The Year of the Fruit Cake Read online

  You can guess where this is heading.

  At the Earth end, there were no reports of the failsafe having been tested. It was never noted as having been cleaned or mended or having in any way, shape or form been handled during that period. There is only one possible reason for this lack of attention to it: it must have been disabled. Fake reports were added to the record at our end.

  Not only is this culpable and unethical in terms of Judgement, it also means that, at this point, I cannot see any way we can have fruitcake. The tripod simply didn’t exist. And yet we have fruitcake.

  We also have only the two official options for Earth.

  Three other planets have been Judged without operational failsafes, I have since discovered by checking the equivalent records. In every single one of them, the population was killed outright without malice. The planets were turned to our use very quickly.

  This is another legal issue. I have referred it upwards. Heads will roll in the Colonial Service.

  My view at the moment is: How stuffed can this Judgement actually become? I’ve never seen anything like it. In no failsafe should there be political interference or accident or impairment or…

  There was no failsafe for Earth. It didn’t matter what went wrong, Earth was going to be Judged. That is extraordinarily bad. Extraordinarily.

  And because this was planet #4, there is no excuse. It was intent­ional.

  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, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.

  I’m scheduled for retirement when I’m sixty. I know this for a fact. I know everything about my life. I’m God-like in my acquired knowledge.

  This has nothing to do with my having threatened the lizards with extinction due to the complete mess they made of the whole Earth project. Not a thing. Nor the fact that, due to my threat, they gave me access to everything I wanted and needed.

  Their excuse for access was merely that, an excuse. They claimed it was because I am Judge and was insufficiently briefed earlier and therefore should have this access—being lizards, they expected me to use it to watch what they think of as porn: the lizards don’t understand human sexuality, nor the fact of my happy marriage. For them, it’s all a game. And besides, the happy marriage was a surprise to all of us.

  Also, they expect me to forget it tomorrow. They don’t know I found out about the lost failsafe. And they don’t know I tested their systems when I found out. My knowledge is superior. For once.

  For me, it’s partly a game. A part of me is a cousin to the lizards, after all. Different burrows, different gender sequences. Different career. But a related species.

  I make it look as if the whole of me is playing their game. That I think of it as a game. A mere drollery out of which come All the Things that Count Back Home.

  Part of me is human now. It can’t ever be anything else. Inside, I’m so torn and unhappy that the wounds look as if they’ll never heal. Not just the body itself, but the mindwounds. We are not supposed to undergo such change. Any of us.

  Being a human, I live in a human timeline and I want to know what that timeline is going to be like. I want to prepare.

  I don’t need to prepare, in fact, given the most likely scenarios. Yet I still want to know what they have planned for me, even if I never live it. This is part of my inner confusion.

  I suppose I’m making it worse by checking things out. I don’t care. I especially want to know how long I have with my husband in their plans. And how long my body will last.

  I’m going to retire early, it seems, in human terms. So early that it’s hard to know whether or not I’ll have Judged humanity by then. Not that the retirement has anything to do with Judgement, since it’s my human workplace I’m retiring from. I’m being pushed into early retirement due to the state of my body. It’s…uncheerful. It also means the lizards aren’t infallible. Trusting their predictions won’t get me anywhere; I still want to know.

  Sixty isn’t that far away. I can see it ahead, all by myself. It’s not that daunting, really. Except for the fact that I’ve not lived most of my life as human. I’ve only lived a few years. I’m retiring before I’ve really had a chance to build up all the human expectations of age and maturity.

  The lizards planned this and prepared for this. Of course they did.

  I still haven’t let them know that I overhear their chatter, and I know that they pushed my body into a major illness simply to provoke early retirement. That’s what one said. The other said that they’re forcing me into menopause before I can go home, basically. And into what they think of as old age.

  They don’t know their own reasons.

  It worries me that I’ve only just remembered this. They’re still playing games with my memories. Or their programs are uncertain. Either way, it’s distressing.

  I know why they’re playing games. It’s because they’re still carrying their native burdens.

  They’re not comfortable with me because of who I am and why I’m here. And they’re not comfortable with the human body I inhabit. Culturally, they can’t understand a single-gendered species.

  On the surface, it looks simple. I cannot possibly lead a full life here unless I gendershift, and I can’t gendershift, so they have given me the closest they can find to gendershifting for a mature woman. Perimenopause to menopause to old age. In reality, however, they’re not comfortable: I’m reduced to a lower status.

  It’s not just me. They take advantage of all of us who live in human bodies. This was the first thing that struck me when I read their files. The Judge has been sent, but they’ve already made Judgement. Humanity is an inferior species. Inferior, but sexy. They’re taking advantage of the latter for as long as they can.

