Specimen Days

by Michael Cunningham

  Simon followed Gaya’s directions. They drove out of the densely settled area, past ever-diminishing outcroppings of empty houses, which gave way to a dun-colored emptiness that had once been farmland. Presently they saw the twin spruces ahead, as Gaya had described them. In front of the trees, a band of children and a horse stood in the road, unsteady in the heat shimmer that rose off the concrete.

  Luke had by then fallen ill again. He was half asleep, his tureen-shaped head slumped in the place where his chest would have been. He roused sufficiently to see the children and horse in the road.

  “You should probably just run them over,” he murmured.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be a Christian?” Simon asked.

  “I am a Christian. But I’m not a fool.” He fell back into his feverish doze.

  As they drew closer, Simon could see that there were five children: two girls on the back of a shaggy brown horse, with a girl and two boys standing alongside.

  Of the two girls on horseback, one was human and one Nadian. Of the other three, two were Nadian and one human. The oldest, a girl, human, was probably twelve or thirteen. The youngest, a Nadian, could not have been more than four.

  Simon stopped the Winnebago. The children stood in modest expectation, as if waiting for a train. Simon leaned out of the window and called hello to them.

  The Nadian girl on horseback wore a pair of dingy cardboard wings held to her narrow back by two dirty elastic straps. The human girl behind her sat with her scrawny white legs akimbo and her thin arms clasped around the Nadian girl’s waist.

  The winged Nadian girl said, “You’re late.”

  They were all more or less naked. One of the Nadian boys had somehow attached two plastic roses to his little-boy chest and wore a skirt made of grass. The human girl standing alongside the horse carried a spear that appeared to involve a knife blade affixed to the end of a pool cue.

  The girl with the spear said, “You almost missed it.”

  The horse stood stoically, shaking its enormous head. Its eyes were bright black, liquid circles.

  “We’re looking for Emory Lowell,” Simon said.

  “We know that,” the Nadian on horseback answered.

  “Why else would you have come?” the human girl said.

  Luke roused enough to say, “This seems very peculiar to me.”

  Simon said, “Can you take us to him?”

  “Of course we can,” the Nadian girl answered.

  “You’ll have to leave your vehicle,” said the human.

  “I don’t know if we should leave the vehicle,” Luke said.

  “Be quiet,” Simon told him.

  Simon, Catareen, and Luke got out of the Winnebago and advanced to meet the party of children. The horse snorted, nodding its head as if in agreement with its own waking dream.

  “What exactly are we late for?” Simon asked.

  “Don’t be silly. Come on.”

  The children led them down the road for a distance, then cut across a field. Simon carried Luke, who awoke periodically and whispered, “I’m really not so sure about this.”

  They passed through a stand of trees and came upon a cluster of buildings at the base of a low, grassy hill. It had been a farm. There was a barn and an austere white clapboard house and a gathering of small white domes that appeared to be dwellings. Beyond them all, a range of lavender mountains cut into the pallid sky.

  A spaceship stood between the house and the barn. It was an early one, a silver ellipse just more than fifty yards across, balanced on the three spidery legs that had proved unreliable and been superseded by a hydraulic central shaft. It was at least thirty years old. It gleamed dully in the sun.

  “Where did that come from?” Simon asked.

  “It’s always been here,” one of the boys told him. “It’s almost ready.”

  It’s ready for the junkyard, Simon thought.

  “We’re going to take you straight to Emory,” the winged Nadian girl announced.

  She led them to the barn, a matronly, cigar-colored hulk of a building with brilliant white light leaking out through its prim little windows. The girls dismounted and slid the big wooden door open.

  The barn was full of navigational equipment, all of it decades old. Lights blinked on consoles. An old vid showed the spacecraft, with a band of readouts crawling along its lower edge. Workers sat at the consoles. Some were human and some Nadian. Several wore white lab coats; others wore overalls or polyester slack suits. A small Nadian woman sat hunched over a keyboard in a kimono covered in lurid green chrysanthemums.

