The Jovian Legacy

by Lilla Nicholas-Holt

  Megan approached a group of people who became aware of her presence, and keenly involved her in conversation. They knew who she was, as she was pretty much a celebrity since she and her clones had escaped from the wrath of the Jovian Secret Service. A man and his wife introduced themselves who had been passengers in a Cessna when it went missing in 1984. Larry and Helga Bitner told her they used to live in Arkansas and had planned to travel around America in their retirement. They had taken a scenic flight off to Somerset Island. They were halfway there when their pilot lost control of the Cessna. It had simply been pulled from its path and into Jovian airways, where the pilot was ‘led the way’ to land on Jovian soil. The runway was vast and had a rubber-like surface which slowed the plane down quickly, guided by millions of luminous green lights.

  The couple told Megan they took years to adjust to life without their loved ones, and still hoped to this day that they would one day be reunited. They showed her a photo of their daughter, their daughter’s husband and young family. The photo had been well handled.

  “It’s possible that that may happen,” Megan recklessly announced, knowing that Jack was working on a project at that moment. Though she was supposed to keep it a secret. The look on her new friends’ faces made her feel guilty for getting their hopes up, and immediately wished she hadn’t said anything.

  “Well, we should never stop striving for our hopes and dreams, should we?” she added, attempting to cover up but instead feeling herself redden. She excused herself and moved on to mingle with other guests, with the Bitners looking after her.

  As she socialised she took a look at Jack, who was still in deep conversation with the middle-aged man. His name was Carlos Dimitri and he’d taken on a contract with Mediterranean Shipping. He’d been away from his family and at sea for six weeks on an ore carrier. During that time he’d had word that his fiancée was expecting a baby, so started making plans to marry his sweetheart as soon as his ship docked at the Port of St George. The year was 1976, and he didn’t feel it was right that a baby should be born out of wedlock. He also didn’t want to continue his contract as it was dirty work, and he hated being away for weeks at a time from his immediate family let alone a new family. He still had four months to ride out on his contract. He was, in fact, in the middle of communicating with his fiancée over the R.T. when there was a sudden bang and everyone was flung forward. The carrier had hit something submerged and he thought it might have been a whale, or even a container that had fallen off another carrier ship. It was well known in bad weather that containers carrying various cargo fell off ships and (because containers had air trapped inside) they would bob about treacherously for weeks beneath the surface before sinking and taken by currents into the path of other ships in transit. Whatever it was was enough to put a giant hole in the side of the ship, which began to upend itself and Carlos was forced to jump, having barely enough time to scramble into a life vest before doing so. However, the force of the sinking ship sucked him under, and he knew he was drowning. He’d panicked when his lungs ached for air, and then strangely felt a calmness slowly envelope him even though he was still underwater. Then he found himself being sucked up to the surface and felt the sudden change in temperature as he was propelled out of the water and streamed skyward into a luminous green beam of light. The next thing he knew, he was being looked after by a team of nurses. He’d been rescued by the Jovian people. His child, he said, would be nearly twenty-five by now.

  “Carlos,” Jack began, “I want you to see your family again. I’m trying to set up a general communication link so that everyone will be able to see their loved ones over a computer screen. That’s what happened to me, how I first made contact with my folks. Now I’m trying to adapt that link for world-wide use. Keep this to yourself though okay, as it’s supposed to be kept under wraps. It’s in experimentation at this stage.”

  Carlos became very excited. “Can I help?” he offered, keen to be a part of it. Jack thought for a moment and said he’d definitely let him know if he could. Carlos made Jack promise to keep him informed on progress.

  Chapter 16

  Jack sat at his computer and decided to go on a ‘screening’. He logged in and keyed in the date ‘1st September 1981’ not really expecting anything to happen, as it was months before he’d even been born. Jack keyed in thirty minutes and hit the ‘enter’ key. On his computer screen he saw images of his parents in a doctor’s room.

