The Year of the Fruit Cake Read online

  “I look as if I’ve been crying all night,” Leanne said, acerbically, “because I have been crying all night. It’s the government. Not just the Federal one. The Queensland one, the local council. All of them. I’ve run out of people to fight. I know that a section of the Barrier Reef will be destroyed because of a set of circumstances. I can prove it. And they won’t listen.”

  “Living in constant despair,” said Trina.

  “If it’s destroyed,” said Leanne, “then yes, absolutely. For it’s not going to be something that we can get back. We’ve pushed our planet beyond its tolerances. It doesn’t bounce back. It’s like us. Like middle-aged women. Give us a shove and we fall over far more easily than a young sprite. No, it isn’t. It’s like a woman in her eighties. Capable of so much that you don’t quite realise that a simple fall will send her to hospital for a week. And that’s the good outcome. That simple fall could break three bones, or it could kill her.”

  “And you see that the various governments have intentionally pushed this little old lady.”

  “The Federal Government has, for certain. The others… It’s more that they care about other things. Short term gains. Other regions. They can’t see the whole picture. Their incapacity could destroy the planet, the way it’s destroying the Reef.”

  “So this is your last straw,” said Diana.

  “No, not yet. It’s when I realise that we might reach the last straw. We’re not dead yet, but more decisions like this and it will be inevitable. We won’t have to wait for aliens or the heat death of the universe. We will have suicided, and taken our planet along with us. The Barrier Reef’s destruction is a harbinger of doom.” She said this with depressed relish.

  “What will you do?”

  “What I always do. I will fight until it’s too late. And then I’ll keep on fighting.”

  Leanne’s friends focussed on what she did as a scientist. How very political she was. How very emotional it was. Her vague Gaian description meant something quite different to what they expected, it seems. Not woo-woo. More: “We will fight them on the beaches; we will never surrender”.

  Me, I was astonished for another reason entirely. Still am astonished. This isn’t a critical incident and yet, perhaps it should be.

  Leanne brought a complex world view to bear upon a simple political problem. She fought from a deep emotional position. She was almost messianic in her use of science to change the natural world. To save it.

  We think of such changes as natural, whether induced or not. Humans obviously don’t, even when they themselves induce them. If they did, Leanne’s view would be impossible. The emotional side of her didn’t enter into dialogue with the scientist. They were comrades-in-arms. Marching to war. And she didn’t see the war as capable of being won. It hurt her every time she lost a battle, for it reinforced her scientific view that humanity had already gone too far and that the end of days was around the corner, but it didn’t stop her. Nothing stopped her.

  And yet she didn’t force this messianic belief upon her friends. She only talked about it at this point because she needed emotional support. That side of her understood that she couldn’t fight if she was alone.

  I wanted to take her religion as symbolic. Theoretical. Something to admire from a cool distance. A pristine object of alien culture. But it’s not that at all. And because it isn’t that at all, a wobble was put in my planet’s normally straightforward plans. Or, should I say, another wobble.

  At this point, all the normal indicators pointed to Earth being Judged and humanity dying. The changed state of the planet wouldn’t matter from a colonisation point of view, for it was a simple matter of changing settlers’ physical characteristics to meet the environment. And humanity did the thing. There was not a moment when they could absolve themselves. And yet… Leanne was not alone in fighting. And that fight came from so deeply within.

  Humankind’s complexity and strange sentimental existence made a simple situation (taking over a planet the sentient inhabitants had made uninhabitable for themselves) less simple.

  This is the chief reason why they should never have been Judged in the first place. There were issues all the way through. They would have destroyed themselves soon enough, and the planet would have been open to colonisation, and we would have all been spared a mess. Such a mess. This helps, but it doesn’t give me an answer. I still don’t know how we achieved this mess.

  But Leanne pushed to the edge of her rope, and Diana buying her hot chocolate and handing her a handkerchief add more factors.

  Humankind is not good at behaving mathematically. The species subverts pure mathematics by their very existence. Jokes about them include the classic about the smallness of a species that never calculates up to base ninety-eight in primary school. Limited science. Limited domination of the mind and its surrounds.

  And yet… There’s something there, in Leanne’s despair, that suggests potential. It indicated that humanity could dig itself out of its own grave, given the right conditions. Which we, in our turn, are so very good at subverting.

  Our science doesn’t contain that profound passion.

  Leanne puzzled her friends and was comforted by them, which is fair, as Leanne puzzles me and causes me to feel a strangely unexpected comfort.

  The woman’s slow voice...

  was counting again

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two, fifty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three.

  I know who I am. Finally. Perfectly.

  I know what I am. Definitely. Securely.

