And with that she rose off his body like the morning dew and slipped into a sheer cape the color of sunrise in the desert. As she unlocked the door and slipped outside, she did not cry, because Forlani can’t.
Three days later, Trevor, with the travel documents and a small suitcase, walked in front of Klein, in a hover-chair, and an orderly, as they left the Epidemiology Center on Corlatis, on their way to the neighboring spaceport and a ship that would take them, by way of numerous stops and transfers, back to Domremy. The staff had given him little gifts and treats for the trip and had assembled on the steps to see him off. Tatatio was grinning widely, showing off his pointed teeth, and squinting despite a big sun visor, because his race was crepuscular and avoided broad daylight. Tatatio had explained that Coco138, the thoracic surgeon, would not be there because he was aquatic and had actually done Klein’s chest while they were both suspended in liquid. The elusive Doctor Torghh turned out to be a machine, causing Klein to wonder why a robot should be so reticent and shy of the patients whose very eyes he repaired. As Klein waved at them on the steps, he wondered where his little candy-striper was. Finally he spotted Amanda next to another human, probably the lady specialist who had done his ears. As he looked closer, he could see that woman had her arm around Amanda’s shoulder in a way beyond the usual doctor-nurse standards of affection. As he moved away, he peered closer, through Dr. Torghh’s excellent new eyes, and gasped. The woman next to Amanda was Helga Pedersen. He had been that close to his own daughter and had never consciously understood it.
Chapter Eight
The trip back from Corlatis to Domremy took over a year longer than expected. Trevor mused that it could be blamed on bad weather in outer space. Of course, he was aware that there is no weather in space, at least in the sense humans usually attached to the word – no night and day, no seasons, no perceptible variation in temperature, no rain or ice or wind or fog. But there are things that happen that affect space travel, and it so happened that a major ion disturbance in one of the star systems he and Klein had to pass through had caused the equivalent of a traffic jam to develop. While space is mostly emptiness, the anchorages that serve as transfer points for the craft that ply the Perseid Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy are usually located on the fringes of planetary systems and the suns at the center of those systems are active and dynamic reactors that vary tremendously in their output of radiation. In turn, that radiation can have a deleterious effect on the operation of the types of motors that power interplanetary ships. So navigating into a system with an ion disturbance could be likened to driving an automobile into a swollen creek. Control is soon lost and the craft becomes subject to disaster. There is not much that even the most advanced civilizations can do to take control of the radiation pattern of a star, so ships tend to line up at neighboring systems like semis at a truck stop or airplanes on the tarmac of an airline hub.
Trevor tried not to obsess about such topics as many fellow humans do. The majority of his race clung to vague notions that their opposable thumbs, upright bipedal stature, and relatively symmetrical physique confer some kind of intellectual superiority, but Dissenters realized as a primary tenet of their beliefs that human bodies were from the very beginning of the Evil Earth both a blessing and a curse -- mostly the latter. Certainly, in space travel, the vulnerability of human flesh and its almost complete insensitivity to electromagnetism and many of the other most important forces in the cosmos place the race at a distinct disadvantage to other more perceptive types of creatures. No wonder humans had never truly discovered interstellar travel, but had simply glommed the technology from those more intelligent when the Quarantines instituted in the twentieth century had ended.
To pay for the trip he and Klein were taking, Trevor had had to employ all his wiliness and determination. Even with the help of credits from Ragatti, Entara, and some of the generous staff at the Corlatis facility, they could not make it all the way. While Klein reclined in a space coma, Trevor had to seek out every odd job he could find along the way, even working as a guinea pig in medical experiments and selling a kidney at one transfer. One would never think that an organ that seems to be nothing more than a crude filter could be so valuable, but they couldn’t be grown as livers could or replaced by machines like hearts or neuropatched like parts of the human brain. It was that kidney that paid the final stages of their path back to Domremy. Trevor was actually somewhat sad to part with it, since he had a secret nostalgia for his flesh that was not supposed to be part of the ideal Dissenter attitude. But then, his pilgrimage originally had nothing to do with Klein and was supposed to be a quest for illumination through visits to ancient religious sites. He had been more than a little surprised when messages advised him that Klein might be on Song Pa and should be aided if located. Rarely did the Circle, so often willing to accept the loss of life, reach out to one who was not within it. Trevor knew, however, that this had to do at least as much with Entara as with Klein, since she was becoming a genuine phenomenon in the entire sector and was rumored to be ascending to the Council of Nine. The Dissenters held their alliance with the Forlani to be sacred, since the Purple Ones had been the major means of their exodus from the Evil Earth and also since the Forlani determination to restore the original health of their planet’s ecology was a topic so dear to the Dissenters’ way of life. Yet even without Entara, Klein held a certain special interest for the Circle because of his connections to Peebo’s family and to the newly recruited Luis. Trevor himself, like several other of the most mystically inclined Dissenters, had had premonitions that Klein’s destiny would have an effect on events still to come on Domremy.
