Tarla didn't see Geoffrey acknowledge Logan's assistance, but she clearly sensed that he did.
"As you can hear," Geoffrey said to the old man, "we would appreciate any information you can offer. I am Major Geoffrey Cookson of the United States Army. We were all on an aircraft heading to the United States from Japan, when a storm—"
"Yes, yes," the old man interrupted. "A storm. Always a storm. Thunder and lightning, then the bright light, then waking up in the barn. Sometimes a plane. Sometimes a boat. But always a storm... and the second sun."
"The second sun isn't always there?" Geoffrey asked.
The old man shrugged. "Now you see it, now you don't. Sometimes when you see it, there's a newcomer waiting in the barn. Was on a fishing boat off Guam myself. The rest are gone now." Again he appeared to mentally drift away, then return. "I am Duncan, the eldest of this lost tribe." He waved a frail hand toward the men behind him. "You'll have the rest of your lives to meet everyone else. Must go to work now." He started to move away once more.
Tarla's worried gaze darted to Geoffrey but Logan spoke up. "You said they take care of problems. Who are they?"
Duncan shook his head. "Don't know that either. Just know they're out there, past the invisible wall, and they take care of problems." He crooked his finger for Tarla to come closer. When she did, he whispered, "I think they're fairies."
The more Tarla was hearing, the less she understood.
"This is getting nowhere fast," Logan muttered to Geoffrey. "And the animals at your back are starting to show their teeth."
Tarla worried that decision-making was not one of the major's strong points. His decision to keep a man like McKay at his side was her first clue. She offered a suggestion when Duncan tried to leave again.
"Duncan, you said you have to get back to work. Perhaps we could help. There are an awful lot of us. If we broke up into groups, and you assigned an English-speaking person to each group, we could be shown what it is you do here and give you a hand."
Duncan smiled broadly. "That's a fine idea, young lady. Lots of strong backs. Must work to eat. Must eat to work." He called five men forward and repeated Tarla's suggestion.
"I'll take the women and go with Duncan," Tarla stated. "We nurses are known for our endless patience." Her remark won a smile from the major but Logan had an objection.
"You'll take ten men with you too," he said while his eyes scanned the crowd for candidates.
Tarla automatically bristled at his authoritative tone. He had no right to give her orders. "That won't be necessary."
Logan's gaze slid to hers and held. "I say it is."
Tarla lifted her chin, crossed her arms and pretended she wasn't a full head shorter than him. "Listen up, McKay. That evil-eye of yours may work on the men but it doesn't intimidate me one bit."
Geoffrey cleared his throat before Logan could counter. "I believe the sergeant made a valid suggestion, Captain. If what Duncan said is true, and these men haven't seen women for years, there's no telling what difficulties you might encounter. My recommendation would be to select ten of your patients. They would be most apt to be protective of you."
Tarla still didn't believe the women needed men with them, but at least the major explained his reasoning rather than just giving an order, and unlike McKay, he was a superior officer. Besides, Willy and some of the other patients would probably prefer to be with the nurses. "Yes sir. I'll select ten to take with us."
Before going their separate ways, Geoffrey had one last thing to say. "I want to assure you both that, although I have been a bit out of my element thus far, I am quite good at strategic planning. Once we gather sufficient information, I'm sure we will find a solution to this peculiar dilemma. In the meantime, I appreciate the assistance."
Tarla thought it took quite a man to admit his weakness and decided right then that she liked the major. As she gathered the women and chose the men to stay with them, she noted that Logan put Wilkes in his own group and split up the other troublemakers. Though she abhorred the macho tactics he'd used so far to maintain control, she could see that his methods had some merit under the circumstances. But she wondered just how long Wilkes would be held off by hostile glares before he tested McKay's strength. Then again, maybe Wilkes was intimidated so easily because he'd already tested McKay and learned what Tarla had—that his rough appearance went all the way to the bone.
"Now what?" Robin asked as soon as Tarla came near.
"We follow the leader and pry anything out of his fuzzy mind we possibly can." She led her group to Duncan. "We're all yours, Duncan. Where to?"
The elderly man beamed as he was surrounded by young ladies. "Used to work in the fields, but can't keep up any more. In the kitchen now, with the other old ones. Women's chores are all we're good for these days."
Robin raised an eyebrow but Tarla quickly touched a finger to her lips. Duncan would never have heard of women's equality and this was not the time to explain it.
A whinnying sound caught Tarla's attention and she turned to see several of the other groups climbing into horse-drawn wagons. "Where will they be going?"
Duncan squinted at the wagons. "Could be the orchards. Plenty of ripe fruit needs picking. Corn's ready too. Could be either."
Since Tarla couldn't see any orchards or fields, she guessed the farm was very large. "And what's beyond the farm?"
Duncan started his slow hobble again. "Don't know. The farm land ends at the invisible wall."
Tarla and Robin shared a skeptical glance. "You mentioned that before," Robin said. "Can you describe it?"
"Can't describe something invisible. It's just there and you can't walk through it, dig under it or climb over it."
Robin leaned toward Tarla and murmured in her ear. "Sounds like one of those force fields in science fiction movies. I think we should bring Higgs in as a consultant. He's probably been right all along."
