Armageddon Blues

by Daniel Keys Moran

  Darryl stared at him. "The Bride of Frankenstein?" He looked at Katie for support, then changed his mind and decided to go it alone. "Are we for real here?"

  Johnny sighed. "Look, I'll owe you one, okay?" He cornered onto the block where Ellen lived.

  Darryl sat back in his seat. "Damn straight you owe me one. More than one, actually."

  Johnny pulled over next to the curb, and put the car into park. He left the engine running. "Right, whatever. Back seat, dude." He got out of the car, slamming the door, and ran up to the front porch.

  " 'Back seat, dude.' There is no appreciation here," Darryl said to nobody in particular. He didn't bother to get out. Instead he crawled over the seat-top into the back of the car.

  Johnny was back quickly, with Ellen. He opened the door for her, closed it behind her, and ran around to the driver's side. Inside the car, he put the car into drive and headed for 71 north.

  The conversation inside was tense at first—Darryl didn't much like Ellen, and Ellen found Darryl amusing—but they had all relaxed by the time Darryl was on his third beer, and Johnny was finishing his second. The rain was increasing but Johnny wasn't particularly worried; he'd driven in the rain before without difficulty. He wasn't worrying about his drinking either. It was only his third beer, after all, and he'd just begun it. He'd eaten dinner less than two hours before, and he was hardly buzzed, you know?

  They were heading into the deserted industrial stretch of road on the outskirts of Pomona that led toward Covina. Johnny was pleasantly relaxed. Ellen was leaning against him, a warm and comfortable weight. From the back seat, he could vaguely hear Darryl speaking quietly, and Katie giggling. He had a momentary impression of an indistinct brightness coming from up ahead.

  Rainbows blasted over them.

  Johnny touched the brakes, and the car fishtailed wildly. He let go of the brakes, but the rainbows were intensifying, red and orange and yellow and green…

  He couldn't see. In panic he stomped on the brakes, and the lights were so pretty, you know, blue and purple and it was dark for a long second and suddenly it was red again, red and orange and yellow… The Chevette skidded, hit the guardrail at the side of the road, and flipped. It tumbled end over end. One of the headlights was smashed in the tumble, and the windshield shattered inward. The car flipped one last time, and came to rest upside down in the middle of the street. The horn was blaring crazily and the single headlight was rocking up and down with the movement of the car.

  The rainbows ceased.

  In the comparatively dim beam from the one rocking headlight, standing in the rain, Jalian d'Arsennette held herself fully upright. Her clothing was dissolving in the rain.

  Her skin was the color that Ellen Jamieson might have experienced after a very bad sunburn.

  Her hair was ice-white.

  She tried to take a step forward. She did not remember falling. It was logical that she must have fallen; the pavement struck her hard.

  Ellen Jamieson found herself lying halfway through the windshield, with the water pouring down on her. The shards of the windshield were cutting up into her abdomen. She hardly felt it, hardly felt anything. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the person lying on the freeway, sprawled over the divider line. There was a severed hand a few feet away from her.

  After a while had passed, Ellen did not know how long, the form on the road stirred. It rolled over onto its back. Ellen noted exposed breasts with clinical detachment; it was a woman. After another long pause, the form moved again. With agonizing slowness, it rose to its knees, and then to its feet. The world faded…

  When Ellen became aware again, legs that looked burned were standing in front of her eyes. She could not see above the knees. She felt hands grasping her, and moving her

  She screamed at the top of her lungs and passed out. She never awoke again.

  Jalian moved in a daze. The dying girl before her was dressed in a fashion that Jalian had never imagined the like of. The thing Jalian had pulled her out of resembled a karz more than a little. It had a single glowing light on its left side.

  The remote callback was beeping in her hand. She unclenched the hand that held it, vaguely aware that it hurt her to do so. She dropped it on top of the strange woman.

  She stood, and backed away. Conservation of mass required that the mass that left her time return to it in some form. And the girl was dying to begin with.

