by J. S. Bailey
“They didn’t hurt you?”
“No; just put us to work. The people with me got sent to different sites.”
“Anyway,” Chumley went on after clearing his throat, “our plan is to have you smuggle us onboard Kedd’s airship.”
“He’s gone,” said Dalton, shaking his head. “Maasha in the kitchen said Kedd went back to his little listening post.”
Chumley’s face paled. “Then we’ll have to find another airship.”
“Hold on, I’m not following.” Keith looked from Chumley to Dalton. “How am I supposed to smuggle two grown men onto an airship without getting caught? Stick you in a giant carrier bag and pretend you’re mail?”
“Sort of, ish.” Chumley pulled his portable universe out of his pocket and activated the doorway, then set the Cube onto the floor. “You two, follow me.”
He strode through the doorway, vanishing in that uncanny way. Keith let out an impressed whistle. “Now that’s some fancy tech.”
When all three of them had gathered inside the portable universe, Keith glanced around and nodded appreciatively. “Better not let the Haa’la know about this thing. They’d steal it and sell it to the highest bidder.”
Chumley threw Dalton a look that said I told you so.
Dalton rolled his eyes.
“So, you two are going to hide in this . . . thing,” Keith said. “Which I’m assuming is inside the metal cube? Did we shrink?”
“We’re the same size as before,” Chumley said. “Yes, Dalton and I will hide in here. You will smuggle the Cube onto whichever airship is leaving here next. When we decide it’s safe, we exit the Cube.”
“What if the airship just goes to another desert listening post? I don’t think these people are bold enough to land a ship in one of our cities.”
“We were counting on being left in the desert,” said Chumley. “Once we know it’s safe to get out, only one of us will sneak out of the ship. Say I leave Dalton inside the portable universe in my pocket and walk as far as I can across the desert. Once I start to wear out, I go inside the portable universe to rest while Dalton carries me in his pocket.”
Keith scratched his forehead. “Don’t you think there could be an easier way of getting out of here?”
Chumley gave Dalton an uneasy glance. “We haven’t been able to think of one. We had hoped to board Kedd’s ship because his listening post was near our wrecked transport, which contains our spare comm units. They confiscated the ones we had on us.”
“Makes sense to me.”
“But we can’t do that, since Kedd is no longer here.”
They sat in a contemplative silence for a short time. Somewhere outside, a motor burst into life and dwindled into the distance—probably someone heading off to the mines.
“When do we want to do this thing?” Keith finally asked.
“As soon as possible,” said Dalton. “We’ll find out which is the next airship scheduled to leave this base, and we smuggle ourselves onboard before they leave.”
“Sounds like a piece of cake,” Keith said, but by his tone, Dalton knew he didn’t believe it.
Part 2
Chapter 15
Carolyn Kaur sat behind her desk, kneading her forehead and trying to remember if she’d taken her blood pressure medication.
If she had, it wasn’t working.
Errin poked their head through the office doorway. “Carolyn?”
Carolyn sighed. “What is it?”
Her assistant stepped fully into view, holding a datapad. “FCU are about to leave Richport. I thought you should know.”
“Let them go. I’ve kissed their asses enough already.”
“But surely as a sign of—”
“I don’t care anymore. You may see them off, if you wish. You can tell them I’m in a meeting.”
Errin opened their mouth as if about to object, but then simply said, “Of course. They know how busy you’ve been.”
Errin disappeared, and Carolyn took the moment to bang her forehead on the top of her desk.
Nothing was going well at all.
For obvious reasons, FCU’s departure of Richport had been delayed. Half the city still didn’t have power after the storm. Half the roads were still clogged with sand and other debris swept there from who knew where. Four people were still missing, including Dalton Kane and Chumley Fanshaw.
Last night, after the most urgent matters had been attended to, Cadu Mão de Ferro led a small team out into the desert to retrieve the stranded sheriff and his deputy, only to find the wreckage of their borrowed motorhome with no people inside it. Cadu reported that they searched the desert within a five-kilometer radius of the wreck, finding no sign of the two men.
It was like someone had swooped down from the sky and swept them away, like so much dust. Had they tried to journey to the nearest settlement on foot and succumbed to the desert heat? Surely neither of them would be so stupid, but desperation could inspire even the sanest of people into madness.
Carolyn stood. She would take a page from Dalton’s own book and take a brooding walk, to hell with whatever lies Errin had made up for Naomi Schwartzman.
She grabbed her canvas hat down from its hook, slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and left the office.
“Nice work, everyone,” she said when she arrived outside and saw a small work crew dumping buckets of sand swept from the sidewalk into the bed of a waiting dump truck. “Richport is starting to look like a city again.”
“Any word from the sheriff?” asked a young woman Carolyn recognized as Cadu’s daughter, whose name she could never remember. Her clothes and cheeks were coated with grime from her work.
“No.” Carolyn felt her expression darken. “But I’m sure he’s fine wherever he is.”
Perhaps speaking those words into being would make them true.
