But he came to realize, from the way they tried to comfort one another that it was not the death they grieved—death was inevitable—but the suicide. The historian's choice to be alone, to cut himself apart.
Max blocked his ears, but he still heard the dirging. He pulled a blanket over his head, but that didn't help.
Late into the night, the other bunks shouted at them to stop, their voices sometimes rising above the dirge, sometimes falling into the cracks of silence.
Near morning, exhausted, depleted, Max heard a rattling at the door and then it came open.
Vasily stood there.
"Shut up!” he yelled. “Shut the hell up so we can sleep!"
He seemed fearful to come inside alone. When the Adareans ignored him, he turned to Max, whose bunk was beside the door. “You've got to help me out here. The other penitents, they blame me for this. I told them there was no way to stop the pig-man from drowning, but they don't care. We're all exhausted, nobody's slept, and we have to work all day tomorrow. And now the lights just came on in the minister's cabin. The other deacons, they say I got to fix this, or I'm going to lose my spot."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
Vasily licked his lips, checked to see who was outside. “Look, I don't want to come in there, all right. But you, you make them shut up, you make them be quiet, and I promise we get you out. You don't belong in here with these animals. You make them shut up, you get moved to a regular bunker."
Max turned his head away.
"Right now, I'll take you with me right now, over to our block. Just do what you need to do, make them shut up."
Max held his head in his hands, squeezed it to make the pounding stop. So. Vasily came through for him after all; one of the seeds Max had planted was finally ready for harvest. If he got into a better block, if he worked less, if he got more food, he could survive. Eventually, the purge would end.
"Look, you've got to decide fast,” Vasily said. “There's something going on in the minister's office, so we got to fix this now or I get blamed for everything."
It would be easy, Max thought. If he killed the diplomat, maybe broke his neck, it would break the rhythm of their lament and change their mood completely. He might not even have to kill him, just hurt him, maybe leave him unconscious. All he would need was six, seven seconds. No more than he needed to murder that double agent Lukinov during his last mission. During the brief moment of confusion that followed, he could get out the door with Vasily.
"There are guards coming,” Vasily said, “so it's now or never. If the guards come, I can't be responsible for what they do. They might just compost everyone in the bunker, including you. You have to choose now—are you in or out?"
Max swung his legs off the bunk, walked over to the old man, who was seated on the floor, and kneeled behind him. He slid his hands up the old man's shoulders, leaned forward, and whispered in his ear.
"Still swimming,” Max said. “Remember that we're still swimming."
The diplomat turned his head and the dirge faltered.
"Hey, Vasily,” Max said. “You can go choke yourself."
When Vasily didn't respond, he looked up. The deacon was flanked by two guards, guns drawn, standing to either side of him in the doorway. So, Max thought, he might not swim that much longer after all.
"Are you Colonel Maxim Nikomedes?” the first guard asked.
Max said, “Huh?"
"Are you Colonel Nikomedes?” he snapped.
"Yes, I am."
"You have to come with us right away.” The guard gave him a hurry-along gesture with the gun.
Max went at his own pace, neither hurrying nor dragging his feet. As he passed through the door, they left it open, pointing him toward the main gate. He heard the crunch of footsteps in gravel behind him, and he drew in his breath, waiting for the gunshot in the back of his head, wondering how much he would feel before he died. The gate still lay in ruins, smashed by the fall of the tower in the hurricane, open to the desert.
"Go on,” the guard said. Still standing well back. His voice shook, as if he were frightened.
"Go where?” Max asked.
"To them,” the guard said.
Dawn spied over the horizon; its pale smear of light glinted on two government cars. Half a dozen elite troops in body armor, with heavy weapons, stared down the guards. The dark blots of troop carriers hovered overhead. A thin, scholarly man stepped out of the first ground car, stood there, hands behind his back. He had a gun in the holster at his waist.
"It's good to see you again, Nick,” he said.
Nick? Who called him Nick? “Anatoly?"
