Walk the Vanished Earth, page 23
May 3, 2046
We’ve established routines. Six a.m. wake-up. One hour of cardio on the treadmill. Breakfast is a bowl of grain boiled to a paste. Medical examinations. I met the geneticist. Why do we need you? I asked. I’m not a synthetic chicken. We must ensure the radiation does not affect you, he said. No two-headed babies, I said. Certainly not, he replied.
After examinations, thirty minutes of cardio on the elliptical. Lunch is something beige and indeterminate. In the early afternoon we study. This was K’s idea. To keep the mission human, she said. We had a chance at humanity once, she would tell me, let’s not blow it again. Except here we don’t read literature, as I did with her. We read baby manuals. Today I learned how to offer my breast upon first contact. Do not give up, the manual encouraged, if infant refuses to latch. As though I need a lesson in perseverance.
In late afternoon we have recreation time, which translates as naptime. Then we tackle restrictive exercise, which means repetitive lifting of small weights. Dinner tonight was micro-fungus disguised as chicken breast and potatoes stained red from the mineral-fed soil in which they grow. Post-supper, we watched a film from the early century. Something in Euro, which K called French. Chantrea fell asleep, her head lolling against my shoulder.
I am also exhausted, but tonight I fear sleep. K would understand. Both she and Pa suffered from the same recurring dream. In it a faceless man would walk toward them through a desert. There were variations, but it was always a desert and they could always hear his boots, though they trod on sand. She said the dream terrified her, because she both knew and did not know what it meant. I used to think it sounded silly, but last night I had the same dream. The desert didn’t look hot. It looked cold, as I know it is. I was shivering when I woke.
When we talked through the screen, I tried to tell K about it, but the connection was poor. Her face kept cutting out, her voice in patches. I miss you, we both managed, but that was it.
May 10, 2046
I have skipped days in this log. I meant to keep it daily, but at night I am so tired. My stomach is still looping from the journey here. The nausea—not to mention the dreams—makes sleep difficult. The others seem weary too. Everybody except Agnes. She is wide awake. They implanted her today. Her face glows like a candle behind paper. After she returned to our pod, Chantrea touched her stomach. I wish I were you, she said to Agnes. At dinner, Gabrielle brought Agnes actual meat. A roasted guinea pig, its skin crackling and crisp. We’re experimenting with live animals, Gabrielle said. We must keep you strong, she told Agnes, protein is essential. Chantrea and Winona salivated at the sight, but I didn’t like how the cook had left the head on. Its teeth were too long and yellow.
They will implant Winona next. Then me. We are special. Blessed. Nine out of ten women cannot get pregnant, they say. Our numbers have dwindled with our landmass. It seems our bodies understand the need for conservation more than we do. It doesn’t matter, K used to insist. We can reclaim this place. You will save us, she would say to me. You will be the mother of thousands. We are so grateful, she added, that you’ve chosen this. I’m grateful that I can, I replied.
You’re lucky, Gabrielle told me tonight. She had stayed with us to watch Agnes polish off the guinea pig. In a few minutes, Agnes had reduced the animal to a pile of bones. Gabrielle smiled. Her eyes are liquid brown, her skin ivory where mine is golden brown. Her shorn head makes her look like a bird. An eagle perhaps, or a falcon. Something with alert eyes and a quick bend to the neck. I wish I could do what you can, she whispered to me. Her words puffed me up with pride. I am lucky, I thought. I have so much to offer. When Gabrielle stood to leave, she bumped her hip against my shoulder. The flesh under my gray jumpsuit hummed. Tonight, I do not fear my dreams.
May 15, 2046
During recreation time we no longer nap. Agnes and I play gin rummy. Usually I win. Agnes laughs at my small victories, how I jump up from my chair and shout my triumph. Chantrea studies us with hungry eyes. I invited her to join, but she said she preferred to watch.
Today Gabrielle swished through the airlock and joined us at the table. She watched us for a while before turning to Winona. Winona had dug wool and knitting needles out of our craft box. Already she had the beginning of a hat. Would you care for a game? Gabrielle asked her. But Winona shook her head. Card games are not for me, she said. Too much plotting.
