In the Blood Read online

  ‘Over the hill,’ the Wombat had said, and the young man had said the same—what was his name? Neil. There were hills all around, but I assumed they both meant the hill in front of the house. There was a rudimentary path that way, no more definite than the Wombat tracks and wallaby paths elsewhere, but wider, as though the saplings had been kept lopped back to allow a floater to get through, and when I looked closer I could see the laser scars on the branches.

  I reached the crest of the hill and there was the Utopia below me. It looked more like a village of a century before than the cluster of eccentric earth and nature domes or biblical huts I’d been expecting: a large high-roofed building with the distinctive defendable long ramp and solid concrete architecture of the troubled years before the Decline, at least fifty solid-looking houses, mostly two-storey stone construction like mine, but some of wood and others of a material I didn’t recognise.

  The houses were in clusters with orchards between, kloms of obediently vase-shaped trees neatly laid out in rigid rows, with taut fences, the black glint of polypipes and the mirror blue of scattered dams and a glint of blue too between the thicker trees that marked the creek. Beyond the orchards stretched paddocks bounded by the gum-treed hills, and scattered through the paddocks, large buildings that might be sheds or workshops, or even emergency housing, although the community couldn’t have afforded to give a house to me, even one so separate from the others, if it was crowded.

  A rooster crowed somewhere in the distance. It made me smile, because it was such a cliché of farm life. Every second-rate Virtual engineer sticks a rooster in at the start of any program on rural life to say, ‘Listen! You’re out of the City now.’

  Well, I was out of the City now. I headed towards the rooster.

  The track continued down to a rust-red gate, which opened into a paddock of some lush newgrass strain with the slightly purple tinge of UV stabilisation. The cows were evidently stabilised too, their coats a creamy purple, a colour I would never have dared use for City, audiences who still expect their cows to have big brown eyes and coats in shades of black and white and brown.

  The cows watched me carefully from the other side of the paddock, perhaps in case I showed a desire to feed them, eat them or milk them (I wasn’t sure what else one did with cows). At the end of the cow paddock was another gate and here a more definite track between the sheds began, one carved down to dirt by cows and human feet as well as the needs of floaters and dikdiks.

  ‘You’re that girl, aren’t you?’

  I turned as the speaker came out of the shed. She was my age, though dressed in utilitarian slipons and boots instead of my uniskirt and sox. Her mid-length black hair was cut neatly but unremarkably

  ‘I’m Danielle Forest,’ I said. (It had been Mel’s idea for us to take the same surname. I wondered if Michael still kept it or if he’d gone back to his own. Maybe he called himself Michael Human now.)

  ‘I know. Neil told me about you.’

  ‘You’re a friend of Neil’s?’ Stupid question, I berated myself. In a place as small as this how could they not be friends?

  ‘Yes.’ There was an edge to her voice I couldn’t interpret. Possessiveness? Or was it just the antagonism of a Truehuman for the Proclaimed.

  I waited for her to say something else like, ‘Come and meet the others’, or ‘Let me show you round’, or even ‘What are you doing here?’ But she didn’t. She just waited, with one hand on her hip.

  ‘I just came over to thank you all for the house and the supplies and everything,’ I said. ‘I wondered if I could arrange to get supplies regularly. I do have credit…’

  The girl nodded. ‘I know. It must be good to have a pension and not have to do a thing for it, except keep out of everyone’s way.’

  That stung. ‘I have money of my own,’ I said, as calmly as I could. ‘I expect I’ll still have royalties for a few years too.’

  ‘I bet,’ she said, as though any money I had earned was strictly as a result of my modification. She considered me for a moment—I suspected it was to make me uncomfortable and then she said, ‘You’d best see Theo. He’ll be in his office.’

  ‘Which way is his office?’

  She sighed as she said, ‘I’d better show you,’ as though I was incapable of following directions such as ‘Take the first turn left.’

  We walked up the track, not quite side by side. A carry floater passed us, laden with machinery I didn’t recognise. Evidently the community had sufficient credit exchange with the City for whatever machinery it needed.

