‘Did you set the traps for me, Johnson?’
‘I set all of them and put in the bait.’
‘Good.’ Christine heaped the nets onto the sand. More and more she seemed to hurry these days, as if she feared that the experiment might end. ‘I can’t understand why we haven’t caught one of them.’
Johnson gave an eloquent shrug. In fact he had eaten the canned sardines, and released the one bird that had strayed into the trap below the parasol of a giant cycad. The nervous creature with its silken scarlet wings and kite-like tail feathers had been a dream of flight. ‘Nothing yet – they’re clever, those birds.’
‘Of course they are – they’re a new species.’ She sat in Colonel Pottle’s chair, photographing the table of fruit with her small camera. ‘Those grapes are huge – I wonder what sort of wine they’d make. Champagne of the gods, grand cru . . .’
Warily, Johnson eyed the purple and yellow globes. He had eaten the fish and crabs from the lagoon, when asked by Christine, with no ill effects, but he was certain that these fruits were intended for the birds. He knew that Christine was using him, like everything else on the island, as part of her experiment. Even the child she had conceived after their one brief act of love, over so quickly that he was scarcely sure it had ever occurred, was part of the experiment. Perhaps the child would be the first of a new breed of man and he, Johnson, errand runner for airport shoe-shine boys, would be the father of an advanced race that would one day repopulate the planet.
As if aware of his impressive physique, she said: ‘You look wonderfully well, Johnson. If this experiment ever needs to be justified . . .’
‘I’m very strong now – I’ll be able to look after you and the boy.’
‘It might be a girl – or something in between.’ She spoke in a matterof-fact way that always surprised him. ‘Tell me, Johnson, what do you do
while I’m away?’ ‘I think about you, Dr Christine.’ ‘And I certainly think about you. But do you sleep a lot?’ ‘No. I’m busy with my thoughts. The time goes very quickly.’
Christine casually opened her note-pad. ‘You mean the hours go by without you noticing?’
‘Yes. After breakfast I fill the oil-lamp and suddenly it’s time for lunch. But it can go more slowly, too. If I look at a falling leaf in a certain way it seems to stand still.’
‘Good. You’re learning to control time. Your mind is enlarging, Johnson.’
‘Maybe I’ll be as clever as you, Dr Christine.’
‘Ah, I think you’re moving in a much more interesting direction. In fact, Johnson, I’d like you to eat some of the fruit. Don’t worry, I’ve already analysed it, and I’ll have some myself.’ She was cutting slices of the melon-sized apple. ‘I want the baby to try some.’
Johnson hesitated, but as Christine always reminded him, none of the new species had revealed a single deformity.
The fruit was pale and sweet, with a pulpy texture and a tang like alcoholic mango. It slightly numbed Johnson’s mouth and left a pleasant coolness in the stomach.
A diet for those with wings.
‘Johnson! Are you sick?’
He woke with a start, not from sleep but from an almost too-clear examination of the colour patterns of a giant butterfly that had settled on his hand. He looked up from his chair at Christine’s concerned eyes, and at the dense vines and flowering creepers that crowded the porch, pressing against his shoulders. The amber of her eyes was touched by the same overlit spectrum that shone through the trees and blossoms. Everything on the island was becoming a prism of itself.
‘Johnson, wake up!’
‘I am awake. Christine . . . I didn’t hear you come.’
‘I’ve been here for an hour.’ She touched his cheeks, searching for any sign of fever and puzzled by Johnson’s distracted manner. Behind her, the inflatable was beached on the few feet of sand not smothered by the vegetation. The dense wall of palms, lianas and flowering plants had collapsed onto the shore. Engorged on the sun, the giant fruits had begun to split under their own weight, and streams of vivid juice ran across the sand, as if the forest was bleeding.
‘Christine? You came back so soon . . . ?’ It seemed to Johnson that she had left only a few minutes earlier. He remembered waving goodbye to her and sitting down to finish his fruit and admire the giant butterfly, its wings like the painted hands of a circus clown.
‘Johnson – I’ve been away for a week.’ She held his shoulder, frowning at the unstable wall of rotting vegetation that towered a hundred feet into the air. Cathedrals of flower-decked foliage were falling into the waters of the lagoon.
