The Other Normals (20 page)

“Stars!”

“So?”

“Look at how many! So much more than Earth!”

She eyes Pula. He’s conversing by the campfire with Mortin and Gamary, ignoring us. “There aren’t more stars here than on Earth. Even with six hundred million years of separation, our stars are roughly the same. Can’t you recognize them?”

“You can’t see stars in New York.”

“That’s horrible. How can you live without stars? What keeps you from thinking about yourself all the time?”

I think about how I think about myself too much. Do I? Of course. I think I have an
excuse
because it seems the world is out to get me and I
have
to think about myself in order to defend myself. But all egotists have this excuse.

“Stars pull reverse psychology on you, my mother always told me,” Ada says. “When you look at them, you should feel terrified, because they’re so big, and so far, but they comfort you instead.”

“Do you see your mom still?”

“She’s dead.”

I almost say
I’m sorry
, but the words are too small.

“Your father?”

“He was never part of the picture. I lived with my mother until she got sick. Then I became an Appointee ward. Officially, the state is like all of our parents, so when our actual parents are gone, it takes over their responsibilities—and benefits. I was slated to work in an orchard, but Mortin saw something in me. He purchased me at auction.”

“Like a car?”

“Like a father. It’s tough for you to understand. The relationship between consultant and intern is time-honored. Mortin’s like my boss, my business partner, my mentor—but he could trade me up if someone better came along. He never has. He’s training me to work in a big house like
Sulice. In exchange, he’ll get a cut of my income when I’m older.”

“That seems kind of … wrong.”

“What, you don’t have that arrangement with your parents?”

“My parents are divorced, Ada.”

“I know. They don’t expect to be taken care of when they’re older, though?”

“I never thought about it.”

“Too busy thinking about yourself?”

“My parents hardly take care of me now. They leave that up to the lawyers. I don’t feel responsible for them.”

“Do you love them?”

“Jeez.” I think about it. “In a knee-jerk way, sure. But I don’t know if it counts.”

“You should love them. You should love them hard.”

I look at the stars. Ada’s right: they force you to think in a different direction.

“What was your mother like? Mrs. Ember?”

“She wasn’t Mrs. Ember. Her name was Athis Danet. She sold baskets at market. She was always picking fibers off herself.”

“How’d you get ‘Ada Ember,’ then? Your father?”

“I picked Ember. After I started working with Mortin.”

“Why?”

“Because embers turn into flames.”

That’s because a name has to mean something.

“Hey!” Mortin calls. “John Johnson! C’mere!”

I don’t want to go, but it sounds like I’m needed. “I’m gonna …”

“Go.” Ada nods, understanding.

THE CAMPFIRE PIT IS A HEAP OF ASH AND half-burned logs inside a circle of smooth stones.

“We have to make a fire from this,” Mortin says. “Thought you might be able to help.”

“Can’t you do it?”

“My lighter’s smashed, remember?”

“City folk.” Pula smiles.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Mortin says. “We found this on top.” He indicates a big rock in the grass. “We pushed it aside, but there’s not much underneath. I don’t see any kindling. How’d the people who made this fire even get the logs?”

“They brought themselves,” Pula says. “In packs. Few days ago.”

“You saw them? Who were they?”

“Travelers. Different kinds. Some with the big fishy head, one with the slime feet. Lotsa weapons. Headed back the way you came. They stayed one night and went. You got enough wood left from them if you can start it.”

“Why can’t
you
start it?”

“Oh, I dunno how. Only the grown-ups are ’lowed to start fires.”

“We can do it if we’ve got a log, a stick, and a string,” I say. “I mean, I’ve never done it, but that’s how you do it in C and C.”

“What’s that?” Pula asks.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mortin says. “That’s like a code word for this kid. Here’s your string.” He pulls a loose thread off the bottom of his getma. “And here’s a log.” He pulls a half-burned one from the fire pit.

I look closer at the ash. It goes deep. Was this fire used on multiple nights? And why was the rock on top of it? Did whoever built it snuff it out?

I set the log on the ground. It’s split down the middle, as if by an ax, which is good for me—it means the flammable flaky wood in the center is exposed.

“I need a stick.” Ada approaches. She hands me a six-inch shaft of wood.

“What’s this?”

“Broke it off a spear in one of our many battles.”

“Perfect. Now a knife. Anybody? Gamary? Your ax?”

Gamary shakes his head.

“Somebody has to have something! Ada, can I see the princess figure?”

She hands it to me. I inspect the ragged bottom of the princess’s torso. There’s one piece of metal that seems sharp enough. I try it against the spear shaft. It shaves the wood
off, but only a tiny bit. This is going to be painstaking work. Luckily I can do painstaking work. I used to be in Summer Scholars.

I sit in the grass and use the princess figure to whittle Ada’s spear shaft to a fine point. It takes forever. Pula slobbers as he watches; I figure he can’t control that and it would be rude to mention. He scratches his ear, and I notice something odd about his hand. It’s a human hand, but different somehow, like there’s an extra finger.... It’s too dark to tell. I look back at the spear shaft. The point seems sharp enough. I wrap the string around the shaft once and press the point into the log. Holding one end of the string loosely, I pull on the other. The shaft spins in the log … and quickly hops into the grass.

“I need another string to keep it stable.”

Ada pulls a thread off her top and wraps it around the shaft, above the string that’s already there. Now it’s balanced, and if we pull together, maybe we can get it to spin without flying off.

“One … two …
go
,” I say. Ada pulls her string as I pull mine. The shaft spins in the log, sending up a tiny bit of smoke that curls away under the stars. Once again, though, the stick jumps out beside us.

“I got an idea,” Gamary says. “Put it back.”

