Arlene sat down and stared at the controls. “I don’t know how to turn it on,” she admitted. Tokughavita reached over her shoulder and flipped the switch.
I noticed that when he did, he snuck a glance down her cleavage. Somehow, that made me feel better. No matter what weirdo hybrid of communism and capitalism they had developed, they were still, by God, human beings.
“What frequency does this broadcast on?” I asked.
“All,” Tokughavita said.
“All right, which frequencies, plural?”
“All,” he repeated. I finally got the message that he had set it to transmit on all possible frequencies . . . though I couldn’t understand how that was possible.
“Arlene to Tabernacle,” she said. “Arlene calling Tabernacle. Come in, Tabernacle.”
A voice responded instantly. “Tabernacle here . . . but how do I know you’re really Arlene?” It sounded so damned familiar that for a moment I didn’t even recognize it. Then our video monitor went to snow, and a moment later, a face appeared. It was a face I knew very, very well—it was her face.
“Jill!” I screamed.
“Hello, person who looks like Fly Taggart,” Jill said. “I’m not really Jill—I’m an AI program that Jill Lovelace set up. Who are you? And who are those pair of gorillas you brought with you?”
I glanced behind, honestly confused who she meant. So that’s how familiarity breeds contentment! Or does it breed? “Jill, meet Sears and Roebuck—don’t ask which is which, they won’t understand you.” The Magilla Gorillas simply nodded gravely, impatient for the ground.
Her little blond girl’s face simpered a bit, as kids do when you introduce them to a new relative and they’re trying to be polite and grown up, but in reality they haven’t a clue why they should care who the new person is. “They’re a Klave pair—”
“Man! Really? Cool!” It took me a moment to realize she was being slightly sarcastic. “Love your store, guys. Now, if you don’t mind, who the heck are you two, too?”
“What the hell do you mean, who are we?” Arlene demanded. “We’re Sergeant Fly Taggart and Lance Corporal Arlene Sanders, United States Marine Corps!”
“Prove it.”
Arlene and I looked at each other. “How can we freaking prove we’re really Fly and Arlene?” I asked.
Jill’s image smiled. “What’s the password?”
I sat down again next to Arlene. A smaller television monitor at the console in front of us showed the same image as the for’ard video screen. “Jill,” I said patiently, “we didn’t set up any password with you.”
“But you know it anyways, dudes.”
“We do?”
“It’s something you said to me . . . something only you two would remember.” Jill’s face wasn’t the aged grandmother she must have been when she died; instead, it was the Jill we knew from before—just a year or so ago, from our point of view. Still, I became so terribly homesick, looking at that fifteen-year-old’s face; she was like a little sister or something—a bratty little sister, but still the closest thing to family I had left, besides Arlene. Everyone else I had ever known on Earth was long since dust in the dust.
“When did I say it?”
“You said it the first time you really trusted me. You made me feel totally adult, like a woman. The President of the Council of Twelve always, you know, made me feel like a little girl. . . . He was totally the Bomb, I’m not dissing him! But he always thought of me as a kid.”
I closed my eyes, straining to remember. Her first test by fire came when we took the truck with the teleport pad inside. Something appeared—what was it? “Arlene, remember back on Earth, with Jill and Albert, when we hijacked that truck? What was the monster that teleported into it?”
“Um . . . Jeez, that goes back a ways. Wait—I’ve got it. It was a boney. We killed it, but it shot its rockets and just missed you, Jill, honey.”
The Jill image shuddered. “Yeah, I remember that! And you’re right. . . . That’s when you said the password to me. Remember, Mr. Fly? Remember what you told me after the rockets went on either side of me?”
Damn it all to hell—I didn’t remember! I remembered saying something . . . but what was it? I shook my head sadly.
“Look,” Jill said, “let me cheer you up with a little game. You ever play Charades?” I nodded dumbly, and she continued. “I’ll start: you watch and guess the phrase I’m thinking of.”
The camera pulled back—or the animated image shrank—and we saw a full-body shot of Jill. She held up four fingers. I wasn’t sure what to do, but Arlene said, “Four words.” Then Jill held up one finger, then one again. “First word . . . one syllable.”
Jill frowned like an angry mother and pointed savagely to the side. “Point,” I guessed. “Look, look out!”
