A lamp switched on inside the house, sending a shaft of light into the murky water. Mort(e) swam closer. Impossibly, the inside of the house remained perfectly dry. A protected air pocket. The almond-colored felt couch, the wooden bookshelf lined with paperbacks, the cracked mirror, all of it remained as he’d left it when he journeyed to Hosanna a year earlier. Something moved inside the house, casting a shadow across the wall. When Mort(e) reached the window, he saw Sheba hunched over the fire, poking it with a metal rod. Bright orange embers escaped from the flames and floated into the chimney. She seemed younger than he remembered. This was the Sheba from the ranch, before Lodge City and Hosanna and all the rest took her away. Satisfied with the size of the fire, Sheba stood and set the metal rod against the wall. Like a good dog, she sensed an intruder at the window.
See again, see no more.
Mort(e) rushed to the door. A tentacle, acting on its own, slithered out from his body and twisted the knob. Sheba pounded on the glass. She barked at him, acting as if she did not want him to enter. He responded in the Sarcops’ language. You do not understand, he clicked. It will be all right. I am here.
The knob turned, and a great force pulled the water into the room. The air pocket vented through the entrance and the chimney. The last of it blew out the window, ascending to the surface in a giant silvery bubble. Mort(e) burst into the house as the water rose to the ceiling. The dog was gone. The lighter objects tumbled out. A coffee mug collided with a candlestick. The blackened firewood spun outward from the hearth. The roof collapsed. With the cracked beams falling around him, Mort(e) pulled himself free and floated high above the wreckage. A cloud of mud spread over what remained of the house, burying it so that no sign of the ranch remained.
The song of the Sarcops went quiet in his head. They offered him a brief respite while he watched the ocean reclaiming his former life. It came for everything eventually.
A new sound began, a high-pitched squeal of metal scraping metal. It came from the surface. Mort(e) turned away and swam upward. As he got higher, the pressure dropped, and the light grew brighter. The sun became a perfect white disk, rippling in the waves.
Mort(e) broke the surface to find himself leaning against the rail, still seated in his perch on the bridge. The sun approached slowly through the trees, creating fingerlike shadows that stretched across the tracks. Mort(e) needed to blink a few times to realize that the sun was in fact the front headlight of the train engine. He took note of the shifted stars and the brightening skyline to the east. A few hours had passed.
The train, completely shrouded in darkness, came to a dead stop. The brakes squealed. Mort(e) nearly jumped from his hiding place. The thing he wanted, the treasure he’d chased from Hosanna, had finally arrived.
There were people on top of the engine. They slid off the sides and landed on the edge of the tracks. A moment later, they appeared, three wolves in all. Grieve warned him this might happen. The wolves would act as scouts, checking the bridge for any defects. Anyone who wanted to operate this behemoth would need to make sure the bridge would support its weight.
Two of the wolves carried sledgehammers on their shoulders. The third one held a crowbar. Once they made it past the first arch of the bridge, they tapped the rails and beams to listen for any weaknesses in the foundation, any crumbling mortar or hollow wood. While the wolves with hammers made their noises, the one with the crowbar used the sharp tip to scrape the side of the bridge that faced upstream. Only a few granules crumbled away and fell into the river. This arch would hold. The wolf waved his comrades on.
Mort(e) eased his way onto the edge of the arch and lowered himself over the side, holding on with his fingertips and his rear claws. He imagined himself as a six-pound housecat again, clinging to a curtain or the armrest of a chair, light as a feather, hoping his master would not see him and chase him away. But then, unable to resist, he turned and gazed into the churning water below. If he simply let go of this stone—let go of this dream—he could return to where he belonged. He told himself that he would go there soon enough. The water would wait.
The wooden boards squeaked as the wolves walked above him. The vibrations from their hammers traveled through the stone and into his wrists. Mort(e) held his breath to keep the vapor from escaping his lungs. An ugly snout poked into the gap in the boards. The nostrils sniffed something. A breeze came along at the right moment to throw off the scent. The wolf continued with his inspection, with the others following behind.
Sometime later, after Mort(e)’s fingertips had gone numb, the engine switched on again. A new tremor shook the bridge as the train began to roll across. By leaning to the side a bit, he could see the beastly machine pushing its way out of the forest. As the train crept along, the passenger cars came into view. A dull yellow light glowed through the windows. Behind that, a flatbed emerged from the trees with a massive garbage truck loaded on top. Mort(e) remembered it well: the one that got away.
The front grill of the truck, with its headlights and pointed snout, resembled a large animal with a human face. A metal sphinx mocking him with its riddles. Whatever lurked inside had the ability to warp the space around the vehicle, like hot air rising from asphalt. The wolves must have seen it. A person could step into that vortex and be carried off to their destiny—or to an infinite number of destinies in an infinite number of futures. All time converged here, in this man-made contraption originally designed to haul the humans’ garbage. It called to Mort(e) now. All the answers resided within. All the questions tormenting him would at last grow still.
