12 Third Sleep
Tired of squinting into the sunset, Dante sought the shadows of the walls of the small canyon he was following. He activated his mumbler, but heard only silence.
Mumblers weren’t designed for long-distance communication. It was something of a miracle, he supposed, that the connection had held long enough for the download. If he’d thought to attach a com unit to his belt, there’d be no problem, but of course, he hadn’t thought at all.
Since talking with Carolyn an hour ago, he’d gotten through to the Vance just once. Kirika Beyongo, one of his junior managers, had informed him that Tompa and her Shon companion were headed upstream. Too bad. If she’d headed downstream, they’d have joined forces already.
If, that is, she was still alive.
Dante scowled. Tompa had to be alive. If she wasn’t, he’d sacrificed his honor and career for nothing—and that was beyond foolishness, beyond anything that could be excused by brain damage.
Before he resumed walking upstream, he knelt beside the creek and plunged his face into the tepid water. This pathetic stream was the only fresh water anywhere. Not surprising, perhaps, considering the island was a mere thirty miles long, but surely there used to be more water to support the ruined city. He squinted upward. The sky was a dark, rich blue that promised night would soon arrive. Deserts often cooled dramatically at night. This place could cool a hell of a lot before it was pleasant.
As he stood up, he thought he heard voices. He froze, listening.
There they were again; Shon voices, so distant that his translator didn’t try to interpret them. He must be near the cave where Tompa had supposedly slaughtered Shons by the score—though Dante had a hard time picturing the waif-like woman doing so much damage.
The Shons probably wouldn’t feel friendly toward a human, so he splashed across the creek to the other ravine wall, found a climbable spot, and clambered up. On this side of the gully, he knew, was a low hill that roofed the cave where the trial had started.
Dante reached the top of the ravine wall and froze in his tracks. The smooth plains were dark and grey, but soaring above them, blood red in the setting sun, was the majestic volcano at the center of the island. It was the first beautiful thing he’d seen on this drab planet.
But he had little time for beauty. It took him ten minutes to reach a spot overlooking the Shon voices. He went to all fours and crept cautiously to the precipice.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
The ravine fifty feet below him looked like a mobile hospital, with dozens of Shons in blood-soaked clothes lying on sleeping pads neatly arrayed by the edge of the stream. Shons in orange-and-white-checked uniforms tended the wounded. Right below him was a pile of naked bodies, stacked like cordwood.
Dante shook his head in bemused admiration. And to think he’d planned to save the defenseless damsel in distress. About as defenseless as a madmonk.
On the far side of the stream was a huge group of uninjured Shons—presumably, the remaining accusers. Despite Tompa’s efforts, a small army remained. Most of that army was settling down for the night.
Dante scanned the landscape. If he didn’t know the terrain, he couldn’t have guessed where to look in the growing darkness, but his topographical knowledge allowed him to trace the stream’s path. There. Sunlight gleamed off something floating in the air far to his right. Cameras following Tompa Lee? If that was correct, she’d traveled about six miles along the ravine. Cutting across country, though, the distance was only four miles.
A smell reached him, at the same time alien and familiar. Cooking. His stomach growled so loudly he worried the Shons down below would hear. He started to crawl from the edge of the cliff, then stopped abruptly. Six tall, slender figures strode like kings into the Shon encampment. Major Krizink and his cohorts. A solitary Shon, wearing a vest that looked like flames, hurried to meet him. The Klick flung his arms out and thrashed his tail around like someone insane with grief and anger.
“Damn,” Dante breathed. The Klicks must have been right behind him. That settled it. Although it was almost dark, he’d keep going as long as he could. If he got up early, maybe he could reach Tompa by dawn.
Her look of joy and gratitude when reinforcements arrived would make his sacrifices worthwhile.
Scowling, Tompa watched Awmit climb toward a shallow cave twenty feet up the ravine wall. “We’ll be sitting ducks sleeping there, Awmit.”
Clinging to the rocks, he turned his head all the way around to look at her. “But waterbirds in cave equal zero and cave floor lies flatly, eliminating need for sleeping uprightly.”
