by Greg Bear
Peter flew through the air like a comet, trailing splashes of brilliant life.
* * *
SOME TIME LATER, standing by the side of the road, confused, he hitched a ride in a battered, colorless pickup. The ashen old fossil behind the wheel smiled. Pity about your car. Porsche 356C, right?
Peter nodded, the wind still knocked out of him.
She's a beauty. And from behind, she looks like booty.
Children giggled, standing in the truck bed and peering in the rear window. Peter had lost his glasses and could not see his benefactor clearly.
Hope you brought some of that ol Smoky Joe, the old man said. Helps you see what you should know. Long tough trip. Hard on the butt. Smoky Joe, twist, blend, or cut.
Light played through the cab of the pickup, wisps and flares of silver. The old mans words and the light made Peter flinch. The children in back watched him curiously, with great sympathy.
CHAPTER 49
THE SKY AND the earth were gray shot through with tiny rainbows.
Peter stood before the gate to San Andreas, surprised to have made it this far. He did not watch the pickup pull away. It had been a nice gesture, the ride, but he could not remember liking that old gray man.
The guard would not look at him or take his name and said nothing, staring nervously at the broad parking lot. Talk around the world had been interrupted. Business was bad. Communication was difficult. Peter could understand. People passing through these gates could be grumpy.
Everyone on edge.
Almost like the bad old days.
Inside the prison, guards lingered everywhere. Perhaps there had been threats from unhappy customers or investors, and that was why there were so many guards, with so many different uniforms. Caps with bills, no caps. Nightsticks, cans of Mace, tasers, cattle prods, rifles, riot guns, shotguns. Gloves, no gloves. Tall boots. Steel-toed boots. Shiny black shoes. They were walking, sitting, standing silently. They watched Peter with eternal suspicion but did not try to stop him. Most were middle-aged and male. The average working life of a prison guard ended before he was fifty, Peter had read somewhere; stress.
The prison was back. But no prisoners; just guards. And him.
The floors were covered with bluish dust. Peter tried not to look down. When he did, the dust flinched and moved in sluggish waves. It turned the color of pus and blood.
He tried to remember the way. It wasnt easy. Nobody wanted to help.
CHAPTER 50
PETER FOUND ARPAD Kreisler on Death Row, wearing a worn-down expression, standing with big shoulders slumped before the gas chamber. His three-day growth of facial hair had advanced to a bristly week or two. He was the only man in the old prison complex who looked as if he wanted to be somewhere elsedesperately.
Business model shot to hell? Peter asked. Arpad did not respond, so Peter touched him. The effect was immediate: The large mans knees buckled and he swooped aside, jamming up against a broad, shuttered window. Arpad raised his brushy brows in alarm. His eyes focused to the right of Peter, and his breath went wheezy with terror. Are you a guard? he asked. Then, looking left, Who are you?
You're going to shut it all down, arent you? Peter asked. It took all his energy just to speak. After the wreck, he wasnt his old self. His batteries were running low.
Arpads forehead furrowed with intense concentration. Peter could not make himself heard. Arpad did not respond. Peter wanted to strangle the bastard.
Wheres Weinstein? he asked, and reached out to lightly slap Arpads head. Arpad swerved like a drunken prizefighter, but his lips moved. Weinstein, he said, Adams apple bobbing. He's gone. Guards took him. They took him here, yesterday. To the chamber. I havent seen him since. Who are you?
Peter had found the way to be heard. He touched Arpads throat.
Arpads lips moved involuntarily, and he said, Peter. Now he saw Peter and showed his teeth in an apish snarl. His eyes narrowed. Peter Russell . . . Is that you? My God, what happened? Are you . . . ?
Arpad didnt like the way he looked. Hard to accept, but there it was. Bruised and beat-up from the crash, no doubt. Hours or days in the hospital. But Peter could not remember any of that. And it did not matter.
Arpad tried to back away. Peter enjoyed this little game of cat and mouse.
You should get out of here, Arpad warned. Theres nothing but guards. The prisonersthey leave as soon as they die. The guards return. They are stuck here. Weird, yeah?
Peter made him speak some more. Arpads lips formed more words. Shut it down.
To this, Arpad nodded vehemently. Absolutely. As soon as I can get in . . . He pointed to the gas chamber. It's nasty. Stupid idea, right, putting the transponder in there? Sophomore bullshit. Nerd arrogance. You understand.
Peter was getting the hang of this. Being around Arpad made him feel a little less weary. He had always liked Arpad. And Arpad had seemed to take to Peter as well. The large engineer tracked him with some precision now, frowning so deeply his brows almost covered his eyes.
Peters perspective shifted with a sudden jerk.
The guards won't let me leave, Arpad said, speaking to where Peter had been. Most of our staff ran away a few days ago. It became unbearable. Now the old guards are everywhere, thousands of them. Can you talk to themconvince them?
