The Prophecy On the Planet Chapter Four

The grass was greener than it had ever been before. It had grown and was actually making waves as it rippled in the wind. Kaleem could see it more clearly this time than he had ever seen it before. He soon found the familiar brick building, in front of which the children normally played. There were no children, though, this time. He was standing closer to it than ever before. He could see the bricks more easily. They were mainly a dark, rusty red, but now and then there was a black one, which made the whole building look dark. He had always thought that it had no roof, but as he looked up, he could see that there was something at the top, which seemed to be made from red tiles.

He looked for the children, but he could not see them. The grass seemed to stretch in front of him for miles. There were hills. It almost looked like a green sea with a huge swell. In the distance, he could see some white specks.

I wonder if they’re daisies, he thought. He knew the children liked to make necklaces with daisies. He started walking towards them.

His legs were moving. The grass was still rippling, but he could not feel the breeze that was causing the movement. He could not feel the movement in his legs. He did not seem to be getting any nearer to the daisies.

Suddenly, though, the daisies changed shape and grew larger. At was as if he was being propelled forward. They were there. They weren’t daisies at all. They were the children.

Kaleem braced himself. He hated the moment when they turned and faced him. It wasn’t so much the strange puffed up eyes and the little stubby noses that bothered him. It wasn’t even that their faces looked sixty years older than their bodies. It was more that sad, questioning expression in their eyes. It was as if they were expecting him to do something he hadn’t yet done, to answer some question only he could answer. Each time they seemed more disappointed, more accusing. He dreaded meeting them.

One of them spotted him. Kaleem heard him shout to the others. Two of them were running towards him.

‘Kaleem, Kaleem,’ shouted the boy. ‘We thought you would never come again. Why have you been so long?’

Two old faces were turned up to him. They were actually smiling. They took his hand and lead him towards the others.

‘We have been waiting for you, Kaleem,’ said the boy holding his left hand.

‘It must be soon,’ said the girl holding his right hand. ‘It is to be written.’

He had never heard them speak so much before. They were actually speaking Zandrian.

But I first came here when I was living on Terrestra, thought Kaleem.

The other children were running towards him now.

‘Kaleem, Kaleem,’ they shouted. ‘Kaleem has come.’

They formed a circle around him. The faces were solemn now, but not so sad as they normally were.

The girl Kaleem remembered from the last time stepped into the circle.

‘Kaleem,’ she said. ‘It is almost time. We welcome you.’

The others gathered around them began to cheer and clap.

The girl took Kaleem’s hand. She led him towards the edge of the circle. The children stepped aside so that they could walk through. Suddenly they were right by the brick building. She led him through a door, which Kaleem had never seen before.

The book was open on a table on a raised platform. She smiled and pointed.

‘To-day you can read the story so far written,’ she said.

She nodded to him that he should go up the wooden steps to the platform. Kaleem thought he could hear faint music playing in the background.

The marks started appearing on the pages as soon as he looked at them. This time, though, they seemed more familiar. They were almost like Wordtext. At first they kept changing faster than Kaleem could read. The pages filled with black marks, then scrunched themselves up and disappeared, just as before, to be replaced by pure white pieces of paper.

Gradually, though, this time, the marks appeared more and more slowly. They were indeed forming Wordtext. He could read what they said. Even so, before he came to the bottom of each page, it would tear itself out and start again.

Kaleem felt hot and slightly dizzy as he gradually realised what he was reading. It was the story of the tower. It was being written and rewritten, each time sounding better.

Suddenly, it changed again. Gradually, the whole story, as he knew it, began to appear. The blue and gold illustrations formed themselves in front of him. Soon, the book was complete.

‘Read it through,’ whispered the girl.

Kaleem started to read. He could hear the workmen building the tower. He saw the people making their way up it. He could hear the excitement in their voices. He felt the shaking as the tower began to topple.

‘It must be finished,’ he heard the girl whisper. ‘It must be finished.’

The shaking was getting more violent now. It was not just a picture in Kaleem’s head. He could hear the children outside shouting.

‘Run Kaleem, Pahandra,’ they cried. ‘The tower is falling.’

Kaleem’s feet were glued to the spot.

A new page appeared on the book.

“The Prophecy and its Fulfilment”, he read.

‘It is not quite time,’ whispered Pahandra. ‘If you stay, you will not be able to complete it.’

She grabbed his hand, and soon they were running out of the building.

‘Detran, Detran,’ he heard someone calling.

The furniture in his apartment gradually came into focus. Kaleem woke up to find himself covered in sweat. The message alert was sounding on his dataserve. His throat was sore and every muscle in his body seemed to ache. He was thirsty, and although he was covered in sweat, he was shivering.

Oh no, he thought. Not that again. It’s come back.

The Prophecy Out of Bounds Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Kaleem called up all seventy-nine channels, one after the other. It was the same story over and over. Every single one of them reported an attack by the Supercraft Excelsior. They all claimed that Terrestra’s aggression was just an act of self-defence. The same images were shown over and over again. The flash of light from the Terrestran Scout, and the silent shattering of the right wing of the Supercraft Excelsior.

