New World Rising: A story of hope born out of tragedy

by Sloane, Lynette

  We arrived at Clydach Bay, West Wales in a matter of minutes. In the years to come I would look back on this day in fond remembrance. It was my perfect day, a day much like my pleasurable dream. Olan and I were happy; for a few hours we had neither worries nor concerns for the future; those few hours were all that mattered.

  We walked down the beach to the water’s edge. The day was far too cold to paddle so neither of us took off our hiking boots. The sky was blue with hardly a cloud, but the wintry breeze suggested that snow was on its way. As we walked along the shoreline, a larger wave pushed its way towards us. I lost my balance as I ran backwards trying to escape it, but Olan’s strong arms grabbed me, pulling me clear of the icy water. Unfortunately he overbalanced and we ended up sitting in a small rock pool. It was a good thing our clothing was waterproof. We exchanged glances and laughed aloud.

  We walked in silence for several minutes until we reached the end of the cove, then scrambled over the jagged rocks and up onto the short wiry grass at the top of the hill. We stood for a while watching a flock of colourful Mular birds swooping down looking for fish over the unusually still waters a few hundred metres out from the shoreline.

  I gazed back at the deserted beach. It was too late in the year for tourists to spoil our wonderful view with their brightly coloured beach umbrellas, inevitable ice cream vans, and screaming children. Beach culture hadn’t changed much in the last two hundred years. Our view was idyllic, a sight worthy of canvas and oil paints.

  “Bally, when I was a child this is what I imagined my homeworld would look like,” Olan said, with a smile, “but Howard says it is a great deal hotter, drier, and the scenery much more dramatic.”

  “Do you ever wish you’d hatched on your homeworld?” I asked him.

  He paused for a moment looking out towards the sea, “I’d love to travel there and experience it for myself, but no, I’m content here, and I’m happy I have you and Howard. My life has purpose. That’s what many people search for all their lives: purpose.”

  I slid my arm through his and joined his gaze towards the sea. A sudden icy breeze made me shiver. I was glad I was wearing suitable clothing. Olan was less able to endure the cold, so we used a com-link on my car-transponder to transfer into nearby Aberystwyth and wasted no time in finding a restaurant. The fresh sea air had made us both very hungry.

  Themed restaurants were becoming very popular. We chose one that tried to imitate the late twentieth century diners and ordered something called fish and chips (whatever that was). It was tasty enough but I suspected it wasn’t a very healthy option.

  After collecting the car from Clydach Bay we took the scenic and much slower route back home to Huddersfield, hardly reaching one hundred and fifty miles per hour on the older A Class road. Olan drove giving me more time to think, my mind being drawn back to the reality of what lay ahead.

  Day Five:

  After a fitful sleep, I awoke early the next morning feeling anxious. I couldn’t bear the thought of loosing Olan so soon. I quietly stepped out of bed onto the cold, wooden floor and crept over to the window placing my hand on the touch panel just to its left. The dark glass immediately cleared, allowing a panoramic view over the city.

  I imagined it must have been around seven-thirty as I could see the first rays of dawn—a lovely shade of burgundy, edged with black—reaching across the sky. In the distance, high above the city, a flock of Incar Birds were flying home after a night hunt. Shipped to earth from Ebsolum Nine late in the last century, their introduction into the echo system had been made necessary after owls, eagles, and other birds of prey had become extinct causing an imbalance in the food chain. As a result, the United Kingdom, and many other countries, had become overrun with rats, mice and all kinds of nasty insects.

  With a wingspan of up to two metres, Incar Birds were larger than their predecessors. They were nocturnal and hunted rats, mice, insects, and even the odd alley cat, but thankfully showed no interest in humans. The predatory Birds’ help had proved invaluable in keeping vermin in check and their journey way back to the hill-caves at dawn had become a familiar sight.

