Procreation Pt. 01: Uruk

"Welcome, Jonah. Come with me please." They entered the dark lecture hall. She sat in one of the student's seats, facing the podium. She patted the seat next to her, and Jonah sat. Captain Hussain lingered at the back of the hall.

"Join us, Alia. I know it's painful." Captain Hussain took a seat on the other side of him. His hand went to her leg to comfort her but she brushed it away.

The screen behind the podium lit up, to show the image of Diana, as he remembered her, aged sixty. Then the image began speaking.

"The lecture here will explain to you what I expect to happen in the aftermath of a major global incident. A large meteorite impact, or a global thermonuclear war. The exact scenario that will play out, is of course, hard to predict, but in general, based on paleontological events in the past, particularly the Permian extinction, the following ecological changes are expected..."

The lecture went on to describe the selective destruction of the larger flora and fauna, including humankind, leaving an evolutionary vacuum that would be filled by smaller creatures, which would "radiate", like Darwin's finches, to fill new biological niches, diverging into different species, whose form and function would finally resemble the original, extinct species.

"...So, although many life forms will be destroyed, Gaia herself will survive, as she has always done."

The lecture ended. Jonah turned to Diana, about to speak. But another lecture immediately began:

"This lecture discusses the ecological changes that are currently occurring as a result of the thermonuclear, biological and chemical war which occurred fifteen years ago. Based on the atmospheric and ground sampling probes, the Plutonium-239 and Cesium-137 levels in both the soil and air are still lethally high. Polonium is also present. Human survival rate is now at zero point one percent..."

As he watched the younger Diana on the screen emotionlessly talking to him, he lost his sense of reality. She was calmly discussing the death of billions of people. The "omnicide" of humankind.

"...The plague is probably rat-borne. Rats have, as I predicted, mutated rapidly, with their short reproductive cycle, the high levels of radiation, and the plentiful supplies of wheat and animal carcases available to them. Carnivorous and cannibalistic varieties have emerged, which is helping to stabilize the cockroach population, along with diminishing supplies of garbage. It's difficult to tell from the remote probes, because the rats soon swarm over and destroy them, but it appears that they have also learned the kind of mass cooperation normally associated with human and colony-based insects. I suspect a DNA hijack, probably by a mutated GABA-receptor virus, similar to that carried by the toxoplasma parasite. It seems to have species jumped, because cats, starlings and other animals are also exhibiting directed herd behaviour. Only a field lab will answer some of these q-"

The Diana on the screen froze, in mid utterance. And to Jonah, it seemed that time itself had frozen, like the instant of death when the first thermonuclear explosion happened. Beside him, Diana explained what her younger counterpart had been saying:

"Jonah, Toxoplasma was a parasite which inhabited both cats and mice, containing a virus which reprogrammed the mice's brains, changing their behaviour. Infected mice would happily walk right out in front the cats without fear, almost keen to approach them; that made it easy for the cats to catch and eat them. Not good for the mice, but good for the Toxoplasma parasite, which wanted get transmitted from the mouse to the cat, its new host in its lifecycle. I think a similar, but more complex behaviour-changing parasite or virus has evolved in rats. But not just to rats, to - multiple species. I've called the virus mu-toxoplasma - MTP. Now I'm sure you have a few questions."

Jonah could not respond to this last understatement for a few seconds. Finally he said, "how long have I been in hypo?"

"Three hundred years. That was not my doing. That was Monica. When the war started, she put the Dildo on lock-down. She instigated the change to the sleep schedule, deeming that it gave us a better chance of survival than waking us. I didn't override her. She saved us. The radiation and disease, the starvation and social instability, together amounted to too great a risk. Even the Aeturnus was destroyed, along with all the other near-earth satellites. People tried escaping by rocket, but the anti-missile defence systems just kept shooting them down. "

Jonah sat and stared blankly, numb.

"Jonah, don't you want to know why we woke you?"

Jonah suddenly grew enraged. He shouted at her, "No! I don't want to know! I don't fucking care! You've just told me that everybody, EVERY FUCKING PERSON IN THE WORLD, is -"

"-Stop it! Stop talking now." Diana, for the first time since he'd known her, had lost her cool. But her tone was cold and harsh, and all the more powerful for it.

