by Inmon, Shawn
“Lanta-eh! That’s Lanta-eh!” Sanda-eh said, pointing excitedly at the material Emily was manipulating.
Somehow, the rectangular material had been smoothed and massaged into a statue that did indeed look exactly like Lanta-eh in her classic, cross-legged pose, looking upward, as if at the stars.
Emily smiled warmly at Sanda-eh. “Yes, that’s right. We knew from Lanta-eh that the people of Winten-ah do not place markers on their graves, no matter who it is that has died. We thought that she deserved more than that, so I am making her this.”
Sanda-eh’s eyes were wide as she reached out and tentatively touched the statue. “It’s soft!”
“It is now, but as soon as I coat it with a special material, it will harden and be unbreakable.” Emily reached down and picked up several balls of the material she had sloughed off. She rolled them together, then handed them to Sanda-eh. “Here. You can have this.”
Sanda-eh turned toward Alex, a begging, pleading expression on her face.
“Go ahead, that’s fine,” Alex said.
Sanda-eh beamed and instantly began rolling and changing the material.
“I hope you’re right about all this. Let’s say you are. What’s the solution? What can stop women from dying?”
Limda dug through his backpack and came out with a clear container. He twisted a lid, reached inside, and pulled out a small piece of vegetation. The leaves were a deep green, but were shot through with purple and white veins that formed into a crosshatch design.
“This.”
“What is this?”
“It is a new plant. We have its cousin on our world. We modified it just a bit so that it will cleanse the spores out of a woman’s system. Men can use it too, but there doesn’t seem to be any harmful side-effect of the spores on men.”
“How do we deliver them?” Alex asked, not noticing that for the first time he had included the visitors and himself as we.
“We’re already in the process of that. It’s too important to leave this to chance, so we are spreading these plants in a number of different ways. To honor Lanta-eh, we came here first. But, we have hundreds more teams just like us that are approaching people all over the entire world.”
“They might not get a warm welcome in a lot of places.” Alex envisioned five people that looked like this group walking up to the gates of Lasta-ah, for instance.
“We are aware of that, but there are no weapons on this planet that can hurt us. And, if people want to reject our aid, that is up to them. We believe in self-determination. But, we will not leave until we have given every village and group of people the chance to save themselves. It’s the least we can do. And,” Bista added with a sly smile, “do not think that just because the area you have seen is at this level of technological and societal development, that the whole planet is the same.”
Alex made a mental note to ask him about that, but first he said, “You are making the same mistake that Janus did.”
Bista and Limda’s smile froze a bit. “What do you mean?”
“It’s always the law of unintended consequences,” Alex said. “Janus saw a problem—an insect wiping out the bees. He created a solution—hybrid spiders. It worked, but many thousands of years later, those spiders nearly became the end of humanity.”
Bista closed his eyes and held them shut for a moment. “I see your point. What will this plant potentially do, what harm might it cause, tens of thousands of years in the future. But, aren’t there times that the problem at hand is extreme enough that you have to take that chance?”
“That’s always the explanation,” Alex answered. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It will allow humanity to survive. As a man with daughters, I can only thank you for that.”
Bista pointed at Sanda-eh, happily turning her new toy into a poor replica of a miniature Monda-ak. “You have another daughter?”
“On the other side of the door. She was four on the day I stepped through. She would be about fifteen now.”
“I had forgotten,” Bista said. He considered, glanced at Marta, then said, “We can send you back there, you know.”
Chapter Forty-One
A Door Home
Alex Hawk leaped from his chair. “What?” He knew his voice was too loud, but he couldn’t contain himself. “How?”
“I should have told you that to begin with, I suppose,” Bista said.
“Yes, you should have,” Alex said, stunned. He groped backwards for his chair and sat, his head swimming.
“Let me tell you a little more about the portals,” Bista said.
“Tell me a little more about getting me home, how about that?”
