Finally, shortly before Night, Ein tripped over her own feet and tumbled into a small ditch beside the dirt road.
Ein cursed and climbed back up. Time to sleep, she thought, praying this was far enough for safety when the burn hit that Inspector’s town.
She pitched her camouflaged tent among the tall reeds near a large lake. The lake was at least ten leagues across and perfectly circular. Even without seeing the charred rocks and ancient magma flows along the shore, Ein knew this was the impact crater of an old, deep burn.
A few minutes before Night, Ein set out the last ring of warning sticks around her camp and placed the defense sticks in a star pattern surrounding her tent. She glanced at her right hand. At her command the time, 11:55, floated in dull red above her palm. Each Day and Night was constant, occurring and ending in exactly 11 hours, 58 minutes, and 2 seconds. Despite this, Ein still wrote down the time in her hard notes. She then trained her scope on a spot in the sky and waited for Night.
As Ein focused the scope’s filtered lenses on the sky, the even brightness of Day disappeared into a clear view of a small Wastal boy sitting in the middle of a road, his clothes torn and face bloody. Ein wondered what period in Earth’s long history the boy was from, but not wanting to fall asleep with such a disturbing image in her mind she quickly moved the scope a hair to the right. An image of two Wastal farmers harvesting their crops jumped into view. Ein recorded the sight in her hard notes, along with their location in the sky.
Ein remembered one of Father Jajher’s lessons, taken from a forbidden astronomy book which generations of Scopes had hidden from prying eyes. How the Earth had once orbited a celestial body called the sun, which provided warmth and energy as the planet rotated through a natural night and day cycle. During the day, the sun shone as a bright ball in the sky. At night, something called the moon, along with billions of stars, shone through the darkness. Compared to the bright even light of Day and the absolute dark of Night, old Earth’s skies must have been marvels to behold.
Ein sighed. Of all Father Jajher’s lessons, those forbidden stars were what lodged in her mind. Most people believed stars were some type of magical savior, much as the Observers were the devil himself. But Ein knew they’d once existed and would give anything to see them.
Night arrived a moment later. First, the winds picked up and the waves smashed against the lake shore, movements Father Jajher attributed to gravitational tides. The winds and waves reached their peak as a line of darkness raced across the sky. In her scope, Ein saw a brief image of Night’s perfect blackness cross her lens. The scope’s magnification broke the dividing line into countless individual points and patterns, as if Day were eaten by a million black insects. By the time she looked up from her scope Night’s line was far to the west and the sky behind pitch dark.
That Night, Ein slept unevenly. Thunder and lightning shook her tent but no rain fell. Rain rarely fell from the heat-drying sky.
She woke in the middle of Night to the strange sensation of being a puppet on strings, dancing across a child’s stage. At first Ein thought she was dreaming but, as her body ran from the tent with her pistol in hand, she realized she was indeed awake. Ein tried to stop but her body ignored her commands as it dove into the tall reeds by her camp and assumed a kneeling stance, pistol aimed and ready.
Someone’s here, Ein realized, adrenaline and control of her body flowing back to her as she fully woke up. She checked her palm recorder — it hummed that a large human shape had violated the first of her warning circles. Since she was asleep, the recorder had run her body into a defensive position.
Human shape? Ein thought. Be more specific. The recorder usually gave specifics on the person’s gender, age, hair color, muscle density, and a dozen other attributes, but for some reason was now unable to do so.
Ein sneaked through the reeds until she had a clear view of her campsite. The recorder burned two pulses through the tattoos around her neck — the person was now in the second warning circle, even though Ein still couldn’t see anything. The safest thing to do would be to run. After all, any stranger who ignored warning sticks was assumed dangerous. But all of her supplies — and her scope — were still in her tent. If she lost her remaining scraps of food, she’d die before reaching the next town.
Ein aimed the pistol and waited.
Her recorder flashed three short pulses as the person stepped through the last warning circle. Then Ein saw him — a dark shadow ten cubits from her tent. The shape was tall and big, a large man’s shape, even though he seemed to disappear from sight even as Ein looked at him. Ein remembered the tales of people exiled from their towns and forced to murder helpless travelers for food. The recorder pulsed again. If Ein didn’t stop it, the next pulse would activate the defense sticks and kill the man.
The man stepped toward her tent. Her recorder pulsed again. Kill him, Ein thought.
Lightning jumped from the defense sticks, the sound of thunder and smell of ozone mingling with the raised hairs on the back of Ein’s neck. Ein waited a moment before walking over to see if the man had any food or valuables. After all, he broke the law. Anything he had now belonged to her.
But to her surprise, the man simply sat in the middle of her camp, dazed but alive. She could also now see him clearly. He wore what she at first believed to be a scorched silver suit, but as she watched the suit — and the man — broke into a million pieces before reassembling itself into a man-like shape. A black shadow hovered where the man’s face should have been.
The Observer.
As Ein stared, the Observer stood up, bowed dramatically, and slowly walked away.
#
To us, the human eye is perfection. It takes information from the world, transmits that information to your mind, and gives you the ability to create an understanding of what you see.
