Pascale's Wager: Homelands of Heaven

by Anthony Bartlett

  Benn turned to her, his face like thunder. “I said enough! You will not say ‘we’ with that young man in mind again. And you won’t be seeing him again. He’s headed for the Icecamps.”

  Cal did not know her father like this. Normally a mild-mannered man with bursts of irritability he was displaying a ruthlessness she had never known. She went quiet and turned toward the guards. They fell in almost unconsciously on either side of her and half marched and half followed her out of the room.

  ***

  As Poll exited the Center he knew he was in real trouble. There was nowhere to hide. It was only a matter of time before Security picked him up. But he wanted to delay that moment as long as possible. He needed time to think. To think and figure out the full implications of what he had just seen.

  “Hey, Poll, where are you going? Where are Danny and Liz?” Wes and Esh’s voices rang out across the concourse as Poll headed through. He glanced round.

  “Can’t stop,” he shouted.

  “Why? What crazy stuff have you been doing?” Esh yelled back. “Hey, do you know where Danny and Liz are? They’ve disappeared.”

  “Huh?” grunted Poll over his shoulder. But already he was ducking inside a Bubble. The doors pinged shut, and he was gone.

  The two young people blew up. “What is going on?” Esh demanded.

  Wes swore, “That freakin' Poll, what the hell has he done now?”

  They cast around, hesitating, sensing something had happened but not knowing what to do. Then very quickly their confusion was resolved. Cal appeared in the Worship Stadium with her escort. Turning round they saw her through the coral-tinted glass screen.

  “Thank God,” cried Wes. “It’s Cal.” They pushed through the heavy revolving doors, not really noticing the uniformed officials with her.

  “Stop right there. This young woman is in our custody. You are not permitted contact.”

  “What?”

  Cal rounded on the men. “Are you crazy? The only person I’m not allowed to talk to is Sidak. Keep away from me, or I’ll report you for exceeding your authority.”

  The officials had little experience of articulate resistance. They took a couple of steps back.

  Wes was at last getting a handle on his day. “Way to go, Cal! But, explain, please? We’re absolutely in the dark here.”

  She didn’t need a second invitation. She spilled out the startling discoveries she and Poll had just made, and her father’s reactions to them.

  “So the Homeland is not the last place on earth. There’s somewhere else, and it’s much, much better?”

  Wes and Esh stared at her. They momentarily forgot their search for Liz and Danny, facing the enormity of her claim. Wes persisted after Cal nodded. “Let me get this straight. You see an old photo and deduce from it there's another, better place on earth, one that's been hidden for hundreds of years?”

  “It's not just the photo, Wes. It's what's in it: happy people building the Shield. They should be desperate but they look like they're in heaven, already. And there's something else. You know when I got frozen that time, looking out the window, well I wasn't frozen, I saw something. I think I saw the sunshine world.”

  Esh said, “Cal, you had a vision. You saw heaven.”

  “If I saw heaven, it was in this world.”

  Wes exclaimed, “So you’re saying the whole thing’s a lie? Everything we’ve been told, the Global Shield, humanity on the brink, the pioneers? And what about our religion, is that a lie too?”

  It was now Cal’s turn to look blank. She had been affected by Poll's questions, seeing a concrete problem to be resolved, but not necessarily excluding belief. Faced by Wes' reaction she saw the possible consequences of her discovery.

  “I, I’m not sure,” she hesitated. “It means everything is not what we thought. What’s true, I don’t know.”

  “As sure as heck it means all that stuff at the Worship Center is full of it!” Wes' tone was one of shocked disgust. “If there’s a place on the planet where there’s sunshine and people are happy, then we don’t have to wait around until we go to heaven. Just show me the way!”

  “Well, there’s the problem,” said Cal, glad to get back to practicalities. “I have no idea how you get in touch with this other place, or whether it’s possible at all.”

  The idea of communication, or lack of it, abruptly reminded Esh of the two swimmers. “Oh and there’s something else, Cal. We can’t find your brother. He’s vanished. Liz, too.”

  Cal tried to focus on what Esh had just said. Something in it struck one more tremor inside her. The series of shocks she had experienced was becoming an earthquake, changing her landscape out of recognition.

  “What’s that? Danny’s missing?”

  “Yeah, he’s been missing since the finals. We thought you might know something.”

  When Wes filled in the details, she pressed them for more: “What did the guy look like, the one he was talking to?”

  Esh tried to remember. “We couldn’t see very well. It was crazy, and he was gone almost at once.”

  “Anything at all, was he tall, short, well-built, you know?”

  “Well, it sounds kind of lame, but I remember thinking, he sure looks healthy!”

  Cal felt a pit open up in her stomach, but before she could say anything her father appeared. He strode toward the group, gesturing to the guards.

  “You two, come with me. We’re going to my home. There’s a security detail looking for that madman, but until they pick him up we need to take precautions.”

  He caught Cal’s arm and propelled his daughter out to the reception area, with the two guards following behind.

  “And you,” he shouted over his shoulder to the young people, “you stay away from my daughter unless you want to end up in a maintenance camp too.”

