He started at a lope toward the station, still holding my hand and dragging me with him.
“But--” There was no train in sight, and I didn’t know what I’d seen.
I tripped after him, slipping up and down the sand dunes.
The station master sat in her geodome shack, playing dice and drinking with another woman--Zadey, our boss; I remembered Gilley mentioning her mother was long-time friends with this sector’s station master. The panes of the geodome were mostly opaque from the outside, only a little light spilling from the structure. structure. From inside, though, the panes provided a panoramic view of the rail yard inlets, coastline, ocean, and, currently, the lights, tent domes, and rides of the Gamboges Vivant.
Zadey and the station master had seen us coming and were paused in their talk and play, looking at us expectantly as we came through the hexagonal door.
“Ben, Sebira?” Zadey surveyed us. Her long, sharp-planed face got longer and sharper. “What is it?”
“Seatrain accident,” Ben said. “Or the track, I think--some kind of failure of the float beads.”
The station master, a woman as old as Zadey, but softer, with a genial quirk to her brows, frowned.
Zadey made introductions, her own frown curious. “Jadlen, Ben and Sebira. They’re two of our reader pod.”
“Readers read people, not tracks and ocean,” the station master said.
“Gene sets evolve,” Ben said. It was the wrong thing to say.
Zadey’s expression turned worried, the station master’s puzzled with an edge of…pity, that I shuddered to see.
“Sebira?” Zadey said.
“It’s,” I said, and fell silent, twisting my fingers together, my thoughts twisting with them. That moment never fails of pain in its remembrance, shame fresh in its hollows. I said nothing, only looked away from the station master’s pity, Zadey’s concern, and from Ben as his earnest expression gave way to disbelief and anger.
So Zadey made her own assessment and sent us away, over Ben’s protests. I heard her apologize to her friend in a low voice as I pushed Ben out the door before me.
It was Ben who was trembling then, and he turned on me when we were clear of the geodome, “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Kept us from being reported to the crèches as defective, I hope.”
“Seb--” he shook his head, kohl-lined eyes mournful.
“We can’t convince them, Ben,” I said, “and I don’t even know--I don’t.”
He looked off distractedly, a gesture I recognized and now I knew the meaning of. He was hearing something. I turned my own gaze down and closed the door to my own reading.
I left him there and went back to the show grounds.
As I wandered in a fog, through the drifts of crowd and lights and color, Gilley found me.
“Seb,” she said, grabbing my arm. “Thank you--that man, he tried to attach a data siphon to the show’s chit stream through my cart’s terminal, but I was on the look-see cause of your high sign, so I caught him.”
I looked at her, blank, and then remembered the man with the octopod arms.
“There was a bit of a fluffle, but Gustus got him booted. So, thanks.” She squeezed my arm once and went on her way.
At that moment, away beyond the show and the train yards, a seatrain hove into view over the ocean horizon, its leading lamp a sudden comet.
Suddenly nauseated with fear, I ran all the way back to the train master’s dome. Ben sat on one of the shack’s steps, dejected. I grabbed his hand and pulled him after me.
“Sebira,” Zadey said sharply as we burst back in.
“It’s true, what Ben says--I saw, I saw something, too. It could be--is there any way to check the float beads?”
“Full track inspection of the whole local network was completed just weeks ago--a long process for the tech dive team,” the station master said. “Failure of the float bead bladders is highly unlikely. And we’d have to call the divers back out.” She shook her head.
Seatrains travel at high speeds. The incoming train was close now, the low music of its magnetics already audible, light and reflection from windows all along the passenger cars flying over the water.
And then the station master’s highly unlikely failure happened--the oncoming train dove, ocean closing over it as the rest of the train followed.
The track had given out under it.
There was a beat of silence, thick with horror. Then the station master tapped the table that she and Zadey had been playing on and brought up a console in the air, tapped her ear, and started speaking fast and urgent while her other hand continued working the console.
The train’s backup flotation deployed, but the front portion stayed under; what was left on the surface drifted, tilting, like an abandoned toy in a giant bathtub.
Several hovwheels were coming across the sand plain from the sector proper, lights whirling. Before they had fully stopped, rescue workers poured out of them and began snapping pontoons into the air to inflate.
The pontoons swarmed onto the water with high beam lights cutting across the dark ripple of ocean. People were pouring out of the Vivant’s grounds--customers, performers, vendors, and operators--to aid in rescue operations. Before we went to join them, Zadey leveled us a look that said we would be talking.
Hours later, in what would have been the dreg-time, the show shutting down, emptied of all but the most looped or forlorn of customers, the Vivant’s midway and main yellow-gold tent were still lit, our tumblers and musicians entertaining rescued train passengers while the rest of us ran among them delivering food and drink behind the official medical workers, who administered treatment for minor injuries and shock.
