Sponsored by

Contents:

As one of the Bards of our new society, I have to admit that I’m related to Suisjeme, but it was at his family’s insistence that I am his storyteller. I knew him when I was young, and often sat and chatted with him under his beloved trees, which have done so much to restore the Earth’s climate.

In any case, many of you will be familiar with the outline of Suisjeme’s story, though I doubt you will know what will be revealed in these pages. After all, it was his idea to continue the ancient tradition of writing novels, which started way back in the eighteenth century. You know how Suisjeme insisted that mindtalk and mindgames and mindmusic should not be the only forms of artistic expression. The Meldsea is just our way of enjoying wide intimacy with each other. Such telepathic skills, when we agree to share experience within the Meldsea, he said, should not be allowed to destroy the artistic endeavours and achievements of our primitive past.

Suisjeme’s story begins in the chaotic last days of old London, where a young, brilliant geneticist, Dr. Rufus Karl, and the Head of the largely secret Unit, Dr Hilda Jones, were putting in place their plans for the greatest genetic leap ever planned. London, like all world capitals at the beginning of the twenty-first century, was struggling with its masses because of environmental problems. The seas were rising as the holes in the ozone layer expanded, natural forms of radiation and humanity-induced radiation levels were increasing. Undesirable mutations had started too increase alarmingly and male fertility was falling even faster. As weather patterns became unpredictable, and population actually began to fall, many people became very frightened. That’s how it was at the end of the twenty-first century.

Strange sects and groups arose worldwide, but the traditional churches and religions, and a resurgence of the medieval Trade Guilds gave some stability. Environmental Directorates were set up in many countries, and took on the role of policing the increasingly unhappy populations. This was the world into which Suisjeme was born.

The characters who played central roles in this early part of his life were the doctors and scientists, who after their move from London, took on the role of monks and religious leaders to control the people. He didn’t know anything about any of this until he was fourteen years old. Only one of them stayed with him after his birth and his hiding away. He thought of him as his father, Joseph. In those early years he grew up knowing nothing of Lord Benton and his increasingly powerful Trade Guild, which also used religious trappings to disguise its real intentions. He didn’t know Dr. Hilda Jones or the others. He didn’t know the beginnings of our telepathic community in the Meldsea, that he had a brother, or anything of Dr Karl Rufus.

So, friends with time enough to spare, enter this story and share the as yet untold details of Suisjeme’s early life, his mental growth, his loves, and the group of people who have made our world what it is today.

And, of course, he knew nothing of the words in the ancient Latin tongue, which could have created a very different world for us all, whether he’d known what they meant or not.

Let us join Suisjeme, soon to be fourteen years old.

_____________________

".... am I?"

He rolled over, conscious of the drip needle in his arm. His mind drifted.

"Suis-je....... Je suis........ j’aime.... I am, I like...? What?" He continued to ramble and Brother Joseph pulled the blanket up until it rested lightly around his neck. He drifted deeper as he became warmer.

Suisjeme! A stupid name, thought Joseph. She’d dreamed it. That girl, Crystal, the host-mother. Crystal was a damned silly name too. He’d known her real name. He looked down at the thirteen year old boy with tenderness, but however long he watched, he could never see Crystal in Suisjeme’s angular face. If he looked like anyone, he looked like Brother Rufus.

Fourteen years ago, Rufus had gone off to arrange the trucks. Rufus had planned the retreat to the north, away from London. Rufus had taken orders from no one but Dr Hilda Jones. The research program had been Hilda’s, but it had become the property of the young Doctor, Rufus Karl.

Joseph coughed. The cold African nights in Namib were getting to him. He looked again at the drugged and sad face of his ‘son’, Suisjeme. What they had done was inhuman, what he’d done to the boy was inhuman. Yet, Suisjeme was as dear to him as a son. He’d be fourteen years old tomorrow.

_______________

"Dreams can determine genetic changes over time! Joseph had said that. "Without my dreams, none of this would be possible!" Rufus leaned into the next bend. The motorcycle was perfectly maintained, old as it was. There was going to be trouble on the streets. Rufus trusted his senses and they picked up the scent of raw petrol, and activity in dark passageways. The patrols were out early. Joseph must be losing his grip.... Rufus repeated Joseph’s annoying mantra aloud a second time: "Dreams can determine genetic changes... Shit!"

Rufus was thrown from the old Suzuki by the blast of the explosion. The pain in his shoulder shafted his mind like the surgical laser he was more used to using on biological samples.

The Environmental Directorate riot police were closing in at the end of the street. He viewed the chaos around him with little emotion. These riots came from natural fears. He concentrated on obliterating the red, raw pain. It dulled rapidly under the power of his mind until a black uniformed figure began to drag him away from the burning car in front of his motorbike. The resulting jags of fire in his brain could not be blotted out and he bit his top lip.

The figure grunted with the effort of dragging a man of six and a half feet away from the impending secondary fireball. "What the fuckin’ hell are you doing down ‘ere?"

"What’s it to you!" Rufus gasped, but, even through the pain, he permitted himself a smile. It didn’t go unnoticed as the riot cop propped him against a handy shop doorway.

"What you fuckin’ grinnin fer, yur daft bastard?"

Rufus turned his dark eyes and looked straight into the cop’s. "Leave me. I’ll be okay.... and thanks." His voice was as persuasive and hypnotic as normal.

The cop shrugged his shoulders and turned back to his companions who’d realised the mob had vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Ignoring the pain, Rufus shielded himself with his leather jacket and by sheer force dragged his bike further from the flames. A water-cannon truck had appeared in the middle of the road. The cafe was only a hundred yards left at the next junction. He pushed the bike without trying to restart it. Round the corner the street was deserted as he parked and raised the"ED Aware" sign from the carrier. It was hard to see how his frame fitted the machine, even with his slightly hunched back.

He was thinking again about Joseph. He was a brilliant researcher. He could make, and had made, amazingly intuitive leaps, but why he’d taken to muttering such ridiculous... In his own crooked thinking, Rufus realised he was considering the concept of dreams seriously. There was perhaps more to the dreams and what Lord Benton’s lot christened the Meldsea than any of them suspected. That was why it was bothering him. The Project would put paid to all that. The cafe was not quite empty. A girl-like figure, who was probably at least forty under her make-up, gave him a cursory glance. A shadow seemed to be watching him from a corner seat. That would be Lord Benton.

Rufus seated himself without being invited. "What’s the deal - for the trucks and the fuel?"

Lord Benton only looked fat. It was the effect of the monk’s cloak and cowl bunched around him. His face came into view as he leaned forward. It was white. (Like Death, thought Rufus.) "You look a mess, Rufus." The eyes didn’t exactly stare, but had an almost hypnotic quality. The look didn’t work on Rufus.

"We both know what we want." Rufus brought his long, delicate fingers together as if he was about to pray. "You’re only worried about getting your damned trucks nearer to Scotland. It’ll be a bargain, we will get them there - trustworthy drivers; they’ll not wreck your precious trucks." He emphasised the repeated word ‘trucks’. He lowered his voice. "You know we’ll drive carefully.... with our cargo." The incongruity of a monk-like figure sitting in a stinking downtown bar didn’t bother Rufus. In any case, he knew the Guild didn’t take kindly to the idea of their precious resources being traded or entrusted to others without cash, or things of even greater value these days, being deposited up front. But the Guild, and its leader, Lord Benton, had been impressed by his demonstrated talent for telepathy, such as it was. They thought they needed him, and, curiously enough, the support of the National Institute for Genetic Studies and Experimentation.

Lord Benton’s robe smelt of sweat and incense and he knew its pungency would have reached the sensitive young man by now. He’d watched closely as the confident, so-called genius had limped into the bar, rubbing his shoulder. The Guild needed Rufus, for its own experiments. He needed Rufus. He could be one of the ‘volunteers’ in the breeding. Indeed, he could be essential. This trading for the lorries to escape London was the mark of a future, true Guild member too. Rufus needed to be introduced to the mystery of the growing Meldsea. "You can have them - three, fully-fuelled. Have your drivers meet us at the multi-storey, the Romford one, at 2300 hours tonight."

Rufus showed no reaction as he rose from his seat to his full height. His companion remained hunched in his cloak and wondered how someone of only twenty-three could have such self-control in these dark times. He noticed that Rufus had hunched shoulders and signs of a hump in his back, even when pulling himself up to his full height. It made him think of a vulture. The impression was emphasised as Rufus pulled on his black leather motor-cycle gloves covering up the bird-like skinny hands. He was further impressed when an ED blast grenade went off somewhere close and a cloud of dust billowed through the still open doorway into the dim lights of the bar. Rufus didn’t even blink.

Rufus allowed himself a quiet half smile as he turned his back on Benton. Out in the street there was renewed chaos. A car had skidded and smashed into a downway to the Underground. It was a black Government car. Its ED, Environmental Directorate, number-plate was clearly visible. Someone had lobbed a firebomb into its path. Rufus smiled openly now as he dodged lithely through the gathering mob revelling in the chance for some quick looting. Once astride his bike, with its engine throbbing quietly, he began to disassociate himself from his surroundings, coping with the wildness of the crowds in an automatic, skilled series of manoeuvres. He was thinking of his Catholic upbringing when he dreamed of the priesthood and the ultimate, the Vatican itself. He thought of the Guild. He knew, of course, about the Meldsea. He knew Lord Benton had thought him ignorant of the ‘secret’. He had to hurry. The birth might, inconveniently, be tonight. The idea of twins was beginning to fascinate him. It had not been planned. Rufus was not fazed by the unexpected, he just didn’t like things that were unplanned. She should only be having one, the first one - the only one; his Project, his goal. Now - two boys. Which would be the one? Or, would they both...?

"You’re late. Did you get the lorries from that stinking old goat?" The white-coated figure swung the great iron gate open to permit entry to Dr Rufus Karl, observing the bike’s dented and damaged fuel tank and the rider’s torn jacket.

"Of course." He swung his right leg off the powerful motorbike. "We should be on the road by midnight and out of this madness, straight up the old A1M..." Rufus caught his breath before adding, more quietly, "before the total breakdown of law. The Environmental Directorate has no real teeth. If they bring in what’s left of the Army, we’ll use minor roads."

As he strode away towards the main laboratories, he was thinking again of the pregnant woman. She must be induced. They couldn’t risk the birth on the move. If necessary, why should the silly girl be considered at all? As long as the babies were viable they could... Of course, there was Rebecca, pregnant with the girl. She wasn’t urgent, but there’d be a risk with her too, if the journey north proved difficult. Still, she wasn’t due for another three weeks or more. All three children had to be the priority. A surge of unusual passion suffused pink into the grey face of Rufus. Hilda noticed it immediately.

"Are you feeling well, Rufus?" Dr Hilda Jones asked. She didn’t like Rufus with an unusually flushed face. It didn’t suit him. It made him look too much like a human being with normal emotions. In fact, she didn’t like Rufus at all. None of them did. Hilda was forty-three years old and, if the research was to continue, she’d known that they had to employ the brilliant young man, who’d gained his doctorate at only nineteen. Like her quiet, weak friend, Dr James Browning, she’d come to fear the intensity of the Rufus’ approach. The other members of the research group knew that Joseph, James, Hilda and Rufus were fanatics, but not to such an extent that even sleep was regularly denied. Rufus had an amazing capacity for work - often forty-eight hours without a break, especially on mapping and placing the codings.

And now, as Head of the Project, she had Joseph to worry about. The girl named Crystal had developed a close attachment to him, too close. Something had been going on between Rufus, Joseph and the host mother, Crystal. Stupid name, Crystal! Hilda had been born and educated early in the 21st century, she’d grown up used to stupid names, but it was beyond her why anyone would bother to choose a name like Crystal to hide their identity. She assumed it wasn’t the girl’s real name. Joseph was too kind; that was his trouble. As a biochemist and an educationalist, he was the odd one out in the group, but his developing programme for the education of the first three subjects was considered an absolute necessity. His brilliance in advancing the use of mind-enhancing bio-chemical processes with hothouse hypnotic sleep techniques for education had been noted before he’d reached his thirties. The Project needed him. Hilda felt weighed down with the problems of such diverse personalities.

Rufus realised that his sudden emotional response needed controlling and linked his fingers in an unmistakable attitude of prayer, meditating briefly and intensely before opening his eyes wider to look down on the rounded, short, motherly figure of Hilda, waiting patiently for his reply to her query, which he ignored. "I’ve been arranging the transport. We can move tonight. We must move tonight."

"The abbey isn’t properly prepared, and there’s so much to load," Hilda said calmly.

"Ready or not, it’s got to be tonight!" Rufus said, trying to be controlled. "The violence on the streets is getting worse. The lack of food, the deforestation and now the mutated grain crops you know about, but the people are more worried about the rumours of fall-out from the Middle East. The latest figures on deformity, pre- and post-natal, have been leaked, as well as the accelerated rise in ozone layer depletion." Rufus spoke rapidly and sharply, before adding more quietly, "Apart from the obviously visible results, more and more people are noticing..." he paused for a comment from the matronly Hilda. None came. He watched her adjust the belt on her white coverall. She could be very stubborn. "We must go. We can, we must, be on the road tonight. I’ve had information that ...er.. action will be taken tonight. We have to go tonight. I’d like to induce Crystal now."

In spite of his knowledge, thought Hilda, he seemed to understand little about childbirth. She observed the tall, leather-jacketed figure, its hands clasped in prayerfulness, or pleading. "No! I will not have her induced," she said firmly. "We can make her, and Rebecca, comfortable; have no fears on that score. A full set of birthing equipment can go with them. It’s ready. Let’s pray they’ll all be safely delivered."

