Perdigon

by Tom Caldwell

  So. To begin at the beginning.

  There was a room with a pool in it, a Roman-style atrium, full of blue lotuses, shaded from an Earthly yellow sun by pillars and latticework. When the pool ran dry in the baking summer heat, Ezra opened a stiff faucet that was almost hidden under curtains of star jasmine.

  He didn’t know what star jasmine might smell like in real life, and had only seen the pixelated sprites waving in the artificial breeze of the game. He imagined climbing white roses instead, the kind his mother used to try to grow in Indianapolis. Cut grass, a whiff of summery chlorine and Coppertone. All the smells from Earth that he wouldn’t let himself miss.

  The faucet creaked and filled the pool. The lotuses drifted and twisted on their long underwater stems, the networks of lily pads riding the wavelets when the water moved. If the pool was full, and if the ripples made bright glancing shadows on the columns, then it meant he knew things. But the water levels rose and fell unpredictably.

  If no water came at all, those were the days when Ezra had to shrug and mumble about how he couldn’t see everything. Sometimes he needed to leave the tap open and wait, and wait. The rush of water, when it came, might be strong enough to knock him out.

  This time, the faucet had been left on all night. The pool was flooded, inches of green water rilling over the stone floor and plashing down the steps, leaking into anterooms and hallways. Everywhere. Floods of knowledge. It was cold, and Ezra’s feet were bare, but he didn’t have enough spare attention to imagine himself some shoes. He was busy. Looking for something.

  Over time, he’d found that this was just the way it was. He could change the way the information came to him, ask for more of it, ask for more longer sharper louder clearer, but then the shape of his inner world would be altered. The brain changed all the time, but it never changed back to what it used to be.

  He followed the sounds of voices.

  Near future. Hannah and Natalie were in another chamber, or their images were. Hannah didn’t notice the six inches of water at her feet because for her, it didn’t exist.

  “Mr. Barany is…excitable,” she was saying, her shoes cutting a small wake as she paced back and forth. She was petite but formidable, impeccably neat, with straight brown hair and the mannerisms of an android—perhaps one that was trying to imitate an Oxford don. “It is to be expected, in a man. Of his abilities.”

  “You can’t ignore a distress call because you think Ezra is—I mean, I’m not even saying you’re wrong,” said Natalie. She was tall, head and shoulders above Hannah, but had never succeeded in intimidating her boss. “Maybe he had a weird morning and sent you something that he’s embarrassed about now, I don’t know. He’s sent me weird messages too. Not like that.” She grimaced. “Not sex-weird, just weird-weird.”

  “Really,” said Hannah, either curious or bored out of her mind.

  “One morning I woke up to this text that said, ‘buy an Almond Joy today even if you don’t like nuts I don’t care do it.’ And I did, because…because this tech is creepy, and I didn’t want to take any chances. He never mentioned the Almond Joy again, though.”

  “And are you? Partial to nuts?”

  “Not really. I kept it in the bottom of my purse for a week like a freak, though.”

  “I see.” Hannah had paced her way to the other side of the room, quite close to Ezra at the door, although she wasn’t aware of him. “Natalie, the fact that Mr. Barany holds up well to testing is the only reason I tolerate such…carnivalesque extravagances. I assure you he is not the first male CEO to carry on like an oracle. I will grant him exactly as much respect as his abilities merit.” Hannah tilted her head. “That is to say. Some. But I will not carry an Almond Joy in my purse, Natalie. I detest nuts.”

  “Okay, but Hannah, this isn’t an Almond Joy—”

  “No. It is not. It is a demand, which is scarcely coherent, for a rescue effort which would cost Ennead ninety million dollars.” Hannah reached out a finger to tap an invisible screen, and somewhere in an office on Earth, she and Natalie stared at the text message that Ezra had sent them.

