Crescent

by Phil Rossi

  “I believe that anything is possible,” Ina said. Naheela nodded approvingly.

  “Between the folds, where worlds come close together, the boundary is like glass. In some places you can see through to the other side; in some places, you can only see through one way, and in most places, you can’t see nothin’ at all. Ages of friction have made some spots weak. And in the weak places there is always this.” Naheela held up the smooth sanguinite carving.

  “What happens at the weak spots?” Ina asked.

  “The life on the other side can touch us. These things can influence us in small ways.” Naheela nodded.

  “Life?” Ina asked.

  “Not like you know it, but yes, for lack of a better word. Life.”

  “Can this weak glass break?” Ina asked.

  “It’d be bad for the likes of you and I if that ever happened. Damn bad for sure.”

  “This life, from the other side. Can it ever come through without the glass breaking?”

  “There are ways,” Naheela said and clicked her long, curled fingernails on the tabletop. “Foolish ways.”

  “How?”

  Naheela glanced around with a frown. She raised her gaunt shoulders in a shrug and stared at Ina’s stomach for an instant. Then Naheela folded her hands over the sanguinite—when she opened them again, it was gone.

  “More stew now?” Naheela asked.

  “How can they come through?” Ina didn’t want the stew anymore. Not now that her head was clear. She leaned forward in her chair. It creaked beneath her. “Please.”

  “You are a stubborn girl,” Naheela said and sighed through her nose. She left the table and came back with a handheld video recorder. The thing looked as if it had been thrown down a flight of stairs, submerged in water, and then buried for a century. Naheela cleaned off the small LCD with the hem of her ratty sweater and then handed the device over to Ina.

  Footage played in the small window. Ina held it close to her face. Right away she knew she was looking at the geological storehouse down on Anrar III. The footage appeared to be slowed down—people hardly moved. Ina was unable to take her eyes of the pregnant woman’s swollen belly.

  “The vessel was too mature,” Naheela commented as Ina watched.

  On the screen, a fissure opened in the woman’s flesh and red and violet light poured out of her in twisting streams. Next, came a living shadow—a serpent of pure night.

  “The Other became Three,” Naheela went on. “And those very Three are now here on Crescent. Back then in that damned colony, essence already filled the intended vessel. It had a soul. The Other couldn’t rest there and became stuck, halfway here and halfway there. A painful state of being. It killed all of those poor people who tried to help it. That was a long time ago. Crescent was just a babe, and was left unfinished. The science crew on Crescent trapped the Black in the part of the station you know as the Vault, and there it slept.” Naheela thrust a finger in Ina’s direction. “Until you woke it again. You and the other girl.” Naheela shook her head. “And you now you and your belly have given it its best chance.” Ina covered her stomach protectively. The fetus growing in her womb; it was the new vessel.

  “No,” Ina said. “This is too much.”

  “Your baby has yet to quicken, dearest. And the Other knows it. It’s a cup waitin’ for drink,” Naheela said.

  “My child has a soul,” Ina spat and got to her feet. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. “What can I do? The Three are killing my father.”

  “He’s old,” Naheela nodded, as if that were all that was important about the situation.

  “Please.”

  “The Red and the Violet. You were responsible for bringing them back here. There is only one way, now.”

  “What is it?” Ina asked.

  The hut shuddered around them. Ina gripped the sides of her chair, but Naheela did not seem to notice or care that the walls trembled. Objects clattered to the floor, and then things grew still. Naheela clicked her long, yellowed nails on the tabletop.

  “Sit, and I will show you,” Naheela said.

  Ina did as she was told, and no sooner than she was seated, Naheela was across the table. The crone’s dry, calloused hands wrapped around Ina’s throat and began to squeeze. For an instant, this seemed right to Ina. This was the way. But then, she thought of the tiny life within her and she wanted to breathe. She batted at the hands that choked her. Naheela was breathing hard through her nose. Ina could hear each respiration through the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears, along with the dull, metallic sound of her shoes kicking the table’s metal base. Ina beat at Naheela’s arms and face as spots began to fill her field of view. Suddenly, the grip eased and Naheela was off her. Ina fell out of the chair and onto her hands and knees. She coughed and gasped for air. Streamers of snot trailed down from her nose.

