Edward’s fur paws whispered over the vinyl floor. He reached the door and stretched as tall as he could. The button was an arm’s length out of reach. “Bother.”
He looked over each shoulder, spotting an oblong plastic box. He waddled to it, picked it up easily, and lay it against the door. “This should work quite nicely,” he said to no one in particular. He climbed and stretched and reached. “Bother.”
Edward hopped down and began pacing the narrow aisle between beds, trying hard not to notice the white, stretched skin and puffy, staring eyes. Pillows, he thought.
Moving from bed to bed, holding his breath and squeezing his eyes shut at each, he carefully wriggled four pillows free. He placed them against the door and scrambled up, striking the flat button just as he tumbled to the floor.
Nothing happened.
“Drat and Bother. Chris — I mean, Holo-what’s-it Nurserious Brain?”
No answer.
“Are you there? Hallo?”
Silence.
Edward sat, head in his paws, and thought. And thought. And thought. Then, he sighed.
His stomach growled, even though he knew he didn’t need to eat exactly. He could go long periods of time without food. Still, mouths were for eating and bellies for filling and a bit of something would be nice. But not in this room. So how to leave? That was his Question of the Moment. And he had to find Someone and tell them about the children.
The hairs in his ears tickled to a faint sound above. He sniffed.
“Air,” he said, leaping to his feet. “Air . . . but from where?” A grill set high in the wall grinned down at him when he looked up.
Edward paced the floor, thought of a song that went nicely with his Difficult Situation, hummed it through a few times and then thought of a Plan.
The grill was too high to reach.
There was no one to ask for help.
He would try the button again.
With a whisper and a groan (and a thud as he fell down) the door hushed open — just a bit. Squeezing through, his gurgling stomach protesting the pressure, he padded into the hall to find Someone.
Edward heard the crying long before he saw the girl. She sat in a large room wrapped in fading stars, holding her head in her hands.
“Hello?”
The girl looked up and sniffed. She stared at him.
“I mean . . . er . . . I hope I’m not interrupting.” Edward entered the room. “I really wouldn’t want to bother you but I seem to be very lost and you seem to be very sad.”
She stood and flickered as she moved.
“I’m looking for a grown-up.” Edward used his most confidential and important tone.
The girl started crying again. “They’re all gone,” she said through her tears.
“Oh.” Edward shifted uncomfortably from left to right.
“I killed them all,” the girl whispered. Her eyes widened. “All of them.”
Edward backed up a step. “Oh. Well. In that case perhaps it would be best if I were —”
The girl suddenly began to stretch upward, her legs, arms and torso extending themselves like taffy, her hair spilling down around her shoulders like milk. Her eyes grew faraway pale and her skin pulled then sagged.
“It was an accident,” the old woman said. “A terrible accident.” And she pointed at a console as the stars disappeared. She flickered again.
Edward followed the line of her finger to a dangling cord.
The children called them their “Jack-in-the-necks” — a small hole that helped them know things when they plugged wires into it. Edward himself had a “Jack-in-the-belly” so he could play with other toys.
“Plug in,” she said.
Edward plugged in and suddenly found his head full to the point of bursting, as if hands tugged at his ears and snout, pushing and pulling at once. “Oh,” he said and sat heavily on the floor.
Her name, Edward knew, was the Nancy Bell; she was a starship, the first of five to hastily leave a dying home. Earth. A place he couldn’t remember well but now understood was once green and blue and full of life. The old woman who had been a little girl was a manifestation of the ship’s brain and she was dying, trickling away with the moments.
After nearly a century of travel she’d reached her goal and awakened her cargo — three hundred men, women and children. But there was a flaw . . . a minute tear in her program that gradually became a gaping hole. Critical EM shields had malfunctioned, the comm-array burned off in an unforeseen asteroid belt, air-tanks ruptured. It was all she could do to launch her comm-sat.
The Nancy Bell crash-landed on an otherwise quiet Tuesday, using the southern hemisphere’s tepid ocean to break her fall. She dragged herself onto the wooded beach to die, a massive diseased whale of charred metal. The virus awaited and systematically executed the survivors.
