San Diego Lightfoot Sue

by Tom Reamy

  It swam to the surface and poked its head into the bright, brittle stillness of midday. It searched the gravel sea with small dim eyes, but nothing moved. It remembered the surface creature’s speed, moving entirely on top of the gravel.

  The bluebaby, on sudden impulse, emerged completely into the open air. It tried to imitate the creature’s movements, but it was not equipped for walking. It floundered clumsily and looked up. Sheer terror overcame it. It was about to fall into that vast nothing, fall until the end of time. It was suddenly back beneath the surface and didn’t remember how it got there.

  Every day it came to the surface, but never saw the peculiar creature. Nor did it venture out again farther than its nose.

  The naming ceremony had lasted long. Songs were sung, stories were told (Old Frel was the best), and then the People had moved to the surface with the midday warmth. They basked in the waning sunlight and gloried in open space while the children raced about in games. Roon had been self-conscious at first but soon joined in.

  Triz had remained below for a while, then joined Flan and spoke to him quietly, out of hearing of the others. Now he hurried through the corridor, past the occupied sleeping rooms, past the many unoccupied ones, past the vast room where the air bus had berthed. He walked gray corridors he had not seen since he explored them as a curious boy. He passed the sighing room where the air machines made breathable atmosphere. He passed rooms with purposes he could not even imagine. The stone around his neck whispered as he passed some of the rooms, louder at some than at others, and loudest of all at one section of corridor. It whispered so loudly he paused, but then hurried on.

  Flan knew his destination. Everyone had been there, but once explored, no reason existed to return.

  It was a large area where the corridor terminated. Other tunnels opened at intervals on the other side, black unlighted tunnels. Flan had entered the darkness of one as a boy, but a thumping heart and clammy skin had ended his penetration after a dozen steps.

  Two strips of metal on the floor ran parallel into each tunnel. Flan did not know the reason for the rails, nor did he even speculate that a reason existed. Had he been told of the time that had passed since they had been used, he couldn’t have grasped it. The time was so great that even the inviolate metal of the rails had darkened.

  Brin stood small and lovely in the doorway of a sleeping cubicle. No one knew why sleeping cubicles were necessary in this extreme end of the Home, but several were there, tiny and austere and functional.

  She stood with her head down, looking at her feet. He walked to her, concerned and puzzled.

  “Brin?” he said. She raised her eyes quickly and lowered them just as quickly. “Triz said you wanted to talk with me. Why here? Why not outside in the sun with the others?”

  Brin stood for a moment without answering, then whispered something he could not hear. She repeated it more clearly at his question. “I do not want Sith to know,” she said. Then she sobbed silently, her hands hanging loosely at her sides.

  Flan took her in his arms and made soothing murmurs until her tears stopped. She snuffled and pushed him gently away, her eyes again shifting to the floor in embarrassment.

  “Has Sith been cruel to you, Brin?” Ran asked softly. Her eyes rose to his with pleading swiftness. “Oh, no. Not the way you mean.”

  He said nothing.

  “Sith is not cruel. But his… silences and looks are more painful than beatings.” Her voice sank to a whisper he could hardly hear.

  Ran released his breath in an impatient sigh.

  “I know you dislike Sith,” she said in a small tortured voice. “Most dislike him, but you are wrong. I love him. I love him more than my life.”

  “That is foolish. He does not deserve your love, Brin.” Her hands clenched into small fists. “You are wrong. Sith is beautiful. Sith is gifted. Sith is bright. Sith is golden. Sith has a right. It is only… he is tortured because he is childless. For three years I have been empty. Sith deserves many children.

  “Others are childless. They are not lost in cruel rage.”

  “Sith is special.”

  “Perhaps Sith is at fault. Not you.”

  She stood as stiff as stone, her eyes closed and her lips pale. Ran knew why she had called him to this forsaken place. He knew and said nothing.

