The Disestablishment of Paradise

by Phillip Mann

  She sat very still while Mack picked up the control and the two drawings. He said nothing. She studied the distant mountains, her face set and devoid of expression. She heard him walk away towards the SAS, the click as the lock opened, the welcoming voice of Alan as Mack climbed inside.

  She waited like the block of wood she so easily became. A few moments later she heard the door to the SAS close and seal with finality.

  And then, surprisingly, footsteps coming back. She sat unmoving, with her back to him, staring out over the lake. He came up behind her, close behind her, and stopped. Then she felt him pull the pins out of her tight hair. Released, the hair tumbled down over her shoulders. Mack said, ‘Keep still, Hera, while I brush out your hair.’

  Silence.

  Hera sat very still with her eyes closed while Mack ran the brush through her hair. Then he paused and said, ‘Can I ask you one question?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘If there’s only one of these Dendron, why can’t it just scatter seeds, like a Tattersall?’

  Hera smiled. ‘Because they don’t do it that way,’ she said. ‘You need two Dendron to tango.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mack nodded to himself and went back to brushing.

  They might have talked on, or they might not.

  She might have asked him how it was that he had one of her hairbrushes.

  They had no choice. Suddenly, outside the shilo, an alarm bell started to ring. It was a warning set up during the ORBE days to tell anyone who was working outside that a live message was coming in.

  19

  Abhuradin Worried

  ‘I’ll take the call,’ said Hera. ‘I think they’ve found out you’re down here.’ She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back. ‘I think you ought to keep out of sight, Mack. Just in case.’

  Hera moved inside the shilo and opened contact. The face of Captain Inez Abhuradin, looking uncharacteristically frazzled, appeared in front of her. ‘Hera. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. Fine. I had a brush with a spiky Tattersall weed, but apart from that I’m fine. You?’

  ‘Good. Yes. No. Well, I don’t want to frighten you, but I have reason to believe that the demolition worker who calls himself Mack may have come down to the surface and be trying to get to you. He stole a shuttle. You may remember him. He was the boss of that demolition team that came out to your shilo when I delivered the SAS. I’m sending a squad of specials down.’

  ‘Mack?’ said Hera. ‘Of course I remember Mack. Actually, he’s here now.’

  ‘What!’

  Hera called, ‘Mack. It’s Captain Abhuradin. It seems your visit here did not receive official approval.’

  Mack came round the door and into the communications room. Captain Abhuradin saw him. ‘What is going on here?’ she demanded.

  Before Mack could speak, Hera cut in. ‘He saved my life, Inez. I would be dead now if Mack hadn’t stolen the shuttle. I’m not joking. I contacted him, sort of, and he had the wit to answer.’

  ‘Stealing a shuttle is a serious—’

  ‘Yes, I know. But the rules in this game are changing. This is not the same world as you left a few weeks ago, Inez. It’s changing so quickly. Please. If you are thinking of sending people down, don’t. They will not be safe here. The planet is changing so fast. I’m safe. I think Mack is safe, but no one else would be. Believe me.’

  ‘What do you mean, the planet is changing so fast? It looks the same.’

  ‘You’d have to be down here to know. I can’t explain. So much is happening. Please, please believe me, Inez.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Hera? That’s what I want to know.’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘Able to leave if you want to?’

  ‘Completely.’

  Mack intervened. ‘Hey listen, Captain. I’m not a kidnapper or anything else you may be thinking. If Hera wants to go she is free to do so. I only came to help. But I want to make one thing clear: I was the only one involved, OK? None of my team had anything to do—’

  ‘Well, that is strange. I have one here. Dickin-something . . .’

  ‘Dickinson. Yeah, I know Dickinson.’

  ‘He says it was all his idea. That he bet your team that he could get you down to the planet and back without us finding out.’

  ‘Well he’s lost his bet then, hasn’t he?’