Peter could imagineor perhaps he actually sawthe guards filling the ancient hallways of the huge old prison, milling like rats in a cagecapo rats. The prisoners gone, glad to be rid of Earth and it's walls, but the guards in for the duration, the long haul.
Their shift never ends.
Peter touched Arpads thick neck. No, Peter made him say. Shut it down.
Arpad rubbed his throat. I'llshut it down, I promise, he said, and leaned against a pillar. How about you? Can you get in? I wouldn't ask, but . . .
Peter looked through the thick glass into the chamber. What he saw did not encourage him. Weinstein was in there, strapped to the table. If he was still alive, he was not moving.
Something apparently made of mildewed gray velvet sat on Weinsteins chest, like the shadow of a desiccated monkey, a very poor bit of taxidermy. It bent over Weinsteins head and pried open his eyes with soft, flabby-looking fingers. The ancient monkey face turned on a wet, leathery ribbon of neck to peer through the glass directly at Peter, no ambiguity, no hesitation.
It had Weinsteins gimlet eyes. It had Weinsteins ingratiating smile. Something dark leaked from it's ears.
The transponder equipment, racks of high steel boxesthe heart of Transstood in one corner. Green and blue lights blinked in rows across the bottom.
I can't go in there, Arpad repeated.
Peter did not want to go in, either. He had no idea how much it would hurt, or what he had left that could be hurt. But Peter Russell had never been a coward.
He held his hand against the glass. Even now, it felt cold.
He touched Arpad, used him.
Open the door, Arpad said on his behalf. Then, with a roll of his eyes, Arpad lifted the bar and spun the wheel on the heavy steel hatch to the chamber. Peter was not certain he needed the hatch to get in, but he took that route anyway. Force of habit, dream logic.
The monkey held up a wizened hand that trailed fumes of stinking night. Peter could still smell, and that astonished him. Dreams were funny that way.
But I'm not dreaming.
Inside the cramped, awful chamber, the monkey with Weinsteins eyes gibbered and danced on his torso. Pus-colored vapor sprayed from it's ears, from it's nose and mouth.
The monkey on your back. On your chest.
Nightmare, mocker, suffocating the prisoners by night and twisting their thoughts by day . . . feeding off their rot, their prolonged misery.
The monkey spewed the prisons venom, vomited and shat it forth, then, perversely, began to grow like a boil, puffing out, infected, loathsome.
The big one. Eater of souls. The ghost of San Andreas itself.
Arpad stood in the steel doorway. He had picked up a bar
of rusted metal. Against whatever sense and judgment he had left, Peter moved in, drawing the beasts attention. It opened it's mouth. It had no teeth, no gums, no throat. Something black wriggled behind the shrunken lips.
It's not a phone, the monkey told them in Weinsteins voice, it's bony index finger thrust high. Please don't ever call it a cell phone.
Arpad swung the bar savagely against the boxes until the last of the lights stopped blinking.
The beast scuttled and skidded around the table. Peter stood aside from the spray of foulness.
Weinstein tried to sit up. He mewled. The monkey, alarmed, stretched out a huge gray paw and pinned him back again.
Arpad withdrew, his arms covered with trailing leeches of shadow. Seeing them, he began to shriek like a little boy.
Peter pushed through the glass, a neat trick. However much it expanded, though, the monkey was a specialistit could not leave the gas chamber. It was stuck there, along with Weinstein.
The monkey did not seem to mind. It lifted it's face and laughed, an awful sound that was no sound at all.
They do have their fun.
PETER WAS TIRED now. He looked up to the high-peaked roof above the chamber and saw a similarity to the atrium in Jesus Wept. He was there for a moment, back at the mansion, surrounded by vaporous walls, confused because he could see the sky. What had happened? Had there been a fire?
Lordy Trenton himself walked through the burned-out, empty ruins, with trademark high hat and flapping spats, forever the drunken, loose-limbed, incompetent fop. Beneath Lordys truculent eyebrows, someone had cut out his eyes. He felt his blind way with eloquent fingers, their tips worn down to nubs.
Ive been going through my scrapbooks, he informed Peter. Those were the days, werent they? When everyone, simply everyone, looked at you. Who can ever abandon such an audience?
Michelle crawled after Lordy on all fours like a wounded dog. She smiled at Peter. It does show better when it's sunny, don't you think?
But Peter could not stay.
HE WAS HOME. He knew the place well, though not his place in it. And though he felt some comfort at returning, there was also a sense of guilt. He could not think straight. He couldn't even see straight. Corners seemed devious. The light was uniform, unpredictable. Shadowsreal shadowsmoved everywhere without warning.
Obviously, after all he had been through, he had finally gone out and gotten smashedthat is, drunk out of his gourd, the mother of all sodden, sopping, liver-dissolving binges. He did have an excuse or two, didnt he? Most certainly did. Time had compressed and slipped away, just as it had during the months he had spent like a lab specimen in a glass jar, soaked in alcohol.
That explained why his head wasnt working right.
The DTs.
