The beach reminded Barkworth of all those others he had wandered along ... with Quincey.

..Quincey... 

But it was very different from that beach on Insipena, that last world they had visited together. This beach had an immense variety of trees and bushes, with a riot of flowers of all shapes and sizes tumbling onto it. Their scents were just exquisite... like those violets..and that bizzarre cinema Eve had created to show them that weird Tachyonic Space she was taking them through for the first time... only here there was also much animal life, from tropical-looking birds like kookaburras in incandescent plumage to bright pink skinks with bright yellow heads and green-rimmed eyes.

 But how could such a thing be possible on a Terminal World? Perhaps these poor animals were all condemned to die with him in just a few minutes too - or however long it was going to take...

Once again his thoughts drifted b ck to Quincey - and once again he realized he couldn't stop this from hap ening - that was, after all, why he was here. But it didn't matter now. At least she had fo nd some semblance of a life by returning to the bo om of her family in Brazil. She had shut herself of  fro  Paradise and even, app rently the world ou side the Fa ily Mans on, m  be she was hap ier now.  The way her sis er Maria had     it wasn't so n ce.  Pro   sional help    rom    side the fam   , and they    the   own r  son  for not wan  g that w   h may not have been        to do wit  Fiore De Concini.

But  ne would have to be   Brazi  ian to know     , and while Barkworth h    cas con with Quincey's si ter, he     that that w  cl se   her as he w    now    was now o    more condem ed to those lonely empty years of w         Paradise lik  thos  ther lonely souls, Conve sat ists or n  . He had st   ed clear of      part cu    co pan ,        any ha  -way     telli     co versat  n now o ly remi d   him  f... of...

    F   d another l dy, as so many  f th  e he    ru   to ins st he do? B   w        e d  th t? Yo  can't      go out           `find' someb  y, yo    ve t       ea h other    th    y he  nd Qu ncey had (`are y   really from Earth?'   h  a  a ked     bec  se of her high     u u l ap  a a ce with h   e   eme ta     d  h   n s , t ose freckles th t   v  e  eve y inch        coff  -col  red sk  ,      voice                         infinite sarcasm, and       eyes... those eyes...

    ...Quince...
    ...Quin   ...

    - HELP ..!




        Another beach.... But one he recognized this time. Like so many kids growing up, he had first explored his back yard as a toddler, his country when he was a pre-teen (usually in the company of other kids and an adult, though there was one occasion when...) and the whole world of Earth through those magic Nessiks when he was first permitted to roam through them as a teenager. And of all that huge backyard (well, it seemed so huge at the time), his favorite was that exquisite Muri beach on Raratonga. It wasn't so much the beach itself, which was narrow and a little soft to walk on, but the whole setting with its four little islands - motu, he now recalled, one of which was close enough to be able to wade to through the shallows. And above all, the jagged peaks, including The Needle, which was enough in itself to convince him that he couldn't be on some other World. This had to be Earth.

        But now there were major differences. The last remaining tourist shacks had gone, it had all been returned to its original state since he was last here. There were lots of canoes of various sizes out on the water, each with two or three men, who certainly looked like Cook Island Maori. The nets they cast though were clearly not modern, they appeared to be made of flax rope or some other such material. Two outrigger canoes rested on the coarse grass, their lashings obviously needing repair. The two boys he saw tossing coconuts down from the crowns of palm trees made the whole scene look straight out of the island's pre-colonial past.

        Indeed he was overjoyed at the sight. Muri was once more a natural part of the palm tree-fringed coastal plain that surrounded the island like its lagoon.

 He started to walk forward - but he found he wasn't walking at all, he was somehow gliding.... He looked down fearing the worst, but his `head' just `swiveled' as if it was a camera - and he saw nothing but pure sand where his legs - and entire body - should be. Pure panic rose within him and his spine started to tingle - but how could that be when he  didn't actually have one?

        He was in a simulation. And that meant only one thing, he was in a Lalleldil. That was the only place simulations were allowed, for therapeutic purposes only. On every world that had developed them independently, they had proved as helplessly addictive as narcotics. Even the comparatively innocuous 3D’s were addictive to some, but at least they didn't immerse you in an entire world of every experience possibly imaginable, including severe pain and...

