“Actually, come to think of it, Lars does have a point,” said Jules. “As you know an altered genome merely increases potential. It is the familial and social conditions that actualise that potential. Suppose they do give birth to highly functioning children, will those children have the support necessary to realise their potential? I mean, what’s the point of curing genetic disease if the child is born in a war zone where they risk getting killed anyway?”
“Tshering and Sigyel know the problem. That’s why they have chosen six to begin with. They realise they must create a cohort. Sigyel has political ambitions. She knows that she must work to create an education system that can support a lift in IQ… I need a drink…” Freja walked to the fridge. “Coke anyone?”
“Corporate lackey,” teased Jules.
Freja held the familiar can in front of him. “Well?” she asked, calling his bluff. He shrugged and accepted it. “Look, you should at least meet them. See for yourself.”
“Why not?” Anaïs agreed. “You can raise these issues with them. I understand that one of them, Drolma, is quite interested in philosophy. Or maybe Bhutanese girls scare you. They may look demure in public but I understand that under the sheets they are vixens.” She held her hands up like claws and made a growling noise.
“Ha, ha, very funny.” Lars sighed; he knew he had lost the debate. “Okay, okay, we’ll meet them.”
The meeting happened a week later. They caught a taxi to the outskirts of Thimpu, to a typical Bhutanese farmhouse, and whilst this one did not have a phallus painted on the wall, it did have a rather large wooden one protruding over the front door.
The girls were not exactly what they had expected. Freja had told them about Akash’s first night with Tshering and Sigyel and they expected some quaint Bhutanese custom and women dressed in traditional clothes. These girls were dressed in jeans and spoke perfect English.
“I’m Drolma, the eldest,” said a broad faced girl of seventeen.
“The philosopher?” said Lars nervously, not knowing whether to shake her hand or give her a traditional European kiss to the cheek.
“And this is Tashi, Palden, sisters Sonam and Pema, and their cousin Tshering…” she said introducing five girls, all with broad smiling faces and ruddy cheeks, some taller, some broader - typical Bhutanese girls.
“We know another Tshering,” said Jules, before he realised it was a stupid point. There were lots of Tsherings in Bhutan, male and female. The Bhutanese had few names and used some for both boys and girls.
“We know, so do we,” said Drolma as the other girls giggled. “Now, Sigyel told us you have some concerns,” she said as she directed them into the house.
It was a surprisingly well appointed with a flat screen in the living area and a modern kitchen. “Whose house is this if you don’t mind me asking?” asked Lars as he looked around.
“My uncle’s,” said Palden, a short girl with her straight black hair tied in a thin ponytail. “He has gone east for the weekend. He trusts us.”
“Do they know about this?” asked Jules.
“Not completely, at least not the genetic engineering part. They know we’ll probably have boys over. Is this what makes you uncomfortable?” Drolma asked. “And sorry, do you want a drink or something? The kitchen is fully stocked.”
“Um no, not yet,” Lars answered looking at Jules who shook his head.
“It is what they did when they were our age,” said Tashi, a thinner, more petite girl with loose straight hair, wearing a pink T-shirt featuring the face of some Bollywood item girl. “This is not an issue in Bhutan.”
“It’s not really an issue in Sweden either,” said Lars.
“Or France,” said Jules.
“We’re just concerned about the pregnancy aspect. Who will look after the children? How will they be educated?” Lars added.
“And what about you? Don’t you want to have careers? What about you Drolma?” asked Jules.
She smiled and indicated for them to sit as the other girls sat on chairs or on the floor. “I see. Well, I want to go to university of course. But I think maybe you confuse Bhutan with Europe and your isolated, nuclear families. In Bhutan we have strong, extended families.”
“I myself was raised by my uncle and aunt. My mother worked in Thimpu. I never knew my father,” said Sonam, who was wearing an Oxford University Rugby sweatshirt, probably a clone made in India.
The girl called Tashi giggled. “No, her mother accepted many night callers…”
“Sonam could be my half-sister for all I know,” said Palden. “It is the way it is. I never knew my father.”
“You’ve been in Bhutan for a couple of months. We do not have the social problems of Europe, almost no crime, no rape. Don’t the people seem happy?” Drolma challenged them. “Where are all the social problems single mothers are supposed to cause?”
“Yes, Bhutan is a cohesive society. We value happiness over Western materialism,” Sonam added. “Would you not say it is materialism and alienation that causes the real social problems?”
Lars raised his eyebrows and looked over at Jules. These girls were bright and intellectually combative. “Yes, you are right. Bhutan disproves Western moral objections. So how do we proceed?”
Drolma smiled. “Sonam has weed, it grows wild on her mother’s land…”
“We have some rice wine,” said Tashi.
“And Western rock music,” added Palden.
“Let’s make this fun, a party,” said Tshering.
“Have you heard of strip poker Bhutan style?” asked Drolma.
Lars and Jules shook their heads.
“You keep going even after you have stripped, the winner of the hand dares the loser and the loser must accept the dare,” said Drolma. “It gets very interesting once everyone is naked.”
“But there are eight of us,” said Lars.
