The Klaatu Terminus

by Pete Hautman

  “Morning, Jeff,” Kosh said, keeping his voice casual.

  Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Wahlberg, a hefty, red-faced man about Kosh’s age, hitched up his implement-laden belt and nodded. “Hey, Kosh.” He looked around. “Nice spread.”

  “It’s got a ways to go, but I’m working on it. What’s up?”

  The deputy puffed out his cheeks, then let out the air with a soft phtt. “Understand you had a little accident a few days back.”

  Kosh had gone to high school with Jeff Wahlberg, but they’d never really been friends. He chose his words carefully. “Well, my bike got sort of bunged up. Totaled, actually.”

  Wahlberg looked at the Triumph. “New bike?”

  “Refurbished.”

  “How many you got now?”

  “Just a few. Mostly in pieces.”

  “I heard you had your nephew living with you.”

  “I did, but he’s gone. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

  “Nope. You the only one here now?”

  Kosh considered how he might answer that. If he said yes, would the deputy leave? Probably not. He decided to counter with a question of his own.

  “Can I ask you what you’re doing here? Kind of out of your jurisdiction.”

  Wahlberg shrugged and held up his palms. “Seems there’s a missing woman. Thought you might know her whereabouts.”

  “You think I kidnapped somebody?”

  “Nah, don’t figure you for a kidnapper. But if you run off with a fellow’s wife, that I wouldn’t put past you.”

  “And what if she ran off with me?”

  Wahlberg shrugged. “Is that what happened?”

  Kosh said, “Is there something I should know? Outstanding charges? Am I in trouble?”

  “You tell me. We found the husband tied to a tree in front of your old house. He says you assaulted him.” He looked pointedly at the scabs on Kosh’s knuckles. “Can’t say I’d blame you. The guy’s a piece of work. One a them Lambs.”

  “He rammed me with his truck and wrecked my bike. Nearly killed me.”

  “I figured something like that. He says you stole his SUV, too.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Kosh said, hoping Wahlberg wouldn’t look behind the barn. “You here to arrest me?”

  Wahlberg laughed. “You see a SWAT team? Nah, the guy declined to press charges on the assault. I figure he’s got something to hide. I’m just here to find the woman, make sure she’s safe.”

  “She’s safe,” Kosh said.

  “Mind if I talk to her?”

  Kosh couldn’t see any way around it. He looked up at the third-floor window. Emma was standing there, watching. He waved for her to come down. A minute later, Emma emerged from the barn, walking as if she were headed for her own execution. She stopped several steps away from them.

  Wahlberg smiled. “Are you Emma?”

  Emma nodded.

  “Your husband is worried about you.”

  “I have no husband,” Emma said.

  “That a fact? Pretty quick divorce.”

  “Our marriage was not legal. Not here.”

  “Oh.” Wahlberg shifted from foot to foot. “Well, either way, I guess you got a right to leave him. I just stopped by to make sure you weren’t being held prisoner against your will. This guy treating you okay?” He looked at Kosh.

  “He is very kind,” Emma said. “I am here of my own free will.”

  As soon as the deputy’s car headed off down the driveway, Emma started to shake. Kosh put his arms around her and held her until the police car was out of sight.

  “I was afraid he would take me back,” she said.

  “You haven’t done anything wrong,” Kosh said.

  She stepped from his embrace. “So you say. I am not so sure. To my people, leaving one’s husband is a sin against God.”

  “You’re not with your people now.”

  “That is a sin as well. I am destined for infierno.”

  “What is that?”

  “You call it hell.”

  Kosh removed the sensor from the motion-detector light above the barn door. He attached it to the mailbox at the entrance to his long driveway, then strung several extension cords from the mailbox to the barn. He found an old clock radio on his junk shelf and plugged it in to see if it worked.

  Emma appeared in the doorway and stood watching him with a puzzled expression.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Hacking together an alarm system. We get any visitors, I want a heads-up.”

  He tuned the radio to a moldy-oldies station out of Whitehall.

  “The Lambs believe digital devices are evil,” she said, watching the numbers flickering on the display.

