Maelstrom

by Peter Watts

  The next morning she asked him—as she still did,. sometimes—when Mom would be coming. Her dad told her it was time to sweep the cabin.

  Her mom never did show up. Someone else did, though.

  They were cleaning up after supper. They’d spent all day hiking to the glacier at the far end of the lake, and Tracy was looking forward to going to bed. But there was no dishwasher in the cabin, so they had to clean all their dishes in the sink Tracy was drying, looking out into the windy blackness on the other side of the window. If she looked really hard through the glass she could see a jagged little corner of dark gray sky, all hemmed in by black tree shapes jostling in the wind. Mostly, though, she just saw her own reflection looking back at her from the darkness, and the brightly lit inside of the cabin reflecting behind.

  But then she looked down to wipe a plate, and her reflection didn’t do the same thing.

  She looked back up out the window. Her reflection looked wrong. Blurry, like there were two of them. And its eyes were wrong, too.

  It’s not me, Tracy thought, and felt a shudder run over her whole body.

  There was something else out there, a ghost face, looking in—and when Tracy felt her eyes go wide and her mouth open ohhh that other face just kept looking back from the wind and the dark with no expression at all.

  “Daddy,” she tried to say, but it came out a whisper.

  At first Dad just looked at her. Then he looked at the window, and his mouth opened and his eyes went a little wide, too. But only for a moment. Then he was going to the door.

  On the other side of the window, the floating ghost face turned to follow him.

  “Daddy,” Tracy said, and her voice sounded very small. “Please don’t let it in.”

  “She, Lima-Bean. Not it,” her dad said. “And don’t be silly. It’s freezing out there.”

  It wasn’t a ghost after all. It was a woman with short blond hair, just like Tracy’s. She came through the door without a word; the wind outside tried to follow her in, but Tracy’s dad shut it out.

  Her eyes were white and empty. They reminded Tracy of the glacier at the end of the lake.

  “Hi,” Tracy’s dad said. “Welcome to our, uh, home away from home.”

  “Thanks.” The woman blinked over those scary white eyes. They must be contact lenses, Tracy decided. Like those ConTacs people wore sometimes. She’d never seen any so white.

  “Well, of course it’s not our home exactly, we’re just here for a while, you know—are you with MNR?”

  The woman tilted her head a bit, asking a question without opening her mouth. Except for the eyes, she looked like any other hiker Tracy had seen. Gore-Tex and backpack and all that stuff.

  “Ministry of Natural Resources,” Tracy’s dad explained.

  “No,” the woman said.

  “Well, I guess we’re all trespassing together then, eh?”

  The woman looked down at Tracy and smiled. “Hi there.”

  Tracy took a step back and bumped into her dad. Dad put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed as if to say it’s okay.

  The woman looked back up at Tracy’s dad. Her smile was gone.

  “I didn’t mean to crash your party,” the woman told him.

  “Don’t be silly. Actually, we’ve been here for a few weeks now. Hiking around. Exploring. Got out just before they sealed the border. I used to be a—that is, the Big One didn’t leave much behind, eh? Everything’s in such a jumble. But I knew about this place, did some contract work here once. So we’re riding it out. Until things settle down.”

  The woman nodded.

  “I’m Gord,” said Tracy’s dad. “And this is Tracy.”

  “Hello, Tracy,” the woman said. She smiled again. “I guess I must look pretty strange to you, right?”

  “It’s okay,” Tracy said. Her dad gave her another squeeze.

  The woman’s smile flickered a bit

  “Anyway,” Dad said, “as I was saying, I’m Gord, and this is Tracy.”

  At first Tracy thought the strange woman wasn’t going to answer. “Lenie,” she said at last.

  “Pleased to meet you, Lenie. What brings you way up here?”

  “Just hiking through,” she said. “To Jasper.”

  “Got family there? Friends?”

  Lenie didn’t even answer. “Tracy,” she said instead, “where’s your mom?”

  “She’s—” Tracy began, and couldn’t finish.