  ‘What’s this place called?’ I asked suddenly.

  The black hair swung as she turned to look at me. ‘Don’t you even know that?’

  ‘Neil mentioned the name, but I’m afraid I was a bit preoccupied,’ I said. ‘I didn’t even know there was a Utopia nearby till I met Neil. I wasn’t briefed before I came,’ I added, and tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

  She frowned at the mention of Neil. ‘Faith Hope and Charity,’ she muttered.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘That’s what we’re called. Faith Hope and Charity.’

  I waited for her to explain the origin of the name or even the history of the community. But she didn’t, so I walked in silence too, trying to scroll back through my memory for any mention of Faith Hope and Charity, but nothing jigged, which wasn’t surprising. I had never been much interested in the Outlands or the Utopia Movement. City audiences tend to prefer the past to the world outside…

  The girl paused in front of the grey-faced, two-storey building I’d seen from the top of the hill. ‘In here,’ she said, heading up a flight of broad stone steps, through a pair of double doors and security antechamber into a room that took up the entire depth of the building.

  It was wooden floored, or maybe an excellent NewTech imitation, with skylights and high windows. There were chairs—the comfortable sort, not office chairs—and rugs on the floor that looked too good to be Utopia made, and a wide vid screen in one high corner with the usual silver standby glimmer.

  There was also a Terminal. I stopped and stared at it.

  The girl watched me. For the first time a glimpse of what might have been sympathy crossed her face. ‘We’re all Linked,’ she said at last. ‘I’m afraid there aren’t any manual controls. Most wanderers these days are Linked too.’

  ‘Oh?’ I tried to pull my eyes away from the Terminal. ‘Who does the Linking?’

  ‘Elaine. She’s our Medi Tech. She’s only Level Three but she can do amplifier insertions and basic regeneration. Simple stuff.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I wondered suddenly if removing a copper plate from your skull was simple surgery. I doubted it, though it had only taken them twenty minutes to put one in to ensure I could never Link again. My watch had said twenty minutes anyway. Perhaps the procedure had taken even less time than that. I’d been chemically anaesthetised. You need a Link for Link anaesthesia. If I ever had surgery again, I’d need chemical anaesthesia again…

  ‘Theo is just down here,’ said the girl, a touch more gently.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I followed her down the corridor. ‘What are wanderers?’

  ‘Wanderers?’ She sounded surprised I didn’t know. ‘Travellers. Young people. Wandering from ‘topia to ‘topia. You know.’

  I didn’t. ‘Looking for work?’

  ‘Sometimes. Sometimes just…well, wandering. Having a look around before they settle down. We all do it, mostly, at least for a while.’ She paused at a doorway, knocked and stuck her head around the door. ‘Theo? It’s her.’ She stood back. ‘In here,’ she told me unnecessarily and walked away.

  I entered the office.

  Chapter 9

  Theo was tall—the tallest man I had ever seen—and thin almost to emaciation. He was also possibly the oldest man I had ever seen, or the oldest looking, anyway. In the City, at least among the sort of people I had mixed with, old age was something you were treated for, not suffered.

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nbsp; He stood up with ancient courtesy as I entered and held out a liver-spotted hand to me. ‘Danielle, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Welcome to Faith Hope and Charity.’

  His hand felt cold and brittle, as though the bones would crack if I pressed too tightly. ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  I looked for a seat. There was a sofa occupied by a tatty woollen rug, and two chairs and an armchair. I chose the armchair and sank into it, just as the rug lifted its head and glared at me.

  It was a Cat. I had never seen one before, though they’d been one of the most popular Animals before they were Proclaimed. Once an animal is Proclaimed it vanishes. Except in the Outlands, I realised.

  This Cat was perhaps a third of human size. The only other remnant of its human genes was its face which, though furry, had recognisable expression that, in this case, was concentrated dislike.

  Theo smiled. ‘Go back to sleep Prissy,’ he said gently. Then to me: ‘Excuse her. She’s old and set in her ways. She doesn’t like strangers.’

