Earthborn Read online

  ‘No, Dad,’ said Nesta impatiently. ‘That’s not what I am talking about. What is it like inside this ship? What does it look like? How would you manage to live there for three years? It was three years you said the journey took?’

  ‘Round about that,’ said Matthew. ‘But have no worry on that score. The ship is clearly split into two hemispheres. In one, there is spacious living accommodation in the style of Earth. In fact, our quarters don’t look vastly different from the rooms in this house.’

  ‘But three years confined like that! Even if it is comfortable, it must be very strange. Like being in prison.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Alison, speaking as a researcher recalling some academic fact. ‘There is so much to see and do. Then there are periods of suspension that can last for much longer than sleep on Earth. We go away into ourselves and return revived.’

  Nesta put her face in her hands and tried desperately to make some sense of what her parents were saying. She tried to reach their level of calm, though her mind was saying, This can’t be true. She almost felt as if she were playing along with some grotesque pretence. But she knew she had seen Matthew diminish, and nothing could alter that. The memory not only frightened her; it made her feel physically sick.

  ‘And what about the other hemisphere?’ she said at length. ‘You said there were two.’

  ‘The other,’ said her father slowly ‘is pure Ormingat. It is a space laboratory such as you have never seen, not even in the most sci-fi of sci-fi movies. I am not even sure that I can explain it to you properly. Separate “space” and “laboratory”. Think of the space as an area restful, flowing and beautiful. And the laboratory is all illusion. What needs to appear appears. The illusions come and go, like tides ebbing and flowing. Two things there remain fixed. At a height above, so that you raise your head to look at it, there is a communications cube that glows and speaks. On the base of the laboratory, so that you must look far down, is something like the dial of a clock, midnight blue and set with jewels like stars in the sky. Other lights circle it with what looks like no sort of order, but gradually they will fall in line and that will be the moment of take-off. Such is the mechanism that eventually will act as a trigger to detonate the rockets that send the ship back into space. It was set to reach its critical point at the exact moment we were meant to leave Earth. I check the setting every year. Last June, it had six and a half Earth years to go before every one of its eighty lights would join in line to form the arrow. Each light represents a quarter of a year.’

  ‘And the rockets cannot be detonated till that moment, fixed from the outset by those who know how the clock runs – which we don’t. So for us to leave before our time is impossible,’ said Alison, seeing this as a definite cause for delay. There were reasons, strong reasons, for wanting to go; there were reasons, stronger reasons, for hoping to stay till the proper and appointed time.

  Matthew smiled. Already the thought of returning to his own planet was a tingle of excitement in his soul.

  ‘We don’t have to wait. The years have melted and blended. The communicator has given us a new return date. And I have checked it against the clock. We have just seven days before the ship’s main rocket detonates.’

  He looked at Nesta, reached across and gripped her hand.

  ‘You cannot realize how wonderful that is!’

  Nesta drew back.

  ‘Of course she can’t,’ said Alison sharply. ‘She was born here. She needs time to get used to the idea. A week is far too little. We were to tell her next year. She was meant to have five years of knowing. This is unfair.’

  Nesta’s face went white. Her mind was searching about for lucid thoughts.

  ‘So what do we do for the week? How do we live through it, knowing?’

  ‘It won’t be a week just waiting,’ said her father. ‘We enter the ship four days from now. On Wednesday, at sunset, we leave this house never to return. We settle into our new quarters ready for the journey to begin.’

  Alison was watching her daughter’s face, seeing the terror that was below the surface.

  ‘Enough, Mattie,’ she said. ‘I think we have had enough for one night.’

  When Alison went to say good night to Nesta, now tucked up in bed and longing to find oblivion in sleep, she leant over her and said softly. ‘Don’t worry, my darling. Don’t dwell on thoughts of rockets and detonators. Love is a fuel that goes a lot further. Wherever we are, we are together.’