She continued, calmly once more, "not every person in the world. There are thirty-five people up here, all alive. Each one of these people is now the equivalent, proportionately, of an entire nation. A fight between two people is a war. A death is genocide. So don't raise your voice, to me, or anybody else."

Jonah now felt wretched. Diana had been living with this awful knowledge for years, and had clung on to all she had, her scientific dispassion; meanwhile he had slept through it all, in blissful ignorance.

Captain Hussain felt pity for him. "Tell him, Diana."

But Diana remained silent, pursing her lips. Captain Hussain spoke again. "There might be survivors, near the site of an old nuclear bunker in the Sierra de Grazalema, Spain. We're not sure. All we have to go on is some DNA fragments in the atmosphere that could be human. And Diana wants you to take her down there, to find out. And it's going to be a one-way trip, crewman, if you get exposed to anything down there. If we contaminate the Dildo, that will be the end, for sure."

Diana stirred, and recovered . "I don't care if it is a one-way trip for me. I'm way past breeding age. And I'm sorry Jonah, but there was no other way to tell you. You have to adjust to it now, immediately. There's no choice."

Jonah spoke aloud, but as much to himself as to them. "You woke me. Me. Because you know I'm probably the only person here who could handle it. And I can."

Captain Hussain said, "Good boy. But the main reason we chose you is because you're a man."

"Yeah, I'm a man, sure enough, big and tough, don't take no guff."

"No: You're a man, which means you're expendable, jizz-boy."

"Okay, I get it, you already have a billion more little Jonahs in a bottle."

"Shuttle A-3 is already kitted out with a biotech lab. Get your catsuit on, crewman. Any last requests?"

He turned to her. "Only one, Captain."

"Granted," she barked. He took her hand and rubbed the back of it with his thumb. He held her face and kissed her lips, her nose, her eyelids. She was his first love, and maybe his last.

After they made love, she turned to him and said to him, "By the way, I'm pregnant."

He teased her. "Whose is it, mine?"

She snapped back, "no crewman, it's mine."

"Oh, c'mon Alia, you know I was only-"

She stood up, formal once more. "It's 'Captain', crewman."

Jonah Smells

Captain Hussain barked into the microphone. "You're my robot. What are you?"

"Your robot, sir." Jonah flicked virtual switches above his head. He was itching to get going.

Diana sat next to him in the cockpit of shuttle A-3 and stared absently out the window at the nearby moon.

"State the four laws of robotics, robot Da Costa."

Jonah had finished his checks; they were OK for take-off. He sat back in his seat. "One: I will protect my passenger at all times. Two: I will not return without my passenger. Three: I will attempt to locate living humans and/or mutants and/or zombies and assist Dr Browning with her analysis of said humans, mutants or zombies. Four: I will not fuck up."

They took off, at two G.

Back on the Dildo, Captain Hussain patted her belly and muttered, "don't worry, baby... Daddy will come home soon."

The journey was uneventful. He was worried about orbital debris, but they got through the satellite region fine.

As they floated silently over the Sierra De Grazalema, Diana watched the landscape. It was a little more verdant than it should be at this time of year, but other than that, it was not markedly different from what the VR overlay showed it looked like three hundred years ago. That, she knew, was one of the things that made this area special: Its layout gave it a microclimate was largely immune to regional and global climate variation.

Jonah said, "Landing now. Behind that hill."

"Can't we land in that area over there? Looks easier."

"Nope, it's guarded."

"Guarded? What the hell are you talking about? I didn't see any guards."

"I did. They looked like starlings, but you never know."

"Oh for goodness sake, Jonah."

"Better safe than sorry."

Jonah paraglided the shuttle perfectly to the ground, landing in a high green dell.

He spoke: "Are you getting headcam A.V. up there, over?"

He waited for an acknowledgement, picturing in his head the photons travelling the half-million-mile journey from earth to the Dildo and back.

"Yeah. Looks beautiful. I've muted the Reality Augmentation." The voice in his ears was Captain Hussain's. I'm muting my mic, so you don't get conflicting instructions from me and Diana. You're taking orders from her now, robot. Over and out."

"Roger, out."

He looked at Diana and shook his head. "She's a fucking ball-buster, I pity her kids."

"She's muted just her mic, not yours, Jonah."

"I know. I wanted her to hear that."

Diana was staring out the window. "Cam right, two o-clock, Jonah, give us mag fifteen on that big patch of pink flowers."

He complied, and zoomed in on them. "Very pretty. What are they?"