“We worked so hard.”
Edward looked up from the floor at the sound of her voice. Nancy Bell still stood in the center of the room, staring at nothing.
“We did?”
“Yes. For a vaccine.”
“Oh.” Another burst of data, white light collapsing his field of vision. He saw blood cells and antibodies in a kaleidoscope, twisting and turning on themselves.
“We found it,” he heard her somewhere outside of himself. “But it was too late.”
Yes, he realized. The grown-ups had programmed the necessary information into the ship, dying before the Nancy Bell had gotten results. The formula, the cure, lay in so many sparks of electricity in a dying ship’s mind. Life for four other vessels, en route and unsuspecting.
“You must help me save them.”
“Me?” Edward’s voice was more a squeak than anything else and having been somewhat unsure of it, he repeated himself. “Me?”
“You’re all that’s left.” She changed again, shrinking into a boy in short-pants that immediately filled his heart with hope. “You are going to go on a very long walk to climb a very tall mountain.”
“I am?”
“Yes. I need you to be a Very Brave Bear. Can you do that?”
Edward thought for a moment. “Yes.”
Another blast and the room spun; he closed his eyes. He saw the communications satellite turning in slow orbit, dish tilted toward a green-blue haze, thirsty like a sponge for water. He saw the muted ship, unable to answer the repeated blip of questions. And he saw the portable transmitter lying in the great ship’s belly and the red hover-wagon near the airlock. Then geography swept at him, over him, like a rushing beast.
He knew his minuscule toy brain, designed for telling stories, singing and playing with the children, couldn’t contain the flood of information. He knew he’d begin forgetting Everything as soon as he unplugged.
He also knew the ship didn’t have the strength to tell him again.
But he would remember the most important parts: The wagon. The pack. The walk. The mountain. And the Big Green Button.
Edward Bear unplugged and stood up. The boy smiled at him, then flickered and began to fade.
“Silly Old Bear,” he said. “I know you can do it.”
Edward Bear left the ship on a quiet Friday, his muzzle still wet with something quite like (but not) condensed milk and his paws still sticky with something quite like (but again not) honey. His send-off party, launching his great Expotition, had been a smashing success. There had been plenty to eat for Everyone — which was especially important, him being the only Someone in attendance.
He stepped through the yawning hatchway, giving the wagon a tug. It buzzed noisily behind him and he looked back. It bobbed up against the lip of the door. With the slightest lift it cleared and floated easily. Edward couldn’t remember exactly what the Something strapped to the wagon did — already most of what the Nancy Bell told him had already leaked away. But he knew it was Important and that he had to take it up the mountain.
And press the Green Button. He mustn’t forget that.
Edward trudged across the san
d, head turning side to side, nose working the wind. The air was heavy, a thick salt smell. A breeze cut across the massive ship, whipping up the sand and bending the brush that grew behind a line of driftwood. A golden sun in a blue sky. Behind him, he heard waves rushing the beach with tiny, deep-down-inside roars followed by satisfactory sighs. When he reached the driftwood he climbed onto a log and watched the ocean for a while. He’d heard the boy in short-pants talk about the ocean a long time ago. It was bigger than Anything.
Nancy Bell lay half-submerged. Scattered around her lay the remnants of camp. Canopies, stacked boxes, a line of clothes dry now for weeks that no one would wear. Toys nearly buried by the shifting sand, toys that no one would play with every again.
Edward sniffed back a tear. He looked the other way now, back to the forest. Trees stretched thin and tall, reaching for the sky, blossoming like green balloons. Beyond them, purple hills rolled up and over like a rumpled quilt and, looming behind the hills, a mound of stone, white and enticing as vanilla ice cream. His mountain. He climbed down from the log and followed the line of wood until he came to a trail that disappeared into the forest. Dragging his red wagon, he waved goodbye to the ship.
