The Klaatu Terminus

by Pete Hautman

  “That is correct. This is the year twenty-three thirteen, not so very far in your future. Medically speaking, it is a relatively primitive time. The techs were able to save your life and heal you, but your enhancements — the devices implanted in your bloodstream that made you stronger, faster, and able to heal yourself — have been removed.”

  “Why?”

  “The techs did not recognize the nanotech as beneficial, as that technology has not yet been developed. As I said, these are primitive times. The standard treatment now is to destroy all foreign bodies within a patient, then reintroduce a standard culture of beneficial bacteria. You are now much as you were before your first visit to a Medicant facility.”

  Tucker lifted his hands and looked at them. “I’m still me?”

  “You are more you than ever.”

  Tucker looked down at his feet. His blue foot coverings were gone. He wiggled his toes. He hadn’t seen his feet since the day he had entered the disko on top of his house. They looked very smooth and white.

  Severs said, “The foot sheaths represent another technology that has yet to be developed.”

  “I was getting tired of blue anyway.”

  Severs laughed. Could this really be the same blank-faced, expressionless Medicant he had met before?

  “Do you remember what happened to you?” she asked.

  Tucker thought for a moment. Images swirled in his mind: Lia, the Lambs, his mother . . . no, not his mother, but the woman who looked like her. Emma. Lia following Gheen into the disko — where had she gone? He remembered opening the gas jets on the stove. Tucker gasped and sat up.

  “The barn!”

  “Yes?” Severs put her hand on his arm, steadying him.

  “There was an explosion!”

  Severs nodded. “I am impressed that you remember what happened to you. Most trauma survivors do not recall the events immediately leading up to their injury, and your injuries were . . . spectacular. If not for the nanotech in your body, you would certainly have died.”

  “Kosh was there!” Tucker said, remembering more.

  “Your uncle survived, as did the woman Emma.”

  “Are they here?”

  “No. They were here for a time. They were not injured so badly as you, and recovered quickly, but three days ago they were both taken by maggots.”

  Tucker let out a shaky breath.

  “By the time we realized our facility had been invaded, it was too late to stop them. Fortunately, we were able to prevent a third maggot from reaching you. In fact, we captured it.”

  The weight of all that had happened was too much to bear. Kosh, Lia, his parents — all of them, lost in the diskos. As was he. “You should have just let it grab me,” he said.

  “Why do you say that?” Severs asked.

  “Because every place I go, people get hurt. I’m getting diskoed from one horrible thing to another. I don’t know who’s doing it, or why.”

  “Why do you think it is about you?”

  “It’s not random. Every time I turn around there’s a maggot chasing me. I don’t know if it’s the Klaatu, or the Boggsians, or God, or what, but I’m sick of it.”

  “I agree that the diskos are not random,” Severs said.

  Tucker sank back down onto the mattress. “Somebody is playing with us, like it’s all a game. I just want it to be over.”

  “You wish to take yourself out of the game.”

  Tucker drew a shaky breath. “I can’t. Kosh and Lia are still in it, whatever it is.”

  Severs regarded him thoughtfully. “You believe you can change what has happened.”

  “How can I believe anything else? If everything that happens — everything we do — is inevitable, then what’s the point?”

  Severs said, “I do not disagree with you. I have witnessed the destruction of Mayo. I have seen Romelas in its bloody decline. I have treated hundreds of people who have been maimed or killed in service to politics, religion, greed. I have visited a distant future where civilization is no more. And now I am here, not even born yet, doing my small part to make the world a better place. Perhaps the point is simply to strive, because if we don’t, then it is not worth the trouble to breathe.”

  Tucker stared at the Medicant. He understood what she was saying, but as she spoke, he realized that none of it mattered.

  “I just know I have to go,” he said.

  Severs nodded and, with a sad smile, said, “You are like your uncle.”

  “I am?”

  “Very much so. We have a captive disko here in the hospital — the one through which you arrived. You are welcome to use it. Your uncle did, when he was treated here the first time. It delivered him to your Hopewell — he told me this on his second visit to our facility. Or, if you wish, you can let the maggot take you. The choice is yours.”

