The Disestablishment of Paradise

by Phillip Mann

  How many weeds would have to sacrifice themselves before the young umbrella tree began to create its own sap? Thousands. But that did not matter. There were hundreds of thousands in the nearby hills. The umbrella trees would survive. What she was witnessing here could be replicated wherever the star-shaped waterborne seeds of the umbrella tree could lodge and where there was a on hand to serve as wet nurse.

  Carefully Hera lowered the branch of the weed and stepped back. The implications of what she had seen for the future of Paradise were enormous. Paradise was looking after its own.

  ‘Priority warning.’ The voice of the SAS was loud in her ear.

  ‘Emergency rescue procedures will commence in one minute.

  Imperative return to base.’ The storm was building with alarming speed. The Kithaeron Hills were already blotted from sight. The whole world was becoming abnormal.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ shouted Hera. ‘Begin take-off procedures. Be ready to lift off as soon as I’m inside.’

  She ran down the walkway. The weeds gave her some protection, but when she came out into the open she could feel the full bluster of the wind. The talking jenny rose and fell in waves.

  The sky was a jumble of lowering clouds which seemed to move in two directions at once.

  She came to the place where two paths joined. Brilliant flashes of lightning were followed moments later by a tearing crack of thunder, as though the sky was filled with stones banging together. In front of her she could see the SAS, its blades turning steadily, its beacon flashing. It was rocking on the platform, tilted by the wind.

  Then the first rain started, and it came like arrows. More lightning, almost above her now. Two flashes met horizontally, and at the point where they collided a brilliant violet star was created and slid slowly down the sky while the thunder roared and rolled.

  The walkway was now heaving up and down in the waves and she was sure it would tear loose before long. She could no longer walk upright so she crawled, gripping the mesh with her fingers. Only about fifty metres to go. The wind veered round and came from behind, pushing her while the mesh heaved and strained. Then she was climbing, pulling herself up onto the pitching landing platform and running crab-like for the door, which stood open. She threw herself inside, shouting, ‘Go, go, go.’ The door slammed and the engine roared and Hera was pinned to the ground as the SAS lifted and banked and ran before the wind, its twin rotors hammering.

  This was the worst journey Hera had ever experienced. She scrambled into the shower cubicle but could do nothing but hold on while the SAS dipped and dived and shuddered. She managed to slip her arms through the webbing of a safety harness and grip tight. Once the SAS dropped, like a stone down a well, but the autopilot, responding faster than any human, brought it round and into the wind, and its engines throbbed and the whole craft shook, but it began to gain height again.

  This was what the SAS ships were built for, and why the automatic landing and navigation computers were so expensive. Every circuit would be involved as Alan calculated probabilities and stress factors – always mindful of the vulnerability of the small speck of life that stood, braced and frightened, in the shower cubicle. The engine beat its way through the storm, occasionally dipping, but always rising again and slowly gaining altitude.

  Once they took a broadside hit, as though struck by a wave, something that came swirling out of the dark clouds, but that marked the beginning of the end of the storm for them. Thereafter the buffeting, while still considerable, gradually diminished. Hera was able to make her way up to the control room. She found they were very high. Higher than she had ever flown before in an SAS. Perhaps at the limit of what an SAS could accomplish. Looking down, she could see the storm racing below her, like a wide grey river containing within it curling black eddies. The SAS was flying across the tops of the clouds, following a diagonal path. ‘Where are you making for, Alan?’ she asked.

  The reply took the form of a change in the navigation screen. The screen flickered erratically, but she could see they were heading down the rift valley and would seek shelter behind the St Louis Mountains. A place called Damien’s Gully was highlighted. It was close to the site of one of the early homesteads where an emergency landing pad was located. Then the screen cut out.

  ‘Are we badly damaged?’

  There was a pause and the Alan’s peaceful voice spoke. ‘Small damage, so far.’

  ‘How serious?’

  ‘Nothing I can’t fix. Nothing structural. Some circuits.’

  ‘Will we make it?’ There was no answer. ‘Ignore that question.’

