Oisín McGann - Ancient Appetites

'What am I looking at?' he asked.

'Some of Hugo's blood,' Gerald whispered, looking warily over at the old man kneeling by the bed on the other side of the room. 'Now watch.'

He lifted the top slide and used a needle to deposit a drop of something on the bottom piece of glass, then he replaced the slide.

'Bacteria,' Gerald said. 'Watch it attack the blood.'

Nate kept looking and saw the small, spiky cells of the bacteria attach themselves to the concave blood cells. They didn't last long. A kind of haze spread out from the blood cells and coated the bacteria. Nate watched as the attacking organism was eaten up by the strange mist. In less than a minute the bacteria had been destroyed.

'I can't see properly,' he complained. 'What's the misty stuff? Can you make the magnification stronger?'

'It's on its strongest setting,' Gerald told him. 'That's all I've been able to see too, so far. But I've done other tests. This haze, whatever it is, reacts differently to different threats. And that's not all; it doesn't just destroy – it can rebuild. I think it may even have intelligence.'

He checked again to see that Hugo was not listening.

'We've never been able to observe aurea sanitas at work, other than seeing the results of the accelerated healing our family enjoys, but I think this is it. This mist in Hugo's blood is a cloud of particles that's thick enough to be seen. We don't have so many, so we've never been able to spot them before. Hugo and his brother and sisters are loaded with the little beggars.'

'Particles smaller than cells?' Nate asked incredulously. 'Intelligent particles? Is that possible?'

'Our ancestors rebuilt their bodies from scant remains,' Gerald replied, with something like awe in his voice. 'Something kept the seeds of life in them even after their corpses were mummified. Their brains were dead, but some part of them remembered… like drawing the plans of a machine or a building, so their physical forms could be recovered. Their own memories are not complete; but even so, the fact that Hugo and his siblings can move and speak after six hundred years… I think it was these particles. Something about the quality of gold acts as a stimulus or fuel for them, and using it, they have the power to regenerate life, almost to the point of granting immortality. But I don't think they are a part of life. I think we're looking at mathaumaturgy here – once upon a time, someone actually made these things and put them in our blood. I think this is evidence of a science beyond our understanding.

'You see, this isn't the only place I've seen this kind of healing action,' he went on. 'We've always wondered how the engimals healed. After all, they're made of inorganic compounds – metals and other elements. They have no lymph or circulatory systems, no capacity for producing new cells because they have none to begin with. And yet they can heal. I think they use the same mathaumaturgical particles to rebuild themselves.

'Just on a whim, I decided to see if these marvellous little mites were interchangeable; whether I could create a link with an engimal using the particles in my blood. That's the whole basis of my theory, after all – that they were created to serve. Normally it takes days or even weeks of work to bond with an engimal. I put a single drop of my blood in the toast-maker's drinking water and all of a sudden it obeyed my every word! Do you understand what I'm telling you?'

Nate understood completely, but he wasn't sure he believed it. Gerald giggled, as if he were on the edge of hysterics.

'Once a link is created with a master, they appear to be instantly obedient. Forget all this nonsense about breaking them in – this can override all that. And it proves once and for all that they were designed and built to serve by a race whose science was far beyond our own. I'll have to carry out experiments on some of our other engimals to get a better idea of how it all works.

'Imagine if we could find some way to communicate with them, Nate – perhaps with mathematics or some long-lost language. Imagine that!' He ran his hand through his dark mop of lank hair. 'I must write to Charles Darwin and involve him in this. I think these particles are the key to discovering who was responsible for creating the engimals. Darwin's theories on evolution are only the tip of the iceberg; if I'm right, Hugo and the others could be proof that-'

'We are proof of God's mercy!' Hugo's voice cut in.

They turned to find him standing right behind them.

'God returned us to this world to do His Work,' he announced.

'Yeeesss, that's all very well,' Gerald said carefully. 'But I'm interested in how He pulled it off.'

'He is the Almighty God! His Will shall be done.'

'Hugo,' Gerald began, 'a lot of things have changed since you've been away-'

'Gerald, I don't think this is the time,' Nate muttered.

'Modern science has debunked many of the old superstitions,' Gerald continued, ignoring his cousin. 'And while I would not be one to deny the existence of God – I think the whole question of God is a philosophical, rather than a scientific one – our perception of the world has come a long way. Mankind has chosen to rely on reason rather than faith, and it's about time too-'

'Gerald,' Nate hissed, his eyes fixed on Hugo's face.

'Frankly we've developed somewhat since we came down from the trees and I'm eager that we keep going. And to do that, we must use our brains.'

'What do you mean, "came down from the trees"?' Hugo asked.

'The latest theories suggest we are descended from apes,' Gerald replied.

'Apes? What are apes?'

'Like monkeys.'

Hugo looked as if he had just been struck. Gerald helpfully pointed to a drawing on the wall next to him, which showed the progression of man's development from crouching ape, with his long arms and jutting brow, through his various stages to the civilized, upright posture of modern man.

'What is this heresy?' Hugo exclaimed. 'There are no animals in my family! I was made by God in His image!'

'Well, there lies the rub. We've no idea where God came from,' Gerald replied, looking fondly at the drawing. 'Who's to say He didn't start off as a monkey?'

The back of Hugo's hand caught him across the face at startling speed; Gerald's head whipped to the side and he was thrown to the floor by the force of the blow. Jumping to his feet, he clenched one fist, the other hand clutching his burning cheek. He looked at Hugo with a cold rage.

'Out of respect for your advanced years, I'm going to let that go,' he said in a tense voice. 'But if you ever touch me again-'

'Go back to your studies, boy,' Hugo snorted. 'I don't converse with animals.'

And with that, he left. Gerald swore softly to himself and sat down on a stool, shaking his head and blinking rapidly.

'He nearly took my bloody head off,' he said. 'The old bugger's stronger than he looks.'

'And he's getting stronger all the time,' Nate added.

'Intelligent particles,' Gerald observed with admiration, rubbing his swelling cheek. 'When I figure out what's making him tick, I'm going to change the world.'

Nate hung around the laboratory for a while longer, but Gerald was too intent on his work to pay him much attention. Nathaniel had no desire to face the rest of his family in the drawing room or out on the grounds, certain that the gossipmongers would already be spreading the suspicions of his treachery to the rest of the house. So he sought out the only other person he knew would never believe the lies, and who might go some way towards cheering him up.

He took the stairs up three floors to Tatiana's room, and as he approached her door, he heard a thunderous noise emitting from within. It had a throbbing African beat to it, which was accompanied by the sound of stringed instruments being slashed to pieces with a machete. He opened the door to find Tatiana jumping on her bed, her hair loose and flying wildly about her head, her yellow crinoline dress flapping up and down around her bloomers. The songbird engimal he had given her was out of its cage and flew around her in circles, its beak open as it sang its ear-shattering tune. For a moment he was convinced that she had been possessed by some kind of demon, but then she looked over and waved at him.