[anthology] Darrell Schweitzer (ed) - Cthulhu's Reign

by Unknown

  But Seeker declared that she must descend in her own person and not by image transmission to planet surface. She knew the minds we others could not know. And she would not imperil the mission needlessly. So I reviewed the steps and all seemed to be in order and we had to do everything quickly and with no mistakes.

  There was a complication. Navigator had found a desirable site; the locators furnished detailed pictures of a green plateau above a river and the unactivated beacon was on its way, disguised, like Ship, as debris. It hurtled toward Terra, along with a flock of moon-chunks, and once it was surfaced, Ship would activate it for a brief time so that Seeker’s mind-signals could be amplified to the female telepath and directions would be vivid to her, though not a picture of the site, which Seeker explained would mean nothing or too much. Then the beacon would be deactivated, so as not to attract attention. When the time came, the exact moment, it would power up again and set the Gate in place and keep it open—again for the briefest of periods. In that short space, Seeker would appear to the autist and her queenie and welcome them through.

  But Navigator was finding precise measurement difficult. We had thought that the distortion of the local space-weave was accidental, a product of the great inter-dimensional engineering the Old Ones were undertaking. As an ancillary quality, the distortion would remain constant and the anomalies could be taken into account. The distortion was increasing, Navigator told us, and he now thought it was not accidental. The Old Ones were transforming local space-time.

  “They are not satisfied to remake the objects of the cosmos,” he said. “They are changing the makeup of the vessel that contains the cosmos. It begins with Terra and will spread, wave upon wave, throughout the whole universe. We will be unable to ascertain when or where anything is.”

  “How can they change the nature of space without destroying themselves?” Doctor asked.

  “I do not know,” Navigator said.

  “Perhaps underspace will not be affected,” I said.

  “And this transformation—if it is really taking place—will require a very long time to complete. We must rescue this Remnant promptly and return to the Great Ones. They will understand how to halt the process.”

  “Perhaps,” Navigator said. His voice was doubtful. “I will try to work out a mathematics for the rate of distortion and we will follow our plan whether it is useful or not.”

  “That is best,” I said because I could think of nothing else to say.

  And then it was time for Seeker to go down. The beacon was in place and had already proved its worth. The Terran telepath had received Seeker’s pictures most clearly and Navigator reported that the family was marching toward the plateau. He suggested that we configure the beacon transceivers in a different way and thus access some of the energy the Old Ones were using to distort space-time. We could do so undetected, so much of that energy was surplus and not closely tabulated.

  “It would require too long,” I said. “Those shoggoths are too near, are they not?”

  He watched his screens and scopes for a little and then agreed.

  Seeker went into the Gate-entrance chamber. She had freshened her robe and made her long hair brighter. Doctor and I kept our gazes upon each other, for though our sister strode into the exchange chamber steadily and with all purpose, we knew that she must have been enduring most horrible fears. She was descending into the territory of the Old Ones and she absorbed the terror of them ferociously, being in contact with the Remnant that survived just outside the verge of their icy intelligences and had witnessed what things they had done.

  We tested the communications and Seeker said she could well hear me.

  “Good,” I said, “because you must mark the instant for Navigator and for Ship. It has to be precisely exact.”

  “I know.” She spoke bravely, but there was a quiver in her voice, only little, but it betrayed her slightly. I looked at Doctor and she was concerned but also smiled bravely to let me know Seeker would not lose consciousness.

  We waited and waited but not, I now think, as long as it seemed we waited.

  Seeker stood straight with her shoulders held back and her eyes glowing now with more color than ever I had seen in them. She brought her hands away from her sides and rested them slightly on the Gate posts.

  Then she said, “Now,” and I will not forget the sound of that word, ever.

  Ship heard and activated the beacon and the welcoming Shiny Wall-Gate was in place, so we thought.

