But, free of the nursery, Catherine

  Looks deceptively like herself again:

  There are no signs of any fungal growths.

  “There are lights on one of the moons,” I say.

  “The crew and Sigmund are ignoring them,

  But I can’t. It might be the engineers,

  Or have something to do with the schism.”

  Catherine nods. “I’ll come with you,” she says.

  “Sigmund is silent about the schism,

  But the Calypso has been scarred by it.

  It looks like there was a war while we slept.”

  The glinting moon is not on any map.

  Our shuttle’s computer shows only clouds

  And the orbits of all the other moons

  Circling the new world in their strict dance.

  Catherine types commands, searching the sky;

  The expanse of white where a moon should be.

  She scores the bright screen with a marker pen,

  Substituting her own calculations.

  “They might have erased its record,” she says,

  “But its influence is still apparent.

  It affects the orbits of its sisters

  And makes tidal patterns in the nanites.”

  We search for the missing moon together,

  In the manner of a geologist

  Locating an island in a river

  By examining the river’s currents.

  There are swirls and eddies among the clouds,

  Signifying the absent moon’s presence.

  Catherine draws an empty circle. “There,”

  She says, “That’s where the missing moon must be.”

  Before I left for university

  I went through an ecological phase,

  Attending anti-tech demonstrations

  And adamantly wearing daisy crowns.

  In York, I applied for an allotment:

  A square patch of earth where I might grow things.

  There, I planted seeds and bulbs, and waited,

  Apprehensive, for the blooming of spring.

  When spring came, my neighbour’s gardens grew green;

  Shoots rising, leaves unfurling, flowers bright;

  Yet my own allotment remained barren

  But for a few sickly, struggling carrots.

  We land the shuttle among rutted fields,

  Where hulking agri-drones stride on steel legs,

  Indifferent to all but their function:

  Forcing food to grow in the hard, black earth.

  Catherine removes her helmet and breathes.

  I make to do the same, but she stops me.

  “The oxygen is very thin,” she says.

  “Better if you stay on your suit’s supply.”

  My suit whirs, exoskeleton fighting

  Against the moon’s strange, tidal gravity,

  Which makes waves of earth across its surface;

  Hills rising and crashing against mountains.

  The agri-drones splay their legs for balance,

  Dancing as they gather warped vegetables

  And furrow the dark earth with their steel jaws,

  Embedding new seeds systematically.

  Struggling, twisted trees cast complex shadows;

  Entire orchards planted on stone plateaus,

  With their tangled roots keeping them anchored.

  Agri-drones pluck their sickly yellow fruits.

  Beyond the tidal fields is the city:

  A collection of bulky, broken shapes

  That must be tower blocks and factories.

  Smoke rises darkly from distant chimneys.

  The Calypso is palatial, aglow

  Among the bright clouds – a shining halo,

  And now that I am here, among these fields,

  I wish we had never departed her.

  Catherine leads us along a canal

  Scraped through the dark earth by the agri-drones.

  She crouches among the stubby pale growths

  Emerging at the banks, and studies them.

  “This is pre-Martian quality flora.

  Amateurish geoengineering.

  Whoever lives here must be desperate.”

  She skims the crude growth across the water.

  The agri-drones converge along a road,

  Hunched with the weight of the crops they carry

  And we follow the shattered paving stones,

  Caught in the shadows of the shifting hills.

  Buzzing reconnaissance drones approach us

  Swarming like metal bees, segmented eyes

  Breaking our reflections into fragments,

  Reporting every last angle of us.

  As one, the agri-drones halt their advance,

  And with jerking formality they part,

  Steel legs bowing as they make us a path,

  As if we are robotic royalty.

  The city rises up ahead of us,

  Wreathed with the black smog of its factories

  Which writhes around the tarnished windmill blades

  Of its scattered wind farms, making spirals.

  Beyond the hills, there are vast solar fields

  And we stride among them, caught in the glare

  Of their reflections – they shift like the hills,

  Turning to seek the brightest patch of sky.

  I find myself yearning for signs of life.

  There are no birds here, only metal drones.

  Catherine’s measured stride is a comfort:

  She seems unperturbed by the grim city.

  There is an open gate ahead of us.

  The style of the arch is familiar,

  Along with the city’s architecture;

  All reminiscent of the Calypso.

  As we approach the gate, I realise

  That the entire city has been reclaimed,

  That these beaten walls and towering heights

  Were all once pieces of the Calypso.

  I remember the missing parts of her

  I had subscribed to her perilous flight,

  But those missing parts are all here, reworked

  Into a gargantuan cityscape.

  Beyond the gate wait crowds among the drones.

  Their slanted silhouettes are uncanny;

  Shoulders rising and falling too quickly

  As they breathe the city’s thin oxygen.

