Countdown to Extinction

by Louise Moss

  “He only comes here to talk about the plan and then he makes sure he stands well away from us. But he’s standing quite close to June.”

  “I expect they’re talking about the plants.”

  “Let’s keep digging or they’ll think we’re talking about them.“ Picking up her spade, she said, “Did you notice how he was looking at her hair that first time they met?”

  “I didn’t notice anything.”

  “That’s because you’re a man. Look, she’s moved closer.”

  Gerald glanced over in their direction. “They’re just talking.”

  “She’s touching him on the arm now.”

  “I don’t think it means anything. Some people do that when they’re talking.”

  “Oh, that’s odd. Look, it’s Zorina. I’ve never seen her here before. What’s she up to?”

  Zorina had been suspicious since Primitive June had been released from the vault. She regretted now that she had not reported Hagan for touching her hair.

  Working so closely with the Primitives was changing him. There was little need to speak to them at all, but he went over there every day on the excuse that he it was helping them feel involved and he had begun to find reasons to go over there more often.

  He was standing much too close to June and now she had reached out and pulled him towards her. Instead of moving away, he remained standing where he was. Now the Primitive was leaning forward and putting her lips to his cheek.

  She had to stop him. She sent her image down to where they stood, wishing she could strike the Primitive down, but she would obey the Leaders’, who had said they must not be harmed.

  She spoke to Hagan in their own language. “What are you doing? The Leaders do not permit this.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying, but it’s none of your business, is it. It’s not as if the two of you are a couple.” June said.

  Zorina drew herself up. “I am his companion.”

  “Companion yes, but nothing more.”

  Hagan had never touched Zorina before, but now he took hold of her arm and started to walk away.

  She waited until they were out of sight before withdrawing her image, leaving Hagan to make his own back to the vault by himself. She had to do something. Hagan was becoming unstable.

  Hagan realised he had made a mistake. Since Baestel had filled his mind with his life as a Worker, he had felt himself beginning to change. But surely Baestel did not have the knowledge to bring about changes within him? If he were, indeed, his identical twin, it might be possible. He was intelligent and had been planning his revenge for years.

  For whatever reason, it felt as if the Primitive part of his mind was emerging from a long sleep, leading him into odd situations, like June touching her lips to his face. His proximity to the group had allowed the Primitive part, the half that belonged to his mother, to flourish.

  He had not felt the disgust he would previously have felt when June touched him; in fact, the sensation was interesting, not unpleasant. If he wanted to continue living, though, he had to be very, very clever. If Zorina reported these changes to the Leaders, his memories would be destroyed, and maybe his body along with them.

  She was waiting for him in the laboratory. “Zorina, you have misunderstood my actions,” he said. “The Leaders instructed me to do whatever I had to do to keep the Primitives happy until it is time to eliminate them. That is all I was doing.”

  “You’re making yourself as low as they are.”

  “That is not my purpose.”

  “Have you forgotten what we were taught, that the Primitives brought terrible chaos to the world? You can see now that it is true.”

  “It is part of my duty to find a way of controlling the Primitives so that unpredictable situations no longer arise.”

  “By getting close to them? I do not believe that is the Leaders’ plan.”

  “You are right. I see that I must avoid a similar situation.”

  It was a great pity that he would no longer be able to feel June’s hair on his face. He had never seen such red, thick and long hair, even in Mirages. In the moment that she had pulled him to her, her hair had lightly touched his cheek, dragging a forgotten memory out of the depths of his mind. Flowers. It was a long time since he had smelled flowers.

  “You took my arm.”

  “I am deeply sorry. I did so because it is a gesture that the Primitives make to show that they belong to each other.”

  “It was deeply offensive.”

  “I know. Please forgive me. It will not happen again.”

  Hagan kept away from the dome for a few days, but it created a different problem. The Primitives were complaining to each other that he was no longer interested in what they did. He feared he could lose control.

  He made his way along the underground passage and came out at a place near where June was collecting a sample of soil.

  “Hello June.”

  She replaced the lid on the soil container before saying, “You’ve chosen her, haven’t you.”

  Hagan searched his mind but could find no explanation for her words.

  “I thought we had a future together. You certainly gave me that impression,” she went on.

  They were several feet apart but she did not attempt to come nearer. “I do not understand your words. Please explain to me what you mean.”

  “I thought we had something together, something special. I thought Zorina was more like…a sister. I’ve never seen you kissing her, or even touching.”

  Here was something that Hagan understood. “We do not touch. It is not our way.”

  “I thought you wanted more than that.”

  “More? What more?”

  “You know, someone to love.”

  June was waiting for an answer. “I am unfamiliar with the concept of love,” Hagan said.

  Back at the vault, he stared at the message. He had spent many hours searching the records for information about his birth without success. He had not been surprised. Such sensitive information would have been destroyed years ago, or placed in a top secret part of the system. But here on the monitor was the information he had been looking for.

  How had it got here? Nobody else knew of his search, not even Zorina.

