Personal Blogs

I told Pamela that I was thinking of going on a tour of the other colonies.  She asked when I was expecting us to leave, and I told her I was thinking of going on my own, so that she could stay behind and look after business.  She went mad.  She said, ‘No, no, no.  Not again, you bastard.’  I asked her what she meant by “again”.  She said, ‘You are not going to leave me the same way that you left Violet.’  I said, ‘I have no intention of leaving you.  I am planning to go on a tour and then come back.’  She doesn’t believe me. 

            I’m still going. 

*

You can still call me Paddy, even though I’m the Mayor.  The town doesn’t have a name, yet, but it is growing.  We have got a harbour, a crane, three warehouses (one for food, one for livestock, and one for imperishables), a town hall (of sorts), various shops and houses, and a pub.  The pub has the same name and management as the bar on The Irish Rover called O’Mally’s.  It is popular even with non-drinkers, because it is very well insulated and usually cool, even in our hot climate.  I come here nearly ever day after work.  My more sober-minded clerk, Cecily Johnson, joins me only occasionally.  She is still working at the moment.  Some-one has discovered a new mineral deposit and she is looking over the application for the mine workings.  I think she’s coming over later. 

            The speciality drink here is lager brewed from unrefined sugar-cane juice and served in a glass tankard frosted with ice.  It is the most thirst-quenching drink around. 

            I can hear a strange noise.   It sounds like a helicopter.  There are no helicopters on this planet that I know of.  Yes, it definitely is a

*

I had just finished work for the day, and was walking from the office over to O’Mally’s to have a drink with Paddy, when I heard a helicopter flying low over the town.  I looked up and saw it.  It was dark green and looked like a military helicopter.  Without any warning or apparent cause, the helicopter fired a missile which scored a direct hit on O’Mally’s, and blew the building to pieces in a fireball.  I did not bother to approach the wreckage: nobody could have survived that attack.  I was hit by flying debris.    

            I turned on my heels and ran back to the town hall, where I knew I could communicate with the other colonies.  Just as I got to the front door, I heard an engine.  I looked round and saw a tank driving past the wreckage of O’Mally’s.  I ran upstairs, and got as many of the other town clerks as I could on a video chat session.  This is what I said to them.

            ‘This is Counsellor Cecily Johnson.  I am the town clerk from the main settlement in I-2.  This is an emergency.  This is a life-or-death emergency.  I want to give you some details of what has happened, and I need you to pass them to as many of the other colonies as you can.  Do you understand?’  The faces on the screen all nodded.  ‘Our colony has been invaded.  We are under attack.  I repeat: we are under attack – we are under threat of our lives.  This is not an exercise.  Have you got that?’  They nodded again.

‘The invaders are men in uniforms.  They have armoured vehicles.  They have a helicopter which fires deadly missiles.  They arrived earlier today.  They fired a rocket at a public house in our town called O'Mally's and killed many innocent people, including the Mayor.  Mayor Patrick Fitzgerald is dead.  I repeat –.’  I had to stop for a moment.  ‘Paddy’s dead.  I think about thirty people might have been killed so far.’

            ‘Counsellor Johnson,’ said one of the faces on the screen, a very young chap on I-13 whose name I think is Waverley Diggle, ‘Are you hurt?’ 

            ‘I think I have something lodged in my right shoulder.’

            ‘Well, we need to come and find you: give you some medical treatment.’

            ‘Don’t worry about me, you idiot!  I want you to do something to save this planet and this population.  I can’t talk more now.  I have to escape.’ 

            I grabbed the keys to the safe and ran all the way home.  I threw some things into a rucksack, changed my clothes, and put a lead on Junc’s collar.  Junc is my Labrador (his name is short for injunction).  We headed for the hills.  My shoulder was killing me.

*

As soon as I heard what that lady said, I went straight to see Mr McLean.  He is not the mayor, but he still runs the island.  The mayor is usually drunk at that time of day, anyway, and pretty useless for anything.  The last time I woke him up after he had passed out, he threatened to cut my penis off, the stupid sod. 

            Mr McLean was in his office, as usual.  I don’t think he ever eats or sleeps.  Even when he has a drink he has it while sitting in his office. 

            It was night-time, and the moon was shining.  I could see it reflected in the harbour.  It seemed very peaceful and calm.  It seemed crazy that there was fighting happening on another island. 

            Mr McLean’s “office” is a set of pre-fabs which keeps growing and growing.  It isn’t very nice to look at.  Part of it is a shop, where you can buy just about anything – bananas, carpets, knives, live chickens – all kinds of stuff.  Another part of it always has men in it who are drinking.  I don’t know if it is a pub or a club or what, but they are always there.  When I got there, Mr McLean was writing figures down in a ledger-book by the light of an oil-lamp.  As usual, he was wearing a dirty tracksuit with dog hairs all over it.  For a man who is one of the richest on this planet, he dresses like a tramp. 

