Terraplane

by Jack Womack

  "Tonight's source"-unlikely source-"arrives when?"

  "Eight, like I said. I'm sorry I couldn't tell her yet. I will-"

  "We will," I said. Leaving, I moved across the hall, reentering the unlocked apartment. Jake and Oktobriana couched together, a half meter between. She flipped pages of a gigantic book she had lapped before her, riffling them as if for breeze; watching her eyes flicker to and fro I realized that she was reading. Jake stared on as if waiting for an appropriate pause to introduce himself. Spotting me she suddenly lifted the hook and heaved it my way.

  "Catch, Luther!" she laughed; twohanded, I snared it before it cracked heretofore missed ribs. So red was her face that I thought she'd been drinking; her gestures came as semaphores.

  "Marvelous Time magazine world history book of Doe's. Read, Luther. So many remarkable differences."

  "Where's Wanda?" I asked.

  "In dreams," said Jake. "Drawn into slumber by morning's wear and fear." He'd doubleclasped his hands before him as if uncertain of their action, once loosed.

  "Is very fascinating," Oktobriana said, perspiration's beads bejeweling her forehead. "For long time all here seemed to follow same historical path as ours, only later. Nearly eighty years ago divergence begins."

  Shortly, I'd found desired entry one: LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. Sixteenth elected President of the United States, Kentucky-born, railthin, legal eagle of the prairie, orator deluxe, history's victim. En route to inaugural in March 1861, entering secession-crazed Baltimore, southern faetionalists ambushed, brutally shot down-

  "No obvious reason for sudden change. Factor conceivably could be setting off of first atomic bombs in our world. Unexpected side effect-"

  "Side effect," I said. A bomb in New Mexico there kills Lincoln here?"

  "Interconnectedness makes sense," she said, licking parched lips. "No other theory holds so likely. Like identical twins separated by distance. One hurts, other feels pain."

  Senseless, I thought, holding neither weight nor reason; no more senseless than our being here. As Oktobriana tossed off theories like firecrackers I ravaged the history held.

  11 -in hologrammatic theory that which exists contains within itself duplicative pattern which in rationality-"

  Checked the Presidents list for the late nineteenth century: Hamlin, Conkling, Tilden, Blaine, Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt.

  "-possibilities not limited to existence of two worlds only, of course-

  RoosEVE.Ll; FRANKLIN D. Thirtieth elected President of the United States. Patrician-born, polio-stricken, former Empire State governor, 1932 election winner over Depression-disgraced Herbert Hoover. Assassinated month prior to inauguration in Miami by anarchist Joseph Zangara. In popular legend believed to have had secret plan to heal economy, in fact held vague notions of institutional socialism, bolshevized U.S. Successor John N. Garner ignored plans, watched ba; ks fail, saw dust-blown, povertyshattered midwestern states attempt secession-

  "-resulting changes in any event provide miraculous historical mirror in which we see our face as it might have been."

  "Churchill was run over by a cab here in New York in 1931, I said, tossing the book couchward after glancing over his bio. "Roosevelt in '33. They had slavery in America until thirty years ago and still feel the results. Hitler and Stalin are prepped to fire for Europe's control. Some mirror. Some face."

  "Such monsters," said Oktobriana. "Tut gavno, tam gavno." As translated: Here shit, there shit.

  "Skuratov said you loved the Big Boy beyond reason," I said.

  She shook her head, her hairbangs wavering in wild corona. "Chort. Krasnaya disinformation of most ludicrous sort. My grandfather died in Stalin's gulag."

  "You've a framed portrait," I reminded, "of most ideal form-"

  "Sanya's," she said. "Kept because it reminds me of him."

  "The Big Boy was Alekhine's fancy?"

  Thinking of her vanished comrade settled her, though facial tics remained, rippling her cheeks without rhythm. "He was sheltered scientist," she said. "Held faint knowledge of political realities of past. Brain only holds so much, he said often. Had fool's delusion that Stalin would have given scientific work due proper respect and unguided assistance. I tried many times to send cleansing rain over his muddy head. Told him of Lysenko madness and such. He took my words as smears of past nonhistory. Thought use of Big Boy image in ad campaigns cheapened great leader but still served purpose in infusing previously banned presence throughout new generations. Said many times that our world would be better place if he were still alive. Such brilliance as Sanya had so often contains much stupidity." Her glistening eyes fastened upon Jake. "Strong men I like, sure. Their attraction overwhelms sometimes. But I have no love for monsters."