  Hannah, I don’t know if you’ll ever see this—I’m saving this as a draft and hoping that this is the worldline where I have time to hit send when I find out for sure. So. It wasn’t an asteroid—it won’t have been one. That huge crater that you’ll see, if I’m right, the crater was the Handsome Lake. That’s not a place. Handsome Lake was a Native American guy, somebody from up east, maybe Iroquois. He could see the future too. Small world. This cargo ship was named after him, obviously North American, but I don’t know the nationality. Jacob’s the one who would know what cargo lines serve our off-world supply orders. This ship will explode in orbit. May already have. May be about to. Wreckage and ejecta, winds, waves to twenty feet in the wet biomes. 44.99576649 N, 001.99205810 E. That’s where we will be when we’re found; we’re not there now. Don’t bother to search the Taltos wreckage. I mean. Not for us. Obviously search for remains. There will be children, I’m nearly completely sure. Maybe not much else, God. I’m doing my best not to be dramatic. I can’t tell how it's going.

  Natalie made that pained expression that she often made around Ezra, which was empathy that had cooled to a cringe. “Yeah, I know, but—come on, Hannah, we can both tell what he’s trying to say. It’s a little confused, but he has the coordinates mapped to eight goddamn decimal places.”

  “Lengthy strings of numbers are not uncommon in his correspondence.”

  “Well, how about this? The Handsome Lake is real, it’s an American cargoliner that last checked in at Frontenac Station a few weeks ago. It’s made runs to Perdigon before, the company said.”

  “Then the company will follow up if the ship doesn’t check in at its next rendezvous point. Wherever that may be.”

  “That doesn’t let us off the hook.”

  “Natalie.” Hannah turned back to face her. Sometimes it was obvious that she was fond of Natalie, or at least it made sense to Ezra. Natalie herself often seemed baffled by Hannah’s purported affection. “Would you not say I am a mentor figure to you?”

  “I…yes? Of course, definitely.” Natalie paused. “I mean, I would say that you are, unless…?”

  “Yes. Beloved, you understand. And wise. Like a Merlin figure, perhaps, or Alcuin of York.”

  “Um—”

  “There are not many feminine examples. What I mean, Natalie, is that I wish to nurture your greatness. And I advise you not to engage in hermeneutics over a man’s texts. Whether those texts be sexual or merely para-sexual in intent. You are not a Jesuit, to be…interpreting his words, and speculating on this and that, and taking responsibility for imaginary duties. You are a self-respecting businesswoman.”

  Ezra was listening to all this from the doorway, trying not to take it personally. Really trying. Very hard. Hannah was just like that; she didn’t know him well, and she interacted with Taltos mainly via its numbers, which weren’t great. But Natalie had their back.

  “As for the…alleged disaster,” Hannah went on, “I would not ignore it, and indeed I have not. I have notified our possessions in the region and asked for a report on the status of the Bonaventure colony. I’m awaiting a response.”

  “What if we’re waiting too long, though? That planet’s a toxic swamp.”

  “Mr. Roth is a former resident, is he not?”

  “Jacob lived there when he was a kid, for awhile, but—”

  “And when Mr. Roth suggested moving the Taltos facilities to Perdigon, he informed us that the planet is well-terraformed and that its atmospheric conditions are easily manageable with nothing more than inexpensive equipment and common sense. Did he not?”

  Natalie’s image drifted out of view for a moment, as if the shadows in the room were sucking her back, but she answered, “Hannah, you know Jacob was trying to make the best of it. That’s what he does, and that’s his job. I’m worried about the Taltos guys, okay? I don’t like this. Can we hurry things along somehow?”
<
br />   “Without confirmation that anything is amiss, I will not spend a small fortune on an expensive and very likely unnecessary rescue, Natalie,” said Hannah, putting her glasses back on and sitting down. Probably in the real world she was at her desk. Meaning the conversation was over. “However. If you discover that your suspicions are correct, then of course you must act without delay to preserve our investments. And Ennead’s reputation for…benevolence. I shall trust your good judgement.”

  They faded from view then. Probably they’d both shifted their attention to something else, an energetic nudge that was enough to make Ezra’s view of the scene fill with static.

  Static was metaphorical, one of those sensations that he could never explain to his satisfaction. Rapidly losing focus, visual breakup. Fishnets of phosphenes against closed eyes, leopard-print spots, like what you saw when you held your breath.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything, Ez,” said Jacob, who was sitting with him while the kids blew off some steam. Playing tag in the field beside the monastery church, since the rain had stopped for a few hours. “Are you doing okay?”

