The Klaatu Terminus

by Pete Hautman

  Why? Kosh asked with his eyes.

  She seemed to understand him. “Tamm said you attacked Father September and Master Gheen. Is that true?”

  Kosh stared at her helplessly. Her accent and manner of speaking were nothing like Emily at all. And if she was Emily, she had not aged a day in fifteen years.

  “Even if it is true, it was wrong of him to hit you with his truck. I do not understand all this violence. Are you a violent man? I sense that you are not, but I do not understand why I think that. I do not understand why the priests killed all those people on the zocalo. I could smell their flesh burning. I do not understand why the Yars fought us on the pyramid. There was a boy here this morning. Tamm attacked him, and the boy became violent, I think because he was afraid. He said this was his house.” She looked at Kosh closely. “The boy looked like you. I do not understand any of this, but I could not let Tamm kill you.”

  She seemed to be talking more to herself than to him. Kosh figured the boy she mentioned must have been Tucker.

  “You were unconscious,” she said. “You flew so far and landed so hard. I’m sure Tamm intended to kill you. I convinced him to leave, but I know his anger will grow, and he will be back. You cannot stay here. I am going to turn the pain blocker off now.” She stared into his eyes and put her hand behind his neck. “I do not know how badly you are hurt. Brace yourself.”

  Kosh heard a soft click. Emma sat back, watching him as sensation flooded his body. For a moment, it was a tremendous relief to feel again, then every nerve in his body lit up. The pain rocketed from his spine to every extremity. He gasped.

  Emma, alarmed by his reaction, reached to turn the device back on.

  “Don’t,” Kosh croaked. The worst of the pain was on his right side — a hot, stabbing pain that could only mean broken ribs. He’d broken ribs before, when he’d fallen off his barn. The ribs would heal. The pain would pass. He moved his legs. That hurt too, but knowing that he could move them made up for the agony.

  Slowly, carefully, he sat up. His lower back felt as if it had been pounded with a sledgehammer. He looked at his hand. His ring finger was bent back at an impossible angle, dislocated. Kosh knew if he thought about it he’d chicken out, so he quickly grabbed the finger with his other hand, pulled it straight, and popped it back in place. He almost passed out. Or maybe he did pass out, because the next thing he knew he was on his back looking up at the tree. Emma was leaning over him.

  “I’m okay,” he said. His voice cracked. He held up his hand. The finger was swollen like a boiled sausage, but it was back in place. He sat up again, letting Emma help him. “I want to stand,” he said.

  It took several tries, but soon he was balanced on his feet, unsteadily. He could feel his pulse in his swollen finger, and his ribs were bands of agony. Looking around, he discovered what was left of his motorcycle wrapped around the trunk of a basswood tree about twenty yards away.

  “I should be dead,” he said.

  “It is a miracle,” Emma said, still with her hands on his arm.

  “If it was a miracle I don’t think it would hurt so much.” He disengaged his arm and took a step. His legs seemed to work okay, but he felt as if the earth were undulating beneath his feet. “Who is this guy Tamm?”

  “He is my husband.”

  Kosh nodded, taking it in like a pillow punch to the gut. “You say he’ll be back?”

  “Yes. But I will not let him hurt you again.”

  “Who are you?” he asked. “I know you’re Emma, but where did you come from?”

  “I am not supposed to say.”

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you? Those people in the park.”

  Emma nodded. “I am the Lamb Emma.”

  “So what are you doing here? At my brother’s house?”

  “It was assigned to us.” She cocked her head. “Was that your brother who was here? The boy who looked like you? The one who said it was his house?”

  “That was my nephew, I think. Why aren’t you at the park with the rest of them?”

  Emma looked away. “I do not like what they do. Even in Romelas I refused to attend the sacrifices.”

  Romelas? The girl, Lia, had told him she was from Romelas, supposedly in the distant future. “Do you know a girl named Lia? The Yar Lia?”

  Emma shook her head. “The Yars are violent, wicked people.”

  Kosh smiled. “I don’t know about wicked, but yeah, she’s violent all right. How about Tucker Feye?”

