The Seven Gifts (10 page)

Henry found his voice.

“Please," he pleaded. “Please don't. I want
my spaceship. I want to go home. I'm sorry if I've upset you. I
promise I won't do it again." He collapsed into a flood of
tears.

“Don't cry," said the voice gently. “No-one
will hurt your spaceship, or you. I'm sorry I spoke so harshly to
you. You are welcome on this planet."

It was a few moments before Henry registered
what the voice had said. And the way it had said it.

But he missed its sincerity. Which was a
pity.

Damn thing's taking the mickey, he thought.
Nobody takes the mickey out of me.

Henry slowly turned round and stood, hands
on hips, staring into the empty nothingness from which the voice
had seemed to come.

“Are you taking the mick?" he growled,
truculent as ever.

The voice laughed: a cold, cynical laugh
with no humour whatever. It was no longer gentle.

“Taking the mick?" it snorted. “Out of you?
A big tough honey bee like you? Just because you were on your
belly, grovelling and snivelling like a baby? Why should I bother
taking the mickey out of a cowardly little squirt like you?" The
laugh was chopped abruptly.

Henry's anger now was cold and
malignant.

“I'll throttle you," he snarled, his voice
rising with his fury. “Show yourself you little rat, and I'll ki
....." His words ended in a strangled gasp. He could see nothing,
but strong hands were round his throat, squeezing the life out of
him.

Henry struggled, desperately trying to free
the invisible grip from his throat. He buzzed his wings and hit out
with his arms and legs. But the grip just tightened. He felt
himself go dizzy. Henry knew he was going to die, and with that
last thought in his head, he blacked out.

“You don't learn, do you?" the little old
man said, not unkindly, when Henry woke up. Henry shook his head
and looked around him.

“Am I dead?" he quavered.

“No, you're not dead," said the little old
man. “Just a bit hard to teach, that's all."

Henry looked at him, then at his spaceship,
then back to the little old man. He started. The old man looked
real. It was the first thing the worn-out little honey bee had seen
since arriving on that dreadful planet.

“Are you real?" he asked, in
bewilderment.

“Yes, I'm real," the old man replied. “I
live here. I'm the only living thing, nay the only any thing on
this planet. In fact," he went on, “even the planet isn't really
here. There's only me. And those, like you, who visit."

Henry was taken aback. He must be the voice
then, he thought. But that didn't make sense. How could that weedy
little old man be The Voice? Someone was playing tricks on him. He
began to feel annoyed, and was about to shout at the old man, when
something seemed to click in his little brain. He fought down his
temper, glancing anxiously around him. It had suddenly dawned on
him that it was his anger that seemed to rile The Voice. He didn't
want any more of that.

He looked at the old man. He was a very
ordinary, featureless sort of little old man; there was nothing
about him you could actually describe as such. He was just a little
old man, and he was there. That was all Henry could say. He
couldn't think of anything at all to say to the little old man. In
fact, he was decidedly wary of opening his mouth at all. It seemed
to have brought him nothing but trouble every time he had done. So
he just stood and looked at the little old man, and waited for
something to happen.

For a long time a rather worried little
honey bee and a featureless little old man stood on a planet that
wasn't really there, and gazed at each other. Which was fine for
the little old man as time had no meaning for him. It was also fine
by Henry, who was determined not to initiate anything ever again
while he was stuck on this weird planet. In fact, he would think
twice about initiating anything ever again wherever he was. Who
knew where that voice could reach? Way across the Universe to his
beehive, perhaps? The possibility worried him. He tried to be
casual. Why should he care who got the first lot of nectar anyway?
It didn't really matter very much, did it? And he decided that it
was really rather boring buzzing the Snow Queen. In fact, there
seemed a lot to be said for simply being pleasant.

The little old man spoke.

“Are you learning, Henry?"

Dumbfounded, Henry nodded. What was this
little old man? What was this planet, anyway?"

