The Klaatu Terminus (11 page)

“I don’t want to take your bed,” Tucker said. “I can sleep here by the fire.”

Malo snorted and gave him a baleful look. “Marta speaks.” He pointed to one of the huts. “My bed is yours. I will tend the flame.”

H
OPEWELL
, A
UGUST, 1997 CE

W
EEKS PASSED WITHOUT
K
OSH SEEING
E
MILY
. H
E SPENT
his time working at Red’s, working on his bike, and keeping the house up.

Ronnie Becker had his court hearing and got off with probation. If he managed to make it to eighteen without getting into more trouble, his record would be cleared.

“You won’t turn eighteen until January,” Kosh pointed out. “When was the last time you went six months without getting in trouble?”

Ronnie laughed. “I’ll be extra careful,” he said. “I told the judge Jesus would be watching me.”

“Yeah, but watching you do what?”

“The way I figure it, God wanted me to get off with probation, so I guess I owe him one. Or maybe God owed me one for letting me get caught. Next time I go to church I’ll have to ask him.”

Ronnie’s peculiar epistemology was of little interest to Kosh. Adrian’s over-the-top piety had put him off religion at an early age. He wasn’t even sure he believed in God.

“Anyways, as soon as I can get a little scratch together, I’m leaving town,” Ronnie said. “Arnold is making my life hell.”

Arnold was Ronnie’s father.

“Where are you going?”

“Anywhere. You want to come?”

“No thanks,” Kosh said.

Occasionally, Kosh performed odd jobs for his neighbors — anything that required a strong back and the willingness to work cheap. Chuck Beamon, a bachelor farmer who had inherited a small spread from his mother, called Kosh one day and asked him to help with a fence repair. Kosh stopped by the next morning.

“Strangest thing,” Chuck said as they toted tools and a roll of fencing across his soybean field. “You remember I told you about that guy being chased by a pink pig? The guy wearing the black coat? Well, this here is where I seen him, and the other day, I’m out and . . . well, you’ll see.”

They reached the edge of the field, which was bounded by a six-foot-tall welded wire fence. As they followed the fence line, Kosh remarked that it seemed an odd sort of fence for a soybean field. Chuck explained that he’d put it up because Henry Hall’s pigs kept raiding his beans. “They make one heck of a mess,” he said. “Course, Henry, he won’t do nothin’ about it. But lookie down here.”

A perfectly round four-foot section of the fence was missing. Not broken, not collapsed, not hanging loose, but simply gone. A perfect circle of missing fence.

“Now, don’t you think that’s peculiar?” Chuck said.

“I do,” said Kosh. He examined the ends of the cut wires. His first thought was that it was a practical joke — some kids had gotten hold of a pair of wire cutters and cut the circle out just to mess with Chuck’s head. But the wires didn’t look like they’d been cut. Wire cutters would have left the ends slightly uneven. These wires just . . . ended. And the circle was too precise to be the work of kids. Even Kosh, who was pretty handy, could not have performed such a flawless job of vandalism.

“I figure we can just slap on a new piece,” Chuck said. “But I sure as shootin’ would like to know what the heck did this.”

It took only a few minutes to repair the fence. Kosh wondered why Chuck had bothered to call him, then realized that Chuck had simply wanted to show somebody the hole. He couldn’t blame him — it wasn’t the sort of thing you could describe and have anybody believe you. After they finished the repair and returned the extra fencing and tools to the barn, Chuck asked Kosh what he owed him.

Kosh waved him away. “Nothing,” he said. “It didn’t take but ten minutes.”

“More closer to twenty some,” Chuck said. “But I ain’t going to force nothing on you. ’Less you want a chicken.”

“Chicken?”

“Yeah. You like chicken?”

“A
live
chicken?”

“Nope. She’s gutted, plucked, and ready for roasting. Had to thin the flock this morning.”

“I have this chicken,” Kosh said.

Emily laughed. He had never heard her laugh over the phone before.

“That’s funny,” she said.

“It is?”

“Yes. Chickens are funny. Especially when somebody calls you out of the blue and the first thing they say is they have one.”

“This chicken isn’t funny. It’s dead.”

“What on Earth are you doing with a dead chicken?”

“I was thinking I might eat it. I was thinking I might make it into chicken potpie tonight. Only I never made chicken potpie before.”

“Are you asking me for a recipe, or inviting me to dinner?”

“Dinner, I guess. Only I need your chicken potpie recipe.”

“Do you have flour and butter?”

“I think so.”

“How about I come over around five?”

“That’d be great.”

Kosh hung up the phone. He noticed his hands were shaking. What was that about?

H
OPEWELL
, S
EPTEMBER, 2012 CE

K
OSH CAME TO IN STARTS AND STUTTERS
. F
IRST, THE
voices — a distant, meaningless muttering, like waves breaking on a beach. Then the light, teasing at his eyelids. He opened his eyes. He was looking up at a ceiling. He had seen that ceiling before. He tried to sit up, but fell back when the pain hit, a racking ache from his neck to his feet. He gasped and squeezed his eyes shut and waited for it to subside. After a few seconds, he was able to sit up. He recognized the room, and remembered. This was the house where he had grown up.