“And every Bhutanese house has more than one pack of cards. We play a game called marriage, it is uses three packs, perhaps we can teach you?”
“And who is the virgin?” asked Jules. “So we can be considerate.”
The girls laughed.
“See if you can guess,” dared Drolma. “Bet you can’t.”
“What music do you like?” said Tashi. “We like Euro trance.”
“And my uncle has a tschachus,” said Palden.
“A what?” asked Jules.
“A traditional hot spring.”
The morning air was brisk but bearable. It had been Drolma’s idea. They had been up all night and Lars was feeling tired without wanting to end the night. Jules was inside asleep, under blankets in a tangle of limbs. Throughout the night he kept encountering Drolma watching him carefully. There was definitely an attraction. Sex with her had been different, more intense.
She had taken him to the outbuilding that contained the hot spring, the cold air shocking their naked bodies as they ran from the farmhouse. They talked, mostly about childhoods and their hopes and dreams. Then they had dressed and walked out to a beautiful sunrise and a dew covered valley. She led him up into the white pines, the trees alive with birdsong.
“Perhaps I have not been as open with you as I should,” she said as she took his hand.
“What do you mean?”
“You have your secrets and we have ours. You are not the only ones with plans.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t…”
“Tshering has told us more than we have let on.”
“You know?”
“In a way Akash was naive. He is a good man. We will keep his secret but Tshering and Sigyel, we, have deeper loyalties.”
“To Bhutan?”
She shook her head. They came to a small opening and the sun lit her face, glinting off her traditional bead earrings. She looked beautiful. “No, to our lineage.”
He frowned. He knew that Tshering’s brother was an important religious figure but Drolma was suggesting something different. “I must admit that I don’t understand Bhutanese religio
n… I know that Tshering’s brother…”
“Have you heard the word terma?”
He shook his head.
“A terma is a piece of sacred knowledge that is hidden during periods of ignorance, to be uncovered at a time when it can be better understood.”
He was confused. Drolma came up to him and placed her hand on his chest. “It is not her brother. It is her mother who is the head of the lineage. She is a khandroma, a sky dancer, a female adept of the original religion Bon.”
“But I thought she was a Buddhist…”
“Yes, she is nyingma. They are two sides of the same thing. You can call her a shaman or a Bon witch if you like.”
He stood back, startled. “You, you are a witch?”
She laughed; a gentle, playful laugh. “Men such have a deep fear of witches, but your sister Freja is a Viking witch is she not? Isn’t she named after the patron goddess of witches?”
He was speechless, but he was also entranced.
“The question is, did Akash come here of his own free will or was he fated to come here? The Bon tradition carries many stories, especially of a time past, in which celestial beings walked the earth. They concealed terma, precious jewels of wisdom. One of those terma speaks of a time when we will again become like celestial beings.”
“The children? You think you will start a line of celestial beings?”
She shook her head with a faint smile. “Do not confuse metaphor with reality. But tell me, don’t you think our primitive ancestors would not see modern science as magic, as the work of gods? Think about it. Himalayan shamanism talks about sky dancers. And what are you Lars, the boy who is about to travel the stars?”
“Are you suggesting…?”
She shrugged and turned away from him. She was beautiful and he was becoming aroused, again. “Why not? If you can do it, why couldn’t other beings? Perhaps something like Buddhism is the truly universal religion? Wouldn’t logic dictate that other beings would come to similar conclusions about the nature of reality and of their own minds?”
“Perhaps they are atheists, rationalists?”
She nodded and turned back to face him. “But surely you know Buddhism is atheist, and have you studied Buddhist dialectics and logic?”
He shook his head that he had not. She walked toward him again. “Tshering will ensure our tradition will find a home on this new world of yours. Sigyel will ensure that it survives in Bhutan. Dark times lie ahead.” She kissed him and reached down to feel his erection. “Surely you must understand that Tshering is planning to initiate your sister. Why else did she accept her as Akash’s consort?”
“Why are you telling me this?”
She unzipped his jeans and freed his erection. “You Crickets thought you would control the agenda. You know Tshering’s mother has visions. She saw this. She also saw that I will conceive today. She also saw that you had an important role to play.”
He felt dizzy, as if she had hypnotised him. “And what if I refuse and tell Akash?”
She undid her jeans and stepped out of them. His erection hardened at the sight of her pubic hair. These Bhutanese girls were different, more matter-of-fact, not as conflicted about sex as European girls. “Who is to say Akash isn’t on Tshering’s side? After all, he has Pema and the soon to be. Won’t his loyalty be to his family?” She turned and walked to a white pine, bent forward, put her hands on the trunk for support and spread her legs, her vulva and anus in clear view.
“Are you suggesting?”
“Isn’t it every man’s secret wish? Besides, you may need the extra erotic excitement of transgressing the taboo. I am curious to experience it. Just ensure you ejaculate where you are supposed to.”
When they had finished she collapsed in a sitting position on the ground and sighed. “We have conceived.”
He lay down, his arms outspread, he was utterly exhausted, every last drop of semen had been sucked out of him by these Bon witches.
