The Mandrake Effect

Having sat brooding the four hours it took Harry to drive from Kenney Airport, Rose now sits expectantly on the stoop of her mother’s house. When his car finally pulls into the drive she runs to meet him. As he bundles out of the car she grabs him up in her arms, almost knocking the video recorder and case out of his hands. She holds him to her until Mabel comes running out. With four arms tightly around him, he is bustled into the house. Once inside he is sat down and interrogated in tandem, one from the other. Mabel finally relents and, after making Harry a meal, retires to bed leaving them alone. The minute she’s gone, Rose starts on him again.

‘My God, Harry, you went all the way to Edinburgh with that–’

Harry holds up his hand. ‘First things first, Rose. I’ve got a present for you. I hope you’ll accept it this time.’ He holds out the necklace he’d offered to Rosette.

’ ‘This time?’ You don’t mean to tell me you offered it to that freak?’

‘What? – No no no, of course not! It’s an engagement present. I want to do things properly.’

‘You did, didn’t you? How the hell could you have mistaken her for me?’

Harry looks away, sheepishly ‘I knew it was her, I was just–’

‘–Liar!’ she says as she offers her neck. Harry fixes the clasp.’

‘I, I knew all along. I was just playing–’

Her eyes again say ‘liar’… then she smiles forgivingly and touches the necklace, ‘How long has this been in the family?’ says she, mocking, ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘It’s tear-drop pearls and coral… I had it made to match your eyes.’

She punches his arm. ‘That’s crying over you, Creep. My god, me crying over a man… what a switch.’

‘I’m not just a man, Rose.’

’No. Not ‘just a man’. So what now, do I take this as a proposal, Harry?’

He hesitates, she puts her clenched fist under his chin in a mock threat.

‘I love you Rose, but if I marry I inherit a fortune. You may not like me when I’ve got a fortune.’

‘I’ll force myself, we all have to make sacrifices.’ She pushes her fist further into his face, forcing him off his chair and onto his knees.

‘Having money may change my whole character.’

’What? You haven’t got any ‘character.’ On your knees, creep, your last chance.’ She falls on him, kissing him as they tumble.

Harry pulls away. ‘The baby, Rose, mind the baby.’ He picks her up in his arms and carries her awkwardly to the divan. Rose giggles at his feeble effort, as he all but collapses onto it. They sit quietly for a few moments.

‘You should know,’ says Harry, breaking the silence. ‘I’m going to write a thesis. Now it’s over I want to get it all out of my head and onto paper, then I can leave it. Will you help?’

‘I’d rather not. It still makes my teeth shiver. I don’t even want to think about it.’

‘I think we owe it to my uncle, Rose,’ says Harry, trying another tack. ‘I’m writing this account and having it bound with his. I’m calling it The Mandrake Syndrome – It’s okay, I’m not going to publish it, it’s for the archives.’

‘Okay,’ says Rose, grudgingly, ‘Then it’s done with, yeah?’

‘Yes, yes, definitely: I want you to tell me, first hand, your feelings when you first saw your double.’

‘You really want to do this? Can’t you just read the transcript?’

‘You are bloody joking!? I’m not going back to get that. You think I’m crazy!?’

‘Okay, calm down Harry. I have a copy, here.’

Harry sits up and diligently takes out a notebook and pen from his case. ‘Anyway, I don’t want the transcript version, I want your version.’

Rose studies him with contempt. ‘Surely you’re not going to do this now?’

Harry ignores. ‘What was your first reaction, Rose, your first thought? That’s what I want… that’s not in the transcript… when you looked into Cowen’s coffer and saw you were looking at yourself.’

‘Oh, God, I don’t know,’ says Rose, reluctantly, ‘what would you think? – Hey, wait a minute…’ she stops and thinks a moment. ’What do you mean, ‘when I looked into Cowen’s coffer?’ I was still in my coffer, she looked down on me… she was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes – the goddam freak.’

‘The tapes, Rose,’ says Harry, now with hint of authority in his voice, ‘Rosette destroyed them, but my tape machine automatically made a duplicate copy. I’ve seen it, but I don’t understand it.’

‘Seen what, for Christ’s sake? Seen what?’

‘I couldn’t quite make out what happened. When the thing entered the Junairo, just after you rounded the planet, it seems the men are fighting something… lots of motion. Then it’s unclear… lots of thrashing about as if something is loose in the cabin. Then… well, I couldn’t keep it… we lose it. The next part is of Junairo closing on EarthlabOne, just before they make audio contact. You appear to be the only standing figure.’