  He did not doubt that the information was true. The document looked authentic. He had seen similar documents before, detailing the parents of a new-born child.

  His pleasure at reading that there had been no illegal liaison between a Superior and a Worker, was swept aside by the information that a scientist studying genetics had taken an egg from a worker and mixed it with his own seed. He had divided the cells to create identical twins. The embryos were placed in the mother’s womb and when the babies were born, one twin was assigned the life of a Worker, the other, the life of a Superior. The document bore the signature of all three Leaders. There could be no doubt about it: they had sanctioned the experiment.

  18

  Hours later, Michael and Susan had still not returned. Eventually June and Emma went off to bed, making Gerald promise he would wake them if anything happened.

  Gerald sat out in the garden, his mind wandering about haphazardly, searching for an explanation for the couple’s disappearance. All sorts of scenarios presented themselves: they had been captured by a group of workers, electrocuted by the barrier, fallen down a cliff or into quicksand….

  He rested his head on the table and closed his eyes, thinking of the new life that would be with them soon, another little person in their community. He remembered the struggle he’d had when his daughters were young: he’d had to work long hours to pay the mortgage, arriving home after they had gone to bed. He’d had too little time to get to know them. At least they now didn’t have the struggle and strain of a capitalist society. All they had to do was love the baby!

  He was woken by the sound of soft footsteps. Michael and Susan were back, but something was wrong. Susan was limping, but there was something else, another form beyond them in the shado
ws. There was someone else out there, hiding, anxious not to be seen.

  “Thank goodness you’re all right,” he said as they drew near.

  “Sorry to worry you. We walked a very long way. Can we tell you about it in the morning? We’re really tired now,” Susan said.

  “Yes of course. But what about your foot?”

  “I just need to rest it.”

  When they had gone, Gerald made his way cautiously towards the shadows and was relieved to see the familiar, humped body of Hagan.

  “Are you all right?”

  Sitting in the vault, Hagan had felt himself descending into a pit. He had been changing ever since the meeting with Baestel. The man had clearly interfered with his mind in some way, but he had been unable to decipher what he had done or reverse the damage. Baestel was a dangerous man – he had the intelligence and powers of a Superior, but the cunning and vile nature of a Worker.

  Sitting in the vault alone, he had suddenly wanted company, proof that he was descending into the black hole of the Worker’s world.

  “Do you ever wonder where all this came from, how it all started? Who created it, I mean?” Gerald asked.

  “Our scientists were searching for the source of creation before they died. I, too, carried out experiments.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I did not complete them.” And now, he never would.

  “In our day, there were people who believed there was an organ in the body that connects us with the universe, because people’s behaviour changed during a full moon or eclipse of the sun,” Gerald said. “We thought them a little crazy, but perhaps they were just ahead of their time. It would be interesting to find what it is that connects us to the universe, as well as to our ancestors.”

  “You speak like a Kudlu.”

  “Feeling connected to each other, to the universe?”

  “Zorina and I were connected but now she is gone and I am alone in the world. As our people are unable to breed, soon we will be gone from this earth completely.”

  “I am sorry,” Gerald said, extending his hand. “Oh, I see, you are not really here!”

  “I am here.”

  “Yes, but your body is back in the vault.”

  “You are correct.”

  “I think we misunderstood you. We thought there was no connection at all between you and Zorina.”

  “That is because you could not see the colour of our thoughts reaching out to each other.”

  “I did not know that thoughts had colours.”

  “Maybe one day your children will be able to see them.”

  “When you talk about your people, you don’t mean the workers, do you? They seemed to be a separate race.”

  “The offspring of the Kudlu’s bonding with humans were selected for breeding so that two races were created: those who had more Kudlu characteristics became Superiors, and those who were more human, became workers.”

  “Genetic selection. We knew of it. It was a natural thing for farmers to select which animals to breed from for the strongest or leanest, or whatever quality they wanted.”

  “Unfortunately your people did not stop there, but experimented with food, destroying the balance of nature. Such practices were banned in 2080, but the earth never fully recovered.”

  Gerald reached out again, knowing it was futile, but this time, Hagan grasped his hand and squeezed. A surge of energy rose up from the base of Gerald’s spine to the crown of his head, where it radiated outwards in a blaze of light.

  “How do you do that?” Gerald began, but did not complete the thought. He felt himself dissolving, merging into all that surrounded him. A voice spoke: The Kudlu life force. You are one of us now.

  He passed out. When he returned to consciousness he was sitting at the table, his head in his hands. Hagan was nowhere to be seen. Had the man implanted this vision in his mind, or had it all been a dream?

  Suddenly it seemed important to find Hagan, to explain to him about the prickly pear, the raisin bush and monkey plum; about the bees and how all six Nguni cows were in calf; and how they had planted the lake with watercress, water chestnuts and kangkong

  Hagan was sitting waiting for him in his laboratory. There was no attempt to hide what he had been working on.

  “What are you doing?” Gerald gasped. Surely that was a pancreas spread out on the table, cut open so that it looked like a plant with numerous stems and tiny blue flowers. Now Hagan was removing Zorina’s head from the shelf and had split it in half.

