Bibbie was the most beautiful baby you ever saw. She was like a china doll from years gone by. She had fat pink cheeks, solemnly staring big blue eyes, a tiny nose and a neat little dimpled chin. Her soft curls were palest gold. She had a cherub’s chubby body with a fat tummy, sturdy legs, pretty pink feet and dear little arms she held up for balance waving her starry hands.
She lived with her mother in a magic cell made by a powerful dragon. From the cell they could be anywhere and everywhere in the world, as it is, as it once was, and as it may come to be. The dragon kept the air in the cell fresh to breathe, it changed the stuff of the cell to make it nourishing and keep it clean. It had brought the seed and put it in Bibbie’s mother so that her baby grew.
Bibbie’s mother was very happy in the magic cell, being in the wonders of the world. She did not notice Bibbie at all, even when Bibbie cuddled up to her and suckled at her breast.
The dragon brought special children’s visions of animals and fairies and nasty things that said ‘Boo!’, and most of the time Bibbie was perfectly happy. But she was at that difficult stage of babyhood when they are most lovely and fun but also most bother. So sometimes the dragon had to work very hard to keep her amused.
One day the dragon was trying out lots of teasing little bits of the most fascinating visions, and watching Bibbie carefully to see which one caught her eye, ready to conjure a wonderful story for her to be in. But whatever the dragon tried, Bibbie’s attention would not be caught.
So what happened was that Bibbie went wandering off through the cell stuff, which she was not supposed to do. The dragon did all it could to stop her. It tried making the cell stuff get in her way; so that it was hard or sticky or too soft so she fell through it with a bump. It made scary visions pop up in front of her. It made coaxing sounds to draw her back. But the dragon’s magic was not strong enough to stop her doing something she was determined about. This was one of the rules from when the dragon itself was made.
After wandering for quite a while, until she was almost too tired to resist the dragon, she came to a black hole which was the entrance to a tunnel. It was deepest softest black inside, the kind of black she had never seen before, blacker even than when she shut her eyes to go to sleep. The special blackness caught her attention, as the dragon’s colourful pictures had failed to do, and she was drawn in. The tunnel was very narrow, so she had to crawl. Once she had crawled in she was swallowed up in the darkness. She kept on crawling until her eyes and her mind became worried by the unendingness of the darkness, and she wanted to go back. But the tunnel was too narrow for her to turn, and she did not know how to crawl backwards. She felt tired so she just went to sleep, like babies do.
When she woke up the blackness was still there. She was frightened and so she cried. But the dragon could not help her in the tunnel. It was an ancient tunnel, no longer useful, and the dragon’s power had withdrawn from that place.
When nothing happened through her crying she stopped doing it, and then, for want of anything else to do, she carried on crawling. Several times she became worried and tired and slept and cried and crawled again; it was a tremendously long tunnel. Bibbie became very thirsty and hungry, but the stuff of the tunnel was old and dried up and not nourishing like the cell stuff.
At long long last Bibbie saw a point of light which grew bigger as she crawled until her head was poking out of the other end of the tunnel.
She was in the strangest place, such as she had never seen in the world she saw from the cell. It was a huge room, white and gleaming all over, with everything moving in lines, backwards and forwards from one end to the other and back again. The moving lines were broad white belts scattered with bits of colour. The colour came from all sorts of objects and stuff on the belts, each belt having just one kind. Beside the belts, arms and hands were busily moving, reaching for and then doing things to the objects and stuff on the belts.
At Bibbie’s end of the room the arms were very long. Each of these arms reached over the belts to pick up one of this and some of that and arranged a collection in a pretty bowl which moved on along the belt, and then the arm started another bowl.
From where her head poked out of the tunnel, Bibbie could only see clearly one level of belts. But there were belts above and belts below. At her end, the belts turned over and ran back the other way upside down. Just as they turned, the bowls tipped off, scattering their contents, and everything fell down. Bibbie reached out and caught something. It was a soft and pretty oval object which smelled nice. She put it to her mouth and bit. It tasted delicious and juicy so she ate it all, except for a hard thing in the centre which she dropped. She watched it fall into the great trench below, where everything landed in a mess whose smell rose up to where Bibbie was and caught in her nose and throat and made her feel sicky.
Bibbie caught more things and stuff as they fell. Some were nicer than others, some she spat out. She was soon full and comfortable inside. But she was still in the narrow tunnel, unable to turn. She emptied her bladder and her bowels and there was no cell stuff to clean it away. The smells made it hard for her to breathe and she needed to move around.
