The Seven Gifts

by John Mellor

  He turned to the Angel, who was leaning over the transom checking the tension of the warps.

  “The third story is about awareness, isn't it?" He didn't wait for confirmation but carried straight on: “Awareness of one's own life and the lives of others. Awareness of relationships; needs and fears, love and sorrow. Awareness of space and time; events; death, and what lies beyond it. Awareness . . . consciousness.

  “I think the third gift was Consciousness."

  “Yes," the Angel confirmed, straightening up from the transom. “CONSCIOUSNESS was the guardian's third gift to the Earth.

  “The first was SPACE - in which it could exist; the second was TIME - in which it could change; and the third was CONSCIOUSNESS - in which it could know.

  “These first three gifts give the Earth form and structure, enabling it to create a suitable environment in which people can evolve and then grow. The remaining four define its future, and give the people their purpose." Then the boat stopped dead, the trawl warps twanging in the water astern of them. The boy grinned.

  “I think you've just found us a rock."

  “Oh well," the Angel sighed. “I should have been aware of that, I suppose." She laughed. “Let's haul the gear then and see if we've caught anything for our tea."

  o ------------------------ o

  ~ The Fourth Gift ~

  Flight of a Honey Bee

  HENRY WAS a small, anthropomorphic honey bee. He had a startling black and yellow body, covered with hairs for trapping pollen, and four hard-working, whirring wings. He also had five eyes, two feelers, six legs, three skins, four lips, four Malphigian tubes, two mandibular glands, two salivary glands, eight wax glands, three body segments, a very large multiple brain, and a sting - among other things. He was, for all his apparent insignificance, a complex little creature. He was also - being a worker bee - technically a ‘she', although sexually undeveloped. However, Henry was an aggressive little honey bee, always buzzing around, shouting and telling the other bees what to do; which masculine trait explains both name and pronoun.

  Whenever a worker bee returned to the hive after a hard day searching for nectar, she would perform a ritual dance to show the others where the best nectar was. Henry was always around at this time, and the moment he deduced from the dance where the nectar was he would zoom off at great speed, cussing and buzzing, little wings whirring madly as he strove to get ahead of all the others. If another bee tried to overtake him, Henry would peel off like a fighter-bomber and attack from above, buzzing with fury. Henry always got to the nectar first.

  The other bees grew fed up with Henry, and one day they sent a deputation to the Queen Bee, asking her to get rid of him. If she could trap him inside one of the empty cells in the hive, they said, they could all gang up and cement him in with propolis. He would die slowly and painfully from suffocation.

  But the Queen Bee was a good and just Queen. She knew that two wrongs did not make a right. However unpleasant Henry might be, it would not do the other bees any good to behave in the same way. It was better that they should attempt to pull Henry's behaviour up to the level of theirs rather than allow him to drag theirs down to the level of his. This advice, however, worthy though it was, turned out to be rather theoretical; which is to say that all efforts to achieve it failed miserably.

  Something clearly had to be done about Henry, before the other bees took the law into their own hands. The Queen Bee had tried speaking to him personally about his behaviour, but he just did not seem to realise (or want to realise) what he was doing. He wanted to be first into everything, and that was that. The Queen did not know what to do about him.

  Finally she decided to go to the Snow Queen for advice. The Snow Queen was very fond of her bees, and even fonder of their honey. She did not want anything upsetting them and reducing her harvest. And she had little patience with anything, or anyone, that prevented her from getting what she wanted.

  “That darned Henry," she scowled, for she knew him well. He was a menace whenever she went out into the garden, always buzzing about and getting in her way. If he had not been such a good worker she would have sprayed him with pesticide long ago. She could well understand him upsetting the other bees. Worker or no worker, she could happily dispense with his services, for a little while at least. Mind you, her dislike of Henry was reciprocated - he would get in an absolute frenzy when she chased him with the fly-swatter. “And all I'm doing is going about my business," he would grumble. There was no love lost between the Snow Queen and Henry the honey bee.

  But the Queen had an idea for removing him for a while, something that would utilise his energies and at the same time give them all a little peace in the garden.

  She decided to make him the pilot of a space probe that the kingdom was launching the following week. Its mission was to explore a strange planet far away on the other side of the galaxy, and return with as much information as it could. They had failed to learn anything about it from their telescopes, as all the signals they had directed towards it had returned exactly as they had left. It was as though the planet were a huge reflector.

  The mission would take a very, very long time. Henry would be the ideal pilot. And it would settle the discontent among the other bees.

  And so it was.

  With Henry blasted off into space, life in the beehive became peaceful once more. The Queen laid her eggs, and the workers scurried about collecting nectar and pollinating the flowers. They soon forgot about Henry.

  Henry sat in the control room of the tiny spaceship and twiddled his wings. He was bored. There was nothing for him to do all day but check the instruments and rework the occasional calculation. And he was lonely, with no-one to shout at or bully. He wished he was back in the hive. That abominable Snow Queen had a lot to answer for. He would get his own back on her one day.

  And so the days passed, so many of them, and Henry sat in his control room twiddling his wings and staring at the passing stars. They all looked the same. Everything looked the same. Henry was fed up.

