by Geoff Ryman
Mike Stone finished, and looked up at Milena as a little boy would, eyes full of expectant trust.
'Clown,' she pronounced him.
The birds of the garden whooped and whistled. Outside, the sun was rising over the Earth, a sudden diamond-burst of light. Christian Soldier lowered a blue-tinged cornea over the window as a filter. A crescent of blue appeared along the rim of the Earth. The sun seemed to have been laid by the Earth. The sun was a round, white, cold blue egg nestling in mist.
Milena found that she wished she could stay there, with the Earth and the birds and the music. The stars looked like a fall of snow, suspended.
Then, down to Earth.
Stars seemed to be falling out of a slate-blue sky. It was snowing. Milena remembered walking along the Cut some time during the week of her return. Snow was filling in the tracks made by the stalls, hissing gently as it landed.
The stalls had been pulled to one side, and folded shut. Only the coffee vendor was still open. He stood in the light of the Cut's one street lamp, stomping his feet to keep warm, and shouting: 'Coffee! Coffee for health!'
Everything smelled of coffee. The snow on the ground smelled of coffee. It was splattered with it and stained. A man bustled past Milena, his fawn-coloured coat mottled with coffee. He wore a facemask that was soaked with it.
There was a curious, raucous wail from an upstairs window: the Baby Woman. Everyone knew about her. She and her infant had both become ill with a sudden fever. The baby died in the night, and the mother awoke in the morning with the mind of her child. She lay in bed all day in diapers and howled. Her husband was often seen about the Cut. His stare was hollow and uncomprehending.
The apothecary viruses had mutated. They collected complete mental patterns and transferred them. They were contagious. One personality could obliterate another. It had not been obvious at first. Even the summer before, Milena had heard of an ageing actor of the Zoo who had woken up convinced he was a young and handsome Animal. He had howled, sobbing, when he saw himself in a mirror. The sickness became more noticeable when people began to bark or meow. Someone had tried to fly, leaping off the Hungerford Bridge. The viruses transferred information between species. People thought they were birds, or cats.
The old concrete arcade along one side of the Cut had been demolished. A rhinocerous hump of Coral was growing out of it, amid the stalks of dead nettles. Milena saw a sheet of black resin. There were Bees huddled under it, kneeling as if in prayer. They had lifted up a paving stone and were looking at the earth underneath it, and jittering in place with the cold.
'Oyster trails,' one of them whispered, scooping sand and snow aside with his hands..
'Old cigarettes,' said a woman's voice.
'Cold earthworms!' they all suddenly yelped together and laughed.
One of them was wearing a sequined jacket, and other Bees licked his ears and murmured to his soft blonde hair. He was the King, the King from Love's Labour's Lost.
The Bees flinched as Milena approached. They ducked and almost but not quite looked at her out of the corners of their eyes.
'Hello, Billy,' said Milena, gently. 'Billy, remember me? I'm Milena. Constable Dull, an't shall please you?'
'Lo, Ma,' he said, smiling vaguely, not looking at her. The others clustered more closely about him.
The Bees protected themselves by staying in groups and focusing their attention all together on the same things. They protected themselves from life, too much life all at once. If a horse, a huge and muscled, sweating and snorting beast, passed the Bees and they were unprepared, they could faint. Milena had once seen that happen, a nest of Bees collapsing in unison. She had seen Bees kissing the cobbles where a pigeon had been crushed by the wheels of a cart.
'What's it like, Billy?' Milena asked him.
'It's in lines,' he said, still without looking at her. 'All in lines.' He looked up, as if at the stars, snow-flakes on his eyelashes.
An empathy virus had mutated. It stimulated sympathetic imagination. Nurses, Health Visitors, Social Hygienists and, most particularly, actors — they had all bought the virus from apothecaries. The new 2B strain created an almost unbearable oneness with anything that was alive — or had been alive. The Bees could Read the living. They could Read whatever reaction patterns that were in the remains of living things, in the soil, in the stone, in the air.
'And the lines,' said Milena. 'They touch the stars, don't they?' They go down into the Earth. They shiver when someone thinks.'