The only way she could get any further was to fall out of the tunnel and down. At last that is what she did. She landed in the smelly mess, sank beneath it and scrabbled back up. She found herself near the edge of the trench and managed to crawl out after slipping back in many times because of the sliminess.
Once she was safely on her feet she forgot how frightened she had been. She toddled across the room between the rows of the bottom-most layer of belts. Near the other end there was water dripping down and she was washed clean.
That was the first part of the story, when Bibbie found the food hall in which the kitchen hands with clever nimble fingers kept on sorting, cleaning and arranging bowls of lovely food which no one needed any more because they had the nourishing cell stuff. A long time before Bibbie came there, the dragon had stopped the arms which used to put the bowls in the delivery tunnels and stopped the belts which used to run along the tunnels. Instead, the dragon chewed up the smelly mess in the trench, mixed it in with the sunshine food made in the dragon’s coils, and oozed it into the cell stuff.
Bibbie stayed in the food hall for a very long time. There was plenty to eat and water to drink and lots of movement and colour to interest her. The belts were not very far apart, and moved slowly, so she could clamber from one to the other, across the room and up or down. She could not reach the tunnel back to her cell because of the gap above the smelly trench. In any case, she could not have picked out the correct tunnel entrance from all the others.
She might have stayed there forever if she had not got a taste for a particular kind of food. It was the fruit she had first tasted when she was so hungry and thirsty. It was the apricot.
In her wanderings around the food hall, Bibbie came across the belt where the apricots were cleaned and sorted. She recognised the shape and the smell, and she ate lots of the fruit. Then she carried on toddling and clambering around the food hall, but she kept coming back to the apricot belt for her favourite fruit.
One time when she came back she found there were no apricots on the belt. She cried loudly and long but there was no one to hear her. She wandered off again but she kept coming back to the empty belt until, after an enormous length of time for someone who was only a baby – it would have been from one summer round to the next – the apricots were there again.
After a while, the apricot belt was again empty.
Bibbie was only a toddling baby when she first reached the food hall. She had to grow up to a little girl who could think things out before she could try to do something about there being no more apricots.
What she did when she was old enough was to wonder where the apricots came from. She thought that if she could find that place, there would be more apricots, even when there were none on the belt. That was a big bit of thinking out to do, and there was no one there to help her, and she had no words to do her thinking with. But there is a pattern from down the ages of children becoming clever, and her mind tuned into that pattern to get its cleverness.
It was clever of her to think of going back along the apricot belt to where it came out of a tunnel; to do that she had to run quicker than the belt was going. It was even cleverer to think of climbing onto another belt which was taking empty trays into the tunnel, so that she was carried along into it.
Thus began the second of Bibbie’s long journeys along a dark tunnel. This time she could have got back where she came from, by turning around and jumping onto the belt going the other way. But she was determined to find some more apricots so she stayed put, although she became thirsty and hungry and frightened of the blackness.
As with her previous journey, eventually she saw a point of light, which grew bigger until it was the tunnel opening. When she arrived, an arm reached for the tray she was sitting in and put it on a pile. She had to scramble off quickly before the arm put another tray on top of her.
She found herself in the most beautiful place. When she saw it, memories flooded over her of when she was a baby in her mother’s cell, and they were in the world that used to be. Tears of joy poured down her cheeks. The beautiful place she had discovered was like the places where animals and fairies were, places from the memory stores of how the world was before the dragon was made and grew.
So that was how Bibbie discovered the apricot dome. What she saw was a forest of delicate trees with the real light of day pouring down upon them as the sunshine streamed through the invisible roof. As she looked up she saw the deep blue of the sky. She smelt the fresh scent of leaves, moist from their morning shower from the sprinklers.
She found more apricots; not the fresh juicy ones she had come for, but shrivelled ones drying on trays in the sun. But they were good to eat, which was fortunate because they were all there was to eat until the new apricots ripened on the trees.
Bibbie loved her beautiful place and she stayed there all alone for many years, watching the seasons pass, and the apricot trees changing: in leaf, growing buds, bursting with pink blossom, swelling into fruit, ripening and being stripped by the picking hands.
She had little to play with. She mixed her daylies with the earth to make a clay from which she formed animals, remembered from the visions of long ago in her mother’s cell. She smeared her body with her daylies, making patterns of leaves and flowers.
Every night she slept on the bare earth under the stars, and wonderful and terrible dreams came to her of the world as it used to be, more fascinating and awesome than the little glimpses she had as a baby.
One day she began to make patterns of her dreams on the walls of the dome, from the ground to as high as she could reach. Each morning when she awoke she carefully remembered that night’s dream. When her daylie was done she took a little on her finger and began to put the dream onto the transparent surface, gradually adding more tiny dabs and delicate smears.