  "You allowed him his dreams?"

  "He was deaf to reason without hypothesis. And Sanya and I planned marriage after project completion," she said. "At project's beginning, at least, we planned. One loves beloved's flaws better than perfections, within limits."

  "You'd set a wedplan?" Jake asked, his face, mornentslong but no longer, showing other than stolid; seeming aglow with unwarranted because evident emotion.

  "Certainly. Standard state marriage with suitable music. Afterward long taxi ride to Lenin Hills for taking of pictures."

  "What music was programmed for backdrop during the ceremony?" I asked, rambleminded, thinking of the music at my own: Satie, Purcell, Elgar, Prokofiev, Moussorgski-

  " `Can't Buy Me Love,' " she said. "Everyone's favorite. But most dreams become ash as time burns away. By day he left I had accepted his departure in spirit long before. Not since last summer had we made violent love."

  Jake's face flushed thrombosis red. With unforeseen lunge Oktobriana leapt pantherlike atop him, mad for flesh's rub. Her foot grazed the table near, sending a pressed-glass cup laden with matches tumbling, spilling them across its top. "Great stone man here distracts me now,,, she laughed, winding round him; he didn't pull away. Inadvertently, she eyed the matchpile. "Six thousand eight hundred eighty-nine," she said. We looked. There weren't a hundred there.

  "Your mind's going," said Jake.

  "Count them," she whispered. We did, laying them out in fives until the last.

  "Eighty-three," he said.

  "Square of eighty-three is six thousand eight hundred eightynine," she said, thought clouding her face. "How odd to know square.

  "It's reasoned you should, I'd think-"

  "I have never memorized tables. Would be pointless waste of brain so long as calculator is near. This is so strange. The number appeared to flash in my head."

  Rising, retrieving an unopened box from the kitchen, breaking its seal, I slid it open, rained its contents before her.

  "Nine thousand two hundred sixteen," she said, at once. "Ninety-six matches." Bringing her hands upward she rubbed her eyes, looked again. "How peculiar. There is factor operating here that I do not understand. Perhaps because I am so tired. Sleep came but at moments last night," she said, lying down, placing her head in Jake's lap. "Suffering from unexpected jet lag or equivalent, possibly. Jake, rub neck please. Such lingering stiffness."

  With good hand he drew his slender fingers across her nape, probing and stroking, continuing slow massage for several silent minutes. Periodically her legs jerked as if in hypnogogic phase, before sleep's sweet coma envelops. Our own blips must flash on his screen, I thought. A safe extraction seemed impossible; her implant would be mote small and no unguided digging might haul it forth. At any instant the local team, guided by his word, might show, coming at his urging to mop us away. Through the windows I looked to see those black bugs flitting up; nothing. Not until tonight, I thought, considering. Takeout was strictly a nightgame, in my experience, and so seemed likely here.

  "Jake," I said, lowvoiced. As I watched her eyes speed backforth beneath her shut lids, her small fists knotted as if for battle, I realized why Doe's tongue had so stilled. "Come kitchenways with me. Something essential needs passing. " E
asing himself up, allowing her descent without overt disturbance, he extricated and followed as I led into the sunbright kitchen, sweat pooling at my beltline. He eyed me without blink; folded his arms before him as if certain of answer, no matter the question.

  "You've developed an intriguing relationship," I said to him, curious to gather what feelings he had, if any, before I related. "It eased capture-"

  "Capture sans escape," he said. "To little purpose, under circumstance. Keep minded there exists but a one-mind intrigue."

  "She's quite attracted, Jake-"

  "In untenabled way," he said, his suit yellowed by sun pouring through the drapes' filter, "for unlogicaled reason. Passing fancy, a bunch of forget-me-nots waiting to wither."

  "Perhaps. Perhaps deeper than admitted. Where's your stand, then? She's physically bountied. Intelligent beyond grasp. Articulate, multi-able. Mad as a cat for you. You say no?"

  He nodded. "Untenabled."

  "You've let the answer hang, Jake. Where's your stand?"

  His mouthcorners drew as if by pickle's touch. As he stood, shifting from foot to foot, he idly frisked himself for his missing toys.

  "Well?"