  She turned out the light, stood briefly in the doorway and found herself whispering, ‘Nallytan, Neshayla ban,’ words that had fallen into disuse in these latter years. Then in her too, as in Mattie, something of excitement stirred. I am not American after all. I am not a true member of this muddled, restless Earth.

  CHAPTER 13

  * * *

  Sunday

  The next day being Sunday, they went to church. That was part of their routine, an ambiguous sort of ‘religious observation’. They were meant to steep themselves in every aspect of human life, but this was not just empty ritual: God was not mocked.

  The Gwynns did not go to churches in their own neighbourhood. They worshipped in the larger churches and cathedrals within driving distance. They did not discriminate between the different branches of the Christian church. It still puzzled them that there should be so many. They would also have happily attended synagogue, mosque or temple, but their New England background left them too ignorant to know what to do when they got there; and it was always essential that they should blend in unobtrusively. Their Boston memories of the church in Copley Square might have made them strict Episcopalians, but their own faith, the faith of Ormingat, was a birthright that went deeper than any implanted memory.

  In the Minster that morning each of the Gwynns was wrapped in individual thought. Matthew looked up at the stained-glass windows, wonders of art, telling their stories, expressing their faith. This place is beautiful, but so is Ormingat. This place is godly, but the world around it fails. In Ormingat there is too much love for there to be such failure. Arish inghlat, Argule.

  Alison kept head down and hands clasped, deep in meditation that was not quite prayer. We all die some day. Where we die is not important. We are all souls in the same small universe. Deep inside me I do have a yearning for Ormingat, where my own life began; but Nesta’s life began here. She is distraught and bewildered. I feel her pain and I can hardly bear it. Entesh, Argule, entesh.

  Nesta sat back in the place, head scarcely bowed. Her eyes were open, but seeing nothing. The Minster, the priest and the people might as well have been inaudible and invisible. Her thoughts were too busy elsewhere, shying away from questions to which she could never hope to find an answer. I don’t want to go. Help me find some way out. I am not a coward. Even when I let them bully me at school, it wasn’t because I was afraid. It was that I felt ashamed of being different. This is worse. I am different. I will always be different. Please, God, help me.

  They drove home in silence.

  Alison prepared what she now thought of as her last Sunday lunch on Earth. Matthew peeled the potatoes and the turnip. Alison took the roast out of the oven, put in the Yorkshire pudding, and then made the gravy.

  ‘Odd that we’ll never do this again,’ she said, gesturing to the pans on top of the cooker.

  ‘There’ll be similar things to do,’ said Matthew. ‘Ormingat will not be so very different in material respects.’

  ‘A change of menu?’ said Alison with a wry smile.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Matthew, shaking his head at her. ‘You know I don’t. But you do know exactly what I mean.’

  Nesta had gone straight to her own room after church and was busy finishing her French homework. It was as if she were operating on different levels: double-booking the whole of her life. I can be in two places at once. Miss Simpson will expect my French translation to be handed in first, thing tomorrow morning. If the world is going to end on Wednesday, I must still know how to conjugate avoir and ê
tre.

  ‘Nesta,’ her mother called up the stairs. ‘Lunch in five minutes.’

  ‘OK, Mom. I’m coming.’

  ‘I know we need to talk,’ said Matthew as they sat at table, ‘but let’s be like the English. Let’s enjoy our meal first and think of less important things. Have you finished your homework, Nesta?’

  ‘Yes, Dad, I have. And if you don’t think that is important, you should talk to Miss Simpson!’

  It was a shaky attempt at a joke. She really felt more like crying. Eating was difficult too, persuading her teeth to chew and her throat to swallow. I don’t want to be in this situation. I want everything to be back to normal.

  When the meal was over and the table cleared, they went into the front room. A wall-light was lit either side of the hearth, the gas fire glowed in the grate. This was the coffee-and-biscuits room. This was the place for an afternoon nap. The television in the corner was only ever switched on in the evening.