Inwardly, Rufus was seething. The religious slant Hilda was increasingly displaying these days was something with which he didn’t feel at ease. He knew the extent of the mutated and mutating forms better than any of them. He’d known from the start of his research. He’d had access to the Environmental Directorate’s figures for over five years. The growth was exponential. It was the same in every part of the globe, which had reliable records left. Hilda should have been a nun, he thought; a Mother Superior. The move to the abbey in the north of England was appropriate. She could be an Abbess. How could she pretend to a moral stance? He smiled calmly, a plan already forming in his mind.

Hilda observed his apology for a smile, which was more like a grimace, and hoped her eyes didn’t betray her distrust of the hollow-cheeked coldness of Rufus, or the secret within her own womb.

He hurried away to the main laboratory section to give orders for the completion of the packaging of the remaining records and equipment. Most of the materials had been sent ahead. James would help him, he thought, as he made his way to the rooms shared by the pregnant girls, Rebecca and Crystal. Rufus was becoming more and more assured of his skill at probing the surface of people’s minds and planting the ideas that resulted in persuading them to do his bidding. James would do it.

Rufus considered the future. The children would have to be protected, hidden somehow. There’d be many possibilities when they reached puberty, and they could be brought home for their awakening. What would this crazy world be like then? Rufus didn’t doubt their survival, nor his own. He’d always had an overbearing sense of his own destiny, admittedly in general terms, but he didn’t doubt. It was, perhaps, that sense of his own destiny, his single-mindedness, which frightened people. He knew how to impress his wishes on others.

James did as Rufus wanted, but it was mistimed! By the time the trucks had been collected and the convoy left the Institute, the twins were on their way. To the sounds of childbirth, the lorry carrying Crystal turned onto the A1. Rufus wasn’t worried. He was in that lorry too, and he knew exactly what he was going to do if the birth went badly. However hard the journey, whatever problems they might face at the abbey, whatever happened to the rest of the population, he and the children would survive. Somehow, he knew. Even when they had to crash their way through the barriers beside the Bedford turn-off, only one hour before the first boy was born.

Rufus felt inwardly calm afterwards. Crystal was dead.

_________________________

In the following fourteen years, Rufus mainly got his way, but Hilda remained, she thought, in charge. The world continued to change radically. Populations shrank, seas rose steadily, and the Abbey of Waterford continued its work, for Hilda persevered with her dream of restoring normality to the human race: the normality she’d known as a child of parents born in the 20th century. For safety, Suisjeme, the first baby, was sent away to the quietest part of south west Africa they could locate. His twin, Karl, disappeared while still a toddler, and Rebecca’s child, Maria, had been sent to Greece.

But Hilda’s matronly look on that last day in London was no accident. A fourth baby was born in secret within a few weeks of their arrival at Waterford Abbey. Dr Hilda Jones arranged that the strangely delicate child, with its abnormally large head, should be hidden too, in Switzerland. She arranged it without Rufus’ knowledge.

In Africa, Suisjeme’s fourteenth birthday dawned.

Chapter Two home

Suisjeme was not asleep. He was thinking with his eyes closed. He was considering the visions: flashes of memory, or dream, which didn’t make sense. A church? A cathedral? A monastery? A list of words flickered through his mind. The words made no particular sense, yet the visions this morning had been very clear. There was a square ruined tower of grey stone. It was in a valley. There were other equally grey buildings around it. Inside one of these, sweeping arches of stone supported the roof. There was a hint of strange perfume and echoing deep voices chanting rhythmically.

"Wake up. Wake up, Suisjeme. Breakfast." Father shook him gently.

Suisjeme couldn’t really match the spelling of his name to the sound of it. "Sweej’emm" . It was a strange name. Suisjeme looked into Father’s rough and kindly face.

Every morning was the same. A clean, thin linen shirt was thrust into his hands and with tired steps he walked unwillingly the short distance to the wooden-slatted door of the shack, which was home. Outside, a thin mist drifted down the shallow valley with the sluggish, treacle-coloured river. He was fourteen years old today, Father said.

The water in the damp smelling barrel had an oily sheen with floating black specks. The morning ritual of hanging the long shirt on the nail and splashing water over himself never failed to make him draw a deep breath.

Suisjeme was thin and pale, and slightly pigeon-chested. His straight, short, dark hair was badly trimmed; damp and straggly by the time washing was complete. The only towel was made of a dark, rough material. It brought a little colour to Suisjeme’s hollow cheeks. He looked across the curve of the river where the sun rose. The sun was always just a brighter patch in the light grey of the sky.

"You’re going to leave here." Father was looking down at his plate. "I’m to go with you, as far as I can... as far as the coast."

There was one of Father’s long silences while they chewed on the pieces of tough, over-fried meat. The radio crackled, as it had the night before, and Father moved quickly to the corner of the one-roomed shack they called home.

Suisjeme fingered a curious fruit. Father said there used to be things called ‘oranges’ and, often, they were sweet and sharp in your mouth all at the same time. They were orange in colour and had pleasantly oily skins. This fruit had a dark pink skin and the flesh was always stringy with ragged grey pith, but Father said it contained vitamin C just like the old oranges. The Multi-coloured Man brought the ‘l’orangees’ on his cart every two or three weeks, along with the few necessities that Father thought they needed.

"Start the generator! Suisjeme, quickly, the batteries are low. Start the motor."

Outside, under a corrugated tin roof, stood the generator. As he’d been taught, Suisjeme checked the fluid levels, pressed the small brass button a few times and began to crank the iron handle. With thin blue smoke being puffed into the hazy air, it began to throb with the regular beat he’d known all his life. That throbbing made his head ache. Breathing quick and shallow, he had to sit down. The throbbing in his head kept time with the engine powering the small generator.

It had been like that every night he could remember. Father would adjust the wires around his pillow, stroke his cheek a few times, cough once, or twice, and then tuck the coarse blanket close to him. The drink Father gave him used to take effect rapidly. He’d soon fall into a dazed half-sleep. The voices would begin. The hypnotic counting, an outpouring of information all through the night, till bright stars swung in sharp orbits through his mind and the splintered colours of a new day brought him back to life. The pain would go away by the time he’d washed and had his breakfast, but this morning was different.

They never ran the generator during the day. Suisjeme heard numbers in his mind. As if his head was cracking open, he saw diagrams, pictures of things that made no sense. Suddenly he was babbling uncontrollably. The pain became almost unbearable. He screamed and screamed as colours swirled and rushed through his consciousness. He didn’t hear his Father running, or feel him slapping his face. The pain was in his world, his mind; red-hot needles burned into him down the length of his spine making him arch his back in the dirt as he screamed.

Father lifted the stiffening, yet twitching body with loving care. Suisjeme’s face was deathly, cold and damp as the grey clay from the river. Rushing to the precious tin luggage-box, Father found and quickly adjusted the syringe and took out a phial of colourless liquid. Snapping the end off, he was soon giving Suisjeme the relief he needed.

Warmth flooded through him. Some of the pictures and words in his mind now made sense. He recognised Africa and towards the southwestern side, that was where he lived, so his Father said.

The generator was no longer throbbing. Suisjeme felt very happy. Often, in this condition, Father made jokes, and even stroked Suisjeme’s cheek saying he loved him. Sometimes they went down to the river, threw rocks in and raced twigs on the slow flowing water; they had even paddled in the mud and dirt, laughing.

Suisjeme had known Father as long as he could remember. There was only Father, the voices from the tape-machines and the pictures in the goggles over his eyes... and the Multi-coloured Man.

"You’re normal, Suisjeme. Don’t worry about what Groot says. You’re normal. He’s the multi-coloured, stripy freak! Remember that. You’re skin is smooth and even, you have five fingers on each hand. Your ears are normal and your feet. You’re like me - there’re so few of us."

Sometimes Father spoke of the ‘Home’, explaining that living in the shack was planned and ‘They’ would send for the two of them one day. The messages would come crackling over the radio. ‘They’ had to wait until Suisjeme had learned all he could from Father and the tapes that whispered to him at night.

Sometimes Father tested him. He would say, "Suisjeme, look at the light," and he’d shine a light from a brown tube into his eyes. Then he’d count and Suisjeme would hear himself repeating things as if he was another person. Sometimes the ‘test’ would go on for hours, and Suisjeme couldn’t stop the other Suisjeme from speaking. He could also write and draw very quickly. Then Father would speak and count again and Suisjeme would feel as if two parts of him were coming together. He’d be very tired and Father would sing silly rhymes to him and hold him close, so close that Suisjeme could hear wheezing in Father’s chest as he muttered of love.

In many ways, he enjoyed his ‘learning’, as Father called it. Father would often turn the whole business into a game. That was when he produced sweets as prizes. Suisjeme loved to win the sweets when he was younger. Now he knew the Multi-coloured Man brought them and he often persuaded the strange giant, who Father called Groot, to give him some for himself.

"You have to go alone." Father seemed to shake with each word. "I can’t travel all the way with you."

"I don’t understand," Suisjeme protested.

"I’ve told you before. One day you’ll make a journey to the ‘Home’ and you will meet others who look normal like you. They’ll not have strange hands, feet, hair, multi-coloured skin rough and flaky. They’ll not be deformed..." He coughed. "...with more or less than five fingers on each hand, armless or noseless. I’ve explained. You look normal. They’re deformed. They’re twisted by those genetic bombs, mutated from exposure to the fall-out from the Middle-Eastern wars at the turn of the century. No one really knows how it happened. Someone in the East set the genetic bombs to work through only three generations. They were supposed to act on the reasoning faculties of the mind. They weren’t intended to produce the wholesale deformation of the human form, the millions of aborted monsters, the surviving grotesques..." Father’s coughing became uncontrollable whenever he made speeches full of words Suisjeme couldn’t really understand. "Rufus says it was happening before the genetic bombs; that it was nothing to do with them. That he’d been working on the problem for years..."

Suisjeme listened, but he’d heard it all before, without understanding, over the last three years. Father had spoken of these matters more and more. It made no real sense. He sometimes felt that the story wasn’t true. He heard Father mutter to himself about ozone, dolphins and experiments to change human beings. It wasn’t the story about bombs. Even the pictures didn’t make sense. Motorcars? Planes, things that flew in the sky? Houses, with grass around, and swimming pools? Houses bordering roads with children playing on wheeled machines called bicycles? The children? A deep sense of loneliness swept through Suisjeme, and he began to cry.

Suisjeme thought of his life with Father. It was all he knew. He’d longed to become part of those pictures, with the children. The bicycles looked fascinating. He wanted to play. That was an important desire in him. He knew the word ‘play’. Father sometimes played games with him. They played cards. He remembered the rough wooden blocks, when he was very young, building them into complicated buildings and walls, and knocking them down. He remembered Father encouraging him to draw with charcoal and the coloured pencils brought by the Multi-coloured Man. Yes, he remembered play, but there was always ‘work’. They spent so many hours ‘learning’ that Suisjeme imagined, when he was younger, that every day was the same. The days felt the same. Time didn’t exist. It was all one.

Now the visions had started to trouble him. He didn’t discuss them with Father. It was his one and only secret. Father had been everything to him. He loved him. Now he was saying he wasn’t going to be with him anymore.

"Father? Do you mean you’re leaving me?" Suisjeme couldn’t disguise the fear in his mind.

Father noticed. He got up and put his arm round Suisjeme’s shoulder. "Don’t worry. I’ll tell you what to do. Your Multi-coloured Man and me will come with you as far as the coast. You’ll only be on your own from then on, but you’ll have lots of new things to see and learn. There’ll be many strange people. Sometimes you’ll not be able to understand their language. You must learn. I’ll give you the language keys on the cassette tapes. I’ll show you how to open yourself to the rhythms and patterns of sound. You’ll find, quite rapidly, you’ll be able to make some sense of what people say. Then you’ll just have to keep learning the new words and speaking as often as you can, so you get better."

"But there’s always been you..." Suisjeme couldn’t cope. He felt the tears come, hot on his cheeks.

"It’ll all be new. It’s going to be exciting for you."

Suisjeme didn’t think Father sounded very convinced.

"People aren’t so cruel anymore. Everyone looks different. It’s as if they tolerate any differences, even in behaviour, so the world’s a happier place. People are kinder. More tolerant..." His cough was thick in his throat. He didn’t sound very enthusiastic.

"Why’ve we lived here so long then?" He was genuinely puzzled.

"Well... it’s complicated." Father coughed again and swallowed the phlegm that appeared in his mouth. "We, you, are normal. Some people, a few, will resent that. Some other people think you, er... might be... useful to them. It’s all very complicated, but you’ll be safe. The journey’s a deliberate part of your education. You’ll learn much that I’ve not been able to teach you. And you’ll know more than anyone else. That’ll help you through." Father coughed yet again. "Then... they may send someone to meet you, like Brother Rufus."

Suisjeme had heard the name before, but he didn’t ask who he was, because he didn’t like the way Father looked. He was grey, like ashes from their fire. "Father?"

"Yes?"

"Are you my father?" He watched Father’s face. "I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time."

Father looked away from Suisjeme’s stare. "No. I knew your mother. I don’t know who your father was. You see..." He stopped and the silence seemed to be endless, then, "Your father came from a manipulated, highly selective sperm bank."

The words ‘selective sperm bank’ were new. Suisjeme rolled them around in his mind. Father suddenly began to explain, but it didn’t make sense to the boy. Something about a ‘genetic pool’, complicated processes to produce ‘normal’ human beings instead of wild, mutated forms. Suisjeme asked quietly, "What was my mother like?"

Father stopped his confusing lecture. "She was beautiful. She died so soon after you were born..." He began to tremble. His eyes moistened.

"Why?"