            ‘Hello, stranger,’ he said when I went in. ‘What brings you here?  Have you run out of gin?’

            ‘Mr McLean, sir, we’ve got a very serious kind of, er, um, problem.’

            ‘I’m intrigued, my boy.  What kind of problem, and why do you say “we”?’

            ‘It’s a situation, er - it looks like a problem that will be very bad for business.’  I said that because I thought he was not listening properly and I wanted to grab his attention.

            ‘Go on.  What is it?’

            ‘A few minutes ago, I got a call on the video phone from a woman on the next island called Cecily Johnson.’

            ‘Aye, I’ve met her a couple of times.  She’s the lassie you have to deal with if you want to get anything done there.  She’s true to her word, if a wee bit obstructive now and again.’

            ‘Yes, well.  She phoned a few minutes ago to say that her town was under attack by men in uniform, who had gone mad and started firing missiles.  She said they’d blown up a place called O’Mally’s and killed the mayor.’

            ‘They’ve WHAT!’  He sounded so pissed off that I moved two steps backwards without thinking.  I knew that would upset him.  In Mr McLean’s world, the only reason you ever demolish a building is to re-use the materials and put up an even bigger one in its place.  

            Mr McLean took a couple of his men and me into another room, where he had his computer terminal.  Mr McLean never uses the computer unless he has to.  We tried to get in touch with some of Mr McLean’s contacts.  When I left, I think he was still talking to some-one on I-11.  I hope it was Kelvin Stark.  

*

I am more angry with Kelvin than I have ever been since he first mentioned this fucking Alpha Project.  He has pissed off on some “tour” of the other colonies.  He was last heard of heading for I-2, which is on the other side of the world.  He goes away, and we get a message to say that we have been attacked by an unknown force.  We don’t know if the attack on O’Mally’s was perpetrated by terrorists, or gangsters, or a commercial organisation, or a government.  The one time when we need the originator of this charade to provide some leadership, and he isn’t here.  He has no computer or mobile communication device with him, other than the ones I implanted without his knowledge

            I am going to have to contact him via satellite and these devices.  Kelvin is about to hear voices.

            My name is Violet, and I’m back.

Mmm.  Nice and warm in here.  Sleep?  No, not sleepy.  Whoa.  What’s happening?  What’s happening?  Being lifted up.  Where am I going?  A bit scared.  This is a long journey.  Where are we going?  I can smell a big pool of water.  Mm.  Nice, clean water.

            Aah, grass.  Eat first?   No, run round first.  Run, run, run, run, run, run.  Nothing chasing me, but just feel like a bit of exercise.  Now eat.  Mm.  This grass is sweet.  Pffft.  Yuck.  That has a bit of twig in it.  Mm.  This is better.  Nice and juicy.  Can I have a carrot?  I said can I have a carrot?  A carrot.  Yes, a carrot.  All I am trying to tell you is that I want a carrot.  Is that too much to ask?  Oh, this is frustrating.  What’s this?  Lettuce?  Ah, Little Gem, and a heck of a lot fresher than it was last time.  Couldn’t we have dried it after washing as well?  What else is coming?  What on earth is that?  Something in round slices.  Spongy.   Green skin round the edge.  Mm.  A bit tasteless, but not unpleasant.  Where is the carrot?  Ah, at last.  That wasn’t so difficult, was it? 

            Yes, I will let you stroke me, as long as you do it gently.  Gently, I said.  Mmm.  A bit lower.  No, higher.  Yes, just there.  Will you kindly stop playing with my ears?  

            Are there any nice, strong bucks round here?  I seem to have been alone for a long time.  It is comfortable here; the food is good, and hardly anything scary happens, but there’s no action.  It is even duller than the last place I lived, most of the time.  

*

My name is Patrick Fitzgerald.  My friends call me Paddy.  When I am sitting in court, of course, I am referred to as “My Lord”, or “Mister Justice Fitzgerald”, since the ship is governed by the law and customs of England and Wales (on which those of my native Australia are also based).  When the administration of the ship was being set up, just before we embarked on our journey, I was nominally granted the same status as a High Court Judge.  Now we are, so to speak, on our own, I suppose I am the most senior legal figure in this community of fifty-thousand souls.  Sooner or later, we are going to have to work out a new constitution, but I am not pushing it on any-one.  What we are doing at the moment works perfectly well.  A constitution in a democratic state to me is like poetry: try to foist it on people and you destroy the whole point of it.  To work properly, it has to be rooted as deeply as possible in the will of the People (assuming that the People can agree on what that is).  

