The mother might almost have seemed indifferent to the child. She never looked at her baby. She never comforted it. She carried it easily, place to place, always holding it face-out as if she were
allow-ing it to see the world. Of course the baby could not possibly see.
“They can’t be the ones who created all of this,” Daniel Burroway was arguing in his loud and pedantic tone. “These aliens you describe, Riders or surfers, whatever appellation you choose, were clearly warriors of some sort. It requires a subtler intelligence to imagine this environment, to meld the biologically functional with the artistic. As Dr. Gonzalez has confirmed, these are, biologically speaking, common plants. The grass is grass, despite the overt physical differences. That all argues for a larger intelligence than the sort of brutes you describe.”
Violet Blake could dispute that point — many violent societies had created great art and shown great intellectual creativity. But she didn’t have the will or the energy to be argumentative at the moment. She was desperately tired and hungry. The talk was going nowhere, accomplishing nothing.
If her opinion was asked for she would give it. But anything she said would almost surely lead to a clash with her mother and her sycophant, Yago.
Jobs evidently felt no such hesitation. “I agree with Dr. Burroway, but not for his reasons.”
Burroway frowned. “Then please, do tell,” he said with a mock bow.
“It’s that any warrior society uses its cutting-edge technology for fighting. I mean, humans, right? The military had planes before civilians, used rockets before civilians did, set up the Internet, global positioning, nuclear power plants, lasers, on and on. Now, those surfboards the Riders are using, it is cool technology, no question, but it’s not the cutting edge for whoever did all this terra forming. Or art forming, whatever you call it. I’m just saying, anyone who can split the sky right down the middle into a gray sky and a blue sky, or cause water to flow in packets. . .they can do better than antigravity skateboards, or whatever those things were. Not to mention spears and swords.”
Violet was amused to hear such a ready flow of words. Jobs was not a great talker, unless the subject was technology.
“The Riders might be the aliens’ pets, for all we know,” 2Face said. “Or maybe . . .” She paused, sending a direct question to Violet. “Maybe those Riders are part of the scene. I mean, maybe they’re images drawn from the same data the aliens took this environment. Is that possible?”
Violet heard her mother snort dismissively. “I think maybe we should stick to talking about ways to deal with the situation. This is not an art seminar.”
“Could be those Riders just didn’t think it was woolly enough using ray guns or whatever,” Mo’Steel suggested, speaking for the first time. “Maybe they weren’t looking for a gimme. Maybe they were looking to squeeze the A gland.”
Pretty much everyone stared at him, mystified.
Jobs translated. “He’s saying maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the Riders do have better technology but this isn’t them making war against us, this is just them, you know, engaging in a sport. Maybe they were looking for a challenge, a thrill. Squeeze the A gland — you know, adrenal gland.”
“You don’t go deer hunting with a tank,” Anamull agreed.
Violet hadn’t thought he was even listening.
Then, “What’s that?” D-Caf cried and leaped to his feet. “Shh! I heard something.”
Silence.
The sound of something moving through the grass. And then, “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Two people staggered into the firelight. One, a big man, was leaning for support on a smaller man. Violet could see that the larger man’s right leg was unable to bear any weight.
The big man dropped to the ground and panted, unable to speak. Then he noticed Billy Weir and
uttered a gasp or a sob. He crawled over to him. “Billy! Billy! It’s Dad!”
No answer. Billy Weir just stared.
The smaller man said, “Glad to see all of you. I’m very, very glad to see all of you. We saw all the empty berths, we knew others had awakened before us. But we couldn’t figure out where you were. Then we saw the fire.”
Violet noticed a distinct accent, a sort of lilt. The man was dark-skinned but with Caucasian features. Indian, Violet guessed.
Olga stood up and carried a water jug to the injured man, then offered it to the other newcomer.
“My name’s Tathagata Rajagopalachari. I am afraid that my American friends call me T.R. My companion there is William Weir. He said to call him Big Bill. He is hurt, as you can see.”