  ‘Now,’ said Matthew, ‘I shall give you as much as I know of the details of our departure. It would really have been better if you had gone into the ship, Allie. You are so much better than I am at remembering things.’

  Earth convention had given the job to Matthew from the first. Occasionally, in the early days, Alison had entered the spaceship; but after Nesta’s birth it became mostly impractical. Earth convention is much more tolerant of the father going off on ‘business trips’.

  ‘Take it slowly,’ said Alison. ‘We can ask you questions if you seem to leave anything out.’

  ‘Well, in the first place, we enter the spaceship on Wednesday – you first, then Nesta, and I go last. The house has to be left tidy and locked up but there is no need for us to take anything with us. We are allowed to fill a bag each with things we might really value – books, photographs and suchlike.’

  From the floor beside him, he picked up a yellow tube-shaped bag with canvas handles and a zip round one end for the opening. It was one of three. They looked quite ordinary and earthly. For the past five years they had been stored away on the top shelf of a wardrobe – Matthew had been given them on one of his yearly trips – a new piece of equipment specially adapted to store permitted Earth objects. Ormingat science never stands still.

  ‘I was given these bags for the purpose. They are more capacious than they look. We shall carry them aboard and they will diminish with us.’

  ‘And we go,’ said Alison, ‘just like that? What about the bank? What about Professor Leonard? I am supposed to be working for him on Thursday afternoon. Don’t we give some sort of notice?’

  ‘Not necessary,’ said Matthew. ‘It will all be taken care of by others who will see to the house and create whatever cover story they feel is needed. Not our job. You know the power of Ormingat. Illusions can be easily created.’

  Alison was still not happy. For the past seven years she had worked as a research assistant at the university, part-time work, poorly paid, but enormously satisfying.

  Matthew saw the look on her face and said grudgingly, ‘I suppose if you feel strongly about it you could send the prof a note.’

  To leave at such short notice was unnerving. Alison had become used to her practical, Earth persona. Minds and bodies interact: Alison was neat, her dark curly hair never out of place, her clothes always spotless. The deep brown eyes shone with human intelligence of a strictly logical sort. It was a personality not easily set aside.

  ‘Is this haste necessary?’ she asked. ‘Is it such an emergency?’

  ‘They seem to think it is.’

  He looked warily towards Nesta. The Ormingatra advisers clearly thought she represented a risk and must be taken out of danger as soon as possible. He was reluctant to explain in her presence that she was the chief reason for their going so soon. The thought, however, made him take another decision.

  ‘I think perhaps you shouldn’t go to school tomorrow after all,’ he said to her as lightly as he could. ‘So you needn’t worry about that homework. You won’t be going back.’

  ‘I am not worried about the homework,’ said Nesta in quiet fury. ‘It is finished. I have finished it. I just told you I had. What’s more I am quite proud of it. It’s neat and tidy and ten-out-of-ten correct.’

  ‘I know it will be, honey,’ said Matthew. ‘Let’s not get into a muddle. All I am saying is that tomorrow you needn’t go to school. It would probably be better if you didn’t.’

  ‘I am going to school, Dad,’ said Nesta through clenched teeth. ‘I am going to school whether you like it or not.’

  ‘Let her be, Matt,’ said Alison. ‘It will do no harm for her to go. She won’t tell anyone anything. She’s got more sense. And if she’s hanging around here for three days, she’ll only feel worse and be bored.’

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’ said Matthew. ‘We let her go to school till Wednesday and come home that afternoon ready to embark?’

  ‘Just that,’ said Alison. ‘And I shall continue with my work on the great explorers on Tuesday. I have nothing lined up for Wednesday and I shall keep it that way. And you must make a sensible excuse to the bank that lets you finish on Tuesday afternoon. Tell them you have to go back to Boston for family reasons. Ask for a month’s furlough. Anything. But don’t leave it up to Ormingat to do everything. I know they can, but we want to do things our own way.’