  V

  Vern was certain that he could never get to her in time. He sprinted as hard as he could, but though Echo was severely uncoordinated and could often not walk in a straight line, she had a long head start. She was singing and babbling her Shiny Wall song and maybe that slowed her. Yet when he caught her, only inches from the fall that would crush her, and wrestled her to the turf, he had to use all his strength to hold her down. She struggled and cried and slapped at him. She was scarlet-faced and weeping but still singing, when she could find breath, “Shy-nee, shiny, shiny . . .” Moms began wailing too, uttering a cry so full of grief and horror, that it chilled Vern even in the heat of his exertions.

  And now in the midst of these commotions, Queenie came bounding past. Vern hardly had time to turn his head and follow her flight as she raced by him and the caroling Echo and launched herself, as if arcing into a lake to fetch a stick, over the cliff edge into the abyss.

  Finally he was able to turn Echo on her back. He knelt on her, pinning her shoulders with his knees. She looked up at him with an expression of puzzled sorrow. “Shy-nee,” she said.

  Then it was visible to Vern. It stood, or hovered, exactly upon the cliff edge, a rectangle of blue-white shimmer, mottled and interlaced with glowing threads that pulsed silver and violet and orange- red. It looked as if it ought to emit sound—a small sonic clap upon its appearance or the snap and sizzle of electronic static—but it was eerily silent. Vern could feel that no heat emanated from this object that Echo called a wall.

  He took his weight off his sister and stood her up and clasped her tightly. She was not pushing him away now or attempting to run. She was transfixed, hypnotized by the shiftings and sparklings of the threaded workings upon or within the seemingly flat surface. She even nestled a little in his embrace as she often did with Moms.

  Moms came behind Vern and put her arms around her shoulder, so that the three of them stood holding tight in mutual embrace. Vern wanted to speak to Moms but could not.

  The girl who stepped out of Echo’s Shiny Wall resembled Vern’s sister in many ways. She was thin and her skin was pale as porcelain and her hair was bright blond, although it was not raddled and stringy like Echo’s but done up in feathery swirls that appeared to float about her head. She was wearing a white robe that cupped the sunlight into little pools of color, subtle yellows and blues.

  Then she spoke in a clear, treble voice, her syllables like chimes. “You will be pleased to come away. The shoggoths are near. There is small time before the gate must shut.”

  Echo laughed delightedly. Vern could say nothing and it was Moms who asked, in a quavering but determined tone, “Who are you?”

  “I am Seeker. Echo knows who I am. You can see how she is not fearing. You must come. Now. They are almost upon us.”

  Vern heard. They must have been advancing upon them from the north ridge. Tekeli-li Tekeli-li. Those beasts that looked like decomposing flesh could not come up the cliff-side path. They must have come along the other side of the bald.

  Moms said, “We don’t know how. We are exhausted and frightened and you are strange to us.”

  “You must trust me,” the girl said. “Your queenie is already aboard.”

  “Queenie?”

  “Please.”

  The shrilling was very near. Tekeli-li.

  “We have no choice, Moms,” Vern said.

  Her voice was vacant. “Maybe you were right, Vern, to say that nothing means anything anymore. I don’t want to see this world t
he way it is now. How could anything be worse than what is here? So I will go first.”

  She walked to stand by the girl in the white robe. The girl motioned her forward and Moms did not turn to look at Echo and Vern but stepped into the sheet of silver fire that opened over the abyss.

  “Now—so as to avoid those Old One things,” the girl said.

  Tekeli-li . . .

  Almost upon the greensward, almost within sight. Echo was still frozen in fascination, so Vern scooped her up and carried her into the wall-sheet of energy and the girl in the colorful white robe followed, backing in and looking with horrified loathing at what was out there and then all that scene went away.

  It was cold and sharp. It was like stepping through the waterfall that had protected their cave, except that it was not wet.

  On the other side of the Shy-nee Wall was sleep.

