The Book of Strange New Things

by Michel Faber

  Maybe Beatrice was awake. Maybe she was worrying about him. A month had passed without contact between them, and they were used to communicating every day.

  ‘What if my husband dies en route?’ she’d asked the USIC people.

  ‘He will not die en route,’ was the reply.

  ‘But what if he does?’

  ‘We would let you know immediately. In other words, no news is good news.’

  Good news it was, then. But still . . . Bea had spent these last thirty days conscious of his absence, while he’d been oblivious to hers.

  He pictured their bedroom, lit in subdued tones by the bedside lamp; he pictured Bea’s pale blue uniform slung over the chair, the jumble of shoes on the floor, the yellow duvet with Joshua’s fur all over it. Beatrice sitting up against the headboard, bare-legged but with a sweater on, reading and re-reading the uninformative info pack sent by USIC.

  ‘USIC cannot and does not guarantee the safety of any travellers on its craft or domiciled in its facilities or in the pursuit of any activities related to, or not related to, USIC activities. “Safety” is defined as health both physical and mental and includes, but is not restricted to, survival and/or return from Oasis, either within the time period specified by this agreement or beyond that period. USIC undertakes to minimise risk to any persons participating in its projects but signature of this document is deemed to constitute acknowledgement of understanding that USIC’s efforts in this regard (i.e., minimising risk) are subject to circumstances beyond USIC’s control. These circumstances, because unforeseen and unprecedented, cannot be detailed in advance of occurrence. They may include, but are not restricted to, disease, accident, mechanical failure, adverse weather, and any other events commonly categorised as Acts of God.’

  The door of the dormitory cell swung open, silhouetting the massive body of BG.

  ‘Yo, bro.’

  ‘Hi.’ In Peter’s experience, it was better to speak in one’s own idiom than echo the idioms and accents of others. Rastafarians and cockney Pakistanis did not come to Christ through being patronised by evangelists making clownish attempts to talk like them, so there was no reason to suppose that black Americans might.

  ‘You wanna eat with us, you better get yourself out of bed, bro.’

  ‘Sounds fine to me,’ said Peter, swinging his legs out of the bunk. ‘I think I’m up for it.’

  BG’s massive arms were poised to lend assistance. ‘Noodles,’ he said. ‘Beef noodles.’

  ‘Sounds just fine.’ Still barefoot, dressed only in underpants and an unbuttoned shirt, Peter waddled out of the room. It was like being six again, when he was spaced out on liquid paracetamol and his mother fetched him out of bed to celebrate his birthday. The prospect of opening presents was not sufficiently adrenalising to dispel the effects of chickenpox.

  BG led him into a corridor whose walls were papered with floor-to-ceiling colour photographs of green meadows, the kind of adhesive enlargements he was more accustomed to seeing on the sides of buses. Some thoughtful designer must have decided that a vista of grass, spring flowers and an azure sky was just the thing to combat the claustrophobia of airless space.

  ‘You ain’t a vegetarian, are you, bro?’

  ‘Uh . . . no,’ said Peter.

  ‘Well, I am,’ declared BG, steering him round a corner, where the verdant if slightly blurry scenery was repeated. ‘But one thing you learn when you go on a trip like this, man, is you gotta relax your principles sometimes.’

  Dinner was served in the control room; that is, the room that contained the piloting and navigation hardware. Contrary to Peter’s expectations, he was not met with a breathtaking sight when he stepped inside. There was no giant window facing out onto a vast expanse of space, stars and nebulae. There was no window at all; no central focus of attention, just reinforced plastic walls punctuated by air conditioning vents, light switches, humidity adjustors, and a couple of laminated posters. Peter had seen the imagery before, on the USIC pamphlets when he’d first applied for this vacancy. The posters were glossy corporate productions, depicting a stylised ship, a stylised bird with a stylised twig in its beak, and a small amount of text extolling USIC’s high standards of business practice and unlimited potentials to benefit mankind.

  The ship’s controls were also less impressive than Peter had imagined: no giant rig of knobs and dials and meters and flashing lights, just a few compact keyboards, slimline monitors and one freestanding computer cabinet that resembled a snack dispenser or automatic bankteller machine. In all honesty, the control room was less a ship’s bridge than an office – a somewhat pokey office, at that. There was nothing here to do justice to the fact that they were floating in a foreign solar system, trillions of miles from home.