  “Can’t say I blame them.” He finally found the station. They were playing an old Aerosmith tune. “You like music?”

  “Is that what that is?”

  “Not a classic-rock fan, huh?” He unplugged the radio from the wall and plugged it into the extension cord that led to the sensor on the mailbox.

  “I’m going out to trip that sensor. Will you let me know if the radio comes on?”

  “How will I know it’s on?”

  “Sound will come out of it. If it comes on, wave to me.”

  Kosh hopped on his Triumph, drove to the end of the driveway, and stopped at the mailbox. He looked back at the barn. Emma was waving to him from the doorway. He drove back.

  “The digital device is making noise. A man is shouting ‘la vida loca’ over and over.”

  “Must be nineties week,” Kosh said.

  The music stopped.

  “Good. I got it set so it only comes on for thirty seconds. Now if anybody comes in the driveway, I’ll be ready for them. I got a feeling when Jeff Wahlberg tells your ex you’re okay, he might just let slip where you went to.”

  “You think Tamm will come here?”

  “Yeah, I do. To get his truck back, if nothing else.”

  KOSH WAS NAPPING ON THE BEAT-UP SOFA IN HIS SHOP the next day when an old Duran Duran song, “Hungry Like a Wolf,” invaded his dreams. He had never liked that song. Why was the wolf hungry? It made no sense.

  He opened his eyes and sat up. The radio! He jumped up and ran to the open doorway. An SUV was coming up the driveway fast, raising a cloud of dust. Standing at the head of the driveway, Emma was holding the arma in her hands.

  “Emma!” Kosh shouted. She ignored him.

  The SUV skidded to a stop. Emma raised the weapon and fired. Shards of hot metal exploded in every direction. The front of the truck leaped into the air liked a rearing horse. The truck thumped back down. Kosh could see the glowing, molten remains of the engine — the grille and bumper were gone. Both front tires were in flames.

  Kosh ran to Emma and tried to take the arma from her hands, but she would not let go. Her face was as bloodless as stone, jaw rigid, lips a tight line. Kosh released his hold on the weapon and took a step back.

  The passenger door of the SUV opened and a man jumped out. Tamm. A second man tumbled out of the truck headfirst. Kosh recognized him as one of the men at the park. Tamm grabbed the man under the arms and dragged him away from the burning truck.

  Emma pointed the weapon at them.

  “Emma, don’t!” Kosh pushed the tube down so that it pointed at the ground. “It’s not worth it.”

  Her jaw loosened. “They will keep coming,” she said, a slight quaver entering her voice.

  “I’ll talk to them,” he said. He walked toward the two men. Tamm was standing unsteadily, stunned and bewildered, watching the truck burn. The other man was on the ground, holding his leg, his face a mask of agony. His right knee had a brace on it.

  Tamm saw Kosh coming toward him and put his hand to the stun baton at his waist.

  “You’re in no shape to fight me, son,” said Kosh. “With or without your stun stick.” He hoped it was true — his rib cage was still fragile, and the stun baton would give Tamm an advantage. “You maybe figured th
is out all on your lonesome, but you’re not welcome here.” Kosh stopped with about twenty feet between them. He knew from experience that confidence and bluster won more fights than fists.

  “I came for my wife,” Tamm said, looking past Kosh at Emma.

  “Consider yourself divorced.”

  “Lambs do not divorce.”

  “You had best make an exception. Unless you want me to kick your butt from here to infierno. You hear me?”

  Tamm glared at him.

  “And if I don’t”— Kosh jerked his head toward Emma —“she will.”

  Tamm looked at Emma, who was pointing the arma at him. Tamm then looked at Kosh, and at the truck. The upholstery had ignited; the interior of the vehicle was a mass of flames.

  “I recommend you drag your buddy a little farther away,” Kosh said. “That gas tank might go any second.”

  Tamm did as Kosh suggested. Moments later, the back end of the truck exploded with a soft whoosh. A pillar of black smoke rose to the sky.

  “Now you should maybe think about leaving,” Kosh said.

  “How? Koan cannot walk.”

  “Your other truck is behind the barn. I’ve been saving it for you.”

