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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781781721254 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Seren |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2016 |
| Series: | New Stories from the Mabinogion , #4 |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 200 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Gwyneth Lewis is a writer, a poet, and the recipient of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize and a Mental Health in the Media Award. She is the author of Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book on Depression, Two in a Boat: A Marital Voyage, and six books of poetry. She is a fellow at Harvard University, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and an honorary fellow of Cardiff University.
Read an Excerpt
The Meat Tree
By Gwyneth Lewis
Poetry Wales Press Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 Gwyneth LewisAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78172-125-4
CHAPTER 1
Technical Preparation
Synapse Log 28 Jan 2210, 09:00
Inspector of Wrecks
Is that working now, I wonder? I hate these thought recorders. They're good in very confined spaces, where you don't want to overhear the idiotic things your colleagues say to their families back on Mars, but I think they're overrated. But, there we are, I'm Old School. The trick is to keep the unconscious out of it as much as possible and pretend that you're talking to yourself.
Now, I think it's settling down. Right. Well, we're just about approaching the Mars Outer Satellite Orbit. Not seeing too much debris around at the moment, they must have had a clean up fairly recently. Last time I was here, you could hardly move for junk. We've glimpsed the ship in the distance, and should arrive later this afternoon.
The new girl's feeling sick but won't admit it. She thinks I don't know that she threw up in the heads, but you can't hide any smells in a spacecraft. If Nona doesn't stop vomiting, I'll have to make her take the drugs. Her eyes are red already, she's dehydrated. I can't have her out of action, we're too close to the target vessel. Typical, getting lumbered with a student on my last mission.
Before anything starts happening, I'm going to get my expenses software set up ...
Apprentice
So Campion's telling me how he does his mileage first 'and all else follows' and I'm about to throw up all over him, but I manage to swallow it. Ironic. My whole life to get into Mars orbit, and now I'm here I feel too awful to take it in.
I did get to look out of a porthole as we passed close to home. Saw a dust storm in Thaumasia, thousands of miles wide. It looked like miso soup when you stir it up. Made me nauseous all over again. So I stopped looking. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to catch floating vomit in a paper bag.
We're not one day in and I'm already tired of hearing about the Department of Wrecks in the Good Old Days. When flotsam came in from as far as the Sculptor galaxy or the Microscopium Void. When he had a full team and they got to work on really interesting cultures. Not like this speck from God knows where, just me and him – the one man in the service who has absolutely no imagination.
Oh, I think he wants to do an equipment check.
Joint Thought Channel 28 Jan 2210, 09:02
Inspector of Wrecks
This is so that we can talk to each other on the vessel without disturbing any of the artifacts. Sometimes alien communication patterns can be diffused by the human voice, so we'll keep to Joint Thought mode until we know more about what's going on.
Apprentice
You mean like a mind-meld? God! I didn't mean to say that.
Inspector of Wrecks
The whole trick of this channel is to avoid personal static. Keep it professional.
Apprentice
Sorry. Of course.
Inspector of Wrecks
It's a knack. Not a silent version of speaking out loud, but it's a way of sharing two sets of sense impressions from slightly different angles. It doubles the amount of data we can record. But you'll have to learn to make a very precise form of running commentary. It's not your uncensored thoughts, but it's not formal reporting either. Try doing it on me for a second.
Apprentice
He looks much taller than he did on Mars. And skinnier.
Inspector of Wrecks
That's close, but you can do better. It's a question of what's appropriate. Give me some sensory data, because that's often much more valuable than your opinions. We won't know what we're seeing, but we need to record the effect it's having on us. Try again.
Apprentice
The smell of his soap makes me sick to my stomach, I can't get away from it.
Inspector of Wrecks
That's much, much better. Relevant stuff. A little personal, perhaps, but that's good. We'll be getting all the objective data from the robots we send in before us.
Again.
Apprentice
His comb-over looks like the tendrils of a plant in zero gravity.