  They flew on in silence. The buffeting now ceased altogether as they moved away from the storm and began to descend.

  Music started, but it was scratchy and the tones were all wrong.

  ‘Nice try, Alan, but stop it.’ The music cut out. ‘So tell me, Alan.

  What is the damage? What happened?’

  There was a long pause. When Alan’s voice came it was slow.

  ‘Detailed report. Servo coupling links to FIX 387-8 slave monitor malfunction at—’

  ‘Hey,’ cut in Hera. ‘I didn’t mean that. Cancel it. Just give me the broad picture.’

  There was another long pause and then Alan’s voice, speaking normally, said, ‘I think you would say we were lucky.’

  ‘Lucky? I thought you autopilots didn’t deal in luck, just probabilities.’

  Long pause. ‘Very well, you were lucky. If you had been a few minutes later, the 95 per cent probability is that I would have been blown off the landing pad and into the mire. There is a 99 per cent probability that I would have been rolled by the wind, and although I am strong, I cannot take off when I am on my side in water. Without me to shelter you, there is a 75 per cent probability that you would have been drowned. But that game is dead, because it did not happen. We were struck by lightning, several times, but our chances of survival improved with every foot of altitude we gained.’

  ‘We dropped suddenly.’

  ‘Inversion trap over the Kithaeron Hills. We fell to within fifty feet of the ground. But I found good air. And we climbed up and entered the storm again. That was when I lost the domestic circuits.’

  ‘Did you send out a mayday?’

  ‘Yes, when I thought we would crash.’

  ‘So they will be sending a rescue team from the—’

  ‘I cancelled the mayday when I knew we were safe.’

  ‘Good.’

  They lapsed into silence. Hera decided she could take a little more human warmth and adjusted the Alanstyle settings accordingly. When she asked, ‘What is our ETA at Damien’s Gully?’ it took a while for Alan to reply, and the voice was still slow, but warmer.

  ‘Well, if I keep constant speed, and there are no more problems,

  I should have us down in about half an hour. I’ll need an hour of shutdown for repairs, and we could be back on our way by evening.

  That is unless you want to stay . . . .’

  ‘I’ll decide later.’

  ‘Whatev—’

  ‘Can I take a shower?’

  ‘Yes, but the water will be cold. Sorry.’

  ‘I’ll cope.’

  ‘And don’t ask me to make a hot cup of tea.’

  Hera had not realized how dirty she was until she saw the water on the floor of the shower. It was brown from the talking jenny. The mucus from the umbrella trees had dried like rubbery glue, and when she pulled it off, she found that her skin underneath was blotchy and puffed up. This was nothing new and there was a lotion in the first-aid cabinet that she could rub in.

  The cold water flowed onto the back of her head, dividing her hair and coursing over her shoulders. What relief that brought! She had had two lucky escapes this day – several more if Alan was to be believed. And she had made one momentous discovery. Not bad for a second day. That deserved a celebration. She closed her eyes, turned and lifted her face to the water and let it pour over her eyes and nose.

  That movement, whi
le she did not open her mouth, reminded her of the dead umbrella plant she had seen. Remembering this brought her what she later came to call a ‘moment of small enlightenment’. She explained this as follows.

  It may have been simple reaction – relief at being safe – or the fact that I had witnessed something that I thought was close to a miracle, but the faces of those two plants, the dead one I had sat before in such sadness, and the magnificent live one that was growing with the weed . . . well, both fused in my mind. For a moment I became, as it were, both of them. That, in turn, became my moment of small enlightenment, for suddenly I saw them as two alternatives. The polarity sparkled before me: one side spiralling up to infinity and light, the other coiling down to darkness and death. Darkness and light. Hope and despair. Yes or no. Knowledge or oblivion. There are so many ways of saying it. I saw then that it is all in the choosing and oh I wanted life and love and to be part of this great tumultuous change that was taking place on Paradise. It quite overpowered me.

  And then it was gone, as a vision, but the memory lingered on.

