“No, I guess you can’t.” She tossed her head slightly to her left, kind of bounced a little on her feet. “It’s been nice talking to you. Really.”
“My name’s Dave.”
“Good meeting you, Dave.”
“You?”
She blinked away a snowflake. “Me what?”
“What’s your name?”
“Jill,” she said instantly. “Jill Kramer.” It was a nice name, but I knew it was fake.
“Nice meeting you too, Jill. See you round, maybe.”
“See you too, Dave.”
That’s what did it. She didn’t so much say my name as sort of pucker her lips and let it ooze out, like a little hot cloud. She wore no lipstick. She didn’t have to.
White crosses. White crosses and bennies and snow. Damn it all for a clear head for two lousy minutes!
I tried to think of something to say, knowing that I had to glue my eyes to the blacktop real soon or forget about driving any more at night altogether. I couldn’t afford that. Nobody pays a bonus for brown lettuce and soft tomatoes.
“I thought you were dead,” I finally blurted out. I said it easy, matter-of-fact, not wanting to startle her or me. Maybe the crosses made me do it; I don’t know. She started to back away, but my country calm reassured her.
“I knew I shouldn’t have talked to you this long. I try not to talk to anyone I don’t know for very long. I thought by now . . .” She shrugged sadly. “I’ve done pretty well, hiding everything.”
“Real well.” I smiled reassuringly. “Hey, chill out. What you’ve done is no skin off my nose. Personally I think it’s great. Let ’em all think you’re dead. Serves ’em all right, you ask me. Bunch of phonies, the lot of ’em.”
She still looked as if she wanted to run. Then she smiled afresh and nodded. “That’s right. Bunch of phonies. They all just wanted one thing. I spent all my time torn up inside and confused, and nobody tried to help. Nobody cared as long as they were making money or getting what they wanted. I was just a machine to them, a thing. I didn’t know what to do. I got in real deep with some bad people, and that’s when I knew that one way or another, I had to get out, get away.
“Up here nobody cares where you come from or what you did before you got here. Nice people. And I like doing my carvings. I got out of it with a little money nobody could trace. I’m doing okay.”
“Glad to hear it. I always did think you were it, you know.”
“That wasn’t me, Dave. That was never me. It was just something that I made up. That was always the problem. I’m happy now, and that’s what counts. If you live long enough, you come to know what’s really important.”
“That’s what me and Elaine always say.”
She glanced at the sky, and the light from the cafe fully illuminated her face. “You’d better get going.”
“How’d you work it, anyway? How’d you fool everybody?”
“Like I said, I had some friends. True friends. Not many, but enough. They understood. They helped me get out. Once in a while they come up here and we laugh about how we fooled everyone. We go fishing. I always did like to fish. You’d better get moving.”
“Reckon I’d better. You keep doing those carvings. I really liked your bobcat.”
“Thanks. That one was a lot of work. Merry Christmas, Dave.”
“Yeah. You too—Jill.”
She turned away from me, knowing that I’d keep her secret. Hell, what did I have to gain from giving her away? I knew how she must feel, or thought I did. About the best thing you can do in this too often sad, mean world is not step on somebody else’s happiness, and I wasn’t about to step on hers. It’s too damn hard to come by, and you might need somebody else to do you a similar favor sometime. It doesn’t hurt to establish a line of credit with the Almighty.
I watched her walk away in the falling snow, all bundled up and hidden inside that big Western jacket, and I felt real good with myself. I’d still make Reno in plenty of time, then pop over to Tahoe, maybe get lucky and pick up a return load. My eyes followed her through the dark and white wet, and she seemed to wink in and out of my sight, dreamlike.
White crosses. Damn, I thought. Was she real or wasn’t she? Not that it really mattered. I still felt good. I sucked in the stinging, damp air and made ready to get back to business.
That’s when she sort of hesitated, stopped, and glanced back at me. Or at least, whatever I saw there in the Sierra night glanced back at me. When she resumed her walk it wasn’t the stiff, horsey stride she’d been using before but a rolling, rocking, impossibly fluid gait that would’ve blasted the top knob off a frozen thermometer. I think she did it just for me. Maybe it was because of the season, but I tell you, it was one helluva present.
