The Klaatu Terminus (34 page)

“Will you stay here with us?” he asked.

“For a while, although eventually, without the support of the Cluster, I will dissipate.”

“The Cluster?”

“That is what we Klaatu call our society.”

“So the Klaatu are gone? Except you?”

“The Cluster is moving on.”

“Does that make you afraid?”

“I have lived a very long time, and I am more curious than afraid. Will I persevere, or become bits of energy scattered across the universe? I may one day discover the answer, or all may go to black. But before I go, there is one last task I must ask you to perform.”

R
OMELAS
,
ca
.
2800 CE

T
UCKER LANDED LIGHTLY ATOP THE FRUSTUM
. It was dark and cool, with no moon in the sky. The zocalo was empty. Tucker made his way quickly down the side of the pyramid. He stood at the base for a few moments and looked around. He was dressed as a Lah Sept acolyte, in a loosely woven, colorless robe, and rope sandals. There was no reason for anyone to notice him — just another shadow in the night.

In his mind, he again reviewed the map that Lia had drawn for him. Her crude sketches became real as he strolled around the perimeter of the zocalo: the convent of the Yars, the temple of the priests, the colonnade. He slowed as he approached the Palace of the Pure Girls and glanced around again to make sure he was not being observed. No one was watching. He approached the front gate. He reached through the bars of the portcullis and rapped on the door. Time passed; there was no response. He rapped harder. A minute later, the door opened a crack.

“What is it?” A woman’s voice, in the language of the Lah Sept.

“The Pure Girl Emma,” said Tucker in the same language. “She is required.”

“By whom?”

“Master Gheen.”

The woman made a sputtering sound with her lips and closed the door.

Tucker waited nervously. A few minutes later, the door opened. A thin dour-faced woman stepped out and unlocked the portcullis. Behind her stood a sleepy-looking red-haired girl, perhaps four years old, clutching a doll made of cloth. The woman unlocked the portcullis, muttering a complaint that Tucker could not understand — Lia had taught him only a few words in her native language. She swung the gate open just far enough to push the girl through. She took the doll from the girl as she did so.

“Pepe!” the girl whined, grabbing for the doll. The woman held the doll out of reach and closed the gate. Tucker took the girl by the hand. She looked at him with wide eyes.

“It’s okay,” Tucker said as he led her away from the palace and across the zocalo to the pyramid.

“Where are we going?” the girl asked.

“I’m taking you home,” he said.

“Who are you?”

Tucker knelt down and looked into the girl’s blue-green eyes.
She will remember nothing of this
, he told himself. His heart filled his chest. He could feel tears welling in his eyes. He looked away. He did not want to frighten her.

“My name is Tucker,” he said. He lifted her in his arms and carried her up the steps of the pyramid.

At dawn, as the sun touched the top of the pyramid, the citizens of Romelas began to wander onto the zocalo, buying bread and other foodstuffs from the numerous vendors. The smell of roasting garlic, peppers, corn, and meat drifted up the sides of the pyramid.

The disko known as Heid flickered to life, taking on a faint greenish hue. A moment later it flared bright green and expelled a small figure. A pale, red-haired girl wearing a light silver shift dropped to the frustum. She fell to her hands and knees with a cry, then climbed to her feet and looked around. She was alone. She walked uncertainly to the edge of the frustum and looked down upon a large plaza. She knew, somehow, that the plaza was called the zocalo. People were moving around below. They looked tiny. There were several carts, some mounded with what looked like piles of fruit, others were emitting swirls of smoke. People were visiting the carts and putting things in their mouths. Eating. The light breeze shifted, and she smelled something delicious. The girl felt a twinge in her belly that she recognized as hunger. She climbed down onto the next tier, and the next, until she reached the bottom.

Following her nose, she was drawn to a brightly painted two-wheeled cart that was giving off a particularly nice smell. A woman with dark sun-dried skin stood beside it, tending to a smoking metal box. Several brown twisted things hung from strings along the side of the cart. The girl recognized them as fish. Smoked fish. She knew the words for things when she saw them, but she could not remember ever having seen them before.

The woman noticed her and smiled. She was missing a tooth, but it was a friendly smile.

“Hello, little one.”

Looking at the string of fish, the girl said, “Hello.” It was the first word she could remember ever having spoken aloud.

“And who might you be?”

The girl shook her head. She still did not know her name. She pointed at one of the fish, the smallest one.

“Are you hungry?” the woman asked.

The girl nodded.

The fish vendor, whose name was Pilar, considered the small child standing before her. The girl could not have lived even a hand of summers, and with that red hair and pale skin . . . Pilar looked toward the Palace of the Pure Girls.

“I think you are lost, little one,” she said. Clearly, this was a Pure Girl who had wandered off. Pilar had no love for the priests and their ways. It occurred to her, briefly, that she might give the girl a bit of smoked fish. It was good fish. But the Pure Girls, she knew, were forbidden from eating flesh. If she were seen feeding the child fish, things would not go well for either of them. On the other hand, if she were to return the girl to the palace, there might even be some small reward in it for her.

“What is your name?”

“I do not know,” said the girl.

“You don’t know your own name?”

The girl shook her head.

Pilar frowned. Perhaps the girl had hit her head, or been otherwise injured. In any case, it was none of her concern. She squatted down next to the girl and pointed across the zocalo toward the Palace of the Pure Girls.