‘We have to show them that no approach will be tolerated,’ said one of the Head of Diplomacy’s officials on all seventy-nine channels. ‘The attack was meant to shock, not to maim. We shall not accept infringement of our orbital space from aliens.’

So much for diplomacy, thought Kaleem.

He called up several of the two hundred non-news channels. But each time, just as they started to load, they would flip to the nearest news channel.

‘Terrestrans are requested to keep movement to a minimum,’ said one of the robot newsreaders. ‘Emergency alert code five is implemented. Movement is allowed only for personnel who need to report to work stations.’

Kaleem wondered for a moment whether he could use this to get over to the medical centre to see Maria. Surely the droid guards would be too busy directing people to the correct muster stations to be bothered with him? It might be worth a try.

‘There will still be severe punishments for Terrestrans found away from home without need,’ continued the robot. ‘Minimum fine, seven thousand Terrestran credits.’

Better not then, thought Kaleem. Maria barely earned seven thousand credits in a year. He shuddered as he remembered his recent narrow escape.

He continued his search for anything other than news.

‘Broadcast group seven twenty-three,’ he mumbled. The familiar music of the fitness channel’s hourly change of programme started up. The screen flickered and changed for a few seconds to the standard news broadcast. Then there was a whoosh and crackle and suddenly a very clear picture on the screen.

There was no sound except a very gentle tinkling, like small wind chimes on a breezy summer afternoon. Unusual figures were moving across the screen. They were recognisably human, but they were somehow flat and two-dimensional, and they were wearing strange clothes. There was something very familiar about the colours though - those rich blues, golds and silvers. Some Wordtext appeared across the bottom of the screen.

Kaleem could read it easily now. The picture it made in his head was as clear as the picture he could see on the screen. Clearer in fact - because the movie in his head had real people in it. He watched them building the tower and making their way up it. Then he saw the flashes of lightning and the people running down the outside staircase. They were shouting and couldn’t understand each other. Kaleem recognised some of the words, though.

That was Canadian French, he thought, as he heard one man shouting abuse at someone who had punched him on the steps. The man replied in Swiss German.

Yet no sound came from the dataserve. There were just the soft chimes of the tubular bells. The flat pictures and the Wordtext rolled on. Then more Wordtext rolled over the screen. There was a list of names and jobs next to each other. That faded.

Then there were real, three-dimensional people - two women and a man. They, too, were wearing odd clothes - certainly not the normal tunics worn on Terrestra, though what the women had on looked almost like a tunic.

‘So, how exactly does this story fit in with the Peace Child Prophecy?’ said the man. ‘And what do you understand the role of the Mother to be?’

Now the sound was actually coming from the dataserve’s sound card.

Kaleem felt a rush of blood come to his head. He was aware that his heart was beating rapidly now and his mouth was going dry.

‘Well, I’m not exactly sure that the three things do fit together as an absolute truth,’ began the first woman. ‘They are often associated, because of the concept of mother - the idea that the female who nurtures  - and that may not even be a human mother - it could even be a series of events - will be the one who produces a person capable of sorting out the misunderstandings that arise when people just can’t understand each other because of different languages and perhaps, more importantly, because of different cultures, different ways of life.’

‘But that is precisely how prophecy works,’ said the other woman. ‘It creates a set of symbols which can be applied to help us rationalise a set of events.’

The sound and the pictures on the dataserve screen wobbled a little. Then it went silent. There was now only a soft green light coming from the screen.

No, thought Kaleem. Don’t let this go. I really want to find out about this.

He tried to think about what he’d heard. Yes, it made sense. Why not use the Peace Child Prophecy to explain about bringing harmony back? But it was so peculiar how similar those pictures on the dataserve had been to the ones in the book he had found. He shivered.

He had no more time to think. A dazzling white light came from the screen suddenly and then Razjosh was standing there in a hologram.

‘We have to move on,’ said Razjosh’s holo. ‘You need to experience the other worlds through the holoprogrammes. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best we can do at the moment.’

Kaleem wanted to ask him about the movie he had just seen. Somehow, though, it was difficult to ask a holo such questions. If Razjosh had really come here, it would be so much easier. Or was that just an excuse he was making? He almost hoped that the Elder would bring up the question himself.

‘We’re sending you to Polynket,’ said the Elder. The hologram was beginning to disintegrate. ‘I’m sure you will find that interesting. The picture of Razjosh faded in and out of view. Suddenly, though, it steadied, and it was hard to believe that the Elder wasn’t actually in the room. ‘They are different from us in a most remarkable way,’ said Razjosh.

‘Razjosh,’ began Kaleem. He wanted to talk about the Prophecy. ‘Do you think…?

The now clear holo of the Elder looked at him. It was that all-knowing stare again. Surely, even in a holo, Razjosh could tell exactly what he was thinking. Kaleem lost his nerve.

‘Will the holos be more stable than this?’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s hardly going to seem realistic if things keep fading in and out, is it?’

