Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

“That’s what they bloody did say!”

“Yes. But what else could they have done? Even if they couldn’t land because they didn’t know what they were dealing with, what else could they have done to save you?”

“They could show a bit of backbone and use some of that godsdamned technology you’re all so proud of!”

“To do what?”

“I don’t know! Fight them. Find us. Get us out of there!”

“Right. Something constructive. If you’re going to prove negligence, you have to show that something could have been done. Could you have been found? Was there a way?”

“I don’t know, we lost radio contact with everyone by then—”

“Radio. Good. You had radio. So they could have done a radio survey.”

“We didn’t hardly use it any more. No one to listen to.”

“But you did try sometimes?”

“…Yeh.”

“Did you keep trying, even after you were alone?”

“Yeh. I didn’t give up like the others.”

“So there you are. That’s a better way to present it. You were broadcasting. If the Exploration Service didn’t try to listen, or didn’t try long enough, then the ICT might find that worth looking into.”

“I suppose.”

“And it’ll help if they know more about what happened in those two years.”

“Why should they care?”

“If two years makes the difference between one survivor making it and a species making it, they’ll care. You need to show there were people who could have been saved. Give them locations they can search in. Use your own group as an example. Were there other people still alive on the day the expedition left?”

“We didn’t know, that’s why they all bloody went!”

“Okay, but you still had some hope. So what could you put in? What happened?”

“We lost contact with the last station about a month earlier. As long as everyone could hear another voice out there, they could pretend someone was coming. But once the last station went dead…” She sighed. “I couldn’t keep them there any more.”

“Was it that dangerous?”

“Of course it was! We’d sent out expeditions before. They never reached the other stations. They never made it anywhere . But they wouldn’t listen. They thought there was some country out there that didn’t have any revenants, or an island or something. And there wasn’t, was there?”

“No. We never found anything.”

“And we were doing all right. We weren’t starving, not as long as there were enough of us to keep the place going. There were always a few more revenants coming over the hills. We could have hung on for years but the others wouldn’t hear of it. Fifty of us to start with and we were down to eighteen at the end. It wasn’t food they were worried about. That bloody Mike, he was the one who wanted to go.”

“Your lover?”

She stopped for a moment. “Not by then, he wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Stop… being… sorry!”

“Do you want me to be glad?”

“No, I want you to shut up and let me finish!”

“Please. Go on.”

“So they went. Everyone except me. And that was after your ship had come down and got bitten and buggered off. All you had to do was look for us…”

“Did your children go as well?”

“Yeh. They went.”

“How had they been handling it?”

“What do you think? They were about ten or twelve when I had to tell them they couldn’t go back home. They’d ask me when they were going to become revenants. They didn’t have any idea what real life was like, all they had was that patch of dirt and we tried, we tried to give them an education but they gave up, they knew they weren’t getting out, what do you think that’s like for a child?”

“Were there any other children there?”

“A few. Eight. Seven after we lost Tymothy when he went out by himself.”

“But more must have been born while you were there. There were men and women. And married couples, I think you said before…”

“Yeh. Married couples.”

“And you had a boyfriend yourself.”

“I was past it.”

“You weren’t that old…”

“We were all past it!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“We had no children. Not one. D’you understand that? All of us were barren.”

“Do you mean… you were infertile?”

“That’s what barren means, you nit. Not my fault it doesn’t make sense in Interversal.”

“That must have been painful.”

“I promised them, you see. I promised them we’d be able to start something. I thought we could get our own little civilisation going and wait for the revenants to die off. But you need children for a civilisation.”

“And the children that were there, did they turn out to be infertile as well?”

“Yes. Not for lack of trying. I swear I had to put a leash on my two when they got old enough. The poor buggers were bored. But there were never any pregnancies.”

“Do you know why?”

“Yeh, I know why.”

“What was it?”

“The marinade. It eats away at your liver and everything else as well. Ovulation goes wrong, the eggs come out dead or shrivelled or something.”

“And you knew that then?”

“No. That’s what your doctors said when they got hold of me. If it was happening to me it must have been happening to the rest. And the men as well, I don’t doubt, not that they’d admit it.”

“So. You staked everything on being able to build a community.”

“That’s what I said.”

“And when that failed?”

“I told them to hang on until someone got us out. And that was fine until there wasn’t anyone to talk to on the radio. And then they went.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“I wasn’t all that keen on having my guts chewed out.”

“But you let your children go.”

“I know what you’re thinking. You think I abandoned them, but they made their own minds up. They didn’t want me with them. They wanted to get away. Not just from that place, they wanted to get away from me .”

“And you let them?”

“That was up to them.”

“You didn’t want to go yourself?”

“There wasn’t anything out there. Except revenants.”

“You were certain?”

“I was right .”

“How do you know?”

“Because they came back.”

“Oh. Do you mean…?”

“Yeh. They came back dead. Not all of them. Just a few. They probably got caught by a swarm and most of them were too badly eaten to make it back. Mike did.”

“And your children as well? That must have been… terrible.”

“No. They came back before that.”

“They died before the others?”

“No. They didn’t die. Not on the road.”

“So what happened…?”

“They got scared! They hadn’t been out past the valley for ten years. They didn’t know what it was like. They ran away from the others and came back.”

“You must have been happy.”

She looked away. “Yeh. I was.” And was that a hint of a tear? She wasn’t normally one to cry.

“Did they stay with you, after that?”

“No. They didn’t come home to be with their mother. They came home to die.”

“Oh.”

“And there’s me, the biggest fool of all. I started cooking for them, putting on a celebration. Then I found them in Vicktor’s room. They’d both slit their wrists.”

“I’m…” the urge to say ‘I’m sorry’ was almost overpowering, but I managed to avoid it. “And… afterwards?”

“I put them in the pens before they got up again.” She stared at me, hard. “ That’s who they could have saved if they’d lifted one bloody finger!”

“Then you should put that in the representation.”