  “I doubt it makes any difference,” Tucker said. “I have a feeling I’ll end up wherever the diskos want me to go.”

  HOPEWELL, NOVEMBER, 2012 CE

  TUCKER HAD A FULL TWO SECONDS TO LOOK AROUND AS he fell from the sky. By the time he hit, he knew where he was. Hardy Lake. The lake was frozen.

  He struck the ice feetfirst, expecting that both legs would be shattered, but the ice was only a fraction-of-an-inch thick. He sliced through, plunging into the water, cold at first, then warmer as he went deeper. Tucker kicked and flailed his arms and broke through to the surface. Treading icy water, he scanned the lakeshore until his eyes fixed upon the leafless branches of the big cottonwood. He swam, breaking through the skim of ice with each stroke. Moments later, he staggered onto the narrow beach, shivering violently. A bitter cold wind from the north cut through his coveralls, blowing hard enough to set the rope swing swaying. The rope had begun to fray. How much time had passed since he had tied it? Months, at least.

  He needed shelter. It was nowhere near as cold as the North Pole, but he was soaking wet, and it was plenty cold enough. Below freezing, for sure. He scrambled up the bank, reached the road, and set off at a run toward town.

  Downtown Hopewell looked like a ghost town. His father’s old church was boarded up, and the sign had been taken down. The hotel was closed — again. The only open business was the Pigeon Drop Inn. Shivering and still damp from his plunge into the lake, Tucker crossed the street to the Drop and pushed through the door.

  “Well, well, well. It must be Feye month,” Red Grauber said, looking up from his station behind the bar.

  Red’s only customer was a tall, hefty man, nattily clad in a white dress shirt, red suspenders, and a dotted bow tie, standing at the bar sipping a cup of coffee.

  “Feye month?” Tucker said.

  “Your uncle stopped by a few weeks back. Borrowed my van and never brought it back.”

  “Now, Red,” said the man with the bow tie, “you got your van back.” Tucker did a double take, recognizing Henry Hall. Wearing a bow tie? Drinking coffee? Sober?

  “Yeah, two weeks later,” Red said. “Some hunters found it way back in the woods in Wisconsin. They drank all the beer in back before calling it in to the police.”

  “What about Kosh?” asked Tucker.

  “His place burned down the same day I borrowed him my van. Nobody’s seen him since.”

  “The police found two bodies in the wreckage,” said Henry Hall. “Neither of them was Kosh.”

  “The mayor’s right,” Red said. “Neither of ’em was ugly enough.”

  Tucker gaped at Henry Hall. “Mayor?”

  “Hard to believe, ain’t it?” Henry Hall thrust out his belly and snapped his suspenders proudly. “Voted in just last Tuesday,” he said.

  “Strange but true,” Red said, with a wink at Tucker. “So what brings you back to Hopewell, son? Have your folks turned up?”

  “No, it’s just me. When did the hotel close?”

  “Couple weeks back.” Red sighed. “Nobody comes to Hopewell no more. The pigeons moved on, and that crazy Lamb cult is gone. Can’t say I miss ’em. Not that I didn’t a
ppreciate the business they brought in.”

  “The pigeons or the Lambs?”

  “Both.”

  “What about Tom Krause?” Tucker asked.

  Red and Henry looked at him with puzzled expressions.

  “Who?” Red asked.

  “Tom Krause. You know, the Krause’s oldest? Wasn’t he. . . . Didn’t something happen to him?”

  “You know any Krauses?” Red asked Henry.

  Henry shook his head. “Didn’t see any Krauses on the voting rolls.”

  A chill ran through Tucker’s body. Everybody knew the Krauses; they’d lived in Hopewell for three generations.

  “These Krauses, whoever they are, sure aren’t patronizing my fine establishment,” Red said.

  “We’ll get you some customers,” Henry Hall said, reaching across the bar and patting Red’s hand. “I have big plans for Hopewell.”

  “Yeah, like what?”