  Cripes, their clothes are so old-fashioned, he thought, amused.

  The doctor had a jar of jellybeans on his desk; something that Jack used to see when he was a kid. The doctor spoke to his parents quietly, so he turned up the speakers. His mother was being handed a sheet of paper. Jack zoomed in on the sheet of paper, making out the heading: “List of Prospective Egg Donors”. Folios containing handwritten pages were open on the desk, each with a small photo of a woman’s smiling face fastened by a paperclip to the corner of the page. Jack thought they were CVs, as if the women were applying for a job.

  Why would they be applying for a job with my parents?

  His parents had seemingly reached some sort of agreement with one of the folios, and his father took out his fountain pen, signing something. It was the same fountain pen his father reserved for important documents, the pen that had its own special container and was kept in the old bureau.

  “What the…?” Jack said aloud. He watched as his parents stood up, his father shaking the doctor’s hand and thanking him. Jack followed their movements out of the door and along the corridor. His mother possessively clutched the folio, tucking it under her arm, her other arm threaded through Ben’s. Jack could hear his father saying that this would work out and before long they would have a family.

  A pang of fear shot through him and he quickly logged out. As he made his way outside to get some fresh air his mind was spinning.

  Egg donor? he wondered, confused, adamant that his parents had some explaining to do.

  That evening he told Megan he needed to talk to his parents alone but couldn’t tell her why. At first she was a little offended, but Jack assured her that it was merely something he had to do and not to worry.

  His parents were saying goodnight to the girls. Jack apologised for the hour, but said it was important and couldn’t wait.

  “OK you guys, there’s something I’ve seen today, and I need you to explain,” he began, nervousness setting in. “You need to sit down.” Nancy and Ben did so, and waited for him to continue, now curious..

  “I went on a screen journey today. I keyed in a date that was a few months before I was born. I didn’t actually think it would work, but it did,” Jack paused, stopping to observe their reaction.

  His parents glanced at each other, their expressions difficult to read.

  “I was taken into a doctor’s room where you both were and talking to a doctor, and he was talking to you about egg donors and showing you a list of donors.”

  His mother sighed heavily and slumped in her chair. She started to weep.

  Jack was taken aback. “Oh, Mum please don’t cry. I’m not angry, I just want to know why.”

  Ben Dunlop gave his wife a hug and handed her a clean handkerchief. He then turned to Jack and spoke with a look of sadness. “All right Son, I think we owe it to you. I’m sorry that you had to find out like this. After your mother had had three miscarriages during our first year of marriage, and then we’d lost your sister, Danielle, the doctors ran some tests and we discovered that if your mother had another baby there was a high chance the baby would be born with Canavan’s Disease. It’s genetic. After finding that out we knew we couldn’t bring another baby into the world, because if the baby was born with Canavan’s he or she wouldn’t live very long. The disease is caused by the lack of a particular, vital enzyme that leads to a defect in myelin, and myelin is needed to protect nerves and allow messages to reach the brain. Deterioration begins at only a few months old, and not many babies live beyond infancy. That’s what your siste
r had, we found out later. We were told at the time that she’d died of cot death. The doctors didn’t know then that it was Canavan’s. They had on her death certificate that she died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. When we found out that we couldn’t try for another baby we were devastated. Your mother and I were desperate for another baby, and when this option was offered we jumped at the chance. It doesn’t mean that we love you any the less. In fact, you’re very special to us. You were our miracle baby and we loved you to bits. And probably a bit over protective. Well, your mother was,” Ben said with a smile.

  “And…we were going to adopt Julia to make our family complete,” his mother added gently.

  Jack shook his head in an attempt to get his head around it all. “So, you aren’t my biological mother?” he asked her, feeling like his heart had just been wrenched out of his chest.

  “Jack, I carried you and I bore you. You are my son, that’s all that matters,” his mother assured him. “And also, your father is your biological father.”

