The End in All Beginnings

by John F. D. Taff

  “Studying me? Why would the spirit of my dead wife have to study me before coming through?”

  Abram looked away, something that struck Fen as strange.

  “That was just a supposition on my part. I don’t know enough about this subject to have offered it. Forgive me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to return to my duties.”

  With that, the servitor rose, somewhat stiffly, somewhat abruptly, and headed back inside.

  * * *

  After a light lunch, he went down to the pond. The sky had become dark, closed, and there was a smell of ozone, which Fen took to be an indicator of a coming storm.

  And for the first time since coming to Visitation he had a feeling he could not explain.

  As he stood there, staring into the brackish, grey-green water, he both saw and felt something. In the depths of the water, an image swirled like the storm above, gathered in its silted mire.

  It coalesced, took form.

  A face.

  As it struggled to pull itself together against the moving waters, he felt air move near his ears, warm and soft.

  A breath.

  “Fen,” it whispered.

  Goose flesh raced across every square inch of his skin, and the hairs on his arms, his neck, even his head, rose.

  He knelt, bent to the face within the waters.

  “Katmin,” he answered, as loud as he dared.

  It was a face, her face, but there was something not quite right about it.

  Even taking into account its disembodied appearance in the waters of a pond, there was something not quite—

  But it was her. It had to be her!

  He reached out, surprised at how suddenly, how ferociously he wanted to caress her cheek, stroke her dark hair.

  As his hand touched the water, her face fluttered, a look of alarm flashed in her eyes, and she recoiled.

  Even as her face sank from his outstretched hand, raindrops pelted the surface of the pond. Ripples destroyed the submerging face, tore it asunder, and it faded in tatters.

  Fen called her name once more, lifted his hand from the water.

  The sound of her voice still in his ears, he stood in the rain.

  Soaked completely, he walked back to the house, went inside to change his clothes.

  He smiled as he passed Abram in the sitting room.

  Fen noticed that Abram didn’t smile in return.

  * * *

  After dinner was cleared, Fen took a glass of wine onto the deck. The sky was still heavy from the afternoon’s hard rain. Clouds raced across it, frayed red near one horizon, a deep, roiling violet at the other. The planet’s menthol-tinged air, thick with moisture but not uncomfortable, cooled his lungs as he took it in.

  As the Ophion sun set, the Great Hyaderax star cluster grew brighter and eventually bathed the sky in incandescent yellow that glowed dimly like an ancient filament bulb.

  Abram came behind with a towel to wipe the table and chairs dewed with rain. Fen noted that he dried both chairs.

  Fen took his wineglass and sat, motioning for Abram to take the other chair.

  “So, you saw something today?” he asked, sitting.

  Fen sipped at his wine, looked at the twilight creeping across the sky, the pond.

  “I saw a face in the water. I heard a voice, a whisper.”

  “What did it say?”

  Fen nodded, took another drink of wine. “Fen,” it said. I could feel the breath, the warm air on my ear.

  “Fen,” he repeated, then took another mouthful of wine.

  “Was it your wife?” Abram asked after a moment.

  Fen breathed in deeply, expelled it after a moment. The air was like breathing in a menthol lozenge, exhaling frozen vapor. He found it strangely calming.

  “I don’t know,” he finally answered. “A voice called my name, a human voice. A woman. The face seemed human, too, at first. But it was distorted, and there was something else, I can’t put my finger on what. I’m not sure.”

  “But it could have been?” Abram offered.

  “Sure. It could have been. Could have been my mother or my grandmother. Could have been my father, for that matter. It was vague. We should look at the data from my neurotransmitter. Maybe if we replay it, slow it down…”

  Abram blinked. “Unfortunately, much of the data recorded this afternoon was compromised due to the storm. The audio and video feeds went down, and what was recorded was useless. I dumped it.”

  Fen clanked the wineglass onto the table, exasperated. “Are you kidding? You got nothing at all?”

  “Temperature and atmospheric conditions at the time, but nothing useful,” Abram said. “I am sorry.”

  “Does that happen often?” Fen asked.

  “Visitation’s storms produce more electrical disturbances than similar storms on other planets. This sometimes plays havoc with uploads from the neurotransmitters. Don’t worry, you still have twelve days. Much can happen in that time,” Abram said.

  Something dawned on Fen just then, and he shifted his gaze from the lovely scenery to his android companion.

  “How long have you worked here as a servitor on Visitation?”

  Abram’s face betrayed no emotion, but he lowered his head slightly at this question.

  “Oh, forgive me,” Fen said, worried that he’d offended him. “My experience with your people is limited. I meant no offense in referring to you as a servitor.”

  “How can I be offended by the word that describes what I am, Fen?”

  Fen stared at the android for a moment. The words, the tone were polite. But if Abram had been a human, a real, living person, Fen would have believed them to be sarcastic.

  Abram’s face didn’t register anything, offense, forgiveness, anything in between. But there was something. Fen felt it, but let it go.

  “I just meant how long have you worked here on Visitation?”

  Abram considered this question for a moment.

  “I have worked here as a guest coordinator for forty-two years, through fifteen software updates and four hardware upgrades.”