Not knowing what else to do, I waved. I think she waved back as I called out, “Merry Christmas, Norma Jean.” Whacking my chest with my crossed arms, I hurried across the street to the parking lot to fire up Slewfoot.
LETHAL PERSPECTIVE
Don’t do the expected. What’s the point? You’ll be
bored with it. Worse, so will the reader. There’s a huge
market called More of the Same, and sometimes we’re
all forced to sell to it. That’s why short stories are so
valuable.
Me, I like a challenge. Take the obvious and twist it,
knot it, turn it upside down and inside out and see what
the result looks like. It may turn out twisted, knotted,
upside out and inside down, but even if it’s not successful, at least it won’t look like everybody else’s.
Take dragons. Please. In today’s fantasy market, if I
had scales, I could retire to some tropical paradise on the
royalties (come to think of it, there’s a story there. But
not the one I’m about to tell). You try hard to make the
overly familiar a little different, maybe a little contemporary, a little unexpected, and sometimes it can gag in
your throat.
In this case, that’s a
good
thing.
They assembled in the Special Place. Though a considerable amount of time had passed, none forgot the date and none lost their way. It took more than several days for all to arrive, but they were very long-lived, and none took umbrage at another’s delay.
It was the very end of the season, and a small team of climbers from France was exploring a new route up the south col of K5 when one happened to look up instead of down. He shouted as loud as he could, but the wind was blowing and it took a moment before he could get the attention of the woman directly ahead of him. By the time she tilted her head back to scan the sky, the apparition had vanished. She studied her climbing companion warily and then smiled. So did the others, when they were informed.
They put it down to momentary snow blindness, and the climber who’d looked up at the singular moment didn’t press the point. He was a realist and knew he had no chance of convincing even the least skeptical of his friends. But to his dying day he would know in his heart that what he’d seen that frigid morning just east of Everest was not an accident of snow blindness, or a patrolling eagle, or a figment of his imagination.
The Special Place was filling up. Legendary nemesis of the subcontinent, Videprasa had the least distance to travel and arrived first. Old Kurenskaya the Terrible appeared next, making good time despite his age and the need to avoid the aging air-defense radar based in southern Kazakhstan.
O’mou’iroturotu showed up still damp from hours of flying through the biggest typhoon to hit the South China Sea in more than a decade, and Booloongatta the Night Stalker soon after. They were followed by Cracuti from central Europe, Al-Methzan ras-Shindar from out of the Empty Quarter, and Nhauantehotec from the green depths of Central America.
It grew crowded in the Special Place as more of the Kind arrived. They jostled for space, grumbling and rumbling until the vast ancient cavern resounded like the Infinite Drum itself. Though solitary by nature, all gathered eagerly at this special predetermined time.
Despite the incredible altitude and the winter storm that had begun to rage outside, conditions within the Special Place remained comfortable. Creatures that are capable of spontaneous internal combustion do not suffer from the cold.
As the Elder Dominant, Old Kurenskaya performed the invocation. This was concluded with a binding, concerted blast of flame the largest napalm ordnance in the American armory could not have matched, resulting in a massive avalanche outside the Special Place as a great sheet of ice and snow was loosened from beneath. The French climbing team far to the west heard but did not witness it.
“It is the time,” Kurenskaya announced. He was very old, and most of his back scales had faded from red to silver. But he could still ravage and destroy with the best of them. Only these days, like all the recent others, he was forced to be more circumspect in his doings.
He glanced around the crowded cavern, vertical yellow pupils narrowing. “I do not see As’ah’mi among us.”
There was a moment of confusion until Nhauantehotec spoke up. “He will not be joining us.”
Kurenskaya bared snaggle teeth. “Why not? What has happened?”
Nhauantehotec sighed, and black smoke crept from his nostrils. “He was not careful. As careful as we must all be these days. I think he forgot to soar in the stealthy manner and was picked up on U.S. Border Patrol radar. Not surprisingly, they mistook him for a drug runner’s plane and shot him down. I heard him curse his forgetfulness as he fell, and altered my flight path to see if I could help, but by the time I arrived he was nothing but fully combusted brimstone and sulfur on the ground.”
