Pariah

by W. Michael Gear

  “See anything?” Kylee asked.

  “No.” Dortmund double checked the lock on the door and retreated to the table. He seated himself, stared at Talina’s bottle, and surrendered to temptation, pouring a finger into his glass. As far as he was concerned, it was the best-tasting whiskey he’d ever laid lips to.

  Kylee gave a half-hearted shrug. “You know how to fly an aircar?”

  “What? You mean it’s not automatic? You don’t just tell it where you want to go and it takes you?”

  “Duh. You’re on Donovan now.”

  He wondered how many things in life he’d never learned, and what the value of all his education really turned out to be. Somehow the imperative to create administrative policies within the halls of academia seemed to fly in the face of reality when a person was nose to nose with quetzals.

  “Not like you thought, huh? Being here, I mean.”

  “No.” He braced his elbows and rubbed his cheeks with his palms. “What happened out there today? I don’t understand any of it. Why did Talina just walk out there? Why didn’t she shoot them? That rifle of hers, it can kill a quetzal, right? But she just walked out and spit in her hand? It makes no sense.”

  “That’s how quetzals communicate. Talina thought she could talk instead of kill.” Kylee shrugged, looking away absently.

  “And then you made that sound? Ran out there. What was that all about?”

  “They would have tasted her. Tried to learn her.”

  “They what?”

  “Quetzals learn by eating. Ingesting molecules. I had to stop them. I did it like a young quetzal would. I let myself be Rocket. They didn’t expect that. Or what Talina did, either. I’m starting to get hints about them. I think more than anything, they’re puzzled.”

  “And you know this . . . how?”

  “By what they said to each other. The patterns and colors they display. It’s how they talk. And then there’s what the molecules are telling me.”

  Dortmund ground his teeth. “These are the quetzal molecules you and Talina say you have inside of yourselves? I just have trouble visualizing how that works.”

  “We’re infected. What’s to visualize?” The girl looked toward the back bedroom. “It’s harder for Talina. Her brain was all adult. I got to grow up with Rocket. Dya told me my brain is structurally different. That I can think in quetzal. That makes me more integrated. By morning I’ll probably know what they want. Sometimes it comes clear in dreams.”

  “That’s your subconscious. Not true communication.”

  She gave him the sort of look she’d give an idiot. “It worked with Rocket.”

  “Such are the wages of Radcek’s megalomania. You’re paying the price for his evolutionist idiocy. How many more innocents are going to suffer in the name of his vanity and greed?”

  “What would you have done?”

  “Developed quarantined colonies. Large sealed domes that would have allowed subsurface mineral extraction while keeping the Capella III and human environments totally and completely separate.”

  The look she gave him would have frozen liquid oxygen. “Then Rocket and me could never have been friends.”

  “You could have been a normal little girl. Played with other children, shared all the joys of childhood and friends.”

  “Fuck that.”

  Dortmund started at the virulence behind her foul mouth. “And maybe you could have grown up as a proper young lady instead of like a . . . a . . .”

  The child stuck her tongue out at him. “Monster? Hybrid? Didn’t I hear you say I was polluted the other day?” She crossed her arms. “I should have let the quetzals eat you.”

  Dortmund started to give her his usual response. Realized how absolutely asinine it sounded here, in this tiny dome, who knew where in the vastness of the Donovanian bush?

  Dortmund, you’re turning out to be a real fool.

  All those years playing the university game, scrapping with the evolutionists, dismantling their arguments through his acumen. He’d wielded data like a sword, sometimes bowling his opposition over just through the force of his personality.

  I almost died today.

  He studied Kylee again, forcing himself to remember how she’d rushed out to face the monsters. Bent nearly double at the waist? Hell, he thought she’d been offering herself as a sacrifice. Turned out she was appealing to the quetzals.

  How did that happen? And, more to the point, what did it mean? Not just for him and Talina at that moment, but what did it imply about humanity? Its chances for the future?