She turned down another street, making her way toward her cousin Slim’s coffee shop. When she pushed through the doorway into the darkened interior, she spotted Gwendolyn Goldfarb sitting in a booth seat three meters away from her.
Honestly, the woman ought to have been institutionalized after she’d returned from the desert raving mad. She’d been disturbing the peace almost as badly as a salesperson, and it was only getting worse. Gwendolyn needed a safe place to stay where she couldn’t harm herself or anyone else when she got into one of her fits.
“Good morning, Mayor,” Gwendolyn said, a mug of brew cooling in front of her.
Carolyn drew up short, feeling a few shreds of guilt for her most recent thoughts. “Good morning, Gwendolyn. How are you?”
“I don’t know.” Gwendolyn’s brows knit together, and the wisps of steam rising from her mug made Carolyn think the woman was some mystic about to impart tales of the future.
Stop that, she ordered herself. That had been Dalton’s bullshit, not hers.
“Oh?” Out of kindness, Carolyn slid onto the seat across the table from her. She could order her own coffee later.
Gwendolyn’s eyes grew glassy. “It’s so confusing. Sometimes I can think and see so clearly, and other times, it’s like a fog comes down and blocks everything from sight. My mind is full of walls.”
“Like you’re boxed in?”
“No, no.” Gwendolyn shook her head. “These walls are placed at random and don’t connect to each other. I can’t see them until I run into them. It’s so hard to think sometimes. In my mind I’m walking and walking, and bam! I run into a wall, and I try to find my way around it, and when I do I walk and walk some more until I run into another wall I can’t see.”
“What happens specifically when you run into one of these mental walls?”
“I’m not sure. I . . . ” Gwendolyn looked down at her mug, then back up at Carolyn. “There’s danger.”
Carolyn’s skin grew clammy. “Danger, where?”
“Everywhere.”
“If this is some kind of prank, I find it in poor taste.”
“They come from the sky,” Gwendolyn said, her voice growing hushed. “They have your men and don’t care that the world will burn.”
Carolyn stood, placing both of her hands on the table. “How could you know anything about my men? Who has them?”
“Those who came from the sky. Those who burn the world. The People know. They saw, and they suffer.”
“What people? Who came from the sky?” Carolyn was aware her voice was rising, and that a few of the other patrons were craning their necks to see her way, but she didn’t care.
Gwendolyn coughed. “ . . . can never remember once I’m past the wall.”
It took several moments for Carolyn to understand that Gwendolyn was finishing the sentence she had so recently broken off from. Gwendolyn had hit one of these mental blocks while they were speaking, and some other part of her mind had briefly taken over for her.
“Gwendolyn,” she said gently, “can you tell me more about the people who burn the world?”
“Good heavens, what are you talking about?” Gwendolyn chuckled and sipped at her coffee. “Who’s burning the world?”
Wouldn’t Carolyn like to know.
After Carolyn had finished her coffee—a double espresso topped with whipped cream—she marched down the street to her other cousin Monica Kaur’s medical practice.
Sally, the receptionist, was sorting through patient files when Carolyn barged in. “Is Monica busy?” Carolyn asked, noting an empty waiting room.
“She’s on her lunch break,” Sally said, tossing her box braids over one shoulder. “Want me to let her know you’re here?”
“Please do.”
Sally disappeared down a hallway, and Carolyn could hear faint murmuring. When Sally reappeared moments later, she said, “Come on back!”
Like Carolyn’s own office, Dr. Monica Kaur’s practice was one of the few air-conditioned buildings in Richport, designed for patient comfort. Carolyn basked in the cool air as she made her way down the hallway toward the comfortably-furnished break room, where Monica, five years her senior, sat eating a bowl of masala channa, the smell of which made Carolyn’s mouth water.
“What’s troubling you today, cousin?” Monica asked with a faint smile when Carolyn rapped on the doorframe.
“Who says anything is troubling me?” Carolyn stepped into the room and sat in an unoccupied armchair.
“You only come here when you want advice.”
That was true enough. “I’m worried about Gwendolyn Goldfarb.”
“You know I can’t discuss my patients, Carolyn.”
“Who else is going to look out for her? I don’t think she’s got any family left.”
“She was an Agarwal before she was married, and her mother was a Khoury. You’ll find both families alive and well over in Fred.”
“They must not be very good families, then, since they have nothing to do with her. Please, it would just be between the two of us.”
“It isn’t proper.”
“It’s my duty as mayor to take an interest in the wellbeing of my people.”
Monica regarded Carolyn with narrowed eyes, then sighed. “Fine. I haven’t seen her in here for six months. What’s she done now?”
“I was talking to her this morning in the coffee shop. She has these blanking-out moments and starts prophesying, or something.”
“Prophesying?” Monica laughed. “Didn’t Sheriff Kane think she was predicting the future? I heard something about that from Sally. It sounds like he was having some kind of mental breakdown, not Gwendolyn.”
“I thought so too.” Carolyn glanced down at her hands, which she’d clenched into fists resting on the arms of the chair.
“Did they find the sheriff yet?” Monica forked more of her lunch into her mouth, and Carolyn wished she’d had a bite to eat before coming here.