“Welcome to both of you,” Wylson said. “What do you do, T.R.?”
“Do? Oh, yes. I am a psychiatrist.”
Violet almost laughed at the silent consternation that announcement caused.
The other man moaned in pain and grabbed his leg hard, as though trying to squeeze the pain out of it. He paid no attention to the group but kept up his effort to get a response from his son.
“Do you have a doctor?” T.R. asked. “As I said, my friend here is not well. And I am afraid that my medical training occurred a very long time ago indeed.”
“You’re the closest thing we have to a doctor,” Olga said. “I’m a biologist but I don’t have an M.D., not even one from a long time ago.”
T.R. nodded. “Oh, that is distressing. Perhaps among the other survivors?”
Wylson shook her head. “So far we’re it, Doctor. We expect a few more Wakers like the two of you, but as you saw, the rest did not survive the trip.”
T.R. frowned. “As I saw? But I saw nothing to suggest any such thing.”
“We’re talking about the variously decomposed corpses in the berths,” Burroway said impatiently.
“But . . . But I looked carefully. I observed five more individuals in states of rest, two of them beginning to awaken, but there were no dead. The other berths were empty.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“AND MAYBE WE’RE ANTS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT A PICNIC.”
Jobs descended the circular stairway slowly, cautiously, on guard despite the fact that Mo’Steel was already halfway down the length of the
Mayflower
capsule.
The berths where Jobs’s parents had been were empty. Not only empty, clean. No trace of the hideous mold. No fragments of decayed clothing.
Level after level, empty berths that had once been coffins. All of them gone but five. Three in deep slumber, two more, as T.R. had said, were waking.
It was hard to accept. The horrific images were permanently copied onto Jobs’s brain. The ones who had been cratered, the cheesers, the facelifts, the wormers. All gone.
Jobs and Mo’Steel went to the two newly
emerging Wakers. They were groggy, confused, scared. Jobs filled them in on the basic facts: the vertical landing, the artwork landscape, the five-hundred years, the deaths. He left out the vicious aliens, the freakish baby, the silent Billy Weir, the deaths of Doctor Huerta and Errol.
Plenty of time for that later.
Of the two Wakers, one was a kid, one an adult. They were father and son. The father was Alberto DiSalvo, an engineer who had worked on the solar sails. His son, age fifteen, called himself Kubrick.
Jobs motioned Mo’Steel to follow him out of hearing of the new Wakers who, in any event, seemed to be falling back to sleep in the familiar pattern.
“How many does that make?” Jobs asked Mo’Steel.
“Twenty-three Wakers. Minus the doctor and old Errol. Twenty-one up and running.”
“Three more still on ice,” Jobs said. “Where’d the others go?”
“The dead ones?”
“Uh-uh. Twenty-one awake, plus the doctor and Errol, plus three asleep, right? Twenty-six? We counted thirty-four we thought were alive. That leaves eight people gone who we thought were alive who aren’t here or back outside.”
Olga was up above them, watching from the entryway. She leaned over to call down the stairwell. “You kids okay in there?”
“Yeah, Mom,” Mo’Steel yelled. “Got two more live ones coming around.”
“Eight live ones gone,” Jobs muttered. “What’s going on here? The Deaders are all vacuumed out and so are eight live ones, but five are left behind, undisturbed. Seven left behind, actually, because it was T.R. who told us the dead were gone. So at that point we had seven people on board. The aliens — or whoever — take the dead and eight live ones. Why?”
Mo’Steel shrugged. “You got me, Duck.”
“This is unnecessarily weird,” Jobs muttered. “I’m not getting a picture. Maybe my brain is still fuzzy.”
“Maybe reality is fuzzy,” Mo’Steel said.
“Some aliens bring us neatly down for an easy landing. They invent this bizarre landscape. They or some other bunch come by and kill Errol. Then the Riders or the first aliens or some totally new bunch of aliens, or some combination of them, carry off all the bodies plus probably eight people still coming out of hibernation. And leave seven behind. What’s the game?”
