Creative Destruction

Alastair Bowman

Description

When Mark crashes into the Norfolk countryside, he is the first to visit the Outside from London in forty years. He thinks he knows how his once prosperous country became divided, tearing his family apart along with so many others.

Now in the post-capitalist Trust, he has to question who he is, not just in terms of their shared history and his own values, but the truth about his own past as well. He falls in love with Gwendolyn, not knowing that his past could catch up with him first. Gwendolyn rehearses a play that is an allegory of the US-led world since 1945, giving context to the choices we now face. Her mother’s life takes us from the present to the Separation, and the choices she made to flee London when so many were desperate to go the other way.

As Mark’s motives for staging his crash become clear, alternative futures open up for Gwendolyn and, ultimately, the entire Trust. Had her mother stayed in London she would have lived in the material abundance of a society that has abolished scarcity. She is proud to be post-capitalist and post-hydrocarbon, and also post-religion, bringing Mark’s faith into conflict with a stark secularism. Mark’s future becomes tied to forces beyond his control, and his future with Gwendolyn risks slipping away; or worse.

Sujets

• Science fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing
• Date de parution: 10 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785894374
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 Alastair Bowman

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 9781785894374

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
To Peggy Macmillan
(1915-2007)
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Epilogue
Chapter One
A sudden movement drew his attention to where the path emerged from the trees on the far side of the meadow. He was too slow. Whatever had caused it was now still. Perhaps it was an animal, but more likely it was human. Doubtless they were watching from a safe distance, and the thought of them edging closer was unnerving.
A crow clattered through the undergrowth someway off. To him it was just noise and all of it was frightening. He had expected nature to sound more peaceful. He tried to convince himself that time would allow cooler heads to prevail. Or maybe they were waiting for darkness when, fortified by alcohol, they would descend upon him and exact their vengeance. Born only a few years before the Separation, his own innocence could hardly be doubted, but the opportunity to hold someone to account after so long could yet overwhelm them. Lynching is a poor substitute for justice, but the hungry take what they can get.
He resumed his pacing, the well-trodden path taking him along the side of the meadow from a fallen tree, an oak perhaps, to where passage was obstructed by brambles. The meadow itself was silent, reproachful, disfigured by the crash.

