The Disestablishment of Paradise (19 page)

In that state Hera tried to open her mind to whatever presence had embraced her, dark or not. She was, in a way, eager. If we translate her desire into words, it comes out something like
‘I am.’ Or even ‘I will.’ Or at its most brazen ‘I am willing.’ But if this offer was heard or understood, nothing answered.

Instead she felt herself twisted, wrung out like washing in a strong woman’s hands, but without pain. And then her mind was ‘rifled’. That is the very word that Hera used when
recalling this moment. Memories were lifted from her. There was no rhyme or reason that she could detect. Passive, she yielded up some of her most intimate memories.

The first memory was of an event that had occurred during a trip to old Europe. Her mother was attending a conference in the Alps and took little Hera with her for company and to show her some
of the grand sights and old treasures before it was too late. They were at Chartres and already stonemasons were at work taking the cathedral down. Her mother was standing in the aisle and she
pulled some wooden chairs aside, making a loud scratching sound on the stone floor. Flamboyant and theatrical as ever, she pointed at the dark slabs and said, ‘See, that is where the pilgrims
crawled on their hands and knees to gain forgiveness for their sins. Faith can make people do strange things, Hera.’

This memory was replaced by one of her father, stooping over his plants at Angelique-over-Io and cutting into the wood of a rose so that he could insert a small closed bud. His knife was very
sharp. It could cut your finger without your knowing, as Hera had already discovered to her cost. He finished the graft and wrapped the joint with tape. ‘Does it hurt the rose when you do
that?’ asked Hera. To which her dad replied, ‘Not if you are careful and not if you are quick. Think of it this way: you are giving the roots something to do, something to look after
– and they like that.’

The next memory was very brief. Hera standing on a table, a bit drunk, with a bottle in one hand and her rolled doctoral certificate in the other. She seems unsure which to drink from.

There were many other memories that were plucked out and discarded, but one of the strangest came last. Hera saw herself as an older woman. She is seated in a strange room. There is another
woman with her who is just standing up, her tumbling red hair held in place by a plastic comb jammed in at an odd angle. Her face is merry but wears marks of suffering too.

That is all. In later years Hera always wondered who the other woman was. And now she knows. Me.

How long she was held in the blackness Hera does not know. At one point she wondered if she might be experiencing the celebrated life-flashing-before-the-eyes experience. If so, it seemed very
relaxed.

And then there came one final spasm of shaking and she saw redness before her and felt a sudden startling pain in her hands. The darkness moved on. Solidity returned.

Hera opened her eyes. She was still in the cabin. She found herself leaning forward, her breasts pressed flat on the control panel, her elbows splayed and her hands clasped together so fiercely
that her nails had pierced her skin. She immediately felt ridiculous, as though caught in an indecent posture.

She laughed at herself, released her tight hands with difficulty and then sat back firmly in her chair and breathed deeply. Her heart was pounding in her chest, but she was alive. She could
still think clearly. No harm, as far as she could tell, had come to her. Somewhere she heard a fan start up. Everything was normal. . .

. . . except nothing was normal any more.

Hera sat very still.

The good news, she realized, was that there was now no doubt about there being a special consciousness on the planet: she had felt it, it had brushed her, she had sensed the might of its
presence. At the same time, considered coolly, nothing very much had happened. A bit of fear, a bit of sensory deprivation. An enforced trip down memory lane. But there had been no revelation, no
sudden leap in consciousness, no joining of mind and spirit with . . . with whatever it was. There had been no – she searched for the right word – no sense of divinity, no majesty.

Is that what I wanted?
she wondered.
Is that it?
She smiled at that, recalling the phrase from an earlier time.
Well, perhaps I was lucky. Women usually die when gods
reveal themselves. But that was not a god. No. No god worth his salt would come as darkness. That was a . . . that was . . .
She had no word for what she thought it was.
That was just a
wake-up call
, she concluded. But from whom or what, she did not know.
Next time, I’ll be ready
.

Hera was aware that her thoughts were somewhat frivolous, and she put that down to a reaction.
Better to be frivolous than morbid or mad
. But she was also aware that
her mind had retained a certain clarity of thought, as though the brush with the alien had increased her sensitivity and quickened her consciousness.

She sat for a while with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around her, gazing out into the quiet night.

Outside the flyer a light breeze stirred the distant Tattersall weeds and there was no strange darkness lurking at the perimeter. It had gone. Passed on. But the sky was not dark. The silver
disc of Tonic was already high in the sky – full moon tonight. It was brightening the tips of the trees and casting shadows. With the rising of the moon, the phosphorescence of the plants had
faded. The stars were out too, with their mysterious zodiac patterns that as yet had no history. A golden glow was strengthening beyond the rim of the plateau. It was the light of Gin, just rising.
She turned and looked out of the window behind her. In this silver and shadowy green world, she could see the road down to the former shuttle port and even the fence where the strands of Tattersall
weed hung limply. She knew she could walk there with safety, but yet she felt no inclination to move. The stillness was sweet. She thought,
If I had my time over, I would do things differently
– who wouldn’t? But now I will enjoy being a quiet woman for a change. Enough of planning and head stuff. Now I am going to let things just happen to me for a change – sit back,
treat my time down here as a holiday and see if that makes more sense. And if called, I will be ready and patient. And if not, I’ll enjoy the swimming.

She yawned suddenly and then sat up. She thought
, I am a very lucky woman. I have got what I wanted. I have this place to myself now, for a while
’ Then she spoke aloud.
‘I’m here,’ she said, speaking distinctly. ‘I’m here. Now.’