Perfection.
But even the most perfect eye must blink.
#
Father Jajher was furious at how the Chief Elder treated Ein. As he’d soaked Ein’s hand in a healing balm, he swore there’d be retribution.
“They sit down there, thinking themselves safe from madness and burns,” he muttered. “The people who lived in this town before the last burn thought the same, and the people before them. Ignorance. A continuing cycle of purest ignorance!”
Father Jajher talked as if on fire, and for a moment he looked as if he would single-handedly storm the catacombs and kill the elders. “And don’t believe the nonsense the Chief Elder sprouted about thanking an Observer,” he said. “She’d do like all people do if an Observer appears — she’d run. Run as fast as she could.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ein said. “My recorder is nearly healed. And I have my pass.”
Father Jajher glared out the window toward the catacomb entrance. Several dozen people stood there yelling and gesturing toward Father’s Jajher’s house. Obviously word of Ein’s insult to the Chief Elder had spread throughout Near Side.
“It’s a good thing you have your pass,” Father Jajher said. “We must do travels. Immediately.”
Ein’s recorder hand shook with excitement and she knew for the rest of her life she’d replay this glorious memory over and over. She quickly grabbed her scope and notebook and began throwing clothes and food into her pack. The nearest town was thirty leagues down the road. Maybe she should take two packs, she thought, so she’d have everything needed for a successful trip.
“Whoa,” Father Jajher said, laughing. “Don’t over pack. The neighboring town has all the food and supplies we’ll need. I’ve also been there before, so the guards and Inspectors shouldn’t be too suspicious at your pass listing only people from our town.”
As they exited through the gate in Near Side’s wall, the tattoos around Ein’s neck shimmered and flowed with excitement. One of the Inspectors watching Ein muttered “dirt neck” to his partner.
“
Ignore them,” Father Jajher said as they walked away. “People who live their entire lives inside walls gradually become too ignorant and afraid to leave. Without the Wastal to bring them food and trade, this town would be dead in a month.”
Ein glanced at the line of Wastal waiting to enter Near Side, all of them holding bags of grain or apples or fresh meats. She watched one Wastal woman hand the town Inspectors a woven basket of rice. An Inspector scooped out several handfuls of rice, which he gave back to the woman to eat. The rest of the bag was dumped into the town stores.
Even though the Wastal raised or grew all of Near Side’s food, they were only allowed to keep a little. Ein knew this was how humans had survived on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years, but that still didn’t make it right.
They planned to spend the night in the Wastal community just outside the town walls, so Ein followed Father Jajher down dusty paths to a large house made from giant intersecting arches of what looked like glazed glass. Stepping into the house felt like entering the coolness of the town catacombs.
“Do you remember Guard Ivilner?” Father Jajher asked Ein when the woman of the house approached. Ein nodded and bowed to the old woman, who bowed back. Guard Ivilner had often visited Father Jajher and Ein in the town — always, she’d joked, to make sure the Scope was taking good care of a true daughter of Wastal. The tattoos around Guard Ivilner’s neck were thick and knotted like ropes and moved with the slow, sinuous movements of giant snakes.
Ein gazed around Guard Ivilner’s glass-coated house and asked its age.
“Never visited a Wastal home, eh?” the old woman asked with a smile. “Come!”
Guard Ivilner grabbed Ein’s hand — a shocking gesture inside the town, but seemingly normal here — and dragged her to one of the glass walls. “These walls are five cubits thick,” she said, gesturing to one corner of the stone. “Look closely at that spot.”
The glass surface where Guard Ivilner pointed had been chiseled back, revealing four different orange and brown layers of glass, the bottom layer ending in stone.
“That’s basalt underneath, and each color of glass is a different burn,” Guard Ivilner said. “This record of burns stretches back at least ten thousand years.”
Ein touched the four colors of glass and the cool stone. “How does the house survive the burn?”
Guard Ivilner chuckled. “Nothing survives a direct burn. Wouldn’t want it to, either, if a bad infection is present. These are near misses, my dear. Designed to kill people but leave the town and its precious walls standing.”
Ein stared in amazement. The house’s arch design, with five entranceways leading to the inner cavern, enabled a burn to rush in and out without the blast pressure destroying the structure. A sticky silica-based compound also covered the walls. Ein touched the wall and the coating came off on her fingers. She knew Guard Ivilner must continually reapply the coating, waiting for the inevitable day when a burn hit nearby and the heat fused the silica into a new glass layer.
“Why do you do this?” she asked. “I mean, you won’t survive if a burn hits.”
“You have much to learn about being Wastal,” Guard Ivilner said as she patted Ein’s shoulders.
“At least the madness isn’t in our town,” Ein said. “There shouldn’t be any burns for a long time.”
“Perhaps,” Guard Ivilner said. She clicked her tongue at Father Jajher, as if daring him to contradict him. When he didn’t, she finished showing Ein her house — and the dinner feast she’d prepared for them.
The next day, Ein and Father Jajher began their travels to the next town. When they were halfway there, Father Jajher told Ein that Guard Ivilner was her grandmother.