  This is a perversion of the whole system. And yet I’ll forget it in five minutes. This is how my brain misfires.

  I wasn’t that curious about what they had planned for my hypothetical retirement. Only that I’d have enough money (given most of my life has been equally hypothetical on this planet) and they’ve funded it quite generously. I don’t know if that means they think I won’t need the money, or if they think all of Earth will be done by then. Mostly, I wanted to know if they were planning my life post-Judgement.

  I asked. They had planned it when they thought I was an anthropologist.

  “But weren’t you expecting me to go home?” I asked.

  “We plan in case things go wrong, so that our people have something to fall back on. It’s a new set of failsafes.” This explain­ed the other failsafe not being functional. Not in a good way.

  It also sounded like a set of excuses to me. None of the lizards come here either as themselves or by taking human form, after all. It may be that our charming custom of studying other creatures carries with it a life sentence far more often than is documented. It may be that the failsafe was a lie.

  Now I’m angry again. And scared. Before I take that route and end up clutch-clawed and hurting, I shall inquire further.

  I will have to take great care this time. It may be that the fallback position really is as they explain it, and that by getting the lizards offside I lose their goodwill when I’m ready to go home. I’ll be polite. I’ll keep the techs onside. Even if they’re lying bastards.

  From any direction, however, someone was corrupt and my briefing was
inadequate. Add the confusion about my task and it begins to sound criminal. Criminals are safer when they destroy evidence.

  I shall move with care. And I shall read my own notes back, if I must, to remember.

  I always forget to read my own notes. That’s the first thing I forget. I hide them from my husband and I don’t remember they exist. There’s no-one I don’t have secrets from. I even have secrets from myself.

  Notes towards an

  Understanding of the Problem

  It was not a good day.

  Text messages had been sent. And sent. And more sent. After considerable negotiation, it was agreed that the five women would meet despite the state of their lives, would mention their woes very briefly and then find a means of escaping the morass.

  “No tears, please,” requested Janet, “and, just this once, no flowers. Oh my God, that makes it sound as if we always attend funerals! When we never have together, not once.”

  Good days could be turned into respectable days with supportive people. And problems could be mentioned aloud without being dwelled upon. It took a lot of texts, but it was going to work.

  It had to work.

  The first five minutes were very difficult. Every time a member of the gang explained something, one of the others would ask, “Talking?”

  “No talking.”

  None of them wanted discussion, or sympathy. They wanted a safe space to make cautious statements about the condition of their lives. The fact that it took only five minutes to complete all these careful statements demonstrated how red raw everyone was, and how incapable they each were of receiving judgement, or help.

  Trina’s girlfriend had decided the relationship was never going anywhere. “I knew this was coming, deep inside, and I knew it would hurt, but I feel as if my heart’s being razored into fine shreds and burned on a pyre.”

  Then it was Diana’s turn. This was the moment for courage.

  “I’ve got partial amnesia—had it for years—and there’s a lot of my life I don’t have access to any more. I keep a notebook in case I forget important things I’m doing, because it comes and goes. I’ve been recovering myself, bit by bit. Working on full recovery. Today it struck me that that I’ll never have everything back. Nor even close. Today, though, today I realised I can’t remember my family,” Diana said. “I don’t know where they are or how they are. This didn’t worry me until I got a few small family memories back and I realised that a whole part of my emotional being has been ripped out. No, not ripped out, it’s been carved out with a chain saw.”

  “I can never return to North Queensland,” said Leanne. “My brother will kill me. Literally.”

  “I’m ill,” said Janet. “It’s degenerative. Everyone tries to help me, and that just makes it worse. I need to live quality life as myself, not meaningless life as a pitiful cripple. I had my latest round of tests and I was told that I’ve gone down to the next level. I’m being retired due to disability next month. I’ll never be allowed to work again. I’m lucky, the medico told me, because I can have my house changed to accommodate me for a while. I’ve got a few years of tolerable living ahead, I’m told.”

  Antoinette, who always maintained that the impossible was possible, had heard about her daughter’s wedding from a cousin. “I’ve lost my family too,” she said. “Even the cousin only told me out of duty. I’ve not changed. I’ve never changed. They don’t want to see that, so they’ve never tried. I’ve always said that I’ll accept everyone back in their time, that it will happen, but right now I feel as if I’m going to be alone forever.”

  “We can’t do this,” Janet said. “We can’t have no discussion at all. I thought I was the only one. And I promise, next time I’ll bring flowers. I’ll always bring flowers.”