The holo stared at him for a few seconds.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Razjosh. ‘You will have full power for your programme. We’re only saving power on non-urgent messages. Your training has been given number one priority.’

The holo snapped out. There were a few seconds of complete darkness. Then Kaleem could hear his dataserve humming faintly. The room gradually lit up again.

Except that it wasn’t his room. He was outside, standing next to a round, vibrating  vehicle. It hovered slightly above the ground and it seemed to be in queue of similar machines. There were about ten in front and they stretched out behind as far as he could see.

‘It’s such a waste of time,’ said a voice next to him.

New Middle German! It would be. That was the one language he found really difficult. It still had all the inflections and standard new spelling from the German of the 21^st century, but only on the old words. Ones they borrowed from other cultures had no inflections. He was bound to make mistakes all the time. It was a good job this was just a holo exercise and not the real thing.

‘Energy shortage again on Polynket and everybody panics. Everybody’s queuing and they know they’ve got to pay at least 50 universal credits or ten Polynket rupels even if they can only load a couple of unicharges. Madness!’

The speaker was a boy about his own age. He had dark hair and looked almost exactly like a white Terrestran, except that his skin was a shade darker. The other people standing nearby all looked similar. And no one was wearing a tunic. Everyone was wearing the same tight fitting leggings and jacket, though there were a variety of colours.

Kaleem felt almost naked at first, though as they moved slowly forward towards the building, he began to enjoy the feeling of freedom these new clothes gave him.

‘I’m Carlton, by the way,’ said the boy.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Kaleem. ‘I’m Kaleem.’

Carlton grinned. ‘I know,’ he said.

Obviously!

‘I bet they’ve hardly any room for any more charge,’ said Carlton. ‘Whereas I’m genuinely down to street charge only. This baby will just about manage to limp in on the residual power from the walkways.’

He pushed the strange-looking vehicle forward to the space left by the one in front. It was beginning to make a strange whirring noise.

‘She’s really struggling now,’ said Carlton. ‘We may have to go on to wheels and run her along the ground soon.’

They were moved forward again.

‘You see?’ said Carlton. ‘That idiot only took thirty seconds. A full charge should take at least two minutes.’ He sighed. Then he grinned. ‘Still, I suppose it’s good for the economy. He’s paying the energy company far more than his recharge is worth. That should eventually make it cheaper for the rest of us. And eventually people will get fed up of all this queuing and will only recharge when they really need to.’

‘So how much energy does … -erm?’  Kaleem started to say.

‘Ten rupels or 50 universal credits,’ Carlton continued for him. ‘Almost a full recharge.’

The vehicle made a loud clunking noise. Two wheels dropped beneath it. It sank to the floor.

‘Good job you’re here,’ said Carlton. ‘It takes two to wheel an Autoflieg.’

There were now only two Autofliegs in front of them. Kaleem helped Carlton to wheel the broken down vehicle along towards the entrance of the building. It wasn’t heavy. It was just slightly awkward to steer.

The two vehicles in front only took a few seconds each to recharge.

‘Typical,’ muttered Carton.

The driver of the second Autoflieg looked annoyed.

‘I’m not doing this anymore,’ she said to Carlton. ‘I think I’ll use a bit of your sense. It’s stupid, wasting all this time and all these credits.’ She got back into her Autoflieg. There was a loud whoosh and the vehicle sprang into the air and rushed forward and out of the building.

Carlton grinned at Kaleem.

‘Not a bad idea from the Oberrat,’ he said. ‘Better than restricting the amount of recharge you can buy.’

Kaleem remembered seeing something in an archive clip about energy shortages on Terrestra. The vehicles had queued for hours, in the days of the old fossil fuels, burning more fuel as they did so, to buy the small amount allowed. This was a better idea here, and it was already beginning to work.

The droids were already hooking up a thick wire to the power socket on the Autoflieg as Carlton looked at the small camera which scanned his eyes in order to process the credits. The small craft lit up straight away and then hovered above the ground. Two minutes later the recharge was complete.

‘Full power restored,’ announced one of the droids. ‘Fifty-two universal credits deducted. Value in rupels, ten point four’.

‘Get in,’ said Carlton. ‘You’re going to enjoy this.’

The doors on both sides of the craft slid open. Kaleem found he almost had to lie down in the seat. A set of straps and restraints moulded itself around him. The craft sped forward out of the building and began to climb upwards.  Then it rotated through ninety degrees, so that Kaleem thought he was almost standing upright. They carried on upwards.

‘Levelling off,’ said the Autoflieg’s dataserve. Now it tilted them forward another forty-five degrees, which gave Kaleem the sensation that he was flying through the air. He could look down and see Polynket’s surface.

‘What do you think?’ asked Carlton.

‘It’s brilliant,’ said Kaleem.  Below him Kaleem could see blue-capped mountains and green lakes. Every now and then there was a city with buildings pointing into the air. Between them were stretches of green and brown land. It was very much as he would expect Terrestra to look - except that he’d never been in a flying transporter on Terrestra.

They seemed to be flying very close to other Autofliegs.

