The Transmigration of Souls

by William Barton

  As simple as that. Dark body looming out of shadow, growing large, features on its surface, shiny seas, continents, rivers, tiny white clouds, the larger landscape of Hesperidia hanging behind it. Are there ships on those tiny seas? Tiny ships, with little mariners to sail them?

  Dale would’ve liked that. Would’ve liked imagining a tiny raft, with tiny Haldane upon it, drifting to nowhere with tiny Valetta by his side. Those amazingly stupid scenes he wrote, of Haldane lying atop her, fucking her, while the sun beat down on his back. She’d shaken the book in his face. Do you know what the Hell that’d be like? Image of Valetta with sunburnt thighs, Dorian Haldane with a red-toasted scrotum...

  A shrug. What difference does it make? These are stories.

  Anotar swept close to the limb of the nameless moon and Kincaid felt some immaterial force tugging at her, invisible fingers offering to help her slip over the rail and fall, straight down into a tiny silver sea.

  “What holds them up?” she said.

  Amanda looked at her, puzzled. “What difference does it make? They’re up.”

  All the difference in the world. And yet. They slid under the moon, slid down into the space above the Land of Awful Shadow, and Kincaid felt a hard pang grip her by the heart. Heart of Darkness, indeed. Shadowed crater, like some huge Lunar impact crater. Like that nice oblique view of Tycho I had as we orbited in, heading for the first Moonbase.

  Gloomy purple countryside, vertical cliffs glittering, as if made from silver or gold, as if studded with jewels. And there, a tall, eroded central peak, reaching up almost to the moon, surmounted by... Castle. Castle shrouded in luminescent silver mist. Flicker-flash. A strobe of something like lightening. Amanda called back over her shoulder, “All right. Set her down anywhere.” Squire Edgar, bending to his task, grunting as he hauled on the old-fashioned spoked wheel, ship heeling hard over, sliding toward the ground.

  “The castle,” Edgar murmured, “of Prince Ahriman.”

  “Quest’s end.” said Amanda Grey.

  End? Not just the beginning?

  Kincaid, uneasy, opened her mouth, words of caution rising up, but unspoken. A soft, familiar ache in her bowels. Soldiers, everywhere, across time, dropped from helicopters into an enemy-held LZ. Soldiers spilling out of LSTs into water too deep, too far from an enemy held coast, struggling through stormy surf, while the machine guns went flicker-flash, flicker-flash, and mowed them down.

  o0o

  Watching the ground rise toward them, Ling Erhshan felt the excitement build in his chest. A... tightening sensation, as if I’m nervous. Agitated. It was gloomy here, light of Hesperidia’s noonday sun occluded, leaving a twilight landscape in deep purple shadow. Shadow, he realized, that was about the same shade as the ink you sometimes saw depicting shadow in old comic books.

  The night scenes in Rogues of Sherwood Forest. Remember how blue they made the midnight sky, Robin and Marian riding along...

  Beside him at the rail, Brucie said, “I feel like there ought to be... music or something.”

  A snort of mirth from Tarantellula. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. The theme music from Apocalypse Now?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  Ling said, “Ride of the Valkyries.” First thought: Immortal Americans, living in America, forgetting and forgetting. Second thought: But this man with his ridiculous, monstrous penis lived back then. Lived when all the old things I obsessed over as a child were... new. Strange to look at it that way. Somewhere, perhaps, there still lives a man, a very old man, who was once a boy. Who opened the cover of a new magazine and wondered who this Norman Bean was, writing about life under the moons of Mars.

  Do I envy him that memory? Would he envy me being... here?

  Anotar’s keel-plate grated on the turf, crater walls rising in the distance, sunlight still on them, walls of gold sparkling with a distinct costume-jewelry glitter. I could, Ling thought, imagine there might be new, unknown colors out there somewhere.

  Laing, still holding Jensen’s hand, said, “Why’re we setting down way out here? Why not drive right up to the castle?”

  As if in answer, the mist shrouding the castle sparkled with bright blue lightning, followed by a brief, soft rumble of distant thunder. Amanda said, “The castle defenses are still in order.”

  Kincaid: “So they’ll shoot down a flier, but we can otherwise just... walk right in?”

