The Book of Strange New Things (49 page)

That’s not to suggest that there are lots of women like you in the world! Of course there is only one.

As for gender politics amongst the Oasans, that’s a tricky proposition. I still haven’t got to the bottom of their sexes, yet – they don’t understand my questions on that score and I don’t understand their answers! From what I’ve observed, they don’t have genitals where you’d expect. They do have children – not very frequently, I gather, but it does happen, so some of my Jesus Lovers are mothers. I wouldn’t say that the ones that are mothers behave more maternally than the ones who aren’t. They’re ALL quite nurturing and connected. In their own way. I’ve grown very fond of them. I think you would, too, if you could have shared this adventure with me.

Another thing I should say about them is that they’re very kind. Very caring. It’s not evident at first, and then it dawns on you. During our most recent gathering in the church, we were all singing, and suddenly one of the paintings fell off the ceiling (not fastened securely enough – it’s difficult when you’re not allowed to use nails, screws or other sharp objects!). The painting fell right onto Jesus Lover Five’s hand. We all got a big fright. Fortunately the painting wasn’t very heavy and Lover Five was OK – nothing broken, just a bruise. But the way the others rallied round her was extraordinary. They each took turns to embrace and stroke her with the utmost tenderness. I have never seen such an outpouring of communal love and concern. She went very shy – and she’s usually quite verbal! She’s my favourite.

Again he paused. This praising of other females – human or otherwise – was perhaps not so diplomatic, if his own wife was feeling insecure. He and Bea had always had the sort of relationship where either of them could feel free to comment on the admirable points of anyone, regardless of gender, confident that their own relationship was rock-solid and inviolable. But even so . . . He deleted ‘my favourite’ and wrote:

the one I communicate with best.

There was still something not quite right there.

But of course none of this matters as much to me as our rare and precious relationship, he wrote. I had such a vivid memory of our wedding not long ago. And your wedding dress, and how you wore it in the years since.

Please write again soon. I know you’ve written a lot already and I’ve been very lax in responding, but it doesn’t mean I don’t value the contact from you. I do miss you terribly. And I’m sorry I gave you the impression that certain topics are out of bounds. Write about anything you like, darling. I’m your husband. We have to be there for each other.

Love,

Peter

The words were sincere but felt a little forced. That is, he would have spoken them spontaneously if Bea had been cradled in his arms, her head nestled under his shoulder, but . . . Typing them onto a screen and sending them into space was a different thing. It changed the colour and tone of the sentiments, the way a cheaply photocopied photograph loses warmth and detail. His love for his wife was being cartoonised and he lacked what it took to display it as the vividly figurative painting it should be.

He opened a third letter of Bea’s, intending to fire off a third reply, but even as he read ‘Dear Peter’ and anticipated typing ‘Dear Bea’, he worried that she might think he was trying to earn Brownie points. Worried, too, that it might be true. He scanned her message, a long one. There was something in the second paragraph about a bunch of mail that had arrived recently, including a letter from the council urging him to re-register on the electoral roll. A form to be filled in because ‘your situation has changed’. How did they know? Bea couldn’t figure out if this was just a more aggressive kind of routine canvassing or a real threat that might have actual consequences. But what was he supposed to do about it? And what did it matter? Did she think he was anxious not to lose the right to vote in the next elections? In case the wrong faceless bureaucrat got in? Why was she telling him this?

Write about anything you like, darling, he’d just told her. He might as well have added: Except the stuff I don’t want to deal with.

He swung off his chair, knelt on the floor, clasped his hands between his knees and prayed.

‘Lord, please help me. I’m tired and confused, and the challenges I’m facing feel beyond my powers just now. Give me strength and clarity of purpose and . . . poise. My wonderful Bea is lonely and hassled: grant her energy and focus too. Thank You, Lord, for healing her hand. Thank You, also, for revealing Yourself to Jesus Lover Fourteen in her hour of need. She’ll be all right now, I hope. I pray for Jesus Lover Thirty-Seven, whose brother still rejects him for his faith in You. Give him comfort. I pray that in the fullness of time, his brother may come to us too. Please sharpen my thoughts and perceptions when I’m next dealing with Jesus Lover Eight. There’s something he wants from me that he’s too shy to say and I’m too stupid to guess. I pray for Sheila, Rachel and Billy Frame – especially Billy as he continues to struggle with his parents’ divorce. I pray for Ray Sherwood as his Parkinson’s gets worse.’

