Gestern

by J. Grace Pennington

  Except this, apparently.

  I looked across the aisle at the empty seat and felt nervousness accelerate my heartbeat.

  Maybe I didn’t trust August quite as much as I had thought.

  The skyline waxed and waned as we drove by cities and towns of various size and population, then grew dramatically as we approached Vienna. As the train slowed I was able to focus on the orange and cream of the buildings as we passed—as quaint as a picture from an old book. The difference between this place and the bustling, up-to-date Baltimore could not be greater.

  I stole a glance at August, who was watching stone-faced as we wove through the city.

  We finally pulled to a stop at a platform much like the one we had boarded on all that time ago. As we sat waiting for the order to disembark, a new message flashed onto my pad. From the Doctor.

  I’m so sorry. I don’t know anything. I’ll look into it. Be safe. Love you.

  I sighed a bit and pocketed the device. I didn’t really enjoy text messaging with the Doctor. Unlike some people, his personality did not come through in text at all and his messages always sounded dry and callous. No matter how hard I tried to infuse the words with his gruff, caring personality, they didn’t feel like him.

  The order came over the intercom at last and August jumped up and dragged all three backpacks from the overhead bin. I stood, stretching the kinks out of each muscle as the flow of passengers moved towards the exit. I took my backpack from him, and we melded into the stream and out into the crisp air of Austria.

  August’s decisive movements surprised me. Rather than standing around and waiting for me to prompt him to act, he led the way to a curb outside the station and approached an orange, dingy taxi. After a few German words to the driver, he stowed our luggage in the trunk and opened the back door for me. I slid in, already shivering a little from the chill, and he followed me and gave instructions to the driver. We started off.

  Our roles felt reversed. On the Surveyor I was the one in my element, the one who knew everything. Now it was he who was adept at dealing with his surroundings, and I was the one overwhelmed into silent timidity.

  “Where are we going?” I asked at last, watching as dully-dressed pedestrians dodged vehicles in the quickly-dimming streets.

  “Our plan,” he began, then hesitated. He made eye contact with me, and I understood he meant his and Crash’s. “Well, our plan was to rest here overnight, then take a bus to the northwest edge of town. From there, we’re best off walking to Reichhalms and the castle. The roads—aren’t very dependable.”

  “How long of a walk will it be?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a pretty long way. It depends on how fast we go. I’m sure we’ll have to camp on the way at least once.”

  I leaned my forehead against the cold glass of the window. “Will I be able to call the Doctor from the hotel?” I asked.

  “It’ll be expensive, and it’s not always easy to get a good signal, but you can try.”

  I nodded. I was going to need a good conversation with him before heading out into the wilderness with no one but my brother and no idea what lay ahead.

  ***

  “Hello?”

  The sound of his voice pulled at the tightness in my chest. “Hi, Doctor.”

  “Hey, Andi.” There was a pause, then he asked, “You doing okay?”

  “I think so.” I leaned back against the plain, sturdy headboard of the hotel bed. “I wish you were here.”

  “I wish so, too. Things are going well here, though. Edmunds has access to more research than I thought. And he’s allowing me to work in one of his offices.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Well, I think he’s still hoping for credit when a cure is found. But yes, still nice.”

  There was a moment of silence, in which I tried to think of something else to talk about. I failed. “I just wanted to check in before we head away.”

  “Okay. I haven’t found out anything about Crash’s problem yet, but I’ll message you if I do. Are you going to be okay without him?”

  What was I going to say? No? I had to be okay without him. “Yes,” I replied.

  “Hopefully he’ll be on his way soon. You two stick together, be wise, and remember that God is with you, even if Crash and I can’t be.”

  I smiled. “I’ll try.”

  There was nothing else really to talk about. Considering the expense of international communications, it was probably time to end the call. But I just let the silence linger on, sensing the connection between us from opposite sides of the world.

  “Talk to you later, Andi,” he said at last. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” I replied, and the call terminated.

  Weary from the long, long day, I turned off the lamp beside my bed and laid down on the mattress without bothering to undress. I fell asleep halfway through my prayer for protection for myself, August, Crash, and the sister I had yet to meet.

  ***

  I was cold, wet, and afraid. And very, very small. The voice called out to me, and I shut my eyes and screamed and screamed, trying to drown it out.

  “Andi!” it called. “Andi, it’s me!”

  The darkness faded and I found myself looking up at the Doctor. He was illuminated by faint moonlight, creating deep shadows along the lines in his face. He shook me gently by the shoulders. “It’s me, sweetheart. It’s me.”

  I wrapped my arms around him and cried. He just held me quietly, rocking slightly, and making quiet shushing sounds in my ear. “It’s okay. It was just a dream.”

  As my mind calmed, I stiffened and pulled away. “Wait... how can you be here? I thought...”

  I tried to look into his dear face again, but he was gone. I was alone again. “Doctor?” I called. “Doc...”

  “Andi.”

  I woke up again. This time it was light. I was lying down. August’s pale face was leaning over mine, and I could barely feel the timid pressure of his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry to wake you, but we have to get going...”