  They tremble like rabbits, chests quivering,

  And each of them is uniquely malformed,

  Skeletons warped by shifting gravity.

  Their silence is absolute as they glare.

  We pause before the gate, made uncertain

  By the eerie force of all those wide eyes.

  Etched into the gate’s arch is a motto,

  Written in English: ‘Here Lies Paradise’.

  From the uncanny crowd steps forth a man

  With a rifle strapped across his shoulder.

  “Wel-come,” he says, each syllable a breath.

  “Wel-come ye, who have come to New Te-rra.”

  Streams of letters used to pour through our door,

  Every day filling the halls of our house,

  Stuffed into drawers and balanced in tall stacks,

  Slowly yellowing as they went unread.

  Some nights, my father would answer a few,

  Peering at them over his spectacles

  And mouthing the words as he read along,

  Before scribbling a considered reply.

  He never liked written correspondence;

  Letters and emails were impersonal.

  My father much preferred meeting people

  Over coffee, or after a service.

  I show the Lords of New Terra my face,

  Raising my helmet and breathing thin air,

  With the hope that by talking face to face

  We might find some common ground between us.

  Yet, instead of the contempt I expect,

  A stunned silence grips the grotesque figures.

  They cease writhing in their silvery baths,

  Their fleshy features twisted in surprise.

  “The Adversary is awake!” cries one.

  “Sigmund’s Doubt, come at last!” calls another.

  The quarrelling Lords are in agreement:

  “Our saviour is here to deliver us!”

  The thin air is making me feel dizzy.

  I turn to see Catherine’s expression,

  But she seems just as baffled as I am;

  Neither of us know what is happening.

  A Lord heaves himself upright in his bath,

  And one by one the rest follow, standing

  Unsteady upon their uncalloused feet.

  Then, with strained, wheezing sighs, they bow to me.

  I always hated posing for pictures

  Every year at school. I was the shy girl

  Trying to hide behind her mousy hair;

  Shirt wrinkled, tights laddered, shining shoes scuffed.

  At home, there was a whole shelf devoted

  To those wretched annual photographs,

  Exhibiting my metamorphosis

  From meek larvae, to lanky, bookish moth.

  There are few pictures of me at uni;

  I became practised at avoiding them;

  Captured exclusively in the background

  Of gatherings and parties and lectures.

  Even at my wedding, I am hidden

  Behind my veil, or behind my husband;

  The picture of us emerging from church

  Is blurred with gusts of dancing confetti.

  Here, the confetti is silvery dust;

  Iron filings shivering into lungs

  As my quivering audience inhale;

  Choking as they cheer my coronation.

  A projector illuminates the wall,

  Playing a moment of me on a loop;

  My children and I playing at the beach,

  Jumping together over each white wave.

  The loop is a mere three seconds or so,

  So that it seems as if the sea stutters;

  Hesitant to touch our shining pale legs

  And demolish my daughter’s sandcastles.

  It is a candid moment. I am caught

  With my guard down, awkward, and so happy

  And strangely beautiful – I admire me,

  The me I was that day: a young mother.

  There are pictures of me everywhere here,

  Downloaded from the Calypso’s archives

  And framed as if I am a kind of saint.

  It looks like they have been waiting for me.

  I breathe through plastic tubes – a makeshift mask

  Hastily constructed by Catherine

  To deliver me enough oxygen

  Without hiding my face from New Terra.

  The cathedral of my coronation

  Is a factory, still operating;

  Hissing pneumatic arms arranged in rows

  Like pews, constructing new drone citizens.

  My audience’s cheers sound like wailing;

  A sea of pale flesh around the machines.

  The tears that roll down their strained, pale faces

  Might be for joy, might be for agony.

  My crown reaches me on a wave of hands,

  My audience all trying to touch it;

  An iron circle spined so jaggedly

  That it pricks their fingers and bloodies it.

  Catherine watches me with her arms crossed;

  She is a rock in the sea of people.

  Our eyes meet and she smiles, lending me strength

  While I endure the awe of New Terra.

  A hunched, wheezing, priestly man holds my crown

  High above my head, casting a shadow

  That makes me look as if I am haloed,

  And the wailing reaches a crescendo.

  The greasy metal slides over my brow

  And New Terra roars its adoration.

  I am coronated a lord of lords,

  With the blood of my subjects crowning me.

  My father was an avid fisherman.

  Every month he would drive out to Loch Kaer,

  And let fly bright lures over the water;

  His boat bobbing above the silver fish.

  The lures he made himself by hand at home,

  Hunched over lenses, and winding bright threads,

  And substituting bell-shaped weights for hooks.

  To him, fishing was not about fishing.

  The loch, he told me, was older than man;

  One of the few bodies untouched by him;

  Its waters so clean you could sip from them,

  As often he did, cupping great handfuls.