  Donovanian TriNA was already back in Solar System. But how much? How large was the infection? What would be the etiology of the disease? How would it manifest? And worse, Turalon was halfway there with another source of infection. Would it just be the returnees? Or did the molecules spread, communicated by touch, or aerosol? Would the entire ship’s complement spread the infection through Solar System?

  They should be quarantined. Every last one of them.

  If only he could get word back to Solar System. Warn them of the impending threat.

  “I feel as if everything I ever believed has been looted away. That the man that I was has lost everything.”

  “Not even close, bucko.”

  “Bucko?”

  She got to her feet, saying, “You don’t even talk like a real person.” She paused, expression thoughtful. “What rhymes with Dortmund? Cortfund? Snort kund? No, wait, I got it! Short Mind. Dortmind Short Mind. Dortmind Short Mind.” She began repeating it in a sing-songy mantra.

  I really hate children. Disgusting little beasts.

  He wanted to jam his fingers in his ears.

  “I think the thing to do is call Port Authority. Have them come and pick us up. Take us back. I’ll be hauled off to Corporate Mine again, but at least there are no wild beasts to devour me.”

  He nodded, seeing it all fall into place. “Dr. Turnienko will know what to do about Talina. She can check for a subdural hematoma. Can monitor her recovery. And you can be placed once again under your mother’s authority. God help the poor woman.”

  So saying, he got to his feet, stepped over to the cabinet and opened the doors. He stared thoughtfully at the radio. Turned the knob as he had seen Talina do.

  Nothing.

  Dortmund squinted. Surely he could figure out a technology as primitive as radio. He turned the other knob, hearing a gratifying click. Rotated it all the way, and went back to turning the first knob.

  Nothing.

  He checked to make sure the power was connected. Yes.

  Again he tried the knobs, moving them in combination, turning left and right.

  “You might as well go back to your whiskey,” Kylee told him, arms crossed defiantly as she gave him her “you’re an idiot” stare.

  “Why doesn’t this work?”

  “Because I knew you’d want to call Port Authority. They killed Rocket.”

  “Well, fix the radio! That’s an order.”

  “No.”

  He stepped toward her, knotting a fist in a threatening motion. “Whatever you did, undo it.”

  “Can’t make me.”

  “I could thrash you within an inch of your life.”

  “Pedophile.”

  Dortmund stopped short. Winced.

  He made a calming motion with his hands. “Sorry. Lost my temper. Will you please fix the radio?”

  “My mother always told me, ‘Go to bed. You’ll see it clearer in the morning.’ G’night.”

  She left him standing there—went skipping her way down the hall toward the back bedroom.

  Dortmund took a step after her. Stopped. The little shit had called his bluff. What was he going to do?

  He stepped back to the radio, stared thoughtfully at it. Checked the casing, but couldn’t see anything missi
ng. No plugs or holes that might have held a part.

  “If there is a dark side to the universe, I’m in it,” he murmured as he closed the cabinet. Two PhDs and he couldn’t even fix a radio?

  53

  The bowl was broken. That fact could not be undone. Could not be taken back.

  Guilt and horror remained, painful in its intensity. Would always remain. Talina hadn’t meant to. She’d just wanted to touch it, turn it so she could see the colorful images painted on the side. They were like cartoons, those images of feathered men in profile. Those were the heroes. And the others—monstrous, with sagging bellies and spots on their skin—were the Lords of Death who ruled in Xibalba, the Maya Underworld.

  To reach the bowl up on the old wooden table, she had to stretch, standing on tiptoes. She could barely touch it, feel it. With a bit more effort she got her fingers around it.

  And then, extended as she was, she slipped on the Saltillo tile floor.

  The sight of the bowl, teetering on the edge of the table, tipping so slowly, then falling . . .

  Her panic would never be forgotten. The sound of the beautiful and ancient bowl as it shattered on the tiles echoed. Jarring. An ache resonating in her bones.

