The Meat Tree (7 page)

Her mind is so angry that I can't quite tell.

Apprentice

What I'm saying is, do you think that Gwydion is the
father of the child?

Inspector of
Wrecks

You'd know the answer to that, as you're him.

Apprentice

He is, though he doesn't think he's done anything wrong.

Inspector of
Wrecks

You wizards fuck anything you want!

This is typical old Earth morality. The women get
shamed for exactly the same act as men, who face no
consequences at all. Look! Math has picked up the boy
and is cooing at him like a doting grandfather. He's clearly going to take care of him, as he did the three children we conceived in the forest. And Aranrhod's the one who carries the stigma.

Apprentice

Only because you tried to pretend you were a virgin.

Inspector of
Wrecks

But this isn't real life, it's myth.

Apprentice

These are real children.

Inspector of
Wrecks

Aranrhod only dropped one.

Apprentice

You were too busy striding out of the room with your nose in the air to see that you left another little something. I don't know why, but I picked it up before anyone saw it and hid it under my cloak. Look, you can see it wriggling.

Inspector of
Wrecks

Did anyone else spot what you did?

Apprentice

No, they were too busy naming the boy Dylan. I suppose if Math names the child, he takes responsibility for it, that's how it works in these pseudo-medieval games.

Inspector of
Wrecks

I'm puzzled about one thing. If, as you say, Gwydion
was the father of the child – not to mention the thing that you have under your cloak – he must have known that Aranrhod wasn't a virgin. So why did he try to tell Math that she was, when he knew she was bound to fail the test? See? Another instance of him being a compulsive liar, who secretly wants to be exposed!

Apprentice

He wasn't to know that Math would test Aranrhod.

Inspector of
Wrecks

He might have guessed. Math's a magician and his life
depends on the virginity of his footholder. Why would he risk dying for a white lie? He had to test her.

Apprentice

Math is our uncle.

Inspector of
Wrecks

What difference does that make?

Apprentice

You've played female characters so often in here you're
beginning to forget how to think like a male. Gwydion was trying to get one over on Math, to see if he could trick him. Aranrhod would have enjoyed the status of being a virgin, knowing full well that she wasn't. Even worse, they would have killed Math, leaving the way clear…

Apprentice

For Gwydion to take over the kingdom. Nice family, this.

I've just had a terrible thought. Could it be that Math was the father of Aranrhod's child?

Inspector of
Wrecks

No, that doesn't make sense. Why would he have tested me? He'd know for sure that I wasn't a virgin.

But what's he doing with all these boys he's adopting? What's become of them?

Apprentice

I can't find any information in my hinterland files about the three children from the forest. Do you have anything on Aranrhod's son?

Inspector of
Wrecks

Yes. Despite herself, she knows what happened to the boy. He was named Dylan and as soon as he was baptised, he made for the sea. He took on the ocean's nature and swam like a fish. Perhaps he was a seal of some kind. The ancient
Celtic myths have selchies coming ashore and living as
humans. Oh.

Later, the boy Dylan was killed.

Apprentice

By whom?

Inspector of
Wrecks

By his uncle, Gofannon. Another name beginning with G. Another sinister uncle, a brother to Gwydion and Gilfaethwy.

Apprentice

What happened?

Inspector of
Wrecks

The files don't say. Only that it was a great blow and most unfortunate.

I'm beginning to think that anybody who has anything to do with this lot is unlucky. The children don't seem to do too well. Look at Aranrhod. She wants nothing to do with her own child. And yet you uncles adopt boys but aren't able to look after them properly. We can't know how they are because they disappear from the story.

What happened to the three live children and the dead Dylan? Do they move on to play other characters? Or are they like real people outside VR, having stopped playing their parts?

Apprentice

Where do the dead souls go, if all the characters we see are roles? Aren't dead people just the same as those who, for whatever reason, leave the frame of the story? Are we their dead?

What does death mean in relation to this kind of VR?

Inspector of
Wrecks

That, my dear, is a very good question.

*

Synapse Log 5 Feb 2210, 14:00

Apprentice

We're out for a short meal break. He wants to carry on as long as we can stand it today.

Something occurred to me.
We're playing parts the dead people on this ship took often. Gives me the
creeps, and yet it's a thrill to feel the shadow of an
entity that's gone through the same gestures and emotions before. Like an orbit. It's strangely stimulating that we don't know at which point the part became fatal. Or perhaps I'm being absurd.

Right. He wants to go in again.

*

Joint Thought Channel 5 Feb 2210, 14:20

Inspector of
Wrecks

Oh, look out. The focus is clearly moving to Gwydion now. You're leaving us. Can you keep me informed of what's going on while you're out of my sight?

Apprentice

I'll try. So something significant is about to happen. It's to do with the little something I picked up after Aranrhod stepped across Math's magic wand.

I go to Gwydion's room. It's gorgeous. All stained-glass windows and luxurious fabrics. Velvet bedspreads and solid oak furniture gleaming…

Inspector of
Wrecks

Too much interior design. Get on with it.