  A black man looked up at them when they entered. The others remained absorbed in their work. The man approached. He must have been seventy. A cascade of smoke-colored beard spilled over his chest. He wore a battered, broad-brimmed hat pulled down to his shaggy gray brows.

  “Hello,” he said. “What have we here?”

  The winged girl answered, “Pilgrims we found on the road.”

  The man said, “We don’t get many travelers. We’re a little off the beaten path.”

  “Got that,” Simon answered.

  “My name is Emory Lowell.”

  Simon’s circuits buzzed. The feeling was similar to what had occurred in him when he saw Catareen standing at the water’s edge. He said, “Thruster holding me tight and that I hold tight! We hurt each other as the bridegroom and the bride hurt each other.”

  Emory stared at Simon with avid, feral eyes.

  “Oh, my lord,” he said. “You’re one of mine, aren’t you?”

  “I guess I am,” Simon said.

  “Look at you. I was afraid they’d exterminated the whole lot. But here you are.”

  “Here I am,” Simon said.

  “Remarkable. You’re the only one, you know. I implanted a dozen of them. I suppose the others have all been deactivated.”

  “Marcus has.”

  “I’m not good with names.”

  “He was one of yours.”

  “And he’s no longer with us.”

  “He was my friend. Well, we traveled together. I needed him to maximize my own chances.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Emory said.

  “What’s going to happen on June 21?”

  “That’s when we take off for the new world.”

  “What new world?” said Luke.

  “I’m taking us to another planet.”

  “In that old wreck?” Luke scowled at the spacecraft.

  “It’s old. It’s not a wreck. It should do just fine.”

  “So you say.”

  “Why did you want us to come here on the twenty-first of June?” Simon asked.

  “I’d figured out the coordinates years ago. June 21 of this year is when the orbital alignments are optimal. I put a homing device in the final production run, before Biologe shut me down. I thought that if any of you found your way back in time, the least I could do was take you with me.”

  “You want me to go with you to another planet?”

  “You’re certainly welcome, yes. You and your friends.”

  “What kind of other planet?” Luke asked.

  “Oh, well, there’s a great deal to tell you, isn’t there? First, I want you to meet my wife.”

  He glanced back into the work area. He said, “Othea, would you come here for a moment, please?”

  He appeared to be addressing the Nadian woman, the one wearing the kimono. She did not turn from her console. “Busy,” she said.

  “Just for a moment. Please.”

  The Nadian rose reluctantly and approached. “Really,” she said. “Do you have any idea how little time is left?”

  “We have visitors,” Emory said.

  “At this late date?”

  “We’ve got room.”

  The Nadian came and stood beside Emory. She had an aspect of ferocious intention. Her little green head protruded from the neck of her kimono like a sober idea the kimono itself was having.

  “This is Othea,” Emory
said. “My wife.”

  Othea craned her neck forward and looked intently at Catareen. She said, “Cria dossa Catareen Callatura?”

  Catareen hesitated. She said, “Lup.”

  Emory said, “You two have met?”

  Othea said, “No, we’ve never met. Oof ushera do manto.”

  Catareen bowed her head. Was it a gesture of acknowledgment or shame? Othea stepped up to Catareen and put her right hand on Catareen’s forehead. Catareen returned the gesture.

  Othea said, “This is a great warrior. I’ve known of her for many years.”

  Catareen answered, “I do my work.”

  Luke said, “What kind of warrior?”

  The Nadian ignored him. She said to Catareen, “Oona napp e cria dossa?”

  “What?” Luke said.

  Othea said, “I asked her how far along she is.”

  Catareen answered, “Six week. Or seven.”

  “Are you pregnant?” Luke asked.

  “No.”

  “They don’t know?” Othea said.

  “Know what?” Luke asked.

  Catareen went blank and quiet then, which was of course not surprising.