‘Johnson, help me to unload the stores. You don’t look as if you’ve eaten for days. Did you trap the birds?’
‘Birds? No, nothing yet.’ Vaguely Johnson remembered setting the traps, but he had been too distracted by the wonder of everything to pursue the birds. Graceful, feather-tipped wraiths like gaudy angels, their crimson plumage leaked its ravishing hues onto the air. When he fixed his eyes onto them they seemed suspended against the sky, wings fanning slowly as if shaking the time from themselves.
He stared at Christine, aware that the colours were separating themselves from her skin and hair. Superimposed images of herself, each divided from the others by a fraction of a second, blurred the air around her, an exotic plumage that sprang from her arms and shoulders. The staid reality that had trapped them all was beginning to dissolve. Time had stopped and Christine was ready to rise into the air . . .
He would teach Christine and the child to fly.
‘Christine, we can all learn.’
‘What, Johnson?’
‘We can learn to fly. There’s no time any more – everything’s too beautiful for time.’
‘Johnson, look at my watch.’
‘We’ll go and live in the trees, Christine. We’ll live with the high flowers . . .’
He took her arm, eager to show her the mystery and beauty of the sky people they would become. She tried to protest, but gave in, humouring Johnson as he led her gently from the beach-house to the wall of inflamed flowers. Her hand on the radio-transmitter in the inflatable, she sat beside the crimson lagoon as Johnson tried to climb the flowers towards the sun. Steadying the child within her, she wept for Johnson, only calming herself two hours later when the siren of a naval cutter crossed the inlet.
‘I’m glad you radioed in,’ the US Navy lieutenant told Christine. ‘One of the birds reached the base at San Juan. We tried to keep it alive but it was crushed by the weight of its own wings. Like everything else on this island.’
He pointed from the bridge to the jungle wall. Almost all the overcrowded canopy had collapsed into the lagoon, leaving behind only a few of the original palms with their bird traps. The blossoms glowed through the water like thousands of drowned lanterns.
‘How long has the freighter been here?’ An older civilian, a government scientist holding a pair of binoculars, peered at the riddled hull of the Prospero. Below the beach-house two sailors were loading the last of Christine’s stores into the inflatable. ‘It looks as if it’s been stranded there for years.’
‘Six months,’ Christine told him. She sat beside Johnson, smiling at him encouragingly. ‘When Captain Johnson realised what was going on he asked me to call you.’
‘Only six? That must be roughly the life-cycle of these new species. Their cellular clocks seem to have stopped – instead of reproducing, they force-feed their own tissues, like those giant fruit that contain no seeds. The life of the individual becomes the entire life of the species.’ He gestured towards the impassive Johnson. ‘That probably explains our friend’s altered time sense – great blocks of memory were coalescing in his mind, so that a ball thrown into the air would never appear to land . . .’
A tide of dead fish floated past the cutter’s bow, the gleaming bodies like discarded costume jewellery.
‘You weren’t contaminated in any way?’ the lieutenant asked Christine. ‘I’m thinking of the ba
by.’
‘No, I didn’t eat any of the fruit,’ Christine said firmly. ‘I’ve been here only twice, for a few hours.’
‘Good. Of course, the medical people will do all the tests.’
‘And the island?’
‘We’ve been ordered to torch the whole place. The demolition charges are timed to go off in just under two hours, but we’ll be well out of range. It’s a pity, in a way.’
‘The birds are still here,’ Christine said, aware of Johnson staring at the trees.
‘Luckily, you’ve trapped them all.’ The scientist offered her the binoculars. ‘Those organic wastes are hazardous things – God knows what might happen if human beings were exposed to long-term contact. All sorts of sinister alterations to the nervous system – people might be happy to stare at a stone all day.’
Johnson listened to them talking, glad to feel Christine’s hand in his own. She was watching him with a quiet smile, aware that they shared the conspiracy. She would try to save the child, the last fragment of the experiment, and he knew that if it survived it would face a fierce challenge from those who feared it might replace them.
But the birds endured. His head had cleared, and he remembered the visions that had given him a brief glimpse of another, more advanced world. High above the collapsed canopy of the forest he could see the traps he had set, and the great crimson birds sitting on their wings. At least they could carry the dream forward.
