by A. Sparrow
“Ah well, what do we have here? Another casualty of the swamp air?”
“I’d guess not,” said Daraken. “But I have a feeling this one’s going to be interesting.”
The healer turned his attention from the young woman with the splinters. “Urep’o?”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Ara. “We’ve just come from Ur but—”
“I meant her stitches,” said the healer. “Clearly, they’re Urep’o.”
“She survived one of their fire bolts,” said Ara. “They fixed her up, but she’s had a setback. We … Seor, in particular … could really use some food and drink.”
The other officer’s eyes widened and a vague smile curled on his stubbled visage. “Seor, did you say?”
“Have my mug,” said the healer, handing over his tea.
“Thank you,” Seor croaked, taking it trembling to her lips.
“By any chance, might you be Seoresophon … of Suul?” said the other officer.
Seor peered over the rim of the mug, looking startled and confused.
“How … how do you know my given name?”
“I’m Esayos, of Suul. You don’t know me, but I fought beside your husband. I attended your commendation ceremony, for the Battle of Croega.”
Chapter 49: Bon Voyage
Miles swayed up the ladder, the music bursting from his radio’s tinny speaker reverberating into the rafters of the loft. Frank and the new guy – the skinny one they called Bimji – seemed more puzzled than impressed.
Bimji looked on blankly, hands on his hips. Frank sat hunched in the corner, knees drawn up, chin resting on folded arms. His face looked blotchy, his eyes red. Drips of blood spattered his clothes.
Miles paused in the hatch, clinging to the ladder with one hand.
“Frank? You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just tired. Just got done patching an army.”
“How do you make this music?” said Bimji.
“I think it’s an iPod,” said Frank.
“That’s no iPod, mister,” said Miles. “This is my pocket radio.”
Frank perked up. “That’s … a live broadcast?”
“Yup.” He flipped to another station to demonstrate, finding the daily business news.
“WBZ?” said Frank. “That’s in Boston.”
“I don’t understand,” said Bimji. “What does this mean?”
“I’m … not sure,” said Frank.
Crackles interrupted the news report and it faded into static.
“The signal comes and goes,” said Miles. “Hang on, I’ll get it back,” said Miles, climbing onto the loft. He paced from one end to the other, rotating the radio this way and that.
A sizzle burst from the speakers, resolving into a pop rock jingle: “Ninety-nine … you always come back for more! WBZ news time 10:12. The Ninety-nine Restaurant brings you traffic on the threes.”
Frank unfolded himself from the corner and stood. “How are you getting that signal? Where is it coming from?”
A whistle sounded below. “Doctor Frank!” called Tezhay. “Do you sleep? You must to wake up. We are leaving this place.”
Frank snatched the radio from Miles’ grip.
“Hey! Easy with that.”
Frank spun on his toes, radio extended, twisting, rotating it. He found a position that made the signal come in loud and clear, and froze.
“Hah, will you look at that?” said Frank. There’s only a signal when I tilt it up this way … towards the mountains.”
“Don’t waste the batteries!” said Miles. “I don’t have any spares.”
Tezhay’s head poked into the loft, eyebrows arched in puzzlement. “Who is making this music?”
“Something you want to tell us, Tezhay?” said Frank. “What’s up there in those hills?”
Tezhay ascended the ladder and stepped into the loft. Frank stood posed like a statue, holding the radio like Lady Liberty’s torch.
“There’s another stone close nearby, isn’t there?” said Frank.
“Stone? What’s this about a stone,” said Miles.
***
Tezhay stared at the little silver radio. He owned such a device himself in Belize, using it in the evenings to listen to some scratchy punta or reggae when he wasn’t playing brukdown with the neighbors. Marizelle was always hijacking it to listen to preachers and political gossip.
A man squawked from Doctor Frank’s palm about President Obama, his voice piped in directly from Ur. That such a transmission was possible was news to Tezhay, and likely would be a revelation as well to the Philosophers who studied xenoliths.