He faltered. Maybe Ray was dead by now. It had been a long time since he’d had any news. Ray and his Parkinson’s had been a recurring feature in his prayers for years, for no better reason than it seemed callous to cease praying for him just because they’d lost touch. Besides, Peter still cared. Ray’s face, smiling but tinged with fear at the grim future he and his treacherous body were heading into, manifested clearly in his memory.

‘I pray for Charlie Grainger,’ he went on. ‘I pray he may see his daughter again one day. I pray for Grainger. I sense she’s in danger of being poisoned by bitterness. And Tuska: a lifetime of disillusionment has given him a hard skin. Soften his skin, Lord, if it be your will. I pray for Maneely. I pray that the moment when she glimpsed her need for You may prove to be more than just a fleeting impulse. Please may it strengthen into a serious search for Christ. I pray for Coretta, who named this place and had such hopes that her life would get better rather than worse. Make her life better, Lord.’

His stomach was rumbling. But he knew that he’d not yet given God the naked sincerity He deserved. If he left his prayer at this point, there would be something practised, even slightly glib about it. ‘I pray for the people of the Maldives and North Korea and . . . uh . . . Guatemala. They’re not real to me as individuals, and I’m so ashamed of that. But they’re real to You. Forgive me for, Lord, for the smallness and selfishness of my mind. Amen.’

Unsatisfied still, he reached for his Bible and opened it at random, allowing God to decide which page would come under his eye. He’d done this thousands of times, probably wearing out the spines of several Bibles. Today, the page chosen by the Almighty was 1267, and the first words Peter saw were: ‘
Do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry
.’ It was Paul’s exhortation to Timothy in 68
AD
, but it was also God’s advice to Peter right now. Full proof of his ministry? What was full proof? Wasn’t he already doing as much as he could? Evidently not, or God wouldn’t have directed his gaze to these verses. But what else should or could he do? He scanned the rest of the page for clues. The word ‘learn’ recurred several times. He glanced across at page 1266. Another verse leapt out at him: ‘
Study to shew thyself approved unto God
.’ Study? Study the Bible? He’d devoted endless hours to that. So . . . what was God telling him to study?

He walked over to his window and peered through the glass. The sun had risen but was still quite low in the sky, half-blinding him with its glare. He cupped a hand against his brow. Out on the deserted tarmac, he saw an optical illusion of a legion of human bodies edging forward from behind a far wing of the base. He blinked to make the illusion vanish. It didn’t.

A few minutes later, he joined the throng of USIC personnel outside. It seemed the entire population of the base had left the building and was walking en masse towards the scrubland beyond the tarmac. Peter’s first thought was that this must be a fire drill, or that there’d been some sort of accident that had filled the base with toxic fumes. But everyone appeared relaxed and in good spirits. Some still carried mugs of coffee. A black man smiled at him and nodded; he was the guy who’d tossed Peter a muffin on the first day but whose name (Rude? Rooney?) Peter couldn’t quite retrieve. Two females he’d never been introduced to waved at him as well. An animated murmur rippled through the crowd. It was like a queue for a funfair or a concert.

Peter drew abreast with the nearest person he knew by name, which happened to be Hayes, the literal-minded engineer who’d delivered the speech at the official opening of the Centrifuge & Power Facility. He’d made conversation with her several times since then, and had grown to enjoy how boring she was. Her boringness was so perfect that it had transcended itself to become a kind of eccentricity, and her own unawareness of it was funny and sort of touching. Other USIC personnel felt the same way about her, he’d noticed. There was a twinkle in their eye when she droned on.

‘What have we come out here for?’ he asked her.

‘I don’t know why
you
’ve come,’ she replied. ‘I can only speak for why
we
’ve come.’ In anyone else, this would be testiness or sarcasm. In her, it was earnest determination to stay within the limits of the subject matter on which she could speak with authority.

‘OK,’ he said, falling into step beside her. ‘Why have you come out here?’

‘We got a call from the team at the Mother,’ she said.