  “I . . . I know of Tuckerfeye.”

  “He’s the boy who was here. Emily Feye is his mother. You look exactly like her.”

  “I am not her,” she said.

  “Then you must be her sister.”

  “I have a sister?”

  Kosh took a few steps toward his wrecked bike, then stopped. There was no way that machine would ever roll again.

  “You must leave,” said Emma. “Tamm will come back.”

  On the grass, next to the wreckage of his bike, he saw the silver tube weapon he had taken from the priest.

  “Let him come.” Kosh limped over to the wreckage. As he bent down to pick up the weapon, blood rushed to his head and the world began to whirl. Black fuzz crowded the edges of his vision. He dropped to his knees, willing himself to come out of it, but the earth pulled him insistently downward, and everything went away.

  The Lamb Emma looked at Kosh, sprawled facedown on the lawn, his arms flung to the sides. The blades of grass next to his mouth were moving. He was breathing. For a few seconds, she stood there undecided, then she rolled him onto his back, grasped his legs, and dragged him toward the house. He was a big man, almost twice her weight, but after several starts and stops, she got him to the porch, up the shallow steps, and inside. She tried to lift him onto the sofa but he was too heavy, so she left him on the floor and put a soft pillow under his head. She soaked a dish towel with cold water and laid it across his forehead. She considered the Medicant device, then decided not to use it. Whatever pain he was experiencing, he seemed able to handle it.

  She went outside and picked up the arma. She had never before held one, but it looked simple to operate. There was only one button. She hoped she wouldn’t have to press it.

  Back inside, she sat beside Kosh. He was still asleep. His legs were twitching, and he was smiling. Emma wondered what he was dreaming about.

  HOPEWELL, JULY, 1997 CE

  “CHICKEN POTPIES,” SAID EMILY, WIPING HER HANDS ON HER APRON. “Come on in!”

  The Ryans’ home had a friendly sort of disorderliness. A large terra-cotta pot by the door held a motley collection: two umbrellas, a hand-carved walking stick, a garden hoe, and a broom. The living room furniture was mismatched and casually arranged. Not messy, but not rigid, either. He could smell the chicken cooking and a trace of Hamm’s aromatic pipe tobacco. It felt like a place one could kick back and relax. There were books everywhere, most of them stuffed into bookcases built from old barn wood. Greta Ryan was a voracious reader, while Hamm was known as a man who let nothing go to waste.

  “Your folks home?” Kosh asked.

  “They went to an auction over in Zumbrota. They’ll be back late.”

  Kosh followed Emily into the kitchen. He hadn’t seen her since the night they went to the movie, two weeks ago. The night they had seen the man in black burst out of Hopewell House. Kosh felt bad about not calling. He’d meant to, just to see how she was doing, but it had felt too awkward. Every day since, he’d intended to call, but somehow never got around to it. Then, that morning, she had called and invited him to dinner. To pay him back, she said, for the goat-cheese-and-arugula burger.

  Kosh watched her open the oven door and peek in at the five small pies baking on the center rack. “Another half hour,” she said.

  “Why five pies?” he asked.

  “One for me, one for Hamm, one for Greta, and two for you.”

  “I get two?”

  “You’re big.”

  “Can I help?”


  “You want some lemonade?”

  “Sure.”

  Emily tossed him a lemon. “Start squeezing.”

  Happy to have something to keep his hands busy, Kosh set about making lemonade while Emily washed salad greens from the garden. It felt odd, in a good way, to be working alongside her. He wondered if it would be like this for her and Adrian once they got married. He tried to picture it: his brother making lemonade, squeezing a lemon with one hand, holding the Bible in the other, Emily smiling as she sprayed cold clean water on the lettuce leaves.

  In an effort to be nonchalant and clever, Kosh said, “So, you seen any ghosts lately?”

  The smile fell from Emily’s face. Kosh felt a familiar jolt of nausea, the way he always felt when he said something wrong or stupid. Quickly, he backpedaled.

  “I mean, I was just thinking about what you said. I see stuff sometimes. Especially at night.”

