Already Among Us

by Unknown

  Clem stared some more. "But...but that's impossible. Only cats can gliderumble."

  The human grimaced. "So everyone keeps telling me."

  "But how? How could you possibly--"

  "I don't know!" Elizabeth waved her arms. "I was just running for the bus! It was already at the stop, and it belched diesel smoke all over me as I slid around the corner; I sneezed, lost my balance, and fell. The smoke was everywhere, and I...I didn't hit the sidewalk. I just kept falling." She blew out a breath. "Like it really matters: I'm probably lying unconscious in the gutter at Fifth and Carey right now anyway."

  "Yeah, Betty's bolixed up big time." Gherkin scratched an ear. "She doesn't know how she gliderumbles, so she can't steer her own way back, and none of us cats can trace it 'cause none of us brought her up. The robots looked her over and said she's from a human earth around 1990 A.D., so that cut us down to, oh, only about 40,000 earths. I was all ready to start investigating, but then they went and told her about this River Man, and here we are."

  "But...you can't...." Clem turned back to Elizabeth. "You must know which earth you came from."

  She spit out a laugh. "Yeah. The real one."

  "No, I mean which of the--"

  "Save it, cousin." Gherkin tapped her tail against Clem's side. "Our Betty's convinced herself this's all some sort of a nightmare, see, and not even getting herself nearly torn apart by boxhounds has changed her mind."

  Clem blinked at the human, but before he could say anything, a whistle sounded from down river, and the Timiros chugged into view, boxes lashed in stacks over the deck and along the gunwales. Clem could see Young Ephram at the bow, and the rat waved as the barge came up to the station; Old Ephram stood hunched over in the pilot house, one paw on the throttle and the other on the wheel. Young Ephram leaped onto the dock, made fast the bowline and scurried to seize the stern; Old Ephram's paws moved, and the rumble of the engine died away, the barge drifting with a thunk into the pilings.

  As Young Ephram secured the stern cable, Old Ephram stuck his head out the pilot house window. "Ho there, griot!" the rat called, his good eye glinting darkly. "What news?"

  "Good, bad, and indifferent," Clem called back as always, and Old Ephram pounded the side of the pilot house, laughter wheezing out of him, as always. "You're early, Ephram."

  "It's the weather." Old Ephram nodded to the younger rat. "Tell 'im, boy; I'll start unlashing the cargo."

  Young Ephram came up the dock ramp to the station platform. "We got the news on the delta, griot: monster storm heading in. Ballavwa and the coastal cities're looking at six inches of rain, but it'll be worse when it slams into these mountains. The old man and me, we're off-loading half the cargo here to get to Bentito before the storm hits." He suddenly noticed the others on the platform and gave a slight bow. "Good day, gliderumbler and...and companion. Excuse me, but I'd better help the old man. We only got a few hours." He headed back down to where Old Ephram was tossing cords loose from the crates.

  Clem rubbed his whiskers. "The last storm of the season is always the worst." He turned to the others. "This isn't a good time to be running around looking for myths, I'm afraid. I hate to tell you, but I've been on this river my whole life, and I've never seen any River Man. Every once in a while, someone comes up with a new story, and I pass it along, but if you want my opinion, he's mostly just a legend."

  Elizabeth blew out a breath. "Oh, great! Even my hallucinations have hallucinations!"

  "Will you stop?" Gherkin gave her a look. "If anyone's a hallucination around here, Betty, I'd hafta say it was you."

  "Don't call me Betty!"

  "Oh, did the bad hallucination hurt Betty's feelings?"

  They started in again, so Clem went down the dock ramp to help the Ephrams get their cargo unloaded. Old Ephram had keys to the shed on the station platform, and Clem and Young Ephram hefted the boxes the old rat pointed to, staggered up the ramp and stacked them inside. After a while, Elizabeth left off arguing with Gherkin and pitched in; she was taller than either Clem or Young Ephram and could carry more, so the work went faster and soon was done.