  The events of the week had been quite overwhelming and I was feeling unsettled. I wondered how Olan was, and how old he would appear this morning. It amazed me how his appearance continually changed. The knowledge that he wouldn’t be with us much longer gnawed away at me and I couldn’t bear to think of what the next few days would hold. I tried to push the thought of his demise out of my mind but failed miserably. How would I cope with loosing him? At barely five days old, he was nearer the end of his life than the beginning. It didn’t make sense; I couldn’t get mind around it.

  I chose a warm, one-piece trouser-tunic from my wardrobe and got dressed; it really was getting much colder of late. I wondered if the first snow flurries would arrive in time for Olan to see them.

  The ground underfoot was crisp with the early morning frost and I pulled my coat around me as I made my way over the lawn to the hovercar. I could have transferred to the art gallery but decided the drive over would help me think and work out my feelings.

  The janitor, a middle aged man with thinning hair and an expanding waistline, passed me in the hallway on my way to the studio. He smiled and gave me a cheery greeting but I was lost in my own thoughts and didn’t answer him.

  “Great, my invisibility cloak’s working,” he muttered a little sarcastically.

  “Oh sorry; it’s not. I was in my own world.”

  “Okay love, as long as you’re all right.”

  I nodded, ran up the stairway and unlocked my rented studio. This was an old building so I had used a traditional metal key. I stepped inside, glad to be alone; I didn’t feel up to company and polite, meaningless conversation.

  I was keen to start painting so quickly took off my coat and slung it over the back of an old, and not very comfortable chair. I’d found the chair on a rubbish tip and had wheeled it back here in an abandoned shopping trolley, hoping that nothing was living in its straw stuffing. Fortunately nothing was and the chair soon became a favourite, even though it was battered and threadbare in places.

  The studio building had once been a warehouse and so was quite large. My belongings seemed almost lost in its vastness, but the rent was cheap (a necessity right now). I had even lived here for a few months after Howard’s Taludian Fire Plant destroyed my previous flat, but it was far too cold to sleep in the studio during the winter months; the large windows were single glass, metal framed, and very draughty.

  I lit a portable gas fire and set up an easel in the window where there was plenty of natural light. Next, I grabbed a large, new canvass, several brushes, and a box of oil paints placing them on a freestanding table before dragging it over to the window near the easel.

  Something didn’t feel right. Caffeine, I thought. I haven’t had my morning fix. I walked over to my kitchen area and made a mug of strong, black coffee using a traditional kettle and not a replicator. The familiar caffeine rush soon made me feel human again.

  Unlike most of my paintings, today’s work was to be an abstract piece, combining my conflicting emotions: joy, excitement, uncertainty, anger, and the anticipation of impending loss. A tear ran down my face and I brushed it away angrily with the back of my hand. Life wasn’t fair. I loved Olan. It was strange and I didn’t understand it. When he was a child, I loved him as a mother loves her son. In the circumstances this might have been natural, but I was beginning to realise that I might be in love with him too—not the little boy who sat on my knee (that would have been creepy)—but the man he had become. This would be a secret love I would never disclose to anyone, not even Olan. The thought made me feel strange, but I reasoned that he appeared older that me, and he wasn’t my genetic son (still creepy?). I was confused and knew I wouldn’t have much time to work out my feelings.

  I selected a few oils, squeezed a blob of paint out of each tube onto a clean pallet, picked up my brush and began painting using wide brush strokes as I poured o
ut my emotions onto the canvass and merged them with the hues of a crimson sky, the wings of a silhouetted Incar bird dominating the foreground. I called it ‘Promise and Futility’, that is, the promise of youth versus the futility of life.

  I was so lost in my work that I initially dismissed the bleep of my mini-transponder. Mini-transponders were the must-have items of the day. They allowed the user free calls to anyone anywhere in the world. Another feature of the mini-transponder was that it enabled the user to transfer to the others person’s location in a terra-second, unless of course they had the firewall setting activated for privacy.

  Most people chose to wear their transponders attached to their clothing like a badge, but Chrissy and Howard had had one fitted inside a lovely platinum pendant and had given it me for my thirty-fifth Birthday, so I always wore it around my neck on a delicate platinum chain. The transponder bleeped again, the persistence of the caller returning me to reality.

