Portals

by Ann Christy

  Eleanor plays it off well and gives assurances that she’ll come to get Heather whenever she wants. Then she’s gone, with one last significant look at me. Uh oh, I have no idea what I’ve gotten myself into.

  Heather hesitates near the door, as if fearful of taking up too much space. Or maybe she’s just afraid of my mess. It could be either thing really, because my room is a hot mess. I’ve been going through my belongings and deciding what to take and how tightly I can pack.

  There are literally piles of stuff everywhere.

  I pick up a giant armful of my test safety lines and toss those in the corner with a rattle of metal on metal that makes Heather flinch. All the while, I’m chattering on about general stuff that borders idiotic territory. I’m mostly concerned she’ll look at all this and realize I’m up to something nefarious.

  When I start to stack all the artwork on my table to make space, she finally speaks. “Oh, don’t move that on my account. Don’t mess them up.”

  Ah, an opening! I grab at it like a lifeline. “You like painting? Drawing?”

  She shakes her head, her gorgeous blonde hair waving with the motion of it. She really is a stunner, like supermodel gorgeous. “No, I don’t have that talent. I wish I did.”

  Waving toward one of the chairs now empty of my junk, I invite her to take a seat. She does, but perches carefully on the edge. Her posture is so good it looks painful.

  “Are you sure you can’t draw? Lots more people can than think they can. Actually, I think anyone can if they learn a few tricks.”

  That gets her interest and I see her eyeing all my pictures. Her eyes widen at a few of them, like the one of Jack in the medical bay and the one of the Bluriani ship. Then she looks up at me and asks, “Really? What tricks?”

  After dumping my fresh laundry from my chair onto the bed, I take the other seat and say, “Well, there are several tricks. It just depends on which ones you might need. Most of the time, it’s a matter of learning how to look at things.”

  Her absolutely perfect brows draw together, clearly doubting my words. “Looking?”

  I nod and lean back in my chair, framing her with my fingers. “You’ve seen people do that before?”

  She nods. “Only in movies.”

  “Well, that’s part of learning to look at things. If I divorce the way you look live in 3D from the way you’ll look painted, I can decide how best to paint you. In a way, learning to draw is like that. You have to learn how to look at something and stop seeing that thing. Instead, you see the lines and shadows. You see the individual colors, instead of the whole, the play of light and dark.”

  She lowers her head again, then glances back over at the picture of the ship. “I couldn’t do that. Can I ask what that is?”

  “A Bluriani ship. Haven’t you been to the docks yet? You can go see it, you know.”

  She almost flinches at those words, like the very idea of going anywhere is just too much to contemplate. I’m getting a very weird vibe from her and after watching her for just these few minutes, I’m starting to form an idea about why. She’s dressed very demurely for a girl near my age and she’s not wearing makeup, even though there are over eighty pages of makeup products in the catalog for humans.

  Yeah, eighty pages. I had to take that in for a second when I saw it, then breathe slowly to keep from squealing. Eighty pages. Never mind that she has essentially the biggest makeup store in the galaxy at her fingertips, she isn’t wearing so much as cover-up on the red spot on her chin.

  “Heather, can I ask how you came to be here? How long have you been here?” I ask the questions gently, but firmly, like she has no choice but to answer. I’m going for the same tone my guidance counselor at school used when asking questions.

  Her hands return to her lap and her eyes well with tears. “About three weeks,” she whispers. Her voice is so quiet I barely make out the words.

  So, she hasn’t even seen the docks in three weeks? That’s amazing, and also sad.

  “And how you got here?” I prod.

  She pulls in a long breath that’s almost the textbook definition of sad, then she seems to come to a decision, or maybe she’s just giving up. Two fat tears slip over her lids and drop onto her cheeks when she looks at me. “You really want to hear this?”

  The way she says it with such sad bitterness almost makes me say no, but I think she needs to tell someone. Someone from Earth. Someone who will understand. “I do.”

  She nods and looks away. “We’d been in the church for over two months.” Her gaze returns to me and she asks, “You know about that? The churches?”

  I almost blurt out something about the Rapturists, but I think the better of that. I’m not sure if that’s an actual name or a pejorative crafted by the media. Instead, I nod and leave words out of it.

  “Well, we were in a church. Our church. My dad is the youth minister, so we were almost the first ones. In the beginning, it was just a few of us in the main part of the church. Then more and more came until we spread out into the school, the gym, the classrooms, and worship rooms. We eventually had tents set up in the parking lot, huge ones that could hold fifty people or more. We had hundreds of people living there.” She pauses, looking down at the fingers twisting in her lap.

  Eventually, she looks up at me and says, “You know how it is with the portals. They always seem to come when no one is looking, when you’re not ready for it.”

  Thinking back to my house, filling up with the smell of a dinner almost ready to eat, I smile and say, “Yeah. I sure do.”

  “That’s how it was for us. We had two come and both came someplace that the pastors weren’t present. Once in a bathroom and the other inside a Sunday school room. The church wanted them to be public so we could all see it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because everyone said that when the New Clay comes through the portal, if you prayed while it was open, you would have a greater voice with God. That he could hear us louder and better. That he would send more portals.”

