Bitter Oath (New Atlantis)

chapter THIRTEEN





The next week was the happiest and most contented Rene had ever known. The world was more beautiful than he had ever realised. For so long, he had only seen the wounds of their damaged planet. All that stood out was what had been lost. In his mind, the Earth had seemed like a mutilated and broken victim of some awful crime, the blood and filth hiding everything else that was there. But now it was as if he saw what was beneath, what had always been beneath, even in the worst moments of destruction. He saw the strength and resilience of life. He saw the beauty of all that had survived.

And his sense of wonder expanded every time Liv gasped with awe at one thing or another. He saw his world anew through her eyes – not a dying planet, but a reborn one, filled with fresh and exciting possibilities.

When he had shown her the terrarium with the giant earthworms burrowing down to the water below, she was fascinated. So much so, that he was hard pressed to get her out of the laboratory again. Her questions were all intelligent, and sometimes they pushed him into areas he hadn’t considered before. She was insatiable, in bed and out of it.

When he thought of the person he had been before her, and the person he was now, it was hard to credit. For hundreds of years, it was as if he had been sleeping or comatose. His brain had functioned, but his body and emotions had been dead. Now they were alive, coursing through him like fire. Jane had observed that he was lighter after meeting Liv. But it was more than lightness; it was energy – pulsing, insistent energy. And it kept him on a constant high.

Some days, he couldn’t work out what he needed more – to be inside her, or to be showing her the wonders of his world. When he did one, there was a part of him that was anxious and impatient to be doing the other. There didn’t seem to be enough time. He felt like he was on some kind of drug like MDMA, which used to be popularly called Ecstasy.

At other times, particularly as they lay together after sex, he felt a peace he had never known. It was as if he wanted for nothing, as long as she was beside him. The world was perfect, just the way it was.

And he wanted to be perfect for her. He wanted to root out all his shortcomings, and correct them. Where this insecurity came from, he wasn’t sure, but it drove him relentlessly.

One morning, toward the end of their honeymoon week, they were quietly watching the sun rise over the silver ocean. Liv’s golden hair was spread like a blanket over his chest, and he kept breathing it in, and stoking its glossy smoothness. She had taken one hand in his, and was studying it closely, as if it were one of his specimens. He became only too aware of the darkness of his skin, and the squareness of his hands. They were not pale and elegant like hers. Workman’s hands, and even though these particular hands had no callouses, there had been many sets before these that had been calloused and rough, from hard manual labour for the tribe.

‘There is cream I can use to lighten the colour… if you prefer…’ he found himself saying, trying to draw his hand away, to hide it.

‘Why would I prefer it?’ she asked, clinging to his hand. Then she shifted onto her side, and eased up onto an elbow so she could look down into his eyes. Her hair fell about her face like a waterfall of gold.

‘Do you know how often you say things like that? Would I prefer you this way or that…’

He felt flustered and a little angered by the way that made him sound. He wasn’t that needy and insecure. It never mattered to him what people thought of him.

It had never mattered before what people thought of him. But now it did, he realised with a start. Now he cared too much what this one person thought of him.

‘Rene, you are handsome, intelligent and worthy of respect and love. Why would I “prefer” you to be different?’

He thought about her question, and when he felt he had an honest answer, he started to talk. Self-reflection did not come naturally to him, but he understood her need for it. So he gave her what he could.

‘I am not normally like this. Usually, I could care a less for how others see me, physically or in terms of the choices I have made in my life. Even as a youth, in the days before the Last Great Plague, I was a little bit wild, and considered no one’s point of view but my own.

‘Being of mixed race sometimes caused me grief. There was not a lot of racial prejudice in my time. But occasionally the tensions created by a dying planet resulted in racially directed unrest. My skin was dark, compared to most of the people I associated with at school and University. I got used to people – women, I suppose – either finding it attractive or repellent. I used the attraction, and ignored those who were obviously repelled. I got used to people commenting on my eyes, as if I was some exotic species. I got used to seeing myself as different. In the tribes I lived with for lifetimes, I was always different. Back here, I was always the primitive. I walked two paths and never belonged to either. And it never mattered – because it was my path.