  "She tears my dreams apart," he said at last. "It's not me she sees, Luther. It's whatsisname on the backbound. The Big Boy. A deliveryman could have served as such an object-"

  "It's you."

  "Untenabled!" he repeated, his voice deepening as it rose; not since Thursday night had I seen such rising within his face.

  "Why?" I asked, nearly so loud. "What's foreseen?"

  "Hurt," he said, shifting again to barely heard mutterance. "The wrong kind."

  He spoke true; I had to tell how true. Leaving his words where he dropped them he moved as if to exit. I motioned him to return.

  "She's dying, Jake," I said. As I told of all I'd read, all that Doc added, he evidenced no shift in feature, gave no hint that what was heard disturbed. As mentioned, Jake was not devoid of comprehension; he quickly gathered all ramifications. Upon concluding I paused, baffled by what might be passing through his mind. "Response? Reaction?"

  With thumb and finger he stroked his chin, pressed upper teeth into his lower lip, looked wallways as he spoke. "As foreseen," he said.

  The front door's slam shot us ready and full; only as we looked, and saw Doc walking through, did we loose our tenses.

  "Least somebody here's awake," he said, quietly, so as not to wake. "Looked like it was siesta time around here."

  "We were dialoguing," said Jake, walking past into the front. "Excuse."

  "You tell her?" Doc whispered, nearing. Fly's whine settled in my ear; I swatted it away, grateful not to have snared it.

  "Told Jake," I said.

  "I hear you," Doc said, sighing.

  "I was offguarded," I said. "Once recovered I'll have no trouble. Mayhap we can figure something-"

  From beneath his arm he slipped me what I'd seen as a sci-fi mag the night past; what evidenced at prolonged view as Popular Mechanics. "Bill wrote the cover article. You can get an idea what I mean."

  THE WORLD OF 1960, the banner printed thereupon read, overlaying a garish rendition of unlikely cityscape limned in primaries, drawn with blockline sketch. The painting's centerpiece showed a cluster of concrete roads rolling between trimmed trees; no traffic evidenced upon the roads but one or two buglike vehicles. Around the skyscrapers' tops, flylike, buzzed copters and blimps.

  "Look through there. See how accurate his predictions are." I thumbed the pages, keen to know what the future would bring my father, or the man who might possibly be my father in this world. In 1960 he would ride atom-powered one-man helicopters to the office, where he worked twenty hours a week; his home's furniture could be washed with blasts from a water hose; the weather within the dome covering his city could be adjusted as desired. Daily applications of pesticides would preserve his food forever; to clean his suit he would only have to walk in the rain. Only the highest art was transmitted through television's unyielding stare. As ever, a combination of laughter and tears proved the only response.

  "Did a pretty good job, don't you think?" Doc asked.

  "Not at all."

  "He must have gotten some things right-"

  "Nothing. "

  "Well," said Doc. "Still, the changes must be unimaginable."

  "Your world is more similar to ours than guessed," I said. "We're more accomplished at what we do. That's all."

  "I'd think they'd have at least outlawed war by your time," he said. "Way they're always talking about it, though you couldn't hardly think so these days. Were you in a peacekeeping army?"

  "Hardly," I said, "and I knew fourteen separate police actions."

  "Doesn't ever'one live in better houses and apartments?" he asked. "Like those towers on the cover there-"

  "Such as these pictured?" I asked. "You know what comes from such projects?" He shook his head; I motioned towards Jake, sitting next to sleeping Oktobriana, in the front room.

  "But look at you," he said. "No one grows old-"

  "Most don't live long enough." Doc showed a pensive look, went to the refrigerator-icebox-and took out a bottle of milk, popping off its paper top.

  I don't know, Luther," he said, pouring a glassful. "You're probably just used to it all. See miracles ever' day, don't even realize it."

  Miracles, yes, all God's wonders. The poison ocean rising higher each year, the thin air ashine with the sun's cancerous rays, the earth sodden with the blood of the billions killed upon it. The sound of orphans at play in the littered, rotting streets, born alone to die alone. The love that lasts and lasts and then fades as you look on. There were too many miracles in my modern age. "In Wanda's paper was mention of previous Martian reports," I said. "Was a joke inferred?"

  "Oh," Doc laughed. "Last Halloween Orson Welles did this radio play about Martians invading the earth. Made it sound like a news broadcast. Scared the shit out of a lot of fools over in Jersey. That's probably what they was talking about."