  “Fine.” Ezra settled back into his corner. He was nestled under the lee of a pillar, with one real pillow and a few folded blankets to keep his ass a few inches above the stone tiles. “I thought I heard you.”

  “No. I said something to you twenty minutes ago, but you didn’t answer.”

  “What was it?”

  “Oh, nothing. Sometimes you twitch or make noises and I think you’re coming out of it, that’s all. Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Huh? No, I’m not done,” said Ezra, arranging an extra blanket between his knees to cushion the bones. He’d lost some weight since the disaster, and he hadn’t been well-padded enough to spare those extra pounds. “I saw Hannah but that doesn’t matter, she’s…busy being Alcuin of York. Whatever. I don’t care what she thinks.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, babe,” Jacob said softly, leaning over to press a kiss to his temple. “Don’t you think you should take a break?”

  “I just got going.”

  “It’s been five and a half hours. Remember last time when you overclocked the implant, because you were fixated on proving something to Magnus Vollan—it took you weeks to recover. Let’s do a quick mental status exam, okay?” said Jacob, crouching down beside Ezra’s nest of blankets. “Do you know where you are?”

  “The abbey.”

  “Good. What happened on March 19th, 2086?”

  “I was 19, I was away at college, the TA came in and she’d been crying…”

  “Okay, good.” Jacob knew this story already, so he was convinced. Everyone remembered where they’d been on March 19th, a typical flashbulb memory. The neurologist had said to test that kind of thing, memories of major news events that were shared by large groups of people. “Name me some words that start with I.”

  “Ionosphere. Iodine. Indentured. Iridescent. Idiopathic.” Ezra closed his eyes. Jacob was watching the time, counting to ninety seconds. “Irgun. Ignoramus. Igneous. Illegitimate. Intimate. Immaculate. Idiomatic.”

  “Good. Repeat this sentence: She said that they had to go back there to get them.”

  “She said that there—that they—fuck you, this is not cognitive deficit,” Ezra said, frustrated. “This is…my normal stutter, you gave me a really hard one.”

  “The neurologist said to use lots of pronouns. She said that they had to go back there to get them.”

  “She said that they had to go back there to get them. There, see?”

  “Good.”

  “Can I get back to work?”

  Jacob was quiet for a moment, then said, “I wish you wouldn’t ask me for permission. Because I want to tell you no.”

  “Jacob…”

  “Exactly.” Jacob gave him that grin-and-bear-it smile that Ezra didn’t like having to see. “Exactly. I have no right to tell you what to do. Absolutely none. It’s your brain and it’s your body. So don’t ask me. Do what you have to do, Ezra.”

  Ezra flopped back down on his pillow, swamped with guilt. “Okay, fine. What time is it, do I need to eat? Is that the issue?”

  “Customarily one would eat a meal, yes.”

  Ezra didn’t object to this, so Jacob got out some of their pathetic provisions: a plastic sleeve of crackers, not too smashed; cold wedges of fried polenta made from a bag of cornmeal that they found in the kitchen; individually wrapped cheddar cheese slices, warm; an irradiated red delicious apple. Caffeine tablets, vitamins.

  “Maybe the frogs are okay. I might try those next time,” said Ezra as he stuffed his face. “Who found caffeine?”

  “Shruti found a first aid station, they had some basics. When you’re fasting you usually hit a caffeine withdrawal in the first eighteen hours, so that’s probably why the monks had that in stock. And I might try the frogs too, eventually,” said Jacob. “I’ve gone without protein for long periods before, and it’s very uncomfortable. Your hair falls out.”

  “Then eat the frogs, babe.” Ezra wasn’t feeling very choosy anymore. He was eating mechanically, quickly, as if his body was very hungry, but he couldn’t really feel it. “Just…the jellies still creep me out. I keep thinking they’ll turn out to be sentient.”

  “Xenobiologists say it’s unlikely. The jellies don’t perform well in tests of intelligence.”

  “Those things are bogus anyway,” Ezra muttered, a personal animus.