  Clem dropped onto the bench next to the sleeping cat as Elizabeth came out of the storeroom and wiped her forehead. She jerked a thumb at the shed. "Is this going to be all right? How heavily does the river flood?"

  "Pretty heavily," Clem replied, "but it hasn't knocked the station over yet."

  Young Ephram was fastening the locks on the door. "It's the best shed along the Talia, so don't worry." He turned as he slipped the keys into his vest pocket. "Thanks for your help, cousins, but we'd best be on our way."

  Elizabeth was getting her jacket from the bench where she'd laid it down. Clem watched her, then asked, "Well, cousin Elizabeth, what have you decided?"

  "I want out of here," she said. "And if that means we go looking for some mythical creature, then that's what we do."

  Clem had to smile. "Then you believe we're real? That you really are in a place you have to get out of?"

  "No." She brushed her hair from her forehead. "But when in a delusion, you have to play by its rules: I saw that on T.V. once. This is all just parts of my brain pushing each other around, so whatever solution comes out, that's the one I have to take. When in Rome--"

  "I've been to Rome," Gherkin interrupted, still curled up on the bench. "Catullus, Cicero, the Caesars: they were all bums." The cat unrolled and stretched. "We going or what?"

  The barge whistle blasted as the engines ground to life. Gherkin leaped down the dock ramp; Clem gestured for Elizabeth to go ahead, and they were quickly on board. The clouds had darkened as they worked, thickened and spread over the whole sky. Young Ephram tossed off the dock lines and clambered onto the barge; Old Ephram gave the whistle another pull, and Kahnbir Station drifted away, slowly shrinking behind them.

  Clem led the others into the cabin below the pilot house. Nothing had changed except the table in the middle of the room: instead of the tiny, splintered thing Clem had sat at so often, a huge, carved oak dining table now filled the cabin, just enough room left for the six chairs around it and the four bunks fastened to the walls.

  Young Ephram came in right behind them, and Clem had to ask, "What is this thing? How did you get it in here?"

  The rat laughed and crooked a claw at the stairs on the starboard side of the cabin. "The old man saw it in the bazaar at Ballavwa and had to have it; you know how he gets. Took me and three stevedores four hours, pulling it apart, undoing the legs, nearly prying the cabin door off...." He shook his head as he lit the lanterns against the darkness coming in at the portholes.

  Clem nodded. "Sorry I missed it." He pulled out a chair and squeezed in. "Make yourselves comfortable, cousins." He waved a paw at the two still standing, then at the two doors in the opposite wall. "The head's on the left, the galley on the right, and don't go upstairs while Old Ephram's driving." He looked at the rat. "Did I forget anything?"

  "The ladder by the stairs leads down to the engine room," Young Ephram said, "so don't use it. But other than that, enjoy your trip. I'd better go and check on the old man." He gave them a bow and scurried up the stairs.

  Gherkin had jumped onto the table and was wandering around, sniffing at various black and brown spots. "Simply charming joint they got here."

  Elizabeth was staring at the stairs as she sat down. "Why does he say 'the old man?' He's not a man; he's a rat."

  Clem blinked at her, but the cat said, "Do folks often comment on your thickness, Betty? Language works different when you gliderumble; that's why you can understand him at all, remember? I already explained this."

  "Explained? Gherk, all you keep saying is 'language works different.' That's not an explanation! It's not even grammatical!"

  "So now you've got a problem with the way I talk?"

  "I've got a problem with you talking at all! But I guess I shouldn't be surprised when a dumb animal doesn't know an adjective from an adverb!"

  Gherkin shook her head and licked a fron
t paw. "You need a serious attitude adjustment, Betty, my girl."

  "No, I just need to get out of here!" Elizabeth dropped her chin onto her folded arms. "Out of this madhouse and back to where things make sense!"

  "Sense? I heard you describing your earth to the seer robots, and it didn't sound any more sensible than any other earth. But as a dumb animal, maybe I don't get the subtle nuances of the whole thing."