“No.” Since Carolyn hadn’t come to discuss what might have happened to Dalton, she deftly steered the conversation back on course. “I want to know exactly what happened to Gwendolyn. It’ll be our secret.”
Monica shrugged. “You know the gist of it. She wanted to drive to Mount Olympus all by herself to visit old friends and got all turned around out in the desert. She was lost out there for something like two weeks before she somehow found her way back here on foot. Nobody ever found her transport. She probably drove it into a sand dune.”
“Did she have any injuries?”
“A few bruises, but nothing major. She kept asking me if I would give her the brandy I had in my office cabinet.”
“Did you have brandy in your cabinet?”
“I did.” Monica’s expression grew troubled. “I chalked it up to a coincidence, and I certainly didn’t give her any. She was dehydrated, and I put her on an intravenous drip to help her recover.”
“Did she say what had happened to her? Anything specific?”
“She said the People had found her and helped nurse her back to health. Those would have been hallucinations, of course. Nobody lives in the area where Gwendolyn was lost.”
“How do you know?”
Monica tilted her head to one side. “What’s this about, really?”
“I’m not sure. Gwendolyn seems to know things she shouldn’t. Dalton told me she was shouting about a fire in the sky not long before the hotel burned down.”
“Another coincidence. They happen all the time, like how I dreamed that Slim and Jo were expecting the week before they announced they were having twins.”
“Gwendolyn told me that people who came from the sky are burning the world and have my men.”
“You mean Sheriff Kane and the new deputy?”
“She didn’t specify, but who else? Monica, I need to know if it’s in any way possible for Gwendolyn to have developed—oh, you’re going to make fun of me for this one—”
“Psychic powers?” Monica asked dryly.
“I don’t know how else to explain it! Lord, and I thought Dalton was mad for thinking that. But the way Gwendolyn was acting at the coffee shop . . . you should have seen her. It was spooky.”
“I didn’t know that word was in your vocabulary.”
Carolyn shivered. “Have there been any documented cases of people with true psychic abilities?” She cringed inwardly even as she spoke the words; glad that only Monica could hear her.
“That’s a very good question.” Monica leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “I read about a case on Pelstring Four where a boy of five or six cried out in his sleep that ‘Mommy should watch out for the train.’ It spooked his mother so badly that the next day she was extra-cautious when approaching a railroad crossing and nearly got plowed over because the approaching train indicator had quit working and didn’t lower the gates.”
“Who’s to say that wasn’t a coincidence?” Carolyn asked.
“Nobody’s saying it was, or it wasn’t. The fact is, the boy said it, and the next day it came true. The boy’s parents had him tested, and those examinations revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Some researchers wonder if the intense connection between the boy and his mother allowed him to tap into some higher cognitive ability so he could save her life.”
“Sounds a bit hocus-pocus.”
“Yes, although it could have scientific grounds. Just because something doesn’t make sense right now doesn’t mean it won’t in the future.”
“So, Gwendolyn could have developed psychic powers, is what you’re saying.”
“Perhaps.”
“Do you believe it, though?”
Monica stared down at what remained of her lunch and said, “I would need to run some tests on her. Even then, there’s no way to prove that her ‘powers’ are nothing more than a string of coincidences.”
“How many coincidences can you have before you can’t consider them coincidences anymore?” Carolyn asked.
“That,” Monica said, “remains the ultimate question.”
Dalton reported back for kitchen duty that afternoon and got to work chopping more alien vegetables into cubes. Two of the other regular cooks were conversing in Haa’anu on the other side of the kitchen. Dalton wished he had a decent knack for languages—while he was starting to memorize some of their most common syllables, he had no idea what they meant.
“Pip-pip! Busy you?”
Dalton jumped. He hadn’t heard Maasha’s approach, and now she towered over him, making him feel like a small boy in trouble.
“What does it look like?” He gestured at the violet cubes that had once comprised something that looked like a giant zucchini, with some obvious key differences.
“Stop now.” Maasha paused, thoughtful, then said, “You need get new delivery from ship in hangar. More food for all.”
A spark of hope flared inside him, though he was careful not to show it. “A ship? From where?”
“From Leeprau. Go now, and bring them here.”
Dalton wiped his juicy hands on a rag and undid his apron, grateful to get away from the stainless-steel room and the cluster of cooks.
He stepped out into the afternoon sunlight and felt a chill, not from any apprehension, but from the falling temperatures. He realized with a jolt that it must be autumn—seasons weren’t a thing you thought about too much when you lived in an industrial-sized oven year-round. If there had been any trees left standing near the compound, they would have been changing from green to gold, almost but not quite like the ones he remembered as a boy on Earth.
Quite a few Haa’la were gathered near the hangar, rolling crate-laden carts toward various forms of ground transport. Dalton straightened his shoulders and tried to look tall as he approached the group of bustling Haa’la, the shortest of which stood centimeters above him. “Excuse me,” he said to one Haa’la who surprisingly wore clothing of a pale gray instead of white like everyone else. “I need to pick up the supplies for the kitchen?”