  “Yes,” agreed Antoinette. “We probably always need flowers. And chocolate. And to be here for each other.”

  “That’s the thing, isn’t it?” said Trina. “We’re here. No matter what the state of our hearts, we’re here. We’re each other’s extended family. We can’t solve problems. We’re not that kind of family.”

  “But we can be here for each other. Appease the aches with acceptance,” Leanne said.

  “And safety,” said Janet.

  “And help each other have quality life, whatever the damn world throws at us,” said Antoinette.

  “So how do we do this?” asked Diana.

  “One step at a time,” said Janet. “And I mean that ironically, of course.”

  “So what’s the first step? Sorry I’m asking. My brain’s still processing the fact that I have family. It’s big,” said Diana.

  It mattered. Antoinette’s face showed that it mattered. So very much.

  “It’s warm,” said Trina. “It’s full of heart.”

  “It’s bloody amazing,” said Leanne.

  “So what is our first step?” asked Diana again.

  “Who’s up for dinner?”

  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, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine.

  I need to be gone before I’m sixty-nine. I need to be back home. Safe. The plans for me in the lizardly files say that they’re killing my husband at this point. If I can get back to my burrow, they won’t have any excuse to kill him.

  I puzzled over this entry. Tossed it in my mind until it was salad. Then I realise I couldn’t think in human terms.

  In lizard terms, then. An equation. It means they’ve added an element to my husband’s equation that determines his ending. Since they can’t influence outside events easily so far in advance (no car accident or assassination), it has to be internal. In his body.

  My husband’s body contains a time bomb of some sort, probably one that’s set to look like cancer or a heart attack. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve looked and looked and tried and tried. I’ve attempted to locate the threat (I have that much knowledge back). But unless I know what it is, I can’t say “Why don’t you check for such and such” to him.

  I’ve even talked about it. I pointed out that them offering this threat means that my Judgement is impaired. They fall back on: “This is standard procedure—what’s your problem? He’s only human, anyhow.”

  They’ve already Judged. This is yet more evidence of that.

  They can’t do anything to enact the Judgement. The powers of the Judge are so carefully given. It wouldn’t be just the lizard who judged who died, but their whole clan. All they can do is have opinions and set things up so that those opinions become fact. Like the way they planned my husband’s death.

  And they need to give excuses.

  They’ve already rehearsed their excuse. They told me that it’s part of their plan for my future safety, in case.

  If murdering an individual reeks of Judgement, murdering the individual I am deeply in love with is worse, means that the future of humankind won’t include him. I might kill everyone because he’s not going to live, if I’m that way inclined. Which I was, until I discovered that his death has already been set in motion.

  I can’t let it get to me. I can’t let it hurt. If it does, then I’m as bad as my cowardly and cruel compeers. I allow my personal thoughts to decide the fate of billions.


  I wonder if there’s a special value in destroying humankind? I wonder if this hasn’t been set up quite on purpose. So little of my life has been left to chance, after all.

  If there is, then the only way out for humankind is for me to sacrifice myself.

  I haven’t reached that yet, I don’t want to reach that. Not if he’s not here to get old with and laugh, and the world alongside.

  Can they have predicted me falling in love so profoundly? Not at all. They certainly had the information to find me someone I would feel affection for, however.

  My daily life is full of the small things. This keeps me sane. At the same time, my daily life is full of material I’m accumulating to make my Judgement. This is not the path of sanity. I have no recourse, and my people are fixed in their movement and there are no ways out of this mess.

  I have to Judge.

  There’s no way out. Not even with everything wrong and the whole project threatened: we never stop a Judgement once the Judge is in place. If anthropologists don’t return home, I can see why. It might change us. We might start taking on the ethics of our victims.

  And now I’m both anthropologist and Judge. Me and my miserable excuse for a mind.

  God, how did we ever get into this mess?

  Notes towards an

  Understanding of the Problem

  I’m beginning to see the problem. Why the decision went so very wrong. Why we have a fruitcake. Not a fruitcake. THE fruitcake. The biggest and most fruity fruitcake of all time. So full of brandy fumes that it would set itself on fire, given oxygen.

  One of the critical moments was when the five decided to be each other’s adopted family. They didn’t live in each other’s houses, or chase around every day. Each of them still had very independent lives. But it changed things.

  There was something particularly notable about the time when Diana admitted her memory issues. It should have modified her relationship with these women. In some ways it did. But not in the way I expected. Her adopted family knew she was a watcher and knew she had big losses. She turned herself into someone who could be a burden. And they didn’t treat her as that.