The Disestablishment of Paradise (2 page)

Receiving this letter, I felt as though a door into a secret garden had opened before me. I did not hesitate. I stepped through.

A few days later I set off to visit Hera. I wanted to arrange how we were to proceed. And, to be frank, I was more than a little curious to know what she would be like in the flesh.

I was, of course, familiar with the tri-vid images of her: short of stature even for a woman, fine features, a stubborn jaw, enviably slim and with her long hair drawn back and pinned so tightly
as to give her face an Asian cast. Even soused and gleaming with the sap of the Dendron, as I first saw her in the tri-vid, she nevertheless managed to convey a somewhat neat and prim
impression.

Much of all this remains. She has neither put on weight or dwindled, and her voice for the most part retains a deep cultured tone. But the marks of Paradise are on her – her ‘love
bites’ or ‘ tear-stains’, as she calls them. One is on the forehead and one on her right cheek. Her neck and arms are also marked, as is, she informs me, the rest of her body.
These marks have become darker with the passing of the years. Sometimes they become sore and angry – at which times strange things must be happening on Paradise, for it is reaching out and
afflicting her. If, when this resonance is really severe, she turns her gaze on you, she can, without meaning to, seem to stare coldly through you. It is the imperious look of a hawk or a basilisk.
And she will apologize for this when she sees you fidget. At those times, as I eventually came to understand, she is resonating – a very important word if you wish to understand Dr Hera
Melhuish – by which she means that she is both here and there, experiencing direct communion with distant Paradise while sitting in your workroom. It took me a long time to accept this, and
even now I do not really understand who or what she is communicating with. Lastly, as regards her primness, you will discover if you read on that there is nothing prim about Hera Melhuish –
far from it.

However, it is the raw energy of the woman which provides the most abiding memory and for which I was unprepared. It is there at all times, whether making a sketch with quick deft strokes or
cackling at some bawdy memory, gesticulating wildly for emphasis or pinning you with her bright eyes. That energy, she informs me, is the wild spirit of the Dendron, which she received into her
mind and body and is now lodged there, and which may, as she avers, keep her alive for many years or snuff her out without warning, perhaps by accident through an excess of love. Suffice to say
that it is the loving, spirited Dendron rather than the dread Michelangelo which is the true alien in her, and for that we should be glad.

We agreed upon a procedure. Hera would talk and I would record her words and ask questions to draw her out. The talk could ramble, following its own logic. No topic, no matter how intimate, was
off limits. And we would keep going until we had reached agreement or impasse. Arguing was also anticipated and proved unavoidable. We would meet as often as necessary.

In this way raw material was generated, which I could then edit and shape as I saw fit. The style of the writing was left up to me. Hera’s preference was for me to tell a story and to
treat her as I would a character in a novel. This proved remarkably easy.

However, as I discovered more about Paradise and Hera, my view of the narrative changed. Sometimes, when describing events, Hera attained a clarity that I could never have matched in
composition. I saw no need to improve upon what nature had supplied. Thus I have frequently used her words as spoken during our interviews. Also, to give a clearer image of Paradise, I have
included a short collection of documents selected from writers who had firsthand experience of that planet. These include stories written by young Sasha Malik, who was born on Paradise, as well as
passages from the daybooks of the agricultural pioneers Mayday and Marie Newton and some personal speculations by the late Professor Israel Shapiro. These documents, gathered at the end of the
book, will I hope add variety and background to the story.

Hera also wished me to avoid specialist scientific vocabulary. ‘We are not writing a textbook,’ she said on more than one occasion. ‘Keep it simple and sweet.’ Thus,
while I might have relished sounding erudite, you will find that I frequently refer to the creatures of Paradise as plants rather than bio-forms or some such equally neutral term. I do this simply
because that is how they were most often seen and spoken about, even by specialists. But this must not blind us to the fact that, while there are distinct parallels with the botanic life of Earth,
when we speak of the entities of Paradise we are dealing with life forms which derive from a wholly alien environment.