  “You’re crazy,” Ina said, once the breath had returned to her.

  “Things have gone too far. Death is the only way out that I can see. If you don’t want to die, then I can’t help you,” Naheela said. “Let the colors do their work, and your father may be set free. But there’ll be unity and the Black will be whole. What is worse? The death of your dad, or hell leaking into our side of existence? You should launch your father into the void and do the same with yourself. Now git gone.”

  “Wait. I have more questions,” Ina protested.

  “I don’t give a mother-fuck about your questions, girlie. Get out of my home while you’re still young and pretty.” Naheela thrust an arthritic finger toward the door. “Go!”

  Ina got to her feet, standing so quickly that she knocked her chair over in the process. She bent to pick it up and Naheela screeched at her.

  “Leave it be, girl. Outta my sight!”

  Hot tears streamed down Ina’s face. She wrapped her arms around herself and darted out of the hut. She was crying hard as she stumbled back out onto Main Street but no one seemed to pay her any notice. The reality of things was far bigger than she had realized. Scientific rationale no longer applied. She had to find Marisa and tell her—tell her that she had been so wrong.

  But the Red began clawing its way to the surface. It swelled forth from the back of Ina’s mind and filled her insides with molten heat. She swooned and placed her hand on a lightpost to keep from falling over. Her heart pounded in her chest and she felt a warm moisture blossom between her legs. Her mind—her very will—was being peeled away, tugged back by the insistent fingers of a consuming red tide. She careened down Main Street. The world was full of colors, lights, and faces, all spinning around her. She tripped over her own feet and was falling. A set of strong arms caught her and gently lowered her to the ground. A sea of black boots and black pants closed in around her.

  (Part XX)

  A single whisper—that’s what started it all. The first voice had been so quiet that Gerald wasn’t really sure he’d heard anything. Then the solitary voice was joined by others and the whispering rose in volume. Soon, the holding area sang with full-throated and nonsensical babble. Gerald climbed off the cot and went to the bars. He wrapped his fingers around the cool, metal shafts and peered into the shadows in the cell across from his own. Bob Parks sat on his own cot, his back to Gerald. He swayed back and forth, his voice joined with the others in gibberish. Bob raised his hands above his head and then lowered them. He continued making the jerky movement while his head rose and fell in sync with his pudgy limbs. The man looked like a marionette.

  “Hey, Bob?” Gerald said. Bob did not answer. Of course he’s not answering, he’s busy going completely fucking crazy over there. “Hey, um, Bob? Are you all right?”

  The prisoners continued to ramble away around him. Their clipped consonants, syllables, and elongated vowels were nearly in unison, with a sing-song meter that was mesmerizing. Gerald wondered if it was babble at all. Maybe they were saying something. He just didn’t understand a single word of it. The song spread across all the cells in the block. The sound of it m
ade every hair on Gerald’s body stand on end. He half expected—and all-feared—that the strange sing-along nonsense would start flowing out of his own dry mouth. But, thus far, no such bad luck.

  “Hello!?” he shouted. “Guard? Guard?!” Gerald didn’t think the guard could do anything for him, but he was getting to be genuinely afraid. He suppressed a shudder. “Fucking guard!?” he shouted again—this time, his voice cracked. I sound crazy in my own way, Gerald thought. Great. But the door to the cell block chimed as it unlocked. Footsteps sounded down the corridor, first quick and then slowing to an uneven click clack. Gerald was about to call out again when the footfalls picked up once more. “Over here!” The guard stood in front of his cell a few seconds later.

  “What the hell is all this?” The guard scratched a freshly shaven scalp.

  “I have no idea,” Gerald said. “I just wanted to make sure that every single person on this station hadn’t lost their mind.”

  “Why would you say a thing like that?” The guard looked up and down the corridor with wide, feverish eyes. Beads of sweat stood out on his flushed skin. “I decided to give myself a haircut.” He rubbed his shaven head. “I think I’ll do my eyebrows next.”

