The Disestablishment of Paradise

by Phillip Mann

  One by one, they came out. This was the crew of the Scorpion, Olivia, and they spread out and they called to one another and played a game on the sand. And then Estelle came along the beach towards me and Mack. She was holding hands with this tall lanky long-haired lad who was trying to grow his first moustache. They couldn’t see us. Estelle came right up to me and . . .

  Olivia And?

  Hera And I’m sorry to disappoint you, Olivia, but we have all been too much influenced by that picture called First Landing, in which Estelle looks like Botticelli’s Aphrodite. Estelle did not look like that. She looked better. She was a sturdy ginger-headed girl with freckles and blonde eyebrows. And when she laughed, her whole face lit up. The story is true about her bathing. It was a dare from her boyfriend, and she stripped off and plunged into the sea in her bra and pants. And she splashed water at him until he came in. They took their clothes off in the sea. Then they wandered away into the woods, where I trust and pray they made love because that is what Paradise is good at.

  Olivia I prefer your version to the original. And what happened to you?

  Hera Mack and I left them playing. We floated up for a while, and in the distance, far out to sea, I saw a Dendron which was making its way towards the shore in great holloping strides, coming to see what all the fun was about.

  Mack took us up slowly. He asked if I was all right. It was strange being so high and without a suit or the walls of a shuttle – but then I didn’t have a body either. But if you don’t have a body, well . . . you don’t worry about falling or breathing, do you? Soon we were reaching the edge of the atmosphere and entering the true velvet blackness of space.

  We moved above the green, white and blue face of Paradise. He was taking me towards Tonic, and when we were close, I mean, ten or fifteen miles above its surface, he asked me to look about. I saw the stars. I saw my love star, Sirius, and all the colours of space. And Mack seemed sort of mischievous, and so I knew he was up to something.

  Mack said, ‘You see how things are?’ spreading his arms and pointing round.

  And I said yes, though really I had no idea what he was talking about.

  Then he said, ‘Now close your eyes. I’m going to count to three, and then open your eyes and tell me what you see.’ This was just like the games we used to play. He counted one, two, three . . . and when I opened my eyes, I saw the space about us was beginning to change. New bright lights were appearing, but the stars were getting fainter.

  ‘What are those points of light?’ I asked.

  ‘Fractal points,’ he replied. ‘At least that’s what you call them. To me they are points of natural energy. “Therein all time’s completed treasure is.” Watch.’

  I saw light spring up from the surface of Paradise until it was an incandescent ball radiating energy into space. The darkness backed away. All the bright fractal points joined up in a vast three-dimensional web, above and below and to the sides, and the energy that was flowing in that web was greater than anything I could conceive of. It was all about us. It was in the spaces between stars. It was more solid and stable than crystal or diamond and brighter than both. And still it grew. Connections made connections. Yet it was never confusing, and I knew where I was and who I was, and that if I had wanted to, I could have moved to any point in space or time. I could, Olivia. I could have gone back to my moment under the light of Sirius, to the death of my father, to Earth in the time before dinosaurs.

  I said to Mack, ‘What am I seeing? Is this the universe as it really is?’

  And do you know what he said? I give his words to you as simply as they came to me. He said, ‘All you are seeing now is the impress of our love. To see the universe as it really is, you have to see every atom and its history, every molecule and its history, and so on round and round the spiral until . . . and still you are not there, because there are dimensions beyond dimensions where finally dimensions disappear. Only then are you at the bottom of the ladder. But hey, I didn’t bring you up here for metaphysics, sweetheart, but so you could see what you have done. Not bad for a little lady, eh?’

  ‘I couldn’t have done it alone, Mack.’

  ‘Nah. That’s true. The workhorse carries the load. But you did the steering. And does it matter, finally? How can you tell the dancer from the dance?’

  God, I wanted to kiss him then. But it is hard to kiss when you don’t have hands to hold with or lips with which to kiss.

  Mack said, ‘You have one last wish, Hera.’

  ‘Need you ask, Mr Mack?’

