On My Way to Paradise

by David Farland

  Behind the thicket of plum was a trail bordered by lush grass. And the gentleman was upon that trail heading into a pine forest, too far away for me to hail. I followed, fearing to go into the dark forest after him. But I did press on into the forest, along an unused path overgrown with moss. I called to him and my voice fell dead among the pine needles. My feet crunched over twigs, breaking them as if they were small bones. The path was misty, and several times I thought I’d lost it. Yet I gave chase, twice glimpsing his gray back in the distance.

  I came to a clearing where there was a small white house with papaya trees and orchids in the yard. It was my home in Panamá, and behind the house the whistle of a maglev sounded as it rushed over the tracks that crossed Lake Gatun. It was beautiful, and it felt so good to be home.

  I walked up to my house, opened the door, and smelled the familiar scents of home. I looked on the floor where Arish had died, and there were no bloodstains, no sign of his existence . Yet a great disquiet filled me at the sight of the spot, a great emptiness. I heard voices, the young girl Tatiana laughing in amusement—and I saw Tamara at the top of the stairs sitting straight and beautiful at the table, gazing in rapture at the partially concealed form of the old man who had his back turned.

  I shouted, "You there, señor! I beg your pardon!" Tamara gasped at me in horror as I bounded up the stairs, muddying the handrails with my dirty hands. Tanana also sat at the table, and she lurched back in her chair to escape. The old Angelo turned to face me, and his eyes were alive and fierce. He was angered to see me.

  "Get away, you vicious dog!" he shouted.

  "Why must you pursue me?"

  I fell back, stunned by his wrath. I looked around at the shocked faces of my friends. I didn’t know what to answer. I pulled a revolver from my pocket and fired into his face.

  Chapter 29

  When I woke, the rain had stopped and the skies were clear as far as the eye could see. Garzón’s spy balloons had climbed far into the sky. We took it easy. Garzón wanted us relaxed when we met the Yabajin, and just as important he didn’t want us to get too far from Kimai no Ji. He wanted the Yabajin to believe we were like vultures, simply waiting for the Yabajin to fight with Motoki’s samurai while we hoped to clean up the last of them after the battle. He didn’t want them to realize we’d attack Hotoke no Za—not until they’d come so far that they wouldn’t have the fuel to return home.

  Perfecto watched me most of the morning, giving me evil glances; I kept expecting him to speak. Mavro went to visit friends and Zavala and Abriara went to wash in the stream, leaving Perfecto and me alone.

  "Angelo," he said, "I saw you speaking with Abriara last night." His face revealed a barely controlled rage, and 1 wondered momentarily if he was angry because I’d spent time with Abriara. I’d seen something of this in his eyes when he’d found Abriara helping me dress.

  Did he have designs on her himself? I wondered.

  He continued, "And several nights ago you went for a walk with her instead of coming to the baths with me. So I must ask you: who is your favorite person?"

  He was jealous of Abriara. With his heightened territorialism I should have seen it coming. "You are my favorite male friend," I said. "Abriara may be my favorite female friend."

  He stared at the ground in shame. He knew he could never have the kind of relationship with me that Abriara might have. I wondered if all bonded chimeras became so jealous. Would they end up fighting for my attention? And I also realized something else—Abriara and Perfecto had both been seeking my affection ever since I woke from the cryotanks. Both had sought to advise me, to counsel me, to meet my emotional and physical needs. They were both struggling to become my confidant, my best friend.

  "Then, if you marry Abriara," Perfecto said, "may I live next door to you? May I come help do your gardening once in a while, or just come to talk and drink beers?"

  "You will always be welcome in my home," I said. "You are my best friend."

  Perfecto considered a moment. "Good, so long as you know I am, your best amigo!"

  Abriara came walking up from the stream a few minutes later. Perfecto hailed her by shouting, "Abriara! I am Angelo’s best amigo and you are his best amiga!"

