Beyond the Veil of Stars

by Robert Reed

  “What about next time?” Cornell asked no one in particular. “A cruise liner goes down?”

  Porsche glanced at him, measuring his expression.

  He didn’t feel like saying more. Not now. The news moved on to taxes and Congress, and Cornell ran his fingers along the woman’s spine, down the length of her bare back, quietly humming. Not here, he was thinking, culturing a useful paranoia. Wait.

  “Anyway,” said Porsche, rolling onto her back and offering a cynical smile. “Eventually nobody’s going to want to work for them. If Tangent planes keep dropping out of the sky…”

  Wait.

  “What’s on your mind, love?”

  Wait.

  Several times during the day, in public places and while driving their rental car, Cornell described their route through the Rockies. He went as far as highlighting highways on the car’s internal maps. Then he took a different road, some nameless winding thing that was paved for the first hundred yards, if that. Porsche knew they were off course, but she didn’t complain. They spoke purposefully about little things, his paranoia contagious. It was lovely wild country, wasn’t it? And high. Cornell parked at a scenic lookout, and they climbed on foot, reaching a long ridge that let them look down on the road, nobody trailing them in obvious ways.

  Porsche looked at him, her face almost amused.

  “Reminds me of the Rumpleds.” He motioned and started down into a bowl where a turquoise mountain lake lay. Legs ached. Breathing was work. “Wish I had flow-through lungs,” he allowed, sitting on a sunny rock.

  She sat opposite him, saying nothing.

  “What can you do?” He stared at her, then rephrased the question. “Are there rules about what you can and cannot do?”

  “Do how? Make yourself clear, Novak.”

  She knew what Logan had told him in the cave. They had talked about it while crossing the desert that last time, and he didn’t have to mention it now. “I’ve decided what to do,” he told her. “Risks or not, I’ve got to try it.”

  She said nothing, looking across the lake.

  “It’s not supposed to be this way,” said Cornell. “All the years with my father claiming aliens would lead us to a utopia, and I guess I can’t stop believing him.”

  “So what are you planning?”

  He glanced at the high blue sky. “Exposure.”

  “By yourself?”

  “That’s why I’m asking what you and your people can do for me.” He was breathing hard, and not entirely with the altitude. “If you can’t help, you can’t. I’ll find others.”

  She flipped a stone into the water.

  “If we can’t see each other, we won’t. But I’ve got to do this, Porsche.”

  “We can’t do anything intrusive,” she told him.

  He felt weak and a little dizzy.

  “But I am free to do what I want, with restrictions.” She waited for him to look at her, then explained, “I won’t expose my family or the others. Don’t ask me to. I might help with a few tricks, but we didn’t come here with an arsenal or any godlike technologies.”

  He managed a quick nod. “Fine.”

  She flipped another stone, then said, “Hope you weren’t hoping for more.”

  Maybe he had been, but not seriously. It would be lovely if she could wave an arm, dispelling ignorance and cruelty in that one motion. But then again, it would be nice if a lot of things came true.

  “Any ideas where to begin?” she asked.

  He mentioned a few possibilities, then paused, remembering a moment from the other world. “When we were down by the river? When I got you to admit who you are—?”

  “What is it?”

  “You started to tell me something about the disks. ‘Something obvious,’ you claimed, then the City arrived.”

  A broad serene smile. “Figure it out?”

  “No.”

  She told him.

  Porsche waited for him to stop laughing, then with a grave tone, she asked, “What if Logan was telling the truth? What if they hurt and kill people in order to keep everything secret?”

  “For that matter,” he responded, “what if it’s worse? I doubt if Logan was privy to every dark closet.”

  “Exactly. What if?”

  They had considerable work to do, and for a little while longer they talked about it, sketching out their plans. Then they made love, managing despite the rocks and the chill mountain air; and in the middle of it, some part of Cornell was thinking:

  I don’t know how many times we’ve done it. I don’t have a count.

  Now they were established lovers, in his mind.

