The Klaatu Terminus (27 page)

At the car rental counter, it took him several minutes to find his driver’s license. The rental agent, a young woman with long blond hair pulled into a ponytail, waited patiently as he fumbled through his overstuffed backpack. Finally, he found his wallet in a pocket that also contained his house keys and a small locket. He handed the license to the agent, then opened the locket with shaking hands. Inside was a photo of Emily, smiling. Adrian blinked and felt tears dribble down his cheeks. He whispered a short prayer.

“Sir?”

He looked up. The agent was regarding him with concern. Adrian’s eyes fixed upon her hair. In the Holy Land, blond hair was a rarity. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and muttered an apology.

“I’m going home,” he told her. The agent smiled.

The rental car was small, with a dashboard that looked nothing like that of his Mustang. He felt as if he had been gone for decades, even though it had been less than six months. He examined the unfamiliar controls, then started the car and backed out of the parking space. As he drove out of the rental facility he saw that it was snowing. Snow was piled alongside the road, and big soft flakes were drifting down. It was beautiful. He felt a broad smile stretch his mouth, his heart beating deep and strong, blood coursing through his veins and arteries. In two hours he would be back in Hopewell.

Emily would be so surprised.

It was snowing again. Kosh climbed into the Mustang and started it, but could not bring himself to put it into gear. He could not stand to be in Adrian’s car again. He got out and opened the garage door and looked at his motorcycle. It was a bad idea to ride his bike in the snow on the icy country roads. Stupid. Reckless. He zipped his jacket up to his neck and straddled the bike. Uncomfortable, too — he could feel the cold seat right through his jeans. He turned on the ignition and kicked the starter. He kicked it again. It started on the fourth kick.

All the lights were on at the Ryan house. Kosh sat on his bike, shivering, watching from the road. He saw a shape move past the living-room window. Hamm. He kept watching until he caught a glimpse of Emily, doing something at the kitchen sink. Kosh shuddered, the cold and desire colliding in his chest. After a time, he started the bike and drove off slowly, the image of his uneaten feast overtaking the image of Emily. He imagined the turkey fat congealing on the platter, the mashed potatoes drying, the chopped salad wilting. He turned toward downtown Hopewell.

As he rode up the highway past the interstate, he noticed a compact car, new-looking, come off the exit ramp. Kosh was familiar with most of the cars in Hopewell, but not this one. Somebody from the cities, no doubt, coming to visit a relative. The car flashed by. Kosh concentrated on the road, squinting into the falling snow, watching for icy patches.

Maybe Red was still open. Maybe even on Christmas Eve there was someone there he could talk to.

T
REMPEALEAU
C
OUNTY
, W
ISCONSIN, 2012 CE

H
ERR
P
INCUS
B
OGGS AND HIS YOUNGEST SON
, M
ALACHI
, followed the tower of smoke up Blank Hill Road. He was glad to be off the highway, cars and trucks whizzing by and stirring up the horses. Kel and Bob were good horses, but they did not like cars. Boggs shook the reins, encouraging the horses to move along a bit faster. The Klaatu had insisted on urgency.

Herr Boggs sighed. He had hoped that here, in this elder time, he would not have to deal with such things. The Klaatu would not even come into existence for another three and a half centuries. It was those blasted diskos. They had been showing up far too often lately.

Malachi thought it a great adventure. Ten years old, and already he was hungry for the World. Well, he would see more than he bargained for here, if what the Klaatu had told him was true.

By the time they turned into the driveway leading to the fire, the smoke had thinned. Boggs could see why. The explosion had flattened the barn, spreading its shards over nearly half an acre. It was a shame — the last time he’d been here, he had thought it a fine barn. Though why it had been painted black was beyond him.

They found the first body on the ground next to a scorched vehicle. A man. A timber from the barn — probably one of the corner posts — had landed across his back, crushing him. Malachi stared wide-eyed at the corpse.

Life ends
, thought Herr Boggs.
A lesson the boy will not soon forget.

They found another man lying facedown on the other side of the SUV, half covered with splintered siding from the barn. He was alive. With Malachi’s help, he loaded the unconscious man onto the cart. Inside the vehicle, they found a woman covered with broken glass and ash. At first, Boggs thought her dead, but upon closer examination, he detected a faint pulse. They placed her in the cart next to the man.

Was that all? Herr Boggs told Malachi to wait by the cart. He approached the smoking pile of detritus that had recently been a barn, stepping carefully over smoldering wreckage. Near what must have been the door, he saw a hand. He used his feet to lift away several charred and splintered boards. The arm was attached to a shoulder, which was attached to a head. This man was decidedly gone — his throat was torn open. Herr Boggs was glad that the boy was not with him to see such a thing.

He moved further into the debris field and saw a series of mangled, twisted metal frames with shreds of charred pink plastic hanging from them. Boggs frowned as he recognized them for what they were — the remains of captive Timesweeps. He shook his head sadly, mourning these people for their hubris, for their recklessness, for their idiocy.

