Mortal Remains

by Christopher Evans

  The bolt hit the creature in one of its wings. It did a kind of feeble somersault in the air, then crashed down to the charred earth. Julius did not pause. He spun around and fired at another creature, an inverted coronet of pink jelly that had come scuttling out of the inferno. The bolt vaporized it.

  There was more—more slaughter and mayhem. Bezile closed her eyes to it, hearing only the roar of the flame and the cries of the Advocates, cries of delighted bloodlust as they employed their weapons punctuated by shrieks and squeals from the things they were dispatching. It went on and on. Bezile tried to think of her ancestors, of the tranquillity of a shrine, private moments of peace and companionship with the immortal afterlife. This was worse than she had dared imagine.

  A silence fell, and Bezile realized that Orela had finally switched off the flame. The air was thick with poisonous smoke. Then a breeze came up like a balm, washing it away.

  Around them nothing moved and nothing could be heard. High in the air dark shapes were hovering—twisted bird-like things, circling, keeping their distance. All that remained of the vegetation in front of them was black ash, fires still flickering around its edges, tufts of smoke trickling up into the boundless sky.

  Bezile’s eyes stung. Luis and Leanderic stood rooted like herself. The Advocates had removed their helmets and were inhaling deeply, their weapons lowered; they seemed sated. Bezile didn’t dare meet Luis’s gaze; he was swaying slightly, as if he might faint. Leanderic was blank with shock.

  Presently Julius turned to them and said, “A rather violent outburst, I’ll grant you, but things are different here. Sterilization procedures are absolutely vital.”

  There was a light, almost cheerful note in his voice. Bezile was devoid of any response. Sterilization procedures. So that was what they called it. She was startled to hear Luis say: “What are we going to do now?”

  “Now?” said Julius. He pointed the barrel of his pistol towards a nearby outcrop. “Now perhaps we’ll sit on that rock for a while, in the sunshine. We have to wait until the ground has cooled before we can go down to the water.”

  It was almost like a non sequitur, the latest of many. There were beetles and spidery things regularly traversing the bare rock, and although most must have been incinerated or frightened into hiding by the fire, Bezile did not care to sit upon it. But there was no alternative.

  The five of them proceeded to perch themselves on the outcrop, Julius and Orela sitting cross-legged on its flat top while Bezile merely leant against a shaded incline, keeping a careful watch for any scuttling creatures. Luis and Leanderic sat on either side of her, not speaking, eyes glazed. Above them the bird things spiralled while ahead of them the ash smouldered and the air held the stenches of destruction. Not since her days as a novice had Bezile contemplated the ancient idea of Hell. It existed, and she was here.

  She could see the Advocates from her position. They had raised their bare faces to the sun and were holding hands—a gesture which Bezile found sickening under the circumstances. She felt suffocated by the body armour, suffocated and defiled.

  “No doubt you are shocked,” Orela said out of the blue.

  Bezile wondered what to say that wouldn’t sound banal.

  “Such wanton destruction of life,” Orela went on. “It’s against all our principles, the more so because Julius and I represent the conscience of the Noosphere. No doubt that is what you are thinking, yes?”

  There was no spit in Bezile’s mouth: no words to say.

  “And yet have you never felt the urge to vent such violence? Truly? If only as a fleeting thought?”

  Now Orela was peering down at her with her mad black eyes.

  “Well?” she insisted.

  There was nothing for it but to humour her.

  “There have been occasions,” she confessed, “when I could have cheerfully wrung a few necks.” She made a point of glancing at Luis, and he visibly winced.

  “Precisely,” said Orela. “But we control such urges in civilized society unless we’re criminals or insane. Here, however, normal civilized standards don’t apply because there is no civilization, nothing that gives evidence of human shaping and organization. It is merely biological chaos.”

  Sunlight was gleaming gold on the scarab’s closed eyelids, up there on the rim, too far away.

  “But is not all life sacred”—Bezile couldn’t believe she was actually saying this—“and to be preserved for its own sake wherever possible?”

  “Indeed,” Orela said emphatically. “But it’s the human purpose, the very future of us, that we are concerned with here. That’s why it was necessary for me to clear a path to the water. The lifeforms are riotous here—riotous and destructive. We might have been attacked had we let any survive.”

  The bird things were closer now, hovering silently as it awaiting their moment of revenge.

  “What about those?” Bezile said, pointing.

  It was Julius who leapt to his feet and unleashed a bolt from the pistol. It exploded wide of the birds, but they scattered with rasping shrieks and furiously fled in every direction.

  “You see?” Orela said. “These weapons are merely protective.”

  Bezile was tired of words; they could be made to say anything.

  “Perhaps you would welcome a drink?” Julius said, producing a water goblin from his belt.

  Bezile shook her head.

  He squeezed the goblin and its mouth opened. He put it to his lips and drained it, water running down his chin. Then he tossed the creature into the ashes, watching where it fell. It twitched, but did not flee.

  “I think,” Julius said, rising, “we can proceed.”

  They walked down through the ash. The dark cinders crunched under their feet and dusted the uppers of their boots. Bezile could feel the warmth percolating through. Nothing living moved in it.

