Luminary (6 page)
I cannot look at the animal anymore. I am chasing John. Surely, the last of his sanity just departed.
G
ood boy.” John allows the animal’s mouth to cover his face. He is delirious. I try to pull the animal off the old man, but I cannot. John’s arms are actually around it. He is holding on to it. “Oh, how I have missed the affection of a dog.”
“A dog?” I recall learning about dogs. They were revered by the ancients, allowed to live in homes, and called “pets.” John sits up, rubbing the dog’s face with his hands, scratching behind the animal’s ears. The huge tail waves back and forth. Its saliva-filled tongue hangs out. The animal actually looks happy.
“I had one just like this.” John rubs the dog’s back with his
palm. “A black Lab. Beautiful creature. And this one is obviously well taken care of.”
Berk’s eyes brighten. “Well taken care of? So there are people here?”
“Yes.” John smiles. “And if my friend is any indication, they are good people.”
“What makes you think that?” Rhen joins us, her arm still through Berk’s.
“Look at his coat.” John smooths down the fur on the dog’s back. Shiny. “He is brushed often and fed well. And he is friendly—not mistreated or frightened. Labs are kind dogs anyway. But this one—” John laughs as the dog licks his face. “He is especially friendly.”
“We’re almost there?” Hope fills my heart, pushing aside all other feelings.
“Most certainly.” John begins to ease to his feet. “Our friend here will show us the way. Won’t you, boy?”
I look at Rhen. She is frozen in place. “What if the people aren’t friendly to us?”
“What?” John places a hand on my shoulder to steady himself as he stands.
“We don’t know anything about them.” Rhen looks to Berk. “We could be walking into a trap.”
That same thought entered my mind. We know nothing about this settlement. We know nothing about whether or not they have been affected by the radiation, nothing about how they view foreigners. Nothing about their technology or their way of life or their values.
John gives a slow nod. “This is where we simply have to trust the Designer.”
“Shouldn’t we plan for an attack, just in case?” The thought of just walking up to a settlement of people we know nothing about makes my heart race.
“If they plan to harm us, there is no way for us to stop them.” Berk’s voice is soft but sure. “We need to go on. We will run out of food soon, and both John and I need to rest.”
Berk is still so pale. He is right. But that fact doesn’t make the possibilities any less frightening.
The dog is now running back in the direction he came from. We watch him run off. John lets out an earsplitting whistle and the dog returns, his tongue out, that happy look on his face.
“Slow down, boy.” John’s laugh makes him sound years younger. The way I imagine he sounded before the War stripped him of everything. “We don’t move as quickly as you do.”
We walk along, though John is moving faster, and he and I lead the way. Actually, the dog is leading the way. John tells me about his dog, and how Duke would sleep at the foot of Amy’s and his bed. How John would find Duke’s long black hairs on his clothes. He speaks of going to the beach with Duke and throwing something called a Frisbee that the dog would catch and bring back to him. A game called “fetch” that would go on for hours, until John was tired and needed to rest. He speaks of his son, Dr. Turner, and how Duke was a puppy when his son left home for college. The dog kept John and Amy company when their house was no longer filled with the sounds of children.
“I remember once—” John stops so quickly we almost fall. I am still moving; he is as still as a pod.
“What?” I look in the direction he is staring, and the landscape is changing. The ground is raised ahead of us, round like a pod but gray on the side facing us. At the top, however, it is
not gray. It appears to be green. Green like the grass that grows in our recreation field. But this is not a recreation area created by Scientists. This is actual grass, untouched by the War. Undeniable proof that not all of the earth was destroyed.
“We’re close.” John pulls me along, oblivious to his injuries. “Come. Come.”
It takes us several minutes. The land is a hill—I remember this from when I was in Progress. But Progress was a simulation of life aboveground, and this is not. This is real. The effort to walk up the hill is taxing to John, but a smile never leaves his face.
When we arrive at the top, he falls to his knees, his face buried in a tall patch of grass. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
I move away, not wanting to intrude on John’s moment with the Designer.