The dome was enormous. It seemed she would be dabbing dream stuff on its walls forever. But eventually she found herself back at the start. It occurred to her to rub off the earliest dreams to make space for new ones, but when she tried she found the patterns would not come off. The walls of the dome had welcomed them and had allowed them to sink in to the glassy surfaces, where they gleamed golden brown and lovely.
It was then Bibbie decided to go back inside. She felt she must go, and needed to go, but she did not wonder why because she had no words to wonder why with.
Her next journey was long and difficult. The first part was easy, the ride back to the food hall and along one of the belts to the far side. She climbed down to the lowest level. Then she had to brave the stink and the slime of the trench.
When she was the other side of the trench, she reached for one of the tunnels and pulled herself up. Only then did she realise how much she had grown. She would not be able to crawl into the tunnel and along it. So she had to drop back into the trench, go back across it and clamber up its slimy side.
She wondered what to do. Should she stay here? Should she go back to the apricot dome? No, she must go on. But how?
She looked around for something to help her. She watched the kitchen hands washing and sorting. Then she saw one of them chopping some leafy stuff. Chopping! Bibbie went back to the trench and looked back across at the tunnel entrances. Perhaps she could cut her way through, make a passage wide enough. She turned back and climbed over to the hand which was chopping and pulled at its knife. It came free easily.
Then the terrible part of Bibbie’s return journey began. The tunnel was too narrow for her to cut big slices from the surface, she had to chip away bit by bit. The material of the surface was tough and difficult to cut. Once she was inside she could not see what she was doing, she could only feel. Her progress was so slow that she had to enlarge the tunnel a little way and then return, backwards, to the food hall for food, water and rest. Many times she went back and forth, each lap getting longer and longer as she progressed. As the effort became greater, her will was torn; the more she wanted to give up, and the more effort she felt she would have wasted if she did not get to the other end.
The tunnel became her life and herself; there was nothing else and never had been, never would be. So she did not notice the point of light. It grew larger and she did not realise its significance.
It was a shock to find she had reached the other end, so much so that she fainted.
When she woke up a face was gazing down at her. It was a soft wrinkled face with pink eyelids drooping around pale grey eyes, a long nose covered with tiny veins and a thin mouth surrounded by wispy whiskers.
‘Who are you, little one?’ asked the old woman.
Bibbie did not reply, she had never learned to talk.
The old woman made soothing noises and chattered to her encouragingly.
At last Bibbie made a sound, ‘Bi-bi.’
‘Ah, Bibbie!’ said the woman, smiling.
‘Bi-bi,’ said Bibbie, and that is how she got her name; she did not really have a name before.
Bibbie looked around her. She was in a cell. She could see the world of the old woman’s past where she had her being: the places she had been, the happy and sad happenings, the patterns of her dreams. Immediately before Bibbie’s eyes was a confused-looking area, where the dragon was trying to offer some world for her. As she looked in that direction, pictures spun crazily around. Something caught her attention and that little bit grew to fill the space and Bibbie felt herself drawn in. It was a forest.
But it was not her forest, the forest of apricot trees. Her eyes flickered away. One of the trees changed rapidly, becoming all sorts of trees. When it became an apricot tree, and Bibbie flickered interest again, the other trees immediately became apricot trees also. Eagerly Bibbie reached for an apricot. She put it in her mouth. The taste and texture were as she remembered them, but not quite. Withdrawing her attention she discovered she was eating some cell stuff. She spat it out.
But Bibbie was thirsty and hungry. She let herself be drawn into the old woman’s world, where the old woman became a younger woman and made her tea and sandwiches and cut her a piece of cake. She sipped from the pretty china cup and nibbled a sandwich from the matching plate, knowing with half her mind that she was eating cell stuff.
For some time, Bibbie stayed in the cell with the woman. In quite a short while she learned about talking, and her vocabulary grew rapidly, and she could make sentences.
The woman’s name was Sophia. She told Bibbie many wonderful things about the world, and took her on journeys to see them. Bibbie was very excited because she recognised some of the things she had seen in her dreams. Bibbie told Sophia about the apricot dome with the real trees and the real blue sky, and about how she made her dream patterns on the transparent walls of the dome. The dragon tried to take them there, but Bibbie would not go, not in that way.
‘You must take me to see them,’ Sophia told Bibbie.
Bibbie wanted to take Sophia to the apricot dome, but she was worried. ‘It’s a very long way, a very difficult journey,’ she said, looking at Sophia’s thin, bent and delicate body. ‘Even if you got there, I don’t think you could come all the way back.’
‘I don’t think I should want to come back,’ said Sophia.
