Harbinger

by Jack Skillingstead

  “I wish I could have seen it. At least I would have been on Earth. Sometimes it’s hard to accept my whole life will begin and end on Infinity.”

  “It’s not so bad,” I said, then wished I hadn’t.

  Delilah sipped her wine. My two glasses had gone to my head in a melancholy way. Except it wasn’t the wine and couldn’t be. I rolled onto my back and looked at the sky, false and true. A fluffy white cloud drifted, and I wondered whether it was real or projection. Then it did something funny. There occurred a brief flicker along its leading edge, and the scrim produced a rudimentary duplicate so it would appear to go on drifting.

  I sat up, then stood. I cocked my arm back with the empty wine glass in hand. It wasn’t exactly Waterford crystal, just some plastic polymer.

  “Make a wish,” I said.

  And Delilah was up like a shot, grabbing my arm.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  I lowered my arm. “Sure, but why not?”

  “I don’t like to . . . spoil it. I don’t like to think of a bunch of junk on the other side of the scrim. I don’t like to think of it as a scrim at all.”

  “All right, Delilah. I understand.”

  “No, you don’t. And don’t be smug about it, either. I know this isn’t your world. You were born in a real place, and you’ll still be alive when Infinity reaches Ulin’s World. But this is all I’ve got and all I’ll ever have.”

  I dropped my empty wine glass and started to hug her, but she stiffened up and said, “I don’t need sympathy.”

  “I’m not offering any. I just find you highly huggable.”

  She dimpled on the left cheek. “Huggable, huh?”

  “Highly.”

  “Well, that’s different.”

  We hugged and it was a good fit, her head snuggled under my chin. After a while she said:

  “Is that part about you being, you know, sterile, is that true?”

  “Yeah. Ironic as hell, wouldn’t you say?”

  “As hell.”

  “Hey,” I said. “If you’re not matched up with Gerry, then who are you matched up with?”

  “It isn’t just one person, of course, though there is usually only one perfect genetic match.”

  “Who’s yours?”

  In my arms, she shuddered. “The Mayor of Waukegan.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Old.”

  “How old?”

  “Almost wizened. Why, are you jealous?”

  “Naw, I’m above that sort of thing. Besides, we just met. And also, he’s wizened.”

  “Almost wizened. Anyway, when I get pregnant it’ll be in vitro. Ellis, do you really think we just met, or do you think the other thing’s possible?”

  “Anything’s possible,” I said, then I kissed her pretty mouth.

  chapter ten

  We parked the tandem bicycle behind the Bedford Falls Hotel, crossed the promenade, and entered the hotel by the rear entrance. A middle-aged woman was behind the front desk. Delilah took my hand and led me up the stairs, passing through diamond-paned light on every landing.

  “You have a room here?” I asked.

  “I have every room here. My mom and I run the place. That was her at the check-in desk.”

  “So you know which rooms are empty.”

  “Naturally.”

  We came to a room on the second floor. Everything from the rug runner to the wainscoting to the paneled doors was mock period accurate. But the locks, which resembled yellowed ivory doorbell buttons, were actually thumbprint readers. Delilah pressed her thumb to the reader by our door and the lock snicked open.

  I followed her in and shut the door. She turned to me. I slid my finger along the collar of her bodysuit, felt the slightly raised nub, inserted the edge of my fingernail and drew the finger down, smoothly parting the clever static seal. The suit fell off her like a yellow shadow. Beneath it she was naked. She unzipped me then undid me, and we went on from there, wonderfully.

  Much later, I said, “So is recreational sex discouraged?”

  “Is that what this was,” Delilah said.

  “Not as far as we’re concerned, but I’m wondering if the PTB might have other ideas.”

  We were lying on the bed, damp among the rumpled sheets and pillows. It reminded me of a similar situation a long, long time in the past.

  “PTB?” Delilah said.

  “Powers That Be.”

  “There aren’t any PTBs in The County. That’s all on the Command Level. We all know what’s at stake and what can and cannot be tolerated in the interests of the overall mission. The County power structure is minimal. And are you sure this isn’t just recreational for you?”

  “Delilah—”

  “What?”

  Something disarming and charming came to my lips, but I recognized it for what it was and wouldn’t let it out. Instead I said, “You’re not Nichole.”

  Uncomfortable beat. Then: “I know that.”

  “I mean, this isn’t anything mystical.”

  “Okay, Ellis. I know. I was kidding about the reincarnation idea. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Good. I’m not worried either.”

  “We’re on the same page, then.”

  “Sure, of course.”

  More uncomfortable beats.

  “Well,” she said, “I’ve got a hotel to run.”

  “Come on,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You’re mad.”

  “I’m not mad. What makes you think you know so much about me, anyway?”

  “Hubris?”

  She laughed, which was better. “Really, though. I’ve got work I’m supposed to be doing. The whole day can’t be picnics and sex, can it?”

  “Can’t it?”

  “It can’t. At least not recreational sex.”

  “Ouch.”

  She got out of bed and clothed herself. “Are you still planning to stay a while?” she asked.

  “Hell, yeah, the room service here is phenomenal.”