  VI

  Ship had changed the combination of gases so that our vessel atmosphere conformed more closely to the Terran. For us crew members, the heavier air was not unpleasant, but it was a little more difficult to breathe. We wanted our Remnant guests to be as comfortable as possible, for all must seem highly strange to them. We were in space, where the Old Ones ranged abroad. That would be threatening, we thought, maybe.

  As soon as the necessities were done with, we all went to our deepsleep berths and Ship filtered in the proper narcotics and we plunged into underspace. This happened in the shortest of times. We did not know if we had been seen or, had we been, if we were traceable. We did not know if underspace were changed—or “wrecked,” as Navigator called it.

  Ship was to awaken us after four periods. At that point, we would be one hundred watches’ flight from the Alliance Remnant Reclamation Consigning Base, a station located where a sun system formerly had revolved. The Old Ones had annihilated every planet and moon there and the dim little central star now hung alone. There were no outposts near this deserted space and it was a lonely place wherein to stand waiting and planning.

  After the crew had been awakened, Echo and the queenie were brought to full consciousness and their needs attended to. They required more bodily attention than the young man and his mother. Seeker spent a long time period communicating with the animal—“dog,” it was classified—and the autistic female; they could all speak to each other in a rudimentary mental speech, and Echo, once she was assured that her mother and brother were alive and well, was happy. She no longer echoed, repeating the phrases and words and sounds of others. Now, with Seeker, she had her own voice.

  Then Vern was wakened and he reported immediately that he felt wonderfully well. This was not surprising. Ship had massaged and exercised him and rid him of unhealthy microorganisms and prepared healthful, Terran-like food, which he ate with lavish enjoyment.

  He asked a great many questions—as we had expected he would ask.

  “You look so cool and white,” he said. “You seem delicate.”

  “We were rescued from our home planet by the Radiance Alliance almost two of your years ago. We have been enclosed in the station and aboard ship since then. So we have not . . . planetary . . . physiques. But now, after we are restored to strength, we will be going to a world like the one you left, like ours that the Old Ones murdered. We will develop our physical nature on the new planet.”

  “I like the clothes you gave me,” he said. “I never wore a robe before. It is comfortable and very pink. It is very pink.”

  “I am glad you adore it,” I said.

  “There are lots of things I do not understand,” he said. “I thought Echo would fall off the cliff and die. I thought Queenie had already fallen.”

  I explained that the scene was arranged to deceive the foe. “Echo is an autistic and sees everything the way it really is. You and I see what we expect to see, but autistics do not see predicted patterns. The Old Ones see only patterns, all things arranged schematically. If they saw the grass blades depressed by the edge of the gate, they would attribute that to the wind bending them over. But it was the gate pressing down, though it was not yet visible. Echo saw what it really was and went through the gate to Seeker.”

  “But the gate was visible,” Vern said. “It was silver, with other colors. I saw it.”

  “Ship made it visual for you and your mother. Otherwise, you might not have entered.”

  He was silent for a while. Then he said, “Thank you for rescuing us. Thank you for saving our lives.”

  “It is our mission. In the world we are going to there are other Terralike Remnants hidden away. They were rescued too. The Alliance is trying to preserve as many species as possible. The greater number of them does not look like us.” I could not help smiling. “Some of them look very different.”

  “Have you and the crew rescued many Remnants?”

  “Only your family,” I said. “We were all apprehensive because we had no experience. We are immature.”

  “What do you mean, immature?” Vern asked.

  “In terms of Terran cycles, I am fifteen years old, Doctor is fourteen, Navigator is twelve, and Seeker is ten. We are orphans. We are Remnants, as you are. Our home was obliterated and we were rescued, though our escape was not so narrow as yours.”

  Vern thought, then wagged his head. “Why would your Great Race send out children for such a mission? It seems not very brilliant.”

  “But if we were adults and thought in complicated patterns, the way older beings do, the Old Ones could detect us more easily. They are not so closely attuned to the thought-patterns of children or of animals—or of autistic beings.”

  “This is hard to take in,” Vern said.

  “Is it not better for you here than it was on Terra?”