“She brought you to me when your mother died,” he said. “She was certain a burn would hit our town in her lifetime. She insisted you become a Scope so you could earn a pass and leave.”
Ein glanced back down the road, feeling the urge to run back to Guard Ivilner and hug her. She’d always wanted to know someone, anyone, from her family. Now it turned out she’d known her grandmother all her life without actually knowing it.
Father Jajher understood her gaze. “You must never let Ivilner discover you know this.”
“Why?”
“Unlike citizens, Wastal believe their personal knowledge is simply that, personal. Knowledge is created during life and disappears at death. All that remains are the actions of your life. That’s why the Wastal are so meticulous about preparing their homes for a burn they won’t survive.”
“How does anyone learn from that?”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s the Wastal way.”
“Then why tell me?” Ein asked, angry that Father Jajher and Guard Ivilner had hidden this from her.
“Because you are now on travels and I don’t know where your roads will lead. But if you return to Near Side, you must never let her know.”
Ein cursed softly, but in the end she swore to not reveal this truth. This would be her own personal knowledge, to pass into nothingness when she herself died.
#
We have forgotten more than you will ever understand.
But does it truly matter what we forget?
Because in our scream across the cosmos, our truth remained.
And truth is viral.
But even the strongest virus can’t survive without a host.
#
What do you do when you’re stalked by a demon?
At first, Ein stayed in her camp to wait the Observer out. Even if the warning sticks couldn’t kill the Observer, they had stunned it. But if she thought the Observer would leave her be, she soon learned otherwise. The Observer simply sat nearby and stared. Occasionally its body collapsed to nothingness. At other times it resembled a flock of tiny birds flying in on themselves while chasing mosquitoes.
But no matter how the Observer looked, it always stayed somewhat translucent. As if the Observer didn’t want anyone but Ein to see it.
To take her mind off the creature, Ein watched the Day sky through her filtered scope. She discovered several previously unknown picture sequences, including one of a woman in what Father Jajher had once called a space ship. She watched as the woman floated inside the ship, spinning this way and that, touching parts of the ship in a desperate attempt to stop something from happening. Suddenly the woman’s body shook and she tore at her flesh before disintegrated into a million parts which immediately began rebuilding itself.
The woman had been infected by the madness.
Ein glanced at the Observer, tempted to ask how each bright point in the Day sky could — if seen through a filtered scope — showed images from Earth’s long history. But the thought of actually talking with an Observer made her shudder.
Ein also passed the time reliving the memories backed-up in her recorder, even though doing so risked becoming addicted. In Ein’s home town, there were a number of people who did nothing except continually replay the best memories of their lives. Ein replayed the last memory of her Wastal mother, who died shortly after childbirth. Because Ein’s eyes were still developing, the memory was visually weak. What came through clearly, though, was her mother pressing Ein to her breast, and the sweet, warm touch of skin-to-skin love.
Ein hadn’t relived that memory in years, but she did so several times before Day flatlined into Night.
When the next Day opened to burning light, Ein discovered the Observer still sitting outside her camp. After glancing nervously at her remaining scraps of food, Ein knew she couldn’t wait any longer. She packed her tent and belongings and hiked down the road as the Observer followed.
#
We kissed a girl with understanding.
We sang our scream of truth.
She listened closely.
She feared our words.
She cursed us for visiting her.
But once w
e’ve spoken,
where else could we be?
#
Ein walked with pistol in hand, continually glancing back at the Observer. When she stopped, the creature also stopped. When she hiked, the creature followed. When she aimed her pistol at the creature, its faceless face appeared to almost smile but it didn’t flee or turn around.
When Ein stopped and ate from her meager food supplies, the Observer grabbed berries or fish from the surrounding scrub forests and streams. The first time Ein saw the Observer do this she grew excited, hoping it might die.
However, the Observer didn’t eat as humans did. It merely converted the food into tiny bug-like particles which were absorbed by its body. Ein almost threw-up at this sight, so from then on the Observer politely created a mouth-like hole and placed the food inside itself whole. While that calmed Ein’s stomach, she still knew the Observer ate by breaking the food into particles, even if this was now done inside its body.
Before each Night, Ein carefully pitched camp, carefully setting out her warning and defense sticks. The Observer never lay down to sleep. Instead it sat beside her camp all Night, as if watching over her.
On the fourth Day of following Ein, the Observer walked up beside her.
“My apologies for the first Night,” it said. The Observer’s face was still a black shade and its voice sounded distorted, as if spoken through a long, damp catacomb. Ein didn’t respond and walked faster, her sweaty hand gripping the pistol in her pocket.
“It won’t hurt me, you know,” the Observer said, keeping pace with Ein. “The weapon you’re gripping so tightly.”
Ein stopped and faced the creature, which flowed and shifted before her eyes. “Leave me alone. I don’t have time to waste.”
The Observer stared at her. At least, Ein guessed the creature was staring because she couldn’t see anything of its face. Ein had never before realized how much of human communication and understanding were based on facial expressions.
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