A smoky murmur filled the cavern. Old Kurenskaya raised both clawed forefeet for silence. “Such is the fate of those who let time master their minds. We sorrow for one of our own who forgot. But the rest are come, healthy and well.” He gestured to the one next to him with a clawed foot the size of a steam-shovel bucket. “As first to arrive it falls to you, Videprasa, to regale us with tales of your accomplishments.”
She nodded deferentially to the Elder Dominant and instinctively flexed vast, membranous wings. “I have since the last gathering kept myself properly hidden, emerging only to wreak appropriate havoc through the guises we have had to adopt since humans developed advanced technologies.” Raising a forefoot and looking thoughtful, she began ticking off disasters on her thick, clawed fingers.
“Eleven years ago there was the train wreck north of New Delhi. The devastating avalanche in Bhutan was one I instigated twenty years ago. There was the plastics plant explosion in Uttar Pradesh and the sinking of the small freighter during the typhoon that struck Bangladesh only a few years past.” She smiled, showing dentition that would have been the envy of a dozen crocodiles.
“I am particularly proud of the chemical plant damage in Bhopal that killed so many.”
Al-Methzan ras-Shindar snorted fire. “That was very subtlely done. You are to be commended.” He straightened proudly, thrusting out his scaly chest and glaring around the cavern. “You all know what I have been up to lately.”
Quong the Magnificent flicked back the tendrils that lined his head and jaws. “You were fortunate to find yourself in so efficacious a situation.”
Al-Methzan’s head whipped around snakelike. “I do not deny it, but it required skill to take advantage.” Eyes capable of striking terror into the bravest man glittered with the memory. “It was purest pleasure. I struck and ripped and tore and was not noticed. The humans were too busy amongst themselves. And around me, around me every day, were those wonderful burning wells to dance about and dart through and tickle my belly against.” Al-Methzan ras-Shindar stretched luxuriously, the tips of his great wings scraping the ceiling.
“I haven’t felt this scoured in centuries.”
There was a concerted murmur of envious delight from the others, and Old Kurenskaya nodded approvingly. “You did well. How else have you fulfilled the mandate?”
Al-Methzan ras-Shindar resumed the recitation of his personal tales of mayhem and destruction. He was followed by Booloongatta the Night Stalker, and then the rest of them. The hours and the days passed in pleasant companionship, reminiscence, and safety as the storm howled outside the gathering place. They were out of harm’s way here. The Roof of the World saw few humans in the best of times, and in the winter was invariably little visited.
There was more to the gathering than mere camaraderie, however. More to the boasting of accomplishments than a desire simply to impress others of one’s kind. For the gathering and the telling constituted also a competition. For approval, surely, and for admiration, truly. But there was more at stake than that.
There was the Chalice.
It hung round Old Kurenskaya’s neck, suspended from a rope thick as a man’s arm woven of pure asbestos fibers. It was large for a human drinking utensil, tiny by the standards of the Kind. The great Berserker Jaggskrolm had taken the prize from the human Gunnar Rakeiennen in 1029, in a battle atop Mount Svodmaggen that had lasted for four days and rent the air with fire and fury. When all had done and the killer Rakeiennen lay dead, his fortress razed, his golden hoard taken, his women ravished (the great Jaggskrolm having been ritually mindful of the traditions), practically nothing remained unburned save the jewel-studded, golden chalice with which the most beauteous of Rakeiennen’s women had bought her freedom (not to mention saving herself from an exceedingly uncomfortable time).
Ever since, it had been a symbol of dominance, of the most effective and best-applied skills of the Kind. Old Kurenskaya had won it during the last Tatar invasion of his homeland and had kept it ever since, having last been awarded it by acclamation (the only way it could be awarded) for his work among the humans during the purges and famines of the 1920s and ’30s. Admittedly, he’d had human help, but his fellows did not feel cheated. Such assistance was to be welcomed, and cleverly used. As Al-Methzan ras-Shindar had utilized recent events in the Middle East so effectively.
