Horace inclined his head. “Well, I’m here for now. A good evening to you.”
As he shut the door behind him, the wind blasted him, blowing his scant hair every which way. He turned to glance back up at the monolith of the factory office. It looked like a great shovel jammed into the earth above the trenches, all glass and steel, glittering in that harsh landscape of rock and occasional wind-scoured vegetation under the hot double suns of Kepler-16b.
The footing along the causeway above the trenches was treacherous; he picked his way with caution over drifted sand and chunks of stone, using his walking stick to keep his balance. He could hear the dogmen working below him, digging at the sides of the quarry. They were speechless but not voiceless; he heard yelps and barks and occasional growls floating up.
Pausing, he glanced down at the trench, and a few of them looked up at him. He smiled at them, lips closed, not wanting to give a signal of aggression. Two or three of them gave him an open mouthed grin; in dogs he would have taken it for a sign of pleasure and affection, but in the dogmen he was still not sure.
Most of the workers were male; shorter than humans, with stubby hands ending in black claws, big soft eyes, a shortened muzzle, and humanoid ears with pointed pinnae, A few females lived behind the offices in the barracks, where they raised their young. He had been to visit them once, though the females had greeted him with suspicion and bared teeth. Their young—he couldn’t bring himself to call them either puppies or babies—were roly poly creatures, full of energy, tumbling in play, running back often to suck at their mothers’ four teats. He had only visited once, not wanting to seem a threat or a nuisance.
He finished the trek along the causeway back to his hut, a small concrete structure that faced the factory offices. Every morning he celebrated mass at the little altar outside of his hut, and sometimes two or three of the workers would come and sit on the benches he had made and watch, ears alert, eyes following his every move. They left when he was finished; they never made a sound. When he tried to talk to them, they backed away.
Then he would walk, and pray the liturgy of the hours, and intercede for the souls of the dogmen entrusted to his care. For two years he had been doing so, and Simon was right, he was beginning to lose hope. He routinely visited the barracks where the males lived. He had tried simple words, sign language, and even pictures, but despite all his efforts to communicate with them there was no sign that they understood him. And he knew that back on earth the controversy still raged over whether the creatures even had souls.
He did have hope that his presence caused the foremen, who were human, to treat their charges with more consideration. When he had first come, he had seen frequent beatings when the workers didn’t move fast enough. He had intervened a few times, and once had slid down the slope into the trenches to stop an enraged foreman from beating a worker to death. But for the most part his silent presence on the causeway above seemed enough to lend a certain calm to the atmosphere.
Today he knelt before the altar, before Christ on the crucifix. As always he felt the presence deeply as he raised his eyes. “Lord,” he said with a sigh, “is it really time for me to go? You know I’ll stay as long as you want me to, but I don’t feel as if I’m getting anywhere. I don’t ask for a sign, but if—”
He heard a footstep behind him, and a cough. “Excuse me,” he whispered as he rose, leaning on his stick. Behind him stood one of the workers, staring at him anxiously, if he could judge his expression.
“Hello,” he said, holding a hand out palm up in a gesture that he hoped was welcoming. “Can I help you?” He felt foolish saying it, but he had to say something.
The dogman shuffled forward, now fixing his anxious glance beyond Horace to the altar, or the crucifix that stood there. Horace indicated one of the benches. “Would you like to sit down?”
The dogman sat on the edge as if he were about to spring up and run. Horace sat near him, but not too near, folded his hands on his stick and sat waiting.
He recognized this worker. It was the one he had rescued from the foreman; the left side of his face was scarred by the lash. “I think I know you,” he said. “I’ve met you before. They call you Bas, don’t they?”
He expected a nod or a glance. The creature put a hand on his chest and said in a guttural grunt, “Bas.”
It was the first word he had ever heard one of them speak. “Bas,” Horace said in return. He put a hand on his own chest, his heart pounding. “Horace.”
Bas nodded. “Fah’ Horsh.”
Horace heaved a deep breath. “How can I help you?”
Bas raised a hand to point at the crucifix. “He—you?”
“I—represent him. Yes.”
“He . . . na’fer ush.”
“Not for us? Did you say?”
Bas gave a grunt that Horace took for affirmation.
“You can understand me, can’t you? Better than you can speak in human?”
“Huh.”
“Then let me say,” Horace leaned forward intently, “that he is for you. If you can understand me, he came for everyone. All people, everywhere.”
Bas put a hand on his own chest. “Na pe’pul. Na born, made b’ men.”
Horace stared at him in amazement. Guttural and primitive as it was, it was far more than he would have believed possible. He had never imagined so clear an understanding of their origins in one of the dogmen.
He frowned, gathering his thoughts, because the statement had to be answered. “You were made in a laboratory, by men, that is true. But they did not make you out of nothing. Only God—only he can do that. You breed true, now. You are part of God’s creation. He is for you.”
Bas stared at the crucifix. His great eyes seemed to widen. “Why there—why hurt?”
“Whoo. That’s a lot to explain. Maybe I could tell you some stories to make it clearer. Would that be all right?”
“Tell.”