The journey was a trial for Sophia, but she had courage to make up for her lack of strength. From the moment she emerged on an empty tray and Bibbie quickly lifted her off and steadied her on her feet, she loved the apricot dome.
Bibbie showed Sophia the dream patterns. Over a long time, she took her slowly all the way round the dome.
Many of the patterns were of Bibbie’s wonderful dreams. Sophia could see in them images of the world that used to be; like those she used to see from her cell, but she thought that Bibbie’s dreams showed more things than even the dragon knew. There were many kinds of birds, different furry animals, flying and creeping insects, snakes and lizards, and fish and other sea creatures.
There were some awesomely wonderful dreams. Sophia saw violent storms, earthquakes and volcanoes, and the ages when great glaciers ground up the earth, and the times when the planets had crashed into the earth and shaken it off its course.
There were also terrible dreams of what people had done to the world that used to be: the cutting down of forests to plough up the earth, the cold and stark structures of cities, the burning and filth of machinery, the frantic rushing about and slavish activity of the people.
Lastly they came to a dream picture in which Sophia saw a great archway of intricately carved stone, inside of which was a second, simple and graceful archway with a heavy curtain over it. She asked Bibbie if this picture was of a wonderful dream or a terrible dream, but Bibbie did not know; she only knew that it was the most mysterious dream of all.
On that very day Bibbie found blood dripping down inside her leg. This had never happened to her before so she showed Sophia.
Sophia smiled at Bibbie and said, ‘You are growing up, my Bibbie. You are blossoming.’ And she touched one of Bibbie’s swollen pink nipples. ‘You are not a bud but a freshly opened flower. You should have a grown up name – perhaps Sylvie, after your beloved trees.’
But Bibbie did not want a new name. ‘I cannot be Sylvie, because then there would be no child Bibbie in the apricot dome, and it was Bibbie who discovered it and put her dreams on it.’
‘Now that your bleeding has begun you can get another Bibbie,’ Sophia said. ‘Bibbie grew from a seed in her mother’s womb and made her first journey down a dark tunnel to the light. Now you can be a mother, if you get a seed inside you.’
‘But how do I get a seed?’
Sophia thought for a while how best to tell her, then she began. ‘I have seen you stroking and rubbing the juicy tickly bits between your legs. I have those bits too, though mine are now old and dry. And your mother had them. We who are like that are called “woman”, and a woman has a bag inside her called a “womb” in which a baby can grow, and breasts where the baby gets nourishment after it has come out through the baby tunnel into the light.’ Sophia looked at Bibbie, who nodded. Then she continued, ‘There is another kind of person who, instead of tickly bits likes ours, has a snake growing from between the legs. A person with a snake is called “man”. The snake spits out the seed for a baby. That is the only place to get a seed.’
‘How do I get a seed from the snake,’ said Bibbie, who, as we know, was very brave.
‘There are two ways,’ said Sophia. ‘The first way is to go and live in a cell like your mother did, and wait for the dragon to collect a seed from a man and bring it to you and put it in your baby tunnel.’
‘But I don’t want to go and live in a cell,’ said Bibbie. ‘I belong in the apricot dome.’
‘The other way is to find a man for a lover. You will have to go back inside, find a cell with a man in it and ask him to come back with you to the apricot dome.’ Sophia’s voice became dreamy, and her eyes sparkled. ‘You will wander together amongst the apricot trees, and talk to each other and smile, and then you will fall in love and kiss each others’ lips. Then he will play with your tickly bits and you will play with the snake between his legs. In a little while the snake will grow until it is this wide,’ and she held out two fingers together, ‘and just as thick, and twice as long, with a soft hard head. Then you have to slide the snake past your lovely juicy tickly bits and into your baby tunnel, and together you will rub it up and down inside until the snake spits out lots of seeds. One of the seeds will then swim up your tunnel and go to start your baby.’
Bibbie listened to this dubiously, not sharing Sophia’s excitement. ‘Did you have a lover, Sophia?’ she asked.
‘I think that I did, but it may have been the dragon’s stories. But there is truth in what the dragon shows; I am sure that is what people used to do once upon a time.’
‘Then that is what I shall have to do,’ said Bibbie bravely. ‘I shall go and find a lover. When I have found a lover, you may call me Sylvie, and Sylvie I shall be.’
Bibbie’s journey to find a lover was her hardest yet.
First of all she went all the way back to the cell that had been Sophia’s, through the tunnel that she had widened before. She thought that perhaps there would be a way from there to other cells. But when she got there, it was not empty. There was a little child in it.
