Burning Paradise

But the practical problems had been resolved relatively quickly, or at least it seemed that way, looking back from ten years later. Once it was established that the radio-propagative layer was no longer amplifying and reflecting signals, solutions were available: short-and long-wave direct broadcasting, a system of relay towers, a landline telephone grid. Building and installing the new infrastructure, though costly, had even helped sustain employment through the economic crisis.

Much worse were the consequences that followed from the world’s discovery of the truth about the hypercolony. Surviving remnants of the Correspondence Society had supplied long-suppressed research to the League of Nations; the Atacama site had eventually been discovered and analyzed. What had been unspeakable truths for Cassie’s family had become common knowledge. The result was an age of unreasoning anxiety. There were no more sims in the world, but schoolchildren and job applicants were still routinely tested for the presence of green matter. The Department of Defense was funding the construction of astronomical observatories. Amicability and peace-making were increasingly seen as tainted impulses; what seemed most authentically human was everything the hypercolony had suppressed: bellicosity, cynicism, suspicion, aggression. And the price was being paid in blood—in countless small regional conflicts, and now the threat of a larger war. The Chinese had built aircraft that could carry bombs to America, some claimed. And the bombs themselves had grown more deadly as the great nations competed to arm themselves. Cassie sometimes allowed herself to wonder if this was the outcome the hypercolony had wanted all along. We served our purpose, and now we’re being allowed to drive ourselves to extinction.

Falling in love with Josh had changed her mind about that. Josh was a sweet man, and his sweetness was merely and purely human. It justified much. But he needed to know who she was. She needed to tell him what she had done.

Uncle Ethan had put out a tray of crackers and dip, which made Cassie smile. “Like a party,” she said.

“I know it’s not a party. But I thought—it’s at least an occasion. Seeing Ris again. Telling your aunt you’re getting married.”

“Getting her permission,” Cassie said.

“You don’t need her permission to get married.”

No—not permission to get married. Permission to speak, Cassie thought.

She went to the window. Antioch Street was empty, veiled in snow, a page without words.

“Any sign of her?”

“Not yet.”

“Well. Don’t be too disappointed if she doesn’t show up.”

“Thank you for letting me invite her here.”

“To be honest?” her uncle said. “I never thought she’d agree to come.”

It was nine o’clock when a car turned the corner and parked as close to the curb as the mounded snow permitted. From the window Cassie saw her aunt get out, stand up, tug her cloth cap over her ears, trudge to the building.

Cassie met her at the door of Uncle Ethan’s apartment. “Thank you,” Cassie said breathlessly. “Thank you for doing this.”

Aunt Ris embraced her. Cassie pressed her cheek against her aunt’s shoulder, the cloth coat wet with melting snow.

“Ethan,” Aunt Ris said neutrally.

“Hello, Ris. Would you like something to drink?”

“No. I want to hear what Cassie has to say. But I can’t stay long.”

“Of course,” he said, wincing.

Cassie and her uncle had searched Antofagasta for weeks before they returned to the States, and for six months after that Cassie had made increasingly frantic inquiries among Society survivors, until a letter from her aunt arrived.

I am so sorry, it began. I spoke to Beth’s father—I thought I should tell him what he needed to know—and he said you had already been in touch. He gave me this address. I’m afraid I have bad news. The letter went on to describe the death of Thomas. Of the thing they had called Thomas. One more belated horror from what had been, for Cassie and her family, an age of horrors, and in many ways the most devastating of them all.

Later—when it became possible to re-read the letter without staining the page with her tears—Cassie noticed how often her aunt had used the word “sorry.” Seven times in two handwritten pages. She also noticed that her aunt had neglected to include a return address.

Which did not deter her from trying to get in touch. After another six months Cassie received a letter asking her to stop. A meeting wouldn’t be good for either of us, I think. And Cassie ignored it. And in the summer of that year Aunt Ris finally consented to see her.

They had lunch together in a cafeteria in Delaware Park. Cassie had been prepared to confront her aunt’s unhappiness, but she was surprised by the coldness that came along with it—as if all the kindness in her had drained away like water from a holey bucket. “I’m sorry,” Aunt Ris had said (again) at the end of it. “But I can’t do this. Be around you people, I mean. There are parts of my life I can’t get back. I don’t want them back. I just want to forget them. And you’re only making it harder.”

Still, Cassie hadn’t given up. Aunt Ris had agreed that Cassie could write to her, “If you really need to.” And that was what Cassie had done. She composed small, careful, impersonal notes and mailed them at irregular intervals. She hoped her aunt felt obliged to read them, if not to respond.

Most recently Cassie had written to Aunt Ris about Josh. Cassie had met Josh through her membership in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. A spontaneous conversation about French impressionism had turned into a first date: thank you, Henri Matisse. Josh was single, thirty years old, an engineer at a Cheektowaga tool-and-die firm that had managed to survive the communications crisis. He had no co

Last week Josh had asked Cassie to marry him. And Cassie had agreed. But she didn’t want to import a lie into their marriage. That was why she needed to speak to her uncle and her aunt.

Cassie talked a little about Josh, about how much he meant to her and how important it was not to lie to him even about what happened in the Atacama—especially about what happened in the Atacama. But she had promised her uncle never to share that secret. That was why she needed his permission… and her aunt’s permission, too, since Aunt Ris was an essential part of the story.

Cassie would not, of course, speak publically about any of this. The existence of the Correspondence Society had become common knowledge, but their role in it was known only to themselves. That wouldn’t change. She just needed to be able to speak freely to Josh.

“And how do you suppose he’ll react,” Aunt Ris said, “when you tell him you’re responsible for the state of the world today?”

“That’s not fair,” Uncle Ethan said. “Cassie’s not responsible for what happened in the Atacama or what came after. If anyone is, I am. I’m the one who pulled the trigger.”

“And loaded the gun in the first place. You’re right!” She turned to Cassie. “What exactly do you propose to say to Josh? Are you going to tell him the truth about Thomas? The truth about Leo? Are you going to tell him how they used us? Used you?”

It wasn’t as simple as that. Cassie had given careful thought to the question of what Leo and Thomas had done and why. Both had been agents of the hypercolony. Both had wanted to destroy the parasitized breeding ground. They would have known they needed a human accomplice. At first Leo had chosen Beth to play that role—Beth was motivated and demonstrably capable of violence. But Leo had found a better weapon in Cassie. More reliable. More versatile. And just as easy to manipulate.