It seemed truly that because of his most recent accomplishments, ras-Shindar had the inside track on securing the Chalice. Nhauantehotec had been working particularly hard, and the devastating achievements of skillful Mad Sunabaya of the Deep impressed all the assembled with their breadth and thoroughness. Despite his years, Old Kurenskaya wasn’t about to give up the Chalice without a fight, and it had to be admitted that his brief but critical presence at Chernobyl would go down as a hallmark accomplishment of the Kind in modern times.
When at last all had concluded their recitative, and waited content and with satisfaction for the vote of acclamation, Old Kurenskaya was pleased. It had been a gathering free of discord, unlike some in the past, and had demonstrated conclusively that the Kind could not only survive but prosper in their efforts despite the technical exploits of their old enemy, humankind. He was elated, and ready. All, in fact, were anxious for the choosing, so they could be on their way. Though all had enjoyed the gathering, they preferred to keep to themselves, and by now were growing irritable.
“If then each has stipulated and declaimed their deeds, and retold their tales, I will name names, and call for the choosing.” He raised a clawed forefoot to begin.
Only to be interrupted.
“Wait, please! I have not spoken.”
Dire reptilian heads swiveled in the direction of the voice. It was so slight as to be barely intelligible, and those of the Kind with smaller hearing organs than their more floridly eared brethren had to strain to make out individual words. But it was one of them, no doubt of that, for it spoke in the secret and ancient language known only to the Kind.
Something like a small, scaly hummingbird appeared in the air before Old Kurenskaya and hovered there almost noiselessly.
“What is this?” Videprasa emitted a smoky burst of flame and laughter. “A bird has slipped in among us, to find safety from the storm, no doubt!”
“No,” Cracuti roared, the sharp spines of her back flexing with amusement, “this is not a bird, but a bug!”
The minuscule speaker whirled angrily. “I am Nomote, of the Kind.” Laughter and smoke filled the gathering place. “I demand to be heard!”
Old Kurenskaya raised both clawed forefeet, and the ferocious, terrific laughter gradually died down. He scowled at the tiny visitor. “There are three recent-born among us. I did not know of a fourth.”
“Who would admit to birthing this?” Videprasa snorted, and another round of awesome laughter shook rock from the walls of the cavern.
Old Kurenskaya looked around reprovingly. “This Nomote is of the Kind, if . . . somewhat lesser than most of us. Give to him the deference he deserves, as befits the traditions.” At this stern admonishment, an abashed silence settled over the gathering.
The Elder Dominant nodded to the hovering mite. “Speak to us then of your exploits.” One of the assembled sniggered, but went quiet when Old Kurenskaya glared threateningly in his direction. “Tell of what you have done to fulfill the traditions of the Kind.” He sat back on his hindquarters, his leathery, age-battered wings rumpled elegantly about him.
“I am young and have not the experience or strength of others who have accomplished so much.” A few murmurs of grudging approval sounded among the assembled. “I have had to study our ancient adversaries and to learn. I have struggled to master the stealthy ways needed to carry out the work without being noticed by the humans and their clever new machines.” It hesitated, wee wings beating furiously to keep it aloft in one place.
“Alas, I have had not the skill, nor the strength, nor the prowess to do as so many of you have done. I have done but one thing, and it, like myself, is small.”
Nomote’s humbleness and modesty had by now won for him some sympathy among the assembled, for who among them could not, save for the intervention of fortuitous fate, imagine himself in such a poignant condition.
“Tell us of what you have done and what you do,” Old Kurenskaya said encouragingly. He glared warningly one more time, but by now the gathering was subdued. “None of the Kind will laugh, I promise it. Any offender will have to deal with me.” At that moment Old Kurenskaya did not look so old.
Nomote blinked bright, tiny eyes. A small puff of dark smoke emerged from the tip of his snout. “I go invisibly among those humans who are ready and those who are reluctant; I breathe the addiction into their nostrils and their mouths; and then when they weaken and are finally susceptible, I light their cigarettes.”
They gave him the Chalice, which was too large for him to carry, much less wear around his neck. But Nhauantehotec moved it to a convenient lair for him, and though he could not fly with it shining broadly against his chest as had his glorious predecessors, it made a most excellent bath in which to relax upon returning from a good day’s work among the execrable humans.