Futures Past

by Gardner Dozois

  Then we heard the call numbers and the voice out of the storm, telling us that some vessel called the Argive was in trouble, two aboard, and could the Coast Guard help? And I wondered how the radio had switched itself over to the marine band, but it was Uncle Jacques's radio so I guess it might have done anything. They gave their location as right off Gamboa Rock, and I felt sick then.

  See it out there? That's Gamboa Rock. See the way the water kind of boils around it, even on a nice summer day like this, and that little black line of shelf trailing out from it? It used to be a ship-killer, and a man-killer too, and we all knew the Argive wasn't ever going to see any Coast Guard rescue, if that was where she was. Not in weather like that.

  And in the next big flash of lightning we could see the poor damned thing through the windows, looked like somebody's yacht, rearing on the black water and fighting for sea room. I only saw her for a split second, but I could paint her to this hour the way she looked, almost on her beam-end with her sail flapping. Then the dark swallowed up everything again. There was just a tiny little pinprick light we could still see for a while.

  The voice on the radio was high and scared and there wasn't any Coast Guard answering, and pretty soon they began begging anybody to help them. They must have been able to see our light, I guess. It would have broken your heart to have to sit there and listen, the way they were asking for lifeboats and lines, which we didn't have. We couldn't have got to them anyway.

  Lanark had lurched to his feet and was staring out into the storm, and I guess he was thinking how he could have made a try of it in the Sada if she hadn't been rotting up on sawhorses ever since he'd lost his arm. Miss Harlan had put her fingers in her ears and was rocking back and forth, and I didn't blame her; she didn't take death too well. I was crying myself, and so was Aunty Irina, wringing her hands, and she was staring up at Uncle Jacques with a pleading look in her eyes but his face was set like stone, and he was just shaking his head. They murmured back and forth in what I guessed was their language, until he said, "You know we can't, Rinka."

  He sat her down and put his arms around her to keep her there. Lanark and I took a couple of lanterns and went out into the street, but the wind nearly knocked us over and there was nothing to see out there anyway, not now. We got as far as the path down the cliff before another burst of lightning showed us the sea coming white up the stairs, and the old platform that had been below torn away with bits of it bobbing in the surge, and the spray jumping high. I think Lanark would still have tried to go down, but I pulled him away and the fool paid attention for once in his life. Coming back I near broke my leg, stepping in a hole where a plank was gone out of the sidewalk. We were gasping and staggering like we'd swum a mile by the time we got back up on the porch here.

  It was lovely warm in the bar, but the voice on the radio had stopped. All that was coming through the ether now was a kind of regular beat of static, pop-pop, pop-pop like that, just a quiet little death knell.

  I said, "We all need a drink," and poured out glasses of applejack on the house, because that was the only thing on earth I could do. Miss Harlan and Lanark came and got theirs quick enough, and he backed up to the stove to warm himself. Uncle Jacques let go of Aunty Irina and stood, only to have her reel upright and slap him hard in the face.

  He rocked back on his heels. Miss Harlan was beside her right away, she said, "Oh, please don't—it's too awful—" and Aunty Irina fell back in her chair crying.

  She said she was sorry, but she couldn't bear sitting there and doing nothing again, when somebody might have been saved. Lanark and I were in a hurry to tell her that nobody could have done anything, that we couldn't even get down into the cove because the stairs were washed out, so she mustn't feel too bad. Uncle Jacques brought her a glass, but she pushed it away and tried to get hold of herself. Looking up at us as though to explain, she said, "We had a child, once"

  Uncle Jacques said, "Rinka, easy," but she went on:

  "Adopted. My baby Jimmy. We had him for eighteen years. He wanted to enlist. We thought, well, the war's almost over, let him play soldier if he wants to. He'll be safe. There wasn't any record—but we didn't think about the Spanish influenza. He caught it in boot camp in San Diego. Never even got on the troop carrier. They had him all laid out in his uniform by the time we got there … Only eighteen."

