The Fall of Tartarus (12 page)

I
stared down past my feet at the wind-rilled water far below. A silence settled
as we each considered our thoughts, or in Hulse’s case whatever passed for
thoughts.

I
wondered if the holiday would continue in this vein, or if Hulse would let up
and treat me as a human being. He’d been affable enough in the past, to the
point where I almost considered him a friend, but he had always spoiled himself
with some barbed cruelty or malicious act - not always directed at myself.
Bobby had been the butt of his arrogance in the past. Perhaps this was one of
the reasons Bobby and I were close.

‘Talking
about birds and beasts,’ Hulse said, ‘shall we tell him about the Zillion?’

I
glanced around at my friends, but they looked uneasy and would not meet my
gaze.

‘What
about it?’ I asked Hulse.

‘While
you were resitting your exams,’ he said, ‘we began a dare.’

I
guessed what the dare was, and I understood then the unease of my friends. I
felt my palms begin to sweat where I gripped the lip of the fungus.

‘What
kind of dare?’

‘On
the first day of the holiday, I swam over to the island at sunset, sat and
waited until the Zillion came out, then stared him down.’

I
looked across the lake to the green knoll of the island. In years gone by we
had often dared each other to swim across to Zillion’s island and confront the
creature. At nights, as we huddled around the fire that Hulse had expertly
built on bricks carried up from the lane, we had tried to frighten each other
with ever more terrible stories about the strange creature that made its home
on the tiny island. We knew it for a rogue Arcturian gladiator, or a man-eater,
or a telepath who could kill with a single thought. My parents laughed when I
told them this, and said that he was an harmless alien hermit who had come to
Verlaine to see out the rest of his days in peace. But then they
would
say that, I reasoned, to keep the dreadful truth from me.

So
Hulse had finally summoned the courage to face the alien ... I would have been
impressed if I had not disliked him so much.

‘What
happened?’ I asked.

Hulse
shrugged nonchalantly. ‘He just stared at me. I thought I felt a prickling in
my head, as if he were trying to read my thoughts. Then he returned to his lair
and I swam back.’

I
stared at the island. It was perhaps a kilometre away. The swim alone would
have been enough to tax my strength, but then to confront the alien . . .

Hulse
went on, ‘Next day, Leah did the same. Then Bobby and Gabby and Rona. Even
Satch stirred himself from his sac yesterday and paid the creature a visit.’

Hulse
was looking at me, sidewise, assessing my reaction to the news. I glanced at my
friends. They knew I was a poor swimmer, knew I would have difficulty reaching
the island.

Like
a torturer relishing the agony of his victim, Hulse let the silence stretch.

‘So
. . .’ he said at last, ‘how about this evening at sunset?’

‘I
. . .’ I cast about feebly for an excuse. ‘I can’t. Not tonight. I said I’d
help my mother in the garden.’

Hulse’s
stare combined disbelief with supreme disdain.

‘But,’
I went on, surprising myself, ‘I’m doing nothing tomorrow night. I’ll swim over
to the island then.’ And I stared at him until he looked away.

‘You
all heard that,’ he said to the others. ‘Joe’ll risk his life tomorrow.’

‘Don’t
joke about it, Hulse.’ This was Leah. She leaned around Hulse and smiled at me.
‘Don’t worry ‘bout it, Joe. You know,’ she continued lazily, ‘nothing is ever
as bad as you expect it to be.’

Shortly
after this, the meeting broke up. Gabby stretched and yawned, staring up at
Satch in his sac. ‘You’ve slept enough, boy. I think I’ll go and wake him up.’

Quietly,
whispering to each other, Hulse and Leah slipped from the platform. I heard
them climbing high up inside the trunk, caught a glimpse of Leah’s legs as she
stepped out onto a more private platform high overhead.

Bobby
and Rona were arguing beside the slit in the bole. Finally Rona flounced from
view, and Bobby joined me on the edge. ‘Women!’ he complained, shrugging his
shoulders. ‘How about a game of Out?’