Tompa opened her mouth, then closed it while she thought how to rephrase her objection. “The enemy can trap us while we sleep.”
“Allowed negatively.” He pulled himself into the shallow cave. “Truce enforces fairly until sunrise.” He lay down on his back, murmuring gentle noises of relief.
“Maybe.” Tompa crossed her arms over her chest. “But the accusers can catch up and surround us.”
“Allowed negatively also. Darkness equals stop.”
“But we can keep going. It’s not quite dark, and you can see in the dark even if I can’t.”
He didn’t answer right away. “Humans need negatively sleep?”
“Sure, but—”
“This one lives longly. Need exhaustedly sleep.”
He didn’t say another word even though Tompa kept pestering him. Finally she gave up and, mumbling to herself, she took the rare moment of privacy to attend to some bodily functions. Then she started climbing the rocks, which wasn’t easy in near darkness with Awmit’s rucksack dangling from her shoulder. She made it, though, and when she crawled over his sleeping form to get into the cave, he didn’t budge.
“Just my luck,” Tompa muttered, “getting saddled with an old geezer who needs his beauty sleep.” She’d always liked that phrase, beauty sleep, ever since she found it in one of the old novels scattered through the abandoned apartments of Manhattan. Most people used books just for toilet paper, but she read them first. The only beauty in her life—or beauty sleep, for that matter—had been in books.
With a grumpy sigh, Tompa stretched out on the hard floor of the cave, searching for a less uncomfortable position. “Awmit, there’s no chance I’ll be able to sleep on these rocks.”
His quiet breathing was the only answer.
“Ratshit.” Tompa wiggled around. Staring at the rounded ceiling of the niche, she wondered what creatures lived here and whether they’d object to interlopers. Abandoned buildings were much better places to flop than flickin’ caves. She’d never fall asleep here.
“Wake, graceful human.”
“Whaaat?” Tompa bolted to a sitting position in the dark. “Have they found us? How many are there?”
“Safety remains peacefully.”
“Huh?” Tompa’s heart was pounding. With a groan, she lay back down. “Is it morning?”
“Negative obviously.”
She’d been dreaming; she remembered the sound and feel of bones splintering over and over again. “Was I having a nightmare?” She didn’t remember screaming, but . . .
“Comprehend negatively shtrool-tah female of darkness.”
“Huh?” Oh yeah: night mare. Damned translator. “Why did you wake me up?”
“First sleep ended.”
“Huh?” She yawned. “Awmit, sometimes you make no sense.”
“Incomprehensible human speaks hilariously the reversal of truth.”
Tompa shook her head. When she heard him chewing on something, her stomach roiled with emptiness. “You have food? But you said there wasn’t anything left in the rucksack.”
“Orange and whites arrived helpfully at end of first sleep. Those ones brought generously food. Graceful human desires hungrily to eat something?”
Tompa sat up, heart pounding. “Somebody was here?”
“Those ones remain in ravine even now.”
“What?” A chill ran down her spi
ne. “God, I don’t have a club. A rock, give me a rock to throw at them.”
“At Servants of Bez-Tattin? Harmful silliness.” He called out, “Gor-ah karma surrounds, servants of justice.”
From the ravine came a bleating voice. “Gor-tall karma surrounds, fighter for justice.”
“Who,” Tompa demanded of Awmit, “are Servants of Bez-Tattin? And how do I know they aren’t after me like everybody else is?”
“Graceful human utters sacrilegiously an absurdity. Orange and whites serve priestily as servants of Bez-Tattin, with prook-nah of helping impartially during interstices of a trial. Servants aid doubtlessly injured accusers, for fairness.”
“And you trust them?”
“Servants equal good people.”
Tompa didn’t like the idea that she was weaponless with Shons nearby, but she didn’t make any further objection.
From the ravine came a voice. “The human woke finally from first sleep?”
“Affirmative,” Awmit said.
“Gor-ah karma surrounds, graceful human.”