  After my experiences with the strange animals the night before, I couldn’t imagine staying on this planet for the rest of my life. Garzón had promised that even if we beat the Yabajin, we’d never return to Earth. I couldn’t imagine this. I was afraid I’d forget what Earth was like. I remembered the ease r d felt in my dream of Panamá, the way my mind was refreshed by the familiar comforts of home. Yet, I’d lost myself at home. I’d left my compassion there on the floor when r d killed Arish. And I wondered if I returned to my home in Panamá, would I find myself there? I wanted more than anything to build a new world in my dream monitor, an illusion of Panamá as it had been when I left.

  Late in the morning I took my monitor and walked to Garzón’s camp. I didn’t hear or see any dangerous animals, though many times I heard rustling in the brush as small creatures the size of guinea pigs foraged among rotting leaves. At Garzón’s camp they’d built a roaring fire, and a good two hundred men sat around it and joked. The cold seemed to be dissipating, but the fire still felt good. Tamara sat near Garzón, the only person wearing battle armor while slumped in a wheelchair. Garzón never let her out of his sight. One could almost imagine an invisible leash five meters long attached to Tamara’s neck with Garzón holding the end. I knew Garzón wouldn’t like me to speak to her privately, but he seemed distracted.

  Garzón was intently telling a funny story about a man who went to a restaurant in Mexico once a week after the bullfights so he could eat the huevos fritos de guey, the testicles, from the bull. This went on for several weeks, and the man was well satisfied, but one day the waiter brought his plate, and instead of the huge testicles he so much relished, the plate had only small testicles the size of walnuts. The man asked the waiter, "Every week after the bullfight you bring me large, fresh, delicious huevos the size of oranges! Why do you bring these little things now?" And the waiter answered, "But señor, the bull, he does not always lose the fight!"

  This joke was received with such applause Garzón immediately launched into a story about the secret police in Peru. People clung to every word. Seeing my chance I bent near Garzón’s ear, held out my monitor, and asked, "General, I’d like to reconstruct a dream world of my home in Panamá, and wondered if I might get Tamara to help?"

  Garzón nodded and waved me away, happy to be rid of the distraction.

  I went to Tamara’s wheelchair and pulled her back from the fire explaining, "I’d like you to build a world for me: my little home in Panamá," then switched the monitor to interactive, plugged a jack into the base of her helmet, and jacked myself in.

  Tamara was already at work building Panamá, riding the back of her giant bull as she stared at empty spaces, and entire buildings sprung into existence. I felt a thrill of hope and anticipation. This would work. This would work. . This world would make me better.

  But it wasn’t the Panamá I remembered. She’d started on Lake Gatun and had put the southern shore so near that the maglev rails crossing the lake were practically in my backyard. My house was correctly proportioned but the houses of my neighbors, though elaborate in detail, were not correct in design. They were the houses of strangers. Yet she did much good work and this gave me hope. She urged her bull forward and walked through my yard, putting sky, land, insects, and birds all in place, and. made the air heavy and humid with a slight tang of sea breeze while billowy white clouds floated lazily overhead, casting shadows on the lake. Details that would have taken me weeks took her only minutes, and I let her build a world for me while I watched to see what I’d have to change.

  When she was finished she asked, "Is there anything else?"

  I sauntered around the yard. She’d made it perfectly, the palms and irises in place, dark papaya seeds on the grass where the fruit bats had spilled them the nigh
t before. I walked in my house and found the carpet in the doorway worn just as I remembered, and my stereo in the kitchen was still tuned to the proper channel. There were minor problems, mostly’ tiny omissions, but I opened my refrigerator and found my favorite brand of beer inside, opened a can and it foamed out over my hand; it tasted wonderful.

  I looked around the dreamworld, and I couldn’t have asked for a better job. I could fix it all with just a little work.

  But something was wrong, something I couldn’t fix. I still felt hollow, like a stranger who didn’t belong in this house. The ache was in me. I remembered the man in my dream, accusing me with his words. The thing I searched for was the man I’d been. I walked back out onto the porch, where Tamara still sat, mounted on her bull.

  "It isn’t enough," I said.

  "What more do you want?" Tamara asked.