Here. Agnes tossed her cards down. Continue for me. I need to take a nap. This is wearing me out. She patted her abdomen. Already it looked swollen. Chantrea’s starved gaze trained on it. Nuns raised her, Buddhists of an ancient order who had taken up residence in the Reclaimed City of Angkor Wat. I wonder what deprivations Chantrea faced in her stony city, what hungers forced her to join this mission. I know why I joined. I did because I could, because my body was capable. How could I not pledge myself to the cause?
I wish K could see me now. All cozy with the other volunteers, playing cards with the head of the Red Star project. I want to run to K as I did when I was a kid, showing her a new word I had learned from a screen or telling her about a dream I had. I wasn’t awake to know it, but I celebrated a birthday on my journey through space. I’m eighteen now. An adult. So why do I still feel like a child?
May 24, 2046
They have twinned Winona. When she arrived, she was the youngest Ojibwe of the First Nations, famous for defeating the White Pirates at the Great Lake Sea. Now the youngest of her tribe fattens within her. We do not ask who fertilizes our eggs. Perhaps Red Star technicians. Perhaps men on Earth. It doesn’t matter. The infants will be ours. Gabrielle has promised this. It’s part of the reason I volunteered. I admired how K had raised me on her own. I liked the idea of motherhood without a man’s meddling.
After implantation, Gabrielle brought Winona a guinea pig too. Winona picked her teeth with its bones. This time the smell made me salivate. My mind believes I ate venison a month ago, but my stomach knows better. The frozen journey was so strange. It has obliterated an entire section of my life from memory. My brain feels as though it’s constantly running to keep up with my body.
Last time we spoke through a screen, I asked K to tell me a story. Once a girl grew up and made her mother proud, she responded. That’s no story, I protested. You’re right, she admitted, it’s just a fact. I’m sorry, she said, you have taken my imagination with you.
I think she meant it as a joke, but it didn’t sound like one. I wonder what my father would think about me being here. His name was Michelangelo. K said he was a painter, a great artist. She knew him in the Floating City, where she and Pa had tried to build a civilization. Lucky for them, David arrived before the new floods did, and whisked them away to the Northern Refuge. K said Michelangelo stayed. To finish a masterpiece, she scoffed when I asked why. I sent him a message, she said, and told him to join us. As you can see—she gestured at our chamber, empty except for us—he didn’t. K assumed he’d drowned. But he could have gone somewhere else when the floods arrived. The desert. A mountaintop. Another submerged city in need of an artist.
Winona and Agnes have begun to whisper together in English, sometimes Russian. Agnes is teaching her. They have formed a close pair, independent of us. Despite this, Chantrea follows them to watch their games. Her closed face opens when she’s near them, childlike wonder illuminating it. They favor board games. Risk. Sorry! Monopoly. Relics of a dead time.
The game of Risk I find most amusing, witnessing them conquer areas that no longer exist. That’s my home, I heard Chantrea tell them today. She pointed to the landmass that used to be Southeast Asia. I’m very good at climbing stairs, she said. I know how to fish too, in the Mekong Sea. And I can recognize all the faces of Buddha. Neither Agnes nor Winona looked at her. They didn’t seem to hear her. They implanted Agnes only fourteen days ago, but I swear she is already showing. When she leaned back, I saw a slight swell under her jumpsuit. That must have been a trick of the light. It is too soon.
Occasionally Gabrielle stops by to play cards with me. Today she told me about her homeland, somewhere in Europe. This surprised me. I had assumed she’d been born near the Northern Refuge, as David had been. But Gabrielle said she’d never been to North America. I heard her accent then, a taut quality to her vowels. You should have seen my city, she said. In the springtime, the pear blossoms were extraordinary. This was before the Land Wars, of course. She paused. I watched her, thinking of all the children gone. If only they’d known how hard it would be to make more.
It was a beautiful city, Gabrielle said. Full of lights. What city was that? I asked. No matter, she said. It’s wastelands now. Half water, half rubble. A place where missiles went to die.