Tompa couldn’t see anyone until a shadow down below moved. “Uh, gor-tall karma surrounds.”
“Fighter for justice,” the voice replied, “tell apologizingly the human these ones possess negatively a scarce translator for her tongue.”
“Graceful human,” Awmit began, “the servants of Bez-Tattin say apologizingly—”
“I heard them. I do have a translator, remember.”
The voice from below said, “Speak apologetically also to the human for previous scant supplies and lack of rucksack. Servants expected negatively the human’s survival long enough to hunger, and wished negatively to burden. Supplies of two days now fill heavily her rucksack.”
“So,” Tompa said, “you think I can survive two more days.”
Awmit repeated her to the servants of Bez-Tattin.
“The human talks hilariously,” the servant replied. “Expect negatively survival to deadline of trial.”
“Well, to hell with you.” Tompa quickly put her hand on Awmit’s arm. “No, don’t translate that. But ask them what they mean by the deadline of trial.”
“This one knows already answer,” Awmit replied. “Graceful human knows negatively?”
“If I knew, would I be asking?”
“Trials possessing overwhelming odds, such as graceful human’s, run fiercely three days only. Two days remain.”
Tompa leaned forward. “And if I’m still alive after three days?”
“Mere survival signifies meaningfully nothing, but if situation develops that graceful human exists undefeatedly at deadline, innocence proves happily.”
“No shit?”
Awmit was silent for a moment. “This one smells affirmatively nothing.”
She shook her head impatiently. “Do you mean that if I avoid my pursuers for two more days, I’m off the hook?”
“Two days of avoiding, yes. But hook? This one despairs of understanding the unfathomable human.”
Tompa let out a whoop.
From the darkness, a Servant asked, “The human cries painfully from the agony of injury?”
“Awmit,” she said, “can you ask them where I should flee—no, make that where on the island I’ll have the best chance to defend my innocence. Am I allowed to ask them that?”
“Ask anything. Those ones answer maybe.” Again Awmit translated.
After a pause, one of the Servants said, “Dependant on guilt. If innocent, breath of justice smells strongest in Bez-Tattin’s temple.”
“If guilty,” the other added, “remain fearfully far from temple.”
“Awmit, ask them where the temple is.”
“Climb dangerously the ancient road up holy mountain,” a Servant responded.
“How do we get there?”
Before Awmit could translate, a Servant said, “Second sleep nears precipitously, even for orange and whites. Mercy shorten the death of the doomed human. Mercy succor lovingly the martyred fighter for justice.”
“No, stay. How do I get to the temple?”
Tompa listened to their feet on the gravel until darkness swallowed the sounds. The night was still, ruffled only by a gentle puff of breeze. She lay back down.
“Awmit, they said ‘second sleep.’ How many times do you wake up during the night?”
But he was already asleep, and didn’t answer.
“I forgot,” she whispered. “You need your beauty sleep.”
She could move faster without his old legs and his beauty sleep. Much faster . . .
Tompa shoved away the traitorous thought and rolled onto her side, facing the breeze of justice. Damn, these rocks were hard.
Someone was shaking her shoulder. Tompa swatted them away.
“Graceful human wakes refreshingly from second sleep?” Awmit shook her again.
Tompa opened one eye. Still dark. She groaned and turned away from him. The rocks in this new position were sharp enough, however, to make a return to sleep impossible. Yawning, she sat up. The back of her head felt as though it was permanently dented where it had lain against the rocks.
“What is it now?” she muttered. “More Shons want their heads bashed in?” Again, she’d been dreaming about hitting things—first a big gong, then that ratshitty policeman, Roussel. In the surreal way of dreams, she knew she’d die if she didn’t keep hitting, but with each blow her own head hurt and she sank deeper in blood that threatened to drown her.
It wasn’t fair, damn it. Not fair.
“This one knows negatively about pursuers,” Awmit said.
“What?” She ran a hand over her face, unable to remember what she’d said to make him think about pursuers. “Oh, never mind.”
“Second sleep ended, graceful human.”
“Uh huh.”