Billy turned to her, looked at her, and gave her a bleary smile. 'Are you Bee?' he asked.
'No,' said Milena. 'But I know about the lines.'
Gravity was thought. Gravity was life. Gravity twisted nothingness into a leaf that had been alive. The skeleton of the leaf still sang, wistfully, silently, of its life on the tree. It had been blown by gusts of wind until it sighed down from the tree to the earth. The earth sang of the leaves it once had been. It sang of peanut shells and orange peel, dog shit and leather shoes, old clothes and the sweat of the people who had worn them. The dead sang to the Bees, out of gravity.
'The food weeps,' said the King. 'Torn away. Burnt. Boiled.'
Much of the food in this new age had been cut from hybridomas. It was still alive when sold, still alive when cooked or eaten raw. The Bees would scream as people ate. They could not bear to wear most clothing, the strands of cotton or spider web or silkworm threads. Clothes sung to them. The sun sang to them, and they tried to sing back.
Live on Rhodopsin, they told people, when they could bear being near people, for the blasts of thought from living people were too harsh for them to bear alone. They could bear it only groups, for a short time, before scampering off like timid monkeys.
It's stopped snowing, Milena realised. Everything went still and cold.
'Coffee!' cried the vendor. 'Coffee for health!' Steam from his boiler caught the light and hovered golden in the air.
'The coffee screams,' said the King. The apothecary viruses had been derived from herpes, and like herpes, they ruptured when bathed in coffee.
'And the viruses,' the King said in pity. 'The viruses break apart.' Most hateful of all to this new age, the Bees loved the viruses, too.
A woman staggered towards the coffee vendor with a jug to fill. She shook like a rickety old cart on a bumpy road, juddering with cold and caffeine overdose. Her eyes were evil. She glared at Milena. The hatred in the look stilled Milena's heart. It was like a beam that passed through her. It struck the Bees, and they folded up into a tight knot around each other.
'Billy?' Milena said. He didn't answer. She knelt down and lightly stroked his disordered hair. You were the most beautiful man, she thought, and all the girls wanted to hold you and love you because you were beautiful but not aware of it. And you had a voice like honey and on stage you took command lightly, as if by right, and you made me believe that people could speak as Shakespeare wrote.
'Billy, you're cold,' she said. 'Where do you live?'
'The Graveyard,' he whispered.
Milena paused. That place again. 'Come on,' she said, 'Let's get you back inside.' She stood up, and all the Bees stood with her, as if pulled by wires. They shuffled behind her, up the Cut wearing shaggy, artificial furs or plastic boots.
While all of this was happening, Milena thought, I was sending down flowers from space. It's as if there are many Earths and I came back down to the wrong one.
'Those are Bees you're talking to!' shouted the woman who was buying coffee.
Milena held up a hand for the Bees to be still, and walked towards her.
As Milena approached both the woman and the coffee vendor slipped back behind the metal tureen. They think it's a magic charm that will protect them, thought Milena. She saw herself reflected in the orange light on its misty metal surface. She saw the future there. The future was metal once more. The future was machinery.
'I know one of them. He is a friend of mine,' Milena tried to explain. 'They're human too,
' she said.
The woman shuddered, and pulled up her face mask. 'Used to be human, you mean. Look at them.' Her shaking hands struggled with gloves. The gloves were soaked in coffee, too. Steam rose up from her. 'They're deliberately spreading these diseases, don't you know that? Where have you been?'
'In orbit,' replied Milena, in innocence. 'I'm an astronaut.'
Without another word, the woman flung a cup of coffee across Milena's face. Like disoriented beetles, her scampering hands fought to seize her jug of coffee, give money to the vendor, and leave, all at the same time. She was evidently holding her breath. She turned and tried to run, taking long, low, sloping strides.
Milena stood appalled as the coffee chilled on her face. She felt like someone in a comedy, to whom absurd things happen. 'Why did she do that?' Milena asked. She looked down at her coat. It was ruined by coffee.
'Perhaps she thought you were sick,' said the vendor. He threw the coins the woman had given him into a resin tray full of coffee. Coins spread infection too.