‘But since I met you, I find I look at myself through your eyes – and I see my imperfections. My skin is too dark, and my hands are too square and clumsy. I wish my manhood was larger so it would please you more. I wish I didn’t look like a hairless youth. My feet seem too big. I am too serious. I do not know how to entertain you with my words. I watch you looking at other men, and I wonder what they have that I do not. And if I knew, I would get it… whatever it took.’

Throughout his speech, Liv had been shaking her head very slightly. Finally, she put her hand over his mouth.

‘I understand a little of what you are feeling. I look at Jane, and wish I was as pretty as her. I wonder if you would have fallen in love with her, if she had not met Julio first. No…do not say anything.’ She kept her hand over his mouth to stop his denial from being spoken. ‘I know you love me. I know you think I am beautiful. It is just the insecurities of love that make me think this way. Just as it is only the insecurities of love that make you feel the way you do.

‘Your brown skin is beautiful. I wish my skin was that colour. I like that your hands are big and square. They are strong hands. I wouldn’t want you hairy, or with smaller feet. I do not look at other men, and wish you looked more like them. I look at them, and see only you. I do not care that your ancestry is mixed. It makes you unique. I love that you are different from everyone else. I love that you are serious about saving the planet. I am no silly Miss who must be entertained. I am capable of entertaining myself, if need be. But talking to you about weighty matters, like your plans for regeneration: that is entertainment to me. I am a serious woman, I require a serious man.’

She frowned for a moment, and then her face cleared. ‘Ah, that is the one I missed. I do not require a man with a larger appendage. You give me more pleasure than any woman could or should expect. And I think I have now covered everything. Which brings me to my inept skills at pleasing you…’

He shook off her hand, and grabbed a length of her hair. He drew her face down to his. As their lips met, he said against hers, ‘You are a quick study, Ma Chere, in everything you do. No woman could please me more.’

Then he was kissing her with the feverish intensity that was his perpetual state. As the morning sun warmed their skin, he heated their bodies until all thoughts of insecurities or imperfections were gone. If she thought him perfect, then that was all that mattered.

But the acid that ate silently away at his contentment continued. If he was all that she thought he was, he would be able to find a way to save her. He would not give up and let her die, not matter what his government and the committee said. A real man did not let such a thing happen. A real man would fight to keep what was his.





Autumn 2335 New Atlantis, GAIAN CONFEDERACY



‘I can see young Bart has been on the scene,’ Jane said, as she approached her friend at the experimental garden on the edge of the city. Liv looked up from the Tablet, on which she had been mentally recording her findings, and smiled.

‘Oh yes, Bartholomew is like a small tornado, but he means well. Faith had him out here helping, earlier this morning. She says he is settling in much better now. At first he did not like being separated from his charges.’

‘That kid has been a little protector ever since he was rescued from the Death Train. They call him Luke’s MiniMe. I didn’t get it until I watched Austin Powers. But he really is Luke, right down to the ground. I’m glad Luke and Faith adopted him.’

‘As am I. But I still do not understand Austin Powers’ humour, although I do comprehend the reference.’ Liv made the Dr Evil gesture, and Jane laughed.

‘We’ll have you caught up with Pop Culture in no time at all…’ Jane’s face suddenly pale, as she realised her mistake. Liv felt her heart squeeze tight. There was no time left for learning more Pop Culture or anything else.

‘How’re you doing, Liv?’ Jane asked gently.

‘Tired but well. The worms have expanded the arable land by a square yard on every side, in the last month. And soil samples show a marked increase in nutrient content. The team are extremely impressed by the results.

‘We have introduced a protein-rich ground cover that became extinct in the late Twentieth Century. It is fast growing, and keeps the soil moist. Being a food source also adds to its value, as does the fact that it does not compete with the larger plants we introduce. And the beetles find the ground cover perfect shelter. The bees on the island seem to have discovered the small flowers of the ground cover too. And this morning I noticed butterflies – I will need to identify them later.’

‘Wow, no wonder you’re tired. It makes our little trip to London in the later 1950s seem like a walk in the park.’

‘Did you successfully Retrieve the sisters that went missing? Was it an abduction?’

‘Yes. And no, it wasn’t. The girls had gone down into the tunnels beneath the city on a dare, and we were able to find them before they got too lost. They’re a feisty pair. They keep demanding we take them home.’

Liv had learned all about the Retrieval process, and she knew that no one, once Retrieved, could go home. Except her. She was the only one who still had a life back there. The familiar sadness began to overwhelm her again. After nearly a year in this world, the thought of going back to 1810 was misery. Not that she wouldn’t like to see her sisters, aunt and father again. But that life just seemed so bare, now that she had experienced the richness of life here with Rene.