Klein finally began to emerge from his space coma and found himself not at Stafford Station, but at another landing site at the far northern extremity of the established colony. He asked Trevor about it as soon as he had gathered his wits and begun to walk around.
“Why are we here instead of at Stafford? Does it have something to do with smuggling me back in under a false ID?”
“No, no,” Trevor answered. “You see, most of the transfers we passed through couldn’t have cared less who you were, or even if you were to be revived. To them you were a frozen human chunk with a Farm Bureau pass. Even when we made it back into the area where Hyperion had agents and check points, they couldn’t identify you as Klein because of all that medical work done at Corlatis. Ragatti did more than just reconstruct your nose with love,” he chuckled.
“You mean she deliberately altered me to create a cover?”
“Right, and not just her. Oh, she added a cosmetic touch or two around the eyes and jaw, just enough to deceive the identometrics. But rumor has it she also used her considerable charms to get some of the other doctors to make little changes inside and out, as well. I can’t even imagine how she got an aquatic like Coco138 or a robot like Torghh to go along. I’m not even going to try to imagine. But you have enough carefully installed features to put any scanners off the scent. She put lots of pepper on the bloodhound’s snout.”
Klein looked around the farmstead where he was recovering from the long flight. “I expected when I started to wake up to see Peebo and some of the family.”
“This was a better choice. Actually, Peebo is not at the farm right now. When he came to share his experiences in the Circle, he decided to take some time away at the research center on the southern continent to clear his conscience on your matter and… some earlier things. Beyond his original plans, he has continued to go back periodically to pursue an important research project and he’s there right now.”
“I could have gone to his place to wait for him.”
“I know that, and your friend Luis has asked several times when you are coming.”
“Who the hell is Luis?”
“You knew him as Guzman. He has joined the Circle and taken a spiritual name. You will be surprised that many things have happened in his life.”
“What about his buddy Rodriguez, did he join, too?”
�
�Eventually, you will also learn what happened to him.”
“I wouldn’t mind staying with Peebo’s folks and helping out on the farm while I wait.”
“Felicia has quite a bit of help already. While she was willing to help care for you, she felt your presence might be a bit of a shock to the kids. Disconcerting to the younger ones, especially. So you see, this is a better solution for now.”
“Sure, I see.”
Despite his agreeing with Trevor in the open, Klein could not help but feel rejected on the inside. Just another brush-off in a string of them, tracing back to Entara. He had dreamt of her often in his coma, touching her motherly body, caressing her fur, kissing her everywhere, cuddling some of her newborn pups on his lap. He could have settled for never waking up at all if he could have continued forever in those illusions that were so much more satisfying that the rotten facts of everyday life. Even Ragatti had unexpectedly screwed him till he was cross-eyed and then walked off into her own future. Not to mention Helga, who had repaired his ears and not said a word to him when he could hear again. And Amanda, who had chatted with him and fed him, but then, when he realized she was partly his own flesh and blood, had waved to him from the hospital steps without ever calling him “Dad.” Now Felicia was treating him like a contaminated sheep that she feared to put near her little lambs. He fully expected Trevor to put on his pilgrim’s robes and traipse off to some forgotten temple any day now, leaving him to fend for himself. Klein felt a tear in the corner of his “old” eye, but not in his new one and speculated that the mechanical Dr. Torghh would not have bothered with tears. He strode off in search of beer and soon located whiskey, as well.
The booze took its toll and prolonged convalescence also had an effect on Klein’s appearance as well as his morale. One day as he returned from a long walk through the settlement, he noticed one of the kids in the town staring up at him strangely.
“What’s wrong? You don’t like what you see?”
“You’re shaggy,” stated the youngster. Klein couldn’t tell for sure if it was a boy or a girl. Dissenters didn’t differentiate much in childhood fashions and their young ran around in coveralls most of the time until they were about ten.
“I’ve been travelling a lot. What do you want me to do?”
“You should see John,” the kid answered without hesitation.
“And who might John be?”
“John over at the reactor.’
“What’s he going to do? Atomize me?”
“He cuts people’s hair. He’s cheap, too,” the little critic added after a second.
So this little creep thinks I’m indigent besides being unkempt, thought Klein as he strode away. Still, he had never had a haircut at a power station and there was not much else to do in town, so he decided to look up this John. After searching around, he was directed to a shack where he found a dark-haired, clean-shaven fellow at a com screen.
“Are you John?”
“Yes. That’s me. And I can see why you have come. Step into my parlor,” he said as he pointed to a little wooden platform with a chair on it. “Nothing fancy here. But I’m the best barber in town. In fact, the only one.”
Klein sat. John covered him with a clean piece of cloth and started snipping away methodically. After a while, he had reduced the rat’s nest on Klein’s head to an orderly coiffure and held up a mirror so the customer could see. “How’s the length? Suit you?”
“Shorter around the back, please.”
