If Then by Matthew De Abaitua Read Free Book Online

My sanctuary,” said Omega John. His orderlies helped him to his feet. He bent over and knocked the gate off its latch, and shuffled in his sleeping bag to the chaise longue. “My work with the Process does not afford me as much time to think as I would like. I’ve been dallying with Paracelsus, a hero of mine. He was an independent thinker, a wanderer and iconoclast. He moved through colleges, dissatisfied by them all. He served as an army surgeon. A noble position to take, the healer amidst the war.”
    He beckoned to James, and then pointed out a small trowel to the bailiff.
    “Dig,” he commanded. “Dig here.”
    James ran his fingers across the soil, and finding earth with some give, he dug into it with the trowel, then set aside a section of soil.
    “You’ll have to reach inside,” said Omega John. “Do you feel it?”
    James slid his fingers into the mulch and, finding nothing other than soil and leaf matter, he set himself to lean deeper into the ground. His fingertips brushed against something smooth and dreadfully organic.
    “That’s it,” said Omega John. “Careful now, reach in with both hands and bring it to the surface.”
    He dug in with his other hand, and grasped both edges of the thing, and it sagged in the middle as he lifted it up. Brushing aside the soil, it was a large organ of some sort, too large for a human, he guessed. He passed it over to Omega John, who located a stitched seam; he untied a knot, and unlaced the catgut so that the organ parted neatly, revealing a massy bloody interior. The smell of something fetid and fungal.
    “Closer, look.”
    He felt thoughts reach out from his implant, the god stuff, the wisdom that came from without. Omega John was still talking about Paracelsus, how true wisdom lay in the discovery of the latent forces of Nature, but what he was showing James, what James saw wriggling in the horse’s womb was a private vision: he saw tiny white homunculi, seven of them mewling with foetal features, their feet fused in a lazy tail; nestled in blood, the sperm of Omega John growing in his garden.

4
    H ector stood naked and at ease in the bathroom. James washed him by candlelight, dressed him in a pair of homemade pyjamas, then led Hector to the cellar and lay him down to bed. In the weeks since they took him in, Hector’s hair had grown out into dark curls, his haunted gaze relaxing into a casual tired regard.
    Market day was bright and cool. The moss on the brickwork was white with frost. The stalls set up around the war monument ran along the connecting thoroughfares of Market Lane and School Hill. He stood behind his front door, at the bottom of the stairs, and listened to the town go about its business; everyone was so polite, almost reverentially so. The subtle nod of recognition that passed between the folk. A talent for forgetting is necessary to maintain civility. James stepped out of his house and into the throng, with Hector following dutifully behind.
    The sounds of market day: hooves skittering cautiously upon cobblestones; the to-and-fro of barter echoing under the brickwork arches of the bell tower; the creak of burdened cart wheels. Produce was laid out on the pavement, root vegetables on upturned palettes attended to by the Dutch farmer from Welsummer. He couldn’t remember her name. She was gnomish in three layers of woollens and a blue woollen beanie, black trousers tapering to sturdy boots. Three times outsiders had squatted at Welsummer, and twice he had chased them away with appeals to their good sense, only for the squatters to return in greater numbers. When the Process selected them for a third eviction, he went back in the armour and that was that. They were outsiders and one of them died under his iron tread. The farmer did not speak to him when he passed her by; her rough hands paused in their task of sorting bundles of rosemary and her gaze, rustic in duration, followed Hector.
    Not all of the stalls were useful. Some townsfolk were