The Disestablishment of Paradise

by Phillip Mann

Hera landed on the SAS platform which floated on the surface amid the dark bladders of the talking jenny. Disturbed, the jenny began gulping and voiding. When Hera opened the door the air reeked, and the flatulent calling of the talking jenny was deafening as Hera made her way along the swaying walkway to the deserted house.

  The door was not locked. Revealed inside was the old man’s cabin. It had grown with his habits. Modern equipment stood on old packing cases. The calendar pinned on the wall was three years out of date, but had been updated by hand. One corner was filled by a big soft-looking double bed covered with a brightly coloured woollen bedspread made by Pietr’s wife. Beside the bed stood a wooden bookcase, its shelves bowed with too many volumes. The floor was strewn with rushes which, when walked upon, gave off a perfume reminiscent of cinnamon. A sliding window stretched from floor to ceiling and looked out across Redman Lake towards the umbrella seedbeds with the mountains beyond them. Tonic was rising, creating a silver path across the water. Facing the window was one of Pietr’s famous armchairs – famous because he would carve them to order and to the dimensions of the occupant. This one was carved from the pad of a long-departed Dendron. He had oiled and sanded the wood, making it smooth and silky to the touch. On the table beside the chair was an open book, an ashtray and a water pipe. Pietr Z, like Professor Shapiro, enjoyed smoking the dried flowers of the calypso lily.

  Old men and their pipes, thought Hera, and was suddenly overcome by a wave of sadness for old Pietr Z. Everything she saw, everything she looked at, reminded her of him, of his funny way of talking and his thick accent and his sensitive eyes, never merrier than when teasing her, but still a man who knew how to listen. She began to cry quietly. Pietr had been a good friend and had stood by her on many occasions. And now he was out there somewhere in an unmarked grave. He had given so much, and had loved this place with a single, unwavering and uncomplicated devotion. ‘God bless you, Pietr, wherever you are,’ she murmured. On impulse she picked up the book he had been reading – Tales of Paradise by Sasha Malik. She slipped a bookmark into the pages, closed the book and put it into her pocket. She wished there was more she could do, but she couldn’t think of anything, and so she sat in the armchair for a few minutes while the grief worked its way through her.

  Hera shivered. Evening was advancing and the temperature had dropped quickly. She glanced out through the window. Tonic had a ring of light around it and high wispy cloud had gathered in the hills. Rain tomorrow, she guessed.

  As she said goodbye to the room, she heard a mutter of thunder in the hills. She closed the door to the cabin firmly. She knew that neither she nor Pietr would ever return. Everything was left for Paradise to dispose of.

  Hera hurried down the causeway, anxious suddenly to be back inside the SAS.

  Moments later, inside but with the raucous noise of the talking jenny still ringing in her ears, she looked out from the windows of the SAS. Pietr’s house was rocking gently in the evening breeze. Inside the cabin the automatic lights had come on and shone out across the water.

  11

  The Call

  Hera was up by dawn.

  By the time the sun had risen above the Staniforths she was standing at the edge of the SAS landing platform, fully kitted out in a survival suit and with a machete slung across her back for good measure.

  The rain that had come in the night had now passed, but the wind was still strong. Hera watched it send swirling cat’s paws scampering up the meadow towards the umbrella tree plantation about a mile away. The wind was also carrying winged seeds. They arrived in clouds, lifted from the Kithaeron Hills and the High Staniforths. The seeds spun and fluttered on white and blue wings and were so dense that at times she could not see the further shore of the lake.

  They landed on the surface and floated, moving with the waves so that Pietr’s little hut looked as though set in a freezing sea. They swirled round Hera, plastering her survival suit. They clung like coloured snow to the windows of the SAS.

  Looking east across the water, Hera could just see the tall umbrella trees flexing, buffeted by the wind, bending and nodding like spectators at a carnival caught in a shower of rain. When the trees dipped, they revealed their gleaming grey domes and heavy sap running in slow white waves and falling like lather onto the plants beneath. Wherever she looked, she saw an active scene. Everything seemed alive, busy even. This was Paradise untroubled, as it had been for millennia. But the weather was worsening and Hera knew that if she wanted to inspect the umbrella tree plantation before the rain came or the wind worsened, she needed to start moving.