“I don’t think you really want that. People who know how to look will see these,” he warned, touching the two little prison marks still beneath the hair line near Klein’s right ear. A souvenir from the Old Country. Klein automatically tensed to spring at the barber and scanned the room for possible weapons, knowing John still had the scissors in his hand.
“Let’s see,” said John, peering closer, “Sicherheitbereits Münster! A political man, after my own heart. And… Athens! So you were a TV star, too. Don’t worry, a bull is always a bull in any language and a con is always a con. Ispahan Number Three,” he explained, showing Klein a different mark near his elbow.
“Irani? What were you in for? No Sweeney Todd stuff, I hope.”
“Not exactly. After the Third Islamic Revolution, my unit was out near Karachi and we had a disagreement with some of the Revolutionary Guards. Sent a lot of them to Hell, too, before they rounded us up.”
Klein could see in the mirror that John was finishing up the job. “So you’re not what you appear. How in the world did you get up here, John? I thought the Ispahan prisons were pretty much a dead end.”
“You’re right, it’s really Jahangar, by the way, but John goes over a lot easier on this rock. Yet I think the Dissenters already know some of the truth about my past and don’t care. The Guards had us cleaning up a failed reactor, so I learned a few things about energy. Then Hyperion needed somebody low-cost to look after this little Swedish job in the town and they picked me from the pool.” His tone changed and his eyes refocused far away as he went on. “That was just as the plague was starting to get out of hand. I didn’t have any chance to get the family out. Not that they would have agreed, anyway.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And I’m sorry for you. I hear things in Germany got even worse. In Iran, there are out-of-the-way places where people can hole up. Not so for your people. ‘Tut mir leid, mein Freund.”
Klein responded grimly, “I didn’t really have anyone left.”
“Still,” remarked John-Jahangar, “There are people who might be on the lookout for you. Yes, I have an idea who you are. No one has stopped talking about the disappearance of the number one mankiller, no matter how many years have passed. All over the settlements, people expect you to come walking out of the prairie grass at any moment. It’s true, Hyperion has other fish to fry now. Since transport through Tau Ceti to Earth was suspended, they’re busily pulling out everything worthwhile to relocate to Dahlgren or Double E or one of the other colonies. If they’d had more time and cargo space, they would have grabbed my little Lundquist 335, but it’s small potatoes as reactors go. In a couple of years, we won’t even need it here. The Dissenters got their hands on a lot of piping and pumps somehow and have started installing geothermal wherever they have a cluster of farms. A lot of individuals don’t even bother to hook up to that and stick to their windmills and solar panels. It’s a good thing I can cut hair, because the power business on Domremy is going to be pretty slow. Voilà, all done.”
Klein fished in his pockets. “I’m afraid all I’ve got to pay is some transfer scrip…”
“No need,” laughed John. “You’ve given me plenty already!” He pointed at the tufts of hair lying around the base of his platform. “Relics, Mr. Klein. Someday you’ll be a historical figure, maybe even a saint. And it’s authentic, DNA traceable. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it safe under lock and key until the last Hyperion spy has left and I can arrange a few little sales in peace. Come back any time you like.”
It took Klein a couple of weeks to get over John’s reaction. He was used to being a pariah on Domremy. It’s true he was the exalted Teacher Klein in the mahäme on Forlan, but that was all due to Entara’s damned songs. So far, the way he was being treated by Trevor and the townsfolk in this settlement had led him to think his status hadn’t changed. Nevertheless, he realized that barbers are generally the bearers of all sorts of hidden truths and he was disinclined to dismiss John’s enthusiasm over getting a batch of his hair. Maybe he was more than a disgusting murderer who had lost an election after all.
Although Trevor mentioned in the following days that things were going very badly on Earth, Klein remained ignorant of the extent of damage the plague was doing. After all, his thoughts were still focused on Forlan, though filtered through his harrowing experiences on Song Pa and Corlatis. Had he known more about the changes that Hyperion was undergoing, he might have been able to make clearer plans for how to act on Domremy.
Hyperion’s
new Headquarters of Intergalactic Operations was a dull affair. Boxy, undecorated, and located in Boise, Idaho, the building where Erica and the others involved in the Domremy program had been redesignated didn’t seem exactly Spartan to her—it still had the requisite TV monitor in the lounge room, the motivational posters on the walls, and the sound system softly playing bland elevator music that some psychologist had claimed would relax employees and relieve their stress. In fact, it was probably one of the best available buildings in the Intermountain Exclusion Zone. But the building lacked the distinctive character of the old New York office Hyperion had previously assigned to the Domremy branch, and Erica missed the old building’s exterior columns, reproductions of 20th Century space travel photographs, and metallic blue elevators. This was a building without character, without a sense of purpose. It could just as easily be an insurance office or call center as the locus of the once-prestigious Domremy operation. At least it was plague-secure for the moment. How the decades fly!
Life Sentence (Forlani Saga Book 1) Page 30