  Her lips quivered before she spoke, her eyes still closed. “I do not believe my golden Sith could be with such a flaw, though Triz suggested it also. I do not believe it, but in my love and desperation I will grasp at any hope.”

  “There is danger. Sith has too much pride.”

  “I know. Sith must never discover the child is not his. The knowledge would be worse than childlessness.” She looked at him quickly. “However, I do not believe there will be a child. The flaw is mine, not his.”

  “Why did you choose me?”

  “Because Roon was the only child produced this year. Because… Triz suggested it.”

  “Is it your wish, or do you only follow Triz’s suggestion?”

  “I must give Sith a child.”

  He looked at her small pinched face, at the pain and pleading in her eyes. He did not speak. He knew from the tingling in his thighs and the pressure at the base of his belly; he knew his answer was visible.

  When Brin was gone, giving him only one shyly smiling glance, Flan sat in the sleeping cubicle feeling relaxed and lethargic. The corners of his mouth curled slightly. It might be good for Sith if he did find out but, no, Brin would be the one to suffer. Perhaps Sith was tormented enough; perhaps if there was a child he would find a compromise between his arrogance and his despair.

  Flan sighed and stood, stretching his arms over his head and rolling his shoulders. He clenched the muscles in his thighs and buttocks and felt suddenly restless. He took the whispering stone in his hand and heard its meaningless voice urgently commanding.

  “I do not understand,” he said aloud.

  He passed by the dark tunnels, caressing the warm stone with his thumb, sliding his feet on the smooth coolness of the metal strips. He stopped and looked in, hesitated, took a few steps into the darkness. Childhood tensions caught at him and he turned back.

  In the corridor the voice of the whispering stone grew louder, even louder than before because Flan held it in his hand. He stopped and looked at the walls. Both were featureless gray. A frown creased the skin above his nose. Behind one wall was the air machine room. He turned to the other. He had always supposed, when he thought about it at all, that it concealed nothing but solid rock. He took a step toward it.

  It looked the same as it had always looked. He listened to the whispering and placed the tips of his fingers against the wall.

  It felt no different than any other wall in the Home. He spread his fingers until his palm rested flat against it. Still there was nothing, but he knew, he thought he knew, the wall was important.

  He stepped sideways and let his hand slide on the gray smoothness. Then another step. He released his breath and stepped back, letting his hand drop. It was then he felt it, as his hand slid downward on the wall, just before it broke contact. He bent over and looked closely at the spot level with his chest.

  There was an indentation there, a rectangle as big as his head recessed no more than a millimeter. It seemed no different than the rest of the wall and was almost impossible to see. He touched it again, running the tip of his finger around the edge. He put his hand flat against the rectangle and felt nothing.

  Then—his vision was swimming and his ears were ringing—then, he placed the tip of his finger there, and again there, and once more there, and back again to the first place.

  He understands.

  No. He only follows blindly.

  He touched there and there at the same time. The rectangle sank inward another half inch.

  Flan gasped and jerked his hand away. And, without knowing how he got there, was pressed flat against the opposite wall of the corridor.

  The wall in front of him slid to o
ne side with a gritty sigh.

  Flan stared into a great room filled with machines. They climbed to the high-domed ceiling in stair-stepping tiers, solid to the top, quiet, sleeping, the glassy eyes dark. The room steeped in silent gloom; and in the center was a sphere, a globe, a vast round ball covered with pinpoints of light: blue, red, amber, and violet lines crisscrossing as if it were encased in a net.

  Flan looked for a moment, then went to get the others.

  The People stood with craned necks, the eyes of the adults only slightly less goggled than those of the children. The globe towered above them like a mountain. They milled around it, trying to see it all.

  “Do you see up there?” Flan said. “That white light? It’s the only white one there is.”

  They backed away to get a better look because it was above the curve of the sphere. Yes, they agreed, it was the only white light. Flan listened to the whispers and felt the stone warm in his hand. “Old Frel,” he said softly, “you know the way station chart.”