  The sound of glass shattering made the guard go silent. Bob Parks had put his fist through the washbasin mirror. He removed a hand now bloodied and dripping. Bob bent over and picked up a jagged piece of glass from the floor.

  “He’s going to hurt himself,” Gerald said. His voice quavered with urgency. “Stop him!”

  The guard stood frozen from the neck down. Only his head moved, twisting back and forth, birdlike, between Gerald and Bob. Gerald and the guard watched Bob lie down on his cot and rake the sharp bit of glass across his jugular. Dark liquid erupted from the wound.

  “Jesus god!” the guard gasped, and bolted for the exit.

  “Hey, you son of a bitch!” Gerald shouted after him. “Don’t you fucking leave me in here!”

  One by one, the voices dropped out of the choir until Gerald was once again surrounded by complete silence.

  Silence, and fresh death.

  (•••)

  “Have I wronged god himself?” Captain Benedict asked as he looked up from a scatter of papers on his desk. He gaped at the mess as if he didn’t know where it had come from or what in the hell he was going to do with it. He laid a finger on one page. “That—that’s from Kendall’s office. It says that now that Main Street is opened, security needs to be tripled over the next twenty-four hours.” He laid a finger on a document that poked out from underneath the first. “This one is from that damn vatter’s concert promoter. Mr. Haddyrein will be arriving with his tour in thirty-six hours. Oh, and this, last night… ” he hoisted a thin piece of paper. “This is the notice from Nigel Swaren saying that every report, every communiqué, every goddamn thing is to be printed out from this point forward. So I’ll ask you again—” Marisa stood forward, ready to answer. “No. Not you, Griffin.” Benedict’s tired eyes looked ceiling-ward. “You. I ask you, what have I done to thee?” He barked a laugh that sounded more weary than amused. “Paper,” Captain Benedict grumbled. “When have I ever used paper?”

  “I’m sorry, Captain,” Marisa said and placed a hand on his shoulder. He patted it, then heaved a sigh and slumped in further into his chair.

  “This too shall pass,” he said in a most unconvincing tone, but she forced herself to nod her head in agreement. The captain glanced around the room. “At least there have been no power fluctuations in the past twenty-four hours, and the environmental grid seems to be cooperating on all decks. According to Vegan, whatever was wrong is no longer wrong.”

  “Does that mean he fixed it?” Marisa asked.

  “I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know. We’re stretched too thin, Marisa, with the added security on Main Street, the arrival of this colony ship, and this goddamned concert. I’ve got a lot of sick officers—some bed-ridden, and some that have not showed up to work in days with no word. It’s like my men are vanishing, here. If another riot happens—say, at the concert—there’d be no stopping it.”

  “Well, who ever heard of a riot happening at a rock concert?” Marisa said, and flashed her teeth in a bright grin.

  There was a moment of silence, and then both she and the captain were laughing. It felt good to laugh, but it was short lived. A young officer burst into the office. Beads of sweat glistened across his clean-shaven scalp.

  “What is it, Jenkins?” Benedict sounded both irritated and disinterested.

  “Holding cells. The rioters. You should… they… ” He bent over and vomited all over his boots. The thick, pungent odor made Marisa want to toss her own cookies.

  Benedict was on his feet immediately and heading toward the holding cells. Marisa followed close behind.

  Silence greeted them when they entered the cell block. It’s too quiet, Marisa thought. Oh, Gerald. Her stomach did a somersault.

  “Hello?” She heard the salvage pilot’s voice clear as day, and thought she would melt through the floor with relief. “Please, are any of you still… .okay?”

  “Gerald… Mr. Evans. Please remain calm,” Marisa said. Benedict shot her a sidelong glance as they moved down the narrow corridor with slow steps. The rioters lay on their cots, not moving.

  “They all slit their throats. At least, I’m assuming they all did.” Gerald said from down the hall. “The glass from the mirrors. They broke the mirrors above the sink. They used the glass and cut their own throats. Just like that. Man, what the fuck?”