“Leave, get out of here,” Arlene suggested.
Jill kept pointing. “Leave, go away, go—”
Jill smiled and pointed at us with both hands. “First word is Go?” I asked. Jill nodded emphatically.
She held up two fingers, then one touching her elbow. “Second word, one syllable.” I was starting to get the hang of the game. Then Jill really threw me for a loop: she slapped her waist, pantomiming drawing a pistol and shooting someone.
“Shoot!” Arlene shouted. “Draw, fire, stick ’em up!”
“Pow, bang—ah—gun, bullet, gunfighter. . . .”
Jill touched her ear. “Sounds like,” Arlene muttered. Then Jill stuck her thumbs into the shoulder holes of her sleeveless shirt. “Shirt?” I guessed, and Jill rolled her eyes.
She touched her ear again, then closed her eyes and smiled blissfully. “Sounds like nap?” Arlene asked. “Sap, map, crap—”
“Sounds like sleep! Weep, heap, teep . . .”
“Teep?” demanded my lance. “What the hell is a teep?”
“It’s where indies sleep,” I griped.
Jill was getting frantic. She finally pointed at her ear, waited a beat, then pointed at herself. Arlene muttered, “Sounds like . . . pest?”
Jill almost yelped with satisfaction, but she kept her mouth shut, just pointing at Arlene. “Pest?” asked my lance. “Go pest? Go pester? Go best?”
Suddenly I jumped to my feet—I remembered! Dramatically, I stabbed a meaty forefinger at our long-dead companion. “Go west, young lady!” I hollered.
The image of Jill moved into extreme close-up on her mouth. “You have spoken the password. You now have infinite power! You may pass, Sahib.”
Blinky’s voice from the back was an anticlimax. “Ah, force field down. Good damn show, that.”
“On to the Tabernacle,” I suggested. “Put her down on that bulby thing, if there’s enough room—that is, if you don’t mind, Blinky.” I really hated this new-jack command and control system.
21
Blinky Abumaha continued to circle the Tabernacle, fearsomely eyeing the bulbous tip. “Ah,” he said, “ah, not sure is—not sure sir is too damn good idea, on the top.”
Arlene and I exchanged a glance back and forth, then we both turned the withering glare on Abumaha. “Can I, Fly?” she asked. I gallantly gestured her forward. “Blinky, don’t take this the wrong way, honey, but—to quote Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove, ‘I’ve been to a world’s fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that’s the stupidest damn thing I ever heard!’ ”
The pilot looked simultaneously relieved and chagrined. “Not serious? Just jolly joke? Oh, terrible fun—ho, ho!” He sounded genuine in the laughter, but seemingly unsure what he was laughing at.
“Just put us down a quarter klick away,” I clarified. “We’ll, um, walk the rest of the way.”
We landed with much ceremony, a celebration that continued well past the first moment Arlene and I and Sears and Roebuck could squirm free. The Klave, having already had their celebration when we made orbit, disdained the party. Thank God. I didn’t think I could take any more of that head-cheese liqueur!
Finally, we wriggled off and m
arched resolutely toward the Tabernacle: Arlene in the lead, pulling us forward like an anxious puppy on a leash; Sears and Roebuck at the tail, looking worlds-weary; and poor Fly Taggart, Lieutenant Fly Taggart, stuck in the middle like the wishbone. From this short distance, less than 250 meters, the building utterly dominated one whole quarter of the sky, looming up so high we couldn’t see the top for the weather—gray, ominous, overcast.
Suddenly, before progressing more than fifty strides from the ship, Sears and Roebuck stopped. “Will we be okay,” they said anxiously.
“Yes, we’re fine,” I reassured them.
“No, no, not to ask! Will we be okay, is calling on the telephone our uncles.”
“Huh?” I scratched my head. They were making even less sense than usual.
Arlene, savagely impatient with her goal in sight, broke into the conversation. “Oh, wake up, Fly! I mean, sir. They’re saying they don’t want to go any farther; they want to call their uncles, probably on the lunar base, to come pick them up and take them home.”
My jaw dropped. “S and R, is that what you’re saying?”
“In ungood typical English of Arlene Sanders is a yes,” they said.
