Laughing Wolf

by Nicholas Maes

  “Hello, my sweets,” the hologram spoke. “I would have called sooner but the interference is terrible. We’ve also had some problems with the units — the oxygen leads are inefficient — but have managed at last to bring them on line. We now have fifty portables up and the colony’s impressive, if I say so myself.”

  Felix’s heart surged. He was proud of his mother. As the chief engineer for CosmoComm, a company that specialized in off-world projects, she was always travelling to distant regions, Mars, Deimos, the moon, and Ganymede, to ensure new portables were properly installed. Before her departure they’d toured the Clavius observatory, home to the earth’s biggest space telescope. Studying a screen that had projected scenes of Ganymede’s surface, they’d detected a tiny cluster of lights, from the outpost erected by the region’s first explorers. Barely able to control her excitement, she had revealed that she loved to construct portables because they formed the foundations for future cities and would spread human life even farther afield.

  “Apart from the units, there’s not much else to report,” she went on. “No, wait. Two days ago we were struck by a comet. It shook the moon’s surface and blasted a crater over two miles wide. But other than that, my routines are the same. I miss you badly and can’t wait to return. I’m getting tired of the same old view. Here, let me adjust the camera so you can see for yourself.”

  His mother’s face vanished and an alien landscape took shape. In the foreground was a plain of ice, with a brown hue due to the atmosphere’s ions. In the distance were hulking crags of rock, the result of prehistoric crater collisions: their rough-hewn peaks craned up to the sky, desperate to catch a glimpse of the sun, which wobbled into view once a week for three hours. Of course there wasn’t any greenery present — no trees, no shrubs, not a single blade of grass. And because there was a total absence of wind, everything was preternaturally still, as if Felix were looking at a photograph or painting.

  Jupiter was hovering above this landscape, seemingly within arm’s reach of its moon. It was … vast. At one stage the camera was pointed straight at the planet and its bulk took up nine-tenths of the sky. Like its moon, it was beautiful but forbidding.

  “Lonely, isn’t it?” she said, appearing again, “And do you know what the earth looks like from here? It’s no different from one of a billion stars. I sometimes find it hard to believe that on a tiny speck of light like that there are oceans, lakes, flowers, birds, trees, buildings, and crowds of people.”

  Felix nodded and was reminded, of all things, of his father’s place of work. The building contained millions of books on shelves that reached right up to the ceiling’s rafters. Exploring its aisles, he imagined each volume, with its collection of ideas, represented a world in miniature and that the repository itself was a universe …

  “On a more cheerful note,” she added, “My job here will be finished in a month. The trip home will take at least two weeks — I’ll be transferring twice, on Mars and Deimos — but in six weeks time we’ll be together.

  I can’t wait —”

  Her face dissolved and reassembled, like a pond whose surface has been broken by a pebble.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “The interference is increasing. I’d better say goodbye before the signal disappears. By the way, the disruption will be bad for awhile, so I might not call for the next three weeks. Take care, both of you. I love you with all —”

  The hologram ended before she finished her sentence.

  Felix glanced outside the living-room window. It afforded him a view of the city’s downtown region, with its mile-high skyscrapers whose totalium finish reflected the afternoon light. Strange to say, he was reminded of the ruins in the Roman Forum. Decrepit piles of brick and marble, the temples, basilicas, and pockmarked arches had at one time convinced each ancient Roman that his empire and wealth would endure forever. And now? The city’s aqueducts, roads, religion, buildings, and poems were long forgotten.

  “You are frowning. If the sun is bothering you, I can tint the window.”

  “That’s okay, Mentor. I’m enjoying the view.”

  “It is very fine.”

  “Populations think their ways will last forever. But I bet these buildings will vanish one day, like the Parthenon, the pyramids, or the Coliseum.”

  “A totalium structure should last eight hundred and sixty-two years on average.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I’m saying we don’t care about the people before us. A hundred years from now, who’ll remember we existed?”

  “Forgive me, Felix. I have not been programmed to address such feelings.”