  The Cat hissed at me absentmindedly, then lowered its head again. A moment later I heard what might be a human snore or a Truecat purr.

  ‘The girl who showed me here didn’t like strangers either,’ I remarked.

  ‘Samantha?’ Theo hesitated. ‘I think there’s something else operating there. She’s very fond of Neil.’

  ‘She’s jealous of me?’

  Another hesitation. ‘Let’s just say that she thinks you hurt him,’ Theo said.

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt him. It’s not my fault if he decides he’s in love with an image on the vid and I fail to live up to it. We have nothing whatsoever in common.’ Even to my ears I sounded too emphatic.

  Theo blinked, then looked amused. ‘Is that how you see it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not like that?’

  Theo leant back in his chair. ‘I shouldn’t think so. Did Neil embarrass you with vows of undying love?’

  ‘No, of course not. But he…’

  ‘But he put a lot of thought into arranging your house. He stocked it with books…’

  ‘He keeps bringing me food too.’

  ‘Actually, that’s usually Elaine. My wife. She drops it off on her evening walk.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Please thank her for me then,’ I added belatedly.

  ‘It’s no trouble. She likes cooking and she likes fussing over people.’ He stared at me for a moment then added, ‘You know, you and Neil have more in common than you think. You’ve both been Proclaimed, for one thing.’

  I blinked. ‘Neil! He can’t be!’ I automatically tried to scroll for data and failed. ‘He’s what? My age? I would have heard about it.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s the sort of thing you keep up on, when you’re modified…’

  ‘Neil was only six years old when his parents were Proclaimed,’ said Theo gently. ‘As a Truedescendant he was automatically included. That may be why you didn’t recognise him.’

  ‘What was their modification? How were they allowed to have children?’

  Theo hesitated. I wondered suddenly if it was bad manners in the Outlands to discuss someone’s Proclamation. Most Outlanders aren’t Proclaimed—no more than two or three modifications are Proclaimed each decade and most of those affected choose secondary modification that will allow them to stay in the City. ‘Their immune systems were enhanced,’ he said at last.

  Something clicked into place. ‘It turned out to be lethal, didn’t it? They all suffered immune system collapse in middle age.’

  ‘Long after their modification had been approved,’ said Theo. ‘Several had children by then. There had even been a second generation modified.’

  ‘So his parents died?’

  ‘When Neil was eight.’ He saw the expression on my face. ‘No, Neil didn’t inherit it, even though both his parents shared the gene. It was a triple recessive. Neil would have had to have been engineered for it too, and for some reason his parents chose not to have it done. Perhaps they suspected something, even then. He’s been tested to make sure.’

  ‘So there was no secondary modification option open to them,’ I said slowly.

  ‘No. There is no way you can undo, or redo, something like that. Their “compromised immune status” was held to be “a threat to community health”.’ The quotation marks were obvious in his voice. ‘They were expelled from the City. Neil’s parents survived longer than most.’

  ‘So you accepted them here.’

  ‘We accepted them here.’

  ‘You weren’t worried about the health risk?’

  ‘It was less for us here than in the City. No airconditioning to spread infection. Easier to keep them isolated if they developed a new strain of something dangerous. But as it happened they both died of simple heart failure after months of quite mundane infections.’ The tone was light. Too light. I suspected that the emotional scars lingered for those who had nursed them.

  ‘And Neil stayed here?’

  ‘Elaine and I adopted him. We’re very fond of him.’ His tone held the mildest of warnings. ‘He still lives with us in the far wing of this building. Elaine has her clinic here and I have my office, so it’s convenient.’

  ‘And you’re, what? The head of the community?’

  ‘Nothing so grand. The accountant, among other things. Administrative dogsbody.’

  The Cat sat up suddenly and yawned, showing a long pointed tongue, slid clumsily off the sofa and padded out of the room. It shot me a final look of disgust as it went.

  I watched it go. ‘Faith Hope and Charity,’ I repeated. ‘Which one am I?’