Inspector of Wrecks
That's it, you're getting it. And don't worry, you can't offend me. What I'm looking for is information. Record it, even if it doesn't seem important at the time. I'm particularly interested in alien emotio-translation technology, we have a lot to learn in that area. This technique is going to be especially important if we have to go into Virtual Reality.
Apprentice
The sleep of leaves!
Inspector of Wrecks
All right! That's it! That will do for now. Oh, and I'll change the soap. Didn't realise it was a problem. You should have said.
CHAPTER 2Approach
Synapse Log 28 Jan 2210, 15:00
Inspector of Wrecks
Could never understand why so many people find space travel boring. There's nothing like the excitement of being out in deep space, watching volcanic plumes rise over Io in Jupiter-shine. Or seeing an asteroid pass like a piece of pumice, or like one of those ancient Henry Moore sculptures, torsos without limbs. Don't suppose she has the faintest idea who Henry Moore was, she's far too young. They don't learn even the basics these days ...
Just off Mars and we're practically home, I can see my dome near the rippled flats of Argyre Planitia. It was snowing when we passed last time.
Apprentice
The way we approach the vessel, slow and steady, I love it. Last time I looked, the target ship was the size of the moon on my fingernail. Now it's an eye, coming closer, looking at us with curiosity.
He
Just my luck. It looks like a fairly primitive mid-Carolingian solar sailing vessel. Two rings of concave photon sails, maybe Mylar and Kapton, a habitat module like the stigma of a flower. In fact, the whole thing looks like a daffodil. Pity. You've seen one of these, you've seen them all. No chance now of my adding anything spectacular to my life list. It's a bog-standard rudimentary Earth vessel.
She
Been hailing them for hours. The old fart gave me the signals job, but the modem's tried all the intergalactic space languages and no response.
We've just gone under the shadow of one of the solar arrays. I've heard about these old-style ships, but never seen one before. Billions and billions of photons slam into the sail and nudge the vessel backwards. Crude, but effective. If this came from Earth, they might have combined it with that gravity-sling technique they used for a while.
It's eerie in the shadow of the heliogyro. Can't tell if we're being watched or not. As if the old sight lines have worn a groove in space. Fanciful, I know. It could be centuries since anybody boarded this vessel, but still I can feel the tug of those eyes.
Campion stood us down till tomorrow morning, so that we're fresh for the boarding. Gave me his old manual to read, as if I was interested in that antique and didn't have sub-eyelid protocols to study for my exams. Suppose I'd better look at it so as to humour the old man. After all, we're going to be within fifteen feet of each other while this trip lasts, so let's keep it sweet.
He
I love this part, getting my equipment prepared, not knowing exactly what we're going to find on board. You've got to be ready for anything. And a little bit scared that you won't be up to the challenge.
I just can't believe that they're suspending Wreck Inspections by humans and trusting that remote viewing rubbish. You need the human touch in trying to figure out what went wrong on these voyages, especially if they're alien in origin. A computer programme just won't get it and we'll learn nothing from the flotsam that's coming right to our doorstep. It's a treasure trove. What a criminal waste.
Sure, they're giving the girl some basic wreck training with me, but she's a technician and just hasn't got the cultural expertise to know what she's seeing. She seems nice enough – was even interested in my old manual – but they're basically flushing the culture of space travel out with the body fluids.
And what am I going to do in that horrible station on Mars? No, don't think about that now. Enjoy this voyage while it lasts. Think about dying later.
She
I mean, look at this stuff. It's so old it's quaint:
The high frontier represents an evolutionary departure in human culture that requires the merging of art and science, economics and technology, public and private sectors in the pursuit of free enterprise and human enrichment.
Ra-ra or what! And the headings: 'Dress and Appearance of Humans and Robots Aloft', 'High Offworld Performance', 'Crew Prototypes of the Future', 'Lunar Industrialisation Possibilities'. And listen to this:
Initially, the focus should be upon human performance, productivity, crew team morale and management for long-term space living, including stress reduction. Special programmes, some computerised, will be developed to counteract the negative effects of an isolated, confined environment and lifestyle. Eventually it will extend to the role of other animals who are introduced into space habitats and settlements.