  I know how I got here.

  I seldom lose myself in my Memories anymore. I’m capable of exploring them, analysing them, understanding them. I don’t know everything about myself yet, but I know who I am.

  The world is a very different place, now that I can see it from my own perspective. Now I am centred and am interpreting life from my real self and see the invented person, rather than catching glimpses of the real self from the middle of the invention.

  I wasn’t supposed to lose that sense of self. That much is clear, from talking to other aliens-on- earth. Self-awareness gets sublimated but self always remains.

  It was very bad science that made me do so. Stupid assumptions about what made humans and what made us, and how the two could inter-relate. The assumptions worked for most but failed for me, possibly due to my particular personality. There might be other reasons, too, but I haven’t encountered them. In some respects, I’m still working in the dark.

  I’m not the only one. That body/experience conjunction is under­mining all of our research on this planet. The only thing it doesn’t undermine is the trade in artefacts and in licentious trash. This is obviously why the bad science and mishandled memories have become such a part of Earth’s silent invasion. Techs use science to underpin the extras they take on the side and it’s undermining the whole project.

  It wouldn’t be nearly as bad if we didn’t bring Judgement to bear on any species. Nothing wrong with titillation, after all, as long as it’s agreed on by all. It’s not that strange for many cultures, including those of Earth, and if Earth has this element, then it’s ethical for us to make use of it in our relations with them. My position on this has always been clear. But if the titillation is the main reason we explore in the way we do, what effect does that have on any Judgement? Can Judgement be truly dispassionate and honest?

  Thank God I’m an appallingly bad anthropologist and not the Judge. To be a Judge, knowin
g that the task has been trivialised and biased and damaged by the very way it was set up is to walk on the dark side, with danger. We don’t permit ourselves to withhold Judgement, after all, for we are the wise race and know all.

  Knowing what I now know, I’m terrified of us.

  I fear for all species we discover and try to understand. The truth is unambiguous and unkind. The best a species can hope for is for us to never know they exist.

  The moment any new species comes within sight of our bad science, they’re going to be hurt, one way or another. They will be exploited and they will probably be wiped out. We use our death ray of Judgement far too readily, especially considering our own extraordinary failings.

  We don’t recognise our failings.

  Our Judgement is founded on our equally infallible study of the species, which relies on our exceptionally clever observations made when we become that species for a time. Sometime it’s a few years, sometimes a few decades. It used to be a valid and careful measurement. These days it mostly rests on how much personal credit and life-prestige the entertainment will sell for back home.

  We will murder a species when it fails us, and yet it doesn’t know it’s even on trial. At the same time, we don’t observe dispassionately. We set everything up to score sexual points and fund bribes back home. It’s all about us. It’s all about our gratification.

  This is an appalling reason to commit genocide. I will put in a strong recommendation that Earth not be Judged and that we reconsider our policies relating to Judgement of any planet. There has to be a better way of handling this mess.

  As long as a Judge hasn’t yet been called, Earth is still safe. I can politely call attention to the problem and it can be considered. I’m important enough for my voice to be heard. I expect this is why I was sent here. There is still a great deal I can’t remember, and the reasons for being here are still rather mysterious to me.

  If a Judge has been called, I will find out who they are and I will…I will… I don’t know what I’ll do. We have no recourse but Judgement once the Judge is in the field.

  I will just have to hope that humanity has not yet been opened to Judgement, and that I can make a difference when I get home and debrief. This should not be happening. Too many species have been murdered based on this poor science. Earth is full of problems, but it deserves justice.

  Justice here is often depicted with a blindfold. This is ironic, for there are other uses of blindfolds and some of them fit far too well with the chief current use of Earth experiences back home.

  Irony is a concept we share with humans.

  The Observer’s Notes

  My mind is arguing with my body again. The result is inevitable: a bone-deep fatigue. I can’t walk. I don’t want to think.

  It could be dehydration. It could be something else. Once I was this tired and it was from damage to my heart. I never know these things. I hate this body. It’s all wrong.

  I am not female right now. Monthly swings take this body in and out of the high-feminine state.

  It’s not a sensible way to run a body. And there is no good way of explaining it all, either. Why don’t these damn humans have a proper set of terms to distinguish between gendering and sexuality, to indicate the status of child-care and parenting and discovering and developing and changing? I can’t even make a complete list while I’m in this body. While I’m stuck with this be-damned language.

  Right now, I’m in a state of non-flux where I am clear in my state of physical attraction to a specific other and have no intention of procreation, of child-rearing, or child-developing, or bearing with that other. Technically, the closest this culture reaches this state is “unattached male”. Yet my body is obviously female and everyone (except, maybe, the man I’m married to, and I’m not always certain of that) reacts to me not only as female, but as an older and less desirable female.