  “Well, thank you for explaining it now, I guess,” Jack said, not really knowing what to say. He felt like he was sinking into his dark hole again. His father, knowing how sullen and depressed Jack could get, got up and poured them a drink.

  “Here you go Son, you’re old enough for one of these, and I think you deserve one,” Ben said as he handed Jack the alcoholic drink.

  It didn’t take much for Jack to become tiddly. “Well, at least I don’t have to drive home, aye?” he joked, the drink numbing how he was really feeling. “I don’t care if you’re not my real mum, I love you anyway,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and planting a kiss on her cheek.

  Around midnight Jack went quietly into the kitchen to make himself a coffee. He wasn’t ready to go to bed just yet; he wanted to do some more thinking.

  He spotted Megan in the lounge, waiting up for him. “Megan! My precious baby doll, how are you?” Jack asked, slurring a little.

  “You’ve been drinking!” Megan exclaimed, surprised, as she had never seen him inebriated before. She took his coffee mug from him, scared that he might drop it, and took over making the coffee. She also started to feel annoyed with him, and Jack noticed.

  He knew he’d better shut up, so he simply sat there on the kitchen chair, watching her spoon coffee into two mugs. When Megan turned to look at him because of the silence, he looked like a dopey kid that had been told to go into his time-out corner. There was a silly blank look on his face, his eyes as big as saucers.

  “There’s something I have to tell you, my love,” he said, his words running together.

  Megan thought the better of it. “Not now. Tell me in the morning after a good night’s sleep, okay?”

  “Okaley dokaley,” Jack answered obediently, a stupid grin on his face.

  It was late morning before a very dishevelled Jack traipsed into the kitchen. He sat across from Megan who had come in to join him.

  “Megan, I have to tell you,” he began.

  “Oh, oh!” Megan interrupted holding her hand to her nose and fanning the air. “Go and brush your teeth or have a gargle or something,” she protested, feeling quite ill.

  Nothing was going to phase Jack that morning, so after he’d done as Megan wished, he sat her down and went through the previous night’s discussions.

  After a couple of minutes of taking it all in, Megan jumped up cried out, “Oh my God!”

  “What?” Jack answered, startled.

  “We have no biological connections. Jack, we are not biological cousins!” she announced, elated.

  He looked at her blankly.

  “You know…for later-on stuff!” Megan elaborated with glee.

  Jack’s glazed look transformed into jubilant exhilaration.

  Chapter 17

  As the weeks went by, and Jack and Megan had an excited, newfound outlook concerning their future, everyone began to realise something quite interesting. Although the girls were clones and were their own mirror images, each one was developing her own unique personality.

  “How can that be possible when their genes are identical?” Megan quizzed.

  Jack was completely baffled by it all as well. “Search me.”

  “Maybe it’s God’s way of retaining some individuality in each of them and telling us that we can’t beat Mother Nature, no matter how hard we try,” Nancy said philosophically. Ben agreed, his eyebrows raised and lips in a thin line.

  Bo (Clone 19) was an enchanting little girl who loved to make paper clothes for her dollies, colouring each little paper garment in with her laser pens, sometimes creating a design way beyond her three years.

  Jack, Megan and Sobek had chosen Egyptian names for some of the girls. Akila was very outdoorsy and had a certain mischievous way about her. She loved to kick her ball, which was half her size, on the front lawn with anyone who was within kicking distance, and displayed endless energy in doing so. She loved playing practical jokes too, and one afternoon, quietly slipped into the kitchen when no-one was there, emptied the entire contents of the fridge including the racks, hiding everything in the cupboard. She turned the fridge off at the wall and climbed inside, leaving the door ajar so she still had air. Then she waited. For an hour she waited, until an unsuspecting kitchen staff member opened the door.

  “Yaah!” yelled Akila.

  The poor old dear farted in fright. The elderly cook must have been around a hundred in Jovian years, and didn’t think much of the antics of her young charge. Akila giggled hopelessly on the floor, even though she knew she’d probably get into trouble.