Tarla was more tempted than ever to tell Robin her secret. However, under the circumstances, she was afraid revealing her knowledge of alien worlds might make the situation even more stressful.
Matching their pace to Duncan's, they were only moving along an inch at a time, but Tarla could see they were headed toward another large wooden building similar to the barn. Four smoke-spewing chimneys protruded from the corners of the roof.
Beyond the large building were rows of smaller ones. Every structure, including the barn, was painted white with red doors and roofs. The area looked like a cross between an army unit and summer camp.
Duncan pointed to the smaller buildings. "Men sleep in those. New people have to build their own. No hurry though. Rainy season's over and colder weather's not due for months."
"You have regular seasons?" Alicia, the helicopter pilot, asked.
Duncan stopped and took a few breaths before answering. "After the big war, I lived in New York before I set off to see the world. We had seasons there. This place always reminded me of California. Never liked California."
After the big war? Tarla guessed he was referring to Terra's World War II and quickly did some arithmetic. If Duncan was remembering his timeline correctly, he had to be a hundred ten or fifteen years old. It was likely that whoever healed her wounded soldiers also had the ability to extend life spans. Naturally she was aware of a whole range of alien civilizations that had such technology, but she'd never heard of any humanoid supportive planets so similar to Terra with green sky and blue trees.
Duncan started moving toward the buildings again. "Kitchen's in the big house. Necessary room too. Don't have a separate room for women though. That might be a problem."
Robin snorted. "Might be a problem? I'll guarantee it. How many men live here?"
"Fifty-five... no fifty-four. Moishe passed on a few months ago."
Robin made a face at Tarla. "Fifty-four, plus one hundred seventeen more. All using the same bathroom? We've got to find a way out of here fast."
"Excuse me, sir?"
Tarla turned to see Willy
coming up alongside her. Duncan paused again to listen to the young man.
"My name's Willy. Me and these other guys, well, we were half-dead on the plane and now we're walking around like nothing ever happened to us. We were hoping you could tell us how, or why, or something."
Duncan sighed and looked at each of the men. "Half-dead, eh? Knew they could fix a broken bone good as new or heal a bad cut. Guess they could have fixed you fellas up before putting you in the barn."
"Do you mean the ones you think are fairies healed these men?" Tarla asked.
Duncan nodded and gave her a wink. "Don't know the how or why of it but when someone here gets sick or hurt, they go into the tack room in the barn and close the door. A while later they come back out all better."
Robin voiced the question in everyone's mind. "What does the sick person say happened to them?"
"No one ever remembers," Duncan mumbled and got moving again.
"Here we are," he said as they reached the big house. Willy quickly opened the door and held it, while everyone entered.
Inside were a dozen elderly men performing a variety of chores but one thing was instantly noticeable. There were no appliances. A hearth was in each corner with large cauldrons hanging over the smoldering fires. The man doing dishes was working a hand pump to get water.
Not only had they been dropped into a strange world, the contradiction between advanced medical technology and a barely civilized farming community couldn't be ignored. Tarla suddenly recalled Higgs's theory that a superior race had put them all in a zoo of some sort suddenly seemed way too possible.
Robin murmured her similar conclusion close to Tarla's ear. "Okay, I hate to say it, but I'm starting to worry that Higgs nailed it with his zoo theory."
Once the elderly men heard how many more people would be eating with them, they welcomed the extra hands.
Before they were put to work, however, they were offered a snack of bread, cheese and some fruits that tasted like apples and pears, but had white and pink skins. Everyone agreed that it was possibly the best food they'd had since they entered the army. The water they were given was lightly carbonated and was so refreshing, they each had a second cup. Darcy declared that it had to be from a mountain spring but Duncan only knew that it came through the pump.
As soon as they had their fill, Tarla made sure each person had an assignment while she stuck by Duncan. She could tell he was tiring of all the questions but she prodded him a bit further.
"You said you'd been here about ninety years. What about the others?"
Duncan rubbed his ear lobe. "Hard to say. Some have been here as long as me. Some only a little while."
"You must have been very young when you arrived."
He considered her words a moment then shrugged. "Was twenty four. Never thought I'd see sixty let alone pass a hundred. But they don't let you die so easy here. Just keep fixing a body until it's too old to wake up one morning... like Moishe." He stared at a spot on the floor. "Going to sleep and not getting up. That's the only way to leave this place."
Tarla waited for him to say more on his own but after a few seconds, the placid expression returned to his wrinkled face.
"Must get to work now," he said and took her to the table where another man was shucking ears of corn.
As her fingers peeled away the husks, her mind tried to make sense of what she'd seen and heard so far, but she only came up with more questions. Besides the technology extremes, the general demeanor of the men in residence was most peculiar. She could understand how the older men might accept being in this strange place, especially when some of them, like Duncan, had been here for nearly a century.
But what about the others? Her first impression of them had been that they were like sheep. Or maybe robots. If they had been transported to an alien planet, these men could be machines instead of humans. Yet, she recalled Duncan's comment about the wall. At one time, someone must have tried to scale it or dig under it for him to say it couldn't be done. A robot wouldn't attempt to escape.