  I ought to be one of the prime genders at this point: all the sec and none of the responsibility. I am wasting the best year of my life with this damnable interplanetary project.

  Humanity is fucked. Where is my freedom-loving 2fanqua time when I’m ready for it?

  No wonder I’m tired. There’s not nearly enough natural joy in this. All I get to do is drink with my peer group. Drinks are not 2fanqualat. Not at all. My body ought to be creating its own drugs at this point. And they should be there, in my system, to help me for the three changes after. I think the choice of when to send me was personally designed to hurt me. Whoever did this is a vindictive bastard. My return’s not going to be easy. Nothing’s easy right now. Nothing. And my current body owns 90% of the blame. Such roiling emotions.

  How did humans evolve into this? Life is such a mystery.

  This planet is cursed. So, I think, is my brain. English does very strange things to it and menopause does even stranger.

  Notes towards an

  Understanding of the Problem

  “What do you hate today?” Janet asked.

  “Hey, that’s my line.” Trina was mock-offended.

  “I steal everyone’s words when I have PMT,” Janet said. “You don’t know this because we thought I was past PMT.”

  “Oh dear,” said Leanne. “I used to hate it when it came and went.”

  “It’s what I hate today,” said Janet. “And so does my husband, and so do my children. It’s as if I’ve personally caused their permanent mental impairment.”

  “We’ve all done that.” Trina was very happy to admit this. “And if only those scientists would get their act together and sort it out, they wouldn’t have to endure it.”

  “I bet they’re too busy dealing with their own PMT,” Diana offered, darkly. “And today I hate milk chocolate. For I and Janet are but one day removed from each other.”

  “Before or after?” Janet asked.

  “After. And you want to prepare for tomorrow, for this month is messy.”

  “La la la, I’m not hearing,” said Trina.

  “I’m with Trina,” said Antoinette.

  “Who are you with, Leanne?” asked Trina.

  “I’m your tomorrow,” she answered. “The wonder of a sort-of-maybe ordinary existence.”

  More chocolate. But also menstruation.

  We have records of male conversations and they’re very different. We have records of mixed conversations and they’re very different. These conversations, full of blood and chocolate, they appear in the record far more than they ought.

  Interesting and a bit odd that the standard gender for our people on Earth means these conversations. Always. Our research had an unexpected bias from the beginning. Static gender. A cultural desire for individuals to have gender for life. It leads to far more specialist conversations, and many more not-shared areas than our more civilised gendershift does.

  I’ve been meaning to note this for a while, for it’s critical in its own small way. Noting these permanent differences and the incapacity of this human culture to demonstrate the deep understanding that is standard in our own culture, due to the shared experiences of all gender cycles is the trigger that led to the calling for Judgement. No-one could see a way of overcoming it and helping humans become like us.

  Someone must have questioned whether the problem was that we were seeing everything from the view of one gender. Perhaps the other chief gender (the culturally dominant one) was more adaptable?

  Let me check this.

  My error. The files are clear. The dominant gender was considered less culturally adaptable. This was a minor factor in the choice. The major one was the closeness to our own natural experiences. Not that those female bodies were anything like ours, so presumably the male bodies were appallingly dull. What a limited race. Like us, but so very unlike. The only concern I found in the files, in fact, was whether there were different possibilities in different language groups. Surely culture at that d
eep a level can’t have such strong language boundaries, however.

  I see no problem here. Time to move to the next topic.

  The woman’s slow voice...

  was counting again

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two, fifty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five.

  Oh God, I love him.

  With all my heart. With all my soul. With both the human and the inhuman parts of me. I love him.

  I can’t explain this love. Our marriage was nothing. Artificial memory given to both of us. A manipulated human and a manipulated me. All the first years were an arranged marriage, even though we thought we were in love.

  Then it transformed. Gradually, gently, surprisingly. And so we had now. Now is different.

  He is my guiding star and the light that shines in the abyss. The deep positive in my life that makes it all come right. He changes everything.

  I love him. I love him. More than anything, I love him.

  The Observer’s Notes

  “Life wasn’t meant to be easy,” said Mr Fraser. He admitted years later that there was a second half to the quote. Did anyone ever understand that second half? Or that there even was one?

  —Said in a presentation in a meeting

  My memory returns in morsels and the oddest information comes to me at the oddest times. Sometimes I think I remember more, but then it goes again. Overall, I’m pretty sure I’m ahead. I retain more than I used to. It’s as if I need to establish niches in my mind for the memory to stick. Some niches are harder to establish than others.