‘God sake, stop!’ says Rose, now on the verge of tears, ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’

‘You have to, Rose, you have to. You were just standing looking down into Cowen’s coffer. When the figure emerges from it, it is Rosette in Cowen’s suit… you can see the name clearly. Now here’s the part I don’t understand, you don’t seem shocked. You just walk over to the lab section and pick up the lance. Rosette stands there, almost casual.’

‘Stop it, Hal. I can’t believe it. My God, she must have had some kind of control over my mind.’ She stops and puts her hand protectively on her stomach.

Harry gives a despondent sigh. ‘It’s true, Rose, it’s there on the tape.’

‘I won’t believe it until I’ve seen it. Run it Harry, run the damned thing.’

Harry picks up the remote control and walks to the video player and slips the tape in.

‘What else did that freak make me do?’ she screams from across the room, ‘No, don’t run it. I don’t want to see it.’ She runs to him and holds him. Harry, still holding the remote control, presses the play button in the direction of the video recorder. ‘Hal, for God sake let’s leave it, it’s going to drive me crazy.’

‘It’s okay, Rose, it’s over. I told you, it’s all over–’

She kisses him, muffling his words with her lips. He is lost for a moment in the fragrance of her hair and the warmth of her body. The whole dreadful mess seems to ebb away under her flood of honey sweetness.

The video constructs a picture. They both turn and watch: A ghost-like Rosette starts to climb out of the coffer. Rose is just standing, watching and waiting. Once out of the coffer, Rosette nods and Rose picks up the lance. After a few moments, Rose cries out from the video. ‘Oh, my, God! I must be dreaming. Can you see this, Major?’

Rose turns away from the screen. ‘For God’s sake, leave it, Harry… it won’t make any difference. Whatever happened out there, I still love you.’

‘No!’ he yells, pushing her away from him, ‘Get away from me!’

Rose is shocked by his outburst. He holds her at arms length then pulls her towards him as if in a last embrace. With all his strength hurls her across the room. She crashes to the floor. In an instant he has his syringe in his hand, the other hand still holding the remote. He starts across the room toward her. The door opens just in front of him and Mabel enters and stands between them. ‘What in heck’s going on?’

Harry brushes her aside and lunges toward Rose again. Rose is just about up. Mabel recoils and leaps at Harry’s back. A long serpentine tongue whips out around his neck. The vice-like grip needs no explanation. Harry lets loose a reaction right-hook that disappears over his left shoulder, the syringe held tightly in his fist. The razor sharp needlepoint finds the white of the old lady’s eye – novocaine voids directly into her brain. Her grip slackens and she slithers to the floor in convulsion, spewing out blooded mucus. Harry immediately grabs his other syringe from inside his jacket.

Rose now stands facing him. They stare across the room at each other, Rose in typical heavily pregnant stance, one hand on her stomach the other hand in the small of her back.

‘You won’t use that Harry, you’ll harm the baby.’

‘You mean there is a baby? I’ve seen your babies.’

‘There is a baby, Hal.’

‘I don’t need to use this, Rose. I told you, it’s over. There was always something nagging at me… Why was all the flesh from Cowen and Fitzgerald used up?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘My uncle’s calculations were right. He said it uses one body as material and just over half another body as, shall we say, fuel. That’s why we always found a remaining torso. Two bodies make one, with half a body left over, but three bodies make two, with nothing left over… elementary physics really. I checked with the old man’s calculations, pound-for-pound, what was made, what was lost. You couldn’t have made Rose and one of the men, there wasn’t enough material. But there was enough for two of you – just enough.’

Rose takes a step towards him, ‘It won’t make any difference Hal, I love you and you love me, Rose. So I’m half Martian,’ she smiles sardonically, ‘Don’t tell me you’re speciphobic, Harry? New word, you heard it first here.’

‘Yes, that is funny.’

‘See, gods can be funny, Hal.’

‘I’ll laugh later, when I’ve got more time?’

‘I really do love you, Harry.’

‘You were the smartest on that ship, Rose, and when it came to a fight for intellectual superiority there was no contest, you won hands down. You worked it out; you needed a scapegoat. The whole bloody thing was a sham right from the start, even Rosette’s rogue cell disorder, all to throw them off the scent. And the only danger was myself. You knew about me, and my uncle’s records.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t you just kill me, you had enough chances?’