  "Undoubted. "

  "I guess in your time you talk to Martians regularly," said Doc, delusion again clouding his brain. "What're they like?" he asked, eyes shining with the hope of the hopeless.

  "Mars is a lifelorn planet," I said. "Beautiful in physical form as photos evidence but free of sentient nature."

  "Sentient?" he repeated, sounding the phrase. "Nobody lives there?" I shook my head. He looked to have discovered that his Christmas presents were lifted along with the tree and all its jewels. I hadn't wished to grinch him so. "There life anywhere else?"

  "Only here," I said-and there, certainly, in our world, among our doppelgangers. "Therefore earthlife seems all the more-" Horrible? Doomed? Superfluous?

  "Precious," Doc reflected. "That's so."

  That, too. Oktobriana's slipped away as we watched.

  "INTERACT'ION'S FEASIBLED HERE?" I ASKED, DISCERNING through blue smoke none but pale faces gathered stage-near. Our people, dark but for Jake, loaded the rear, housed themselves barside, at intervals drifted through the smog to reappear up front, delivering drinks, rising from the white dough like raisins in batter.

  "Feasibled," Doc repeated. "Bastards always take the best seats. But money talks, man. 'F'ry getting into one of their joints sometime, see how far you get."

  Abyssinia contained as main room a coffin-shaped space with decapitatory ceiling; the illumination therein but grudgingly allowed sight. No coordinated decor systems showed: unframed posters covered walls, booth seats showed several years' slashes; not even the barstools matched. Two African masks of evident years and simple beauty hung above the bar, and I wondered from whose grandparents they had been inherited.

  "Still alive," Jake said, hushvoiced.

  "So the tracker reads-"

  "Not Skurry," he corrected. "Him." His eyes fastened upon one of the newer posters, one announcing a concert past: FROM SPIRI- 'T'UALS TO SWING/CARNEGIE HALL DEC 23 1938. In the midst of that night's performers, this night's: ROBER'T' JOHN
SON. "You went?" he asked Doc, who smiled.

  "Wouldn't have minded," he said. "But Carnegie Hall's whites only. They tried to get it fixed for that one thing and they couldn't even do that."

  Jake, not noticing Doe's tone, stared stageways, blanked as if already lost within music.

  "There's so many here," I said, looking over Caucasians' finehaired heads, slicked and dyed and balding. "I'd think they'd barely hear rumor of such through the static."

  "Depends on who's playing," said Doc. "They always pour in to pay their blues-dues when these boys come up from the Delta. Ever'day I was growing up I heard the blues. Played pretty, played rough. Almost hear the blues in the air down there." He laughed. "Depressin' shit, Luther. Give me Basie any day of the week."

  Jake's lack of attention to all but the empty stage concerned, though for the mo there could be no removing his stare from where it fixed. His anticipation seemed more powerful even than that of a child awaiting Christmas, when the child has already inferred that the gift most desired is certain to be delivered.

  "These people ride up here in their taxis, in their big fine cars, slum around up here all night long, drinking. Ever watch white people drink? I don't mean no offense, Jake-" Jake, unlistening, bore none. "They sip. They keep sipping till the whole bottle's gone. Then they upchuck all over the goddamn floor. Better that than when they start singing along, though."

  "They're lyric-familiar?"

  "Some of 'em. Man, you never heard anything so pitiful."

  "What brings them in?"

  "I can't tell how these people's minds work," he said, edging barways. "Ask Jake. Hey, Jess, down this way," he shouted to the bartender. Jess stepped down, drying a mug with three quick twists of rag, his hands twicesized over mine; his face was networked with scars whose web resembled a railroad yard. Between chipped teeth he flattened a green cigar's unlit stub.

  "A sidecar, Doc?" he asked, unracking a glass. "What your guests want?"

  "Give 'em beer. Any preference?" We preferred none; estimated it best to follow leads. "Trommer's White Label']] do." With metal tool Jess uncapped two long-necked brown bottles, poured one into a glass, then asked Jake: "Want yours in a teacup?" One of the inward-bent caps lay bartopped. Jake, looking up, retrieved it, poised it upon his thumbs, lay two fingers atop. With quick motion he thumbed the cap inside out, splitting its cork liner; flicked it barways.