Geoff Ryman - Child Garden

Milena paused. That place again. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘Let’s get you back inside.’ She stood up, and all the Bees stood with her, as if pulled by wires. They shuffled behind her, up the Cut wearing shaggy, artificial furs or plastic boots.

While all of this was happening, Milena thought, I was sending down flowers from space. It’s as if there are many Earths and I came back down to the wrong one.

‘Those are Bees you’re talking to!’ shouted the woman who was buying coffee.

Milena held up a hand for the Bees to be still, and walked towards her.

As Milena approached both the woman and the coffee vendor slipped back behind the metal tureen. They think it’s a magic charm that will protect them, thought Milena. She saw herself reflected in the orange light on its misty metal surface. She saw the future there. The future was metal once more. The future was machinery.

‘I know one of them. He is a friend of mine,’ Milena tried to explain. ‘They’re human too,’ she said.

The woman shuddered, and pulled up her face mask. ‘Used to be human, you mean. Look at them.’ Her shaking hands struggled with gloves. The gloves were soaked in coffee, too. Steam rose up from her. ‘They’re deliberately spreading these diseases, don’t you know that? Where have you been?’

‘In orbit,’ replied Milena, in innocence. ‘I’m an astronaut.’

Without another word, the woman flung a cup of coffee across Milena’s face. Like disoriented beetles, her scampering hands fought to seize her jug of coffee, give money to the vendor, and leave, all at the same time. She was evidently holding her breath. She turned and tried to run, taking long, low, sloping strides.

Milena stood appalled as the coffee chilled on her face. She felt like someone in a comedy, to whom absurd things happen. ‘Why did she do that?’ Milena asked. She looked down at her coat. It was ruined by coffee.

‘Perhaps she thought you were sick,’ said the vendor. He threw the coins the woman had given him into a resin tray full of coffee. Coins spread infection too.

‘You’re the ones who are sick!’ said Milena and walked angrily back to the Bees. ‘Come on, she told them. ‘Keep walking. They’re frightened of you, too.’ She led the Bees past the coffee vendor.

Milena turned left, past the fountain outside of Leake Street. Bolts of metal had been screwed into the mouth of the fountain, and its rows of drinking cups were gone. Up the ramp that led to Waterloo, people were scurrying, huddled in terror. They stepped over something, a bundle perhaps in the snow. The bundle moved. The bundle, she saw, was a man.

The man’s chest was bare. His jacket had been wrenched round and his shirt torn as if he had been fighting to get out of his clothes. He was trying to crawl, but his legs wouldn’t work, and his fingers and arms were stiff with cold, as useless as the flippers of a seal.

People had just stepped over him? What is happening to us all? Milena thought. He’ll freeze to death. She walked towards him. The Bees followed, a single rippling mass under their sheeting.

‘She’ll bite,’ warned the King.

She? The man had a full and virulently red beard. She? As Milena drew closer to him, he looked up at her, bared his teeth, and growled.

‘Piper,’ sighed the Bees. ‘Good Piper. Good girl, Piper.’ They seethed and settled around him.

On hearing the name, the man yipped. As they gathered around him, stroking his head, he began to whimper. He whimpered, and tried to wag a tail that wasn’t there. Then he yelped, in an agony of joy. Over-excited, he could not contain his urine. It spread out under him, across the snow. He licked the hands of the people around him.

‘Piper!’ smiled the King. ‘Good dog.’

The man barked.

‘Shouldn’t we get him a doctor?’ Milena asked.

The King shook his head. ‘There are people in the ash,’ he said. He looked about him as if dazzled, as if surrounded by stars. ‘The ash falls.’

‘What?’ Milena felt as if all the breath had been sucked out of her.

‘They let them the,’ he said. He was smiling, as if he had seen something beautiful.

All across the city, the bells rang calling for doctors. Piper, Piper, Piper, said the Bees, soothing. They stooped down and lifted up the dog man to carry him. His tears had frozen on his face. He was stiff as a board and his fingers were held rigidly at awkward angles.

Milena stepped forward to help, and then something stopped her. Disease an old voice seemed to whisper to her.

‘Bugger that,’ whispered Milena to herself, and took hold of his hand.

The procession moved into the shelter of Leake Street. The gates of the Graveyard swung open as if by themselves. Milena trooped with the Bees into a darkness that smelled of people.

‘Milena, Ma, Milena,’ breathed the darkness. ‘Piper, Piper, Piper.’

There were new cells in the palm of Milena’s hand. They had been given to her when she was made Terminal. The cells were luminous and shone brightly when she told them to. She held up her hand: light blazed out of it, and the Graveyard was lit.

The dead costumes moved, inhabited now. There were kings and courtiers, gypsy dancers and Robin Hood’s men. There were mantillas of black plastic lace, and ball gowns of cheap coloured nylon, all the artificial fabrics that the Bees, hearing ghosts, could bring themselves to wear.

The mass of Bees opened up to absorb the Dog Man, to hold him and to warm him. They looked up in unison at Milena and all cocked their heads to one side at once. There were enough of them here to share the burden of consciousness. They all smiled at once in pleasure. They all stepped forward at once, left foot first, towards Milena.

‘Help,’ they all said. A thousand voices said it at once. Milena could feel them all in her head, along the Terminal scar. ‘Help. Ma.’

‘How?’ she asked.

‘Tell them,’ said the Bees.

‘Tell them what?’ Milena asked.

‘Tell them about the lines,’ said one thousand voices with the same intonation.

Milena paused, imagining what it would be like to be the bearer of news. To tell people that the Bees only felt what the Angels of the Consensus did.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will.’

‘Keep well,’ the Bees said, and lifted up their hands palms outward. They meant stay away from us. We need someone who is not a Bee, to speak.

‘Flowers,’ the Bees said, and smiled. ‘Flowers of light.’ They all made a gesture together, index finger and thumb clutching an invisible flower, and they all passed it back to her.

Milena had gone up unknown, and came back famous. To another Earth, and another self as well.

Milena hardly remembered walking on to the Zoo Cafe. Her mind was churning with the things she had seen. Milena, Milena, she thought, you’ve had a headful of opera for too long. She walked into the Cafe and it was hot, steaming, choking with the smell of coffee.

‘Hello, Milena. Milena, hello,’ said people she did not know, who shook her hand. Her luminous hand was still burning bright, and light in ripples shone up under their faces. Milena nodded to them politely, still distracted. She needed to talk to Cilia. Cilia was there somewhere waiting for her.

Milena stood tamely in line. A fat, sour-faced woman with puffy bags under her eyes was jetting hot water from the boiler over all the knives and forks. Milena watched the cutlery curl into unusual shapes. I’ve done all this, she thought, I have been through all this before. You can’t boil life clean.

At the end of the line, a skinny man with a moustache waited and watched. His cheeks seemed to have fallen into holes in his face. He passed each person, without asking, a cup of coffee. ‘I don’t want it!’ Milena said to him, sharply. She took a piece of cake and a glass of milk instead. She watched people wash their face and hands in coffee.