From "Apocalypse Garden"


It is the year 2225, but the future is not the one the Speculists envisioned. The world has suffered from a series of calamities that led, not to a collapse of civilization, but to its insidious decline. Technology has not been lost, it is just inaccessible to all but those who have wealth, privilege and power. When young Rippa Iowa L'Guin is selected as the best genetic match for history professor Jad Stange Nobel, the couple learns that they are linked by more than compatible genes. The first time they touch establishes a telepathic connection. As they learn the truth about who really controls with world's resources, they suspect that their "adaptation" is part of a larger plot involving genetic manipulation generations ago. They must discover who or what wants to control them now. The whole world could be depending on them. Besides, there are children involved.

Chapter 1
Rippa awakened with a shock, as if someone had thrown cold water on her face. She didn’t remember falling asleep; she'd wrestled all night with dread of the morning. And now it was here. The day of her Consummation hearing.
She pulled her Journal from under the sleeping mat. She'd first presented to the Council on the occasion of her Menarche, and she would present it again today.
It contained the faithful record of her fertility cycle.
Some girls made Journals of great beauty and complexity, but Rippa’s was rough and plain. Handwork distracted her from what she loved best: inventing, telling and writing stories.
Some girls looked forward to the day that the Journal revealed that their cycles had been regular for twelve months. But when she considered what would be required of her now that her eggs were popping out with such alarming regularity, Rippa’s heart threatened to pounce out of her chest. Just because a fifteen-year-old girl was the prime age to bear a baby free of congenital defects didn't make her ready for the prospect.
Rippa didn’t open the journal. She lay down again, clasping it to her chest, trying not to imagine the look on Mam Jetta’s face when she read the marks: a rose bud for her menses, a daisy for normal days, and a clover blossom with a hovering bee for the days when her cervix was soft and open and the mucous was clear and stretchy. Rippa shuddered. She hated the procedure for checking the signs of ovulation. If it was possible to be too intimate with one’s own body, then putting a finger inside one’s cervix would surely qualify.
Around her, the other girls began to stir, reluctant to leave the comfort of their mats for the drudgery of chores. Normally, Rippa would be happy to be excused from milking the goats and helping with breakfast; instead, she wished heartily for this day to be like all others.
Beside her, a girl named Apocrypha stretched languorously. Aprocrypha was new to Iowa. Her former warren gave its children names that seemed extravagant and nonsensical, though lovely and mysterious. That warren had been decimated by pirates.
Apocrypha had returned from her Consummation three weeks ago and she was sleeping where Rippa’s best friend Jenna had once lain.
Jenna had died in childbirth.
Rippa looked away from her.
“Rippa!” The voice came from the other side of the curtained doorway.
She recognized Chas's dark head peering through a slit in the curtain and she whispered, "How many times do I have to tell you not to peek in the girls’ room!”
“I’m not peeking. I was coming to get you.”
“I’m excused from chores today. Did you forget?”
Chas blushed. “How could I?”
Rippa swept the curtain aside and stepped through.
Chas was tall for a twelve-year-old boy, but Rippa was head and shoulders taller. He looked up at her. “I did my chores early,” he said. “Do you want to have breakfast with me?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Chas frowned. “Why are you so scared?”
“Scared? What makes you think I’m scared?”
“Because your pupils are dilated. And your breathing is shallow,” he said matter-of-factly. He was always saying things like that. Chas wanted with all of his heart to be selected to go to the U to learn to be a healer. “The only other time you look like that is when Jad comes into the same room.”
“Jad? I don’t even know Jad. He's only been here for a couple of months.”
“It’s all right, Rippa. It’s a normal biological function to be sexually attracted to a healthy male specimen. Especially one who’s a Recessive, like you.”
“Chas, you’re giving me a headache. Don’t you ever think about anything but biological functions?” The moment she spoke, Rippa wished she could take back the comment. She knew all too well that she was, in fact, the only thing besides biology that Chas ever thought about. He’d been sick in love with her since he was ten years old. And, Rippa was fond of him. Only today, she had no patience for him, and Chas didn’t even notice.
“Is it because of Jenna?” he asked. “Because you don’t need to worry, your situation is nothing like –”
“Chas!”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just wish you wouldn’t be nervous. You’ll be a great mam. And they’ll pick a good sire for you, I know it. They always do for Recessives.”
