The Klaatu Terminus (35 page)

A rope swing! Now
that
was an idea. A giant rope swing. He could swing from the top of the bank out over the water and dive right in. All he needed was a rope.

Tom imagined himself inching his way out that branch, dragging behind him a hundred feet of rope. His stomach swam; he didn’t think he could do it.

Tom let his mind drift into a fantasy he’d had ever since he could remember. A friend who lived just down the road. A kid who wasn’t afraid to try stuff. Somebody he could ride bikes with, and explore the river caves. A kid who would recognize him, and remember his name.

Once again, Tom let his focus drift off to the side. The rope reappeared.

It would be really great to have a friend like that. A friend crazy enough to climb out along that branch and tie a rope to it.

A green flash caught his eye. He sat up and looked out over the lake just as something bright pink popped into existence, dropped into the water, and disappeared beneath the surface. Tom stood up and walked to the water’s edge. A bird? Something falling from a passing plane? A meteorite?

Half a minute later, a few yards from shore, the water heaved and bubbled. The pink thing broke the surface and crawled up onto the beach. It looked like a fat, pink, smooth-skinned caterpillar the size of a hog.

Tom stood rooted to the spot. The thing stopped about ten feet away and seemed to be looking at him, although it had no eyes.

Okay
, Tom thought,
now I know I’m insane. This can’t be real.
He wondered why he wasn’t afraid.

A small opening appeared at the thing’s front end, like a mouth. The mouth slowly expanded until it was about a yard across, but instead of a hole, it was a flat, gray, perfectly circular panel. Tom had seen such a disk before, but where? He searched his memories, and a name appeared.

Tucker Feye.

He hadn’t thought about Tucker Feye in a very long time. Suddenly, he remembered the rope swing, remembered Tucker tying the rope, and jumping into the lake. How could he have forgotten? He looked up at the tree. There was no rope swing. He remembered that bizarre night in Hopewell, the Hopewell of the past, when he had last seen Tucker. And before that, the futuristic hospital, where he had been sent through a disk that looked exactly like this.

The pink thing was not moving. The disk pulsed and swam. Tom took a step toward it. The pink thing quivered, as if in anticipation. Tom thought about turning his back on it and walking home. Would there be a place for him at the table? Would his mother recognize him? Would Will?

He took another step toward the disk. If none of this was real, what did it matter?

He could feel the disk tugging at him, urging him forward.

Why not?
he thought.

H
OPEWELL, 1998 CE

A
DRIAN
F
EYE STOOD BESIDE HIS WIFE’S BED, GAZING IN
awe at the miracle she held in her arms. A new soul had come into the world. If ever he needed proof of God’s existence, he would always have this moment.

His wife had given birth to a boy.

Emily, smiling dazedly, cradled the newborn.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” she said.

“He is,” Adrian agreed. “We will christen him Matthew.”

“Matthew?” Emily looked puzzled. “But his name is Tucker!”

“Tucker? What sort of name is that?”

“It is
his
name. I’ve told you many times that I wanted a son named Tucker.”

“You have?” Adrian loved his wife, despite all, but he did not always listen when she talked. “I was thinking of something more . . . biblical.”

“His name is
Tucker
,” Emily said.

Neither of them spoke for several seconds, then Adrian nodded.

“I suppose it is nothing to do with me,” he said.

“He is your son, if you will have him,” Emily said. “Would you like to hold him?”

Adrian lifted the child and held him, clumsily. The boy began to cry. Adrian rocked him back and forth, but the child would not be comforted.

“He seems rather small,” he said.

“Five pounds eight ounces,” Emily said with a defensive note in her voice. “The doctor said that was perfectly normal.”

“The low end of normal, perhaps.” Adrian handed the squalling infant back to its mother. “He will be the first child baptized in my new church,” he said.

T
HE
T
ERMINUS

“H
EY
, T
UCKER
!”

Tucker looked up from the fence post he was setting. Tom Krause, who had been digging another hole a few yards away, was holding up what looked like a green plastic bottle. They had been finding a lot of odd bits of trash, mostly plastic and glass.

“I think it’s a Mountain Dew bottle,” Tom said.

“Anything left?”

Tom shook the bottle and peered through the clouded plastic. “Nope. How old do you think it is?”

“About as old as we are,” Tucker said. “Who knows? You might’ve drunk out of it. Eight thousand years ago.”

Tom laughed and tossed the bottle back into the hole. “Maybe in another eight thousand years somebody else will dig it up.” He measured off three paces along the edge of the field and started on another hole.

He’s doing better
, Tucker thought. Physically, Tom was still only fourteen, but the past few weeks in Harmony had been good for him. When Tom had first arrived, Tucker had feared for his friend’s sanity. Tom had kept asking him about the rope swing. Tucker assured Tom that the rope swing had been real.

“How do I know
you’re
real?” Tom asked.

