James Axler – Bitter Fruit

The old woman opened her eyes and started to back away, her face paling in terror.

Boldt grabbed her roughly by the back of her dress, not letting her rise from the ground. He knelt beside her. “Sing to them, damn you!” he roared.

“They will not listen. They need to be given time.”

“There is no time,” Boldt said.

Mildred saw that his actions had drawn the attention of several people in the area. They all stopped their work, and their faces were filled with hate and loathing.

“Sing to them!” Boldt repeated.

The vines swept back and forth like cobras scenting the air. One darted out, almost faster than the eye could see, streaking for the Celtic prince.

Using the flat of his hand, Boldt turned the attacking vine away. The thorn buried itself in the loose folds of his robe. “Sing to them, old woman! Or I shall let the next crop of tanglers sort through your body for mulch! I am not going to lose the plants!”

Haltingly the old woman began to sing. Boldt continued to hold her, only inches from the menacing tanglers.

Mildred felt tense and angry. She wanted to do something for the old woman, but there was nothing she could do without endangering both of them. It took hard work to keep her face from showing how she felt.

Gradually the singing calmed the tanglers, and they started to droop.

“Good,” Boldt said. “Very good.” He released the old woman and moved away.

Tears leaked out of the old woman’s frightened eyes, but her voice never faltered.

“She’s one of my best singers,” Boldt said. “The seedling tanglers recognize her before any other.”

“Good thing for her,” Mildred said in a neutral voice.

“It’s a good thing for all of Wildroot,” the Celtic prince said. “These plants are the lifeblood of our community.”

“They kill.”

Boldt nodded. “And devour, given the opportunity. Children are taught at a very young age to stay away from the tangler beds.”

“And if they don’t?”

“They die. The thorns of the tanglers are very poisonous.”

Mildred watched the way the tanglers danced in quiet syncopation to the singer’s song. “Your father made these things.”

“They are very useful, as I’ve said. We derive food and clothing from them, and they are a defense.”

“Once you get them on your good side.”

“They can be trained,” Boldt said. “During cryo sleep something must have happened to the seedlings. There was some radiation seepage in the main vaults. They must have mutated.”

Mildred filed away the mention of the vaults, not wanting to show too much interest. “Your father died during cryo sleep.”

“Yes.”

“And you were the only two in the cryo chambers.”

“Yes.”

“Then where did these people come from?” Mildred gazed around them as they walked back to the cart.

“He had frozen embryos obtained from med centers he had access to. He chose only the best genes available to remake the world. There are cloning chambers below, as well. After I was awakened, Merlin set about bringing the first people to fruition.”

“Merlin?”

“The computer system my father had built. He did most of the parameter programming himself.”

Back in the cart, Mildred glanced over the populace of Wildroot. “When did Merlin cause this to happen?” The insidiousness of what had occurred, coupled with Boldt’s cold telling of the particulars, made her skin want to crawl.

“I am fifty-one,” Boldt said. “It was forty-two years ago.”

“Many of these people look older than that.”

“Take us back,” Boldt told the driver. The man pulled the horses around in a tight circle, and the stomping of their hooves and the jingle of the harnesses slowly drowned out the old woman’s plaintive singing. “Many of these people are older than that. Merlin brought them out of the pods full-grown.”

“What about their memories, their education?”

“All given to them,” Boldt said. “Merlin had several templates available to it, and my father’s guidelines gave the quotas for each.”

“How many people?” Mildred asked. She made herself cold and distant, reminding herself that every scrap of information she garnered would aid in her escape attempt. And there was no doubt of the necessity of an escape.