  A Bubble appeared at the external port and, while Esh and Wes watched dumbstruck, the Worship Leader and his party entered and were gone. Wes' bravado deserted him.

  “That man’s serious. Poll’s headed for the Icecamps, for sure. That’s not going to happen to me.”

  Esh turned. “You’re right, we should go home. None of this makes sense. Tomorrow’s Ninety Nine and Danny’s bound to turn up.”

  Wes nodded but without conviction. They made their way out of the Worship Area, out to the external port and the frozen landscape of the Homeland.

  12. VIGIL

  “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

  The Sector Security Chief sat at the table flanked by the members of the Discipline and Control Board. Over to one side stood Nat, summonsed to give evidence and looking pleased and pious. Poll had been picked up riding the Bubbles, knowing that anywhere he stopped his entry swipe would immediately give him away. He had gone from the Worship Center to the Training Center to the Sports Center, and each time punched in a new destination to the vehicle command panel. He had managed to elude capture for three hours. Finally Transport Control had identified a single Bubble in continuous movement and Security had intercepted.

  “You have been cited for blasphemy by a Sector Worship Leader, corroborated by the first-hand witness of an acolyte, and there are several other notations in your personal file, none of them good. Now that’s not too smart! Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  In his three hours of freedom Poll had understood his situation clearly. There was no way he could submit to the Homeland way of life. Not now he’d seen physical proof of the hollowness of its story. Someone somewhere else was benefiting from all the suffering which the Teppers endured: he didn’t know who or how but he was certain of it. The thing that had always bothered him theoretically—the excess energy in the system—was plain now, it had to be part of the plan. Somehow the energy was used to serve and maintain another world, a place of wonderful sunshine. The way that teachers, worship leaders and work managers bought into this lie and colluded in their own misery, it made him feel ill. But he also knew that if he did not apologize abjectly an
d agree to theological retraining he was certain to be condemned to Refrigeration Maintenance, which meant almost certain death.

  In the same instant he was convinced that there had to be some means of communication with this other world. Everything here had to have been set up at some point: it had not taken form spontaneously. The people who had overseen the construction of the Homeland, marketed its religion, convinced and put in place its priests and teachers, and transported its first settlers, they had to have had some way of getting out. They also had to have a way to get back in if there was ever a problem needing to be fixed. Therefore, there had to be some mode of transport between the worlds. It was obviously not on the icefields. The only place left where it could possibly be was on the borders, somewhere beyond the Maintenance Camps. If he was ever going to find the physical connection which would be proof positive of his theory, then he should make sure he was sent to this destination. He had made his decision.

  “Yeah, well, what if this whole religion thing is a lie, and you know it. Who’s the real blasphemer then?”

  The Sector Chief blinked in disbelief. He’d never heard anyone say anything like this. The Board made an audible collective intake of breath. They glanced at each other in shock. The Chief struggled to reassert control.

  “What more evidence do we need? This man is a deviant of the most dangerous sort. He must be sanctioned and removed at once to Refrigeration Maintenance. Do we even need to discuss this? We’ve just heard him undermine the collective beliefs and security of the Homeland!”

  The Board all nodded gratefully. One of them, reacting at the last moment to the summary justice, meekly asked whether the youth truly understood the gravity of his situation. Did he realize this was tantamount to a death sentence?

  The Chief clamped his lips and rolled his eyes. But he didn’t have to worry.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. This whole thing is rigged. It’s you guys who don’t understand what’s happening. I’ll take my chances with the ice crews.”

  The Chief shook his head and without waiting bent and signed an order that lay before him on the committee table. Only then did he look around at the others. They gazed back in submissive silence, while over to the side Nat cast a prayer of thanksgiving to heaven. The Chief addressed Poll.

  “You are hereby sentenced to five years labor in the Refrigeration Plant Maintenance Crews. You will be taken into custody at once and transferred to a work camp under supervision of its personnel. If you survive your sentence there is the possibility of rehabilitation to the Homeland, depending on evidence of remorse. That is all.”

  He signaled to the officers who were standing behind Poll, then he folded his hands and watched them escort the tall youth out. It was highly unlikely he would ever see him again.

  The detail and their prisoner went by Bubble to a place Poll had not seen before, a building unlike the usual, thermally sealed living spaces of the Homeland. It was a big metal-sided hanger, the temperature inside more or less the same as the temperature outside. In the interior on the bare frozen ground were a number of windowless cement block houses. The impression was of a much more primitive style of housing than the TEPs. The moment Poll saw it and was hustled inside one of the cabins he almost cried out in excitement. The cabin was insulated inside by foil-covered layers of fiberglass, broken and patched in many places. It was lit by bare electric bulbs and furnished with wooden bunks and cupboards. Everything about them said another time, another world.

  “This is one of the original camps that built the Homeland,” Poll thought. “It's a step toward the truth.”

  His euphoria was short-lived. The harsh reality of what lay before him quickly overtook any intellectual satisfaction he felt. The temperature inside the cabin was not warm enough to replace body heat—the underfloor heating was weak and in some places non-functioning. The guards who took custody of him from the escort wore blankets over their therm-suits and the padding of these was scarred and repaired all-over. These guards were not much older than him, but their skin was gray under ragged hair and their eyes dead, except for the glint of cruelty which flickered as they took possession of the prisoner. Unlike the regular security who were rarely armed, and only with stun-guns, these carried weapons that looked like they could kill.

