Beyond the Veil of Stars

by Robert Reed

  Sure enough, he improved. Three bodies could put the harnesses over their shoulders, pulling the slick-bottomed mind over dust and rock and up the mild slopes. Momentum was critical. Don’t stop, or you have to jerk hard to win back your momentum. But with three bodies free, he could help Porsche’s bodies scout ahead, and he learned how to hunt ground that had been hunted a hundred times in the last years: which holes and crevices had promise; which low places might hold buried seeds and eggs. All they found were a pair of flightless bees—small ones, said Porsche, and half-starved—yet it took Cornell a little while to eat his share. The raw wet insides had a sharp flavor that was not unpleasant but certainly was new.

  “Be thankful,” she told him. “We’ve got a ten-legged spider that tastes like gasoline.”

  He asked about the others from that first team.

  There had been twenty of them, she reported, including Logan. More than half had quit, usually through psych discharges. “A few serious breakdowns. They’re still under care, I’ve heard.” She paused, then admitted that several had died, and several more had vanished and were presumed dead. “Although you hear rumors they went native. They decided there was no point going home again, and they crossed to the other side of the Rumpleds. Or wherever.”

  Cornell watched her bodies in motion, wondering if his lust was his human nature. Captive rock rats had never engaged in sex, yet there seemed to be a reshuffling of genetic traits. A rat’s mind gave birth to a new mind, and its bodies to new bodies, yet the child wasn’t identical to its parent. Were viral agents carrying DNA from nearby rats? Or were offspring intentionally mutating? Nobody could say. There weren’t any proper tools, and biology wasn’t the priority. Science here had a distinctly Dark Age feel about it.

  “What do you see?”

  Cornell blinked, most of his eyes fixed on Porsche’s rump and sexless broad chests. “It’s beautiful country.”

  “Think so?”

  He made a show of looking everywhere, absorbing his surroundings. “This is where the Coyote chases the Road Runner.”

  She enjoyed that inspiration.

  Minus the roads, he thought. And with the players all mortal.

  Eventually they passed through what was left of a greasewood grove, nothing but tidy stumps and a few chips. Greasewood was like bristlecone pines, ancient and stout, existing on the brink of a habitable zone. One body stepped onto a stump, noticing the fine, closely spaced rings; and he asked, “Are they annual rings?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then they’re centuries old,” he realized.

  Sober nods, and she said, “Some were thousands of years old.”

  Cornell looked at himself and Porsche, again feeling that sense of belonging here. “How do the natives live? Any ideas?”

  She said, “Not like us,” with certainty.

  “Have you seen them?”

  “Twice, I think.” She paused, looking toward the horizons. “The first time was that first year. Logan had us out on a hunt for them. I was supposed to drive the natives toward him, and I found tracks, but somehow the body slipped past me. I saw it running in the distance. It was already safe.” A pause. Shrugs. “The second time was a few months ago. And a surprise. My hunting bodies slipped into an arroyo, and they found a body sunning itself. Just a few strides away from them. But it slipped away, too. It was like trying to catch a ghost.”

  “How did it look?”

  “Gray fur, like the ground. Otherwise, normal. For all I know, it belonged to a human who’d gone wild.”

  “What about artifacts?”

  “Oh, sure. Plenty of them.” She winked and warned him, “By the rules, you have to turn in every artifact. A chip of stone, a funny-looking turd.” One of her hunting bodies came close, putting a spearhead up to his face. “How does it look?”

  Like a razor, he noted. Expert work.

  “Better than I could manage,” she confessed.

  Were bits of metal found in the desert?

  “Aluminum, mostly. Which is a tough material to work with. It implies a fair amount of industry, somewhere—”

  “And bones? Do you find bones?”

  “Once,” she said, “I found an entire mind. A big ball of white bones. With oxidized bits of rings and wires nearby, I should add. And in this air, oxidation takes a damned long time.”

  “Just a mind?” he asked.

  “No bodies, if that’s what you mean. But then again, scavengers may have carried them away.”