  Real quiet, Uncle Jacques said, "There was nothing we could have done;' as though it was something he'd repeated a hundred times, and she snapped back:

  "We should never have let him go! Not with that event shadow—" And she started crying again, crying and cursing. Miss Harlan offered her a handkerchief and got her to drink some of her drink, and when she was a little calmer led her off to the ladies' lavatory upstairs to powder her nose. They took one of the kerosene lanterns to find their way, because it was pitch black beyond the bar threshold. A fresh squall beat against the windows, sounding like thrown gravel.

  Uncle Jacques dropped down heavy in his seat, and gulped his drink and what was left of Aunty Irina's. Lanark drank too, but he was staring at Uncle Jacques with a bewildered expression on his face. Finally Lanark said, "Your kid died during the war? But … how old are you?"

  And I thought, oh, hell, because you couldn't trust Lanark with a secret when he drank; that was why we'd never told him the truth about Uncle Jacques and Aunty Irina. Uncle Jacques and I looked at each other and then he cleared his throat and said:

  "Irina was talking out of her head. It was her kid brother died in boot camp. We did adopt a baby once, but he died of diphtheria. She went a little crazy over it, Lanark. Most times you wouldn't know, but tonight—"

  "Oh," said Lanark, and I could see the wheels turning in his head as he decided that was why Uncle Jacques and Aunty Irina lived up there alone on Gamboa Ridge, and never had visitors or went up to the city for anything.

  I said, "Have another drink, Tom," and that worked like it always did, he came right away and let me fill his glass up. It never took much to get that man to stop thinking, poor thing. Just as well too.

  We turned the radio off and I had another drink myself, I was feeling so low, and Lanark drank a bit more and then said we ought to go out at first light to see if there were any bodies washed up at least, so we could bury them Christian until one of us could ride up to the Point Piedras light and have them pass the word to the Coast Guard about the wreck. Uncle Jacques roused himself from his gloom enough to say we'd need to notify the Coast Guard even if we didn't find bodies, so at least the historical record would be correct.

  That was about when I saw the face outside.

  I am not a screaming woman. I saw enough God-awful things in this town when it was alive to harden me up. You get some hideous accidents in a sawmill, which I'm sure those folks who eat lunch there now it's a shopping arcade would rather not know about, and a redwood log that jumps the side of the flume doesn't leave much of anybody who gets in its way. Then there's the dead hereabouts, that hooker somebody killed in Room 17 who still cries, or poor Billy Molera who used to come up from the sea and go round and round Miss Harlan's cottage at night, moaning for love of her, and leave a trail of seaweed and sand in her garden come morning. You get used to things.

  But it did give me a turn, the white face out there beyond the glass, just glimpsed for a second with its black eyeholes and black gaping mouth. Where I was, perched up on my stool behind the bar, I had a good look at it, though neither Lanark nor Uncle Jacques could have seen the thing. I didn't make a sound, just slopped my drink a little.

  Uncle Jacques looked up at me sharply. He said, "What's scared you?"

  I wasn't going to say, but then we heard it coming up the steps.

  Two, three steps from the street onto the porch, it must have crossed right here where I'm sitting now, and pushed that door open, that I hadn't bolted at night in ten years. Lanark lifted his head, just noticing it when the blast of cold air came in, and even he heard the floor creaking as it took the ten steps across the dark
lobby. Then it was standing in the doorway of the bar, looking in at us.

  Its wet clothes were half-shredded away. Water ran down from it onto the floor and it was white as a corpse, all right, except for the red and purple places, like crushed blackberries, where it must have been pounded on the rocks. It had taken a terrible beating. Its mouth was torn, jaw hanging open. But even while I was staring at it I saw the bruises swirling under the skin and fading, the wounds closing up. It lifted its white hand and closed its mouth; reset the jaw with a click, and the split cheek knit up into a red line that faded too.

  Lanark gave a kind of strangled howl, not very loud, and I thought he might be having a heart attack. I thought I might be having one myself. The thing smiled at Uncle Jacques, who right then looked every year of his real age. He didn't smile back.

  It pushed its wet hair from its face and it said, "I don't appreciate having to go through all this, you know."

