by Pete Hautman
“What about Lahlia?”
“She expressed a desire to return to your time period in Hopewell. She felt you were in danger. She seemed to think that you were going to be killed.”
“I was, but that already happened. She was there, so she must have found me.”
“Therefore, she will succeed in preventing your death.” Awn smiled. “But in this timestream, she still searches for you — an earlier iteration of you.”
“So where is she now? I mean, I know she went from Hopewell to a Boggsian laboratory of some sort, but where did they send her from there?”
“The Yar Lia who was here had come from Romelas. I sent her to see a Boggsian.”
“Why?”
“Herr Boggs controls a technology that may give her what she wants. In fact, we may assume that he did so, since here you stand.”
Tucker put down his spoon. “How long ago was this?”
“It was this morning.”
Tucker jumped to his feet. “Show me which disko she went through!”
“The Yar did not use a disko. She went on foot.”
“There are Boggsians here? Now?”
“Not here, but now.” Awn pointed though the wall. “To the east.”
“Last time I was here, you said you were alone.”
“The events you remember have not yet come to pass. A few Boggsians yet remain.”
“How do I get there?”
“I will tell you what I told her. Keep the afternoon sun to your back, and walk until you reach a wide river. There you will come upon a trail that runs along the bank. Follow the trail north until you come to a footbridge made of rope. Cross the river. The path at the far end of the bridge will take you to Harmony.”
Tucker wanted to leave immediately, but Awn insisted that he wait.
“You will be walking for many hours. You may be spending the night in the woods.”
“I can walk pretty fast,” Tucker said.
“The way is not easy. I provided Yar Lia with food. I will do the same for you.”
Tucker waited impatiently while Awn loaded a shoulder bag with a small loaf of crusty bread, a wedge of dark-yellow cheese, and an apple.
“You can drink the water you find on the way,” she told him. “Your Medicant enhancements will keep you from getting sick.”
“How do you know I have Medicant enhancements?”
“I sense their handiwork.” She handed him the bag.
“Thanks. I’ll . . . um, I’ll see you later?”
“I will see you. You have already seen me.”
Tucker set off with the sun at his back, walking quickly. At times he found himself on a deer path that led in the right direction, and broke into a run — but the paths inevitably veered off, and he was forced to bushwhack his way through copses of gooseberry and buckthorn. Awn was right. The way was not easy.
Near mid-afternoon, he came upon Lahlia’s trail: broken twigs, trampled grass, and once, in the mud along a small creek, the clear print of a heeled boot. He lost the trail on a rocky ridge. After casting back and forth for half an hour, he gave up and headed east again. He would find her in Harmony.
Tucker was traversing another bog — a tangled mass of stunted cedars, tamaracks, and mossy hummocks — when the forest suddenly fell silent. A second later, he heard a hiss, then a popping sound from above. He looked up. An orange spark was hovering in midair, about thirty feet above his head. The spark ballooned into a fluorescent pink blob, then fell straight toward him. Tucker dove to the side. The maggot hit the forest floor like a five-hundred-pound sack of jelly, flattening on impact, its sides bulging out, then oozing back into an oblong blob. Tucker scuttled off to hide behind a lightning-blasted cedar stump as the maggot re-formed itself, making crackling, hissing noises and giving off a nose-clenching reek of hot metal and burning plastic. It smelled like a trash fire.
That is one sick maggot, Tucker thought. He noticed several tears in the skin around its orifice and a scorch mark on one side. It looked like the maggot Master Gheen and his father had tied up in the tent — the same maggot he had jumped into in his attempt to follow Lahlia.
The maggot shivered and made a gurgling sound. Tucker, breathing shallowly, remained perfectly still. Minutes passed. The popping and hissing subsided. The maggot sat without moving. The only sign that it was still alive — assuming that maggots were alive in the first place — was a pulse of darker pink that began at its front end, rippled down its body to its tail, and repeated. Eventually the pulsing ceased and the maggot’s color settled to a dull pinkish-white.