  I blinked, trying to shake the disorientation.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I nodded, and raised myself on my elbows. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  October 19th, 2321

  11:13 p.m.

  Baltimore, United States

  Gerard’s eyes were beginning to hurt.

  He leaned back in his chair and forced his ocular muscles to relax, focusing his vision on the clock that hung on the opposite wall. He breathed. He ran his fingers through his hair.

  “How’s it going?”

  He looked up to see the senator himself, poking his head and shoulders through the doorway of the office.

  Gerard relaxed. “It’s going okay. There seem to be gaps in the research, though.”

  Edmunds nodded sympathetically. “I can imagine. He wouldn’t want to reveal the source of some of his data.”

  “Right. But it looks like there were some other extraterrestrial alloys that showed some promise, so that’s probably the direction I should be heading.” He paused. “I wonder if I could ask a favor...”

  “You’re entitled at least to ask,” the senator smiled.

  “My nephew was arrested... detained, at least, at the Austrian border for alleged charges of arson and vandalism. I checked, but his records don’t seem to be public information...”

  Edmunds smiled and nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out. I’m heading home, but you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

  “Thank you.” Leaning back over the screens on his desk, Doctor Lloyd returned to his calculations.

  CHAPTER VII

  August seemed extra quiet as we left the town and began our hike towards the forest. He had been quiet on the bus ride, too. He was always quiet, but this was different. There was an added depth to his silence, a quality that communicated something more. Something I couldn’t understand.

  I had dressed again in jeans, along with a soft sweater and a thi
n but incredibly cozy jacket. My hiking boots, much more comfortable and sturdy than my uniform boots, were the same I’d seen advertised on the ceiling of the train, I realized. This amused me. The Doctor would not have been pleased if he knew he had succumbed to a marketing ploy when he bought them. He hated advertising, and trends, and really anything that was generally popular with the world at large.

  An hour into our walk we passed into the woods, taking an unpaved path that wound through the trees.

  I watched in fascination as we passed them. So majestic. I’d forgotten how much I loved trees.

  August didn’t seem to share my intrigue. He kept his focus on the map he’d pulled up on his pad and led me onwards.

  Two hours in, my backpack began to weigh on my shoulders despite the sales-robot’s insistence that it was “designed never to wear on any traveler’s strength.”

  I stopped and leaned against a tree trunk, breathing heavily. “Can we stop for just a second?”

  A few decimeters ahead of me he paused and turned back without protest. I looked around and found a large rock on the edge of the trail, then settled myself onto its cold, hard surface. I hoisted the backpack off and let it fall to the dirt below.

  I closed my eyes and breathed.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. His accent seemed thicker than normal—something in his tone reminded me of when I’d first met him a year ago.

  “Just feeling a little tired. And a little nauseated, too...” I touched my stomach. “I think it’s just—psychosomatic or something. I’ve been kindof nervous.”

  His forehead creased deeply, and he took a step closer. “Are you sure it’s just nervousness?”

  I understood the underlying question and answered in a more straightforward manner. “Don’t worry. It’s not a symptom of lymphocytopenia.” I stood up again, dusted myself off, and shouldered my bag, nodding at him to continue.

  “What are the symptoms?” he asked, keeping step beside me.

  I tried to force my mind to think clinically. “There aren’t any, exactly. It just causes other diseases, because it destroys the immune system.”

  “So... Langham’s Disease... is a disease that just facilitates other diseases?”

  “Yeah. But don’t worry. The radialloy is still killing the phages too quickly for them to do serious damage.”

  We kept on in silence.

  Even when I lived on Earth as a child I had never spent this much time outdoors. The Doctor was more the homebody type and I followed in his footsteps, preferring science and reading to camping or hiking. Crash, while adventurous, preferred for his adventures to take place far above the ground, whether that was in the sky or outside our solar system.

  This, though, was soothing to my soul. Over time a combination of the sun and the walking warmed me enough so that I no longer felt like shivering. Brown leaves crinkled beneath our feet. Detailed green foliage and gentle insect sounds calmed my nerves until again I was almost able to forget about Langham’s, Crash, Ursula.

  Almost.

  “This is nice,” I said after awhile.

  He only nodded, the visible tension in his shoulders in no way relaxed by our surroundings.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m fine.” He kept weaving his way through the trees, alternating between studying the map and focusing on the trail ahead.

  “What’s wrong?” I persisted.

  He stopped and turned around, surveying me steadily for a moment. Then, “What’s the last place in the universe you want to be?”

  I thought about this. “I don’t know... I can’t... really think of any place.”

  “The last person you want to see, then.”

  I instantly knew my answer, but hesitated.

  “It’s okay,” he prompted, looking me steadily in the eyes.

  “Our father,” I admitted, lowering my gaze to the leaf-covered forest floor.

  “Okay. Well, think about how that thought makes you feel. That’s how I feel being back in Austria.” He shifted his backpack and turned away to start walking again. “I always said I’d never come back. Especially not to Vienna.”

