The Disestablishment of Paradise

by Phillip Mann

  In her words:

  Hera My first thought was, This is not happening to me. But the pain was real enough, and the sight of my blood. I remember being surprised. But my situation was changing quickly. I could feel the tightness of the branches and a terrible dark awareness grew that they were settling into me, that they would never move and I would be there for eternity.

  Olivia Did you ever doubt?

  Hera Doubt?

  Olivia The wisdom of what you were doing, the wisdom of actually being there, down on Paradise?

  Hera I was a bit too preoccupied for doubt, Olivia. Doubt is a luxury when you are pinned in a tree with spines growing through you.

  Olivia Sorry. Go on.

  Hera And still there was my name being sounded. It just went on and on – an echo that never faded. And the name seemed to flow in my blood. That doesn’t make sense, does it? What I mean is that the name was in me like my blood, and I was so very aware of the blood. You see, being tilted the way I was, the blood from the cuts inside the meshlite flowed out through my collar and even into my mouth. I know I was very confused and I think I must have blacked out several times. One of the spines of the was pressing into the place just under the patella in my knee. Another was in my thigh and a third in my back. Others were in my arms. I still have the scars.

  Olivia You don’t need—

  Hera The pain of these, flower or no flower, perfume or no perfume, threatened to overwhelm me. They were like fire and ice. I had no idea how deep the cuts were. Severe pain induces vomiting. Did you know that, Olivia?

  Olivia Yes.

  Hera Well, It surprised me. My body took over and I must have convulsed uncontrollably. What a sight I must have made. Being twisted the way I was, the vomit fell to the ground – I saw it . . . I’m not boring you, am I?

  Olivia No, I . . . Sorry, I’m a bit squeamish. Go on.

  Hera Well, a kind of heat came back at me and immediately a growling. It was my name again, but spoken by a lion. I thought, This is it, and hoped it would be over soon. You see my convulsions had driven the spikes deeper. That was when I floated away. The pain was great, but I was elsewhere, on the other side of it. I think I had accepted death.

  Olivia And yet you lived on. Your spirit was not broken?

  Hera There was a moment of darkness, as though the sun had flickered, and I thought, No more. Please. Let me pass on. Let me go. And then, in front of my eyes, one of the lovely blue flowers suddenly closed. Then opened again and closed again. Another higher up did likewise. Others followed. It was as though they were controlled by strings, snapping open and shut. And then they all closed and the tree started to shake.

  Olivia Good God. And that hurt too

  Hera I was past caring. But I realized that the pressure on me had lessened. For one thing, I could feel that the weight on the one leg that touched the ground was heavier. That brought its own problems, but I pushed against the thin branch locked round my arm, and the branch eased off. The crucial thing is that it was not like a spring. It did not leap back, or worse, tighten even more. Well . . .

  Olivia Go on.

  Hera You are not going to like this at all, Olivia. I got this strong urge to push and to move. Suddenly I had an image of a Dendron, like the one that young Malik talks about. You know, when she sees it churning up the water at the bottom of the rapids.2 I was urged to . . . It urged me to have the strength of the Dendron. That was the thought, and a surge of strength did come to me. And – mark this, because it is important – the same surge must have come to the weed too, for almost immediately another of its branches pulled back. The spines – I saw them, red-tipped and wet – lifted from me slowly. I turned my body with them. I didn’t want to be cut as they withdrew. How is that for clear thinking, Olivia? They came out cleanly, except for one, and the blood followed them.

  Olivia Good God.

  Hera And now we come to the silly part. I still only had one foot on the ground, because my other leg was still trapped. There I was escaping, but if the weed moved any more, it would lift me up off the ground by one leg. But then that branch loosened its grip too. For a moment I tottered and thought I might fall towards the small plant in the centre. At that one same moment the giant weed froze and all its flowers flashed open. If I had ever been close to sudden death, that was it. But I did keep my balance – don’t ask me how, but when I was a girl I was a bit of an athlete, being small, you know – so that must have helped. It seemed like an eternity. Both of us still. And then I saw the flowers slowly close, one by one, and it let me drop.