        His thoughts drifted inevitably back to that relentlessly sexually addictive Innesheer.

    (Poor Quincey.  Only one of her sisters, Maria, had been prepared to speak to him when he called through his Otinda. She certainly knew how to compress volumes into just two sentences:  "Teresa is safely within the bosom of our family now and seeking guidance through the love of our Holy Mother. You are welcome to return to Brazil of course, where I am sure you will find an endless supply of young women to suit your exacting requirements from within our lower classes.")

 
Time to explore. Okay, so `walk’ again. He glided forward a little way, when he  caught a faint ripple of laughter from what sounded like young girls to his left. On an inspiration, he commanded himself to go up, as if he was wearing a Gravitex Harness. And he went up... Joy! He knew then he was going to get used to this very quickly as he glided up over the palms.

 He saw straight away that the road encircling the island had gone too, it was as if it had never been. Then it hit him – what if he had arrived here at a time before it was even built? Perhaps even long before it was built?

His worst fears were confirmed when he spotted a small village resting near the bottom of the valley. A small stream passed through it on its way down to the beach and the sea. He knew that, prior to the colonial era, villages were usually located close to such fresh water sources rather than the beach, though never so far away that their inhabitants couldn't easily reach their fishing canoes.

He flew on to the village and hovered over it. Sitting in a semicircle in a small clearing surrounded by a dozen or so sea-grass and palm-frond huts were a group of fifteen or so women in grass skirts. They were clearly older than they had sounded, but then he knew Polynesians of any age laughed that way when they were happily passing the time. He hung there motionless as he watched them weaving by hand what appeared to be small mats of from a sea grass-like fiber; he supposed that at some later stage these would be sewn together in some fashion to form a much larger mat to cover the floor of a hut.

He was about to glide down for a closer look when he noticed an elderly man enter the clearing from the trees. In spite of his simple grass skirt he was clearly a tribal elder or even a chieftain, it must have been the way he carried himself in spite of his age. One of the women glanced up and immediately fell into silence; the other women, a few of the younger ones half glancing round as if afraid, did the same. But the man raised his arm, sounded what sounded like a friendly greeting, then sat down in front of what must have been his hut as if to spend the afternoon quietly sitting in the sun. The woman now began to sing again as they recommenced their weaving.

Their singing certainly sounded Maori-like. But then, considering the setting, he realized he shouldn't have been surprised. After all, New Zealand Maori came from here - Hawaiiki, he now recalled, as they had called it prior to European colonization. He had seen the now sea-walled beach from which they had departed further up the coast on his first, somewhat more corporeal, visit. Perhaps he should return to it for another look while he was `here'.

He now realized he had no Hilashell – or whatever would have stood in for one in his current state. This made him feel totally naked, he had never been without one in his life. He would never know what their songs were about, nor presumably any conversations he might hear – or for that matter take part in. He was in effect as deaf to their language as he was dumb in it.

 He also suspected that since no-one had chanced to look up, they were unaware of his presence. Apparently he was going to be invisible as well.

On a sudden whim he decided to try and find out for sure what he could do, beginning with what his newly acquired flight capabilities. He zoomed vertically straight up as fast as he could go and quickly discovered that he was somewhat speed limited. He found he also seemed to hit a `soft ceiling’, he could go no higher than about two kilometres. That was more than enough though to confirm that he was indeed in Raratonga, it was after all no more than ten kilometers across. The huge Full Moon he now saw rising from the horizon also reassured him that he was indeed on Earth. No Worlds he knew of had a single huge moon that looked remotely similar.

It crossed his mind that he could be immersed in some sort of history documentary, The Coming of The Maori to New Zealand or something like that. If so, then so be it. That might prove fascinating; how they prepared for their voyage – and why, what happened during the voyage, and how they adapted to the very different climate and landscape of what they would come to call `Aotearoa'.

 But then there was absolutely no clue as to how far back in time he was.

 Or how long he was going to be here.

Worse, that Paradise of Expurgated Reality he had left was now eerily beginning to seem as much a simulation as the one he was in. And that made him feel a little strange.

