The Dream Widow

by Stephen Colegrove

  “It’s only for tonight. After the wedding you two can ‘bake bread’ however you want.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mary ignored the question and peered into the bowl of cornmeal dough. “Needs more water.”

  Badger wrinkled her nose and mixed another bowl.

  “I just don’t understand why you like hunting and the outdoors so much,” said Mary.

  Badger wiped a drop of wet cornmeal from the scarred right side of her face. “Why shouldn’t I like it?”

  “I don’t mean anything by it, but girls aren’t usually interested in that. Was it something your tribe taught you?”

  Badger stopped mixing and stared at the wall.

  “I’m sorry,” said Mary. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m getting like a nosy old skunk in my old age.”

  “No, it’s fine,” said Badger. “I was too young for hunting then. I helped my mother in the fields.”

  Mary watched her spin the wooden spoon in the mixture for a few minutes.

  “Are you happy?” she asked.

  “Happy as I’ve ever been,” said Badger.

  “It’s hard to tell sometimes.”

  “I don’t ... do well around people. I don’t know what to say. When I’m alone in the forest or on a mountain I don’t have that problem.”

  “Is that why you joined the hunters?”

  “It was a good a reason as any. Mary, I know I’m not the perfect daughter-in-law. I’m sorry about that.”

  Mary put an arm around Badger and hugged her. “No, dear. There’s nothing to be sorry about. As long as the two of you are happy, don’t worry about me or anyone else.”

  WILSON DROPPED OFF the rest of the venison with his mother and tried to catch a few hours of sleep. He’d normally be moving to Office where most of the partnered couples stayed, but because of the refugees from the destroyed village there was no space. Luckily the rectory had a few unused rooms and Father Reed had given them permission to clean out one. The grey floor and walls still smelled from the scrubbing soap.

  Maybe it was the smell, maybe it was the ceremony the next day, but Wilson couldn’t sleep. He squirmed fitfully under his blankets then finally threw on a jacket and wandered up and out of the underground rectory to the northern part of the village.

  Dark peaks surrounded the long valley and protected Station on all sides like pointy-headed priests bowing heads in the moonlight. Unlike the tribal villages in the wilderness or the buildings from the old days, just about all of Station was underground. Concrete mouths in the earth led down to entrance tunnels guarded by massive steel doors. Wide patches of hemp, corn, beans, and vegetable gardens covered the flat land of the valley. In the north lay a large corral and barn for the sheep and goats.

  Wilson greeted a few guards on his way to the Tombs. He passed a fence and a rusted sign with only one legible word––“Station.” He descended into a tunnel and pressed a code into an old keypad. The concrete below his feet shook as the metal door slowly ground open.

  Inside, crimson light glowed from strips along the walls of a small room. In the center of the floor was a worn metal square edged in yellow and black stripes.

  Wilson ignored the panel and walked to a door on the far side of the room. Nearby was another old keypad and a yellowed board with rows of multicolored tags on tiny hooks. He entered the code Jack had given him and walked down a stairwell that spiraled into the earth.

  Stepping into the black cistern would have been impossible without a special trick. Wilson concentrated and whispered a poem Badger had taught him.

  Eyes made of light

  Eyes made of sun

  Eyes made of moon

  Restore my sight

  The black lightened to dark grey, enough to see the steps. This and the other poems he’d learned over the summer activated the centuries-old technology implanted in each villager at their coming-of-age ceremony.

  At the dusty bottom of the stairwell Wilson opened an unlocked door into a vast cavern, walls lined in multiple levels of ebony caskets. A circle of five overturned fishbowls flickered with light on the smooth floor in the center. Four were dark and covered with dust. One glittered with blue liquid. Inside floated an old man, his limbs blunted by stumps and his body covered in a web of black cables. Yellow pinpoints of light flashed at the base of the dome.

  “Good morning,” said a voice like a can being crushed underfoot.

  “Hello, Jack.”

  “You haven’t come to see me for a while.”

  “Sorry. I’ve been busy this week. Had to teach a bunch of people about the implants.”

  “So why the late night? Nervous about tomorrow?”

  Wilson shook his head. “Jack–”

  “It’s normal. At least, it used to be. I don’t know what normal means these days.”

  “How about you? You were married once, right?”

  Static filled the air and Wilson covered his ears.

  “I was young,” said Jack. “Barely a corporal when the war busted out. Not THE war and not India, but Pakistan. Joanie and I got married right before my unit deployed. We didn’t have time for a ceremony.”

  “The old days. Tell me about them,” said Wilson.

  “We had everything. Travel anywhere on the planet in a few hours. Read, watch, taste, drink whatever you wanted. So many people were alive, so many smart people, but even the ones with brilliant minds were stuck in the past and eager to drive their lives off a cliff like a runaway train. Don’t think I was any different. I joined the army just like the old man, and like his old man before that.”

  “But why fight each other? Why not just live your lives?” asked Wilson.

  “How long is a piece of string? I don’t have the answer. Man hasn’t changed, even three hundred years later. We fight to survive, not just for ourselves but to live better than the other guy. Everyone who climbed into these caskets wanted to survive, too. They would have been better-off aboveground.”