  /rest, sister,/ she said, and she was not sure who she was talking to, herself or the girl from the karz. /rest. you have a long journey, and you will not survive it./

  There seemed to be some barely perceptible response from the unconscious form. "in time," she added in a blurred, inaudible mixture of silverspeech and Corvichi v'chak, "in time the journey takes us all."

  The rainbows began again; purple, blue, green, yellow…

  On the other side of the earth divider, something came roaring out of the darkness, moving faster than Jalian had ever seen anything move before—understanding rushed in on her, it was a karz, moving on the Big Road…

  With a sudden disorientation, she realized she was not on the Big Road. This was smaller, there was no divider line in the center, no stumps where poles of some sort had once been… the Big Road had not been built yet, a part of her thought with clear, detached amazement. Something in the karz at her side must have been sensitive to the electromagnetic energies being released by the callback remote, Jalian reasoned later.

  She was walking away from the glowing rainbows, on legs that seemed not a part of her body, watching the karz, and it was moving down the empty, rain-wet road, it was impossible that anything should move so quickly

  The car behind her exploded.

  Standing mere meters away, Jalian had a brief, pleasant impression: she was flying.

  She ceased flying abruptly.

  DATELINE 724 A.B.C.

  Ghess'Rith was asleep when the captains called for him. Like all Corvichi, he slept rarely; it was more an art form than a physical necessity. He allowed his brain to process data randomly without the oversight of his superego, and upon awaking reviewed his dreams to see whether they contained anything of interest. Often they did; as often they did not.

  His current dreaming was going badly; he was as pleased as not when the captains roused his superego from unconsciousness—until he realized where he was.

  His physical self, he knew, was still curled in his feathernest on the planet below them; still his senses insisted that he stood in the Great Ship's Machine of Decision, and he knew that if he was found wanting he would not leave the Machine alive.

  The captains were arrayed about him in a semicircle. They were none of them young enough to retain their minor tentacles; three were beginning to lose their major tentacles.

  Even the glowfloats were closer to purple than blue; the energetic blue light waves tended to cause strain on their delicate traveling eyes.

  The toolbot that was the symbolic representative of the Shipmind was positioned in a niche in the Ship wall just to the right of the raised dais upon which ghess'Rith's senses told him he stood.

  /these be Shipmind conceptualizations, captains' con/

  /these be?/ Ghess'Rith asked apprehensively.

  /of the female person Jalian of the Fires/

  /?/

  The Shipmind spoke in a whisper of information. *These are her gene complexes. Please examine.*

  A bewilderingly complex storm of information whirled through the edges of ghess'Rith's mind; it slowed, stabilized. There was a brief pause as the odd binary-spiral amino acid chain upon which the person genetic code was based was explained to him. Particular molecule patterns were assigned functions and potentials in the binary spirals; and then the genetic pattern that was on store for Jalian d'Arsennette was arrayed for his inspection.

  One of the younger captains said dryly, /the obvious is seen/

  Ghess'Rith whistled in srheman; it was an emotion that Jalian had privately translated as amazement-at-the-p
erversity of-the-universe. In fact her translation was only a crude analog of a sophisticated concept that no person was ever likely to understand. /she survived the entropy timeline/ He considered briefly. /the body that returned to this timeline?/

  *A pre-Catastrophe person,* said the Shipmind. *Radiation analysis, after compensation for sustained radiation damage during negative-entropy timeline exposure, posits a background radiation level for this body far smaller than that of contemporary Silver-Eyes persons. Fire damage makes body identification unlikely for Silver-Eyes.*

  Ghess'Rith wrinkled his lace in comprehension; without genetic analysis, it was not likely the persons would realize the body that was returned to them was not that of their sister. /posit:/ he said, too well aware that his existence depended upon what answer he gave the Shipmind and captains concerning his person protégé, /you have observed probability stress. following conclusion, Jalian of the Fires lives/

  * Probability stress is minimal, but definite. possibility of growth cycle is 6% and running.*

  Ghess'Rith's tentacles curled. /new timelines,/ he said flatly.