Father became very agitated. He trembled. He was having difficulty knowing how to reply. "She could’ve given birth to a dead child. She might not have survived the birth. They took you out of her."

"Does that mean she had to die so I could be alive?"

"She didn’t have to die. They were careless!" Father was suddenly angry. "They didn’t care about her." He began to cry, a crying that became a deep sobbing such as Suisjeme had never heard. Father’s rough, creased skin and stubble made the tears stand out. He put his head in his hands smearing the tears like water over his face. His voice was muffled as he said, "She was... beautiful."

Suisjeme asked quietly, "What was her name?"

Still crying, Father muttered, "I called her Crystal. Her real name was Christabel."

Suisjeme had become very quiet. He went outside to sit by the tall pole belonging to the broken wind-generator, to which was attached part of the radio aerial system. He saw the Multi-coloured Man pushing his cart along the track by the river. Suisjeme didn’t run down the slope as he usually did, to help push the cart up to the shack. Instead he watched the Multi-coloured man struggle. In the end, the huge, strange figure turned the cart around and pulled it up.

"You’m not helpin’ boy!" he gasped in his guttural way. "You’m lazy, white worm boy! Ars cum special today. What’s a matta, boy?" It was the familiar guttural grunting manner which Suisjeme had got used to over the years, and now it brought him back to some kind of reality.

He remembered being frightened by the Multi-coloured Man when he was much younger. According to Father, he was just like so many others, not ‘normal’ like the two of them. His skin looked dark and light alternately, in stripes almost, and his hair was red, a bright, fiery red. The texture of his skin, close up, took on the appearance of unwashed and untreated dried leather. His teeth were spiky and black. His thick, rubbery, pink lips were permanently wet with spittle and Suisjeme had noticed droplets flew out when he talked. He was massively built, but hunch-backed, and looked very strong. His thighs were the thickness of Father’s body. His feet were always bare and ridiculously small for a man of his size. They were covered in the same red hair as his head and bushy eyebrows. His hands too had a fine bloom of bright red hair, which stopped just above the wrists. His big, round staring eyes were different colours; one blue, the other black. To the young boy he’d always been the Multi-coloured Man.

And he had always referred to Suisjeme as the ‘white worm’.

"You’m don’t look good, boy. Wassamatta? Don’t you’m want no sweeties, eh?"

Suisjeme looked up at him. He was well over six and a half feet tall. He towered over Suisjeme, who was still sitting by the aerial pole on a small bench seat. He wasn’t frightened. He knew Groot was friendly and kind.

"I got sumfin for you, boy." He rummaged at the front of the cart. "...’ere look at this." He held something that flashed colour, made of paper. "It’s a magzeen." He came over and placed it in Suisjeme’s pale hands.

He looked at it. It did say ‘Magazine’. It said "Sunday Magazine". It was dirty and crumpled, but the bright colours of the photograph of the white, blond girl and her black, smiling friend were blinding in the sunlight. The back page was torn. There was something Suisjeme now recognised. It was an aircraft, surrounded by patches of deep blue sky and fluffy white clouds. He turned back to the front picture and gazed at the girl with fair hair. There was something vaguely familiar about her.

Groot noticed. "She’m jus’ like you, worm. She all white and wormy." He laughed, slobbering more than ever. He wiped his mouth and chin with the hairy back of his hand. "She’m as funny lookin’ as you boy!"

"What’ve you brought him this time, Groot?" Father came out towards them. He was coughing thickly with the effort.

"It’s a magzeen, Jo’ef." He called Father ‘Jo’ef. Father’s name was Joseph, but it came out as ‘Jo’ef’ whenever Groot was excited. "It got all them thing that whitey worm boy ‘ere likes! Picters of ‘ouses and all kine of thing."

"Let’s see." Father took the magazine from his hands. He stared at the front cover. The perfect teeth of the girl’s full smile seemed to mock him. He leaned against the radio pole, staring at the picture. "She’s like Crystal," was all he could say as he began to cry. In his mind, Joseph saw the girl transformed - dark hair, the blue eyes turned deep brown with green flecks.

"Mister Jo’ef, you’m not well." Groot helped Father back to the shack. The magazine fell to the dusty earth.

Suisjeme reached for it without getting off the bench. He stretched and caught it by the back cover; it tore off. He held it and turned it over to the picture of the girls. Groot would take care of Father; he always did. The white girl was beautiful. He thought she looked so carefree and happy. In the background was an umbrella with round patches of dozens of different colours. It’s a sunny picture, Suisjeme thought, but the sun wasn’t in the picture. There was one great, green bush in the background.

A vision rushed into his mind. He saw a face. The eyes were brown, flecked with green, which sparkled in sunlight. There was sunlight, bright with blue sky beyond. The vision fell backwards, as if it was shrinking. He saw the girl standing at the edge of a great expanse of blue water. It too was shooting bright flashes of light from occasional waves on its surface. Suisjeme had never seen anything so beautiful. She was smiling. Her face was pale like his, her teeth small and even. She looked so happy. She was wearing something covered in vibrant splashes of colour. The word ‘flowers’ came into his mind. Then she was running as fast as she could along an open track of wet sand. Her shoulder-length hair was bobbing and blowing in the breeze.

"...’ere boy, Jo’ef’s made you a dring." He put the glass into Suisjeme’s hand, taking the magazine cover from him. He picked up the other pages from the dust, shook them and wrapped the cover round. "Cum on, boy. Cheer up. You’m goin’ on a trip wit’ old Groot. We’s goin’ to the Port."

The vision of the girl with brown eyes still hovered. Suisjeme tried to concentrate on what Groot was saying.

"The’m Port is the biggest place near ‘ere. It’s on’y 35 or 40K frum ‘ere. It’s full o’ pepple. You’ll like it, boy."

Every time Groot said ‘the Port’ he emphasised it. It sounded as if it was the most important place in the world to Groot. He said it with reverence.

The word ‘reverence’ had been part of that earlier vision of the Church, or whatever it was. Suisjeme wasn’t sure what it meant, but it seemed appropriate for the way Groot felt about ‘the Port’. Sometimes when Groot had come, in recent months, he’d imagined he knew how Groot felt about things. Father had used a strange word, when Suisjeme had talked to him about it. Father called it ‘empathy’. Suisjeme wasn’t sure it was the right word. He felt that he actually did see through Groot’s staring eyes and actually felt what Groot was feeling. It was a bit like sliding outside his own body and into another. "What do we do when we get there?" he asked.

"You’m got-ta wait for a boat goin’ north."

"What does this boat look like?" The words were hardly out of his mouth when he saw ‘this boat’ in his mind. There were strange people rushing up a wooden plank. The boat had one enormous, colourful patchwork sail flapping loosely in the breeze. There were strange smells and noise, with people shouting. Boxes, parcels and baskets were everywhere. Everyone was busy. The boat was made of wood, which stretched round in a curve. He felt he was looking for something. There. It was the magazine. It lay on a pile of coiled, thick rope. He felt as if he was picking it up and looking at the smiling ladies, one with blond long hair, the other with beautiful dark shiny curls.

"They’m made o’ wud, boy and there’s lots o’pepple rushin’ about. I gets most of me stuff frum the boats. We goes up a plank on board and we shout and argu’ ‘bout the stuff. That’s were I gets the stuff."

Suisjeme was thinking that he’d been inside Groot’s head. He’d seen what was in Groot’s mind. He tried to get the pictures back. He felt hot. They didn’t come. He felt tired.

"You’m tired, me lit’le white worm - like me. Cum on." Groot suddenly bent over and picked him up.

He weighed about seven stones but was five feet seven inches tall. To Groot he was as light as a feather pillow.

"You’m a worried white worm, boy. Cum on." He carried Suisjeme to the shack and laid him on his bed.

Chapter 3home

They set out on their journey to the Port.

Port Nolloth was not as it had been late in the 21st Century. In fact, it didn’t exist. The rise in world temperature had continued melting the pack ice very gradually, but the coastlines had changed. Nolloth was now a small township of some few hundred people. The ‘port’ was a rough wooden landing stage to which the small sailing boats were tied.

They made slow progress, because Father seemed unable to walk more than a mile before he needed to stop. Groot eventually suggested he should get rid of some of his stuff and let Father ride on the pushcart.

Groot dug a large hole near a low red hill. He dug enthusiastically and Suisjeme enjoyed pulling the bits and pieces from the cart. He and Groot sat down eventually, surrounded by the mess. Groot was very proud of his ‘stuff’. Suisjeme couldn’t imagine what it was all for, or who’d want most of it. There were books and papers, which very few would be able to read. There were small ornaments, or so Suisjeme thought them to be: an egg-whisk, pottery figures of old men and young women, a cheese-grater, a bicycle pump, a pocket tape-recorder with no batteries, but complete with headphones, boxes of various kinds and one was open to show four rows of coloured glass balls. Suisjeme loved them.

"What are these, Groot?"

"Them decor-aashuns, boy."

"But what for? What do they decorate?"

"You,m always askin’ questions, wormy boy. I dunno."

"They’re Christmas decorations," Father said, as he began to cough again. "They were for Christmas trees."

"What’s Christmas?" asked Suisjeme.

"It was a time of year when people used to have a holiday and celebrate; a special occasion. They used to give presents to each other, and children were given toys."

"Sounds nice," Suisjeme said.

"I dunno ‘bout eny o’ that," said Groot. "It jus’ say ‘Christmas Decoration’ on the box. I likes the colour."

The journey took them five days in the end. As they approached ‘the Port’, Suisjeme realised the dots ahead, against the pale line of the ocean, were people, but nothing had prepared him for the shock of his sudden vision when they walked down the main street, the only street. Suisjeme thought the dusty earth was not as it should be. He saw motor cars, different kinds of streets, people like himself. The vision was soon over and somehow he knew it was the past. The people who were actually wandering along the frontage of shacks, roofed with corrugated metal, were what he consciously focused on. They were black-skinned, brown, speckled, hairy and hairless, with ears, without ears, thick-lipped and lipless with pink gums showing. They all stopped every time they met someone and talked. Some dragged their feet, some were bare-footed with enormous splayed feet, and they all walked with a measured step in a similar way. They wore strange mixtures of clothing. Many had loose-fitting, long shirts, patterned in bright colours. The fascination to Suisjeme was partly the way they looked, but most of all it was their very existence that made him breathe fast. He’d never seen so many people. It was as simple as that. He’d known Father, and Groot, and once or twice he remembered there had been visitors, but that hadn’t happened for years. Suisjeme had run away and hidden from them. Here there were people moving, talking, going about their business. Many seemed to know Groot, the Multi-coloured Man. They stopped to exchange a few words. Suisjeme found it very difficult to understand what they saying. His English was not their English. The rhythms were different and their intonation seemed to be a kind of sing-song music. Some of them spoke in other languages. He liked it.

They were all interested in the strangers. They shook their hands. One or two spoke to Suisjeme with a hint of pity. "He’m a whitey, wormy boy, ain’t ‘e?" Groot would say. They looked at Suisjeme and he felt they were sorry for him. The feeling didn’t last long. They were all kind and obviously worried about Father’s grey, ashen condition and cough.

A fat lady, with enormous breasts wobbling beneath her overshirt of many colours, suggested they "Go’m see the Doc - man, you’se needs ‘im. Go’m see the Docman."

They arrived finally outside a building made of some material which had a white, smooth surface to its walls. The roof was of shiny tin. It was a long, low building with a stepped veranda made of slatted boards. In large capital letters over the centre door was the word ‘DOC’. It had been painted in a dark brown liquid that had dripped, leaving spidery lines down to the bottom edge of the overhang.

"...eh? Doc? You’m in Doc?" Groot shouted.

A small figure, more slightly built than Suisjeme, came out onto the veranda. He wore a tightly woven, hairy-looking jacket, which was as red as Groot’s hair.

"Ey, Doc. Nice t’see yer, man. This ‘ere’s Jo’ef. ‘e not well." Groot lifted Father off the cart as easily as he’d carried Suisjeme. They all went inside where it was cool and clean.

There was a bench-table with a shiny surface and three wooden chairs. Groot put Father straight onto the table. Turning to Suisjeme, he swept him up into his arms and allowed both of them to flop into one of the chairs, sitting Suisjeme on his knee. The chair creaked rather ominously under the combined weight.

Doc was quick in his movements. He reminded Suisjeme of a buckie. Buckies lived on the plains beyond the river at home. Suisjeme had seen them. They leapt away at the slightest hint of danger, jumping on stiff legs. They were never still, even when grazing. They moved their heads, tails and legs in sharp, nervous twitches.

Doc spoke like Father and Suisjeme. He had a sharp nose and his eyebrows were very hairy, overhanging tiny, piercing black eyes that looked this way and that; they were never still, even when he was talking. "Joseph... take a deep breath." He put a stethoscope against Father’s hollow and dark-haired chest.

Father coughed, because of taking the deep breath. His forehead was pale and moist. He’d been sweating badly on the journey.

Doc busied himself with jerky movements, now holding Father’s wrist and looking at his own wrist, now tapping Father’s rounded back, and then wrapping a black strip of material round his arm and pressing a black rubber bulb. This piece of apparatus was connected to something like a double thermometer. Father had a thermometer on the wall of their shack near Suisjeme’s bed.

"There’s nothing I can do, Joseph. You must take things easy. If you exert yourself, the pain’ll become worse. You’ve very high blood pressure and your lungs aren’t good. It’s affecting your heart. Take things easy."

"Have you got anything for the blood pressure? It’s the headaches you see."

"Where would I get it? I s’pose I should be able to help, but... look, look around you. I might be able to find some aspirin. Your tubes are filling up. It comes to us all." Doc looked across to Groot and Suisjeme and shrugged his shoulders awkwardly.