  “Yes.” Old Frel stepped beside him and looked at the white light.

  “Look at those small lights below the white one. Are they the same as the way station chart?”

  “Yes,” Old Frel said doubtfully. “They look the same, but there are too many lines and too many lights.”

  “Just the small lights.” The others were gathering around and nodding agreement. Roon started to his father with his mouth half open in question, but Triz stopped him and held him at her side.

  Old Frel dipped his head once. “Yes.”

  “The white light I think is here, the summer Home. Follow the way station lights as if we were making the autumn trek. It leads to that larger light that must be the winter Home.”

  “But,” Old Frel protested, “the light is amber. It is amber like the way stations that have something wrong with them.” A violet line from the white light to the amber light suddenly brightened. It glowed for a moment then went out completely. The People looked at each other. Then another line brightened, from the white light to a blue light farther around the globe. The line remained.

  Will they understand?

  Wait.

  Flan moved away from the others and watched the blue light. Nothing changed on the globe. He looked back at Old Frel and saw agreement glittering in the ancient’s eyes. “No,” Old Frel said, coming to him. “It’s too far.”

  “The machine is telling us to do it.”

  Old Frel shook his head. “It is twice as far as the winter Home. We could not make it walking. If the air bus hadn’t crashed…”

  No. No.

  Another violet line brightened. It led from the white light around the globe in the other direction.

  Far below the gravel sea impulses flashed through semisentient circuits unused for millennia. In the room at the end of the corridor where Flan and Brin had met, one of the darkened tunnels was suddenly lighted. Two hundred miles away a long narrow vehicle moved into the lighted tunnel. It looked something like the air bus but had only one window at the front and rode the metal rails on magnetic skids and something that was almost antigravity. It passed the speed of sound in seconds.

  “Look!” Sith pointed to the new violet line and they all followed his finger. A green dot moved on the line, moved rapidly toward the white light of the summer Home.

  The whispering stone sang. “The tunnels,” Flan said softly. “The dark tunnels at the end of the corridor.”

  He understands.

  Wait.

  The others looked at him. “We must travel to the new Home in the tunnels.”

  Cybernetic relays closed here and opened there. The impulses flew joyously, for they were capable of joy in their own way. Then, there was an unthinkable sifting of impossible dust. The impulses derailed, were shunted to the wrong circuits, relays closed at the wrong time, opened at the wrong time, microscopic memory cells went insane.

  Magnetic currents in the rails fluctuated. The rocketing vehicle’s skids impossibly touched. Sparks flew like a meteor storm. The vehicle yawed and struck the tunnel wall as the lights went out.

  Flan ground his teeth and pressed his hands against his ears. The whispering stone screamed, once, briefly, unbearably, and then was still. The green light moving along the violet line flickered and darkened.

  The People waited at the end of the corridor, watched the dark tunnels. Flan waited in the room with the great globe, but the whispering stone did not whisper again.

  Triz came to him in the following days. She waited with him silently and then finally she spoke. “The trek begins, Flan.”

  “We must go through the tunnels,” he muttered.

  She was silent again for a moment. “No. We could not bear the darkness. They tried. Come, Flan. We must go.”

  He went with her at last and left the silent white stone lying on the floor.

  The bluebaby felt torpor creeping through its body, but the sensation did not produce warm lassitude and a desire to curl up in the steely fluff. It only made the bluebaby uncomfortable. It was the only one who had not entered the sleep, the only one who swam about sluggishly and irritably. More and more it caught the inquiring thoughts of the dreamer who had not found a dream, but it refused to answer.

  It kept swimming, although the complete growth of fluff made movement clumsy, because it dared not rest, dared not let the sleep creep upon it unbidden. It found an especially delectable rusty stone but did not enjoy it. The stone lay in its stomach with dead weight. The digestive process had halted for the sleep. The bluebaby regurgitated and pushed the stone away.