‘Oh yes?’ It took him a couple of seconds to figure out she meant the Big Brassiere. Nobody but her called it the Mother, but still she would repeat the term at every opportunity, hoping it would catch on.

‘They told us there were animals headed this way. A horde. Or maybe they said a herd.’ Her brow wrinkled at the ambiguity. ‘A large number, anyway.’

‘Animals? What sort of animals?’

She took further cognisance of the parameters of her knowledge. ‘Native animals,’ she said.

‘I thought there weren’t any!’

Hayes mistook his excitement for scepticism. ‘I’m sure our colleagues at the Mother are reliable eye-witnesses,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe they would play a practical joke on us. We’ve discussed practical jokes in USIC briefings, and agreed that they’re counterproductive and potentially hazardous.’

Peter nodded, his attention wandering to the terrain ahead. Visibility was poor, not only because of the intense glare but because copious amounts of mist were swirling along the ground, spread wide over hundreds of metres like a swarm of spectral tumbleweeds. The eye played tricks: some obscure thing would appear to be moving forwards, emerging from the fog, only to be revealed a moment later as a clump of vegetation, demurely rooted in the soil.

The troop of humans reached the end of the tarmac, and the ground underfoot was soft. Peter surveyed the front ranks of the USIC personnel and noted who was walking foremost. It was Stanko, the guy from the mess hall. His gangly frame was graceful in motion; his long arms swung loosely and casually. It suddenly occurred to Peter how odd it was, in the circumstances, that Stanko wasn’t carrying a weapon. In fact . . . No one was. In fact . . . in fact, had he seen a gun at all since coming to Oasis? Could this really be a community without weapons? Could there be such a thing? How astonishing, if it were so . . . But on the other hand, wasn’t it foolhardy to be so indifferent to danger? Weren’t there times when it was crazy to set out without a rifle in hand? Who had authorised this communal foray, armed with nothing but curiosity? Were they all walking to their deaths, doomed to be crushed or torn to pieces by savage animals?

The answer wasn’t long in coming. A breeze pushed the mist backward and a large swathe of scrubland was swept clear, abruptly revealing the herd, or horde, of advancing creatures – perhaps eighty or a hundred of them. The USIC personnel gasped, whooped and muttered, each according to their nature. Then, inevitably, there was laughter. The animals were the size of chickens. Small chickens.

‘Well, will ya look at that,’ drawled Stanko, beaming.

The creatures seemed to be half-bird, half-mammal. Featherless, their hide was pink and leathery, mottled with grey. Duck-like heads bobbed with the rhythm of their waddling walk. Puny, vestigial wings hung against their flanks, gently jogged by the motion of the march but otherwise flaccid, like the rumpled lining of pulled-out trouser pockets. Their torsos were remarkably fat – rotund as teapots. Their gait was solemn and hilarious.

‘I cannot be-
leeeeve
this!’ BG’s voice. Peter looked for him in the crowd but there were a dozen people in the way and it would be impolite to cut across them.

By unspoken mutual assent, they stopped moving forward, so as not to spook the animals. The horde was waddling ever closer, apparently unperturbed by the alien onlookers. Their fat bodies kept up the pace, making slow but inexorable progress. At a distance, it had been unclear how many limbs each creature had under its belly, two or four. Closer up, it turned out to be four: squat little legs, unbirdlike in their muscular stockiness. Downy, paddle-like paws of a much darker grey than the rest of the body gave them the appearance of wearing shoes.

‘Cute to the power of ten,’ somebody said.

‘Cute to the power of a hundred,’ somebody else said.

Seen at close range, the animals’ heads were not quite so duck-like. Their bills were fleshier, drooping slightly like dog snouts. Their minuscule, expressionless eyes were very close together, conveying an impression of utter stupidity. They didn’t look up, around or at each other, only straight ahead. They were on course to pass right by the USIC base, on their way elsewhere. They made no sound apart from the faint, rhythmic
thwuh-thwuh-thwuh-thwuh
of their feet on the soil.

‘What are we gonna call these critters?’ somebody asked.

‘Chickadees.’

‘Duckaboos.’

‘How about fatsos?’

‘Woglets.’

‘Xenomammals.’