She was happy at first to see the child. ‘You can be the new Bibbie!’ she said, ‘And I shall not need to find a lover and get a seed to grow a baby.’ And she reached out to take the child.
Then she saw that the child had a little snake between his legs. It was a man child, and Bibbie was a woman child, so this one would not do.
Then Bibbie looked around for another tunnel which might lead to a different cell where there might be a lover for her. But there was no other tunnel besides the one she had come in by. She got her knife and tried to cut a passage through the walls to another cell, but the dragon would not let her. It made the walls very soft so that the knife could go through, and then it immediately joined the cut up again. When Bibbie tried to push through the soft walls, it made them hard. Although the dragon was bound by the rule to let her do what she was determined to do, there was a stronger rule which said it must not let her come to any harm. And the dragon knew that all that was beyond the wall was the Outside.
In the end Bibbie had to go all the way back to the food hall and then cut her way, little by little, through a different tunnel to get to another cell.
When eventually she reached the cell, to her joy she found a man in it: a person with a snake between his legs. She went over to him and tried to tell him about the apricot dome and getting a new Bibbie and how she needed a lover. But the man was so fascinated by the world he and the dragon were creating that he could not tell that Bibbie was real. He worked her into his story and because she was young and pretty his snake grew big the way Sophia had described, but Bibbie could not bring him out of his story to listen to hers.
The dragon tried to tempt Bibbie with a story in which the man was her hero and lover, but she had spent too long in the apricot dome to be taken in.
After trying for a very long time to make him see her and understand what she wanted, Bibbie gave up and returned: back along the tunnel, into the smelly trench, across the food hall, on a tray through the tunnel back to the apricot dome.
Sophia was overjoyed to see her safely returned, but sad that she had not brought back a lover. Bibbie told her what had happened.
‘I found a man but he was too busy with the dragon to listen to me. So I could not tell him about the apricot dome and ask him to come back with me and be my lover and give me a seed for a new Bibbie.’
‘Perhaps he would have given you a seed without coming back with you. Did you think of that?’ Sophia asked.
Bibbie thought about this. ‘No, I didn’t think of that. Yes, I see that could have happened; I think he would have liked it. But I’m glad he didn’t give me a seed, because I don’t think I am ready for that yet. I’m tired and I’m just happy to be with you again.’
Their life together resumed. Each night they dreamed more dreams to put on the walls the next day. The apricot trees blossomed and bore fruit, rested and then woke again.
But Bibbie had changed. Each time the moon was full she would wake in the night to find her blood seeping onto the earth beneath her. She gazed up at the moon and stars gleaming and twinkling through the roof. She felt their utter remoteness, beings she could not touch, powerful, immortal, cold as death. In the morning she made patterns of fear and loneliness around the curtained archway. On those days she felt Sophia’s aged face as a threat: in a few more cycles of the apricot trees her new womanhood would shrivel up and it would be too late for her lover to adore her body and keep her warmly secure at night.
On other days she felt her need differently: with a rush of joy and desire, making her run about and dance, glorying in her beauty and womanliness. Then she would sit against a tree and daydream about loving and being loved, and then caress the excitable places of her body, discovering and sounding the strings of her passion.
On one of those dancing days she came to Sophia and told her that she would have to resume the journey to find a lover. Sophia had known that this day would come, and she gave Bibbie her blessing. Straightaway, Bibbie set off.
Remembering the awful labour of widening a new tunnel, she first went back to the man she had discovered before. She sat quietly beside him watching him interact with the dragon. His face was very animated and he was talking loudly into the story. He waved his arms a little, but otherwise his body was still, plump and soft, reclining comfortably in the cell stuff.
‘Perhaps if I joined in his story I would get a chance to talk to him about the apricot dome,’ she said to herself.
The dragon heard her, and opened up a section of cell wall beside her to tell her what had been happening in the story. It soon realised that Bibbie did not know the story at all, or anything about the place and time the story was set in. It had to work very hard to make her understand; taking her forward in time from the world that used to be of her dream pictures, as well as back from the present, the dragon’s time.
When the dragon showed her what had been done to the world that used to be she saw all her terrible dreams again: the cutting down of forests to plough up the earth, the cold and stark structures of cities, the burning and filth of machinery, the frantic rushing about and slavish activity of the people.
The dragon quickly moved on to show her the time that came between the terrible time of destruction and their own time. It was a world of great plantations and vast cities. There was nothing living anywhere on earth besides people and a few slave species. There were huge factories full of dead machines which were powered by burning dead materials to process the slave species into food, and to make things out of other dead materials. Other dead machines tore up and down wide channels between the cities, transporting the frantic people and the materials for the machines and the products of the machines. By that time people had invented machines that were clever, and the air hummed with their communications. Then people found out how to introduce cleverness into the slave species, and that was how living machines like the kitchen hands in the food hall were made, and then the dragon itself. The proper name for the dragon was the ‘intos’ from ‘intelligent organic structure’.