  Elizabeth glared at the cat, and a silence fell over the room. Well, almost a silence: the wind whistled outside the portholes, and Clem could hear raindrops spattering against the sides of the cabin, thunder rolling beneath it all. Even under the best of conditions, it took forty minutes to get from Kahnbir to Bentito, and if the edge of the storm was on them already.... He cleared his throat. "I don't know much about gliderumbling, but it might be safer for you two to pop out of here before the storm hits. I don't think we're going to make Bentito, and riding out a storm on the river isn't a thing to do if you don't have to."

  The cat gave a snort. "Yeah, you don't know much about gliderumbling. We don't 'pop,' cousin. We dance through the spaces between space. And anyway, we can't do it from just anywhere. Each earth has specific jumping on and jumping off points, and this ain't one of 'em."

  "I see." Clem rubbed at his whiskers. "Then we'd better get some life vests." He inched around the table to the foot locker under one of the bunks.

  Elizabeth's furless skin had grown paler. "You...you think it's going to be that bad?"

  "It's never much fun."

  Gherkin yawned and stretched. "I'm sorry, but after dealing with boxhounds and gremlins, I can't get too excited about anything earthly." Her ears twitched back as thunder boomed outside; with a rush of wind, the pattering on the cabin walls became a pounding, and the barge swayed slightly under paw. "Of course," the cat added, "all this noise could sure make a person cranky."

  Clem had gotten the locker open, and he pulled three orange vests out, tossing the largest to Elizabeth and the smallest onto the table next to the cat. She sniffed at it, rolled her eyes, and turned to where Elizabeth was unfastening the straps with shaking hands. Gherkin gave a little laugh. "What? Afraid of an imaginary storm, Betty?"

  The human was slipping the life jacket over her head. "Shut up, Gherk. I'm just playing the game my brain set up."

  "Yeah, sure. Keep telling yourself that."

  Something scuffled at the stairs, and Young Ephram slid into the cabin. "Looks like she's starting a little early. The old man's decided to tie up along the bank; this river gets moving, swells up and washes us downstream, we're liable to end up smashed against some baobab back in the jungle. Stay inside, cousins; it's gonna get bumpy." As he talked, he grabbed a yellow slicker off the floor, slapped a hat over his ears, and pushed the door open. Rain lashed in, lightning arcing from the clouds outside, then the door banged shut.

  Clem sat and listened to the rats shouting through the storm at one another, the boat rocking back and forth, then the rumble of the engines below dropped away, leaving only the rush of rain and wind around the cabin. After a moment, the door burst open, and Young Ephram skidded in, water pouring from his slicker. "Fwoo! Now that's a storm!"

  "Really?" Gherkin's voice was the driest thing in the room. "I never would've guessed."

  Young Ephram just grinned. "Cargo's nice and tight, and I've got us moored to a good stand along the bank. The river shouldn't rise more'n a few feet, so just sit tight and we'll ride it out." He stuffed the dripping hat into his pocket. "I'll be up in the pilot house; if you need anything, well, Clem, you probably know where it is as well as I do, but yell if you need to." And he scrambled up the stairs.

  "Terrific," the cat growled, then rolled upright to face Elizabeth. "Having a good time?"

  The boat was really swaying now, and the human looked positively green. "I hate boats. My dad forces us up to the lake every summer, and I always end up sicker than a dog." She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair.

  "Don't think about it," Clem said. "Think about going home. That should cheer you up."

  Gherkin growled again. "It'll sure cheer me up."

  They sat for a while listening to the river, the rain and the wind all trying to get inside the cabin. Then Clem began to hear something else, something that cracked and tumbled in the distance. And he remembered the other danger of being on the river during one of these storms.

  "Flash flood," he said aloud.

  The others turned to look at him, and someone said, "What?" Then the rumbling and crashing roared against them, and the portside portholes exploded. The cabin wall buckled and burst, mud, rocks, and branches flooding in, and the whole barge pitched on its side. Clem tried to leap up, but the table caught at his chair, and he went tumbling with it down the slope, through the hole in the wall, and into the river.