  They dressed and returned to the car, over the ridge and down again and Porsche noticing a cloud of white dust rising from the road below them, as if someone was driving fast. Except no car was visible, just the dust. They waited for a few minutes, to be sure, and Cornell picked out a likely shard and gave it a few expert hits with a harder shard, his five-fingered hands making a crude and effective little hand axe.

  Morning, cool and tasting of autumn, and he drove a different rental car up the hill and around the concrete island, parking in front of the Petes’ house. “What do you think?” he asked.

  Porsche peered over the tops of her sunglasses. “It’s bigger than I guessed. Quite a lot.”

  “That’s not it. Mine’s that one.”

  “The shoebox? That one?” She snorted and said, “God, I thought I was getting involved with money here.”

  “Who told you that?”

  She opened her door. “Your lawn needs a trim. Did you know?”

  “You take charge of that.” Cornell was excited and nervous with a dose of happiness mixed into the mess. He climbed out onto the pavement and heard a door opening. Pete was standing on his porch, hands on his hips. Porsche surprised everyone, striking straight across Pete’s yard, saying, “I know you. Hello there!”

  Cornell followed.

  “He’s told me a lot about you, Mr. Forrest.”

  Pete was grinning. “Porsche Neal? Why do I know that name?”

  Mrs. Pete emerged from the house, slow and suspicious.

  “Mrs. Forrest,” Porsche called her.

  Pete kept saying, “I know you. How do I know you?”

  They seemed like old, befuddled people.

  Then Mrs. Pete brightened, asking, “Are you with Cornell?”

  A wink, and Porsche said, “Scary, huh?”

  Everyone laughed, maybe with too much pleasure. Cornell turned and noticed a window shade dropping in one of Dad’s windows, and he felt a pang in his guts. This was it. A few moments later, the old man emerged, wearing old trousers and a stained shirt, his bare feet as pale as cottage cheese. He blinked in the sunshine, as if he hadn’t been outdoors in days. Shuffling through the shaggy grass, he came partway and stopped, more baffled than anything. He seemed to doubt his senses, twice rubbing his eyes with bony fists. Cornell walked up to him, stopping a couple of yards short, and he was aware of the silence as he said, “Have a minute? I want to talk.”

  The words were easy, calm and studied and easy.

  Dad said, “Yeah?”

  “Not out here,” said Cornell.

  A backward glance at the little house.

  “Not in there, either. Just to be on the safe side.”

  Two paranoids; the perfect match. Dad seemed to understand, and Cornell went to the Petes, asking, “Can we use your place?”

  Mrs. Pete started to say, “It’s a mess.”

  Pete cut her off, telling him, “Go on.”

  Dad had trouble with the porch stairs, shaking out of nervousness. No telling what he was imagining now. His traitorous son had returned, and who was the strange woman? And why was she saying, “Hello, sir,” to him? “How are you this morning, sir?”

  Dad couldn’t say. He paused at the top of the stairs, considering the question with a slow thoroughness, then whispering, “Puzzled.” It was the perfect word. “Puzzled.”

  Porsche glan
ced at Cornell, then said to the Petes, “Show me your garden. I love gardens.”

  “Do you?” Mrs. Pete asked with great hope.

  A knowing look from Pete, for an instant, then he was herding the others into the backyard.

  “Let’s go inside, Dad.”

  It was going to be easy. Cornell had a feeling, intense and sudden, this being one of those moments when the world seemed to make total sense. He knew how he would start, having practiced it a thousand times in his head, and he could guess the questions Dad would ask. Of course the old man would believe him. That was a given. Who else in this world, told this incredible, impossible business, would even give Cornell the possibility of being right?

  The Petes and Porsche were out of sight. Cornell was in the big living room, feet apart, Dad watching him with a growing alarm.

  Finally he asked, “What is it, son?”

  “I’ve got a story to tell you.” Just as he’d practiced saying it. Right down to the steady dry voice. “It’s the most incredible thing you’ve ever heard…”

  And then he wasn’t talking, his voice gone.

