The Vanished Birds

by Simon Jimenez

  Ahro had never been more awake. “I can keep going.”

  They walked out of the village in the opposite direction from which they had arrived. Here, the path continued to steepen; Ahro sweated as he navigated the footholds in the rock, wondering if maybe on this world there were hills that never stopped rising, no tops to reach. His theory was proven wrong an hour later, when they climbed the last of the ridges and fell onto the peak, which was mesa-flat and pimpled with black boulders. The sun was still at its perfect meridian while they scrambled up one of the rocks that jutted off the cliff. With a heavy sigh Oden slumped into a concave section of the boulder, his rear slotting into the groove as if it had been worn in by the years of him sitting here, whiling away the days staring out into the ocean distance. Ahro found a perch a meter above him. Even from way up here, he could still smell the salt of the sea and hear the crash of waves below. He squinted against the amber light. “When does the sun set?” he asked.

  Oden chuckled. “It doesn’t. Not for a few more of your Standard weeks.” He said “your” as if it were Ahro who had come up with the system of standardized time. He wanted to correct him, explain he had no allegiance to Allied Space, but knew by instinct that Oden wouldn’t listen to him, or believe him. The other boy looked up at him. “I’m surprised you don’t know this. Most traders do.”

  “I’m not a trader.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “Just visiting.”

  “No one just visits. Not now.” He spat off the promontory, the ball of spit making a perfect arc off the cliff. “We are the newest ‘Resource World of Umbai,’ ” he said with mocking pride. “The ships allowed to dock in our port are Allied caravaneers.”

  “You don’t like the Allies?”

  Another spitball. “They bought us. Then they blocked our access to the Feed. That’s what Reeda said they would do, and they did.”

  “Who’s Reeda?”

  But Oden’s mind was elsewhere. “She said they lie when they say they want to protect our culture. That what they want is to hobble us. They’ve taken most of the schools. Soon all we’ll know how to do is fish those shavevan eels so that you traders can ship your rare inks.” He sighed. “She was right, every word of it, but no one listened.”

  Ahro wasn’t quite sure what to say. He’d learned from his time on the Debby—and from Nia in particular—that there were times when people needed to vent their frustrations, and the best thing to do was listen. Listening was safe. There was much he did not know about Allied acquisitions and culture stasis, those particular lessons from Sartoris often flying over his head, and he didn’t want to appear stupid to Oden with a careless remark. So when the boy was done venting, all Ahro said was “I’m sorry.”

  The words were acceptable—Oden grunted, and then was quiet.

  The weeks-long sunset made Ahro’s skin glow, warmed it like stoked coals. He lowered himself onto the toasted rock with eyes half-lidded. He knew that time was running out and he would soon have to return, but it was nice here, beside this stranger. Another minute, he kept telling himself, another minute here and then I’ll go home. Aloud, unprompted, he said,

  “The sun above us

  Does not do what it is told.

  It will not go down.”

  He turned his head a little. Caught the way Oden now gazed at him.

  He smiled. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Oden climbed up the rock to where he sat and crouched above him, his face inches from his own; could’ve been hours, minutes. This close, he could see how one of Oden’s eyelids was lower than the other, as if too heavy to hold all the way up. He could see the particular shatter of color in his eyes—the green cracked with gold. “Trader,” he said, his voice deep, as if he were forcing it down an octave, “I have a proposition for you.”

  “I’m not a trader,” Ahro said again.

  But Oden continued regardless.

  “My body for yours,” he said.

  * * *

  —

  There were many ways to keep time on the Quiet Ship. Metronomes of various make were in every room. Some metronomes were trapezoidal, with windup wands that conducted beats in rhythmic arcs; others were small disks imbedded with bulbs that blinked the beat in silence, one, two, three, four. Ahro was not sure why he thought of metronomes as he kissed Oden between two standing rocks. Maybe it was the rhythm of the thing. How they swayed back and forth like a needle, keeping time.