The dragon then proudly showed her its own time: how its coils had grown to cover the earth, how the people had stopped frantically buzzing around, and lived inside the dragon in their individual cells, contentedly playing stories all their lives. The dragon provided for them, and the dead machines they had before were no longer needed and had long ago stopped running.
Finally Bibbie came to understand that the story her potential lover was engaged with was from before the dragon, at the time people were changing from dirty burning machines to clean burning machines. People were still frantically busy, and some people were busier and more important than others because of real-life stories called businesses.
In the next stage of her introduction the dragon told her about the part her potential lover was playing. His name was Rick Lardner. He was a top executive in a big business which was mainly concerned with ‘oil’: one of the dirty materials which were used to power machines. The dragon told her what had been happening in the drama. Bibbie tried hard to pay attention, but she could not understand why anyone would be interested in such a dull and silly story. The dragon reminded her that the story was about how the world used to be. But it was not the world that used to be which she loved; the one with trees and animals. The dragon said that the man was not interested in that world, which made Bibbie very worried; would he want to come back with her to the apricot dome? She almost gave up the whole idea, but she had spent so much time with the dragon having the story introduced to her that she thought she had better give it a try.
The dragon offered Bibbie the choice between two parts in Rick’s story. One was a person from ‘Earth Champions’, which was a group of people who had got together because they were very angry with the dirty businesses like the one Rick belonged to. They wanted to have the dirty processes stopped altogether, and for everyone to plant trees so that there would be forests again. The other part was a person from ‘Green the Earth’ who wanted to cooperate with Rick’s business in bringing in cleaner machinery.
Bibbie asked about the people playing the other characters in the story. But the dragon told her that until she came along there were no real people playing this particular version of the story besides her potential lover: the dragon took all the other parts itself. It almost sounded sad when it told of how, when it was first set growing, many real people, in cells all around the world, had taken parts in each story, but now everyone insisted on being the central character. People used to invent new stories; now everyone just played their personal versions of one of the few favourites. Bibbie wondered why this one was a favourite. The dragon said it was just because it was about business which was an old kind of story with a strong pattern and she would just have to see for herself.
Bibbie decided she would be the ‘Green the Earth’ person, because she wanted Rick to like her. The dragon suggested the name ‘Barbara Newall’.
Suddenly she found herself walking into a room towards the character Rick Lardner; but he was quite unlike the unmoving naked body she had been in the cell with. A tall, good-looking man in a dark suit rose from behind his huge and gleaming hardwood desk, walked briskly around it and stretched out his hand to shake hers.
‘How do you do, Miss Newall – may I call you Barbara, do call me Rick. Good to meet you. I enjoyed our chat on the phone the other day. I’m very pleased you got in touch. I am sure your people and my people have important mutual interests. Do please sit down. Would you like some coffee?’ He had pressed a button on a device on his desk and said, ‘Coffee for two please, Rita,’ before she had time to decline.
She sat down in the studded leather armchair he indicated. He sat down in the one next to her, a little closer than felt comfortable. She pushed her shoes against the floor to try to nudge the chair on its castors a little further away from his, but the thick carpet resisted. She leaned her knees away and tugged at her pencil skirt. She fancied he noticed her little manoeuvres and found them flirtatious.
She smiled, she hoped primly, and said, ‘It was good of you to see me so soon. We really appreciate your interest in our work. We faxed you our report on biofuels. Have you had time to look at it?’
‘Oh, not yet. But I’d like to hear all about it from you.’ He leaned towards her, and she wrinkled her nose at the ‘nice smell’ on his face.
Barbara opened the slim portfolio she had brought with her, drew out a folder and opened it on her lap. She looked down at the page as she spoke. ‘We are aware that your division is investigating the commercial viability of diversifying into biofuels. We, of course, have been looking at the environmental impact.’
‘Fine, we are confident your investigations will be thorough and unbiased. The industry has everything to gain from the work you have carried out. Do you have milk in your coffee?’