  It was as if a vise had closed on his throat, and for an instant he believed there was a vise. The agency, or whoever, was focusing a weapon on him, destroying his voice and breath as his body began to tremble, a weakness spreading through him.

  I’m dying, he thought. They’re killing me.

  “Cornell? Are you all right?”

  He had to sit, collapsing into Pete’s big chair. What was this? He found himself crying. He had been crying for some time, apparently. Unaware of it. And he shivered and mopped his eyes with both hands, Dad sitting opposite him, asking, “What’s this story, son?”

  Something nobody would believe, Cornell remembered.

  But he talked about something else. He talked while weeping, a wet clumsy voice saying, “I’m sorry…all my fault, I’m sorry…!”

  “Sorry?” said Dad, the worn face bright with tears. “What do you mean, sorry?”

  And now both of them were crying, flooding the room and the house, tears becoming rivers and floods filling up the round world.

  3

  Somehow Cornell got them lost near the end.

  Which seemed appropriate.

  He stopped by the side of the road, and Porsche said with sarcasm, “It’s even smaller than your dad’s house.” She was looking at a birdhouse set in the middle of a marsh. “How many bedrooms?”

  He ignored the prattle, unfolding their instructions and rereading them. The voice on the phone had warned him that the road signs had been stolen or knocked down over the years, the county’s budget crunch leaving them that way. That’s why the instructions included landmarks like feedlots and a threesome of windmills. I probably went right instead of left, Cornell decided. Or left instead of right. Which one? And when?

  “This isn’t it,” Dad remarked.

  Porsche smiled, saying, “I know. I’m just teasing.”

  The old man snorted and told them, “It’s up over there.”

  That he was lost badly enough that he would look at his father’s vague gesture meant something. It meant he was desperate, almost ready to relinquish the wheel.

  “Up on that hill. See the trees?”

  “You think so, Dad?”

  “That’s where we want to be.” No hint of doubt, which was worrisome. A sharp grin, and he added, “Who’s been here the most times? Huh?”

  Cornell decided to turn around and try the last intersection again. On the premise that passengers never paid as much attention to the landscape as did the driver, he said, “I know what I did. We’re almost there.”

  “Almost there,” Porsche chimed.

  “I bet,” Dad groaned.

  Faster. He drove faster on the graveled road, crops on both sides and everything turning color after the first hard frost. But today was warm, even as the sun dropped, and the warm smell of the country came in through the vents. Cornell knew the smell and found it evoking half-memories that made him smile at nothing, his passengers busy talking among themselves.

  Porsche was more than patient with Dad. She was the perfect audience, asking questions and listening to every word, eager to hear about adventures in chasing the unknown. Dad kept rattling on about the sasquatch trip. The current tale hinged on some suspicious fecal matter found in the Cascades, now encased in plastic and stored in the deep freeze at home. When they could talk freely, Dad would propose that the sasquatch was alien, a visitor from an intrusion whose soul was put inside an extinct ape’s body. “Wouldn’t that make sense?” he would ask his audience.

  “Maybe so,” Porsche would allow. “Maybe so.”

  Dad didn’t know about her. Not yet. They’d decided to wait for a better time to tell him the rest of the story, although neither of them doubted he could handle the truth.

  Not for an instant.

  They reached the intersection, and Dad broke from his story to say, “Now left. Left.”

  Which made Cornell certain that it was right.

  But he went left to prove a point, saying, “It’s on your shoulders from here.”

  “Then left again,” the old man sang out.

  “We’re lost,” Cornell told Porsche with pleasure. “Just wait. We’re going to end up in Death Valley before we’re done.”

  “Nathan’s been here before,” Porsche cautioned.

  “I’ve been here, too.”

  “Left,” said Dad eventually. “Left.”