  Amanda glanced at Edgar, frowning. “Well. Not quite. But we’ll get in.”

  Edgar staring back at her, gaze boring into her eyes. He seems, Ling thought, very unhappy about all this.

  Then, they were assembled on the ground beside the flier, Anotar seeming to relax when relieved of its burden, leaning to one side now, so that a portion of its rounded hull rested on the ground as well. Like those pictures of beached sailboats you see. It looks abandoned.

  Kincaid and Amanda stood together again, side by side, looking almost like different colored twins, the American with a slim pair of high-tech binoculars, machinery whining faintly as tiny lenses twirled and focused. The Têtonic knight looked through an ornate Victorian sort of spyglass, both of them focused on the distant castle, two women whispering to each other.

  Our leaders. Why them? And what about the rest of us? Shouldn’t Laing stand with them as well, representing her own dimension? What about the Arabs? Well. Colonel Alireza is dead of course. Inbar? Nonsense. No leadership there.

  Inbar standing back by the ship, fairygirl floating in the air in front of his face. He seemed to be smiling, at least.

  Rahman? Standing by herself. Looking at Inbar. And what about me? I only represent myself. Chinese leatherfragments, lying dead on the Moon. If there still is a Moon.

  Tall Tarantellula, standing a meter or so taller than her nearest competitor, suddenly turned, shading white eyes in the contrasty gloom, seeming to peer over the ship. Long pause. “Sergeant?” A painful urgency in the spiderdancer’s voice, and she was letting go of her boyfriend’s hand, unslinging her rifle from one shoulder, working some mechanism or another. Clink-click.

  Kincaid spun, lowering the binoculars, her own eyes a sparkle of unearthly silver. Question written on her face. But looking where Tarantellula looked, not at the woman herself. Curious. She’s already gotten her rifle off her shoulder, in her hands, finger through the trigger guard, metallic sound of a round jacking into the chamber faded, it’s tiny echo gone...

  Amanda Grey’s sword made a razor-on-strop ring coming out of its scabbard, Squire Edgar’s no more than an instant behind, two silver blades shining like bright chrome in the dim light. Ling felt a hard tingle go up his spine, a sense that his hair might be stirring on his head.

  Something I’m supposed to do. Something...

  Tarantellula was reaching out with one huge black hand, shoving Brucie behind her. Over here, Laing and Jensen were standing back to back, each holding some kind of small weapon in hand. Ray guns. They have ray guns.

  Lord Genda Hiroshige with one hand on his lover’s slim arm. Robot Amaterasu turning, turning to face the direction of the parked ship. Plump Omry Inbar standing still, Aarae circling over his head, wings rumbling softly, like a huge, angry wasp.

  Subaïda Rahman standing alone. Standing there empty-handed. Standing there, looking at me.

  Oh. Of course.

  Sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Vibration in the ground now.

  Distant thunder, sound of a million hoofbeats.

  Ling Erhshan reached into the pocket of his nice new Hesperidian jacket, a gray suede leather coat that would have cost a thousand yüan back in Green China, and took out his handgun. Two bullets left in here. Two bullets. Fragmentary memory of holding the gun in both hands, just as if he really were an expert marksman. Holding the gun and killing the dimetrodon which, it turned out, had indeed killed that Arab boy.

  What was his name? Ahmad Zeq. I almost forgot.

  Remember the look on his face as he died?

  B
lind eyes turned to the sky, calling out for his lover.

  Who will I call for when it’s my turn to die?

  No time to answer. No time to wonder why.

  It came over the canted hull of the parked flier like some bright green kangaroo, an indistinct green shape, somehow angular, a tall triangle perhaps, covered with leaves and glittery green scales. Legs like a kangaroo, arms like an elephant’s trunk, long thick tail, like a theropod carnivore’s tail...

  Ling kneeled and fired his little pistol, fired and saw the thing jerk in the air, saw it explode into a thousand green flowers, flowers falling together, spilling together onto the ground, spraying apart in a fine star pattern, rolling, rolling, then still.

  Another one.

  Steadying his arm now, one hand cradling the other, mind remote and cool, heart slow and steady, thud, thud, thud, in his chest. Bang. Another green explosion, another spill of flowers.