Tucker waited as long as he could, but his legs were cramping, and the maggot seemed to be inert. Maybe it was dead. He moved slowly backward, trying not to make any noise. A branch crackled under his foot. The maggot raised its scarred front end and turned it toward him.
Tucker took off. He dodged around trees, leaped over a small hummock, ran along the side of a low ridge, then climbed to the top of the ridge and doubled back. He stopped where he had a clear view and scanned the woods. The maggot was nowhere in sight. He stood there for several minutes before he heard it — the sound of its fat, soft body slithering over sticks and leaves. A few seconds later, it came into view, slowly following Tucker’s trail. Tucker set off at an easy lope, running down the other side of the ridge and continuing his journey east. If he kept moving, the maggot would never catch him. Maybe it would break down completely.
He had gone only a few hundred yards when he hit the sinkhole.
At first he had no idea what had happened. He was running, and the next moment he was chest deep in ooze, as if the earth had swallowed him. He flailed his arms, trying to find something to grab, but there were only clumps of moss that tore loose when he grasped them. With every movement, he sank deeper into the mire.
Tucker forced himself to relax. Was he still sinking? His arms, shoulders, and head were free. If he remained perfectly still, he remained stable. He’d read something about quicksand once — if you moved slowly, you could swim your way out. But this wasn’t quicksand; it was some sort of fibrous, stinky muck.
A small tamarack sapling was growing at the edge of the muck hole, about three feet beyond his fingertips. He tried lifting one leg, very slowly, then kicking down. That moved him a fraction of an inch closer to the sapling, but it also sank him slightly deeper into the ooze. He repeated the maneuver a few times, which brought his hand within a foot of the sapling — and also sank him up to his neck.
He stopped kicking, trying to figure out how deep he would sink before he could grab the sapling. Even if he could get to it, it was a tiny tree. It wouldn’t take much to tear it out by its roots.
As he was considering this, he heard the sound of crunching leaves. A moment later, he smelled the reek of burning plastic. Tucker made several desperate kicks and was able to grab the sapling, but at the same time, he sank farther. The muck was up over his chin. He wrapped his fingers around the thin trunk and tried to drag himself out of the hole. The sapling bent, then separated from its mossy base.
By the time the maggot arrived, the only thing showing above the ooze was Tucker’s nose.
TUCKER STOPPED TALKING.
“And then what?” asked Dr. Arnay.
“The maggot sucked me up and spit me out here,” Tucker said.
Arnay stared at him. He seemed about to ask a question, then shook his head, reached into his breast pocket, and brought out a cigarette.
“I don’t get why you smoke,” Tucker said.
“It relaxes me.” He lit his cigarette. “And don’t give me any more of your crap about smoke being bad for you. I’ve listened to your fairy tale; you can deal with my smoke.”
“You don’t believe any of it.”
“Not really, but it’s a hell of a story.”
“What if it’s true?”
Arnay blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “For one thing — let’s consider the part you just told me — how come you’re not covered with mud?�
��
Tucker had been surprised by that, too. When he’d landed on the ice, he had been dry and clean. It seemed that the maggot’s disko had transported only him and his clothing and had left the muck and stuff behind. That would explain how come he didn’t reek after several days of traveling the diskos without a shower. He was about to explain when another thought stopped him. What if the doctor did believe his story? What then?
“Well?” Arnay asked.
An idea flickered in Tucker’s mind. Maybe he wasn’t as powerless as he thought.
Arnay took a drag off his cigarette.
Tucker coughed. “I want to go outside.”
“I already told you, no.”
“I’m feeling claustrophobic.”
“Tough.” The doctor clearly did not believe him.
“Also . . . I’ve been lying to you.”
Arnay raised one eyebrow. Tucker wanted to tell him he looked like Mr. Spock, but the doctor wouldn’t know about Mr. Spock.
“Maybe I made it all up. All of it.” Tucker waited for the doctor to say something.
After several seconds had passed, Dr. Arnay cleared his throat and stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Does this mean you’re ready to tell me the truth?”
“Let me get some fresh air. I’m not kidding about the claustrophobia. It reeks of sweat and cigarettes in here. I can’t breathe.”