Sanda-eh moved closer to her father, laid her hand on his knee, and patted it turning her face inquisitively to his.
Alex took a deep breath, calmed himself, and said, “Fine.” He bit the word off, but he was becoming calmer. “Tell me about the doors.”
“Janus was a problem solver. Sometimes, he tried to solve problems before he had all the information he needed. The portals were an example. He knew there were a few key elements that were leading to the destruction of the earth. A few moments and decisions that, if changed, could buy the world more time. He financed research that ended in the creation of these portals. His intention was to send teams back to change those moments for the better.”
“He’d never read his Ray Bradbury then, had he?”
Bista ignored this. “The technology was flawed. He intended to create three portals in three key moments in time. Teams would go through, fix what needed to be fixed, then return. If that team failed, he would adjust the timing of the entry point and try again. There was a bug in the program—a major bug. Instead of creating three portals, it created hundreds. Instead of going to the precise times and places he had intended, they went to random locations at completely unpredictable times.”
“Like the basement of my house in 1977.”
“Among many, many other places. It was a complete disaster. He sent teams through that never came back. The best theory anyone could come up with was that many of the portals were placed in impassable locations, like inside a mountain, or at the bottom of the ocean. If it was truly random, more than two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is water, so you can do the math.”
“Why didn’t you just shut them off, or whatever you do to time portals?”
“Janus and his AI tried, but the entire program was broken. It wouldn’t respond. The likelihood is that there are hundreds, if not thousands of people that are living out of their own time. Not just here and now, but some portals were backward-facing, too. Someone might step from the year 3000 into 1250 AD.” He sighed. “As I said, a disaster.”
Alex waited patiently, but Bista seemed to be dwelling on the failures of the past.
Emily said, “There!” and stood back from the sculpture. Alex knew that the material she was working with was futuristic and high-tech, but he had watched her hands work it so skillfully. He knew what he was seeing was the result of the artist’s expertise, and not just a parlor trick.
She had captured every element of Lasta-ah. Even in the statue, he could see the self-possessed, calm personality that radiated contentedness.
It broke his heart a little more.
“That’s perfect,” Alex said.
Emily smiled and lifted the statue, which seemed to have no weight at all. She carried it inside the walls Alex had built and set it behind the grave. She looked at Alex. “Yes?”
Alex nodded, his throat thick.
Emily reached in her pocket and pulled out a small bottle. She uncapped it and poured a greenish liquid over the statue. Moments later, the green color faded and became the gray of granite.
“There. Now people will know who is here and who watches over this mountain.”
Emily, I think you would fit right in with the hippies of the seventies. You just need some flowers in your hair and to flash a peace sign.
Alex finally gave up and said, “You said yo
u could return me home.” There was unmistakably a conflicted longing in his voice.
“Yes, sorry. I know how important this is to you. The initial creation of the portals was a complete foul-up, but Janus III and Janus IV both continued to work out the bugs. We now work with Janus V, which is, if I can be immodest for a moment, the greatest mind ever created in this galaxy.”
Bista glanced at Alex, but by his stone-faced expression, he saw that Alex was unimpressed by this.
“Janus V has found and eliminated the problems with the system. We can now control the portals with a high degree of accuracy. Both in where we place them and where they lead to on the other end. We can deliver you right back to your basement.”
Hearing that possibility, Alex glanced down at himself, taking inventory.
Missing much of my left hand. Left arm and shoulder scarred. Dozens of scars from the stings of the wasta-ta and bites of the zisla-ta. Beard that goes to my navel and hair that reaches my butt. I can fix or hide some of those things, but others are going to be a little tougher to explain. Not to mention that I’ll have a dog the size of a compact car and a new daughter with me when I cross over.
Alex swallowed hard.
And none of that matters. I’ll finally be able to see Amy again and tell her what happened. That I didn’t desert her.
Alex realized he’d zoned out and hadn’t heard what Bista was saying.