  “It will be all right,” Mother had told her when she finally settled down and stopped crying. “Not as good as it was, but it’s not a total loss, chica mia. For some it would be a tragedy. What was once worth a fortune is now worth less. But we are not like the looters. As archaeologists, our values are different.”

  Talina, tears still streaking down her cheeks, had stared anxiously up at her mother. She’d cried and cried. Wishing she could take it back, that she’d never gotten out of bed that day. Wished Mother’s team had never opened the dead Mayan king’s tomb and found the burial pot.

  Despite Mother’s words, Talina had known; she’d seen the dismay, the heartbreak Mother hid so well behind her large dark eyes.

  That night they sat side-by-side at the kitchen table, the smell of cooking tamales drifting from the stove. On the scarred old wooden table, Mother had placed a large plastic bowl, its insides filled with sand. In a plate next to it were the broken potsherds.

  “You see, hija mia, because we are archaeologists, nothing has been lost.”

  “But I broke it!” Once again the tears began to silver her vision.

  “So the pot broke? To those cholo pendejo antiquities thieves, that would be a tragedy. What was worth a fortune to them on the black market in Transluna is now almost worthless. But for us, we have only lost a little time.”

  “But, Mama? It’s all apart. It won’t be right again.”

  “That’s not the pot’s true value.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Mother studied Talina thoughtfully where she was seated beside her; Mother’s long fingers rested on the edge of the sand-filled bowl. “Why did you want to touch the pot?”

  “To see the colors and pictures.”

  Mother nodded, a faint smile bending her lips. “Do you know why the pot was buried next to the head of the king? It was to serve him in the next world. To catch his blood when he made sacrifices, hold his spirit plants, and to burn his offerings. That’s why it had such pretty paintings. They told a story.”

  “What story?”

  “The story of the death and rebirth of One-Hunahpu. Along with his little twin brother, Seven-Hunahpu, he was killed by the Lords of Xibalba after the brothers lost a ball game in the Underworld. Not just any ball game, but pitz: the ball game played by the gods just after the second Creation. In the game you can’t touch the ball with your hands or feet. You have to hit it with your hips, head, or elbows. Each time the brothers hit the ball, or it bounced, it made a ta-thump sound. When the brothers smacked it back and forth, or it bounced on the alley or sloping walls of the ballcourt, it kept going ta-thump. The twins made so much noise they woke the Lords of Xibalba who lived under the ballcourt’s floor.”

  This story Talina knew: “And so the Lords of Xibalba summoned the brothers to Xibalba to play ball with the Lords of Death. They went and played ball and lost, so the Lords of Xibalba killed them. They cut off One-Hunahpu’s head and buried the brothers’ bodies under the ballcourt.”

  “That’s right. The Lords of Death hung One-Hunahpu’s head in a calabash tree overlooking the ballcourt. It hung there until it was only a skull. One of the Lords of Death, who was named Blood Gatherer, had a daughter called Blood Moon. She heard about the skull in the tree, and though it was forbidden, went to see.

  “There she saw One-Hunahpu’s skull. And it spoke to her, and told her not to be afraid. Then it asked her to hold out her hand, and the skull spit into it. And you know what happened?”

  “She got pregnant with the skull’s twin sons.”

  “That’s right. And when the Lords of Death found out, they told four of the messenger owls to sacrifice Blood Moon and bring back her heart. But the owls took pity and led Blood Moon to the surface of the earth and took back a fake heart to fool the Lords of Death.”

  “And Blood Moon went up and had twin sons.”

  “She did. The first born was named Hun Ajaw and the second Xbalanque. Years later they found their father and uncle’s ball-playing equipment. And went back and played the Lords of Death in a ballgame in Xibalba. And won, and brought their father back to life. That was the story told by the paintings on the pot. It illustrated the moment that Hun Ajaw and Xbalanque brought their father back to life. It’s the Mayan resurrection story. Now, will you help me?”

