Gravity Wells (Short Stories Collection)

by James Alan Gardner

  The fog is thicker than the previous night. It crowds around us hungrily.

  Chiala and MolanDif sit in almost the same positions as before. She is not singing—no one is singing—but she is speaking intensely to him, punctuating her words with a sharp gesture of her hands.

  The neckerchief is around her throat.

  I intended to take it to her hut and leave quickly without being seen…but the hut was full of her, the smell of her hair, a book she'd been reading, the imprint in the blankets where she recently sat on the edge of her cot. As I laid the neckerchief across the pillow I could smell her everywhere—on her pillow, the linen, the talismans dangling from the headboard. A chocolate-brown dress jacket was thrown across the top of her storage trunk; the sight of it brought back memories of her wearing it at celebration dinners, her eyes meeting mine as we drank from a shared chalice, her eyes, her skin, her skin the color of the jacket, her eyes…not one of these photos truly shows her eyes, not the way I want to remember them, how full they were with warmth and heat and fire. And my memory is slippery—in embarrassment and fear, it shies away from recalling the intensity of her gaze. I can see Chiala's face, but I can't look into her eyes.

  She found me in her hut. I don't know how long I'd been standing there. The neckerchief was in my hands, though I don't remember picking it up again. When I laid it down a second time, smoothing it out on the pillow, she asked why.

  I had a speech prepared—not that I'd planned to recite it to her. I'd constructed it for my own benefit, putting the issues into well-chosen words supposedly showing the wisdom of my decision. In the naked light of her eyes, the words and wisdom shattered. I could say nothing more than "I'm sorry, I can't, not me" as I fled the hut.

  The words of my rehearsed rationalizations came back like shouting ghosts as I retreated to my hut through the fog. "I love you so much I can't see you. I see your face, that's all. All I know of you is fragments—the warmth of your body, the smoothness of your bare shoulder, your off-key singing. I can't glue the fragments into a real woman. I'm blinded by love, I can't see, what am I loving but a voice, a perfume, the imagined kiss of your skin?"

  The ghost words haunt me today as I view my photos and pretend I've left my past behind. Like all ghosts, words are liars. I chose loneliness because it was familiar and safe.

  Even cowards find themselves facing the truth eventually. They just do it too late.

  Picture 9—Fog:

  It was my duty to ensure that the Dance proceeded as normal. All the morale-building exercises of the day would be wasted if we didn't fulfill the Arcana. Every person on the team had danced each night since his or her initiation; to skip the ritual now would completely unhinge them. It was bad enough we had to dance without the circle full. MolanDif kept asking, "Can we do this with only twenty-one houses? Isn't it against the rules?"

  We lit the candles in the dance wheel and set up the mirror-ball at the hub. The drummer drummed, the harpist played, the masks inhabited us (except for MolanDif). ToPu took his pictures, earnestly trying to keep the others safe…I have his memory of that. I do not have his memories of Lilijel if he saw her that night. Sometimes I wonder if she pranced the same as ever, or if Chiala's feelings about my rejection infected her. Was she struck quiet, or moved to fiercer abandonment? The only picture recording that dance is this picture of fog.

  I woke but did not waken; and the fog was inside me. I was BarlDan and ToPu, both—brothers who shared the same eyes. The eyes looked out on fog, bright fog lying before me like the softest of beds, glowing golden. It beckoned with a force stronger than any I had felt in the most sacred rites. "Dance," a voice said, and the voice was a billion voices. "Join. Dance."

  The fog swirled in serene billows before my eyes. In the distance I heard drums and harps. The voices sang softly, their song achingly sweet. "Dance. Join. Sing together." I felt tranquillity in the fog, and peace. Love, uncomplicated love, never fading. "Dance. Now. You can see us. Now. Join. Sing." It would be so easy to surrender. Simply falling into bliss.

  ToPu shook his head. I could feel his sad, lonely longing, but he knew his duty didn't let him join the dance, ever. I felt the same wild yearning to accept, but I too drew back from the fog. I'd resisted my love for Chiala—by comparison, this resistance was nothing.