  Now, I don’t want to say that this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, because I’ve heard some seriously stupid stuff, but it’s pretty close. Not that they have faith or anything like that, but rather that there is some shortcut they can take to divinity. I’m pretty sure shortcuts don’t work when it comes to faith, but I’ll keep those thoughts to myself.

  “So, you were part of the people who thought the portals were good. Then how did you wind up in the wrong portal?”

  Her smile is shaky and very, very bitter. But she answers me. “The pastors, including my dad, decided that we had to be together while we were awake to improve our chances. All the bedding was moved out of the church and during the day, everyone sat in the church. It was so crowded we had to open doors and windows. No room can take that many people breathing at once. We were squeezed in like sardines except for one spot in the middle, because the portal won’t come if there’s no room.”

  I nod at that, because that’s true. While these people were trying to get portals, people afraid of them were congregating the same way, leaving no room between them so no portal could appear. It actually worked…until someone went to the bathroom. At least, that was the status of things when I left Earth. Who knows what else might have happened since I left?

  “Anyway, one day we got a portal. It was amazing, so beautiful. You couldn’t doubt it came from heaven once you saw it. The New Clay that came out was for some lady. I didn’t really know her, but she’d been in the church with her family for a long time. As soon as she saw the New Clay was her, she jumped up and ran like I’ve never seen anyone run before. She was out the door before anyone really understood she was running.”

  Heather stops there, lost in memory. “What happened then?”

  “My dad happened. The New Clay didn’t try to go after her like they used to. It went a little ways, then stopped and turned around like it was going back into the portal. My dad grabbed it and wo
uldn’t let it go. He told me to come, so I thought he wanted me to help hold her or something. It was kind of pulling him along trying to get back to the portal. But that wasn’t what he wanted at all. Instead, he said that the woman had lost her faith, but he would show that we shouldn’t lose our faith too. Then he shoved me in. Just like that.”

  She shrugs then, more tears falling. “He shoved me in.”

  “And you feel that was wrong?” I ask, because I need to be clear. If their whole goal is to get to a portal, then why should it be bad to get a bonus one?

  She dashes at her tears angrily, saying, “He didn’t go in, did he? He wanted to show faith by throwing me in, not himself. Some faith.”

  I get it now, but I also know what to say to make it better. “Yes, he did. And you think that was bad, but let me put it to you another way. This situation is like drawing, like looking at something so that you aren’t biased by the whole, but instead see the lines and shadows. I don’t know you or your dad, or even your church, but I can tell you what I see.”

  “What?” she asks, those perfect brows drawing together again in a confused frown.

  “I see someone who instead of taking the short route to heaven, gave it up so that his daughter could go. Even not knowing if a portal would ever come for him, he gave the spare one to you.”

  Her blinks are so fast she looks like an old-school robot stuck in a groove. She deflates back into her seat with a hard breath, shock evident. “No,” she breathes.

  “That seems the most likely explanation to me.”

  It takes her a few seconds to absorb, then she starts crying really hard. I mean, full on weeping. I’m taken aback, because I really thought what I said might help. I reach over and rub awkwardly at her shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m sorry. I only wanted to help you.”

  She grabs the hand I have on her shoulder and smiles a horrible looking smile while she cries, snot running out of her nose. “No…you’re right…I didn’t think.”

  I make stupid noises of comfort while she cries herself out, but eventually, she loses some steam. I grab a clean towel for her snot and other secretions. When she’s calm again, I make her a cup of tea and she sips as the last of her hiccups fade.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  She nods, then shrugs. “Not really. This isn’t heaven.”

  “Well, it’s still pretty cool even if it isn’t. I mean, you are on a giant space station that has only one purpose: to save lives. That not even mentioning the twenty-pound catalog that you can order anything you want from. That’s pretty awesome if you ask me.”

  She pulls her sleeves down over her wrists and I finally notice that her cuffs are dingy. I look as discretely as I can and see that her blouse isn’t in very good condition.

  “Are you still wearing the same clothes you came in?” I ask, trying not to sound as surprised as I am.

  She nods. “I wash them every night.”

  “Listen, Heather. This is not hell. This is not a devil’s trick or anything like that. How do you know that this isn’t a part of God’s plan? I don’t share your religious beliefs, but I don’t think jumping to a bad conclusion does any good. Maybe saving planets in trouble is God’s idea? You have to take care of yourself. This place is a good place and you’re safe here.”

  “I suppose it is. I just don’t know what to think. Eleanor told me that I’m a non-transfer because I’m sick, but I don’t know much more than that. I have no clue what I’m supposed to do next. I can’t go back and I’m stuck here.”

  I ping Eleanor and ask her what’s wrong with Heather. Her answer makes me suck in a sharp breath. Cancer. Lymphoma. It’s very advanced. She doesn’t have much time.

  Keeping the shock off my face, I send back, Can you fix her? I already know that answer, but I need to make sure.

  Of course. Eleanor’s mental voice is rather chipper, but also quite pleasant. It makes me wonder what I sound like.

