The Disestablishment of Paradise

by Phillip Mann

  It was still there, its blunt crab-like shape dark against a wall and half buried in sand and rubbish. That was OK. These Demo Buses, old and lumbering though they were, could lift concrete beams and land in fire if need be.

  Mack climbed the fence, jumped down into the compound and ran over to the craft. He cleared a way through the tangled rubbish to the door. Before opening the door, however, he climbed onto the roof. Lengths of red plastic space tie had been wrapped around the rotor blades. Quickly he cut the tape away, throwing the pieces downwind, where they caught on the fence and fluttered. Satisfied, he climbed back down and tapped in the lock code.

  The door opened without delay and he threw his satchel in and climbed after it. Inside in the cargo bay he removed the heavy tool belt and stripped out of his wet overalls. Feeling lighter in every way, Mack climbed up to the control room, settled himself in the pilot seat and inserted the key. The moment of truth was upon him.

  He switched on.

  Nothing. Not even a flicker on the dials. This was ridiculous. Even if he’d left the lights on there’d still be reserve power. What had he forgotten? Ah! The main breaker. That turned off when the door locks were engaged. Mack climbed back through until he reached the racks of batteries. The master switch was down. He reconnected it and heard the systems come alive.

  Back in the control room the dials were dancing as the Demo Bus performed a self-check of all circuits. The most important reading for Mack was the power reserve, and that slowly increased until it settled at just under half charge. That should be enough to get him to Hera’s retreat. If not, he would have to put down somewhere and wait for the batteries to recharge in the sun. At most he would lose a day. So why wait any longer?

  Mack pressed the start button. There was no sudden roar of engines, but he heard the torque regulator hum and the pumps begin to cycle. It would take a while for everything to warm up, then the sparks would fly. Meanwhile, Mack tapped the destination coordinates into the memory bank, then he switched on the fixed-band radio.

  Cole’s voice came on line. ‘Hey, boss. Reading you. OK?’

  ‘Just about to take off. Did they find out?’

  ‘No worries. Nobody knew a thing. Just for the record, we’ve signed you on for cabin rest. Overwork syndrome. Nurse Polka has taken responsibility. No visitors allowed. She reckons you’ll be back on your feet in a few days as long as you behave and get lots of sleep. I’ve taken charge of the team. We’ll be back on the job in an hour or so.’

  ‘Might be a bit longer than a few days.’

  ‘Well, we’ll worry about that when we come to it. You do what you have to. OK?’

  ‘OK. I’m on my way.’ He touched the engine relay. The overhead rotors began to turn slowly and then faster as the engine came alive with a deep and hungry growl. ‘See ya.’

  ‘Ciao, man. Ciao.’

  Mack increased the power; the rotors became a blur; the big machine stirred on its wheels and then lifted steadily. It rose above the remains of the buildings and into the full force of the wind and rain. Then it swung round as the autopilot took charge and set a steady course south-west, hammering into the darkness. The journey would take all night.

  Hera remembers little. Her life was like a dream in which some parts were in colour and some parts in black and white. These were separated by periods of complete darkness.

  Best were the parts in colour, because they were fantastic and unpredictable and full of strange adventures. She began as a white feather blown about in a green wilderness. Her first discovery was that she could do the most wonderful acrobatics, twisting and turning in the air, swooping down and then soaring up. But there were no landmarks, nothing to tell her where she was or how high or low – just a shifting mist. Then as she was letting herself spin end over end, faster and faster, she realized she could control what was happening. She stopped the spinning.

  She was in her own body, standing ankle-deep in clear water. In front of her, a hundred metres away in deeper, bluer water, stood a Dendron. It was back on its stump, and with its two front legs extended so that she was reminded of a dog that wants to play. Some dog! It towered over her. She had never witnessed anything so powerful. It was aware of her too. She knew that. The Dendron lowered the twin branches of its horns until they were right in front of her. She could grasp the huge black and red spheres on their tough stalks. She thought she would climb in among them, but then, just as she was leaning forward, the dream turned red, as though someone had drawn a razor across it. In that one moment she felt such longing and such pain and she must have woken up because the world became black and white.

