Darwinia

Sullivan grew thoughtful, warming his hands, putting a kettle of snow at the edge of the fire for root tea. “They’re born,” he said, “they reproduce, they die… Guilford, if they didn’t evolve, it’s inevitable that they will evolve — selected by nature, bred by circumstance…”

“The handiwork of God, Finch would say.” Since Finch was perpetually silent, I felt obliged to take his part, if only to keep Sullivan interested.

“But what does that mean?” Sullivan stood up, nearly toppling the kettle. “How I would love to have an explanation so wonderfully complete! And I don’t mean that sarcastically, Guilford; don’t give me your sorrowful stare. I’m serious. To look at the color of Mars in the night sky, at six-legged fur-bearing snakes laying eggs in the snow, and see nothing but the hand of God… how sweetly simple!”

“Truth is simple,” I said, smarting.

“Truth is often simple. Deceptively simple. But I won’t put my ignorance on an altar and call it God. It feels like idolatry, like the worst kind of idolatry.”

Which is what I mean, Caroline, by “principled atheism.” Sullivan is an honest man and humble about his learning. He comes from a Quaker family and will even, when he’s tired, slip into the Quaker habit of tongue. I tell thee, Guilford…

“This city,” he brooded. “This thing we call a city, though notice, it’s nothing but boxes and alleys… no plumbing, no provision for the storage of food; no ovens, no granaries, no temples, no playing fields… this city is a key.”

To what? I wanted to ask.

He ignored me. “We haven’t explored it closely enough. The ruin is miles wide.”

“Tom scouted it.”

“Briefly. And even Tom admits…”

Admits what? But Sullivan was sliding into introspection and it would have been useless to push him. I knew his moods too well.

For many of us Darwinia has been a test of faith. Finch believes the continent is a patent miracle, but I suspect he wishes God had left a signature less ambiguous than these wordless hills and forests. Whereas Sullivan is forced into a daily wrestle with the miraculous.

We drank our tea and shivered under our Army blankets. Tom Compton had insisted we keep a night watch ever since the Partisan attack. Two men by the midnight fire was our best effort. I often wondered what we were watching for, exactly, since another attack, had it come, would have overwhelmed our defenses whether or not there was time to rouse the sleeping men.

But the city has a way of provoking wariness.

“Guilford,” Sullivan said after a long silence. “When you sleep, these days… do you dream?”

The question surprised me.

“Seldom,” I said.

But that was a lie.

Dreams are trivial, Caroline, aren’t they?

I don’t believe in dreams. I don’t believe in the Army picket who looks like me, even if I see him whenever I close my eyes. Fortunately Sullivan didn’t press the matter, and we sat out what remained of our watch without speaking.

Mid-January. Unexpected bounty from the last hunting expedition: plenty of dressed meat, winter seeds, even a couple of Darwinian “birds” — moth-hawks, brainless bipedal leather-winged creatures, but they taste like lamb, of all things, juicy and succulent. Everyone ate to contentment except Paul Robertson, who is down with the flu. Even Finch smiled his approval.

Sullivan still talks of exploring the ruins — he is almost obsessed with the idea. And now, with our larders bolstered and the weather taking a mild turn, he means to put his plan into action.

For spare hand and litter bearer he has enlisted Tom Compton and me. We set out tomorrow, a two-day expedition into the heart of the city.

I hope this is wise. I dread it a little, to be honest.

Chapter Sixteen

It was an unseasonably cold London winter, more bitter than any of the Boston winters Caroline remembered. A wolf-winter, Aunt Alice called it. Supply boats came less frequently up the ice-choked Thames, though the harbor boiled with industry and smokestacks blackened the sky. Every building in London added a plume of coal smoke or the grayer smudge of a peat or wood fire. Caroline had learned to take some solace in these sullen skies, emblems of a wilderness beaten back. She understood now what London really was: not a “settlement” — who, after all, would want to settle in this unproductive, vile country? — but a gesture of defiance toward an intractable nature.

Nature would win, of course, in the end. Nature always did. But Caroline learned to take a secret pleasure in each paved road and toppled tree.

A mid-January steamer arrived with a shipment of stock Jered had ordered last summer. There were enormous spools of chain and rope, pe

She avoided Caroline’s eyes. She had been like this for months: cold, disapproving, brusquely polite.

They had argued at first, after the shock of the Partisan attack on the Weston. Alice refused to believe Guilford was dead. She was resolute on the matter.

Caroline knew quite simply and plainly that Guilford had died; she had known it from the moment Jered had told about the Weston, though that was proof of nothing; the expedition itself had been put ashore upriver. But even Jered acknowledged that they would have been easy prey for determined thieves. Caroline kept her feelings to herself, at least at first. But in her heart she was a widow well before the summer ended.

No one else conceded the truth. There was always hope. But September passed without word, and hopes dimmed with autumn and vanished, for all practical purposes, by winter.

Nothing had been proven, Alice said. Miracles were possible. “A wife ought to have faith,” she told Caroline.

But sometimes a woman knows better.

The argument wasn’t settled, couldn’t be settled. They simply ceased to speak of it; but it colored every conversation, cast its shadow over the di

But more than that weary disagreement was bothering Alice today, Caroline thought.

She had a clue before the morning’s work was finished. Alice went to the counter to serve a customer and came back to the storeroom wearing the pinched look that meant she had something unpleasant to say. She narrowed her eyes on Caroline, while Caroline tried not to flinch.

“It’s bad enough to grieve,” Alice said grimly, “when you don’t know for a fact that he’s dead. But it’s worse, Caroline — far, far worse — to finish grieving.”

And Caroline thought, She knows.

Not that it mattered.

That evening, Jered and Alice took themselves to the Crown and Reed, the local pub. When she was certain they were gone, Caroline escorted Lily downstairs and briefly into the cold street, to a neighbor, a Mrs. de Koenig, who charged a Canadian dollar to look after the girl and keep quiet about it. Caroline told Lily good-bye, then buttoned her own jacket and hood against the winter chill.

Stars shivered above the frozen cobbles. Gas lamps cast a wan light across crusts of snow. Caroline hurried into the wind, fighting a surge of guilt. Contagion from her aunt, she thought, this feeling of wickedness. She was not doing anything wicked. She couldn’t be. Guilford was dead. Her husband was dead. She had no husband.