"When did you come here?" Father asked, changing the subject.

" ‘Bout seven years ago. Couldn’t stand it in the city. It’s just the same here, but being a small population, everybody knows everybody else. It’s nicer. The city was a wasteland. They still haven’t got the water supply working properly I hear, and the ruins get in the way of normal life. Some of the tower blocks and skyscrapers are falling down. Once you get damp -rain- in they don’t last any longer than other buildings. It’s dangerous. I don’t know why they stay. Life’s better in the country. Some of them round here have actually had a good harvest from the corn seed sent from Europe."

"Father?" interrupted Suisjeme. "Where’s Europe?"

"Here’s my son. Would you check him over?" asked Father, ignoring Suisjeme’s question.

"Why not. What’s his name?"

"Suisjeme."

"Huh? Strange name! Suis? As in the French?" Doc asked, and receiving a nod from Joseph, he went on, "J’aime? As in French too?"

"Yes, but we spell it j-e-m-e," added Joseph.

"He’m a wormy white boy, Doc. H ‘ent normal. He white and smooth all ova," Groot said, as he carried Suisjeme over to the table.

"Sit him on the edge, Groot, will you." Doc picked up his precious stethoscope. After half undressing him and examining him, Doc looked at Joseph and then Groot. "Groot!"

"Ye’ Doc?"

"Go and get us all some fresh fruit. I think Joseph and Suisjeme need a bit of fresh food.

"You’m wait an’ see. I’ll get you’m some good fruits." He went off stomping across the wooden floor like an elephant.

"This boy is... normal," he regarded Joseph carefully, "Apart from the obvious fact you’re dying, Joseph, as I think you know, you’re normal too. How come? Look at me!" He pulled up the woolly jacket and bared his stomach. The skin was twisted into coiled rope shapes, knotted. There was a red patch of blood showing through a piece of white material. "My body was like this when I was born. It’s never improved! But I know what normal is - before the Troubles, the ‘Probs’. People were like you and the boy... most people."

"We’re normal, as you call it. I was sent out here to be less obvious, by the Home group in England," Joseph said quietly.

"England? I’ve heard there’s not much left of it since they couldn’t extract North Sea oil. The coastline’s changed. I’ve been told the east has been inundated. The old city of London is mostly under water."

"London wasn’t all on low ground, you know."

"I don’t know! I remember people talking about it when I was a child, and I heard a few things on the radio some years back." Doc was trying to pull down his hairy red jacket without disturbing the bloody bandage. "What’s this Home group?"

"Just a group trying to keep the old ways alive," Joseph replied evasively.

"Didn’t do much good, did it? They’ll all be gone by now. How long have you been out there, on the plains?"

"Over twelve years... but they’re still there. We had a radio transmitter and receiver and ..."

"You’ve got radio equipment in working order?" interrupted Doc with sudden interest.

"Yes. If you’d like to go and collect it, you can have it. Fuel for the generator is a problem. Groot’s running out of places to find it, and batteries and battery acid. I’ve been trying to manufacture some of my own. It’s impossible. I was never an engineering type."

Quietly Doc was saying, "Wonderful! Who’s there? On the airwaves, I mean?"

"I don’t know. I didn’t turn the dial very often. There are people talking to each other, but I didn’t bother. The aerial, everything is there. You can have it all."

Doc was very excited, and grateful. In exchange for the promised radio he agreed that they could stay with him.

The next morning, Doc was up early, arranging for someone to walk over to the shack, where Joseph and Suisjeme had lived, to fetch the radio equipment, and the generator. Groot had been despatched to see if he could find some fresh fuel oil, or a reasonable substitute. They’d once tried something different, which Groot had brought, and Joseph had had to strip down the motor to clean it.

Suisjeme and Father lazed about until well into the morning, people watching. Eventually Groot returned with mysterious looking bits and pieces. "Did you ask about the boats, Groot?" Father asked anxiously.

"Yeh," muttered Groot. He was sniffing at a large battered tin can.

"Well?"

"The on’y boat is one goin’ for north Namib, but it’s on’y going fer fruit."

Father decided that when they’d eaten he’d take Suisjeme to see the sailing ship.

When Suisjeme saw it, he knew his vision had been real. The ship looked exactly as it had through Groot’s eyes. He felt he should tell Father about his vision, but he never got a chance.

Father asked to see the Captain of the vessel. A tall, thin female appeared, wearing a peaked cap with a gold badge shining on the front. She was dressed in a loose shirt of brown serge material, which was belted with a blue sash tied roughly over her left hip. The shirt-dress reached almost to the ground. She must have been at least six feet tall and her skin was mottled brown. She seemed to have some kind of skin problem, because, close to, Suisjeme noticed the mottling was caused by flaky white crusts of dead skin. Father was asking her how far north she was going. Apparently, all the ships hugged the coast. They didn’t want to be out of sight of land. She was going to return and had planned to pick up a cargo which was destined for the far north, but not for at least two months.

Suisjeme understood most of the conversation. Father arranged that she would pick up Suisjeme on her return, and by then she would know exactly what the far northern destination would be.

Back at Doc’s it was agreed that, because of the radio, they’d be able to stay until the ship returned. Suisjeme had noticed the name on the ship, ‘Stardust’. He thought it was magical. That night the four of them played cards. Suisjeme enjoyed that too. Father explained that he’d decided the two month delay would enable him to coach Suisjeme in the methods of releasing the language learning programmes from his mind. He said they’d begin next day.

Whatever the reason, that night was to bring undreamt of changes. Perhaps it was due to the presence of so many people. It had all been so exciting. The sights and sounds swirled in his tired mind as he tried to get to sleep.

In a half-sleep, open-eyed daze, he started imagining patterns in the marks and lines on the ceiling. They shimmered and almost moved in the guttering candlelight, and as they did so he saw them taking the shape of the girl’s face. It was soon clear, in monochrome, like an animated drawing. Words came to his mind.

"Who - are - you?"

It couldn’t be mistaken. It repeated itself. The mouth in the vision moved to the words. Colour leaked into the shapes. Her hair was inside a kind of white, close-fitting cap.

Suisjeme allowed himself to answer. He said the words in his mind, but moved his lips to form the shapes of the sounds, "Suisjeme. Suisjeme. Suisjeme..."

"Maria. Maria," came the reply.

Suisjeme felt hot. He thought he must be in a dream. Then his eye caught the flicker of candlelight at the edge of his vision. He was at least half-awake.

The voice returned, "Where - are - you?" Again, it repeated six or seven times.

Suisjeme remembered, "Southern Africa, west coast, Port Nolloth." He let his mind drift with the imagined sound of his voice, then he returned the question, "Where are you?"

Almost instantly, he heard her voice more clearly than before, "A country once known as Greece. I live in the mountains."

Without effort, he asked if she was in her room, "I saw you by the sea. How could you be near the sea?"

"Yes. I was visiting the village on the coast with Father."

A shout came through to Suisjeme like an explosion. It was his name, "Suisjeme! Suisjeme! What’s wrong?" It was Father, Joseph, as everyone else called him. "Suisjeme, you must’ve been talking in your sleep. You feel hot." Father rested his hand against Suisjeme’s forehead.

When Father was satisfied he was fine, he tried to conjure the picture of the girl again, but he couldn’t. He was hot, he felt it, and he was shivering too. This house was draught proof. There was no air. He fell into a fitful sleep.

He was in mountains. There were clear streams of water, with small patches of white flowers in green grass. Then the vision switched. He was in the valley of grey ruins. It was misty. There was a hooded figure standing beneath the rising arches of stone. Incense. That was the smell. The figure turned. The face was stern, but calm. It smiled. It began to speak to him. It used his name. "I am your guide. You have proved that we were right. You will need to know how to use... we call it -access- your programmed knowledge. Let yourself see the ruined tower each night. We will talk of many things, even though it is a great effort for me... Where did you see the mountain streams and flowers?"

"In my mind..." he replied.

"I will explain how you will make the journey." The figure moved beneath a dark archway.

Suisjeme saw a golden light. It was candlelight reflecting from a large golden cross. He didn’t know when normal sleep took over. He only knew the next morning that he understood more than, perhaps, Father ever did, and that he felt exhausted and weak, by the time they finished breakfast.

"Is he well, Doc?" Father asked, looking into Suisjeme’s eyes. A coughing fit overtook Joseph and he clutched his chest. There were only empty plates on the table and four spoons. Joseph hugged at his chest and fell heavily across it. He’d been leaning to examine the pupils of Suisjeme’s eyes. He’d stared deeply into Suisjeme’s eyes. He made no sound as he collapsed.

Suisjeme gripped the edge of the table with both hands, stared and then fell backwards. Doc rushed to Joseph’s aid. It was too late. Father was probably dead as soon as he looked into Suisjeme’s dark brown eyes. Suisjeme remembered the command he’d been given.

Groot must have heard the clatter as Joseph fell across the table knocking the plates and cutlery to the ground, or the drumming of Suisjeme’s heels against the hardwood floor. Groot knew what to do. He pressed an arm across Suisjeme’s chest and, with a leg, pressed his drumming feet to stillness.

Beneath him, Suisjeme sobbed, "I killed him. I killed him, Doc. I killed him..."

Chapter Four home

Many miles from Doc’s surgery, far in the northern hemisphere, at an ancient abbey renamed Waterford, there was satisfaction in the grim smile on the face of the cowled figure.

Brother Rufus dimmed the lights outside the public waiting room. He looked at Brother James and said quietly, in his measured tones, "We’ve succeeded. The transfer was perfect. Not only does Suisjeme look normal, he carries the empathic pattern we hoped for. He’s unbelievably abnormal."

"That’s all very well," replied Brother James, "but we still can’t tell the others. Fifteen years ago, Hilda was in charge, and she was at least forty years old then. Here we are, running the Unit, and she’s still in charge; with her vision of the future."

Brother Rufus was no longer listening. "I can follow him with my mind. Only just. But when he arrived in Port Nolloth, I tried to create a picture of how a town looked before the Troubles. I let him see motorcars and people as they were. I got through. Today, I got through - perfectly." He sat in the nearest seat. It was an old rocking chair. It creaked as he set it gently rocking.

Brother James adjusted the brown cowl over his balding head and tried to interrupt, "Was it you? Was it you connecting with him, or was it him sensing you in the Meldsea and making contact?"

Rufus rounded on him sharply. "He did what I told him. He projected all his emotions, all his love, in one instant, straight into Joseph’s mind. Brother Joseph served us all well, but I think he was about to reveal too much to the boy, too soon. Joseph’s heart couldn’t stand the strain of such an empathic, telepathic contact. He died instantly from the shock." Rufus was dismissive. He looked down and put his thin fingers together, as if about to pray. "He was going to die, probably very painfully, in the next day or two; at least within the next two months. He regarded James, "Evensong begins soon. Come." He rose from the rocking chair, adjusted the cowl, tightened the cord-thin belt loosely knotted at his waist and strode purposefully through the outer door to the abbey gardens beyond.

Brother James rushed after him, snuffing out the candles, leaving the whisper of the wooden runners of the rocking chair to disappear into its own echo in the emptiness of the vast waiting room. Outside, he had to run down the central, gravel pathway to keep up with Brother Rufus. Gasping, he asked, "Will the others be the same?"

"Why shouldn’t the girl?" responded Rufus. "They were treated the same - except, of course, young Karl. Our control over such delicate genetic engineering was rather hit or miss then, but the samples sent by Joseph two years ago were exactly as planned. Maria’s were the same: remember?"

"Of course. Of course, but that doesn’t mean it would happen. The dolphins have all died. Karl is uncontrollable. He just gibbers most of the time."

"There’s no real problem with Suisjeme. Joseph thought he might be epileptic, but that’s a minor problem. The next generation can be started straightaway. Our way, James. Our way, not Hilda’s!" He paused in his long-strided rush before the great arched doorway of the abbey and looked meaningfully at James. "You’ll not lose control, like you did over Suisjeme’s mother, will you?" His piercing dark eyes looked into the dim shape of James’ face beneath his cowl. There was a waft of incense and flickering lights began to show through the large, open, wooden doors bound with iron, as the sound of a Gregorian chant began. Brother Rufus turned ahead again, quickly, his cloak brushing the left side of the door as it swirled, entering the reverent atmosphere of Hilda’s domain.

______________________

Suisjeme was lying on the bed. His body paralysed, but his eyes moved as if following people in a film. He saw Rufus turn to enter the building beneath the half-ruined tower. He’d seen him sit in the rocking chair. But he heard no words. He sensed that Rufus had tricked him with his kindly looks and words of trusting simplicity. He, Suisjeme, had killed Father. It was his fault, because he’d listened to Brother Rufus in a vision. Then it became clearer. It was Brother Rufus who’d killed Father, using him, Suisjeme, as a weapon. Words were beginning to surface in Suisjeme’s mind, which were not yet familiar, yet they seemed part of him. The word ‘murder’ echoed with the sound of the chanting, which he found invading his consciousness as he looked around his room. He had murdered Father... with his feelings of love!

Doc was there, so was Groot.

"How do you feel, my boy?" Doc asked, putting his hand to Suisjeme’s forehead, finding it damp, but cool.

"Very tired," he said, openly and honestly. His voice sounded different, deeper.

"Did you hear that, Groot? His voice has broken. As quickly as that. I can’t believe it."

"Dunno Doc, what you mean? ‘is voice sound fine, it juss ain’t squeaky no mor’," he grunted.

"Drink..." Doc held a glass of white liquid to Suisjeme’s lips, leaning over to support his pale, thin neck.

He sipped. It had a slippery texture and was slightly sour.