  Then finally one day the little space-craft began slowing down. Henry leapt to his feet and stared out of the porthole. Right ahead of him was a planet, that grew larger even as he watched. This must be it, he thought. His little hairy black and yellow body quivered with excitement. Something to do at last. Someone to talk to?

  It was an odd-looking planet. He couldn't make out any discernible features at all. It was almost like a sketch - a rough outline. But it was there. He would soon find out all about it, then he could get off back home where he belonged. He would buzz that Snow Queen till she went mad. It was a pleasant thought.

  Very shortly the spaceship landed, and Henry climbed out to have a look round.

  Strange, he thought. He couldn't actually see anything. It was not that he was blind; he could see all right. He could see his spaceship, and he could see his boots. But he could not see anything on the planet. No hills or streams, no flowers or birds, no grass, not even any ground. He couldn't actually see any planet, and yet he knew he was on it because there he was, standing right next to his spaceship. It was very odd.

  Any other honey bee would probably have gone back to the spaceship and sat down with a cup of tea to think about it. Not Henry.

  He looked around him, then bellowed at the top of his voice: “What the hell's going on here, then?"

  The reaction was both unexpected and violent. Henry found himself lying flat on his back with a deep, booming voice reverberating in his ears:

  “What the hell do you think is going on here?"

  Henry came up buzzing angrily, fists waving in the air; shadow-boxing, for there was no-one there. He stood still for a moment, mystified, and glared around him. But there was no-one to be seen, not even a planet. There was just Henry and his spaceship, perched on a planet that he could not see. And somewhere a voice, that must have come from something he also could not see. He felt a tiny shiver of, not quite fear, but something close to it.

  But Henr
y was no coward. He squared his shoulders defiantly and called again:

  “Who the hell are you, anyway?"

  He was back on the ground, ears ringing with pain.

  “Who the damned hell do you suppose you might be?" the voice was saying slowly, in harsh, biting tones.

  Henry was frightened now. This was quite beyond his ken. But he was also angry. And he could see a large stone lying by his hand.

  He leapt to his feet and grabbed the stone, then hurled it mightily in the direction he thought the voice had come from.

  “Cop hold of that then," he yelled, and braced himself for a reply.

  For a very long moment nothing happened. Then he heard the voice, low and menacing:

  “I did, and you can have it back."

  Henry felt a crash on the back of his head; stars flew round in his eyes, then he fell to the ground unconscious. The spaceship watched him, but said nothing. As did the little man.

  Henry came to lying on the ground where he had fallen. His head felt as though he had run into a brick wall, and his temper was not one bit improved. He sat up and looked around him. Nothing; not even the planet that his feet told him he was standing on. Just the spaceship standing there, silent and impassive.

  He looked at the spaceship, then stared hard at it for some minutes.

  That's it, he thought. That's it! His eyes gleamed with sudden recognition. Then he jumped to his feet, pointing at the spaceship.

  “You!" he yelled, his voice quivering with anger. “You're the culprit. Those blasted bees rigged all this, set me up for you. Just 'cos they don't like me." He cast around wildly for another rock to hurl at the spaceship. The little bee was shaking with rage. The spaceship sat on its legs, unmoving and unmoved.

  Then the voice returned.

  “Here's a rock, you stupid little cretin." The voice was laughing at Henry, who stood rigid, rock forgotten, staring at the spaceship. But the voice did not come from the spaceship. Its next utterance made that chillingly obvious.

  “Here's a nice big rock," the voice chortled maliciously. “Throw it at your spaceship. Wreck it. Then you'll be stuck here forever."

  Henry could feel a large boulder pushing its way into his hand. He stood stock still, petrified, willing the thing to go away.

  The voice cackled.

  “Lost your bottle, Henry? D'you want me to throw it for you? I'll smash that spaceship into a thousand pieces, then there'll be just you and me, till eternity. What d'you say, Henry?"

  Henry found his voice.

  “Please," he pleaded. “Please don't. I want my spaceship. I want to go home. I'm sorry if I've upset you. I promise I won't do it again." He collapsed into a flood of tears.

  “Don't cry," said the voice gently. “No-one will hurt your spaceship, or you. I'm sorry I spoke so harshly to you. You are welcome on this planet."

  It was a few moments before Henry registered what the voice had said. And the way it had said it.

  But he missed its sincerity. Which was a pity.

  Damn thing's taking the mickey, he thought. Nobody takes the mickey out of me.

  Henry slowly turned round and stood, hands on hips, staring into the empty nothingness from which the voice had seemed to come.

  “Are you taking the mick?" he growled, truculent as ever.

  The voice laughed: a cold, cynical laugh with no humour whatever. It was no longer gentle.

  “Taking the mick?" it snorted. “Out of you? A big tough honey bee like you? Just because you were on your belly, grovelling and snivelling like a baby? Why should I bother taking the mickey out of a cowardly little squirt like you?" The laugh was chopped abruptly.

  Henry's anger now was cold and malignant.

  “I'll throttle you," he snarled, his voice rising with his fury. “Show yourself you little rat, and I'll ki ....." His words ended in a strangled gasp. He could see nothing, but strong hands were round his throat, squeezing the life out of him.

