“Golly, that’s good!”
Vera smiles at the sight of Skeets grinning like a mooncalf, rivulets of coconut water streaming down his chin and chest. When offered the heavy green-husked fruit, she shakes her head, saying she doesn’t care to drink.
Vera is puzzled, hearing that strange word again. Golly? Was this an English word? Before today, she had never heard such a word and already Skeets has used it three times.
Vera shades her eyes against the sun and studies the boy sitting crosslegged beside her in the sand. She decides he doesn’t look any younger, but still there’s something a trifle unsettling about the childish sound of this peculiar word. The knowledge that Skeets is voyaging backward into memory troubles her. A younger sister died of consumption during the Second World War. Vera shared her bedroom for the final months, aware constantly of the brightening eyes and pallid skin, the bloodless lips, all the cosmetic subtleties preceding death. She watches Skeets with the same caution, studying him for symptoms of change.
Impulsively, as if to deny her forebodings, she kisses his kneecap, gripping his thigh with her sharp fingernails.
“Why don’t we go inside?” she whispers. “I want you so bad I can taste it.”
“Golly,” Skeets says, nearly losing his hold on the coconut.
GIVE US YOUR ANSWER OBU ITUBI …
The Amco-pak is as silent as a war memorial. Inside, Itubi wrestles with the awareness that he has been a fool. Center Control has duped him. Their preposterous offer, only a fool would accept such a suggestion. Worse, Itubi comprehends with growing panic, only a fool would listen when the enemy speaks. Center Control was stalling for time, making outrageous promises to hold him while—
WHAT IS YOUR ANSWER??
Only this …
Itubi catapults the Tropique into a row of glass cylinders against the opposite wall. Bodies topple like fairground kewpies; a glass waterfall cascades onto the polished floor. Itubi races his Amco-pak out of the Suspended Animation Facility into the dome-covered arena while his name thunders stereophonically from a dozen loudspeakers:
BI OBU ITUBI OBU ITUBI OBU ITUBI OBU ITUBI OBU ITUBI OBU ITUBI OBU ITUBI OBU ITUBI OBU ITUBI OBU ITUB
He imagines an army of Amco-paks spiraling up the conveyor ramp and maneuvers onto the rotating platform, listening for the sounds of their subterranean advance. His auditory equipment picks up nothing but the precisioned humming of well-oiled machinery. There is still time.
Quickly and efficiently, Itubi puts all of the Amco-pak’s many arms to work: one pair machines a hollow casing from solid bar-stock aluminum; another pair mixes chemicals, phosphorous, magnesium, and an assortment of other incendiaries; a third manufactures the fuses and timing devices. In minutes, two bombs are assembled. Itubi synchronizes the fuses and attaches one to either side of the ramp entrance. He allows only enough time to retreat to the Suspended Animation Facility. There, surrounded by the forms of previous lifetimes, he listens to the explosive holocaust he has unleashed. The floor shudders beneath the Amco-pak’s treads. Outside in the arena, fragments of dome come crashing down, dislodged by the concussion. Above the din, loudspeakers continue to blare his name: OBU ITUBI OBU ITUBI OBU …
Skeets remembers masturbation (jacking-off, meat-beating, pork-pounding): the hidden magazines, the secret places; a jar of Nivea cream at the bottom of the laundry hamper; experimental two-fingered grips; reclining on the toilet with his feet in the sink; his unfamiliar left hand; the ace of spades from a deck of pornographic playing cards; up in the August heat of the attic, hidden behind his mother’s winter clothes; standing under the stinging spray of the shower, a bar of soap in his other hand; once, in the bathtub, twisting like a contortionist to kiss the tip of his straining member; and all of the different delicious dreams, arranged in his imagination like smörgåsbord.
Dreams of girls and women, known and unknown; dreams of girls held captive in carpeted seraglios and marooned on desert islands. Dreams of girls very much like the one between whose legs Skeets rocks so proudly. Raven-haired Vera is no stranger selected by computer. Three hundred years ago, Skeets clipped her photo from the glossy pages of film magazines. Her centerfold pin-up was Scotch-taped inside his locker at school. They shared this tropic paradise many times before, up in his mother’s attic with the caustic smell of mothballs in the air.