Initially we met at Hera’s small apartment on Anchor Hold-over-Europa. Later, as the project neared completion, we met at my studio on Albertini-over-Terra. During each visit Hera would
read and correct what I had written. I was glad to observe that, as we progressed in the project, her corrections became less – a sure sign that either I was becoming more accurate as I grew
to know my subject, or that she was forgetting and letting the imaginative world of fiction become the truth.

One difficulty we encountered from the outset was that, as a consequence of her calamitous departure from Paradise, Hera had lost all her notebooks, diaries, memos of meetings, personal records,
sketches, photographs and so forth. They are still down there no doubt, on Paradise, preserved in that lacquered state in which Paradise embalms all things of Earth. And so we talked. We talked
long and late. We talked until I began to see through her eyes. Sometimes we talked until there were no more words and we just stared out into space or fell asleep where we sat.

I am not the ‘Spirit Wild’ that Shelley speaks of in his ‘Ode to the West Wind’, the poem which Hera chose to open her story. But this book is. As Hera stated during one
of our meetings, ‘I hope the book will help us think about what we are and how we fit into the vast scheme of things. What we need now is not more knowledge, but to understand what we already
know.’

I wish to conclude this introduction with two quite different images.

The first is taken from a drawing which Hera made during her first visit to my studio on Albertini. She called the sketch
The Horse and the Woodpecker
, and I have it framed on the wall
before me even as I write.

The sketch depicts two women – they could be sisters separated by a decade – sitting together at a wooden table. The room in which they sit is my studio – a bit junk-strewn,
very cluttered, with books covering one wall and a transcriber tucked away in an alcove away from the window. There is an empty bottle of wine on the floor and a half-full bottle on the table
between the women. Their heads are almost touching as they study a sketch that the older woman is drawing. It is a Dendron in motion, its crest high and its flags waving. And yes, lest there be any
confusion, I am the somewhat horsy one in the picture, and Hera the quick woodpecker.

Behind the women, beyond the curved translucent wall, is the busy darkness of space, sparkling with stars and enlivened by the sudden flashes of the Manson screen as it randomizes particles that
could threaten our small haven. In the centre hangs the lapis lazuli disc of the Earth – blue and white and wholly beautiful in the full light of the sun.

But they are not looking at the Earth. They are many light years away in their minds, talking about Paradise. I hope you will think of this homely image when the going gets hard and we retreat
from the comfortable and human.

My second image is more abstract. It is that of a labyrinth.

A labyrinth is not a maze, it is a journey. You begin by facing your desire, whether it be to find yourself, or Jerusalem, or enlightenment, and you follow a path of knowledge. Once committed
you can not leave that path. Sometimes it is direct and your destination is clear before you. At other times it leads you to the side, and this is a time for reflection and the discovery of wider
perspectives. Sometimes it seems to lead you directly away from your heart’s desire, and that is a dark night of the soul, a time of severe testing when your closest companion is despair. But
always the path of the labyrinth turns again. It approaches the point from which you began, but it is a new point, a new departure. And eventually, by being persistent, you find your way to your
heart’s desire.

That, at day’s end, is how I have come to see this work, and how I invite you to understand it.

We begin with an introduction to Paradise.

Paradise was named by the captain of the prospect ship
Scorpion
, the first craft to make its way there from the fractal gate Proxima MINADEC-over-Phobos. The
captain’s name was Estelle Richter and she was just nineteen years old! We should remember that in the early days of fractal travel only the young could cope with the stress of passing
through the fractal threshold. Why? Opinions, as they say, differ, but what is certain is that the young are more fearless, more optimistic, more confident of their sexual power and less weighted
down by guilt than their jaded elders, and these qualities were important in the early days of fractal travel – and still are, for they diminish the risk of nightmare.

The
Scorpion
emerged from the temporary fractal gate established above the new world, and its crew found themselves staring out at a shining green and blue planet with twin moons.