The voices were coming from outside. Slowly, Kosh climbed to his feet and stood crouched for a few seconds as he waited for the dizziness to pass. When he felt able to move, he went to the window. A burly man wearing a yellow shirt was standing in the yard, talking. A black SUV with a dented front bumper and broken grille was parked in the driveway behind him. Kosh recognized the grille — he’d seen it last in his rearview mirror. The man had to be Tamm. Kosh shifted to the side and saw Emma sitting on the steps. She was holding the weapon Kosh had taken from the priest. Tamm took a step toward her. She pointed the weapon at him. He laughed, but didn’t come any closer.

Ignoring the throbs and twinges from his battered body, Kosh made his way to the door and out onto the porch. His footsteps startled Emma. When she turned her head to look, Tamm darted forward and grabbed the weapon. Kosh threw himself at him before he could bring the tube to bear. Tamm staggered back and fell with Kosh on top of him. The weapon flew from his hands. Kosh pounded at him with both fists. He knew he was in no shape to win a prolonged fight — he had to knock the man senseless as quickly as possible. Already he could feel his strength draining away. Tamm was fighting back, but Kosh hardly felt the blows. He’d been in enough fights to know that if you feel it when they hit you, it’s all over.

Tamm’s fist connected with the ribs on his right side, and Kosh went rigid with pain. Tamm shoved him aside and jumped to his feet. Through a haze of agony, Kosh saw the toe of a boot coming at his head, but before it connected, the earth exploded, a blast of heat hit his face, and Tamm was thrown to the ground.

Kosh rolled away from the blast and managed to get up on his hands and knees. Tamm was collapsed next to a burned spot on the lawn. Emma, stunned by what she had done, was holding the silver tube. Ignoring the piercing stabs from his ribs, Kosh staggered over to her and took the weapon from her hands and aimed it at Tamm.

“Is he dead?” Emma asked. Tamm’s yellow T-shirt was scorched, but otherwise he appeared intact. Kosh poked at his shoulder with the tube. Tamm’s eyes fluttered open; he looked at Kosh and groaned.

“Nope,” Kosh said, unable to keep a tinge of regret out of his voice.

Emma looked as if she was about to fall over. Kosh put his arm around her and together they walked unsteadily back to the porch steps. Emma sat down and hugged herself.

“I have never fired an
arma
before,” she said.

Kosh looked at the tube in his hand. “Is that what this is called?”

“It is a dreadful device — the Boggsians built them for the priests. I do not understand why they would do that. I do not understand why people kill.”

“You nearly killed somebody yourself just now.”

“Am I, then, like Tamm?”

“Believe me, you’re nothing like him.” Kosh sat down beside her. Tamm started to sit up. Kosh pointed the
arma
at him. “Best you not move,” he said. Tamm sank back onto his elbows and glared at them.

“The others will come looking for him,” Emma whispered. “I will be punished.”

“You can’t stay here then.”

She turned her head to face him. It was all he could do not to call her Emily.

“I have nowhere to go.”

Kosh thought for a moment. “How do you feel about barns?” he asked.

T
REMPEALEAU
C
OUNTY
, W
ISCONSIN

E
MMA HAD HARDLY SPOKEN TO
K
OSH SINCE THEY HAD
left Hopewell in her husband’s SUV, and she rarely met his eyes. She didn’t seem to be afraid of him, but Kosh sensed that he made her uncomfortable.

He gave her the bedroom on the third floor of his barn. Tucker’s old room. She thanked him and closed the door and did not come out for hours.

He tried to win her over with chicken potpie, coaxing her out of her room and to the table. She picked at her pie, then asked him if the chicken pieces were “dead bird parts.”

“You don’t eat meat?” Kosh said.

She shook her head, not looking at him. She sat at the table while Kosh threw together a bowl of rice with sautéed vegetables. He tried several conversational gambits, but got nothing back from her other than a few polite responses. He began feeling foolish, so he stopped talking. They ate in silence. Emma retired to her room.

The next morning at breakfast he offered her fresh-baked biscuits and homemade raspberry preserves. She ate listlessly, thanked him, then went back to her room. Kosh spent the rest of the morning reading his vegetarian cookbooks.

Dinner that second night was roasted vegetables and corn on the cob. While they were eating, Kosh asked her if there was anything he could do to make her more comfortable.

She did not say anything for several long seconds, then raised her chin and said, “You can stop staring at me all the time.”

Kosh stared at her, then realized what he was doing and looked away.

“Have I been staring?” he said, knowing it was true. He couldn’t help it. Looking at Emma was like traveling into the past, back to when he was seventeen, back to his days spent with Emily Ryan.

“I feel your eyes constantly,” she said.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. You look like someone who was . . . important to me.”

“I am not her.”

“I know that. I really do. You’re Emma, not Emily.”

Emma nodded.

“The corn is good,” she said. “Our corn in Romelas was starchy and tough.” She looked at him. “You seem familiar to me as well. I felt it the first moment I saw you. Have you ever been in Romelas?”