He walked toward Max, stopped abruptly when he saw Max's face. “Yes, it's me."
So there had been another mole in Mallove's office after all.
One of the soldiers held open a door in the second car for a very old man who had wisps of white hair at his temples and a beard like a biblical patriarch. He stepped out too quickly and lost his balance, though he reached out and grabbed the door handle to steady himself before he fell. His military uniform was insignia-less. On his feet he wore fuzzy, pink bunny slippers.
He stared at Max with almost vacant eyes, then scratched his cheek with the backs of his fingernails. “Hi, Max.” His voice was faint, as if barely any air remained in his lungs.
"What's going on here?” the minister shouted. The first light of the day reflected off his goggles. He stomped out of the gate, flanked by his guards. The bunkers were emptying, the whole camp coming to witness this new tableau. “If there's a problem here, I assure you I can deal with it."
He spoke over the tan-uniformed soldiers, who blocked his way, and tried to address the men in the cars.
The camp guards and the deacons mobbed together behind him, guns in some hands, pipes in others. The ragged penitents, in their filthy orange uniforms, spread out to see what was happening, which made the guards and deacons nervous. The minister shouted at the soldiers, and the soldiers shouted at him to back off. Any second, a lot of people could die.
Max turned to Anatoly. “May I have your gun?"
Anatoly looked to the old man, who nodded approval, then drew it, flicked off the safety, and offered it to Max butt-first. Max sighed when he felt it in his hand. As he walked toward the gate, the minister was saying, “Look, if you want revenge on those pig-men, for the way they treated you—"
"Shut up,” Max ordered in the tone of a man used to being obeyed.
The minister's mouth clamped shut. His eyes revealed nothing behind the dusty goggles, but he tried to look past Max to the cars for an answer.
The guards and deacons began to back away, feet scuffling over the sand and stone.
"Stop!” Max ordered.
They stopped. A breeze passed through the camp, carrying the scent of the dead along with the smell of the sea and the promise of another hell-hot day. It rattled the Bible verse sign that had greeted Max on his arrival to the camp.
"Max, we're friends, right? I tried to help you, right?"
Vasily stepped forward from the mob, one hand up in surrender, the other still clutching the metal club.
"Get me out with you, Max,” he said. “I did my best to help you. I was just doing what I had to do—"
"Shut up, Vasily."
"I don't have anything to do with politics—"
Max pointed the gun at Vasily's face. “Shut up! We're all prisoners to our politics. We make our choices, and we have to accept the direction those choices take us."
Vasily covered his face and shut his eyes.
"I don't know who you are, I couldn't know,” the minister said. “But I'll make it right. If you want to kill that deacon, go ahead. He's a worthless—"
Max moved his arm sideways until the barrel tapped the minister's goggles.
He pulled the trigger.
The minister's head snapped backward, body flung to the ground. The tan-uniformed soldiers lunged forward with their weapons, shouting at the cam
p guards to stand down. A metal pipe thudded into the ground, followed by the clatter of the others. A second later, the guards’ guns rattled on the stony soil as they too were dropped.
Max went back to the cars. “Thank you, general,” he said. “Nice slippers."
"They're a gift from Isabelle, my granddaughter, Anna's girl.” His voice was raspy, his word punctuated with long pauses. “Max, my feet, they're always cold these days. These slippers don't keep them that much warmer, but maybe a little bit. A little girl's love, that's what it is. She's a good girl, likes chocolate too much, but I still give her chocolate.” He paused for a second, looked off as if he was trying to remember something. “Meredith is worried sick about you, Max. Some kind of phone call you left her? She wouldn't leave me alone, kept after me and after me, over a month, until I promised to come find you."
A knot formed in Max's throat. “That sounds like her."
Drozhin turned his body half away from Max, scowled, scratching at his beard. “See, I didn't understand. I kept telling her you were safe. I'd thought I'd set it up that you were away in deep space. Safe, far away, during the purge. Keeping an eye on that bastard Lukinov for me."