  Oden breathed into his ear. He told Ahro to sit, and Ahro sat. There was a rough command to his voice, but the roughness was curbed by the nervousness of his hands. Ahro swallowed when Oden grabbed the front of his pants and undid the lace. The movement was at once quick and slow, the lace snapping from the belt loop like a snake’s tail. Oden jerked Ahro’s pants from his legs.

  “Don’t be loud,” he said before he went down.

  Ahro’s back arched, and he heard shapes in his head, and felt color and warmth. But he did as he was told. He was quiet. He had years of practice being quiet. He gripped the earth, winced from the teeth but said nothing, afraid that all it would take was one word to break the spell, and for the pleasure to stop. Bore the graze of incisors, and swam against the tongue, Oden’s hand pressed against his chest, lowering him until his back was firm against the rough rock.

  This is happening, he thought.

  I am here.

  One of his favorite metronomes was the automaton hand owned by the Mistress Cellist. On one of her kinder days, she allowed him to wind it up. He was dazzled by the crafted index finger that twitched the beat, like it was scratching some invisible itch. And while behind the gauze curtain the Cellist prepared for bed, he sat by the metronome and watched that finger scratch the air, worrying away the seconds.

  “Tell me what you want,” Oden said.

  Ahro thumbed the spit that hung from Oden’s lips.

  Oden laughed.

  He often wondered who had made that automaton hand; what old tree it had been whittled from; the hours of care it must’ve taken to coordinate the many little gears within. He wondered why the metronome was a hand and not a foot. Why it was not just a box with a blinking light, like the others, and what was the purpose of its shape, and what did its beauty serve?

  No purpose, he thought with a hand in Oden’s mussed hair.

  It just was.

  * * *

  —

  Neither boy spoke as they descended the hill. Their sweat cooled in the dead amber light. Sometimes their eyes met, and their mouths quirked into smiles, but soon the city was in full view, the walls dividing the sky, and they were again in its shadow. Ahro knew he would not see Oden again. Felt the need to make some gesture of goodbye, something more personal than just words, but when he reached out to touch him, the other boy stepped away.

  “Time to return to your ship, trader,” Oden said. He wore a pained smile. And then he ran through the gates and was gone.

  Ahro walked back into the wilds alone, at once full and empty; discomfited, pleased. He smiled as he remembered the feel of Oden’s tongue, and hoped that his own tongue felt as good; if there was more he could’ve done, should’ve done. He rewound his memory, relived it. The hand that gripped the back of his neck just enough that he could feel the pressure. And he wondered if he might return to this place and find Oden again, after the Debby had folded to the next world; if Oden would remember him in a few months’ time. Ahro stopped at where the trees began and considered turning back. But he decided not to press his luck. He knew Oden had spoken true: it was time to go.

  In the wilderness of rock and wood, he jumped. He followed the currents off of the world, high and bodiless in space and time, thinking of the warmth of skin, and Oden’s startling eyes. So distracted were his thoughts, he did a double take when the trip was over, surprised it had gone so fast—that already he was back on t
he Debby’s planet, standing on the mossy ground beside the folded clothes he had saved for his return. In a daze he dressed, the pants first, and then the loose shirt. Grinning. He didn’t notice the man who sat on the rock behind him, not until he spoke.

  “Hello, Ahro,” Sartoris said with a sad smile.

  10

  Stopwatch

  They woke Fumiko when they arrived at the moon. A gloved finger dialed up the temperature of her stasis chamber, and her eyes flitted open and regarded the evaporating mist, the concave wall of the metal coffin that encased her gowned body. She once felt delirium when awakened after cold sleep, but she had long since become accustomed to the process; now she woke sober, listening to the beep, unceasing, like a bug in her ear.

  “Good morning, Fumiko,” the doctor said after the shielding had been lifted and she was exposed once more to the harsh glare of the chamber. He helped her up to her feet. “How was your sleep?”

  She stretched her toes. Her neck.