“I am the only person unaffected by the
qualities of this planet," the old man went on, as if half in
answer to Henry's unspoken question. “The planet as such does not
exist. Neither does anything on it. Nevertheless, it can be felt.
You can land your spaceship on it, and walk on it, as you have
done. And yet it does nothing. It neither grows nor moves, nor
lives nor dies. It circles nothing and nothing circles it. And yet
it has purpose. You have seen that purpose.

Henry nodded. “I think I have," he said. “It
seems to, sort of, shout back at me every time I shout. And when I
was sorry, it was kind, and I thought it was taking the mickey, so
it did. It seems to sort of reflect what I do. Is that right?"
There was no brashness in his voice, no trace of annoyance.

“This is the Land of Mirrors," the old man
said. “It reflects the qualities of everything that happens to it.
It has no identity of its own. If you are angry with it, it will be
angry with you. If you are kind to it, it will be kind in return.
All those who come to the Land of Mirrors see only themselves. Did
you like what you saw, Henry?"

“No," said Henry humbly.

“Then neither will others," said the old
man.

“Yes," said Henry. “I see what you
mean."

“You must learn to behave to others," said
the old man, “as you would have them behave to you. That way you
can all live peaceably."

Henry nodded. “There's logic in that," he
said.

“Well, if you've learnt your lesson," said
the old man, “then it's time for you to go home."

“Good idea," said Henry. “There's someone I
want to see back there. On second thoughts, perhaps you should see
her." And off he went.

Two weeks later Henry arrived home. He had
quite enjoyed the return journey, watching the stars buzzing past
his porthole. And he had pottered about happily doing his checks
and calculations. He felt distinctly at peace with the world as he
stepped out of the spaceship to a tumultuous welcome from the
citizens of the Snow Queen's kingdom. And then the Queen
arrived.

She did not bother saying ‘Hello' or ‘How
are you?', and Henry could see greed written all over her face
before she even opened her mouth. She did not disappoint him.

“Well?" It was more a demand than a
question. “What's it got? Minerals? Diamonds? Gold? Furs? Skins?"
The Queen's eyes glinted as she reeled off the list.

I should have expected all this, thought
Henry. It must have been his new-found good nature that made him
surprised. It was certainly his new-found good nature that stopped
him being rude.

“Does anyone live there?" the Queen went on.
“What have they got? Spices? Silks? Weapons? How many
battlecruisers would we need to conquer them?"

Henry did not quite know how to handle this,
so he said nothing. Which, of course, absolutely infuriated the
Snow Queen. She turned puce.

“Come on, bee, out with it!" she yelled.
“What did you find out about the place? Do I have to drag it out of
you? Can't anyone do a decent job of anything round here except
me?" That gave Henry an idea.

“I didn't find anything," he said simply.
There was a horrible silence. He thought the Snow Queen was going
to explode. But finally she managed to snarl out some words.

“What do you mean ‘Didn't find anything'?
What's the matter with you? You're an imbecile, a cretin. I send
you all that way at vast expense and you come back here and tell me
you found nothing." The Queen was beginning to get a grip on
herself. “Why," she finished, dangerously, “did you find
nothing?"

“Well," said Henry calmly, “as you say, I'm
a cretin and an imbecile; just a simple bee whose job is gathering
nectar. That is a very complex planet with a difficult approach. It
needs someone with far more intelligence than I have to explore
it."

“Damn you," said the Queen, “do I have to do
everything round here myself?" Henry barely suppressed a little
smirk. “You're fired, bee. Get back to your hive and be thankful I
don't spray you on the spot." She turned on her heel and stalked
off.

The next day a very angry Snow Queen blasted
off for the strange planet accompanied by her friend the Queen Bee
and a heavily armed squadron of battlecruisers. Two weeks later
astronomers in the kingdom observed what seemed to be a massive
stellar explosion in the vicinity of the strange planet. They noted
it to tell the Snow Queen on her return.