  “Never mind. It’s my mother’s message. They always turn me inside out.”

  “You should sit outside until your father arrives. The tranquility will you do good.”

  “That’s a fine idea, Mentor. I’ll follow your suggestion.”

  Retrieving the Life of Crassus, Felix approached a door, which Mentor swiftly opened. Outside was a spiral staircase that led into a well-trimmed garden. As he stared into the greenery below, Felix was thinking that he’d lied to Mentor. His mother’s call didn’t bother him so much as the collapse of those two people that day. His instincts told him something odd was going on.

  Still, he had his lesson to think of. Descending the stairs, he put his worries aside and pretended he was entering the distant past.

  Crassus was standing in the thick of his army, forty thousand men, all told. They were in Assyria, in an empty plain, with the nearest source of water some ten miles distant. A small Parthian army crowned the hills before him. An hour ago their ranks had been thicker and their archers had fired constant volleys of arrows, pinning every Roman down and preventing battle at close quarters. Finally his son had led a cavalry charge and, in true Roman fashion, beaten the enemy back. Proud of his son’s manliness, Crassus was awaiting his return.

  “We should leave,” his legate Cassius advised. “Before the enemy regroups.”

  “I told you already,” Crassus growled, “when Publius returns, we’ll proceed to Carrhae.”

  “Where is he? He should have been back. If we don’t leave soon …”

  “We stay until he’s here!” Crassus thundered. “If not for his charge, we’d be riddled with arrows and …”

  A reverberation of drums interrupted — the Parthian way of sounding an attack. On the hill before them a blinding flash shone forth and a cloud of dust filled most of the sky: waves of Parthians marched into sight, archers in front, cataphracts behind, their heavy armour impervious to spear and gladius.

  “We should have left,” Cassius muttered.

  “Where’s my son?” Crassus clamoured. “And where are my horsemen?”

  As if in answer, the cataphracts raised their pikes on high. On each was fixed the head of a Roman. And there, on the tallest pike … Crassus would have groaned had his thirst allowed: staring back at him, his eyes fearfully wide in death, was the severed head of his beloved boy.

  As Crassus hid his face, the Parthians closed in for the kill …

  “Felix!”

  Seated beneath an apple tree, Felix raised his eyes from the Life of Crassus and watched his father slowly draw near. Dressed in a black Zacron suit — his taste in clothes was very old-fashioned — Mr. Taylor projected an air of formality yet was clearly pleased to be in the garden. The abundance of green was such a treat for his eyes, the grass, the shrubs, the two fruit trees, both of which were starting to blossom. A wall of bushes was broken here and there to accommodate flowers or the bust of a thinker. And along the garden’s boundaries was a high brick wall that blocked out everything except the sky’s expanse and the meandering clouds.

  With its vegetation and simple fixtures, it was hard to believe this sanctuary was perched on a terrace fifteen stories above street level.

  “Vale fili mi.”

  “Vale pater.”

  These greetings exchanged, Felix eyed his father and was surprised to see how tired he looked. Instead of standing wit
h his impeccably straight posture, his shoulders were stooped and his neck drooped slightly, as if his head were too much of a burden to carry. And his eyes were ringed and lacked their usual lustre.

  “Are you okay?” Felix asked with a note of concern, “You look tired.”

  “I am tired, but there’s work to do.”

  “You saw mom’s hologram? She’ll be home in six weeks.”

  “Yes I saw it. It’s wonderful news.”

  “What’s that?” Felix asked, pointing to a book his dad was carrying. It was small and bound in bright blue leather.

  “It’s nothing really,” his father said vaguely. “A work of history, that’s all.”

  “By whom?”

  “Sextus Pullius Aceticus.”

  “Aceticus? The vinegary one? I’ve never heard of him.”

  “He’s not well known,” his father agreed. “And this edition in my pocket is particularly rare. Still, he’s … interesting.”

  “What period does he cover?”

