Helix (3 page)

“The
paradoxical thing is, Dad, that the ship’s named after Lovelock, the eco-philosopher.
The colony will be founded on principles mainly promulgated by him and his
followers. The Fujiyama Green Brigade should be championing what we’re doing,
rather than trying to blow us up.”

“Terrorism
might start out with principles,” he said, “but it finishes by being driven by
nothing more than egoism. They can’t go themselves, so they don’t want anyone
else to go.”

She
stared across the table at him. “You know something, Dad? I thought you’d
object, take it badly. I mean... you lost Mum, and now I’m going—”

“The
two are completely different!”

“Well,
yes, but the end results are the same. We left you.”

“Chrissie,
Chrissie... You’ve got to do it. I’ll be so proud of you.” He smiled. “You know
something? When I was up there, pushing those shuttles between Earth and Mars,
there wasn’t a shift went by when I didn’t think about the stars, the planets
out there, the opportunities just waiting. And now my daughter’s going to the
stars...” And Christ, how I’ll miss you, he thought, how bloody hard this goodbye
will be.

“We’re
going to succeed, Dad. We’re not going to make the same mistakes. We might be
human, but that doesn’t mean we’ll take our flaws to the stars— or if we do,
then we’ll have systems in place to ensure that they don’t destroy us, or our
new world.”

They
finished the meal, Chrissie describing her training, the other specialists in
her team. He listened to her words without really hearing them. But he watched
her, he stared at her as she spoke, and realised how incredibly beautiful she
was, and how much he loved her.

The
sound of the chopper blatting through the hot air came as a shock. Hendry
started, wishing that the last few minutes could have been extended for ever.
The helicopter landed beyond the perimeter fence, and the sudden silence when
its engines cut was almost as shocking as the sound of its arrival.

They
stood, facing each other across the table, then moved around it and embraced.

“Oh,
Dad, I wish it didn’t have to be like this. I love you so much.”

He
felt so weak, so vulnerable, but for Chrissie’s sake he held himself together.
“Love you too,” he whispered.

“I’ll
call you by com-link the day before I take the shuttle, okay?”

“I
won’t go out,” he managed to joke.

The
pilot leaned from the helicopter’s bubble fuselage and waved.

They
walked to the torn perimeter fence, hand in hand. He paused there, but she
pulled him after her.

Before
the chopper, the ugly vehicle that would carry her away, they stopped and faced
each other. “Dad...”

“Go
on,” he said. “Good luck. Name a planet after me. Discover an alien race...”

“I
love you.”

“Love
you too, Chrissie. Go on...”

They
held on tight, then she broke away with a sob, ran to the helicopter and dived
inside.

It
jumped into the air, blasting him. He backed off, waving.

Chrissie
was a tiny figure next to the pilot, waving frantically at him.

The
helicopter turned tail and fled, and Hendry watched it until it was a tiny
comma on the horizon. Seconds later it had vanished from sight. He wanted to
yell, “No!” and deny the fact that he would never again hold his daughter.

He
returned to the shuttle, a pain like grief excavating a hollow in his chest. He
kicked out at the shuttle’s dented engine nacelle and cried out loud. There was
so much he wanted to say to her, so much he had to tell her, so much left
unsaid. He wanted an age in which to simply stare at the reality that was
Chrissie Hendry. It was impossible to conceive that she would exist only in his
thoughts and memories, now.

He
moved into the shuttle and wept.

The days after
Chrissie’s last visit were the bleakest of his life, emptier even than the
empty days after Su had left him. He’d had Chrissie then to fill his time, his
thoughts. Now he had nothing. He maintained the routine of his days through
habit, but the tasks which before had filled him with satisfaction— the hoeing,
the examination of his haul of fish—now only served to point up the fact of his
loneliness.

It
tortured him to think that, soon, she would be frozen for the duration of his
life. In hundreds of years, maybe even thousands, she would be awoken... It was
not knowing what might become of her that was so galling. She was his daughter,
whom he had spent a good part of his life protecting, ensuring her physical and
mental well being. To lose control of that, to know that at some point in the
future she would be in danger and he wouldn’t be around to help... This kept
him awake long into the hot early hours of the long nights.

Four
days after her visit, the com chimed at nine. Thinking it was Old Smith, he
accepted the call and sat back in the couch.

Chrissie’s
face materialised on the screen, hazy with static, and the sight of her took
his breath away.

“Dad,
I said I’d call.”

“Chrissie...”
He was totally unprepared, at a loss how to respond.

Her
image wavered, flickered. The line was particularly bad tonight.

She
appeared again, smiling. “I’m fine. Everything’s going great up here.”

“Up
here? You’re aboard the ship?” The knowledge, for some bizarre reason,
distressed him. He had thought she was still on Earth, that there was still
some geographical connection between them, however tenuous.

“I’m
in the com-room of the
Lovelock.
I’m going under in...” She checked her
watch. “In about two hours. I know it’s painful for you, but I said I’d call
one last time.”

He
smiled. He hoped that his image was as hazy as hers, for he was weeping again.
“I’m fine. Shooting the breeze with Old Smith in Tasmania, growing my peas...”

“Dad,
I love you...”

“And
I...” He stopped. Her face vanished. He leaned forward in panic. “Chrissie!”

She
appeared again. “The link’s breaking up. I’ve almost had my allotted time. I’m
thinking of you always. I love you...”

“Chrissie,
take care. I—”

“Dad!”
she cried, as her image fragmented. He had a last fleeting image of her,
reaching out, the pink of her face rendered in tiny pixelated rectangles, a
cubist representation of frozen anguish. Then the screen blanked and Hendry
leaned forward and called her name, attempting to re-establish the link.