He descended to a few hundred meters so he could circumnavigate the island and see what else he could find. There were certainly several other communities dotted round the coastal fringe, with a few further inland along the larger rivers descending from the eroded volcanic-core mountains. Each appeared to have quite different ways of life from the others, some grew crops, others seemed to specialize in making richly decorated tapa cloth, one community built boats. All this suggested to Barkworth some form of trade network conducted by sea or via walking trails over the hills, perhaps both. Yet each seemed capable of independence; perhaps this was necessary since each community could easily be cut of from the others by storm or cyclone.

He decided to pick one at random to land near, then approach it carefully `on foot’. But he discovered once again that a `soft-envelope’ prevented him from doing so. Obviously he was `meant’ by the creators of this simulation to stay with the tribe he had first seen and acquaint himself with them. While he clearly had some `free will’, it was always going to be constrained by some sort of envelope. But then, he realized, he was here to follow some sort of story; presumably as a part of his therapy, and he could hardly have a problem with that. After all, it was something he did quite voluntarily while watching a 3D. And come to think of it, Otindas allowed you to move your viewpoint around too, and in a similarly limited way. He never used it and few people he knew did; it was only there for those whose cultures had independently developed the technology and actually did use it.

He swiftly returned to the beach.

And was totally confused. The canoes had gone from the beach. He now saw two near the horizon though, fishing. About a dozen men were strung out in the shallows further up the beach from where he had landed, they were clearly net fishing. Barkworth moved quickly up the stream to the village. The women had gone, though he could hear them chatting and laughing as before from somewhere behind the trees surrounding the village. Steam drifted from the site, perhaps they were cooking. And those trees looked slightly different somehow, though he couldn’t put a finger on it. Suddenly a couple of children ran from one of the houses and started chasing each other across the clearing. Other children, hearing their laughter, came out to join in the fun.

The elderly chieftain was however still sitting in front of his hut – and looked distinctly older now.

Barkworth now wondered if he had been moved forward in time in some way, perhaps even several years. There was no real way to tell. He wished he had stayed a little longer on his first visit.

Suddenly the old man looked up and seemed to stare right at him. There was something odd about the man’s eyes, a particular shining quality. Then, just as suddenly,  he gazed back into the clearing to watch the children again. Even though Barkworth realized it was just a trick of trick of the light, he still shivered.

He could now hear faint muffled voices, two of them, back towards the beach. They sounded as if they were on very intimate terms. His first instinct was not to intrude, but he suspected he was here to do exactly that. And besides, since he was totally invisible, it was not as if he was going to be seen.

Approaching cautiously, he came upon the two of them in a natural hollow in the sand just under where the grass from the land overhung the beach. A young man, who looked much like the elderly chieftain and who may have been his son, was with a girl so astonishingly beautiful Barkworth almost gasped. Yet he got the impression that, despite the intimacy of their conversation, they were not really there to make love. They were behaving more like a mature married couple. Barkworth had no idea of what to make of this at all.

 Just then the light began to fade, For a moment he thought something had gone wrong and he was losing his `sight’ in this world. But then he realized he about to be subjected to another scene change, just like in a 3D. It was an odd feeling, the world he was in seemed so astonishingly real.

From the brief darkness (had he been asleep?), daylight returned. Whether it was brighter because of the brief `night’ he had experienced or the amazing scene that now presented itself he couldn’t tell. A huge festive celebration was underway, and seldom had Barkworth encountered so much color and noise and laughter in his life.  He had seen a re-enactment of a commemorative event of some kind on his previous visit, but that was pallid compared to this; it had also been attended by many outsiders, a good proportion of whom were from other Worlds. This was pure Polynesian, there was no one around who didn’t belong here. He had no real idea what pre-colonial Polynesian culture had been like, nor had he ever looked up its history in the Rolodon.

Festivity began to give way to ceremony, and it became clear that a wedding was about to take place. It wasn’t long before his guess as to who was confirmed – the young couple he had just seen the night – or one night – before. And what a ceremony, it was a mix of ritual and wild abandon that Barkworth would have thought impossible was he not   actually witnessing it. But then he realized this marriage was just as much about the community as the couple themselves, which was not hard to understand. Small communities had to be close to be able to function at all, and when other small communities could all gather together round into one, it couldn't help but become a truly great occasion.