  Theo smiled. He had worn yellow teeth. It was a good smile. ‘All three. Faith that you’d fit in. Hope that you might decide to join us. Utopias tend to get a bit incestuous, mentally as well as inbred. And charity…well, nothing we can’t spare.’

  ‘Like the Cat is a charity? Or the Centaur?’

  He looked surprised at that. ‘You saw the Centaurs?’

  ‘One of them. The day I arrived here.’

  Theo shook his head. ‘The Centaurs live by themselves. They come to the music afternoons sometimes, especially if it’s jazz. They seem very fond of music. Sunday afternoons if you’re interested.’

  I was silent for a moment, choosing my words. ‘I can only tell you what I told Neil. I’m Forest, not a Tree. I don’t think I can be like other people. I certainly don’t want to be. If I’d wanted to become human I’d have had a brain tissue transplant and stayed in the City.’

  ‘Even though you’ll never use your modification again?’ said Theo gently.

  ‘Even if I never Link again. I’m at least still myself. I still have the potential…’ But of course I didn’t. No longer had even the basic ability to Link with the Net that every Tree took for granted.

  I took a deep breath. There was something else I needed to say. I had to choose between buying provisions from the City and having them shipped to me by floater or trading with Faith Hope and Charity. I preferred the latter. If the City rejected me, then I would reject it. And besides, supplies from the Utopia would be fresher and better.

  ‘I’d like to keep getting supplies, if that’s all right,’ I said stiffly.

  ‘Of course,’ said Theo.

  ‘I’ll arrange a regular credit transfer if you’ll tell me how much.’

  I expected him to argue, to say that anything they could do for me was a gift, a pleasure. But he just said, ‘If that’s what you would prefer. Shall we say a deciliter a month?’

  ‘But you don’t know how much I’ll need.’

  ‘There’s only one of you,’ said Theo dryly. ‘And we’ll only supply what we have plenty of.’

  A deciliter seemed a fair price—about half what I’d pay for City supplies, not counting the cost of the floater but, as he said, they’d be selling me their surplus. I nodded.

  ‘Would you prefer we delivered them, or would you like to pick them up?’

  I bit my lip. Either way would mean contact…

  ‘My wife walk
s your way every so often,’ said Theo. ‘She could leave perishables on your doorstep.’ The elderly voice was even drier now. ‘Perhaps a drop of bulkier items whenever we have a floater or dikdik heading your way.’

  It would have seemed ungrateful—and childish—to argue details. ‘Thank you,’ I said. I hesitated. ‘There’s one other thing.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Theo.

  ‘There’s a Wombat that lives a little way up the hill from my place. A modified Wombat I mean. I wondered if you knew anything about him.’

  ‘He’s third generation,’ said Theo. ‘His grandfather was sent to us after the Proclamation on all Animal experiments. His grandfather preferred independence to living here.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, trying to absorb the implications. The grandfather must have mated then with a Truewombat. The thought of an Animal breeding with animals made me nauseous, though I wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Low viability,’ said Theo, obviously following my thoughts. ‘Your friend is the only offspring who survived.’

  ‘I…’ I had been going to say that he wasn’t my friend. But his presence was a comfort, in some unexplainable way, and I felt guilty at being about to deny him. ‘What about Priss?’ I asked instead.

  ‘Priss is eighty-three, a year younger than I am,’ said Theo. ‘The Cat–Human cross proved long lived. And in case you are too polite to ask and draw attention to my withered visage, I am allergic to the regeneration stabiliser. But when you need your shots you only have to ask Elaine.’

  I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Thank you,’ I said at last. ‘You’ve been very kind.’

  ‘Not really. Nothing we can’t easily spare and the possibility of a new face in return. And if you choose to keep to yourself…’ Theo shrugged bony shoulders. ‘Still nothing lost.’

  The muddy road was empty when I came outside. A dikdik puttered in the distance, far off in the trees. I supposed the members of Faith Hope and Charity were working in their orchards or sheds or workshops.