A Star Wheeled Sky

by Brad R Torgersen

  “Yes it is. I was born there.”

  Wyo and Garsina exchanged glances, then he asked, “What’s your name?”

  “I’m called Lethiah,” the old woman said.

  “Are there other people here like you?”

  “None like me,” she said firmly. “Haven’t been any like me in a long, long time.”

  “How long?” Garsina asked.

  The old woman considered, her mouth making a sour frown, then she shrugged. “Like I told him, that’s part of the problem. Too much time goes by, the human brain…gets fuzzy on certain details. The men of Earth used to chase immortality. I am here to assure you it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  Wyo and Garsina exchanged still more startled glances, then Wyo stepped forward a few paces and stood on the continent where the old woman had most recently stood.

  “What is this ‘American’? Is it a place?”

  “Was a place, and a people,” Lethiah replied. “Hasn’t been an American in the universe for a long, long time.”

  “But you said your memory is…fuzzy. How can we trust anything you’re telling us?”

  “How can you not trust what I am telling you?” the old woman said, the corner of her mouth curling up slightly. “You’re here, on this planet, because I wanted you to be here.”

  “Is this because of the Waymakers?” Garsina asked.

  “Do you mean the Others who made the starlanes over which you travel?”

  “Yes! They lived a long time ago. They weren’t human.”

  “Lord, don’t I know it,” Lethiah said, her face taking on a bitter expression. Then she turned and started walking to a different corridor which branched away from the oval room with the floor map.

  “Wait—we just want to ask questions!” Garsina said.

  When Lethiah did not stop, Garsina walked after her, and Wyo walked after Garsina. The water in his zipsuit still made things uncomfortable, but he ignored the feeling, and stayed on Garsina’s trail. The new corridor twisted up and around on itself, in spiral-ramp fashion, until the old woman stopped at what appeared to be a glass doorway into a mammoth hydroponics facility. Inside, more lights—this time, glaring as brightly as the sun itself—hung down from the ceiling. The floor was all rich brown, moist soil, with row upon row of familiar-looking plant life. Corn. Tomatoes. Peas. Lettuce. Potatoes. And around the perimeter of the bay, large fruit-bearing trees, out of which strolled a host of floppy-eared versions of the very same animals Waywork people routinely slaughtered for beef. The beasts stopped short of the vegetables, barred by what appeared to be thin wire running around the tilled rows. An electric fence?

  “There’s enough vegetables and meat here to feed tens of people,” Garsina said, looking through the transparent wall in front of her.

  “Like I said, gone,” Lethiah murmured. “Just like you all, if you don’t do something about it soon.”

  Wyo froze in place.

  “What?”

  “I told you, son, I brought you here for a reason. The Others didn’t give us much of a clue when we landed. We tried the best we could to figure out how their shit works. Crazy-making stuff, really. But then, you all know that, if you’ve been using those starlanes. What is it you call…the Waywork? The Others built it. But the Others didn’t stick around. Wish they had. Or maybe we can be glad that they didn’t? I’ve gradually started to think the Others don’t have minds like people have minds. Their thoughts go in…very strange directions.”

  “If what you say is true,” Wyo said, “and you had something to do with the new Slipways opening to this system—why did you do it? What are we supposed to be afraid of?”

  “I can’t be too sure,” Lethiah admitted, then turned away from them, and walked back down the spiral corridor, returning to the floor map room. Wyo and Garsina quickly followed.

  “This isn’t making sense,” Garsina said, becoming frustrated. “Are you aware that there’s a war going on right now? Men and women are being killed.”

  “War,” Lethiah said, grunting, with a knowing frown on her face. “It’s probably the one common denominator that makes us all human. Been going on since Cain slew Abel, if you believe in that kind of thing, like my daddy did. You think you’re in a war now? I’m here to tell you, you don’t know war yet. Because something’s happening out there. I’ve been watching the rest of the galaxy for a long, long time. You all think it’s all about the Others and their Waywork. But there are bigger, stranger things in the universe than the Others. And pretty soon, you’re going to be meeting them. Or they’re going to be meeting you, whichever.”