Indeed he wished he could somehow be physically there and take part.

But now there was a subtle fading out of that scene into another which he assumed was happening only a few hours later. A program of more formal sports was now underway, wrestling (which seemed to consist of much slapping and throwing opponents around), running, pig-chasing, coconut throwing, and of course the biggest crowd-pleaser, canoe racing. Everybody participated, children, women, men of all ages; only the elderly women hung back and watched with sheer delight as if vicariously taking part.

Another fade to near sundown, the crowd was now noticeably smaller. Perhaps only the local community remained, with just a few honored guests. What looked like fire-dancing began and that was nothing short of spectacular. It was clearly the preserve of young `professionals’. Some of it looked downright dangerous, especially when several coordinated their `routines’ and put on a team performance. Fire seemed to be everywhere, even in their eyes and in those who watched in fascinated and more than a little frightened glee.

Finally, the scene faded into night again with nobody around at all, though quiet voices could occasionally be heard coming from the huts.

The next morning – at least it was to Barkworth, it really could have been any morning somewhere in the `future’ – he found himself standing on the beach. Nobody was about. The sea was an odd brownish color, as if mud had been stirred up from the bottom by the confused-looking waves. The weather was overcast and Barkworth could actually feel a slight chill in the air. Though the wind was only light, it was still gusty enough to move the trees, and it had a low moaning sound to it.

He didn’t like the feel of it at all.

He hardly heard it at first, but upon that wind a low keening of voices began to sound, uncannily like a Maori waiata. It was enough to send shivers down his spine.

As he floated back to the village, he saw a wee kiddy ran out from one of the huts and into the next one so quickly he nearly didn’t see it at all  The sound of a conch shell now issued from the chieftain’s hut. The waiata became more intense as if in response. The chieftain now made his appearance – in full ceremonial dress which, to Barkworth's eye, looked distinctly warlike. He wasn’t entirely sure, but it appeared to be a slightly older version of the young chieftain he saw earlier. Again the man blew his horn, and slowly, one by one, all the young menfolk of the village came out of their huts in what appeared to be their battle regalia. The look in their eyes was hard to read, it seemed a mix of  total determination, fear, yet a willingness to submit to their fate.

Another sounding of the horn, and this time the women made their appearance. They wore colorful clothing similar to that Barkworth had seen at the wedding, but now they each also wore the most elaborately feathered hats he had ever seen. They also had sizable seagrass kits with them, plus their rather frightened looking children. The chieftain's wife appeared last, her ceremonial costume was similar though artfully detailed, her hat was actually smaller than those of the other women. She also had no kit, nor any children.

 The chieftain blew on his horn again, but no more people appeared. This was clearly a signal to gather together into what appeared to be a column, with the fittest men and the chieftain at its head and the rest of the young men forming the rearguard. Barkworth then noticed there were no elderly people, apparently they would not be joining them.

A very long blast of the horn this time, and the column began to march – inland, along a faint trail up the left hand bank of the stream. The palm trees increasingly gave way to thick jungle growth as the path began to incline upwards. Barkworth suspected they were in for a very hard march.

Then it hit him - the island was about to be hit by a typhoon. And these people would on their own, no hope of rescue by the Adjoahsno or anybody else. If his guess was right, their crops would be gone, their boats wrecked and their village with all their nets and other things essential to their survival would be swept out of existence. They would be deprived of food and shelter for what could be several weeks.

So where were they marching to?

The scene faded into the next at some unguessable time later in the afternoon The column was now climbing up a steep, barely visible, track through jungle. Their tiredness was evident and, for the youngest, sheer exhaustion had long set in. But there was a sharp glint of expectation in the eyes of the adults; they knew their destination was not far away.

At first Barkworth didn’t see it. The chieftain suddenly stopped as they approached a rocky promontory,turned round, and held his hand up palm forward in the near-universal gesture of `halt’. He then turned toward what was just a tiny opening in the rock and approached it in a crouch that seemed as much a matter of awe and reverence as of necessity. He didn’t enter it, but called into it as if addressing a god of some kind. The way his voice reverberated made it clear that there was a much larger cave behind that small opening. Barkworth, swung himself round to hang in the air so that he could try and look past the leader into the opening, but of course he could see nothing.