When he was young they were still carting stock round the universe, as if you couldn't grow any animal or vegetable tissue you wanted from stem cells. Just think of those early dogs and monkeys in orbit. Barbaric. Better not tell him that, I suppose. So easy to offend a person, especially a dinosaur like him. They get cranky in old age. Perhaps I could say something nice about the 'Epilogue: Space Light', which is very poetic.
And I was hoping that this assignment would be fun.
CHAPTER 3Boarding
Joint Thought Channel 29 Jan 2210, 09:00
Inspector of Wrecks
We're in!
Apprentice
Breathe slowly, breathe. Try not to show how frightened you are.
Inspector of Wrecks
No disgrace in that. You'd be a fool not to be nervous at this stage. Just concentrate on moving slowly and noticing as much as you can. Now that we're out of the lock, why don't you take over?
Apprentice
How come he's breathing so slowly, as if he were taking a stroll in the park?
Inspector of Wrecks
Don't shine it on me. Look around you. Break it down.
Apprentice
Our lights are like columns, picking out the desks of a tiny control room. Atmosphere's dense with motes.
Inspector of Wrecks
Now you're getting the hang of it. What more? Don't be afraid of being subjective, but don't clutter the narrative.
Apprentice
By the design, the module looks like one of those retro twenty-second-century probes. But it can't be ... there are space-shuttle touches, like the two-way switches they had to move manually before command functions were internalised. Look at this! You had to really mean it to switch this back and forth.
Inspector of Wrecks
This isn't retro. It's the real thing. Look at these motherboards, they're huge!
Apprentice
That doesn't make sense. Space technology this primitive could never have reached here from Earth. This thing belongs in a museum. What is that?
Inspector of Wrecks
No, it can't be. I've heard old-timers talking about something like this, but I've never seen one. I think it's something called an audio-cassette player. There's even a tape in it. Early personal entertainment system.
Apprentice
You're kidding, when technology was still outside the body! That's hilarious.
Inspector of Wrecks
See those couches? I bet they're old VR systems.
Apprentice
VR?
Inspector of Wrecks
Virtual Reality. Before you swallowed the nano-synaptic dream tablets for training and recreation.
Apprentice
Clunky or what!
Inspector of Wrecks
This whole ship's an anachronism, there's no way it could have survived the journey ... and yet the bot says that the atmosphere's inhabitable. Well, we might as well start finding out.
Right. Watch me carefully. This is one of the most important moments in any investigation. I'm going to take off my helmet and start breathing the ship's own atmosphere. We know it's not going to kill me, but this first intake of breath can tell you a lot, if you know what you're looking for. Pay attention.
Apprentice
So methodical. Gauntlets first, helmet second. Like taking off his head.
Inspector of Wrecks
With the first breath, I can never be sure what I'm taking in. The dust of dead bodies. Toxins. Viruses. The gas from new life forms. One of the things I'm trying to scent is fear, and I often find it.
Apprentice
Stands there like a dog smelling food on the wind.
Inspector of Wrecks
Shush, I need quiet.
Apprentice
Or like a sommelier, tasting the bouquet of a space vessel. Very sophisticated.
Inspector of Wrecks
Please! You never get that first impression again, your nose becomes accustomed to the background scent in a couple of minutes. If you chat, it's wasted.
Apprentice
Sorry.
Inspector of Wrecks
Now you have a go. Don't think, but open your brain to the scent molecules on board. What do you get?
Apprentice
I don't know ...
Inspector of Wrecks
Yes, your body does ...
Apprentice
Can it be? Flowers?
Inspector of Wrecks
What else?
Apprentice
Flowers. And meat.