The worst of the injured had been taken to sector care. The fatalities…the bodies…had been taken away, too. Twenty-one in all, I heard someone say. The diver techs had been sent for, too late; a section of the bladder beads had taken ill with bio-mange. At least it would be kept from spreading.
If I had stuck with Ben, if we had pushed…maybe the accident could have been averted, the train advised to deploy its backups earlier.
There was no time to talk to Hassif or Mika, but there was time to think, while waiting on the next basket of fish buns.
Among the rescued passengers, I saw shivering, looping eels and crude ziggurats, connecting, disconnecting, describing things that I didn’t understand. Yet. Shadows of things invisible to the human eye. But not to mine.
#
In my memory, now, the pungent scent of Zadey’s cigar mixes with the sea wind as our train slips fast across the ocean, down the long tunnels of time, the passage of years.
Foretokens braid and pattern the air in my vision still.
I learned, over the years, to read them.
Best Energies
Josh Rountree
After the bomb dropped at Hiroshima,
the United States, led by President George Washington,
and Texas, led by President Sam Houston,
rest on the precipice of a cold war in this startlingly
different vision of the mid-20th century.
The King
The day after the war ended, King George took breakfast in his office. Black cherries, toast, and Coca-Cola. He relished the simple act of eating. No matter how many years he lived, he’d never shake the memory of those wooden teeth, and he thanked Providence that his immortality had carried him to such an advanced age. What the young took for granted, George appreciated for the miracles they were. Reliable false teeth, automobiles, modern medicine…
…and, of course, the atomic bomb.
The morning edition of the Times announced the Japanese surrender, but it had been a foregone conclusion for the last week. What else would the enemy do in the face of
such suddenly overwhelming odds?
The phone calls began while he was reading the comics section. George was scanning the page for the Dick Tracy strip when his secretary’s voice announced that the President of California was on the line. George took his congratulations with the proper mixture of false modesty and unquestioned power. That call was followed by countless others--friendly nations eager to claim their places in the new world order created by Hiroshima, and old enemies making transparent attempts to claw themselves back into George’s good graces.
He took pleasure in every call, but his delight doubled when his secretary announced that the President of Texas was holding on the line. George waited a full minute before lifting the handset.
“Sam!”
Sam Houston released a weary sigh and spoke in an irritable drawl. “Morning, George. I suppose you’re in a fine mood today.”
“I will admit, the air smells a bit more like freedom this morning.”
“To some, I suppose.”
“Not to worry,” said George. He slipped a Camel between his lips, struck a match, and lit it. “You still enjoy the protection of the United States of America.” George inhaled deeply, enjoying the burn of smoke in his disease-proof lungs.
“The Republic of Texas does not need outside help in guarding our own interests,” said Houston.
“Sam, I don’t like to touch on unpleasant matters, but it pains me that you haven’t shown me any inkling of respect in the last hundred years or so. I’d think you feel some kind of debt to the man who shared immortality with you.”
“Most days, I wish to Hell you hadn’t.”
“Yet you’d have me open the gates and let anyone drink who cares to. That’s why you’ve called, isn’t?”
“I certainly didn’t call to help you plan the victory parade.”
“So you’d have me hand that kind of power over to the savages?”
“It was theirs to begin with, wasn’t it?”
“That’s a matter of some debate,” said George.
“Well, I disagree with your take on things.”
“So, because the savages were here first, the United States must cede everything we’ve built to them and call it a day? I suppose, then, you’ll be handing over that city they named after you to the Mexicans? Or the Spanish?”
“This is different. That kind of power shouldn’t be confined to one nation.”
“Damn you, Houston. Here I am, celebrating the liberation of half the free world, and you can’t even choke back your pride long enough to admit I’ve done you a favor. Instead, you choose this day to call and pursue the same tired matter that you’ve been carping about for more years than I care to remember. The Immortality Pool is on U.S. soil, and that makes it mine to use as I see fit. Now that we figured out how to harness it for other uses, I’m even less willing to share it with those who are disinclined to support American interests.”
“That’s the main point of my call. What the hell did you do? Those bombs you made--you can’t tell me that’s not a product of the Pool’s magic. I knew you’d managed to do some heinous things with that water. I’ve heard of the Special Forces you sent against the Germans. But now you’ve passed well beyond the borders of national interest.”
“Yes, I have. We are a magnanimous nation. We’re protecting the world. You Texans, and all the savage nations, should be thankful. The whole continent is better for my actions. The Nazis ripped a hole straight through Europe. Do you think they’d stop there? Certainly not. So while you were unwilling to pick a side, we knocked the fascists and their Japanese whipping boys down so many pegs that they won’t be capable of starting new trouble any time soon.”
“I’m not arguing the Nazis weren’t a threat, and we would certainly have responded in kind, had our interests been threatened as yours were. But you cannot tell me you wouldn’t have steered clear of that war if you’d had a choice. Any sane country would have.”
“Or any cowardly one.”