The word ‘sire’ pounded in Rippa’s head and the room began to spin.
Chas caught her so she wouldn’t fall. “You’d better have some breakfast,” he said. “Your blood sugar is low.”
It was so early that the only members of the warren in the dining hall were those assigned to work offsite on that October day. Rape-seed oil lanterns swung lazily from the rafters, propelled by a breeze peppery with leaf scent, their glow competing with the dawn sunlight creeping in from the open windows. Chas nodded to Mam Britta, who was in charge. “Rippa needs some extra protein this morning,” he said.
Britta made a mock-solemn face at Chas. “Yes, doctor,” she said, and walked to the front of the worktable to take Rippa’s chin in her hands. “You are pale this morning.”
“I’m fine, Mam,” Rippa said. Britta was Rippa’s biological mam, and Rippa was grateful for her brief touch.
“Have some eggs and sausage. And fried apples. The apples are tart, just the way you like them.” As if reluctant to tear herself away from Rippa, Britta added, “And we have walnuts and honey.”
“Thanks, Mam,” Rippa managed a smile. She tossed a thick copper braid over her shoulder and followed Chas to the serving troughs. As two young men, Jad and Gris, bounded into the room, braking from a full trot to avoid colliding with the serving troughs, Rippa tried to appear preoccupied with spooning eggs and apples onto her tray.
“Whoa, we almost overshot breakfast,” Gris laughed. Both men were tall and strapping. Gris's brown face brown face had the faintly weathered look of a hard-working man in his late twenties - a nice, but unremarkable face. Jad’s fair good looks, however, provoked stares. “Your pace is brutal, Jad,” Gris complained.
“I told you I don’t need a holiday,” Jad said. “I can think of nothing better than getting lost in the woods on a day like this and earning extra credits for it.”
“Then you have no imagination,” Gris retorted, missing Jad’s sarcasim. “I can think of at least one thing better.” He looked straight across the trough at Rippa and bowed to her. “Would you like me to sample the food, my Queen, to make sure nobody’s poisoned it?”
Gris was being sarcastic, too, but Rippa was unable to fathom the root of it.
Gris leaned over the trough to deposit another spoonful of eggs onto Rippa’s tray. “That’s a serving for a healthy girl.”
“Leave her alone, Gris,” Jad said. “She’s old enough to judge her own appetite.”
Too shy to meet his eyes, Rippa flashed him a look of thanks and whirled away quickly, forcing cool air across her burning cheeks.
Gris said a bit too loudly, “Jad, about that holiday. If you don’t take it, let me know. I could apply to take your place.”
Rippa wondered what he meant. Probably nothing. She was just being paranoid. Even if Jad had been given his Consummation notice, Gris wouldn’t know who was chosen for him. She sat down at the table across from Chas and closed her eyes.
Chas patted her hand. “Eat, Rippa. It’s nearly time for your ...”
“I know, Chas,” she sighed, but with the first bite, she knew that it was useless to try.
***
Rippa paused in the doorway of Mam Jetta’s office. The curtains were open, framing the view of peak fall colors and dazzling leaves littering the ground. Mam Jetta sat behind a rattan desk, gilded in sunlight. On the wall behind her, a faded, antique Hindian spread softened the austerity of the room. Perched on a stool near the window, a little girl named Henna played a wooden flute.
Rippa tried to appreciate all of the subtle touches designed to diminish her discomfort, but her heart fluttered like the hapless leaves tossed in the breeze. She clutched her Journal. “Rippa Iowa L’Guin,” she said reciting the name that marked her as a member of Iowa warren and hinted at her chosen vocation. Rippa knew that no one, least of all Mam Jetta, who was earthy and practical and subsumed by the responsibilities of governing the warren, appreciated the source of Rippa’s Chosen name, “L’Guin.”
Her aptitude tests had marked Rippa as a writer. Not a practical vocation, and not one at which she could work for credits, it was, ironically, an acceptable outlet for which she could spend her credits. And one for which she could select her Chosen name. As an aspiring historical fiction writer, she had no illusions that her given name had great significance, so she was especially proud of her Chosen name, the surname of twentieth century writer Ursula L’Guin. Rippa did not intend to write science fiction like Ms. L’Guin, but she admired the author’s groundbreaking style.