  “Very funny.”

  She was all sealed up again, like a pretty yellow banana with curves and bumps and a sexy musk. If only there were a bunch of her, but that might have been more than I could have peeled.

  “Do you like this room, sir?” she asked. “It’s one of the nicest ones. If you look out this lovely bay window you can see Main Street. You might as well keep it. I’ll log you into the register.”

  “Okay.”

  I started to get up but before I could she was already halfway out the door.

  “See you later?” I said.

  “You’ll see me, Ellis.”

  She shut the door.

  I got up from of the bed, suddenly in a non-recreational mood. I rummaged a loose-fitting suit out of my bag and put it on.

  The view from the bay window was as Delilah had described it, but I wasn’t in the mood for quaint vistas. Way off in the direction of the Oxygen Forest, a dark streaking haze indicated somewhat heavier precipitation than we’d experienced here in Bedford Falls at the time of my arrival. It made me wonder how much livelier the weather could get. It also made me think of that other time with that other girl. Nichole. That spontaneous eroticism that seemed to transcend itself, that frisson (as Delilah would put it), and Nature’s accompanying storm, as if to underscore the event.

  But what were my memories? A normal man might accumulate seventy years of accessible recollections, but I’d already survived more than four times a normal life-span. Distance and imagination reshaped memory. That happened to everyone. In my case wasn’t it reasonable to assume my brain’s storage capacity was exceeded? The truth was still in there, perhaps, but the versions I was able to call up were undoubtedly corrupted by my conscious and unconscious desires and expectations.

  Maybe it was time I had a look at my own Environment. For decades I’d assumed everyone who read it was getting a jaundiced view of my past. But perhaps I was the one not seeing straight
. Perhaps.

  I’d started to turn away from the window when I noticed a man standing in the street by the gazebo, looking up at me. It was Gerry. Didn’t he have urchins to herd? I waved at him, friendly as hell. But he didn’t wave back.

  Downstairs, Delilah was working the front desk.

  “Hi,” she said, “Where are you off to?”

  “The Mayor’s office. He invited me to drop in, so I thought I’d take him up on it.”

  “Watch out for Gerry,” she said. “He was just here.”

  “Aw, he’s a pussy cat.”

  “With claws.”

  “Gerry? Come on.” I laughed. “Anyway, I can take care of myself and him too.”

  She looked doubtful.

  “Something you’re not telling me?” I asked.

  “No. Not really.”

  “Dinner tonight?”

  “Sure. Anyway, tell Niels I said hi.”

  I promised I would, then exited the building. It was a lovely day, and Gerry was gone—which made it even lovelier.

  I knew enough about The County to remember that the Mayor’s office in each of the towns had its own Core Access Interface. In fact, these were the only CAIs outside of the Command Level.

  Twenty minutes later I was looking at the one in Niels Bradshaw’s office. It was kind of like an old-fashioned barber chair with an equally old-fashioned hair dryer attached. I knew from the CAIs on the Command Level that the interface apparatus needn’t be so clunky.

  “May I?” I said, nodding at the barber chair.

  “You want to interface?” He sounded a little put out. After all, wasn’t I there to talk with wonderful him?

  “If you don’t mind,” I said. “I need to check something out.”

  “Be my guest, Mr. Herrick.”

  I sat down and performed a soft interface. The Super Quantum Core read me and produced a cloud. You never know what you’re going to get when you interface. It’s part of the charm, I guess.

  My cloud was all puffy and white, and it drifted serenely in a blue sky. Probably it was the one I’d watched sail into the Scrim earlier.

  You can see anything in a cloud. Dragons, whales, castles. I lay on my back and watched this one drift and subtly shift shapes. I felt sleepy and there, at the same time. My Rorschach cloud began to look a little like a two story house, circa 1970, with gables.

  Come up here, Romeo.

  It was like shuffling through indexed memory files. I knew what I wanted, and now the SuperQuantum Core knew, as well. The desired Environment already existed, and if I was anybody else, that was the Environment that would now manifest. But since it was my consciousness that had provided the original memory materials, the computer now had a choice between dropping me into the old Environment or drawing out a new one from the original source: me.

  I wanted to see the existent Environment. It was older and had been produced at a time when I had no particular expectations of the technology, and was less likely, therefore, to corrupt the process with an agenda. On the other hand it wasn’t necessarily a good idea to enter one’s own Environment. In fact, it was strongly discouraged, which is why I’d never done it. There had been cases of psychotic dislocations resulting in some very quirky mental rubbering. That happened rarely, though, and I was feeling reckless.

  I came forward, pushing at the Rorschach cloud, making my preference known.

  SuperQuantum accommodated my choice.

  The cloud lost its white puffiness, flattened out, darkened, retreated into the distance, joined a night time overcast. Lightning flickered inside of it, and then I heard the rumble and felt it, and I was viewing the spring storm through the window of Nichole’s bedroom, post-coital.

  She snuggled against me under loose sheets. Elton John’s gap-toothed grin on the poster over the Gerard turntable. I was inside of myself and outside at the same time, and that wasn’t altogether the quantum effect; it was true experiential recollection. Being myself remembering myself within a previously constructed personal Environment, I knew it was a true thing.

