The Disestablishment of Paradise

by Phillip Mann

  At the end of the anthem, the rating who was wearing the sash advanced to the flagpole and lowered the flag. But the wind had made a meal of it and the once-bold banner which reached the ground was little more than a frayed rag. And as though that were not bad enough, a sudden gust caught the flag just as it was being handed over to Captain Abhuradin, and whipped it out of her glove. It sailed up high and away, tumbling like washing that has escaped from the line. Making the best of it, Captain Abhuradin saluted crisply and turned sharply.

  The ceremony was over. Captain Abhuradin led the small party, now walking into the wind so their uniforms were plastered against them, across to the ramp and up into the cargo hold. As she passed Mack, Hera saw her issue some instructions and Mack gave his equivalent of a salute. She could see him speaking but could not catch the words, though she did hear her name. Captain Abhuradin paused, nodded and then came to the front of the cargo bay and, holding tightly to one of the side supports, looked out in the direction of Hera’s refuge. She raised her hand briefly. Hera blinked her light in acknowledgement. That was all. The captain turned, staggered slightly against the wind and rejoined the small party, which was waiting for her in the depths of the cargo bay. As a group they moved away to the lift which would carry them up to the control deck.

  Mack watched them and then turned back to Hera.

  ‘Looks like we’re off straight away. No messing about. I thought for a minute she was going to send us out to go looking for that bloody flag.’ Mack pressed a switch at the side of the cargo bay and the heavy access ramp began to withdraw into the shuttle. ‘Now listen, Doc.’ Mack’s voice had taken on a more urgent and serious tone. ‘If you ever find yourself down in New Syracuse, I’ve left a few bottles of good stuff for you, courtesy of the Settlers’ Club. I know you enjoy a glass of wine. They’re in a case in the concrete bunker just near where the marina used to be. You won’t miss them.’ The ramp ground to a halt. Mack pressed another switch and the magnetic bolts slammed home, locking it in place. The tall cargo doors began to close. ‘And hey, listen, Doc. You be careful out there. Keep your emergency beacon with you at all times. I’m serious. And if you get in any trouble, get stitched up by a Tattersall or anything, just hit the beacon switch and we’ll be down to get you quicker than a horse snickers. Remember. Ciao.’

  He waved once and the cargo doors hid him from view as they began to close.

  ‘Goodbye, Mack,’ Hera called, ‘and thank you.’ But whether he heard these last words or not she did not know.

  Now things moved quickly. Hera heard a loud clang as the ramp wheels locked. Then came a muffled thump as the magnetic bolts closed inside the doors. Moments later plumes of dust were ejected from around the cargo door as the air was squeezed out from within, establishing a vacuum. A dribble of oil appeared round the rubber door-seals, and the wind-driven dust stuck to it. Overhead the bright working lights went out one by one. The compound was suddenly dark save for the crystal on top of the shuttle, which now burned with a stronger intensity. The shuttle was almost ready for departure. A lone siren above the perimeter gate began to wail – standard procedure before all departures – a mournful sound, made fitful by the wind.

  In the old days, when the shuttle port was full of activity, the siren would have been a warning for all personnel to clear the compound. Faces would have been pressed to windows to watch, for the departure of a large shuttle such as a P class was always a spectacular event. The siren reached its crescendo and then began to whine down. From high in the sky a blade of intense light spiked down, appearing almost solid in the thick air and wheeling dust.

  The beam was slightly out of alignment and struck the concrete floor of the compound, defining a sharp-edged oval of brilliance. The guidance engineer up on the platform adjusted the angle of the beam by fractions of a degree, and gradually the pool of light moved across until it touched the side of the shuttle, where it created strange patterns of light and shadow. It moved on, slipping up the rough metal, until it reached the crystal dome. Immediately the dome glowed more brilliantly as it absorbed and transformed the photon energy.

