by Pete Hautman
“That isn’t the same cat you had before, is it?” Tucker asked, looking at Bounce. “Shouldn’t he be bigger? He still looks like a kitten.”
It was true — Bounce hadn’t grown at all. “Maria says he’s a runt.”
“Where did he come from, anyways?”
“He came with you.”
“What? I think I’d know if we’d had a cat in the car.”
“I don’t mean today. Later, he will come with you,” Lia said, and suddenly she knew that Tucker would not be staying in Hopewell. The boy standing before her looked exactly like the boy who had appeared on her blood moon — right down to the way he was dressed.
Kosh returned from the garage, carrying some tools.
“Have you returned to Hopewell to stay?” Lahlia asked.
“Just a visit,” said Kosh. He looked at Tucker. “Lahlia tells me the new preacher is even crazier than Adrian.”
“Father September preaches that computers are the source of all evil,” Lahlia said. “He performs miracles. He made Mrs. Friedman walk again.”
“See what I mean?” said Kosh with a smirk.
They talked more about the new preacher, and other things, but all Lahlia could think about was that Tucker would be leaving again — and about where he might be going.
They were interrupted by the sound of squealing brakes. Ronnie’s pickup turned into the driveway and skidded to a stop. Ronnie got out of his truck and walked toward them with an exaggerated look of astonishment on his face.
“Kosh Feye! Long time, bro!”
The men bumped fists. Lia’s heart sank. Kosh and Ronnie were friends?
The men began talking. Lia watched them for a moment, then turned to look at Tucker. He caught her looking at him, smiled, and rolled his eyes at Kosh and Ronnie. Bounce, standing beside her, was making an odd noise, between a growl and a mewl, his eyes on Ronnie. Lia picked him up.
Ronnie glanced at the cat with a sour expression, then raised his eyes to Lia. “Maria’s been looking for you,” he said.
Bounce flattened his ears and hissed.
“That cat never liked me,” Ronnie said.
“Bounce is an excellent judge of character,” Lia said.
“Yeah, well, Maria’s on the warpath. She’ll make you sit through a doubleheader at church come Sunday if you don’t get on top of that berry patch. You don’t pick them now, they’ll be bird food tomorrow.”
Lia thought of the huge flock of pigeons she had seen. “Birds have to eat too,” she said.
Ronnie shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He turned back to Kosh.
Tucker put the box he had been holding into the trunk of the car. Kosh and Ronnie were talking about going to town for a beer. Kosh looked at Tucker, as if asking permission.
“I’ll be okay on my own,” Tucker said. “Lahlia and I have some catching up to do, too.”
“What do we have to catch up to?” Lia asked, then felt foolish as she realized it was one of those “expressions” people here used.
Ronnie laughed nastily. “Little Miss Literal.”
A few moments later, the men got into Ronnie’s truck and drove off. Bounce jumped down from her arms and ran off to explore the garden. Tucker and Lia were alone.
Lia wanted to ask Tucker where he had been, and why he hadn’t told her he was leaving. She wanted to tell him about the Gates and the Klaatu. She wanted to tell him how afraid she had been, and how glad she was to see him again.
Instead, she said, “Your uncle Kosh is a fearful man.”
Tucker grinned. “You think he’s scary?”
“His animal skins.”
“You mean his leathers? That’s just so people will think he’s this big tough biker.”
“He’s afraid of people thinking he’s afraid.”
“You talk different now,” Tucker said.
“I’m using what you call contractions. Ronnie told me I talked like a robot.”
Tucker laughed, and that made her smile.
“Kosh is nice,” she said. “He worries about you.”
Tucker looked away. “He reminds me of my dad sometimes. I miss my parents.” A shadow of sadness and loss crossed his features. Lia thought about the Reverend Feye. She could tell Tucker that his father had once been to Romelas, but he probably wouldn’t believe her, and she didn’t want him to think she was strange and crazy.
“You don’t know where they are?”
“They went . . . away. That’s why I’ve been staying with Kosh.”
“Did they go away because your mother was ill?” As she spoke, Lia became aware of a faint hum, like a distant airplane.