He
pulled a miniature set from the pocket of his jacket and we sprawled in the
dappled sunlight and played the best of three. My mind was not on the game - a
combination of trepidation at what I’d got myself into in agreeing to the swim,
and some subtle realisation that Bobby would rather be with Rona, distracted
me. I played badly and lost the first and third games.

I
rolled onto my back and stared up through the dancing foliage. Above me, the
canoe-shape of the dream-sac swayed and bulged as Gabby and Satch made love.

‘What
was it like, when you swam across to the island?’ I asked Bobby.

I
could not see him from where I lay looking up through the foliage, but I sensed
his hesitation. I could imagine his reluctant shrug, his slow grimace. ‘Oh . .
. you know. It’s easy, once you’re there. Don’t worry about it, Joe, okay?’

‘It’s
easy, once you’re there,’ I repeated. ‘But it’s getting there that’s giving me
the shits. And then there’s the bloody Zillion.’

He
was silent. I closed my eyes. So much childhood experience is needlessly
traumatic: I had often wished I could reassure the naive boy I was then that,
as Leah had so wisely quoted, nothing was ever as bad as you expected it to be.

Perhaps
an hour later, having got over her sulk, Rona appeared from the hollow-tree and
smiled across at Bobby.

‘See
you tomorrow, Joe,’ he murmured, and slipped away hand in hand with the short,
ugly, red-headed girl. I lay there a while longer, contemplating how awful life
could be, and then climbed down and made my way back home.

So
fresh were the memories that it was hard to credit that fifty years had elapsed
since we had played in the tree beside the lake. For almost that long I had
lived on Earth and Cymbaline, having followed my parents into the profession of
xeno-botany. I had always intended to return to Tartarus some day, but the time
had never been quite right - I was always busy or otherwise occupied. Then I
heard on a newscast that the evacuation of the planet had begun. I took the
fastest sailship to Tartarus and arrived at Verlaine on the day before Mallarme
province was due to be evacuated. I had thought that perhaps I would need more
time to reacquaint myself with the haunts of my youth, but in the event I found
that my memories were too poignant and that one day was quite enough.

With
two hours to go before the Thousand World Confederation carrier transported the
remaining citizens to Baudelaire, I left the house for the very last time and
walked down the hill to the lake.

Little
had changed across the intervening years. The rolling green countryside was as
I remembered it, fragrant and bedecked with flowers. So completely did the
track to the lake - more a tunnel through thick, over-arching hedges - match my
memory of it that I might have been transported back in time. Only the
increased heat gave away the lie, and the dazzling, depthless white-hot sky. I
passed familiar houses on my way, the open timber villas where Leah and the
others had lived, empty and overgrown now like my own.

I
arrived at the shore of the lake and noticed that a couple of the nearby
hollow-trees had been felled - but not, I saw with a sudden start of relief,
our own. I almost ran across to it. The ferns no longer concealed the entrance,
and as I knelt and caressed the smooth, worn wood I marvelled that I had once
been small enough to slip through the narrow gap. Now I could barely force my
shoulder through the crevice. More than anything I wished I were able to climb
up inside the tree, to renew my intimacy with the locale that had meant so much
to me.

I
stood and walked around the tree, to where its gnarled roots knuckled down
towards the water’s edge. I shaded my eyes and gazed up the length of the
trunk, at the branches that began ten metres above. With a thrill of
recollection I made out the dark, triangular wedge of our fungal platform, and
above it the small white shapes of the dream-sacs.

I
sat down with my back against the bole and stared out across the lake. The
water level had dropped with the increased temperature over the years, and the
island seemed correspondingly larger. I stared at the dry, grassy hump and for
a second imagined that I could make out the Zillion.