Rippa forced her mind from its trail of distractions. “I’m here for my Consummation hearing.” Her voice cracked.
Mam Jetta nodded. Inscrutable and silent, she rose from her chair and took Rippa’s journal from her hands. As Jetta read it, Rippa stared with unfocused eyes at a point just over the woman’s left shoulder where the patterns of the wall hanging blurred.
Rippa forced her tongue from the roof of her moth and licked dry lips. The seconds passed, measured by her heartbeat, so loud that she was sure Mam Jetta could hear it.
The corners of Jetta’s mouth turned up. She took a vellum envelope from the desk and pressed it into Rippa’s hands. “I will give you a moment, and then we’ll go into the Council,” she said.
Henna stopped playing and scampered away, holding Jetta’s hand, leaving Rippa alone with the envelope. The room began to rush away and Rippa stumbled to the stool, remembering ...
... men shouting and running, coming closer. Rippa dropped the wood and metal scraps she’d been gathering from the dig and scanned the vicinity for a place to hide.
Mam Britta had warned her that this dig was dangerous, but Rippa wanted so badly to earn more credits to go to the U and use the interface. Mam Britta had warned her not to go alone, but Rippa knew no fear.
Her courage failed her when she realized she was being followed.
“Maybe they aren’t pirates,” she told herself, diving into the crumbling concrete foundation that was all that remained of an ancient domicile. She pressed her back against the dank wall, wishing she’d covered her head. Her red hair was like a signal flag.
“If they find me, I’ll give them my loot,” she said with the naïve confidence of a nine-year-girl, “and hope that it’s enough.”
And that’s when they found her.
All she remembered was their foul breath and the indescribable pain between her legs and in her belly and the words they spat at her as they left her bleeding in the dirt.
“That will fix you, Recessive. You won’t be good for anything, now.”
Rippa had lain there until their hideous footsteps and vile laughter receded. She got up, smoothed her clothes, tied her jacket around her waist to hide the bloodstains, and limped home. A nameless shame sank into her stomach, bent her shoulders, and turned to ashes in her mouth.
Rippa told no one. After a time, the pain went away, but she developed a compulsion to wash herself until she was raw. Two and a half years later, her Menarche came in a cleansing rush. She was giddy with relief until she learned what was required of women to give babies to the world.
The paper inside the envelope read simply, Jad Stange Nobel. Rippa read it again, surprised to find it wet with tears. She rocked back and forth on the stool until Mam Jetta came and touched her shoulder.
“The Council is waiting,” Mam Jetta said.
***
Rippa sat outside the healer’s quarters, hugging her knees and watching her breath curl up in little wreaths toward the moon-bright sky. She hoped that Chas would come out soon. After a day of hearing the council debate the date of ovulation that would be best for her Consummation and lecture her on her duties to society and the importance of her contribution to genetic diversity, she longed for Chas’ innocent, undemanding companionship.
The door opened, letting a wedge of yellow light escape into the silver-limned shadows, silhouetting a tall, broad-shouldered figure that was not Chas. How could the Fates be so cruel? The moonlight caught Jad's pale hair. Rippa huddled deeper into her cloak, hoping that he wouldn’t see her, but it was too late.
Jad halted in front of her. “Are you waiting to see the healer?” he asked.
Rippa shook her head, avoiding his eyes. “I’m waiting for Chas, the apprentice.”
“Ah, the boy who was with you at breakfast. I’m afraid I’ve made him late.” Jad sat down on the log bench beside her, maintaining a chaste distance.
Rippa let her gaze flicker over his face. A bandage covered his left eyebrow. “What happened?” She reached up to touch it. Jad winced. As Rippa withdrew her hand, wondering what had possessed her to do such a thing, a spark of light flashed behind her eyes. She blinked hard. The light remained, not in her field of vision, but in her mind, like a memory of the light, only more vivid.
Jad stared at her. Rippa tried to turn away, but his eyes drew hers.
Did he know, yet, that she carried an envelope inscribed with his name in the pocket of her smock, right over her heart, which was beating so hard that she feared that the vellum would rustle?
A cloud passed over the moon, and, to Rippa’s relief, Jad looked away from her, tilting his face to the sky. He still hadn’t answered her question. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes. It’s the Hunter’s Moon.” The words spilled from her tongue as unexpectedly as the urge that had come over her to touch Jad’s bandaged forehead. Rippa covered her mouth to prevent it from overriding her judgment again.