‘What stops us from crashing into them?’ he asked Carlton.

‘Force field buffers,’ replied Carlton. ‘It’s impossible for them to touch each other. So when we drive them we just point them where we want to go and they do the rest. In fact, we don’t really have to drive at all.’ He took his hands off what Kaleem had assumed was the controls of the craft.

Kaleem shrieked. Carlton laughed. Another Autoflieg seemed to come right up to them, hovered for a few seconds, and then sped backwards from them. The occupants waved wildly.

‘You don’t need to be scared,’ said Carlton. ‘It’s all under control.’

Kaleem kept quiet for the rest of the journey. It was hard enough, following everything Carlton was saying. Replying was just impossible. He listened carefully to what the other boy said, trying to get clues as to which words needed inflections and which ones didn’t. But it was such a puzzle. Carlton had been programmed not to answer if Kaleem used the words wrongly. He was getting too used to Carlton’s blank stare. So he contented himself with just looking out of the window.

‘Nearly there,’ said Carlton after another twenty-five minutes. The Autoflieg flipped into the upright position and began to descend.

‘We’re going to the Denta Mill engineering works,’ Carlton explained. ‘The mill-wheel has seized up and I’m helping to free it.’

The Autoflieg hovered for a few seconds in the upright position and then gently rotated so that they were almost lying on their backs. It made its way slowly forwards and then came to rest, hovering a metre above the ground next to a stone platform. The seats tilted forward slightly so that they were almost upright again and the doors sprang open.

‘Park,’ commanded Carlton.

The craft extended its wheels again and all the motor sounds stopped. As soon as the two boys had got out of the craft, a couple of droids wheeled it into a garage slot.

‘Come on then,’ said Carlton. ‘Let’s go and look at this big wheel.’

Kaleem followed him out into the open air. It was just like Terrestra on  a Spring afternoon.

‘We face two suns,’ explained Carlton. ‘So there is no day and night. As soon as one sun sinks the other rises. It’s always light, so there is no natural night. We all have different living cycles. We belong to the blue time zone - hence the blue suits.’

It was true. All the other people around them were wearing blue - exactly the same shade of blue as Carlton and himself.

‘Our day runs from three Uva time to seven Zena time,’ explained Carlton. ‘Uva has been up three hours. Zena will come up in another five hours. Oh, by the way, we measure our hours exactly like sixty Terrestran minutes.’

It sort of made sense.

‘So what’s happened to the mill wheel?’ asked Kaleem. He suddenly felt bold with his words. He must have got the inflections right because Carlton turned to answer him.

‘Silted up,’ explained Carlton. ‘Won’t turn.’

Soon they were looking into a deep well at the gigantic stuck  wheel.

‘So what does it do?’ asked Kaleem pointing to the mill wheel.

Carlton did not seem to have heard him. He started talking to one of the other engineers there. Kaleem found it quite difficult to follow what they were saying, but he did hear them mention water.

‘So what does it do?’ he asked again, after Carlton had finished talking to the others. This time he had remembered the inflected word for ‘it’ when he referred to the mill wheel.

‘This is what generates most of our energy,’ Carlton explained. ‘It’s because this has seized up that we’re short of energy at the moment.’

Kaleem could see what the engineers were doing. They seemed to be just putting more and more water into the wheel pit. Black liquid mud was pouring out.

Kaleem wanted to ask about that. He remembered that the word for water came from the old language and therefore had to be inflected.

‘Are they really just pouring water into it?’  he asked. ‘Why don’t they take out the wheel and dig out the mud?’ Kaleem felt rather pleased with his effort this time. He must have got it right again, because Carlton replied straight away.

‘Well, we could have done that,’ he said, ‘but that is rather a big job and the wheel could get broken in the process. This way we are loosening up the silt and cleaning the wheel at the same time.’

Kaleem helped Carlton all day, with just a short break to drink some fruit juice and eat something which was a bit like a sandwich. It tasted good because he was so hungry. The rest of the time, they helped to pour in the water. There were droids working there as well, but all too often they got soaked and stopped working. Some of the engineers shovelled out the now softened silt. The wheel was beginning to move a little.

‘It’s four of Zena,’ said  Carlton suddenly. ‘The end of our shift. The reds will be coming in soon. Let’s go and get cleaned up.’

Kaleem enjoyed the shower.

‘The company will take care of our laundry,’ said Carlton. ‘That’s your locker there.’ He handed Kaleem a disk key.

Kaleem pressed the disk and the beam hit the door of the locker, which opened immediately. Inside was a blue uniform, identical to the one he just taken off.

‘Let’s go and relax,’ said Carlton.

Kaleem didn’t jump every time another Autoflieg came right up to them this time. He actually enjoyed trying to work out which vehicle would back off first. He noticed as well that all the Fliegs travelling in the same direction as them were blue, and the ones going towards the engineering site were red.

‘Is everything colour-coded then?’ he asked  Carlton.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘That way we know who’s doing what.’

‘Well, can people from different colour bands mix?’ asked Kaleem.