The train gathered speed. Mort(e) stuck his head through the gap in the rails. The breeze tousled his fur. But as the flatbed car approached, he could hear only the beautiful song of the Sarcops, a purring that spoke in every language. The car passed above him. He reached toward it, and his hand tingled as it entered the warped space around the vehicle. He caught hold of a metal box—most likely the braking mechanism. He pulled himself up and hung from the bottom of the car, finding enough room to keep from scraping along the boards. When it was safe, he would climb onto the flatbed. But for now, he needed to take in the strange aura of this object. His past as a housecat and his future as some hybrid creature collided in this tiny pocket. He had no regrets, no fear for what would come. While hanging on to this instrument of death on a suicide mission, Mort(e) had finally experienced the most peaceful moment of his life.
Chapter 20
This Is Now
Falkirk and D’Arc walked on opposite sides of the motorcycle, each of them gripping a handlebar. A lantern dangled from the brake lever, which made their shadows stretch and shrink and spin all around them. Taking the bike through the forest was the quickest way, the wolves said. Get the bike through the trees and to the highway, then drive like hell, and they had a chance of intercepting the train at an abandoned town nearby. If they hurried, they might even get to it before Mort(e) did. But with each tree root and divot that slowed their pace, with each mud patch that sank the wheels to the hub, Falkirk knew they were losing time.
Another puddle splattered mud on the chrome fender. Etched into the metal was the name loder. To help the two dogs, Grieve had confiscated the bike for them. A Harley Softail Springer, with a converted Colonial engine that ran on plant matter. The rat mechanics at the academy used to salvage motorcycles like this. They could not ride the heavier bikes themselves, so they set them aside for Falkirk. When it came time for a test run, the rats would form a line along the riverfront highway, first thing in the morning. As he streaked past them, they would yell, “Skydog likes to fly!”
The path ahead at last sloped downward, allowing them to roll the bike more easily. By this point, the muscles in his arms had constricted into tightly coiled ropes. He could not stop panting, and soon his tongue dried out in the frigid air.
“When we find our son,” he said, “what should we name him?”
She did not answer.
“That’s right,” she said. “I was busy. But really . . .”
He gave her a chance to think about it.
“Tristan and Nautica died right after I named them,” she said. “They never even learned their names. I don’t think I ever said them out loud.”
“You think that if you name him, it could—”
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m sorry to ask this,” he said, “but did you name . . . your other children?”
“The humans would say no. But I remember how the pups smelled. Each of them has a different scent to me. Those are the names. The human language doesn’t have words for it.”
“I can still smell Amelia and Yeager,” Falkirk said. “They would wrestle in the dirt outside of our house. That’s what I remember.”
Falkirk smelled it in his dreams. Sometimes he would be in the woods, calling their names, the scent growing stronger. He decided not to say any of that out loud.
“This might not be the best time to ask,” he said, “but would you ever want to live in a regular house again? After this?”
To avoid the question, D’Arc used her shoulder to nudge the rear tire over a rock.
“I cried when I first realized I was pregnant again,” she said. “I recorded it in my logbook. One day, my bunk started to feel really tight. The mattress felt like a brick. I had this crazy urge to steal pillows from everyone else’s bunk. I grabbed a bunch of towels from the shower and lined the inside with it. My bunkmate Verasco asked me what I was doing, and I snapped at her. I said, ‘Get away from me!’ I’ve never yelled at anybody like that. She was terrified. And so was I.”
“My mate did the same thing,” Falkirk said. “She wanted to bring a bunch of leaves and sticks into the house.”
“The ship’s doctor called it nesting,” D’Arc said.
“Right,” Falkirk said. “I told my mate, ‘You’re a dog, not a bird.’ She didn’t think it was funny.”
With a grunt, D’Arc rolled the tire over the rock. It immediately struck another one, starting the process over again.
“After I came clean and told the captain, I was almost . . . euphoric,” she said. “I imagined the baby being born in the Azores, or on the coast of Africa, or some other place. And just when I started to feel good about it, boom. I was in a lifeboat in the middle of nowhere.”
She went quiet for a few seconds. Falkirk knew better than to ask her for more details.
“So I guess I’m not ready to talk about a house,” she said. “Not yet.”
At some point, she would drink the rahvek. Maybe she would see the house where they would live. Or maybe she would see nothing but inky blankness, a void where a future could have been.
“We’re almost to the highway,” she said.
After another hundred paces or so, he spotted the concrete barrier, covered in moss and ivy and stained from years of neglect. On the other side, the asphalt had burst open, surrendering to tall stalks of grass. In another few years, there would be little left. But it was flat enough for a Harley.
“There’s a log on the ground,” D’Arc said.
Falkirk did not see the log until he nearly tripped over it. D’Arc suggested using it as a ramp to get the bike over the barrier. While wondering if his eyesight had begun to fail, he propped the hunk of wood onto the concrete, then climbed over to the other side. Instead of helping, D’Arc remained in place, her snout raised.
“What is it?” Falkirk asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing.”
Together, they pushed the motorcycle up the log and lowered it onto the highway. When D’Arc hopped over the wall, the canister, fastened by a loop to her backpack, jiggled free and hit the asphalt. Falkirk picked it up.
D’Arc held out her hand.