  “Time?” she asked.

  “Year 3320. Tuesday, 0800, standard time. We’ll be landing on Stopwatch in three hours.” She did not know what Stopwatch was. Perhaps the confusion was evident on her face, for he explained, “Stopwatch is your private research base.”

  Now she remembered.

  “Stopwatch is my private research base.”

  “Yes, Fumiko,” the doctor said. “There is no need to worry. Your memory will be returning over the next few hours.”

  He showed her to a furnished bedroom, where she dressed and waited for the ship to land. She wore a fitted black blazer and slacks, and tied her hair up in a tight, constricted bun, all of this done in the haze of routine as her mind collected itself. My name is Fumiko Nakajima. We are about to land on my private research base. The base is on the lip of a crater. It is where I do my work.

  What work?

  “Good morning, Fumiko!” someone said from the doorway, her demeanor bright. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  “Water,” she said without thinking.

  She closed her eyes. From the time she woke up to the moment the airlock irised open, three hours had passed, almost all of it gone from her memory. This did not worry her. This was the effect of prolonged exposure to cold stasis. A fritzed head. Clipped time. She knew this. But still it was unnerving.

  Strangers welcomed her as she walked out of the airlock, down the steps, onto the landing pad. A handful of men and women and others. One of the older men led the pack. He was wearing a thick coat, an ID badge on the chest, but the badge flitted in the wind, and she could not read it. He was eager to speak with her, though she did not know why. She did not know him. “It’s a pleasure to see you again,” he said.

  Maybe she did know him. “Who are you?” she asked.

  For a moment, his smile wavered. “Hart Solumen,” he said. “Lead scientist of the Stopwatch Research Group.” He bowed. “I’m glad to see you back safe, Fumiko.”

  The crowd waited for her to speak. From the look in their eyes, she was meant to give some meaningful speech.

  “I’m cold,” she said.

  Over time, the world resolved itself into understandable shapes and notions. This was Stopwatch. She had established this place many years ago, her time. What was once a collection of modular buildings along the lip of the crater was now a vast complex that dug deep into the chalky flesh of this blue satellite; a private place away from the eyes of Umbai. The man who knew her, whose name now escaped her, guided her from floor to floor, each more cavernous than the next. A place decades in the making. Whenever they entered a room, the movement of the workers would slow to a halt, and they would gaze at Fumiko with hushed excitement. The older man spoke eagerly about all that had been accomplished since her last visit, the new lightweight alloys that would better slip through the pressures of Pocket Space, but she did not care. Though Fumiko’s memories were a broken spiderweb, she knew that what he told her was irrelevant in the grand scheme. “And has there been word from the Debby?” she asked, interrupting him.

  “We’re still waiting for the latest report from Sartoris Moth,” he said. “It should be coming in, in a matter of hours.”

  “Then there is little else for us to talk about,” she said.

  He opened his mouth, closed it, as if in reconsideration. “Of course.” He bowed. “Is there anything I can help you with in the interim?”

  “Yes,” she said. She pursed her lips. “Where is my room?”

  * * *

  —

  A woman. A woman on a bench by the pier, with a spoon of curry in her mouth. That was it; a simple, unadorned dream that she was woken from when the alarm went off by her bed, and she remembered that it was the year 3320, that it was Tuesday, and she was in her private research base named Stopwatch. She had taken a nap before the welcome dinner, which was to be held in the amphitheater. The fact that this place had an amphitheater was surprising to her. She supposed it was a construction unauthorized by her, as she couldn’t fathom its use in a research facility. As she bathed and dressed for the second time that day, she thought about the woman in her dream, tried to remember the particulars of her, but the details eluded her; a blond haze in her memory, a haze without a name.

  “Purple eyes,” she whispered as she clipped the last button on her dinner jacket. “She had purple eyes.”

  She smiled, unsure why this detail pleased her.