Do you miss home? I asked. Do you? she asked. I miss my mother, I said, though she was sad a lot. She had a city too, I confessed. It drowned. But we didn’t, Gabrielle said. Did we? Her eyes remind me of a pool in the forest above the Northern Refuge. In autumn, leaves would fall into that pool. Shades of brown and amber and gold. I would like to see Gabrielle’s eyes closed, in more than a quick blink. No, I agreed, laying down my winning cards. We did not.
May 37, 2046
Time here stretches like a rubber band. How do you measure years, I asked Gabrielle, since one here lasts two on Earth? The same, she said, but longer. We wanted to keep the years in sync, she said, so we changed the calendar. Months extended to sixty days, I said. More or less, she replied. Was that David’s idea? I asked. It was mine, Gabrielle said, looking very pleased with herself. If I were her, I would congratulate myself too. It’s no small feat to erect a station on Mars, even in the best of times. Gathering the resources alone must have been a tremendous undertaking. All those private donors she must have approached. She must be very persuasive, to part people from their money when so little of it exists.
I am thinking of time tonight for a reason. Tomorrow they will implant me. I, too, will be twinned. Be strong, K told me today through the screen. You are the new breed, she said, the one who will carve a path through the wilderness. You must meet your destiny. I will, I promised. You are everything I hoped you would be, she said. And more.
Next time I speak to her, I will have my own small me fattening within. K and Pa will burst with pride. When I told them I wanted to volunteer, they threw me a party with confetti and a cake. You will complete the family’s cycle, Pa trumpeted. You will build the world anew. But I wasn’t an architect like Pa or a poet like K. I couldn’t paint masterpieces as my father could. I grew up no scientist, no geneticist or technician or interstellar botanist. I grew up a woman, nothing more. I could only offer myself.
May 38, 2046
This morning I skipped cardio and breakfast. They wheeled me from our pod in style. The scientists lined the hallways to watch my procession. Good luck, they called after me. Some reached out to touch me as I passed. I’m their rabbit’s foot, their four-leafed clover. With me, this society will flourish. I expected Gabrielle in the lab, but she wasn’t there. Technicians I did not recognize needled my arm and masked my face, told me to breathe. The obstetrician loomed over me, his face pitted and colorless. I saw walls and lights and smelled disinfectant, then roasting meat. The guinea pig has come, I thought, but that was a dream.
When I woke, I wasn’t wearing my gray jumpsuit with its red starburst. I was wearing a white gown, like a queen. My mouth tasted like glue, a familiar sensation. I thought I’d journeyed again through the stars. Then I remembered. I pressed my stomach through the gown. A hardness to it. It grows, I thought, and flushed with pleasure.
We are so grateful to you, the obstetrician told me. Such sacrifice. Can I call my mother now? I asked. I thought of her fleeing the Floating City as the sea rose, the seed of me nestled within her. What must it have been like, to realize she was pregnant after she’d left my father behind? It hasn’t been like that for me. I’ve known what to expect. I’ve done this on purpose.
But the obstetrician shook his head. Tomorrow, he promised. Today you must rest. Let’s get you back to your quarters, he said. I thought of Gabrielle and my duvet, how nice it would be to draw it over our heads and cocoon us in its dark.
Later, when Gabrielle carried in my guinea pig, I meant to refuse it, but when I caught its scent, I felt such a hunger. I gobbled it down. I even sucked its skull, holding it firm by its two yellow teeth. I do not know if synthetic chicken will content me again. Agnes and Winona watched me, smiling softly with their eyes. Agnes’s jumpsuit bulges. It’s no trick of the light. Winona is a broad woman, so it’s hard to tell, but she winces sometimes. I imagine kicks, tiny feet battering her from within. Our small new selves are as eager as we are.
Miracle children, I tell myself, grown on a miracle planet. They will fatten like potatoes in the red soil. They will take their first breaths of alien air. Their stomachs will not somersault, as mine still does, for this will be their home. Their motherland. And they its native sons.
