Purple Heaven

Purple Heaven

By Judy Roland (copyright 2002)

On the seventh lunar day of New Temporal Sector 426 (November 18th,
2744 in old money), when the earth as we had known it came to a
cataclysmic end, I was a very busy boy.

Like practically any sentient being with access to the right telsat and
computer gear, I was monitoring the military channels, listening in on
reports about the rogue asteroid which had done a runner from the
asteroid belt. Now it was hurtling at 40,000 kilometres per second
toward the placid-looking blue ball spinning below us. Home. Or used to
be. About to feel the impact of a monster slab of rock and iron 700
kilometres across. We didn't know how big a hole it would make, or
exactly where it would land - yet - but if and when it hit, it would
mean the end of all earth life forms. That we knew for sure.

They called it "B.B.". Not short as some of the Northern Hemisphereans
said for "Big Bastard", but named for Saint Brigitte Bardot, whom the
New Gautama Church had recently canonised for her services to birds and
beasts in the 20th century. Since the Catholics had merged with the
Buddhists in the 355th temporal sector, it had been fairly inevitable
they'd embrace the common doctrine that animals (or at least mammals)
had souls.

I didn't know or care much about all that. But to "honour" a woman who
had shown such compassion by giving her name to an object that would
bring terror, misery and death to almost every living creature seemed a
cruel and unnecessary irony. As Senior Curator of Lunar 4 Genetic
Archive, I have more than a passing interest in the survival of earth
species. It's my career, my life. My passion. Not a word much used by
scientists, but who cares; I mean it.

It's impossible to describe the horror and confusion of those last few
days. Everyone - on earth, our space stations, the Martian colonies and
here on the moon, were praying for a miracle. Sweet Jesus, please let
the calculations be wrong. Let that bloody thing miss and fly away,
far, far away into another galaxy. Even if we weren't sure there was a
God, or a presiding entity in the universe, we were begging for mercy.
Not just for ourselves, who would certainly feel the effects of all the
debris asteroid impact would kick up, but most of all, for loved ones
left behind on that fragile, achingly beautiful sphere. Mother
Earth.

Every communications channel was jammed solid with desperate people
trying to make contact, maybe for the last time. Trying to say "I love
you" and "goodbye". The military authorities and governments had tried
to hang on to their privileged data links. But practically every kid
knew how to hack in, so that was a waste of time.

Amazingly, some messages did get through to us. We were told that a
shuttle of V.I.P.s was on its way up: politicians, top Army brass, the
rich and powerful. It was no secret that they had luxury 'bunkers' here
on Luna, kitted out with everything that would allow them to live out
their days in high style. The rats were leaving the sinking ship.
Deserting the billions of ordinary, helpless individuals who had given
them Authority, and their trust. Thinking about it made me want to
puke.

Towards the end, when it was obvious no miracle was coming, I went up
to the Purple Heaven to sink a few. I just gazed up through the
metre-thick violet crystal dome, and got slowly but steadily pissed.
The Purple's a club, with a cinema showing great movies from the old,
old days, non-stop. Sometimes black and white. Sometimes colour. I
prefer colour. You have no idea how you miss colour up here. Surrounded
by endless grey rocks, dust and craters, a raven sky, the neutral tones
of the laboratories...you feel mental hunger pangs for a field of ripe
golden barley, a turquoise ocean, tall green pines.

Today the club was screening "Born Free", an old favorite. Watching the
lioness and her cubs at play, I started crying. Thinking about the gene
banks down in the vaults; all the wonderful creatures - elephants,
leopards, komodo dragons, blue whales, condors - which would never
again have a habitat. Never be cloned and reintroduced anywhere. Might
as well flush the whole of unborn creation down the biodegrader.

When the movie finished, they started showing some ancient western. I
was about to drag my drunken carcase off to my cabin when the guy next
to me said, "We've got him, haven't we?"