Another explanation could be that they were all tranquilized, but their pupils appeared normal and, though their movements seemed a bit slow, they were fairly smooth and coordinated. Rather than exhibiting symptoms of being drugged, she would describe them as being incredibly complacent.
Had they all given up? Or were they simply too afraid to face whatever power was out there?
* * *
Logan tipped the clay jug to pour another cup of the cool water. It wasn't that he was still thirsty, he just had never tasted anything so... clean. That word replayed itself in his head as he realized clean was the best description he could come up with for this whole weird place. The water, the air, the whitewashed buildings, even the animals and the men—everything looked too clean and fresh.
As a kid growing up in one of the lousier neighborhoods of Detroit, he hadn't believed there were places in the world where the sky was actually blue. As far as he knew, streets and sidewalks always had garbage and urine all over them. He had seen pictures of cleaner, more colorful places in books at school but he doubted they were real. For him, the world was dirty and gray, a place to survive rather than appreciate its beauty.
Thirty-some years later, his opinion of the world was still pretty much the same, which was why he knew this place—even without the green sky and blue grass—wasn't part of any world he was familiar with. He didn't belong anywhere this squeaky clean.
Exactly where he did belong was a question he'd stopped asking himself years ago. As a child he was constantly daydreaming about being somewhere else. He was always the good guy fighting the bad, righting wrongs and saving the world from dark forces. As he aged, his daydreams spilled into real life. Whenever some kid was getting picked on, he just happened to be there and could never resist lending a hand to the underdog.
For his efforts, he occasionally received mementos, like the scar on his jaw, when he had stopped some punks from beating a wino, and got razor-slashed in the process. Or the scar on his forehead when he interrupted a man trying to force himself on a woman and learned what it felt like to get hit in the head with a brick.
Despite numerous lessons however, he never seemed to learn to keep his nose out of other people's business. Fortunately, he grew big enough and became tough enough that his wins soon outnumbered his losses. Eventually he discovered how to cast an impression of danger without having to fight all the time. The strangest part was, the only time he felt right was when he was playing the hero. Otherwise, he always had the feeling he was in the wrong place and time... like he didn't belong anywhere.
The closest he'd ever gotten to belonging was in the military but, as it turned out, the politicians in control had no use for heroes either.
One of the oriental men came up beside him carrying a large basket filled with pink, pear-shaped fruit. He smiled at Logan and, with a movement of his eyes and head, requested his assistance in emptying the fruit into the back of the wagon. Logan gave him a hand then walked back with the man to help him pick some more. The men here didn't move very quickly or work all that strenuously but they did keep working... and looked rather happy about it.
Duncan had been right about there being little use for English or any other language for that matter. These men had barely spoken a dozen words aloud. Whatever thoughts they'd needed to express so far had been accomplished silently. Normally that would have been just fine with Logan but he needed to learn more from them than how to tell which fruit was ripe enough to be plucked. Only verbal questions and answers were going to explain what had happened to them.
Hans, this group's English-speaking guide, was a slightly built, middle-aged man from Frankfurt, Germany, who had arrived here when he was in his twenties. He knew very little and didn't particularly care.
That attitude would have seemed odd coming from anyone in this situation, but when Logan uncovered the fact that Hans had previously been a research marine biologist, it made even less sense. When had the man stop
ped questioning things around him and peacefully accepted a life of performing brainless tasks?
On the way to the orchard, Hans had politely answered every question Logan could think of about the layout of the farm, the residents and how they filled their days. The farm sounded as though it was about a mile square and the men worked it from sunrise to sunset. Besides their chores, they ate and slept. Nothing else. No entertainment, playing or distractions of any kind.
When asked if he or any of the others had ever tried to leave the farm, Hans said everyone tries at first, but they soon realize what a pleasant life they have here and how satisfying it is to put in a good day's work. His dumb-looking smile had stayed plastered on his face the whole time he was talking.
As Logan considered the bits of information he'd learned, another question came to him and he sought Hans out again.
"I'm curious about something, Hans," Logan said as he pulled a piece of fruit off a branch and dropped it in the basket at his feet. "I can see how important it is for you fellows to do your work. How is it so many of you were standing outside of the barn when we came out?"
Hans's smile broadened a bit. "Because it was locked."
Logan could tell that was supposed to explain everything and took a stab at what he meant. "And when the barn door's locked... new people arrive?"
Hans nodded. "Sometimes. Not often. Usually it just means Duncan's fairies are at work."
"At work doing what?"
"Trading."
Logan reined in his frustration and forced himself to use the same easy tone Hans used. "What is it they trade?"
"We give them some of the fruits and vegetables we grow, and they leave us things we need but can't make ourselves." Hans caught sight of some ripe fruit on another tree and started dragging his nearly full basket toward it.
Logan picked up the basket and carried it for him as he asked, "What sort of things?" Hans cocked his head at him with a totally vacant look in his eyes as if he had no idea what he was talking about. "You said the fairies leave you things you need. Like what?"
LOGAN (The Innerworld Affairs Series, Book 5) Page 4