Houston remained silent for a few seconds before speaking. “George, I’ve called to ask you, one more time, to allow others access to that pool. That power should be shared. This is something you need to do.”
“Do I sense an ultimatum in your tone?”
“What you sense is a demand.”
“Goodbye, Sam.” King George dropped the phone in its cradle and fumed.
What a mistake it had been to let Houston drink from the Pool those many years ago. Sam had been a good man once. He’d served under General Jackson and killed his fair share of savages, and the General himself had recommended the young man for immortality. Yet not a month after Houston tasted that glorious, wondrous Water, he’d been convicted of nearly killing a man and fled to the wastelands they called Texas. The deserter had been nothing but a thorn in his former nation’s haunches ever since.
Simply organizing dirt farmers and rabble-rousers into stealing land from Mexico did not make a man presidential, yet Houston had taken that title with little protest. A few years later, he’d been succeeded by one of his staunchest detractors. That was the limitation of Houston’s form of government. The man wasn’t old enough to remember when the United States had toyed with the idea of limited-term presidencies and, thus, never knew the folly of turning one’s best laid plans over to someone who does not share the same dreams. George had learned quickly what a mistake that was.
Of course, being long-lived, Houston found himself elected again and again to the Texas Presidency, and each time he regained the title, he bucked against the United State’s rightful place as their continental superior.
A painting of the Immortality Pool hung opposite the King’s desk in the Oval Office. It showed the Pool as it had been when Captain Smith and his men had claimed it for England. That Spanish fool, de León, had wandered half of Florida, following trails conjured by lies and false legends. Had he turned his eyes to the north, past those miserable swamps and tangled nests of cypress, he might have found what he sought in Virginia. But to the great detriment of Spain, he never had.
George pushed back his chair and crossed to the painting. He was often drawn to it, and he ran his fingertips over the familiar bumps and swirls of oil on canvas. The artist had captured the Water’s elusive shade of silvery-pink, and George could almost feel the cool kiss of dogwood flowers on his cheeks and the soft wind that blew from the Pool like holy exhalations. Now, the Pool was surrounded by metal fences, barracks, and processing plants. But George still remembered it as a peaceful place.
And although he’d only had one drink of the Water, he’d never forgotten the taste. Earthy, sweet and utterly pure. Drinking it was like embracing the divine.
George hated men like Sam Houston, who would see that place overrun by fascists and savages and communists who’d sooner piss in the Water than worship it with the reverence it deserved. George had no idea how the Pool had formed, but he knew God’s hand had played a part. One tiny sip and you’d live forever. After all these years, that miracle had never paled. But it was so much more than that. The Water had other uses, uses beyond count. And though they’d graduated a succession of alchemists from government sponsored programs, none had ever managed to harness the Pool’s full potential until they’d enlisted the foreigner.
Einstein was an alchemist without peer. Spinning the Water into gold was an old trick. This man could spin all of that magic into power.
The phone rang again, and George returned to his desk, eager to put Houston and his petty concerns behind him for the morning. According to his secretary, the new interim Chancellor of Germany was on the phone, and that was not a call he intended to miss.
The Statesman
President Sam Houston felt every one of his one hundred fifty-two years. He stepped into the war room, still fuming from his conversation with Washington. The assembled Secretaries of This-and-Th
at, Joint Chiefs, Vice President Ferguson, and various other advisors stood as one. Sam closed the door behind him and took a seat in the empty leather chair at the head of the table.
“Sit down, all of you,” he said. “Still never figured out how standing up, just to sit down again, is necessary every time I walk into a room.”
Sam hated ceremony, absolutely loathed it. He’d been president far too many times to have people bowing and scraping just because his name was on the door to the big office and his face was on the dollar bill. He had to constantly remind himself that, although these men and women seemed of an age with him, they were comparatively young and regarded him with an inordinate amount of respect and awe. It was just another of the countless things that irritated him about being immortal. He wasn’t just President Houston, he was the Sam Houston--, the last living Father of Texas, hero of the Battle of San Jacinto, and all those other titles he didn’t care to remember. Texas was a country that took a great deal of pride in its own mythology. Being a living architect of that mythology was a unique and uncomfortable burden.
“Can we assume, by that sour milk expression on your face, that King George hasn’t yet built a public diving board at the Immortality Pool,” said Vice President Ma Ferguson with the trace of a smile.
“He’s as stubborn as ever,” said Sam.
Ma nodded. Sam knew she was intimately aware of King George and his fanaticism. She’d served as president some years back and done a fine job of it, but she’d had no more success in her attempts to wring common sense and decency from the immortal monarch than had any of her predecessors had.
“So we move forward with Operation Floodgates?” asked General Eaker, Commander of the Texas Ground and Air Corps. His face was solemn, but Sam could see the excitement in his eyes. War wasn’t something to be wished for, but Sam understood how the General felt. He wasn’t the only person in the room that wanted to take George Washington down a few pegs.
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