  I touched my pendant with my left hand and heard Olan’s sleepy voice, “Bally where are you? Are you all right?”

  “Yea, I’m fine. I’m at the Art gallery. Do you need me at home.”

  “No everything’s okay. I’ll come to you.”

  Before I could finish washing my brushes I noticed a visual disturbance just to the side of my easel. It looked much like the sun’s heat rising over a desert. A vertical ray of light appeared in the midst of the distortion and Olan materialised in front of me. He stood there, a rather distinguished gentleman in his late fifties, a little thicker set than I’d seen him before. His hair was mostly grey, but his dark eyes were unmistakeable. I would always recognise him by those dark, deep pool eyes, no matter how old he appeared. I tried not to look surprised at his appearance, but I’m sure he noticed. However, he proved to have the good manners not to show it.

  “I wanted to see your work,” he said. “You’ve been a mother and a companion to me, and yet I know nothing of this part of your life.” Olan seemed to appreciate art and could interpret it well. He particularly liked the ‘Promise and Futility’ piece.

  “That’s my life from your prospective isn’t it,” he said quietly and thoughtfully. I couldn’t answer. I felt a little embarrassed to be touching on something so deeply personal. How could one sum up a life in a single painting?

  He continued, “Don’t feel badly for me, Bally. I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything. Your people live much longer lives than mine, but I have nevertheless experienced all that you do, childhood, youth, and middle age, and very soon I’ll experience old age. It’s just condensed for us, that’s all … a matter of perspective, so don’t be sad for me when I’m gone. I’ve accomplished much. I’ve left my mark on this world, and hopefully on mine too.” He paused, “I’m going back to the Research Centre today. There’s something I have to do, which, if I’m successful, will have a profound effect on my people. We’ll speak of it later … and I have some things I wish you to do for me.”

  “Of course, whatever you want, when will you be home?” I replied.

  “Quite late, so if you’re asleep we’ll talk in the morning. I hope I can spend the day with you tomorrow.”

  Instead of returning home, I spent the rest of the day putting the finishing touches to my paintings and headed back much later. When I stepped inside the apartment block I found that the turbo lift was out of action, again, so I had to take the stairs. By the time I reached the twenty-seventh floor I was exhausted. I stood in the scan-area allowing the computer to scan me. It recognised my DNA signature and the door opened. At least you can’t loose the key when you are the key I thought.

  I’d always considered this a very useful way of gaining access to the apartment, especially if my arms were full of paintings, brushes and the odd easel. I had programmed the computer to recognise Olan’s DNA signature too. I stepped inside and flopped down on the sofa to rest for a while, intending to catch up with a few friends on the com-phone, but instead I drifted into a deep sleep.

  Day Six:

  The next morning I was awakened by Olan ordering a hot drink from the food simulator.

  “Oh, Sorry Bally,” a much older looking Olan said, “I was going to let you sleep.”

  “What time’s it?” I asked.

  “Six-Thirty.”

  My friend’s lovely dark hair was now completely grey and he stooped a little as he stood. His complexion resembled that of a seventy or eighty year old, although he didn’t have too many wrinkles; he was still a handsome man.

  He carefully sat down in the sofa chair opposite me. “Bally I need to tell you some things.” He paused and looked into my eyes. I sat still and listened intently sensing the importance of what he was about to say. “My research is complete. I’ve made an important discovery that will prolong the lifespan of my species. It’s too complicated to explain how this will work, but it entails altering our genetic make up on a sub-atomic level. If such breakthroughs can be achieved in a few days just imagine what could be achieved by such a person in say ten years.”

  “Ten years,” I echoed, amazed and excited. “Then there’s hope for you. You can take the treatment.” My heart leapt. It sounded fantastic; I wasn’t going to loose Olan after all, well not for a decade or so. However, my excitement and relief only lasted a few seconds.

  “No Bally, it’s too late for me. The treatment has to be applied to each individual within the first few hours of hatching.”

