burns survival would hardly be worthy of the name,’ said Jo’s grandfather drily.
‘If you think that’s bad,’ chimed in a cultured English voice, ‘then what about Walter Libby’s Operation Sunshine?’
‘Alas, Professor Jamieson, despite the fascinating nature of your enquiry, we are out of time,’ said Titus decisively.
Professor Jamieson! Jo stared in surprise at the younger Matthew as he started to protest at the curtailment of his question. She smiled to herself as she noted how handsome he had been. She studied the striking, tawny-haired woman at his side, with their two boisterous small boys. A great wave of sadness came over Jo as she realised that she was looking at the family Matthew had lost so tragically.
Now Lethe and Ali’s mother was on her feet. ‘I believe the use of still-born babies in Walter Libby’s research, testing levels of Strontium 90, without the permission of their parents, is unethical.’