  Cornell whispered, “A mind,” and shook every head.

  “Bigger than ours, by the way. Maybe double our size.”

  He found himself watching the desert, feeling alert. Comfortably paranoid. An enormous world was hiding from him, and so far people had barely explored even this sliver of it.

  “Back to your question: How do they live?” Porsche exhaled, tufts of dust rising for dramatic effect. “This is guesswork, so don’t write any textbooks. But I think the typical local has a huge home range. It would take miles and miles of desert to feed one of us for a long time. And I wouldn’t think you’d want to wander like we’re doing now. No, it would be better to keep your mind hidden and safe, then hunt a small area bare before moving again. That’s how I’d do it, if I was stuck here. Save my energies. Measure my risks.”

  Cornell thought about the thousand-year-old trees, now dead.

  “You’ve got to wonder what they think,” she mentioned. “All these strangers arriving from nowhere. Meaning us. Not the right color, and crazy. They can watch us from a distance, and we busily impoverish their land in order to feed ourselves.”

  “I’d be angry,” Cornell confessed.

  “No doubt.”

  Then he was thinking how anger might not be universal. Perhaps it was too much of a human tendency. His own tendency. The natives might vote for caution, retreating to new country. Anger is a spendthrift emotion, he’d learned lately. It had a way of wasting everything precious.

  “If we packed up and left today,” Porsche commented, “you’d see traces of us for a thousand years. There’d be a patch of desert with nothing growing, and New Reno might last ten thousand years. Like a little Babylon.”

  “Why do you do this?” he asked. “If it’s so damaging—”

  “First because I’m hopeful. Something’s out there. When we get close to the Breaks, you’ll feel it.”

  He swallowed with dry mouths, nodding.

  “And besides,” she said, “what’s ten thousand years to a planet? It’s nothing.” She looked at him and everywhere else, laughing, every face grinning. “We’re just a few people, and we’re not so important. You’re not, and nobody else is either.” A pause, then she added, “And isn’t that the best news possible? I mean, think if there was a person who truly mattered, who was absolutely essential, wouldn’t that make for one splendidly awful mess?”

  They camped that first night among dunes. The sunset was long, the broad western sky shot full of nameless shades of red. There weren’t as many stars tonight, he mentioned; and Porsche said that the day’s dusts would settle, letting more starlight through by morning. She helped him make ready for sleep, giving him pointers on how and where to bury his mind, leaving its mouth and nostrils able to breathe. A big round lump wouldn’t lose much heat overnight; bodies would. She made him bury five of his bodies in the soft dust, sharing warmth, and the sixth body would sit on top of the mind, exposed and watchful. The rest of him would sleep, one set of eyes able to detect motions and warn him. “Rest,” Porsche warned him. “You’ll need it.” Except he wasn’t tired in the right way, unable to relax enough even to pretend sleep.

  “Where do the Breaks go?” he wondered aloud.

  “Who knows? They’re deeper and steeper all the time.”

  Possibilities occurred to him, no way to test them. The exposed body looked skyward, feeling the mind inhale and exhale every so often. “Where were you when the Change happened?”

  “On a basketball court,�
� she answered, her exposed body adding, “Outdoors.”

  “Where was that?”

  “A suburb of Dallas,” she said.

  “I saw it happen,” he confessed. “You?”

  “Oh, sure.” As if nothing was more unremarkable. “My boyfriend and I had beaten some local kids, three of them, and we were taking a break, sitting off the slab, out from under its lights. I was looking up when it happened. Pow.”

  Cornell had assumed a special status, but it didn’t exist. He breathed with every mouth, then exhaled. The mind’s anus made the dust bubble for a moment. He asked, “Were you scared?”

  She glanced over at him, then said, “Somewhat.”

  Except he didn’t think so. Somehow he knew she was saying what he expected to hear. And he looked at the dusty stars, remembering how he had felt fear and excitement and an effervescent amazement.

  “How’d it happen for you?”