“I think so.” The humming sound became louder.
Lia looked up at the roof. The Gate was back, hovering just off the peak.
“The Gate does not come often,” she said. “It does not stay long.”
“You came out of it, didn’t you? You and my dad.”
For a moment, Lia did not reply. Tucker’s father must have told him about the Gates.
She said, “No. There is another.” She pointed toward downtown Hopewell. “Your father found me there.”
“So he did go through one of those things!”
“Yes.” Bounce appeared from the bushes and ran over to her.
“Do you know where he is?”
Lia considered her possible answers. She believed that the Gate led to Romelas and that the Reverend Feye had used it to arrive on the pyramid during her blood moon. If she told Tucker that, he might follow his father into the Gate and appear — as he had appeared — on the frustum. He would distract the priests, and she would escape. But then she would be here, and he would be in Romelas.
And if Tucker did not enter the Gate . . . what would happen to her?
Tucker was waiting for her answer. The best thing, she decided, would be to tell him what she believed was true. She pointed up at the Gate.
“I think he went there.”
Tucker stood frozen, staring at her. She could see small things happening in his face as he processed her words. She was about to tell him more when he ran to the garage and grabbed the extension ladder from its hooks. He dragged it over to the house and leaned it against the eaves. Within a few heartbeats, he was on the roof, moving toward the Gate. Lia suddenly regretted saying anything. She could be sending him to his death.
“Tucker, wait!” she shouted, but he did not hear her. She scooped up Bounce and put him on her shoulders, then climbed the ladder and scrambled up the steep roof. “You will not be welcome,” she said.
Tucker turned to look at her.
“They may attempt to kill you.” She lifted Bounce from her shoulders and held him in her arms.
“Who will?” Tucker asked.
“The priests. You will know them by their yellow robes.” She told him of the altar and the priests. He seemed dazed, hardly able to hear her.
“But my parents are there?”
“Only your father.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was there.”
The Gate murmured and went green. Several blobs of mist emerged. The blobs became ghostly human figures.
“Klaatu!” said Lia. Bounce was making a peculiar sound.
More Klaatu emerged and drifted closer. Tucker batted at one with his hand; the Klaatu broke apart.
“What do they want?” Tucker sounded scared.
“They come at moments of terror and triumph,” Lia said, remembering one of her lessons from the Lait Pike. Bounce hissed at the ghostly shapes, then let out a horrific screech and exploded from her arms, hit the roof, and made a panicked dash for the edge — straight toward the Gate.
Tucker tried to grab the cat but lost his balance and fell forward as Bounce leaped from the roof. Lia screamed. The Gate flashed orange, and Bounce was gone.
Tucker, on his hands and knees, faced the disk from an arm’s length away. He was trying to push himself back, but the Gate would not let him go. The Klaatu swooped back and forth
excitedly.
“Tucker!” Lia shouted. She ran forward to grab him, but too late. The Gate flashed again. The last she saw of Tucker was the bottoms of his shoes disappearing into the mist.
Stunned, Lia watched the Klaatu stream back into the Gate. What had she done? She imagined the scene on the pyramid after her departure. Whatever happened, it would not be good. But Tucker’s father had survived and returned to Hopewell. Maybe Tucker would, too. She imagined herself appearing on the pyramid, hailed as a returning Yar — or castigated for blasphemy. It doesn’t matter, she thought. Tucker needs my help.
She took one last look at the land surrounding Tucker Feye’s childhood home and saw a figure in black walking up the road from downtown Hopewell.
Kosh.
He would want to know what had happened to Tucker. She watched him grow slowly larger. Soon, she could make out the details of his face — the missing eyebrows, the off-center nose, the set of his mouth.
She waited. When Kosh finally looked up and saw her on the roof, Lia waved good-bye, then stepped into the Gate.
Medicant adoption of Transcendence technology began with the incurably ill, the vegetative, and others who were beyond help, including a number of girls who arrived in Mayo with irreparable chest wounds. These patients were stabilized and given to the Boggsian Artur Zelig-Boggs in exchange for certain technical services.