  When I looked up at the weed, it had one branch raised higher than all the others, and I was reminded of a samurai warrior standing over me with his great sword raised. I kept very still. But then that branch . . . it too just wilted and dropped. Something had killed it.

  Hera lay on the ground for some time. She was aware of many things. Of pain and of relief, certainly. Aware too that the presence that had given her the strength of the Dendron had also, perhaps inadvertently, given her knowledge. That would need long pondering.

  She squirmed round and looked at the small plant, the young Michelangelo. It had closed up completely. It had lifted its leaves and wrapped them around its black and red heart so tightly that it now resembled a slim green vase of the kind that can only hold a single flower. ‘What are you?’ breathed Hera.

  Hera had seen a truth about Paradise. The small creature at the centre of the clearing was a child. A powerful child. It had played with her and it might have killed her with the same wanton unconcern as a child plucks the legs off a daddy-long-legs or the wings off a cicada – without a trace of malice. Likewise, the clumsy weed had thorns, not to attack but because they helped the branches to climb and grip. It was neither vengeful nor cruel.

  Hera Paradise is very simple on one level – or it was at that time. The biggest danger I ever experienced down there was when I let myself think of the bio-forms in human terms or credited them with human emotions, and of course intellectually I knew that. But you know, Olivia, it is almost impossible not to. Our emotions are the greatest dynamo within us. Can you prevent love? Can you resist it? Is it not the greatest generative force of which we can conceive? And does not the great imaginative act of empathy begin within us too? (LONG PAUSE) At the same time, we do have to hold back sometimes in order to reach further. Poor Shapiro couldn’t, and look what happened to him. Of course there is some overlap between us human beings and whatever the creatures are that live on Paradise – the very fact that we are all subject to time ensures that. But as Shapiro said on many occasions, ‘We are children of the same universe, but it is a universe full of contradictions.’ As long as you realize the bio-forms did not act with malice and had no concept of death in the way that we have, or any fear of death, you can start to understand the nature of Paradise – as it was. In fact, I did not know it then of course, but I was about to be useful to them.

  Olivia Did they think of you as useful?

  Hera You are so wonderfully pragmatic, Olivia. I think they saw me as just what is . . . what was there. To hand. Rice in a begging bowl. You know I sometimes think what we call wisdom is nothing more than the ability to foresee the consequences of our actions, and to hold back before they become our fate.

  Olivia Can I quote you?

  Hera I’d rather you didn’t.

  Olivia I have one question.

  Hera I have a hundred, but go on.

  Olivia Was the weed that grabbed you protecting the small Michelangelo? Because, if so, that shows intention or motive in a way that we can understand.

  Hera Mm. If I were a herbalist, and knowing what I know now, I think I would rename the weed the mother-of-all-kindness flower or some such old-fashioned name because it seems to have always had an urge to protect. So, in grabbing me, you might say it was protecting the Michelangelo, or you might say that it was protecting me – and remember that the s are very clumsy – for I reckon the naughty little Michelangelo had designs on me,
don’t you? But the truly important thing is that the voice of a Dendron – an extinct creature, as I then believed – crying out in pain, was heard by the only creature that could help it. Little me, Hera. Put that in your rationalist pipe and smoke it.

  Olivia I will.

  To return to Hera lying on the ground.

  The adrenalin that flooded her system had a limited life. She needed to move before she stiffened and before too much blood was lost. The SAS could not reach her here, and so the first thing was to retrace her steps through the labyrinth. She crawled back under the giant weed, stood up and began to limp along the widening avenue between the s. She has little memory of this journey beyond an impression that it got easier as she moved along. So we must imagine the small limping warrior battling on, her path becoming brighter with every dragging step.