  “But all those geniuses at the Research Centre. Surely one of them can do something to help you …” I paused for a second, then added persistantly, “While there’s breath there’s hope.” I couldn’t accept that the end was going to come so soon for Olan. A few day’s ago he had been a small child on my knee with his arms around my neck. I had been his substitute mum, yet now he was an old man, talking to me like a kindly grandfather.

  Olan leaned forward and gently took both my hands in his, explaining, “We have done everything there is to do. My life has been worthwhile. My people and your people have been helped. This is why I was brought here, why I was created.”

  I refused to believe what he was saying. Choking back my tears, I snatched my hands away from his and ran out of the room and into my sleeping quarters. In anger I swept my arm across my dressing table knocking nail varnish, perfumes and my hairbrush onto the floor followed by my freestanding, antique mirror. It was still dark outside and I hadn’t turned the bedroom light on. The hallway light cast a shaft of light into my room. I stood in it covering my face with my hands as the tears flowed freely.

  Olan followed me into my room still looking as calm as he had minutes before.

  “That’s one way of letting your emotions out, but it makes an awful mess,” he said, looking at my belongings strewn across my bedside rug.

  Feeling a little calmer and suddenly embarrassed at my outburst, I said, “I’m sorry. I was being selfish. You’ve more right to be angry about this than I do … yet you’re calm.”

  Olan took me in his arms and spoke softly, “I have peace about this. I have accepted who and what I am.”

  We stood silently for a few minutes then the significance of what he had said in the living area suddenly hit me. I pulled away from him a little so I could look up into his eyes and spoke more calmly, “You said you were created? That makes you sound like an experiment, like you were engineered in some way.”

  Olan sat on the edge on my bed, inviting me to sit beside him, which I did.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me Bally, all I ask is that you take my sister back to my home planet and help my people.”

  With all that had happened I had forgotten about the other egg. It was still in the hallway cupboard next to my aqua-suits. I looked slightly bemused.

  “Sister? How do you know it’s going to be female?”

  “Our gender is determined by the temperature at which each person’s birth egg has been kept, and the length of time that has passed since it was laid,” Olan explained, adding, “Can I see the egg
?”

  I nodded, stood up, took his hand, and led him to the hallway cupboard, opening the door and lifting off the bath towel I’d placed over the egg to keep it warm.

  Olan tenderly placed his hands on the egg palm down. He looked as if he might cry.

  “My sister … I wish I could have met you,” he whispered, his voice choked with emotion. “You will rule our people well.” He took his hands off the egg and looked back to me. “Will you take her to my homeworld … for me?”

  “Of course I will,” I promised, in that moment forgetting my apprehension of space travel.

  “I’ve recorded some instructions on this porta-disk,” Olan continued, taking a small rectangular disk out of his jacket pocket. “Slot this into the mainframe computer on my homeworld and you’ll find out everything you need to know. My sister will be the first one to receive the treatment.”

  Olan spent the rest of ‘day six’ with me at the apartment: Howard, Chrissy, and Dr. Dantzig joining us during the evening. We tried to appear cheerful for Olan’s sake, but we were all feeling rather sombre, as he was looking much older still: around ninety in human terms. No one mentioned it but we all knew that it was only a matter of time until the tide of life ebbed in on him and the unavoidable happened.

  Day Seven:

  Unable to sleep, I stayed up most of the night constantly checking on Olan to see how he was and if he needed anything. When day finally dawned I decided that it was time for Olan and me to transfer to the Research Centre as planned.

  Howard had pointed out to me, “How will you explain to the authorities that an elderly alien, who, incidentally, is not on the DNA database, has passed away in your apartment?”

  Howard and Dr. Dantzig were expecting us and had prepared a comfortable room for Olan. I sat by his bed and held his age-gnarled hand. I looked at my friend. His full head of hair was now completely white and had lost nearly all of its curl. His frame seemed so much smaller and his features were sunken, but his eyes resembled the same dark pools they always had and even seemed to have regained some of the sparkle that had been missing the day before. He tried to speak but I could hardly make out a word. His breathing was becoming irregular and he only had enough strength to whisper, so I leaned closer to him, my ear next to his mouth.