‘I know you are, Hera.’ The voice was a shock, and Hera felt the adrenalin rush in her arms and neck and her heartbeat leap. But it was the voice of Alan, the autopilot. ‘Have
you been sleeping, Hera? Are you all right?’

‘Better, I think. God, you gave me a shock. Better than I was.’

‘You were upset before.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Were you speaking to yourself, just now?’

‘Yes, to myself. But no more questions, Alan. I’ve had enough questions for the moment. Now I want to sleep. Music, maestro, please.’

‘Very well.’ Softly, the music returned and Hera settled back in her chair. The great rhythmic ebb and flow of waves filled the small cabin. It was a long musical section, and when
the words of the poem finally returned, the boy was far from the shore, and swimming.

With every stroke he is growing older. He has swum with mermaids and dolphins and a strange dark creature that lolls on the surface between feeds. He has drifted by coral and iceberg. The
long-dead of the sea have visited him and told their yarns. Now, finally, he is an old man, and he knows the time is coming when he must dive. To celebrate this moment Yvegeny adapted lines from a
mystical old Irish poet he regarded as his master. The soprano has been changed for a bass. He sings while the accordion plays, ‘Winter and summer, and all the day long . . .’

Hera stood up and stretched. She had pins and needles in her legs. And her arm ached. There was blood on her fingers. ‘My love was in singing, no matter the song.’ Hera padded across
the cabin to the central stairwell. She paused and had one last look round. Then she went down the steps and into the cabin she used as hers.

The music followed her, surging and falling: waves breaching a headland and dying noisily on a stony shore.

Hera crawled under the duvet. The bed was already slightly warm. Comfort for a chilled worker on a lonely mission. She snuggled down and drew her knees up. Outside, the poem was coming to its
end: ‘Now must I lie down where all ladders start/ In the rag and bone shop of my human heart.’

So saying, the old man dived under the waves and found he could breathe water.

But Hera did not hear those words.

Hera was already asleep.

Much later I asked Hera to explain what she now thought had actually happened to her during that first night. Here is her reply.

There is a lot of ‘lucky’ in all of that.

The fact is, Hera was there. She was IN, and the pace of change on Paradise was hotting up.

Foul becoming fair.

That was Hera when she woke up. The euphoria of the previous evening had faded and she was aware of violation. For a while she lay there, examining the feeling, turning it around in her
head.

Memories, no matter how innocent, are private (she reasoned) and she did not know how much else of herself she might have revealed in those moments when she had hovered in the darkness with the
alien presence wrapped round her. Memories, she reminded herself, are not like objective recordings but are shaped by our imagination and our emotions. In which case Hera knew she had probably
revealed all – love and hate and the difficult bits in between. Moreover, her sense of violation was complicated by an awareness that she had hoped for contact and had actively sought it.
Otherwise, what the hell was she doing down here, hanging about? Given what she already knew of Paradise, why should she be surprised that contact, when it came, took this mental form? Had she
hoped that the alien mind, to whom telepathy might be as routine as breathing or sleep to us, would politely ask permission before barging in? If so, how would it do this? In any case the alien
mind of Paradise, whatever it was, would be based on a wholly different set of sensory assumptions, and nothing of hers could have meaning to it beyond the fact that she was alive and different.
No, if you play with fire, you get burned. If you play with aliens you will find your sense of dignity challenged, for better or worse.

By the time she had worked her way through this chain of reasoning she found that she was more than a bit critical of herself. ‘I’ve got to toughen up. Not take everything so
personally. And what is more,’ she added, ‘I’m fed up with everything having a sexual slant. Why do I do that? Violated? Ha! It didn’t mess me about. I took a chance. I
could have had my mind scoured and left as empty as a seashell. But that did not happen. Instead I yielded up a few nice memories, and if they revealed the depth of me, well so be it. I have
nothing to hide. I am what I am. And they can take it or leave it. Alan?’

‘Yes, Hera?’

‘Coffee!’

She threw back the duvet, and as she moved heard the SAS respond to her being awake – the whisper of filters in the bedchamber, the shower system warming up, the priming of the coffee
machine and the fluttering sound of a meteorological report being received. Significantly absent was the news bulletin normally broadcast from the shuttle platform over Paradise.

Some time later, showered and dressed, Hera was conscious that her mind felt very clear and focused. Polished was the word she used. So perhaps the alien visit had released
something in her. She felt a quick energy too, and wanted to be up and doing. Though doing what she was not yet certain. Her intuition told her not just to wait passively for a further
communication, but to be active.

Hera ran lightly up the spiral stairs and into the main cabin. It was a brilliant sunlit day and she had to shield her eyes from the light. Outside, a stiff breeze was stirring the flowers of
the Tattersall weeds, making them nod in a curiously human way. The only evidence of the energy wave she had seen pass through them was broken branches and some trees which remained twisted
grotesquely and were now losing their leaves.

Breakfast was brief, and Alan signed his own death warrant when he said, ‘Good morning, Hera. I let you sleep beyond your normal pattern as you were so late going to bed and your schedule
does not indicate any pressing duties.’

‘Thank you, Alan. Most considerate.’

She replied evenly in a tone which would, had she been among her ORBE workers, have sent them running for cover. For some time Hera had wondered whether she should suppress the circuits which
gave the computer its human voice and solicitude. She was aware of how easily she had begun to talk to the machine as though it was a human, and the last thing she needed was a surrogate male to
distract her.