Iyl Rayn told them Tom was suffering from the aftereffects of being caught in a time stub. Emelyn agreed. “He is also grieving for his lost family, but he will recover. Keep him busy; it will help.”

It seemed to be working. There was plenty to do on the farm: planting, weeding, harvesting, cooking, cleaning. . . . The list was endless. Tom had grown up on a farm and knew more about it than all the rest of them put together. He had been the one to suggest building the fence around the cornfield to keep the wild hogs out.

Lia, to Tucker’s surprise, had befriended the horse, Clyde. She was the only one who could ride him and the only one he would permit to harness him to a plow.

Emma had embraced most of the household tasks; she preferred working indoors. She and Kosh had grown closer than ever. Kosh was teaching her to cook. Privately, Tucker thought she was better at it. In his spare time, Kosh had made several trips to the ruins of Romelas to collect scrap metal. He said he was going to build a motorcycle from scratch.

Severs had arrived through the disko a few days after Tom. She came well equipped with Medicant devices and supplies. Her arrival was perfectly timed. Only hours before, Tucker had nearly cut off his foot while splitting firewood.

“I grew weary of living with the shadow of Mayo’s destruction looming over me,” she told Tucker as she cleaned his wound. “I much prefer an unknown future.”

“How did you find your way here?” Tucker asked.

“I am not certain. I entered the disko in the hospital and found myself here. I expect the Klaatu had something to do with it. Hold still.” She applied a thin bead of adhesive to the cut on Tucker’s ankle. “I recommend that you not injure yourself in the future. My supplies are limited.”

After Severs had finished treating his wound, Tucker limped out to the barn to speak with Iyl Rayn.

“Severs is correct,” said Iyl Rayn. “Your injury required treatment, and I believed Severs was unhappy in Mayo, so I convinced the Gnomon to assist me in bringing her here, as I did earlier with Tom Krause. My agreement with the Gnomon allowed me to interfere in other ways as well. I sent the Boggsian to guide you out of the time stub in Hopewell, and to rescue Kosh after he had been shot. I sent the same Boggsian after you, Kosh, and Emma were injured in the barn explosion. And I was responsible for sending the jaguar — a dangerous move, but it was the only means at hand to prevent you from being killed. There were other times when I used the diskos to alter events . . . not all of which worked as I had hoped. My influence with the Gnomon is waning, however. This disko will very soon be nonfunctional.”

“So that’s it? It’s just us here?”

“You are not alone.”

It was true. They had met others. A band of folk known as the Fishers lived along the banks of the wide, slow-flowing river once known as the Mississippi. They traded in sturgeon, carp, mollusks, and jewelry made from polished otoliths. Another group, an extended family of traveling merchants calling themselves the Honest Folk, traveled up and down the rivers on long, brightly colored barges, trading artifacts they excavated from the ruins of ancient cities, and small livestock such as chickens and rabbits. On the endless plains to the west were scattered several small farming settlements, possibly related to the Boggsians. They called themselves the Ya Mish.

Far more numerous than people were the passenger pigeons, their enormous flocks darkening the sky at times. Killing the pigeons was everywhere taboo, though few people remembered why.

Tucker and Tom labored on the fence all afternoon. It was hard work, but Tucker enjoyed it — something about setting a solid post in the earth was immensely satisfying. Tomorrow they would string the posts with wire they had found in one of the barns.

“This fence might keep the pigs out, but not the pigeons,” Tom said, wiping his brow with his shirtsleeve.

“That’s okay,” Tucker said. “Pigeons have to eat, too.” He saw Clyde coming up over the rise with Lia’s slim figure perched on his back, the Harmony sky vast and blue behind her. Emma had no doubt sent her to call them to supper. Tucker rested the point of his shovel in the earth and cupped his hands over the handle and watched as Clyde’s unhurried gait carried her toward him through the rows of bright green corn plants. Evening sunlight reflected from her hair, bleached to the palest imaginable yellow by the long summer days. As she drew closer, he raised a hand. She waved back, and he could see the white of her smile.

With the departure of the last Boggsians from Harmony, transcendence technology has become unavailable in the regions surrounding the dead city of Romelas. Those who remain behind tend to congregate in family groups, and to eschew technologies beyond that of the lever and the wheel.

Tucker Feye, Kosh Feye, the former Pure Girls Emma and Lia, the Medicant Severs, and Tom Krause remain in the old Boggsian settlement known as Harmony, farming the land and occasionally trading with the Fishers and the Honest Folk.

The Klaatu Iyl Rayn visited Harmony often, until the viewing table that allowed her to communicate with them failed. After that, she was present only as a ghostly, floating presence. On the day Tucker and Lia’s first child was born, Iyl Rayn faded to a wisp of fog, and since that day she has not been seen.

I live out my quiet days in my sister Awn’s cabin a few miles to the west. I visit Harmony from time to time, but most of my days are spent writing these histories. It is a good life, and I would have no other.

—
E
³
(
EMELYN
)