  Hera does remember clearly the moment when she finally waded across the stream, but she was not where she had entered; she was much further down the hillside at a place that was more like a meadow.

  Hera was too far gone to ask questions and under no illusions. She was on borrowed time. She tapped the emergency code into her control pad and instantly the cool, unruffled voice of Alan spoke in her ear. ‘Tracking your signal, Hera. ETA thirty seconds and counting.’ Even as he spoke, Hera heard the engine roar and saw the SAS lift above the labyrinth far up the ravine. Having no human crew to consider, it bent in the air at a sharp angle and within a few seconds was hammering over her. What a wonderful sound! The wind from the rotor blades flattened the nearby Tattersalls and pressed Hera to the ground. The door opened in the side of the SAS and a small ladder snaked down and stiffened.

  Hera dragged herself upright and sat on the bottom rung. There she undid the top of her meshlite overall and gingerly eased herself out of it. In some places the blood had dried and the meshlite was stuck to her. But she was able to loosen it and the fresh air on her skin felt good. Finally she undid the hip tags and pushed down. This was the hardest part, for to stand was painful, and yet if she sat down that hurt too. But she managed. She stepped out of the uniform.

  A casual inspection told her that the cuts where the spines had entered were not as bad as they might have been. They looked like little mouths. No bones were broken. Though she had lost blood, that could soon be made up. She would heal. But her knee worried her. It had swollen and was very painful to touch. She feared that a tip of a spine might have broken off and be lodged inside.

  Hera left the suit where it was, on the ground. I am glad to record that she had not lost her sense of humour. ‘I must stop stripping off and leaving my clothes everywhere, or I’ll have nothing left to wear when I leave Paradise,’ she said as she gingerly stepped onto the ladder and held on. How prophetic!

  ‘You are hurt, Hera?’

  ‘A few scratches. And before you ask, the answer is no.’

  ‘You don’t want me to make a cup of tea?’

  ‘That’s not what you were . . . Oh, bugger it. Yes, make me a cup of tea. Just do it. Then head for home. I need to clean myself up.’

  Back at Monkey Tree Terrace she made her way to the shilo, walking stiffy. She’d had some bright notion that she would shower and dress her wounds and then find clean clothes and . . . But as she lowered herself onto the bed, the room turned around her and she passed out.

  She slipped to the floor and lay still.

  With Hera’s agreement, I wish to add a comment to this account. Hera has called me a rationalist, and I suppose that, in comparison with her, I am. However, for once I am the one being somewhat mystical, albeit in a rather down-to-earth way, for I have thought long and hard about labyrinths, considering them a gateway between realities. We are close to a universal law.

  The labyrinth Hera had followed on her way in to the Michelangelo undoubtedly defined the power outline associated with that small entity the Michelangelo-Reaper, just as iron filings define the power lines of a magnet. That it should take a spiral form should not surprise us, since that is one of the fundamental creative patterns of nature.

  My contention is that the path she followed to escape was quite different from the path of entry. The escape path did not truly exist when she entered, or existed only potentially, that is in a veiled way, available only to the person of knowledge. Hera’s experience in the labyrinth brought her that knowledge. What is more, I think a fundamental acceptance of her by that psychically lively world had taken place. The key moment was when she kneeled down and reached out in love to the small entity. That act triggered everything. Had it been anyone else – Shapiro, say, or me – a death would have occurred. Only those like the wild girls of Paradise such as Sasha, or perhaps a man like Pietr might have been safe.

  My belief is that the new path was revealed by a will greater than that of the Michelangelo. We can call it the will of the Dendron, for it is assuredly that which saved her. Through her simple act of love, the Dendron came to know her. The trees parted, a way was found, and I am very sure they closed ranks again when she had passed. The mischievous little Michelangelo again took charge.

  Having stepped in so far, I will go further. To me, there is no doubt that Hera should have died in that clearing. How could anyone survive that ordeal and walk out? It is my belief that there was a moment of choice in which one reality was replaced by another.