That an ignorant exile could approximate the delicate art of locating and monitoring the activity of xenoliths simply by pressing a button on a little box struck Tezhay as ironic. Perhaps it was time for the Philosophers to spend more time investigating Urep’o technologies before consigning them to the rubbish heap, as they had done with the image receivers and computing devices he had carried back to Sesei.
Fracture planes propagated through Tezhay’s convictions like cracks through a window pane. He wanted to tell these exiles exactly why they heard this music; that it came through a portal not half a day’s walk up into the mountains. But Academy Protocol bound him to keep silent.
“Is stone, yes,” said Tezhay. “The mountains are full of stone. They are made of stone.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” said Doctor Frank. “You know exactly where the stone is that’s funneling this radio signal, don’t you?”
As Doctor Frank well knew, Tezhay had strayed from Protocol, even before the incident in Arizona when Tezhay had almost let this exile return home. Years ago, Tezhay had acquired the very weapons that now evened their odds against their Venep’o attackers. Only Tezhay stood between these exiles and their homes.
Miles fumbled with his shirt pocket and flipped open his cell phone. “Hey, I got bars again! I gotta go find Misty.” He hustled to the ladder and slipped on the treads, ratcheting down to the floor of the morgue.
“He is from Ur? This man who is talking from the box?” said Bimji.
“He most certainly is,” said Frank. “Straight from the Hub.”
Tezhay understood why the Academy kept xenoliths hidden from the Urep’o and relocated Urep’o who discovered them to places where their knowledge can do no harm. Bearing Urep’o technologies across portals was just as forbidden, so Tezhay, the gun smuggler, could make no claim to purity. When his own government found reason to breach Protocol, was it no wonder that Tezhay could not hold Protocol sacred?
These foreigners had no reason to stand and fight and die at the hands of a Venep’o horde. It was not their fight. He had no desire to stay and be slaughtered either, but the portal in the high meadows opened thousands of miles to the north of where he needed to be. A Venep’o army stood between him and the xenolith in Maora that would take him to Chiqibul and the Macal River with a relay to Ubabaor where the Academy awaited his report, and then back to Marizelle and his little girl in Belize City where was weeks late in returning.
But what of these exiles? Doctor Frank, with a heart broken two ways, his one-legged woman and the young ones, hardly fit for survival in this world. Peregrins, as the Giep’o called them, quaintly believing they used a term common in Ur. Why hold them captive? What secrets could they reveal that were not already compromised by the actions of Eghazi and the Inner Quorum?
Tezhay sighed. “I will show you,” he said. “All of you. So every exile can go home.” From his satchel, he pulled out the tabulator he had rescued from the cache.
***
At Bimji’s urging, Frank went to see Liz, the precious radio tucked into his pocket. He found Misty and Miles on the porch, Miles beaming as Misty spoke with the buoyancy of a teeny bopper on Miles’ cell phone, her eyes wide and leaky.
He found Liz with Ellie out back, arguing with the fighters who had commandeered the cook shack, some of whom were unloading a donkey Liz had just pack
ed with foodstuffs.
“Too many damn chiefs, not enough Indians,” said Liz. “Half of them are packing to evacuate and the other half are holding a party.” She approached Frank cautiously, her eyes soft, her body language apologetic.
“Got something here you might find interesting,” said Frank.
Liz didn’t even notice the radio. “I heard Bimji came to see you?” said Liz. “What did he say to you?”
“He proposed,” said Frank. “Got down on one knee and everything. No ring, though, so I turned him down.”
“Oh stop! Seriously, Frank.”
“He … welcomed me to the fold. Called me a ‘spouse-brother’ and all that. You all are gonna need a bigger bed.”
Liz gazed into his face, her face flat and calm. How different this face from the one Frank remembered, and he didn’t mean the crow’s feet. It was the way she looked at him. How he missed that other Liz.
“You are welcome here,” said Liz. “You realize that, don’t you?”