  “I am carrying out comparisons between our organs and the Primitives,” Hagan said. In fact, he was looking for a way to reverse the changes Baestel had made. The man was clever – possibly far cleverer than he was. He had been right when he said he had not deserved the life of a worker.

  Gerald’s thoughts ballooned out in thick grey clouds, the ancient prejudices that blocked the connectors and which could only be broken down by words, soothing words.

  “But we buried her!”

  “Zorina has no more use for her body. I can put it to some use. In your day, such actions were forbidden?”

  “Not forbidden exactly, except perhaps in some religions, but….”

  “I learned that the organs were put into other bodies shortly after a person had died.”

  “You are right, but it was done so that someone else could live.”

  “My research is for the benefit of all who live and will live,” Hagan said.

  Gerald struggled to keep down the voices that said Hagan was wrong. They had different customs, that was all. “Maybe June can help you with your research,” he said finally. She knows a lot about these things.”

  Hagan considered for a moment. “Please, tell her to come.”

  Words had begun to whirl round Gerald’s head. “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose, under Heaven. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to laugh, a time to weep,”

  “You are speaking the words of my ancestors,” Hagan said.

  Gerald had not realised he had spoken aloud – or perhaps he hadn’t. “It was my daughter’s favourite song, back in the 1960s. You say your ancestors knew it?”

  “Did you come here to tell me something?”

  “I’m not sure, I can’t remember.” This was not true, but it sounded foolish to say he just wanted the man’s company. “I’ll tell June in the morning that you want to see her.”

  June made her way over to the vault with mixed feelings. Gerald had said Hagan wanted help with his research, but part of her wondered if there was something more, now that Zorina was dead.

  “I am currently looking at the differences in DNA between people from your century and modern man,” Hagan said, as she entered the laboratory.

  “Our people had almost identical DNA…99.9% the same. Only the remaining 0.1% accounted for the differences between us: hair, eyes, personality.”

  “I believe there are significant differences between people two thousand years apart.”

  “Studies in my day showed that DNA was affected by pollution. It reduced life span. I’m surprised that your people live so long.”

  Hagan let her chatter on. He had formed a plan. When he had completed his investigations, he would bring the youngest, healthiest, most intelligent Primitives out of the vault and create a race of Superiors. They would be brought up in the mountain region where no harm could come to them. Once they were old enough, the Primitives would be eliminated.

  “Tortoises lived very long lives. There could be a clue there,” June said.

  “I can collect DNA from animals in the vault, if required,” Hagan said.

  “Can I suggest…? People of our time liked to have certain animals as pets.” Seeing Hagan’s blank face, she said, “They lived with the animals in their houses. Studies showed that it promoted good physical and mental health. I think it would help the community.”

  “You wish me to bring a tortoise out
of the vault? Would it not upset the balance that you are carefully reconstructing?”

  “I do not believe so. Tortoises eat very little.”

  Hagan considered the request. Agreement would be another way of disguising his true motives. “Very well, I will restore a tortoise.”

  June returned to the dome at lunch time, proudly carrying the tortoise, smiling as the others crowded around to see what she had brought back.

  “What have you done to Hagan?” Emma said. “He wouldn’t have let us have a tortoise before.”

  “He’s a kind and thoughtful man,” June said, ignoring Emma’s sceptical glance. She set the tortoise on the ground and watched it move off slowly, making straight for the strawberry plants. Susan smiled.

  “I had a tortoise once. George, I called him,” Emma said. I’m so glad we’ve got something we’re not going to eat.”

  “While Hagan’s in a good mood, perhaps you can persuade him to let us have some more equipment,” Gerald said. With that Kudlu handshake, whatever that was, a memory had returned of the storerooms in the vaults. Everything they wanted was there, he was sure. “A mechanical digger would be useful now that we’re cultivating larger areas, but I was thinking of other things too, things that aren’t important but which would make life better. “

  “I used to play the flute,” Susan said.

  “I’m not sure they kept a flute in the vault; and anyway, it would be difficult to find. There are so many rooms down there.”

  “Let’s go down to the storerooms. I’m not letting anyone tell me what I can and can’t have,” Michael said.

  “Hagan will stop you.”

  “Control freak,” Michael said beneath his breath.

  With Michael’s anger boiling over at every turn, Gerald did not wait for June to speak to Hagan, nor did he speak to him himself but followed the path they had taken before that led to the storerooms. He was not surprised to find a solid wall where the corridor had been, but he now knew what to do.

  Believe and it will be so, He only had to believe there was a door, and it would appear.

  Hagan knew that he had made a very, very serious mistake, one that put the entire operation in jeopardy. Believe and it will be so was a technique known only to the Superiors and those of higher rank. He had foolishly given Gerald the Kudlu handshake, and it had opened up his mind to techniques no Primitive, or indeed Worker, should have. He must wait until he was asleep to reverse the effects but in the meantime, he must prevent the him getting to the stored possessions.