‘I had to run with it. Someone else would have taken your place… someone competent.’

‘Oh, thanks very much.’

‘Anyway, Harry, I fell in love with you. I’m still human… just a little different that’s all. It really is your baby, yours and Rose’s… mine. You’ve seen the ultra-scan… you’ve even named him… Barney. It will still work, Hal, you’ll see. You’ll have knowledge.’

‘Knowledge?’

‘Yes, knowledge.’

‘Will I be like Kit Marlowe’s Faustus, selling my soul?’

Rose ignores. ‘This isn’t our first time, Hal, we’ve been here before, thousands of years ago, before your recorded history. When we first came you were Neanderthal, when we left you were Cro-Magnon. That was our legacy – we are in your legends. ’

‘Is that what you are, Rose, a god?’

’If you like. I’ll make you a god too, Harry, a Titan.

‘And which one are you?’

‘Oh, believe me, Harry, you’ll know me when you see me.’

‘The baby, is it one of your kind, will he be a god?’ Harry raises the syringe ready. Rose backs away.

‘I told you, Hal. We don’t breed, we’re parasitic. You know what we do. But the child will be human.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Yes, you do! I wouldn’t lie about that, I love you. It’ll be in the child’s interest. You’re a flawed race… you’ll eventually destroy the Earth out of greed and selfishness… it’s inevitable, even you must see that. It’s the only place, Harry. There’s nowhere else in the Galaxy. The only life is here, and we’ve as much right to it as you, more, we don’t covet, we don’t despoil, we don’t destroy. We’re more deserving, more human, than you are.’

‘What about Mabel? You don’t seem much upset about your mother. You’re not human. Who did you kill for her donor?’

‘I killed no one! Cameron sacrificed himself, it’s what he wanted, for…’

‘For… what? For, what!?’

‘For the Greater Good, Harry. The salvation of our species, ours and yours.’

‘What utter, utter rubbish.’

‘Well… if that’s your final word?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll never make it – you do know that? I promise it won’t take long. I really do love you, Harry, and I really was jealous of Kate. And I promise I’ll look after our baby.’

Harry takes a step backwards. Rose rolls her eyes, her irises disappearing under her lids. Her mouth sags open and starts to drool, wider and wider. Her mouth is now a gaping gash, awash with thickening, digestive slime. From this gurgling mess, the tongues leap: three, six, and now a dozen. Her head tips back grotesquely and more blood-coloured tongues spill out, thrashing, whipping. The Medusa stands, trembling like a great sea anemone, weaving its snake hair as if through a rushing current.

Harry’s right hand drops to his side in shock. The heavy syringe slips from his slackened grip to the floor. The Rose-beast takes a lumbering step toward him. Harry lifts his left hand to shield his face, the remote-control-unit still clasped in his sweating, white-knuckled fist. Nearer it lurches, its head tipped back, just neck and tentacles surrounded, in comic horror, by the beautiful pearl and coral necklace. Closer and closer comes the gaping mouth and necklace – closer and closer come the cluster of pearl and coral-coloured pellets – the same pellets as the ones Harry had fixed to the lift device.

He pushes the button on the remote. A blinding flash accompanied by an ear-splitting crack, like the noise of water spilling into boiling fat, as the ring of thirty pellets detonate, hurling the Medusa head, tentacles, and a huge gout of blooded strands to every corner of the room. Harry simultaneously falling to the floor and shielding himself as best he can. After a few moments, he staggers up and edges along the wall and out into the hall, wipes away the blood and tissue from his face and hands and stands with his back to the wall, not daring to look back. A long silence, then he reacts to a faint rustling from within the room. His eyes widen with fear. A gurgling of fluids being displaced, then a pitiful cry, no more than a whimper. A look of horror now occupies Harry’s face as he enters the room.

What is left of Rose is piled in the middle of a widening pool of blood, her legs buckled under her as she had fallen. Something is moving inside her sodden dress. Harry picks up the syringe and puts it between his teeth. He bends down and slowly thrusts both hands into the grisly pile of steaming offal.

Bewildered he lifts a blood-soaked baby, umbilical still attached, from the gory mess ––a perfect boy-child, wailing for its demon mother. Harry blinks unbelievingly at his son.

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes in holy dread,

For he on honeydew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of paradise. Coleridge