‘Of course,’ replied Carlton. ‘I used to be a yellow.’

‘So why did you become a blue?’ asked Kaleem.

‘Because I got the job with Denta engineering,’ replied Carlton. ‘It’s no big deal. You just have to alter your eating, working and sleeping patterns.’

It all seemed so very logical. Perhaps a bit too logical for Kaleem. It was all so neat and tidy. He didn’t think he ought to comment about that, though, and anyway, he’d begun to find it a bit difficult to talk again. This language was a really tricky one, and words from other ones kept popping into his head.

It must be dreary, though, he thought, having to wear the same colour all the time.

Carlton, of course, knew what he was thinking. Well, of course he did, he was all part of the programme, wasn’t he? These holoprogrammes were all very good, but that’s all they were - programmes.

‘We have to wear our colours when we’re out and about,’ said Carlton ‘So that other people can respect our time zone. But once we’re in private space, we can please ourselves.’

‘So what do you do during your time off?’ asked Kaleem.

‘Exercise, virtual outings, drinking in the bars, visiting the dataserve simulations,’ he replied. He was slowing the Autoflieg right down now. It was tilting into the upright position, ready to land.

‘I thought we might go to juice joint,’ he said. The Autoflieg was near the ground. Kaleem heard the wheels drop and the machine tilted them back into the sitting position.

‘You’ll need a jacket,’ said Carlton. ‘The air’s cooled inside.’

A jacket seemed the last thing that he’d need as he stepped out into the heat of Zena’s mid-day.

‘Believe me, it will be cool in there,’ said Carlton, handing Kaleem a pale blue jacket.

Kaleem noticed that Carlton was jiggling something in his top left pocket. He took a small glass ball from the pocket and transferred it to his right pocket.

‘Three down, two to go,’ said Carlton.

‘What?’ said Kaleem. There seemed to be a strange way of thinking on this planet - minimum amount of refuelling when there  was an energy crisis, throwing water at muck rather than digging it out, and wearing jackets indoors. But moving marbles around was just the limit.

‘We’re learning to think sideways,’ said Carlton. ‘The marbles help us to make sure we do it at least five times a day. You transfer a marble from one pocket to the other every time you manage to think laterally. Vertical thinking has stopped working.’

Yeah, right, thought Kaleem.

He just about had time to catch a glimpse of the juice joint. Not that different form a nectar bar. And there were colours here - in fact, shafts of rainbow lights illuminated groups of drinkers - though they were mainly blues, because of the time. He realised he was thirsty and looked forward to trying the juice.

But then the bar and its occupants started breaking up. He could hear the faint whir of his own dataserve.

‘Yeah, okay, I get it,’ he mumbled to himself, ‘but I would have liked to stay a bit longer and try at least one juice. I could have tried my New Middle German a bit more.’

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ said Razjosh. ‘I’ve brought you back early again. But we have to go. You must pack at once.’

It was actually Razjosh this time, not a hologram.

The Prophecy The Z Zone Two

The body of the Mother carried on growing. She became less comfortable. The shine went from her hair. The tremendous energy had begun to wane, as she found her now huge form harder and harder to move.

She could feel the baby moving almost all of the time now. What before had seemed a neat trick, a sweet moment, now became an annoyance. The outline of the foot appearing on the belly now meant a kick in the stomach, heartburn or an uncomfortable feeling under the ribs.

She found it difficult to eat. There was no room for her food. The baby was taking up all of the space inside.

She moved less, and when she did move, she felt heavy and ugly.

I’m glad he went, she told herself. I’m glad he can’t see me like this.

‘The head is engaged,’ said the old woman, one day as she felt the Mother’s belly. ‘The baby will be here soon.’

At times she would walk around their cave home. She had to walk, even though she did not feel like it, because if she didn’t her legs would cramp up and she would have excruciating pains travelling through the whole of her body.

As she walked, she could feel the head of the life inside her bouncing on top of its exit. She was sure that at any second it would just fall out.

I wish the baby would hurry up and come, she thought to herself.  I would like my body back.

But  then she would feel sick with fear. The old midwife had told her what to expect of the birth. The baby would not just fall out. There were likely to be hours of pain, fluids dripping from her body, blood flowing between her legs, and high temperatures. The baby would not be cute and clean when it appeared. It would be covered in blood, and wrinkled, most likely and with a thick fleshy cord coming from its belly.  But the worst thought of all was of that great head, which she could already feel so keenly, forcing its way through that gap so much too small.

There was going to be very little help in the Z Zone. If they had still had all the technology available in the normal zones, it would have been of little use here. Even the Z Zoners, with the exception of Narisja, had forgotten about birthing and she had not practiced it for many years.

The older woman put the Mother through her lessons. She told her how to breathe - shallow for when the pains were sharp and she wanted to push, deep for when she needed to relax. She showed her how to push, how not to put the energy into her throat but to direct it downwards, and so help the baby on its way.

