Geoff Ryman - Child Garden

‘You will?’ The woman looked surprised. ‘And you all work at the Zoo, you’re all professional singers?’

‘Yes,’ said Milena, in a whisper and a catching of breath that meant: I think I’ve done it.

‘Oh well, then,’ said the woman. ‘I’ll have to put it to the others and see what they think. How will you do it? I thought you only did viral plays.’

‘No, no, that’s the whole point.’

We’re whores. We’ll do anything.

And Milena remembered talking with the Reefers about their history, of how Coral was developed, and how it was used to grow the great white wall that kept back the sea, the Great Barrier Reef. She remembered rehearsals, the false starts, and the look on the faces of the actors, the blank horror, when they tried to speak without a virus giving them lines.

She remembered Mote the actor standing helplessly in place, wondering what to do.

‘Look, Ma, where do I go? Do I keep standing here, or do I walk off? I don’t know what to do next!’

‘Of course you don’t,’ said Milena. ‘This is all new, remember? Make it up.’

Mote still looked perplexed. Milena had an idea. ‘I know. This is before the Revolution, right? You smoke cigarettes. Take out a pack, find it’s empty, and start asking other people for tobacco. In desperation, that’s right, you’re an addict.’

Milena started to direct.

All that October after Rolfa had gone, into November, Milena spent her time telling actors what to do. She remembered finding Technicians and hiring the ambulances of St Thomas’s hospital to deliver lighting. She remembered the fittings for costumes, the bright little Zoo seamstress who restitched them out of cloth from the Graveyard. She visited every Estate that was about to have a centenary, and offered them a production. The boatbuilders, the maids and manservants — they had all started forming Estates in the days just before the Revolution. Each Estate was like a separate country, self-contained, in rivalry with the others.

‘The What Does Estate wants us to do a show!’ she announced, expecting enthusiasm.

‘Uhhhhh!’ the actors groaned. ‘Not another one. We can’t do it!’

‘Each one takes us weeks?

The problem was time.

It was the actors who found a solution. It was not a solution of which Milena approved.

She remembered being ushered into a secret meeting in a bare rehearsal hall. The King guarded the door and only let in members of the company. The Princess, Berowne, Cilia who had joined them, they all came in and sat on the floor. Hiya Babe, they said to each other. They had started to called themselves the Babes.

In a corner of the room, there sat an apothecary.

Oh no, thought Milena. Apothecaries thrived around the Zoo. They sold illicit viruses that heightened emotion or powers of mimicry.

The apothecary stood up. She wore black, shiny leotards that showed off her slim legs, and a loose white smock that hid her apple-round belly. Her face was painted with apothecary make-up, a clown-like promise of emotional cornucopia.

‘A play is in the mind!’ the apothecary announced. ‘And minds can be Read!’ She flourished a plate of agar jelly like a tambourine. It was a viral culture.

‘This virus has children,’ the apothecary said. ‘It plants them in you, and the children read you. Then the mother comes, and harvests them, and merges them. She gives birth to the play for you, out of all of you. And then you catch her, as you would for any other play.’ She held up a gloved hand, as if to say, what could be simpler?

The Babes applauded. They admired her performance.

‘So it’s not one disease, but two,’ said Milena.

The woman’s face faltered.

‘The first disease collects whole sections of personae. The second is a transfer virus that picks up all that information and merges it. We then become ill with the transfer virus. Is that right?’

‘Yes. That’s all it is,’ said the apothecary, giving a clown’s smile, and holding up her glove again.

‘Both of your viruses have to pick up information. The DNA has to be open to change. So neither of them can be Candy-coated. Obviously your transfer virus reproduces itself. Does it have two sets of chromosomes? One for information and one for reproduction?’

‘Only the transfer virus,’ said the woman.

‘Only the transfer virus,’ said Milena grimly.

‘So?’ asked Cilia.

‘So it’s contagious! It’s contagious and it can mutate. Ficken hell, woman, what you’ve got there is the end of the world!’

‘Uh. Ma. We know you don’t like the viruses…’ the King began.

‘It’s not a question of what I like. It’s what those can do! It merges minds. It turns merged minds into a contagious disease. Anyone could catch us!’

‘Many Estates use this virus,’ said the apothecary. ‘Any time people have to share information, and work together, and know in advance what each other are going to do.’

‘How many of those have you sold?’ asked Milena in a chill little voice.

‘Many. Many.’

‘If I told the Party they would haul you in for a Reading so fast it would make your head spin.’

‘You would have to find me first,’ said the apothecary.

‘So the clown make-up is a disguise.’ said Milena.

The woman kept smiling.

Berowne slid across the floor to be closer to Milena. He was not yet pregnant. His beard was full and his teeth were white. He was beautiful. ‘Ma,’ he said. ‘Ma, look. Everyone uses the viruses.’

Milena saw the broader pattern. People were used to getting everything from viruses. These people would have no resistance to the idea. Milena covered her mouth in fear. ‘You’re all programmed to accept them.’ It was like watching a trap close. Everyone was used to the viruses doing the work for them, they had been trained to think of viruses as an unmitigated good.

‘No! Look, Ma. We need to speed up production.’

‘It takes months to rehearse a new show,’ said a heart-faced young actress, sullen with ambition. Milena could not remember her name. ‘You all knew that when we started,’ said Milena.

‘Yes!’ said Berowne in frustration. ‘But if we’re to make a living at this we have got to put on more and more shows. Each one you get us is brand new, for a different Estate.’

They aren’t used to working, thought Milena.

‘If we don’t do this,’ said the Princess, ‘We’ll just have to give up on new plays and go back to sleepwalking.’ This was before the Princess had started to stammer.

‘Look, Ma,’ said Cilia. ‘Chao Li would say we were getting it right. We’re not taking value from anyone else, we are generating it ourselves. And we’re entitled to do that.’

‘This isn’t a matter of Tarty principles,’ said Milena.

‘All I was saying is that we got to start turning a few francs.’

The truth was economic. The truth was that viral theatre came whole and finished. It was cheaper than creating and rehearsing new productions. The truth was that the Babes could mount any play they liked. But they had to make it pay.

The apothecary saw the advantage. ‘One or two days,’ she said. ‘That’s all it will take, to collect your ideas, merge them into a whole, polish them a bit. I’m not saying the play will be perfect the first time. But you’ll save time.’

‘We’re going to do it, Ma,’ said Berowne, smiling out of kind regard for Milena.

‘Don’t,’ said Milena, hand across her forehead in alarm.

She watched as the apothecary touched each of their tongues in turn with the finger of a resin glove. ‘Think of it as a kiss,’ the apothecary said.

‘None for me,’ said Milena.

She watched the Babes go pale and sick and ill. She nursed them and took care of them, and sold productions for them, and organised collections and deliveries and fittings. Over the next eighteen months, she and the Babes would stage 142 new productions. For a while, everything seemed all right.