  Hera’s plan for the day was simple. First she would work her way to the plantation and see how the tree nursery was faring. From there she would be able to see down to where the weeds had encroached on the experimental seedbeds. However, getting to the plantation proved difficult. The pathways over the water meadow were defined by yellow plastic mesh which both floated and was held taut on posts. Originally established as a temporary measure, the plastic paths had become permanent despite Hera’s offer of funds to establish a proper walkway. Although the surface shifted like the deck of a ship, walking was possible, as old Pietr Z often used to demonstrate. He would walk with a graceful gliding motion, almost as if he were cross-country skiing. Any ORBE apprentice working with Pietr had to master this art, and usually did, especially after falling two or three times into the talking jenny and the soft stinking ooze which was waiting on all sides.

  Before her, the posts supporting the plastic mesh followed a wide arc, leading to the heart of the plantation. Occasionally the path divided, with a new arm curving away, heading to distant corners of the plantation.

  In some places the talking jenny had sprouted right up through the mesh and was impossible to avoid. The name talking jenny was a euphemism. The plant possessed a soft brown cigar-sized fermentation bladder which floated on the surface. To feed, the bladder sucked in floating seeds with a gentle peristalsis. These it transformed into nutrients and gas. When it had finished digestion, it expelled the stinking residue as a spray with a raucous flatulent sound. During the previous night the talking jenny had fed well, filling millions of fermentation sacks with the fluttering seeds. Wherever Hera looked, there were small fountains of brown sputum staining the air. It was impossible to avoid being sprayed.

  Almost an hour later, bemerded but unbowed, Hera stood close to one of the umbrella trees – a true giant. It was moving with the wind and she could hear the stress in its trunk, like a ship straining against a wharf. She waited until a column of the slimy, bubbly sap had fallen and then stepped smartly under the vast umbel. Here she was safe. The quality of the sound changed and the raw noise of the talking jenny became muted. At some time Pietr had carved a simple armchair into the roots facing down to the lake. Hera was glad of it. Survival suits were fine garments and had saved many lives but, like all such, they left something to be desired when it came to getting rid of sweat and body heat. Hera opened all the vents and lifted her arms, linking her hands over her head.

  From here she could see the purple spikes and cups of the saplings which would, in the fullness of time, become tall umbrella trees in their own right. There were hundreds of them, all growing in the tree’s drip line. When she looked across at the other mature trees, it was the same story. They all had their families gathered about them. Many of the offspring would not survive, simply because of competition, but those that did would be strong and vigorous and so the forest would advance and gradually take over the land. In the days before MINADEC, this entire valley had been a marsh filled with the majestic trees.

  Occasionally, as she sat looking at the young plants, one of the spikes would slowly unfurl its leaves and then open like a clam. It would stay open until some of the rich nutrient from above had filled it, and then would close. The flow of sap never stopped, and so eventually, despite the wind favouring one direction, the waiting cups were all filled while others opened. The ubiquitous weed was greatly in evidence, its blue fl
owers clustered round the smallest of the saplings.

  As she sat, Hera became aware of a change in the air about her. The surface of the lake was blue again, reflecting the sky. The seeds that had covered it in the morning had all gone, sunk or eaten, and the wind too had faded away. The jenny were quiet and Hera opened her helmet and breathed deeply. It was a scene of perfect peace. Even the blue of the weeds had a rightness about it, though they stood like an invading army, knee-deep in the experimental seedbeds.

  Time to move! Cooler, Hera scrambled down over the roots to where a new section of the walkway began. This was called the Avenue and ran right through a stand of the tallest trees before heading back into the lake and entering the experimental park. Walking with giants, she thought as she glide-walked along. I’m walking with giants!