"The mission got canceled,” Max said. “Lukinov was killed."
The eyes fired, suddenly present. “You killed Lukinov?"
"Yes, I did."
"Good!” He paused. “No, wait, we were using him to feed false information to—no, wait, Mallove's dead now too."
"Right."
"Good.” Drozhin lifted one bunny slipper to rub the back of his ankle and lost his balance again. Max reached out to catch him, and special forces men suddenly appeared in front of him. He realized he was still holding the gun.
Drozhin steadied himself by holding onto the door. “I want to go home. Is there anything else to do here, Max? There are flyers in the air. We can burn the place to the ground, erase it, kill everyone. Just say the word."
"Thank you, General. I know what I want to do."
He turned to the guards and deacons, aimed the gun at them, then pointed it south.
"Faraway is, well, it's very far away,” he shouted. “But Camp Forty-three is only fifty kilometers north. You've got an hour's headstart before we come for you. That's the best you're going to get from me."
Vasily sprinted away instantly; the others followed a second later. Soon, only the penitents were left standing there, confused, their lines broken.
Drozhin sat down on the edge of his seat. “Max, just tell Anatoly who should die. We'll kill them all. Come see me next week. I'll have Anna make peanut butter cookies."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” As the door closed, Max walked over to the second car and handed the gun back to Anatoly. “I owe you a bullet."
"Consider it a gift,” he said, holding the door open for Max. “Can you sit and talk for a minute?"
"Yes.” They climbed into the car and sat across from each other. Max said, “So Drozhin still hates to fly."
"Still hates it. He was going to visit every camp personally until he found you."
"I'm glad I got off at the first stop."
Anatoly pulled the door shut. “You know you nearly got me killed outside Mallove's office?"
Max stared through the tinted window at the camp. “What?"
"Mallove's car was sent by Intelligence. It was a setup. We were supposed to climb in back and be whisked away to safety while Mallove was killed."
"Ah. That would have been much simpler. I'm sorry."
"No, you had no way of knowing. Frankly, I was amazed by your recognition and action. I just wanted to tell you, so you wouldn't think you'd been forgotten. You moved so quickly, it was damn hard to find you once we started looking. When Obermeyer checked some old dropboxes and found your note, that finally narrowed our search in the right direction."
"Ah."
Anatoly covered his nose and mouth, sighing, as if he was embarrassed by what he had to say. “Can I ask you a favor?"
"I stink, don't I?"
"Like a corpse. That was your nickname, wasn't it?"
"Yes.” Max hit the button to roll down the window. The world outside went from a smoky blur to a landscape awash with clarity and light. The Adareans at the gate gathered the dropped weapons while the other prisoners hung back, afraid. The sky spread out behind them, blue-green like the sea.
"Is there anything I can do?"
"You must set the Adareans free. You must send them back to their families."
Anatoly's face went blank and he didn't answer.
"Drozhin said anything I wanted—that's what I want."
Anatoly took off his glasses and polished them with a fold of his shirt. “We can do that. We'll blame their imprisonment on Mallove. And Education. Say that's how we knew he was out of control and had to be stopped."
Max nodded.
After a moment's pause, Anatoly cleared his throat. “Do you really want to go after the guards?"
"No,” Max said. He rapped a knuckle on the window and gestured for the driver to follow Drozhin's car. Kilometers of empty land stretched out ahead of them: for a moment, Max imagined it a garden, like the cemetery in the capitol, filled with flowers remembering all those who died to terraform the planet. “There's been enough killing."
[Back to Table of Contents]
Short Story: An Open Letter to Earth by Scott Dalrymple
Scott Dalrymple made his debut as a fiction writer just last month with “Enfant Terrible.” He returns with fare that's a bit lighter in tone...
First off, allow us to apologize for the abductions.
Although it seemed like a good idea at the time, we recognize that too often you did not find the experience as satisfying as we did. We genuinely regret the way things got out of hand.