  ‘That is not the point. You shouldn’t be down there anyway. Hera, can I talk to you . . . alone? Tell him to go away for a minute.’ Mack moved outside and closed the door. ‘Hera, I don’t know what’s going on. You shouldn’t be down there. He shouldn’t be down there. And meanwhile I have a catastrophe like you wouldn’t believe on my hands with this Disestablishment.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘The fractal gate is playing up. Everyone’s frightened. Freighters coming here find themselves at Alpha Centauri or some such. And it’s a lottery as to where the outgoing ones end up. Meanwhile, I have a tail of twenty barges waiting to depart; no one knows what’s in them because they weren’t marked properly, and then your Mack there steals a shuttle . . . I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘It’s all breaking up, Inez. All part of the Disestablishment. And Paradise is playing its part. But listen, Inez. Don’t worry. When the time comes to lift off I’ll – or we’ll – be there. And for the rest, the official stuff, just pull out a form, write Mack’s name on it, call him a research assistant or something, stamp it official and stick it in the folder. I mean, who the hell is going to care what we did in a hundred years? Think of your painter man. Think of the life you want. Think of life beyond barges and the rest. I’ll keep in better contact now. I promise. I promise. And I’ll find time to tell you about things. Mack is a good man. We’re working as a team now.’

  ‘A team! Hera, do you know what you’re—’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Inez. Take care of yourself. We’re both fighting on the same side. Remember?’

  Captain Abhuradin nodded and then her expression changed. ‘Hey, I was trying to warn you about danger, not looking for counselling.’

  ‘Take help where you find it,’ said Hera. ‘Look after yourself. Don’t send anyone down. Let things ride. I’ll be in contact. I promise.’

  ‘Do so.’

  The line went dead. Inez’s face contracted to a point of light – and vanished.

  20

  A Moment of Peace and Reflection

  What are we to make of them? This pair, unparalleled?

  She already over fifty and he just a year or so younger, so not young.

  Those of us who are compelled to live in the conventional world can but stand and wonder as he outruns Romeo for foolishness and she, not as chaste as Desdemona, but with something of that lady’s fierce honesty, makes plain her feelings.

  I suspect that in their naive approach to love, they touch the heart of Paradise. However, neither Hera nor Mack were social beings. Their walls did not come down easily. They had to dismantle them brick by brick.

  In deciding to speak about herself, Hera was matching honesty with honesty. Mack had come to her in an honest and uncluttered way. She was offering her own vulnerability to balance his. In so doing, she felt she had said enough for a lifetime. It was vastly more than she had ever said to a man. It was more than she had ever said about herself to any fellow human being, with the possible exception of Sister Hilda. She was surprised at herself, and pleased too, for the opening-up did wonders for her. A light had been turned on inside her, and it lit all parts of her being. She gained a deeper sense of herself. She could actually feel herself regaining her health and she took walks in the forest alone, pondering these things in her heart and exploring the knowledge inside her.

  That knowledge! I have mentioned it several times but have never explained it. Nor can I explain it fully. The sculptor who moves round his block of marble or wood, cutting and chipping, thinking in three dimensions, following his instincts . . . he has a million and one possibilities, a
nd from these he makes one decision. His knowledge of exactly what to do – that was the kind of knowledge she received. It was also an awareness of her own mind – that great resonator (to use Hera’s word) – alive, responsive, reaching beyond the confines of herself and engaging with Paradise.

  For Mack, Hera’s speech had rocked him and freed him. The gamble he had taken in coming down to Paradise had been right. Now, as he accepted he was there for the long haul, he found an outlet for his need to protect and nurture. It gave him an opportunity to put his great big male body at the service of his most tender and delicate sentiments – and I am not talking about making love. He was never happier than when he found something that needed to be mended, or straightened or bent. And he felt he had purpose too, something much deeper and more satisfying than ‘the next job’. He liked the idea of riding the bigger circle, of being needed, of helping a poor dumb Dendron. And this perky and prickly, bright and beautiful, mysterious and sensual woman would, he knew, provide him with more than his fill of delight – should she be willing, and he live that long.