  “How?” Garsina asked. “Can they use the Waywork like we do, with Keys?”

  “Keys?” Lethiah asked.

  Garsina crouched, and mimicked a Waypoint pilot putting her hands on the spherical surface of a Key.

  “Ohhhh,” Lethiah said, nodding her head in understanding. “You mean the Anchors.”

  “Is that what you call them?”

  “Yup. Some of them are big, some of them are small. Not all of them are for the same function. A few of them have many functions. They’re the physical manifestation of Otherspace as it touches our universe. We can use them to do certain things.”

  “We only ever use them for starships,” Wyo said. “My…daddy, he built a whole company around this kind of activity. We use the Keys to transport people and goods across the Slipways—your starlanes—all over the Waywork. We used Keys to come here, to this system, using three of our starliners, in fact. If a Key can be used for anything else, we’ve never discovered what it might be.”

  “That’s because the Others didn’t want you taking apart their playground equipment,” Lethiah said. “Or at least that’s what we assumed, once we came here. It took me forever to learn how to use the Anchors well enough to get a pair of starlanes opened up when the need was urgent. Been watching your Waywork for a long time too. Couldn’t do anything about it until now.”

  “Are you saying you can make Slipways?” Garsina asked incredulously.

  “Not me,” Lethiah said. “I had to go up to the Temple and convince the machines. They’re the ones who did the work.”

  Wyo listened, and looked around him. Wherever they’d ended up during the storm, it was clearly hidden from the surface. Were they still inside the ark? It seemed as if this strange person had been expecting them, and she talked as if she knew a great deal about things which had been mysterious until now. But was anything she saying credible? Wyo’s misgivings—about Lethiah’s mental state—continued to grow.

  “Ma’am,” he finally said, “we’ve got people who are still out in that storm. I don’t know where we are right now, but we need to get back to them.”

  “Yes, we do,” Garsina agreed.

  “Storms don’t last more than a few hours this time of the year,” Lethiah said. “It’s the Temple you need to worry about.”

  “Are you talking about the pyramid?” Garsina asked.

  “Yes. That’s where the machines live.”

  “We haven’t gone there yet. We wanted to find the source of the human-made beacon first.”

  “And so you have,” Lethiah said, bowing with her arms open wide, then stood up straight. “I turned the beacon on so that anyone who used the starlane would know where to come. Once I found the two of you, I turned it off.”

  “Others will come,” Wyo said. “Starstate Nautilan is sure to land an expedition of their own.”

  “Is that bad?” Lethiah asked.

  “Of course it’s bad!” Garsina replied loudly. Then seemed to think better of herself, and said, “Starstate Nautilan will kill or imprison all of us. Especially you, Lethiah. They’ll think you have the answers they want.”

  “Answers to what, exactly?”

  Wyo and Garsina exchanged glances.

  “The same questions we have,” she admitted.

  “And you won’t kill or imprison me?” Lethiah asked. She said it without blinking.

  �
��Absolutely not,” Wyo said. “We have rules about that.”

  “And how do I know I can trust your ‘rules,’ young man?”

  “Well, the fact is…uhhh…look, we’re strangers to you, and you’re a stranger to us. I’d like to find out how Captain Fazal and his TGO troops are doing, in addition to Mister Axabrast and Mister Kalbi.”

  “Your friends on the surface?” Lethiah asked.

  “Yes. But our wireless communications have been terrible since coming here.”

  “That’s the machines at the Temple again. They do that sometimes.”

  “Why?” Garsina asked. “And what are they?”

  “Who knows why. I said it before: The minds of the Others went in strange directions. The machines they left behind think in strange directions too.”

  “Thinking machines?” Garsina blurted.

  “I have a feeling you two might feel better if you freshen up. You look and smell like a couple of drowned rats. I have a place—not used in a long time—where you can do that. And there’s food if you want it.”

  Wyo’s stomach rumbled.

