“Yeah.”
“Where’s the beer?”
“Bottom right. Get me one.”
She handed him a can, got one for herself, and rustled in the foil package for another pork chop. “We never have leftovers at my house.”
“You got to cook it first.”
Della wiped her fingers on a dish towel. “Don’t you want to know what the connection is?”
Mel walked into the kitchen and helped himself to a beer. “What connection?” He took a large swallow and belched discreetly into the top of his fist. “What you eating, Della?”
She handed him a pork chop.
He bit into the edge and looked thoughtful. “These are good. You grill these, David?”
“What connection?” David said.
Della smiled. “Health care.”
“Same doctor?”
“No. Nothing that direct. Some of them—about sixty-five percent—have the same insurance carrier.”
“It’s got to be one of three anyway,” Mel said.
“S’why we didn’t pick up on it right away. Taking under consideration the trends of this city, Americana Health should have about forty-seven percent of them. It has sixty-five. Did a little thinking, and the thing is, Americana does a lot of government business. And they give price breaks to your family. Immediate and otherwise. And guess what I found out.”
“What?”
“A lot of the victims have a relative on a government project. A cousin, nephew—something like that. None of them immediate, all of them secondary.”
“Any particular project?”
“Project Horizon.”
David looked at Mel.
“Boys, I see that pulls your chain.” Della opened the refrigerator, leaving greasy fingerprints on the door. David got up and wiped them away with the dish towel. Mel crowded close to Della and they both stared into the refrigerator. David wasn’t about to tell them where the girls kept their stash of candy bars.
Della shook her head. “You eat too healthy, Silver.” She swung the refrigerator door, and Mel jerked his head out of the way. “Got to go home to my boys.” She paused in the doorway. “I want to know, Silver. When your wife hears a noise in the middle of the night. She ask you to go see?”
“No.”
“No. I guess she don’t.”
David curled his lip and Mel handed him a beer. It had been at the back of the refrigerator and it was ice-cold. David took a large swallow.
Mel sat beside him at the table.
“How’s your leg?” David asked.
“It’s bitchy. Too close to my crotch for comfort.”
David swallowed beer. “You been in the hospital too long, Mel.”
“Yeah. What you thinking, there, David? You got a mean look.”
“Women.”
“Oh yeah. Them.”
“Why are women so violent, Mel?”
“Just Rose.”
“No. It’s all of them. You should have seen my girls, pelting this pervert with stuffed animals.” David laughed suddenly, sputtering beer on the wall. “You know Rose believes in reinstating the death penalty?”
“Lots of people do, David.”
“Even my mother.”
“She believe in the death penalty?”
“No. But look at how she kills herself. Hammers in a hook, strings up a rope … I mean, she probably went down to a hardware store, bought all this stuff, and then went right home and hung herself. No second thoughts. No agonizing. So goddamn direct. One minute, baking in the kitchen. The next, hanging from a rope. I just don’t understand the mind-set.”
“A shame about Machete Man, David, but we’ll get it figured. It’s connected somehow—Machete Man and this Project Horizon. Halliday won’t shut us off.”
“I don’t care what he does, I’m not letting go of this.”
“Me neither. Not after what they did to Dyer. Not to mention here.”
“Damn straight.”
Mel got up and found two more cans of beer. “So,” David. Tell me.”
“Huh?”
“What about Machete Man, really? Was it self-defense, or did Rose just off this guy?”
David belched.
“I knew it,” Mel said.
THIRTY-TWO
David’s bladder woke him. His neck was stiff and sore from sleeping hunched over in the easy chair. Mel was asleep on the couch, a beer can clutched in his hand. David stood up and stretched. He ran a hand over his face. Almost a beard. Maybe he wouldn’t shave.
He showered and put on clean jeans and a T-shirt, moving quietly around the room to get his clothes. The girls, looking like a pile of exhausted kittens, were asleep in the middle of the bed.
He heard the crackle of gravel in the drive and he went out front.
Rose was asleep on the porch swing, nestled so deep in a blanket he could barely see the top of her head. They ought to have talked. He wiggled his toes. The sun was high; it was late. The warmth of the plank porch felt good on his bare feet.
The car stopped a hundred feet from the house. It was a maroon and silver Audi, and it had the Elaki adaptation. David shaded his eyes. The car door swung up and an Elaki flowed out into the yard. It was a handsome Elaki, one he’d never seen. The color was vivid—the trim coal-black, and the front deep pink. The side pouches were loose and pronounced, so the Elaki was a female who’d borne children. She was taller than average and her eye prongs curved gracefully at the top. Reflections glanced off her scales, like sunlight on water.
David waited for her to come to the porch. The Elaki did not move.
He headed across the drive, rocks and tufts of dirt hurting the soles of his feet. Unlike Rose, he rarely went barefoot. The Elaki acknowledged him with a ripple spreading from fringe to waist. David stopped in front of the car, feeling the warmth of the engine radiating through the hood.
“You are the David Silver?”
“Yes.”
“I come to you from the Solver of Puzzles.”