  The pool was not large, but it appeared deep, its dirty greenish surface reflecting the scattered cloud. As they reached the water’s edge, Bezile saw a movement in the water, something that seemed to be shifting and changing shape, something that looked like large starry cells, interconnected with long branching threads, a network spreading the entire extent of the pool.

  “Don’t go too close,” Orela said, with the whispered mischief of a child.

  The cells, like spiked amoebae, were milky white to pinkish, their circular nuclei blood-black. The nuclei appeared to blink as the cells reorientated themselves, making new connections, others withering, even as she stared.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “A suprahuman,” Orela informed her.

  “A what?”

  “We thought of giving it a name,” Julius said. “But it seemed rather inappropriate to something that is not truly human, not in the traditional sense, at least.”

  He was enjoying himself, toying with their curiosity and alarm.

  “What is it?” Bezile said again.

  “It’s an Augmenter creation,” Orela said. “An aquatic life-form. A development of Homo sapiens.”

  Bezile didn’t believe this for a moment. But the thing in the water had begun to stir at the sound of their voices. The water roiled, and suddenly a shape rose up out of it, a shape made of that very water, the interconnecting cells threaded through it. The shape it took on was that of a human.

  She, Luis and Leanderic backed away instinctively. The water creature “stood” near the shore, perfectly sized, and it spoke:

  “Welcome.”

  Its “voice” was like a gargle. Julius and Orela looked delighted.

  “Did you have this made?” Bezile said.

  “Certainly not,” said Julius. “It was confiscated and ‘exiled’ here.”

  “Is it intelligent?” said Luis.

  “Very much so,” said Julius. “Go to the edge. It will communicate with you.”

  Plainly Luis was petrified at the idea.

  “Go,” said Orela. “Speak to it.”

  They used the full persuasive power of t
heir voices, but Bezile suspected it was the way in which both were holding their weapons that made Luis shuffle forward a little.

  “Go closer,” Orela said with a smile. “It’s from human stock, just like you.”

  He did as he was asked, moving right to the edge of the shoreline. The water thing continued burbling, though its words were not quite recognizable.

  “Is this close enough?” said Luis, voice squeaky with terror.

  And then the thing reached out and took him.

  It happened so quickly that Bezile, though on her guard, was completely shocked. The edge of the water suddenly flowed forward, lapping over Luis’s feet then rising up his body to cover him completely. At the same time he was pitched forward into the water, dragged below it so that he vanished. Then the human shape dropped down and water began roiling again. Bezile could see the branches and cells of it flashing through changes in size and orientation. This went on for long seconds, perhaps even minutes, as Bezile stood aghast. Then the human thing rose up again.

  “Bezile,” it said.

  Bezile fled, back through the cinders towards the track. She expected that Julius and Orela would try to stop her, perhaps by shooting her down; but they did not.

  She huddled under the outcrop. Leanderic was also retreating in some haste. The Advocates turned and slowly followed.

  Bezile’s heart was rampant in her chest, her throat hot with her flight. Leanderic joined her, his composure quite gone. Bezile felt light-headed, unreal.

  The thing was still “standing” in the water, “facing” towards her. The Advocates approached.

  “He’s not dead,” Orela said. And smiled. “He’s merely been absorbed into its being.”

  Bezile could see no trace of terror or disgust in her eyes. They were dead, the deadness that comes when one is sated with experience, when one has lived too long, witnessed or participated in everything from the sublime to the terrible and has lost the normal human capacities of response.

  “Each node acts as a centre of intelligence,” Julius was saying. “There is instant communication between them, great cohesiveness of form and mind.”

  “You sacrificed him!” she bellowed. “You let him be swallowed up!”

  They both remained unmoved. Orela said, “It was necessary.”

  “Necessary! Why? He didn’t deserve that!”

  “He’s not dead,” Orela said again. “He now forms part of the whole organism. As far as we know, he is still intact within the greater body.”

  “I’m sure that’s a huge consolation to him! Is it my turn next?”

  They shook their heads, suddenly serious.

  “We had to show you,” Julius said. “This is what the Augmenters want us to become.”

  Bezile forced herself to stand upright. The water thing was gone, vanished back down. But only gone from sight.

  “That is the future they ultimately intend for the human race,” Orela said. “A suprahuman, many minds existing as one in a physical form.”

  “The organism would be self-repairing,” Julius added. “Potentially immortal.”

  “At present it can only exist in water,” Orela said, “which is why we are able to contain it here. But the Augmenters’ ultimate aim is to create a racial organism that could survive anywhere. A biological equivalent of the Noosphere.”

  Was this merely more of their madness? Yet Bezile had seen the creature herself, seen what it could do.

  “It’s repulsive,” she said. “How would they ever muster sufficient popular support for that?”

  “They wouldn’t need to,” said Julius, “if force of arms gave them control of the centres of power. They could then subvert the Noosphere to achieve their aims.”

  “What? And how would they do that?”

  “They have a fleet of ships already on its way.”

  Bezile glanced at Leanderic. He knew nothing, it was clear; he was rigid with horror.