She would be able to bear it if Rene had been able to join her, but her secret investigations had not turned up any mention of Rene. But at least she wouldn’t have to live long without him. Although the information had been blocked to her initially, she had discovered a way around the block to find the truth of her own destiny. She understood the heart-wrenching sadness she felt in Rene every minute of the day. She understood the nightmares that troubled his few hours’ sleep every night.

Since the committee had finally given her a departure date, the dreams had become worse. There was wildness in his eyes. She knew he was planning something crazy, but because she didn’t want him to know she had discovered her fate when she went back, she said nothing. They had two weeks left. It was not nearly enough.

‘How is Rene holding up?’ Jane asked softly, sitting down on a rock at the edge of the garden.

‘Not good. He cannot sleep. His work is falling off. He has even taken to avoiding me. This is our last few weeks together, and he can barely look me in the eye. It hurts so much.’

Jane nodded silently, and played with the long copper plait that usually hung down her back. ‘I’ve tried to talk to him, but he keeps closing me down. I even got Jac to have a word, because I was starting to think he was hatching some plan to escape with you to somewhere in-situ. He can’t do that Liv, even if it was possible. You can’t know the possible ramifications such a change might cause the Continuum. It’s dangerous thinking…’

‘Do not worry, I will not let him do anything like that. I think that is one reason he avoids me. He knows I will fight him if he tries to take me out of my time-line. And this world needs him too much. His work – this work,’ she gestured to the greenery all around them. ‘This is so important. More important than any one person. He has to stay. He has to continue on doing what he can for the world.’

‘They’re worried he’ll crash and burn. When you’re gone. They’re saying it was a bad idea to have allowed you to stay this long.’

‘They are probably right. If I had known the torture I would inflict on him, I would have gone home immediately. I wish… for his sake only… that he’d never met me.’

‘No matter how devastated he’s feeling now, and will feel later… I know he would never trade the time you two have had. He’s alive now, where before he was just a shell, driven only by a bitter oath he made to his mother.’

‘Bitter Oath? He has not told me of this.’ Liv looked across at Jane, and tried to fight down the jealousy that always came when the extent of her husband’s friendship with the girl became apparent.

‘He told me about it months before you came into his life. He was only a boy of ten, and his mother had taken him out into the wilderness, and inundated him with the details of all that had gone. The rape of the land, the destruction of habitat. And she made him swear to spend his life in service to the planet. Fighting to save it, in whatever way he could. He called it a Bitter Oath, because it seemed so hopeless back then. There seemed no way that they would ever be able to save the environment.’

‘And now there is. He must be made to stay true to his Oath. It would destroy me to know he threw it all away for me.’

Later that day, Liv made a point of tracking Rene down so that they could have the talk he had been avoiding for weeks. He came to bed late, made love to her until they were both replete, and then would sleep for a few hours before the nightmares would wake him. Then he would leave their bed, and disappear for the rest of the night. She would find him huddled over his Tablet, but he would never show her what he was looking at.

Now it was way past the time for talking.

Rene had his head bent over a petri dish when she entered his lab. His blue-black lock of hair was too long and unkempt. His body was bent over as if he was hundred years old, and when he looked up at her, she knew she would see the dark circles under his eyes and the tired lines that made him look years older than a man in his early twenties.

For a few minutes, she stood silently watching him. He knew she was there, but had not acknowledged her presence. After an insultingly long time, she finally cleared her throat and spoke.

‘Why are you hurting me like this, Rene? What have I done to deserve this treatment?’ she said softly.

That got his attention. His head shot up, and the wildness and pain she saw in his blue eyes almost broke her heart.

‘I am sorry. You have done nothing wrong. I am just struggling with … fate.’ His voice was a tired growl. But at least he was talking to her. That gave her hope.

‘Do you want our last weeks together to be as strangers? Shouldn’t we be spending every moment together, building more memories to carry us through the lonely times to come?’

He shook his head in exhaustion. ‘I cannot. Every time I look at you, I feel my failure. It is taking everything I have just to get through these last days. Please do not ask me for more…’

‘Your failure?’ she challenged him angrily. ‘How have you failed? Your work has been a brilliant success, and promises to be more so, in the years to come.’