Itubi waits for the dust to settle, scanning the debris scattered around the perimeter of the explosion. The Amco-pak programs a memo file made while manufacturing the first pair of bombs and the telescoping arms duplicate their original motions automatically, mass producing a homemade arsenal with assembly-line efficiency. The haze of smoke and powdered concrete thins and, in place of the turntable, a jagged crater belches fire like a volcano.
Itubi treads out into the arena, leaving an aluminum canister ticking behind him in the Suspended Animation Facility. He zig-zags between the twisted scraps of fallen dome, keeping close to the wall until he reaches another set of steel doors. The laser torch is focused and Itubi has burned halfway through by the time the bomb detonates.
Inside, Itubi confronts a chamber identical to the one he has just destroyed, the same vaulted ceiling and rows of glass cylinders. Only the occupants differ. The population here has pale skin and nearly white hair, characteristics of the Nord class of humanoids. Itubi starts the timer on one of his devices and sends it rolling down the aisle, a surprise package for his former European neighbors.
In the next hour Itubi is generous with his gifts. He cuts through a succession of steel doors, exposing other Suspended Animation Facilities, as well as automated surgical clinics, hatcheries, program centers, and rooms dense with unfamiliar circuitry. In each he places a bomb, sating his rage with destruction until the laser’s cut reveals a glimpse of green and he burns his way through the final door to freedom.
Center Control is unable to contain the sudden power surge. The explosions in the System’s surface installation destroy a number of important relays regulating power flow from the Solar Energy Accumulator and, like a bolt of lightning, the extra load races uncontrollably down through miles of circuits and cable. Center Control traces the path of the overload, noting the continuing series of tripped safety switches extending deep into the Depository.
The end of the line is Aisle A of the last subdistrict on the lowest level. Center Control issues a warning to all residents, instructing them to activate auxiliary hookups, only seconds before the massive overload hits their community power unit.
The warning comes in time for all but the resident of the foremost deposit drawer. He is embarked on a memory-merge and has disconnected his communicator antenna. His final dream is interrupted by a surge of electric power sufficient to run the Sector for a month. When a maintenance van comes to open cranial container number A-0001-M(637-05-99), the electrolyte solution has all boiled away and the resident is a bit of gray sludge, burned to the bottom like an overcooked stew.
Vera rears like a bucking horse, answering Skeets’ urgency with a determined pelvic upthrust. She slides her tongue into his ear, groaning his name. Her nails rake and gouge his back; her teeth nip at his neck; a vision of intricate coral gardens fills her mind.
“I can’t hold it,” the boy whispers and his words trigger Vera’s orgasm.
“Don’t stop,” she implores, and as pleasure overwhelms her she bites like a nickering mare into Skeets’ shoulder. There is no flesh. Suddenly she is hugging a phantom. She can still taste the salt of his sweat but her lips kiss only empty air. Her eyes open to coin-sized spots of sunlight showing through the thatched roof. Vera is alone on the grass mat, her arms folded across her heaving chest. Between her open thighs she can see the blue horizon framed by the doorway of the hut.
The grass burns bright as green fire under the noon sun; the summer air is loud with the metallic tremolo of unseen cicadas. A criss-crossing trajectory of grasshoppers surrounds the Amco-pak’s steady advance across the clearing. Obu Itubi scans the line of trees at the e
dge of the forest, searching for any indication of road or trail. Behind him, clouds of acrid smoke billow from the shattered dome, but he never looks back. The spectacle of his triumph concerns him even less than the curiosity aroused by traveling through unfamiliar countryside. Itubi has no time for sightseeing.
His problems are caused by the Amco-pak’s limited performance in this new environment. Treads designed for smooth plastic floors gain little traction in the tall grass. Already bits of twigs and dirt have worked into delicate gears and bearings accustomed to the dust-free atmosphere of the Depository. There is no road leading away from the surface installation. The dome stands isolated in the center of a broad meadow, one of a few scattered islands of open space in a vast terminal pine forest stretching as far as the scanner can see.