  Henry struggled, desperately trying to free the invisible grip from his throat. He buzzed his wings and hit out with his arms and legs. But the grip just tightened. He felt himself go dizzy. Henry knew he was going to die, and with that last thought in his head, he blacked out.

  “You don't learn, do you?" the little old man said, not unkindly, when Henry woke up. Henry shook his head and looked around him.

  “Am I dead?" he quavered.

  “No, you're not dead," said the little old man. “Just a bit hard to teach, that's all."

  Henry looked at him, then at his spaceship, then back to the little old man. He started. The old man looked real. It was the first thing the worn-out little honey bee had seen since arriving on that dreadful planet.

  “Are you real?" he asked, in bewilderment.

  “Yes, I'm real," the old man replied. “I live here. I'm the only living thing, nay the only any thing on this planet. In fact," he went on, “even the planet isn't really here. There's only me. And those, like you, who visit."

  Henry was taken aback. He must be the voice then, he thought. But that didn't make sense. How could that weedy little old man be The Voice? Someone was playing tricks on him. He began to feel annoyed, and was about to shout at the old man, when something seemed to click in his little brain. He fought down his temper, glancing anxiously around him. It had suddenly dawned on him that it was his anger that seemed to rile The Voice. He didn't want any more of that.

  He looked at the old man. He was a very ordinary, featureless sort of little old man; there was nothing about him you could actually describe as such. He was just a little old man, and he was there. That was all Henry could say. He couldn't think of anything at all to say to the little old man. In fact, he was decidedly wary of opening his mouth at all. It seemed to have brought him nothing but trouble every time he had done. So he just stood and looked at the little old man, and waited for something to happen.

  For a long time a rather worried little honey bee and a featureless little old man stood on a planet that wasn't really there, and gazed at each other. Which was fine for the little old man as time had no meaning for him. It was also fine by Henry, who was determined not to initiate anything ever again while he was stuck on this weird planet. In fact, he would think twice about initiating anything ever again wherever he was. Who knew where that voice could reach? Way across the Universe to his beehive, perhaps? The possibility worried him. He tried to be casual. Why should he care who got the first lot of nectar anyway? It didn't really matter very much, did it? And he decided that it was really rather boring buzzing the Snow Queen. In fact, there seemed a lot to be said for simply being pleasant.

  The little old man spoke.

  “Are you learning, Henry?"

  Dumbfounded, Henry nodded. What was this little old man? What was this planet, anyway?"

  “I am the only person unaffected by the qualities of this planet," the old man went on, as if half in answer to Henry's unspoken question. “The planet as such does not exist. Neither does anything on it. Nevertheless, it can be felt. You can land your spaceship on it, and walk on it, as you have done. And yet it does nothing. It neither grows nor moves, nor lives nor dies. It circles nothing and nothing circles it. And yet it has purpose. You have seen that purpose.

  Henry nodded. “I think I have," he said. “It seems to, sort of, shout back at me every time I shout. And when I was sorry, it was kind, and I thought it was taking the mickey, so it did. It seems to sort of reflect what I do. Is that right?" There was no brashness in his voice, no trace of annoyance.

  “This is the Land of Mirrors," the old man said. “It reflects the qualities of everything that happens to it. It has no identity of its own. If you are angry with it, it will be angry with you. If you are kind to it, it will be kind in return. All those who come to the Land of Mirrors see only themselves. Did you like what you saw, Henry?"

  “No," said Henry humbly.

  “Then neither will others," said the old man.

  “Yes," said Henry. “I see wh
at you mean."

  “You must learn to behave to others," said the old man, “as you would have them behave to you. That way you can all live peaceably."

  Henry nodded. “There's logic in that," he said.

  “Well, if you've learnt your lesson," said the old man, “then it's time for you to go home."

  “Good idea," said Henry. “There's someone I want to see back there. On second thoughts, perhaps you should see her." And off he went.

  Two weeks later Henry arrived home. He had quite enjoyed the return journey, watching the stars buzzing past his porthole. And he had pottered about happily doing his checks and calculations. He felt distinctly at peace with the world as he stepped out of the spaceship to a tumultuous welcome from the citizens of the Snow Queen's kingdom. And then the Queen arrived.

  She did not bother saying ‘Hello' or ‘How are you?', and Henry could see greed written all over her face before she even opened her mouth. She did not disappoint him.

  “Well?" It was more a demand than a question. “What's it got? Minerals? Diamonds? Gold? Furs? Skins?" The Queen's eyes glinted as she reeled off the list.

  I should have expected all this, thought Henry. It must have been his new-found good nature that made him surprised. It was certainly his new-found good nature that stopped him being rude.

  “Does anyone live there?" the Queen went on. “What have they got? Spices? Silks? Weapons? How many battlecruisers would we need to conquer them?"

  Henry did not quite know how to handle this, so he said nothing. Which, of course, absolutely infuriated the Snow Queen. She turned puce.

  “Come on, bee, out with it!" she yelled. “What did you find out about the place? Do I have to drag it out of you? Can't anyone do a decent job of anything round here except me?" That gave Henry an idea.