  Zesiro (meaning a twin) loved to listen to music. She had the uncanny knack of listening to a song once on the sound system and then singing the entire song after it had finished, remembering all the words. She had such a sweet little voice, and it was so nice to hear her singsong around the house all day.

  Cecile was a tomboy, so much so that Jack jokingly talked about renaming her Cecil, which, according to him, would have suited her better. She was their ‘lovable little ratbag’ as he put it. She showed a determination to get or do anything she wanted. Cecile would love to tinker with boy things and didn’t care if she got her clothes dirty. Her rough and tumble nature was softened by her love of cuddles.

  Then there was Chione. Sweet little Chione; quite the opposite of Cecile. Very girly-girly, who possessed everything pink and loved wearing princess dresses. She had a row of dolls all dressed in pink. Her dolls accompanied Bo’s dolls, adorned with their little paper dress creations. Chione loved to sit in their shared room for hours, redesigning her dolls’ pink dresses by gluing sequins in a variety of patterns to the material. They looked professionally done and were hard to imagine they had been done by a three-year-old.

  Kamilah loved to solve all kinds of puzzles. She could finish a nine-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle in a week, gluing each piece onto the board as she went, and then would hang the completed puzzle on her bedroom wall. One wall of her bedroom, which she shared with Akila, was covered with jigsaw puzzles, making it an interesting feature wall. Kamilah also had the knack of picking out a puzzle in which its colours blended with or complemented the colours of the puzzle hanging alongside it. Furthermore, if one looked at the wall for a while, the viewer would be able to see a shape of a giant heart formed from the combination of the puzzles.

  Kenza was a painter, and had her own special little place for her easel and paints. Rows of jars filled with brightly coloured paint would be ready for her to do as she pleased. Instead of using her brushes, sometimes she would be up to her elbows in paint, painting with her bare hands, on a large canvas board on the floor. Startling as it was, whatever she did, however she did it, her piece always turned out to be a remarkable piece of work. And her work attracted public attention. Jack and his family were blown away by her talent and were very proud to have an article written about her. Kenza became flavour of the month in the artist world, and offers to buy her work streamed in. Sweet little Kenza was quite oblivious to the
fuss and didn’t care two hoots about her popularity. As long as she was left alone to do her painting she was happy. She was endearing to watch. She almost danced as she swished her brushes or her hands over the board, and finish a two-by-two-metre painting in an hour, losing interest in it even faster, when she would be onto the next one. Megan or Nancy would quietly remove the painting and place it somewhere to dry before adding it to her collection in a viewing room for the public to purchase. The purchase money was placed in a trust fund that Jack’s father set up for her.

  In the evening when the little girls were all tucked up in bed and their rooms glowed a soft green hue from the nightlights, Jack, Megan, Ben, Nancy and Sobek spent a little time with each of them, giving them copious amounts of cuddles.

  Megan loved this time of the day, her little girls smelling so nice, still with their baby-soft skin. Although they were her clones, and would be geniuses in adulthood, she regarded them as her little sisters, and whom required love and caring like any other three-year-olds. To Megan they were typical energetic toddlers.

  One day Akila tripped over and landed on a jagged stone, which cut deep into her knee. Blood poured everywhere, and her sister Jonie attempted to carry her up to the house. It was heart-warming to see one little girl struggling to carry her sister, who sobbed her little heart out while holding her knee. Jonie wasn’t bothered about getting covered in Akila’s blood; she was crying too, not from pain but as a gesture of empathy over her sister’s suffering.

  It wasn’t unusual for one little girl to be sitting on Ben’s lap enjoying a cuddle when another would climb onto his lap as well, the first making room for the other, both sisters clutching his clothing as they nestled into him.

  For their fourth birthday they were each given a pet, which meant the family suddenly doubled in size. Kenza’s chimp was so humanlike that he sometimes painted with her, although the end result was a little different. It was great interaction, and something that few Earth-born children had the chance of ever experiencing.