“Who is doing it?” asked Horkai, gesturing at the sign.
“The ones we’re going to see,” said Qatik. “They’re reclaiming.”
“Why?” asked Horkai.
Beside him, Qatik shrugged.
They continued on, the houses even sparser now. They were well into the foothills. Each road they crossed now was carefully labeled, and some minor repair work had been done as well, the road cleared of the larger debris, the largest cracks in the surface filled with dirt and stones. A mile or two more and the houses were gone altogether, the road running along the side of a hill, sloping away to the other side. There were places now where the road was washed out, completely collapsed, and they had to either climb up the hill and through the dust and back down again or clamber down and around. But even here there were signs of someone at work, little hints of a living presence.
An old rest area, rusty metal rail still in place, the building itself having fallen off its foundations to spill into the parking lot. A sudden unbroken run of telephone poles, most snapped off partway down but a few still relatively intact. And then a few more houses, these almost unpleasantly big, at least if their rubble was any indication. Perhaps condos rather than individual houses, impossible now to say. A triangular sign with a silhouette of an animal—a deer, perhaps—crudely painted on it. The corrugated end of an old drainage ditch pipe, now full of blackish ooze, the mountains close enough now that he could see cracks and fissures in the rock face. How long have we been walking? How much time has gone by? He looked up to see the sun already well behind them, well on its way to setting.
The road dead-ended into another road, with two metal signs at the end of it. On one, someone had painted in black tar an arrow pointing left and the words S. SASQUATCH BULL. On the other, an arrow pointing right and reading LL COTTONWD CNY. The two mules consulted, their faceplates close together, gesturing back and forth, and finally went to the right. There was a parking lot, several destroyed cars still in it, and then nothing: only mountains edging down almost to the road, fragments of dead trees, a broken and gravel-edged road.
About two hundred yards along they came to a bare wire, strung at waist height across the road. The mules, seeing it, slowed and then stopped.
“What do you think it is?” asked Horkai.
“A wire,” said Qatik simply.
“No,” said Horkai. “What is it for?”
Qatik just shrugged.
They got closer. The wire, they saw, hadn’t been there long. It was freshly greased and very thin, a slight amber sheen to it.
“Maybe a trigger,” said Qanik. “A trip wire.”
“A trigger for what?” asked Horkai. “And who would be stupid enough to trip it?”
“I don’t know,” said Qanik. “During the day nobody would trip it. But at night…”
They followed it off the side of the road, careful not to touch it, found that it had been tied to a metal post that had been pounded into the ground. They followed it back in the other direction. There the end of it fed into the lid of a metal box, its outer surface covered with solar panels.
They circled around the box, crossed to the other side of the wire. There seemed no reason to worry about the wire anymore—they’d crossed it and thus it no longer existed. But the mules stayed where they were, examining the wire from the other side, nearly touching it.
Horkai patted Qanik’s head. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
But Qanik shook his head. “We need to set it off,” he said. “We need to know what it does.”
“That’s a stupid idea,” said Horkai.
“This is part of our purpose,” said Qatik. “This is what we do.”
* * *
HIVES, THOUGHT HORKAI, lying on the ground a dozen yards away from the mules, watching them squatting by the wire, searching through the backpacks for something. Mules. Burdens. Purposes. None of it really made sense: different sets of ideas, different regimes of knowledge that should compete and contrast with one another but which instead had been used by Rasmus to create a sense of community, a sense of duty. Was it only Rasmus or did it go further than that? Was Rasmus a manipulator or was he just as caught in the trap himself?
And now here he was, paralyzed from the waist down, lying in the middle of a canyon road, waiting for something to happen to kill his mules and leave him isolated and stranded.
They’d closed their backpacks again, threw them behind them, toward Horkai. They were speaking to each other, standing very close, one wildly gesticulating and the other holding still, his arms crossed over his chest. They were far enough away that Horkai couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then the one that had been gesticulating stalked off the road. A moment later he was back, carrying a large flat piece of shale, as big as Horkai’s chest.
Both mules took a few steps back; then the mule with the rock lifted it over his head and hurled it. It caught the wire and instantly snapped it, the ends whipping away.
Horkai, already braced for an explosion, closed his eyes, but no explosion came. Instead, what came was a voice.
“Welcome!” the voice said. “Welcome, brothers! If you have made it this far, perhaps this is an indication that conditions are sufficiently ameliorated for the human species to now survive. We are glad you can survive! But your own personal survival is only the first step. We have been waiting for you, waiting to receive you to let you know what you can do next to help your species.
“But first a little bit about us. We are here for you. We are here to protect you. We love you, just as God loves you, and we will fight to allow you to survive. God has chosen us to stand attendant to you and to guide you in once again founding civilization. We have waited long for you and you, too, have…”
The message continued on, but a mule had already rushed toward him, scooped him up off the ground, and placed him on his shoulders. They moved down the road, even faster than usual this time. The sound of the voice was quickly lost behind them.
“What’s wrong?” asked Horkai.
“It is a trap,” said Qatik, from beside him.