  The last umbrella tree she visited was indeed one of the giants and its ribbed dome spread far out over the marsh. Looking across the lake, she could just see the SAS on its pad, shining in the sunlight. She touched the control panel on her arm and saw its beacon light flash once in acknowledgement. All was well.

  Hera had just passed the tree’s drip line when she heard what sounded like a trumpet call, high and clear. The sound startled her and she stopped. The single call was joined by other notes in quick succession until together they formed a dissonant chord. The overall pitch changed too, sometimes diving, at other times soaring up until the sound was lost to her . . . only to begin again with a low growl.

  It was the ‘pipes’ of the High Staniforths – the wind blowing over the wide, open mouths of long-dead plants called tuyau which grew like giant vines in the mountains. The final chord held steady. It was not unlike the sound of an accordion as it is slowly squeezed to silence. That itself was a warning. The music had stopped because the pipes would now be clogged again with snow. Bad weather coming.

  And in that moment, completely without warning, Hera felt something strike her from above. It might have been a sack of eels or a bucket of tripe. It completely covered her head and some of the material slopped over her face and down inside her collar. It flowed heavily over one arm and slipped to the ground. Surprised, she screamed, staggered forward, tripped and, in trying to recover her balance, fell of the narrow walkway and into the marsh.

  It was her training on Mars that saved her. She relaxed as she fell. She gasped air before her head was engulfed. She did not struggle, for that might have entrapped her in the strong tangled roots of the jenny. She kept her eyes closed and her breath tight. Her helmet with its built-in camera fell away. Only when she felt her shoulder touch the soft ooze of the bottom did she gently push upwards. She let her buoyancy lift her slowly through the viscous liquid until her head bumped against the rough plastic underside of the walkway. Reaching out she was able to find the edge and steadily guide herself until her head was out from under the walkway. She could not stand but, with head bent back and lifting herself partially onto the edge of the walkway, she was just able to breathe. And that first breath was very heaven.

  Everything was slippery. The stalks and bladders of the talking jenny gave no support, but began to void. The survival suit was heavy, and getting heavier, for the weight of the falling sap had torn open some of the seals and water was entering. When she tried to lift herself, her legs floated up under the walkway, pushed by the current flowing towards the lake.

  Hera held tight, just breathing steadily. She was safe as long as she didn’t panic. She surveyed her options. She could call up the SAS. But then what? She would still have to climb . . . She could work her way hand over hand through the marsh, but the current was strong and with the heavy suit dragging . . . Her third option was to abandon the survival suit and climb up onto the walkway. She could then make her way slowly back to the SAS. This was the option she chose.

  With her chin clamped over the edge of the mesh, Hera removed the SAS command pad and pushed it safely onto the walkway. Then she simply pulled open the seals and unzipped the suit. A few wriggles and it was off her shoulders. Once her arms were out, she was able to push the suit down and away from her. The water felt suddenly cold but at least she could move freely. She limbered herself up from the ooze until the top half of her body was lying on the plastic. Two more kicks and she felt the legs of the suit slip of her feet. Freedom! With a final pull, she was kneeling on the walkway, her head pressed down on the SAS control pad to make sure it could not slip away. She was safe, and as though that were the cue, her senses came back. She could again smell the putrid air, for she had woken the dormant jenny with her struggles, and taste the foul water that had run into her nose and past her lips. But she was alive.

  Hera stood up slowly, breathing deeply. She watched as the talking jenny gradually reoccupied the place where she had been. A minute after climbing out there was no sign of her presence or her struggle in the water. The survival suit and helmet with its precious camera, despite their buoyancy, never emerged. How easily Paradise robs me of the things of Earth, she thought. And then she laughed. What would Old Pietr have said if he could have seen her standing there in just her underwear?

  Hera was tempted to go straight back to the SAS, but some grit in her nature, some determination to make up for lost time, made her move on down the pathway towards the seedbeds and the bobbing blue flowers of the weeds. The air became a strange amalgam of umbrella tree slop, talking jenny eructation and the sweet perfume of the weed.