  “You mean the survivors in the bunkers? The founders of Station?”

  “No, the smart ones––the scientists. Some entered the caskets and the rest drove south to New Mexico.”

  “I don’t understand why anyone would leave when everything was falling apart.”

  “A few had families in the south. Only some of the research was here at Altmann, like the implants for astronauts and the hibernation caskets. The operational facility––the actual project––needed lots of open space. I never went there myself.”

  Wilson walked a long circle around the dome.

  “Jack, what happened to my father’s remains––the implants that Reed brought to you?”

  “They’re in storage, reconfigured and waiting for a new host.”

  “Can I see them?”

  “Sure, why not,” said Jack. “Give me a second.”

  Wilson waited in darkness lit only by the aquamarine sparkles from Jack’s dome. After a few minutes a door slid open somewhere high in the cavern. A spider arm hissed down from a wall, a silver tray between the sharp metal hooks. On red, spongy material lay three objects: a narrow cylinder, a sphere the size of a plum, and a small tube. All were yellow-white and covered with faint, delicate lines.

  Wilson brushed his fingers over the implants. “I missed the funeral.”

  “At least you were there at the end,” said Jack. “My old man’s Blackhawk crashed in Kandahar and they kept it secret. He didn’t write or call and I hated him for three whole months until the Hug Squad showed up and said he’d been killed. I thought he didn’t want to talk to me.”

  “My father was shot by tribals,” said Wilson. “It was my fault. He was trying to help me.”

  “Sounds like a bad situation. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. He got killed for a stupid reason. If he’d been more selfish I’d still have a father.”

  “A father who doesn’t help his son isn’t much of one,” said Jack.

  “He wasn’t much of one in the fi
rst place,” said Wilson. He turned and walked toward the stairwell. “I should be getting back.”

  “Don’t leave without your present.”

  Another spider-leg zipped down from the wall and dropped a paper box in Wilson’s hands, navy blue in color and tied with brilliant white ribbon.

  Wilson opened the box. On a white cloth lay two silver bracelets, covered with a faint and complex pattern of etched squares.

  “Congratulations. I made them myself,” said Jack.

  “Really?”

  “No, not really. Does it look like I can even scratch my nose? I’m a freak under glass. It’s funny––the old man always told me to run away and join a circus, and now look at me.”

  “Thanks, Jack.”

  “The bracelets came from an old locker. There’s something really important about them. Something you have to do, or should never do. I think it was never get them wet. I can’t remember.”

  “Okay ...”

  “Sorry. In the old days couples traded rings during a wedding. I thought you might like these anyway.”

  “I do. I’m sure Badger will, too.” Wilson rubbed his eyes and yawned. “I need to get some sleep.”

  “One more thing,” said Jack. “Now that I know you better––”

  “You want a few ladies brought here for your amusement?”

  “No, that would only make it worse,” said Jack. “The thing is ... I’m dying.”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “Three centuries isn’t good enough for this kid. Look at the four other domes around me. Empty. Look at the hundreds of caskets on the walls. Empty or full of dust. None of them made it half as long as me. Everything has worked longer and better than it should have, but the fact is my number is up. Maybe not this week, maybe not this month, but it’s coming. I feel like the nub of pencil in a sharpener, Wilson. I’ve pushed in the eraser and now my finger is being chewed to pieces.”

  “Is there something I can do?”

  “I hate to say it, but everyone should leave the valley. I’m the reason the entire system is still running. When I die the heat, lights, plumbing, and perimeter alarms will die, too. You’ll get a daisy-chained failure loop and the power plant will overheat. With my best guess, that means radioactive gas for a few miles, especially in the bunkers and valley.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “It’s no party for the living,” said Jack.

  “Could someone get inside a glass controller dome? Just to fix things or shut down the reactor?”

  “Why not? But once you’re inside, you can’t get out. Sun tried to leave. She lasted two hours before her heart stopped. That was a mess.”

  “What about other controls? There has to be a backup!”

  “The best laid plans of mice and men––we never expected the world to end. You’re not asking the right person and everyone else is pushing up daisies. The only controls I know are inside my head.”

  Wilson rubbed his forehead. “Can you shut down the reactor?”

  “I hope you know what you’re asking,” said Jack quietly. “But I’ve lived long enough. If it’s the best way to protect everyone, I’ll do it.”

  “That won’t be our first choice, Jack. I promise.”

  “I know, kid, and I’m sorry to drop the bomb now, right before the wedding. But I feel like you and I––we got some trust between us. If anyone can find a way out, it’s you. Hell, you walked all the way to Schriever, got shot and buried alive, and walked back. Most people get the shakes three feet from their doorway.”

  “I’ll be back,” said Wilson.

  “Better sooner than later.”

  AN INSPECTION OF THE fire damage finished more quickly than Darius expected. He followed the Consul and her guards back to the wooden house he called an office.