“Maybe games. Plural.”
“Yeah. And maybe we’re ants trying to figure out
a picnic. Wait a minute. When did they do it? When none of us was looking this way? When the Riders attacked?”
“Or else any time since we hauled butt for the river and it got dark.”
“Still, the Riders could have been a diversion.”
“Yeah. Kind of a mystery, huh?” Mo’Steel said. “Kind of thing you like to climb all over. You love to try and figure out stuff.”
Jobs smiled. His friend was not subtle. “You can stop worrying about me, Mo. I’m not going to go nuts or whatever.”
“That’s good. What are we going to do?”
“You and me, or all of us?”
Mo’Steel shrugged. “Big picture. I mean, it’s like we have problems inside and out. Aliens and all, like the ones who killed old Errol. But the serious stuff is like in us, you know? People losing it from sadness. People fighting over who’s going to rule. That baby, too.”
“Billy Weir,” Jobs said.
“Yeah, he’s strange but he’s not bothering anyone at least.”
“I think he’s —”
Mo’Steel’s mother interrupted, “Kids! Something is happening. Back at the camp.”
Jobs glanced at the two Wakers. Both dozing still. “Come on.”
The three of them were almost back at camp when they saw Big Bill Weir staggering away from the fire. Daniel Burroway, Yago, and Anamull were wielding burning brands. The bright tips drew lurid arcs in the night.
Someone threw a stone or a chunk of wood and hit Bill Weir in the back.
“You’ve got my son, I have a right!” Big Bill roared.
“Stay at least a hundred yards away,” Wylson shouted. “I am deadly serious about that, Mr. Weir.”
A burning stick flew, twirling through the air toward Big Bill. Mo’Steel caught the brand and looked to Jobs for guidance.
“What’s going on?” Jobs demanded.
“Stay out of it and stay away from him!” Yago snapped. In his other hand he brandished the scimitar the alien Riders had left behind. Jobs had forgotten the weapon. Yago had not.
“They have my son,” Big Bill pleaded. He started to say more but his face contorted in pain and choked off his words.
“What is this about?” Olga Gonzalez shouted. “What is going on with you people?”
Yago stepped forward just a few feet, still armed with his torch, and stabbed an accusing finger at the man writhing in pain. “He’s got it. You want it, you deal with him.”
Daniel Burroway tried to sound reasonable, an impossible task for one red in the face and waving a glowing red branch. “He may be contagious. He’s being quarantined. If you come in contact with him you’ll be quarantined as well.”
Olga was not easily cowed. “Where’s the doctor, then?”
“He’s a shrink, not a real doctor,” Burroway said.
Big Bill moaned and Jobs knelt beside him. “What is it, Mr. Weir?”
“The leg,” he gasped.
Jobs hesitated. Maybe they were right. Maybe whatever it was, it was contagious. Or maybe they were just hysterical. Gingerly he lifted the hem of Big Bill’s pant leg and tugged at it. The rotten fabric tore easily.
Mo’Steel moved close, bringing the feeble, flickering light of the torch.
Bill Weir’s leg was riddled with holes. Tunnels. He looked just like Violet Blake’s father and others. A wormer. A live wormer.
Swallowing hard, dreading, not wanting to show
it but unable to conceal his horror, Jobs tore the pant leg some more. The holes were everywhere through the calf muscle, up through the knee. The lower thigh was untouched. But as Jobs stared, he saw a round, red spot of blood appear just above Big Bill’s knee. A moment later the spot became a hole and the hole was filled by the pea-green head of a worm.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“DON’T LET ME LIVE.”
Jobs didn’t know what to do. Once again his tenuous grip on certainty had been torn away. He’d been engaged in the mystery, trying to understand, and now all that he could see and feel and react to was the foul reality of the killing worm.