  The crystal began to pulse, sending its own flashes of white light surging upward. Hera Melhuish adjusted the filter on her visor. The two beams flared for a moment as resonance was established between them, and then they fused into a single scintillating column. The colour changed from white to a steely silver and finally to a clear violet at which it held steady. There came a crackling sound and electricity danced around the legs of the shuttle. Slowly P51 lifted and accelerated steadily – the similarity to a giant spider dangling from a silver thread was uncanny – and then it retracted its legs.

  Hera stared up into the streaming clouds following the shuttle into the murky heavens. Soon it was above the clouds, no more than a speck in the sky, visible only because of the steady violet beam of light blazing down from the space platform, with its glittering photon generators, some sixty-five kilometres above.

  Already the Disestablishment party would be in full swing, with dance music playing and the lights turned down. There would be corks popping; men and women all spruced up and ready to dance, swapping yarns and laughing. In the canteen the tables would be set with red tablecloths. Gleaming cutlery would reflect the light of perfumed candles floating on water. Someone would have decorated the room with streamers and balloons as though it was Christmas, and there would be a big cake on which would be piped, in blue icing, ‘Farewell Paradise’.

  Beyond Hera’s small sanctuary the wind howled.

  Hera shivered, but not with cold. It was one of those involuntary movements of which our great-grandmothers would have said, ‘Someone just walked over my grave.’

  9

  Lux in Tenebris

  For a few seconds Hera stood there in the shelter of the wall, absorbing the fact that she was now the only human being left on Paradise. How small she felt. And how alone. Of course she’d known this would be the case once the shuttle departed, and she had tried to prepare herself mentally – but even so the reality was a shock and she felt a peculiar and quite unexpected stab of fear. For a few panicky moments she was tempted to open the radio link and call the shuttle back. But her hand did not move. She became a block of wood – as Hilda had taught her to be when faced with temptation. And when the temptation had passed, she was able to examine her frailty for what it was: a sudden reaction to fear, nothing more. And of course to call the shuttle back now would be to admit defeat absolutely, positively, irrevocably. No way, thought Hera, smiling grimly at her own fading panic. No way!

  But what did she feel now that she was alone? Hera looked up and was still able to see the small worm of light turn as the shuttle climbed. She must feel something. After all, that small spark of light represented the last of her human companions. She would not see another human face for three months at least, assuming there were no accidents.

  Loneliness was to be expected, and that Hera could cope with that: she’d been lonely before. But there was something else, something deeper than loneliness. Something that made her quite calm. It was relief, she decided finally. Relief that the waiting was over. Relief that no fresh orders had come rescinding the one which allowed her to stay. Relief, also, that she didn’t have to worry about meeting any of the settlers. Relief that she could move without being observed and just be herself, whether laughing or crying. Relief that at last she could get on with the task she had set herself, in her mystical science way, and work alone with the planet.

  For Dr Hera Melhuish was a singular woman, and like all such, when she devoted herself to an idea or a cause, she put it at the centre of her life.

  Hera stood for a long time staring out into the deserted compound. There was no reason to stay – no sentiment or satisfaction to be gathered from lingering. She had hoped that the departure of the shuttle would somehow be conclusive, and that she would set out to accomplish her purpose like someone newborn, but it was not so.

  She was the same Hera she
had always been and she knew that no one and no thing would have taken the slightest interest if she had simply hunkered down in her concrete retreat for the night. No thing, that is, except the automatic landing and navigation pilot on her new flyer. This, noting the length of time since her departure, would send out a brief radio inquiry which would activate the radio system of her survival suit. But even the autopilot would not have given her an instruction. It, or Alan as she now tended to think of him, was there to take instructions.

  Finally Hera, that woman of resolute will, took a deep breath and spoke aloud. She said, ‘Pull yourself together, woman, and get going.’ It worked. She looked out with a deeper sense of purpose.