"It’s milk," Doc said. The boy was obviously not going to say anything else as he looked over the rim of the glass into Doc’s eyes.

Words came into his mind: ‘He’ll sleep well now. Those two crushed aspirins should do the trick. They were the last two.’ Briefly, he knew he’d been inside Doc’s mind, and Doc didn’t know. He let himself fall back, his head sinking into the smooth surface of a yellow cushion. He drifted into sleep.

Doc left the candle burning. He gestured to Groot to leave the room and followed, closing the door carefully. In the small room that passed for a kitchen, dispensary and living room, Doc placed Suisjeme’s bag on the square table. He took out the contents, item by item and laid them around the bag. "There’s not much here, ‘cept this rectangular parcel, all sealed up. What’s in it? Do you know, Groot?"

"Them’s tapes..."

"Tapes?"

"Speakin’ tapes," Groot gestured vaguely.

"You mean recording tapes!" Sealed as the parcel was, it could be the right shape, weight and length of a pile of cassette tapes. He remembered such things. It was the only item of importance, thought Doc, and not much use without a playing machine. He looked across at Groot. He always seemed to be able to lay his big hairy hands on strange things. "Groot? Do you know what a tape-player is?"

He looked thoughtful, then said very slowly, "Nooo..."

Doc described what it might look like and the Multi-coloured Man wrestled to imagine it. Light gradually dawned, "You’m looky, man, Doc, I got one uv ‘em. Jo’ef ‘ad one of ‘em!"

"Where is it?"

"In the ground, Doc. We dug a ‘ole in the scrub and buried some stuff."

"Can you get it?" Doc asked excitedly.

Groot said he never forgot where he buried stuff. He said he’d set off to fetch it as soon as it was light, and he’d be back before the radio arrived from the shack.

The next morning dawned with noise. Suisjeme heard many voices. He got up and tiptoed to the door. Opening it carefully, he looked out. The kitchen was deserted. Naked as he was, for he’d never worried about distinctions between being clothed or naked, he moved softly to the opposite door, opened it slightly, and peered through the gap. Out on the main street, in front of Doc’s house, was a queue of people. They were chattering, some children were crying, it was noisy. It was exciting and fascinating. In the slight chill he didn’t notice his pathetically thin body trembling. He caught Groot’s unmistakable voice, but didn’t know where it was coming from: You’m got ta tek all ‘is teef out, Doc. I’ll stay an’ ‘elp." Suisjeme only vaguely realised the unruly line of people were patients waiting for Doc’s weekly morning surgery.

"No you won’t. I can manage!" It was Doc’s shrill voice. He didn’t want Groot helping with a tooth extraction. He sounded stressed and anxious. "You go and get that tape machine."

Suisjeme closed the door. He walked quickly back to his room. If Doc was getting a tape machine, did it mean more wires and nightmares? The thought terrified him. Suddenly he was a young child again. He sat down, visibly shaken. For some reason he remembered words of Brother Rufus, words he’d never heard. He was full of the ‘knowledge’. He could ‘access’ the ‘knowledge’, using the methods and words Rufus had ‘told’ him.

The shock made him rigid. Father wasn’t there: Father hadn’t awakened him. He became aware of an icy coldness, except for the pulses at his wrists and neck. He might have been a statue, stone cold and grey. Father hadn’t been his first waking thought. A sense of guilt suffused his stillness.

He remained sitting on the edge of the bed. He didn’t bother to dress. He didn’t want to move. Almost everyday Father had woken him and got him up to wash. He’d loved Father so much. He’d entered father’s mind, as Rufus said he could. He’d sent his love. Father had died.

There was a cracked mirror, with brown, irregular edges, facing him. He looked at his pale thin form. At the base of his belly, he saw a shadow of dark hair was growing that he’d not noticed before. His face looked darker too. He felt his chin and peered more closely at his reflection. He thought there was a soft dark downiness there. He knew about shaving. Father had sometimes done it. Would he have to do that? Father? "Father! Father!" he shouted, or rather howled. His voice wasn’t like it usually was. It was deeper; a different tone. "Faaather!"

Doc came rushing through the door. His garish red garb had been replaced by a bright green jacket. He was animated and worried.. "What is it?"

Suisjeme could only reply tearfully, "Father?" as if he might still be alive. He knew he wasn’t. "Father used to wake me every morning and make me have a wash." As Doc looked at him, naked on the bed’s edge, Suisjeme felt strangely embarrassed. He looked for something to cover himself. Father had long ago explained about sex, but feeling aware of his bodily nakedness in the presence of another was a new sensation.

Doc noticed the look and thought he was just searching for his old clothes. They’d been put in a pile for washing. He went out without saying anything, but was soon back with a pair of light trousers made of a smooth material. "They’ll probably fit you. They were never any good to me. They’re special. They’ll suit you, Suisjeme. A nice bit of stuff, as Groot would say. If you’re cold today, you could try one of my jackets from the next room. I’ve got ten of them. There’s an old woman who makes them specially for me. They’ll fit you. You’re pretty skinny." He smiled encouragingly and disappeared towards the noise at the front of the house.

When Doc put the trousers on the bed, Suisjeme noticed he’d brought a pair of shoes. They were made of dark brown material, similar to Father’s slippers, as he’d called them. He sat immobile again, thinking of Father. He considered the instructions Brother Rufus had given him. He looked for a light source. A rent in the old curtain was quite bright enough. He focused on it and tried to empty the front of his mind - to just let the light be at his centre. It worked. he noticed the jagged triangle of brightness growing larger. He looked away. It made his head ache. He lowered his head.

Forcing himself to stand up, he pulled the trousers on. They fitted well. They had a cord to tie at the top. He wrapt it round his waist, pulled it tight and knotted the two ends together. He slipped on the footwear. He felt he needed to wear something to cover his pale, smooth shoulders, chest and back. He went into the small kitchen and on through the brown door to what he sensed was Doc’s room. It was. There was a long rail across the end wall. The jackets were hanging there like a row of coloured flags. They looked small enough though. The first one was pale yellow. It was the least gaudy. He pulled it on and fastened one of the front buttons. Like the trousers, it fitted perfectly. He felt warmer instantly, but it was a bit itchy against his skin.

Back in the kitchen, he searched for something to eat and found a tin box with a lid made from a sheet of fine-meshed wire. Inside were small, crusty bun-like pieces of bread. They smelt pleasant, so Suisjeme ate one. It was good. He had another. He was becoming more relaxed.

"Suisjeme?"

The voice was gentle, but very clear. He wasn’t sure where it was coming from. It could have been behind. He turned. There was no one there.

"It’s me. Maria. You don’t know how to do this yet, do you?"

He looked all around the room. "No," he said aloud.

"That’s not bad. Just think of me, as you’ve seen me, and let your mind say the words."

Suisjeme tried to concentrate and said inside his head, "Like this!"

"No. That was terrible. It was awful!"

"Well... how then!" He was annoyed. He said it to himself.

"Wow! You don’t need to shout!" Maria’s words came to him. "That’s how to do it!"

"You mean doing it like this, sort of inwards?"

"Yes. That’s just right."

"Why can’t I see you, like before?"

"I thought you might know about all this by now." Maria’s words sounded slightly disappointed. "I learned it all from a boy called Karl, weeks ago. It’s fun, isn’t it? I didn’t have anyone else to talk to up here in the mountains. Father was always too busy. We never had visitors from the east, but one or two people have come all the way up the mountain track from the west - now and again." The mental tone was sad.

Suisjeme sensed a sadness and a loneliness, just as he’d often felt, especially when Father had said the Multi-coloured Man was coming and Groot failed to appear for three or four more days.

Maria’s words flooded on. "Have you felt anyone else trying to speak to you? I’ve tried to explain to Karl about you, but he says he can’t find you. He’s very frightened of someone called Rufus. Do you know who he is?"

Suisjeme was startled. Leaning back against the wall, he closed his eyes and ‘spoke’ his whole story to Maria. Then he felt silly. Something inside his head kept saying it was silly talking to himself inside his own head. He suddenly didn’t really believe in Maria and felt he could make her words vanish as easily as they came. He thought the events through. She was quiet. When he finished she sounded unhappy.

"I’ve felt once or twice someone else was trying to speak to me. I’ve had pictures of that grey place with the falling-down tower. Perhaps I could teach you to put up what Karl calls ‘blocks’. He said it was easy, and I think it is, though I’ve only tried it with Karl. You have to think of two things at once. If you’re talking to me like this, try to say a silly rhyme at the same time. Karl taught me something called ‘Oranges and Lemons’. It’s fun. You say it over and over to yourself in the background, so that everything we think has it and we surround our words with it. You have to keep trying, Karl said, until you don’t think about doing it. You just do it. It’s ‘noise’ Karl says, ‘interference’.

Suisjeme was thinking of the song. Oranges and lemons? He didn’t know what they were. Although Father had explained oranges. They were related to the l’orangees which Groot brought to the shack, but so much better. "Teach me the song, Maria."

"Oranges and lemons-

"Say the bells of St.Clements," she began to sing.

"It’s beautiful. Beautiful!" Suisjeme said. He was soon singing the whole thing back to her.

"Now... try to let one bit of your mind sing it at the front of your mind, while you speak to me from the back. Go on!"

He tried. He also said that her mountains were wonderful. He sang and spoke to her from deeper within himself.

"Wonderful. I can hardly hear your words yet, unless I concentrate carefully; if I let my contact wander it weakens. Let’s do it every time we speak."

Suisjeme was thoughtful.

"What are you thinking about? I can’t hear. I can’t see." Maria was suddenly anxious.

"I was wondering if you’re real? Suisjeme projected the thought strongly. "And who is Karl?"

I wasn’t being awkward," Maria said. "Of course I’m real. Father told me I’m special. Normal on the outside, but special inside. He talks about funny things, when he’s drunk. I’m so sorry about your Father, I really am. I should hate to lose mine."

Again there was a deeply sympathetic warmth pushed inside Suisjeme’s mind. He was singing ‘Oranges and Lemons’ all the time.

"I must go now," said Maria, "but you can speak to me any time. Just think my name and let your mind drift up and out. Look at a bright light, even the sun, and shout my name. I know I’ll hear you. Once in contact, we can talk like this. You heard your name a few minutes ago and I wasn’t shouting, and I was singing the song too. I don’t like that Rufus. If we don’t allow contact it doesn’t work. I’m sure we can keep him out. ‘specially with our song."

"So he’s real too?"

"He must be... Must go. I’ll tell you about Karl, next time. Father keeps going on with the lessons. You must tell me about your lessons. I guess you had to have the wires on at night, just like me."

"Yes."

There was no reply. Suisjeme thought about ‘shouting’, but decided against it. He was sweating. He felt very hot in Doc’s yellow jacket. He took it off and sat on the bed. He was tired.

As the days went by, he realised how badly Father and he had eaten. Doc managed to live very well. There were fruits that Suisjeme had never seen, including things called bannas. They were curved and yellowy brown. Doc mashed the fruit up after peeling them by folding back their skins in strips. He sprinkled the brown pulp with brown crystals called sugar. It crackled between his teeth as he ate. It was sweet like the sweets that Groot had brought to the shack. They had a hot meal every day. The veggies, as Doc called them, were different shapes and sizes. He chopped them up and threw them into boiling water letting them bubble away until they were softer. He enjoyed all the new flavours and the food made him feel good. He realised his stomach had never felt full before. He began to put on weight.

In quiet moments, when Doc wasn’t busy, he said Suisjeme ought to learn to exercise. He taught him to bend and stretch, to step up on a stool and off again, over and over again, until he was hot and tired. Doc made it a game between them. He enjoyed it. He was not a little surprised that he forgot about Father, but then, remembering, he felt guilty again.

When Groot returned with the tape player, Suisjeme had been afraid, but all Doc seemed to want to do was listen on the headphones to some old tapes he’s got from somewhere. This was after the radio had been brought, and the heavy collection of batteries, and the generator. Groot and he had spent many hours fiddling and cursing, but it all seemed to work. Doc was obviously quite bright and figured out problems with voltages before everything got hot and burned out.

He spent more and more time ‘talking’ with Maria. It was obvious that her Father, Brother Agnew, was like Suisjeme’s. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d not heard the whispering in the night, and woken with a headache. Suisjeme confided that he dared not use the ‘keys’ provided by Brother Rufus, in case they worked and made him do something bad, but the temptation grew as they talked and one evening he decided to try. He closed his eyes as he lay on his back and said the string of letters and numbers to himself over and over again. He had a series of vivid visions, pictures with ‘titles’ and number codes. Maria agreed they should both then try to repeat the process with these further codings.

Three clear weeks followed these first experiments. Doc gave Suisjeme some strange looks, but considered that his slightly odd behaviour and states of stillness and silence were due to Joseph’s death. They never spoke of that. Suisjeme’s education was proceeding at an ever faster pace.

This particular evening he settled down and spoke one of the titles and codings; ‘Mathematics - ALG4762’. He only needed to say the ‘keys’ three or four times and something would snap in his mind. White light flooded in and even a pain, a throb, but an out-pouring of associations and information would flood his consciousness, his knowingness. He often found he’d been in a state of stillness for more than an hour, but gradually realised he was learning about so many things. It was soon exciting, almost like a drug. On this occasion, he woke to find Doc standing by his bed. He had his hand on Suisjeme’s forehead.

"He’s wet through. Groot, go fetch a towel."

Groot was out of Suisjeme’s view, but he heard him stomp off.

"How do you feel?" Doc asked, a worried tone in his voice.