  It was like something clamped down in her throat. Where’s your mom? She didn’t know. She did know. But Dad wouldn’t talk about it—

  Mommy’s gone, Lima-Bean. It’s just us for a while.

  How long was a while?

  Mommy’s gone.

  Suddenly, Dad’s fingers were gripping her shoulders so hard it hurt.

  Mommy’s—

  “The quake,” her dad said, and his voice was tight the way it got when he was really mad.

  —gone.

  “I’m sorry,” said the strange woman. “I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, well maybe next time just think a bit before—”

  “You’re right. It was thoughtless. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah.” Dad didn’t sound convinced.

  “I—it was the same for me,” Lenie said. “Family.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tracy’s dad said, and suddenly he didn’t sound angry at all anymore. He must have thought that Lenie was talking about the quake.

  Somehow, Tracy knew that wasn’t true.

  “Look,” her dad was saying, “You’re welcome to rest up here for a day or two if you want. Plenty of food. There’s two beds. Tracy and I can double up.”

  “That’s okay,” Lenie said. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “It’s no problem, really. We double up sometimes anyway, don’t we, Bean?”

  “Do you.” Lenie’s voice was strange and flat. “I see.”

  “And we—we’ve all been through so much, you know. We’ve all—lost so much. We should help each other out when we get the chance, don’t you think?”

  “Oh yes,” Lenie said, and she was looking right at Tracy. “Definitely.”

  After breakfast the next morning Tracy went down by the water. There was a little shelf of rock that stuck out over a steep drop-off; Tracy could lean over the edge and see her own dark reflection staring back up at her. The clear, grayblue water faded darkly behind. Tracy dropped little rocks into the water and followed them down, but the darkness always swallowed them before they hit bottom.

  Suddenly, just like the night before, there was another reflection looking back at her.

  “It’s beautiful down there,” Lenie said at her shoulder. “Peaceful.”

  “It’s deep,” Tracy said.

  “Not deep enough.”

  Tracy squirmed around on the rock and looked up at the strange lady. She’d taken off her white contacts; her eyes were a pale, pale blue.

  “I haven’t seen any fish down there yet,” Tracy said.

  Lenie sat down beside her, cross-legged. “It’s glacial.”

  “I know,” Tracy said proudly. She pointed at the icy ridge on the far side of the lake. “That covered half the world, a long time ago.”

  Lenie smiled a little. “Did it, now?”

  “Ten thousand years ago,” Tracy said. “And even just a hundred years ago it came almost to where we are now, and it was twenty meters high, and people would come and ride on it with snowmobiles and things.”

  “Did your dad tell you that?”

  Tracy nodded. “My dad’s a forest ecologist.” She pointed to a clump of trees a little ways away. “Those are Douglas fir. There’s lots of them around now because they can survive fires and droughts and bugs. The other trees aren’t doing so well, though.” She looked back down into the cold clear water. “I haven’t seen any fish yet.”

  “Did your—dad say there were fish in there?” Lenie asked.

  “He told me to keep looking. He said maybe I’d get lucky.”


  Lenie said something that ended in igures.

  Tracy looked back at her. “What?”

  “Nothing, sweetie.” Lenie reached out and ruffled Tracy’s hair. “Just—well, maybe you shouldn’t believe everything your daddy tells you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sometimes people don’t always tell the truth.”

  “Oh, I know that. But he’s my dad.”

  Lenie sighed, but then her face got a little brighter. “Did you know there are places where the fish glow like lightsticks?”

  “Are not.”

  “Are too. Way down at the very bottom of the ocean. I’ve seen them myself.”

  “You have?”

  “And some of them have teeth that are so big”—Lenie held her hands apart, almost wide enough for Tracy’s shoulders to fit—“they can’t even close their mouths all the way.”

  “Now who’s lying?” Tracy asked.

  Lenie put a hand on her heart. “I swear.”

  “You mean like sharks?”

  “No. Different.”

  “Wow.” Lenie was very strange, but she was nice. “Dad says there aren’t very many fish left.”

  “Well, these are way down deep.”