  At the other end of the church nave, the kids had found a length of cord whose weight swung nicely, so they were jumping rope. They were singing the traditional songs of Earth that Ezra remembered from his own playground years, and some he didn’t know: had a little sportscar 1968, Texaco Texaco over the hills to Mexico, Cinderella dressed in yella, calling all cars calling all stations, she is handsome she is pretty.

  But they’d also built up a repertoire of their own. Bonaventure’s vocabulary was full of French loanwords that even Ezra had picked up by now, such as bibitte for a small, undefined insect, or bonhomme for a stick figure in a drawing. The madrigal about Margot the vineyard-labourer had not gone away. And the Latin hymn Tantum Ergo had a meter that was the same as oh my darling Clementine, something that the kids had learned from one of Jacob’s historical factoids—the hymn’s melody used to be a satirical marching song in the army of Julius Caesar.

  Thus, to the tune of Clementine:

  Ecce Caesar, nunc triumphat, qui subegit Gallias,

  Nicomedes non triumphat, qui subegit Caesarem…

  Ezra was constantly surprised by the things the kids did and didn’t know, thanks to Bonaventure’s school system. He didn’t think much of it, because it sounded like the curriculum had been based entirely on reactionary prestige nonsense like memorising Cicero speeches at twelve. Lots of rote learning and very little real critical thinking. An education intended to impress the parents rather than to benefit the children.

  And Jacob had been pestering him for months to take an interest in the upcoming educational program at Taltos, and Ezra hadn’t, because he’d been busy, but now he wished he had.

  “I like that they put that together themselves,” Ezra said finally, as he gathered up his wrappers into a pile. “Their Ecce Caesar song, it’s referencing something that they actually learned from you and absorbed. They made it their own. Better than parroting, like with fucking Margot and her vineyard.”

  “Everyone’s a bit tired of Margot,” Jacob agreed.

  “Fucking Margot. She went to Lorraine and got into an orgy, did you know that? That’s what the words mean.”

  “I didn’t know you spoke French,” said Jacob, clearly a little turned on. The effect was so Gomez Addams that it made them both laugh.

  “Yeah, no, I do not speak French, but I know every single word of that stupid song. I asked Océane about the translation because I can’t stand being earwormed when I don’t even know what the words are.”

  “Oh, I see. I�
�ve just been dissociating when it starts to bother me.”

  “And this—Jacob.”

  Jacob waved off his concern. “No, go on.”

  “Okay, well, it’s a filthy goddamn song, all right? Margot’s been hired to plough the vineyard in the fall. En revenant du Lorraine, Margot rencontrai trois capitaines, I mean, it’s right there. She went to Lorraine, came back, met three army captains on the road. It’s seamy. I think the third verse is about venereal disease, too. But it’s vague.”

  Ezra went on in this vein for some time, talking about a cryptic line in the song that might have been about the Hippocratic quartan fever, whose periodicity derived from the life cycle of the malarial protozoa. From long experience, Jacob could tell that this rambling was a red herring.

  “This place is really getting to you, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It’s not that I disapprove of…of, you know, frank sexuality,” said Ezra, who was only now realising that he’d been channelling something else into this petty complaint about Margot. Having kids around all the time had put a certain furtive pressure on his sex life with Jacob. “I’m not a prude here.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “But I think it’s something, okay, that this school probably thought they were being so—so classical, and refined, and holy by teaching madrigals at the dawn of the twenty-second goddamn century, and oops, turns out your cute little vineyard song is about a girl getting—” he lowered his voice not a second too soon. “Getting railed by—by three…three hot military dudes at once and—Jacob, I think we should step out into the…place…for a minute…”

  They ended up in the shower.

  Ezra was a big aficionado of bathrooms. An aesthete, a connoisseur, even. He loved those cool tiles on bare skin, a sensation he associated with coming down from a bad panic attack. When his stomach was empty, and his brain was empty and the drugs had hit and he felt like he had just cast a demon out of his own body. He loved a door that locked, inside another door that locked. Loved a cloud of steam that obscured the mirror. Loved the way his voice didn’t sound like his, between the spray and the small acoustic space of the shower. Tons of great things about bathrooms.