Science Fiction

When I wrote this book ebola had reared its ugly head and the idea of an ebola pandemic was a possibility. This was well before covid. An ebola pandemic would have been much worse. Fortunately that was contained.

The threat set me thinking. We have known terrible plagues in the past. Some viruses are lethal. We were lucky with covid. Bubonic plague or smallpox was far worse. The next one might be something new; some virus for which we have no immunity. It could wipe us out.

That set me thinking. Unscrupulous governments, amoral scientists and various scenarios. Who might be immune?

Welcome to the dome and the delightful children with their genetic disorder. Welcome to the future. Welcome to New Eden. A survival novel.

New Eden: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9798637512867: Books

For Trevor life outside the dome was unimaginable. He did not even think about it. He liked the beauty of the big dome as it arced overhead. Sometimes he would stand right up to it and peer out. There were great blocks of apartments out there with walkways and pedistreams with hundreds of thousands of people all moving off into the distance looking like ants in their different coloured identical suits. He liked to watch them all purposefully trickling down from the blocks every morning to feed into the throngs packing the pedistreams to be whisked off to distant places but he did not wonder why or where they were going or what they might be doing when they got there. He liked the patterns they made.

Then in the evening he would watch it seemingly go in reverse as the people trickled off the packed pedistreams back to the apartment blocks. The system was always packed but in the mornings and afternoons the exaggerated movement created patterns that he found mesmerising.

Today Mike was playing with him on the apparatus. Trevor loved Mike. Mike would tickle him and know just how to make him squeal. Mike was so clever. He always urged him to do more. He could get from one end of the bars to the other now. It was easy peasy. None of the girls could do that; not even Jelphi and she was very daring. Jelphi would jump right from the top. Trevor did not think he could do that yet without hurting himself though Jelphi did not seem to find it hard. But Jelphi couldn’t get to the end on the bars!

Mike taught him how to dangle down from the top with his knees, and how to climb the rope, and how to swing. Mike taught him everything and Mike gave the best cuddles ever, even better than Dr Angstrom or Daddy, though probably not quite so good as Mummy. Mummy was so soft and warm and she smelt good. Mike didn’t smell like that. Mummy was coming soon. He was looking forward to that.

Trevor climbed to the top and balanced. He knew Mike would catch him if he fell. He waved to the girls and Anwar waved back. Anwar was his favourite. He loved Anwar. They often played mummies and daddies. When he was old enough he would marry Anwar. They had already decided. Jelphi and Mardra would be their bridesmaids. They had all talked it through. Dr Angstrom and Mike seemed to find it very funny when they had told them.

‘I want to plant seedlings,’ Trevor said.

‘OK, come on down then,’ Mike said.

Trevor launched himself into Mike’s arms and he caught him and swung him round. It felt so good.

Dr Angstrom watched as the peals of laughter rang round and Trevor was deposited on the ground to awkwardly run across to the girls with Mike in pursuit, arms outstretched and fingers making tickling movements. It was a strange quirky type of run the children had; it was like a canter, with heels kicking out sideways. It looked awkward but there was poetry to it.

Trevor arrived at the garden and instantly there was a transformation. The fun evaporated to be replaced by a look of wonder. Trevor delicately picked up one of the seedlings off the trolley and was studying it with awe. Mike stood back with hands on hips and watched. Trevor held the tiny plant up close to his face and studied it closely as if he had never seen one before. Delicately he stroked a leaf with his forefinger. Everything about it seemed to fill him with curiosity.

When he had drunk it in he gingerly made his way over to the prepared patch where the girls were carefully planting the cabbage seedlings. None of them talked but they all beamed at Trevor as he joined them. The children shared an almost telepathic empathy. You could feel the vibes that flowed between them. They projected a warm glow as if they were surrounded with a bubble of emotional well-being. Trevor was carrying the plant in its fibrous pot as if it was a most precious piece of ancient porcelain – and in many ways it was. For the population outside, the idea of actually growing vegetables like this would have been unthinkable, something only seen on history programmes on the vee-dee. Nothing in their world outside the dome approximated to real food, nothing the mass of people ate bore any resemblance to real vegetables. Their food might resemble meat and vegetable in shape, texture and even taste but nobody was under any misapprehension regarding that. They all knew it was produced from the same mycoprotein processed to order. If they had been able to see through the mirrored surface of the Plexiglas dome that mysteriously sat in their midst they would have been astounded. To have that amount of space and real plants was almost unimaginable. Not that they ever thought much about the presence of what appeared to them to be a large mirrored dome. It wasn’t their place to wonder on such things.

The girls moved aside to allow Trevor through. He crouched down and gently placed the seedling on the soil. They watched intently as he stroked one of the leaves and lovingly traced the outline of its venation with a rapturous expression of unadulterated joy. All the children seemed to share in each others delight as if connected. Nobody was more empathic than a Mickel’s child.

Mardra handed Trevor the dibber and he carefully used it to prod a hole into the soil, pulling it from side to side to enlarge the cavity until he judged it was wide and deep enough to receive the fibrous cone of the root-ball. Trevor handed the dibber back to Mardra and lifting the plant up he carefully studied it once more before reverentially placing it in the hole he had prepared. He then judiciously patted the soil down around it and Jelphi stepped forward to water it with her little watering can.

Then they all stood back as if a special ceremony had taken place. The carers looked on with quiet admiration.

Mike clapped and they all beamed up at him.

Langston Angstrom pulled his eyes away from the joyful scene. You’d imagine the children had made a major discovery from the excitement generated and not merely planted a cabbage. He could watch them all day but that would never do. They were so adorable it was contagious but there was work to do.