  “We’ll discuss it later,” Mr. Taylor said dismissively. “Let’s start and read about Spartacus’s struggle. His story is why I assigned the Life of Crassus. Over the last few days this era has come to obsess me.”

  “Okay,” Felix agreed. While his dad took a seat, he selected the right chapter and translated from the Latin into Common Speak.

  He read how Spartacus had been a gladiator in the town of Capua. His owner Batiatus had treated his slaves badly, confining them and beating them often. Spartacus and others were determined to escape. Using a mix of kitchen utensils, they stormed their guards, fled the school, and armed themselves with swords and spears before venturing due south. When the praetor Clodius led three thousand troops against them, Spartacus and his companions crushed this army, gained a cache of weapons for themselves, and attracted many more slaves to their cause.

  “The Romans don’t come off well,” Felix said.

  “They most certainly don’t,” his father agreed.

  “They had slaves and encouraged gladiatorial games ….”

  “They have their better aspects, too. It’s strange how civilization can contain such savage elements.”

  Felix continued. A second Roman army arrived — it consisted of six thousand soldiers — and Spartacus promptly routed it, too. By this time twenty thousand slaves had joined him. Aware he couldn’t beat the Romans forever, he led his troops as far as the Alps and advised them to leave Italy and return to their homelands. They refused, preferring to plunder instead. As they roamed the countryside and attracted more slaves, they killed Rome’s soldiers by the tens of thousands.

  “There’s so much death,” Felix lamented.

  “It isn’t pretty,” his father sighed, “But it’s important to know the truth about ourselves. If we want to grasp humanity in all its dimensions, we have to see ourselves as we are, and not as we would like ourselves to be.”

  “I suppose,” Felix said, with a lack of conviction. “I’m just glad I haven’t experienced this bloodshed for myself.”

  He read how a fourth Roman army was mustered, a huge one under the command of Crassus. The slaves marched to the toe of Italy where they planned to hire boats and sail to Sicily. Unfortunately, these ships failed to appear and Crassus boxed them in with a wall that was eight feet tall and twelve miles long. Heavy fighting followed. While the slaves smashed the wall and forced their way north, thirty thousand souls were lost in the process. In a final battle by the Silarus River, Spartacus took a gamble and charged the Roman army: the odds were stacked against him, however, and the Romans cut his troops to pieces. The gladiator himself died in combat. The surviving slaves, six thousand men, were crucified by Crassus along the Appian Way, as a warning to all slaves that their attempts to revolt would be ruthlessly dealt with. And so ended the famous slave rebellion.

  Felix paused. He was going to ask his father what he thought of Spartacus but, as he looked up from his book, his mouth dropped open. His father was … sleeping! What on earth …? Through all their many lessons together, not once had his father nodded off on the job. In fact, when Felix himself had been tempted to nap, how many times had he been told that their lessons were too precious to waste a single moment snoozing?

  Felix blushed. His father was snoring. Closing his book, he climbed to his feet and tiptoed toward the start of the garden. His initial impulse had been to wake his father, but his face was pale and he looked exhausted and it seemed a good idea to let him sleep until supper.

  He retreated to the staircase. As he climbed its steps, he thought about the people who had collapsed that day and how their prostrate forms resembled his father’s. Not that he was worried: if his father were sick, Mentor would have caught it.

  A loud, raucous cawing broke in on his thoughts. Spinning about, he looked around him. What was that racket …? Oh!

  A crow had alighted on the tree’s top branch. Its plumage was black as pitch and its beak looked sharp and menacing. Felix was amazed. Crows were rarely seen in the city — they had left when humans had started controlling the weather.

  But there was something else. For a moment, he thought the air about his father had split in half, revealing a figure who looked … exactly like himself. He shook himself vigorously: no, the apparition was gone.

  But the crow was still there. As if aware of Felix’s stare, it perched itself beside his father. “Aagh, aagh, aagh,” it cried, as if addressing him directly. A shiver ran down Felix’s spine. The crow was poised to his father’s right: according to Roman traditions, a sighting like this was a terrible sign.

  “Go away!” Felix yelled.