  The wind had definitely subsided. It was still strong, but it had lost that hard drive and was blustery rather than fierce. Hera closed her helmet, switched on the bright halogen beam of her helmet light and, bracing herself, moved out from behind the concrete wall. She discovered to her relief that she could make headway against the wind without too much trouble. Surprisingly too, she could see quite well – better than when she had arrived. Despite the onset of evening, the sky had lightened as the heavy dust and sand settled out of the air. High up above, the last rays of the sun were still just catching the clouds with a pink light.

  Torn-off branches and stripped blue flower heads from Tattersall weeds clogged the perimeter fence. Some of the broken branches were swinging about in the fitful wind and the long prickles scratched on the concrete and made marks in the driven sand. For Hera to get through the gate she had to stoop low, and she both felt and heard the scratch of the thorns on her helmet and shoulder.

  Once through, she moved well away from the perimeter edge. She began the trudge up the middle of the road, scuffing in the sand. Occasionally she walked backwards, looking back at the sad remains of the shuttle port. It was not merely that the buildings were gone or broken that made the former port a sad spectacle, but that what remained was a statement about something that had failed, an idea that had gone wrong, a potential that had never been realized. And how could that not be sad? She remembered a poem that her father had liked, about a face staring up from a desert. Well, she thought, the ruins of a great civilization may speak volumes about time and tragedy. But this? All this was avoidable. This was our fault. My fault as much as any. I should have been stronger.

  Walking backwards has its perils, as does letting the mind drift in sad recrimination. Hera caught her heel on a piece of iron fencing that lay half buried in the sand. The next thing she knew she was down on her bottom in the dust. She accepted this as a warning and, as she picked herself up, offered thanks to whatever god protects drunks, children and small women walking backwards. But she knew that such gods only give one warning, and so she turned her back on the past and walked up the road towards the empty parking place where she had left her survey and survival flyer.

  Hera was surprised at how quickly she reached it, and this merely served to remind her how difficult and dangerous had been the journey down from the flyer to the shuttle port. Touching the controls strapped to her forearm, she saw the lights on the SAS craft flash on and begin their steady blinking – guidance for a person lost in the dark . . . or a sandstorm. In her ears was a steady whine which changed pitch depending on whether she was facing the SAS or turned away. ‘Cut the siren, Alan,’ she ordered, ‘and the beacons. I can see you.’ Immediately the calm voice of the auto landing and navigation unit spoke in her ear. ‘Welcome back, Hera. Are you receiving me loud—’

  ‘Loud and clear. Yes, and I can see the effects of the sandstorm on you. You look as though you’ve been spring-cleaned with a wire brush. You’re all polished on one side. Half your insignia has been scratched off.’

  The autopilot made no answer. As she approached the SAS, its door opened smoothly. ‘Are all your circuits functional? No damage?’ she asked.

  ‘All systems are functioning.’

  That was a relief. She’d had a nagging worry that one of the tumbling Tattersall weeds might have wrapped itself round the SAS. The vehicles were tough and built for arduous conditions, but a Tattersall, tumbling like the one she had seen strike the fence, might have damaged an aerial or got tangled up with the rotor cover. At the very worst it might have toppled the flyer, and that would have been a problem.

  But it hadn’t happened. I must stop doing that, she thought. I must stop worrying about things that might go wrong or could have gone wrong, but didn’t. Be positive. She climbed into the flyer and the door closed behind her and sealed. She removed the control panel from her arm and then her helmet and plugged them both into the battery charger built into the door. Later she would need to clean the helmet, as fine dust had clogged round the visor. Then, as she was undoing the insulated cuffs of her gloves, she heard soft music begin. Kossoff’s ‘Serenade to Alien Seas’. A nice touch this, she thought. A clever and sensitive piece of design, to incorporate an instruction into the autopilot’s log of duties saying, ‘Play sweet music when the pilot returns.’ The effect was, as intended, soothing.