  “Wow,” Tracy said again. She flipped back onto her stomach and stared down into the water. “Maybe there’s fish like that down there.”

  “Not.”

  “It’s really deep. You can’t see bottom.”

  “Believe me, Trace. It’s just a lot of gravel and old punky driftwood and insect casings.”

  “Yah, well how would you know?”

  “Actually—” Lenie began.

  “Dad said to keep looking.”

  “I bet your dad says lots of things,” Lenie said in a strange voice. “Isn’t that right?”

  Tracy looked back at her. Lenie wasn’t smiling anymore. She looked very serious.

  “I bet he touches you sometimes, doesn’t he?” Lenie was almost whispering. “When the two of you double up, at night.”

  “Well, sure,” said Tracy. “Sometimes.”

  “And he probably said it was okay, right?”

  Tracy was confused. “He never talks about it. He just does it.”

  “And it’s your little secret, right? You don’t—you didn’t talk about it with your mom.”

  “I don’t—” Mom—“He doesn’t want me talking about—” She couldn’t finish.

  “That’s okay,” Lenie smiled, and it was sad and friendly smile all at once. “You’re a good kid, you know that, Tracy? You’re a really good kid.”

  “She’s the best,” Tracy’s dad said, and Lenie’s face went as blank as a mask.

  He had filled up his big daypack and Tracy’s little one. Tracy scrambled up and got hers. Her dad was looking at Lenie, and he seemed a little bit puzzled, but then he said, “We’re going to check out an old animal trail back around the ridge. Maybe see us a deer or a badger. Few hours, anyway. You’re welcome to join us if you—”

  Lenie shook her head stiffly. “Thanks, no. I think I’ll just—”

  And then she stopped, and looked at Tracy, and looked back at Tracy’s dad.

  “Yeah, okay,” she said. “Maybe I should, at that.”

  Blip

  Health Warning

  From: CSIRA Regional HazWatch, N’AmPac WH

  Distribution: All pacification and surveillance personnel, N’AmPac

  Refugee Strip

  Type: Deficiency syndrome

  Scale: local

  Rating: 4.6

  Be advised that the local incidence of deficiency symptoms within the refugee population has increased between 46° and 47° N. Latitude. Be on the watch for early symptoms such as hair loss, skin flaking, and shedding of fingernails; more advanced cases are developing massive bruising and symptoms of second-stage starvation (loss of > 18% body mass, edema, incipient kwashiorkor and scurvy). Blindness, spasms, and full-blown diabetes have not yet been observed, but are expected to develop.

  This appears to be a terminal condition, the cause of which remains undetermined. Although the symptoms are consistent with advanced malnutrition, samples taken from local Calvin cyclers are nutritionally complete. The cyclers are also producing the prescribed concentrations of SAM-g, but we have found less than half the effective dosage in blood samples from some individuals. BE AWARE THAT SOME REFUGEES MAY BE OFF THEIR MEDS, AND MAY THEREFORE BE UNCOOPERATIVE OR EVEN HOSTILE.

  We suspect that something is interfering with metabolic processes at the cellular level and are currently running samples against the CSIRA pathogen microarray. So far, however, we have failed to isolate the agent.

  IF YOU OBSERVE THESE OR ANY OTHER UNUSUAL SYMPTOMS WHILE ON PATROL, PLEASE INFORM THIS OFFICE IMMEDIATELY.

  Womb

  The lies drove Clarke into the water.

  She’d sat around that foldaway table with Gord and Tracy, eating supper from the cycler. It was a high-end model, and the bricks it laid were much tastier than the ones she’d eaten back on the Strip. She’d concentrated on that small pleasure as Gord had run his fingers through his daughter’s hair, made affectionate cooing daddy’s-little-girlsounds, each gesture containing—what? Clarke knew the signs, she thought she knew the signs, but this fucker was damned good when there were witnesses around; she hadn’t seen a single thing that proved what was lurking underneath. He could’ve been any father, loving his daughter the right way.

  Whatever that was.