  There was a knock on her door, and then time clipped, and a glass flute that bubbled with sparkling wine toasted hers, the sound of the toast ringing clear across the amphitheater. The low rumble of a hundred conversations died out as the man who knew her raised his glass in toast to Fumiko Nakajima. “For affording us this place of study, for providing us this opportunity to research unchained from the strict, business-driven demands of Allied-Umbai Incorporate, we thank you. To Fumiko!”

  “To Fumiko!”

  A sea of glasses glinted under the bright, clockwork chandelier. It was when the room broke into song, wishing her a happy birthday, that Fumiko remembered she was seventy years old. No. Seventy-one. In the wall-length mirror to her right she observed herself. Her artificial youth, purchased by Umbai. She ran her finger down the smooth skin of her arm, the muscles that were revived and rewound to a younger version upon each awakening. Seventy-one years old, this body was. Seventy-two would not be far. She was always celebrating birthdays. A long, unending string of birthdays.

  She stuck her fork into the well-seasoned, vat-grown meat. Blood pooled from the punctures, and soon the meat was gone, and the people were up on their feet, in clusters. Clustered around her. Speaking to her. One worked in the hydroponics lab. Another was a maintenance worker. One was a teacher in the school one tram ride away, at the three o’clock of the crater. Another worked in the shafts, where they hollowed out the rock, to clear the way for yet more floors, to make room for the new families. As she listened to them explain their occupations, it occurred to Fumiko that she had by accident created a miniature civilization. And then she remembered she’d had this same realization before, during her last visit—it wasn’t a concrete memory, just a thumb of a feeling. The people shared with her their names, but the names were already lost on her as she excused herself from the conversation, feeling claustrophobic. On her way out of the amphitheater she was intercepted by the man who knew her. He told her he hoped that they could speak in private about her future plans for the base, but Fumiko lost the thread of the conversation as she was struck by the memory of this having happened before. A moment similar to this. Maybe. I was at a party—a reception—and I wanted to leave—and then I met her—and she said…

  “I feel that I haven’t acquitted myself well today,” the man said with a gentle smile. “But if you can find the time to sit down with me, I think we can—”

  “Has the Debby contacted you?” she asked.

  “No,
” he said. He looked away. “If Sartoris’s report does not come in tonight, it will arrive by tomorrow morning at the latest. He has never sent a report later than that. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay longer?”

  She stared at him until, with a broken sigh, he stepped aside and let her pass.

  * * *

  —

  The sound of patter, like rain on an umbrella. A spring shower.

  Spring.

  Children ran past Fumiko, laughing on their way down the corridor, chased by an older child who smiled as if in apology before speeding back up, calling out more names Fumiko had never heard before. Strange syllables. They disappeared down the curved corridor. So there are children here too, she thought. There was a boy, somewhere, in the back of her mind. He was holding out a cherry blossom. For me? Fumiko touched her cheek, and slapped the tear away before hurrying back to her room. Waking from cold stasis was always a trial for her, but she couldn’t recall a time that it was this exhausting—or maybe it had been this hard before, but she just couldn’t remember. It was better after she had showered, her skin warm from the water, her muscles relaxed by the mist, but when she lay in bed, she did not sleep.

  This was another symptom.

  Reaching back for the headboard, she switched the virtual display on the window from a dark, limitless field to that of an Old Earth city skyline. She dialed up the background noise until she could hear in the distance the thrum of a train, the honking of taxis, a soundbed of nostalgia to drift away to, but this did little to help. She entertained the idea of returning to her ship, to the cold-stasis chamber, then thought better of it. It was a bad idea to go under again so soon. So she dressed for the third time that day and went for a walk around the base; went from floor to floor, looking for nothing. At this late hour, there were still people working at their stations. People bowed when she passed, and waved at her from behind glass partitions. The brave ones attempted conversation with her, and she entertained them for a few recited lines before walking away without giving any prior signal that the conversation was over, leaving them stunned mid-sentence. She was aware of the murmurs behind her back. She did not care.