  I understand the urgency now, as well as the reason they brought her here. Hub won’t fix her without her permission, and if she’s too frightened to go along with her facilitator, she’s certainly not going to allow herself to be replicated.

  My mom used to call this sort of situation the serendipity of bad luck. She told me that sometimes the worst things that happen to us wind up causing the best things in our lives. They make us who we are and let us see the small, good things that others might miss. Because we’ve seen and felt the bad things, the good stands out.

  My grandparents were a prime example. Despite being from opposite sides of the world, they were both very similar. Both had been abandoned babies. As odd as that might seem, it wasn’t an entirely unheard of occurrence. My mom said they never talked about their childhoods, so she’d assumed it wasn’t great for either of them. Yet, it was that life that made meeting each other possible and for them, love at first sight lasted till the day each of them died.

  My grandfather was a poet, and it was his strange life that made his work resonate so strongly. Of course, poets don’t make beans for money, so he was most known for a weird book he wrote. That book was a fantasy novel, but one written in the form of letters between a couple of foreigners in love visiting a strange land where nothing was familiar. Cute, but weird. He wrote it in India, where he met my grandmother, who was doing her best to study physics while having zero support or family. And that was that…bad luck turned awesome.

  Heather’s situation is like that, I think. On Earth, this kind of advanced cancer would have almost certainly taken her life. Instead, her bad luck at being tossed into a portal meant for someone else can now save her life. This has been a hard experience for her, but it’s also going to give her a whole new life. A long new life.

  Heather is looking at me like she knows something is going on. I click off the comms and say, “You don’t know much yet. Can I ask why? By the time I’d been here a few weeks I was roaming all over this place.”

  She looks at her cup and says, “I’ve been down, you know. I’ve mostly stayed in my room. You could say I’ve been uncooperative.”

  “I’d say you’re just taking your time.”

  Heather smiles sadly and says, “You’re kind.”

  That makes me laugh. “Uh, no. That I am not. Do you mind if I tell you some stuff? I’m going to fire-hose some info at you, but Eleanor can go over it more slowly if you prefer. Either way, you’ve got a lot of wonderful things to see and a lot of wonderful things to do. Truly.”

  With another glance at my pictures, she asks, “Like all that?”

  Leaning forward, I touch the back of her hand. “And so much more.”

  *****

  It’s very late when Heather leaves, but she’s leaving with a much lighter heart. I think I made a friend. Instead of making me want to stay, her visit simply reaffirms that I have to go. Billions of people are making a hot mess of Earth, all of them believing something different and behaving in ways that are hurting others.

  I have no opinion on religion really. I’m a Hindu, but a lackadaisical one. I don’t care what anyone believes, but I care deeply when others are being hurt. And once they get over to New Earth, I can’t imagine the crushing disappointment many must feel if they think they’re going to heaven. Even worse, what if they believe the planet is their new Eden and it starts more fights.

  More hurt.

  It’s best for people to know the truth. Yes, the truth will be hard for some, but at least they’ll have it.

  I have a hard time imagining it, but I picture a crowd of people crammed into a single room, breathing each other’s used air and waiting, eating only when they must and not showering because no one wants to be gone when a portal comes. That’s just not healthy. I can help them. They may not like me for it, but I’ve never been particularly popular, so it’s no skin off my nose.

  With a sigh, I collect all my test lines and continue the testing. I’ve got so much to do.

  Thirty-Four

 
; A few days later, Jack doesn’t show up and I check my schedule to find that my appointment with him was cancelled. I don’t pay much attention to it, so I have no idea when it was changed. I wonder if this means he’s hanging out with his friends again. I feel something close to jealousy at that idea. Then I notice that I have a new appointment with Hub later in the day.

  “Hub, what’s going on with my schedule? What are we doing later?” I ask, nervous because I’m hiding so much.

  I mean, I’ve got almost a dozen safety lines stuffed in a drawer under my bed, two environment suits, a big belt for holding my lines, a portable interface—which is sort of like a tablet, only way cooler—a new Earth-style camera chock full of pictures from all over station, and a dozen other things I’m hiding.

  Seriously, I’ve got reason to be nervous.

  “Jack asked me to bring you somewhere this afternoon, Lysa. I believe it’s supposed to be a surprise. Otherwise, I would tell you more.”

  A surprise, eh? I grin up at the ceiling and try not to fidget with happy fidgets. I wonder if he’s planned something super romantic. We were talking about that while watching a movie. He doesn’t always get the nuances of human romance, but he’s incredibly interested in it. He can watch romantic movies non-stop. I mean, I’m a teenaged female and I get sick of them before he does.

  “Should I dress up?” I ask.

  I’m pretty sure I hear something like amusement in Hub’s voice when it says, “If you think that would be appropriate.”

  Oh, I do. I definitely do.

  “Okay, thanks Hub. I’m going to hang around today then. Is that okay?”

  “Of course, Lysa. Enjoy your day.”

  There are a lot of things I could do. I could go take more pictures, contact Rosa, go bug Esme if she’s working, or just wander around and maybe wave at the Kassa. Instead, I’m going to do something I’ve been wary of doing, because I fear it might bring Hub’s awareness to my plans.