  I took a step away from the fog, from the choir that sang within it. Screeching with sudden outrage, the placid wisps of fog twisted in anger and locked into a hard churning wall the color and height of a thunderhead. Tentacles erupted from that wall, meaty pseudopods caged within quill-like bones, glistening wet and yellow, smelling of rotten fruit. They grabbed at me, trying to wrap around my arms and legs, and I pulled away with all my strength, feeling them slide suckingly off my flesh, slimy as eels.

  I had almost dragged myself clear when a human hand burst out of the blackening fog-wall and clamped around my wrist. The fingers were long and muscular, clenched like claws. It did not try to pull me into the cloud, but its grip was iron; I couldn't wrench it loose. Desperately, I grabbed my trapped wrist with my free hand, and using the strength of both arms heaved backwards. My captor held on; and as I tugged, the rest of my captor's arm emerged from black fog, then his head—a head with DiDeel's face but blanched of color, the eyes sewn shut like a corpse's, the mouth screaming wide. Sweat-slick hair plastered the sides of his face, hair of all shades, the hair of the Priestess. Mask-spirit and man had been crushed into one, like two colors of putty squeezed into a formless lump by a clenching fist. For a moment I stared at the ghastly face; then pseudopods wrapped around the head and smothered it back into the fog. The hand around my wrist went limp, fell away…and I found myself lying on damp earth, night fog clotting powerlessly around me. My mask lay faceup by my side.

  In all directions, I heard the same choking crooning DiDeel made before he died. I recognized the tune—the song the fog had sung in my brain. Harmony Team was being absorbed, just as DiDeel had been…just as the Mutans must have been, all those quilled pseudopods in the cloud. Some horror was unleashed here long ago, perhaps a grand experiment to unify the spirits of the people; and soul by soul, the horror had devoured the planet. The entire fog bank was a single ghost…or rather a billion ghosts trapped in a hellish union that had consumed them all.

  Out in the fog, one voice lifted above the rest: tone-deaf Chiala, not yet in tune with the crooning mass. I staggered to my feet and followed the sound, hearing her voice twist angrily as it tried to find the right notes to join the song. She was still off-key, but as I searched I heard her growing closer and closer to the tune the others sang.

  When I reached her, MolanDif was already there, cradling her body in his arms. "What's wrong with her?" he cried when he saw me. Without answering, I pulled off her mask and threw it aside. Her face was slack, still deep in trance. I shook her shoulders and slapped her cheek, rousing her enough that she opened her eyes…but the eyes were still vacant and the humming in her throat went on.

  "Get her to the mirror," I ordered MolanDif, and he was so grateful to be told what to do, he asked no questions. Together we dragged her body to the ball at the hub of the dance wheel and propped her up so she could see her face. "Your name is Chiala," I shouted in her ear. "Chiala. Chiala. Chiala."

  Her eyes focused and saw. She gasped and threw her arms outward to steady herself against the sphere. The fog condensed where her hands touched the mirror, making misty silhouettes like ghosts. She blinked and looked wonderingly at her beautiful face.

  Her humming stopped. "Chiala," she said.

  Picture 10—A bend in the Chastened River:

  It's the afternoon of the next day. There is no fog here. The land is a sunny meadow, buttery with summer wildflowers. The river's edge is stockaded by rushes. Chiala, MolanDif, and I have paddled the dinghy many hours downstream. We emerged from the fog bank around midday, but kept going until we were well clear.

  The rest of Harmony Team is dead. I tried to save them, but failed. Before they died,
a few possessed team members smashed our communication equipment. We are now truly on our own.

  We carry maps and aerial photographs that indicate it's a four-day trip to the sea. A few rapids might force portages along the way, but the journey doesn't look difficult. From the mouth of the river, another two days up the coast leads to one of the planned sites of colonization, and there we should find a cache that contains working communicators.

  In the picture, MolanDif and Chiala cook supper over a campfire. They believe I'm still gathering firewood, but I've already collected what we'll need for the night. I have concealed myself in a thicket to take this picture and watch the two of them hover over the pots.

  In this shot, their knees are definitely touching.

