The Ice People
Page 30
At that, the boys let me go so abruptly that I pitch forwards on my face. I become aware that the mood has changed. Two of the wild boys help me up. They have all gone quiet. They are staring at me, and looking at each other with suppressed excitement. I try to breathe deeply, gather myself.
Other boys are arriving, slipping through the shadows, weaving between the grey bodies of the Doves, their dull slumped heads, their flaccid wings. Twenty, thirty, more than I can count. Something is happening. A festival? Something is going to be celebrated. Perhaps my story, the end of my story. Yes, I am going to be celebrated.
Kit’s clever friend Jojo, the mouthy one, asks me a question I can’t understand. Do all the Doves’ functions decay with starvation? Functions, Doves, decay, starvation … I can’t seem to arrange these words in my mind, but I know that a lot depends on my answer. They have formed themselves into a makeshift ring, squashed between two long rows of robots. ‘Core functions,’ someone says through my lips, who knows what I knew long ago, ‘survive as long as the Dove survives, but at the expense of peripheral ones.’ This sounds amazingly good to me, but Kit hits me, hard, full in the mouth. ‘Yes is the answer,’ I say, spitting blood.
There’s a quick conference. Jojo speaks. He has the gift of language, unlike Kit; his early life must have been inside. He is trying to sound adult and grand. Why is my breath so fast, so tight? He is giving me the decision of the Chiefboys. ‘You have a choice, old man –’
That’s always fatal. I’m human, aren’t I? We can’t handle choice. I must make myself listen to what he is saying.
He’s saying it again, as if I am stupid. ‘Go outside and be termed by the sword, or stay here and die at the hands of the Doves.’
I look at him dumbly. Doves have wings, not hands. My mother and father thought words mattered – But behind the words, something huge, choking. Has it really come? Is it here at last, the final moment when my whole life will fall into a pattern, when I shall see, when I’ll understand?
‘Dora wouldn’t hurt me,’ I say, foolishly.
‘Dora will eat you when you give the order,’ Jojo assures me. ‘SD and R is a core function. Dora will paralyse you and eat you.’
‘She no be hungry any more,’ Kit interrupts, snickering, jeering. ‘You do your work. Fucking keep her alive.’
I look at Dora. Her kind blue eyes, the lizard thickness of her lustreless lids, the bald patches among her feathers. I think, I don’t want to keep the Doves alive. They were toys, really, no more than that. Our brains could never give the spark of freedom that sets it all dancing, diversifying, growing more detailed all the time, not less –
Besides, I am very fond of Dora. I’d rather we ended our days on good terms.
I stroke the stubbly mound of her tummy. ‘Goodbye, old girl,’ I say, shyly. ‘It’s been a pleasure, travelling with you. Now I just have to step outside.’
Her voice warbles back, effortful. ‘I like you too. May I come with you?’
‘I think we’ve come to the end of the road.’ I get up, and stretch, and prepare myself. I am sixty years old, but tough as leather. ‘Outside,’ I say in my own strong voice, not the dry weak voice of a few moments before. Then I shout it out, so they all may hear me. ‘Outside, lads. I prefer outside. Give me a sword. I’ll be a Man.’
I tap Dora gently on the shoulder in passing.
I, Saul, Teller of Tales …
My heart is beating a great tattoo. The boys surround me, respectful, attentive, the drift of their movement bearing me onwards though no one actually touches me yet. The grey dead light is being overwhelmed by the growing glow of the day outside, and as we pass through the door of the hangar together, a narrowing stream of human beings, the cold strikes first, and then the beauty, the amazing beauty of the end of day, the harrowing beauty of my last day. A great wheel of birds comes turning across it, thousands of them blown in from the sea. They’re coming back slowly, the birds, the foxes, paws, clawmarks printing the ice. And there, wider, higher than the towers, is the radiance beyond the horizon. The ring of fire, then the ring of ice. And somewhere, across the snowfields, it’s coming –
I, Saul, Teller of Tales, Keeper of Doves, Slayer of Wolves, tell you the story of my times. Of the best of days, and the last of days. For whoever may read it. Whoever can read.
I could run away, but I pick up my sword, and wait for the swordsmen to celebrate me.
I have lived my Day.
Yes, I am ready.
Praise for The Ice People
‘Excellent … intelligent, driven, imaginative, obsessive yet still gracious, one of our best … Exciting stuff.’
Fay Weldon
‘Ambitious and subtle … She writes elegantly, unsentimentally, expertly … The Ice People works persuasively as science fiction, and is truthful about our emotional lives.’
Nicolette Jones, The Independent
‘Infused with poetic intensity … this is a gripping fictional realisation of what we fear: the death of civilisation. Maggie Gee achieves her apocalyptic vision without the clank of hardware and intergalactic wars. Her detail is precise and controlled and her beautifully orchestrated whisper of redemption is rooted in eternal myth.’
Elizabeth Buchan, The Times
An intriguing novel of ideas, fully fleshed out … Classy science fiction.’
Judith Cook, Mail on Sunday
‘Not one to shirk the larger issues – gender segregation, racial divisions and environmental catastrophe – Maggie Gee has gone straight for the jugular in her latest novel. Set in a cold and brutally Darwinian future … Gee’s tale shifts seamlessly between the close and dawn of the next century … Gee has deftly thrown the inhabitants of our future into a game of survival in which every human tension is accelerated … Gee’s futuristic backdrop allows her to stretch her creative wings beautifully.’
Tanis Taylor, Time Out
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Part One
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Part Two
13
14
15
16
17
Part Three
18
19
20