Itubi decides upon a course and urges the Amco-pak up a gradual shrub-covered hillside. Three deer, a doe and two fawns, pause to stare at the monstrous clanging creature before fleeing into the safety of the forest. Under the trees the hillside is steeper. The Amco-pak leans dangerously and Itubi flails the telescoping arms to gain a purchase on the precarious slope.
For an hour and more, the Amco-pak struggles over difficult terrain, carving a path with the laser when the trees grow too thick, hauling and winching its armored bulk up hills too steep to climb. Itubi gains confidence in the van’s abilities and when he encounters a steep-walled gorge there is no hesitation before starting to traverse to the bottom.
Itubi’s regret is immediate. The gorge is too steep. Loose earth shifts under the Amco-pak’s weight; treads slip and spin as the Mark X fights for balance. Itubi grabs a sapling pine to stabilize the van, but the roots pull free and the floundering machine tumbles end over end into a rushing stream at the bottom of the gorge.
Before the dust has settled, a flight of angry magpies circles the wreckage, scolding and belligerent. Beneath the surface of the mountain stream, a school of fingerling trout gathers about the unblinking glow of the submerged scanner. From high up in a ponderosa, a drowsy porcupine watches the crablike gesturing of the overturned Amco-pak.
“Skeets … Skeets… .” Vera runs naked from the flower-decked hut, frantically calling her vanished lover. She shields her eyes from the glare and looks up and down the deserted curve of beach. Everything is the same: the palms and sea-grape trees, the placid, reef-protected bay. But no, it’s changed. The boat is gone! The Sand Dab III has been plucked from the water as cleanly as Skeets disappeared from between her legs.
Vera’s confusion calms her terror. She turns back toward the hut, trying to put the pieces together. She notes that Skeets’ diving gear, his mask and flippers, the long tapered Hawaiian sling, is no longer hanging next to the door. Inside, she discovers his clothes have gone as well. Not a single one of his possessions remains. The smooth sand floor of the hut is tracked by numerous footprints, and very carefully in the next hour Vera measures each of them against her own foot. In every case she finds an exact fit.
Obu Itubi is trapped. The scanner sees only a few graveled feet of stream bottom. Many of the delicate control system instruments are damaged by the fall. Only three of the telescoping arms still function, but, even working together, they are unable to right the Amco-pak. The journey of the Mark X has come to an end.
Still, Itubi is satisfied. He has escaped from the Depository and evened the score with Center Control in the process. Less than forty hours of reserve oxygen remain in the van, but his last breath will be free. The up-ended Amco-pak will make a fine tomb.
The mourners have already gathered. Magpies and red squirrels chatter in the nearby trees; a twelve-pointed buck stands looking down from the rim of the gorge; the porcupine still sleeps in the ponderosa; and, high above them all, a robot Sentinel hovers, silver and gleaming in the midday sun, silently transmitting its scanner signal back to Center Control.
4. Drone
FOLLOWING THE ATTACK UPON the surface installation, Center Control orders all facilities to begin operations on a round-the-clock schedule. A task force of maintenance vans is dispatched to the surface to clear the rubble. Preliminary plans for the new installation are in preparation; all available Unistat 4000s are recruited for this work; projects in progress must be set aside. Among the many millions of trivial details recorded on the file chips placed in the Archives during this emergency period is the information that a twentieth-century resident (female) has been misfiled. Although technically these files are scheduled for programming whenever there is a Unistat without an assignment, the clerical machines at Center Control all know that files on Archive consignment are never seen again. One of the Deltron series in the Dispatch Division even makes a joke of it by referring to the Archives as “the Sargasso Sea” in all interdepartment memos.
It is Skiri the Navigator who first sees the reflected dazzle of the distant Sentinel. He points the spectacle out to his companions, Swann the Healer and Gregor the Instrument Maker. Without exchanging a word they leave the trail and start through the woods in the direction of this new phenomenon.
The three are Nords, two males and a female, on Quest from the nomadic Omega Tribe, followers of the bison herd across the Great Plains of Northern Hemisphere Two. They walk single file, Skiri in the lead. Even in the brightness of the noon sun, the Navigator’s penetrating clear blue eyes discern the position of the stars. His instinct for direction is infallible.