            This ship is the most active and cohesive community I have ever seen.  In some ways, it is the nearest thing to utopia that I would ever desire to get close to.  Nobody begs.  Nobody scrounges.  Nobody sits there and does nothing.  Nobody is hopeless, or broken, or defeated.  Nobody has dropped out, or is trying to wreck the progress of normal life.  We also have a much greater sense of purpose than most human beings ever experience.  Our big objective is to arrive safely at our destination, after which we get down to the real work of founding a new colony.  In the meantime, the crew have to keep the ship running smoothly (to which I would say my own occupation is an adjunct).  The passengers have to stop themselves from going mad with boredom.  Both sets of people are doing a thoroughly good job.

            There certainly is some crime on this ship, and even occasional outbreaks of disorder.  The people here are human beings, just like on Earth, except that they sometimes get giddier and edgier because they are living in such an artificial environment.  They drink alcohol.  They smoke weed.  Some of them chew khat.  So far, I have seen no evidence of heroin or cocaine, but it is probably only a matter of time.  I have seen no evidence either of organised prostitution, but I would be staggered if some-one could prove to me that it were not taking place, here, now, on the ship.  I might even be able to guess who is running it, but it would be most injudicious of me to name any names without evidence.  

            We have an ordinance in place which says that nobody is allowed to give birth before we reach our destination.  The more I think about it, the less I can understand why that was decided.  I would also be interested to hear what sanction we might take against any offender (and if anybody so much as mentions compulsory termination, I’ll have him ejected from the room).  I suppose it was to save the designers of our vessel the problem of having to cater for a growth in population.  You can bet that the population will grow once we disembark: that is the whole point of the exercise.  

            I wonder how long it will be before the new world ends up like the old one, with people begging for money in railway stations, and raiding their kids’ piggy-banks to buy drugs.  Everybody is self-funding here.  Everybody works; every job is valuable, and everybody gets paid a reasonable income. We have our own currency, which is intended to form the basis of what we will use in the new colony.  I am not sure who invented it.  It is based on coins rather than notes, and they have genuine noble metal in them.  We have a copper coin, called a penny; a silver coin, called a shilling, and a gold coin, called a sovereign.  Ten pence equals one shilling, and ten shillings equals one sovereign.  A sovereign is also called a pound.  We have machinery for striking more coins, and we have more bullion to make them with.  Both, of course, are kept strictly under lock and key.  Decisions to do with things like the money supply are made by an informal ship’s council, which includes the Captain and four senior members of the crew, plus five members who are elected by the passengers.  These currently include Kelvin Stark, Prudence Tadlow, an English lawyer called John Mallard, a Jamaican academic called Professor Timothy Gonzales, and a Scottish business tycoon called Kerr McLean.  I myself have the honorary position of Chairman, but I only vote if there is a tie.

            I must get back to work now.  I have to read some depositions and pleadings relating to a disturbance which took place at a Hallowe’en party a few days ago.  Kelvin Stark was present, though I am delighted to acknowledge for the sake of his reputation that he was a victim and not a perpetrator.  I notice that all the defendants in the case are female.  Counsellor Johnson is prosecuting.  I hope she gets some-one to sit in with her, because a bunch of women displaying their alcohol-fuelled lubricity and propensity to violence in public is not really her area of expertise.  John Mallard is defending.  He is a bit theatrical for my liking, but an honest and competent lawyer for all that.  I bet the public gallery will be packed, especially if Dr Stark is called as a witness.  

*

I have been charged with causing an affray and criminal damage at the Hallowe’en party.  I don’t care.  I would stamp on that bitch’s camera again if I needed to.  Somebody called Mallard is defending me.  I am told he is quite good.  He certainly charges enough.

            Back on Earth, Kelvin would have been fully liable for any charge brought against me.  It is a new experience for me to be granted full equality before the law with a human being.  

*

I have been charged with causing an affray at the Hallowe’en party.  What an absurd nuisance.  I don’t care.  I hate what that awful Vallance woman was trying to do to Kelvin.  It was so vulgar and tasteless, to say nothing of intimidating and intrusive.  I have been recommended by my lawyer to run a combined defence with the other woman who intervened.  This gave me a bit of a funny feeling, because – of all people – she happens to be the one who I made the complaint about because she was following me.  She was fine with me when we were talking to the lawyer.  There was no awkwardness at all.  She said she did not bear any grudge against me for the complaint, and that she might have done the same in my position.  The only thing I could not get out of her was why she had been following me.  I decided it was best to just let it pass.