“Why don’t you tell me how you really got here? Maybe that would help you breathe a little easier.”
“Take me up on deck and maybe I’ll breathe good enough to tell you.”
“How do I know you won’t just come up with another fairy tale?”
“No more fairy tales, I promise.”
The doctor shook his head. “I can’t believe you had me going with all that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But you’re staying right here.”
“Why?”
“Quarantine.”
“You know I’m not sick. You’re not even wearing your mask anymore. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to run off. Where would I go? Just let me go up on deck for five minutes, then I’ll tell you everything.”
“Why don’t you tell me something right now? Then maybe I’ll see if Captain Calvert will let us go upstairs.”
Tucker thought fast. What could he say that the doctor would believe? That he’d been dropped off by another sub? That he had arrived by dogsled? That he’d parachuted in from a Russian airplane? The airplane thing gave him an idea.
“Okay,” he said. “First off, I’m American, from Minnesota, like I said. And I got here on an airplane.”
Dr. Arnay nodded. “That’s what I thought. You sure weren’t dressed for overland travel, and if there was another sub in the area, we’d have detected it. But why make up that crazy story about time travel?”
“I’m not telling you any more until you let me out of this room. Five minutes of fresh air, and I’ll tell you everything.”
The doctor pursed his lips and looked at Tucker for what felt like a very long time. Finally, he stood up and went to the door.
“I’ll talk to the captain.” Arnay left the room.
A few minutes later, one of the guards entered the room carrying a pair of steel handcuffs.
“Let’s go, kid,” he said.
The guard led Tucker, wrists handcuffed in front of him, through the submarine. Dr. Arnay, wearing a parka and a fur-lined cap, followed.
“Don’t I get a coat?” Tucker said.
“We won’t be outside long,” Arnay said. “Besides, frostbite doesn’t seem to bother you.”
They climbed up a short ladder, then up a longer ladder, past an array of tubes and pipes. Tucker guessed they were inside the conning tower. The largest tube would be the periscope.
When they reached the top, the guard pulled on a pair of mittens and a watch cap. He opened a hatch above his head, letting in a blast of cold air, and stepped up onto a metal platform.
“Go ahead,” Arnay said from below. “Enjoy the fresh air.”
Tucker climbed up clumsily, hindered by the handcuffs. When he stood on the platform, the top of the conning tower came up to his chest. He rested his cuffed hands on the frosted edge of the tower and looked out across the ice. The North Pole looked as forbidding as ever — a bleak expanse of ragged ice capped by a low gray sky. The only sign of the sun was a horizontal smear of muddy yellow on the horizon. He looked up. A thick, telescoping radio antenna rose twenty feet from the top of the tower. The disko hovered within an arm’s reach of the antenna, nearly invisible against the ash-gray sky.
The guard crossed his arms over his chest. “Can’t say I’ll mind leaving this place,” he said.
Dr. Arnay joined them on the platform. “Like I said, a lovely afternoon on the Pole.” He pulled his fur-lined cap down over his forehead. “A balmy twenty-six degrees below zero.”
“Twenty-eight below now,” said the guard. “Not so windy, though.”
“What are you looking at?” Arnay asked Tucker.
“Nothing,” Tucker said. He knew he was stronger and faster than a normal person, but was he strong enough to do what he planned? His hands were getting cold. That was good. The steel cuffs were getting cold, too.
“Looking for your airplane?” Arnay asked.
“There is no airplane,” Tucker said. He lifted his hands over his head and slammed them down as hard as he could on the edge of the tower. The steel cuffs shattered. His hands were free. Before the guard could react, Tucker drove an elbow into the man’s throat. The guard made a choking sound and crumpled. Tucker pulled himself up onto the edge of the tower. Dr. Arnay was staring at him, openmouthed.
“You really should quit smoking,” Tucker said. He grabbed the base of the radio antenna and climbed up to the waiting disko.
Anecdotal accounts of altered or otherwise damaged memories in corporeals who passed through the diskos drove the Gnomon to redouble their efforts to repair the damaged timestreams. Most alarming to the Gnomon Chayhim were the stories of temporally contiguous corporeals whose memories of the recent past were inconsistent and contradictory.
