I have copied this report along with full records to the Shadow Director of the Interversal Criminal Tribunal in the hope that this atrocity will motivate the IU to engage fully in dealing with genocide. If we continue to stand by and do nothing, we will be as guilty as those who commit such acts. If you find this constitutes a breach of confidentiality, you may of course have my resignation.
Baheera om-challha Isnia
Deputy Director, Diplomatic Service
11. Group
Katie turned her head to face the median point of the group. “The individual is named Iokan Zalacte. His report of events on his world cannot be trusted.”
She looked straight ahead and said nothing else. Iokan turned to me, momentarily at a loss.
“Can you give us a bit more detail than that?” I asked.
She turned her head again. “Iokan reports that theistic intelligences which he terms ‘Antecessors’ revisited his planet two months ago, approximately three thousand years after departing during a cataclysm that destroyed their civilisation. He claims they offered his species transition to an afterlife if they committed suicide. Every individual on the planet save him accepted the offer.”
“Um… what’s a fayistic intelligence?” asked Pew.
“Theistic: adjective. Like or similar to a deity or god. Intelligence: noun. An intelligent being, particularly an incorporeal one. Theistic intelligence: noun phrase. A godlike, incorporeal intelligence.”
“Oh,” said Pew.
“I suppose that describes them… quite well,” said Iokan. “But you didn’t tell me you thought I was lying…”
“You did not ask for an opinion.”
Iokan nodded slowly. “…I see. Very well. So… why don’t you think I can be trusted?”
“You stated that you experienced an extreme emotional response upon contact with an ‘Antecessor’, and that your understanding of the universe changed in that moment. Religious revelation does not lead to a greater understanding of reality but instead to greater delusion. The ‘Antecessors’ are not deities but charlatans, and your species was tricked into extinction.”
“That’s not true,” smiled Iokan, turning to the group. “They’re real. I saw them myself — they came as balls of light, brighter than the stars. I saw them transform people. I saw my own wife and child join them.”
“You are delusional.”
“We did everything we could to verify their existence. And what they did was real. Everyone from my world is still alive. I can assure you of that.” He smiled with an earnest devotion.
Olivia snorted. “Well, that’s not the question, is it?”
“Do you have something to add, Olivia?” I asked.
“I want to know one thing. If his gods or whatever they were came back and got everyone to kill themselves, then why is he still alive?”
“Ah,” said Iokan, as everyone turned to him. “Yes. A very good point.”
“Yeh. Go on. Tell us,” said Olivia.
He considered his answer for a moment, looking around at the group. “It’s you,” he said.
“What…?”
“They sent me here to help you.” My heart sank. His therapy was going to be harder than I thought.
“What if I don’t want your help?” demanded Olivia.
“It’s freely offered,” he said.
“Why exactly do you think you’re here to help us?” I asked.
“What else can it be?” he said. “They were about to take me when your ship came down from orbit. They wanted someone to talk to the IU and tell them what happened. And then… to do whatever I could.”
“Told you that, did they?” said Olivia.
“They didn’t need to,” said Iokan.
I interceded before Olivia went too far. “Well. Thank you for that. We should move on. Iokan, I think you have a few things to say about Olivia?”
12. Olivia
Transcript
Expedition AWLG-296219-002
Recorded: HD y270.m4.w4.d3
[Mission Specialists Ewen, R and Tranouvir, DGS, were dispatched into a ruined city to conduct close range reconnaissance]
Ewen: I think it’s steam-driven.
Tranouvir: Steam? No way. Come on.
Commander: Context, please.
T: This vehicle. I mean, what’s left of this vehicle. You see it?
C: I see it.
T: Rab thinks it’s steam driven. What do you think?
E: It’s got a water tank and valves — look.
C: That’s not conclusive. Too corroded to tell.
E: It’s not advanced enough to be internal combustion. I don’t see anything like that.
C: We’ll need more for a precise tech status. How long has it been there?
T: It’s a mess… say ten years, give or take. Pretty basic steel compound and a lot of rain around here.
C: And no sign of inhabitants?
T: Not even a skeleton.
E: Skeletons would probably be gone after ten years as well. Scavengers would take it all.
C: Are the buildings safe to enter?
T: Let me check…
[Tranouvir attaches microseismic test device to an exterior wall]
T: It’s coming back stable. Brick and mortar over timber frame. Pretty standard around here. Should be safe, if the wood hasn’t rotted.
E: Timber lasts long enough. Concrete usually falls over first.
C: Take a look inside.
[Ewen and Tranouvir enter the building]
T: Less corrosion in here… what’s that fitting there?
E: Couldn’t tell you.
T: Take a look at this. See the pipes on the wall? And that… some kind of spigot or valve up there?
C: Are there any light sources in the room you can recognise?
T: Nothing electric. Just the windows.
C: That’s probably a gas pipe. The valve would be for lighting.
T: No. Seriously?
C: Some early tech civilisations burn methane or propane for lighting.
E: Oh… yeah. That’s it..
T: You’re kidding me. Explosive gases running indoors?