"A type of Erodium. But it's the bees I'm interested in. I'd like to hear them buzzing."

"You will, when you let me out of here."

"Patience. Ambient checks are nearly done."

"What have we got so far?"

"Lots of unidentified pollen, bacteria and viruses in the air and soil. Our last check was a year ago, and they're continuously mutating, so it's anyone's guess what they'll do to you. Cesium-137 level high, but we won't die if we keep our catsuits on. Other than that, it's a lovely day out there. Thirty-two degrees C."

Eventually Jonah got the go-ahead to debark. He popped open the airlock door, while Diana remained inside watching the view from his headcam on her monitor. Jonah almost leapt the twenty foot drop to the ground instead of deploying the ladder, such was his enthusiasm to be reunited with earth.

Diana had promised Captain Hussain that, for her safety, she would remain in the craft while Jonah reconnoitred, with verbal directions from her. The two-second latency if Diana been talking to him from up on the Dildo could have cost him his life, in an emergency.

He wandered a few hundred yards among rocks and pretty wildflowers, until he came to the ridge of the dell, and saw the lowlands spread below him. Crickets called, the birds sang, and a gentle, mild Mediterranean April breeze swayed the tufts of grass. He turned and looked about him. In his black catsuit he looked like a lithe, muscular panther surveying his domain, seeking prey.

Then he went on all fours and bent low, touching his forehead to the red earth.

"Honey, I'm home..."

He sat, cross-legged, watching the clouds, the mountains, delighting in the glory of Gaia. Diana snapped him out of his Zen state: "See those birds yonder, high up, at four o-clock?"

"Yup. Griffon vultures. They've survived, plentiful carrion for them. They're circling. Maybe be a rat city down in that valley there. So can you hear the bees?"

"Yes. And they're probably talking about you."

"Very funny."

"I'm serious, Jonah. They're using wingbeat frequency as a kind of auditory communication."

"Translated into English you're saying that they've become smart."

"No, Jonah. The bees aren't smart. The colony is."

"Oh yeah, your toxoplasma theory. Like with the rats."

"Yes. Jonah, I'm trying to warn you: It's going to be dangerous and weird. Earth is now really -"

"-Pissed with us. I know."

"How are you feeling, crewman, over?" The voice was Captain Hussain's.

"Fine."

"Can you give your overall impression of the terrain? You were born near there, right?"

"Yeah, in Seville. Well, I might be able to give you a better impression, if I could only..."

"Only what?"

"If I could only smell stuff." Two seconds later he heard laugher.

"I'm serious. There are no smells inside this Goddam suit, except from my own farts." More laughter.

"I feel like taking off my facemask." Silence.

"Crewman. No. What the fuck."

To his surprise, Diana spoke: "He's not going to take his mask off, don't worry. But I also wish I could, too. It would help me prove the mu-Toxoplasma theory: I think things will smell different down here. The air-probes we've been sending down up to now wouldn't have detected it."

"Okay. But what does your theory have to do with smell?"

"Everything. Maybe the virus itself is airborne, carried in pollen. Or it could release a chemical trigger in the air which switches the behaviour on, a sort of olfactory remote control, especially in social animals like bees that use scent to communicate already. And smells act fast, they go straight into your hindbrain, because the olfactory bulb is buried right inside it. The quickest route to the brain's master control system is through your nose."

Captain Hussain interrupted. "Jonah, what Diana is saying only makes it even more imperative that you remain fully isolated from the atmosphere. Got that, crewman Robot?"

"Ok sir. Making my way back to shuttle now." He turned, and looked down into the shallow bowl of the dell where the shuttle stood. Three giant rats were smiling up at him, showing long, razor-sharp incisors.

"Diana. Lockdown. Repeat, lockdown."

"Jonah, what is it?"

"Captain, lockdown, lockdown now."

Captain Hussain had heard him the first time, when he'd spoken to Diana. She'd responded instantly, but it had taken time for his words to reach her, and for her remote command to reach the shuttle. The shuttle ladder retracted and the airlock door slid shut.

The rats were huge and long-legged, the size and shape of their distant relatives, the capybaras. But capybaras were vegetarian and timid.

"Don't, repeat do not, open up until I say so. Wait till I tell you, then hit the door release."