  During the month since Captain Abhuradin had delivered the SAS to Hera, the autopilot had noted the pieces of music she liked and turned to most frequently. From these he had made a selection. Hera felt the charm of the familiar music reach out to her as she stripped out of the survival suit, unzipping it completely. ‘Serenade’ was part of a series of melodies each interpreting poems by the mystical twenty-first-century poet Yvegeny. It wasn’t complex music or demanding in an intellectual sense, but it spoke to something inside her. All of the poems dealt with spiritual questions of one sort or another. Anyone who travelled into deep space or who contemplated the vastness of space or who found themselves alone amid alien fields, ended up asking the questions which have no ordinary answers. The poet had imagined himself to be a boy sitting in the sun by a bottle-green sea and sifting the sand through his fingers. As he sits by the shore he hears a voice. It is the sea talking to him and asking him about himself: where he has come from and what he has seen and what he hopes for as he grows up. One of the things that Hera liked about this composition was that the music did not pick up on any mood of sadness or romantic loneliness present in the translation – that would have been unbearably sentimental, in her view. No. The music rather challenged the thoughtful mood of the poems. It pulsed with strong rhythms. A male voice chorus provided the many voices of the sea. Accordions, harp, double bass and violin provided all the melody. But, weaving through all like a thread of silver was a clear solo alto voice. In this recording, a soprano with a voice like a bell took the boy’s role. Hera had decided long ago that this was a voice to die for. And, indeed, if there were something called reincarnation, Hera wanted to come back as a petite soprano with a voice that could shatter glass. She hummed along with the melody in strict tempo and then nodded like a conductor for the solo voice to enter, distant and strange like the call of a sea bird. The first song was optimistic as the boy talked about setting out on his life, like an adventure story.

  Hera hung her survival suit in the cleansing and detox closet, spreading the arms and legs wide. The boots too went into the closet, upside down on pegs. The door closed and sealed. Seconds later she heard the cleansing system switch on and begin its cycle. The suit would be chemically cleaned and dried. Equally important, it would be repaired with a liquid plastic which was absorbed by any torn fibres and then dried to close with the rest of the laminate.

  Beside the detox closet was a normal shower unit. Built to accommodate the bulkiest of men, it was luxuriously large for Hera. ‘Turn up the music, Alan. I’m going to take a shower.’ Obediently the level increased. Moments later, had anyone been listening, the sound of the music was joined by the sound of water and then by the warbling contralto of Hera.

  In the song cycle the sea was gradually turning from green to grey.

  The shower did not last long, but was effective for all that. Hera gave herself the pleasure of a long slow dry under the heater fans. She emerged c
lean and dry but with her hair hidden beneath a shower cap. It was still pinned back in the tight no-nonsense bob she preferred – except when she slept.

  Clad now in only the light cotton pyjamas that were all she wore inside the SAS, a towel round her neck and with her feet bare, Hera ran up the spiral stairway that led to the control cabin. Apart from narrow structural panels which curved up to form the roof, the control room offered a 360-degree view. All the windows were dark.

  Two small tri-vid screens occupied the space to the side of the main control consul. One of these had a wide cone of vision which could show what was happening to the sides and below the flyer. It possessed frequency filters that were permanently scanning and which, at optimum sensitivity, could have revealed any residual heat resulting from Hera’s footsteps as she approached the SAS. The other screen operated only in the visual spectrum and was fitted with a powerful telescopic lens which could explore above or below.

  Every effort had been taken to make the cabin comfortable and cheerful. Colours were bright, edges were rounded and surfaces were firm rather than hard. The control chair had been tailored to suit Hera’s size. It could tilt back to provide a bed or, when configured as a chair, could swivel and glide over the floor. But it was always anchored by magnetic clamps, which would lock in the event of a sudden tilt or shock. Hera perched in the chair and studied her clean pink fingernails, noticing that one was very ridged. ‘Now what does that mean?’ she wondered out loud.