Early indications of the planet were very positive. Measurements were made by means of an unmanned probe which touched down on the surface, first at a river delta and then at several other
locations including the mountain tops and mid-ocean. But it was obvious to anyone who cared to look that the planet contained life. It was there in the dynamic swirling clouds, in the shining lakes
reflecting the sun, in the deep blue wind-ruffled seas and the vivid green of the land.

Can we for a moment imagine the excitement of those young pioneers, as they gathered together to see the results of all the automatic diagnostic tests? Though the new planet was just a little
smaller than Mars, its gravity was only slightly less than Earth normal. Good for sport and
Scorpion
-cramped limbs. The air was – yes, astonishingly – breathable, according to
analysis. It was perhaps even tonic, being a bit richer in oxygen. And that
was
indeed H
₂
O in the seas and rivers, not blue acid. And look at the tall trees, which reached up
with broad flat leaves. Look at the high waves crashing on the shore and the lime-green meadows where you could follow the footsteps of the wind as it swirled up into the hills . . . Look at the
red flowers bobbing like balloons in the valleys! All the colours could have been taken from a child’s palette. Strange only were the faint shimmering lines of energy, like the fading pattern
of a rainbow, in the misty valleys; that, and the total absence of animals. There were no insects either, or nibbling fish. Flowers without insects? Seas without fish? Why? Why? How? Captain
Estelle Richter did not delay but decided to investigate immediately.

As a name, Paradise was a happy choice. Unlike most worlds, this planet was not hostile to the kind of life that we represent. In ways beyond analysis, the air was sweet to breathe, the water
pure to the taste, the seas buoyant, and there was a springy dense grass (later called brevet) for a tumble – and perhaps most extraordinary of all, fruits which were found to be edible.

The popular story is that it was Captain Estelle who picked and nibbled the first Paradise plum. The plum tree was growing by the shore close to where they had landed. She stared up into its
branches and then in a single act of defiance, in contravention of all contact protocols and common sense, she reached up among the dark spade-shaped leaves and, as she reportedly said later, the
fruit seemed to ‘leap into’ her hand. She bit into its flesh before anyone could stop her. The juice in her mouth startled her and the perfume made her senses reel, and she ate the
entire fruit – licking her fingers – including the seeds, which she crunched and swallowed. Was woman ever so ‘giddy and bold’? Then, before the eyes of her astonished crew,
she confidently removed her survival suit and waded naked into the sea, trailing her fingers behind her in the water, saying – if we are to believe the story – ‘Look at me.
I’m Aphrodite. And I’m reclaiming Paradise.’ A symbolic act if ever there was one. Thus was the planet named, and a physical contact not too far removed from both baptism and the
act of lovemaking took place. I suspect that in making her remarks Captain Estelle was remembering a wonderful painting by Botticelli. It is doubtful that the name Paradise had any specific
biblical connotations for the young captain, or that in seeking out fruit she was consciously mirroring the actions of our mother Eve.

I am struck by the contrast between these young adventurers and the staunch early astronauts from Earth who left their flags and bootprints and cars on the Moon. What a contrast too between
new-found Paradise and the molten or freezing, harsh, dark and sterile worlds the crew visited most frequently. Her companions did not delay but stripped off and followed their leader into the sea.
There is an old saying, ‘Innocence begets innocence.’ If we believe this, then we can be confident that there was no damage done in this first meeting of species. But how interesting it
would have been to peer into the mind of Paradise at the moment when Estelle bit the fruit or breasted the sea, for I am sure those contacts were keenly felt in that psychically alive and innocent
world.

As Estelle later explained, ‘When we came to leave I had one last swim. I have never felt such well-being.’ And that evidently was what the crew of the
Scorpion
and most
subsequent visitors felt during their first contact. I say
most
because a small but significant number of people have always found Paradise an uncomfortable place to dwell.