Part 1: An Impossible Situation
I was still waking up in what we were arbitrarily calling the morning when Clarissa and Augusta came to visit me, which was unfortunate, because I'd taken to sleeping naked -- the House was happy to keep my room warm enough, we still didn't have much choice in clothes, and I didn't feel inclined to sleep in a shapeless robe-gown-thing. Anyway, it was only a problem if someone chose to walk in on me unexpected, which the girls, being very well-brought-up young ladies, weren't usually inclined to do. Sure, I might have expected them to knock, as polite young ladies surely should. However, the House wasn't built that way -- the walls and doors were dense and sound-proof, and it had a habit of opening doors helpfully when anyone walked up to them -- so it wasn't their fault.
So the first thing I knew was when I was brought fully awake by a gasp and a squeal of girlish conversation. I looked up to see them standing in the doorway with their backs to me. I apologised and grabbed a gown, told the House to switch the windows to fully clear, then told them they could turn round now.
"Sorry," I said again.
"No," said Augusta, "it was entirely our fault."
"And anyway," said Clarissa, "we have seen you before."
That was true. These two were the most adventurous of the seven women who'd been here when I first arrived, and had discovered me lying in the field outside the House.
"Well, anyway," I said, waving them to two of the stools which were scattered round my room while I sat on the bed, "what can I do for you?"
"We wish to talk about ... matters," said Augusta, looking nervous. It didn't suit her; she was the tallest of the girls, blonde and quite Amazonian. She was quite a looker, really, but also slightly intimidating; she not only wore her hair plaited, like most of the girls, but she somehow persuaded it to wrap around her head in a formal sort of style that made her look seriously stern.
"The House," said Clarissa, in more of a rush. "We are unsure of its intentions -- for all of us."
"Well, yes," I agreed, "but it's not done us any harm yet, and it seems to try to give us what we ask for."
"Except for sending us home," Augusta said.
"We have to believe that it's telling the truth -- that it can't do that," I said, as gently as I could manage. "It's studying us, I'm sure, but I don't think that we're in danger."
"Yes," said Clarissa, fixing me with her rather scary stare, "but what does it wish of us?"
I sighed, while trying not to show it. The crazy thing was that she wasn't sounding at all crazy, and this was a good question.
***
I'd got into this situation by not maintaining my car's brakes properly, and by getting angry about my job when I had to drive home along the cliff road. So I'd been driving too fast when I hit the sharp bend, and the brakes didn't work, and I went through the barrier and suddenly I was looking straight at the rocks below the cliff through the windscreen. I assume that I was scared at that moment, but I didn't have time to think anything beyond a boringly predictable
shit
as the rocks got bigger fast. Then the view changed.
At first, I just saw a black space with a slight swirling effect at the edges, and I fell into that. I did have time to think then, and I guessed that this was dying. I'd never had strong opinions about what might come next, and it crossed my mind that maybe I should have, especially when the blackness suddenly filled with sparkling lights and things moving too fast to watch. I was still falling, though, and for a moment I looked around. Then two of the objects -- oval shapes, grey, with some kind of arm or clamp on the front -- latched onto me and the car seat, and slowed me down sharply.
It struck me that bringing the car seat (and the steering wheel) with me into the afterlife was odd, and that nothing I'd ever heard in a church seemed to fit here. Then a smaller object, metallic silver and covered in projecting spikes, came up to my face. For a moment, it paused, and I had the bizarre feeling that it was looking at me. I tried to find something to say to it, but before I thought of a word, it sprayed me with a cloud of something that smelled metallic, and I passed out.
***
I looked at Clarissa. All of us were having difficulty handling the situation we were in, but of the seven women, she was the one who seemed to me to be closest to going really crazy, while at the same time she was the most determined to understand what had happened -- in fact, perhaps that was why she was cracking. She was a little plump, in a puppy-fat sort of way, with rosy cheeks that might have been cute if it wasn't for that fixed stare; she wore her dark hair in a very simple plait down her back.
"In fact," Augusta interrupted, "we have tried to ask the House about this."
"Good luck getting a clear answer," I said.
"We put some suggestions to it," Augusta said. "And that helped a little." Okay, so they'd been working at this; they were a determined pair, which was presumably why they hung out together, and Clarissa for one was smart. "We believe that it is interested in recreating the human race," Augusta went on.
"That's possible," I agreed.
"But then," said Clarissa, "where does that place ourselves, Mr Evans?"
"How do you mean? And please, I keep saying, do call me Simon. I think that we've been introduced now." That was meant as a joke, but it fell flat.
"I mean," said Clarissa, "that we would be the parents of a new race, Mr... Simon. And we are not stupid or ignorant girls; we do understand what that would imply."
"Oh," I said. "Look, this is all guesswork. And I don't think that the House would force you ...
us
to do anything."
"Nonetheless," Clarissa answered, "some people might say that we had something of a
duty
, Simon."