'You're the ones who are sick!' said Milena and walked angrily back to the Bees. 'Come on, she told them. 'Keep walking. They're frightened of you, too.' She led the Bees past the coffee vendor.
Milena turned left, past the fountain outside of Leake Street. Bolts of metal had been screwed into the mouth of the fountain, and its rows of drinking cups were gone. Up the ramp that led to Waterloo, people were scurrying, huddled in terror. They stepped over something, a bundle perhaps in the snow. The bundle moved. The bundle, she saw, was a man.
The man's chest was bare. His jacket had been wrenched round and his shirt torn as if he had been fighting to get out of his clothes. He was trying to crawl, but his legs wouldn't work, and his fingers and arms were stiff with cold, as useless as the flippers of a seal.
People had just stepped over him? What is happening to us all? Milena thought. He'll freeze to death. She walked towards him. The Bees followed, a single rippling mass under their sheeting.
'She'll bite,' warned the King.
She? The man had a full and virulently red beard. She? As Milena drew closer to him, he looked up at her, bared his teeth, and growled.
'Piper,' sighed the Bees. 'Good Piper. Good girl, Piper.' They seethed and settled around him.
On hearing the name, the man yipped. As they gathered around him, stroking his head, he began to whimper. He whimpered, and tried to wag a tail that wasn't there. Then he yelped, in an agony of joy. Over-excited, he could not contain his urine. It spread out under him, across the snow. He licked the hands of the people around him.
'Piper!' smiled the King. 'Good dog.'
The man barked.
'Shouldn't we get him a doctor?' Milena asked.
The King shook his head. 'There are people in the ash,' he said. He looked about him as if dazzled, as if surrounded by stars. 'The ash falls.'
'What?' Milena felt as if all the breath had been sucked out of her.
'They let them the,' he said. He was smiling, as if he had seen something beautiful.
All across the city, the bells rang calling for doctors. Piper, Piper, Piper, said the Bees, soothing. They stooped down and lifted up the dog man to carry him. His tears had frozen on his face. He was stiff as a board and his fingers were held rigidly at awkward angles.
Milena stepped forward to help, and then something stopped her. Disease an old voice seemed to whisper to her.
'Bugger that,' whispered Milena to herself, and took hold of his hand.
The procession moved into the shelter of Leake Street. The gates of the Graveyard swung open as if by themselves. Milena trooped with the Bees into a darkness that smelled of people.
'Milena, Ma, Milena,' breathed the darkness. 'Piper, Piper, Piper.'
There were new cells in the palm of Milena's hand. They had been given to her when she was made Terminal. The cells were luminous and shone brightly when she told them to. She held up her hand: light blazed out of it, and the Graveyard was lit.
The dead costumes moved, inhabited now. There were kings and courtiers, gypsy dancers and Robin Hood's men. There were mantillas of black plastic lace, and ball gowns of cheap coloured nylon, all the artificial fabrics that the Bees, hearing ghosts, could bring themselves to wear.
The mass of Bees opened up to absorb the Dog Man, to hold him and to warm him. They looked up in unison at Milena and all cocked their heads to one side at once. There were enough of them here to share the burden of consciousness. They all smiled at once in pleasure. They all stepped forward at once, left foot first, towards Milena.
'Help,' they all said. A thousand voices said it at once. Milena could feel them all in her head, along the Terminal scar. 'Help. Ma.'
'How?' she asked.
'Tell them,' said the Bees.
'Tell them what?' Milena asked.
'Tell them about the lines,' said one thousand voices with the same intonation.
Milena paused, imagining what it would be like to be the bearer of news. To tell people that the Bees only felt what the Angels of the Consensus did.
'Yes,' she said. 'I will.'
'Keep well,' the Bees said, and lifted up their hands palms outward. They meant stay away from us. We need someone who is not a Bee, to speak.
'Flowers,' the Bees said, and smiled. 'Flowers of light.' They all made a gesture together, index finger and thumb clutching an invisible flower, and they all passed it back to her.
