Nova 4

BILL GARNETT Singular

American-born, British-raised Bill Garnett came to science fiction after years in television and advertising. Fleeing London, the way other writers flee New York City, he is now settled in an eighteenth-century hill-farm near the Scottish border where, between strenuous bouts of hunting, chess playing and dry stone wall building, he found the time to write an excellent science fiction novel (Down Bound Train). He writes a mean short story too.

The woman lay in her sleep-sling and watched the stars through the roof above her.

Already they were paling, the sky coming bright with dawn. Soon it too would lose definition, as filters came on in the roof and turned it opaque to screen out the ultra-vi of day. As always, it had rained in the night and now, through open parts of her walls, she could smell the wet of the grass, hear the wet morning song of a bird.

Perhaps this would be the day.

She shifted slightly in the sling and imagined the life within her flutter. Unconsciously, her fingers moved across her belly tracing what was within it. She loved this unborn, wanted it. But nine months was waiting enough. She missed the double sling, the hard length of man in the night. More, she missed the once lightness of her body, the spring of it. And the sharp clear of her mind. She smiled in the dawn. The last few months her thoughts had been like cloud waves: floating peaceful—but scattered.

"You awake, mom?"

The woman turned her head, saw her five-year-old son just a meter away. Typical of my pregnant vagueness, she thought —I didn't even sense him standing there.

"I am now," she smiled at him.

"What do snakes eat, mom?"

She looked at his face, solemn and concentrating, and loved it. Just behind him, through an open part of the wall, she registered the rising sun. "Snakes? Well now—I'm not sure, honey. Why?"

"There's one come in below and \ thought maybe he was hungry."

That was Mark all over, considerate of everything that breathes, she thought. Of course it was only proper—but still good to see already in one so young. She smiled more. "Try candy, darling."

"Right!" And he was gone.

The woman stretched. Carefully she let herself down from the sleep-sling and padded across the room. She stood in a corner there and after a second water came on round her body. She let it play on her, gazed out through a wall opening at long curves of living green and brown that flowed to the flow of far sea. There were dwellings out there, many dwellings, but so made one with the land that, even though she knew where they were, she could not see them.

She stepped from the water and went to the wall opening and stood there and let a faint breeze from it dry her body a little. Then she wondered how Mark was getting on with his snake and turned and walked out of the room to the landing—and then downramp to the area below.

She found him in the general area. Lying on the body-warm soft floor. He was on his stomach trying to tempt the snake out from beneath a sitting elevation with a stick of candy. She went a little closer, saw the coiled reptile more fully—and as she did, the baby in her womb kicked violently and simultaneously she had a sick feeling even deeper within her. She'd seldom felt it, but knew what it was—fear—and at once she was ashamed and angry. The feeling was irrational. The snake would not harm Mark. It was unthinkable. Why, nothing, no one had ever intentionally hurt another creature. Ever. It was undone. Unknown. And the snake was beautiful too. Superbly colored and she guessed anything up to two meters long, with a flat triangular head and a fascinating tail that looked like it belonged to something else: a strange sort of seashell maybe, made up as it was of those horny interlocking rings.

But still she was afraid.

"Mark! Come away from that!" her voice was unnaturally harsh.

He turned on his side and looked round at her in surprise. "But mom . . ."

"Come away!"

Puzzled but obedient, the boy backed off and stood. The woman stepped to him then, put an arm round his shoulder and led him out of that area to the one where they ate. They sat opposite each other there and broke bread and took fruit. The boy's face was a question but she could find no answer for how she had been and instead she told him:

"The baby may come today."

He nodded with the wisdom of the young.

"So you won't worry if I'm not back tonight?"

He frowned. "Why should I?"

Of course, she thought. Why on earth should he worry? It was just her. Being silly yet again. She smiled and reached over and ruffled his head. "Good boy." She finished her fruit then and got up to leave. As she reached the area opening she heard him speak behind her and turned.

"Make it a girl, huh, mom?" he grinned.

"Do my best," she smiled back. And went out.

She stood by her dwelling's outer opening and looked away over the land. The sun was full up now and steaming the night's rain from the grass in thin mist that rose belly high. She stepped out into it, feeling the clean of this morning fill her with exhilaration. And she moved over the moist turf briskly with springing stride.

This is the last-minute surge of energy, she thought, so it can't be very long now. She walked a little faster. Then, on impulse, stopped and looked back. With satisfaction she noticed her dwelling was already almost invisibly integrated into the country behind her. She walked on. Feeling increasingly healthy. Better now than at any time during her pregnancy. Yes, it must certainly mean the baby would be coming very soon. That was good. Though a shame in a way also because now she'd have to miss this night's meeting. She thought of the mind-music.

Sharing. Everyone gathered in a silence till their thoughts began to merge to—a sensation perhaps, a knowledge. It would grow and evolve among them and fill them all till maybe they would giggle like children or know sweet sad like the falling of leaves. You couldn't tell what it would be, afterward could not fully recall. Yet it gave fullness. And—oh well—it'd be loss to miss the meeting but then—one did not give birth every day.

A dwelling appeared to her left. A man came to its opening. He bowed with respect to her naked motherhood as she passed.

The sun was higher and the mist gone. The sky quite cloudless. Soft the grass beneath her bare feet. From the clear bowl of the hills around her wafted the scent of bougainvillea.

And it began.

Her time. The spasm. Pain. She tried to push her mind from it, think of the beauty of all this around her. An elder had told her this was once called the place of the angels. Legend even had it this was sacred ground, that the primitives who dwelt here had worshiped the stars and set their likeness into stone here on top of the grass. But, oh, she was hurting—and didn't care. Anyhow, she suddenly thought almost angrily fighting the pain, she did not believe that story. After all, who would place something sacred where they would have to trample on it?

She reached her destination then.

She went through the opening and it was cool inside. An elder was waiting and he smiled and led her to where she might lie. He settled her there, took her hands and unclenched them. Then, very gently, he placed his hands on her head . . .

It was done.

She felt the sweat going cool on her body and opened her eyes. The face of the elder was above her. She smiled at him.

He did not smile back.

The baby!

She looked around the area. It wasn't there. But why? Surely —no. It must mean . . . no! Her brain went numb. Vaguely she noticed a man she had never seen was looking down at her. Some distant part of her registered he was old, his skin wrinkled. He had no hair. The baby! Her baby girl. She opened her mouth, but words choked in it and the old man spoke before her.

"You must try to be brave."

"Is—is it—my baby?"

"Yes."

All the coldness of nonexistence entered and filled her heart. Oh sweetest Love, the child was dead.

"Dead," she numbly repeated aloud.

"No. It's alive," the old man gravely replied.

Hope sprang up in her—only to die as she stared at the bleakness of his eyes. The child might not be dead, but he was clearly thinking it better if it were. And that could mean just one thing—which was unthinkable.

"Is it—is it . . ." she could barely manage the word, "deformed?"

"Yes."

There was a silence in the area and neither man looked at her. Then she said: "I want to see it."

"No!" It was the elder. Incredibly he spoke almost with violence. "The child is—is a freak—grotesque. And with all our knowledge, all our power, there is nothing we can do to help it."

"Nothing? But surely—"

"There has never been a child like this before," the elder explained.

The woman was silent. Then she gathered herself and softly said: "I want to see my baby."

And so they brought it to her.

With great courage the old man even held it in his hands. Held it out to her. She looked at it. Just briefly. Then a moan came from her and she jerked her head away. What brutal irony— the child seemed healthy enough: its little limbs moving, body perfectly formed. But, oh sweet Love, the horror—everywhere on its body—the child's skin . . .

Its skin was white.