92
Eva
There was no doubt Akash and Aviva were cunning. The two cargo jumpers were being loaded in open view. They sat on two specially designed transport vehicles at the test facility. They could get away with it because they looked like the half-finished fuselages of any standard jet design, the stock and trade of an aerospace company. There was nothing about them to suggest they could jump light years from Earth.
She had paid meticulous attention to the detail, triple and quadruple checking the manifest, personally overseeing the loading of the equipment. When she received a last minute request for some surfboards and sporting equipment, she packed them herself, placing them near the hatch so they wouldn’t have to spend days searching for them.
When it had all been done she contacted Akash.
“Good,” he said. “They’re waiting on Eden so it’s a go ahead. We’ll launch in the dead zone. Minimum staff. When we confirm a successful landing, you can bring the passenger module to Bhutan.”
The dead zone was three in the morning; the time there was the least traffic on the roads or in the skies, before the early workers rose for their shifts. She had time to leave the facility and have a decent meal but she would wait. She was too anxious to eat anything except snacks from a vending machine.
At a quarter to three she walked around the carriers with two ground staff to check that all locks had been released. At five to three she sent them home. They would be in the cloakroom when it happened and they would leave at the other end of the complex. They might see something if they looked back but they were bound by a secrecy clause. At one minute to three Akash appeared on her handheld.
“All clear?” he asked.
“Yes, good to go,” she replied.
“Commence countdown.”
Even though her stomach was churning and she thought she might throw up, the whole thing was an anti-climax. The unpainted fuselages, minus wings and a tail, began to gently float off the carriers. There seemed to be a moment’s pause as the onboard computers adjusted to the slight addition to their mass and then they floated gently upwards, picking up speed exponentially. She had tears in her eyes. She had been up there. She had jumped and she couldn’t wait to jump again.
“I’ve lost sight of them,” she told Akash.
“Yes, everything seems perfect. This is getting to be routine.”
“ETA?”
“Two hours. You packed?”
“Ready to go.”
“See you in Thimphu.”
She returned to the office, turned off the lights and locked the doors. It would be the last time she would see it. She walked across the tarmac to a waiting executive jet painted in Drukair livery. This too was an illusion. The engines did not work and the wings and tail would be disassembled to provide valuable metals for Eden. She had registered a conventional flight path and everything was in order. As far as the civil and military authorities were concerned this was a legitimate purchase by Royal Bhutanese Airways and she was the registered pilot hired to deliver it (along with a fake crew). She climbed the combination door and ladder, hauled it up after her and made her way to the fake cockpit. She pulled out her personal tablet and put in headphones and began one of her favourite games, an aerial dogfight.
At half-past four her tablet screen showed a smiling Akash. “They’re coming in. Want to see?” The screen showed the now familiar scene of the Eden campsite. She could make out David, Prosperous and Anne to the left. The others must have been behind whoever was shooting the vid. There were whoops, yells and claps as two dots appeared in the sky. The dots grew larger as the image stabilising program tried to compensate for the shaky camera work. The dots grew larger until she could see the sun glint off the raw metal surface. There was hushed silence as the cargo fuselages turned slightly and then effortlessly touched down in exactly the place they were supposed to (thanks to an on-ground laser guidance system).
She heard clapping and cheering from the command centre as Akash spoke. “Okay Eva, you’re next. You are
cleared to go.”
It was still dark. Few people would see the slightly peculiar way the small executive jet taxied along the tarmac and the even stranger way it tried to mimic takeoff. Those who just happened to see the plane on the runway as they drove past on their way to work would think nothing of it.
The shortest route was east across Africa and Arabia. If she had been flying using conventional jet fuel she would have had to schedule a fuel stop. She booked one in Yemen, but she would never arrive. She had arranged for someone to tell them the flight had been forced to stop in Kenya. It was a simple ruse. In truth she didn’t need any fuel and she would continue on to Paro. Such a flight might take a normal jet around eighteen hours, but she had trimmed it down to a believable twelve. She would land at Paro in the dead of night.
There was nothing to do now but sleep and catch up on some of her favourite TV shows and movies.
She encountered turbulence on entry into Bhutan, a local storm. Paro was a notoriously difficult airport to negotiate but she had advantages. The powerful Shunyata computers calculated every deviation and made the necessary corrections. The thing could land in pitch-blackness.
Paro only operated during daylight hours but there was enough ambient light for her to pick out key buildings. The jumper drifted and corrected, drifted and corrected and then she felt the gentle thud of wheels on the tarmac. The plane taxied to its final destination, a birth next to Akash’s private jet. It would stay there until its final departure where it would look like just another private jet. She grabbed her overnight bag, opened the door and stepped out. She took a deep breath of crisp Himalayan air so different to the humid air of Brazil. A car was waiting. She would be in Thimpu in time for breakfast.
93
Torv
“Magnus Torv I believe, I’m commander Gyaltso.” The Terran held out his hand. She guessed he was in his sixties, greying, with a solid build, carrying a little too much weight around his waist. He also had a thick mustache curled at either end and his open necked shirt revealed a hairy chest. She was shocked. He looked like a gorilla.
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