  They were climbing out of the river bottom, and suddenly Cornell knew this was the place. The country looked different, and it didn’t. The house was waiting at the top of the bluffs, still hidden in a dense block of trees. Dad said, “Right,” and Cornell told him, “I know,” and Porsche laughed, sitting sideways on the front seat and poking at him with a big bare toe.

  There were no dogs to escort them this time.

  The house itself looked remarkably unchanged, less white and more worn but still intact A solid roof; a good foundation. The owner lived down the road, in a new home, but the old one hadn’t been empty for more than a year. “You’ll have to catch some mice,” Cornell had been warned. “And some raccoons have been living in the crawlspace. But it’s weather tight and ready, complete with furnishings.”

  The owner was waiting for them, and they were late. He gave his watch an obvious glance, showing them that he wasn’t completely pleased.

  Cornell recognized him. A plain weathered face; the good jeans and clean shirt. The man looked more like his father than his boyhood self, didn’t he?

  “How’s it going?” the farmer asked. “Find your way?”

  “He got lost,” Dad said, pointing at Cornell in case of confusion. “But I knew the way.”

  “You did,” Porsche agreed.

  “I sure did!”

  While Porsche and Dad went through the big old house, opening windows and claiming bedrooms, Cornell mentioned that someone else was coming soon. “A computer expert, of sorts.” He glanced at the wires leading to the telephone pole. Aboveground, old-fashioned. Probably wire, which meant they’d have to be replaced. “He’s a colleague of ours.”

  A dog was waiting in the truck. “Come here,” the farmer snapped. With a fluid motion, the dog leapt from the cab. “Sit.” She sat beside him, watching her master with a look bordering on worship.

  “Looks like a German shepherd,” Cornell mentioned.

  “Is, in part.”

  “What else?”

  “Wolf, in part. Plus some extra genes. She’s smart as hell, and obedient, too.”

  “I remember that German shepherd you used to have—”

  “Her great-great-grandfather. Something like that.” The man moved his seed cap forward on his head, eyeing his new tenant “You know, you’ve never told me just why you want this place.”

  “I know.”

  The man licked his lips, then asked, “Is it about the disk?”

  “The disk’s still there?” The intrusion was, re
gardless.

  “Sure, it’s there. Dad never got up the juice to rip it out, and I don’t think the soil underneath is worth the trouble.” A pause. “So it’s not about the disk? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Cornell was thinking about the computer expert. The detective. He had been a logical choice. They needed someone who could get in and out of classified files, no one the wiser. Presented with the chance to expose the CEA, the detective had grinned for a very long moment, then said, “I might be able to help you. I might.”

  The farmer gave up waiting. “Guess I don’t need to know.”

  “This place is about perfect,” said Cornell.

  The farmer scratched the dog’s head, the big tail beating on the ground. “I remember when you came here. You and your dad and that other guy…I remember thinking it was neat, you getting to do what you were doing.” He had a big laugh, shaking his head and saying, “I was jealous and said so. Told my old man so. Which got me paddled, I think for the last time ever.”

  Both of them laughed. The dog kept wagging its tail.

  Then Cornell mentioned, “You may see strangers. Ordinary looking, except they won’t belong here.”

  An odd grin. “Who?”

  “Feds.” Cornell owed that much to the farmer. “Not the FBI, but similar. Sort of.”

  “If I see them, I’ll tell you.”

  “Thanks.”

  A look at the house, then the farmer said, “Let’s go home.”

  He was talking to the dog, who turned and jumped a perfect arc back into the cramped cab.

  Another tip of the seed cap, and he mentioned, “She’s pregnant. Want a couple pups?”

  Cornell blinked.

  “They make great watchdogs, if you want them.”

  “How much?”

  “Nothing.” A big shrug. “If it keeps the neighborhood safe, why do I need a price?”

  It was Dad’s idea to heat up the casserole and take it behind the house, eating dinner in the open. He carried the folding chairs. Porsche managed the food and plates. Cornell was left in charge of what looked like a toolbox. Some weeks before, passing through Texas, they had dropped by her parents’ house and gotten the box as a gift.