“Well, I will start like this: once a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, there was a people who were slaves in a land called Egypt. They were treated badly, and made to work hard by their masters. Their boss was called Pharaoh. And God sent a man to them, named Moses.”
Bas leaned forward, his eyes intent, his ears pricked and trembling. “Tell!”
Horace drew a deep breath, having a premonition of what he was setting in motion. “Moses went to Pharaoh and said, ‘Let my people go.’”
The End
Edith’s Gift
“What on earth?” Edith Waters glanced out of her window to see a hooded figure pacing slowly across her front lawn. From the delicate, solemn features she could see that it was a woman. She watched as the intruder paused for a heartbeat at her rosebush, bent gracefully to touch the petal of a pink blossom, then resumed her pacing, hands clasped, eyes cast down. Before Edith could reach her front door, the woman had disappeared through the hedge that separated Edith’s yard from the sidewalk.
Edith stood perplexed. There was no reason that she could think of for anyone to wander through her front yard. It was not a corner lot; there was nothing of interest in it; even the local teenagers never came up her walk unless they were selling magazine subscriptions or asking if she would like her grass mowed.
She turned from the door and closed it behind her, wondering again where she had left her glasses. She had been wearing them only a moment ago. She wandered through the living room to the kitchen, peering absently from one end table to another, and at last spotted the glint of the lenses on the counter where she had left them while she made tea. She stuck them onto her nose and took a cup of tea back to the living room with her.
Edith was two weeks short of her seventy-ninth birthday. She had led an uneventful life, working for forty years in customer relations. The most exciting period of her life had been the month she had spent in Paris, visiting a high school friend who had married a Frenchman. Her most vivid memories were of strolling overwhelmed through the Louvre, and eating an excellent fish dinner.
She was able to say from firsthand experience that the French certainly knew how to cook.
She picked up her needles and the lavender blanket she was working on. Her favorite pastime was crocheting. She loved the feel of the yarn, the soft yet pliable feel of the strands moving through her fingers. She loved watching a project grow under her hands, from the bare glimpse of an idea in her mind to a finished scarf, sweater or blanket.
Although she had never married herself, all three of her sisters had, and she had six nieces and nephews. Once she had supplied all of them with baby blankets, winter caps, mittens, and sweaters, she branched out and began working for local charities. Her favorite was St. Joseph’s hospital, which cared for abandoned babies. Every month now for several years she had taken blankets for the newborns to St. Joseph’s, and left them in the capable hands of Nurse Davis.
Sometimes the nurse would ask if she wanted to hold a baby, as they had a program for volunteers to rock them, especially the ones born with addictions. So she would sit in one of the rockers in the nursery and rock a little blanket-wrapped bundle gingerly, afraid to handle him or her too roughly. Her visits seemed to sooth the babies; at least their crying often stopped while she was there.
It was nearly five o’clock and the light was growing dimmer. She took her work and moved out onto the porch, where she could continue by the light that remained. Her eyesight seemed to grow worse each passing day, so that she found it hard to work by lamplight. Her knees creaked when she knelt in her garden, and she woke each morning a little more stiff in the joints. But she tried to ignore these signs that her life could not continue in the same vein forever.
She glanced up at the sky, admiring the bank of blue and peach clouds gathering in the west, in time to see another woman, in dark blue cloak and hood, following the footsteps of the first, hands clasped, eyes cast down. She walked tranquilly but without hesitation through the yard.
“Excuse me,” Edith said, raising her voice. But the woman neither glanced up nor responded. She stepped through the gap in the hedge and was gone.
“How odd,” Edith murmured to herself. “Could it be a new cult of some kind?”
“A very old one,” said a voice at her side, and she looked up with a start to see another young woman, also hooded and cloaked, at the foot of her porch. This one had a piquant, intelligent face, bright brown eyes and a wealth of chestnut hair beneath her hood.
“Who are you?” Edith asked.
“My name is Tima Angelica,” said the woman with a winning smile. “Excuse us, please. We do not usually reveal ourselves to mortals.”
“Are you not a mortal?”
Her smile became evasive. “Not exactly . . . but very close. I am a great admirer of your craft.”
“My—my craft?”
She gestured to the soft white and lavender mound in Edith’s lap. “The work you do. You have made some marvelous things.”
Edith held up the half-finished blanket, which was indeed a pretty thing, with scalloped edges and a pattern of roses in the center. “You mean this?”
“Yes, indeed. You may not realize it but you are one of the experts in your craft. I have seen some of the sweaters and shawls you have done as well.”
“Well, thank you,” said Edith. “It’s nice of you to say so.”
“I wish to do more than that,” said the woman named Tima. “I would like to make you an offer.”
“An offer? Do you want to buy something?”
“Not exactly. I would like you to crochet something for me, however.”
“What would you like? I have plenty of time.”
“You may have less than you suspect,” said Tima. “I would like you to work exclusively for me, make some shawls and blouses and a dress perhaps. In return, I believe there is something that I can do for you.”
“I don’t really need anything,” said Edith. “But if you’d like to make a contribution, I could make a donation in your name to the babies.”
“What babies?” asked Tima.