  He told the story. At first he used the short form—the one designed for cocktail parties and one-night affairs—but Porsche asked questions, demanding elaborations. She asked about everyone’s reactions. He had the impression that she had memorized his files, and she seemed intrigued by his description of Dad holding court over the neighborhood. When he realized he had been talking for more than an hour, his body was becoming chill. “Change bodies every so often,” she advised. “Till you get used to our nights.”

  Our nights.

  Then she said, “See? More stars all the time.”

  It was true. He stared at the radiant sky, one body down and a warm one up to replace it. Would he dream? He’d forgotten to ask if dreams were natural. But his mind drifted into something like sleep, shallower but restful nonetheless. In one dream he saw himself back home, sitting in the street…six bodies sitting with legs crossed, their dark faces raised. Each one was tiny, the size of a sewer rat. Yet he didn’t feel small or out of place. And while he dreamed, the one body stayed alert, its own little packet of neural tissues immune to such nonsense, eyes gazing through the clear inner lids, its head turning and turning with an imbecile’s devotion to duty.

  They reached the living greasewood on the fourth day. Full-grown trees filled a little basin, stout trunks spaced as if planted by hand. Every grove had that even spacing. The trees were sharing the scarce water, cooperating according to ancient rules. The leaves were scarce and shiny and always small, glittering like blue gems. Nuts hung in little bunches, protected by leathery husks. Porsche showed him how to pound the husks open. Both of them ate their fill. “We think rock rats spread them,” she said. “Ages ago, this might have been a rat’s cache.” She chewed on the sweet nut meat, an empty mouth saying, “Don’t eat past full. You haven’t died until you’ve had a case of High Desert runs.”

  Cutting down the trees was dull work, slow and tough. The bark was like Kevlar, the wood beneath more like concrete. Cornell learned how to make teams with his bodies, pairs trading swings with sharp stone-headed axes. Porsche wanted three of his trees down by dusk; she managed four by herself, then helped him until it was dark. They ate more nuts, slept and woke early. Cornell was stiff in every body, arms screaming with each swing; but at least the persistent thirst had given up on him and left.

  They felled several more trees, and he paced them out, realizing that most Christmas trees would stand taller. Porsche showed him how to strip away the stout limbs, tying them into bundles, and how to use the bark to make ropelike strips of every length.

  Dragging the trees seemed impossible. Crazy. But Porsche said, “Don’t worry, you’re tougher than you look. Stronger, too.”

  Maybe so.

  “We’ll leave tomorrow,” she promised. “And go like hell.”

  He smiled. There was still some afternoon left, and he had nothing to do. He decided to sleep in the partial shade, keeping two bodies awake. He woke to an odd sound. A voice. “Pass,” he heard. “She shoots.” Then, “Porsche takes the ball.” Then, “Rebound, Porsche.”

  She was playing basketball with herself. Three-on-three, or some mutation of that game. A crude backboard was lashed high on a likely trunk, with a hoop made from bark. The ball was a big empty greasewood husk carried with a dribbling motion. Cornell approached, stopped and watched, then applauded until she said:

  “Challenge me?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m world champion. Want to play me?”

  Five-on-five. They would rotate in the rested bodies as needed. The game was fun, fast-paced and enhanced by effortless teamwork. Cornell amazed himself with perfect no-look passes and blind shots, his bodies knowing where the hoop was even if only one of them could see it. And he didn’t do too badly. They played until it was dark, until it was 121 to 59. Porsche had only doubled his score, which he considered a minor victory. Then, with her best spearhead, she etched the final score into one of the day’s stumps. They wrote their names, in English. Cornell asked, “If the natives were literate, would we know their script?” She thought it was a good question, and she didn’t offer any guess. Cornell watched her breathing, watched her exhalations lift up tufts of dust, not once thinking about falling in love with her. What he was thinking was that he wished Porsche could have been his neighbor when he was a boy, and a friend. Something about the woman was utterly intoxicating. He’d had too many lovers in his life, and he wasn’t in any hurry. Friendship was perfect. And besides, what else could they offer each other?

  Friendship or frustration.