“This one was reliving mentally genesis of current predicament.”
“Uh huh.” Her eyes suddenly opened and she rose to one elbow. “Wait a minute. Do you know who threw the grenade at the pub?”
“This one guesses complicity of six pod-loogs who requested urgently this one the taking of sign to protest humans in pub. Those ones disappeared mysteriously before blast.”
“That’s fantastic. Would you recognize them?”
“One stood enticingly as beautiful young female; this one remembers her well. Others, indicate negatively. Strangers.”
Forgetting how hard the rocks were, Tompa flopped down onto her back. “Ouch!” She rubbed her head.
“But genesis sprouted many years earlier, graceful human. In distant northern ancestral village, this one toiled longly as roofer—”
She yawned. “You did what?”
“Built roofs. Human use negatively roofs?”
“Of course.” She’d never thought, however, how roofs got there. It wasn’t as though she’d ever seen a building under construction. Not in Manhattan. “Do you have a wife and kids?”
“This one worked as roofer.”
“What does that have to do with a family?”
“Human roofers possess sufficiently status and wealth for private family?”
“Sure. I mean, I guess they do. Oh, I don’t know.” Tompa yawned again. “Awmit, among humans, my status is even lower than a roofer’s. Why do you think they turned me over to your people? I’m a goddamned sacrifice.”
He made a sighing sound. “Humans of status act imperiously, like Shons of status. Exists universally as unfairness.”
“Yeah. Gordos are the same everywhere, I guess.” She shivered. “It makes me feel funny, thinking that.”
“Graceful human senses the prook-nah of share unfairness. Very powerful bond.”
This was prook-nah? She’d have to take his word for it; she wouldn’t recognize what it felt like to bond even with one of her own species. “Tell me more about yourself, Awmit.”
He made a contented sound that she somehow knew was connected to the fact that they were sharing prook-nah. “At advanced age,” he said, “this one decide
d prayerfully on a sinquest. Humans do sinquest?”
“Never heard of one.”
“This one’s people also forget largely the old ways. Sinquest is journey most holy, seeking humbly sagacity into wickedness and righteousness.”
“Huh?” She remembered one of the last books she’d read before winning the lottery. “Kind of like a holy man seeking enlightenment?”
“Enlightenment into the balance of good-evil gyroscope remained always a receding goal, unattainable for one so humble. Nonetheless, swathed in hubris, this one abandoned overproudly the ancestral village.”
“That must have taken courage.” She knew it had required courage for her to move to a new building every few months when she started to grow attached to the squatters. She couldn’t imagine how it would hurt leaving a place she’d lived a long time.
“Sinquest required hubris and silliness,” he said, “negatively courage. This one thought mightily during wandering and developed initial formulation of sin as slavish adherence to prook-nolah. Banal formulation, affirmative, but this one existed merely as roofer. Incapable of ponderous formulations.”
Tompa had to think about that one. “I’m sure you’re smart, Awmit.”
“Graceful human thinks truly so?”
“Yes, I do. What’s prook-nolah?”
“Humans know it negatively?”
“No.”
“Prook-nolah exists like prook-nah, but bigger and weaker of passion. The day-to-day cultural bonding of a people, as opposed to the fierce bonds of shared purpose.”
Tompa was too sleepy to make sense of that. She yawned.
“Then this one walked four-hundred bah-ah to Mah-Shode and Sim-Shode and Fleer-Shode, seeking sin in large towns.”
“Did you find it?”
“Agree enthusiastically.”
A chuckle bubbled out of Tompa as she pictured Awmit in the fleshpots of a Shon city, surrounded by sweet, scantily clad young pears who’d do anything for his money. That probably wasn’t what he meant, but it felt good to laugh, to live.
“Experience taught this one much,” Awmit continued. “New formulation developed mindfully. Evil grew sinuously out of the global prook-nolah spread by television. Young nubs discarded carelessly old, local ways. One place became offensively like all other places.”
Tompa laughed again. She’d been more right than she knew when she first thought of him as an old coot. Old coots always though the world was going to hell because the younger generation didn’t do things the old way.