He looked down at the chess set, then sat on the couch. Thought about making a cup of tea, a feeble attempt to sober up and die right. Fly right.
A young woman came into the house. Peter watched her with interest, then with some alarm. Who was she, what was she doing here? She stood in the living room, then moved into the kitchen. A man in a beige suit followed.
They were talking about insurance, a will.
It had been a year, two years, he guessed. Could one stay drunk that long? He recognized the young woman. Lindsey was growing rapidly. She was getting to be a real beauty, even more lovely than her mother. No need to bother them. He wouldn't be much help anyway. Like Phil, Peter had never made out a will.
But they did not see him. That was good. Peter understood and approved. Things were getting back to normal.
He looked down at the Enzenbacher chess set on the coffee table. A silver knight, a private detective in his trench coat, lifted slowly over a silver ghost pawn and landed to menace Peters overextended bishop. The game had progressed quite a ways.
In response, Peter moved the mad scientist back three squares. He felt someone watching him.
PHIL SQUATTED ACROSS the table, pale and ragged, but recognizably Phil. Still carrying the sunset glow that could light up a room, when it wanted to.
Good to see you, Peter said.
Phil nodded cordially.
Where have you been? Peter asked.
Around. Waiting. You're a busy man.
Phil extended his hand over the chessboard. Peter could not see his friends fingers, but somehow Phil managed to move the silver Dejah Thoris queen into a position of considerable menace. Peter had been outclassed again; checkmate. He was glad to lose, glad it was Phil who had won. Phil had had a tough life, hard luck with women. He had always deserved more.
They clasped hands as best they could, without flesh or touch, hints of thumbs extended in their old victory gesture, from the days when the world had been fresh and full of adventure.
His old friend was here to do more than just finish the game. Were finished here. We have to give it up, Peter. Time for the Old Farts Cross-country Hot Dog Escapade and Tour.
Peter tried to deny that. I want to help Lindsey.
You already have. It's hard keeping hold of memories now. Believe me, it's time. Dust to dust. Let go of the important stuff.
PETER LOOKS DOWN, looks very deep, and sees the sunset in his abdomen.
This?
Phil nods.
To his surprise, Peter is ready. He has resisted for so long, he remembers that now; first, fighting to be born and to stay alive, to fit in and be social, to do the art thing, to marry and raise children, to protect them all . . .
All the women he has loved, sumptuous flesh and bright doorway eyes, all the men he has worked with and talked with and shaken hands with and gotten drunk with, the films and thousands of cartoons, the ungrateful books he has slaved over, his daughters, born all at once, in a scary rush, beautiful, wrinkled, and pink, changing him forever, the puzzling and painful love he has felt for Helen and Sascha and others, he wonders what they are doing, whom they are loving, and he feels lonely and left out, despairing, but most of all, he sees clearly, too late, his love for Helen, who gave him children and suffered.
For some time now he has resisted giving up all this. And still he resists. Responsibilities and relations, passions and jealousies, the stuff of the living. And only of the living.
Theres more to do, so much left unfinished.
Phil will have none of it. Youve crossed the river, Peter. No sense hauling the boat with you. It will just weigh you down.
So many ties, so many things to protect. The pain comes back to him now, and thats the final goadthe pain of awareness that he is diminished. There is so much he cannot recall. Already he is half-lost and ragged at the edges.
It's over. No going home. No going back.
Finally, following Phils example, Peter searches for that dreaming release, the unhooking, the ungluing.
We all die with the knack, Phil tells him. Like an egg tooth on a chick. Can you feel it?
He can. There are lights across the harbor. A sensation of moving to another land.
Peter relaxes. He drops the luggage, lets go of the boat.
The room fills with light, bright and beautiful, but nobody is there to see it, not this time.
As it should be. Some things are best kept private.
THE LAST OF their memories, like shed skins, play at chess a while longer, a leisurely game without much energy. Because they have no centers, this will take a while. It is becoming impossible to remember what happened a moment before. Moments themselves grow to impossible lengths. The grayness has come down on them with a vengeance, the penultimate desuetude, after which there is nothing, a mercy.
Even now, though, what little is left of Peter will watch and try to protect. What is left of Phil will stick with him. Together, they still have something.
The monster pawns are waiting on one side of the board, the ghost pawns on the other.
Ive got your back.
And I have yours.
They will not go without a fight.
A GHOST IS a role without an actor.
Ghosts are like moviesthe story goes on, but nobodys home. Like dead skin, under normal circumstances, a ghost lingers just long enough to protect the vulnerable flesh of the living.
Not all that rarely, people are born with nothing inside, or lose what little they haveliving ghosts. And when they die, sometimes even before they die, a hole opens up and a bit of the dark world creeps in.
We were all there in that city that draws it's paycheck from the manufacture of ghosts. We were there when one man started handing out free talk. And we are there now, sad little dolls made of dust.
Your friends, if only you knew. If only you were smart enough to care. Maybe now you'll listen, though you never have before.
You'll join us soon enough.
You're next.