‘No, thank you, and no sugar.’ And before he had time for some silly remark about her being sweet enough, she continued. ‘The production of diesel oil substitutes, such as “rape methyl ester” or RME from oil seed rape, has been criticised on the grounds that, compared with fossil fuels, CO 2 is reduced and SO 2 eliminated, but methane and NO 2 are increased, so that, apart from somewhat cleaner combustion emissions in city streets, the environmental benefits are marginal. The production cost is, as you will be aware, prohibitive. The yield of fuel per hectare is only 23.8 GJ/T at 1.25 T/ha. Forest biofuels are looking better at 136 GJ/ha for willow. Earth Champions have been trying to drum up some popular opposition, with little success so far. On the RME they tried the land degradation angle, but no one’s interested in soil erosion or use of agrochemicals. Using surplus agricultural land for crops for industrial uses is popular with farmers and politicians. On the forestfuels, the Champs are now saying that the big oil companies, such as yourselves, are planning to cut down virgin forest in the Amazon Basin to develop forestfuel plantations. Our information is that there is no virgin forest left to clear.’ She looked up at him. He smiled conspiratorially.
She turned a page of the report. ‘Now the area of research which interests us – and no one has reached anywhere near production stage as yet – is ocean biofuels: specifically algal biomass. Several gen-enged varieties have been patented, so the research results are in the public domain. It already looks as if it is going to be possible for machinery and vehicles – including the harvesters themselves! – to run on the fuel itself, unprocessed, straight from the sea, thus avoiding any use of fossil fuels in the production stage, which was the main problem with the biodiesel. The yield is looking like twenty to thirty grams dry weight per square metre per day – similar to sugar cane on land – the photosynthetic conversion efficiency is two percent – the energy harvest could be 200 gigajoules per hectare per annum or better.’
She was aware he was enjoying the experience of listening to an attractive woman talking business, but she knew he would be disinclined to take her seriously, just because she was a woman. Maddening! She reminded herself to be smart and cool. She decided to get quickly to the point.
‘The central aim of “Green the Earth” is to help bring about sustainable economic growth by publicising and promoting advances in clean technology. The Champs, on the other hand, are anti-technology and anti-growth. In spite of their absurdly radical stance, they can be a nuisance and cause a lot of public enquiries, and they get their pet politicians to try to insist on regulations being drafted, and so it goes on. So this is what we would like your agreement on – and I must emphasise that any cooperation between us must be kept strictly under wraps.’ She was conscious of his leering at her with a ‘Love to share a secret with you m’dear.’
She gritted her teeth and went on, ‘If you will agree to provide the necessary resources to complete our research – we are entirely reliant on donations of course – we will go public on a wholehearted endorsement of the Champs’ land degradation concern, and then we slip in an affirmation of the environmental benefits of algalfuels – emphasising the need to be constructive. That should take the wind out of the Champs’ sails – they’re way behind us on ocean research since they had to give up on getting people worked up about oil spills. Meanwhile, you go full steam ahead on getting ocean cropping rights, and harvester development underway, and so on, and we believe there will be not a single scare story or public enquiry nonsense to hold you up.’ She sat back and smiled at him triumphantly.
At that moment there was a discreet knock at the door, Rick said ‘Come,’ and Rita, an absurdly pretty young woman with bright red lips, jutting breasts and long legs, teetered in carrying a tray of coffee things.
‘Rick, there’s a woman outside from “Earth Champions”. She says you’re expecting her, but there’s nothing in the diary.’
‘What’s her name?’ Rick was clearly anticipating yet another juicy bird.
‘Sylvie Wildwood,’ Rita almost sneered. Barbara gasped softly at the name.
‘Do you know her?’ He was obviously looking forward to a nice bit of drama.
‘No,’ Barbara said. But I think I’d like to, she thought to herself.
Rick patted Barbara on her thigh and smirked. ‘Well, she’s right on cue, don’t you think? You’d better show the lady in,’ he said to Rita. ‘And fetch another coffee cup, there’s a good girl.’
A large woman swept in, her fringed poncho swirling down to her sensible, rather down-at-heel shoes. A knitted hat was crammed over her unruly red hair.
‘‘Scuse me barging in like this but it’s the only way I can reach anyone. I’m trying to organise a “Bring Back Reality” conference – regrettably we’ll have to use the intos – and I’d like to know if you would be interested. I believe it’s about time we stopped playing power games about the ugliest periods of world history, faced up to our responsibilities, and started working out how we can get out of this wretched beast’s innards and see the sky again.’
‘What a wonderful idea! I’ll join in with that. I can tell everyone about the apricot dome,’ said Bibbie excitedly.
Rick was shaking with anger, ‘That’s enough! Get out of my story, both of you.’ And he pointed at Sylvie Wildwood and looked regretfully at Bibbie, who found herself suddenly back in the cell. The soft, plump man was still there, reclining in the cell stuff and animatedly directing his solo story, a very important business person in complete control of his simulated bimbos and acolytes, only very gently teased by the puppets invented by the dragon.
