Beyond the Veil of Stars

by Robert Reed

  He said nothing.

  She told him, “Your father wept buckets, telling us how the aliens had abducted Pam and how lost he felt I think he believed it in his fashion. Maybe even Pete believed him. Sometimes I think that’s why he started helping Nathan, hoping to find Pam along the road somewhere.” A long pause. “Who knows what he believes now? I don’t. He’s only my husband. Who knows what anyone thinks?”

  “What are you saying?” Cornell muttered.

  And her face said she was enjoying this business, extracting as much relish from it as possible. The grin broadened into a full smile, none of her bitterness extinguished. This involved more than Cornell, more than today. It was about jealousy and the years, he realized; and she leaned close enough to make him taste her beer breath, saying, “Oh, Corny. You still haven’t figured out what must have happened.”

  “What must have—?”

  “An abduction? By aliens?” She violently shook her head, asking him, “Does that sound real? Corny? Do those impossible things really sound true?”

  It was almost dark, and the figure was backlit by the single streetlamp, standing in the doorway and aware of Cornell, perhaps even seeing him sitting on the floor against the far wall. The thin face tilted one way, then another. Cornell thought of a simple creature trying to make sense of something novel, unexpected. And he felt a remarkable surge of hatred, his heart kicking and his hands closing into fists.

  “Is that you?” asked his father. Then, “Son?” Then, “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

  Cornell said, “Thinking.”

  “Thinking?” The old man sounded puzzled but hopeful, stepping closer and again tilting his head, changing perspectives. “What about, son?”

  Cornell bit his lower lip, tasting blood.

  “The sighting,” said Dad, “was nothing. Too bad. A shaky witness, I think addicted to one of the new drugs. I may start demanding urine tests with my interviews…”

  The boy felt an unexpected pity, and that was worse than hatred or scorn. Pity delayed what he wanted to do, making him stretch it out. “I was thinking about Mom,” he allowed, taking an enormous breath and holding it for as long as possible.

  “Were you…?”

  Exhaling, he asked, “How did she vanish? Tell me again.”

  Dad came closer, the features of his face resolving. A tentative smile became a questioning frown, and he told the old story with haste and authority, almost through it when he realized that his audience didn’t believe him. Disbelief was a shock, and he paused as if physically struck. The mouth came open. “What is it, son?”

  “She left you. That’s what really happened.”

  The old man wouldn’t speak or move.

  Cornell was amazed to hear his own voice, level and dry, in complete control of itself. “There wasn’t any abduction. Was there?”

  Dad tilted his head and held it at an odd angle. His mouth moved, no sound coming from it.

  “She saw other men. Before. Always.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to go with you two. But my babysitters were going out to dinner, and you had to take me—”

  “Elaine told you? Is that it?”

  He didn’t care what the man knew. He said, “Yes,” and then, “She’s guessing. Mom didn’t tell her anything. But Elaine…she told me how you and Mom would fight…how she found men when you were on the road…how she was—”

  “Difficult,” Dad moaned. “But she had a difficult childhood, you see. I knew I had to be patient—”

  “—and you lied to me.”

  “No. Don’t say that.” The voice was too large, sudden and furious. “I didn’t know what she was planning. I thought…thought we could have a nice evening, for a change…but she’d taken money from our accounts and arranged for a ride…from a younger man…”

  Cornell rose to his feet, his own anger huge and radiant. He felt as if the room should be lit up with the emotions.

  “You fell asleep,” said Dad. “You may have seen headlights, or you dreamed…I don’t know…but when you woke and I told you she was gone, you were the one who said Mom was abducted. You were.”

  “And you let me believe it?”

  The old man didn’t answer him, shaking his head while saying, “A difficult person, but I kept thinking…I kept hoping she’d come to her senses, come home again.” A long pause, then he said, “I had reasons for what I did and didn’t do.”