In time, the number of patients given to Zelig-Boggs increased and included anyone with a chronic condition, including those with untreatable mental aberrations. This presented no ethical dilemma for the Medicants, as it could be demonstrated that the consciousnesses of the Transcended continued beyond physical death. Transcendence proved to be an effective dumping ground for lost causes.
When Zelig-Boggs eventually transcended himself, the Medicants purchased the Transcendence technology from the Boggsian’s descendants and began using it to rid themselves of criminals, political dissidents, and other problem citizens, including a number of religious zealots known as the Lambs of September.
As Transcendence became an accepted tool for social engineering, so did it become a popular alternative for those reaching the ends of their natural lives. Some elderly Medicants chose Transcendence over senescence — better to become formless and immortal rather than physical, feeble, and confused. Many of the younger generation, seeing their elders transcend themselves, decided to “jump” past adulthood and its vexing responsibilities and move directly into the transcended state of being. Over a mere three generations, the technical elite of the Mayo system was decimated, then decimated again, and again, until there were too few Medicants left to maintain a healthy infrastructure. The Medicants began to exchange treatment for labor — those who sought medical treatment were forced to become indentured servants, sometimes for years. Many of the indentured were the cult members known as Lambs or, as they later came to call themselves, Lah Sept. It was this practice that led, eventually, to the Lah Sept revolution and the destruction of Mayo.
— E3
DR. ARNAY SHOOK HIS HEAD SLOWLY, LOOKING AT Tucker with a bemused smile. “You definitely have a knack for this, son.”
“I’m just saying what happened.”
“Right. This disko thing sucked you up.”
“And I landed on top of a pyramid, and Lahlia and my dad were there, and some priests tried to kill me —”
The doctor laughed humorlessly.
Irritated, Tucker went on. “And then they sent me to a place called the Terminus, and from there I went to a hospital run by people who called themselves Medicants. The stuff they could do would make you look like a witch doctor.” He thrust his hands in front of the doctor’s face. Arnay recoiled. Tucker’s hands looked almost normal, except for their fresh pink color and complete lack of calluses.
“I’d been stabbed in the chest, and they fixed me. They gave me these.” He pointed at his blue-clad feet. “And they did some other stuff, too.”
“Okay!” Dr. Arnay held up his hands. “I’m listening. The girl sent you into this disko —”
“She didn’t send me. I think she was trying to stop me.”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see her again for a long time, because of all this other stuff that happened. I think she maybe jumped into the disko right after me, because when I did see her again, she had changed. Like she was older. And she had a scar on her face.” Tucker looked down at his hands. “I got the feeling she’d been through a lot.”
LIA LANDED ON HER FEET. SHE KNEW INSTANTLY THAT she was on the frustum of the Cydonian Pyramid. It was night. She spun around, checking for danger, but she was alone. A new moon hung low in the dark sky. The black stone altar was bare. No priests, no torchères, no crowd filling the zocalo. No Bounce. No Tucker Feye. No Reverend Feye.
Only a single Gate. And the sour smell of wet ashes.
Had Tucker and his father arrived at some point in the past, or were they yet to come?
Lia walked slowly around the perimeter of the frustum, looking out across the empty plaza. She might be a Yar now, but no one was there to declare her so. No one to celebrate her return. The buildings fronting the zocalo — even the priests’ temple and the Palace of the Pure Girls — were dark. The only sound was the whisper of wind over stone.
Beyond the zocalo, the city of Romelas rolled out to an indistinct horizon. A sprinkling of orange and yellow lights — candles, torches, and oil lamps shining through windows — dotted the sea of buildings. The city was not abandoned, only the zocalo — but why? Even at night, she would have expected to see people here in the heart of Romelas: street cleaners, lovers taking the night air, vendors sleeping beneath their carts. . . .
Step by step, Lia descended the pyramid to the plaza. The cobblestones were littered with sticks, leaves, rocks, bits of paper, and articles of torn clothing. Midway across the zocalo was what looked like the charred remains of a fruit vendor’s cart, surrounded by several scattered round things that might have been shriveled oranges. The cobblestones themselves were marked with angry black streaks of something burnt, as well as dark stains that made her think of blood.