“This one had created actually some wisdom for the initial instant in life. Euphoria! The exultation of dort-lah washed joyously my buttocks.”
Tompa decided she did not want to know what dort-lah was.
“In Oa-Shode,” Awmit continued, “this one’s formulation of sin deepened. This one sought sinquestly the source of global prook-nolah infection.”
“Isn’t Oa-Shode the city where the bombing took place?”
“Respond positively. But before fateful bombing, this one realized insightfully that television enabled the global prook-nolah. Creatures from cold night of stars taught greedily the making of television, therefore existed as ultimate source of sin. Evil smoldered in their blood, their bones.”
If he meant Klicks, she agreed with him. “So you reached enlightenment after all.”
“Thus were this one’s reason for waving vigorously the sign in graceful human’s face.”
“Congratulations, Awmit. If anyone deserves to reach his goal in life, it’s you.”
“Naha, naha.” He was silent for a moment. “This one failed! Graceful human hails from dark stars of night, yet exists negatively as source of evil. This one’s enlightenment reveals spitefully as dung in compost pile.”
“You mean you don’t think I’m evil? Even though I killed so many of your people?”
“Necessity spurred divinely graceful human to supernatural feats. And graceful human helped amazingly the thirsty. Of the Shon people, none would consider insanely a weakness so absurd as to transform into strength. Graceful human exists specially.”
Tompa started to answer, but her throat felt so thick that there was no room for words. She reached out, found Awmit’s sloping shoulders in the darkness, and hugged him. After the hug neither of them spoke for several minutes. This prook-nah stuff was kind of nice.
Then he said simply, “Third sleep comes.” He lay down and almost instantly was asleep.
Tompa didn’t even try to sleep. The eastern sky showed a faint tinge of pink. Perhaps she could see well enough to climb down to the ravine. Anything was better than trying to fall asleep yet again on these flickin’ rocks.
Despite her sore limbs, she reached the bottom of the cliff without incident. A rucksack sat near the base of the cliff. Ah yes; the servants of Bez-Tattin had left it for her. Inside the rucksack were numerous packets of food wrapped in paper; a blanket; candles; one of the fire-making gizmos Awmit had used to light the candles; rope; and several things she’d have to ask about. She opened a food packet and, though it was dry and tasted like moldy cloth, ate the whole thing.
The breeze was hot, promising another miserable day. This place was like Nevada, where she’d spent six weeks at Naval boot camp. Towels and her hair had dried astonishingly fast in the desert air. After a thorough look in all directions—including the half-lit sky, searching for those damned balloon cameras—Tompa went to the side of a small pool in the stream and undressed. In the pocket of her blouse was the comb Ambassador Schneider had given her. Was that really just yesterday morning? She put the comb on a rock beside the pool with as much care as if it were an irreplaceable china cup.
Tompa washed the uniform as well as she could without soap or microcleaner. There were several rips and holes, and many stains remained. Some things would never fade, either from clothes or nightmares, but at least the worst of the gore and dried blood was gone. After spreading the uniform to dry on one of the dead-looking plants she’d used as a club, she lay down in the knee-high water and bathed quickly, including her hair. The breeze made her cold, even after she got out of the water and wrapped the blanket around herself. She tried to memorize the flavor of coolness so she could recall it during the heat of the day.
Then she knelt at the side of the water and waited for the breeze to die. When it did, she looked into the pool.
Her face looked familiar, unlike yesterday. Strange. How could she see the old Tompa Lee, when that child was gone forever? She’d been betrayed and condemned to death. She’d become a killer. Shouldn’t there be a new harshness to the mouth, a coldness in the eyes, a hint of callous cruelty hovering around the face?
But there was nothing.
Feeling the calm of emptiness, Tompa sat beside the stream and combed her hair over and over, counting the strokes up to a hundred and then starting over, waiting for her uniform to dry and preparing herself without thought for the day’s inevitable horrors.
The Trial of Tompa Lee Page 13