Jad’s eyes widened. “How did you know that?”
Rippa shrugged, and her pulse raced even faster.
“It hasn’t been called that for centuries,” Jad said.
Rippa hesitated, embarrassed to tell him. “I write historical fiction.”
“Ah, that’s why you chose a writer's name.” Jad placed two fingers lightly under her chin and turned her face toward his. “Do you know the significance of my name?”
The light flashed behind her eyes again, but Rippa tried to concentrate on Jad's question. She shook her head and his fingers fell away from her chin. Now she was certain that he knew about the Consummation. Otherwise, he would not have assumed that she knew his chosen name.
“I’ll give you a research assignment, if you choose to accept it. To find out why I chose the name ‘Nobel’.” Jad drew the edges of Rippa’s cloak together. “You’re shivering.” He stood and the moon, suddenly free from the cloud, cast him in a silver aura. He tipped his head to her and walked away.
***
“What happened to Jad?” Rippa asked Chas when the lad finally appeared.
“You know better than to ask,” he snapped. “Patient confidentiality.”
“A thousand pardons,” Rippa sighed.
“At least I know better than to ask who was chosen for you!” Chas kicked a rock with his shoe. “Although I have a pretty good idea.”
Rippa slept until a few hours before dawn when the moon, sliding toward its resting place in the west, beamed its light into her window. She closed her eyes to recapture sleep, but the light was still there – not the light of the moon, but that other light; the light that had flown into her mind when she touched Jad’s forehead.
The light flickered and expanded.
Pain roared through her head. Rippa gasped...
... there were trees and sunshine all around her, seen from a lopsided angle. The ground flew up, strewn with wet leaves, their musky scent making her sneeze as she caught the breath that had been knocked out of her. She pushed herself up with her hands, and saw long, muscular forearms covered with thick, blond hair.
Rippa screamed.
Her legs were long, clad in rough trousers. Her feet were huge. Something wedged behind her knee, trying to bring her down again, but she threw her adversary off balance. A shock of blond hair fell across her face, and Rippa knew that she was seeing through Jad’s eyes.
The world spun full circle as Jad picked up his field ax and whirled it around his head. There were at least three other men in the streaming view, closing in on him. He wielded the ax with both hands, blocking their blows, sending them sprawling. The pirates ran into the woods. One called back, “We aren’t finished with you, Recessive.”
When Rippa awoke, Mam Britta was stroking her forehead with a wet cloth. Sunlight draped the courtyard outside her window and Rippa’s first thought was that she was late for chores and would lose credits. Her second thought caused her to look down at her hands to see if they were her own. A little whimper escaped from her throat.
“You must have had quite a nightmare,” Britta said. “I’ve never seen anyone pass out cold from screaming.” Britta cocked her head to one side as if waiting for Rippa to comment. When she didn’t, Britta sighed. “It must be the full moon.” She wiped her damp hands on her apron. “I’ve called for the healer.”
“No, don’t, Mam.” Rippa fought to keep her voice calm. “I’m fine, now. I don’t need a doctor.”
“We can’t have anything upsetting your system with only two months until your Consummation,” Britta said. “My word, I’ve never seen you so high-strung. I don’t know what to think.” Britta looked like she wanted to say more, and Rippa knew what was on her mind, but it was forbidden to talk about the choice of sires until after the Consummation.
“Mam, I got a good sire,” Rippa said. “I’m just not ready to be a Mam.” She touched Britta’s hand. “But I will try. I really will.”
“Why don’t you talk to the healer? He can recommend a lighter schedule for you and some therapies. Will you do it?”
Rippa sat up. “Mam, think about what you just said. I’m a Recessive.”
“What does that have to do with it?” Britta’s tone had a defensive edge. After all, she had bequeathed one set of the genes giving her daughter red hair and green eyes.
“I have to live with the other girls. They’ll make my life even more miserable than it already is if I make a fuss and get special favors.”
“It’s your imagination. No one picks at you.”
Rippa didn’t argue with her. “I’d better get up and see if there’s anything I can do to repair the damage I’ve done to this day.”