But the Snow Queen and her squadron of
battlecruisers never returned. Which, although not surprising, was
a pity, as they may have been intrigued to discover that that
complex and aggressive little character, Henry, had been renamed
Henrietta. And the Queen's Beemaster was plagued with an outbreak
of laying workers: somewhere in the now queenless hive was a worker
bee that had developed sufficiently strong feminine tendencies to
begin laying eggs. This was a nuisance to the Beemaster as the
colony would not now accept a proper new Queen; but it was food for
the thoughts of others.

o ------------------------
o

The young boy closed the
book on the Fourth Gift

and remained a while with
his thoughts

in the lonely tower at the
end of the beach

And the Angel watched over
him

o ------------------------
o

Leaning on a Gate

THE BOY leaned quietly on the little
white-painted wicket gate leading into the Angel's garden. He
watched her carefully hoeing around the bean plants in her
vegetable patch, which was kept as beautifully as the rest of the
garden.

It was a magical garden this, tended so
affectionately by the Angel. A hotch-potch of flowers, fruit trees,
shrubs and vegetables, with old roses and clematis roaming
willy-nilly around them all. Honeysuckle and ivy almost covered the
far wall, hanging in beautifully untidy loops around the front door
of her cottage, and the air was filled with a fascinating mixture
of scents - lavender and rosemary mingling with the clambering
honeysuckle, the stocks and the jasmine. And lying behind these,
the fainter aromas of apple blossom and a variety of roses.

In and around the wafting, drifting scent of
the flowers was the gentle hum of bees going about their tasks in
the garden - flitting, buzzing methodically from flower to flower,
gathering nectar and spreading the essential pollen. The air seemed
filled with a wild array of colours, given movement by the light
swaying breeze and the constant flickering of black and yellow as
the bees meandered across the boy's vision.

In the background, and far above the garden,
he could hear the undulating trill of a skylark, singing its
private counter-melody across and through the soft cooing of doves
roosting in the nearby trees.

The varying sounds and smells, the
contrasting colours, the shapes and patterns in the garden, even
the Angel herself, all seemed to harmonise into one great swirling
sensual array that, far from battering the boy's senses, seemed to
flood through them like a tide, building to a crescendo then ebbing
away quietly to leave him refreshed and at peace. He felt a part of
it all himself, drawn by the primroses and sweet peas, the bright
brave daffodils, the sombre, elegant columbine; entwined and bound
by the ramblers and creepers, drugged by the bewitching scent of
the honeysuckle, snared by the siren-sound of the bees.

No sign of Henry here, he thought with a
smile. Or perhaps he had already returned from the Land of Mirrors.
Certainly there was nothing to disturb the harmony of this garden.
Even the surrounding trees and the compost heap were constructive
in shaping its balanced form. A myriad different shapes and smells,
colours, sounds and purposes mingled and blended to form one
magical whole. Would that the Earth were like that.

But he knew that very soon
it would be. For the fourth gift of its guardian was surely
Harmony: a gift whose seeds, even now, were beginning to sprout in
the fertile soil of that world, a living matrix potentially
infinitely more splendid and exciting than a thousand Angel's
gardens. He looked up and caught her smiling at him, and he knew at
once that he was right. The guardian's fourth gift to the Earth,
and the first stage of that world's unfolding purpose, was
HARMONY
.

o ------------------------
o

~
The Fifth Gift
~

The Philosopher's
Stone

ONE LOVELY spring day a philosopher was
strolling through the woods, pondering on the questions of the
time. And they were confusing times in the land of the Snow Queen,
especially for an old, traditional philosopher like him.

For seventy years now he had lived in that
kingdom, most of his time spent on the only quest that need ever
concern a true philosopher - the interminable struggle to
understand the purpose of his own existence. Why he should live.
Why he should live here. Where this curious thing called human life
came from; and where it was going to.

He certainly didn't like the direction it
seemed to be going in now. His years of quiet contemplation had
been thrown into turmoil by the rolling waves of technology now
sweeping across the kingdom. Questions that had once occupied him
for months of deep solitary thought followed by weeks of complex
discussion with colleagues, now seemed to be answered at the press
of a button. His world was full of winking lights and buzzers,
spewing forth rationalised explanations that the half-baked
intellectuals confused with truth.