“...that is the final thing Lanta-eh asked of us. To send you back if we could. We will honor that wish.”
“Thank you. I am grateful, I truly am. Getting back to see my daughter again will mean everything to me. I do have one question, though. Once the portals were found to be completely defective, why didn’t Janus just turn them off.”
“He tried. The whole program had gone rogue and the combined might of him and Janus II was not enough to bring it back under control.”
“Okay,” Alex said. “But when I returned to the door to go home, it was gone. How did that happen?”
“That was us,” Bista said. “As soon as we got within range, we used the new program to eliminate all the old doors. I’m sorry. We thought we were doing it so they wouldn’t cause any more problems. Once again, that law of unintended consequences.”
“That’s it then,” Alex said, putting his hands on his knees. “All of this—my entire life—comes down to being collateral damage from events that happened centuries after I would have died. I suppose there’s a lesson there for me, but I’m not smart enough to figure it out.”
Pandrick unfolded the stiff piece of paper, which Alex assumed was the equivalent of the ten thousandth generation iPad, and tapped a key. Just as it had appeared, the camp disappeared in an instant. Once again, it was just the five visitors, Alex, Sanda-eh, and Monda-ak.
Out of curiosity, Alex stepped inside the walls of crystal rocks. Careful to avoid the freshly turned soil, he reached out and touched the statue. It didn’t just look like granite. As far as Alex could tell, it was granite.
He nodded to himself and said, “Good. That will stand for a long time.”
Alex led the five visitors back to Winten-ah. As promised, Pandrick had a few dozen questions for Alex, who did his best to answer them. It was difficult for Pandrick to understand that Alex didn’t know more about some things and how much he did know about others.
When they reached the forest, the first guard in the trees, Alex raised his hand and said, “Gunta, Tranda-ak. Please signal ahead that we are coming back and bringing visitors. They will want to meet with Sekun-ak.”
Immediately, Tranda-ak sounded his horn and Alex could hear the signal reverberating down the line.
Bista trailed behind, taking hologram pictures with a device that was part camera, part hovercraft. Whenever Bista released it, it flew—seemingly without direction from him—and took three-hundred-and-sixty-degree panoramas from the air.
Sekun-ak stood in the clearing, holding the long spear he had once used as the head of the hunting expeditions. It was not threatening, just a casual reminder that he did not know whoever it was Alex was returning with. Behind Sekun-ak, the people of Winten-ah went about their normal business. That is, if their normal business brought them within earshot of what was going on in the field.
Alex approached Sekun-ak and quietly said, “These are visitors. They are descendants of those who took to the skies on the golden bird during The Leaving. They have a cure for the curse that is afflicting the women of Kragdon-ah.”
“At what cost?” Sekun-ak asked, equally quietly.
“None. There is nothing they want from us. We have nothing they value.”
“Then they are not that smart, Manta-ak. I already see that we have many things they do not.”
“Indeed, that is true, brother.” Alex signaled Bista to come forward and introduced him to Sekun-ak.
Introductions made, Alex signaled for Sanda-eh and Monda-ak to follow him as he retreated back to his cabin. Once he found the quiet and serenity of his sanctuary, Alex sat on the bed and tried to process what had happened that day. He could not manage it.
Chapter Forty-Two
The Door Redux
Three days later, the five visitors departed from Winten-ah. Alex had directed them toward Danta-ah and Rinta-ah. He asked Wenta-eh to accompany them on their journey. Like her brother, she was always anxious for a new adventure and gladly accepted the assignment.
Before they left, Bista and Alex decided where the new door would be. They placed it behind the waterfall that fell into the clean water pool next to Alex’s small cabin. It was positioned in such a way that no one—and just as importantly, nothing would accidentally stumble into it and be flung back in time.
Knowing it was there, and that he could leave at any time, Alex drug his feet somewhat. He returned once again to Prata-ah to say his proper goodbyes to the spirt of Lanta-eh. He visited the grave of his beloved Senta-eh. Her grave was unmarked, except in Alex’s mind.
