Chris Beckett - Dark Eden

‘In a boat they came,’ went on little Stoop, when Mitch had poked him irritably with his bony fingers. ‘First in the starship Defiant , a wonderful sky-boat that could travel across the stars, and then in the Landing Veekle that came down from Defiant to the ground.’

‘Remember!’ Mitch called out in his thin wavery voice. He had a batface, not the full batface split right up into his nose, but a little split in his upper lip, and ‘Remember’ came out more like ‘Rememfer’. He was about to say something else, but then began to cough, and his eyes went even more red and watery, and he couldn’t speak.

I had reached John meantime. He was standing with his cousin Gerry. I squeezed his hand. I could feel the grownups’ eyes watching us. I could feel them thinking, That’s no way to carry on in an Any Virsry.

‘In the round Landing Veekle boat they came,’ said old Gela, her blind eyes bulging as if she’d just swallowed a big fat flutterbye by mistake, ‘and this Circle marks the place where they came to land.’

Their helpers led the three of them slowly round Circle of thirty-six white stones, which were supposed to mark the outline of the Landing Veekle, and guided Oldest’s blind hands so they could brush each stone with a bundle of twigs.

Michael’s names, it took a long, long time! There were whispers and murmurs. A little child began to wail and was hissed at to be quiet. Another little announced he wanted a piss. John’s cousin Gerry farted loudly, and newhairs and children laughed. Even some of the adults had a job to stop themselves smiling. Any Virsry had only just started and everyone was already bored. Even our grandmothers and their men were bored, though they wore a mask of respect.

Round and round the thirty-six stones went Oldest, slowly slowly slowly. People whispered. People wrinkled up their faces as Gerry’s fart wafted past them. People yawned. Blueside had been in middle of a sleep when the horns went, after all, and Redlantern and Spiketree were both right at the end of a waking.

Finally, Oldest returned to the centre once again and Gela poked Stoop, who looked cross at first, but then remembered what he was supposed to be doing.

‘There were five people who came down in the Landing Veekle,’ he went on, ‘and three of them returned in it to Defiant to try to get back to Earth. They were the Three Companions.’

Stoop paused and gazed at us as if his brain was stuck. We waited.

‘ Defiant was damaged,’ he finally said in his little high voice, ‘and they knew it might break. But it had a thing inside it called the Computer, which could remember things, just like a person can, and another thing in it called the Rayed Yo, which could call out across space, so even if the Companions died, Earth could get news of us. And . . . and even now . . .’

Again he stopped, as if thoughts had suddenly stopped happening inside his shrivelled old head.

‘And even now Earth may be finishing a new sky-boat like Defiant to come and find us. So . . . So . . .’

‘So we must stay here and be a good Family and wait patiently,’ said Gela impatiently, ‘so that they will be pleased with us and will want to take us all back home to Earth.’

‘Sky-boats take a long long time to build,’ wheezed old Stoop, holding up his hand to stop Gela. ‘ Defiant was as long as Greatpool, remember. And made . . .’ He had to stop to cough. ‘And made . . . and made not of wood but of metal, which takes a long long time to find.’

‘Think how long we’ve been looking for metal in Eden,’ wheezed Gela, ‘and we still haven’t found a single bit.’

‘Rememfer!’ gasped Mitch, before he began another fit of coughing.

A flock of jewel bats darted back and forth across the clearing. The trees had been pruned for generations to encourage them to grow more flowers and give off more light, and that meant there were lots of flutterbyes for the bats to feed on.

John looked at me, and I gave him a little oyster smile. He seemed alive alive and new new new, next to this old tired boring Any Virsry, going slowly round the same old things.

‘Remember that Tommy and Angela stayed in Eden,’ Mitch said when he’d finally managed to clear his throat, ‘and they made four daughters: Suzie, Clare, Lucy, Candice — and one son, Harry. But Candice was bitten by a slinker when she was a little girl and she died before she had reached six years.’

‘And Harry slipped with his sisters,’ said Stoop, ‘and . . .’

‘But Tommy said we must remember that a man should not slip with his sisters,’ interrupted Gela, ‘nor his daughters, nor even his cousins, not if there are others to slip with.’

‘And Suzie gave birth to two daughters who lived: Kate and Martha. And Clare gave birth to three daughters: Tina, Candy and Jade,’ said Mitch.

‘And Lucy gave birth to three daughters, Little Lucy and Jane and Angela. And Harry was father to all of these, so he’s our Second Father. Just like Tommy, he’s the father of us all.’

I yawned, and John yawned, and Gerry yawned in imitation of John.

‘And Harry had to slip with these girls too,’ said Mitch, ‘though they were his own daughters, and the children of those unions were Janny and Mary and . . . and . . .’

A look of panic came over that bitter old shrivelled batface of his . . . He’d forgotten! The long string that held his precious years together was broken! He couldn’t remember the next name in his list.

And then he smiled. Of course, of course .

‘The children of those unions were Janny and Mary and Mitch . . .’

Silly old fool. The child he’d forgotten was himself! The older people laughed affectionately with him. A lot of the younger people didn’t laugh at all.

But for some reason I did suddenly laugh. It came out loud and harsh. And John looked at me in surprise and then laughed too, and then of course so did Gerry, and other newhairs also took it up as well, all round the clearing.

Old Mitch noticed the mocking bark of us newhairs and turned on us, his watery blind eyes wide with distress.

‘You mock, newhairs, you mock our memories. But think of this! I’m a great-grandfather to you, and though I’m old old, one hundred and twenty years, I’m standing before you now. And listen . . .’

He coughed and spluttered and had to have his back patted by one of the helpers before he could go on.

‘And listen to this,’ he went on at last. ‘When I was young like you, I knew an old man too. He was my father’s father, and my mother’s grandfather, and I saw him standing there in front of me, just as you see me. And — listen to this! — that old man, my grandfather, was Tommy who came from Earth. I saw him, I touched him, and he came from another world beyond the stars!’

Tears of frustration were running down his face. He knew that, whatever he said, whatever threats he made, the time would soon come when he was dead, and then the time when our grandparents were dead, and then our parents. And when that point came it would be up to us whether we kept the True Story alive or let it die.

‘I saw and touched Tommy,’ old Mitch almost sobbed. ‘Think of that before you laugh, newhairs! Think of that!’

His sadness was so painful that I had to look away. Some of the younger ones around me actually wept, they felt so ashamed of laughing at him. I felt ashamed too but yet at the same time I was angry with myself for allowing the old bastard to touch my feelings like that. Gela’s tits, had he or the other two ever spared anyone else’s feelings? They spoke harshly to children. They told us we knew nothing. They prodded and poked us as if we were things.