"Fine," he replied, rather puzzled. Doc still appeared concerned. Suisjeme looked into Doc’s eyes. He knew, instantly. Doc had heard him shouting. He’d come in and Suisjeme had begun to toss and turn on the bed, talking about algebraic equations. Doc had recognised and followed through a full description of how to manipulate, simultaneous and quadratic equations. He recognised them from his own poor educational background at the seminary in Jo’burg. After thirty minutes or so, Suisjeme had said, ‘Mathematics - ALG4762’ and the whole thing began again. It had been just like a tape-recording, yet, in subtle ways it was different. Now and again, there was an instruction, directed at Suisjeme by name, like ‘Remember this in particular’.

Doc was not aware that Suisjeme knew what was happening by looking into his mind.

To Suisjeme it was like reading a book, but there was no past, and no future, only the current dominating thoughts. He also noticed that sometimes there were sparks and showers of flashes, which made his head hurt.

"Do you know how to do quadratic equations?" Doc said as he fetched a scrap of rough paper and a stubby piece of pencil. He wrote down what he thought was a typical problem from his own schooldays, but, Suisjeme, now looking over his shoulder quickly said he wasn’t expressing it correctly.

The stub of pencil was grabbed from Doc’s hand and Suisjeme began to scribble furiously, "There... that’s how they work."

Doc looked at him curiously, "How’d you learn to do that?"

Suisjeme considered, "I’ll tell you in the morning."

"It’s near enough morning. You must have had this stuff going round in your head all night."

Suisjeme didn’t want to wait. He said, "Can I have some milk, please? I want to try something else." He’d decided. He wanted to use what Rufus had called the ‘main key’.

Doc brought him the milk. It tasted clean and fresh. Doc sat by him as he settled back on the bed, and waited.

"Watch me. Tell me what I say." That was unnecessary. He’d known how to do the equations. He now knew he’d remember consciously any further doses of information and learning. It was as if all the learning had been done and all he was doing was waking himself up to it. He thought of what Rufus had said, that he must begin with the information beginning with his name as the ‘title’. He’d disobeyed. He felt he couldn’t trust Rufus. But the rest had worked; changes had begun, not least being able to see inside Doc’s mind. He’d be able to learn from others... without them knowing. He began to chant the main key like a mantra... "Je suis bxz209. Je suis bxz209..." He sank into a trance-like state.

Doc heard it all as the boy’s voice murmured quietly. He was disbelieving at first. It was the story, in simple terms, of Suisjeme’s beginning, his ‘programming’ by genetic controlled manipulation, Joseph’s drugs, sleep-teaching and hypnosis. Doc decided. He’d have to give up his life in the Port and accompany Suisjeme on his journey. He would have to go. Groot could come too. This cruelly treated boy shouldn’t be without friends now that his Father was dead.

Chapter Five. home

File ‘Je suis bxz209’ had a simple intention. Brother Rufus, and Brother Joseph, had named it ‘The orientation program’. It was supposed to give the subjects the necessary background to control, for themselves, access to the stored knowledge accumulated by the extraordinary hormonal drugs and the specifically devised ‘hothouse’ educational programmes planned by Joseph in the early days of the Unit, before all the religious trappings had been developed by Hilda. The secondary intention was to try and help the subjects cope with the stresses of adjustment to what they were and who they were.

The ‘key’ operated as intended in Suisjeme’s case, as Joseph knew it would. Suisjeme was floating now, down a pure white crystalline corridor. The walls, floor and ceiling silky smooth like fresh cool milk. He felt perfectly at peace with himself. In the distance, in the ‘direction’ he was floating, was a tiny circle of green, which was slowly, very slowly, growing larger.

He became aware of Father’s voice. He felt a momentary sadness. Father was describing his arrival at the shack. Suisjeme saw a tiny form lying in a straw basket.

The circle of green was getting closer. He was standing at the end of the crystalline corridor looking at a green valley. There were trees and a clear, glistening river. People in loose white gowns were walking, in twos and threes, unhurriedly. They were simple pictures, but the emotion flooding Suisjeme was warm and lovely. He was crying tears of happiness for his sense of well-being, the green of the grass, the woody scent of the trees and, from somewhere, flowers. It was all so beautiful after the dull ochre landscape he had been used to. He wanted to step out into the valley and run to the people who were so happy and content.

He felt a shocking loss as, instantly, the valley, the corridor, vanished, to be replaced by the roar of early 21st century traffic in a busy city street. Lorries and cars, masses of people, flashing lights, flooded his senses. He felt sick and faint, as if drowning in people, traffic and noise; and the stench of petrol fumes, hotdogs and drains.

The people of the induced dream changed. They turned monochrome. Colour was drained from their clothes and faces. They staggered as if sick and ill. Their features and movements became more like the oddities Suisjeme knew from Port Nolloth. They were deforming. Father’s voice was explaining how a sickness had been created that affected all the people. Suisjeme saw buildings crumbling, motorcars rusting and falling apart. All colour was gone.

He next ‘saw’ a great expanse of water, a large river. A blinding flash. The water boiling. A roar of hot wind. A blast that seemed to burn his flesh from his bones. He was watching, at a distance now, a dark mushroom-shaped cloud rolling up into the sky with a fiery orange just visible at its heart. This sudden return to colour burned into him.

He watched as apparently limitless acres of wheat turned from golden brown to black; crumbling rapidly to dust and brown earth.

Father’s voice continued to explain how the old world had died, an apocalypse he’d called it. People were being born in deformed shapes, many dying and not surviving.

He saw the ruined grey tower. Men and women who looked as he and Father looked, normal, were moving in bright, white rooms surrounded by strange machines, tending to tubes of liquid and round glass dishes. Father’s voice explained that there were a few normal people and these workers were trying to help other normal human beings to be born. "You, Suisjeme, were helped by these people. They ensured that you would be born to grow as a normal person, instead as one crippled and misshapen by the illnesses man had created in his stupidity and ignorance.

Then Father said a curious thing, "They were aided in their work by the good God, who sees all things and who sent His only son to guide their ways in truth."

Suisjeme had an image of a golden cross before him. There was the smell of incense and he was caressed by echoing chanting that calmed his mind.

Doc and Groot watched over Suisjeme until the early afternoon and listened to words muttered in a dull monotone. Doc pieced together a picture of research scientists and doctors struggling to push genetic knowledge to its limits, striving to keep a precious store of pre-Troubles genetic material safe and trying to artificially inseminate a few unfortunate volunteers. He realised that many of the experiments were miserable failures. Somehow, the material in the ‘genetic’ bombs, which began the Troubles, had attached itself to human DNA coding and seemed to ensure that even in ‘normal’ subjects, deformed, mutated creatures would be born. From scattered descriptions, given by the recumbent Suisjeme, Doc understood the desperation of the members of the Unit. Normal looking children were born, but turned out to have deficient minds. Nothing seemed to work. Doc’s education at the seminary had been limited. It was all explained very simply though, even if he didn’t understand it all. What he did understand was that Suisjeme was being told he was one such experiment. He’d been born in a controlled way so that he should turn out to be just like the people before the Troubles, maybe even better.

In his trance-like state, Suisjeme was becoming more and more agitated. He didn’t want to be like the people in the city, with the city’s noise and smells, its rushing, the garish buildings, clothes, lights and artificial colours. He wanted the fresh air and green grass in the valley at the end of the crystal corridor.

It was explained, in this mixture of visions and words, that he would also be taught in special ways. Ideas and information would be stored in his young mind as it grew, and he’d be able to turn to that knowledge and release it as he felt he could understand it, and make use of it, perhaps, as he grew older. Father would give him some tapes which would guide him with instructions about the release of the knowledge, as and when he thought he would need to know.

Suisjeme felt overwhelming hatred bubbling up inside him. He was not what he thought. He’d been made. He’d been treated like a thing. He couldn’t put these ideas to anyone.

He didn’t understand the feelings growing inside him. He felt used and abused. His anger tinged the continuing visions with pink and then a blood redness that suffused them like liquid in front of his mental sight.

Consciously he was not aware of what was happening. It just was. Out of his control. A tightening in his chest hurt his mind.

"There’s something wrong!" Doc shouted as he turned helplessly towards Groot. "Go and get my bag, the brown one I take when I visit the sick!" He turned back to the distressed boy. Sweat was running down the young face and standing out in globules on his forehead. Doc felt the pulse in his wrist; it was racing.

Suisjeme was fighting an invisible and unknown enemy beyond his understanding. He recalled the word ‘slave’ from some of his released learning, but didn’t comprehend it properly. He remembered nights of pain, the whispering voices in his drugged sleep, his dry mouth in the mornings and the splitting headaches. He saw again the flashing lights and kaleidoscopic colours, the sense of confusion.

Something was growing in him, which was way beyond control. It was a powerful feeling, indescribable in his youthfulness and ignorance. It was anger, frustration, hatred and disgust, at them, at himself. Someone had planned that he should be the way he was. He would not be the way they wished!

When Suisjeme’s emotions came to the surface, he sat up on the bed and nearly knocked into Doc’s face as he was listening to Suisjeme’s increased heart beat. Suisjeme didn’t notice Doc. He didn’t see Doc. He didn’t hear Groot come back into the room. He wasn’t aware of the room! He ‘saw’ exploding red heat. He was exploding fire. He screamed, and no sound came from his tortured and twisted mouth.

Doc stood up. The building was shaking. He immediately thought it was a minor earthquake, but then realised that through the window he could see people going about their business as usual. The room was hot and the walls were throbbing. Suisjeme had fallen back on the bed and was twisting, stretching and tightening in a slow frenzy of silent pain. The boy was wet through with sweat and Doc tried to wipe his face. Suisjeme was burning up. It was like facing a raging bush fire, but you couldn’t turn your face away. The heat was everywhere; like in an oven, thought Doc. A rushing and roaring noise began, growing steadily ever louder.

Doc noticed through the window that people in the street were putting their hands to their heads. The whole building was falling apart. Suisjeme had gone rigid now, his hands by his sides, his fists clenched. The candle was melting, bending over in the heat radiating from Suisjeme. Doc watched it, mesmerised. He didn’t know what to do. A feeling of panic gripped him, paralysed him. He couldn’t move to help the boy. Heat was everywhere. Groot fell over with a heavy crash. Tears flowed from the mutant’s eyes. His stripy flesh was burning, the hairs singeing.

Doc knew hatred. As a boy he’d seen it expressed in the latter days of the Troubles in Jo’burg. He’d seen people killing others. He’d seen their contorted faces. He saw it in Suisjeme. He realised his new tin roof was falling apart as walls gave way with the vibration of the raging and rising sound.

Brother Rufus was at prayer, alone in his cell, when he felt the growing heat. He looked up at the bare grey shadows on the stone wall. He saw Suisjeme’s contorted face forming in the unevenness of the stone itself. He heard the roaring noise of fire. Without any further warning he was blasted backwards. He didn’t notice the sound of sharp cracks as the rear legs of a wooden chair gave way behind him. He crashed further backwards into the wooden door, his spine slammed straight against it. His face felt on fire. He lost consciousness.

When Brother James pushed hard at the door, it just opened wide enough for him to get through. There was a strange smell in the cell that was not normal. It was singed hair and burnt flesh. He looked down closely in the gloom at Rufus’ face. His bushy eyebrows had been burned away. His skin was burned red and blistered as if he’d been in hot sunshine for hours and hours. Even his cloak was smouldering.

Suisjeme sat up yet again, very suddenly. His eyes wide open, he screamed again without sound. Doc thought afterwards that he’d seen fire coming from that stretched mouth... only for an instant. Against the light of the window, he thought he’d seen a rod of red fire roaring out.

The house was burning. Everything made of wood, or clothing, was already burning. Doc shouted at Groot to grab Suisjeme, while he rushed to his own room for the tapes and the player. He grabbed some of his clothes, but he was too late. They were burning from the inside, out. Doc began to choke in the smoke. Groot was conscious now and he forced himself to pick up Suisjeme and he simply smashed his way out through the fiery sheet of flame which had been the wall.

In far distant Greece, Maria’s Father found her lying just outside their stone cottage. Apparently her face had been badly scorched by the sun, yet he’d only been away for less than two hours. She was shivering. He picked her up and carried her indoors. He decided he must try to contact the Unit on the radio and ask for their advice.

Inside a locked cellar, deep beneath a grey ruined tower, in northern England, a curled figure lay on a straw mattress, whimpering like a frightened dog. Karl was muttering between whimpers, through lips dripping with white foam, the song ‘Oranges and Lemons’. He felt pain. It was like an embracing cocoon wrapped around him, made from sheets of fire. He tried to force his way through it. His mind tried to penetrate the burning. The heat began to lessen. He fired thoughts as cool as snow swept from the pathways of the abbey in winter. He saw a contorted face being bathed with cool water. A huge hand covered with singed, bright red hair was gently stroking the face with a yellow cloth soaked in water. It was his own face; a twin to his own. Karl pushed deeper and tried to see beyond the eyes. He tried to imagine the most peaceful thing he knew; an old Labrador bitch that lived in the courtyard, who imagined that she guarded the main gate. She was always sleeping, curled and cosy, and used to lick Karl’s pale fingers lovingly. He pushed the thought deeper into those eyes that were like his own. He found a name, ‘Suisjeme’. He tried to say it - ‘Sweegem’.

Suisjeme felt the voice, rather than heard it. He sent ‘Suisjeme’ into the Meldsea, even though he didn’t understand what he was doing.

It was returned. He saw a strange, black creature, a dog, with touches of grey in its coat. The friendly creature was licking his face, soothing and cooling it. He felt loved. Father had loved him really, and he, Suisjeme, had killed his Father.