Something bad had happened here. The hairs at the back of her neck stirred. Someone, or something, was watching her.
She crossed the plaza toward the Palace of the Pure Girls. Maybe she could find Yar Song. Or one of the Sisters, someone who could tell her what had happened. She was passing near the priests’ temple when she heard a slight scraping sound from within, followed by the hiss of low voices. Lia stopped and looked at the dark openings of the windows.
She said, “Hello?”
No response.
Realizing that she had spoken in archaic inglés, she spoke again. “Hola?”
In answer, she heard a soft metallic click. Instinctively, Lia dove to the side as a searing bolt of blue fire blasted the cobblestones where she had stood an instant before. Lia hit with her shoulder, rolled, and came up running. Another jet of flame from the arma raked across the zocalo, nearly catching her as she reached the corner of the temple and entered the long colonnade that ran from the temple to the Palace of the Pure Girls. She wove in and out through the columns, in case they were pursuing her, and did not stop until she reached the end. Crouching behind a broken stone bench, she peered back down the row of columns.
Even in the near darkness, she could see that several of the columns were cracked and scarred with streaks of black. She remained perfectly still, watching and listening, but whoever had fired at her from within the temple did not appear. Lia stood up and took stock of her surroundings. She was only a few paces from the entrance to the Palace of the Pure Girls. The entrance was barred by an iron portcullis, as was traditional at night to protect the Pure Girls’ virtue. Since the portcullis could be opened only from within, that meant that the Pure Girls were safe inside. Lia crossed the colonnade, reached through the bars of the portcullis, and rapped softly on the wooden door.
Silence. She kept her
eyes on the colonnade leading to the temple. It was still possible that her attacker would come. She rapped on the door again, louder this time. A few heartbeats later, she heard the metallic rasp of a bolt being drawn back. The door opened a few inches. A pale, indistinct face peered out at her.
“What is it you want?”
Lia recognized the voice.
“Sister Tah?” she said.
The door opened farther, and she could make out the Sister’s features. Tah looked awful — her deathly pale skin clung tightly to her skull, and dark pouches sagged beneath muddy eyes.
“Who are you?” Tah asked.
“It’s Lah Lia! Let me in!”
“Lah Lia?”
“What happened here, Tah?”
Sister Tah stared at her wordlessly, her eyes seeming to recede into her skull.
Lia said, “Where is everybody?” She looked over her shoulder, down the length of the colonnade. “What happened on the zocalo?”
“You don’t know what you have done? You, of all people?” There was anger in Tah’s voice. More than anger — fear, and fury, and hatred.
“Me? I have done nothing!”
“Nothing?” Sister Tah laughed wildly and thrust a finger in Lia’s face. “You have destroyed us, you wicked creature!” Sister Tah turned her head and shouted, “Alarma! Alarma!” The wooden door banged shut.
“Sister Tah, wait!” Lia cried, but her voice was drowned by a raucous clanging from the palace bell tower.
Lia stepped back from the portcullis and looked around frantically. She heard shouts from the far end of the colonnade and saw several men bearing batons coming from the temple.
She turned and ran.
BEYOND THE ZOCALO, ROMELAS BECAME A MAZE OF twisting streets, alleys, and cul-de-sacs. She ran, turning randomly this way and that, with no idea where she was going, wanting only to leave the men from the temple far behind.
As she got farther from the zocalo, Lia began to see people on the streets — a man sweeping the entrance to a tea shop, a corn peddler pushing his cart, a boy with a dog, a pair of women carrying baskets of fruit. When she thought she could run no more, Lia ducked into an alley and hid behind a pile of refuse. She smelled melon rinds, rotting citrus, and other things not so nice. She squatted there, listening to the scurrying of rats and other small creatures. After a time, with no sign of her pursuers, she ventured back out onto the street. The reek of garbage gave way to the familiar odor of burnt corn and raw garlic: the aroma of Romelas in the morning, a smell that told her dawn was close. She looked around, trying to remember which way she had come.