  —what did you mean about knowing me before—

  —like in a past life—

  . . . .

  I stopped listening to what we were saying. I tried to turn up the gain on the feel of Nichole’s presence. It struck me forcibly, and I pulled abruptly out of the Environment.

  The computer placed me under the drifty cloud again. I hovered a few moments. The cloud shifted subtly, suggesting various objects, various hooks into my memory pond.

  When I was ready I came forward, pushing again. This time I rejected the existent Environment and let the computer resurrect it all out of my present conscious/unconscious paradigm. The cloud resolved itself into a house shape. I stood on a dew-damp lawn, looking up at Nichole in the window of her bedroom. Only it wasn’t Nichole but Delilah Greene leaning on the window sill/ gazebo rail.

  —we meet again—

  —we were bound to—

  —come on climb up here romeo—

  I withdrew from the interface, shaking and strangely enervated.

  *

  My visa had a one week expiration stamp. I ignored it. I not only ignored it, I buried it. Scooped a hole in the soil of somebody’s window box a couple of blocks from the hotel and pressed into the hole the wafer with it’s tiny blinking red expiration dot, and covered it over. Then I picked up my new overnight bag and Delilah and I strolled down to the monorail station.

  Slipping along at a leisurely speed in the silver train I was again struck by the theme park ambience. We are now departing Tomorrowland. Next stop: Frontierland.

  Actually the next stop was Waukegan, but Delilah didn’t want to go to that town where her “perfect” genetic match was doddering around the Mayor’s residence. So after another short ride we found ourselves standing on the platform in De Smet, watching a handful of passengers board the train heading back to Bedford Falls.

  The object was to disappear for a while. Not an easy thing to accomplish inside the closed world of an interstellar vehicle, even one of the immense proportions of Infinity. Nichole knew the manager of the De Smet Hotel, Amy Granger, and she agreed to put us up as unregistered guests. That would do for the short term.

  Delilah was a sport about it, but she did ask, “What’s the big deal? Won’t Ulin just extend your visa?”

  “He might. But I don’t feel like asking him.”

  “Why not?”

  “It irks me.”

  She laughed. “You’re easily irked.”

  “Am I ever.”

  I felt the way I’d felt during my final months in Blue Heron. I was weary of being Ulin’s personal organ bank. I was sick past the coping point of the invasive procedures and extractions. I knew it was the price of my ticket to another world (any other world, please) but I was still sick of it.

  And then there was Delilah. I wasn’t a True Believer, not even after my experience with the Core interface. My unconscious mind could and probably did have an agenda. But I had an agenda of my own conscious devising. I’d enjoyed the comfort of girls on the Command Level. They were volunteers, carefully chosen by Laird based on psychological profiles, approached quietly and offered various inducements to be of . . . service. My presence on board Infinity, more than a hundred years out, was still largely unknown by the general population. (Laird feared a repeat of the situation that had eventually occurred back on Earth, with my known status causing division and desperation). So I’d had girls, some of them very nice. But I hadn’t had a girl. As in girlfriend. Not even on Earth, not for uncounted decades. Lots of girls but no companion.

  A human being (and I was still that) requires more than occasional sex to complete the male/female equation. He needs relationship. Like air or water. Even I needed relationship, as much as I tended to resist it.

  A couple of days after our arrival in De Smet I decided to give Delilah a present. We were in the dining room of the hotel. I watched her unwrap it. She was at half-dimple then went to a f
ull double when she saw what it was.

  “Ellis, my gosh!”

  A white gold ring on a fine link chain.

  “It isn’t really gold, is it?” she asked.

  “Bite it and see.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just a joke. Yeah, it’s really gold.”

  “But where in the world did you get it? There’s nothing like this on Infinity.”

  I brought it with me from Earth,” I said. “I guess you could say it has sentimental value. It used to belong to someone important to me.”

  Nichole hung between us like an exhaled breath, but neither of us said her name.

  “Well, it’s beautiful,” Delilah said. “I mean, if you’re sure you want me to have it?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She ducked her head and slipped the chain around her neck. She held the ring for a moment, admiring it, then tucked it under her tunic where I generally wanted to be—in the warm and breastful place. Man.

  “Come here,” she said.

  I half stood, leaning over the table, and she kissed my lips.

  Then Gerry walked in and more or less spoiled things. I saw him weaving through the tables of the sparsely populated dining room, zeroing in on us.

  I broke the kiss and said, “Uh oh.”

  “What?”

  “The principal’s here and he doesn’t look like our pal.”

  “Gerry?”

  She turned and saw him. He appeared a little on the haggard side. Like he needed more sleep and less of whatever he had been drinking. Also a shave. He swaggered up to our table and, rather sneeringly, said:

  “Mind if I join you two?”

  “Did we forget to turn in an assignment?” I said. He ignored me, which was reasonable from his perspective.

  “Dee?”

  Dee?

  “Gerry, what are you doing here?”

  He pulled a chair out noisily and dropped into it. “What I’m doing here is bringing you back to your senses, hopefully.”