  “Which is why we must make haste,” Orela said. “Our own defences have been summoned to combat the threat. We must join them.”

  Both she and Julius made to move away. Bezile said, “You’re going to leave that … thing in there?”

  They paused. Julius said, “We wanted you to see it. The decision on its future is yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “You’re still within your lifespan,” Orela said. “Your concerns are more mortal than ours. Perhaps you have a better appreciation of what such a being would mean to the great mass of humanity. You decide its fate.”

  With this, she ceremonially handed over her rifle to Leanderic, who accepted it as if it were a sac full of poison. Then she and Julius walked away along the track towards the ship.

  Bezile stared after them, wondering if they did indeed, after all, have some appreciation of their own madness. It occurred to her that she might take the rifle from Leanderic and turn it on them, put paid to their insanity for ever. But she was not one to deny any human being the transition to the afterlife, let alone the two who were supposed to be its archetypes, dangerously mad though they were.

  Leanderic was standing stock-still, the rifle cradled in his arms. As if he were holding an infant.

  Bezile spoke his name, as gently as she could. “We must act,” she said.

  Leanderic nodded like an automaton. The lake was flat, featureless, giving no hint of the loathesomeness it contained.

  “Come with me,” she told Leanderic.

  The steward followed her back through the ash towards the lake shore. They did not go too close. The water thing rose up on their approach. Again it had the outline of a human, though whether man or woman it was impossible to say; impossible and irrelevant: it was just a parody of the real thing. Certainly there were no discernible features on its “face”. Scant enough comfort in that.

  “Bezile,” it said, voice like the rush of water.

  Leanderic raised the rifle as if to ward it off. The display on the side of the barrel told Bezile the charge was set to maximum.

  “You cannot kill me,” the thing seemed to be saying in a rather agitated yet doleful tone. Was this a declaration or a plea? Under the water, its cells were changing pattern frantically, as if to find some last-ditch counter to the threat it faced. Leanderic stood motionless.

  “Let me,” Bezile said softly, offering to take the gun.

  “Pleasshh …” said the thing in the water.

  Leanderic fired.

  The power of the blast made Bezile step back, but Leanderic did not move. He continued to direct the flame at the centre of the lake, and the nuclear roaring went on and on while the water seethed and steam billowed into the air. Soon they were entirely clouded, but Leanderic kept firing, holding the rifle steady, feet planted apart. Nothing could be heard above the roar of the flame, no cries, shrieks, nothing except the sound of annihilation. Bezile’s throat was sore, she was nauseous, but she couldn’t allow herself to faint.

  Then, finally, it was ended. The rifle made a sound like a huge cough, and spat a final gout of flame before the roaring ceased.

  Leanderic scarcely seemed to notice. The rifle dipped, then fell from his hands. Bezile saw that his palms were blistered from its heat. There were tear tracks down his sooty cheeks. Bezile approached, drew the steward to her ample bosom. And waited while he trembled without tears against her breast.

  After a time the air cleared. Every molecule in the lake had been vaporized and the silt at its bottom was hard and cracked with the heat. There was not a trace of the creature.

  Bezile’s head swam, and she had to blink hard to focus. She saw that the Advocates were waiting some way up the track. Overhead the bird things were circling again.

  “Come,” she said to Leanderic, leading him away.

  Thirteen

  Again I woke to darkness. I had dreamt Bezile without volition; without volition I had left her.

  Nina came close. I could tell she had been disturbed by the dream even before she spoke.

  “Nathan?�
�

  “I’m here.”

  “It was horrible.”

  And then she touched me.

  I started, only realizing at her touch that we were both “physical” once more.

  I sat up, becoming aware that we were back in my room. I knew this because we were lying in my bed: there was no light; but I could smell Nina’s warmth, feel her hand on my arm.

  We hugged one another. Both of us were naked, and I breathed her in deeply, touched my lips to her shoulder blade to taste her. Her hair brushed my cheek, and her arms were tight across my back.

  We didn’t speak; both of us were so shocked by what we had experienced we had no words for it. I also felt an acute sense of loss in the knowledge that the Earth had become a world more alien than any of the others we had visited. I had no memories of how it had once been, but I still believed it was the place where Nina and I had been born, that it had once been our home. More than ever we were stripped of our birthrights, and we could make no accommodation with that fact except to cling on to one another in silence.

  Presently the ceiling slowly began to suffuse with a pearly light. There were plain white bodysuits draped across the foot of the bed. We put them on.

  The door opened. Chloe and Lucian entered.

  They looked exactly the same as before, perfect composed youths. Imperturbably awaiting our questions.

  “It really happened?” I asked. “What we saw?”

  “Yes,” Chloe assured me.

  “That creature was fashioned by the Augmenters?”

  “So we believe.”

  “The womb, too?”

  “No,” said Lucian. “That is merely another of the Advocates’ deceptions. You experienced what Bezile witnessed and heard. That experience was true. The facts may be otherwise.”

  “I’m tired of this!” I shouted. “I want to know exactly what’s happening! Whose side are you on?”