  Othea said, “Well. You all look as if you could use a meal and some rest. Emory, please take care of our guests. I really can’t be spared here.”

  “Of course,” Emory said.

  Othea looked another moment at Catareen. She said, “It is an honor.”

  “Honor is mine,” Catareen answered.

  Emory and the children led Simon, Luke, and Catareen out of the barn and across the dirt yard to the farmhouse. The whole place appeared to be a midcentury reconstruction, all lacy porch rails and acute Grant Wood gables. The barn might have been true period, or it might have been an especially good faux. The house was cheap, its shutters and ornament simplified and slightly too large. It looked like a miniature house that had somehow been rendered life-size.

  Arrayed behind the house was a dome village, clusters of white inflatables and Insta-Dwells of various ages, none of them new or clean. At the far end a neglected garden drooped and crisped in the sun. It might have been the summer encampment of a particularly dissolute and discouraged band of Inuits.

  As they went, Emory put his hand familiarly on Simon’s elbow.

  Emory said, “I have so much to ask you.”

  Simon had hoped for answers, not questions. “I have a thing or two to ask you myself,” he said.

  Luke was walking with Catareen just ahead of Simon and Emory. “So what’s this great-warrior business about?” he said.

  Catareen did not respond.

  Emory took them into the farmhouse. He said, “There are beds upstairs. Perhaps we should take the boy up there and let him sleep a little.”

  “Absolutely not,” Luke said.

  “Luke—”

  “I’m hungry. I’m starving. We all are. Have you got anything to eat?”

  “Of course,” Emory said. He led them through the foyer into a kitchen. They passed what had been the living room and was now an office with two desks, one steel and one plastimorph. Pushed to one side were two ratty armchairs and a glass-fronted cabinet that held a collection of brightly colored odds and ends. Simon recognized them: a Chia Pet shaped like a lamb, PEZ dispensers, a pink plastic squeeze bottle of Mr. Bubble, a rubber statuette of Bullwinkle the Moose in a striped bathing suit from the 1800s.

  The kitchen was like a kitchen from fifty years ago. It had an atomic stove and a refrigeration module and a sink with a faucet and handles. It might have been a display in a historical museum.

  “Sit, please,” Emory said, indicating a battered wooden table surrounded by mismatched chairs. The table was covered with a cloth that depicted dancing blue teapots.

  Simon, Catareen, and Luke sat at the table. Emory set down three glasses and a pitcher of what appeared to be tea. He took eggs and bacon from the refrigerator.

  He said, “Today of course is the twentieth. We’re set to leave tomorrow.”

  As he spoke, he cracked eggs into a bowl. He put slices of bacon on a grill.

  Luke asked, “And this new planet is?”

  “We call it Paumanok. It will take thirty-eight years for us to get there. Some of us will no longer be alive when the ship lands.”

  “Hence the children.”

  “Yes. And they’re our children. We would naturally take them along.”

  Emory poured the eggs into a pan. He said, “I got the ship from the Jehovahs. They sold the whole fleet after things fell apart with HBO.”

  “And what exactly do you know about the planet in question?” Simon asked.

  “It’s the fourth planet from its sun. It’s about half the size of Earth. It is probably temperate and almost certainly has a breathable atmosphere. We can’t know whether or not there’s life there.”

  “And the worst-case scenario is?”

  “Well. It could be entirely barren. It could be too hot or too cold to sustain life. There is of course a very narrow range in that regard. Even a small variation would render it unlivable.”

  “If you get there and find it unlivable?”

  “There we’ll be. There’s no way of getting back.”

  “Got you.”

  “We’ve had visions,” Emory said.

  “Visions.”

  “Myself, Othea, and some of the others. We’ve been seeing a world of mountains and rivers. We see enormous fruit-bearing trees. We see brilliantly colored birds and small, intelligent animals that are like rabbits. I had the first such vision several years ago, and when I told Othea about it she confessed that she had had a similar one, months earlier, but hadn’t mentioned it.”