  Emily turned to him, drying her hands on her apron. “The ghosts I saw had faces, and I was looking right at them. In broad daylight.” She set her jaw, daring him to disbelieve her.

  Kosh said, “Wow.”

  “‘Wow’ like ‘Wow, she must be insane’?”

  “No! Wow like, just . . . wow.”

  Emily laughed and turned back to the sink to shake the water off the lettuce.

  “One thing for sure,” Kosh said, “that guy we saw was no ghost. Chuck Beamon saw him too, running across his soy field the next morning. Said the guy was being chased by a big pink pig. Like, really pink.”

  Emily’s shoulders went stiff. “Maggot,” she whispered.

  “Maggot?”

  Emily laughed uncomfortably and shook her head. “I don’t know where that came from. Probably some fairy tale from when I was little.”

  “I never heard of a fairy tale about maggots.”

  Emily shrugged as she piled the greens into a wooden bowl. “I guess I haven’t, either. How’s that lemonade coming?”

  Kosh dipped his finger in the pitcher and tasted it. “A little tart.”

  “I like it that way.”

  While the pies baked, they sat on the front porch and drank their tart lemonade. Emily was good at talking about little things, a skill Kosh lacked. She told him about Hamm’s latest project: making birdhouses out of coffee cans. She caught him up with the latest Hopewell gossip: Lorna Gingrass’s divorce, the Friedmans talking about sending their daughter to a private school in Minneapolis, a family of opossums that had taken up residence in the old silo. Mostly things that were of little interest to Kosh, but he loved watching Emily talk, and the sound of her voice. She was sitting sideways on the swing, while Kosh leaned back in Hamm’s homemade rocking chair. Although there was a wicker table and three feet of space between them, he had the sense that they were very close in a way that was more intimate than when she had been pressed against his back on his motorcycle, or when she had sat next to him in the movie theater. Maybe it was because he could see her eyes.

  “Kosh?” She was leaning forward, looking at him intently.

  “What?”

  “You looked like you’d gone away for a second.”

  “I was just thinking, um, about what you were saying.”

  Emily cocked her head. “What was I saying?”

  Kosh laughed self-consciously. “I have no idea.”

  Emily drew back in mock outrage, then burst out laughing. Kosh joined her, confused and — inexplicably — happy.

  “Those pies should be ready about now,” Emily said.

  The potpie was delicious. Kosh didn’t think he could eat two, but then he did.

  “Can you show me how to make this?” Kosh asked as he savored the last bite of crumbly crust and tender chicken.

  “As long as you promise not to put any arugula or goat cheese in it.”

  “I promise.”

  After dinner, they walked out to the raspberry hedge. Kosh asked her if she remembered anything about the day Hamm had found her.

  “It’s the strangest thing,” she said. “I remember I was hiding in some bushes and crying, and this man walked over to me and squatted down and began talking to me. You know Hamm; he’s half deaf now and talks like a foghorn, but on that day his voice was soft and quiet, and I felt safe right away.”

  “Do you remember how you got there?” Kosh asked.

  “Not really. I don’t remember anything about my life before Hopewell, except I remember remembering, you know? I remember remembering that I lived in a palace, and I was a princess.” She laughed. “Isn’t that silly? I guess every little girl wishes she was a princess. And I remember remembering that an angel came and took me through a magic door. But it’s not like I really remember it; it’s more like a dream. You know how you wake up and you think about a dream you just had, and later you don’t really remember the dream itself but you remember thinking about it?”

  Kosh nodded.

  “I feel like my life before Hamm found me was chopped off, like it ended, and then started up again. I don’t even know how old I am, not really. Hamm and Greta just picked a day and called it my birthday.”

  “Maybe you’re actually forty-five,” Kosh said.

  Emily threw a berry at him.

  They picked and ate berries until the mosquitoes drove them back to the house. Emily made a pot of strong black coffee and they talked into the night, about everything and nothing.