  If you had been down there on the planet with them, you would not have noticed much difference in their behaviour. Mack slept in the SAS. Hera kept to the shilo. They contrived not to get in one another’s way but to give each other space. When they met during the day they were polite and pleased – a bit like children who keep looking at the presents waiting to be opened at Christmas. They also explored tangible ways of showing their pleasure. Hera, who was adept with needle and thread, adapted some overalls to fit Mack’s height and broad shoulders. What matter if the bottoms of the legs were of a different colour to the top? They fitted, and they gave Mack a change of clothes. For his part, Mack made Hera a set of hairpins from the thorns of a Tattersall. Mack had discovered that if he boiled the spines briefly, they hardened and did not lose their structure. He could then shape them with a file.

  Mack also became hungry for knowledge. He had seen still pictures of a Dendron – there was a permanent exhibition up on the shuttle platform – but for the life of him he could not work out how it moved. He needed to see one, and he turned the shilo upside down looking for tri-vids, but all had been packed and removed before the Disestablishment. And so he sat on the stone terrace with his legs dangling over the edge, staring across the lake. He was trying to imagine what it had been like when the first Big Fella came crashing its way down to the lake and had wandered out into the water. Then he took a hybla leaf and stretched it on a frame and tried to draw one.

  Hera, on her way to explore beyond the monkey trees, saw this and stopped. She approached quietly and then, seeing it was a Dendron he was sketching, she tiptoed back to the shilo and returned with Sasha Malik’s little book, open at the story ‘Shunting a Rex’.3 She handed it to Mack, who had put his drawing down quickly. He held the book for a moment and then handed it back.

  ‘Read it,’ said Hera. ‘This young woman knew the Dendron well. She rode on one.’ Hera wondered what she had said that was wrong, for she saw Mack’s face change.

  ‘I can’t read it,’ he said finally. ‘I can’t read.’

  ‘What do you mean you can’t read? Every—’ Hera stopped herself in time. ‘Oh, Mack,’ she finished. ‘That’s terrible. Oh, I am sorry.’ Hera knew as well as anyone that there are always people who slip through the net, often very gifted people. ‘But I saw you—’

  ‘No, you didn’t. Polka does the accounts and Dickinson does my reading for me. I can spell things out if I have time, but I can’t read like nor—’

  ‘Don’t you dare say “normal people”. I’m going to teach you to read.’

  ‘Dickinson tried.’

  ‘Dickinson isn’t me!’

  ‘True.’

  ‘But now I’m going to read you Sasha’s little story, and then you can do a drawing.’

  This she did. She sat down beside Mack. She leaned partly against him. And she read the famous words, ‘The shunt I want to tell you about happened when I was nine.’ She imitated Redman shouting ‘Now move, you fucker’ and bright young Sasha saying ‘It’s curtains, bon-bon, unless you can climb a sunbeam.’ And when she had finished, she shut the book with a snap and left it with him. Mack’s eyes were shining, for he liked a good story as much as the next man. Then out of the blue he said, ‘I love you.’ And Hera (God forgive her) pretended she hadn’t heard, and so Mack pretended he hadn’t said it, and life went back to normal.

  That afternoon, walking in the forest, Hera found two graves, the bodies – shrunk and dry and peacefully exhumed – lying on the surface. She called Mack and together they burned the corpses.

  The same force that was making the fractal gate unstable and causing Captain Abhuradin so much trouble was accelerating change on the planet. The increasing reappearance of corpses was just one manifestation. But it was not only bodies. Anything that had been buried was brought up: barrels, concrete foundations, old bottles, old kettles, bones, broken cans, scraps of paper . . . Everything. One must just imagine, if one follows the logic of all this, that every pound of turd, every pint of piss, every gobbet of phlegm and every dribble of blood found its resting place somewhere on the surface of Paradise; there not to rot but be embalmed. Unmoving. Unloved. Derelict and redundant.