  Nesta nodded agreement. The less they left up to that alien planet, the more chance it seemed to her there was of not going there at all.

  ‘Very well,’ said Matthew, ‘you can do things your way. My way is to let our people take care of everything. I’ll tell the bank no lies. I’ll work till Wednesday. Then I’ll just disappear. My vanishing will be covered one way or another. It’s none of my business.’

  They left it at that. They were not a family accustomed to arguing. Which made the argument next day all the harder to bear.

  That evening the rain came down again. There was a scramble to return the frog to its lily pad, something they had forgotten in all the stress. They worked in darkness and in near silence. Nesta stayed indoors. There was no laughter and no fun.

  CHAPTER 14

  * * *

  Monday at School

  ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ said Mr Telford in a singsong voice.

  It was to Nesta these words were playfully addressed. Mr Telford had asked her to read. She was not looking out of the window, or talking or doing anything wrong at all. She even seemed to be paying attention, but all the words in the book and all the words that were being spoken as part of the lesson were passing her by unobserved.

  ‘Come on, Nesta,’ said Mr Telford, a little less patiently, ‘read the next paragraph – “One evening just before the new moon was due . . .” Do get a move on.’

  Nesta came out of her thoughts, blushed and gave Mr Telford a nervous smile. She had lost her place and didn’t know where to begin.

  ‘Page 40, fifth line down. I hope you’ll decide to stay with us for the rest of the lesson. I won’t ask you where you’ve been,’ said the teacher. Nesta was one of his best pupils. This aberration was unusual.

  With an effort, Nesta read the next page and was relieved when told she could stop. Mr Telford made no further comment on her inattention. It was as well the lesson was English and not History with the sharp-tongued Mr Fielder. If he had come out with the usual, caustic, ‘Which planet are you from?’ or even, ‘Welcome to this world!’ it might have been more than Nesta could bear.

  At break, Amy was quick to ask her what was wrong.

  ‘I lost the place, that’s all,’ said Nesta. ‘I was just thinking about something.’

  ‘But you look worried, Nesta,’ said Amy. ‘I know you by now. I don’t know why you have to hide it when people upset you. It’s always much better to tell. Is it the same as what was upsetting you on Saturday? Do you know you’re going now?’

  Nesta desperately wanted to tell Amy everything, but ‘everything’ would have been incredible, and nearly everythi
ng might be dangerous. I can’t tell her we are leaving on Wednesday. I can’t really tell her very much at all.

  ‘I don’t know when we are going,’ she said, ‘but it seems pretty certain that we are. And I honestly don’t want to go at all. But I’m not even thirteen till next month; so I have no choice.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Amy, ‘I suppose you’ll just have to get used to the idea. I don’t want you to go – and I will really miss you. But things like that can’t be helped. Remember Lucinda McNeil – she went to live in Greece. At least you won’t have a new language to learn.’

  It was all Nesta could do not to cry. Compared to where I am going, Greece is just next door. And what was the language of Ormingat? Strange sounds made by that boy in his hospital bed, eerie sounds not of this Earth!

  Amy looked at her woebegone expression and said, ‘If you are really so unhappy about it, why don’t you ask your parents not to go? That’s the only way you’d be able to stay.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Nesta. ‘Don’t ask me why. I just can’t.’

  In saying that, she suddenly realized that she would never be able to tell anyone the complete truth ever again. She could not even talk to her parents properly any more. The secret they had hidden from her for years, in which she was now included, did not bring them closer together. It drove them apart. I can’t trust them. I still love them, but in some strange way I almost hate them too. Is it possible to love and hate the same people?

  The bus was late. The rain came on in a steady light drizzle. Nesta didn’t bother to take out her umbrella. She just stood waiting and stoically enduring the damp and the cold. Ormingat might have wonderful weather but that did not seem a particularly compelling attraction. Stuff your wonderful weather, Organmat, she thought, deliberately and bitterly distorting the name to the one that Jamie had given. This is Earth and I am of the Earth!