  “That’s very Nadian,” Simon said.

  “When I told the group about it two others, a child and an old man, stepped forward and said that they, too, had imagined this world in just this way. Since then the visions have come to many of us, at unpredictable times. They’re always the same, though they keep expanding. I was visited just last week by an image of a small fishing village on the shore of a vast sea, though I couldn’t see anything of its inhabitants. Twyla, the group’s second-oldest child, clearly saw a warm rain that swept through every afternoon and lasted for under an hour, after which it was brilliantly clear again.”

  Simon glanced at Luke and Catareen. Catareen (of course) was expressionless. Luke, however, returned a signifying look. Crazy. These people are crazy.

  “We understand that it’s a risk,” Emory continued. “It’s a risk we are all willing to take. We prefer it to remaining here. All of us do. You’re welcome to come with us, if you decide you’re willing to take the risk, too.”

  “We’ll have to think about it, won’t we?” Simon said.

  “You have about thirty-two hours to decide. Here, then. Your food is ready.”

  After they had eaten, Emory took them upstairs and guided them into bedrooms that were spare and white, each containing only a bedshelf and a wooden chair. Luke and Catareen settled in. Simon asked to speak privately to Emory.

  “Certainly,” Emory said. “I suppose you and I have a few things to discuss, don’t we?”

  They went outside and crossed the farmyard, where the children were engaged in some sort of noisy and contentious game that the horse watched with blank-eyed, somnolent attention, twitching its tail. Beyond the children, the spaceship stood like a titanic silver clam, delicately balanced on the slender legstalks that had proved insufficiently stable in three out of five landings.

  “Twyla loves that horse,” Emory said as they passed the children. “She keeps insisting we can take it with us.”

  “Paumanok,” Simon said.

  “Seemed like as good a name as any.”

  “Starting from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born…solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  They walked past the barn, into a field scattered with purple clover.

  “Why the poetry chip?” Simo
n asked.

  “Everybody loves poetry.”

  “Come on.”

  “All right. Well. I let myself get carried away when I designed you. You were supposed to be sturdy and reliable. Obedient. And harmless. And without emotional responses.”

  “Got that.”

  “The first few tries were seriously flawed.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Certain qualities stowed away in the cell lines. It surprised everyone. There were, as it turned out, some very difficult-to-detect dark spots on the genome, little indicators and determiners that produced, well…unexpected results. The first experimental simulos were suicidal. Despairing. We tried to override that with a survival chip. Then the second batch turned out to be these sort of wildly happy murderers. They were ecstatic all the time. They were so very very happy they got violent. As if their happiness couldn’t tolerate any lesser outlet. One of them tore a lab technician to pieces, laughing and babbling on about how much he loved the kid. Ate his liver. This was hushed up.”

  “Naturally.”

  “We were hubristic. We underestimated the complexity of the genome. We kept finding that if you tried to eliminate one quality, some other quality that seemed entirely unrelated would pop up at ten times its normal intensity. Frankly, if we’d adequately anticipated the difficulties, I suspect we’d never have made you at all. But once we’d started, we couldn’t stop. No, I couldn’t stop. Others had the good sense to just cancel the experiments and call the whole thing an interesting idea that didn’t work out.”

  “You think of me as an experiment,” Simon said.

  “I don’t mean to offend you.”

  “Go on.”

  “All right. In the third protocol, I gave you poetry.”

  “Why?”

  “To regulate you. To eliminate the extremes. I could put a cap on your aggressive capabilities, I could program you to be helpful and kind, but I wanted to give you some moral sense as well. To help you cope with events I couldn’t foresee. I thought that if you were programmed with the work of great poets, you’d be better able to appreciate the consequences of your actions.”

  “You programmed each of us with a particular poet.”

  “I did. I thought it might be less confusing for you that way. Somewhere out there, there’s a Shelley, a Keats, a Yeats. Or there was. I wonder what’s become of them.”