CHAPTER 4Entry
Synapse Log 29 Jan 2210, 20:30
Apprentice
End of a long day. Boarding was exciting, but after that Campion had me combing through the voyage log – paper, for Chrissakes! – looking for anything unusual, while he poked around the habitat module. I've had to drag out the grapho-palaeography from the back of my brain and try to make sense of the script.
But it's basically nada. Nothing unusual, everything as you would expect.
Inspector of Wrecks
I never expected to see one of these early Earth exploration vessels and in such a perfect state of preservation. It's like something in a museum. Even the hammocks are intact, as if someone just got up out of them and left them warm.
Missie's been moaning about having to decipher the ship's log, it's a history lesson for her. It'll do her good to see how space travellers in the past had to work, how uncomfortable it was.
Something's not right, though. It's all too perfect.
She
My print reading's crap but I managed to decipher that the vessel had a crew of three. One woman, two men. That must have been challenging in the days before phero-dampeners. Hard enough working with a man when we're both shielded from each other's body chemistry. Two men and one woman, must have been a recipe for disaster. What did they get up to?
He
Where are the bodies? Not even three piles of dust for us to analyse. No sign of forced exit, no breach in the spacecraft's hull. Nothing for us to go on.
She
And why can't we find any personal logs? Why they thought I had to do this one voyage the old-fashioned way, I don't know, it'll be irrelevant to everything else I do.
He
That ship's such a classic, it's like something out of the manual. The paper log and the black box show nothing out of the ordinary, and yet something devastating happened on board. And then there's the mystery of how a vessel designed for short-haul travel ended up millions of light years from Earth. Think, think. Something's staring us in the face but we're not seeing it ...
She
Can't keep my eyes open. Even that noisy reactor isn't going to keep me awake tonight. What's that scratching on the hull? Must be bits of meteorites. I'm sure I can see flashes of particles passing through my eyelids ...
He
I know! The VR couches! Right in the middle of the main cabin. They must have valued them highly to place the equipment so prominently. There may be some information to be gathered there. It's a big ask for the new girl to adapt to a strange VR, but what an education for her! Besides, she's quick on the uptake. Tomorrow, I'll take her in.
* * *
Joint Thought Channel 30 Jan 2210, 09:00
Inspector of Wrecks
Now, remember, if you feel uncomfortable at all, just raise your hand and we'll get out of the Virtual Reality Field immediately. The Escape button's in your right glove. The important thing to recall is that this is just fantasy. There's nothing in the programme that can hurt us, however realistic it looks at the time. Mind you, given how old this ship is, I expect the FX will be very crude.
Apprentice
All right, all right. I expect it's no different from the neuro games we play now.
Inspector of Wrecks
Hard to tell exactly what we're dealing with until we're in. The field could be anything. You're not claustrophobic, are you? If you are, let's note it in the Hazard log.
Apprentice
No. I'll be fine.
Inspector of Wrecks
These old VR helmets can be quite uncomfortable. But it's more than that. We're used to VR forming itself automatically to our frontal-lobe profiles, so that it responds to our particular fantasy life. But when the technology started, they still had one person author the programmes, so that being inside you're more a witness than co-creator. You have to take one of the available roles, but the parameters are set by the Mastermind. So the progression of the plot can feel very uncomfortable, especially if you're not used to it. And until we find out what kind of author we're dealing with it's hard to know what it will be like.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Meat Tree by Gwyneth Lewis. Copyright © 2010 Gwyneth Lewis. Excerpted by permission of Poetry Wales Press Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
1. Title Page,2. Dedication,
3. New Stories from the Mabinogion,
4. Charles Darwin Quote,
5. The Meat Tree,
6. 1. Technical Preparation,
7. 2. Approach,
8. 3. Boarding,
9. 4. Entry,
10. 5. Forest,
11. 6. Breeding Season,
12. 7. The Wild,
13. 8. Offspring,
14. 9. Name,
15. 10. Arms,
16. 11. Flower,
17. 12. Wife,
18. 13. The Tree,
19. The Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion,
20. Afterword,
21. Acknowledgements,
22. Advertisements,
23. Copyright,