  The current grabbed at him, tried to spin him under and down; Clem dug his claws into the tabletop and hung on. The river thrashed like a speared alligator, knocking the table upside down, and water closed around Clem's fur. He gripped the table tighter, forced his paws to move, clawed and dragged himself to the table's edge, and clambered over. Something wet and warm grabbed him, and he heard Elizabeth's voice over the wind and rain: "Clem! Clem! Are you all right??"

  He gasped and managed to nod. He was jostled sideways, and then the rain wasn't slapping at him nearly so hard. He got his breath back and scraped at the mud in his eyes.

  Lightning slashed through the clouds, and Clem saw the river churning by beneath him. The table floated in it, its legs sticking up and tangled in the branches of a banyon tree. Elizabeth was perched on the limb next to him, water dripping from her yellow topknot. The barge was nowhere in sight, rain like a gray curtain thundering down around them. The human's furless paws gripped him tight as she shouted, "What happened?? Where's Gherkin?? Where's the boat??"

  "A flash flood!" Clem yelled back. "They cut straight through the jungle from the mountains, all rock and mud! I--" He cut off as something big and square tumbled into them; the branch jolted and pitched, and the table tore away, spinning down river, knocked free by what Clem now saw was one of the barge's crates. Elizabeth had managed to grab hold of the branch, and Clem noticed he had dug his claws into the fabric over her leg; he didn't see any blood as he pulled them loose and slipped off her. "Sorry!" he called.

  She didn't seem to notice. "Did you see Gherkin??"

  "I didn't see anything! We'll have to hold tight till the rain lets up, then try to get back up river and see what happened to the boat!"

  The rain seemed to be slacking off even as he spoke; the howling in the leaves overhead had dropped to a clattering, and the darkness of just a moment before was lifting, the clouds down river breaking up. Clem stared through the branches. He'd never seen a storm come and go so quickly.

  "Look!" The branch shook as Elizabeth clambered to her feet. She was pointing up river to a bundle of gray fluff washing down in the flow. "Gherkin! We're over here!"

  The bundle tumbled slightly as it washed closer but otherwise didn't move; Clem hung on as Elizabeth jumped over him to the end of the branch. Clinging to the limb with one arm, she lowered herself to the river's surface and scooped up the ball of fluff as it swept by, then swung back to a sitting position with the sopping thing in her lap.

  It was the tabby, all right, soaked through and unmoving. Elizabeth put a shaking finger to the gliderumbler's throat.

  The head rolled all wrong at her touch, twisting too far sideways with no resistance at all. Elizabeth snapped back as if stung and stared at the bundle sprawled across her legs. "No," she whispered at last, Clem just able to make it out above the roar of the river. "Oh, Gherkin, no...."

  Clem slid closer along the branch. "She...she must've been caught as the table went over." He set a paw on Elizabeth's knee. "I'm sorry, cousin."

  "No," Elizabeth said again, her eyes fixed on Gherkin's unbreathing form. "No, it...it isn't supposed to happen. She, I mean, this's all...all a dream...."
She poked gently at Gherkin's side, and the cat still did not move. Sunlight wrinkled through the leaves, patterns of shadow sparking over her as Elizabeth put her furless paws to her eyes.

  Sunlight? Clem looked up. The clouds had broken into fleecy mountains, towering into the crystal blue above. The wind had fallen, and silence draped the banyon like a blanket. Clem realized he could hear nothing but Elizabeth sobbing; even the river had stopped roaring beneath them.

  But how could that be? Clem looked down at the river--and something looked back at him, something that rose and flexed up from the river's surface, something with water for paws and fur, two dark stones for eyes in the liquid of its head. It flowed glinting out of the river, stood with watery legs settled firm on the shimmering surface, and reared up next to the branch. "Just a dream," it said, its voice like mist. "Just a dream, and yet you grieve."

  Elizabeth's head snapped up, her eyes red. "Shut up! Just--" Then she saw the thing, and her voice vanished.