  The Consul sat on a feather-stuffed chair below a wall covered in old-style paper calendars. Over one shoulder was a picture of a black dog. Over the other was a half-naked girl on a beach.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said.

  Jackets with wide lapels were apparently the fashion in the capital, Darius thought. The Consul had gained weight since he’d seen her, but the dark eyes and long vowels in her speech still made him think of a crow. A hungry crow with a pointed, royal nose.

  “We were raided by a western tribe,” said Darius. “They burned–”

  “Don’t waste my time. I’ve read the report, now I want the truth. It won’t leave this room.”

  Darius rubbed his neck and looked around the room nervously.

  “I give my word,” said the Consul.

  “Fine,” said Darius. “We captured two tribals at the old base east of here. A girl and a boy. Violent throwbacks, but both of them spoke English. I shot and buried the boy. Somehow––probably with the help of inbred tribal friends––he survived and came back for the girl. Those two monsters started the fire that burned down half this trading post.”

  “A boy and girl did all that damage? Unbelievable. You’ve come up with better lies in the past, Darius.”

  “I know, that’s why my report to the city is different,” said Darius. “No one would believe me when I say these were not just common, fly-blown tribals looking for scraps and more like demons with the gift of speech.”

  “What were they doing at the old base?”

  “Searching for some kind of machine. A medical treatment for the girl.”

  “How do you know? They were probably scavengers. Or chronic liars, like all the rest.”

  Darius shrugged. “I have ways of making tribals talk.”

  “Don’t be so coy––of course you tortured them. Continue.”

  “They came from the west, from what they claim is a refuge built before the war.”

  “You burned that place to the ground,” said the Consul. “You wasted a battalion and lost a tank. Both of which were mine, I remember.”

  “It wasn’t the right village and we didn’t find their bodies. They’d been there, we had prisoners that said so, but we didn’t find any trace of those two. Their home––the old refuge––is farther west and high in the mountains.”

  “Sounds like more fevered ramblings of drunken savages,” said the Consul. “They can’t have anything valuable. It’s been hundreds of years since the war.”

  Darius nodded. “Given all the variables, Your Grace is probably right. I could build a tower to the sun from all the cattle-dung that flies from the mouths of these people. But what if it’s true? What if they have machines, have somehow lived all these years free from radiation and disease? If it’s just another mountain tribe we’ll make them slaves. If it’s more ... in any case, it’s worth it to find out one way or another.”

  “I’m afraid that one way or another, Senator, a battalion of my troops will capture only a few dozen lice-infested cave dwellers.”

  The Consul stared at the white bandages where Darius’s thumbs used to be. She tried not to let her eyes drop to the other, lower injury, and looked at his face instead.

  “How are your ... how is the healing process?”

  Darius bowed from the waist. “I owe everything to Your Grace’s personal surgeon. Otherwise, an infection might have taken my life, and kept me from serving you.”

  “Don’t grovel, it gives me heartburn.”

  The Consul folded her gloved hands and leaned back in her chair. The leather gloves were new and the sharp smell reminded her of home, of the busy beetles of workmen on the estate. Of tight reins between the fingers and a cantering stallion beneath her. She considered the money and power that new artifacts could bring in. It was a time of expansion and discovery, and vast fortunes were being made every day. Darius was unstable, however, and could be manipulating her. The Consul dropped her hands and stood up.

  “What are you really looking for, Darius? A strange village or this girl that got away?”

  Darius spread his hands. “Both.”

  The Consul’s green eyes watched him for a long, u
ncomfortable moment.

  “You won’t have much time before the first snowfall.”

  “Won’t need it.”

  “If the attack fails ...”

  “I understand.”

  “Good,” said the Consul. “I’ll send for men and equipment. You can have your western expedition.”

  Darius bobbed his head and bent a knee to the floor. “You’re very gracious, Honorable–”

  “Stop talking until you hear the price. I’m going with you.”

  TWO

  The first rays of morning sun warmed the air. Wilson stood on flat granite and looked down at the mist covering the valley.

  Long before men knew how to bury their dead a glacier had carved it from the mountains. Water, wind, and sun gave birth to life but cursed it at the same time, like a slobbering medicine man. Generations of spruce, foxes, and deer mice had grown and died in the valley. Men and women had lived here only a few centuries–––a drop in the bucket of time––but the result was no different from that of a fox shivering in her den. All life struggled to survive and ultimately failed, thought Wilson.

  A hand touched his shoulder.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” said Father Reed.

  Wilson shook his head. “We need a council meeting.”

  “Today?”

  “I talked to Jack last night and the situation is critical.”

  Reed smiled. “Whatever it is can wait a few hours, but I’ll make the arrangements.”

  A handbell rang three times from the mist of the main plaza. The women of the village began to sing.

  I walked down in the valley to pray

  Learning about the good old way

  And who would wear the starry crown

  Oh Lord, show me the way

  Oh Brothers, let’s go down

  Let’s go down, come on down

  Oh Brothers, let’s go down

  Down in the valley to pray

  From the boulders and rocky slopes behind Wilson came the voices of the village men.

  I walked on the mountain to pray