  Labyrinths, as I said in my introduction, are pathways of knowledge. As such, they have only one right way of entering if you wish them to fulfil their purpose. Hera entered the labyrinth the right way, and faced the ordeal it offered, as well as her own fear. She triumphed. She thereby gained mastery. She was thus her own salvation. The intelligence of the heart, strong in faith and toughened by experience, can achieve what, on the surface, seems to be impossible. The mind is the cause; the effect is the miracle.

  There can be no cheating with labyrinths. Had Hera spotted a narrow path which looked like a short cut, and had she taken it in order to enter, or had she cut and burned her way, she would have found the going hard. Perhaps, mysteriously, she would have found herself walking out again. But if she had battled to the centre, she would, as it were, have gone against nature, and no friendly weed or long-dead Dendron (as she then believed) would have saved her.

  She was no real risk to the child in the clearing, but it would have had her and consumed her in its way, and all that would now be left would be another small desiccated corpse lying on the surface of Paradise and a scrap of meshlite.

  No book either!

  16

  Convergence

  ‘C’mon, boss. You don’t get overtime for lying in bed. Brought you some tea.’ It was Dickinson. He was shaking Mack’s shoulder. Mack growled something and rolled over. Then he came awake with a start. It seemed as if his head had just touched the pillow. But there had been no more dreams.

  ‘You feeling any better?’

  ‘No. But I’ll cope.’

  After breakfast Mack’s demolition crew kitted up for outside. They completed their buddy check and one by one passed through the airlock and out into space. They emerged at the end of one arm of the shuttle platform, close to where certain barges that had already been filled but then rejected as unsafe for fractal were tethered. These barges had not been filled correctly and needed to be repacked and resealed before transit.

  High above them a fractal freighter was angling down, its beautiful silver and black panels catching the sun. It had emerged during their sleep break, being already several days late. In a few hours it would lock on to a brilliant silver photon beam from the platform, and that would lead it into the docking web, where hundreds of transit barges were already waiting. However, by the time the photon beam came on, Mack’s team would all be safe inside the shuttle port, for the raw energy of the beam did strange things to the space nearby.

  Mack’s team assembled outside the airlock, linked safety lanyards and then, using a permanent skim line, crossed as a group to an assembly point where four or five of the barges were tethered. There they
separated, each person linking to one of the several skim lines that connected up all parts of the holding pen. Using simple magnetic induction and a small hand-held field generator, they could move up and down the lines with the skill of spiders. Already a charged mesh net was in place around a couple of the barges to make sure no cargo was accidentally spilled into space when they were opened. They were not taking any chances.

  Mack was about to launch himself down a line when he heard a call on open frequency. ‘Hold it, Mack. Don’t engage. Your harness is loose.’

  Annette Descartes, one of the two women in the demolition team, came skimming down the line. She tethered next to Mack and drifted round him. ‘Hell, Mack. You’re as undone as a whore at a barbecue. Who was your buddy?’

  ‘Yeah, I was told,’ said Mack. ‘Thought I’d done it.’ He felt the straps tighten and the magnetic clips lock.

  ‘That’s what comes of staying up half the night with that arsehole Dickinson!’

  ‘I heard that,’ said Dickinson, who was hanging clamped to the side of the barge. He had been first out and had set up the mesh. ‘We were discussing the pros and cons of French philosophers.’

  ‘Well, you should look after the old man better. There you go, Mack. Engage now.’ She touched her helmet to his – the deep-space equivalent of a quick squeeze – and then gave him a push. Mack shot along the line. At the other end, the other woman in the team, Polka, was waiting just in case there was some malfunction.

  The truth was that Mack’s mind was not on the job at all. The unease he’d felt in the night was still with him. He’d tried to contact Captain Abhuradin to see if there was any message from Hera, but she was already on duty in the fractal control room and could not be disturbed. And now he had started to make mistakes. He knew that something was wrong with Hera, and the feeling would not go away.