  Well, surprise. He had a live person's voice, in fact he sounded cultured, like that Back East guy who used to narrate those newsreels. Uncle Jacques didn't say anything in reply and the stranger went on to say:

  "I really thought you'd come out to me. What a hole this is! The Company still hasn't a clue where you've gone; but then, they haven't got our resources."

  That was when I knew what he was, and I'd a whole lot rather it'd been some reproachful ghost from the Argive, come to punish us for not trying to save him. Lightning flashed bright in the street, and if it had shown me a whole legion of drowned ghosts standing out there, I'd have yelled for them to come in and help us.

  Uncle Jacques had slumped down in his seat, but his eyes were clear and hard as he studied the stranger. He said, "Are you from Budu?" and the stranger said:

  "Of course:'

  Then Uncle Jacques said, "I'll surrender to Budu and nobody else. You go back and tell him that. Nobody else! I want answers from him."

  The stranger smiled at that and stepped down into the room. As he came into the lamplight he looked more alive, less pale. He said, "I don't think you're in any position to call the tune, Lavalle. You know what he thinks of deserters. I can't blame you for being afraid of him, but I really think you ought to cut your losses and come quietly now. The fool mortal wrecked my boat; perhaps one of these has an automobile we can appropriate?"

  Uncle Jacques shook his head, and the man said, "Too bad. We'll just have to walk out then"

  "You don't understand," said Uncle Jacques, "I'm not surrendering to you. I'm giving you a message to deliver. If Budu won't come to me, tell me where he is and I'll go straight to him. Where is he, Arion?"

  The man he called Arion grinned and shrugged. He said, "All right; you've caught me in a lie. The truth is, we don't know where the old man's got to. He's dropped out of sight. Labienus has been holding the rebellion together. Wouldn't you really rather surrender to him? He's quite a bit more understanding. I'd even call him tolerant, compared to old Budu, who as you know never forgave doubters and weaklings …"

  Then Uncle Jacques demanded to know how long this person called Budu had been missing, and when Arion hemmed and hawed he cut him off short with another question, which was: "He was gone before the war, wasn't he?"

  And Arion said, "Probably."

  Uncle Jacques showed his teeth and said, "I knew it. I knew he'd never have given that order! Who was that behind the wheel of the archduke's car, Arion? Was that Labienus's man? The epidemic, was that Labienus too?"

  His voice was louder than thunder, making the walls rattle; Lanark and I had to clutch at our ears, it hurt so. Arion had stopped smiling at him. He said, like you'd order a dog, "Control yourself! Did you really think history could be changed? Labienus simply arranged it so that things fell out to our advantage. Isn't that what the Company's always done? And be glad he developed that virus! Can you imagine how badly the mortals would be faring right now, if those twenty-two million hadn't died of influenza first? Think of all those extra mouths to be fed in the bread lines."

  Uncle Jacques said, "But innocents died," and Arion just laughed scornfully and said:

  "None of them are innocent."

  I swear, Uncle Jacques's eyes were like two coals. He said, "My son died in that epidemic:' and Arlon said:

  "Your pet mortal died. They do die. Get over it. Look at you, hiding out here on the edge of nowhere! Labienus is willing to overlook your defection. He'll offer you a much better deal than the Company might, I assure you. Unless you'd like to be deactivated? Is that what you'd prefer, to crawl back on your knees to all-merciful Zeus for oblivion?"

  Uncle Jacques just told him to get out.

  But Arlon said, "Don't be stupid! He knows where you are. What am I going to have to do before you'll see reason?"

  He looked at Lanark, who was just sitting there gaping, and then over at me. I wanted to dive behind the bar, but I knew the shotgun wouldn't stop him. Uncle Jacques said, "You're going to kill them anyway"

  Arlon sighed. He said, "You chose to hide behind them, Lavalle. But you can save them unnecessary suffering, you see? I'm tired, I'm cold, we've got a long walk ahead of us and I want that mortal's coat. Don't make me wait any longer than I have to, or I'll pull off his remaining arm. Let's go, shall we?"