  "I have always dreamed of living life with passion. With zest. Somehow, I’ve lost that. You’ve sometimes made me feel things inside. You did a thing I’ve never seen done by a professional dreamer: you seemed to stimulate my hypothalamus, stimulate emotions, directly instead of relying on the context of the world to arouse emotions. You made me feel that passion."

  Tamara nodded. "Normal dreamers aren’t allowed to use such equipment. It’s too dangerous. I sometimes need it for my job."

  "I wanted you to make this little house so I’d feel the way I felt in Panamá. I want to feel in love with the world."

  "In love with life," she corrected.

  "Yes. That is what I want." And the desire burned in me. I craved that feeling, had craved it since the day I’d left Earth.

  Tamara shook her head, and her eyes were soft, thoughtful. "I’d help you if I could, but four days ago you wanted to die inside. You don’t know what you want." She was right. I felt that I was balancing on a narrow rope, unsure which way to fall. "And even if I did what you ask, even if I commanded the monitor to stimulate your emotions directly, it wouldn’t change you. You could remain hooked up to the monitor all night, but when you took it off you’d still feel empty and dead inside. I showed you that vision only to let you see what you were leaving behind. You ... you’ll have to find your own way."

  I looked in her eyes and saw a wonderful thing: she was lying. When she said I’d have to find my own way, she’d lied. "You’re lying to me! You know more than you say. You believe you can help me, but you are not willing to admit as much! What could you be thinking?"

  Tamara stared at the ground and considered. "No. I cannot help you," she said. "Take your monitor and go help yourself."

  That afternoon I took my monitor into the woods, sat with my back against a rock, and jacked into the world Tamara had created. Many minor details needed correcting.

  I began with my house, a simple white house. I put in the plaster cracking from the walls at the foundation, a few chips in the red tiles on the roof. I began designing it exactly as I remembered, creating a perfect record so I’d never forget. The homes of my neighbors, the howling of the monkeys on the south side of the lake, the sights and smells and sounds of the feria, all these I’d create over the next few days. And when I finished, I’d have a world where I could spend a day in my booth in the feria peddling my medicines. Everything would be as it had been.

  I was acutely aware that this could have still been mine if I hadn’t killed Arish. Tamara could have spilled her secrets to the guerrillas; I had been insane to kill Arish.

  I was decorating the mantelpiece in my den, recreating the vases and lace doilies I’d inherited from my mother, when Perfecto jacked in beside me.

  He watched me. "I was worried about you. You look so, so-preoccupied, pensive. I thought you might be afraid of our upcoming battle. "

  "Not really. The Yabajin don’t have a chance in the open. We’ll just cut them down. Hotoke no Za will be the hard one. I don’t know how to beat their remote defenses."

  Perfecto nodded. After a time he said, "This must be your house. A fine house."

  I showed him the house and yard, explained my plans.

  I indicated where I’d make the feria. He nodded, smiled sadly, and said, "I suppose that’s all right. I guess it’s not too crazy."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "It’s just that—are you sure you’re not planning to escape into the past the way all old people do? I can imagine you just sitting here every day sucking images from these crystals while your body wears down."

  "No! I swear to you, that is not what I plan!" I shouted. I felt stunned by the image he portrayed of me.

  Perfecto licked his lips, put his hand on my shoulder, and then jacked out.

  I looked around the rooms, tried to remember it all, drink it all in.

  I let the illusion collapse as I jacked out. I left the monitor there in the woods.

  Chapter 30

  Early the next morning Garzón’s zeppelins full of tools sped north away from the coming battle; our space shuttle full of men and cybertanks left for Hotoke no Za; and we took the hovercrafts out on the river toward Hotoke no Za and the approaching Yabajin. The river made a fine road that could carry a hundred hovercrafts abreast.

  We left at full throttle and in an hour passed mountains that would have taken weeks to negotiate if we’d gone cross-country. The pine forests gave way to vast savannahs where robin-egg-blue grasses sprouted leaves of feather. River dragons thirty meters long sunned themselves on the sandy shoals of the river and flowed into the water like snakes when we approached.