"You talking to me?" I recognised him now. Lab Oppo, Ed Bunzl.

"Yeah. You're the boss. Anybody'd know, you would. We got John Wayne
down in Cryo, don't we? 'Duke' they used to call 'im."

I considered. "Yeah. I think so. They froze his head. Died of cancer
sectors ago. Way back. Figured someone would defrost him when they
found a cure." Funny, I'd almost forgotten how many human samples we
had in cryogenic storage. A really weird collection of the once rich or
famous. Enough to repopulate a small planet. Once the dust had settled,
and the nuclear winter was over...

My companion looked at his watch. "Shit. It's the waiting gets
me."

"Come on," I said. "Let's go down to the labs. I've got an idea. Hey,
Murph! Reserve me a table for four. I'll be back at six."

The barman nodded. "You want the usual movie?" he asked.

"You got it. And the best meal on the menu. Credits no object."

It's pretty amazing what you can do with accelerated cloning. Bunzl and
I each chose one favourite. Worked like stink, and got back to the
Purple Heaven with just ten minutes to spare. The place was packed, and
despair had given way to manic party mood. Why not? Under the amethyst
glow, we all had a ringside seat for the greatest fireworks since The
Big Bang.

Every head in the place turned as we came in, Bunzl, me and our two
guests; there were a few wolf whistles, too. True to his word, Murph
started up my flick: "Fantasia". There were cheers when the titles
appeared. Walt twitched his little moustache and looked quietly
pleased."The drinks are on me tonight,folks!" I shouted. There was an
even bigger cheer.

"Gee! You must be Mr. Moneybags," Marilyn breathed, squeezing my arm.
She was drop dead gorgeous. Miss Monroe, Mr. Disney, Bunzl and I
toasted the end of the world in vintage Bollinger as the crowd counted
it down. "Ten, nine, eight..."

You remember what it was like after that. The plasma screens inside our
tables filled with images of B.B. Shots from the nearest space station:
a great, dark shard like a severed wing, tumbling down toward the
small, blue target. The last pictures from southern hemisphere earth
stations: a small dot in the sky, almost instantly bleeding into a
vast, red glow as it cleaved earth's atmosphere. Then no more from the
world; the cameras on their pylons had vapourised. Finally, the Landsat
view from space as the whole shoulder of South America appeared to
shrug and then subside. B.B. drove its probe through kilometres of rock
with a force greater than all the nuclear weapons that had ever been.
And from the cratered wound emerged a grey mushroom cloud of pulverised
mountains, forests, ocean, villages and cities, boiling up and up two
hundred kilometres or more.
I glanced at Bunzl; tears were streaming down his cheeks, dripping from
his chin. The other two just looked stunned.

Everybody in the club sat there, paralyzed, still. The only sound was
the movie's incongrously merry music as a row of cartoon hippos in pink
tutus tiptoed across the screen. That's when the final earth message
flashed up on all our tables: that V.I.P. shuttle wasn't coming. Ever.
Somehow, word of the last flight to safety had leaked out; its takeoff
location was rumbled. Thousands of hysterical, desperate people, many
of them armed, had tried to get on board. In the turmoil, the crew and
most of the passengers had been killed.

I picked up a light pen and began doodling on the table. Making notes.
Stuff like: "no more politicians, lawyers, armies, criminals"; "safe
habitats for selected life forms"; "human clones to be sterile: no
population explosion, so no pressure on habitats and no
territorial/resources conflict". I could sense Disney leaning closer,
reading what I'd written. I looked up, and our eyes met. He was
smiling. And I knew he understood, absolutely. With his imagination and
my scientific expertise, the vision of New Eden could become reality.
The earth would be reborn.

I leaned back and closed my eyes, and I can honestly say that it was
the happiest moment in my life. Everything made sense - even life after
death. There was a God after all. And he was right here in Purple
Heaven.

-The end -

Email: sugarhouse@dial.pipex.com