“Funny. I don’t feel welcome. My ‘spouse-brother’ seems more excited about me being here than anyone else.”
“When something hurts, it hurts,” said Liz. “I can’t help that any more than I can help my worthless hip.”
“Well, I got something here that can help you.” Frank pulled out Miles’ radio.
Liz squinted at it.
Frank flicked it on, and thumbed down the frequencies to AM 850 WEEI sports talk.
“Christ. It’s Septembuh, guys,” said a listener calling in. “I wanna talk some Pats.” A pair of rowdy hosts promptly hooted him down and continued their jabbering about all things Red Sox.
Liz looked puzzled for a moment; her eyes wandered as if they had lost their moorings. But she quickly collected her composure and set her chin.
“Always hated baseball,” she said. “Such a tedious sport.”
Frank changed the station, back to WBZ.
“…the Nor’easter will impact south facing shores on the Cape and Islands, until Saturday afternoon when it will move out of the Gulf of Maine….”
“What a shame,” said Liz. “Guess we won’t be going to the beach.”
“That’s it? You’re not curious at all how this is happening?”
“Don’t waste my time, Frank.”
“Where do you think this is coming from?” said Frank.
“I don’t know,” she said. “A tape, maybe? Isn’t that a … Walkman?”
“This is live, Liz.”
She took a deep breath. “So what does that mean?”
“Liz. There’s a portal. A way back. Right up there in those hills. Tezhay said he’d show us. We can go home.”
“That’s … preposterous.”
“No, it’s not. I’ve been there and back again. There are special places that only open now and again. Tezhay said there’s a convergence coming tomorrow.”
“Frank … can we discuss this some other time. I’m trying to get the refugees packed up to go, and these soldiers to part with some of their grub.”
“Did you hear me Liz? I said you can go home.”
“Home? I am home, Frank,” said Liz, anguish creeping into her voice. “This is my home and they’re making me leave it.”
“Listen … you don’t have to … be with me. I understand things change. But if you go back, you can see your family. You can get that hip fixed. They do great work with replacements these days.”
“This is just … too much,” said Liz.
“But it’s true. It’s do-able. I’ve gone back and forth.”
“You mean to tell me you came here, went back and came here again? But why, Frank? That’s just plain foolish.”
“I came back because of you. To find you.”
“Don’t do this,” said Liz. “Don’t pull this ‘I should feel guilty’ crap because I don’t feel warm and bubbly about seeing you again.”
“I didn’t know that I could find you,” said Frank. “I didn’t know you’d react this way if I did. But I had to try.”
“So I’m the bad guy here? And you’re the loyal husband, till death do us part?”
“It doesn’t matter, Liz. Whatever. It is what it is now. I’m just trying to help you a little bit.”
“Help me? If you want to help, help me keep these people safe. Help me keep my farm. You thought that Sports Radio crap would impress me?”
“I’ll help you whatever way I can. Just think about it. Your brother and sister would love to see you. They’re both living in Texas, last I heard. And a good orthopedic surgeon can make that hip as good as new.”
Miles rushed over. “I thought I heard my radio blasting. Dude, what’d I tell you about the batteries?”
Frank turned off the radio and slapped it into Miles’ palm. He glanced back to see Liz leaning with her head braced against a donkey. He walked out to the lane in time to see a boulder fly over the cliff top and crash into a terrace wall that the soldiers had dug entrenchments behind. Soldiers and Nalkies scattered and fled from the lower terraces.
***
“Siege weapon,” said Tezhay. “It is their specialty.” He stood atop the smashed wall. “This stone is small and came from far. Is probably just for test. We need to leave … soon. The stones will come bigger when they fight for real, and some may bring fire.”
Frank sighed. “I don’t think there’s any way Liz leaves this farm.”
“She has no choice,” said Tezhay. “If she stay, she will die.”
Frank shrugged. “What can I do?”
“What you think … the others?” said Tezhay. “Will they join?”
“Well, Miles is sure itching to get back, so I’m sure he’ll tag along. Misty … I don’t know … I got a feeling she’ll only go if Liz goes.”