  Those were the two choices, for now.

  8

  Most of the rest of his shift was spent dragging downed trees to the Breaks, two at a time and with Porsche’s help, then returning for the next pair. Three bodies could manage a thick trunk, polishing it smooth and slick, but when he was careless—which was often—it could take all twelve of their bodies to pry it out of a hole. To her credit, Porsche let him lead just the same. She wanted him to learn fast, and Cornell appreciated his devoted teacher. She showed him how to read the terrain and where to find landmarks, and she cried out and hugged his bodies when he found the honey-ant nest on his own, without prompting. They had a little midday party; he cut off the heads before eating the sweet swollen abdomens. Then they moved again, again with him leading, and he read the dust wrong, wandering into a little basin where his legs and the trunk sank into a talclike powder.

  Porsche sounded like every coach ever born, disappointment mixed with a needling anger. She wouldn’t help him. Not this time. His bodies waded out of the dust, then he set to work trying to free the trunk. Tall white dust devils formed on the desert ahead, marching and collapsing and re-forming again. Cornell rigged longer harnesses, and with all six bodies grunting, he managed to pull the trunk partway free. A second try, and a harness broke. A third, then a knot failed. While he was sprawled on the ground, gulping at the useless air, Porsche said:

  “Tell me about your parents.”

  It was the perfect moment. Too tired to work, he had to respond. “You read my files. What do you know about them?”

  Porsche recounted bits and pieces. Dad chasing saucers; Cornell and their neighbor helping; Mom gone for a long time. “It’s one of the more unique upbringings. I’ve been intrigued since I met you.”

  “Have you been?”

  “What happened between you and your father?” she pressed.

  And he surprised himself, starting to explain it. The story bubbled out of him under pressure, old angers coming with it. Cornell lifted some of his hands and watched them shake, curling them into strange fists and giving the soft ground a few good blows.

  He told her about their mammoth fight and how he’d driven off in a rage. His mother had never been abducted. Of course not. The central premise of his childhood had been a thorough and ridiculous lie.

  “Did you go back home?” she asked.

  “Eventually. For stretches.” Sometimes he lived with the Underhills, sometimes with the Petes. “When I graduated from high school, I left for good. For college. Entire
ly on my own.”

  “What kind of woman was your mother?”

  He didn’t know. Mrs. Pete’s stories were so different from Pete’s and Dad’s. He scarcely had a clue. “But really, I don’t think about her. She’s a habit that I’ve tried to break, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “She was sick of my father,” he replied.

  Staring at him with those bright dark eyes, she made Cornell nervous. She made him too aware of himself. Something about her gaze was worldly and suspicious of everything he told her.

  “What about your family?” he asked. “Go on. Show me an ordinary upbringing.”

  Which it was. Porsche had two brothers, which made sense—strong and tall brothers, handsome and competitive—and loving parents who seemed to come out of a sitcom, too happy to be real. It was the perfect family, and Cornell said so. And Porsche said, “We aren’t. We’ve had troubles, too.” Except she had nothing worse to offer than her father’s cancer—in remission now, thank goodness—which made Cornell ask:

  “How in hell did you get hired? The agency wants people with no close families.”

  “I aced their tests?” She said it as a question, then added, “Besides, they weren’t as particular when I joined up. It was easier to get in.”

  “Before there were casualties.”

  A circumspect nod, nothing more.

  “Do you tell your family about this job? Do they know what their daughter does with her life?”

  “Our jobs are secret,” she said. “You know that.”

  Except he wasn’t sure. Those weren’t human faces in front of him, and they certainly lacked human eyes, but something in the expressions made him wonder if Porsche was lying to him. He imagined the Neal family gathered around the dining room table, listening to her incredible tales of High Desert and her bizarre other life—

  “Enough rest,” she told him. “Try to get your tree free, okay?”

  —and he said, “Sure.” His hands picked up the harnesses again, and he pulled again as part of him was thinking: Nonetheless, you’re lying to me. I know. I’ve been lied to by the best, and I’ve got a feel for these things.