* * *

‘Only one got out … There may be others … We can’t see inside.’
The youth had pushed his way through the crowd and climbed the steps to the stage. He was still breathless from running, red-faced, hands on knees. Only those nearest the stage could hear him, but the lack of news spread quickly through the Bower.
Isaac shrugged. ‘And he’s just waiting?’
The boy nodded in response. Sonja was about to speak but Isaac interrupted her.
‘Why haven’t they rescued him? We can’t leave him out there much longer.’
‘What’s he doing?’ said Sonya.
‘Waiting,’ the youth replied with a shrug. ‘Sometimes pacing up and down, sometimes sitting on the fallen elm.’
Everyone knew the one he meant; they had lost it last winter; everyone except Isaac who hadn’t been down that way in many a long year.
He didn’t even know half the people on the stage, although they all knew him. Most seemed willing enough to take their lead from him and Sonja. The others - now virtually the entire township squeezed shoulder to shoulder around long tables already set for dinner - could not hear their deliberations and were talking anxiously among themselves. A constant wall of noise protected the stage, distancing them from the long shafts of afternoon sun that pierced through the large double-doors and bathed the back of the crowd in a dust-filled glow.
Someone suggested that Sonja go to meet him. As Chair of the township she was the obvious choice.
‘I think we should stay here,’ Isaac said, addressing Sonja, his elbow firmly rooted on the armrest of his wheelchair. His hand moved back and forth between his face and Sonja’s middle, as if binding her to him with invisible ties. Without her he might fall victim to local sensitivities. ‘We must work out what to do,’ he continued, ‘and what he has come here for.’
‘It looks like an accident.’
‘Maybe,’ Isaac conceded. ‘But if it is not, he will likely be armed. We must find out what they are capable of. Forty years of nothing and now this? Why here, and why now? Who is he?’ He didn’t leave Sonja much time to reply. ‘I know!’ he said with sudden energy, ‘Gwendolyn can get the measure of him and bring him back here. She can judge what kind of threat he poses.’
‘What if he doesn’t want to come?’ Sonja was not challenging Isaac’s plan, merely thinking it through.
‘It doesn’t look as if he has anywhere else to go. But you are right. We don’t want him roaming the countryside. She should leave him no choice. They should take some rope, just in case.’
‘Rope?’ Sonja said with distaste.
Isaac nodded thoughtfully. ‘You’re right.’
Isaac surveyed the throng but his eye-line was only marginally higher than the hundreds of heads. He turned to the youth. ‘Get Gwendolyn up here,’ he said, deciding the matter. Sonja made no objection.
‘Who else?’
‘We don’t want to frighten him,’ Sonja said.
‘A dozen?’ Isaac suggested. If they weren’t to have rope they would need numbers.
‘Why so many?’ Sonja asked. ‘He might be armed.’
‘You think Gwendolyn should go alone?’ Isaac didn’t like the idea but could see the appeal.
‘Only if she’s willing.’
The people around them reacted unfavourably, though not from any concern for Gwendolyn. At least that’s how it seemed to Isaac. There was a mood to simply fetch the man and a lot of them wanted to go along.
Isaac shook his head. ‘As long as he doesn’t feel threatened and gets jumpy, I don’t think - .’ Isaac didn’t want to make light of the risk, but it was obvious enough. ‘If a dozen or so will take the risk,’ and again he left it hanging. Then, with increased vigour to show enthusiasm for his own plan, he added, ‘And they’ll need more runners, in case we have to alert the neighbours.’
Sonja nodded her head and, looking up from Isaac, saw there was general agreement.
Isaac listened as she consulted about the rest of the party. People were crowded all around his wheelchair, so he had no chance of seeing Gwendolyn. He looked up at the faces above him, and they quickly realised his predicament and made him some space.
The girl who had pushed Isaac up the ramp to the stage was gone, and he edged himself out to the side of the melee that now centred around Sonja. Seeing this, some in the body of the hall hoped Isaac was about to make an announcement, and a hush descended; hungry to know if any more was known, they were soon disappointed.
Isaac saw Gwendolyn climbing the steps and beckoned her over. He quickly briefed her and she looked surprised. She straightened up and looked quizzically at the faces that had gathered around them, but Isaac drew her back down to his level.
‘We need to know if he is a threat.’
Gwendolyn hid her fear well.
‘He’ll be a lot more frightened of us than we are of him,’ Isaac insisted. ‘You’ll be fine.’
She shrugged dutifully. He was probably right.
The Bower fell silent as Sonja stood at the front of the stage and announced the plan.
‘Agreed?’
A forest of hands went up and she started to name those they proposed to send. There was a rumbling through the crowd, a collective discomfort that always manifested itself whenever patronage replaced process. But in the circumstances, nobody felt like challenging her decision, keen now to pass to action.

* * *

When the craft had lost navigation, he sat helpless, reading instruments he was unable to influence. Altitude loss was only 3% and he was confident of reaching land. Still, when the flat shore loomed into view, relief crashed over him like breakwater. The wave receded as quickly as it had come, sucking in new fears to fill the vacuum. The power of his emotion surprised him, his psyche toying with pretend fears as if to prepare him for real danger. He knew that he would reach land; he knew he would survive the inevitable crash. He had calculated his descent with great care, leaving no room for error but leading inexorably to the Outside where risks were no longer controlled.
He saw the hall at the hub of the settlement. From the air its vast dimensions seemed out of proportion to its surroundings. All around, people were stopped in their tracks, starring skyward, their cries of astonishment drawing the attention of others. He looked down on the lives of people to whom this landscape was home.
He had seen satellite images of rural life, showing tiny dots of heat moving through the seasons, but never the people themselves. No one had over-flown the Outside for forty years. There was no advantage in antagonising their neighbours, reminding them unnecessarily of their domineering presence. He had always been agnostic on the Separation. Mark recognised of course its inevitabilit