“Sheesha?”
The Elaki jerked.
“How is he?” David asked.
“He is … here.” The Elaki held up a small leather case.
For a short moment David was sure that the case contained Puzzle’s ashes. Ridiculous. Cremation was a human burial custom.
“You have a message?” David asked. An ant crawled over his big toe and he bent down to scratch.
“A message? Yes, it is that.” The Elaki handed him the case. “Have you received a probe before?”
David looked blank.
“My apology. Question stupid. Please accept me to advise. It can only use once, then it is gone. So very important, the lasting impression.”
David scratched the back of his head. “Who are you?”
“One Sheesha trusted. It is most frowned for, this probe. Like your suicide.”
“What are you talking about? Look, maybe I better talk to Puzzle.”
“You cannot do that. He is here. This is all. You must understand this.”
David leaned against the car. He had a bad feeling and he kept his hands off the leather case.
“Please, take.” The Elaki touched his arm.
“What is it?”
“You must not refuse.” The Elaki began to sway from side to side. “The sacrifice is most extreme, David Silver.”
“Look, take it easy, friend. Friend of Puzzle.”
“Yes. Trusted friend. I cannot fail the final request.”
“Puzzle’s dying, isn’t he?”
“Sheesha dead, now dead.” The Elaki swayed again, back and forth, and David reached out a hand and steadied her. “Understand, David Silver. The existence of mind only was not to satisfy Sheesha. That was all to be left after explosion.”
“I knew he was bad. But he—”
“Nothing but mental left for Sheesha. You were in it, the explosion?”
“Yes.”
“They put you together most well. I salute.”
“Is Puzzle dead?”
“But yes.”
“He … killed himself?”
“He had … things for you to know. And he knew he did not have your trust. He felt you thought there was … there was … dirt on him?”
“Dirty.”
“He was, not. But he felt no hope, so he sends you the rhythm of his life.” The Elaki rippled, and handed David the leather case.
“I don’t understand this.” David took the case and folded his arms. “Tell me.”
“We have done much of the brain analysis. Each cell is mapped. To do this, it is necessary to remove the cell after mapping. In order to get to the next one. Very crude, I know this.”
David leaned back against the car, feeling the skin on his back tighten and twitch. “He didn’t do it.”
“Oh yes. Very much he did.”
“And his brains are in this bag!”
“No, please. A recording of his thoughts—his beliefs, experience. His rhythm.”
“My God.”
“Yes. It is understood that you have that here.” The Elaki unzipped the bag, and held it under David’s nose. David sniffed, smelling leather and lime.
“No, not smell. See. Look.”
David saw two small black cylinders, connected by wire to a metal plate.
“The microchips are on the plate. Too small to see. Turn please.” The touch on the back of David’s head was soft, tickly. “Put probe here, and here.”
The sun was harsh in David’s eyes, and he turned back to face the Elaki.
“There are small needles. They will grow into your head. There is no pain. Pinprick, no more. It will be like a dream. Like a video story—a format chosen by Puzzle for most understanding by the human. You must not be interrupted, David Silver. It will play only once, then it is lost, except for what you remember.”
“I have a good memory.”
“Yes, but you are human, which will be problems.”
“A stupid hot dog?”
“No, you misinterpret. The human mind has different reference points than the Elaki mind. Your brain will interpret the data immediately, according to what you already know. It will slant the viewpoint. So you will get Sheesha’s rhythm, but mixed with some of your own.”
“And you … you’re sure he’s dead?”
“Oh, most yes.” The Elaki swayed again. “The analysis stripped the cells and destroyed them. Sheesha is gone. Sheesha will always be gone.”
“A message from the dead.”
The Elaki was still for a long moment. “Wear it well, David Silver.”
THIRTY-THREE
The garden was a mess. The tomatoes had grown out and around their cages, snarling across the bed in evident pursuit of the squash. The paths between the beds had disappeared under a tangle of vines and weeds. The leaves on the vines were dry and full of holes—too many insects, too little water.
David had gone back to the house for his running shoes. Everyone had still been asleep, except Rose, who had pretended to be.
David followed the track across the field. They were getting the occasional cool day now, but this wasn’t one of them. The grass was coarse and knee high. Pale yellow butterflies swooped and dipped in front of him, trembling near his fingertips, then drifting away. The ground rose and slanted to the left. He passed under a tree, savoring the shade, but did not slow his pace.
An old barn sagged at the edge of the tree line, marking the end of his property. The barn was grey and weathered. A clump of dead trees loomed over the side.
David pulled the double door open. The hinges creaked, and sunlight spilled into the blackness. The window near the roof gaped open, and dust jittered in the light that filtered through the cracks in the wood.
David shivered. It was cool inside, almost cold. The smell of dried tobacco was still strong, though the barn was almost empty, and he felt a rush of despair he did not understand. An ancient piece of harness hung in one corner. David rubbed his finger across the old leather. He walked across the hard-packed dirt, kicking the clumps of desiccated straw.