  “We’ll accept whatever hospitality you care to offer,” Wyo said.

  Lethiah bowed again, then straightened, and led them to another corridor which seemed to run roughly on the same level as the map room. Eventually they came into another high-ceilinged chamber which had a number of plush, overstuffed couches and chairs arrayed around low tables on which sat various pieces of nonrepresentational sculpture. There were closed doors at regular intervals around the exterior of the room. Lethiah opened one of them, and waved her hand over a small panel in the wall just inside the door. Lights quickly brightened to reveal a large bed, another overstuffed couch and chair, as well as what appeared to be an anteroom that could have been a lavatory. When Wyo walked in, he stared at the space. It didn’t look too different from the executive suites aboard his starliners, save for the fact that there were no gee hammocks. The linens on the bed looked use worn, but serviceable, as did the furniture. Everything appeared to have been kept immaculately clean.

  “Meet me back in the big room in thirty minutes,” Lethiah said. “I’ll bring something hot, and something cold.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Lethiah turned to walk away.

  “Just one room for both of us?” Wyo asked.

  “Is that a problem?” Lethiah said.

  “Well, it’s just…We’re not…”

  “We’re not together like that,” Garsina finished for him.

  Lethiah’s eyes widened, then she slapped a hand over her face—the tendons and knuckles looking particularly pronounced with age.

  “My fault for assuming,” she said. “When I found you both balled up together on the ledge like that…well, my mistake. Of course. This way, girl.”

  Garsina was shown to a doorway on the opposite side of the room from where Wyo stood, and entered.

  Wyo went to the lavatory first, and evacuated not just his bowels, but the hygiene system of the zipsuit too. Swift-running water washed everything away, as Wyo had seen when using similar facilities on the Constellar capital. Facilities on a starliner were quite different, by necessity, as were lavatories on many terrestrials where water was at a premium. Uxmal had no lack of water, thus Lethiah could afford to use it any way she wished. Or so it seemed.

  Wyo hung the various pieces of his armor and zipsuit on a row of hooks in the lavatory wall. Overhead, he could see a bank of lights that was not on, as well as what looked like a grate for a fan. Moving his hand over the control plate near the lavatory entrance both activated and deactivated the lights, and the fan. Then he discovered the heat lamp, and was grateful for both the warmth, and the dry air moving across his skin. He decided to leave them on—to dry his zipsuit and equipment—while he experimented with the huge wash basin. When the water coming out of that spigot proved scalding hot, he pushed his fingers on the control plate—everything controlled by proximity or contact, not switches per se—until the temperature eased off. And before long he had a robustly hot pool.

  Cabinets revealed towels, robes, and large chunks of what appeared to be soap.

  “The boys on the surface will want some of this,” Wyo muttered to himself as he climbed in. The water felt glorious. After so much time using gee showers—water also being at a premium on a starliner—it was an almost obscene luxury to be able to sit in a tub for a quick, hot soak.

  Wyo gave himself five minutes to just savor the sensation, then used one of the chunks of soap to lather up, followed by a vigorous brushing with the palm scrubber sitting at the basin’s lip. When he was done, he put one of the towels on the tile floor, and stepped onto it, while using one of the towels to wipe himself off. The moving air, combined with the heat lamp, dried him very quickly. And there were even brushes and combs on shelves near the wash for washing hands. All as one might expect for civilization across the Waywork.

  Checking his zipsuit, Wyo decided to give it more time, and instead opted for one of the robes he’d found. It was all-natural fiber, and felt both delightfully smooth and crisply dry to the touch. Like the linens on the bed. There were also some sandals for his feet.

  Padding out of the lavatory, and then out of his assigned room, Wyo couldn’t help but wonder who had lived there before him.

  He found Garsina already seated on a stool at a bar along one side of the room. Lethiah had put out bowls filled with steaming, cubed potatoes, several kinds of hot vegetables, three or four different sauces, and a large roast from which healthy slices had been taken, and laid on three plates. Lethiah was already eating—her portion seeming dainty compared to Garsina’s, which was huge—and Wyo’s stomach again rumbled at him as he took his seat.