  That statement sounded cold and mechanical and rehearsed to Fen.

  “Have you ever seen anything like what I saw today?”

  Abram shifted in his chair slightly. “I have seen only a few, simple things; items moved or misplaced, some examples of automatic writing, apportations. But I haven’t witnessed anything directly, certainly nothing like you saw.”

  “You haven’t seen a shape or a shadow? Never heard a voice or a noise that you couldn’t explain?”

  “No, Fen.”

  “Well, that’s odd, isn’t it? I’m going to be here fourteen days, and I’m practically guaranteed some sort of experience. You’ve been here forty-two years and…nothing? Why is that?”

  Abram seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if trying to find the appropriate answer. “I am a servitor, Fen, as you said. A robot. We are not alive, therefore, we do not have dead as you do.”

  Fen sat back in his chair, his fingers leaving his wineglass. He tried to think of something to say, but Abram stood, picking up the wet towel as he did.

  “Enjoy the rest of the evening. Visitation’s two moons, Phantom and Shade, will be up in about an hour.”

  The servitor turned back to the house.

  “Abram, if I’ve offended you, I apologize. It wasn’t intentional.”

  There was barely a hitch in his step.

  “No need to apologize, Fen. I will see you in the morning. Call if you need anything further. Good night.”

  Abram proceeded into the house, where he disappeared as quickly and quietly as if he haunted the place.

  Fen nursed the rest of his wine until the two small moons appeared, glowing jewels moving swiftly across the spill of stars already lighting the heavens.

  When he returned inside, the house was dark, quiet. He went to the kitchen for a glass of water before bed. As he drank it, he walked to the doors that opened onto the deck, looked down to the pond. />
  The smeary yellow light from the Hyaderax glistened on the water, and Fen saw a shape there, an indistinct dark form near the shore, crouched.

  He frowned, leaned closer to the glass.

  It was Abram.

  Fen watched, brow furrowed, as the servitor stared into the water.

  For a moment, Fen believed he could see his lips moving.

  Suddenly, Abram stood, turned slowly toward the house.

  Surprised, Fen stepped back into the shadows, until he realized that Abram, through their neurolink, could see everything Fen saw.

  Abram knew Fen had seen him doing whatever it was he was doing.

  Fen drained the water in his glass, went to his bedroom.

  * * *

  Two days passed, and neither Fen nor Abram discussed what the latter had been doing at the edge of the pond.

  And though nothing as dramatic as the face in the waters occurred, each day Fen experienced something new.

  A phantom shadow slipping between the trees.

  Someone calling his name from outside his window.

  Foggy, ectoplasmic clouds hovering in his peripheral vision.

  The scent of Katmin’s perfume, her hair, which seemed to envelop him, follow him everywhere.

  Always outside, though, near the pond, around the house, out on the grounds. Nothing inside the house. There were no sounds of walking feet or specters in the corridor or late-night appearances at his bedside.

  While these experiences were comforting, in their way, they were not conclusive enough for Fen. He wanted to see Katmin, see her lips move, hear the words that came from them.

  He wanted to know it was her around him, causing these things, with the same certitude he would have if she had walked into a room and uttered his name while alive.

  He began to wonder if he would get this, if Visitation would offer this to him.

  If it didn’t, he thought, it would be like winning a large sum of money only to find it was counterfeit.

  Fen ate his meals, sometimes with Abram, sometimes not. He stayed up late at night, sipping wine on the deck, reading in the great room or watching a holo on his tab.

  He returned to the pond several times each day, hoping to spot another glimpse of her face, to hear her voice in his ear.

  But there was nothing.

  * * *

  After he saw her again on the fifth day, he had the certitude he’d wished for. There was no doubt it was her, and the encounter left him enervated, edgy.

  Just past the pond stood a dark copse of trees, thin trunked, tall, with papery bark that had a silver-green sheen. None had branches any lower than about six feet up on their trunks. There was little undergrowth beneath them; something like moss or lichen coated water-smoothed rocks, a few clumps of plain, green fronds from which sprouted dense globes of pale indigo flowers.

  Where the branches began, though, the leaves of these trees grew dense, blocking out much of the sun. The leaves were large, flat, coated with dense grey fibers that made them look furred. The light that filtered through them to the ground was dim, greyed from its passage.

  For Fen’s first few days, these trees represented a sort of border, a dark curtain behind the pond, past which, for some reason, he felt he couldn’t go.

  But Abram assured him that the little grove was well within his limits.

  So, on that morning, Fen set out for it, walking the edge of the pond. As he tracked through the mud, small creatures surveyed him and his passing with tiny, gimlet eyes. Most held their ground. Others, perhaps more timid, more intuitive, leapt into the water, disappeared with little croaks and splashes.

  The pond exuded the wet, fishy smell of the living things within it, the miasma of plants and other things rotting on its banks. The air, though, was crisp, laden with the ozone of a coming storm.

  Fen pushed on, lost in thoughts of Katmin.

  During the last week or so, the last month aboard the Eidolon, Fen had spent a great deal of time thinking about her. How they’d met, how he’d courted her. How they had eventually fallen in love, not at first sight, not even in the first several months of dating.