He went to the back of the barn and sat, leaning against the rough wood planks. His fingers shook as he unzipped the leather pouch. He studied the probes that were supposed to “grow” into his head. Was he crazy to go along with this?
Crazy or not, he would take the probe, or anything else that was necessary, to get into the mind of a key player.
Three short, slender needles were clumped at the end of each probe. David took a deep breath and positioned the ends on the back of his head, where he remembered the light spidery touch of the Elaki. His skin popped where the needles went in, feeling like the tines of a TB test.
Warmth coursed through the back of his head and suddenly there was sound, light, an explosion of sensation. He knew he was breathing too hard, too fast, and he wanted to open his eyes. He felt tinier, and tinier—big, then small; big, then small.
His head jerked from side to side, and he felt the itchy roughness of straw on his cheek.
“Please,” he heard a voice. His voice. “Please.”
His heartbeat steadied and his breath slowed. All right, he thought. I’m okay. He closed his eyes, feeling peaceful.
ONCE UPON A TIME.
I, Sheesha, came of small litter—only three pouchmates, two taken early in the Gleen epidemic.
Mother-One was small, determined—phenomenally intelligent. Secretly delighted with the unconventional, probing, questioning of self, Sheesha. She did not penalize because I found distasteful the retreat into self. Benevolent she was, wary of trouble.
And there was trouble.
Elders were ever fascinating, full of strange full wisdoms that did not then ring true to me. But I loved their opinions, and their persons. They were flattered by the interest, but also frustrated by my viewpoints, and my inability and disinclination to withdraw into the mental states that give true perspective.
I was, by the elder ones, encouraged to become laiku.
Mother-One put an end to such suggestions, telling me that such a vocation is achieved solely by decision of self. But she did not hide her opinion that my self-satisfaction—and intense frustration—would lie in that direction.
I lived on the knife edge of sanction. Not cho, of course. But I was often fined and many times required to perform social caretaking services. I took such sanctions as a gift, using the opportunities to observe other Elaki. This pleased the sanction committee, who tailored my sanctions carefully, and felt the pleasure of events coming full circle.
Catal, an elder herself, did not like me, or the care the other elders used in issuing my sanctions. She found my curiosity impertinent, and my distaste for submerging in self foreboding. She predicted a troubled adolescence, when such inclinations would become intense.
And indeed, when I reached the changing, these tendencies were strong.
I felt left out by my inability to connect to self. It created in me a need for companionship not shared by other Elaki, a need they did not understand.
Mother-One often explained that the mental connections, the synapses required to connect with self, were lacking in me. She apologized for this, but did not accept the explanation as excuse for trouble.
And trouble came.
For I could not believe that this hunger of mine, this loneliness, was so very idiosyncratic. This need made the elders too uncomfortable for it not to exist in others.
So I investigated, interviewing pouchmates and peers, challenging the solace of self. And of course, chronicling the actions of elders. It was this that caused the trouble—violating the privacy of elders. This, coupled with my conclusions and interferences, provoked the elders to new levels of anger.
Which meant to me that I had something valid to pursue.
Led by Catal, the sanction committee decided to exile me from my home. I was sent to contemplate. Instead, I sought Mother-One.
I found her in the bog, deep in meditation. She went there often for self-argument, m
yself the problem more often than not.
Her internal arguments, I later learned, raged heatedly.
Had she given me too many liberties and thus not the discipline necessary to connect with self? Or, perhaps, had the upbringing been too rigid? With less squelching of natural instincts, might I find my own, albeit unique, way to connect with self? Was the problem too strong (or weak?) a connection to the pouchling, crippling him with too much (too little?) care?
I stood nearby, afraid to disturb. She had been there for many hours, poised on the soft pudding dirt, careful not to sink into the abyss. She had been deep in thought when the sky had swelled with final brightness, drifting from grey to black. She had ignored the clammy humidity, and the chill quiet before dawn.
But she noticed me—the only Elaki who would interrupt her obvious need for privacy, and the only Elaki likely to be in enough trouble to warrant the intrusion.
It was difficult for me to begin the explanation. She waited with patience, discreetly rippling in vain attempt to excise the stiffness beneath her scales.
She knew already of my trouble.
But for her the night had served. Faults in nurturing were unavoidable; looking backward useless. And so she advised me.
She knew also that the sanction was tempered with the requirement that I spend the exile at university—an exception made for early study, for a promising if uncomfortable student. She helped me see past the panic to the joy of semiprotected and broadening environment of university.
I did not then know of her fears of an environment that would provide no restraints on my dangerous antisociety tendencies. Or of her fear to let me go, heightened by the conviction that without her influence, I would not learn crucial restraint.
I did not know how often she thought back to me as an uninhibited pouchling, stomach rippling at interesting thoughts and sounds, an abandoned shining child. And how she remembered pleasure and pain from knowing the shine could not last.
Or that she looked at me, there in the bog, committing as a measure of course the socially unthinkable, and knew that I was that rare creature, a lonely Elaki. But I remember that a sudden sharp wind ruffled our scales, and chilled us.
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