May 45, 2046
I am sick of May. Sixty days feels longer than I assumed it would, too long for a single month. I recall that winter a decade ago, the one that would not end. It lasted ten months, followed by a brief blip of summer before the leaves dropped again. We gnawed dried venison, then little more than bark. K grew skinny and pale. Pa’s muscled arms atrophied. He could no longer scoot himself around on his roller board. I was thin and tired too, but young, so I pushed him in a chair. He hated that. It was a relief when the next winter lasted only three months. I suppose this could be worse, but it’s hard to tell it is spring without flowers or rain. The dunes seem more monotonous than ever. The wonder of arrival has worn off. You stare at something long enough, no matter how marvelous, and it’ll get boring too.
Maybe it’s the nausea, which the implantation has heightened. At least once a day I vomit. Sometimes more. Keeping it contained is a challenge. Why not total gravity? I asked Gabrielle when she arrived for our nightly card game. We do not want to forget where we are, she said. That seemed stupid. One must simply look out the windows to remember.
I tried to tell K about the nausea. I wanted to ask her advice. But the last time I contacted her, she waved it away, the choppy connection pixelating her hand as it moved. It’s normal with pregnancy, she assured me. And you’re the new breed, she said. You’ll be fine.
Agnes and Winona have noticed my discontent. They have invited me into their games. Chantrea is jealous. I can tell. But I do not join them. I play cards with Gabrielle, and when she leaves, I retreat to my pod to lie under my duvet and not sleep. Sleep frightens me. Last night I dreamed of the desert again. I was walking through it and the sun scorched me, hot as fire. A silhouette appeared on the horizon and I felt a sadness so profound it woke me up. I was not crying, but holding my stomach, which had stopped somersaulting. Then it flipped again and I had to bolt to the bathing pod, where I threw up micro-fungus and masticated lettuce and then bile.
When I lay back down, I tried to calm myself. It’s okay, I thought. Nausea is normal. The cook at the Northern Refuge used to talk about other places on Earth, places where things happened too terrible to detail. The cook was the one who told me about the Land Wars. His stories used to scare me to bits. I would run to K and bury my head in her lap. She would stroke my hair, laughing gently at me. Penelope, she would croon. Do not worry. You are safe here. We don’t call it the Refuge for nothing.
I tried repeating that. You are safe here, I said aloud and rubbed my belly until I felt better.
It’s not only the nausea tiring me out; it’s the examinations. A parade of needles. And the tablets, each one more bitter than the last. Why so many visits? I asked the obstetrician. This is no normal venture, he said. We want it to go well. Must he always be present? I asked, jutting my chin at the geneticist. Two-headed babies, he joked. Remember? Fine, I said, let’s make this quick. And I held out my arm for another jab.
Fifteen more days, I tell myself, until May ends. I would give anything to see trees.
May 52, 2046
Agnes is sick. They have taken her away. I picture another pod, white and featureless as ours, but sparkling with sterilized instruments. A multitude of scalpels. Will they cut it from her? No, they wouldn’t dare. It must survive.
After she’d gone, Chantrea lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. They will fix her, she announced. They have to. So much blood, said Winona, her eyes wide. You don’t puke blood like that because of a baby. She looked to me and Chantrea in turn. Do you? No, I said, it’s likely the radiation. Don’t say that, Chantrea snapped, the radiation can’t touch us. She’ll be fine, I soothed, trying to channel K. They’ll be able to implant you soon, I told Chantrea.
They had planned to implant Chantrea today, but the obstetrician said no. We must wait, he apologized, until we see the results. Originally, they’d allotted a two-week window between each implant, but that has changed. Agnes’s bulge has grown very prominent. Winona is showing too. This morning when I touched my belly under the duvet, it was rock hard, with an odor of copper. I thought of the pennies kept in a jar in the Northern Refuge’s museum, displayed beside the American flags and DVDs.
Last night the smell woke me up. I got out of bed and slid open my shutter. The station is so brightly lit it was difficult to see the stars, but I managed. I couldn’t identify any constellations. The perspective was too different. Where was Orion, with his telltale belt? Where were his dogs?
You need to get back on the treadmill, K told me on our call today. You look a little pale. I’m not feeling too good, I reminded her. Too well, she corrected me. You’re not feeling too well. You’re not listening to me, I said, but we’d already lost the connection. One would think that if they could rocket five women through space and implant them with embryos and feed them cloned guinea pigs, they could have made better communication devices.