  /your person,/ said an eider without inflection, /remarkable, is/

  One of the captains directed a question at ghess'Rith. /three cycles of existence in balance. your actions in responsibility. what action now?/

  Ghess'Rith's responsors and muscles froze. Even his minor tentacles were unmoving. A time change would erase twelve years of their existence; and even for Corvichi that was no small thing. The loss of twelve years, of the persons they had become in that time, was little better than death. He saw it so; kisirien, of course the captains would also. /her exit date?/

  *Pre-Catastrophe. No more is certain.*

  /the time of the Big Roads… other Silver-Eyes, similar gone complexes?/

  *Three children; Ralesh and Morine d'Arsennette.*

  ghess’Rith said decisively, /advise sending Ralesh d'Arsennette after her daughter. what Jalian survived, her other will not allow herself to be killed by/

  There was a brief pause. Ghess'Rith, waiting on the machine of Decision, could not help himself; his tentacles curled in uncertainty.

  One of the captains, ghess'Rith was not sure which one, said, /well reasoned. decision is send Ralesh/

  The Shipmind's whispery data pulse said, *Concerning Jalian of the Fires; her genetic potentials are impressive.* /so?/ Ghess'Rith considered briefly. /ah… knowing Transformation wave front…/

  *could be on way now! Affirmative.*

  "Ralesh," said the alien machine, in a voice that Ralesh was altogether weary of, "we must speak to you of your daughter."

  DATELINE 1969 GREGORIAN.

  Jalian had the feeling they were being followed.

  She knew intellectually it could not be so. The cars that sped by them at distances of less than a meter did not worry her; certainly no follower could be in one of those. It was just as certain that no human of this time could trail her afoot without Jalian being aware of it.

  Still, it bothered her.

  The Pacific Coast Highway hugged the cliffs closely at this point, and the wind was brisk. Even walking along the shoulder of the road, the sound of the waves below, smashing into the cliffs, was all but inaudible. The cliffs rose thirty meters above the rocks. There was no beach as such, simply a jumbled collection of water-cut boulders.

  They were walking north; Jalian wanted to see Oregon. The sun was low, thirty degrees or so above the line where sea met sky. Georges was reminiscing about his involvement with the French Foreign Legion. Jalian wasn't sure if he was telling the truth or not. Despite his long and remarkable life, Georges lied as often as not. She listened with half her attention as Georges rambled on about someone named Beau Geste. After Georges ran down she could ask him more about how peanut butter cookies and chocolate doughnuts were made.

  The sun was a handsbreadth over the horizon when the road widened out. Set about forty meters back on the east side of the freeway, there was a dingy, rundown 7 Eleven. Jalian interrupted Georges in midsentence. "Georges, I'm hungry."

  "Well, aren't you always?" he asked rhetorically. They walked over the dirt parking lot to the 7-Eleven. "Who has money?"

  Jalian chuckled. She found the idea of money tremendously amusing. "You have some right now," she said. "I know because I counted it the last time you were asleep, and I've been doing all the buying since then." She waved a hand at the entrance to the 7-Eleven. "Go buy some food. I'll make a phone call to get some more money."

  "You counted my money?"

  Jalian pushed him to the door. "Go buy food. Don't forget the doughnuts."

  Georges shrugged in resignation. He pushed through the doors, little bells tinkling overhead as he did so. (He remembered Jalian telling him about the first time she'd seen a door with bells set to tinkle when someone entered. She'd laughed herself sick.)

  Through the large glass windows that fronted the store, Georges could see Jalian standing in a phone booth, one of two, at the other end of the parking lot. The door to the phone booth was open. Georges didn't know who she talked to when she needed money. She wouldn't tell him, and he disliked shuffling through the memories he'd taken from her; it took all the fun away.

  The evening attendant, a tall, thin young man with acne and a bulging Adam's apple, nodded cheerfully to Georges. "Good evening, sir."