Just as importantly, he spent several days talking to Sanda-eh. She was only four years old, with a yearning intellectual curiosity, so he was sure she would be able to adapt to the strange new world he was taking her to. Still, he wanted to do as much as he could to prepare her.
Alex made sure that he included Monda-ak in these conversations as well. He knew that a three-hundred-pound dog—Monda-ak had gained a few pounds as he matured—was going to have a tough adjustment period in the twenty-first century. He had never known a collar or a leash and it would have broken his heart if Alex had tried to use one. Still, Alex needed him to know that it was not acceptable to launch himself at people in Oregon in 2019, then look for permission to crunch their craniums. He had a series of conversations with the dog about this.
Alex considered taking the trip to Danta-ah himself, but in the end, he didn’t want to postpone his leaving that long.
As when he had prepared to leave five years earlier, there weren’t many souvenirs to take back to twenty-first century Oregon with him. The half-circle necklace that Tokin-ak had given him. The two-bladed axe that he had been gifted by Versa-eh. Dan Hadaller’s diary. He longed to have a photo to remember Senta-eh by, but that was impossible.
The morning he decided to leave, he sat down with Reggie. Tinka-eh and Sanda-eh played together in the grass just below them. Reggie and Alex dangled their legs over the lowest edge of the cliffside.
“Any thought about coming back with me?” Alex asked.
Reggie shook his head. “Seriously. I didn’t leave anything there that I feel a need to go back to. Here, people accept me for who I am. There, I was just another thug that people looked at suspiciously. Here, I am the greatest musician in the world.” He squinted a bit and smiled at Alex as he said that.
“I spoke to Sekun-ak. He gave me permission to give you my house.”
Reggie’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Hey, are you saying my house isn’t that great?” He pointed to the small version of Alex’s house that sat on the ground below.
�
�You know what they say about real estate. Location, location, location. My cabin will get you up off the ground, there’s more room for you and Tinka-eh, and it’s got indoor plumbing! Well, kind of. Indoor water, anyway.”
“Thank you, Alex. Seriously. That means a lot. Tink and I will put it to good use.”
“You know what I’m most worried about? I have no idea what I’ll be walking into. It’s been eleven years since I stepped through that door. That means that my house has been foreclosed on and someone else is living there. Since no one ever came through the door, I assume whoever bought it was smarter than me and bricked it back up.”
“What happens then?”
“What happens then is, I’ll be trapped in a very tight space with a little girl and a massive dog. I’m bringing my hammer, though. I don’t care how many walls someone put up, I can knock them down. I just don’t want to run into a scared homeowner seeing someone who looks like me bursting through a wall in their basement. They might shoot first and ask questions later.”
They sat silently for a few minutes, watching their girls run and play in the field below. In the far corner of the field, the small group of young female archers practiced their craft as Senta-eh had shown them.
“I’m not sure what they’re going to do without you,” Reggie said. “What will happen the next time the princess needs rescuing, or a battle needs to be fought?”
“The same thing that happened in the eons before I stepped through the door, I would imagine. Sekun-ak is a great chieftain. He will lead the Winten-ah just fine. Now that the curse is removed from the land, I expect there will be a baby boom over the next few years. There’s a lot of pent-up parenthood longing.”
Alex stood, stretched, and said, “I guess I’ve put it off as long as possible. I better find Sekun-ak and tell him goodbye. Will you two keep an eye on Sanda-eh for a few minutes?”
“Sure, of course,” Reggie said. Monda-ak did not reply.
Alex climbed the ladders and switchbacks and found Sekun-ak in the uppermost chamber, sitting alone. When Alex had first arrived, he recognized Sekun-ak as an obstacle. He had been hesitant to let Alex stay in Winten-ah. When Alex had wanted to become a hunter, Sekun-ak had designed the challenges to be as difficult as possible.