One of the rats let out a strange, babbling snarl - Jonah sensed it was an instruction of some sort - and immediately one of them took up position between him and the shuttle, blocking his escape. The other two spread wide, and streaked up the sides of the dell and along the rim.

"Hear that? They can talk!"

The other two advanced on him from either side, grinning.

"How strong is this suit?" He asked.

"It's designed for space. It will protect you from decompressing in vacuum, and maybe a thorn prick, but not rat's teeth."

He ran down into the dell, intending to scare or kill the rat 'guarding' the shuttle.

The 'chief' rat who'd given the instructions to the other two, was now six feet from him. His accomplice paced back and forth beyond him like an agitated linebacker.

They could outrun him, but they didn't have hands. Very slowly he stooped and stretched his arm down to reach for a skull-breaking rock.

The chief rat sprung at him, knocking him off his feet.

The last thing Captain Hussain saw of Jonah before transmission was lost was a gaping, razor-toothed mouth, and a wet, red, flickering snake-like tongue. And the last thing she heard was a hideous snarl.

It had gone for Jonah's head-cam, perhaps assuming it was this strange black-skinned Cyclops' eye. The rat was momentarily shocked, expecting to chew off soft flesh and bone instead of a titanium bracket. Jonah pushed the rat's neck back, keeping its fearsome teeth away from his own neck; but its sharp predator's claws penetrated his catsuit and slashed a row of long gashes across his chest. So much for the anti-contamination directives.

He managed to hurl the beast away from him. He rolled over and scrambled to his feet. But now all three of them surrounded him, smiling. And then, inexplicably they seemed to lose interest in him. They trotted off and climbed the slope of the dell. Confused, exhausted and breathless, Jonah rested his hands on his thighs and watched them as they meandered their way out of sight like three stray sheep.

Jonah's goggles were steamed up, and he was having difficulty breathing. The rat must have busted his suit's thermo-electrics and life-support system; as he was now already contaminated, he decided to peel off his head-cover altogether. And when he did, he finally got to use his sense of smell. He'd been right: This place did smell funny.

He looked up at the shuttle, and saw Diana in the cockpit, shouting soundlessly at him. She mouthed something: "I can't open it."

No, he thought, Captain Hussain wouldn't do that to him. Oh, yes she would: The anti-contamination directives were clear, and she'd never contravene them; she'd rather leave Jonah to die here than risk Diana's life too.

He sat down and watched Diana up in the shuttle while she spoke agitatedly and inaudibly, presumably to Captain Hussain. If anyone could persuade her to break the rules, it was her.

After ten minutes he got fed up with waiting. He wanted to get going. Anywhere. He stood up. Fuck it, if Captain Hussain changed her mind, which was something he'd never seen her do, they could damn well come after him and find him.

He waved goodbye to Diana, and turned his back on her.

He walked off, purposefully. He stole a single glance back at the shuttle and the now frantic Diana, who was pummelling soundlessly on the inside of the cockpit window. He twisted his head and cracked his neck vertebrae, and sped up, heading more or less uphill, whistling a marching song.

He was back home where he belonged. How far away was Seville, his birthplace? Maybe a hundred miles or so. Maybe he'd go there. Yes, if he was lucky, he might live long enough to get there. He thought, before they'd landed, that he'd suffer an aftershock from the emotional trauma of witnessing, for real, his home planet devoid of his own self-destructive species. But instead he felt exhilarated, unable even to feel a pang of guilt over his lack of grief over mankind's demise. They had done this to themselves. Maybe it was something in the air that made him feel so wild and free, almost fey.

After walking a mile or so, climbing steadily up the steep cork-oak covered hillside, he was sweating. He sat down with his back to a tree and rested. He felt short of breath; the air was thin up here at eighteen hundred feet, compared with Emma's optimally maintained atmosphere he was used to breathing aboard the Dildo.

He spent the next few minutes removing the top half of his catsuit, along with a good deal of his skin, which had become glued to it with his dried blood. He removed the now useless food and waste catheters from his neck and abdomen. Which now meant he was going to need to eat and drink soon. He decided that he would climb to the peak of the hill, to get a panoramic view, where he could spy out the land and look for a likely source of water.

Now naked from the waist up, he felt much better, but his chest bled afresh. He found and crushed some rosemary leaves and applied them to his wounds. He smiled wryly, remembering when his father had taught him that piece of folk medicine when he was a child, right in this very national park, and had told him that people had been doing that for a million years.