  Kosh was not happy about the pile of slag the burning SUV would leave in his driveway, but he felt good about the way things had gone. Tamm and his friends would think twice before returning. Or so he hoped.

  “He won’t be back,” he told Emma, trying to sound confident.

  Emma nodded, but he could see she didn’t believe him.

  The following morning, the first hard frost arrived. Kosh went to work on his neglected garden, harvesting several buttercup squash and some of the kale. He pulled up the spent tomato plants and threw them on the compost pile, then turned the soil to make it ready for next spring. He was digging up onions when he felt a sharp, violent tug on his left arm.

  Almost simultaneously, he heard a sharp crack. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what had happened. He looked at his arm. A blotch of bright red had appeared on his shirt sleeve. Confused, he raised his head and saw movement behind the old woodshed, fifty yards away. His right leg collapsed, followed instantly by another crack. By the time he hit the ground, he knew he’d been shot.

  A man wearing a camouflage jacket stepped out from behind the woodshed, holding a rifle. The man came slowly toward him, dragging one leg. Koan. A second man came into view. The priest known as Gheen. Knowing it was hopeless, Kosh tried to drag himself back to the barn. The men smiled grimly at his feeble effort and kept coming.

  Funny thing — it didn’t even hurt. I must be in shock, Kosh thought. He kept moving, leaving a streak of blood on the frosted grass. He didn’t stop until the two men were standing over him. They were talking, but he couldn’t make sense of the words. Seconds later, he heard another voice. He looked toward the barn. Tamm was coming out, holding a baton in one hand and Emma’s wrist with the other. Tamm gave Kosh a contemptuous look and walked past him, pulling Emma along.

  Am I dreaming? Kosh wondered. It felt like a dream, but he knew it wasn’t. Still, it was more as if he were watching things happen from a distance. He wondered how much blood he had lost, and why the sky had become so distant and blue, and how long it would take him to die.

  He did not have to wonder long. Gheen said something to Koan, who pointed the rifle at Kosh’s chest and pulled the trigger.

  HOPEWELL, AUGUST, 1997 CE

  BISCUITS, BLUEBERRY PIE, CORN CHOWDER, SWEET tomato sauce, zucchini cake, shell bean fritters, creamed potatoes, raspberry scones, fresh cucumber pickles — Emily showed him how to make them all. Kosh, in turn, showed Emily how to butterfly a chicken, make sourdough pancakes, and stir up a delicate herb omelet. Every Sunday afternoon they would cook together for Hamm and Greta. It became a ritual, the centerpiece of Kosh’s week.

  Kosh had been cooking since he was a kid, teaching himself from cookbooks inherited from the mother he had never met. He had cooked for Adrian, for himself, and at Red’s Roost. But this was different. Cooking with Emily Ryan was a labor of love.

  During the week, Kosh would experiment at home, trying new recipes and techniques to share with Emily. One of his more ambitious efforts was chocolate soufflé. One week he made six attempts, progressing from muddy sludge to light and heavenly deliciousness. He tried to duplicate his success the next Sunday, but a slamming oven door reduced his soufflé to a puddle of chocolate. He served it anyway, covering the collapsed soufflé with large dollops of fresh whipped cream. Greta said it was the best pudding she had ever eaten.

  One hot August afternoon, Kosh and Emily were working on a special dinner for Hamm, who was celebrating his eightieth birthday. Emily was kneading bread dough while Kosh seasoned a pork roast. They joked about making such a meal on the hottest day of the summer, but pork roast and fresh-baked bread were Hamm’s favorites. All the kitchen windows were open, flies dotted the screens, and an inadequate fan oscillated from its perch atop the refrigerator.

  Kosh paused in his work to watch Emily folding, pressing, and refolding the dough, occasionally slapping it to see her handprint on the smooth surface. She said you could tell when the kneading was done by how long the fingerprints stayed visible. She had been working for several minutes, making small, almost inaudible sounds of effort. He could see the muscles in her forearms, and a sheen of perspiration on her brow. Her long hair was tied back in a loose ponytail. Her lips were slightly parted. Kosh felt something rising up inside him, a bubbly sensation in his chest, a quickening of his breath.