  “Aagh, aagh, aagh!” the crow continued.

  “Go away!” he repeated, “Leave my father alone!”

  “Aagh, aagh, aagh!” the crow called, more insistently than ever. Abandoning the bough, he alighted on his dad’s right shoulder. And still his father continued to sleep.

  This was more than Felix could bear. Hurrying down the staircase, he rushed toward the tree. Observing his approach, the crow finally took wing. It circled the tree and cawed once or twice, as if deliberately insulting Felix further … unless it was warning him of trouble ahead. Tracing one last circle, the bird shot into the sky and, seconds later, was a point in the distance.

  Although he didn’t believe in ghosts or superstitions, Felix had to concentrate to keep his legs from shaking.

  Chapter Three

  When Felix awoke the next morning, his nervousness was gone. He’d slept like a log, it was beautiful outside, and the headlines on the news communicator spoke of sports, off-world projects, and upgrades to the weather template. There was no mention of people collapsing at random and that meant yesterday’s crisis had passed. He would have joked with Mentor had they not been studying physics together.

  “Explain the importance of Johann Clavius.”

  “He discovered the unified field equation in 2165.”

  “Good. What else?”

  “By using principles of hyper-spatial geometry, he proved three particles exist that can travel faster than the speed of light.”

  “And what does this imply, theoretically, at least?”

  “If these particles have the same magnetic spin, and are aligned along a certain vector path, their time coefficient can be transposed.”

  “And?”

  “Theoretically, they would vanish into the past.”

  “And the equation for this process is …?”

  “I … I … can’t remember.”

  “Review it as you travel to Rome. And speaking of Rome, you have five minutes and fifteen seconds to catch the 8:36 shuttle.”

  Felix rose from the table and walked by a scanner, being sure to expose his teeth to its rays. Grabbing a copy of Virgil’s Aeneid — whose contents he was trying to learn by heart — he approached the door to his father’s bedroom.

  “I’m off!” he announced.

  “Are you visiting the Forum?” his father asked.

 
“I think I’ll tour the Domus Aurea. But my shuttle’s leaving. I’ll see you later this afternoon. Dad? Did you hear me?”

  “Yes,” his father spoke. “Have a great day, fili mi.”

  “You, too. Bye.”

  A minute later, Felix was exiting his building. He chuckled. His shuttle was leaving in ninety-three seconds yet he would catch it because there was hardly any lineup at the Portal. Was this his lucky day?

  At Central Depot he was in such a rush that there wasn’t time to take in his surroundings. It was only when he’d clambered on board that he noticed the craft was strangely empty. Normally the aisles were packed with commuters, to the point where the auto-steward would have to guide him to a seat, whereas today less than half the g-pods were full. Was there a public holiday or something?

  Unless ….

  Before his thoughts could sour, Stephen Gowan waved him over. He was sitting at the front of the craft and the pod across from him happened to be vacant. Did he want to apologize for his brusqueness yesterday?

  “Hello!” Felix greeted him, seating himself.

  “It feels … busy,” Stephen said, with a look of confusion.

  “Busy?” Felix laughed, mistaking his intention, “How can you say that when the shuttle’s half empty?”

  “Is it cold in here?” Stephen asked. His hands were shaking slightly.

  “It feels normal to me.”

  He was going to ask Stephen where he worked in Rome, but his g-pod’s membrane closed and the floor vibrated — signs the shuttle had left its moorings. Activating an external monitor, he watched as a tractor beam steered them from the depot and lifted them above the downtown district. He glanced into the offices that drifted past.

  “Felix,” Stephen gasped over his pod’s speaker, “Have you undergone ERR?”

  “No. When the time came to decide, I opted out at my father’s suggestion.”

  “So … you know fear?”

  “Well, I experience it from time to time. You must remember it, too, from when you were young.” He was gazing at the monitor still. The shuttle had floated past a line of windows yet he’d glimpsed a total of fifteen people. Where was everybody? And instead of accelerating, the shuttle was braking.