The Core of the Sun (24 page)

VERA/MIRA NOW

I wake to noise and shaking and someone dabbing my forehead.

I'm sitting in a chair like a bus seat, strapped in. It's not like a car seat belt, doesn't go over my shoulder, just across my lap.

There are a lot of people, and little, round windows.

Outside the windows I see glimpses of racing clouds.

A woman in a uniform, dark, with a large nose and short hair—obviously a morlock, but wearing makeup for some reason—is bending over me. Jare is sitting beside me holding my hand. In his other hand he holds a soft paper napkin and dabs my face with it. He's wiping the sweat away.

I'm still on a hell of a high.

Then I sense her. Clear as sight.

Mira is curled up in the Cellar. In a dark, warm, sheltered corner of my mind, nestled like a child in the womb.

Where no one from the outside can ever reach her again.

Safe. Finally safe.

I owe such a debt to you. Without you, without you to be my model, I would have strayed from my designated role and been destroyed. All through our childhood and all through our youth , you were teaching me. You focused my eyes so I could see.

You gave me a means of escape.

You were my sun, and now you are my core.

I don't know if you'll live in the Cellar from now on or if you'll be there only when I use the Fire Within to summon you, but you always have the right to be there. You played an unintentional part in building the Cellar, and now it's yours.

I whisper: “Happy birthday, Mira.”

The Core of the Sun hums in my veins.

My boat is light and swift!

Its flight guides the birds.

The smaller bird is called Mira,

and it carries her, too.

My two souls say,

Let us keep hold of both sides of the boat

and we will fly to unknown lands.

I fly invisibly, seeing all that is

and carrying the knowledge in my breast

like a bird carrying food to its nest.

“Is everything all right now?” the woman asks, speaking half to me and half to Jare, and Mira's whisper echoes in the Cellar:
Everything's all right now,
and she curls up still tighter and safer in her fetal position, and falls asleep.

“Yes, she's all right again now,” Jare says, and squeezes my hand. “The little lady's just a bit nervous. She's not used to flying.”

Excerpt from Åke Wallenquist's
Astronomy and the World Today

National Publishing (1954)

The sun's photosphere—its visible surface—is amazingly thin. The fragile brightness of this heavenly object can make you forget what dark, matter-smashing forces hide deep within its core.

AFTERWORD

One of the inspirations for this book was Tiina Raevaara's wonderful nonfiction book
Koiraksi ihmiselle
(On Dogs and Humans, Teos, 2001), where I first learned of Belyayev's domestication experiments. Belyayev's observations were also presented in the March 2011 issue of
National Geographic.
Many thanks to Tiina for directing me to articles on neoteny and the significance of sex in evolution.

Warm thanks to Jukka “Fatalii” Kilpinen for adding to my chili pepper knowledge, for giving me the opportunity to visit his chili farm and greenhouses, and for his other assistance with the book.

The stream-of-consciousness fragments on pages 296–300 are based in large part on the spirit journey songs of Chukchi shamans Nuwat and Ukwun. The original texts can be found in Anna-Leena Siikala's book
Suomalainen samanismi: Mielikuvien historiaa
(
Mythic Images and Shamanism: A Perspective on Kalevala Poetry
, SKS, 1992).

The article on human sterilization excerpted on pages 223–225 is, with the exception of a very few word changes, taken from an actual article in the second April 1935 issue of
Kotiliesi
(
Hearth and Home
) magazine.

Wallenquist's
Astronomy and the World Today
is an actual book. The quote on page 303, however, is not actually taken from it.

The Transcendental Capsaicinophilic Society is a real, though somewhat tongue-in-cheek, group that can be found on the Internet. The “Litany Against Pain” is borrowed directly from the society.

Any errors, misconstructions, or other inaccuracies are naturally my own.