  I guess that was when Uncle Jacques took his chance. I couldn't see, because they were both suddenly moving so fast they were only blurs in the air, but things began to smash, and I threw myself down on the floor and just prayed to Jesus.

  They don't fight like us. You would think, being the creatures that they are, that they'd shoot lightning at each other, or fight with flaming swords, but it sounded more like a couple of animals snarling and struggling. Once when the fight got too close to me, I saw the wall panel next to my head just burst outward in splinters, and a second later there was four long gashes there, like a bear had clawed it. You can still see it, down near the floor, where we filled it in with wood putty later.

  I don't know how long it lasted. Suddenly it got a whole lot louder, as something crashed straight down through the ceiling and there was a new voice screaming, shrill as a banshee. Right after that there was a wet-sounding thud and then it was quiet.

  You can bet I was cautious as I got up and peered over the bar. There was Uncle Jacques, sitting up supported by Aunty Irina kneeling beside him, and he had his hand up to his face and it looked like one of his eyes was gone. She was still snarling at Arion, who lay on the floor with his throat slashed open, and she had got a crowbar from somewhere and run it through his chest, too. There was blood everywhere.

  Lanark was still where he'd been sitting, wide-eyed and white-faced. I heard footsteps above and looked up to see Miss Harlan peering down through the hole in the ceiling, and by the light of the kerosene lantern she was pretty pale too. God only knows what I looked like, but my hair had come half down and was full of dust and splinters.

  I collected myself enough to say, "That's one of those people you're hiding from," to Aunty Irina. She looked up, I guess startled at the sound of a human voice, and after a moment she said yes, it was.

  I found a clean rag and brought it for Uncle Jacques, who pressed it to his eye and thanked me. He got unsteadily to his feet, and I saw his coat was about half ripped off his back, just hanging in ribbons. The skin underneath seemed to be healing, though. The edges of his cuts were running together like melting wax.

  I said, "At least you got the bastard," and Aunty Irina shook her head grimly. She said:

  "He's just in fugue," and I looked at Arion and saw that the wound in his throat was already closing up. Aunty Irina made a disgusted noise. She drew a knife from her boot and cut his jugular again. It only bled a little this time, I guess because he didn't have a lot of blood come back to flow yet.

  I asked, "What happens now?" and Uncle Jacques said hoarsely:

  "We'll have to run again." He looked around at the mess of the bar and added, "I'm sorry"

  Lanark began to cry then, that dry hacking men cry with, and I kn
ew he'd been scared clean out of his mind. Aunty

  Irina went over to him and took his face in both her hands and kissed him, a deep kiss like they were lovers, and then she stared into his eyes and talked to him quietly. He began to blink and look confused.

  Uncle Jacques meanwhile crouched with a groan and took Anion by the feet, starting to drag him backwards toward the door.

  Aunty Irina turned quickly and said, "Leave that. You just sit and repair your eye"

  He said, "Okay," and sat down, breathing pretty hard. They feel pain as much as we do, you see.

  What happened was that we had to do it, me and Aunty Irina, and as we were dragging the body out through the lobby Miss Harlan came down with the lantern and helped us. Every so often as we took him up the road to the sawmill, he'd start moving a little, and we'd have to stop while Aunty Irina cut him again. The wind almost blew out the lantern and the rain soaked us through. Still, we got him up there at last.

  We found a couple of old rusty saws in an office, and they didn't work real well, but Aunty Irina showed us how to do it so he'd come apart in a couple of places. She explained how nothing could kill him, but the more damage we did, the longer it'd be before he could piece himself together to come after her and Uncle Jacques. So we did a lot to him. It was hard work, just three women there working by one kerosene lantern, and the rain coming through the roof the whole time in steady streams.

  You don't think women could do something like that? You don't know the things we have to do, sometimes. And knowing the kind of creature he was made it easier.

  Most of him we dropped down a pit, and used the old crane to send a couple of redwood logs after him, and I reckon they weighed a couple of tons apiece. I'm not telling you where we put the rest of him.