Free Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson Page B

'It's womb-free.'
    'Unless you have refused intervention.'
    'Yes ... '
    'It's an experiment . . . Handsome dropped sixty prisoners unofficially, of course — on his tracking mission. He was paid by MORE- Security on behalf of the Central Power. He should have taken another twenty-five with him this time.'
    'The twenty-five who were arrested?'
    'Yes. One of them tried to escape and threatened to talk, so the whole thing had to be covered up as a raid, as sabotage. They didn't break into the Compound. They were already there waiting to be shipped. The Enforcement Officer involved in the so-called break-in was the one who arrested you three years ago. He thought this was his chance to try again.'
    'Did Manfred know about this?'
      'Yes.'
    'He didn't say anything to me about not coming back.'
    'In a way he did you a favour. If you had known the whole story you might not have left — and if you had not left, they would have arrested you.'
    'And the farm?'
    Spike said nothing. There was nothing to say. It was over. That place. That time. That life. We were silent. I stood up, pacing the room like a badjoke. Like a cliché.
    'Spike - what exactly is the plan for Planet Blue?'
    'Destroy the dinosaurs and relocate.'
    'That's the official story. What's the real story?'
    'The rich are leaving. The rest of the human race will have to cope with what's left of Orbus, a planet becoming hostile to human life after centuries of human life becoming hostile to the planet. It was inevitable — Nature seeks balance.
    'MORE is building a space-liner called the Mayflower. It will take those who can afford it to Planet Blue, where a high-tech, low-impact village will be built for them. MORE is recruiting farmers from the Caliphate to make a return to sustainable mixed farming to feed the new village. There will be free passage for key workers, including the Science Station crew, who will maintain the satellite link with Orbus.'
    'Strictly hierarchical, then.'
    'Rigid — and, of course, it will take several generations for a counter-movement to begin, and the feeling is that the planet is so big they can just be allowed to leave and form alternative communities elsewhere. Technology will be the golden key without it, it's going to be space-age minds living stone-age lives. That will be a powerful reason to stay within the system.'
    'But there will be no elections, no government — what are we going to have? A king?'
    'There will be a Board of Directors.'
    'A what?'
    'MORE- Futures will be the on-the-ground presence, guaranteeing homes and food, development and security.'
    'So that's the shape of the brave new world?'
    'For now. Life is unpredictable. Planet Blue is still evolving. We may have the smart technology, but she has the raw energy.'
    There was a pause. A long one.
    I had no idea what to do or what to say. My life had tipped upside-down and I was trying to pretend that everything was still the right way up. It's an optical illusion that happens to people in upturned boats.
    I walked over to the wide oval window. In space it is difficult to tell what is the right way up; space is curved, stars and planets are globes. There is no right way up. The Ship itself is tilting at a forty-five-degree angle, but it is the instruments that tell me so, not my body looking out of the window.
    In the days before we invented spacecraft, we dreamed of flying saucers, but what we finally built were rockets: fuel-greedy, inefficient and embarrassingly phallic. When we realized how to fly vast distances at light-speed, we went back to the saucer shape: a disc with solar sails. Strange to dream in the right shape and build in the wrong shape, but maybe that is what we do every day, never believing that a dream could tell the truth.
    Sometimes, at the moment of waking, I get a sense for a second that I have found a way forward. Then I stand up, losing all direction, relying on someone else's instruments to tell me where I am.
    If I could make a compass out