‘Then we will put Him on your breast and give Him His first milk. That is the milk which is rich in nutrients and fights disease,’ she said. She ignored the Mother’s grimace at the word ‘disease’. ‘You have fine breasts,’ she continued. ‘The Child will be well nurtured from these breasts.’

The Mother shivered. She did not like to think of the child sucking at her nipples. It was animal-like. It was barbaric. It was just not done these days.

They still looked at the book. The Mother slowly found herself absorbed by the story. She imagined the people planning their great city and building the tall tower, which would lead them up to God. She saw them as flesh and blood, not just as the paper cut-outs here, though they did look fine in their silver and gold clothing.

‘Read it to me,’ said the old woman. And the Mother read it, from beginning to end. Her eyes skimmed across the Wordtext sections. She did not need to read them. She knew them so well.

She felt more and more uneasy as she came to the part where the tower began to tumble. It looked almost nothing in the pictures, but she could imagine the people screaming, and the children falling then searching in vain for their mothers and fathers in the debris on the ground.

‘Those poor children,’ she said to Narisja

‘You are bound to think of the children,’ said Narisja, ‘in your condition.’

At least they had mothers and fathers, thought the Mother, rubbing her huge belly, unlike you, my poor little one. She tried to stop the tears as she thought of how it might have been if Gabrizan could have been there with her.

‘It is so good that you are here,’ said the older woman. ‘It is so good that you came to the Zone, carrying the Babel book.’ She spoke as if she had not seen the Mother’s tears. But the Mother knew that her old friend understood her pain.

She could move less now, and the dancing had stopped. She had time to think. And she thought of what might happen after the birth. Would Narisja still keep her prisoner here? One day she dared to ask.

‘Narisja,’ she said, ‘what should happen to me and the child after he is born? Should we stay here?’

The older woman stared at her for several minutes. Then she looked away. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She turned back to the Mother and looked deep into her eyes.

‘The Child will know what is best to do,’ she said. the old woman. ‘We must trust in Him.’

Now it was the turn of the younger woman to look away.

This is nonsense, she told herself. It was just a mistake. They are hiding me behind a prophecy. Then she shuddered again as she remembered that the Stopes programmes had failed, though the Stopes programmes never failed. It was the book, the simple story in which Narisja had so much faith, which had saved her. Nevertheless, she asked herself what sort of life she and the Child would lead here, in the Z Zone.

The days followed the usual pattern. The Mother rested more and more. The older woman completed the chores. One day the Mother woke up, full of energy again.

‘I want to help you to beat the rugs,’ she said to Narisja ‘I want to boil the bean soup and want to move all the dust out of the cave. It must be clean for the sake of the child.’

And she set to, broom in hand. She sang as she worked. She swept and scrubbed, she peeled and scraped. She felt strong. She felt brave. She felt happy. She was reluctant to lie on her bed for the midwife to examine her.

‘I must get on. I must get everything ready for the baby,’ she said.

Eventually she had to let the older woman look at her. There was a fire in the eyes of the midwife as she gently felt around the contours of the swollen belly. The old woman put the listening tube to the lump.

‘Good,’ she murmured. ‘Very good indeed.’

‘May  I go now?’ said the Mother and rushed from the bed. She took the feather duster and started to flick it high up the cave walls. Nothing was going to beat her.

Suddenly there was a sharp pain in the small of her back. She dropped the duster and held her breath, trying to count the pain away. Something warm trickled from the space between her legs. She saw the blood dripping to the floor. A gush of water, warm and steaming, which she could not control splashed around her feet.  Then came the second pain.

The old woman smiled.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘It is time.’

The Prophecy Overground Chapter Seven

The information channels spoke of little else that evening. Kaleem flicked from one to another.

It was a seven-year-old boy. He had only become ill the day before. He had not been in contact with anyone who had had the disease.

There were groups of angry people outside the main medical centres.

‘Parents are demanding that a vaccine be produced as soon as possible,’ said the newsreader. ‘This first premature natural death is causing widespread alarm.’

Various scientists gave their opinions on why it was proving so difficult to find an antidote.

‘It would seem,’ said one, ‘that it is not acting in the same way as those known previously on Terrestra before all disease was eradicated. It is going from strength to strength and is resistant to all anti-viral drugs we have been able to manufacture.’

It was as if it was Kaleem’s fault. He had been the first to be ill. He had somehow brought the disease to the planet. Yet that was crazy. He had never left here.

And his mother knew something and didn’t want to tell. Not that she could at the moment, even if she wanted to.

Razjosh appeared in a hologram that evening.

‘It is alarming,’ he said. ‘But there will be an answer. We may have to go outside, though… I’ll come in person tomorrow. We need to step up the programme. Make sure you have plenty of sleep.’

Kaleem did not go to bed particularly early. He could not resist watching further news bulletins. For a few fleeting moments he wondered what he might find out form Hidden Information. But he’s have even less chance of getting to that now. They were watching him too closely.  And then any new information they didn’t want to share with the public would be buried even deeper than usual.

The whole story of the arrival and then of the lifting of the poison cloud was told over and over again. They were constantly making a connection between it and the arrival of this illness.