“And you?”
Frank bit his lip. “Don’t know yet.”
A donkey train snaked its up one of the paths leading up to the high meadows through one of the ravines that dented the headwall of the vale. The first of the refugees were leaving the farm. Horsemen already roamed the heights as the Nalkies provided cover for the retreating civilians.
Some of the villagers had opted to stay and fight; others, lame, elderly, with small children or simply too frightened to face the Venep’o packed what few possessions they had managed to bring, and prepared to leave.
“Where can they go that’s safe?” said Frank.
“Over mountains is another valley,” said Tezhay. “Not much there. Too narrow and too much rocks for farm, but … where else is there to go? You all should go soon, while you can.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I stay. Help fight,” said Tezhay.
“Tezhay, that’s suicide. They’ll be crushed.”
“Maybe not,” said Tezhay. “Maybe we have some ways to slow them. Some things I take from the cache. I send my volunteers to the hills to make some preparation.”
“I wish there was a way we could take all of these folks through the portal,” said Frank.
“Oh yes,” said Tezhay. “We take an Army to Boston. No one will notice. Yes?”
A dull thump emanated from the woods below. An object hurtled over the cliffs.
“Watch out!” said Tezhay. “Another one comes.”
Frank watched it rise above the trees, tumbling, whistling through the air. It thudded into the mud below one of the few remaining patches of sweet peas, scattering dirt, leaving a crater the size of a hot tub.
“You remember my instructions?” said Tezhay.
“Yeah,” said Frank. He sighed. “Let me say some goodbyes. See if Miles is ready.”
***
Miles grew antsy waited for Misty and the others to collect their things. He was ready to go. He had his pack on and had finally retrieved his own jeans and button-up shirt on a clothes line strung from the porch. Tezhay said they had hours before the passage fully opened, whatever that meant. But Miles wanted to be there yesterday. He had had enough of this place.
&nbs
p; He pulled out his radio and turned it on, alarmed to find that the signal had faded. He was afraid he had lost it until he played with the fine tuning and brought it back in, though not as strong as before. Despite his worries over what battery life remained, he couldn’t resist turning it on every few minutes or so to confirm that the signal was still present.
And then he saw them, those crazed eyes that had stalked him behind the parking lot of Brownie’s Rock Shop. He would know them anywhere.
The crazed one saw him and followed him around to the cook shack. Miles turned to run, but stumbled. He dropped the radio and the battery hatch popped open spilling both batteries into the dirt. He crawled after them, retrieving one from under the foot of a soldier bearing a large spear. The other got kicked into a ditch. He fished it out and wiped the mud off on his pants.
And there he was, standing over him—the crazed one. He stopped down and held out a square black object in his palm—the key to Miles’ Prius. He stared at Miles, shook his palm at him. Miles reached slowly and plucked the key from his palm. The crazed one nodded at Miles, straightened up and walked away.
***
Frank found Miles looking dazed beside the cook shack where soldiers were scraping the last of the crusted porridge from a cauldron and wrapping dollops in leaves.
“What’s wrong with you?” said Frank.
“Um, nothing,” said Miles.
“Seen Liz?’
“No.” His eyes brightened. “But there’s Misty!”
Misty came around back from the spring, laden with a pair of bulging water skins. She carried them into Tom’s room.
Frank and Miles followed after her. They found the entire clan there, including Bimji. Tom was lashing his possessions to a pack frame. He looked far from hale, but he was definitely on the mend. He should not have been on his feet so soon, but the fact he hadn’t already keeled over from internal blood loss was perhaps a good sign. He could also have used a longer course of IV antibiotics, but now was not the time.
Liz looked beleaguered. “Look what you’ve done,” she said, upon spying Frank loitering by the door. “Gone and started a mutiny.”
“How so?”
“They all want me to go to Ur—with you.”
“Really?” Frank felt his heart skip ahead of itself.
“What have you been telling them?”