Ten minutes later, when the inflatable had been winched onto the deck, the cutter set off through the inlet. As it passed the western headland the lieutenant helped Christine towards the cabin. Johnson followed them, then pushed aside the government scientist and leapt from the rail, diving cleanly into the water. He struck out for the shore a hundred feet away, knowing that he was strong enough to climb the trees and release the birds, with luck a mating pair who would take him with them in their escape from time.
1990
A GUIDE TO VIRTUAL DEATH
For reasons amply documented elsewhere, intelligent life on earth became extinct in the closing hours of the 20th Century. Among the clues left to us, the following schedule of a day’s television programmes transmitted to an unnamed city in the northern hemisphere on December 23, 1999, offers its own intriguing insight into the origins of the disaster.
6.00 am
Porno-Disco. Wake yourself up with his-and-her hard-core sex images played to a disco beat.
7.00
Weather Report. Today’s expected micro-climates in the city’s hotel atriums, shopping malls and office complexes. Hilton International promises an afternoon snow-shower as a Christmas appetiser.
7.15
News Round-up. What our news-makers have planned for you. Maybe a small war, a synthetic earthquake or a famine-zone/ charity tie-in.
7.45
Breakfast Time. Gourmet meals to watch as you eat your diet cellulose.
8.30
Commuter Special. The rush-hour game-show. How many bottoms can you pinch, how many faces can you slap?
9.30
The Travel Show. Visit the world’s greatest airports and underground car parks.
10.30
Home-makers of Yesterday. Nostalgic scenes of old-fashioned housework. No.7 – The Vacuum Cleaner.
11.00
Office War. Long-running serial of office gang-wars.
12.00
Newsflash. The networks promise either a new serial killer or a deadly food toxin.
1.00 pm
Live from Parliament. No.12 – The Alcoholic MP.
1.30
The Nose-Pickers. Hygiene programme for the kiddies.
2.00
Caress Me. Soft-porn for the siesta hour.
2.30
Your Favourite Commericials. Popular demand re-runs of golden-oldie TV ads.
3.00
Housewives’ Choice. Rape, and how to psychologically prepare yourself.
4.00
Count-down. Game show in which contestants count backwards from one million.
5.00
Newsflash. Either an airliner crash or a bank collapse. Viewers express preference.
6.00
Today’s Special. Virtual Reality TV presents ‘The Kennedy Assassination.’ The Virtual Reality head-set takes you to Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. First you fire the assassin’s rifle from the Book Depository window, and then you sit between Jackie and JFK in the Presidential limo as the bullet strikes. For premium subscribers only – feel the Presidential brain tissue spatter your face OR wipe Jackie’s tears onto your handkerchief.
8.00
Dinner Time. More gourmet dishes to view with your evening diet-cellulose.
9.00
Science Now. Is there life after death? Micro-electrodes pick up ultra-faint impulses from long-dead brains. Relatives question the departed.
10.00
Crime-Watch. Will it be your home that is broken into tonight by the TV Crime Gang?
11.00
Today’s Special. Tele-Orgasm. Virtual Reality TV takes you to an orgy. Have sex with the world’s greatest movie-stars. Tonight: Marilyn Monroe and Madonna OR Warren Beatty and Tom Cruise. For premium subscribers only – experience transexualism, paedophilia, terminal syphilis, gang-rape, and bestiality (choice: German Shepherd or Golden Retriever).
1.00 am
Newsflash. Tonight’s surprise air-crash.
2.00
The Religious Hour. Imagine being dead. Priests and neuroscientists construct a life-like mock-up of your death.
3.00
Night-Hunter. Will the TV Rapist come through your bedroom window?
4.15
Sex for Insomniacs. Soft porn to rock you to sleep.
5.00
The Charity Hour. Game show in which Third-World contestants beg for money.