He
sat before the screen for a long time, hoping against hope that she would be
able to contact him again, wanting it but knowing that it would only prolong
the torture.

At
last he pushed himself from the couch and stumbled outside. He sat in his chair
beneath the awning and watched the sun set, its glare made spectacular by
atmospheric pollutants. He recalled what she’d said, and looked at his watch.
In a few minutes she would be put under, frozen in a suspension unit. He
imagined her lying there, thinking of him, wondering about her uncertain
future.

He
glanced at his watch. She would be unconscious now, cryogenically suspended.
When she woke up it would be as if no time at all had elapsed for her, while he
would have lived his life and died long ago.

He
looked up, into the deepening dark of the night sky, and searched for the tiny
speck that would be the
Lovelock.
He should have asked her where it
would be, so that he could have watched its daily orbit and then, in six
months, raised a glass to her as the starship lighted out of Earth orbit and
began its long journey to the stars.

He
saw nothing that might be the starship.

That
night he dreamed that Chrissie had died in her suspension unit, and he awoke in
a sweat. All the next day he catalogued the myriad fates that might befall her.
Every possibility, he realised, was valid when viewed in ignorance—and that was
what tortured him.

The
following day he didn’t bother going down to the sea to fetch the fish and
check the desalination plant. He didn’t even venture out into the garden, the
first time he had missed doing so in years. It all seemed so pointless. Why was
he living like this, alone, in hardship, waiting out his days until incapacity
claimed him and he died a slow and lonely, painful death.

But
what was the alternative? He could venture out into the real world of people
and communities, but that would only be to confront the ravaged mess the world
had become. He had run away and come here to get away from all that... So why
was he going on, day after day, living the same futile, repetitious existence?

That
evening Old Smith called. They chatted for an hour, the old man telling Hendry
in great detail how he’d built three new beehives that morning and transferred
a queen to each.

Then
Old Smith said, “Hendry... look, you’re all alone over there. There’s ten of us
here. We’re all getting on, and we have our bad days, but we’re a good crowd,
and things aren’t too bad here. We have a big garden you could help keep up...”

Hendry
smiled sadly, knowing that the haziness of the link would hide the quality of
the smile: Old Smith might even interpret it as grateful.

“You
know something, Smith? I’ll think about it. Thank you. I could do with a
change.” But even as he said the words he knew he had no intention of ever
leaving the shuttle.

Two
days later, unable to rouse himself to check the desalination plant, or to
fetch the fish from the jetty, he sat in his armchair and stared at the rotting
salad in the bowl. The day was hot. The sun seemed huge, as if it had had
enough of planet Earth, and man’s folly, and was intent on burning it up. The
garden, irrigated automatically from the pumps, flourished—but even this
depressed Hendry, pointed up the fact of his isolation.

He
moved into the shuttle and rooted around in a storage unit. He knew it was
around here somewhere. .. O’Grady had insisted they kept it handy, in case of
marauding strangers. They had never had occasion to use it.

He
found the rifle and took it outside, along with a box of cartridges. He sat
with the gun on his lap for a long time, the very image of a protective
homesteader of old.

What
did it matter if he ended it now, or if death came in some other manner years
down the line?

Chrissie
would never know, would not suffer grief at his action. His bones would have
long crumbled, in situ, by the time she was awoken from suspension.

He
broke the rifle and inserted two cartridges into the barrels. Then he sat a
while longer, staring at the sun as it fell towards the horizon.

It
would all have been different if Su hadn’t been lured away by those green
fanatics, if she had stayed loving him and his daughter. But she went for a
reason, he told himself. She was lured away by something that he could not
provide, some longed-for fulfilment of the soul.

He
looked at the gun, tested the feel of it against his temple, but the act of
having to hold it at arm’s length in order for the barrel to touch his temple
and his finger to find the trigger, seemed slightly ludicrous. With the barrels
inserted into his mouth, in the classic method, the pose seemed even more
ridiculous, some futile fellatio more comic than tragic.

He
lowered the rifle and smiled to himself. It was as if the act of playing out
the taking of his life had served as some form of catharsis. Bizarrely, he felt
hungry. He realised that he had not eaten properly for days.

He
set the gun aside and hurried into the garden.

A
day later something happened which made him look back at the failed suicide and
shudder with the thought that, if some tiny thing had been different, if some
brain chemistry had been slightly altered, he would never have lived to
experience this miraculous salvation.

In the morning
he
walked down to the sea and checked the net. The catch was the smallest yet, a
stunted crab and a couple of small catfish. He tipped them all back and walked
on to the desalination plant, which was throbbing away as steadily as ever. He
made his way back to the shuttle, planning the vegetables he would pick for
lunch and dinner. In the garden, unearthing a good crop of new potatoes, he
thought about Old Smith and his offer last night.

The
idea of sharing his emotions with the people in the Tasmanian commune, who
would inevitably want to know about his past life, did not appeal. The lonely
life suited him. He was through with the idea of becoming emotionally attached
to anyone. That had only brought him pain in the past. He would tell Old Smith,
next time they spoke, that he had worked too hard at making the graveyard
viable to abandon it now.

Having
come to this decision, he felt relieved. He could look ahead, perhaps extend
the garden, try out a few new vegetables, the seeds of which he had stored in
the cooler. He would while away his days listening to classical music and
reading his way through the shuttle’s extensive library, thinking about the
good times he’d shared with Chrissie.