  Hera came to the place where the walkway divided and the regeneration seedbed began. Wind-driven pumps delivered frothy sap to a long line of small protected plants. Hera came to the first, and it was dying. The pumps were still working vigorously, delivering their measured quantity of sap, but the sap fell on open mouths slack and unable to close. It dribbled down and into the marsh. Plants that had their spike closed were turning black and beginning to buckle and droop. Hera walked along the line. She passed a thousand plants, and all were dying.

  So much for a bold experiment! How pathetic they looked, these drooping plants! Why had they started to wilt now? The thought came to her that perhaps they had died because Pietr Z had died. There was no denying that sometimes clocks stopped, pets died and pictures fell when someone who loved them died.

  She came to the last plant in the row. Its cup was open but the stem was broken and black so that it looked for all the world like a hanged man. The desolation of this plant summed up them all. Hera sank down and stared at it. How sad! How bloody, bloody, sad! It was an indictment of all that had gone wrong on Paradise.

  How long she sat there she did not know, but her reverie was suddenly interrupted by a call from the SAS. ‘Meteorological report. Storm system building in the Staniforths. High winds and rain from the north-west forecast. Present location insecure. Imperative move to a more protected landing.’

  Hera roused herself and looked about her. The mechanical voice came at her again, and louder. ‘Meteorological report. Storm—’

  ‘I hear you,’ she called. She looked at the mindless nodding pumps feeding the dead plants. ‘I’m on my way back now. There’s nothing I can do here.’

  Hera stood up painfully, for she had begun to stiffen while seated on the mesh. The path she was on would soon intersect with the one she had taken that morning. She could see the SAS with its beacon flashing.

  Signs of the coming storm were already all about her. A darkening of the sky. A shiftiness in the breeze. A deadness in the air. The talking jenny had begun to void in earnest, perhaps in anticipation of another seed feast.

  Hera reached out and touched the dead umbrella sapling with her fingers. That small touch changed its balance and it collapsed forward across her arm, fell into the marsh and slowly sank. They would all fall in the coming storm. Paradise was cleansing itself.

  Still bemused, Hera glide-walked her way down the path towards where a clump of weeds stood tall amid the former seed-beds. As she approached, she saw one of the weeds jerk stiffy and then become still again. She was immediately on her guard, remem
bering the energy wave that had shaken the plants on her first night alone. She regretted the loss of the machete.

  But as she approached, she noticed that the weeds were growing in clusters. What’s more, they were gathered round the places where the umbrella spikes had been planted, as though feeding. Despite the urgency of her situation, Hera’s curiosity got the better of her. She approached warily. Gently she lifted one of the tangled arms of a and was able to peer into the space within the plant. Her face was very close to one of the big blue flowers, but it was not its perfume that made her heart race.

  Within the cluster of plants she had expected to see the pump working and a dead, black stump. But the pump was gone, broken by a branch, and the flow of nutrient had stopped. In its place, growing vigorously, was an umbrella tree spike. It was already quite tall. Tough-looking roots had grown laterally out from the stem and had wrapped firmly round the lowest branches of the for support. Higher up, the spike of the umbrella tree was partly open, like the mouth of a fledgling in the nest, and thousands of small fibrous roots had grown out from the mouth and pierced the upper branches of the weeds. Where these entered the trees they had created running wounds. Even as Hera watched, one of the wounds bled sap which dribbled down and was hungrily absorbed into the root. Not only was the umbrella spike using the weed for support, but it was feeding upon it. The invader was itself invaded.

  Symbiosis is common in Nature, but where was the advantage to the Tattersall? To Hera’s eyes it looked as if the weeds had deliberately set themselves up here in order to help the umbrella spikes. But (and it was a big but), if they had grown here deliberately then it suggested altruism, and that was distinctly rare in nature.

  Hera could see that the weeds were no longer vigorous.

  She touched one of the thorns and it was soft, like the thorn on a young rose. The plants would undoubtedly die as the umbrella spike drank their sap. Then presumably new and bigger weeds would take their place, to be devoured in turn. She looked down. They were already there, new weeds, springing up.