We reposition the shaft in the log. Gamary sticks the princess figure on top of it, holding it in place with her jagged nether region. “Now try.”

Ada and I pull our strings at once. The stick spins but stays
still, like a top, with the princess securing it. I swear the figure mouths at me,
Good job.

“Other way!” Ada says, and we pull back, twirling the shaft in the other direction. Smoke puffs up. “Other way now! Keep going!”

“It’s good!” Pula says. “Almost got it!”

Ada and I lock eyes, pulling our strings back and forth in sync, spinning the shaft in the log—

With a
piff
, a tiny flame bursts up.

“Yay!” Pula calls.

“Don’t let it go out!” Mortin says.

“Move,” Ada tells me, and she breathes, calm and insistent, on the nascent flame. It hesitates, blocky and orange, and then takes root in the log as she slips it into the fire pit.

“You did it!” I tell her.

“We did it,” she says.

Within a minute we have a full-on fire burning bright under the stars. It’s better than television. It feels so good. It looks so mesmerizing. For a moment I’m happier than I can ever remember being. Then Mortin says, “Now’s a time to celebrate. Where there’s fire, there’s smoke. None of you have pebbles and a pipe, do you?”

We all keep quiet.

“Gamary?”

“No, Mortin.”

“You’re not holding out on me, are you?”

“No—”

“I
know
you are!” Mortin rushes Gamary and presses his hand against his okapi underbelly. It takes a second for me to realize that he’s pushing
into
him, into a
pouch
that Gamary has at his front. Mortin pulls out a small pipe and a handful of pebbles.

“See? How did I know?”

“Mortin, that isn’t for you!”

“You cheap bastard! No wonder you ended up a thaklord. Keeping it to yourself.” Mortin lights up, figuratively in terms of his expression and literally with the pipe, which he stuffs with pebbles and holds over the fire with the tip of his tail. Once the rocks are steaming, he puffs and passes to Gamary.

“Fine, just to celebrate the fire.” Gamary lies down like a horse. “But I’m enabling an addict.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “What do the pebbles do?”

“It’s the quartz,” Mortin answers. “It interacts with other-normal brains. Quite pleasantly.”

“Can I try?”

“Won’t work for you. And you’ve got a big enough addiction.”

“What?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you? You know, John Johnson.”

But I don’t, really. I rack my brain thinking about it while Mortin and Gamary pass the pipe and laugh and the fire reaches into the sky. I know it isn’t a good idea for them to smoke—Ada won’t even look at them—but what can I say?

“I’m hungry,” Gamary says finally. He and Mortin have been having an emotional chat about his daughter. “There’s gotta be some fish in that stream. Can somebody spear one?”

“City dwellers done
good
,” says Pula. He holds his hands to the fire. In the light of the flame, I see what’s wrong with them: his
thumbs
are tiny. Underdeveloped. They have only one knuckle, and they stick out across his palms instead of away from them. He has no opposable thumbs. He couldn’t start a fire if he tried. “Got the good fire going, drank some water, nice and juicy, smoking up, extra flavor, best way to have a barbecue.”

“Oh crap,” Mortin says. “What did he say?”

Pula rocks back and forth on his heels, talking to himself. “Ain’t had a barbecue in the Echoing Hills for a week, no fires anywhere, but I knew how to save one, huh? And I got it started up again.”

He turns his head to the moon and howls. The sound echoes through the hills—louder than any cry we heard in the day, and louder than any of his
puuu-
la calls.

“You little punk!” Mortin leaps across the fire at him. Pula laughs and runs toward the stream. Answering wolf calls sound off the grass.

All around us, from the top of each hill surrounding the campfire, heads appear: slavering, hairy, pointed. The heads creep forward, on top of men and women on all fours.

“Barbecue!” Pula calls, dancing by the stream. “Barbecue!”

A DOZEN CYNOS CIRCLE US. THEY MUST’VE been following all day, tracking my idiotic game of Marco Pula. They crawl closer, slinky and confident. Their hairy arms glisten in the moonlight. They wear getmas; the women let their breasts hang freely below them, which distracts me.

I back against the fire with Ada, Gamary, and Mortin.

“These two are smokified inside!” Pula yells. “And this one’s got the girlyparts! But don’t hurt him! He’s my mutant friend.”

“I’m your friend? Pula, if I’m your friend, let us all out of here!”

“Nuh-uh. Your friends gotta go in the barbecue; you can stay with me.”

A big male dog-head comes up to him. One of his eyes is a slit with skin tags on it and tears dribbling out the side.

“You did good,” he says, and then he speaks a name that vanishes in the air. Pula’s real name. “This fire we gonna keep going a long time.” He licks Pula’s head. “But they all gotta go in the barbecue.”

“No, Daddy, no!” Pula squats in front of me, throwing his arms across my legs. “Not John Johnson!”

“C’mere, you,” Mortin says. In one quick motion, he grabs Pula, lifts him off the ground by his collar, and holds him to the fire. “Back off, you savages! Or you’ll be having
him
for barbecue.”

“Ow!” Pula struggles. “You’re strangling me, you big stupid!”

The dog-heads look to Pula’s father. “You got a count of three to let us out of here!” Mortin orders. His voice echoes through the hills:
here, here, here
, calling from different slopes.

“Daddy, it hurts!”

“Three!”

Three, three, three.

“That’s what happens when you get too close to your food, Son.”

“Two!”

Two, two, two.

“Daddy, help me!”

“One!”

Pula’s father opens his mouth wide and clacks his teeth shut. The dog-heads leap and attack.

They tear Pula out of Mortin’s hands. His collar comes off and Mortin stares at it, agog, as they fling Pula to the ground and rip his stomach open. He flails and gnashes his teeth as hungry dog-heads toss his innards out on the grass.