  Cornell grabbed his pigtails and pulled, and a hard black moan slipped from his mouth, and he pulled harder, making pain.

  Dad said, “Listen,” and said nothing.

  The linchpin of Cornell’s life—his mother’s abduction—was a fabrication. For these last hours, sitting alone, he had imagined his father denying Mrs. Pete’s suspicions, if only to keep the lie up and moving, allowing him time to adapt. But Dad was doing nothing to deny the charges. Nothing. Cornell was an idiot Anger wobbled and fell inward, slicing through him. He was pathetic. He hadn’t agreed with Dad in years, not about anything, yet he’d never doubted the story about Mom. He had his memory, false and thoroughly practiced, and how could he not trust himself?

  “I had good reasons,” Dad kept whispering.

  I want to die, thought Cornell.

  “For everything, reasons.”

  Or I can kill him, he realized. A murderous instinct was building, and Cornell had to leave, had to save both of them. He started for the door and kicked shadows and the bulky old magnetometer. Then he cursed, kneeled and flung the machine through the front window, shattering glass bright with earthshine.

  Dad said something too soft to understand.

  Cornell was gone.

  And the man spoke to the empty room, saying, “Reasons,” once again, with the mildest voice, tilting his head at an odd angle and holding it motionless for a long moment.

  Dinner was done. The party’s mood was more happy than not. Several people said it was a lovely evening, almost perfect; then came the shouts and the breaking glass and the Novak boy running from his house. Neighbors paused and stared. Pete was standing among them. The boy climbed into his car, its tiny engine whining and smoke squirting from the tailpipe. He rolled fast out of the driveway, never glancing backward. The Lynns grabbed their girls, pulling them close. Todd called to Cornell, waving his arms and jumping up. Then Cornell accelerated, cranking the wheel and driving fast and close around the concrete island.

  Pete and others jumped back. Lawn chairs were crushed. Tires screeched, the hot air smelling of exhaust. And the boy went once more around the island, finally straightening out and jumping the curb, crossing the Guthries’ lawn and uprooting their mailbox before dropping hard onto the pavement again, gaining velocity, dropping out of sight.

  Everyone listened for another crash, hearing none.

  Then Pete heard giggling—close, peculiar—and he saw his wife laughing at the ground. She’d dropped their Dutch oven, uneaten stew everywhere. He knew she’d been drinking again. A premonition made him uneasy, suspicious…and he looked at Nathan’s house, his friend standing on his little porch with arms raised overhead. His friend didn’t look sad or angry, or anything. He merely looked insubstantial, as if any strong light would wash him away.

  First things first, he told himself.

  No truer rule existed in life.

  “First things first,” he whispered; and he walked toward his friend, poor Nathan gazing upward with fragile eyes, nothing to see but a tiny indifferent sky.

  A New World

  1

  “This is all quite preliminary, Mr. Novak. We’ll be asking each other questions, trying to understand ourselves a little better. Clearing the air, so to speak.”

  “All right.”

  “Are you comfortable?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Mostly.” The woman repeated the word with an amused expression—a solid, no-nonsense face topped with thick gray hair—then she cocked her head as if examining Cornell from
the slightly changed perspective, eyes pale and unblinking. On her desk was a simple name placard that read F. Smith. “Would you like anything to drink?” asked F. Smith.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Coffee?”

  “No.”

  “Tea? Hot or cold?”

  Cornell shook his head.

  “Or something carbonated?”

  When he said, “Thanks, no,” it occurred to him this was part of the test. She was pressing him for a purpose. How did they measure responses? The office was neat and officious, belonging to no one. No holos of a loving family; no decorative touches connected with F. Smith. Were sensors buried in his chair? Microcameras in the walls? He didn’t feel nervous or even particularly curious. His curiosity had been exhausted by six days of tests, the last three days taxing and oftentimes incoherent.

  “Perhaps bottled water?”

  Cornell grinned. “If it makes you happy.”