On
the eve of my encounter with the alien, I mooched around the house and garden,
avoiding my parents and the inevitable questions they would ask. Why was I not
outside, playing with my friends? The lie I had told Hulse earlier - that I had
to help my mother in the garden - prevented my joining the others, but of
course I realised that my friends would be occupied with other, more important
things that evening, and would not welcome my presence.

I
slept badly that night, dreaming of drowning in fathoms of water, of falling
victim to the Zillion. I slept in till almost noon, then ate and read by turn
until the sun lowered itself behind the distant hills and a beautiful,
peach-wine light flooded the countryside. The Zillion would be climbing from
its underground lair about this time, to sit in the twilight and contemplate
who knew what.

I
left the house and made my way down the track. I was so absorbed with my fear
that I was only half-aware of Bobby as he stepped from the concealment of the
hedge and barred my way. He looked as terrified as I felt.

‘Bobby?
What’s wrong?’

He
took me by the shoulder and pushed me into the hedge, as if he feared we might
be seen. ‘I’ve been waiting here for hours,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d never
come out.’

I
shrugged, puzzled by his attitude. ‘I said I’d meet you at sunset . . . What’s
the matter, Bobby?’

‘Look
. . .’ He couldn’t bring himself to meet my gaze. ‘I wanted to tell you
yesterday, but I couldn’t.’

‘Tell
me what?’

He
hesitated. ‘What Hulse told you then, that he swam across to the island...’

My
heart banged in joyous reprieve. ‘What?’

‘He
didn’t. He didn’t do it. He was lying.’

I
stared at him.

‘And
the other things he said, about me and the others swimming across . . . we
didn’t do it, either.’

I
was speechless for long seconds. Then I said, ‘You could have said something
yesterday.’

‘You
don’t understand. He said if we said anything, he’d tell my father about Rona
and me, and Gabby and Satch. You know what my father would do if he found out.’
He reddened, then went on, ‘Last night Leah came and told me that we had to do
something. I said I’d see you today.’

‘Leah?’
I asked, like an idiot. ‘Leah said you had to tell me?’

‘What’s
so unusual about that?’ He regarded me. ‘Look, why do you think Hulse treats
you like he does? It’s because Leah looks out for you, and Hulse doesn’t like
that.’

I
shook my head. The realisation that Leah thought about me - albeit in the same
way a sister might think about her kid brother - was a strange and marvellous
revelation.

‘So
. . .’ Bobby went on, ‘all you have to say is that your father was out on his
boat all last week, and didn’t see us swimming to the island. Tell Hulse he’s
lying and that you’re not going to do the dare, okay?’

We
continued down the track, through the dusk air filled with floating seed heads,
and came to the lake that rippled at this time of day like molten gold. The
others were beneath the tree, seated among the roots to gain a grandstand view
of my swim. Even Satch was there, having vacated his sac especially for the
event. He looked bleary-eyed and absent.

I
noticed Leah and Rona glance edgily at Bobby, who nodded to them that
everything was okay. Hulse had prepared a barbecue, a small fire roasting
spitted spearback fish. Last year he’d found a valuable silver lighter in the
main street, dubbed himself the Keeper of the Flame, and initiated a series of
barbecues that he liked to think were the height of sophistication.

I
stood hesitantly by the lake, watching them. Leah gave me a dazzling smile. I
could only blush and look away. I told myself that it was better to be regarded
by her as a little kid who needed her protection, than not to be regarded at
all.

Hulse
turned to me, waving a spitted spearback in the air. ‘Care for a last meal,
kid?’

I
was aware of all the eyes on me. ‘You don’t eat before swimming,’ I heard
myself say. ‘Didn’t you know that?’

Hulse
merely shrugged and turned away, while the others stared at me as if I’d taken
leave of my senses. Perhaps I had. I had not planned to continue with the dare,
but at Hulse’s ‘last meal’ jibe it had seemed the only thing to do. To confront
Hulse with his lie and refuse the dare would be to admit my fear. To swim to
the island, say good day to the alien, swim back and then confront Hulse - now
that would be a supreme victory.