Milena had gone up unknown, and came back famous. To another Earth, and another self as well.
Milena hardly remembered walking on to the Zoo Cafe. Her mind was churning with the things she had seen. Milena, Milena, she thought, you've had a headful of opera for too long. She walked into the Cafe and it was hot, steaming, choking with the smell of coffee.
'Hello, Milena. Milena, hello,' said people she did not know, who shook her hand. Her luminous hand was still burning bright, and light in ripples shone up under their faces. Milena nodded to them politely, still distracted. She needed to talk to Cilia. Cilia was there somewhere waiting for her.
Milena stood tamely in line. A fat, sour-faced woman with puffy bags under her eyes was jetting hot water from the boiler over all the knives and forks. Milena watched the cutlery curl into unusual shapes. I've done all this, she thought, I have been through all this before. You can't boil life clean.
At the end of the line, a skinny man with a moustache waited and watched. His cheeks seemed to have fallen into holes in his face. He passed each person, without asking, a cup of coffee. 'I don't want it!' Milena said to him, sharply. She took a piece of cake and a glass of milk instead. She watched people wash their face and hands in coffee.
'Milena, love!' exclaimed Milton the Minister, walking towards her. Milena inwardly groaned. But Milton took her by the hand, and drew her to his table. This new Minister was more sociable than the old Zookeeper had been. He was also more impressed by fame. You would not have done this six months ago, thought Milena, not before I went up.
She greeted the people at the table, coolly, politely. Being slightly Snide was not always socially useful. Milena sensed the flatness of these people. They beamed back at her, pink faced and swollen, calling her by her first name, as if they had known her for some time. It was as if they owned her in some way. They were Vines, social climbers.
'Milton,' said Milena. 'There seem to be a lot of sick people no one cares about.'
'Well,' said Milton, neatly combining a cough with a chuckle. 'You know what they say about the new strain. 2B or not 2B, that is the question.' Milton grinned.
'Milton. They are letting sick people the.'
He adjusted his spectacles, the ones he didn't need to wear. 'Uh, well, the official line is that the Doctors are doing what they can for them, and when they the, they burn...' His hands made a motion. He was clearly trying to think of another joke. 'Burn what's left.'
'Oh that does set my mind at rest,' said Milena. 'What kills them? The viruses aren't fatal.'
'But th
ey do need treatment,' said Milton, still grinning. Why is he smiling? wondered Milena.
Milton's girlfriend spoke. Her voice was harsh and raw. She had a pretty smile and cheeks that Milena was sure contained pouches like a squirrel's. 'What else can we do? We've got to stop it spreading!'
'We can take care of them,' said Milena, quietly.
'Hiya,' said a soothing voice behind Milena.
Milena turned, and there was Cilia, and Milena was grateful to see her.
'Come on, Cill, we've got to talk!'
'I've saved us a table, Milena,' said Cilia, still soothing.
'Bavarderons D. Man,' Milton's girlfriend called after them. Vampire-sprech for 'talk to you later'. Along the terminus in her head, Milena could feel that Milton's girlfriend was relieved that Milena was leaving. Me too, infant, she thought.
'Isn't it awful,' said Cilia, as they walked back.
'I've just seen a man who's been taken over by a dog,' said Milena. 'He was freezing to death. And do you know? No one would help him. It took some Bees to carry him off. They saved him, no one else would.' She paused. 'One of them was Billy,' she said.
'This will all be new to you, won't it?' said Cilia, sympathetically taking her hand as they sat down at a table.
'Actually, it feels very old. It feels how I used to feel.'
'Do you remember when you used to boil things?' Cilia said. 'You melted all my knives and forks. I thought you were crazy.'
Without thinking, Cilia was reaching across and taking food from Milena's plate. A bad habit from Cilia's own days in the Child Garden. Milena watched her do it, and allowed herself to smile as Cilia pressed together crumbs.
'I remember,' said Cilia, 'when you used to boil the toilet seats. One night we all hid to catch you at it. You had a kettle in your hand, and there was steam coming out of the toilet bowl, and you said "Oh. I'm just making a cup of tea!'"