  The woman blinked. “I’m just trying to make you comfortable, Mr. Novak. If you’d like anything—”

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  The woman shut her eyes, and for an instant, Cornell wondered if she was alive. Robotics had made huge advances of late. Was some complex algorithm playing out inside some laser-light mind? But then she began to laugh, moderately amused, and he guessed that no machine could duplicate that sound.

  “Perhaps if you tell me what you know,” she said. “Perhaps then I might be able to explain this to your satisfaction.”

  Cornell licked his lips, suddenly thirsty.

  “I saw your ads,” he began. “Good money for testing pharmaceuticals on healthy subjects. Flu medicines, anticancer agents. Those sorts of things.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Three days of tests, and for my time and body you squirted a fair amount of electronic money into my account. Then you asked if I’d like to stay a little longer, test out some antioxidants—”

  “Slowing the aging process, yes.”

  “It had a kick, whatever you gave me. I haven’t slept a normal night in three. Dreaming, waking up. Crazy dreams mixed in with your crazy little tests. Personality inventories and coordination studies and the rest of it, and someone always watching.”

  She softly laughed. “You sound paranoid.”

  “Am paranoid. Am.”

  “I’m sorry if the medicines are a bother—”

  “They’re not even medicines.” He breathed and promised, “I’m not gullible. That’s what I’m telling you. I’m not, and I doubt if you’d piggyback one study on top of another. That’s not good science.”

  She leaned forward, elbows perched on her desk and the thick little hands meshed together, chin on top of them. “What else?”

  “The size of this place.” He glanced out the single window, sunshine golden and warm. “I’ve seen a square mile, but that’s just a slice of it. Ground traffic moves east, and there’s open country north and south. Untended country. Pretty good for a corporation that didn’t exist twenty years ago.”

  “We’ve been fortunate,” F. Smith allowed.

  “Particularly when you consider you don’t have big sales from any drug. Particularly when you know what this land has to cost. What do they say? ‘They’re not making any more land, and there’s never been enough of California.’”

  “Is that what they say?”

  A shrug.

  “But we’ve also got an electronics division, a gene-tailoring division, plus a general research staff.”

  “Oh, I’m sure.”

  Again she cocked her head. “You act suspicious,” she remarked, sounding pleased. Appreciative. “What do the clues mean, Mr. Novak?”

  “Mean? Tangent Incorp. appears out of nowhere, possessing unlimited cash and a bunch of semi-new products. Its corporate headquarters are built in a populated region, and it spends a fortune advertising for subjects. For secretaries. For lab techs and janitors. The average unemployment rate in California is seventeen percent, which constitutes a huge resource.” He rose to his feet, thinking that he’d make them work to measure his galvanic responses. “The guards at the gates? And downstairs? They look military to me. And you’ve got state-of-the-art security systems, too.” He paused, then asked, “What do you think I’m thinking?”

  “You tell me,” she challenged.

  He looked out the window, oaks and green lawns stretching toward the glittery field-fence, shaped energies causing the sunshine to twist and fragment into countless wavering rainbows.

  “What’s it mean, Cornell?”

  He said, “A government operation, naturally. Which isn’t just my thinking. The big rumor among my fellow subjects is that the government is feeding Tangent money and business.”

  “Is that so?”

  “That you’re making biological weapons, in case of war with Brazil. Or maybe Japan.”

  The woman made no comment, her tongue pressed against her cheek.

  “But that’s too simple. Too ordinary. Shrewd people might plant that paranoid story in order to deflect suspicions.”

  “An interesting logic,” she conceded. “Go on.”

  “The Pentagon doesn’t have this kind of budget.” He walked away from the window, saying, “But the CEA could pay for the show with its petty cash. This must be some kind of proving ground, I’m guessing. A testing facility. You want recruits, and you’re looking for something specific.”

  “Yes?”

  “My compadres? I’ve noticed similarities.”