“Do you see that lovely building? The one with the orange trees in front?”

“I like oranges,” said the girl, though she could not remember ever having eaten one.

“That is where you live. I will take you there.”

The girl took a step back. “I’m afraid,” she said.

The fish vendor smiled. “There is no need. Come. They will feed you persimmons and dates, and you will be adored.” She took the girl’s small hand and walked her across the plaza. They entered the shade of the orangery, and approached the palace gate. Pilar rang the brass bell attached to the portcullis. A few seconds later, the door behind the gate opened and a Sister looked out. Her eyes landed on the girl and she let out a startled exclamation.

“Lah Emma!”

“I found her wandering on the zocalo,” said Pilar.

The Sister darted her a suspicious look.

Pilar spread her hands. “I brought her here immediately,” she said.

“It is well that you did,” said the Sister. She opened the gate and pulled the girl through.

“I had hoped for some small emolument,” Pilar said, irritated to boldness by the Sister’s haughty manner.

“Emolument? You will not be whipped. That is emolument enough.”

Pilar bristled at the suggestion that she should be punished for doing nothing wrong, but she knew to hold her tongue. The Sister’s threat was not empty. Others had been punished for less.

The Sister backed into the palace, dragging the girl with her. As the door closed, Pilar heard the girl’s tiny voice say, “My name is Emma?”

H
OPEWELL, 1982 CE

Tucker looked out over downtown Hopewell from the roof of the old hotel. Standing beside him, holding his hand, was the girl who would one day become his mother.

“What is this place?” the girl asked.

“Your new home,” Tucker told her.

“Is it nice?”

“It is very nice.” Tucker smiled sadly. “You will have many friends. You will meet a man named Kosh, and you will have a son named Tucker.”

“Tucker?” She looked up at him. “But that is your name!”

Tucker laughed. “I guess it is.”

“I like it,” said the girl.

Tucker took the girl down through the hotel, jimmied a window at the back, and helped her climb out. He led her around to the side of the building where there were several large, overgrown lilac bushes.

“I’m going to leave you here for a bit while I go back inside,” he said. “Can you wait right here?”

The girl looked frightened. Tucker knelt down before her and took both her hands in his. “Please don’t be afraid.”

The girl’s eyes were filling with tears. “I can’t help it.”

Tucker wiped his own eyes with the back of his hand. He wished he could take her with him back to Harmony, to the Terminus.

“Very soon, a nice man will come and take you home with him,” he said in a choked voice. “His name is Hamm.”

“I want to go back,” the girl said.

“Perhaps one day you will.”

A minute later, Tucker was back on the roof, looking down over the parapet at the red-haired girl sitting behind the lilac bushes. He could hear her faint sobbing. He felt horrible. Looking toward the street, he saw Hamm Ryan come out of Janky’s barbershop. Hamm crossed the street to where his pickup truck was parked. As Hamm opened the truck door, he looked toward the hotel with a puzzled expression. He walked over and peered though the lilacs.

Tucker waited until Hamm had led the girl back to his truck and helped her inside. He watched them drive off, then he crossed the pebbled roof to the disko. He was about to enter it when he noticed a small gray cat sitting on the parapet, staring at him.

“Hello,” he said.

The cat said, “Mreep?”

H
OPEWELL
T
IME
S
TUB
, A
PRIL, 2013 CE

T
HE COTTONWOOD ARCHED OVER
H
ARDY LAKE, ITS ROUGH GRAY
trunk rising forty feet before the first great limb branched out over the waters. Tom Krause, lying on his back on the narrow beach, thought,
That tree must be two hundred years old, maybe older. It might have been growing before the first European settlers arrived in Hopewell. It must be the biggest tree in the county. Maybe in the state.

Tom imagined himself climbing out that long branch and looking down on himself. The thought brought a tingle of fear and excitement. How high was it? Eighty, a hundred feet? He blinked, and for a moment he saw a dark, sinuous line trailing down from the branch, like a long rope. He blinked again and it was gone.

Clearly, there was nothing there . . . but he had seen something. He stared hard at the branch, wondering what he had seen. He closed his eyes and opened them. Nothing. He tried looking away from the branch, then back, and there . . . no, it was gone. If he looked off to the side, just far enough so that the branch was at the very edge of his vision, he could see something hanging. A rope. It definitely looked like a rope. But as soon as he tried to look straight at it, the rope was gone.

It was the same with his family. Lately, the more he looked at them, the less real they seemed. And it was the same for them. Some days they didn’t recognize him at all. Every morning when he woke up, Will asked him the same question: “Who are you?”

When his teachers had started referring to him as “the new boy,” he had stopped going to school. Nobody noticed him missing. He felt the world receding, rejecting him, turning him into a wraith.

I do not belong here.

He spent as much time as he could at Hardy Lake, where he sometimes remembered things he had forgotten. It was warmer now that spring had arrived, but the memories came less often.

Despite the fact that he could not look at it directly, the rope
felt
real. More real than home, than his family. Maybe it
was
real, like a different reality in a different universe that was almost exactly the same as this one, only with a rope hanging from that branch. Like maybe another version of Tom Krause had climbed up a different version of that cottonwood and made a rope swing.