E: Better than nothing. Hey. Did you hear that?
T: Hear what?
E: Something in the back…
[Ewen moves further into the building]
E: I think we’ve found the locals.
T: Found what…? Oh.
C: Show me.
E: I’ve got human remains. I think… five.
T: Yeah. Five. Shit. What was making the noise?
E: I don’t know. Maybe we disturbed a rat or — oh crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap.
T: What?
C: What is it?
E: They’re warm. I’ve got a temperature of twenty degrees on all of them. That’s four above the air temperature! I think they’re alive…
T: Hold on. The heat might be decomposition. Maybe they died recently?
E: Look at the dust in here. Look at the dust on them! They’ve been here for weeks. The scavengers should have taken them by now.
T: What was that?
E: I heard it. By the door.
T: Yeah. I’ll… Oh. My. Shit.
E: They’re… oh no. They can’t be.
T: Run!
E: I’m —
T: For fuck’s sake, run!
E: They’ve got me! They’ve — [screams of pain, ripping sounds]
C: What’s happening?
T: They’re alive! They’re fucking alive!
E: Get it off get it off it’s eating me! [more screams]
[weapon discharge]
T: It’s off, let’s go —
E: I can’t walk —
T: I’ve got you.
[weapon discharge]
C: What are you shooting at?
[weapon discharge]
C: Repeat: what are you shooting at?
T: No. That can’t happen. That can’t happen.
C: Tranouvir, what are you shooting at?
/> T: They got up again. I shot them and they got up again.
E: They’re — [screams]
T: No! Get off him! Get off!
[weapon discharge]
T: Get— [screams]
[transmission ends]
13. Group
Iokan coughed. “It’s quite a story. And rather unpleasant.”
“Would anyone like some water?” asked Liss.
“I would, yes,” said Iokan, and she got him a glass.
“Just get on with it,” said Olivia.
Iokan finished his sip. “Apparently… as Olivia tells it… there were experiments, of a kind, done on pregnant women on her world, without the women knowing. And about eight months later, the women gave birth. But not in a natural way.
“The mothers fell ill, because the babies weren’t human. They chewed through their own umbilical cords, and then they… they ate their way out of their mothers. They were homunculi, they came out the size of babies but with adult proportions. And they were hungry.”
Iokan drank again. The others looked horrified or disgusted, except Katie (who didn’t care), and myself, Veofol and Kwame (who knew better).
“Once they came out, they attacked everyone around them, and ate them too. Especially the livers. They couldn’t be stopped, if you shot them they just kept going and healed their wounds as they went. And they grew fast, they were human sized within days — something to do with the livers. Some people had their livers eaten while the homunculi were growing back the limbs they’d hacked off.”
Pew gasped. Olivia watched with a cruel smile.
“People fought back, but by then there were millions of homunculi all over the world, and the humans had to hide. Olivia led a group of survivors into a cave, but they only just made it — she says she killed one of the creatures by strangling it with its own guts…”
“Ew!” said Liss.
Olivia snickered. Iokan carried on, troubled. “And she says they lived underground for months, until they gave up hope because everyone else was dead. They went outside one by one to die…” Olivia chuckled to herself again. Iokan resumed. “…some of them would even cut themselves open to make it easier for the creatures to take their livers and get it over with quickly — it seems incredible that people could do that just out of fear…”
“It seems incredible because it does not make sense. It does not make sense because she made it up,” said Kwame.
“Olivia. Was that really necessary?” I asked.
“Well, he’s so trusting, isn’t he?” said Olivia. “He’ll believe any nonsense you give him.”
“You lied?” said Iokan.
She shrugged. “Probably happened to someone, somewhere. In some universe.”
“But not to you.”
“No. What happened to me was worse. It wasn’t so quick.”
“Ah. I see,” he nodded. “Then I’m sorry. You must have been through something terrible.”
“That’s right. It was terrible. It was worse than terrible. But we didn’t all give up one day and jump off a cliff like your lot, we bloody well hung on until there was only me left and then I hung on by myself. For two years. And do you think this lot did anything to help?”
“Olivia,” I said.
“What?”
“Can you stick to the facts, please?”
“I haven’t bloody started! Do you want to know what happened on my world? The dead got up and walked, that’s what happened! And you bloody lot, you and your Interversal Union—”
“Olivia, please, if you want to accuse us of something, you can do that another time. All we need at the moment is for you to introduce yourself—”
“I’m talking! I’ve got a right to talk, you said—”
“You had the chance and instead you chose to play a trick on a sick man—”
“Excuse me? I don’t mind listening,” said Iokan.
Olivia carried on. “If you lot have to know what happened to me then I’m going to tell it, I’m not letting someone else mess it up. And then all this lot will understand how you lot” — she jabbed a finger at me and Veofol — “keep buggering up and leaving us to die.”
And now everyone was looking at me. I was going to have to let her talk. “All right, Olivia. Go on.”