  A kind of resurrection was undoubtedly taking place. A movement that had begun years ago when a Paradise plum became toxic was now gathering momentum. A planet that had dozed, happy since its first oceans formed, was asserting itself, and cleaning itself. For humans this process had sinister implications.

  Though Hera’s body had healed, her mind was more troubled. As the smoke rose from the funeral pyre she said, ‘I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you can share it with me. I get these funny ideas. This afternoon I thought, I wonder if events are casting their shadow backwards in time? So we hear them before they happen.’

  ‘That’s what hunches are,’ said Mack. ‘Shadows from the future.’

  ‘Do you ever get frightened of your . . . hunches?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Well, I used to accept them. Never thought they were strange until I grew up. But now, here on Paradise, I can’t read the future so I’m taking things as they come. “And how can a man die better than facing fearful odds,/ For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods”.’4

  ‘Where did you learn that?’

  ‘My granny. Always spouting poetry, she was. Couldn’t shut her up.’

  ‘You are amazing.’

  At that time, while they were aware of external changes, they were more preoccupied by the changes happening inside them. They were like people learning a new language who gradually realize that the words are starting to make sense without having to translate them. But other forces were at work.

  Some days after Hera’s conversation with Captain Abhuradin, after Mack had talked to his team and told them he would not be coming back until Hera did, and after the good Captain A had simply granted a retrospective licence for Mack to remain on Paradise, giving him the honorary title of research assistant, the sky suddenly darkened over Hera and Mack, as though a giant bird had flown over the sun.

  21

  The Path of the Pendulum

  At the moment when the sun seemed to flicker, Mack was working on the roof of the shilo, pegging back the Tattersall weed that had become rampant since having its flowers stripped. He straightened and looked up. There was nothing wrong with the sun and nothing flying either. It was Mack’s optic nerve that had, for a moment, been pre-empted. He blinked, shook his head and then, as though a door had opened in the sky, found himself engulfed in a thunder of ringing. The sound knocked him down to the ground, where he knelt, head down, while a wave of nausea made him gasp.

  Hera, deep in the bush behind the monkey trees, being more attuned to the changing ways of this planet and therefore more able to ride them, let the sound wash through her. Keeping her eyes closed, she concentrated and was able to distinguish the presence of the Dendron from the background roaring
. The feeling it conveyed was vastly more of pain, panic almost, certainly a cry for help. But not directed to her especially. Broadcast to whoever could hear, anywhere.

  The fractal gate high above hiccoughed at that moment, and a freighter vanished.

  Hera had been preparing another funeral pyre. She had come upon two more graves, a man and a woman. They had lain beneath the soil for over a hundred years but had now been returned to the surface with considerable disturbance and lay, shrivelled and dry, on the dark soil. Their skin was tight and brown and shiny and the clothes they had been buried in were leached of colour and stiff as boards.

  Hera left the bodies without striking the flame and ran back to the shilo.

  ‘Did you feel that?’

  ‘My stomach did. I fell off the roof. Is that the voice you talk about?’

  ‘Yes. No. Similar. What you felt just now was a cry for help, Mack. We have to go. We can’t ignore it. You can’t stop a baby coming once it starts.’

  ‘A baby?’

  ‘No. Sorry, that’s misleading, but the same idea. The Dendron needs to divide. Fission!’

  Some minutes later it was Mack who applied a flame to the small pyre. The bodies burned quickly, like paper dolls, like old parchment, and the bones glowed white before collapsing into ash. Even the skulls burned, turning to roaring balls of fire which flared up and died. Mack watched thoughtfully and then shook his head and made his way back to the shilo.

  Hera had already brought the SAS out of the hangar and was ticking things off verbally. ‘Larder’s fine. Water’s fine. Power’s at max. I’ve restocked the medi-kit. I see you’ve made yourself a nest in the control cabin. Very comfortable.’

  ‘Only place I can stretch out.’