  The moment the escort left one of the guards hit Poll in the stomach and the other clubbed him as he went down.

  The first one jumped on his back and stayed there, yelling.

  “We know all about you boy-genius! If you’re so fucking smart how’d you end up on the floor, eh? Well get this straight, Sidak, one wrong move and you’re out on the tundra where you’ll be dead quicker ‘n it takes to know which way is home. Up there on the borders it snows about all the time, and snow ‘n ice tell no tales. No one will even know. And sure as hell no one here is going to come looking for you.”

  The other guard joined in. “Transport for the borders leaves at sun-up tomorrow and you’re on it with us, your new Mum and Dad. So get your ass over to one of those bunks and shut the fuck up or we’ll tuck you in again just like this!” He kicked Poll in the ribs for good measure.

  Later that night they brought in another poor wretch, an older man who looked terrified, and they did exactly the same thing to him.

  Poll lay on his bunk in vicious pain, without a blanket, frozen and unable to sleep. He felt only his pain was keeping him alive. He thought of his real Mum back in the TEP and his Dad who had died when he was a boy. There had been some kind of accident involving a faulty transport. His mother who lived a life of intense religious devotion did not talk about it. She simply repeated that the Bubble had broken down and his father died of hypothermia. Now he felt very close to the experience of his father and it brought him waves of fear. He fought them by thinking of Cal. He tried to keep her face before his mind. It was his one point of hope. He saw her steady, confident eyes, her quick, intuitive movements. He felt somehow she would stick by him. That’s how he survived the night.

  13. HOLY DAY

  Typically Benn would have been bathing in the delicious warmth of approaching glory, but this time he began 99th Day with very different feelings. Yesterday he’d done things he’d never come close to before. He contacted the Sector Security Chief and insisted that Poll Sidak was a most dangerous nonconformist, and there could be no discussion about him being excommunicated to the Borders. At the same time he’d requested an order that his daughter, Cal, be confined to the family TEP until further notice. The Chief had agreed to both his demands without question.

  Then there was the small matter of his missing son. Cal had informed him of what her two friends told her at the Worship Center, and he quickly contacted the supervisor at the Sports Center. The supervisor had received a private WIA message a short while before saying that all inquiries regarding Danny Anders and Liz Fleming should be referred to Entertainment and Information Programming. Benn knew immediately something important had happened. The EIP was an obscure body which managed the Word and Image programs. This was mostly standard transmissions, but every now and again there was something new—a story on some little known figure from pioneer times, an announcement of sports events or special food supplies, or very occasionally a piece on a sporting hero who had found such fame he or she had been granted privileged retirement status.

  Benn’s heart swelled with pride. His firmness with the deviant Poll had straightaway been rewarded. He phoned the number the supervisor gave him and after some delay he was put through to a representative who told him, yes, Danny had indeed been chosen for retirement status, and to expect a public announcement shortly.

  He felt a sense of zeal inside him, different from the religious sentiment that normally moved him. It was akin to anger, but more righteous. As if the holiness of the Holo-casts had entered inside him, full of resolve and power. He felt he was closer to God than he’d ever been. He downgraded in his mind the euphoria of the presentations; really it was a very secondary emotion. He would go ahead w
ith Day 99, but with an entirely new revelation of what religion was really about.

  ***

  Cal was informed of her house arrest directly and in Benn’s new-found manner that brooked no dissent. She did not try to argue but sat in silence until the family bed was released from its wall panel. She climbed in at once and zippered her hood. The next morning, during Ignition, Benn told her he would arrange for the Storm and Fire Holo-cast to be transmitted to the TEP, and she could participate in that way. His communication vehicle arrived and he was gone.

  She lay in bed listening to her Mom and sister breathing. Neither of them had to get up because there was no work or school that day, only the High Holy Day at the Worship Center. She knew Poll had been arrested and sentenced because she'd heard her father speak with the Security Chief confirming the tribunal proceedings. So there could be no turning back. If Poll was headed for the Icecamps she had to find a way to rescue him. He would, she was sure, seek some way to survive, but the camps had a brutal reputation and Poll was capable of creating lots more trouble for himself. He needed her. She also needed him. Their lives were intertwined, in a way deeper and more urgent than she could explain. It was all part of the huge upheaval that had changed her life unrecognizably in the space of three days.

  She felt stunned by everything that had taken place. The fragility of the Homeland's story had been exposed and it would never be put back together again. It was not the real world. Even her father’s ferocity somehow proved it. She thought of Danny. It was amazing how he’d been abducted at the very same time as she and Poll had discovered the existence of the other world. For there was no doubt in her mind. She'd seen it all in a flash when Esh had described Danny's contact. She'd pictured the man right there, like one of those smiling and happy people in the Worship Center video, and now he'd come to collect Danny and Liz. The way it had all happened, on the same day as finding the video, it seemed almost like something was guiding her and Poll. None of it was by accident.