“Sears—Roebuck—are you aware of the fact that it has been about five hundred years since you left the Klave base?”
They grabbed each other’s head and pumped vigorously—frustration at my little-child inability to grasp the obvious. “Yes, yes! Is impatience why uncles wait with much foot-tapping for Sears and Roebuck’s return!”
I shrugged. I know when I’m beat. “So long, boys, can’t say it’s always been a treat, but it’s been real.”
Even Arlene turned her attention away from her true love’s final resting place to smile in farewell. “Don’t take any wooden Fredpills,” she said, thoroughly confusing the Klave.
“Has been it a slice,” said the pair of Magilla Gorillas. Without another word, they turned left and strode off, marching in unison, subvocalizing all the way to each other. They disappeared around a tall ancient-looking column that supported a statue of what looked like Brigham Young, and we never saw Sears and Roebuck again.
We didn’t speak, Arlene and I, the rest of the way to the Tabernacle. There wasn’t much to say. She knew what she hoped to find; I knew she was fooling herself. The building had a gigantic ceremonial door—and by “gigantic,” I don’t mean just huge! Just the door alone was bigger than the entire Tabernacle itself had been, before the Fred nuke. But when we touched it, it swung open swiftly and silently, and musical chimes played us in, sounding like a chorus of angels after our ordeal. I think they played some vocal work by Handel, but I didn’t recognize it.
The interior of the Tabernacle was hollow.
I don’t think you quite got that; the building was more than a kilometer high, and hollow. I felt like we were in the center of a volcanic crater! Inside was a huge city, with many temples and churches and such . . . and in the very center, on a hillock, was an exact duplicate of the original Mormon Tabernacle—probably stone for stone, if it had religious significance. Arlene pointed at the recreation. “There,” she said, deducing the obvious.
We took twenty minutes to cross to the smaller Tabernacle within. Above us, the ceiling of the outer Tabernacle sparkled with jewels that must be worth nothing these days but the intrinsic value of their loveliness; in five hundred years, I would hope we at least would have learned how to manufacture perfect gemstones!
But it was a lovely sight. The People’s Faith of Latter-Day Saints didn’t use just diamonds; they painted gigantic scenes in color using every imaginable stone, from rubies to emeralds to blue sapphires to garnets and, yes, diamonds. It was no longer ostentatious, since anyone could do it—even the beggar in the street—but it was still stunning in its simple beauty.
Taking a last look up at a scene of angels showing the Church Fathers’ Salt Lake City (before it was Salt Lake Grad), I followed Arlene into the inner Tabernacle. So far as I could tell, she hadn’t even looked up at the ceiling.
Inside, the place looked exactly like the original: exactly. I didn’t check, but I’m sure if you made a nineteenth-century stereovision with one picture of the old and the other of the new, they would matte over each other perfectly as one image, but with one difference: the hollow interior of the tribute-Tabernacle was completely empty, except for the magnificent organ—and I’d bet the latter worked perfectly, too.
We walked slowly across the floor, our melancholy footsteps echoing back at us. Arlene bowed her head; I don’t think she was praying. . . . She must have been overwhelmed by the nearness of her love’s life—and death. I almost put my hand on her shoulder, but I wasn’t the guy she wanted just then.
Ahead of us was a dark circle. As we got closer, I realized it was a circular hole in the floor. A hole? When we got to within ten meters, a grinding noise began. By the time we reached it, I realized it was a platform elevator . . . and there was a lone figure standing on it, rising out of the dark depths, waiting for us.
Arlene halted in astonishment. “Jill!” I shouted, rushing forward.
“Whoa, whoa!” Jill said, putting her hands out in a stop motion. “Don’t get your skivvies in a knot, dudes! I’m not really me—I mean, I’m not really here. This is just a 3-D projection, and if you try to hug me, you’ll fly right through me and mess up your knee . . . Fly.”
She looked exactly as she had when we left her, a year and five centuries ago. She was a little taller, maybe, but her hair was still blond, still punky. She had the same half smile and knowing eyes, still no makeup (thank God), and now she wore a bitchin’ black leather jacket, lycra gym shorts that hugged her butt and upper thighs, and transparent plastic combat boots. I stood and stared, and blow me down if you couldn’t have bet me two months’ pay that that was the real Jill, and I’d have taken you up on it.