“It is not right that two persons living in the same world should recall different histories,” Chayhim said.
Iyl Rayn regarded the Gnomon Chayhim with amusement.
“Two people often witness the same event yet remember it quite differently,” Iyl Rayn pointed out.
“I am not talking about varying interpretations. I am talking about actual histories! In one person’s history, a bomb explodes. In another’s, it does not. How, then, can they occupy the same geo-temporal location? This is unacceptable!”
“What bomb is this?” asked Iyl Rayn.
“A hypothetical bomb,” said Chayhim.
Iyl Rayn performed the Klaatu version of rolling her eyes. “Hypothetical explosives have no basis in reality,” she said. “In any case, how do you know it is not your devices that are disrupting perceptions?”
“Perhaps they are,” said Chayhim, “but if not for your cursed diskos, we would not have been forced to build them in the first place.”
— E3
TOM KRAUSE HEARD HIMSELF SCREAM. HE FELL, twisting and turning in midair, flashes of blue sky, yellow leaves, clouds, sun — then a shock of cold as he sliced deep into the water. His feet hit the muddy bottom, and for a moment he was stuck there. Flailing desperately, he kicked free from the muck, swam for the light, and broke through to the surface. Air! He sucked down several desperate lungfuls, treading water and looking around to see where he was. His eyes were drawn to an exceptionally large cottonwood tree.
Hardy Lake! He swam for shore, staggered onto the narrow beach, and collapsed on the sand. He was back in Hopewell. Whatever horrible nightmare thing had happened to him, it was over. But had any of it been real? Had he really just seen Tucker? An older Tucker . . . in a nightmare version of a Hopewell from the past? Tom squeezed his eyes closed. It had to have been a nightmare. Ma
ybe he’d dreamed it all, everything since that day in the park. Now he was soaking wet and shivering on the shore of Hardy Lake, and it was over.
He tipped his head back and looked up at the tall cottonwood. Most of the leaves had fallen. The day of the revival in the county park, when he had been called up on the stage by Father September, the trees had just started to turn. Now it looked like late fall, and it was cold. Not as cold as where he’d just been, though. At least it wasn’t snowing.
Tom climbed wearily to his feet. The brisk air cut through his wet coveralls. It would be a cold walk home. He looked again at the cottonwood. Something was missing.
The rope. There was no rope.
Had somebody stolen it? He scrambled up the steep bank to the base of the tree. The steps they had nailed to the trunk were gone.
This was starting to feel very creepy. Had he dreamed the rope swing, too?
The sun went behind a bank of clouds, and suddenly he was shaking, more from fear than from the cold. Maybe he was completely insane and nothing he remembered had ever happened at all. If he went home now, what would he find?
The fastest route home took him through the Beckers’ back soybean field. The field had been harvested. Tom zigzagged his way through the rows of brown, crumbling bean plants. He entered the woods and followed a cow path up the hill, then down to West End Road. He looked down the road and saw a familiar red brick chimney. Home! At least one thing was normal — his house was still there. He began walking quickly, then broke into a run. As the rest of the house came into view, he almost started crying from relief. He ran up the short driveway. His dad’s pickup truck was parked in front of the garage. The minivan was gone. His bike was leaning against the shed. Chachi, their black-and-white mutt, was sleeping on the front steps. Tom shouted his name. The dog looked up and began wagging his tail. Tom ran up to the dog and hugged him, even though he and Chachi had never liked each other much — Chachi was more Will’s dog.
Tom pushed through the screen door.
“Anybody here?”
No answer. He looked around, but the house was silent. Still, everything else was reassuringly familiar. He went to his bedroom. Everything the same. He undressed, leaving his wet clothes in a pile on the floor. The blue plastic things on his feet peeled off easily. He crumpled them into a ball and tossed them in the trash. He put on a pair of clean jeans and a T-shirt, went to the kitchen, made a peanut-butter sandwich, took it out to the front steps, and shared it with Chachi.