“D’you know what a revenant is? It’s someone who comes back. From the dead. It’s not magic, it’s not gods, it’s a disease that gets inside you. It’s bacteria. You get infected and it lives inside you and it waits until you die. And then it takes over. You get up again and you don’t remember who you are. You’re just hungry. So they die, get up, bite people and get them infected, and that’s how it survives. That’s its life cycle. Only we didn’t know it was there until we all had it, because some fool put it in animal feed. You know what they’d do? They ground up all the bits of animals they couldn’t sell to butchers and fed ’em back to more animals. One infected animal gets in and a few years later cows are getting up after they’re slaughtered. And then people are getting up again. And then we had the cholera, and people were dropping like flies and coming back half an hour later and then everyone thinks it’s the end of the world. Only it wasn’t the end, oh no. That time we beat them.
“We spent twenty years trying to cure it but we didn’t have everything you had. We didn’t figure out antibiotics until it was too late, and then it was the wrong kind. Next time it was the flu that started it off, and that time we didn’t win. Millions of people all died at once and got up again and came for us. We got stuck in castles and compounds and little stations out in the middle of nowhere but it was too late and after ten years of that, people just gave up. And you know what happened then?
“That’s when you lot” — another finger jab at me — “turned up and half your boys got eaten. And did they stay around? Did they check to see if anyone else was left? No! They buggered off and didn’t come back until they’d found a cure. Which was two years later. And by then there wasn’t anyone left — except me. Because they’d all given up. Killed themselves. Or gone off outside and didn’t get a mile down the road before the revenants got up out of the hedges and grabbed ’em.” She gave me a hard look. “How many people do you think died because you lot didn’t want to risk your own necks?”
And then a pause while everyone looked back at me. Until Liss, of all people, raised her voice.
“It’s not her fault,” she said. Everyone turned to her and suddenly she was uncomfortable. “I mean, you can’t save everyone, can you? That’s what they used to say on my world.”
“I agree,” said Kwame. “You cannot blame Dr. Singh and you cannot blame the IU.”
“I bloody can. They ran away and left us to die,” said Olivia.
Iokan looked at me. “So she wasn’t making that up?”
“No. I’m afraid she wasn’t,” I replied.
“Could nothing be done?”
They all looked to me. “As I understand it, the expedition was ambushed by revenants. Most of them were killed before they had a chance to escape. Some of them died from their injuries on the way back and they—”
“Revenned,” said Olivia.
“They came back. When the ship returned to Hub there were only two survivors. They had to lock themselves in the control room because the rest of the crew, the revenants, kept trying to attack them. We’d never seen anything like it. We didn’t go back until we were sure of what we were dealing with.”
“Ancients…” said Iokan. “I see now.”
Olivia scowled at him. “Oh, do you?”
“How did you survive?”
She smiled cruelly. “Well… we couldn’t grow much of anything, and what we had in tins didn’t last long. But there was plenty of food walking around, wasn’t there?”
“I’m sorry…?”
“The dead ones. Revenants. Only they weren’t dead, not really. The bacteria kept them going and the meat stayed fresh for years. Just got a bit stringy, that’s all.”
“Do you mean to sa
y… you ate the dead?”
“I told you. They weren’t dead, not really.”
Iokan didn’t know what to say. Kwame did. “That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard,” he said.
“You’re horrible!” said Liss.
Olivia snapped back at her. “Well you try living by yourself on a patch of ground where you can’t grow a damn thing! I survived the hard way, not like you with your electric and your supermarkets, you lazy cow!”
“But— but— they left me all alone!”
“Oh, did they? You sure you didn’t eat them all after they dropped dead? You look like the type, butter wouldn’t melt one minute and cracking the bones for marrow the next…”
Liss recoiled, gasping, and fled the room. Olivia eyed an increasingly pale Iokan. “Ooh, and you know, now I think of it, I could really do with a calf joint, they always came up nice with a bit of rosemary, especially if you leave the juices running a bit…”
Iokan held his nerve. Pew did not. He clutched his mouth and ran for the door. We heard a nearby lavatory swish open. Olivia laughed.
“That’s enough,” I said. “The session’s over.”
PART TWO — INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
1. Asha
Working with the group of lone survivors had taken me away from my normal duties: the care of refugees from dead or dying worlds. Every few years we discover a universe in which the Earth has been struck by an asteroid, or burnt by a flood basalt eruption, or baked with gamma rays, or frozen in a sudden ice age, and that’s before you count all the ways humanity can destroy the world. Every human species is different, and sometimes it seems each one invents a new way to start an apocalypse.
In most of the worlds suffering some such disaster, millions of people would need to be transported to safety. Many of them would be injured, often both physically and psychologically. My usual task during an evacuation was to make psychiatric assessments of survivors who had been referred by the medical staff when they conducted their first triage of newcomers. Then, after the majority had moved on to empty worlds provided by the IU, I would conduct group and individual therapy with those who were too disturbed to join the rest of their species. For now, even that had wound down and we were fortunate enough to be able to devote resources to projects such as the group of lone survivors, though that was not the only factor motivating the creation of the group.
The Last Man on Earth Club Page 4