The woodland swallowed him and at first it reminded him of Home. Only none of his friends seemed to be about. He’d always loved the Wood, and this one was not so different. Certainly the ferns were larger and the berries had an unfamiliar gray hue. Some of the trees stood straight and thin and very, very tall with branches that swept out and down covered with small dark needles. But the branches began too far up for convenient honey-gathering climbs.
Once, about two hours into his walk, Edward heard a buzzing louder than his wagon and his heart jumped. He spun round and round, finally seeing the bearer of glad tidings. The biggest bee he had ever seen zipped past his nose.
“Bees mean honey,” he said out loud. His stomach rumbled its agreement.
At four hours he came across a small hole. He poked his head inside, shouted “Hallo,” and then thought better of it and moved on. Once, forever ago it seemed, he’d found himself stuck in a hole very much like it.
At six hours into his Very Long Walk, Edward Bear decided that this forest wasn’t anything at all like Home. The sun disappeared somewhere behind him, leaving the wood painted in charcoal shadow.
At six-and-one-half hours into his Very Long Walk, the noises started up and the light gave out altogether and Edward decided that it was actually the Wrong Sort of forest for Small Animals Entirely On Their Own.
He parked his wagon and hid in the hollow between two large stones. Edward tried to sleep but didn’t for a long while. Unfamiliar sounds and smells troubled him. At last, he slept fitfully.
In the morning, he met the Parrotishes.
They were standing around his wagon, poking it with long sticks. Thin and tall, like the trees, they hooted as he crawled out from his makeshift bed. There were five of them, all wearing bits of skin around their waists. Their brown, bark-like skin blended with the forest, and their wide black eyes shone like pools of oil. The tallest wore a vine around his forehead, hung with feathers, leaves and twigs.
“Hello,” Bear said in a quiet sort of voice. He felt a little afraid.
They jumped, looked at him, and backed away slowly.
He jumped, too, and wondered if he could edge himself back into his bed and start over again after having a bit more sleep and a bit less company.
They studied him carefully and suddenly self-conscious, Edward patted himself down, raising a small cloud of dust. “I’m a bit of a mess. I’m on an Expotition, you know.”
The four shorter Parrotishes looked at what seemed to be their leader. It stepped forward.
Edward saw no time like the present to make introductions. “Good morning. I’m Edward Bear. Pleased to meet you.” He moved closer and stuck out his paw.
The leader sprung back, hooting and whistling. The followers hooted and whistled, too. Then, clearing its voice, the leader shuffled cautiously closer to Edward and stuck out its own three-fingered hand. “Good morning,” it said. “I’m Edward Bear. Pleased to meet you.”
Edward blinked, dropped his paw. “You are?”
A pause. “You are?”
“I am. Who are you?”
“I am. Who are you?”
“I’m Edward Bear.” Edward shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m Edward Bear.” The leader imitated his shift. Then, the others behind him did the same.
“I’m Edward Bear,” four voices said.
Edward nodded enthusiastically. Just like parrots, he realized. And so he called them Parrotishes.
They were still nodding enthusiastically when he grabbed up the handle of his floating wagon and continued down the trail.
The Parrotishes shadowed him through the forest for three days, always disappearing at dusk, always reappearing at dawn. They moved apart and silent, occasionally whistling or hooting or proclaiming themselves to be Edward Bear.
On the third day, he made up a Song for Bears on Very Long Walks. He called it “Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk” and found himself suddenly part of a choir. Around the forest, thin and reedy voices parroted back his words. He tried to conduct them but gave up in the end; they wouldn’t sing their bits properly and no harmony could be found. He began to whistle instead.
On the fourth day he found a beehive that no one seemed to care much for. He declared a holiday and helped himself. If honey could be sweeter and stickier, this honey was. The Parrotishes watched from a distance, imitating his “Oh My’s” along with the wet smacking noises.
As he walked, the terrain changed. The trail gave out but so did the choked foliage. The trees began to thin, and long purple blades of grass took over. At the forest’s end, a bright blanket of rolling prairie met his eyes. Looming over him, the brilliant mountain shone against an azure sky.