  When I was old enough to learn patience,

  He brought me along with him and taught me

  The names and temperaments of the fishes,

  And that the best fishermen catch no fish.

  Disaster struck one hot midsummer day,

  When the scales of the silver fish shimmered;

  The waters were still enough to be clear,

  Revealing the wreck of an ancient van.

  My father never returned to the loch.

  The sunken van was evidence, I think,

  Of hidden corruption tainting the place;

  Man’s touch violating its sanctity.

  The lake at the centre of New Terra

  Shimmers not with fish, but with effluence;

  Endless factory pipes belch into it,

  The waters thick with grit and bubbling gas.

  Slick with sweat, I am escorted to it.

  When desperate admirers lunge at me

  My guards bludgeon them bloody with truncheons;

  Rattling gunfire parting the thickest crowds.

  I stumble in the black and silver sands,

  Kept upright only thanks to Catherine,

  Who whispers into my ear, “Not long now.

  When I tell you to, put your helmet on.”

  Where the sludge beach meets the oozing waters,

  A gaggle of enrobed priests await me,

  Their necks weighted with pendulous symbols,

  Their filthy hands outstretched to receive me.

  Their sacred words praise their iron city

  And the ingenuity of their lords.

  Kicking at my shins, I am made to kneel;

  They force my head towards the stinking lake.

  My father never thought to baptise me.

  To him, all children were cherished by God

  From the very moment of ensoulment.

  The old ritual seemed superfluous.

  The lake scratches at the skin of my face,

  Toxic stenches pouring into my mask.

  I pray, then – crying out to God for help;

  Strength enough to endure my baptism.

  When the priests release me, I reel backwards,

  Wiping the oily water from my eyes

  And tearing at my ruined breathing mask;

  Gasping lungfuls of oxygen-low air.

  Catherine comes to my aid, her strong hands

  Unbinding me from my soiled crown and mask,

  Helping me find my helmet and seal it.

  “Time,” she tells me. “Time we were gone from here.”

  Good, clean air fills my helm, and I breathe deep.

  I find myself transfixed by Catherine,

  The oxygen high sharpening my sight

  And revealing her every perfection.

  My unclean subjects seem not to notice

  The way my friend emerges from her suit

  Like a butterfly from a chrysalis,

  Her bare feet pale against the silver sand.

  I mute my helm, turning the crowds silent

  As Catherine’s skin begins to glisten

  As if she is herself a silver fish.

  Force rises in waves from her exposed flesh.

  The priests surrounding me burst into life.

  From their pores wreathe shoots bearing tiny leaves;

  Their throats split as trees emerge from their chests,

  Roots writhing in fast motion through their veins.

  At Catherine’s back, the black lake quickens,

  The gritty silver ooze becoming green.

  Life pours up from it – an algae carpet

  Punctuated by sudden lily pads.

  My guards are torn apart as they transform

  Into trees and grasses and undergrowth.

  Where their blood sprays and spatters the black sands

  Bright moss blooms, green and purple and yellow.

  Hundreds, thousands are metamorphosised:

  All who bore witness to my baptism.

  They become a forest, surrounding me,

  With Catherine at the epicentre.

  The forest grows, becomes tightly tangled,

  Greenery gushing into formation

  Until Catherine kneels at last, fists clenched,

  Her shimmering skin ceasing its rippling.

  The forest’s growth immediately slows.

  Leaves curl into maturity and stop,

  Mushrooms bloom their heavy heads and settle,

  And I rise at last, untangling myself.

  Unmuting my helm, I hear the new trees.

  They crackle in the shifting gravity.

  Catherine is too exhausted to stand,

  So I crouch and help her into her suit.

  By the time we are both ready to leave,

  The forest is already decaying:

  Corrupted, no doubt, by the silver lake.

  We stumble together through dying trees.

  The streets beyond the forest are empty.

  Eyes observe our progress from high windows,

  But none dare stand in our way – they have seen

  The transformation at the city’s heart.

  The gates of New Terra remain open,

  Agri-drones still stalking the earth beyond.

  Our suit’s exoskeletons walk for us.

  “How did you do that?” I ask Catherine.

  Among withered trees we find our shuttle.

  Catherine keys in codes and plots our flight,

  And when she meets my eyes, she is smiling.

  “I told you,” she says. “I am a garden.”

  We pause a while among the nanite clouds.

  Without the shuttle’s acceleration

  We are free to fly, our bodies weightless,

  Pieces of our suits floating around us.

  The cockpit’s viewscreen is glaringly bright,

  The gushing clouds making us silhouettes

  As they reflect all the sun’s power down

  Upon the barren world’s scorch-marked surface.

  From here, the New Terran moon seems so small.

  Compared to the huge planet it orbits

  It seems like a piece of punctuation:

  A full stop at the end of a sentence.

 

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