Joanna Kavenna - The Birth of Love

Your egg and sperm donor were from Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424?

My parents, yes.

When did your egg and sperm donor leave?

When they were forcibly taken away.

No one was forced. The arguments for the necessary action to save the species were compelling, Prisoner 730005. You know this, you have had it explained to you many times.

It is what I was told when I lived in Darwin C, yes.

Who is Birgitta?

I already said, I do not know. She is an ordinary woman but then she must be something else besides. Or there is something else working within her. There may be some who have more developed notions of what she is but I do not.

Who are these people who know who she is?

They do not know. They simply have their notions. No one on the island told anyone else what to think or feel. There were no laws that governed our thoughts.

You are mistaken. We live in a universe governed by laws.

The Protectors marshal these laws for the protection of the species. Without these laws, we perish. Will you tell us who Birgitta is?

I can tell you she is a woman from Darwin C. I never knew her real name. I can tell you she has long hair. Or she did, I don’t know if she still does. I can tell you she sings beautifully. I can tell you she raises her hands when she laughs. I can tell you her skin is pale and threaded with delicate blue veins. I can tell you I love her. Is this what you want to know?

On Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424, was Birgitta one of your partners in sexual release, Prisoner 730005?

No.

Then why do you speak of her in this way?

Because I miss her. Because I cannot believe it is all over. It is destroyed utterly. The community we established, which we worked so hard to establish, which was founded on love and solidarity, has been burned to the ground. I will never see it again.

Where is Birgitta now?

I do not know. I lost sight of her, among the flames. I cried out to her. But she was gone, and then they seized me. They smashed me around the head and I knew nothing else, until I woke up here, in a cell.

Do you believe that Birgitta escaped?

I only hope she did.

On behalf of the Protectors we must ask you if you want to be allocated another role in the struggle for the survival of the species, Prisoner 730005.

It is not important whether I live or die.

Transcripts of interviews with members of the anti-species conspiracy of Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424

Part 3, 3.30–4.30 p.m. 15 August 2153 Interview with Prisoner 730006

At time of commencement the prisoner will not disclose her real name.

Prisoner 730006, you are aware you stand accused of the capital crime of conspiring against the Genetix and thus against the survival of humanity?

Yes.

The Protectors are very disappointed in you. They fear you have behaved in a reckless manner, dangerous to all. What do you say to this?

I hope they will one day find true understanding and this miasma that surrounds us will be banished. I hope this for them as I hope for it myself.

They regret to inform you that while they seek to assess all matters reasonably and dispassionately, your case — and that of your associates — must be considered a crime. We are appointed to discuss with you the precise nature of this crime and to relay information to the Protectors. Do you understand?

I understand the plane of existence you are summoning me to recognise and I recoil from its every element.

Your co-conspirators have made full confessions. They have pleaded for clemency from the Protectors. There is a chance this clemency may be granted to them, and to you also, if you all co-operate. Do you understand?

I understand this is what you are saying to me. Whether it has any relation to the truth, to the reality of all things, I do not know.

You will find that we speak truth, for the protection of the species, Prisoner 730006. Can you explain firstly how you came to be living in the Restricted Area?

I was sent there.

Sent there? By whom?

By a force beyond my comprehension.

What force?

I do not know precisely what it is but I believe it drove me out of Darwin C.

You had lived in Darwin C all your life?

Yes, my parents …

Correction, sperm and egg donors.

… were sent there from their home.

Correction, Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424. How did it come to pass that you left Darwin C?

I was driven out of the city. My longing for something else — I was not entirely sure what it might be precisely, but I sensed I must search for it — caused me to leave. I began to realise that we had fallen somehow, that we had lost everything that mattered. But I did not know whether I might regain anything; I just felt I had to get out.

How did this so-called realisation happen?

I do not know. There was a day — I was working as usual …

Your allotted role, Prisoner 730006?

The nurture grounds, sector 1127.

You worked with Prisoner 730004?

I do not know anyone of this name.

Your area of specialisation?

I cared for babies.

Correct ‘babies’ in the usual way for the record. Had you been harvested as legally required?

Yes. At the age of eighteen like everyone of my generation I was stripped of my biological right and deprived of joy.

Correction, the Prisoner was harvested and her womb was closed. How did you meet the other members of your anti-species conspiracy?

The process was very slow. Of course, we had been taught to think in an entirely different way, and so we had to unlearn the previous ways and gradually intuit another sort of understanding. At first we did not really know what we craved. We were only able to define our desires negatively. We knew what we did not want. That was everything around us, everything we had ever known, and so it was hard to imagine what we did want. If it even existed on the planet. If it remained to us — some of us remembered aspects of our early childhoods, and they were a source of inspiration, these shared memories of something else. But we were fumbling in the dark.

You had been taking the advised doses of hormone readjustment?

Of course. No one has any choice about this.

You are arguing that you felt like this despite taking the advised daily dose?

Yes.

We assume you attended Species Survival Courses A, B and C?

Naturally. No one has any choice about that either.

So you were fully aware that your thoughts and subsequent actions worked directly against all the emergency measures currently in place to protect the species?

I was aware that if I was found out I would be condemned, yes.

And you understood that it was necessary for you to be housed in Darwin C in order for as much land as possible to be used for mass-scale farming to support the species?

Yes, that is what I had been told.

And yet you continued with your course of action anyway? It was as if I was being directed by something beyond me. Stronger than me. I could not resist this direction.

How was your group formed?

Somehow we were drawn together. There was never a point at which we were a group. We were not a society, there was nothing formal. We never met together until we were in the crate. First there was someone and then another, and then someone else and then another. We recognised something in each other. It was an accumulation, a burgeoning of spirits.

How many were you?

I cannot tell you.

Why not?

Numbers no longer hold any meaning for me.

You all had a tenuous link to Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424?

It was our home, yes.

You felt this, though you had never seen it?

Yes.

Who was it that devised the plan to abandon your posts and desert to the Restricted Area?