"Really? Well, I wouldn't. Anyway, we don't know what the House is capable of..."
"In what sense?" Augusta interrupted.
"I don't know -- I'm not a doctor -- but it's entirely possible that the House -- or whatever is behind it -- could create new people -- could make babies, I suppose you'd say -- from whatever it's got from studying us medically. It might grow them in vats or something."
"Oh," said Clarissa, "is that really possible?"
"I don't know. It wasn't in my time, but it was the kind of thing that people talked about."
"It sounds -- bizarre," Augusta said, "quite
unnatural
."
"Maybe," I said, "but it'd save you from -- whatever you might have been worrying about."
"Please, Simon," said Clarissa, "we are
not
stupid ignorant girls. We believed that we might be obliged to be --
intimate
-- with you, or with poor Mr Frake. And we have some idea what that would entail. Some of us had sweethearts, or prospects of marriage, and our mothers had spoke to us."
I looked at the two of them, feeling a rush of sympathy. "Did you two have sweethearts?" I asked.
Augusta nodded, with a small sigh; I guessed that she felt a real loss there. But Clarissa shook her head. "I did not, Mr... Simon. I had no immediate prospects there, and indeed I had more hopes of continuing my education." (
And turning into another Miss Halstead,
I thought but didn't say.) "However, there was talk in the dormitory, you understand."
"Okay, I get it -- you know where babies come from. But I don't think that there'll be any coming round here in the near future, okay?"
"Perhaps you are right, Mr... Simon," said Clarissa. "But -- excuse me -- are you perhaps being quite noble here?"
"How do you mean?"
"We were warned, sometimes, of men," said Clarissa. "Some of us have been told that their desires can be most pressing. That is why it is considered unsafe as well as improper to be alone in male company. We have all but abandoned such propriety, because the situation is -- as it is -- and you have behaved quite properly, after your own fashion." I suspected that my manners and upbringing had just been insulted, but Clarissa could be like that. "Nonetheless, if we are to be here for the rest of our lives, might you not be tempted to propose some
attachment
with one of us, perhaps? Or even to press the idea forcefully?"
"Good grief," I said, strangling back the stronger words that I knew would just shock these two. "I'm not a rapist, if that's what you're implying -- men aren't all that bad, you know. If I've been polite, well, it's partly because I've had the weirdness of this situation on my mind, but mostly because I like to think I'm a nice guy. And even if I was the kind of bas... bad guy to try anything, well, you have me outnumbered seven to one. Men aren't that much stronger than women, you know."
The girls paused to take that in. Then Augusta gave me a hard look before dipping her eyes and mumbling "Thank you, Mr Evans."
"Yes, thank you," Clarissa said with a deep breath. "It would seem that we may have underestimated you, Mr Evans."
"No offence taken. Anyway, I can understand that you may have a weird view of me -- after all, as you say, you first saw me in that weird situation..."
***
I recovered consciousness lying on the ground. By the feel of it, I was lying on longish grass or similar; I was also stark naked. Fortunately, it seemed to be a warm day. But then my eyes came into focus, and I decided that I was indoors -- in some kind of weird greenhouse or something -- because the sky above me was plain bizarre.
"There he is!"
I sat up when I heard the young woman's voice, and that was how I first saw Augusta and Clarissa. They were much as I'd see them later when they came to my room, including the plain, baggy, white dress-things they were wearing. As I looked at them, they saw that I was naked; they'd been trotting towards me, but at that they squealed, stopped, and turned away from me, shielding their eyes from the sight.
"Hello," I said, "sorry about this... Look, I seem to be having memory problems or something; the last thing I remember is being in a car crash. Is this a hospital?"
They didn't answer, but talked quietly but furiously to each other, still avoiding looking at me. I wondered if they were nurses, but if so, they didn't seem very professional. Other patients, perhaps?
If I'd somehow survived the crash -- God knows how -- I might well have suffered head injuries. I stopped looking around for clothes -- there weren't any -- and very tentatively began to feel my head. No sign of scars or tenderness...
"Clarissa! Augusta!"
The speaker was a new arrival, an older woman -- in her thirties, I guessed -- with red hair in a single plait similar to Clarissa's, and wearing an identical dress.
"Miss Halstead," the two responded in unison.
"Please stop being foolish girls and go and fetch this unfortunate gentleman something to wear!" the newcomer commanded.
"Miss Halstead," the two replied, sounding almost military and dropping old-fashioned curtsies. They scurried off and left me with this one woman, who looked me hard in the eye and then turned her gaze away almost as nervously as the first two.
"I apologise for those two, Mr..."
"Evans," I said, "Simon Evans. Look, where is this?"
"A very difficult question, I'm afraid, Mr Evans. The House's explanations make little sense to me. But I will do what I can to explain. First, however, I must ask -- what year do you believe this to be?"
