Episode Thirteen

Travelling Back

The two men arrived back at the road just past sunset. They uncovered the vehicle, lit a fire by the side, and prepared to cook the evening meal. Terry pulled out a metal box in which there were synthetic containers of various shapes with small blue lettering identifying the various contents.

‘We have earned our meat tonight,’ he said, and Bob grunted his approval. ‘There is a fine stew mixture remaining.’

Bob located a bottle of confiscated spirits under the front floor mat, and took a drink. Terry heated the food and boiled a small quantity of water for tea. They sat on the back of the vehicle, eating in silence and contemplating the brightening stars through a high cloud.

After the meal they lifted their bicycles into the back of the vehicle. Terry took out a mirror and combed his hair. He took a shoe brush from under the driver’s seat and polished the dust from his shoes.

Bob took another swig from the bottle and tucked it back under the mat, before he set about removing the solar panels from the roof. He wrapped them in a length of yellow-stained cloth, and stored them carefully in a compartment that was hidden under the bikes. Terry killed the fire and climbed into the driving seat and Bob climbed into the passenger seat. Terry put on his seatbelt and waited, looked at Bob, who looked back at him, considered his options, then counted to twenty inside his head and engaged his seatbelt. Terry pulled out onto the road, taking care to check in the rear vision mirror. There were no other vehicles in sight, and it was unlikely that there would be any that passed along the way. None had been scheduled as far as they knew. Any such event would be unusual enough to be cause for celebration or concern, but Terry, as always, kept to his rituals. Bob slumped down as far into the seat as the seatbelt would allow, folded his arms, and prepared to fall asleep. Several hours would pass before Terry tapped him on the shoulder for some refreshment, and instructed him to take over the driving.

They had one more house to visit on the way back. They anticipated arriving at the start of this track around the first light. An intersex infant of around six months had somehow slipped off the system and needed checking. It was probably fine. This one appeared unremarkable, but time would tell. Some such children had shown themselves to have viable breeding potential. At the very least each unusual child provided useful additions to the pool of potential behavioural responses, any one of which might ultimately provide the survival edge needed to conserve the species, or its evolution. If not they could simply be put into the normalization program and trained for physical or monitoring work. Nothing should be wasted. All should be conserved and investigated for usefulness. Humankind was growing stronger all the time, but it wasn’t out of the woods yet. Pun intended.

This idea of isolating families in the middle of the bush had been Mother Griselda’s. She theorized that humankind had strayed too far from nature in the past, resulting in its near-destruction. Her plan seemed to be to give each family enough space to be able to recover some of its animal instinct, and for the results to be interrogated and implemented. In the process one might stumble across idiosyncratic solutions to sticky problems that had ultimately brought the human species to the brink of extinction. Hence she came upon the idea of isolating one from the other. It was, said Mother Griselda, a type of in-vivo experiment. ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,’ she said. Terry pondered that one for some time before letting it go. Sometimes the Great Mother spoke in riddles.

This kind of lifestyle, she explained, provided the time and freedom for new methods of problem solving to emerge, which could then be harvested to benefit the community as a whole. At the same time, the families could not be given completely free reign. That would only lead to anarchy. They must realize that they belonged to and were beholden to the whole society to avoid the problems created by the individualistic society that peaked in the late twentieth and early to mid twenty-first centuries. Eventually all would be brought back into the fold. Those who survived the experiment would be brought back home.

Mother Griselda said that the process of increasing specific characteristics and extinguishing others in the population was as much an art as it is a science. Bob and Terry had seen that for themselves. Some went a bit stir crazy in the woods and some inexplicably died, like the woman they had just buried. Others were more robust.

There shouldn’t be a problem with this next one. In this case the woman seemed sensible and pliable. She had raised three girls and a boy who was unfortunately sickly and died before its second birthday. It wouldn’t take long for the detour. Later they would have to deal with the missing boy called Dalyon. Bob was not concerned. The system would pick him up. Terry would think it through and come up with an answer. As irritating as he was, Terry was exemplary in the role because of his remarkable attention to detail. Bob did not take the job so seriously. Things changed. They always had. What did it matter what the future held? In his unsatisfactory sleep Bob turned to images of home and his comfortable bed.

Terry was thinking of the compound and of the satisfaction of a job well done. He was going through a mental checklist as he drove away from the forest and its uncertainties. He knew exactly what awaited him upon his return. Back home, in a low grey building that sat neatly in a compound of low grey buildings, rows of women in grey suits would be staring at a rows of grey screens, and their fingers would be tapping away, keying in the necessary information. The screens showed the minutiae of daily life as small families and groups went about their daily business, chatting, arguing, collecting eggs, growing vegetables, and raising small children. The families and groups varied in composition apart from the complete absence of adult males. On one screen tucked away at the back corner, an indifferent woman was watching a group of children in an ancient bunker, giggling together and enjoying a tea party. A decision would be made in due course.