Instead of giving it to her, he pulled the canister close to his chest and stepped away. “We haven’t agreed on who’s going to drink this stuff.”
“I’m drinking it,” she said.
“He’s my son too,” he said. “Am I going to tell him that you sacrificed yourself?”
“You might have to. None of this is easy.”
“No,” he said. “I wasn’t there for my family. When the Colony took them. The family that raised me told me it would happen.”
Somewhere far away, the wind carried his mother’s voice. The white takes you, she said.
“You’re not the only one with regrets,” D’Arc said.
She was right. But so was he. He turned away quickly, unscrewed the cap, and brought the canister to his mouth. The rank, fishy smell invaded his nostrils like a swarm of insects. He coughed. Do it, he thought. Hold your breath and do it.
Before he could drink anything, something flashed in his eye. He held the canister like a telescope, peered inside, and saw the bottom, a shiny metal disk with a tiny drop of the rahvek gathered at the base.
“I’m not taking any chances,” D’Arc said. “I drank it before we left.”
“You thought I was going to steal it.”
“And now I know you were.”
Falkirk lowered the canister until it clinked on the handlebar. “You took all of it?”
“Start the engine,” she said, gazing past him like a blind person. “We don’t have much time.”
With the sun long gone, the entire world collapsed into a single ball of light emanating from the front of the motorcycle. The broken road streamed toward Falkirk. The encroaching forest had reclaimed large sections, leaving a winding path ahead. He swerved around the bumps and potholes as best as he could. He took his chances with the stalks of grass, which let out a little thwips as he mowed them down.
A crooked, faded road sign flashed and then vanished. He caught the number: exit 96. Two more to go—assuming Grieve gave them the right directions.
The front tire hit a stick at full speed, sending a jolt through Falkirk’s body. He gripped the handlebars and steadied the bike. D’Arc barely moved. Her arms stayed tightly wrapped around his waist, as they had been for nearly an hour now. Falkirk let go of the handle and tapped her hand.
“Hang in there,” he said.
She lifted her snout from his shoulder. “Falkirk?”
“I’m right here!”
She whined in his ear like a puppy. “I can’t . . .”
“Stay with me,” he said. It sounded stupid, but he needed to shout something.
He felt her heart thumping on his spine. He relaxed his wrist, easing the throttle. The bike slowed.
“No,” she said into the wind. “No, keep going.”
He turned the handlebar again. The engine roared and the front tire lifted for a brief moment.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
A pause. “Not yet.”
“What do you see?”
She squeezed him tighter. “This is now,” she said. She squeezed a handful of his fur. “This.”
“Right,” he said. “This is now.” With his left hand, he gripped her arm. She responded by biting his neck. He suddenly remembered doing this exact thing to her during their brief time together, a memory that still surfaced at the most inappropriate moments. She clamped harder, and he gritted his teeth through the pain. “You’re right here with me, D’Arc! This is now!”
She let go of his neck. Her head slumped against his shoulder blade. Falkirk felt a trickle of blood weaving through his fur. It could have been worse.
He didn’t know if he should keep her awake or let her rest. Either option seemed too dangerous.
In her fever dream, D’Arc whispered something that died out under the growl of the engine.
“What?” Falkirk said.
“Wolf,” she said. “Wolf.”
Two pairs of glowing dots floated above the side of the road.
Two wolves, their pupils capturing the headlight’s glare. As the bike sped past them, the dots streaked across Falkirk’s peripheral vision like tracer bullets.
“Are there more?” he asked. “Do you see more ahead?”
“Not yet.”
A new sign flashed. Exit 98. Another abandoned stretch of road leading to some lost human settlement. Grieve told them they would have their best chance of boarding the train here—if such a feat were even possible. “What exactly do you expect to do if you get on the train?” he had asked them as he handed over Loder’s motorcycle. D’Arc insisted that the wolves would not expect such a move. Falkirk could only hope that the rahvek made her say that, rather than some crushing desperation.
He turned onto the ramp. The road elevated, lifting him high enough to see the entire town. On the horizon, the first hints of sunlight burned a hole in the clouds above the collapsed roof of a church. The buildings and houses that remained were covered in moss and weeds, and a full-sized tree had pushed through the main street. On top of the train station, a clock tower was frozen at 12:30. And on the very edge of the town, the train lumbered through, its metal skin slicing like a knife through the green and brown surroundings. It was headed for the station, with no signs of slowing.
“No,” Falkirk said.
They had hoped to camp here and rest, maybe find a hidden spot in the station where they could board the train undetected. But they were too late. The best they could do was follow and hope that the engine could not reach its top speed.
As he watched the train, Falkirk noticed pair of headlights blinking in the rearview mirror. A crew of marauders was tracking them.
Falkirk cranked the throttle, and the motorcycle jolted forward. The exit ramp dumped them onto a four-lane road where streetlights still hung over the intersections. The road ran parallel with the tracks, a block away. At each corner, he glanced to his right and saw the train rolling through the town. In the dull sunrise, a shard of light glowed on the top of the passenger cars like an arrow on fire.
Malefactor Page 31