  “Do what?”

  “Make the pot whole again.”

  Talina, standing on her chair, watched as her mother began sorting through the broken potsherds that they had carefully picked up from the floor.

  “Let’s begin,” her mother told her. She took two of the broken shards and placed them together to make sure they fit. Then she took them apart again, carefully glued the edges, and fit them back together. These she stuck in the loose sand in the bowl; the sand kept them positioned perfectly.

  “It will take a long time, hija. It must be done carefully, piece by piece. And thoughtfully so that no pieces are glued together out of order.”

  “And what then?”

  “Then it will tell the story again. It will teach us about who we are and where we came from. It even tells us the name of the king in whose tomb the pot was buried.”

  Mama picked up the potsherd with the tri-part glyph. “His name was Laju’n Way. A very powerful name because it had several meanings. Laju’n is the number ten in Mayan. The word Way in Mayan meant transformation, and had several meanings, including ‘dreamer,’ ‘animal companion spirit,’ ‘spirit possessed,’ and ‘to sleep.’”

  “Those are funny names.”

  “Not to the Maya. Laju’n Way must have been a very powerful and spooky man. I’ll bet he had animal spirits in his head that gave him visions. No wonder his people treated him with such respect.”

  “Oh.” Talina tried to understand what it would be like to have animals in her head.

  “So you see, chica mia, breaking the pot wasn’t such a tragedy. Each of the fragments carries bits of information. Even if they are cracked and glued together, the pictures will once again tell the story of the twins bringing their father back to life. We can still analyze what the Maya used for paint. Scrapings from the inside of the pot will tell us what it once held. If offerings were burned inside it. Or, if we get a spot of the king’s blood from when he made sacrifice, we’ll learn his blood type and get his DNA. Even pinpoint where the clay for the pot originally came from through its chemistry. A thousand things.”

  Talina remembered staring at the two glued fragments where they were stuck in the sand, wondering at all the secrets they still held.

  When the pieces are all back together . . .

  The pot hasn’t been destroyed. It still has value.


  All the pieces carry bits of information.

  The king was a dreamer who had animal spirits in his head.

  The image shifted, and the tripartite glyph of Laju’n Way’s name faded, started to grow fuzzy, as though it were sinking down into a layer of fog. Shifting. Moving. Stirring the currents as its shape morphed, turned triangular. When it did the three parts of the glyph began to glow, lining up at the top of a multicolored and wedge-shaped head.

  The familiar quetzal’s head opened its mouth, the three eyes shining with piercing intensity.

  Terror speared through Talina’s heart, lancelike, sharp and fierce.

  As she wavered in the dream, she called out, “Mother! How do I fix myself? Where is my bowl of sand?”

  But try as Talina might, when she reached for a piece of her shattered soul it seemed to slip through her fingers like mist. Each time she could hear the soft chittering of quetzals.

  54

  Tamarland could almost pity Allison and Wirth. First came Wirth. A petty criminal, the guy was completely outclassed. He’d never had to play on the same level of sophistication and intrigue that Tam had. And then there was Allison: small-town girl, young, and totally naïve when it came to the complexity of true gamesmanship.

  Each was floundering along in his or her clumsy way, and each would remain useful in Tam’s long-term plans. That was the thing about subordinates. They always had their uses—though Port Authority and Corporate Mine offered nothing like the daunting complexities of Solar System.

  Tam chuckled to himself as he donned his suit and slipped his coat around his shoulders. Then he checked his reflection in Allison’s mirror where it hung on the back of her door. Living in her room at The Jewel wasn’t the worst of accommodations, but he didn’t want to evict Wirth out of his supposed mansion. Yet.

  Assuming anyone could call that three-story monstrosity of stone and timber a mansion. It might have been the most imposing dwelling in Port Authority, but the place was more reminiscent of a fourteenth-century feudal pile in the north of Germany than anything an enlightened twenty-second-century aristocrat would call home.