  Moments later Hera was working lotion into the angry red blotches on her skin and humming when she heard the change in pitch as the SAS dropped lower and then the bump as they landed.

  The voice of Alan came to her.

  ‘Closing down . . . Suggest . . . food in freezer. Repairs now . . . No distractions.’

  ‘Point taken. Will do. Let me know when you are finished.’

  There was no reply. Alan had gone.

  One by one she heard the fans stop and the gurgle as the water pumps lost pressure. The doors slid open and locked and then the lights blinked out.

  Hera did not bother to get dressed, but just threw a wrap around her shoulders. Through the open door she could see the warm sunlight and smell the crushed brevet where the SAS had landed. To stretch on that bright blue and green carpet would do her good, she decided. She had a lot to think about. So, having collected what she needed from the dark kitchen, she stepped outside.

  Again in her own words:

  I was feeling giddy. Safety after danger does that, you know. And being naked outdoors was fun too – nice but naughty, and not something I did normally. I spread a tablecloth on the brevet and set out a glass and plate and some cold food and, of course, one of the bottles of wine that Mack had given me. I did everything with great deliberation. Everything, even the most trivial act, the pulling of a cork, the coldness of the bottle when it accidentally touched my thigh, everything seemed filled with significance. I was safe. I was alive. I was not a young woman – but I felt young.

  They had landed in a clearing above the river. Looking down, Hera could see the meandering Damien Stream and the ruins of an old shilo. A watermill was still in place and turning, though whatever it had been built to drive was long gone.

  Hera poured the wine and ate some fruit. She lay back in the sun and wondered for the first time for quite a long time – and somewhat to her amusement – what it would be like if she had a man on hand to share things with. But then, with that fond thought in mind, as she lay back, glass in hand, enjoying the fact of being alive, naked and longing, from nowhere it seemed . . . the planet spoke to her.

  We are approaching an important moment in Hera’s story – a moment which was the cause of heated discussion between us. Here are the very words that Hera spoke as I recorded them, sitting in the calm of my study.

  Hera The planet spoke to me – it was unmistakable. Don’t look so surprised, Olivia. It spoke . . . not just to my ears, not just to my mind, but to all of me in one divine voice and in one divine moment. It was my name that was said. Hera.

  Olivia How did you know it was the planet speaking?

  Hera I just did. It was unmistakable. If you had heard—

  Olivia Ah yes, but I didn’t.

  Hera It was a two-way thing. You know that when someone speaks your name you have an involuntary reaction. Emotional. It could be pleasure or . . . whatever. When I heard the voice, I reacted with knowledge. It was not a strange voice. It was a voice I think I had heard before but never distinctly. I think it was always there but I had not been able to hear it before.

  Olivia But now you were on the right wavelength?

  Hera Yes. Something like that. I think intuition has something to do with it too. I remember when I was a student reading a paper about Paradise and I got this tingly feeling. So even then something was happening, but I didn’t know what. We usually don’t know, do we?

  Olivia Like falling in love.

  Hera I was like one of the girls who used to drop pebbles into a pool at full moon to see the face of the man they would marry. They knew they had fallen in love already; they just didn’t know who with.

  Olivia Women gamble on happiness too often.

  Hera Olivia, stop it! So when I heard the voice it was like a voice I had known for a long time.

  Olivia Was it a man’s voice?

  Hera Yes. No. Not really. But not a woman’s voice either. But I know what you are driving at. It was deeply sexual. That’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it? At least my response was. It warmed me as a woman. I just couldn’t help myself. I was caught by surprise. The voice was like a shower of golden rain . . . so was my response, in a manner of speaking. (PAUSE) Why are you looking at me like that?

  Olivia I am thinking your name should be Danäe not Hera.