  We went back to the tent. The tent as big as a cathedral. At some point in the night I asked, ‘Can a Mackelangelo reach as far as Earth?’ I needed to know. He said, ‘To Earth, yes, and beyond a million, million Earths. Love and thought do not obey the inverse square law of matter.’

  I know you find scientific language unromantic, Olivia. But those were the words of love I wanted to hear. I now knew I would never lose him. Nor he me. Now and for as long as it matters, which can be an eternity for me. And at last I could go. Happy, free – as full as I need ever be of salt and honey.

  And in the morning, he said, ‘You like paradoxes, don’t you, Hera? Well, here is one. I can reach Earth but I can no longer walk with you over Paradise, not even back to New Syracuse. That is beyond my parish. I will do what I can to help, but you will walk alone. As you walk, I want you to remember these things only: that you have all the knowledge you need to get home, and that you have more friends than you know. So, when the going gets rough, remember the Dendron. Got that?’

  ‘Yes, Mack.’

  ‘God speed, Hera.’

  I was again at the clearing.

  To my dear dying love, now so still under the watching cherries, no more than a few minutes had passed since I had left. But his breathing was almost still and only his eyes had light. I was kneeling beside him and words came into my mind: We bring them into the world and we see them out again. A woman’s lot, Olivia, to see them into life and out of life, though it leaves us grieving.

  He was looking at me and there was an intensity there. He was trying to say something but could no longer form words. I was holding his hands, and it seemed that the tension was in his right hand. I turned it and looked at it, and there was his ring, his granny’s ring, still with my hair attached.

  I took the ring and I held it before his eyes, and I waited until I saw him focus. Then I placed my finger, my index finger because it was a bit big for the others, in the opening of the ring. And slowly I slipped the ring on my finger. And then I closed my hand into a fist. The first was for love, the second was for strength. And he saw. And he knew. And I heard the rattle in his throat and I put my ear close to his lips. I heard his last whisper: ‘ “Till . . . the river jumps over the mountain . . . and the salmon swim in the street”.’ I watched his eyes. They were soft and warm, and then they slowly set as his spirit withdrew.

  I moved quickly then. I do not know whether he was conscious or not, but I got the scissors from my first-aid kit and I cut my hair off. I cut it as close to the scalp as I could. And I laid it on him. On his brow. On his chest. Round his arms like a warrior. On his stomach. On his manhood. Round his thighs. Over his knees and down round his ankles. Thus I laid him out with my hair as his shroud. I was just in time. I saw the last light die.

  And then, as I expected, I saw him dissolve. The body slowly turned to water. Not all at once, but gradually, and the parts in contact with the soil changed first. The buttocks and legs and back of his head became glassy, and then jellied and finally drained away. He sank lower into the brevet. I began to see the leaves through his chest and neck and through my hair. Then his cock, entwined with my hair, vanished into the soil. His smiling peaceful face remained for a moment, glimmering, and then it too slowly evaporated. And my hair went with him.

  And that was it. It was an ending.

  I was now alone.

  And we who live on, must move on.

  36

  Disestablishment />
  Hera stood up.

  She was aware of urgency now. She found her clothes and began to dress, but then an instinct told her that was not wise. Meshlite overalls were a clear sign of the alien. She would be better dressed in Crispin or even hybla. But boots. She would need boots. She would be walking over stones. And she would need the small pack too, with the radio and first-aid kit. The pack also contained two of her most valued possessions – Pietr Z’s copy of Tales of Paradise and the Shapiro notebooks. She would not leave them behind. She slung the pack over her shoulder and picked up Pietr’s wishbone stick, and set out. She remembered seeing a large Crispin at the entrance to the Michelangelo’s labyrinth and she set out round the long curving path. Soon she was running. She imagined Mack running beside her and knew that as long as she was in the labyrinth nothing could touch her. The danger would be outside.

  She reached the entry portal and it took her less than a minute to pull down one of the large Crispin leaves. It had the texture of fine chamois leather but, unlike the leather, it turned away rainwater and did not absorb it. She tore out the stalk to make a space for her neck and draped it round her shoulders. She punched holes for her arms and drew it close about her. Then she ran out onto the open brevet.