  The lights were on in the shilo, and through the skylight she could see it was dark outside. That meant nothing. She was just a bundle of rags on a stick. Somehow she dragged herself up off the floor and through to the kitchen. Going to the toilet was agony, but it was accomplished. Going back to bed was achieved by crawling over the floor. Hera dragged a bucket with her. She levered herself up onto the bed. The knee looked ghastly, but she was so tired, so very tired, she would deal with it in the morning.

  The red tide swept over her.

  And so it went on. In her dreams she seemed to be a much younger Hera. Once she was more like young Estelle Richter from the Scorpion – dancing across the tops of the waves – and that felt good. Once she was deep in the ocean swimming with the giant kelp and passed through the ventricle of its heart and was hurled out into the sea in fragments.

  But always she came back to the Dendron, and it was the dominant presence whether out at sea beyond sight of land or deep in a river or climbing a hill with great flowing strides. She came to dread those moments when it would stop and seem to be aware of her, for these were always quickly followed by a return to the black-and-white world.

  And in this world she was aware of fever and of trying to take care of herself, but her hands would not behave and her arms were like dough. Hera explains:

  There came a great darkness which filled all of space and I knew I was contracting to a fine point of light. Then that light too began to fade . . . slowly, slowly . . . No pain, just darkness pressing against it.

  But in the darkness awareness too. A door crashing open, a shaft of white sun, the smell of a weed. A giant bear standing in the doorway and peering in. There was reason to fight.

  So much to tell. So much to do. Surely, one last big effort . . . Heave up like the Dendron, crying, ‘Help me! Help me.’

  Mack woke up, disturbed by an irritating sound that would not let him rest. A panel on the control desk was flashing and a message moved across it. Mack touched the screen and the noise stopped. It was a warning message. The batteries were running down and would soon need to be recharged. Mack looked out of the window, noticed the first light of dawn in the sky and the fact he was flying over water. He could see away to his left, where waves were breaking against islands. That would be the Bell Tree Islands, which meant that he was already well past Blue Sands Bluff, which marked the eastern limit of Chain. Soon he would come in sight of the Chimney Mountains, and once over these he would be in sight of Big Fella Lake and almost there.

  He thought of Hera, and felt a certainty that if he paused to recharge he would be too late, that the bad thing, whatever it was, would be complete.

  He didn’t hesitate. He flicked open a catch on the dashboard which revealed a red emergency button. He pressed this and held it down for three seconds. The navigation screen lit up. Methodically he began to eliminate all non-vital functions aboard the Demo Bus. He switched off the heating in the crew quarters and all non-essential lights. The fans which pushed warm air round the bus ceased their hum and all lights went out. The Demo Bus was now nothing more than a flying engine. Mack unbuckled and using his helmet light made his way back to the cargo bay. There were a few things he could jettison. He heaved open the cargo door and began pitching things out. Spare seats, bits of machinery, heavy-duty concrete cutters, welding cylinders – all these he threw out and watched
as they vanished below. He even drained the water from the tanks and flushed the toilet. Soon there was nothing else to lose. It would have to do. When he scrambled back into the cockpit, the craft was already climbing into the Chimney Mountains – pink in the dawn light.

  The entire mountain chain was composed of volcanoes. Most were extinct, but in some places wraiths of steam were rising amid the snow. Many of the high calderas had lakes in them, and these showed as discs of silver in the dawn light.

  The Demo Bus did not try to climb over the mountains but took the lowest path, passing between steep slopes and swinging through canyons. It was a well known route, fractionally longer than the direct climb but more economical on energy. It was cold, and ice formed on the inside of the windows of the cabin. Mack crouched, knees up and with his hands tucked into his armpits.

  On the dashboard were four red lights which indicated the status of the batteries. Three of these were glowing a steady red and the fourth flashed every ten seconds.