  “Yes. May we wake Moms now?”

  “She had to stay asleep longer. Her mind is more torn because the world she lived in so long is unrecognizable to her now. She will take longer to recover.”

  “I had a sister younger than Echo,” Vern said. “Her name was Marta. The Old Ones destroyed her when they murdered my father. We could never say her name because we would cry and become too upset. That was not safe.”

  Ship sounded some noises to signal that Moms had awakened.

  Moms was sitting in a grand, plush chair shaped like a quarter moon beside her deepsleep rectangle. Queenie sat beside her in regal attitude. They looked as if they were granting audience. Moms’ robe was of a softer-looking material than Vern’s and Echo’s, a dark, peaceful blue. It lapped over Queenie’s paws. When she saw Vern and Echo and all the crew come to greet her, she began to laugh and cry. Her face formed different expressions and Vern saw how confused she was.

  But she was happy.

  “Oh children,” she said. “How fine you look! And you are all dressed up! Is there going to be a party?”

  “I don’t know,” Vern said.

  So Ship announced that a celebration was scheduled in two hours in the large conference bay. Everyone is invited, Ship said. Please attend. I am proud to know you.

  “And we are all cosmically proud of Seeker,” I said. “She has done what all others could not.”

  “I am awfully grateful,” Vern told her. “Is Seeker your real name?”

  “In your English sounds, it would be something like Inanna,” I said.

  He tried to pronounce it.

  “Seeker,” I said, “say your name to Vern.”

  “In a moment,” she said. She brushed the air with her hand. Her forehead was wrinkled and we knew she was mind-feeling something probably distant, but we could not know what.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Mike Allen works as the arts and culture columnist for The Roanoke Times in Roanoke, Va., where he lives with his wife Anita, a comical dog and three psychotic cats. He also writes poetry and fiction. The Philadelphia Inquirer called his verse “poetry for goths of all ages”—his poems have been reprinted in the Nebula Awards Showcase series and Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year—while his horror story “The Button Bin” was a finalist
for the 2008 Nebula Awards. He is the editor of the critically acclaimed anthology series Clockwork Phoenix (Norilana Books) and also editor and publisher of the poetry journal Mythic Delirium. Like every other writer in the world, he’s working on a novel.

  Ken Asamatsu was born in 1956 in Sapporo, Hokkaidō. He graduated from Tōyō University to work at Kokusho Kankōkai, famous in Japan as the publisher of Lovecraft and many other works of horror and fantasy. His debut work as an author was Makyō no Gen’ei (Echoes of Ancient Cults), in 1986. He continues to be active in a wide range of activities, including writing extensively in the weird historical and horror genres. While remaining extremely interested in the Cthulhu Mythos, lately he has been concentrating on weird historicals set in the Muromachi period (1333-1573). In 2005 he was a candidate for the annual award of the Mystery Writers of Japan, Inc., in the short story genre, for his “Higashiyamadono Oniwa” (Higashiyamadono Villa Garden). He has also made considerable contribution to Japanese fiction as an anthologist, proposing a number of collections successfully published in Japan. The Lairs of the Hidden Gods series, which won high praise in the original Japanese, is now available from Kurodahan Press. http://homepage3.nifty.com/uncle-dagon/

  Laird Barron raced the Iditarod three times during the early 1990s. He migrated to the Pacific Northwest in 1994 where he became a strength trainer and studied martial arts. In 2000 he began to write poetry and fiction. Barron’s work has appeared in places such as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, SciFiction, Inferno, Lovecraft Unbound!, Black Wings, and The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It has also been reprinted in numerous year’s best anthologies and nominated for multiple honors including the World Fantasy, International Horror Guild, Sturgeon, Crawford, Locus, and Shirley Jackson awards. His debut collection, The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, was recently rereleased as a trade paperback. A second collection, Occultation, and a novel, The Croning, will also appear in 2010 and 2011. He lives in Olympia, Washington, with his wife.