Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

and with a scrap of rag and a ramrod, he cleans the pistol he fired earlier.

* * *

With his pistols strapped across his chest, and the smell of gunpowder fresh on his fingers, Adam’s memories are stirred. The waters are full of dead horses, and their bloated corpses bounce from the boat, and Adam knows there was another time, another life, when he was surrounded by dead horses with his pistols heavy across his shoulders. There was the booming of cannons, and there were men with golden buttons sewn into their heavy red coats, and there was a burning flag. He remembers the burning flag clearest of all – the way the wind made the embers dance at the edge of it. Many died that day, he knows. Many by his own hand.

Sometimes, Adam wonders how many of his descendants he’s killed.

There was a time when he knew all of his children by name, he thinks – when he could describe their personalities, their desires and dreams and fears. Then there was a time when his children became strangers to him, sons and daughters of sons and daughters branching out across the world over generations. But even then, he cared for them and about them. He took pains to learn their names, and help them where he could. Nowadays, he finds it difficult to connect with any of his children. He is consumed by apathy. The binding around his thoughts, each barb a prickle of grief, is to blame. Soon, he thinks, he will have to confront whatever lies at the heart of that tangled growth. He can’t be apathetic forever.

The Sinclair estate is partially submerged. Fruit risen from the shattered remains of sunken orchards bobs with the currents, bright and engorged in the dark eddies, which are infused with effluence. Oil has also risen from the sump pools, making the waters shimmer as they rush around the hills. Sinclair House itself is half drowned, and the windows of its upper floors glare across the devastation while the windows of its lowest floor siphon the tides. Only the tremendous glass structure up on the rise to its rear emerges mostly clear from the waters, a splendid gemstone reflecting the sky with its uneven shatter-shard facets, while the flood licks hungrily at its base.

“What on Earth is that?” rumbles Crab.

“It’s a greenhouse,” Adam tells him.

Navigating through the ruined estate, Crab comes alongside the enormous crystalline structure and cuts the engine. He peers through the partially submerged glass at the bright garden inside. While black effluence is splashed across everything outside the greenhouse, everything is clean and uncorrupted within: the greens are greener, and the whites are whiter, and the mirrors meant to cast sunlight across it seem to be reflecting a brighter sky. “Hell of a thing,” he rumbles, scratching at his chin. “You reckon they’ve got Pig in there?”

Adam takes stock of the greenhouse garden. Before him is a small meadow, surrounded on all sides with wild shrubbery bursting with berries: luscious greens punctuated with ripe reds and blues. As Adam takes his census of the contents, he notices that a few specimens stand out. There is a birch up on a hillside with particularly silvery bark, and there is a rich creeping vine gripping hold of the glass in a familiar pattern. There are pieces of Eden planted here, he realises – pieces stolen from the stadium garden. No doubt the rest is further inside.

“I think so,” says Adam. “Somewhere inside.”

“Right you are.” Crab taps experimentally at the glass. Then he hits it with his fist. The pane does not so much as tremble at the strike. “Ain’t never seen glass like this before,” he rumbles. “If I had some tools, maybe I could get through. You know a way in?”

“There’s an airlock.”

“An airlock?” Crab squints across. “What kind of greenhouse has an airlock?”

“It’s not just a greenhouse. It’s a vault.”

“A greenhouse vault. Right.” He runs his coarse fingers down a section of the thin metal frame between the panes. “Well, if there’s gonna be any weakness, it’ll be along one of these. How’s about you go try your airlock, while I take a tour of the place, see what I can see?”

“Sounds like a good idea, Crab.”

Part of the hillside the greenhouse is set upon rises from the waters nearby, and Adam disembarks, unsteady on the spongy grass. He tightens his pistols across his chest, feeling the sting of the wound still healing beneath the crossed belts. The little boat churns steadily away through the dark waters with Crab at its helm, buttoned up in his bright yellow mackintosh. He hums as he goes, and his dark eyes, embedded in the thick folds of his face, interrogate the superstructure. Adam watches the boat until it turns out of sight, and then he draws two of his pistols, preparing to face whatever lies ahead.

The yacht is moored beside Sinclair House, its white flanks stained by the floods. Shattering one of the first-floor windows of the house, Adam ducks inside. The interior stinks of damp and rot, and water splashes against Adam’s boots. He wades through, listening for any signs of life, but he hears nothing except the groaning of the old manor house as it slowly disintegrates. Pieces of damp art peer down at him from the walls, black mould already thickening across the bright colours. To the rear of the mansion, the airlock glows at the end of a gloomy, dripping corridor, and it is shut against the floods.

Adam holsters his pistols.

Beyond the glass airlock, the vault is resplendent. Mirrors reflect the pale sky upon the rolling hills, which are covered in long grasses. Adam recognises those grasses because they are from Eden, and planted at their edges, and among them, are more pieces of paradise: vividly coloured flowers and small trees gushing with rich leaves. A small stream sparkles as it meanders among the hills, and a few figures wade in the clear waters. They are the