  Ling Erhshan lowered his pistol with a sigh, felt his heart begin to speed up, pounding faster and faster.

  Another one. But the gun was empty now.

  And another and another and another.

  Ten. Then fifty. Then a hundred. A multitude of strange green things, bounding over the ship, turning into a green waterfall, a green river boiling over some recalcitrant stone, wearing it away, green things coming round the sides of Anotar now, round the flier’s bow and stern. Green things coming from all directions.

  Ling Erhshan looked down at the empty gun in his hand, and thought, Who will I call out for?

  Squire Edgar stepping forward into an onrushing wall of green flesh, wielding his chrome-bright sword in a flashing figure-eight pattern, metal blade making a dull whooping sound as it spun, stepping forward into the silent horde...

  That sound. The sound a butcher’s blade makes as he cuts meat into bits.

  Green flowers suddenly heaping round Edgar’s booted feet.

  Guns crackling like fireworks. Kincaid and Tarantellula standing side-by-side, M-80s leveled, barrels smoking, green things exploding, turning into flowers, heaps and piles of flowers.

  Jensen and Laing? Little pistols making silent sparks of blue. No flowers there. Green things bursting into flame, melting down like plastic toys.

  Like the toy soldiers we burned when we were children. You’d set them on fire and they’d burn, burn away to nothing, melt away, like the Wicked Witch of the West. Until there was nothing left but a dull green lump, bubbling and smoking on the sidewalk...

  Angry buzz-saw whine. Omry Inbar standing motionless, Aarae whirling round and round, green flowers spraying away in all directions like ejecta from a meteor strike.

  Killing them. Killing them by the tens and hundreds and...

  More of them. More green things spilling over the ship. Green things coming for me...

  Ling Erhshan turned and ran, heading for... The forest! Run to the forest! There’s a hollow tree there somewhere. You can squeeze in at the base. You’re small and thin. The others can defend the door, that’s the way it’s supposed to go.

  And inside the tree, there’ll be a ladder, ladder you can climb, up to a flat-topped branch. The cliffs. The tunnels. Sator Throg. Thuvia, charmer of banths and...

  But, it seemed, he was running in slow motion, running through quicksand, running through tar, the forest never getting any closer, breath strangling in his throat, air sipped in through a gaping mouth, going nowhere, while he drowned in bowel-cramping...

  Shadows looming over him. Terrifying shadows. Shadows making him freeze in one spot, unable to run away.

  Who do I call out for?

  No one.

  No life flashing before my eyes.

  No mother to save me.

  No one to awaken me from this awful dream and hold me close, wipe away my tears, whisper in my ear...

  It’s all right. It’s all right now, orphan boy. It’s...

  Things grabbing him.

  A hard snap of pain as one arm came out of its socket, tendons popping, muscles tearing.

  Teeth!

  Teeth in me!

  Teeth like a surgeon’s knife, slicing flesh.

  A sucking noise as some part of him came loose.

  Smiling green mouth full of mossy green teeth, holding a fine red steak, chewing, chewing...

  Blood running down its throat, dripping down onto it’s chest.

  My blood.

  It’s eating me.

  Eating me!

  Another bite, hard teeth going through soft flesh, opening him up, air rushing in to fill the wound, agony striking hard, bright blood spraying, festive red on green, then fading, fading, fading...

  Ling Erhshan’s world turned blue and went away.

  o0o

  All over now. Windrows of flowers, like drifts of fluffy green snow surrounding the ship, banked against Anotar’s leaning hull, covering the landscape, disguising the carnage they’d made. Omry Inbar thinking, Carnage? Carnage is about meat. These things...

  Still, there was meat here and there.

  Rahman and Kincaid, Amanda Grey and Squire Edgar bending over someone fallen. The sound of a man throwing up, gagging, retching repeatedly, the bubbling sound of his guts coming up. Soft moan of agony. They were stitching Ling Erhshan now, bandaging his wounds. Bandaging what was left of him.

  Trying not to look. Trying. Failing. Big hole in his side, like a shark bite. Like something you saw in a documentary about Indian Ocean divers. Left arm gone from the elbow, ending now in a red and white lump of bandage. That long rip in his thigh, red meat bleeding slowly, white bone visible until they tucked his tissues together and sewed and sewed.