  Tuska the pilot had swivelled his chair away from the monitors and was staring into a small plastic tub held up near his face. Steam obscured his features. His legs, crossed casually over one another, were bare and hairy, clad only in oversize shorts and tennis shoes without socks.

  ‘Welcome back to the land of the living,’ he said, lowering the tub to rest against his rotund belly. ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘I don’t know if I was sleeping, really,’ said Peter. ‘More just waiting to feel human again.’

  ‘Takes a while,’ conceded Tuska, and raised the noodle tub to his face again. He had a mouse-coloured beard, and was obviously well-practised in the logistics of conveying sloppy food past the hazards of facial hair. He twirled some noodles round his fork and closed his neat red lips over them.

  ‘Here’s yours, Pete,’ said Severin. ‘I’ve torn the foil off for you.’

  ‘That’s very kind,’ said Peter, taking his seat at a black plastic table, where BG and Severin were tucking into their own noodle tubs with their own plastic forks. Three unopened cans of Coke stood ready. Peter shut his eyes, recited a silent prayer of thanks for what he was about to receive.

  ‘You’re a Christian, right?’ said BG.

  ‘Right,’ said Peter. The beef noodle stew had been cooked unevenly in the microwave: some parts were bubbling hot, other parts were still ever-so-slightly crunchy with ice. He stirred them into a warm compromise.

  ‘I used to be Nation of Islam, long time ago,’ said BG. ‘Got me through some tough times. But it’s high maintenance, man. Can’t do this, can’t do that.’ BG opened his considerable mouth and forked a quivering freight of noodles in, chewed three times, swallowed. ‘Ya gotta hate Jews and white people, too. They say it’s not mandatory and all that shit. But you get the message, man. Loud and clear.’ Another mouthful of noodles. ‘I make my own decisions who I’m gonna hate, know what I’m saying? Somebody fucks with me, I hate ’em – they can be white, black, aquamareeeen, man; don’t make no difference to me.’

  ‘I suppose what you’re saying, also,’ said Peter, ‘is that you make your own decisions about who you’ll love.’

  ‘Damn right. White pussy, black pussy, it’s all good.’

  Tuska snorted. ‘You’re making a fine impression on our minister, I’m sure.’ He’d finished his meal and was wiping his face and beard with a towelette.

  ‘I’m not that easy to scandalise,’ said Peter. ‘Not with words, anyway. The world has room for lots of different ways of talking.’

  ‘We’re not in the world now,’ said Severin with a lugubrious grin. He cracked open a can of Coke and a frothing jet of brown liquid sprayed up towards the ceiling.

  ‘Jee-sus,’ exclaimed Tuska, falling half off his chair. BG just chuckled.

  ‘I’ll take care of it, I’ll take care of it,’ said Severin, snatching a handful of paper towels from a dispenser. Peter helped him mop the sticky liquid from the tabletop.

  ‘I do that every goddamn time,’ muttered Severin, dabbing at his chest, his forearm, the chairs, the coolbox from which the Cokes had come. He bent down to dab at the floor, whose carpet was fortuitously already brown.

  ‘How many times have you made this trip?’ asked Peter.

&nbs
p; ‘Three. Swore I wouldn’t go back each time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oasis drives people crazy.’

  BG grunted. ‘You’re crazy already, bro.’

  ‘Mr Severin and Mr Graham are both seriously unbalanced individuals, Pete,’ said Tuska, magistrate-solemn. ‘I’ve known ’em for years. Oasis is the most suitable place for guys like them. Keeps ’em off the streets.’ He tossed his empty noodle tub into a garbage bin. ‘Also, they’re extremely good at what they do. The best. That’s why USIC keeps spending the money on ’em.’

  ‘What about you, bro?’ BG asked Peter. ‘Are you the best?’

  ‘The best what?’

  ‘The best preacher.’

  ‘I don’t really think of myself as a preacher.’

  ‘What do you think of yourself as, bro?’