Apprentice

I thought you said it was all significant; that no detail was too trivial to note. Gwydion's wrapped the thing in gold brocade and hidden it in the chest at the bottom of his bed.

Inspector of
Wrecks

It's as if Aranrhod dropped a premature baby and Gwydion is putting it back in the womb. This is so interesting. I'll tell you my theory in a minute, if I'm right.

Apprentice

I'm in a different chrono-passage here, and time's flowing really quickly. Gwydion's forgotten all about the baby.

Inspector of
Wrecks

Typical Gwydion.

Apprentice

Now I'm in bed, just waking up, thinking of something
else. I can hear a strange noise, like a kitten mewling,
coming from the chest. There it is again. Suddenly I
remember the little creature I picked up. I open the lid.

Inspector of
Wrecks

I think I'm right! Gwydion's acting like a surrogate mother, bringing the child to full term.

Apprentice

And there, instead of a squirming thing, is a boy, waving his arms at me and giggling. A lovely, sturdy, fully formed son!

Inspector of
Wrecks

You see this a lot in late medieval mythology. The functions which previously belonged to the Goddess are taken over by men. Hence Gwydion's male pregnancy.

Apprentice

I don't see that matters in the least. What's important to Gwydion now is that he has this starving child who needs
to be nourished. No use turning to Aranrhod, she's made it perfectly clear that she wants nothing to do with her
offspring.

Inspector of
Wrecks

But it does matter. These motifs are in the programme for a reason. Let me think this through. What we're seeing is the change from matrilineal inheritance to a patrilineal system.

Apprentice

Whatever. I can't think about that now, I have a practical problem. I may have a baby, but I don't have breasts.

Inspector of
Wrecks

What the story's saying is that female creativity can be usurped by men. If mothers refuse to raise their children, or don't acknowledge their existence, then men are in charge of both politics and the domestic realm.

Apprentice

I'll find a woman in the village to suckle the boy.

Inspector of
Wrecks

It makes me wonder about how the relations were between the three crew members. Two men and one woman. She would have to have been pretty canny not to be dominated by the men. I wonder if this is the trace of a power struggle between the three? One that might have destroyed them?

Apprentice

You've lost me now.

Inspector of
Wrecks

But you've got to see how this is relevant, the whole ideology
of the game. How can I say? It's the male fantasy of
taking over all creativity, even that which rightly belongs to the female.

Apprentice

All I know is that Gwydion's devoted to the boy. For the first time he's willing to take care long term of one of his offspring.

Inspector of
Wrecks

If the men take over all creativity, what is there left for the women to do?

Apprentice

In fact, I feel quite fierce about this boy. I'll do anything –
anything – to make sure that he has what every child
deserves.

I'm going to use my magic to its full extent to give him a life, to make him legitimate.

*

Synapse Log 5 Feb 2210, 23:45

Inspector of
Wrecks

Of course! The audio cassette. I knew there was something we'd forgotten to log.
It's just possible that it's still working. I'll go there now.

Move softly so that I don't disturb Nona in her hammock. She needs her sleep. She worked hard today.
No need to put on the light, I can feel my way from foothold to handhold, I know the dimensions of this module so well, it's as familiar to me as my own body. Though not the sight of another person sleeping. In the gloom I can see that her hair has worked its way loose from its band and spread out like a sea fan. Her hand twitches. In her netting she looks like a fish caught underwater.

Torch for the module. Close the hatch between the two vessels. Press tape in. Nothing. Or, rather, a background sound like something turning. So it's not quite dead. I know, needs to be rewound. Tape may be fragile. Come on, come on.

As I'm waiting I notice little patches of mould growing on the hull. Our breath condensing against
the cold bulwarks as we spend time in the VR
machines. I bet the crew had to wipe the walls down with anti-fungals. Not like us with the chemicals built into the ship's lining.

Right. Press Play. A woman's laughter. A male voice in the background mumbling something. She has a
light voice, full of joy. Says – what is it? – yes,
‘Come on Urien, don't be shy. You know us all.' Some applause then quiet, then a young voice – a child – begins to sing! Can't make out the words. What? Bugger, what's happening? Tape must have snapped. Rush to press Stop, but it's all unspooling.

God! They had a child on board. Nothing about him – it sounded like a boy – in the log. And the company sounded, from the applause, like far more than four. But even in the most primitive of Earth space vehicles, they could have got to Mars in nine months. They started out with three crew members. Even if the woman was heavily pregnant when she came on board (and there was no mention of that in the log, you'd expect it to be noted), they still took longer than nine months to get to Mars. What had they been doing? Did they stop somewhere along the way?

It's no good, I can't figure it. The timeline just
doesn't make sense. This case seemed so straight­forward at first, but the more I look at this little
ship, the stranger it is. And the story in the VR. Why is it like that? With all the fluidity between categories of human and animal? Not unusual, of course, in
early mythology, but it's very unexpected in a
Technological Age vehicle. You'd expect it all to be about warfare and aliens.