  She placed both hands flat on the desktop, something in her eyes thoroughly satisfied.

  “We don’t have close families. Most of us change jobs too often, though we’re a bright lot. Healthy. Younger than not. Free of drug habits and mental illness.” A pause. A sigh. “Obviously you’re hiring from a select pool. The personality tests? What you want is a specific flavor of person—”

  “Flavor?” she said, intrigued by the word. “And what flavor are you, Mr. Novak?”

  He sat in a different chair. “You gave us a test yesterday,” he reported. “I was riding with six others in one of your automated vans, and the van broke down. No warning given. Some people were passive, willing to wait for help to come. But I was in a mood, I guess. I got this other fellow—Jordick Something—to help me pop the hood and the driver’s housing. We didn’t know shit, but it didn’t take much to read the instructions. We bypassed the driver and drove in ourselves.”

  “Good for you,” she offered.

  “It was a pretty obvious game.” He gave a big shrug. “I figured you wanted something from us. So I did something. That’s all.”

  She watched him.

  “How many cameras?”

  “About twenty, I believe.”

  Better. A dose of honesty. “How’d I do? Okay?”

  “Above average,” she allowed.

  And Cornell was pleased. He came close to smiling at the thought of success. But maybe this also was a test, and that’s why he didn’t let himself smile, staring at her while saying, “Good, then.”

  “But,” said F. Smith, “you did exceptionally well with the virtual reality tests. You nearly matched the record, in fact.”

  “Which tests?”

  Straight white teeth caught the light. “Your dreams? The ones that kept waking you? They were illusions produced by computers. They’re the critical tests. Instead of sleeping, you were drugged and experiencing a wide range of novel sights and sensations—”

  Cornell recalled pieces. Colored clouds filled with colored lightning; a tar-black river sliding past his feet; a floating sensation with great, slow fish drifting past eyeing him.

  “—and overall, you’re in the top three percent of our candidates. Since we offer automatic contracts to anyone in the top twenty percent, you should feel proud. It’s quite an accomplishment.”

  In one dream he had flown…he recalled flapping wings fixed to his back…and then he’d vomited, right? But in the morning he was back in bed, someone having taken the trouble to soap hi
m off.

  And he was in the top three percent?

  “Do you have any more questions, Cornell?”

  “Yeah.” He blinked and settled back into the chair. “Can I have that water now?”

  Reading from a screen built into the desk, F. Smith recapitulated much of Cornell’s thirty-plus years. Her files were more thorough than any private company could have managed. There were details that implied footwork, even interviews. Did they do this for each candidate? Or just the ones hired? They might not want too much attention. The image of gray-clad government workers scattering across the United States made him grin; he had never been so important. Then F. Smith asked, “How long since you last saw your father?”

  Cornell blinked. “I don’t know.”

  “Does sixteen years sound reasonable?”

  He thought of jokes playing off the word reasonable. Then he said, “Something like that I guess.”

  Pale eyes measured him. “And your mother? She and your father separated when you were four?”

  He said nothing.

  “You’ve never married.” It wasn’t a question. “Your longest relationship has been for a little more than a year.”

  “Has it?”

  “Frequent job changes, oftentimes accepting lower pay.” She listed a string of employers, including some that Cornell had forgotten. “Yet you’ve never been fired. Your work records are good to excellent. And back to your girlfriends…a couple of them asked about you. How you are, and that sort of thing.”

  He guessed which two, seeing faces.

  F. Smith cleared her throat. “This is fascinating. I mean it. You grew up chasing flying saucers. Not a normal upbringing, was it? Perhaps this helps account for some of your personality traits. For your skills. You show a certain comfort with novelty.”

  He said nothing.

  “So tell me,” she went on, “what do you think we’re doing here? You must have your guesses.”

  “It’s about the Change, naturally.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And the Architects, I would think.”

  Her strong face nodded. “What do you think about the Architects?”