When he did eventually get to bed he couldn’t sleep. Thoughts about the story of the tower, the illness, his mother’s strange background and strange coma turned round and round in his mind. When he did at last fall sleep, he saw people dying, streets covered in bodies and people climbing towers which disappeared into the sky. Then came the usual dream. This time, one of the children, a girl, looked at him intensely.

‘You brought this disease here,’ she said. ‘You must carry it away. It is written.’ The pages of the book turned more rapidly this time, filled up with writing more quickly, and even more pages were ripped out.

Razjosh came early.

‘We need help and we can only get it from outside,’ he said. ‘We must get on.’

Kaleem’s heart started racing.

‘You mean actually go there?’ he asked Razjosh.

‘Of course,’ replied the old man. ‘That is always a possibility for the Peace Child. That is the main point really. Does that scare you?’

A wave of heat passed through Kaleem. It was rushing towards his head. He was sure that when it reached his brain, he would explode. He felt himself grin.

‘Not really,’ he said. It did scare him, in fact but it was also exciting. And if he were to help find a way of fighting the disease, that would make him feel less guilty about being part of the cause of it.

‘Good,’ said Razjosh. ‘Every waking minute now, you should spend on the programme. Taking care, though, to get enough food, rest and exercise.’ The Elder looked carefully at Kaleem. ‘You actually look rather tired now.’

Kaleem shrugged.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said.

‘That’s to be avoided at all costs,’ said Razjosh. ‘You must take responsibility for yourself. Do whatever needs to be done, and use the diastic monitor often and carefully.’

Kaleem suddenly missed Maria. She usually made sure he used the diastic monitor twice a day. With her away, he was only using it every other day - if he remembered. He had even ignored the alarm three days running when it had told him his check up was now overdue.

‘And,’ Razjosh continued, ‘I shall teach you some of the programme directly. We may be able to take some short cuts which the machines would never allow.’

Kaleem stared at Razjosh.  The excitement he had felt a few minutes ago was disappearing rapidly. How much more was he going to have to do?

‘You’ll see,’ said Razjosh. ‘It will work. You can do it.’

The next day found Razjosh and Kaleem studying a Wordtext file carefully.

‘I’m going to do something a little different with this,’ said Razjosh. ‘I’m going to make it look more real.’

Seconds later, they seemed to have a piece of paper in front of them.

‘People always used to read words this way,’ said Razjosh. ‘And there is a particular method which works when you’re using a Wordtext file in another language.’

The text was in German. Kaleem found it less easy to read than Spanish. The sounds which the symbols represented did not build words which sounded like English. But at least all the symbols built a sound, and there was only one combination of symbols for each sound. French was much more awkward and there was so much to remember about different spelling methods in English, that it was quite hard to read, despite it being his own language.

‘Imagine yourself reading it out loud,’ said Razjosh. ‘In fact as there is no-one here except me, you may as well read it out loud. Then point at the words you recognize or which sound like English with the laser pen. The dataserve will store them and show. Tell the machine what these mean.’

Kaleem did this. So far, the text seemed to be about a girl who had suddenly left home. He did not have all of the detail.

‘Do this three times,’ said Razjosh.

Kaleem did so. Now there were more details clear.

‘Now look at the sentences as a whole,’ said Razjosh. ‘Do you understand them? Are there some with one or two words missing, where you can guess the meaning because they couldn’t really mean anything else?’

Kaleem tried that. Most of the text appeared in English.

‘Of what you don’t yet know,’ said Razjosh, ‘try to find the key words in these sentences. Use the dictionary to look those up.’

Kaleem found he only had to look up five of the thirty or more words remaining until suddenly the whole text made sense. The last pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place.

Razjosh and he looked at five more texts that day -another German one, two Spanish, a French one and even one in Dutch, which was a language Kaleem had not tackled before. Yet, as he worked through the stages Razjosh had suggested before - admittedly more carefully and more slowly, the meaning of the text did eventually become clear.

‘Do you see how it’s possible to get to grips with even a quite difficult text this way?’ asked Razjosh.

Kaleem nodded. In the end it had been possible to understand every single word in each of the texts, though it had been quite hard work, especially with the Dutch one. Words were now beginning to float in the air in front of Kaleem. They didn’t go away even when he shut his eyes. There was a gnawing feeling in his stomach.

‘Can we stop and have something to eat?’ he said to Razjosh.

‘A good idea indeed,’ said Razjosh. ‘And afterwards, I suggest a walk on the surface, where I will tell you something else you need to know.’

When Kaleem returned from the kitchen with the house robot and a pile of sandwiches and drinks, Razjosh was looking at the Babel book.

‘Have you any idea where this came from?’ he asked Kaleem.

Kaleem shook his head.

‘This was so famous in its time,’ said Razjosh. ‘Davina Patterson was known for her retelling of myths and Bible stories. But we thought the very last copy of this had long gone. How do you come to have it?’

Kaleem told Razjosh how he had found it in Maria’s room. He pointed out the strange marks at the beginning.