  Picture 11—Chiala by the fire:

  She holds her mask in both hands, frozen in the moment of raising it to her face. Her head is twisted slightly toward the camera; she must have heard something as I focused the lens, and turned to look at me. Behind her, the sky is a sheet of deepening indigo spreading over the dark meadows. A clump of trees stands silhouetted on the horizon.

  I took this picture to distract Chiala, to interrupt that motion of donning the mask. The click, the flash.

  "Why did you do that?" she asked.

  "You shouldn't tonight," I told her. "The trance opens us too wide. To the fog. Opening yourself to the mask—it's too risky. The fog wasn't strong enough to take us when we were ourselves, not even when we were asleep. Only in trance. Please, Chiala, leave the mask."

  She looked at me steadily for several seconds. Half her face was lit with the sun-yellow blaze of the fire, the other half cloaked with shadow. "You have nothing to say to me about taking risks," she said. Very deliberately, she pulled the mask over her face.

  "It should be safe," MolanDif said from across the fire. "The fog is a long way behind us." Self-consciously, glancing sideways at Chiala for her approval, he put on his own mask.

  Chiala began drumming on her knees. I watched her strong hands rise and fall.

  Picture 12—A night view looking upstream over the Chastened River:

  Track the image from foreground to background: the dark water flowing over outjuts of black rock; reflections of two of Muta's moons farther upriver, rippled smears of red and silver; the dark fields rising to rolling hills; the night sky gaudy with stars.

  Stretching across half the river valley is a churning wall of fog as high as the eye can see. It approaches with the speed of a summer windstorm.

  I took this picture while standing alone on the riverbank, grass whipping my legs with the force of the oncoming gale. Chiala and MolanDif had fled downstream in the dinghy. Chiala was still half in trance as I helped them push off, MolanDif chanting, "You are Chiala, you are Chiala," with each awkward stroke of his paddle.

  They could not travel as fast as the cloud.

  I stood between them and the ghosts like a brave man, wrapping myself in an armor of unconvincing hopes. I hoped the mist would not pursue my companions until it had dealt with me; I hoped I could escape it as I escaped before; even if it consumed me, I hoped I could resist long enough for the others to get away.

  And I hoped if they did get away, Chiala would realize that I did take a risk, when it was too late for anything else.

  I set my camera down carefully and picked up my mask. If I was to be bait, I had to make myself tempting. I donned ToPu's face and opened myself to him.

  Picture 13—My face in terror:

  ToPu arrived immediately. He inhabited my body but my consciousness remained awake, watching everything. Perhaps it was ToPu's choice to keep me with him; perhaps our previous confrontation with the fog had realigned our spirits somehow, allowing us to coexist in the same body. I don't know. I only know we stood together as the fog descended upon us.

  Through ToPu's spirit eyes, I saw past the physical aspect of the fog and into another plane—a plane of ghosts where a great agglomerate creature rippled and shimmered around us. Heads erupted from its writhing mass and were dragged screaming back inside; pseudopods and arms snaked out of control, scrabbling at the ground, never gaining purchase. From deep within the creature came a ceaseless frenzy of moaning, surging in pulses like ocean waves.

  ToPu picked up the camera and began shooting picture after picture of the swallowed souls. Tears ran down his face. It was all he could do for them—watch and let them know he watched.

  The fog seethed; the thing that was the fog convulsed around us. Something grabbed ToPu's arm, then his leg, then wrapped around his head. With one great heave, he was ripped away from me, as if my own body were torn in two. The fog clutched both of us in its grip, and for a single moment in our lives, ToPu and I saw each other face-to-face. He was not just a mask now but a complete spirit, a wrinkled man in shabby clothes, held spread-eagled before me. Our eyes met; and in his face I saw what he had never known, that he was wise despite all his fear and doubt. Then, with agonizing effort, he yanked himself free of the fog, arms and pseudopods sliding away from him. He raised the camera and clicked this picture of me.

  In that instant, my vision of the ghost-world collapsed like a bubble popping, and my eyes returned to the physical plane.