  Peter swallowed hard, stumped. His brain was still residually affected by the same violent forces that had shaken up the cans of Coke. He wished Beatrice was here with him, to parry the questions, change the nature of this all-male atmosphere, deflect the conversation onto more fruitful paths.

  ‘I’m just someone who loves people and wants to help them, whatever shape they’re in.’

  Another big grin spread across BG’s massive face, as though he was about to unleash another wisecrack. Then he abruptly turned serious. ‘You really mean that? No shit?’

  Peter stared him straight in the eyes. ‘No shit.’

  BG nodded. Peter sensed that in the big man’s consideration, he had passed some sort of test. Reclassified. Not exactly ‘one of the boys’, but no longer an exotic animal that might be a major annoyance.

  ‘Hey, Severin!’ BG called. ‘I never asked you: what religion are you, man?’

  ‘Me? I’m nothing,’ said Severin. ‘And that’s the way it’s staying.’

  Severin had finished the Coca-Cola clean-up and was wiping blue detergent gel off his fingers with paper towels.

  ‘Fingers are still sticky,’ he complained. ‘I’m gonna be driven crazy until I get soap and water.’

  The computer cabinet started beeping gently.

  ‘Looks like your prayer has been answered, Severin,’ remarked Tuska, turning his attention to one of the monitors. ‘The system has just figured out where we are.’

  All four men were silent as Tuska scrolled through the details. It was as though they were giving him the opportunity to check for emails or bid in an internet auction. He was, in fact, ascertaining whether they would live or die. The ship had not yet begun the piloted phase of its journey; it had merely been catapulted through time and space by the physics-defying technology of the Jump. Now they were spinning aimlessly, somewhere in the general vicinity of where they needed to be, a ship in the shape of a swollen tick: big belly of fuel, tiny head. And inside that head, four men were breathing from a limited supply of nitrogen, oxygen and argon. They were breathing faster than necessary. Unspoken, but hanging in the filtered air, was the fear that the Jump might have slung them too far wide of the mark, and that there might be insufficient fuel for the final part of the journey. A margin for error that was almost unmeasurably small at the beginning of the Jump could have grown into a fatal enormity at the other end.

  Tuska studied the numbers, tickled the keyboard with nimble stubby fingers, scrolled through geometrical designs that were, in fact, maps of the unmappable.

  ‘Good news, people,’ he said at last. ‘Looks like practice makes perfect.’

  ‘Meaning?’ said Severin.

  ‘Meaning we should send a prayer of thanks to the tech-heads in Florida.’

  ‘Meaning what, exactly, for us, here?’

  ‘Meaning that when we divide the fuel over the distance we’ve got to travel, we’ve got lots of juice. We can use it up like it’s beer at a frat party.’

  ‘Meaning how many days, Tuska?’

  ‘Days?’ Tuska paused for effect. ‘Twenty-eight hours, tops.’

  BG leapt to his feet and punched the air. ‘Whooo-hoo!’

  From this moment onwards, the atmosphere in the control room was triumphal, slightly hysterical. BG paced around restlessly, pumping his arms, doing the locomotion. Severin grinned, revealing teeth discoloured by nicotine, and drummed on his knees to a tune only he could hear. To simulate the cymbal-clashes, he flicked his fist periodically into empty air and winced as though buffeted by joyful noise. Tuska went off to change his clothes – maybe because he’d got a noodle stain on his sweater, or maybe because he felt his imminent piloting duties warranted a ceremonial gesture. Freshly decked out in a crisp white shirt and grey trousers, he took his seat at the keyboard on which their trajectory to Oasis would be typed.

  ‘Just do it, Tuska,’ said Severin. ‘What do you want, a brass band? Cheerleaders?’

  Tuska blew a kiss, then made a decisive keystroke. ‘Gentlemen and crew sluts,’ he declared, in a mockingly oratorical tone. ‘Welcome onboard the USIC shuttle service to Oasis. Please give your full attention to the safety demonstration even if you are a frequent flyer. The seatbelt is fastened and unfastened as shown. No seatbelt on your seat? Hey, live with it.’

  He jabbed another key. The floor began to vibrate.

