Geoff Ryman - Child Garden

She held all the roses still for a moment. They hovered wherever they were, in the core of mountains, in prisons, in the branches of trees, or just out of reach, in the air. Then she wiped them away.

‘Twenty two billion!’ she cried. She spun the seat around. ‘That’s more than the souls of the Consensus!’ The extra flowers had been for the UnRead. They had been for the children.

The Cherubim were howling with delight. They had been of use. Christian Soldier crowded round her, hungry for a direction, willing to turn the whole of its being over to the growing of roses, willing to become a garden of flowers, if that was what Milena wanted. The component parts of the Angel rolled across the wires like the heads of dandelions and met and then exploded in a shower of gravity, all the lines singing in glee. Somewhere, deep beneath the waves of Milena’s consciousness, something dark and monstrous heaved like a whale. The Consensus. Even its pleasure was like an iron weight.

But here in the world in which Milena lived, everything was dark and still. Beneath her, in the hold of the Bulge, racks of jelly wobbled like the map Angels were making of the universe. Spiralling through the jelly in smoky strands were cultures of viruses. Quarantined in space, away from dust and contamination, the codes of behaviour and memory grew out of the flesh of the Bulge.

Milena had been able to find a platform for the Comedy in a garden of viruses. Mike Stone tended it.

The rose of memory became the rose of confusion. It grew everywhere. The Bulge seemed to go mad, driven by desire. By breakfast the next day, rosa mundi covered the walls in identical copies of itself. There was a carpet of them on the floor and ceiling. They floated in a vase made of bone that the Christian fundamentalist spaceship had grown out of itself.

Opposite Milena, Mike Stone sat dawdling over his food. His face was suffused with love. Love made him look goofy.

‘Do you like Moby Dick? he asked.

It was early in their artificial day, and Milena had to pause to orientate herself to the question and to find an answer. ‘No,’ she replied.

‘I found the detailed descriptions of whaling techniques very interesting,’ he said. ‘From an engineering point of view.’

‘Do you think if I asked Chris to grow me a white whale, he might stop growing rose?’

‘I think it might overtax his capacity,’ Mike Stone said, his eyebrows knitted together. Was it possible that he was taking her seriously?

A long explanation of protein ceilings followed. The Bulge, was fed with amino acids from supply vessels and was fuelled by sunlight. Milena ate in silence and let Mike’s words wash over her. Some of it was new to her, outside her viruses, and she found that, in a hazy, early-morning kind of way, it interested her. She and Mike Stone had a similar appetite for details.

Mike Stone was a trained virologist. He told Christian Soldier which viruses were needed; he controlled and directed the mutations of its DNA. He directed it in orbit, he told it when to sleep. He could feel it shift and sigh with dreams that were half his. He provided it with a self.

‘We do everything together,’ Mike Stone looked tender and embarrassed. ‘He even worships with me every Sunday. He knows that he doesn’t have a soul, but he prays for mine. He feels that my soul is his soul. He wants to go with me when I the.’

‘Yuck,’ said Milena, over her scrambled eggs. It was bad enough having to suck them through a straw.

‘He wants to go with you, too, when you the, Milena,’ said Mike Stone. His face went even more solemn and sincere. ‘I want to go with you when you the, Milena.’

Oh ficken hell, thought Milena, succinctly.

‘I’d be your Christian Soldier, too, Milena.’

Ficken again.

‘I know you’re not a Postmillenairian Baptist and are therefore damned, but I pray for your soul, Milena, for the good that I know is in you.’

Milena paused for thought, and pressed shut her pouch of cooling egg. ‘I’ve got to go use the head,’ she said, and escaped. She floated upwards to the john.

Inside the door, there was a bouquet of confusion, more roses, taped with a note. ‘For Milena who makes the flowers,’ it said.

Milena fastened her boot clamps, and her shoulder straps to keep her in place. Finally and most importantly she tightened the seat belt. The toilet worked like a vacuum cleaner and it was absolutely necessary to maintain an airtight seal. Milena sat thinking: how long can I hide in here? How else can I avoid that man?

Maybe I could pretend to be sick, she thought. Then she had an image of a worried Mike Stone, bringing her collapsible bags of tea. I can shower after this, that will take a half hour. Then maybe I can pretend I’m working. But after that? I’m trapped in here with him.

After some considerable time, Milena emerged from the toilet. Just outside the door a snapping turtle floated in the air. It hissed, its beak opening wide, its eyes glaring. The air was full of floating snapping turtles and two large brown rabbits from Mike Stone’s childhood.

Mike Stone reached up and caught hold of the turtle from behind. ‘I forgot to put on his little sticky boots,’ he said, apologetically. He stood in the posture of weightlessness, looking at Milena with anticipation.

‘I’d like to show you a picture of my mother,’ he said, still holding the turtle.

‘Can’t wait,’ said Milena.

There was still a slight smile on his face, as if he were amused. Was he pleased? Can’t he hear the way I’m talking to him?

‘I like to think that you and my mother are a lot alike,’ he said.

Suddenly hanging in the air was a hologram of Mike Stone’s mother. Milena had the unfocused back view. The face turned around. Mike Stone’s mother looked exactly like Mike Stone, except for a thick, pulled-back clot of white hair. A rabbit wobbled up to it and sniffed, hoping perhaps it was a head of lettuce. Mike Stone smiled, and caught the rabbit by its belly.

‘She was a very strong woman, too. I like strong women.’

‘I’ll start lifting weights,’ said Milena.

‘Would you?’ he asked, looking over his shoulder, pleased. ‘For me?’ Smiling he put the rabbit back in its cage. ‘Mother lifted weights,’ he said. ‘She could bench-press one hundred and twenty kilos.’

‘Golly,’ said Milena.

‘She said Amen after each set. She said she pumped for Jesus.’ He leaned over and peered into the rabbit’s cage. ‘That picture was taken just before she died. She couldn’t lift any more weights by then, Milena. Her hair went white. You know how in the old days, people’s hair used to go white? Well, Mama said it was a sign from heaven. She said that soon, people would be able to get old again. That God didn’t want us to the so young. He wanted us all to have time to get to know Him before we were called. I tell you, we had a special service for her, all around her deathbed. The whole family was singing.’

In a voice of uncertain power, he began to sing himself. ‘Yes Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.’

He gave up pushing lettuce through the mesh of the cage, for the rabbits to nibble. ‘I’ve been very lonely since she died. ?He stood waiting, as if for Milena to help him.

‘I’m sure you must have been, Mike,’ said Milena.

The picture in the air between them faded.

‘Will you marry me?’ he asked.

‘No,’ replied Milena.

‘Oh,’ said Mike Stone, ‘Well. That’s just the first time.’ He turned back to his rabbits.

This is getting serious, thought Milena. Honesty, Milena, if you’ve learned anything, it’s the need to be clear and honest. ‘Mike. The answer is going to be no, no matter how often you ask. So please, please don’t ask again.’