  Ling Erhshan babbling in Chinese, high-pitched, hysterical sounding, singsong words. An agonized grate in English, “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  Someone, Robot Amaterasu, bending low, lovely rump outlined through the material of her clothing, fishing through a pile of bloody green flowers. Picking something up. The chewed remains of his arm. Ling silent. Staring at it. Robot looking back at him, as if measuring...

  You could see Ling’s eyes go out of focus, then roll up white as he fainted.

  Amaterasu tossing the arm aside. Useless. What was she thinking? Rescue the part, in case it could be put back on later? Robot analogies? Maybe not. Who knows what magic they had in America? All over now. Pointless battle. Not even that, for me.

  Magic Aarae spinning round him, tearing the green things apart, spilling all their flowers. Aarae floating in front of him now, just floating on air, wings not moving at all. Dark eyes concerned, looking into his eyes. Looking deep. Are you all right? they seemed to say. She floated close, reached out to put one tiny hand on his face, to touch him softly.

  Laing and Jensen in the background as well, ray guns holstered now, wading through knee-deep flowers, nudging with their booted toes at the lumps of flower plastic they’d melted. Laing and Jensen holding hands again. Genda standing alone, just watching. Looking at Amaterasu, watching her fish through the flowers.

  Had he stood idly by during the battle?

  Yes. Robot Amaterasu a blur of motion, arms and legs turned to gray mist, surrounding him all by herself, defending him. I had time to see that, looking out through my impenetrable pixie wall...

  Over there. Black shape, long, lean, improbably angular black shape lying broken on the ground, white eyes open, featureless as ever, blind now as well, staring up at that impossible moon. Staring upward, as if searching for the sky. Searching for the real sky.

  Small boy shape bending over her, boy face cast down into smallish hands. Bending over her. Silent. Brucie Big-Dick took his hand away from his face, reached out and tried to close Tarantellula’s dead eyes. Tried again. Useless. The lids kept popping back open, white eyes looking upward.

  Staring at her. Staring. Tears tracking slowly down his face.

  Inbar could feel Aarae touching his face again.

  Are you all right?

  Of course I am. Nothing’s happened to me.

  After
a while, Brucie stood, stood looking down on her. Turned away, walked to where the others still worked over motionless Ling. Spoke to Edgar, who stared at him, then pointed to the ship, whispering. Brucie trudged away to the ship, came back a while later with a long-handled shovel. Stood still again. Then started to dig.

  Still crying?

  No. Face expressionless, concentrating on his task, shovel blade making remote wet sounds as it cut through the turf. You must remember, Inbar told himself. This man is almost two hundred years old. At some point, perhaps, everyone he ever knew and loved has died...

  Still, he watched, wondering, while Aarae touched him and whispered to him and comforted him in vain.

  o0o

  Kincaid stood looking down on bandaged, unconscious Ling Erhshan, slowly putting away the components of the first-aid kit. Good enough. Just barely good enough.

  Memory of Ling’s moans and babbling cries. Not prepared. Not prepared for this at all. I wonder if anyone ever is? Faint memory, raw nerves from the distant past, remembered wounds of her own.

  Raving while we treated him, going on and on about the Plant Men of Barsoom, about how John Carter and Tars Tarkas were trapped, battling them in the Valley Dor... he still thought it was all a dream. Thought it was a dream until the teeth began to cut his flesh. Until he began to die.

  Maybe everyone feels that way, until the last split second before death.

  Or maybe they feel that way until dying is complete. All those old stories about near-death phenomena and out-of-body experiences. Just fantasies the brain makes to stave off recognition of its inevitable extinction. But then, we all wonder, What if it’s true? Oh, God, wouldn’t that be... wonderful?

  Well, no. Maybe not.

  Windrows of green flowers around them now, the Plant Men of Barsoom destroyed. Did they have near-death experiences as we exploded them away into petals and leaves?

  Image of a spider’s life flashing before its eyes as the crushing shoe descends.

  Who were they really? Warriors in the Eternal Battle? Angels out of Ahriman’s Hell? Does it matter? Why should the world’s motives be transparent to me?