  His display, not to mention his incessant small talk, had driven her outside. Gordon had seemed almost relieved when Clarke grabbed her knapsack and stepped into the night. Now she stood looking down through a motionless tract of liquid glacier, deep and inviting and flooded with amplified moonlight. Her eyecaps transmuted the surrounding forest to gunmetal and silver in high contrast. Her reflection in the still water, once again, was …

  … moving …

  … and the same old bullshit started again, as something in her brain began serving up another happy lie about loving parents and warm fuzzy childhood nights—

  She was on her knees, tearing through her knapsack.

  She got the hood on, felt the neck seal fuse against her tunic. There were other accessories, of course, fins and sleeves and leggings, but there was no time—she was six years old and being tucked in and nothing bad was going to happen to her, nothing at all, by now she fucking knew it, and she wasn’t going to put up with that shit anymore, not so long as there was the ghost of a chance—

  —it started when I came back up maybe if I go back down—

  She didn’t even take off her clothes.

  The water hit her like an electrical shock. Freezing and viscous, it flayed her bare arms and legs, fired icy needles along crotch and shoulders before the ’skin of her tunic clamped around her limbs to seal the breach. The canister of vacuum in her chest sucked all her air away. Welcome ice water surged in its place.

  She dropped like a stone. Watery moonlight faded with each second; pressure amassed. Her exposed limbs burned, then ached, then went dead.

  Curled into a ball, she bumped against the bottom. Grit and rotten pine needles rose in a small cloud.

  She couldn’t feel her arms and legs; they’d be dying now, by degrees. Their blood vessels had squeezed down the moment she’d hit the water, an autonomic self-sacrifice to keep body heat in the core. No oxygen making it through those constricted avenues. No warmth. The edges of her body were freezing to death. In a way, it was almost comforting.

  She wondered how long she could push it.

  At least she’d gotten away from that fucking monster Gord.

  If that’s what he is. How could I prove it, absolutely? He could explain it all away, fathers are allowed to touch their children, after all …

  But there was no such thing as absolute proof. There was only proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And Lenie Clarke, Lenie Clarke had been there. She knew.

  So did that little girl, Tracy. She was up there alone. With him.
>
  Someone should do something about that.

  So what are you now: judge, jury, executioner?

  She thought about it a bit.

  Who better?

  She couldn’t feel her legs. But they still moved at her command.

  Eclipse

  “She’s strange,” Tracy said while they cleaned up at the sink.

  Her dad smiled. “She’s probably just hurting a lot, honey. The quake hurt a lot of people, you know, and when you’re in pain it’s easy to be thoughtless. She just needs some time alone, I bet. You know, compared to some people we were actually pretty …”

  He didn’t finish. That happened a lot now.

  Lenie still hadn’t come back at bedtime. Tracy got into her PJs and climbed into bed with her dad. She lay on her side, with her back against his stomach.

  “That’s right, little Lima-Bean.” Dad cuddled her and stroked her hair. “You go to sleep now. Little Lima-Bean.”

  It was dark in the cabin, and so quiet outside. No wind to rustle Tracy off to sleep. Moonbeams sneaked in through the window and made a piece of the floor glow with soft silver light. After a while her dad started snoring. She liked the way he smelled. Tracy’s eyelids were getting heavy. She closed her eyes to comfy slits, watching the moonbeams on the floor. Almost like her “Nermal the Nematode” night-light at home.

  Home was where Mom had …

  Where—

  The night-light dimmed. Tracy opened her eyes.

  Lenie was looking in through the window, blocking the moonbeams. Her shadow ate up most of the light on the floor. Her face was in shadow, too; Tracy could only see her eyes, cold and pale and almost glowing a little, like snow. Lenie didn’t move for a long time. She just stood there, outside, looking in.

  Looking at Tracy.

  Tracy didn’t know how she knew that. She didn’t know how Lenie could look into the darkest corner of a dark cabin in the middle of the night and find her there, curled up against her dad, eyes wide and staring. Lenie’s eyes were covered. Tracy wouldn’t have been able to see which way they were looking even in broad daylight.