1992
THE MESSAGE FROM MARS
The successful conclusion of NASA’s Mars mission in 2008, signalled by the safe touch-down of the Zeus IV space vehicle at Edwards Air Force Base in California, marked an immense triumph for the agency. During the 1990s, after the failure of the Shuttle project, NASA’s entire future was in jeopardy. The American public’s lack of interest in the space programme, coupled with unsettling political events in the former Soviet bloc, led Congress to cut back its funding of astronautics. Successive US Presidents were distracted by the task of balancing the national budget, and their scientific advisers had long insisted that the exploration of the solar system could be achieved far more economically by unmanned vehicles.
But NASA’s directors had always known that the scientific exploration of space was a small part of the agency’s claim to existence. Manned flights alone could touch the public imagination and guarantee the huge funds needed to achieve them. The triumph of the Apollo landing on the moon in 1969 had shown that the road to the spiritual heart of America could be paved with dollar bills, but by the year 2000 that road seemed permanently closed. Struggling to keep the agency alive, the NASA chiefs found themselves reduced to the satellite mapping of mid-western drought areas, and were faced with the prospect of being absorbed into the Department of Agriculture.
However, at the last hour the agency was saved, and given the funds to embark on its greatest mission. The announcement in Peking on January 1, 2001, that a Chinese spacecraft had landed on the moon sent an uneasy tremor through the American nation. True, the Stars and Stripes had been planted on the moon more than thirty years earlier, but that event lay in a past millennium. Was the next millennium to be dominated by the peoples on the Asian side of the Pacific rim, spending their huge trade surpluses on spectacular projects that would seize the planet’s imagination for the next century?
As the pictures of the Chinese astronauts, posing beside their pagoda-shaped space vehicle, The Temple of Lightness, were relayed to the world’s TV screens, news came that an Indonesian space crew and an unmanned Korean probe would soon land next to the Chinese.
Galvanised
by all this, a no longer somnolent President Quayle addressed both houses of Congress. Within weeks NASA was assigned a multi-billion-dollar emergency fund and ordered to launch a crash programme that would leap-frog the moon and land an American on Mars before the end of the decade.
NASA, as always, rose bravely to the challenge of the tax-dollar. Armies of elderly space-engineers were recruited from their Florida retirement homes. Fifty civilian and military test pilots were pressed into astronaut training. Within two years Zeus I, the unmanned prototype of the vast space vehicles that would later carry a five-man crew, had roared away from Cape Canaveral on a six-month reconnaissance voyage. It circled the Red Planet a dozen times and surveyed the likely landing zone, before returning successfully to Earth.
After two more unmanned flights, in 2005 and 2006, Zeus IV set off in November, 2007, guaranteeing President Quayle’s third-term electoral landslide, which the five astronauts saluted from the flight-deck of the spacecraft. By now the Chinese, Indonesian and Korean lunar programmes had been forgotten. The world’s eyes were fixed on the Zeus IV, and its five crew-members were soon more famous than any Hollywood superstar.
Wisely, NASA had selected an international crew, led by Colonel Dean Irwin of the USAF. Captain Clifford Horner and Commander John Merritt were former US Army and Navy test pilots, but the team was completed by a Russian doctor, Colonel Valentina Tsarev, and a Japanese computer specialist, Professor Hiroshi Kawahito.
During the two-month voyage to Mars the quirks and personalities of the five astronauts became as familiar as any face across a breakfast table. The Zeus IV was the largest spacecraft ever launched, and had the dimensions of a nuclear submarine. Its wide control rooms and observation decks, its crew facilities and non-denominational chapel (if a marriage was arranged, Colonel Irwin was authorized to conduct it) happily reminded TV viewers of the Starship Enterprise in the Star Trek TV series, still endlessly broadcast on a hundred networks. Everyone responded to the calm and dignified presence of Colonel Irwin, the deadpan humour of Captain Horner, the chirpy computer-speak of the mercurial Japanese, and the mothering but sometimes flirtatious eye of Dr Valentina. Millions of viewers rallied to their aid when the Zeus IV passed through an unexpected meteor storm, but the ultra-hard carbon fibre and ceramic hull, a byproduct of the most advanced tank armour, proved even more resilient than the designers had hoped. The inspection space-walks seemed like gracefully choreographed ballets – which of course they were, like every other activity shown to the TV audience – and confirmed that mankind had at last entered the second Space Age.
The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard Page 171