  There was nothing Mack could do but sit and wait and watch and hope.

  By the time he began the descent from the Chimneys, the fourth light was flashing every five seconds. But now he had only the length of the lake to run.

  Mack sat stone-faced as the Demo Bus dropped to within a hundred feet of the surface. The machine droned on steadily. But they were losing power more quickly now. A third of the way across, the light was blinking every three seconds, then every two seconds. There was a sudden hesitation in the engine note, but it picked up and droned on. Mack roused himself, donned a life jacket and strapped himself in. If the worst came to the worst he would swim – except he couldn’t swim.

  Within sight of the terrace the light was blinking every second and then it stayed on. All lights were now red. Technically the Demo Bus was out of power. Mack was flying on whatever dregs of energy the machine could garner. And then the engine cycled, the ugly sound of a machine pushed to its limit, and the Demo Bus started to drop. Mack took over the controls. He guided the craft as well as he could towards the base of the cliffs. He could actually see Hera’s shilo. Finally the engine cut completely. The controls went dead. The machine began turn over in the air, but before it could flip completely it touched the surface of the lake. It rolled once like a clumsy broken toy, but lurched upright. Mack scrambled out of the safety harness. Water was already seeping into the cargo bay. When that filled they would sink fast.

  Mack prayed to the gods of demolition workers that the escape door would still open, and they must have heard, for when he applied his strength to the eject lever, the door cranked half open on bent hinges and he was able to squeeze through and jump.

  In the lake now, bobbing in the water, he paddled away from the old craft and towards the shore. It was only a few hundred metres away. After a couple of minutes, he heard behind him a muffled explosion – the batteries, he guessed, exploding on contact with water – they were probably under the surface by now. Moments later a wave broke over him.

  In the trough after the wave his feet touched bottom, and some minutes later, after some vigorous paddling, he could walk. When he was waist deep in the water he stripped off the life jacket and threw it away. Weeds tangled in his legs but he just strode through them. In his determination and energy, was there was a passing resemblance to a Dendron?

  Leaving the water, he ran up the steps to the rock terrace.

  No sign of Hera. She would surely have heard the explosion and come running. So . . .

  Mack ran across the clearing to the shilo. A weed, now in full flower, had grown across the doorway – a bad sign. The door, when he tried it, would not open, and so he put his shoulder to it and heaved. It crashed open.

  One question was answered immediately.

  Hera was there. He saw her. She lay still amid the ruin of the bed, propped up on bloodstained pillows, one pale hand flat on the sheet, a blank eye staring sightlessly from her damaged face.

  There was no mistaking it. She was quite, quite dead.

  Mack leaned against the door frame while the water ran unheeded from his clothes onto the floor. After the excitement of stealing the shuttle and the tension of the journey here, it was hard to comprehend the anticlimax. All for nothing. Too late was the same as never. He forced himself to look at the still body.

  There is nothing quite like the stillness of a corpse – and he had seen many. One still expects to see an eye flicker or a finger move even in a coffin, to tell you that it is all a joke and has not really happened. But no. A dead body is unnerving, because everything is as it should be, except for the absence of that one indefinable and indispensable thing called life. Finally, it is the realization of the absoluteness of death which crushes us.

  Mack moved slowly round the bed. He shifted the bucket carefully and looked down at the small frame of Hera. Then he placed her cool hand under the sheet, closed her one staring eye gently and drew the sheet up high over her face.

  He would have liked to cry, but there was a dryness in him.

  He stood, uncertain what to do next. Should he contact the shuttle platform and tell them what had happened – that would start all the official wheels turning – or should he do the right thing by Hera and wash her and tidy her, and comb her hair – lay her out and give her dignity? In the event he did neither. He went into the toilet area and stripped off his wet overalls and hung them in the shower.