  It swam to the surface—and saw them!

  The surface creatures moved by a short distance away, many of them. The bluebaby subdued the lethargy that slowed its limbs and dived. It made a swoop and returned to the surface. Excitement flowed from it with such strength, two nearby breeders awoke and crouched with poised spurs to defend their clutches.

  The bluebaby watched, wondering if the one seen earlier was among them. It couldn’t tell. They all looked alike except for variations in size. All were wrapped in loose flat things that stirred with the rising night winds, and all wore things over their faces. They moved in an irregular line that clumped and thinned sporadically.

  The bluebaby followed.

  Flan glanced occasionally at the direction machine strapped to his forearm. The indication glow remained steady with a brightness that should mean the way station would come into view within minutes. Triz walked beside him, matching his pace without effort. Roon walked at his side. The boy was tiring but never complained. He clung to Flan’s cloak as they topped a large dune.

  The way station lay ahead, poking its smooth black top just above the surface of the gravel sea. The others reached the top of the dune and sighed loudly and pleasurably at the end of the first day of the trek. They scooted down the other side, moving a little faster, moving with lighter feet.

  The way station was one of many scattered over the vast expanse of the creeping dunes no more than a day’s walk apart, put there in the same distant past when the Homes were built. It floated on the gravel sea, anchored in place, kept level by its machines. Most had never known living things, never exercised their purpose after the day the workmen departed. The machines of the way-stations purred in solitude, keeping them afloat, keeping them anchored, keeping them level. Inside, the air machines produced breathable atmosphere, the food machine and water machine stood waiting.

  Except for a few. On the large charts in the Homes, several way station lights had gone dark and others had changed from clear blue to amber and red. The second way station on the trek was an amber light—the air machine no longer functioned. The People used it anyway, sleeping with their breathers. It was uncomfortable and awkward but not worth the lengthy detour. A detour was necessary near the end, four extra days of travel to skirt a darkened light on the chart. The flotation-anchoring machines had malfunctioned. The way station was awash, lost forever in the gravel sea.

  The P
eople entered in small groups, as many as the descending tube would hold at one trip. They stripped away the uncomfortable surface suits, the irritating breathers, stretched unconfined bodies, jostled and laughed in the one cramped room. They patiently waited turns at the small toilet, ate the gray cubes from the food machine, sipped at containers of water, and wished for relaxing exercise machines.

  Many returned to the surface, escaping the confinement for a while. Rested and with full bellies, they wanted the freedom of space for as long as possible. Flan sat with Triz. He thought regretfully of the promise of the globe in the forgotten room and didn’t understand. He put his arm around Triz and pulled her to him, putting the whispering stone from his mind.

  They nestled comfortably in the loose gravel, watching Roon and the other young ones play a game of chase and touch. Roon would be ready to mate when he reached five years or, if he was lucky and developed quickly, at four.

  Already he was the constant companion of young Glur, the daughter of Slef and Klin. Flan hoped Roon would select a mate younger than himself—if any females were produced in the next couple of years. When the female was older, the reproducing years were shortened. If Triz were his own age or younger there would be a chance of two or three more children. Now, there would be no more. He pulled Triz closer to him. She turned her eyes from her son to Flan. Her breather moved with a smile. Flan would not interfere with Roon’s decision. Never once had he regretted mating with Triz, even if there would be no more children.

  The bluebaby floated nose-deep in the gravel sea, watching the antics of the surface creatures. The light wind ruffled the thick fluff around its head. Some of the creatures, the smaller ones, raced about with great activity. Others reclined on the surface. As the wind rose, some of them entered the black bubble.

  The bluebaby slipped below the surface and moved closer. It swam slowly and carefully, not wanting to disturb the creatures. When it emerged again the swiftly moving small ones were quite near. Their activity was not unlike its own romps with other bluebabies, though without the grace of swimming. It marveled at the rather incredible agility and speed with which they moved despite their clumsy limitations.