“It didn’t sound like a trap,” said Horkai. “It sounded like a message.”
“Traps never seem like traps,” Qatik said.
“They said they want to help us.”
“No,” said Qanik. “Qatik is right. This is a trap. They are not friendly.”
“How do you know?”
“We know,” said Qanik.
“Besides, the message was not for us,” said Qatik. “The message is not meant to be heard for many, many years. It is a message for those who come after us.”
“So is it a message or a trap?” said Horkai. “It can’t be both. Who told you it was a trap?”
“It does not matter who told us,” said Qatik, and Horkai thought, Rasmus.
“But if it’s a trap, shouldn’t we turn around?”
“We can’t turn around,” said Qanik. “It’s our purpose.”
“So we’re walking into a trap, knowing it’s a trap?”
“Yes,” said Qatik. “But we have the advantage.”
“What advantage can we possibly have?”
“You. You are better than a trap.”
* * *
CRAZY, HE THOUGHT. He could still hear the voice ringing in his ears: Welcome! Welcome! Either it was a trap or it wasn’t; in either case, he couldn’t help but feel they were going about things all wrong.
They continued walking. No houses at all now, just the weathered and broken white stumps of dead, dry trees. There wasn’t as much dust here—either because of the altitude or because the canyon kept it out. WASATCH NATIONAL FOREST, a weathered sign read. As they came closer, it became clear that the lines that composed the letters had been touched up, filled in so they would be visible again. The remains of another road, Horkai noticed, was running beside them and a little above, a little higher up the slope. It veered off and came back again. The sound, not too distant, of a river. If he could see the
water, he wondered, would it be as bloodred as the stream he had seen before? To one side, a dozen yards from the road, two piles of carefully cut timber, tree trunks stripped of their branches and bleached now, beginning to crack and separate and flinder away.
And then suddenly they turned a bend in the road and Qatik and Qanik stopped. Horkai looked to understand why, but saw nothing.
“What is it?” he asked. “What do you see?”
“Beautiful,” said Qanik, and Qatik answered, “Yes, it is.”
They stayed there stock-still. Horkai couldn’t see anything beyond the same broken road, the same cracked trees. And then Qanik and Qatik were moving again, slower this time, drifting to the side of the road.
And then he saw it: just past the asphalt of the road and the gravel of the shoulder, in the dirt: four small, scraggly plants, perhaps four inches tall. They were twisted and contorted in on themselves, their leaves pale and semitransparent, but they were alive: the only living plants that Horkai had seen since going outside.
As they came closer, it became clear not only that the plants were alive but that they had also been planted. They were arranged in a straight line despite the curve of the road itself, and were evenly spaced, perhaps eight inches apart.
Qatik got down on his knees and took a closer look, touching one very delicately, staring at them a long time. And then he got up and Horkai found Qanik lifting him off his shoulders, holding him down as well so that now he could see the individual veins in the leaves, the fine dusting of something not unlike hair on the stalk itself. They had been recently watered; the ground around them was still moist. What kind of plants are they? he found himself wondering. And then realized that mattered much less than the fact that they were alive, that they could live outside. And that since they could live, surely others would soon follow.
And then he was trundled onto Qatik’s shoulders while Qanik in turn bent down to have a look. He brought his head very close, almost touched them with his faceplate. He turned to Horkai.
“What is their smell?” he asked.
Horkai shook his head. “I don’t think they had a smell,” he said. “Not that I noticed.”
Qanik looked at him for a long moment then turned back to the plants. He stayed there motionless, on his knees, staring.
Finally Qanik got up and gathered the packs Qatik had dropped. Below Horkai, Qatik was coughing, ineffectually holding his hand against his faceplate as if to cover his mouth. Qanik was smiling. “It makes it worth it,” he said to Horkai. “Seeing that. Knowing that it can exist. Now I can die in peace.”
15
IT WAS NEAR SUNSET when they finally caught a glimpse of Granite Mountain. Perhaps a hundred yards from the road, they could see where the mountain had been cut back to reveal a long wall of grayish white stone. At the base, just visible, the stone had been shaped off and cut in an arch. The arch itself was blocked by some sort of metal grate. It was Qanik who noticed it first, stopping and pointing.
They broke from the road proper, took a steep climb up an unstable shale slope to reach it. As they climbed, Horkai, riding precariously on Qatik’s shoulders, watched the rest of the entrance come into view. He realized it was very tall, perhaps fifteen feet high. He could see down it, too, saw that it was a tunnel going back as far as he could see into the darkness. And there wasn’t just the one tunnel either, but several, four in all, next to one another, the others becoming visible as they climbed higher. On the outside, bolted to the inner curve of each arch, were a squarish electric light and a buzzing fan, connected by cables to something he couldn’t yet see.
They came out in the middle of a parking lot, which had been recently patched and maintained. When they moved close to the first of the tunnels, the light in the arch flicked on. The two mules, feeling overexposed, rushed to the second entrance, and when the light went on there as well rushed past it and toward the mountain itself, flattening themselves against the expanse of stone between the two middle entrances. They were both breathing heavily from the climb. Horkai saw the lights flick off. Motion sensors, he thought. The light and fan cables, he saw now, ran out into the parking lot, where they connected to a square box, which was, in turn, connected to a bank of solar panels that covered and blocked off the front half of the lot.