  “You grow, harvest, butcher, and cook all of this by yourself?” he asked the old woman.

  “Only way it can be done,” she said, chuckling.

  Wyo looked at his plate, and at the utensils and cloth napkin to either side.

  “If you’re worried about being poisoned, Lady Oswight seems to think it’s just fine.”

  “It’s not that,” Wyo said. “It’s just…this is all very strange, and very unexpected.”

  “To me as well,” Lethiah said between small bites. “When I convinced the machines in the Temple to build starlanes to the rest of your Waywork, I had no idea what I might be getting myself into.”

  “How did you even know we were there?” Wyo asked. “And if you did, why didn’t you let us know you were here? I mean, sooner than now?”

  Lethiah carefully set her fork and knife down, and laced her fingers together under her chin.

  “It’s like this. When we set down on this world, we didn’t even know your Waywork existed. All we knew was that this place was the first hospitable world we’d seen since we left Earth.”

  “You cannot be that old,” Wyo said. “Nobody lives that long.”

  “Nor should they,” Lethiah said, the tone in her voice—still using fluent Mariclesh—sounding regretful. “But I’ll get to that in a minute, son. My point now is, we had no idea who the Others were, nor that they had created the starlanes adjacent to this star system. All we saw was a world where we might be able to grow things. Start over again. It had been such a long time since we left Earth, and a lot of people had already died. By the time we set down here, I was one of the few originals left. I was surrounded by the grandchildren and great grandchildren of men and women who’d been my own age at departure.”

  “So if you survived this long, how come nobody else did?” Wyo demanded, putting his own utensils down, and glaring at the old woman.

  “Back on Earth—a long, long time ago—people became obsessed with longevity medicine. That was one of the things which started the fighting. Only the very wealthy had access to longevity treatments, and everybody else did not. Also, the treatments worked differently for each individual. Some people benefitted enormously. Others, almost not at all. Only a few of us seemed to get the maximum benefit.”

 
“Which was?” Garsina asked.

  “I’m still here, aren’t I?” Lethiah said. “I am the outermost outlier at the very edge of the bell curve. The freak. Like Methuselah. Do you even know who that is?”

  Wyo and Garsina shook their heads.

  “In very ancient Earth times, he was the man who lived longer than them all. The Great Flood got him, finally. And sometimes I think he must have been grateful for it too.”

  “He died?”

  “Killed by the wrath of God, but yes.”

  “Why would anyone be grateful for death?”

  Lethiah stared down at her plate—at the meager meal, still only half eaten.

  “It is possible to grow weary of life, son. You’re too young to understand. But when you’ve been alive as long as I have, you realize that life is a kind of prison. There is only so much you can see, and so much you can do. I’ve taught myself dozens of vocations and professions. Become adept at any number of crafts and hobbies. Including musical instruments. But eventually you get bored with it all. And you can forget. I always thought it would be like learning to ride a bicycle.”

  “What’s that?” Wyo asked.

  “Two wheels, with pedals, and you push them to make yourself go,” Lethiah said, mimicking her hands on handlebars. “What I mean to say is, once you learn to ride a bicycle, you never forget. But I’ve lived long enough to realize you can’t know everything, and make it stick. You have to pick and choose which things to keep up on, and which things to let go of.”

  “Everybody does that,” Wyo said, still not sure he believed what he was hearing.

  “But, boy,” Lethiah said, slapping her hand on the bar, “I’ve forgotten more in my time than you could ever hope to know in yours. And that’s depressing, you understand? Why go to the trouble to teach yourself something, when you’ll have to decide to eventually let it all fall away again later? Took me at least a couple centuries to figure that one out.”

  “But even if you’re as old as you say you are,” Wyo said, “where are the other humans who should be here? Where are their descendants?”

  “That’s the Temple again,” Lethiah said.

  “I don’t understand,” Garsina said. “Is the pyramid bad?”