  I paused a moment, watching him shuffle away, then rushed to catch up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He shrugged. “What good would it do? We have to go. I don’t have to like it.”

  Poor August. So polite, so timid, so ready to cave to others in everything, so silent about his own personal demons—because what good would addressing them do?

  “Why?” was my next question as we crunched over the leaves.

  He shrugged again but must have known I wouldn’t let him off that easily, because after a second he said, “I... grew up here, you know. Just outside Vienna. We’d go there sometimes, for errands, or just family outings. Me and Dad, you know. He was terrible, but... he was also good, sometimes. I don’t like to remember either one.” He glanced at me. “I know I’m pathetic.”

  “You’re not,” I murmured.

  He fixed his gaze on the way ahead again. “Maybe not. After all, nobody likes to face their gestern. I guess I’m not any different.”

  “Gestern?”

  “Yeah. It’s German for ‘yesterday.’ Something one of my philosophy professors used to say. ‘Nobody likes to face their gestern, but nobody can escape it.’”

  I looked around. “Even just... the woods? That hurts you?”

  “Dad used to take me hiking sometimes. Mostly when I was little.”

  I thought ahead to our destination. “What about castles?”

  He kept his eyes straight ahead. “Sometimes. He took me camping at one when I was little, with some other boys.”

  We trudged on in silence again, and I kept my questions to myself.

  I was exhausted long before August planted himself in a clearing about six meters around and said, “Let’s stop for the night.”

  He insisted I sit on the ground nearby while he pulled the tent from his backpack and pulled up the directions on his pad. I watched as he pressed a button, stood back as the tent unfolded and expanded itself, then walked around to each corner to drive the thin poles into the ground. Next, he formed a fire pit with leaves and sticks, encircled it with rocks, and tossed a firestarter into the center of it. Blue flames sprang up, just close enough to where I sat that they chased away the chill and left me warm.

  At last he settled on the ground next to me, and we ate freeze-dried bars for dinner.

  A distant, low howl made me scoot a little closer to him.

  “The fire will keep any animals away,” he reassured.

  I nodded. The howl died, leaving only the sounds of crickets and crackling flame.

  I wished I could think of something to say, but nothing would come. A bit timidly, I scooted a little closer and leaned back against him, resting my head on his shoulder. He hesitated, then put an arm around me. I watched the stars.

  “Funny to see them so far away,” I observed.

  “Hmm?”

  “The stars. They’re so far away.”

  He shifted as he tilted his head up. “Yeah.”

  The crickets and fire continued uninterrupted for a moment. Then he asked, “What have you been dreaming about?”

  I stared at the stars, picking out the constellations I knew well but so rarely saw. “What do you mean?” I knew, but wanted to ask anyway.

  “You’ve been having nightmares... I keep hearing you scream at night.”

  I just kept quiet for a moment, listening to him breathe. Then, “I’m Ursula... and I’m in a dungeon. Hurting, a lot. Then I hear a voice calling out to me.” I paused, then said, “And last night, I dreamed the Doctor was there, waking me up, and comforting me.”

  He nodded. I expected him to ask more, to prod me about what deep emotional state might be causing the dreams, to reassure me. But this was August, not the Doctor. And he said nothing.

  I grew sleepy in the warmth, under the spell of the stars and the crickets, and with a murmured goodnight I
crept into the tent, pulled a compact sleeping bag from my pack, and slid into it.

  The last thing I saw asleep was August, sitting by the fire, looking out into the forest, alone.

  This time I didn’t have that dream or any other, a fact I attributed to my exhaustion from the day before. I knew nothing from the time I drifted into unconsciousness to the time I drifted back again.

  The sun had risen and the fire had died, but otherwise the scene outside the tent was exactly the same. August still sat in the same spot with his back to me.

  I shivered, stood up, and wrapped my sleeping bag around my body. “August?” I called softly, ducking out of the tent and approaching him.

  He turned and smiled at me, eyelids drooping slightly. “Good morning.”

  I stared. “Didn’t you sleep?”

  He stood up slowly. “I needed to keep the fire going.”

  I just watched, dumbfounded, as he carefully covered the smoking ashes with dirt. “Aren’t you sleepy?”

  He pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket and rattled it. “Your dad gave me these.”

  I took the bottle and examined it. “Lauflumide? August...”

  He moved from the absent fire to the tent, pulled the backpacks out, and began dismantling it. “Like I said. I needed to keep watch.”

  “But you’ll need your rest to deal with whatever happens when we reach the castle. Who knows what we’ll find there?”

  He shrugged and consulted the compass on his pad. “Then like Crash says, we’ll cross that asteroid field when we come to it.”

  He started off into the forest and I followed, trying to force my concerns to the back of my mind.

  This day’s walk started off as silent as the day before. We just plodded onward, resting briefly now and then. I tried talking a few times, but the conversation always died after three or four exchanges. Was it because he was tired? Because being here was making him sad?

  After a prolonged silence I finally asked, “Are you okay?”

  He gave his trademark shrug.

  “What’s your favorite color?” I asked.