  While she had been inside, some Tattersall weeds had dragged themselves onto the path and the way up to Redman Lake and down to the umbrella tree plantation was closed. So they’re moving closer, she thought. Friend or foe? It was impossible to tell. Then one of the Tattersall weeds stirred and threw two of its branches forward, dragging itself crabwise.

  Hera sprinted ahead of it onto the path before it could cut her off. The path to the sea seemed open, no Tattersalls waiting, and so she ran as quickly as she could up the gentle incline. The weed could not match her for speed and she had soon left it far behind. She stopped for a few moments to catch her breath and then moved on.

  Several times, as she trudged along, she had the impression that someone was walking with her. They were not by her side, but behind her, where Mack had been when they were coming down through the tuyau tunnel. And that, she realized, was a kind of message for her. She was not alone, but she was not dependent either, and she would make it under her own steam. Once she was prompted to look up in the sky, and there was an oval cloud above the hill. It did not take much imagination to turn it into a face.

  Soon she was at the crest of the pass, and from there she could look down to where the sea moved with an oily heaviness in the bay. In the misty distance she could see the gaunt cliffs of Dead Tree Spit. She could not see the remains of the old Dendron.

  Hera jogged down the hill. The sun was now high and no cooling breeze came from the sea. Without her hair to protect her, sweat started at her neck and ran down her back. How wise she had been to make a Crispin cape. Meshlite overalls would have been chafing her by now.

  Before reaching the bay the path became a zigzag, following the meanderings of the stream. This stream ended when it met a sandbank and formed a small clear lake. This had once been a children’s swimming pool, in the days when families came to picnic by the sea. Beyond the dune was the bay, and Pietr Z’s small boathouse on the hill.

  On impulse, Hera removed her cape, boots and backpack and waded in, sinking up to her neck in the cool water. Stage one complete. For some reason she felt safer now that she was near the sea. She examined the blue-black smudges on her body and wondered how she would explain them: the marks of the alien.

  Moments later, refreshed and dressed again in Crispin leaf, Hera made her way over the hot sand. The dune towered above her, and the fact that she could not see over it made her cautious. Also, she had heard a sound of dragging, and that alerted her. Hera climbed the side of the sandbank slowly and peered over. The first thing she saw was a cluster of Tattersall weeds. They were standing on the shore, not far from the slipway below the boathouse. Their flowers were all open – a sure sign they were alert. Innocent-looking indeed, but there was a warning inside her.

  Hera remembered the bay well. It was the place to which the tides carried all the flotsam and jetsam from the Dead Tree Sea and the waters round the Largo Archipelago. It was a natural slow whirlpool which trapped and never released. And there was a lot of rubbish now, bobbing in the swell and cast up on the shore. No doubt the last two-moon tide would have carried much of it, clearing the sea and casting the rubbish up on the strand. Looking closer, Hera realized with a shock that she was seeing bodies. Human bodies. Tangled heaps of them. Varnished, lacquered, embalmed, enamelled – use what word you like – they were there in their thousands. All who had died at sea in this region had found their last resting place, mixed with the rubbish cast from ships. What a mess and what a tangle. Pools of oil. Rusting canisters standing amid their voided contents. Broken crockery. Wire. Excrement. Children’s toys. Plastic mesh. Books. What a place of death and ruin, but the air smelled sweet, no stench of decay.

  Hera climbed over the top of the dune and began to make her way towards the boathouse. She knew she could outrun the Tattersalls easily if they showed any interest in her. She passed between the piles of bodies with their frightful faces. The answer came to her then, why the Tattersall weeds were here: they were learning about death.

  When she was about halfway to the shed, she saw one of the larger of the Tattersall weeds suddenly hoist its root and take two heaving leaps towards her. At the same moment another Tattersall, one that she had not seen, heaved itself down onto the shore. It was now between her and the boathouse. Hera stopped. She saw both weeds gather to make another stride. Clearly their ability to move had improved. Were they trying to imitate human behaviour? This was no time to speculate. There was no doubt in Hera’s mind: she was under attack.