  But when it happened, it happened forcefully, fell over both of them like a landslide.

  He tried to hold her face in his mind, scared that this was becoming more and more difficult the further her death receded. So, he broke her down into components, remembered her eyes, her smile, the smell of her hair, the feel of her hands, the taste of her mouth. He remembered her laughter, her voice, the sound of her crying.

  With these also came less positive attributes—her temper, her brusqueness, her many little neuroses, her unwillingness, often, to do things he enjoyed.

  These flooded over him as he walked, and this bewildered him, frustrated him because they were not things he chose to remember. They were part of her, undoubtedly, but not the characteristics he would choose to describe her. And yet, each time he tried to reconstruct her in his mind, these came to him just as strongly as the things that made him smile.

  It gave him an unusual kind of comfort. He didn’t want to forget her, to be sure. But he also didn’t want to make her into some kind of saint or angel, either.

  Lost in these thoughts, he wasn’t aware that he’d entered the woods until he felt the coolness of its collected shadow fall over him. Stopping about ten feet in, he looked around. Outside the thick stand, the sky was bright, if grey. The air was humid and cool. Within the copse the air felt congealed, dense, more humid and less cool, as if he was inhaling the breath of the trees.

  Dim, eldritch light diffused through the air, coming from no specific source he could identify. It was like the air itself was fluorescent, as if each of the tiny motes and spores that moved upon it bled their own internal light into it.

  Fen stopped breathing for a moment. Here, right now, was the first time in his life he felt he’d stumbled upon a place that was truly alien. This was so far removed from any experience on his planet, on any planet he’d visited, that it might have been a fairy tale.

  When he started breathing again, he realized that it was a fairy tale, he was inside a fantasy. This was a haunted planet, which, for some unfathomable reason, the spirits of creatures who had not been born here sought out, congregated at, awaited the arrival of their living.

  As this thought, both sublime and profound, washed through him, something changed. An electric current crackled across the air, tingling on his skin.

  The coolness within the glade concentrated.

  The sounds faded, disappeared, the croaking of frogs, the murmur of the leaves, the susurration of the wind.

  There, ahead of him about a dozen feet, between the slender green trunks, a figure pushed into existence, a smear of grey at first, but slowly taking definite form, a shape.

  Fen wasn’t breathing again, but he ignored the burning of his lungs.

  Katmin!

  She was clearly visible within the foam of clotted, green air that clung to her.

  Her face was serene, smooth. She neither smiled nor frowned, beckoned nor forbade.

  Her feet were inches off the mossy ground, toes pointed down. Her dark hair floated, as if the air around her was as thick as water.

  Fen was not afraid, at least not precisely, not purely. Instead there was a strange lethargy to this experience, dreamlike in its quality, ethereal in its tone.

  Rather than say anything, rush to her, call her name—though he ached to do so—he felt it necessary to take in all of her details, like an aspiring artist committing a great painting to memory so that he would be able to sketch it later in all its detail.

  Fen, she called, and he heard her voice not from the distance separating them, but as if whispered directly into his ear, his brain.

  Fen.

  “Katmin!” he responded, forcing the word through the silence of his constricted throat, a moan, a cry. “I love you! I miss you!”

  One of his feet snapped forward, awakening suddenly from its paralysis, stepped to
ward her.

  Fen!

  He took another lurching step and was dismayed that the bland countenance of her face twisted, as it had in the pond when he’d touched the water.

  She raised her hands in distress, to ward him off, to warn him—

  Only they weren’t hands.

  They were tentacles.

  Eight of them sprouted from her sides, weaved incantations in the green, bleeding air, imprecations to him.

  To stop.

  And he did, as suddenly as he had started.

  Her face looked aghast, as if realizing some error, some lapse, and her entire form wavered, shrank into itself, pulling the green-tinged air in with it.

  Fen watched the tentacles—tentacles!—fold up behind her, gather at her back like a pair of great, black wings.

  Then, in an instant, she was gone.

  No fading, just gone.

  The sounds of the nearby pond returned slowly, and the air warmed perceptibly around him.

  Still, Fen shivered, his teeth chattered. The goose bumps that stood out on his arms felt permanent, a natural part of his skin.

  His breathing returned in a gasp, as if he were breaking the surface of some dark, deep pool of water.

  Retreating, unwilling to take his eyes off the place where she had appeared, he left the woods, the trunks closing around their silent, sacred interior as if they truly were curtains.

  He turned back, stood looking at the dense wall of their leaves, their wood, as if his gaze could penetrate it, find her again.

  Then, he felt the rain, a curtain itself, closing on him.

  There was thunder, lightning, and it awakened him, shook him as firmly as a hand.

  Blinking against the water that poured over him, he made his way back around the pond, up the steps to the house.

  Abram waited there for him, a thick, warm towel and a hot mug of tea at the ready.

  Fen knew that he knew.

  Taking the towel and the tea, saying nothing, Fen went directly to his room, Before he even stripped out of his wet clothing, he squished across the floor, grabbed his tablet, keyed in the sequence that displayed the feed from his neurotransmitter.