Karl sighed and let the pictures of Genty, the black Labrador, roll on and on. He relaxed. He wiped the spittle from his lips and tried to move his chained foot. He wished Brother Rufus would leave him some light, just a piece of candle, the warmth of a flickering flame. He slept. He allowed his remembered delight, the face of the abbess, Hilda, seen when he was still a toddler, to drift out to Suisjeme.

Suisjeme loved the kindly eyes and plump red cheeks of Hilda.

Chapter Six home

A summons to the private quarters of Abbess Hilda couldn’t be ignored and Brother Rufus knew he dare not put it off any longer. The burnt skin had peeled and, apart from looking very red faced and fresh, and younger, with just a dark thin line of regrowing hair above each eye, he had suffered no great damage. His back still pained him though. He was a little more hunched than before, even more birdlike.

As he walked through the inner gardens towards the house of Abbess Hilda, which nestled against the edge of the stream at its rear and faced, at an angle, the Misericord, he considered his problems as coolly as he could.

Entering the Infirmary passageway, he paused and sat in one of the alcoves. Suisjeme was responsible; of that, there was no doubt. The problem was how powerful he was, and how powerful he would become, in the Meldsea? The immediate problem was Hilda. He folded his hands together as if in prayer.

There was a scrunch of gravel on the pathway. "Are you praying Rufus? Divine forgiveness does not come as easily as we would lead our congregation to believe." It was Hilda. Her stout figure was emphasised by her folded arms across her full breasts. James had always compared her to a barrel. Her face was deceptively plain, her look open and honest. The flattish cheeks were red and healthy. It was hard to tell her age. In truth, she was at least 58, as far as she knew, but age didn’t bother her. Apart from some stiffness in her hips, she felt as well as she had always done.

"I suppose I was seeking guidance," replied Rufus.

"Come. We’ll talk inside," she said, and took the way out of the Infirmary passage by the Conduit House and the prison cells, to her front door. Inside, they proceeded to her study. "Sit down, Rufus."

He sat awkwardly, because of his height, in the leather chair facing her long, bench of a desk.

"Now. Let’s not fence with words, as we usually do when you and I talk. I want a clear and unequivocal explanation of this business." She leaned forwards and eased her stout frame into a large whicker chair. She liked the chair, because, with two cushions, she found she could sit and work in comfort for hours.

There was a difficult silence. Brother Rufus looked across the desk. He decided he had to be quite frank. He knew she’d detect prevarication on this occasion. "It’s Suisjeme. Something’s dreadfully wrong."

"I realise it’s to do with Suisjeme. I know something’s wrong. Please tell me what’s likely to be wrong. I supervised the development of four subjects..." She paused and watched for the effect of the word ‘four’ on Rufus. There was none. She went on, "Karl... well, he’s no longer with us. Maria was sent away from the problems with Lord Benton’s cronies, to Greece. Suisjeme was dispatched to southern west Africa - was that really necessary Rufus?" She paused again. There was still no reaction. "And Phillipa went to stay with our companion order in Germany. There’s been no news from there for seven years. We must presume they’ve perished, or... been dissolved..."

Rufus cut in. "I suspected, but didn’t know. Phil-leap-a? Why call her that? What was wrong with Philippa? Was there something very special about your... secret little project?"

"She was my daughter, Rufus. I used myself. I’ve said I’ll explain that another time. Explain to me why you became so disorientated - and gabbling about Suisjeme - following the incident, whatever it was, in your cell?"

"I believe there might have been something wrong in the codings. You, we, were all working under extreme stress and extreme conditions."

"That cannot be so. I checked your work, you checked mine, and Suisjeme’s latest samples show no signs of any abnormality - praise God. A normal marriage with Maria, in due time, should produce normal results." She was observing Rufus very closely. He was a strange man. She didn’t wait for any comment. "Joseph, dear Brother Joseph was ill when you sent him with Suisjeme. I doubt he’d survive a return journey after all these years. You must examine the last sample again. I’ll allow access to the Library of Codings. You will spend the next months traversing the whole. There must be something we’re missing."

"I agree," replied Rufus, a little too quickly for Hilda’s liking.

He wasn’t sure Hilda noticed his eagerness. He must be careful. She must never know of the plan and the deception, although a doubt crept into his mind and he wondered if she suspected. "James began today - to examine and prepare the samples. They were unfrozen on my instructions yesterday. I guessed you’d want to know what might be wrong."

"It’s the brain," Hilda said bluntly. "And call James, Brother James."

"I grow tired of this religious thing," responded Rufus suddenly. "Why do we have to keep up the pretence?"

"It’s not a pretence, Rufus. The locals here expected it, but we are dedicated to God’s work. And you, Brother Rufus, have always had your dreams. Oh, yes. I know you had more than vague ideas at that school of yours. You even dreamt of being Pope. Those Jesuits... You were lucky. But, perhaps that’s your destiny." Her eyes tried to pierce the enigmatic figure before her. "How long will the journey take? Maria’s due to start back soon."

"We just don’t know. The last radio message suggested they’ll have started by now. There’ll be no more messages. The wind generator and diesel generator will have been left behind. Joseph was doubtful he’d survive."

"Brother Joseph was a genius," Hilda said, as if he was already dead, not knowing the result of the experiment Rufus had tried. "We must send someone to find the boy and guide him home. He cannot be left. There are too many who would subvert our work, as you know only too well... The Dream-Makers, the ‘Watchers’, whoever they are. Benton’s Guild members are very powerful. They have a dream too. They still believe we’re engaged in the Devil’s work. They seek all our children, especially the growing Fourth generation. Suisjeme must be protected. He and Karl were the first. And Karl... is, er... gone." She’d been fascinated by the boy before his unexplained end. "Suisjeme is our Adam, Maria, our Eve. I am not a snake, Brother Rufus..." She stopped abruptly. Then, "Are you the snake, Rufus?"

He stared at her. "You know we’re your servants. Without you, there’d have been no Project. The Unit would never have been. How can I be a snake in this... Eden?"

"Don’t be sarcastic and don’t flatter me Rufus. You’ve always had strange ideas. You were responsible for that girl’s death. She could have hosted others. She was young, strong and willing to do it in God’s name, and for His glory. When she came to us as a novice with her strange visions and dreams, she was innocent. Someone corrupted her, and I don’t believe your story about Joseph."

Rufus struggled now to keep himself cool and impassive. With his control, which was returning to him, he knew that not even a temporary dilation of the pupils would betray him. "I stand by what I saw with my own eyes. You know that." He also realised how Hilda’s memory was playing tricks. "They’d virtually lifted that girl, Crystal, off the streets. There was none of this religious business in those days."

"Bring me the Suisjeme file tomorrow morning when you come from the Library." Hilda sighed very softly, dismissing Rufus with a slight nod of the head.

Rufus decided he didn’t know what to think. You never did with Hilda. Her damned acolytes would protect her at the expense of their lives. The question was always in his mind: how to get rid of Hilda? He was her natural successor. The work must go on, but not in her way. Poison was the answer, but try as he might he couldn’t find a foolproof way to administer anything. She even had a taster. Her food was prepared separately. Damn the woman! He walked hastily through the Infirmary passageway and made straight for the Chapter house.

____________________________

From Greece, Maria’s Father reported his worries to Abbess Hilda and the Home. It was increasingly difficult to generate enough power with the wind generator to work the radio at anything above three-quarters of its capacity. He’d return with Maria as soon as possible.

He didn’t know how he was going to explain it to her. He knew she loved their life together, in their beautiful home on the hillside. Sometimes she seemed worried by the faint glow she could see on dark nights far to the east. He’d explained the ‘war’ in the east to her. No one ever went east. No one visited from the east. He left the radio and looked in on her. She was sleeping peacefully. Since her bad sunburn, she’d had a series of restless nights. He didn’t understand the sunburn. Even if she’d sat in the sun all that day, it shouldn’t have been as bad as it was. She had also been more morose than she’d ever been, talking very little. She’d not laughed every few minutes as she had come to do over the years. In fact, he thought, she hadn’t even smiled since that day.

______________________

In the cell beneath the grey ruined tower of the old Abbey church, Karl growled like a dog. Brother James sat watching him. The straw needed changing. The stink was making him gag and he kept the corner of his cowl to his nose. It was a long time since the boy had seen daylight. Brother James watched the old Labrador trying to eat the slops he’d brought down. "Karl!" He shouted, "Eat something. The dog’ll finish it all!" The boy ignored him. James shouted again, "Eat something you idiot!"

He got up from the cold stone seat and looked down at Karl. Why didn’t Rufus allow him more movement? The dog had a better life than the boy. Why didn’t Rufus clean him up a bit? He pressed his sleeve to his nose this time, to avoid a little of the stench. He felt himself pitying both animals. Karl growled gently. James was thoughtful, "Can’t you ever talk? I know you could talk. Rufus used to talk with you a lot when you were younger."

"I’m lonely, James."

Brother James was astonished. The voice was clear and quiet and made a simply spoken statement of fact. He looked at the starving, dirty boy.

James wasn’t to know that he looked exactly like Suisjeme before Doc had started feeding him properly, even to the slightly bowed back and pigeon chest.

"I know you don’t know what to say, James. Please help me. I long to see the light." Karl had learned a great deal since experiencing the heat of Suisjeme’s emotional outpouring.

James looked round. The circular cell was one of two in the depths that ran from beneath the Tower to just below the Lay Brothers’ Dormitory. It was so near the river that it was always damp. The door was closed; it had swung to. "You can speak, and reason," James murmured. He couldn’t hide his astonishment.

"Yes. Brother Rufus used to try and teach me many things. Now I teach myself." He looked up at James. He was so thin that his eyes were shadowed and sunken in their sockets. His cheeks were hollow. "Please bring me some food, better food. I don’t think I’ll live much longer if you don’t."

James was struck by the calm clarity of Karl’s voice. He’d become used to the shouting, grunting, slavering fits when Rufus was around. He’d come to believe that Karl had reverted to a kind of savage animal that needed chaining and hiding from everyone above. Brother Rufus had told him three years ago, before Karl’s eleventh birthday, that Hilda wanted Karl dead. Hiding him here was the only way to keep him alive. But he still didn’t understand why Rufus kept him in such squalor. Now, the boy was speaking to him, Brother James, as calmly, normally as could be wished. "I will," said James, out of simple pity.

"Don’t say anything to Brother Rufus, will you?"

"No. No, of course not."

Karl watched; inside the mind of James. Like a parasite, Karl explored the windings of conscious thoughts. He allowed himself to dip here and there into the subconscious. James was a mess, indecisive and unsure of everything. James didn’t believe in God. Karl felt that as surely as he knew the depth of Hilda’s faith. He knew all their thoughts now. Something had opened the doors wide in his own mind. Seeking outwards, he feared the incipient power in Rufus. He knew what Rufus thought he knew, that the semen from Rufus was the eventual, engineered seed placed within the egg from Suisjeme’s mother. Since the blast of heat from Suisjeme’s mind, Karl’s mind had become more clear. He realised the day after, as Rufus was treated in the clinic and then moved to the Infirmary, that Rufus was his father too. He and Suisjeme had the same mother; they were twins. Karl realised the horror that lurked beneath the conscious functioning of the mind of their father. He didn’t dare slide deeper into that pit. Here, with James, it was easy. James was basically very simple to understand. The Brothers and Lay Brothers and Sisters also had uncomplicated minds. These last few days, Karl had absorbed and synthesised their knowledge and understanding as a bug sucks blood and quadruples its girth. The Id within Rufus was dangerous, very dangerous. He must bide his time. He couldn’t risk mentally treading into the dark corners and depths he sensed lurked beneath the ‘upper’ layers of his father’s mind.

Karl had thought long and hard about the heat generated from Suisjeme. He tried to imitate it; he couldn’t. But he’d created an air flow through the cell. He found it was easy and fascinating. He could focus down even to the molecules, excite them, set them moving and then let them drift. He found that, if he telescoped his vision, the air as a whole moved this way and that. He discovered he could explore the cellular structure of his own blood.

The first time he did this, he discovered the influenza virus beginning its destructive work. He observed the processes of rejection and encouraged them. The virus came to nothing and for once he knew he wasn’t going to be ill. Over the following days he monitored the health and bodily processes of his body. He learned how to maximise the use of everything, the energy of the nutrients that passed his lips, no longer worrying if it was supposed to be edible or clean. If he sensed that it might infect him, he lay watching with his mind at the cellular level to see how it might do him harm. If there was danger, he directed his body’s immune system to deal with it quickly. His untutored mind didn’t think in these ways, though he had gained some basic knowledge from the minds of the laboratory assistants, and James and Rufus.

He was still starving, but yesterday he’d caught a rat by tempting it close. He hadn’t liked killing it, but did it painlessly with his mind by sinking within the organism and instructing the heart to stop beating. He ate most of it, feeding the entrails and the rest to the dog, Genty. The rat did him good. He could sense the power and energy flowing through his body. If Brother James could find him some fresh fruit and bread...

He wondered about Suisjeme. He didn’t dare invite contact through the Meldsea. Yet he worried. Suisjeme was his twin brother. He sent out generalised, warm images of Genty, the face of Abbess Hilda, but that was all. He detected that he should avoid real contact and examine and develop his new found skills and talents. He had begun to realise how different he was from others.

____________________

Far away, Port Nolloth was busy. Suisjeme watched the ship unloading its cargo. Not only were there ‘fruits’, as Groot called them, but sacks of grain. "They’m from Namib, boy. Lots o’ bread grains in Namib!" he was saying.

Groot was watching for the strange odd boxes that always appeared towards the end of unloading from the front hold, where the prow of the wooden ship narrowed sharply. The boxes always contained what he considered to be ‘the good stuff.’