“Jiminy!” she suddenly yelped, staring at us. “You really are Fly and Arlene!”
“We told you!” snapped the latter-named.
“But I didn’t believe you, even after you passed, you know, the test thing. Now that you’re in here, I just did a genetic sample thing, and like you’re really you!”
The animated image of Jill—just an artificial intelligence program, according to itself—dropped its jaw just like the real Jill would do. She leaned over and planted both hands on her knees to view us from a slightly different angle. “God, how did you live for four hundred and eighty-three years? Oh—relativity! Right?”
Arlene nodded, sniffed, then wiped her nose on her military sleeve. “Jill, I . . . look, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, in case you have any surprises, but—”
The fifteen-year-old stood tall and folded her arms, taking on that slightly superior look that age is prone to. “Don’t worry, Arlene . . . I’m not going to throw an animated Albert at you. I know you wouldn’t appreciate it. But I am here to take you downstairs, where there’s a present for you.” She waited a beat, then when we didn’t move, she impatiently urged us forward with her hands.
We joined her on the platform, which immediately began to sink. I didn’t ask her any questions; I didn’t know what to ask. I decided it could all wait. . . . I was pretty sure we could always come back later and catch up on what she did with her life—and get autographed copies of the books she wrote! If she didn’t save a pair for us, I’d kill her, except she was already long dead and buried, or whatever they did nowadays.
It was a creepy thought, and I stole many a glance at “Jill,” trying not to think that Jill was dead. I felt a big lumpy knot in my stomach, even though I had known all along this would be the punishment for hopping around the universe at proxiluminous speeds. Damn it! I did what I had to do—we both did! Why, in the name of God Almighty, do we have to pay such a terrible price? Everyone we ever knew or loved, besides ourselves, Arlene and I, was dead and gone, long gone!
We descended for about six minutes. The shaft was totally black . . . but at last, we saw a blue glowing door. But
we went right past it without stopping! “First-floor dungeon,” Jill announced out of the blue. “Whips and tortures. Racks, pressings, iron cages, and bats.” She stood in a perfect at-ease posture: feet shoulder-width apart, chest and shoulders squared away, hands clasped behind her back.
Another long interval passed, during which we continued to descend. I put my hand out and felt the walls around the shaft sliding against my fingers. We were moving slowly, not like we were in an elevator in a high-rise, but at a stately pace . . . as befitted a holy place.
Another door hove into view, red this time. “Second-floor dungeon,” Jill recorded. “Iron maidens, thumbscrews, rat cages . . . ladies’ underwear.” Arlene snorted, trying hard to look stern and not smile . . . This was a holy place, after all!
The third floor took the longest. I swear, we rode for twelve minutes in silence, but maybe it was shorter. At last, a simple wooden door rolled up into view—and at last, we stopped. The door opened, showing us a nice comfortable hallway. “Third-floor dungeon,” Jill impressively tolled, “ev—ery—bod—y out!”
Arlene and I stepped through, and I paused, waiting for Jill to join us. She shook her head sadly. “Sorry, Corporal—I mean, Sergeant—”
“Lieutenant,” corrected my ever-so-helpful helpmeet, Arlene.
“Really? Cool! Sorry, Lieutenant, and, um, Lance Corporal . . . all ghosts must stay aboard the elevator. It’s like a rule.”
Smiling sadly, Jill faded away slowly . . . starting at her feet and working her way upward, until at last only the smile remained, then even that vanished. Arlene sighed. “I always did love that book,” she said—another one of her patented, semantic-free comments.
The hallway stretched both directions, but right in front of us, where we couldn’t possibly miss it, was a chalk scrawl. J.L., it read, and there was an arrow pointing left. “Jill Lovelace,” A.S. and I said simultaneously. We followed the arrow.
There were about a hundred twists and turns, doors to pass through. It was a labyrinth there, on the third-floor “dungeon” below the Tabernacle! Mostly offices, but a few looked like labs—a far cry from the tanks and artillery pieces below the original Tabernacle, but then, these were happier, more peaceful times. We’d have been utterly lost without the chalk initials and arrows—and I appreciated the reference to our first mission: that was how I eventually realized Arlene was still alive and how I found her.
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