Swann, Skiri, and Gregor began their Quest over six years before, meandering west across the desert to the Pacific and then north through the mountains into the wilderness. For six thousand miles they have marked their trail with colorful prayer bundles, strips of beadwork and feathers left hanging in the wind under branches to indicate springs and other holy places. These bright tokens are the only sign of their passing.
There is seldom need for talk; the three travel in harmony, neither giving commands nor asking questions. The group has no leader. Skiri is the route finder because that is his calling. Diversions, like investigating the alien Sentinel, are the result of unanimous accord. There is no goal to a Quest and no reason for hurry. Curiosity can be leisurely indulged, for nothing occurs on earth that is not of interest to humanity.
Vera is marooned in memory, a castaway on an island that doesn’t exist. She spends long hours gazing out at the deep blue beyond the turquoise of the bay. On rare days she sees the tops of sails, but the distant ships come no closer. In the early mornings, she takes Chi-Chi for long rides down the beach and into the back country, over trails shaded by tamarind and mahogany trees. Together, they explore every part of the island.
There are five small towns, clusters of pastel houses with glinting tin rooftops. From a distance Vera never fails to see the streets crowded with people or hear the hub-bub of everyday life; but, when she rides nearer, the figures recede like a mirage and all noise fades into silence as she passes through the deserted village.
Once she stops and enters a two-story limestone house, intrigued by the sound of a child singing. Every room is filled with objects from her past; her childhood toys litter the floor; her mother’s needlepoint decorates the mildewed wall; rows of her father’s leather-bound medical books crowd the tables and shelves. She recognizes the voice of the child as her own, singing a song her grandmother taught her. But as she searches from room to room the singer seems to elude her, the haunting sound is always just around the corner or behind the next closed door.
A work team muddies the mountain stream. The twin Mark VIIs, alerted by a dislodged stone, focus their scanners on the three Nords, graceful as deer on the steep face of the gorge. Neither of the machines has ever seen a human before. They are familiar with the form, dormant, naked, and ranked in the Suspended Animation Facilities as neatly and efficiently as residents on file in the Depository. This is a concept of humanity the maintenance vans are able to comprehend. The sight of these three lithe creatures is something new.
In the hatcheries, all human fetus forms look alike. The adults, too, in the facilitie
s, are all identical. Except for those slight differences of sex and class, the features of one human life-form provide an accurate mirror for all the rest. The Mark VII’s programming and memory units are completely unprepared for the scanner close-up of the three Nords approaching from across the stream. Their features are similar—white-blond hair and star-sapphire eyes—yet each one seems distinct and individual. The garments they wear have the same puzzling quality. At first scan they appear identical: brightly woven tunics and leggings decorated with geometric beadwork and tassles of iridescent feathers. But a memory print comparison instantly disproves this. The Nords are as exotically unalike as three snowflakes.
“What has happened here?” the first Nord asks, stepping from rock to rock across the stream.
The machine answers without hesitation. The circuits of the Amco-pak series retain the ancient notion that humans are to be obeyed. Taking turns, but with voices so identically monotonous that the narrative maintains a uniform flow, the Mark VIIs describe the rampaging of the runaway van and the terrific destruction done to the Surface Installation. The Nords listen intently, leaning on their staves at the edge of the stream. But the story is confusing, for the machines know only what information is contained in their instructions. They do not know the identity of the “captive” resident or how he happened to be “trapped” aboard the Mark X. All machines are on Emergency Alert as a result of the attack on the Surface Installation, but whether there is any connection between that event and their own assignment is a question that can’t be answered by the maintenance vans.
“Our main problem is the decantation procedure,” the lefthand Mark VII concludes. “Any hookup is impossible while the Mark X is upside down. And the van is already so damaged that righting it might endanger the resident. It is a delicate situation.”
Gregor eases his woven split-willow packbasket to the ground. He unlaces the buffalo-hide cover and reaches inside for his instrument case. “Let me see what I can do.”
Gray Matters Page 7
