The Klaatu Terminus (10 page)

I suppose I should pray
, he thought, but he could not summon the desire to do so. What could God do? Why would God let these things happen? It made no sense to him. The machines inside his body would determine if he lived or died. Lia was dead, or she was alive. He would find her, or he would not. He did not think God could help him.

A new sensation radiated from his belly into his awareness. At first, he did not know what he was feeling, then he recognized it as hunger. He crawled over to the cloth bag. Inside was a glass bottle half full of water, and two leaf-wrapped packets. Tucker uncapped the bottle and drank. He unwrapped the packets. One held strips of dried meat, the other contained what looked like a yellow compressed sponge. Tucker sniffed, then tasted it. Like dense, stale angel food cake, but not so sweet. He washed it down with another gulp of water, then went to work chewing on the dried meat, trying not to think what sort of animal it might be. He ate all the meat, then finished the spongy, dry mystery cake. The food settled comfortably inside him. He examined the wound under his rib cage, which had nearly closed and was not bleeding at all. He sat back against the tree trunk and waited.

It was getting dark when the man finally stirred. His fingers twitched, he moaned, then tried to move. His eyes popped open and rolled around in sudden panic.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Tucker said. He stood up. The numbness and discomfort in his abdomen had subsided — he felt almost normal.

The man struggled frantically against his bonds.

“I want you to take me to Lia. The girl.”

The man shook his head, his shoulder and arm muscles stood out as he strained to break the cord around his wrists. Tucker braced himself in case the man broke loose, but the rope held. The man glared at him and muttered something that sounded like a curse.

Tucker pointed the machete at the man’s feet. “I’m going to cut your feet loose. If you run, I will catch you. You know I can.” He hoped it was true. He was feeling much better, but chasing this man through an unfamiliar jungle in the dark might be beyond him. “I am a
bruja
,” he said. “I will catch you with magic.”

The man stopped struggling. Tucker could see in his eyes that the man believed him.

“If my friend is okay, I’ll let you go. But you have to promise not to run.”

The man licked his lips and nodded. Tucker sawed through the rope with the machete and stepped back. The man held out his bound wrists. “Cut?”

“No,” Tucker said. “First, you take me to the girl.”

The man lowered his hands and climbed to his feet.

“What is your name?” Tucker asked.

The man frowned and shook his head.

Tucker pointed at himself. “I’m Tucker. What is your name?”

“Yaca,” the man said.

“Yaca. Okay, let’s go, Yaca.”

Tucker expected the man to follow the trail, but instead Yaca walked straight into the brush, sliding through and around obstacles with graceful familiarity. Tucker followed, staying a few feet behind him. He hoped that his talk of being a
bruja
and knowing magic had terrified the young man into obedience. If Yaca chose to run off in the darkening forest, there was no way he’d catch him.

They came to a well-trodden path. The path followed the side of a hill, then zigzagged down to the bank of the river. Without hesitating, Yaca stepped into the water. He picked his way across the river, his feet finding stepping stones just below the surface — a submerged bridge. Tucker followed, mimicking Yaca’s footfalls. They reached the far side safely. The path continued on the other side, heading east. The surrounding forest had become a jumble of shadows. Tucker could barely make out the shape of the man ahead of him.

Yaca stopped.

“How much farther?” Tucker asked.

Yaca looked over his shoulder and Tucker saw a flash of white teeth — a smile.

“We are here.”

Two shadows detached themselves from the underbrush and stood to either side of Yaca. Tucker took a step back. He heard a faint sound and turned. Two more figures were behind him on the trail. He could see the glint of their machetes.

Yaca spat out a string of words. The only one Tucker understood was
bruja
.

T
UCKER ALMOST MADE A BREAK FOR IT, BUT THE MEN
weren’t attacking him — not yet. Yaca was speaking rapidly, repeating the words
bruja
and
boggsey
several times. One of the others, a man carrying a pitchfork, joined in. Tucker could tell from their tone that they were arguing.

“I’m looking for the girl,” Tucker said. “I’m not really a
bruja
.”

They fell silent and stared at him. The man with the pitchfork stepped closer, peered into his eyes, then quickly backed away. He gestured with his pitchfork and started up the path. Tucker followed. The others, including Yaca, came close behind.

Shortly, they came to a small clearing. Several crude huts with roofs made of leaves and branches were arranged around the perimeter. A low fire burned in a pit in front of the largest hut. An older woman sat on a log arranged before the fire, talking to a younger woman sitting beside her. The two of them looked over as Tucker and his captors emerged from the forest. The older woman said something. The young woman ran to one of the huts and disappeared inside. Yaca ran to the older woman and started talking. The woman looked from Yaca to Tucker, then back again. Finally she made a chopping gesture, and Yaca fell silent. The woman stood up. She was wearing a patterned green and gold sarong wrapped around her hips, and a loosely woven clay-colored shawl over her shoulders. She approached Tucker, her movements fluid and graceful. As she drew close, Tucker saw that the lines on her face were those that came with weather and hardship more than years. She may have been only thirty or forty years old, with intelligent black eyes, a strong jaw, and firm, narrow lips. Her dark, straight hair, spilling over her shawl, showed only a few strands of gray.

“Marta,” she said, pointing at herself.

“My name is Tucker. I’m here to find my friend.”

The woman drew back, frowning. “You are no boggsey.”

“No, I’m just looking for my friend. The girl these guys grabbed.” He pointed at Yaca and the others, who were standing a few yards away listening. “Is she here?”

Marta frowned, then spoke sharply to Yaca, who replied defensively and pointed at the man with the pitchfork.

“Malo!” the woman said sharply.