  Hamm and Greta arrived home at eleven. Hamm had bought himself an old 1930s Ford tractor. Kosh helped him back it off the trailer and into the barn, where it joined Hamm’s collection of seldom-used vintage farm equipment. Greta and Emily watched, clucking amusedly at the foolishness of men.

  That night, as he lay in bed, Kosh thought about how his father’s death had cut his life in half. His first ten years now seemed like a remembered dream. He wondered if it had been like that for Adrian when their mother had died. When Adrian and Emily married, would their lives end and start yet again? How many lives was it possible to live?

  ROMELAS, ca. 3000 CE

  LIA OPENED HER EYES. THE SUN WAS PEEKING OVER A jagged horizon. Trees, as far as she could see. She sat up, stiff from sleeping on the hard stone surface, and looked for Tucker. He was standing a few yards away, at the edge of the frustum, looking down. Lia followed his gaze. A layer of mist lay pooled on the zocalo, snaking in and out of the broken buildings, filling the forest city.

  Lia stood and stretched. Tucker saw her and said, “Good morning.”

  “Did you sleep?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I’ve been thinking.”

  Lia walked over to stand beside him. “About what?”

  “We’re in the future, right? Years after when you lived here, and even longer since Hopewell. But it’s all one place.”

  “I think so.”

  “And when we were in the forest where Awn lives, that had to be even further in the future, because the pyramid was half buried.”

  “If it was the same pyramid.”

  “I’m pretty sure it was. And there were Boggsians there. So maybe there are Boggsians here.”

  Lia nodded reluctantly. Her experiences with the Boggsians had been mixed.

  Tucker said, “I mean, I don’t know where else we’re going to go. I haven’t seen any sign of people here. No smoke or anything. You know what else I haven’t seen? Klaatu.”

  “They come and go,” Lia said.

  “Yeah, usually when something awful is about to happen.”

  “Then let’s hope we don’t see any.”

  Once the sun had burned away the morning fog, Tucker and Lia climbed down the steps of the pyramid to the overgrown zocalo. Tucker kept a rock in each hand. It wasn’t much in the way of weapons, but it was all they had.

  Lia wanted to check out one of the deteriorating buildings around the perimeter of the overgrown zocalo. “It’s the Palace of the Pure Girls, where I grew up. There might still be something edible in the food storage area.”

  They passed though a c
rumbling entryway, stepping over the rusted skeleton of a gate. Inside, the floors were littered with decades of debris: dead leaves, dried mud, fallen stone, animal scat, and broken things that Tucker could not identify. The walls were mottled with mosses and mildew at the bottom; the remains of swallow nests clung near the sagging ceilings. Parts of the roof had caved in, as had several walls. Tucker had the feeling that if they kept looking, they would find a collection of human bones.

  Lia climbed over a section of broken wall and followed a hallway toward the back of the building. There was less clutter there, but the invisible aura of death felt stronger. They found the food storage area, a large room filled with broken glass and clay jars, scraps of cloth bags, and the desiccated husks of ancient fruits. There was nothing remotely edible.

  They continued through the disintegrating structure. Lia was being very quiet, her face tense and rigid. She stopped and looked into a small room. A sharp, acrid odor filled the air. The room had once had a single window; it was now blocked by rubble from an adjoining structure. The floor was dark with bat guano. Tucker looked up. The ceiling was alive with tiny, furry bodies and the soft rustle of leathery wings.

  “My bedroom,” Lia whispered.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Tucker said.

  They backed out, then returned the way they had come.

  “How long do you think it’s been?” Tucker said.

  “Lifetimes,” said Lia.

  They emerged onto the zocalo. Tucker took a minute to tear a bar loose from the rusted iron gate. It felt good to carry something he could hit with, although he wasn’t sure it would be much good against a three-hundred-pound jaguar.

  They followed the perimeter of the zocalo to another building.

  “This was the Convent of the Yars. There is — or was — a spring-fed fountain here,” Lia said.

  The convent was in even worse shape than the palace. The entire roof had caved in. Climbing over the rubble, they made their way to the center of the building and reached an open courtyard that was relatively undamaged. In the center of the courtyard stood a raised basin crowded with lily pads.