Origin: Earth
Age: about twelve years
This brand-new exhibit will be introduced to the wider Earth Zone exhibition when emotional stability has been achieved
I looked at the bedraggled creature, and I wanted to reach through the unseen barrier and hold its hand. (This was neither allowed nor possible: the barrier would have repelled me with a painful shock.)
Its hair …
All right. I must stop saying ‘it’. The sign says it is a female, and so it should be ‘her’ …
Her hair fell in tight twists. I should have liked to see it when it was clean. Her pale and hairless skin was dotted with darker spots (‘freckles’, they are called in her language). Her clothes were similar to those worn by the other humans in Earth Zone. She had trousers of a coarse-looking fabric and a thick-looking padded item of a lighter shade on top, while her feet were clad in big shoes fastened with looped cord.
Her face was dirty and streaked with tears, and her eyes shone wet and bloodshot. She had been weeping (this is normal – humans do it a lot), although the atomic-level mechanical medication that had been given to her had closed down a lot of her primary cognitive functions—
(Wait. Is this too complicated? Philip suggests I should write: ‘Her brain had been made slow by the drugs she had been given.’ And that is, I suppose, close enough. I shall let you decide.)
Despite this, there was a spark of life in her eyes. Perhaps the dosage was imperfectly calculated, or she had an ability to resist some of the medication.
Anyhow, she looked at me and I was struck by how very expressive human faces are.
She put her hand to her chest and for a brief moment I thought she was making the sign of the Hearters, but – obviously – she was not.
She looked at me intensely and said, ‘Ta-mee.’
Just that: those two syllables.
She did it again: ‘Ta-mee.’
I glanced over both of my shoulders, but nobody was watching as I held up my PG and recorded this bit. Communicating with the exhibits is not exactly prohibited, but nor is it encouraged.
Is that her name? I wondered.
I repeated the syllables she had said, although the sounds were hard for me to duplicate.
‘Ta-mee,’ I said.
She nodded her head and made a weird face, as though she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, which I did not understand – and still do not, not fully. Human beings are strange.
I imitated her gesture, and said my name.
The human female tried to repeat it. It sounded nothing at all like my name. She tried again and got a little closer. I practised the sounds a couple of times, and then tried saying my name in a way she might be able to repeat.
‘Helly-ann,’ I said, and a slow smile formed on her mouth.
She blinked hard and said it back to me. I found myself smiling at her.
Then her smile faded and she said two more syllables. ‘Ee-fan.’
A voice came from a speaker next to the sign: ‘Your time is up. Move along. There is a queue of people behind you waiting to see the new exhibit. Do not take more than your allotted time. Next.’
The human watched me go, then she retreated to the back of her enclosure and sat on the ground as two new spectators filed forward.
Ta-mee, I said to myself as I passed the Assistant Advisor who stood at the edge of the exhibit room.
‘That is your third time here, I believe,’ the AA said. ‘And communicating with the exhibits as well? I have my eye on you.’
Except he did not say it aloud. He did not need to – he just looked at me hard and it was enough.
That is how it is done here. Everybody obeys the rules. Nobody gets out of line.
All the way back to my pod-home, I struggled to keep a straight face, when really I wanted to crumple up and cry. That, however, would immediately single me out as being different, for people here do not cry – or laugh, for that matter.
Instead I repeated her name in my head, over and over: Ta-mee. Ta-mee. Ta-mee.
I played back the recording on my PG of the bit when she said her name and something else.
What is Ee-fan? I wondered. That is what she said: Ee-fan.
Perhaps, one day, I will find out.
Because I will be returning Tammy to Earth.
It will be dangerous. If I fail I will be put to sleep for the rest of my life.
And if I succeed? Well, I will probably have to do it again, with another exhibit.
Such is the curse of having feelings.
My twin sister Tammy has been missing for four days now, so when the doorbell goes, I assume it’s the police, or another journalist.
‘I’ll get it,’ I say to Mam and Dad.
Gran is asleep in her tracksuit on the big chair by the Christmas tree, her head back and her mouth open. The lights on the tree haven’t been switched on for days.
I open the door and Ignatius Fox-Templeton – Iggy for short and for slightly less weird – stands there wearing a thick coat, a flat cap and shorts (despite the snow). He’s holding a fishing rod in one hand and Suzy, his pet chicken, under his other arm. A large bag is slung over his back and his rusty old bike lies next to him on the ground.
For a moment we just stand there, staring at each other. It’s not like we’re best friends or anything. We had this sort of awkward encounter when Tammy first went missing on Christmas Eve. (I nearly broke his mum’s fingers with the piano lid, but she was OK about it.)
‘I, erm … I just thought … I was wondering, you know, if … erm …’ Iggy’s not normally like this, but he’s not normally normal anyway, and besides, nothing’s normal at the moment.
‘Who is it?’ calls Mam from inside, wearily.
‘Don’t worry, Mam. Doesn’t matter!’ I call back.
Mam has been getting worse in the last day or two. None of us has been sleeping well, but I’ve begun to think that Mam has not been sleeping at all. She’s got these blue-grey patches under her eyes, like smudged make-up. Meanwhile, Dad has been trying to keep busy at the pub and coordinating search efforts, but he is running out of things to do. Everyone wants to help us, which means the only thing left for us to do is to sit around and worry more, and cry. Sandra, the police Family Liaison Officer who has been here a lot, says that it is ‘to be expected’.
I turn back to Iggy on the doorstep.
‘What do you want?’ I say, and it comes out blunter than I intended.
‘Do you … erm, do you want to go fishing?’ he almost whispers. His eyes blink rapidly behind his thick glasses.
In case you don’t quite get just how odd I find this, you have to know that for the last few days the only world I have known has been one of worry and tears; and police officers being brisk; and journalists with cameras and notebooks wanting interviews; and people from the village bringing food even though the pub has a massive kitchen (we now