  “You know Elwin Frahlen?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Well, Elwin’s been making a ball of twine for the past seventeen years. Another six months, he says it’ll be bigger than the one in Darwin, Minnesota. We’ll cart that thing downtown and build a gazebo and get the Guinness Records folks out here to certify it. Biggest twine ball in the world. That’ll bring folks to Hopewell, you better believe it!”

  Red rolled his eyes. “Henry, you made more sense when you was a drunk.”

  “Well, I darn sure don’t hear anybody else coming up with any ideas,” Henry said petulantly.

  “How about you get them pigeons to come back?”

  “How about you give me a refill on this coffee?”

  Tucker backed away, leaving the two men to their bickering, and went back outside. It had started snowing, fine crystals coming down hard, at a slant. Now what? he thought in despair. If I go home I’ll find an empty house. If I go to the Krauses, I’ll probably find an empty field, or a house occupied by another family. If I head for Kosh’s place, I’ll find a field of snow-covered wreckage.

  His only choice, it seemed, was to throw himself into yet another disko, and keep doing it until luck or fate brought him to wherever Lia and Kosh had gone. The nearest disko he knew of was on top of the hotel. He crossed the street to the sidewalk in front of the entrance. He was trying to decide whether to break a window or force open the door when he heard a clopping sound from down the street. Squinting into the wind, he saw a dark shape emerge from the snow: a horse, followed by a two-wheeled cart driven by a man wearing a broad-brimmed black hat. The man stopped the cart at the curb in front of the hotel, said something to the horse, and climbed heavily to the ground. He walked past Tucker and up the steps to the front door, removed a key chain from his pocket, inserted a key into the lock, and opened the door.

  Turning, he said to Tucker, “Well? Are you coming or not?”

  The Boggsian was in a terrible mood, muttering irritably to himself as he led Tucker down the hallway and up the carpeted stairs. When they reached the fourth floor, he turned to Tucker and said, “You will please tell that Klaatu that I no longer wish to be her shklaf.”

  “What’s a shklaf?”

  “It is a slave. I am not a slave.”

  “Who are you?” Tucker asked.

  “I am Herr Pincus Boggs, and you are keeping me from my dinner.”

  “How do you have the keys to the hotel?” Tucker asked.

  “Should I not have keys to my own property?”

  “You own the hotel?”

  “I regret to say yes, to my financial ruination. Hopewell House, bah! I open, I close, I lose money at every turn.”

  “Why are you here now?”

  “I am paying for foolishness. Never make a bargain with a Klaatu. They are relentless.”

  “A Klaatu told you to come here?”

  “Why else should I be out in this verlaten weather?”

  “I don’t know,” Tucker said.

  “Yes, you know nothing. Come, I will take you to the disko.”

  “The disko on the roof?”

  “Where else?

  “Where does it go?”

  “I should know this? Bah, I am as ignorant as you. I do as I am told.” He opened the door at the end of the hall to reveal the steel steps leading up to the roof. “Go. I am done here.”

  THE TERMINUS

  THE DISKO DELIVERED HIM TO ANOTHER FOREST. Tucker stepped away and took in his surroundings. He was in a small open glade, surrounded by white three-petaled flowers. Trilliums, his mother’s favorite. The forest smelled like spring — a mushroomy, green aroma, quite different from the richer, compostlike odor of late summer, or the dry dark tang of autumn. The trees surrounding the glade were a mixture of conifers and birch.

  The disko sputtered, faded, then swam back into view.

  If this was the Terminus, some version of Awn might be waiting for him. Unless this was after her time. Only one way to find out. He began to walk, moving slowly, his eyes and ears keen for any sight or sound. Before long he came upon a faint path. He followed it to the right. The trail led past several other diskos, some nearly obscured by tall grasses and brush, giving them a forlorn, neglected appearance.

  It was not until he came upon the disko that had once led him to Golgotha that he got his bearings. He kicked at the leaves surrounding the disko until he unearthed the rust-caked hilt of a broken sword. It had not been so rusty before. Nearby, he found a chunk of squirrel-gnawed wood that might once have been a wooden troll. This was a later time, then. Months, or perhaps years, after Awn’s death.