  “Mr. Evans,” Captain Benedict said, “please relax. We’re checking it out.”

  But Marisa didn’t need to do all that much checking out to know that it was true. Shards of glass lay on the floor of each the cells. Light reflected dully off the bits of mirror and the spreading pools of blood beneath each prisoner’s cot. Things were getting worse, fast. With each death on the station, she knew the Beast in the Vault grew stronger. She looked to the captain.

  Captain Benedict rubbed his temple, then activated his cochlear. He frowned and spoke softly, requesting a coroner and a meat wagon.

  “Yes. That’s right. At security HQ.” Benedict paused and listened. “No, we’re fine. Some of the rioters from last night are dead.” Another pause. “No, suicide. Cut their throats. Just hurry it up,” he paused and listened. “The rioters at the penitentiary, too?” He turned to Gerald. “Mr. Evans. Are you feeling any… unnatural urges?”

  “I thought I wanted to take a shit a little while ago,” Gerald called, “and considering the lack of privacy and good reading material, I thought that was pretty unnatural. Now I just want to get out of here. Can you at least let me out until these goddamned bodies are gone?”

  “I’m afraid not, Mr. Evans,” Benedict responded.

  “Captain. What’s the harm? It’s not like Gerald Evans is a hardened criminal. As far as we know, he hasn’t hurt a fly.”

  “As far as we know,” Benedict said. “Well put. He stays in the cell. We go back to the office and wait for the meat wagon. Clearly, this was some sort of post-traumatic stress incident. We’ll start filling out the reports that Swaren will most certainly be asking for. That little bastard is becoming quite the pain in the ass, isn’t he.” Benedict made it a statement, not a question.

  Marisa nodded. She wanted desperately to go to Gerald’s cell and look at his face. To see him for a second, that’s all she needed. Instead, she followed the already-exiting Captain Benedict. Don’t you go and do anything stupid, she thought with all her will. Please hear this, Gerald. Please hear this, you son of a bitch.

  (•••)

  “What do you mean, she won’t see me? She doesn’t make those decisions—she’s a whore!” Kendall all but screamed.

  Albin shrugged and focused on rolling a cigarette, his long fingers working with delicacy. He licked the seam of the smoke and inspected it. It was a fine rolling job, if he did say so himself.

  “I’m just repeating w
hat the girl at the brothel said.” Albin perched the smoke between his lips and lit it. Kendall had the curtains open behind his desk. Anrar III’s gray, cloud draped surface rolled by beneath them.

  “And why didn’t you kick in the fucking door, good Albin?” Kendall asked. “Isn’t that just your style?”

  Albin took a drag. He hadn’t even considered kicking in the door. The errand wasn’t one that struck him as pressing. He was no pimp. That was not why Kendall had hired him.

  “I didn’t think it was that important, Ezra.”

  “Listen, you redneck piece of shit,” Kendall stood from the big desk chair and leaned so far over the glowing glass surface that Albin wasn’t sure how the mayor was keeping his balance. He looked like a character out of one of Jacob’s goddamn cartoons. “I decide what is important and what is not important. Don’t get any delusions of grandeur. You’re not much smarter than your little friend, Raney.”

  “Maybe so. But I still have a cock.”

  To this, Kendall had no response. Albin led into the next topic of import.

  “The Odessa, a colony ship, is coming to Crescent for emergency maintenance. Vegan tells me it’ll be here in less than twenty-four hours. What do you want me to do about that?”

  “Two things. One—I don’t want anyone from that ship leaving the hangar. They land, receive repairs, and then are off this station,” Kendall said. A smile spread across the mayor’s tired features. “Two—Make sure Nigel Swaren leaves on that ship, one way or another.”

  “Likely,” Albin said, “it will come to another.”

  “Drug him, Albin—do not kill him, do you understand?—but make sure that he doesn’t wake up until he’s many jumps away. Use that… what do they call it?” Kendall paused for several seconds. Albin could see him thinking it out. “You know what I’m talking about. The retard powder.”