  His spare clothes had been lost when he abandoned the Demo Bus and so he wandered about looking for something to wear. Finally, he opened the door to the supply room a ached to the shilo. There, hung up amid the heavy-weather gear and waders, he found an old pair of brown meshlite overalls. They were left over from the MINADEC days, but were clean and serviceable. They were just big enough for him, though still a bit short in the arms and tight on the legs. But they would do. He wasn’t going to a dinner party.

  He moved back into the shilo and reached a decision. Bugger the authorities! He would clean Hera up. He wasn’t having some medic fussing about or someone making a tri-vid of her looking like that. Then he would tidy the place, make it decent, and then they could come and have their inquiries and inquests. He didn’t really care. One of the first things was to get some air into the room. It stank of . . . stale air.

  Outside it was a fine morning, with a bright sun and a few white clouds drifting high. He went back inside to the kitchen. As Hera had done before him, Mack took the ladder, climbed up and opened the skylight. Immediately the scent of the weed entered the shilo.

  It was while he was fastening the catch to the skylight that Mack heard a sound in the room. It was like a sigh. Mack felt the hairs on the nape of his neck rise. Turning to look down at the bed where Hera lay, he saw the still form under the sheet slowly sit up. Such things happened, Mack knew: dead bodies belching and contracting and sometimes twitching. He had never seen it himself but he had heard. But this was such a definite movement, almost inhuman in its slowness, and one which required prodigious strength. It was as if the body was being lifted. Mack could not move; he just stared. Finally the corpse was sitting completely up with the sheet still draped over head and shoulders.

  Mack was a brave man, but he climbed down slowly, never taking his eyes off the corpse. He approached the body. He had no idea what he would see as he reached forward and took hold of the sheet. Pulling it aside took all his courage.

  It was still Hera. One eye remained closed, but her mouth hung open and he heard again a gentle sigh. A drop of saliva ran from her mouth, and that more than anything told him she was alive. How? By what miracle? He did not care, but he stroked the good side of her face gently with the back of his fingers and then said, ‘It’s all right, Hera. Relax now. I’m here and you’re going to be all right.’ Supporting her back he lowered her, though he had to push slightly before the stomach muscles yielded.

  The transformation in Mack, while not as remarkable as that in Hera, was extraordinary in its own way. Gone was the hesitant man, out of his depth. Mack
became purposeful. He knew exactly what to do. He checked breath and pulse. He made sure she was lying straight but with her head raised slightly. He placed her arms outside the sheets, so that if she had an instinct to scratch she could do no harm. He took the pail and flushed away the contents. He gathered up the surgical instruments, which were where Hera had left them, and set them in a pan to boil. He found soup in the kitchen and put it on to warm. He pulled out clean towels and sheets and pillow cases and a duvet with a cheerful cover and set them ready. The largest towel he could find he laid flat on the floor. He shifted the entire medicine cabinet into Hera’s room and set it up where he could reach things easily. He placed a chair by the bed. Then he filled a large bowl with warm water and set it down on top of the bedside table. Finally, since there were no surgical gloves that would fit his huge mitts, he scrubbed his hands, trimmed his nails back, scrubbed some more and then dried them on a fresh towel. The soup was warm, but he turned it off. Hera was weak but not malnourished, and there were other tasks more urgent.

  Carefully, he stripped back the sheet from her body, soaking the fabric where the blood had dried and stuck to her skin. He saw the wounds and it did not take him long to deduce what had caused them.

  He worked on down, steadily easing back the stained sheet.

  Finally he uncovered the knee. It was horrific. It no longer looked like a knee joint, but was blue with yellow patches and a gash on one side. It had swollen to the size of her thigh and smelled. Mack studied it like he might study a jammed pulley block. He had seen such wounds before. There was something inside, something locked within the tissue, and while that was there it could not heal. This, he decided was a separate problem.

  He began to wash Hera. The face was healing. He checked as well as he could to see if her cheekbone was damaged. It did not seem to be, and the eye under the swelling was clearing. As he checked the face he became aware that she was smiling and her lips moved. Some hidden drama being worked out in there, he guessed. But she did not wake.