  Hera I thought of that too. God, they had the truth of things, whoever first composed those old stories. You’re thinking of the legend aren’t you? Danäe, mother of Persus, who was locked in a tower by her father, yes? And Zeus came to her disguised as a shower of golden rain. Is that the story? Well take it as literal. But don’t get too hung up on the sexual side of things, Olivia. Everything in our life can be seen as sexual . . . but it is what that leads us to that finally matters – at my age anyway. And in my case I felt my eyes were opening. The process which began when I was a girl and which accelerated during all the things that happened to me at the ORBE project at the Space Council, at Anchor Hold and in the night alone on Paradise . . . all, all simply came together. The planet speaking simply continued the process. Even now.

  Olivia I hope it never lets you down.

  Hera How can it let me down. It is in me now. No matter what.

  Even after everything that has happened. But there is something else you must know. And this was new. It’s nothing to do with feeling good or complete or sexy. I was aware of pain too. Not in me. No. Not my pain. But pain in the voice. A discordant note. A stain . . . I don’t know how to tell you.

  Olivia Were you hearing the damage done to Paradise?

  Hera Yes. Partly. But this was something more specific, like a cry in the night. I know now that this was the first stirring of the Dendron. It was aware of me.

  Olivia We’ll come to that later. One last question. Now, here, at this very moment, sitting here with me years later and with all that has happened to you, do you still believe that it was the voice of the planet that spoke to you, or was it something inside you trying to get out?

  Hera It was both.

  Olivia I was afraid you’d say that.

  Hera In those few moments, sitting in a meadow on an alien world, I received the purest communication that I was capable of receiving at that time, and it spoke to me in the only language I could understand. The voice warmed me then, and it still does, even now. It was like the golden rain of Danäe, or a golden light inside me, or beautiful shimmering music. It, whatever it is, had enlarged me so that I could understand – and so I did . . . well partly. There was a reason I was there at that time. I understood as much as I could. And if I had understood more the knowledge would have destroyed me, like putting hot water into a cold glass. I would not be here now. I would be insane or with O’Leary, or a stiff and lacquered little corpse on Paradise.

  Olivia But now? What can you hear now?

  There was a long pause. I saw Hera drift away. My question had caught her off guard. I saw her eyes dart
and flicker as though waking up in a bright light, and her lips purse, and then the black stains on her face became more pronounced. Hectic. Finally she mumbled something and moments later she sighed and her eyes closed. When she came back to herself, she was tired.

  Hera You must not do that to me, Olivia. You must not put me at risk. You and your questions. You are worse than all the scientists in Christendom. What would you do if I died before the book was finished? (AT THIS POINT SHE SMILED AT ME WEARILY AND SEEMED TO LOOK THROUGH ME.) But Paradise is still there, and is changing, and they are all alive, so all is as well as can be expected.

  I heeded the warning. I did not press her to explain further. And there we must leave our discussion. I am sure an entire library could be written about the complexities of communication with the alien, and the common ground which must be discovered before any communication can take place. I know that the demanding of proof can be a kind of blindness. But, having accepted the enigmas of the fractal, I wonder what could be stranger? Like many of you perhaps, I wish I could venture to Paradise and witness it for myself.

  We return to Hera on Paradise. She is sitting in the meadow, naked and with a glass of unsipped wine in her hand. The echoes of the voice she has heard inside her are slowly fading.

  Hera sat for a while, in that present moment – holding it, unwilling to let it go.

  And the next thing she heard was music. Bach. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor no less. It came from the open door of the SAS. This was Alan’s way of telling Hera that the repairs were done, the SAS was ready.

  She smelled coffee too, and that was his way of saying that normal service had been resumed. Hera stood up and wrapped the tablecloth round her. Hera is not sure why she did this, but it definitively marked the return to her habitual self.

  In truth she felt a bit let down – a bit, I suppose, empty, unfulfilled. She wanted more, but once again nothing tangible had been communicated except a sense of delight, as well as that fine thread of pain she mentions. Most positive was the realization that communication of a kind had taken place. It was a kinder communication too . . . kinder than the abrupt seizure of her memories on that first night, and more personal. She was hungry for more. Being sensible, she knew she must be patient, for the timing was not in her hands. Being human, she was restless and full of longing . . .