Suisjeme hadn’t felt right since his nightmare. He understood what it all meant. He knew how the old world had died. He knew why people were different shapes and colours, and why many were born to live their lives in pain, like Doc. Suisjeme was becoming more and more attached to Doc. He was being very kind, spoiling Suisjeme with all kinds of food.

Suisjeme kept his mind as still as possible and sang ‘Oranges and Lemons’ all the time. He knew it made him appear quiet and dull, with a slightly vacant look in his eyes, but he didn’t dare stop. Brother Rufus might appear again. He didn’t feel ready for that. Perhaps he’d killed him. He was sure that he’d killed Father. The guilt wouldn’t leave him. Many times, each day, he still thought of Father. He knew he’d loved him deeply, but didn’t understand it, because he’d exploited Suisjeme as much as Rufus. He couldn’t share his feeling with anyone, except, perhaps, Maria.

Doc had managed to find a place for them to live together for the time being. He’d decided that wherever Suisjeme went, he’d go too. The little man’s curiosity had been aroused. They were living in a shanty lean-to attached to the house of the woman who’d knitted Doc’s jackets. She’d already made a new yellow one for Suisjeme, and one for Doc. He’d even managed to rescue one of the old wind-generators, and he and Groot had erected it against the woman’s house. The diesel generator refused to run for more than a few minutes at a time. Doc had the radio running as soon as there was enough power in the batteries, but he virtually drained them every night listening over the headphones. He understood little of what there was on the airwaves.

Valena was the Captain of the coastal vessel ‘Stardust’. Her physical presence dominated the small ragged crew of five. She came looking for Suisjeme and Father, getting no sense from Groot. She valued the gold that Father had offered. That small bag of gold coins was in Doc’s pocket, and he’d not mentioned it to anyone after Joseph died. Doc explained to Valena how he’d lost everything in the fire at his house and he described Joseph’s death and said he was going to travel with Suisjeme.

"How much gold?" Valena asked bluntly. "I had an agreement with the old man."

"What gold?" Doc asked innocently. "People don’t use gold round here."

"In the far north they do. Do you think I could get all my cargoes from the north with the little you have to trade down here. Salted buckie carcasses are about the best thing I get from here. All I need from you is gold." She was lying. She obtained many products by barter and traded them in the north. But gold was the best trade of all, and the old man had promised. She looked down on the little figure of Doc and asked, "Did you lose the gold in the fire? My crew will find the melted remains. They’ll search the ashes. They’ll find it. They’ve got noses for it." She peered at him. "This whole coast used to be known for its Kru’ands. He told me he had near fifty of them, in a leather bag, a heavy leather bag... I was promised half to take him as far north as possible. What’ll you pay?"

Doc thought quickly. He could pretend the gold coins were his, and offer less. They’d search his old house and find nothing. He replied, "The offer’s 20 Kru’ands." He didn’t admit whether it was Joseph’s money, or his own.

Valena didn’t quibble, "Half now, half when I decide to turn south again."

Doc paid her ten kru’ands.

‘Stardust’ was dusty. She was a stoutly built, coastal sailing vessel. The single sail was a patchwork of materials and colours, which didn’t appear to be strong enough to withstand wind at all. Valena stood with Doc amidships as their small amount of luggage was transferred. Doc insisted the wind-generator and radio should come with them. Valena, for one extra Kru’and, agreed. They set the aerial against the mast, but there was no room for the wind-generator to be erected. It was laid on the stern deck, its propeller like blades folded, the whole thing covered from sea air and spray by old sacking. Valena insisted they share the only two cabins in the stern. She had one and Doc, Groot and Suisjeme could have the other. If it didn’t suit, she said they could sleep on the deck like the crew. The dust and dirt everywhere was not very inviting. It took Groot a whole morning to clean the tiny cabin.

Suisjeme helped wherever he could. It was different and exciting. He found himself enjoying the physical challenges of cleaning up with Groot, who was tireless in his efforts. The crew and the noise from the dockside, the sound of the bargaining voice of Valena, and Groot chattering aimlessly, all contrived to wake Suisjeme out of the blankness left by his experience. He didn’t want to think about that, visions, or anything to do with Father.

Doc explained that the package entrusted to Suisjeme’s bag by Father contained tapes of ‘keys’ to the learning programme he had endured during the years of his childhood.

Suisjeme expressed no interest; in any case, he’d been given ‘keys’ by Rufus. For the present time at least, he found he could sublimate and subvert his thoughts and worries. He was growing remarkably quickly, much stronger, on good food and exercise. He began to delight in his increasing strength and energy. He enjoyed the sensations of the sea and the wind and the people, and Groot encouraged him.

Two days before the voyage began, Groot taught him to swim. Back at the shack, he and Father had played in the dirty river, and he’d enjoyed it, but this was marvellous to the young boy. Groot carried him into the sea from a steeply shelving beach, then, holding him by the shoulders, he let Suisjeme feel his buoyancy. He loved the sensation of the moving water against his nakedness. Before he knew that Groot had released his grasp, he slipped into a happy delight of relaxed oneness with the waves in the cool salt water. When he idly looked round for Groot, the hairy red hands of the mutant giant had vanished. Groot was nearer the shore. Suisjeme had floated and drifted out without noticing, but he didn’t panic. He just knew that now he could swim. He experimented by paddling his feet up and down. Soon he was splashing his arms madly and sensing the saltiness in his mouth.

The next day, the day before ‘Stardust’ set sail, Suisjeme spent the time in the sea, with Groot trying to show him how to make better progress through the water. Groot’s method was a kind of dogpaddling with his red, hairy paws just breaking the surface. Suisjeme soon discovered that slow, powerful strokes, with the maximum resistance of arms and legs to the water, gave him a far greater endurance and power than even Groot, with all his strength. He was now so enthusiastic about swimming that, as the ‘Stardust’ lurched out to sea, he dared to ask Valena, "Can we swim in the sea some days?"

"Certainly not! It’s stupid - dangerous. In any case, we’d have to tie you with a rope, else you’d be left behind. Too much trouble!" She observed the boy with more curiosity though.

‘Stardust’ sailed with the wind. Mostly, it blew them shorewards. They made slow progress. In any case, Valena made it clear she hated the nights, and being out of sight of land. Never-the-less, in short bursts, ‘Stardust’ made headway, and the voyage developed a routine of its own. In sea calm, Valena searched for shoreward currents. In unfavourable winds she seemed to try and tack their way further north, but would often give up and seek shallower waters and allow the anchor to drag, until it snagged. Then they would wait.

The waiting was good. The sun shone brightly, more brightly than Suisjeme had ever known. It sparkled on the waves. He would lounge on the deck feeling pleasantly warm and content. No one talked to him much and his only concession to his previous strange mental experiences was to keep up the song ‘Oranges and Lemons’. It became part of him and was always in the background, even as he dozed, and he imagined, even in his sleep. There was no Maria, no Brother Rufus, no thoughts of ‘keys’.

Doc didn’t talk about his desire to meet the clever people of the Unit. He never mentioned his fascination with the idea of recreating the ‘normal’ folk of the past. He kept secret his developing belief that these people of the Unit could help him with his bleeding, contorted stomach.

As time passed, Suisjeme felt more relaxed, and only occasionally did he linger on the memory of Father, and each time he pushed it down deeper.

The ‘Cook’, as Valena called him, was often laughing. Suisjeme soon developed the habit of helping Cook to prepare the vegetables. They also ate lots of hard, breadlike biscuits. These were nearly tasteless, greyish in colour, and quite hard to bite. Cook explained they were very good for you. He said Suisjeme should eat at least three a day.

There were numerous stopping-points. Valena would send two of the crew to shore in a small rowing boat, to get fresh fruit and other supplies. Water was the most difficult. They kept twelve barrels, six lashed to each side of the open cargo hold, but used smaller casks to collect water when they went ashore, or put in at sheltered bays and small harbours. Suisjeme didn’t like the taste of their stored water and Doc was also doubtful of it, boiling it whenever he got the chance. After only 29 days of their voyage, one of the crew, called Menner, became violently sick. Valena said it was ‘bad’ water... "it always happens." Suisjeme became afraid of drinking directly from the storage barrels and was pleased that Doc said they must boil all their water before drinking it. Never the less, thirst became an increasing problem. Suisjeme found himself thirsty most of the time.

Perhaps it was because of the thirst that he found himself with a new talent. One hot morning he was staring at a crack in his glass of drinking water when he noticed it wasn’t just flashes of light he was seeing, but ‘bits’ floating in it. The sunlight was directed in a slanting series of rays through the water, and he began to concentrate on the small specks. At first he thought the dots were in his own eyes. Sometimes, with his eyelids lowered against the glare, he’d noticed specks floating across his sight; these specks were in the water. He concentrated on them. As he did so and watched, he realised there were even more ‘bits’ in the water. He focused on them. They grew larger, and, seeing them more easily, he realised they were alive. There were very tiny creatures living in the water, and there were even smaller specks.

At first he didn’t realise that he was now seeing with his mind and not his eyes. His mind was taking him into the water. Soon he was marvelling at the structure of some of the specks. He drank some of the water. He followed the creatures inside himself, down into his body. He observed that some were dying, some beginning to multiply rapidly. He watched, completely fascinated. He didn’t know where the thought came from, but he began to notice that some of the organisms and even smaller cellular specks were ‘bad’. Some seem to be accepted by the millions of specks in his own body. Some seemed dangerous. He experimented and found that he could encourage the material in his own gastric system to attack the ‘bad’ bits more vigorously. The first time he did this, he became frightened and had the sensation of drowning in his own being. But the shock wasn’t strong enough to stop him experimenting. Soon, he was exploring his whole being. The working of his heart, the flow of blood, the way his food was dealt with; he felt it was a miracle. He amazed himself with the workings of his own body.

Was this what Father meant when he’d said Suisjeme would learn things for himself? Control quickly followed. He realised that he could cause the ‘bad’ material in the barrels of water to die, and only the ‘good’ to remain. He didn’t know that he was dealing with bacterial and viral material. All the crew knew was that their water supplies were tasting fresher and sweeter.

Valena commented on it to Doc. "Have you done anything to the water barrels?"

"No," Doc replied.

"Strange...," Valena murmured. "I think this is going to be a lucky voyage."

Suisjeme’s body benefited from his newly discovered skill. He realised that there were ‘fights’ going on inside his body all the time. Everyday it became a habit, for a few minutes, to sit on deck and quietly slip inside himself and deal with any problems that might be arising. He was soon brimming with health. His food was utilised to the maximum. His muscular development accelerated with every exercise he did. After two months of their northward progress, he was tanned, bright eyed, two inches taller, and had filled out so much that even the Cook was prompted to say he was becoming "a beeg man".

Groot began playing a new game with Suisjeme, who realised he had a hungry desire for play and laughter. He’d never known ‘play’ with other children, but playing with Groot was like playing with a big boy who was your best friend. They arm-wrestled. "You’m gettin’ strong, boy. Try this!" Groot grasped Suisjeme’s hand, burying it in the red-haired grasp of his own. With their elbows on the only table in the small cabin, they tried to press the other’s arm over. At first it was an easy victory for Groot every time. They laughed together. It became a real challenge for Suisjeme. Groot made it fun, saying, "Mebbe nex’ time you’m beat me!"

After a few days of this, with Groot winning all the time, Suisjeme became frustrated, and one afternoon, the Multi-coloured Man pressed Suisjeme’s arm down so quickly it strained the muscles and made him yelp with pain.

Groot couldn’t understand what happened next.

Suisjeme was inside the texture of his own muscles realigning and soothing the pain. A red anger fired his desire to beat Groot, for once. The muscles straightened, then bulged, he began to set them working from within himself.

Groot felt the pressure from Suisjeme’s fingers first. They began to squeeze. He returned the pressure. He’d been worried by Suisjeme’s yelp, but now he found he couldn’t break the grip. Suisjeme was fighting Groot’s hand up from the table. Groot returned the pressure with his whole arm. Instantly, Suisjeme’s response made him break out in a sweat.

Steadily, their hands now upright with their elbows crushing into the table-top, Suisjeme was increasing the grip of his small hand on Groot’s huge hairy paw and concentrating on pressing Groot’s arm down to the table. It was a fair match. Groot’s immense natural strength and Suisjeme’s young hand, arm and shoulders directed into perfect and uniform effort from within, were evenly matched. Suisjeme knew he could win. He would be able to keep up the pressure longer and in a more controlled way than Groot.

Groot’s face became contorted and he began to puff and splutter. His arm was shaking with the strain. He gave in. His arm crashed down to the table. He yelped with pain and Suisjeme released his grip. Groot grasped at his shoulder. "You’m gettin’ pretty tuff, white, wormy boy." He had tears of pain at the corners of his eyes. "N’one put Groot down boy! You’m rum whitey worm. I call you ‘man’, eh, boy? You’m beat Groot. Dun tell any of ‘em, eh?"

Suisjeme would tell no one.

He was happy. He was strong. He felt in control of himself for the first time in his life. He laughed, and Groot slapped him on the back and made him stagger. They laughed.

Valena’s stern, sharp face even creased slightly into a half smile, when she caught sight of the big man playing with the growing boy.

When they next put in to land, Valena agreed that Doc, Groot and Suisjeme should carry a message for her to a place named Lagos.

They hired creatures called horses. Suisjeme had never seen anything like them and felt overwhelmed by their friendliness, smell, and the way they had of looking deep into his eyes, blowing and snorting down their nostrils.

home

"Suisjeme" is a book of well over 135,000 words. If anyone is interested in publishing it, please contact me by e-mail at Suisjeme@hotmail.com

Again, if anyone would like to read another couple of chapters, please let me know at the same address.

SER
serob_uk@yahoo.co.uk