Rippa volunteered for evening chores to make up for sleeping late. The noises in the kitchen buzzed around her head like bees, and Cook had to snap at her to get her attention. Rippa’s mind flashed with images - Jad’s limbs, extensions of her own, as if she was still in his body, seeing through his eyes and her body was all wrong. It wasn’t unusual for Rippa to be distracted by characters and scenes from the stories she wrote, but this disorientation affected all of her senses. When she dropped a pan of scones, Cook sent her away, deducting a day’s worth of credits.
She ran from the kitchen, through the dining hall, and ducked out the door to the side yard. The rectangle of light cast from the door ended abruptly. Rippa hit the darkness and the solid mass of a warm body that grunted with her impact and involuntarily folded arms around her.
Rippa flailed in a wild sea of images and impressions. Jad held her, slowly loosening his grip on her shoulders when it seemed she wouldn’t bolt like a deer.
“Rippa,” he said in a commanding tone. “Look at me.”
“I can’t. Just take your hands off me.” The blurred boundaries between her and Jad made her woozy until he dropped his hands. Rippa took a deep breath before she looked at him.
Jad’s eyes were dark, his face hard. “What have you done to me?”
Rippa turned to run, but Jad caught her sleeve.
“I’m waiting for an answer.”
“What have you done to me?” Without her cloak Rippa began to shiver in the night air.
Jad’s eyes darted around the side yard. “Meet me behind the ale house in ten minutes,” he hissed. “And bring a cloak!” He trotted away.
Rippa wanted to shout that, if caught together, they would be disqualified from the Consummation. Such dramatic irony. If only she had thought of that for one of her stories. She ran to her ward to get her cloak, blanking her mind instead of conjecturing what Jad would say or do to her.
***
The moon, already missing a sliver of its face since last night’s perfect fullness, danced with gathering clouds as Rippa slipped across the commons, making her way to the utility buildings marking the perimeter of Iowa Warren. None one the girls preparing for bed had asked her where she was going with her cloak, but Willa, a busybody who enjoyed nothing better than getting Rippa into trouble, had cast a look in her direction verging on smug delight. Glad for the distraction from wondering what she faced with Jad, Rippa began fabricating a story to foil Willa’s predictable, petty tattletale.
Jad paced beneath a tall cottonwood that had already shed its leaves. At the sight of her, he stiffened and pointed a finger at her face. “You are not what you seem,” he said.
The tone in his voice frightened her.
“I was recruited to this warren because of something unique about my genes. I gave up a secure position at the U to come to this slum,” he waved his arms as if to cast his disdain over the whole the warren, “so that I could make an honorable contribution to posterity.” Jad spat on the ground. “Until now, I thought it an acceptable sacrifice to spend my days chopping wood and calculating biomass credits instead of continuing with my life’s work, my research.” He clenched his right hand into a fist and took a step toward her.
Rippa shrank away from him and bumped into rough side of the alehouse.
Jad moved closer until his sharp features nearly touched her face. “I am almost thirty years old,” he whispered. “I waited for Consummation until Winfrey Nightingale found the best genetic match for me.” His voice rose and he shook his fist. “What a shame that no one has mapped the genes for truth and integrity!”
Rippa’s spine turned to ice. What did he mean? How could he know? No one knew her secret. Not even her own mam. Rippa lashed her fear to her next words. “What have you done to me, Jad Nobel? Whom have you told that you have the power to plant images in another person’s mind?”
Jad took a step back and stumbled. “What did you say?”
“You heard me!”
He seemed to shrink and his shoulders slumped. “What images?”
“The pirates. In the woods.” Rippa swallowed to steady her voice. “The blow to your head.”
Jad turned away and paced only to turn and face her again, puffed up like an adder, his mouth twisted in disgust. “Don’t try to trick me. You planted the images in my head.”
Bile rose in Rippa’s throat. Jad's expression was one of utter revulsion and rejection. Rippa doubled over, trying to silence her writhing gut. She vomited in the grass at his feet. Sweat dripping from her forehead, she heaved until there was nothing left but dry froth.
Only silence remained after Rippa’s shuddering hiccups died away, and then the bare branches of the cottonwood tree began to creak as the night breeze whipped through them on its way to the sky.
She raised her head. The wind had herded the clouds into a flock, trampling the moon.
Jad was gone.

Posted: Sun - January 25, 2004 at 09:34 PM      

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