The chief, having finished his impeachment, then slowly wriggled into the cave on his stomach even though it was not really necessary; Barkworth assumed it was part of a submission ritual. The others waited in a respectful silence for several minutes until a head emerged from the opening – and what a fearsome head it was. It was more than paints or dyes, it reminded Barkworth of the expressions on the faces of a group of Maori performing the only haka he had ever seen. He was barely recognizable as the tribe’s chieftain, even his personality seemed to have altered. His wife was visibly taken aback before quickly recovering her composure. But the chief did not so much as look at her, it was almost as if in some way they had just parted company. The chief was clearly another persona.

He looked at one older man, perhaps his second in command in the tribe, and issued a single short command followed by a gesture at all the others which Barkworth  interpreted as `come’. He then withdrew back into the cave.

The older man then gestured to the others as if to line them up in single file, which they did as quickly and as tidily as they could considering there were so many children, many of whom now had looks of abject fear on their faces. Some of the adults seemed scarcely less frightened. Satisfied with this, the man then gestured to the first small family in the queue as if to usher them in, which they timidly began to do on their hands and knees, the father leading. The older man then roughly placed his left foot on his back, indicating that he must wriggle into the cave just as the chief had done. The others quickly followed suit, with a good many behind them dropping to their hands and knees as if preparing to do the same.

Barkworth then had an inspiration: was he capable of passing through solid rock in his current form? Gingerly at first he moved closer to the slime-covered rock-face beside the opening then, gritting his teeth (or that’s what it felt like), kept going. A brief passage though extreme darkness followed, then he was in the cave. A small fire had been lit on its floor, but there was too little light to see beyond more than a few shadows, including that of the chief as he added more wood to the fire in slow, reverent movements. He then gestured to the man from the family Barkworth had just seen enter the cave to assist him. He brought an armload of wood from another much larger firewood stack now just faintly visible not far from the entrance. The next adult male to come into the cave was then assigned to the same role. At that point the chief then stood back impassively, arms folded, and looked intently towards the entrance as many more people wriggled in a constant stream through the opening.

As they arrived they quickly became too frightened to do much else but stand around in awe and look around them. Then quickly muffled cries rose into the air. Barkworth found too that with the increasing light he could now see some of the cave’s walls – and what a scary, grisly sight they were. It was a virtual charnel house, with skeletons in every nook and cranny that he could see with daubs of what could have been dried blood in various Maori-like patterns – or proto-Maori, he had no real idea.

As yet more people came into the opening, the chief pointed at certain of them to delegate tasks as he had before. The first of them, apparently the tribe’s musicians, entered a smaller cave to the right to retrieve large log-drums, then squatted down by the wall directly opposite the main cave entrance. They then began to pound out a throbbing contrapuntal warlike-sounding beat which again sent shivers down Barkworth’s spine.

A woman dressed in ancient-looking plaited-rope garments retrieved from a place Barkworth didn’t see then began a very high-pitched keening that sounded eerily both of an immense sadness yet of a determination to persevere, to persist, of an inevitability. The now sizable crowd began to take up this challenge, just a murmur at first, then a low rhythmic chanting that seemed a response both to the drums and what Barkworth suspected was another kind of waiata.

They had certainly left their old peaceable lives by the shores of a vast Pacific ocean well and truly behind.

And something else Barkworth now realized: Nobody had eaten anything, and it didn’t look like they were going to. What was there to eat anyway? So far as he could tell, they had brought no food with them, indeed nothing at all. And since it was most unlikely there were food stores in their cave – how would they preserve anything over more than a few days anyway – what were they going to do? How especially would the children cope?

A slight shift forward in time provided a sort of answer. The entire tribe had now linked hands in two contra rotating circles around the fire, and were moving rhythmically in what was clearly an extreme state of trance. Even the way their shadows flickered around the cave walls was itself hypnotic. The children were so totally involved they had no problem keeping up. Their eyes were huge, there was no way they would feel hunger tonight.