  Georges nodded agreeably, and continued into the refrigerated section. The machine that refrigerated the drinks and food was running raggedly; as Georges rummaged through the shelves, the sound steadied, and became a smooth hum. "Let's see," he mumbled, "Coke and sandwiches and barbecued potato chips and chocolate doughnuts. The sandwiches were for him; Jalian refused to eat meats. "Cheesecake and almond cookies." Satisfied, he took the pile up to the cash register and laid it out on the counter.

  The attendant wasn't paying attention to him. In the parking lot outside, a pickup truck full of locals was pulling up. Five men in their late teens and early twenties came piling out of the pickup and into the 7-Eleven.

  It was nearly dark outside; the outer fluorescents clicked on, casting bright white around the parking lot. One of the fluorescents, set into the roof that , shielded the sidewalk immediately outside the store, blinked fitfully, as though it were not sure that it wanted to glow.

  Through the window, Georges could see Jalian in the phone booth. She did not appear to be watching the entrance.

  The attendant was standing motionless behind the counter. He seemed to be practicing some form of Zen, under the erroneous impression that if he emptied his mind of all thought, he would vanish from the perceptions of lesser mortals.

  One of the new arrivals, a tall, handsome redhead in faded jeans and a brown plaid shirt, said companionably, "Hey, Charlie! How's it going?"

  The attendant came back to life. He smiled weakly. "Pretty good, Stan. Can I help you?"

  The redhead didn't reply. He was looking at Georges. After a moment of surprise—Georges' eyes were level with his own—he smiled slightly.

  Georges could hear the others, talking loudly in the background. They were discussing the relative merits of the brands of beer on sale.

  Jalian was talking into the dead phone. "The sun was shining on the sea, shining with all his might, he did his very best to make the billows smooth and bright; and this was odd because it was the middle of the night, the moon was shining sulkily because she thought the sun had got no business to be there after the day was done, 'It's very rude of him,' she said…" Leafing through the white pages, she had already located six offices of the Army, Coast Guard, and Air Force. She memorized the addresses, still talking into the phone. " 'Oh, oysters, come and walk with us,' the Walrus did beseech…" In the seven years she had been in this time, she had robbed more soldiers than she could recall. Soldiers were easy. On weekend nights she could get three or four of them, and they always had money.

  Probably there were easier ways to get money, had Jalian bothered to think about it; Jalian doubted there were an
y that she would enjoy more. Even after seven years of getting used to the concept, she still had difficulty with the idea of men with weapons.

  Jalian finished memorizing, and hung up. She glanced into the 7-Eleven again. She decided that it was time to go inside; the men from the truck looked like they might be violent.

  That would be fun.

  Half of the sun had disappeared behind the edge of the horizon. At the limits of Jalian's hearing, as she was walking back to the 7-Eleven, a familiar melody seemed to be playing. She stopped and listened for a second, but there was no sound. It must be her imagination.

  But she could not shake the feeling that she was being watched.

  The redhead was pushing Georges's junk food to the side of the counter when Jalian entered. "You'll forgive me, but you’re obviously not done shopping, and we do have purchases to make," the redhead was saying politely.

  "Uhm, well," said Georges, "actually…"

  The man was not listening. He had turned to look at Jalian. There was an odd expression on his face. "Why… hello," he said slowly. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Stan Mildwood, and these four gentlemen are my friends." He waved a hand at the men standing around them. He grinned suddenly at the attendant. "You know Charlie, of course." Stan leaned over the counter, and clamped one hand down on Charlie's shoulder. "Charlie, would this happen to be one of your many girlfriends?" Stan studied Jalian; Jalian studied him back with cold indifference. "There's something interesting about you," the redhead said conversationally. He took a step closer to Jalian. He stopped because there was blood trickling down his neck from the knife that he found himself walking into.

  It took a moment for the other four to realize what was happening. While the realization was sinking in, Georges pushed his junk back into the center of the counter. He gestured to Charlie. "Would you mind ringing this for me?" Two of the four men—the younger two, probably not out of their teens, one with a strong resemblance to Stan—produced knives, and crouched slightly into proper knife fighting form.