Leaving the forest meant leaving its shade. For half a day Edward moved across the prairie, feeling the heat through his fur. The wagon whispered along behind him, occasionally sputtering over a rock or hissing reluctance as he tugged uphill, cresting rolls and ridges. He paused several times to look for his troupe of emaciated echoes, but they were no where to be seen, as if owned by the shadows of the wood. Overhead, large birds zipped between spherical clouds, riding a wind he couldn’t feel. As the sun set, the air chilled and the sky became a painting gently fading into gray. He spent his first night in the open, curled into a tight ball on a bed of grass.
The next morning, he took a few steps toward the mountain before he realized his wagon was gone.
At first, he looked about frantically, his head moving quickly, his nose sniffing the air as if he might catch the scent. Nothing.
For a few hours, he sat down and cried. He had failed. His Expotition had ended.
The sky was choked with clouds that suddenly cut loose, and water sliced the air around him, soaking him completely and turning the prairie into purple sponge. Lifting his snout to the darkened sky, Edward howled.
A howl answered him, and he looked up into the black eyes of a single Parrotish. “I’m Edward Bear,” the Parrotish said, and motioned for him to follow.
Belligerently, Edward trudged behind the Parrotish. The rain let up as they entered the forest at a point someplace other than where he left it the day before. Once, the Parrotish broke out into “Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk,” but Edward didn’t feel like singing. An anger settled over him, mixed with sadness. His thoughts kept wandering back to the children’s hollow eyes, fixed on nothing ever again, shining for No One. He couldn’t remember how many other children were coming, or when, or even how, but he knew their eyes would be empty, too, now that he’d lost his wagon.
A hoot and whistle stopped his little brain. He looked up to see that his guide had joined the four others, the leader among them. It held a length of wood in its slender fingers and it pointed to a round, dark mouth in the side of a low hill. His guide prodded him and Edward turned.<
br />
The Parrotish pantomimed dragging something and then pointed to the hole. “I’m Edward Bear,” it said. The others chimed in with eager but low voices.
Edward moved toward the hole. Some dreadful stench that smelled very much like Death leaked out of it. He felt afraid and his hackles rose. “Oh. In there?”
“Oh. In there?” they echoed.
“Uh. Well.” He shifted. “Oh bother.”
They echoed him, then backed away and motioned at the hole. He looked back and forth between them and the dark opening. Then, he made what he believed was a Very Brave Decision. “Well, then,” he said in as cheerful a voice as he could, “let’s just go and have a look.” He marched to the hole and paused as the leader touched his shoulder. When he turned, the leader thrust the stick into his paws.
It was a spear, he realized.
The dirt walls gave off a damp smell that mingled with the odor from deeper within. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Edward saw that the tunnel stretched gradually down. His ears picked up various sounds: water dripping, gentle snoring, soft whimpering and an electric buzz that he at first mistook for bees. Clutching his spear as best he could, sharpened point thrust before him, he made his way downward until the tunnel widened into a larger den. He felt something like wet wood shifting beneath his feet and as he moved them the smell grew worse.
In the center of the room, near two mounds of breathing hair, his wagon hummed while lights flickering off and on along the pack it supported. In the far corner, thin, small figures cowered.
Edward tip-toed toward the wagon, listening carefully to each snore. He shifted the spear to one paw and stretched the other toward the wagon’s handle. He could leave quietly, he knew, without waking them. And he should, so he could climb the mountain. To Save the Children, he told himself.
The softest hoot and whistle came to him from the shivering forms across the den. He looked at the wagon, then to the mounds of hair, then to the corner. He picked his way past them and went to the three small Parrotishes huddled together. They were children. Their hands were tied and as he turned the first around to bite at the tough vines one of the mounds snorted and barked. Edward put down his spear and went to work, tooth and claw, finally severing the bonds. The free Parrotish began untying its neighbor while Edward went to the last. Quietly, he led them out of the cave.
The Best of Talebones Page 44