  While aware that she could still outrun them easily, it suddenly occurred to her that of course a Tattersall weed could not move in water, for their claws could find no purchase there. She changed direction and ran straight down to the sea. There she stepped as carefully as she could over and around the floating bodies clustered at the edge. Perhaps it was the effect of the seawater, but the bodies that lolled in the small waves looked like statues moulded from chocolate.

  Behind her she could hear the thump and scrape as one of the weeds tried to follow her.

  Hera closed the watertight seals on her backpack, thrust her hand through the thong on her stick, plunged into the sea and dived. The cape billowed and floated and she was able to swim under it, pulling strongly with her arms. When she broke the surface she swam on until she was about fifty metres from shore. There she trod water and watched as the Tattersall weed, in a kind of frenzy, beat the water to lather as it cast its branches forward, raking and tearing the corpses but making no headway itself.

  Hera swam round to the slipway with the cape draped around her and dragged herself up. She crawled up the slipway until she was on dry wood. There she sat for a moment and checked that the seals on the backpack had not leaked. It was fine.

  She felt something strike the frame of the slipway. Peering over the edge she could see other Tattersalls on the move. One had cast a branch up onto one of the supporting crosspieces and was preparing to climb. Another was close and a third was starting to coil, intent on casting its seeds. Hera climbed as quickly as she could, but carefully, for the slipway treads were uneven and narrow.

  It was only when she was almost at the boathouse that she looked up and there saw another Tattersall weed waiting. This was the one she had seen before, when she flew over this part of Paradise at the start of her vigil. It had now grown right over the shed. One of its branches had poked in a window and a big blue flower looked out from inside.

  Now why did that look funny? Why did that make her want to laugh? She had no idea. She climbed to the little landing in front of the shed and raised her stick. Nothing, nothing was going to stop her. And if this Tattersall proved to be a rogue . . .

  She was amazed to see its flowers closing one by one. What this signified she did not know. Could it s
mell her determination? Was it closing down in the face of her aggression? Was that a welcome? As the flowers closed they filled the air with their fragrance. The smell, so astonishing and sweet, reminded her of the poultices that Mack had made a lifetime ago to heal her wounds. And she remembered Mack’s statement that not all Tattersall weeds were afflicted in their roots. It might even be protecting the boathouse. Perhaps something of the spirit of old Pietr Z had rubbed off onto the Tattersall. Who could know any more?

  She was in front of the doors now. She slammed the bolt back and the twin doors folded open, swinging outwards. Hera glanced back down at the Tattersall weeds on the beach and was in time to see the one that had been coiling release its seeds. Its branches flung wide as they uncoiled. But since it was standing close to the uprights of the slipway, these effectively chopped each branch off at the elbow and the seeds went everywhere. She felt the structure shake but that was all. More worrying was that the other two weeds, almost in the manner of Mack’s little story, had managed to heave themselves up onto the lower supports of the slipway. One had its upper branches already over the edge of the slipway. However, its lower branches were entangled with the other Tattersall weed, which was attempting to climb up on the other side of the slipway. In effect, each was trying to climb up on the other, and neither was gaining.

  Meanwhile, at the water’s edge, the Tattersall that had attacked her first was in trouble of a rather gruesome kind. In its efforts to reach Hera it had managed to get its thorns stuck in some of the corpses in the water, and had lost traction. It was now thrashing about, turning on the spot and gradually drifting out to sea. They were all so intense, these Tattersall weeds. So serious, and again she found herself wanting to laugh. But . . .

  She threw her backpack and stick into the boat and climbed in after them. There she stripped out the battery leads linked to the solar charger on the roof and connected them to the torque engine. Everything came alive. Great. She looked round and could see nothing else to be done. Typical Pietr, everything neat and in its place, and even a chair carved from wishbone for the helmsman. He had modified all the controls so that he could lower it himself, controlling the speed of descent while seated. Hera did not have time for refinements or to learn the ropes. All she now wanted was to get the cutter into the water as quickly as possible.