  The fog surrounded me, a rolling night fog that blotted all sight. It seemed too thick to let me breathe. Panic took me and I ran blindly, tripping on uneven ground, picking myself up and running on. Brambles tore at my uniform; my shoulder struck an unseen tree, and I spun away, pain scissoring down my arm. Suddenly there was nothing under my feet and I was tumbling downward, striking the river with a splash that sent warm water stinging up my nose. I swam a few weak strokes, bumped against a rock, and clung to it, panting. Water flowed gurgling around me, while overhead the ghost fog roared.

  Picture 14—ToPu:

  It took me three days to find my camera in the mist. It was scratched but undamaged. Nearby I found the remains of ToPu.

  The picture shows the mask lodged on a bramble bush. Branches of bramble protrude through the eyeholes and the mouth. The papier-mâché of the face has been dented and ripped in numerous places. The garnet and its setting are gone.

  Scattered on the ground around ToPu's bush are the other masks—the rest of the full Arcana, Lilijel and MolanDif's mask among them. Their eyeholes all stare at ToPu, like an audience gathered to hear a speaker. Their gems are missing, but the masks are otherwise undamaged.

  They must have been carried here by the fog cloud, then released. I like to believe the mask-spirits and their human hosts were released too. Perhaps they proved incompatible with the Mutan ghosts and could not truly meld with the whole; but I prefer to think ToPu saved them. Within the cloud, he located each familiar soul, watched it, took its picture, freed it by making it real.

  That is what I tell myself. That is my mythology.

  The gems are gone, and the mask-spirits departed. Lilijel will not dance on this physical plane again.

  I dream that Chiala and MolanDif survived. Though I searched the length of the river, I did not find their bodies or the dinghy. The fog stayed thick about me, angry that my soul was closed to it forever; but despite the fog, I think I would have found Chiala's body if it were there.

  Picture 15—The sundial:

  I took this picture earlier today. I won't tag it for preservation like the others. It's better to go to the park and see the sundial for myself. I'm a man who should remind himself of the realness of things.

  I came back to this city because the huts are here and all our supplies. The fog followed me back…or perhaps it never left. I think it will stay with me wherever I go.

  The task force has surely left orbit by now and headed for a new planet. The universe is too rich in worlds for them to trouble with Muta. No colony would ever be safe here, unless they abandoned their masks and the dance. That is a price they will not pay.

  The ghost fog swirls around me but its attempts to consume me are futile. My link to the spirit world is gone. If I want to commune with ghos
ts, all I can do is talk.

  Are you listening to me, fog?

  I've hated you a long time, hated you for the murders and my banishment here. But the loss that hurt me most was none of your doing. And the souls trapped inside you…I can't help thinking of them as people like me, though I know Mutans are alien, non-human. Maybe to them, being part of this undifferentiated mass is heaven; but I can't help thinking it's hell.

  I've decided to do something, fog. I've failed to take action so often in my life, there aren't many options left for me. But I can still watch. I can still try to see, really see, the souls you've swallowed. They may nearly have forgotten the people they once were, but I think they can remember. If they try. If I try.

  I'm watching. I know it's not much, but it's something. I'm watching.

  Picture 16—Fog.

  Picture 17—Fog.

  Picture 18—Fog.

  Hardware Scenario G-49

  There are few human beings who would not fit into a box eight feet long, four feet wide, and four feet high. Construct such boxes. Wire them, pipe them, tube them to provide even temperature, nutrition, and air. Don't forget sluices for the elimination of waste. Do something about exhaled carbon dioxide. Come up with neural inhibitors to prevent movement and sensation. Install epidermal scrapers to remove skin as it flakes off.

  Add whatever else seems required.

  Properly containerized, the entire population of Earth will fit into a cube about a mile and a half on each side. Put the whole thing into orbit? Nah, that's just showing off. Leave it on the ground in a desert somewhere.

  Why? So everyone stays healthy and happy, of course. No walking around and stubbing your toes. No catching colds when someone sneezes on you. No smoking or drinking or eating fatty foods. Life lasts a lot longer when you live it in a box.

  Quit asking such obvious questions…the Facility is run by robots, of course. As are the hydroponic gardens, the recycling plant, and all the other life-support equipment. (These are really good robots.) And the robots are supervised by highly skilled, politically neutral, psychologically stable human support personnel.