It started out as just something to do, an occasional way to blow off steam after a long day of observation. We tried not to break anybody, and we always put you back where we found you. Frankly you aren't all that interesting, and we might soon have grown tired of the whole thing.
But we got such a kick out of your cute eyewitness accounts, what with the stories of our big dark eyes and little arms and all. You made us feel special, even if your tales were complete crap. The books, the movies, the T-shirts—we were like celebrities. And some of you took it all so seriously, with your conspiracy theories and everything. It was really quite a hoot.
Then this guy Whitley Strieber came along, and he sort of took the joy out of it, you know? What a killjoy shitbag he is. Today we abduct only nerdy guys who live alone in Airstream trailers, primarily because they're nerds and, truth be told, we just like to mess with their heads.
Many of you have written asking about crop circles, so let's set the record straight.
It ain't us. Really, it's not. Think about it. You people have trouble reaching your own moon, and even you have cell phones, satellite TV, and high-speed DSL.
We sail between stars at speeds you believe impossible—you think we have to knock down veggies in order to communicate?
And why do you always assume we land in rural areas? Please. On a planet with New York, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, and Amsterdam, you figure we'd choose to hang out in Roswell, New Mexico? Have any of you actually been there? (By the way, Area 51 is a real hole. In the unlikely event we're ever in the neighborhood again, we're staying someplace else for sure.)
We would be remiss if we failed to mention the anal probing. For the longest time, we swear we thought those were data ports. We meant no harm, and hope that you will, like us, try to forget this unfortunate chapter in our history. In retrospect it was simply a bad idea.
Now we don't want to be seen as whiners, but there are a few things we wish to discuss.
For one thing, we are troubled by the way we have been portrayed in the media. We represent an array of life whose richness and sheer scope would astound you. Yet for the most part, on this planet we are typecast as either hairless dweebs with foreheads like watermelons, or else giant ins
ects who want to eat you.
No offense, but this is especially hard to take from a backwater planet most beings have never heard of. (In fairness, this is not entirely true. Earth is generally known for one thing: cottage cheese. Seriously, nobody else ever thought of that. Not even the Loboölata, who are themselves dairy products.)
The very word “alien” is plagued by negative associations. According to our latest focus groups, the term conjures up images of 1) slimy, parasitic creatures who spring onto the faces of unsuspecting beings in order to plant their young inside, or 2) people picking cabbages. (Apologies to the Bulibians: slimy, parasitic creatures who actually do spring onto the faces of unsuspecting beings in order to plant their young inside.)
We've discussed this among ourselves, and we no longer wish to be called aliens. Henceforth, we prefer to be called “Chuck Norris®.” Please do not shorten, hyphenate, or alter this in any way. The plural form is the same, as in, “Hey, there goes a Chuck Norris®. Wait, there goes another one."
Finally, some advice.
Look, from where we sit, you're all the same. We appreciate that human beings come in slightly different models and colors, and to you these nearly imperceptible differences seem to cause no end of trouble. But honestly, we're astounded that you can even tell yourselves apart. In blind taste tests, in fact, the average Chuck Norris® cannot detect any difference whatsoever. So chill, people of Earth, and try to get along.
While you're in a reflective mood, take a closer look at what you're doing to your planet. You are ruining it: depleting your natural resources, polluting your air, sickening your oceans, and destroying unique species forever. This is just plain wrong, not to mention completely irrational. Everyone knows that the logical thing is to find somebody else's planet and ruin that. Noobs. How can you possibly expect to survive in the coming interstellar economy?
By the way, we've elected you to come up with the new shared unit of galactic currency. Just pick something small and ubiquitous, something of nominal value that you won't miss much. It's your call, but we suggest hamsters.
In closing, much of what you do befuddles us. Many of your core concepts—such as guilt, selflessness, and David Hasselhoff—simply have no counterparts in non-Terran cultures. You're what galactic sociologists call “a bunch of strange ducks."
FSF, August 2008 Page 13