  ‘In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen will be provided. It will be pumped straight into the mouth of the pilot. The rest of you just hold your breath and sit tight.’ (Laughter from BG and Severin.) ‘In the event of a collision, low-level lighting will guide you to an exit, where you will be sucked instantly to your death. Please remember that the nearest usable planet may be three billion miles behind you.’

  He jabbed another key. A graph on the computer screen began to rise and fall like waves. ‘This craft is equipped with one emergency escape pod: one at the front, none in the middle and none at the rear. There’s room for the pilot and five really hot chicks.’ (Guffaws from BG; snickering from Severin.) ‘Take your high heels off, girls, before using the escape pod. Hell, take it all off. Blow on my tube if it fails to inflate. There is a light and a whistle for attracting attention, but don’t worry, I’ll get around to all of you in turn. Please consult the instruction card which shows you the position you must adopt if you hear the command “Suck, suck”. We recommend you keep your head down at all times.’

  He made one more keystroke, then held a fist up in the air. ‘We appreciate that you had no choice of airlines today, and so we would like to thank you for choosing USIC.’

  Severin and BG applauded and whooped. Peter put his hands together shyly, but made no noise with them. He hoped he could stand by unobtrusively, part of the gathering but not subject to scrutiny. It was, he knew, not a very impressive start to his mission to win the hearts and souls of an entire population. But he hoped he could be forgiven. He was far from home, his head ached and buzzed, the beef noodles sat in his stomach like a stone, he kept hallucinating that his body parts had been disassembled and put back together slightly wrong, and all he wanted to do was crawl into bed with Beatrice and Joshua and go to sleep. The grand adventure could surely wait.

  4

  ‘Hello everybody,’ he said

  Dear Bea,

  Finally, a chance to communicate with you properly! Shall we call this my First Epistle to the Joshuans? Oh, I know we both have our misgivings about St Paul and his slant on things, but the guy sure knew how to write a good letter and I’m going to need all the inspiration I can get, especially in my current state. (Half-delirious with exhaustion.) So, until I can come up with something wonderfully original: ‘Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.’ I doubt whether Paul had any women in mind when he wrote that greeting, given his problems with females, but maybe if he’d known YOU, he would have!

  I would love to put you in the picture, but there’s not much to describe yet. No windows in this ship. There are millions of stars out there and possibly other amazing sights, but all I can see is the walls, the ceiling and the floor. It’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic.

&
nbsp; I’m writing this with pencil and paper. (I had a bunch of pens but they must have exploded during the Jump – there’s ink all over the insides of my bag. No surprise they didn’t survive the trip, given how my own head felt . . . !) Anyway, when sophisticated technology fails, primitive technology steps in to do the job. Back to the sharpened stick with the sliver of graphite inside, and the sheets of pressed wood-pulp . . .

  Have I gone insane, you’re wondering? No, don’t worry (yet). I’m not under the delusion I can put this letter in an envelope and stick a stamp on it. I’m still in transit – we’ve got about 25 hours’ journey left to go. As soon as I’m on Oasis and settled in, I’ll transcribe these jottings. Someone will plug me into the network and I’ll be able to send a message to the thing that USIC installed in our house. And you can forget about calling it a ‘Zhou-23 Messenger Mainframe’ like we were told to. I mentioned that term to the guys here and they just laughed. They refer to it as a Shoot. Typical of Americans to shorten everything to a monosyllable. (It’s catchy, though.)

  I suppose, instead of waiting a whole day, I could use the Shoot that’s here on board, especially since I’m too wound up to sleep and it would be a good way of filling the time until we land. But it wouldn’t be private, and I need privacy for what I’m going to say next. The other men on this ship are – how can I put this? – not exactly models of discretion and sensitivity. If I wrote this on their machine, I can just imagine one of them retrieving my message and reading it out loud, to general hilarity.

  Bea, forgive me for not being able to let this go, but I’m still upset about what happened in the car. I feel I let you down. I wish I could take you in my arms and make it right. It’s a silly thing to obsess about, I know. I suppose it just makes me confront how far away we are from each other now. Have any husband and wife ever been separated by so vast a distance? It seems like only yesterday I could reach out my arm and you’d be right there. On our last morning in bed together, you looked so satisfied and serene. But in the car you looked distraught.