  Awn’s cabin would be another half mile away, over a piney hill, along the creek, and across the grassy meadow where the priests had killed her. He continued, taking his time, watching and listening. The piney hill was as he remembered it — tall, straight trunks rising from a mushroom-studded bed of needles. The creek was running high. He walked along it for several minutes before he found a place to cross. Tucker climbed the far bank and headed through an area dense with poplar and scrubby spruce, and then fought his way through a ragged patch of buckthorn. He had taken several steps into the meadow before he realized that he had arrived.

  The forest was taking over the meadow, its edges were blurred with growths of hazelnut, buckthorn, and sumac. Tufts of grasses stood waist high, and the center of the field had been invaded by patches of thistle and buttonweed. He heard the buzzing and chirping of insects, the distant call of a woodpecker, the breeze tickling the tops of the grasses.

  He approached the cabin cautiously, stopping every few feet to watch and listen. About halfway across, skirting a patch of nettles, he saw that the front door was ajar. He stopped and watched the door for a long time. No one appeared.

  “Hello!” he called out, ready to dash back into the forest if a priest — or worse — came out to greet him.

  There was no response.

  He climbed onto the porch and pushed the door open. Inside, the cabin looked exactly as it had the last time he was here. The trestle table was there, and the wooden chairs. The floor was swept, the ceramic dishes neatly stacked on open shelves, a heavy iron pot on the stove. Tucker lifted the lid. Bean stew, still warm. He looked in the bedroom. Instead of one bed, there were now two, both of them neatly made.

  Was it possible Awn was still alive? He had seen her scorched and bisected body, and this couldn’t be an earlier time period — the rusted sword hilt proved that. But . . . could an earlier version of Awn have used the diskos to travel here, to the future? Maybe she had made the bean stew and left it for him. But that would mean that Awn had known of her own death, and known that he’d be back here on this particular day. It seemed unlikely.

  He went back to the stove and scooped up some warm beans with his fingers and tasted them. Spicy, like Mexican-style beans. Awn’s food had always been tasty, but bland. Tucker replaced the lid and went back outside. The smart thing to do would be to hide in the trees and wait for whoever it was to come back. He was just stepping off the porch when he hear
d a scream.

  The sound came from the woods, a long ways off. He listened, but the sound was not repeated. Could it have been an animal? He didn’t think so — it had sounded distinctly human.

  It had sounded a lot like Lia.

  Tucker ran. He followed a path toward where he thought the scream had come from, passing several diskos. He reached the creek, slowed, stopped, and listened. Nothing but forest sounds. He crossed the creek and climbed onto a ridge, walking silently, listening for any unusual noises. Nothing. He stopped at the intersection of two paths, and he noticed something odd about the bird sounds. He could hear their peeps and chirps and calls in the woods to his right and directly ahead. Behind him, where he had just walked, the birds were silent. And they were silent to his left.

  He followed the path that led to where the birds were not singing. A few minutes later, as he reached the base of a long, low hill, he heard voices.

  LIA HEARD HERSELF SCREAM AS SHE FELL FROM THE disko. Twisting in midair, she had only a second to orient herself. She glimpsed the rocky, fern-covered hillside an instant before she hit. She heard her right ankle snap — a sickening pain rocketing up her leg — then she was tumbling down the steep slope, the whispery softness of the ferns punctuated by harsh jolts from the rocks. She felt as if every bone in her body were splintering. Then she hit the water.

  The water was ice-cold, but only a few feet deep. She fought her way to her feet, the shock of the cold water momentarily suppressing the agony in her ankle, her shoulder, her left hand. Gasping, she splashed toward shore, ignoring the silent shrieks of protest from her ankle, then threw herself onto the bank. She lay facedown on the muddy bank for several heartbeats, taking inventory. Ankle probably broken. Shoulder injured, but working. Something was wrong with her hand. She raised her left hand and looked at it. The nails of two of her fingers had been peeled back. Lia shuddered and looked away.

  Master Gheen! They had come through the disko together. Where was he? She rose painfully to her knees and looked up the steep hillside but saw only a confusion of foliage. He had to be nearby. She listened and heard a groan from the slope above her, then the rustling, crunching, of feet shuffling through leaves.