  A child may see an animal or plant yet not perceive its existence. Only after several years may he learn to distinguish between a daisy and dandelion. In the same way I was a child in my perception. When I say I saw a field of grass with feathers for leaves, I describe only what I perceived on the surface. I simplify in order to describe, yet the simple description is inaccurate. For there were other plants—strings of dark ultraviolet tape, grasses shaped like tiny pines, rope vines with incredibly thick bulbous roots. Yet the mind can’t discover all these shapes at once. Just as one doesn’t perceive the myriad variety of weeds in a wheat field and doesn’t perceive the insects that play among the field, my mind couldn’t individualize the things I saw. I couldn’t individualize the opal birds or see how many species there were. My mind revolted at the task. My eyes ached and a splitting pain filled my head when I tried to catalog the diversity of animals and plants. Often I didn’t know what I saw.

  On the river we once came upon hairy round creatures like coconuts with tails and no sign of head nor feet. The tails spasmed insanely, pushing the creatures over the water like tadpoles. I imagined them to be like muskrats back on Earth, and jacked in a call to Fernando Chin; he said it wasn’t an animal at all, only a seed pod with a tail to propel itself to a spot where the acidity level would allow it to grow. A few minutes later I saw creatures shaped like wheels with spines rolling along the river bottom. I asked Chin what type of plant or animal they were, and he said they were just sections of endoskeleton from some animal.

  The sense of alienness was compounded by the many whistles and clicks that came from animals in the underbrush, and by the lavender cast to the sky, and by the bands of opal kites twisting like rivers across that sky, and by Baker’s moons that shot over the horizon twice a day.

  Because of the pain these new perceptions gave me, my eyes automatically riveted on familiar things—the occasional grove of willow or oak along the riverbank, the back of Abriara’s suit, the shape of the hovercraft before me.

  In another three hours we passed a second set of mountains, very steep. Because of the high level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the rains on Baker were more acid than those on Earth, and one could see the effect of this acidity engraved in the old rocks. The cliffs were marvelously chewed away. Nature had sculpted a thousand hideous faces—old men with sunken eyes and bulbous noses, twisted monstrous limbs. Many weathered stones were hundreds of meters high, like hunched giants.

  Twice we had to skirt waterfal
ls. The river narrowed considerably, and the spray raised by hovercrafts in front drenched us. The river had eroded a deep canyon, and when we made it past the mountains we came up out of the lip of a canyon to a desert plateau where alien ferns sprouted from cement trunks like barnacles. Many of Baker’s plants have developed defenses to the high winds, and one common defense is the ability for leaves to withdraw into sheaths in the trunks. These ferns had this ability, and because the wind was gusting, the plants were constantly withdrawing and then tentatively folding back out.

  On the horizon was an endless desert of red dust. In the far distance great red clouds swirled in the air, and because of the heat dancing on the desert floor I saw a line of fire across the horizon. Our trip had been very quiet, since none of us spoke through our helmet mikes, but suddenly Garzón shouted through our helmets, "Muchachos, you see the enemy before you! Now you will fight the Yabajin! Now is your chance for great deeds! Set your helmet mikes to channels A, B, and C, and let your sergeant give you your subchannels. Fight bravely!"

  Then the truth of it struck me—the line of fire on the horizon was heat warmed by engines from the Yabajin hovercrafts, and the dust drifting like fire-lit smoke was blown by their passage.

  Chapter 31

  I switched open the channels on my helmet mike and the voices of the hundred men in our squadron fill my helmet with shouts of "Yiiii—hiiii, they come! They come!" and our squadron leader ordered us to form a triangle at the north end of the group and assigned numbers to each sergeant so they’d know where to place themselves in formation. At the same time Abriara shouted for me to take my armor repair kit from my pocket and set it someplace convenient, and I began fumbling through the compartments of my armor looking for the things I needed and set the repair kit in front of me, then checked my flechette to be sure it was loaded and the safety was off and I turned on the targeting laser on my rifle and I could see the air shimmer in front of the rifle and knew right where the center of my spread would hit and was convinced I could shoot from the hip. I opened a box filled with clips full of ammunition, then looked straight ahead and waited.