  Emily, sensing his attention, looked over her shoulder.

  “What?” she said, smiling quizzically.

  “Nothing,” Kosh said, and went back to rubbing salt and spices into the roast.

  It was in that moment, he later realized, that he had fallen completely and hopelessly in love with his brother’s fiancée.

  The refusal of Netzah Whorsch-Boggs to build the diskos did not dissuade Iyl Rayn from pursuing her goal. She contacted other Boggsian technicians, and even approached a small enclave of technocrats in the far north, to no avail. Some months later, as Iyl Rayn considered other options, she was contacted by Whorsch-Boggs.

  “I have some technology for you,” he said.

  It is not known what happened to change Whorsch-Boggs’s mind. Records of diskos appear throughout known history. This, it is argued, may have been sufficient to convince Whorsch-Boggs to proceed with the project. Others maintain that the historical presence of the diskos did not exist prior to their construction. Chayhim, representing the Klaatu faction known as the Gnomon, suggested that the collision of incompatible timestreams may have been responsible. Others in the Cluster, most notably the artist Iyl Rayn, disagreed.

  In any case, so far as is known, the diskos were present prior to their conception, and so stands the ineffable paradox of our existence.

  — E3

  TUCKER LAY ON THE CRUDE MATTRESS OF MOSSES AND straw, but sleep proved to be impossible with Malo and his machete outside. He lay still and alert on the lumpy pallet, thinking about the old woman’s story. He had seen the ruins of the Klaatu-making machines. But why would the Boggsians want to turn everybody into a Klaatu? Why would the Boggsians living in this time trade a pitchfork for a girl? Were there other tribes like Marta and her people? Had the Boggsians in this time devolved as well? Were there any Medicants left?

  As he lay there thinking, he could feel things happening inside his body. He imagined tiny machines gallivanting through his blood vessels, stitching microscopic tears. He wondered if he was still human. He felt human, but he wondered how much he could trust his own thoughts. Maybe in addition to healing him, the machines had changed the way his mind worked. Was that what had happened to his father when the Medicants had taken his faith? Had they done it by putting tiny robots into his brain?

  Whatever they had done, it hadn’t lasted. His father had found a new faith — a sick, twisted religion that told him to murder his own son. Had the machines d
riven him mad? Would they drive him mad as well?

  Better crazy than dead, Tucker thought. If it wasn’t for the Medicant modifications, he would be a human popsicle on the North Pole.

  At first light, Tucker emerged cautiously from the hut. Malo, tending the fire, shot him a glum look, then ignored him. No one else was awake. Tucker sat on a log, across the fire from the young man.

  “I’m sorry you had to sleep outside,” he said.

  Malo stirred the coals vigorously, sending a shower of sparks in Tucker’s direction. “I did not sleep.”

  Tucker leaned back and brushed the cinders from his lap. “I just want to find my friend, then I’m out of here.”

  Malo did not seem to hear him. Tucker got up and walked to the edge of the encampment, staring out into the forest shadows, listening to the morning songs of the birds. When he turned back, Malo was digging in the fire with a stick. He fished out the head of the pitchfork. Its handle was completely burned off. Malo tossed it on the ground to cool. Tucker suppressed the surge of anger rising within him. It would do no good to get mad at these people. He needed Malo to guide him to the Boggsians.

  Malo threw the stick in the fire, then went into his hut. A few minutes later, he came out with a bag over his shoulder and a machete in his hand. He gestured for Tucker to follow, then walked off down a narrow path leading into the forest. Tucker started after him, then stopped, went back to the fire, and picked up the head of the pitchfork. It was still hot, but not too hot to hold. He hurried after Malo, who was waiting for him just inside the forest. Malo saw the blackened fork in Tucker’s hand and scowled. He seemed about to speak, then pressed his lips tightly together, turned his back, and continued down the trail.

  The trail was a twisted maze. They moved in a generally northeast direction, judging by the sun. Tucker stayed several yards behind Malo, who occasionally used his machete with unnecessary vigor to cut through foliage that had grown over the trail. He asked Malo how far they had to go, but received no reply.