‘Damn the work,’ he snarled furiously, sweeping his arm across the top of the bench, and sending all of the equipment, including the petri dish, flying.

‘Rene, my beloved, talk to me! I want to understand. Seeing you like this is destroying me.’ She couldn’t hold back the little sob that fought its way out. She wanted to go to him, hold his head against her breast, and take away his pain. But she could do none of it. So she stood and waited for the answers she so desperately needed.

Rene glared across at her, his chest rising and falling, as if he had run a race. ‘Yes, I am destroying you. Or my inability to find a way to save you will destroy you. A man protects what is his. A man fights the dragons for his damsel. I cannot do that for you, Liv, no matter how much I want to. I do not know how to save you…’ He suddenly realised what he had said. ‘I mean… save you from the loneliness of life when you go back.’

‘Rene, I know. You do not have to hide the truth from me. I have seen my death records. I know I will only have a few months left when I get back. To be honest, I will be glad. The idea of living a long life without you seems like torture.’

‘A torture I will be condemned to!’ he yelled at her, reaching out for the glass beaker that had missed the sweep of his arm. He grasped the beaker tightly for a second before throwing it across the room. Liv jumped at the sound of it shattering.

‘You cannot save me from my fate, my love. Please stop torturing yourself like this. It hurts us both, and solves nothing,’ she begged, as the tears began to fall from her eyes, blurring her vision.

Through the blur, she saw him move toward her, and draw her gently into his arms. For several long minutes, they clung to each other like children in a storm. Liv could hear his heart beating desperately in his chest. She wanted to reach in and still its frantic pace. Her beautiful husband was falling apart, and she didn’t know how to help him. It was far worse than thoughts of her own approaching death.

‘You are right. It solves nothing. I knew right from the start that our time would be short. And I shorten it further by treating you thus. Come home with me now, Ma Chere, let me try to build more pleasurable memories for you to cling to after… after I have gone.’

She felt her heart lift for the first time since they had received notification of her return date. They still had two weeks. It wasn’t nearly long enough, but it would have to be. She would make it be enough. For both of them.

Arms wrapped around each other, they left the Facility, and headed home on the moving pathway. When had the villa by the sea become home? From the very first day, she realised. As strange and unbelievable as everything had seemed back then, she had still felt the comfort of home.

‘Do you remember the meal I tried to cook you in that first month? I was so determined to be a good wife to you. And what a disaster it was. Everything was so different here. I couldn’t work out how to use the stove. Or how long to leave the vegetables to cook.’

‘And the shock on your face when you found out that the meat you thought you were cooking wasn’t meat at all!’ Rene gave a sad chuckle.

‘I suppose I was never cut out to be a cook. I am a better scientist.’ She was proud of her use of that word. It was one that would not be current for a hundred years or more after her time. But scientist was what her studies had made of her. She would like to have been able to continue her studies back home, but as her time would be short, her plan was to make the rounds of her sisters, to say goodbye. They would not realise that was what she was doing, but there were things she needed to say to each of them. Most of all, she just wanted to let them know how much she loved them.

Unlike most people, she would have her chance to gain closure before her death. She would get her chance to say her goodbyes.

‘You are an extremely capable scientist. I have appreciated your assistance over the last year, Livy. I hope you know that. And I have appreciated your belief in me. I have needed that.’

‘I am glad. I have achieved two major goals in my life. I was able to present my grandfather’s work to the world, and I have been able to assist you in yours. Knowing how your work will change the face of the planet, in the years to come, is wonderfully fulfilling.’

His arms tightened around her, and he dropped a kiss onto the top of her head. ‘Without your work, I would never have found the giant earthworm my tribe spoke of so reverently. Your life has mattered. And not just in terms of work. Without you, I would never have known what it was to love. I knew, as I watched you walking toward me on our wedding day, that no matter what, I would never regret a moment of our time together. I am so damn sorry I forgot that. I’m so damn sorry I’ve been so tied up in my own pain to care about the pain I was causing you.’

‘It is in the past now, my beloved. Let us focus on the future weeks. Let us make them the best in our lives.’

He stopped and turned her toward him, as the pathway continued to move under them. Ignoring the startled looks of the passers-by, Rene leaned down, and claimed her mouth. The kiss was as deep and tender as any he have given her.

It was more than enough.