“At St. Joseph’s,” said Edith. “I take a few blankets over there now and then, to the abandoned children.”
“Oh, those.” The young woman shook back her hair in a gesture of dismissal.
“It’s nice for them to have something from their early days, so they can feel that someone cared.”
“Do you really think anyone would keep such things? It’s a waste of your gift,” said Tima, and Edith noticed a cold edge to her tone. “Those children are cast-offs; no one cares about them.”
“God and his angels love them,” said Edith. “And I do—as much as I can. It’s little enough that I can do for them, but I enjoy it. And you would be surprised how many adoptive mothers keep blankets and such as keepsakes.”
“You could do a great deal more for me. And I could do something for you as well. You have not heard the rest of my offer.”
“What is it?” said Edith warily.
“You have noticed that the years are catching up with you lately, have you not? You forget things, mislay your glasses, lose your place in your work.”
“I’m nearly seventy-nine. It’s to be expected.”
“But it doesn’t need to be.” Tima leaned forward intently. “Work for me, and every day you will grow one day younger, until you reach the age you prefer, say twenty-five or thirty.”
“Age backward?” said Edith in amazement. It had been a long time since she had heard anything that caught her off guard.
“That is my offer,” Tima said, and she leaned back with a sly smile. “I doubt you will choose to refuse it.”
Edith stared at her, at her perfect features and her cool self assurance, and felt a tremor of fear. Her face was youthful, but long ages of experience dwelt behind her eyes. “Who are you?” she whispered. “Are you Death?”
The girl gave a brittle laugh. “No, no indeed. She is my sister, Muretta. My strength lies only in patience and endurance, in the slow wearing away of obstacles by the passage of hours and years and centuries.”
As she spoke another of the hooded women entered the yard and walked through, this one hooded and cloaked in lavender, the same shade as the first bars of sunset cloud. “And who,” asked Edith, “are these?”
“They are only shadows, exhalations of my passing. You could think of them as the passing hours,” said Tima.
“I see.”
“But do you see? Can you imagine: each day you will wake feeling more limber, more energetic; your memory will strengthen, your eyesight sharpen. In a few short years you could visit Paris again.”
“Paris . . .” breathed Edith, closing her eyes, seeing once more the chestnut trees against a blue sky.
“You could see the paintings and statues again that you loved, and meet young men—you will have the wisdom of age, but the joie de vivre of youth.”
The vision enlarged in Edith’s mind. She could smell the fragrant blossoms along the Champs-Elysees, see the gleam of lights in the Seine, glimpse couples laughing as they strolled arm in arm on the Left Bank—and she could join them. She reached out as if to touch a spray of blossoms—and it vanished. She opened her eyes to the fading sunlight in her yard, with its lone peach tree.
“It can happen,” whispered Tima, her eyes bright with promises.
But Edith looked at her, and only hesitated a second before shaking her head. “It wouldn’t be right. To age backwards—there’s something wrong about that, unnatural. And I couldn’t abandon the babies; they have lost so much already.”
“But that’s absurd!” said Tima. “You have a splendid gift, and it’s being wasted.”
“I’m sorry,” said Edith. “If you would like me to make you something, a shawl or sweater perhaps—”
“No.” The young woman rose abruptly to her feet. “All or nothing. I do not share my treasures.”
“Well, perhaps that is your problem . . .” Edith began, but found she was speaking to empty air.
It had grown too dark to work. With a sig
h, she gathered her yarn and needles and went back inside, locking the door securely.
There was only one thing the mysterious young woman had said that concerned Edith at all, and that was her comment that she might have less time than she supposed. That night she went to the drawer where she kept her patterns, and chose the one that she had been saving for a special occasion: a baby’s blanket with lambs frolicking around the edge. She chose a soft fuzzy yellow yarn for it, and began on the first edge that night.
She had other projects in hand as well, so it was not finished until a month later, in mid October. It was as well it was done, for the next afternoon, hurrying to the mailbox in the rain, she slipped and fell. She knew it was serious the moment she heard the crack of her hip when she hit the sidewalk. It was not a frequently traveled street. She lay in the cold rain for twenty minutes before her neighbor came out for her mail and saw her.
After that it was a jumble of impressions: the concerned faces of the paramedics bending over her, the white ceiling of the ambulance and the wail of the siren, the clipped questions of nurses and doctors, the smell of anesthetic. It all faded away for an indeterminate length of time, and she felt as if she were floating in a spiral, down and around and down. She seemed to see the serene faces of the hours passing once more, each in her turn; and last came Tima Angelica, her mouth curved in a smile that seemed to berate Edith for her foolishness.
She came to herself at last in a nursing home and found her best friend Bertha Sproul at her bedside. They had a tearful visit, though Edith let Bertha do most of the talking. She felt too tired to say much herself, but as Bertha was leaving she did find the strength to say, “Bertha, in the window seat in the living room you will find the last few blankets and caps I made. Would you be kind enough to take them over to Nurse Davis at St. Joseph’s? She’ll know what to do with them.”
The Golden Helm: More Tales from the Edge of Sleep Page 5