The first hints of a very gray and rainy dawn now appeared even through that tiny cave entrance; already one or two of the adults had noticed and glanced expectantly towards it. The chieftain and his principle dancers now began to edge toward the entrance, the rings of dancers moving with them. Then a quick gesture from the Chieftain directed three of his men to weave their way through the crowd towards another part of the cave  Barkworth could just make out a very low entrance to what he assumed was another small cave. One man slipped under this and was gone only seconds before he began passing out what looked like flat stone clubs – meres – to the other two, who in turn began handing them to each of the men in the circles as they passed. This itself looked like an elaborate ritual as clubs were passed alternately from the outer rings to the inner. The outermost circle then began to break as its menfolk one by one made their way out through the main entrance into the new day, followed by their women and children. The cave slowly emptied in this fashion until all that was left was the fire and a few items of clothing that had fallen off in the frenzied activity of that night.

A quick fade and once more Barkworth was following the tribe along a new trail which was heading into the jagged mountains. They were totally silent apart from their rhythmic footfall as they marched, only the weather was making a racket with its gusty, howling  winds. Barkworth knew that this time they were heading for battle. Yet it wasn’t a military-style march, it looked more like a determined and purposeful version of their dance in the cave.

Another fade, and Barkworth found the tribe now on a descending trial down one side of a valley. He could just make out the high mountain plateau ringed by several peaks they were heading for. A few snatches of color became visible on the other side of the plateau; clearly other tribes were on their way.

And when they all finally arrived, he suspected once again that the entire population of the island was on that very dramatic plateau. Forked lightning now rent the air, as huge twisting storm clouds rafted in. It would have been a magical scene if he didn’t have a distinct sense of foreboding. They were all clearly here for a purpose.

The fact that he could now see some of the women gathering round what looked like ancient hangi pits on the perimeter of the plain didn't help. He couldn't see what they were pulling out of their flax kits at this distance, the chilling thought crossed his mind that they might be condiments.

 The Chieftains from each tribe then separated from their people and, with the most menacing gestures they could muster, all but danced their way forward into the center of the plateau,  grunting, shouting and screaming. The most ferocious pair then whacked at each other with their meres, even from this distance Barkworth could hear the sickening crunch of bones being broken. To his surprise the other Chieftains then ran back flat out towards their tribes in just enough time to avoid being overrun by those represented by their battling leaders. They quickly engaged each other in a sheer mass brutality of the like Barkworth had never before witnessed. Blood spurted from smashed skulls, limbs dangled uselessly from deep spurting cuts, other combatants staggered into each other or even slipped on the rapidly accumulating pools of blood. But once one side began to dominate  the other, what might faintly be called a merciful dispatching began, with injured men clubbed out of their misery until the vanquished were either dead or running towards the surrounding jungle in a futile attempt to escape.

 Then the most extraordinary thing Barkworth could have imagined began to happen: the womenfolk rushed forward to drag as many of the bodies as they could to the waiting hangi pits which were already beginning to send up clouds of steam. There would be much feasting later today.

 Meanwhile, the remaining tribal leaders once more rushed into the center of the field and engaged, with the two most ferocious engaging as before.

 Just when Barkworth felt he couldn't see any more, the wind-driven rains came bucketing down and he could hardly see anything anyway. He did notice though out of the corner of his eye a little girl break away unseen from just beside him. As she began to head back up the trail back toward that ghastly cave Barkworth found himself impelled to follow. She couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old, but she was still excuse enough to get away from the horror he had just witnessed.

 Another brief scene fade, then Barkworth caught up with her again on the trail just as it gave way from jungle to palm not far from her village. Even through the pounding rain and tortured winds he could hear the roiling seas, and they seemed close. As they reached the village he could see they had already burst up over the low bank and were sweeping toward it.

 The little girl ran straight into one of the huts and burst into a wailing sobbing. Barkworth couldn't resist peeping in, she had snuggled up into the ample bosom of an elderly woman who was probably her grandmother. In spite of the impending danger and the hut's likely collapse, the woman looked profoundly content.

 The scene then faded into a deep darkness in which he felt himself beginning to lose consciousness. He suspected he was about to sleep.