Rhen and Berk are almost at the top. Rhen is practically dragging Berk. I run down to them, step to Berk’s other side, and help Rhen carry him up. When we arrive, John is standing. He points down the hill.
“Look.” He wipes the tears from his eyes. “We have arrived.”
W
e can see the settlement in the distance. There are pods and recreation fields and other animals, different from the dog but seemingly calm. Not like the wolves we encountered. The hope I have begun to feel grows.
“We are still far away.” Rhen surveys the settlement.
“Then let us begin now.” John puts his arm through mine and urges me down the hill. “Look—a pond.”
John releases my arm and moves quicker than I have ever seen him move. I am worried he will fall, causing further injury to himself, so I chase after him. The terrain changes as we go down the hill, closer to the pond. A strange wind blows
past me, cool and moist, but I do not have time to consider what that means. John is running directly to the water.
“John, no!” He doesn’t know what’s in that water.
But the huge dog jumps in and John follows right behind, his whole body going underneath. The water is so brown, I cannot see John. I cannot swim. In Progress, I went into a lake. But I did not go under. John is in there and he is not coming up. Rhen and Berk are still far behind. I stand at the edge of the pond, my heart pounding a staccato rhythm.
“Come on in.” John is suddenly in the center of the pond. How he got there, I have no idea, but there he is, the dog right beside him, going in circles around John, who is now floating on his back. “The water is fine.”
John gulps a mouthful of water and spits it up into the air. It makes an arc and then splashes beside him. The dog lunges for it and goes under, then back up. My fear eases. John is all right. He is beyond all right. Joy that I have never seen before shines from his face. Peace, I have seen. But this is different . . . He is home.
I take a step toward the pond. The closer I get, the moister the ground beneath my feet becomes. I pull off my shoes and allow my feet to plunge deeper into the soil. It feels strangely cool. So different from the ashy dust we have covering every inch of our bodies. This feels almost clean. My feet are sinking into the ground, and I wiggle my toes. The sensation causes me to laugh. I can’t help myself.
“It is good to hear you laugh.” Berk is behind me, his breath hot on my neck. I want to turn around, to hold him, feel his heart beating. But I cannot. I should not. He is probably just speaking as a friend. Nothing more.
“Is he safe?” Rhen is next to Berk. Berk steps back, and I no longer feel his breath.
“Yes, I am safe,” John calls out. “I’m swimming. Join me.”
Rhen’s and Berk’s faces mirror what I’m feeling. We will not go into that filthy pond.
John must be tossing the water in our direction because I feel it on my head. Just a few drops at first, but then more. So much more that I am certain it cannot be John’s doing. I look around, afraid someone else is here, mocking us, flinging water at us. Then John moves toward us, his face lifted toward the sky.
“Rain!” John’s arms are spread out in front of him. His shirt and pants are dripping with pond water as he stands, smiling. I look up and notice water all around us. It is not being tossed. It is falling from the sky.
“Rain.” Rhen lifts her palm and the drops of water fall on her skin.
We learned about rain. It is part of the weather patterns that were on earth. We learned about the process of evaporation and condensation. But we did not see it. Our greenhouses had moisture imbedded in the soil. The Botanists created ways to irrigate everything without wasting water. We were taught that on earth, people splashed water around, that it ran haphazardly throughout the streets. We could not be so careless. Our water supply had to go through years of processing to become viable.
But this is not the State, and this is not a waste. It is pure water, carelessly dropping on everything and everyone. Drops splash into the pond, creating ribbons of movement all around it. It is beautiful.
I close my eyes and feel the drops run down my face, my
neck, soaking my shirt. The ground seems to smell sweeter, the air feels cooler. We had showers in the pods, but they were nothing like this. Quick rinses with fast-flowing water coming out in a steady stream. This feels more like a caress.
All of us are silent in the face of the rain. It is amazing. Breathtaking. I want to share this moment with Berk, to feel him near me again. I want to apologize, to start over. I turn to see him and find he is once again with Rhen. Talking with her, standing near her, sharing
our
moment with her.