But the dragon had been careful to serve Bibbie too, and so Sylvie had come to the cell with her, still dressed in her poncho and woollen hat. Bibbie looked at her and they both burst out laughing.
‘Do you know I really believed I was living that nonsense,’ Bibbie burst out.
‘Yes, it gets to you, doesn’t it. I love busting into private games. Gets the old intos jolly confused, but it can’t stop me. Doesn’t do any good though, just look at him.’
‘But the expression on his face!’ Bibbie was aching with laughter. ‘Thanks for rescuing me, I feel so silly being taken in like that.’ She reached forward to hug Sylvie, who responded, but it didn’t feel right.
‘I’m not here really,’ Sylvie told her. ‘We’re hugging cell stuff. The intos doesn’t do feelies very well. It’s always concentrated on sight and sound – because people do, I suppose. They fill in the rest quite happily.’
‘Where are you then?’ Bibbie asked her disappointedly.
‘Can’t answer that, lovee. Could be the other side of the planet. Have to ask the beast.’
‘Do you think it could show you the way to the food hall where the kitchen hands are; then we could meet. And then I’ll take you to the apricot dome,’ said Bibbie excitedly. ‘Don’t ask me to tell you about the apricot dome, you’ll have to be there and see it.’
‘Why don’t I ask it to get me to your apricot dome?’
‘Oh no!’ said Bibbie, much alarmed. ‘We don’t want the dragon coming there, it’s ours, and special.’
‘What’s this food hall then?’
Bibbie explained about the kitchen hands sorting the fresh food and putting it in bowls, and the smelly trench.
Sylvie was intrigued. ‘There could be millions of food halls then, they must have been part of the old system of feeding people, before the cell stuff. But the beast’ll know which one I suppose. Okay, your food hall it is, I’ll have a go. You go back there and wait for me. Might take a while – no jet planes these days! What a lark! Better than busting into silly twirps’ games. Never did find anyone interested in the conference, until you. So glad we met!’ Her face vanished from the cell wall. Bibbie was left wondering if she had been dreaming.
She was just about to go back into the tunnel to the food hall when it occurred to her to ask the dragon if Sylvie would be able to get there. Immediately Bibbie felt herself to have been transformed into Sylvie herself in her cell. She could see Sylvie’s red hair hanging down over her shoulders. She was wearing the poncho. An opening appeared in the wall, high enough for her to walk into. She walked along it, then she felt herself accelerate so that her feet were whirring along. The corridor zipped past, sometimes changing direction, often opening up from an apparent dead end. Then she found herself stopped and a couch provided for her to sleep. Then she woke up and the walk began again and sped up. Eventually, after many tremendously long dizzy fast walks, she came out of a tunnel opening, but much wider than those she had known, and there was the food hall. Then, suddenly, she was herself again, back in the man’s cell. She now knew that Sylvie would get there, but that it would be a long journey and would take her a very long time. Then she wondered why her own journeys had been so arduous. Perhaps because she had not asked for the dragon’s help. Perhaps because she was different. She would ask Sylvie about it, and Sophia, of course. And she felt a guilty pang at not having thought about Sophia for so long.
So she left the man’s cell and made her way back to the apricot dome. She told Sophia what had happened, and that one day Sylvie would come, and wasn’t it amazing that she had that very name? And wouldn’t it be wonderful when there was a Bibbie, a Sylvie and a Sophia in the apricot dome?
Every night she dreamed about Sylvie on her long journey and she knew that she would know when to go to the food hall to meet her.
And that happy day did come and Bibbie and Sophia brought Sylvie to the apricot dome and there they were, the three women: the dreamer of dreams, the world changer, and the gentle listener who waits and learns, and they loved each other in all the ways that women can love and they lived happily ever after.
Every so often there would come a time when Sophia would borrow Bibbie’s knife and slice the curtain in the archway and slip Outside and lie down there. Sylvie and Bibbie would search for her and then realise where she had gone. Then they would take some fresh apricots to put in her sleeping hands and some earth to scatter over her body. Then Bibbie would go inside to a man in his cell and get a seed for a baby. If she dreamed of a new Bibbie she would become Sylvie and Sylvie would become Sophia and Bibbie would come out of the baby tunnel. If she dreamed of a man baby, she would go inside to wait for the baby and find a Bibbie to exchange it with. Sometimes Sylvie would go inside and barge into a few stories to try to get some other people to go to find trees and the sky. We do not know if she succeeded because that is another story.
That is how they lived for ever after, and that is how the apricot forest grew in the Outside in the shelter of the apricot dome. And the three women and the apricot forest were still there when the dragon died and faded away; but that too is another story.