‘Yes, that’s handwriting all right,’ said Razjosh. It simply says ‘To my darling granddaughter, from Oma. Remember this story always.’

‘Oma? As in grandmother?’  asked  Kaleem.

‘That’s right,’ said Razjosh. ‘There are still echoes of the old world. But what your mother probably didn’t know when she was first given this book - and probably still doesn’t know -  is that another part of the Peace Child Prophecy is that the Mother would arrive carrying this story.’

This prophecy idea was getting even more weird. Was Razjosh saying that this book proved that Maria was the special mother and he was therefore the special Peace Child?

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Razjosh. ‘More often than not, we just use prophecy as a convenient explanation for what is going on around us.’ Razjosh looked through the book again. ‘Beautiful, beautiful,’ he muttered. Then he sighed. ‘It is odd, though, that she should mention the Mother idea and then turn out to have been hiding this book. Maybe she has been in the Z Zone. People saw her with it and decided to name her the Mother.’

Kaleem jumped at the mention of Z Zoners. He didn’t really know much about them, other than that they lived outside the bounds of the cities in the area called the Z Zone and that they dealt with and had access to Hidden Information. He caught sight of his dark skin and light hair in the mirror. Was that it then? Was he the child of a Z Zoner? Not that he would know. He was not even supposed to know how they existed, let alone what they looked like.

‘Do you think I came from there then? Is that why I’m so different, so unacceptable?’ he asked.

Razjosh looked at him sternly.

‘You’ll have to get used to a lot more differences than those you would find in a Z Zoner,’ he said sharply. ‘A lot more. If you’re to be a real Peace Child.’

Kaleem blushed.

‘Well, I think we’d better eat,’ said Razjosh.

But Kaleem hardly touched his food, despite being so hungry earlier. Razjosh, on the other hand, ate heartily. He seemed not to notice that Kaleem was only picking at his food. Kaleem certainly didn’t feel like going for a walk, but didn’t dare to turn down the suggestion when Razjosh put it forward again. The atmosphere between them was strained as they walked.

‘Tomorrow I shall send holographs,’ said Razjosh.  ‘They will play the parts of the many people you need to get to know.’

They did not speak at all as they made their way out of the cave system.

‘Let’s go towards the town and through the park,’ said Razjosh, when they at last arrived at the exit.

They walked steadily over the uncultivated land towards the park.  There were few people out there.

‘Everyone got too used to living underground,’ commented Razjosh. ‘They came out and had a quick look, then tried to recreate the atmosphere of the caves inside buildings. They have a slightly better view, of course. But look what they’re missing.’

The sun was going down, making the shadows of the trees stretch along the ground. This low light was extraordinary, making everything more vivid and at the same time softer.

‘They’ve forgotten how to live on the surface,’ said Razjosh. ‘But there are other places and other peoples who enjoy this all the time. They could teach us a thing or two. Perhaps you would have been able to learn about that, and have shown the rest of us, Peace Child, if you weren’t needed in other ways.’

They walked on in silence. A breeze cooled the back of Kaleem’s neck.

This is real, he thought. The virtual scenes don’t feel like this.

It was almost completely dark when they arrived at the edge of the park. The town was beginning to light up.

‘All that activity,’ commented Razjosh. ‘All that busyness, but do they know what they’re doing? They’re getting a bit too comfortable.’

Kaleem and Razjosh strolled for about half an hour along the city walkways. Kaleem hoped that he would not see anyone from his group. What they would make of him walking along with an Elder they did not know. He guessed he would either not hear the last of it or else they would be so surprised that they would treat him as even more of an oddity.

They began to talk again, about practical things to do with the programme. Kaleem thought he would never be able to get fully to grips with what Razjosh was expecting him to learn.

‘It’s all so complicated,’ he said. ‘There is just so much to learn.’

‘Yes, there is,’ said Razjosh. ‘And this is only the beginning. You have yet to learn the people as well as the way they speak. You should remember, though, that we wouldn’t have chosen you if we hadn’t been sure you could do it. Tomorrow you will see.’

Kaleem knew that something really important was going to happen the next day.

‘I don’t really understand about the holoprogrammes,’ he said.

‘They will teach you about ways of the people,’ he said.

They were now right by a transporter station and a unit was waiting.

‘No more work to-night,’ said the old man. ‘Relax a little.’ He stepped on to the transporter.

Kaleem suddenly remembered that Razjosh had said he wanted to tell him something else.

‘What was the other thing?’ he shouted after Razjosh.

Razjosh simply smiled and waved. Seconds later he and the machine were gone.

Kaleem realised how near he was to Pierre Lafontaine’s apartment. He suddenly felt like some company his own age. He called up Pierre on his wrist communicator.

‘Yeah, come over,’ said Pierre. ‘I’ll see you in a few minutes, then.’

Kaleem decided that he wasn’t so strange, after all. Just like anyone else, he was on his way to see a friend. All those hours spent working with machines on the old languages suddenly seemed unreal. So what, if his mother was a bit mysterious about where he came from and about her life before he was born? It would be good to see Pierre. Good and completely normal.