I am not sure if it’s the rain or my tears I feel rolling down my cheeks.
I
hear something.” Rhen steps away from Berk, her gaze on the horizon. The village is close. We can see it in the distance. Fear creeps back into my heart—fear of what the people might be like, what dangers might be waiting for us.
“What is that?” I place my hands over my eyes. The sun is bright now, and its glare from the pond is almost blinding. The noise is getting louder, a pounding with a metallic clanging and screeching. An odd combination of sounds. I hear the dog barking and another animal sound. It seems to be attached to whatever is pounding, so it is a large animal. I try to remember my zoology lessons and once again find myself frustrated at not having paid attention.
“Horses.”
Of course Rhen would know. We all stand and watch as two horses—now I remember reading about them—pull a long metal box on wheels toward us. The box looks ancient and has holes in it that look like they were made by thousands of tiny animals taking small bites out of the metal. The spaces around the holes are a sick shade of brown. Along the side of the box are letters:
D-O
then a huge hole and
G-E
.
“Ingenius.” John claps his hands as the contraption gets closer. “A horse-drawn truck. Only in Texas.”
I don’t recall the word
truck
, but I cannot bother with that now. My gaze is on the man sitting behind the horses. He appears to be almost as old as John, but with no hair on his head and a long beard that is equal parts silver and black. He is holding two long ropes attached to a mechanism that keeps the horses together. He stops several feet from us and for long moments, none of us says a word.
The old man lowers himself from the truck, still holding on to the ropes. His eyes never leave us. He seems suspicious. I suppose I cannot blame him. I am suspicious as well.
“We have escaped from an underground compound in Colorado.” John finally breaks the silence.
The old man, still clutching the ropes, takes one step forward. “Colorado is a long way away.”
“We had a transport.” John motions to the spot where we left it soaking in the sun’s rays. “It broke down, but we think it might work again with a little more solar power.”
“Look, we’re simple folks.” The man stays rooted in place, his eyes tiny slits. “And we like it that way.”
The man speaks differently than we do. His vowels are soft
and his words take longer to come out than ours. I understand him, but it is difficult. What does he think of how we speak? We must look strange to him. Even though we are wet and dirty, our clothes are very different from his. We all wear the white suits of the State. His clothes are faded but colorful, his pants a dingy blue and his shirt a combination of several colors in a variety of patterns. His shoes are caked with dirt, but even if they were clean, I am fairly certain they would still be the color of the ground beside the pond.
“We are homeless,” John says. “We are not looking to change your way of life, but we would like to join you. We are almost out of food.”
“And they are hurt.” I cannot remain silent any longer. “John fell, and Berk was attacked by wolves. Do you have a Medical Specialist?”
“We have a healer.” The man motions for us to climb in the back of his truck. “But before you see her, you need to see the Scientists.”
M
y heart plunges. The Scientists? They found us? Followed us here? Have they been tracking us all along? Watching as we traveled, laughing as we crashed? The four of us are silent as the truck turns around and the horses point us toward the village. The old man refuses to say any more. When we ask him about the Scientists, he just shrugs and says, “You’ll see.”
I have led my friends to their deaths. I want to turn us back around, to push the old man down and see if we can make the sixty miles to the next village. Maybe they will protect us from the Scientists.
I look at the old man, and I know I cannot do that. And if
the Scientists made it to this village ahead of us, then they will surely be able to follow us to the next. I try to think about something else, anything to keep the images of Berk, Rhen, and John being annihilated from playing in my mind.
“What are those?” I point to a group of animals about the size of the horses. They are of varying colors of brown and white, wider than the horses, their thick necks bent to eat grass.
“Cows.” John rubs his long white beard. “Dairy cows, used for getting milk and cream and butter and cheese.”
“Ancient foods?” Rhen does not hide her disgust.
The foods in the State are all grown in the greenhouses or manufactured in the labs to be of optimal nutritional value. We were told the ancients ate animals and drank their secretions and that the diseases that resulted from that practice killed many. I am a little nauseous at the thought of it.