“What now?” asked Horkai.
“What now?” said Qatik. “For us nothing. Now is you.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“They will not admit us,” said Qatik.
“Why not?”
But Qatik didn’t respond.
“But what makes you think they’ll let me in?” asked Horkai.
Qanik smiled behind his faceplate. “They will let you in,” he said. “You will see.”
“After you get through the gate, that is,” said Qatik.
“But how do I get in without you?”
“You will have to crawl,” said Qanik. “Where is your gun? The Mambo?”
He felt for it, found nothing. “I don’t know,” he said. “Left it at the hospital, maybe.”
Qatik searched through the backpack, pulled out a small short knife. “Put this in your boot,” he said. “Just in case you need it.”
Qanik nodded. “Do not let them see it. If they see it, they will kill you. Which entrance do you choose?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Horkai. “How should I know?”
“You will have to choose one,” said Qanik. “You can only go through one entrance. Perhaps it does not matter which. Perhaps they all go to the same place.”
“How do I get past the gate?” Horkai asked.
“Choose an entrance,” said Qanik patiently. “If the gate is unlocked, we will lift it up for you. If locked, we will break it open.”
* * *
“DO YOU REMEMBER what it looks like?” asked Qatik. He was holding him in his arms now, Qanik already straining at the gate. “You remember what Rasmus told you?”
“Silver cylinder,” said Horkai. “Red letters on the side. Subzero environment.”
Qatik nodded.
He heard, even through the suit, Qanik grunt, and then the sound of him coughing. It went on for a long time. Finally he stopped, took hold of the bottom of the gate, pulled on it again.
“You’ll have to help,” he said to Qatik.
Qatik crouched down, put Horkai on the asphalt, and joined Qanik. The two mules grunted and strained until finally, with a groan, the gate slid up a foot and a half before jamming.
“Enough,” said Qatik. “In you go.”
Horkai started crawling toward it. He had to let his breath out and wriggle to make it under, and finally one of the two mules gave him a shove. He was in.
He turned and looked back, regarded the two large figures in hazard suits standing there just on the other side, staring in at him, faceplates pressed against the grate.
“We will wait for you,” said Qanik, and then began to cough again.
“Hurry,” said Qatik. “Please.”
And only then did Horkai realize that something was wrong with Qanik, that something had, in all likelihood, been wrong with him for some time. Not only was he coughing, but he was coughing up blood. The lower part of his faceplate was streaked with it on the inside. Will he be alive by the time I return? he wondered.
“Hurry,” urged Qatik again.
He nodded, then turned. Dragging his useless legs behind him, he began to pull himself down the tunnel.
* * *
THE TUNNEL WAS WIDE AND HIGH, rounded at the top, and continued back for what seemed to Horkai, pulling himself forward by his hands, a very long way. It ran deep into the mountain. The stone of the floor was cool and had been cut straight and polished. It was dusty, but other than that seemed to have suffered no damage.
The hall continued straight back, curving not at all. Every ten yards or so, the light that was now behind him would click off and a light in front of him would click on. He counted six lights before he saw, just beyond t
he sixth one, a thick metal door, like a door to a vault.
He pulled himself to it. It had neither handle nor hinges, and he wouldn’t have known it was a door at all except for the metal frame it was set in. Still, he thought, staring at it, it could just be a panel. It might not be a door at all.
He knocked on it, but his knuckles hardly made a sound. He looked around for something to strike it with but found nothing.
What now? he wondered.
He sat there for a little while, staring at the door, gathering his breath. Finally he struck the door again, slapping it with his open palm this time. The noise it made was only slightly louder.
The light above him went out and he was plunged into darkness. Briefly he was seized by panic, his heart rising in his throat, but the light came immediately back on when he began to wave his arms.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello!” he yelled as loud as he could. “Let me in!”
The noise resonated up and down the shaft of the hall, but there was no sign he had been heard.
What now? he wondered again. Should he crawl back down the hall and out again, find the mules, get them to open another gate for him? And if that didn’t work, would they go on to the next, and then to the final one? And what if that one didn’t open either?
He pulled himself over until he was leaning against the wall.
And what if I’ve been sent on a wild goose chase? he wondered. What if Rasmus was wrong about what is actually here? What if someone was here but now they’re gone?
But that wouldn’t explain the redone road signs, unless whoever had done them had left recently. Even if they had left recently, it wouldn’t explain the plants they had seen—freshly watered, not even a day ago. No, someone was somewhere nearby. And with a little luck, they were here.
He cupped his hands around his mouth again, yelled anew. His voice echoed up and down the hall, but again there was no sign that anyone on the other side of the door had heard.
He stayed there, wondering how long he should wait. He was still wondering, when the light switched off again.
This time, frustrated, he didn’t bother to wave his arms, just let it stay dark.
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