He was about to leave when he noticed something blue poking out from a large section of wooden floor that had fallen from above. He bent over and touched the blue thing, then jumped back as it moved. A toe? He tried to lift the flooring, but it was too heavy. Boggs thought for a moment, then took off his coat and went over to the man whose throat had been torn out and draped the coat over him so that Malachi would not see, then called his son over. The two of them were able to pull the section of flooring aside. Beneath it was another man — or perhaps a boy. It was hard to tell, and even harder to believe he was alive. Boggs rolled him over gently. A boy, he decided, from the smoothness of the few undamaged square centimeters of the boy’s face.

Malachi was making choking noises, his face red, his eyes bulging.

“Go,” said Herr Boggs. “Be sick, then go wait by the cart. I will take care of this.”

Malachi staggered off. He had almost made it to the cart when he dropped to his knees and vomited.

Herr Boggs gazed down at the boy with blue feet. The kindest thing, he thought, would be to let the boy die here. He could cover the boy’s crushed and bubbling mouth with his hand and hold it there; in a minute or two it would be over. But the Klaatu had been adamant:
Collect all who are alive
. Herr Boggs slid his arms under the ruined body and lifted it from the wreckage. What were the chances this boy would survive the three-hour ride back to Harmony?
Null
, he thought. The boy would probably die before they reached the end of the driveway. Nevertheless, he carried him back to the cart and laid the mutilated body beside the other two. Malachi looked on with a bloodless face and quivering lips.

Herr Boggs looked down at his blood and soot-stained shirt, then back at the barn.

“Come,” he said to his son. He climbed back onto the cart.

“Your coat,” said Malachi, jumping down to retrieve his father’s coat from where he had draped it over the dead man.

“Leave it,” said Herr Boggs. “It is only a scrap of cloth.”

M
AYO
T
WO, 2313 CE

T
UCKER KNEW WHERE HE WAS BEFORE HE OPENED HIS
eyes. The smell — or rather, the sterile, characterless
lack
of smell — told him he was in a Medicant hospital.

Again.

“Your readings indicate you are conscious.” A woman’s voice.

Tucker opened his eyes. The woman looked familiar.

“How long?” he rasped. The way his voice burbled in his throat told him it had been a very long time since he had spoken.

“You arrived in Mayo Two twenty-eight days ago,” said the woman.

Days, not years.
That was a relief.

“We have met before,” the woman said. “Do you remember?”

“You are . . .
Severs
. . . and some number.”

“Two-Nine-Four, but I no longer use my numeric designation.” Severs looked older. Her hair was the same silver color, but her face was lined, her eyes softer, her lips thinner.

“Am I missing any organs?” he asked.

Severs smiled. The last time he had seen her, she hadn’t smiled at all. “In this period, we do not require payment in body parts.”

“In this period?”

“The last time we met was more than one hundred years from now. I have . . . transferred, one might say.”

“You traveled back in time.” Strange how it came out so matter of fact, as if time travel was as common as taking a bus.

“That is correct. This is the year twenty-three thirteen, not so very far in your future. Medically speaking, it is a relatively primitive time. The techs were able to save your life and heal you, but your enhancements — the devices implanted in your bloodstream that made you stronger, faster, and able to heal yourself — have been removed.”

“Why?”

“The techs did not recognize the nanotech as beneficial, as that technology has not yet been developed. As I said, these are primitive times. The standard treatment now is to destroy all foreign bodies within a patient, then reintroduce a standard culture of beneficial bacteria. You are now much as you were before your first visit to a Medicant facility.”

Tucker lifted his hands and looked at them. “I’m still me?”

“You are more you than ever.”

Tucker looked down at his feet. His blue foot coverings were gone. He wiggled his toes. He hadn’t seen his feet since the day he had entered the disko on top of his house. They looked very smooth and white.

Severs said, “The foot sheaths represent another technology that has yet to be developed.”

“I was getting tired of blue anyway.”

Severs laughed. Could this really be the same blank-faced, expressionless Medicant he had met before?

“Do you remember what happened to you?” she asked.

Tucker thought for a moment. Images swirled in his mind: Lia, the Lambs, his mother . . . no, not his mother, but the woman who looked like her. Emma. Lia following Gheen into the disko — where had she gone? He remembered opening the gas jets on the stove. Tucker gasped and sat up.

“The barn!”

“Yes?” Severs put her hand on his arm, steadying him.

“There was an explosion!”

Severs nodded. “I am impressed that you remember what happened to you. Most trauma survivors do not recall the events immediately leading up to their injury, and your injuries were . . . spectacular. If not for the nanotech in your body, you would certainly have died.”

“Kosh was there!” Tucker said, remembering more.

“Your uncle survived, as did the woman Emma.”

“Are they here?”

“No. They were here for a time. They were not injured so badly as you, and recovered quickly, but three days ago they were both taken by maggots.”

Tucker let out a shaky breath.

“By the time we realized our facility had been invaded, it was too late to stop them. Fortunately, we were able to prevent a third maggot from reaching you. In fact, we captured it.”

The weight of all that had happened was too much to bear. Kosh, Lia, his parents — all of them, lost in the diskos. As was he. “You should have just let it grab me,” he said.

“Why do you say that?” Severs asked.

“Because every place I go, people get hurt. I’m getting diskoed from one horrible thing to another. I don’t know who’s doing it, or why.”

“Why do you think it is about you?”

“It’s not random. Every time I turn around there’s a maggot chasing me. I don’t know if it’s the Klaatu, or the Boggsians, or God, or what, but I’m sick of it.”