The man with the pitchfork came forward and launched into a long story. Again, Tucker heard the words
bruja
and
boggsey
. The woman listened. When he had finished speaking, she snatched the pitchfork from him and flung it into the fire. The man cried out and moved to retrieve it; Marta dealt him an openhanded blow to the face. The man jerked back, putting a hand to his cheek.

The woman returned her attention to Tucker.

“Your friend is not here.”

“Do you know where she is? Have you seen her?”

“I will tell you a story. This I had from my son Malo.” Marta gestured at the man she had struck. “Malo came upon a yellow-haired girl in the forest. He took her, though she fought back with the speed and strength of a
jabalina
. Malo is fast and strong and brave. He defeated her and carried her far through the forest to the place where the boggseys tear the earth with their plows. There, after much clever bargaining, he traded her to them for a pitchfork.” She gave Malo a disgusted look. “This is the story my son tells me.”

All Tucker could think to say was, “A pitchfork?”

“Yes. He is
idiota
.” She regarded Tucker with narrowed eyes. “Yaca tells me a story as well. He says you were caught in his trap, and that the wooden tooth entered your back and burst out through your belly. He says he waited for you to die, but you refused. He says that you used magic to remove the tooth. He says you are a
bruja
. A witch. I do not believe in
brujas
, but I see blood on your garment. Show me your belly.”

Tucker hesitated. The men with their machetes were still standing nearby. He feared that if the old woman thought he was a witch he would be killed.

“It was nothing,” he said. “Just a scratch.”

“Show me.”

Tucker slowly opened the front of his coveralls and looked down. The wound below his rib cage had closed. She examined it in the firelight, then snorted.

“That is an old wound. Both my sons are
idiotas
.”

Yaca stared at Tucker as if he were a ghost.

“You speak English well,” Tucker said.

“
Inglés
is our trading language. The boggseys speak it. You are not a boggsey. Come, sit with me.” She walked over to the fire and sat down on the log. Tucker hesitated, then followed her and sat down a few feet away.

Marta motioned with her hand. “Who are you? Where do you come from? Tell me a story.”

Tucker considered the many stories he might tell. He finally said, “My name is Tucker. I came from a faraway place called Hopewell. This morning I came from the city of Romelas.”

“No one lives in Romas.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that.”

Her brow furrowed.

“I mean,” Tucker said, “I didn’t see anybody there.”

“Tell me how you came to Romas.”

“Through a disko. A Gate.”

“A Gate!” Her eyes narrowed. “There are no Gates.”

“You seem to have heard of them.”

“They come in dreams.” She stared into the fire for a moment. “I do not speak of them.”

“Why is the city abandoned?” Tucker asked.

“The gods left. The people were eaten.”

“Eaten by what? Jaguars?”

Marta laughed. “
El tigre
’s appetite is not so great as that. I will tell you a story.”

Tucker noticed that the men had moved closer, and were all squatting around the fire, listening intently. Marta cleared her throat and began.

“In a time long before my grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother, Romas was a rich city ruled by the priests of the god Sept. People lived pressed together in stone buildings, while the priests performed miracles and dined on lamb liver and sweet persimmon. They lived this way for countless generations, and more. It is said the priests lived inside the great pyramid.

“Though they were powerful, the priests were small in their hearts, and they fought among themselves. There was a great battle, and the priests tore at each other like animals. When they saw that the people of Romas knew their pettiness, the priests were ashamed, and they climbed to a hole in the sky. Then a great beast appeared and devoured the hole, and the priests were no more.”

She fell silent and stared into the flames. Tucker thought she was finished, but after a moment, she continued.

“For a time, the people of Romas were content without their priests, but then came the boggseys with their spirit-makers, offering solace to those whose joy in life had abandoned them. The boggseys claimed their machines would take people to a new life, a life without hunger or pain. They said their machines would make people into gods. They called it transcendence.”

“Klaatu,” Tucker said, understanding.

“
Klaatu
is the word for gods in our language. At first, few people were willing to give up their life in this world for promises of paradise. But some of the old, the sick, and the desperate gave themselves to the boggsey machines, and they returned as spirits and spoke of their new life. The people saw their friends and relatives living as gods, and they saw that they were happy — even those who had given themselves to the boggsey machines in despair. Soon, others began to enter the machines, hoping to join their departed ancestors, hoping to live without the discomforts of life. Lovers entered the machines together. Parents gave their children to the machines, then followed them. In time, there were so few remaining in Romas that the boggseys shut down their machines and returned to their farms, and the city died.

“My ancestors chose the bellies of the forest over the bellies of the machines. Now the forests have devoured us. We are few. We wait to die.”

Her head slumped forward; she stared at the ground between her knees. One of the men added some sticks to the fire and it flared brightly. Tucker realized that there were now more than a dozen men and women squatting around the flames listening. He noticed there were no children.

Tucker asked, “These boggseys that made everybody into Klaatu, are they the same people who have my friend?”

“They are their mothers’ mothers’ mothers’ children, yes.”

“Why would they want her? Do they want to turn her into a Klaatu?”

Marta shrugged. “Who knows what the boggseys want. I do not even understand what my own children want. A pitchfork? Bah. We are not farmers.” She glared again at Malo, who looked away angrily.

“Where do I find these boggseys?” Tucker asked.

Marta gestured vaguely. “Harmony is near. I will have Malo take you there in the morning.”

“Take me now.”

“It is too dangerous. The trap you blundered into is there for a reason.
El tigre
is a hungry beast. Tonight, you sleep in Malo’s bed.” She stood up. “No more stories.” She walked tiredly to one of the huts and disappeared inside. By ones and twos, the other men and women also retired to their huts, leaving only Malo and Tucker by the fire.