by Pete Hautman
He set to work carving his initials.
TJK.
Thomas Jefferson Krause.
THE KLAATU WAS STILL HOVERING BY THE DISKO WHEN Tucker returned to the barn. As Tucker approached, it began making frantic gestures with its blobby arms and legs. Tucker watched its antics for a few seconds. It looked like it wanted him to enter the disko.
“Where will it take me?” he asked, with no expectation of an answer. “The top of a burning building? The South Pole? The crater of an erupting volcano?”
The Klaatu shook its head, or at least that was what it looked like. The thing was so nebulous, he couldn’t be sure.
“Will it get me killed?” he asked.
Again, a flurry of limb waving that could mean anything.
“If you can understand me, move to the side,” Tucker said.
The Klaatu drifted a few feet to the right.
“Will this disko get me killed? If it’s safe, move to the other side.”
The Klaatu moved to the left. It was like having his own voice-command ghost.
“If this disko will take me to where Lahlia went, float straight up.”
In answer, the Klaatu rose to the rafters.
“Thank you,” Tucker said.
He jumped.
Tucker dropped to a stone surface and crouched, looking on every side for danger.
He was back on top of the pyramid. It was night. Warm. Humid. A half moon showed through a scrim of low, gauzy clouds. Leaves and bits of unidentified detritus littered the frustum. The altar was a pile of obsidian shards.
So quiet. The only sound was that of his own breathing and his pulse in his ears.
He slowly stood up. On the other side of the crumbling altar, at the far edge of the frustum, looking out over the zocalo, sat a slim, pale-haired figure dressed in black.
Tucker’s pulse sped up, pounding in his throat. He remained perfectly still, struggling to contain the gulf that had opened within his heart. When he felt as if he could move, he started toward her, dragging his feet on the stone so that she would know he was there. She did not turn to look at him. He sat down beside her, their shoulders almost touching, and rested his eyes on her profile, the delicate curve of her brow, her small, slightly abrupt nose, her lips.
The lips moved.
“You are here, Tucker Feye.”
The disko above them sputtered and faded. He put his arm around her, and together they gazed out across the city. Below them, a miniature forest had erupted from between the cobblestones of the zocalo. Beyond, Romelas spread out to an indistinct horizon, a ragged carpet of dark, low, broken buildings. A tendril of cooler air snaked over the edge of the frustum, bringing with it the clean smell of cold stone, and beneath it, the faint fetor of ancient decay.
THEY HAD BEEN UNDER THE ICE FOR THIRTEEN HOURS when Dr. Arnay suddenly remembered the boy.
He was treating one of the enlisted men, a youngster named Frisk, stitching a gash on the man’s right hand, when the image of a boy with long hair and peculiar blue foot coverings flashed into his mind. He remembered holding the boy’s frostbitten hands and staring in wonder at the new pink skin. He could hear the boy’s voice, telling him some long, crazy story.
“Doc? You okay?”
Startled, Dr. Arnay looked up at his patient. For a moment, he had forgotten where he was and what he was doing.
“I’m fine.” He finished tying the last stitch. “There you go, son. Six stitches. Be careful with that box cutter next time.”
“You looked like you was gonna pass out there,” said Frisk.
“I was just thinking about that boy,” Arnay said as he swabbed the stitched wound with antiseptic ointment. “What happened to him?”
“Boy? What boy?” Frisk asked.
“The kid we found when we surfaced at the Pole . . .” As the words left his mouth, Arnay became confused. A kid at the North Pole? That was crazy. What on earth was he thinking?
“Doc?”
Arnay squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head. He’d been on this submarine far too long. He’d heard about guys losing their minds on extended missions like this, but he never thought it would happen to him.
“Doc? What kid? You sure you’re okay?”
Arnay opened his eyes and looked at the young man sitting across from him. He felt the memory of the boy with the blue feet receding, breaking apart, fading like fragments of a dream.
“I’m fine,” he said, forcing a smile. “My mind was elsewhere for a moment.”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2013 by Pete Hautman
Cover photographs: copyright © 2013 by Thomas Tuchan/iStockphoto (orb);
copyright © 2013 by Anik Messier/Getty Images (landscape);
copyright © 2013 by The Power of Forever Photography/iStockphoto (pyramid)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First edition 2013
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012942673
ISBN 978-0-7636-5404-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6376-6 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
