Before We Die Alone

by Ike Hamill

  I’ve given up on trying to have a relationship with my nephew Robert, but I know she’s still tracking him. She won’t say exactly why she’s doing it. Occasionally, she’ll mention something about Robert and Laurel. They’re a solid couple now, despite Germaine’s concerns. I try to pretend that I’m not interested in the details that Vanessa reports.

  There are no more bears at the zoo. I can’t think of the last time I saw one in person. I tracked down one of the workers at the zoo and tried to get an answer as to why the bear exhibits were empty. He would only say that their animal guests were circulated in and out, depending on breeding opportunities.

  One day, feeling particularly bold, I made a fold to the bear’s blimp in the clouds of Venus. It took hours to even make the fold. The relative proximity wasn’t a huge challenge, but I had to be very careful to find an existing groove. The last thing I wanted to do was make a fold that would end up in the middle of a sulfuric acid cloud.

  When I finally had the golden glow, I shoved only my hand through. I was holding a digital camera. I turned it and pressed the button. I swear, when I pulled my hand back I half expected it to be eaten away by the poisonous atmosphere. It wasn’t. The pictures I saw were the ordinary insides of the bear’s observation deck. I left a little note for Vanessa before I stepped through.

  ---- * ----

  The blimp was quiet. Outside, the wind rattled an antenna. It was a lonely sound. The towering clouds filled with their terrible gasses were empty of life, and they obscured the barren landscape that was somewhere below. I’ve done some research—on the surface, the atmospheric pressure is so great that it would crush my body. It would be like diving a thousand meters into the ocean. If this blimp were to pop, I would choke on acid as I was pulped by the density of the gas.

  It’s a strange place to make a home.

  I headed for the wall and the hatch opened. Before, when I was there with Adam, the blimp seemed like a vacation house during the off-season. On this most recent trip, it felt abandoned. Nobody lived there anymore. The air was fresh enough. I suppose that the machines circulate and clean it. They’re probably still running on solar power and will keep churning until the parts wear out.

  I climbed the stairs. It was much easier on my rebuilt knee. Still, it was a slow process, but that was mostly because I kept stopping to listen. I was waiting for the rattle of chains or the whisper of a distant voice. Nature abhors a vacuum. Maybe that’s why we invented ghosts to fill those empty spaces.

  I found the bear’s little control room and stepped inside. The lights were still flashing. The pinups still grinned back at me with coy smiles and strategically placed hands. A redhead held up the strap that had slipped over her shoulder. A brunette was tugging at the string of her bikini bottoms and almost revealing herself.

  There was a picture that I hadn’t noticed before. It was a standing bear, but something was off. I leaned in a little closer to see it in the dim lights from the instruments. It only took a second for me to realize—the picture was of a male bear. As I blushed, I realized that it was a picture of the black bear himself. Someone had snapped a photo of him standing in a field, with his back near a line of tall pines. The black bear had taped an image of himself amongst all the beautiful women. Maybe it was his way of interjecting himself into their midst. On impulse, I took the photo. I peeled it away from the wall until the tape gave up its grip and I stuffed the photo in my back pocket.

  Then, I turned my attention to the controls.

  Adam had known what he was looking for. I didn’t. Still, with some fumbling, I found the display that showed the current portal selection. It wasn’t a certainty that the bear had come through here, but it was my best shot at a clue.

  The display read, “Belgrade.”

  I hit the button and was rewarded with a portal in the wall. I got the sense of it, but didn’t use it. As far as I knew, the bear had set up that control as a trap. Maybe the portal led to the center of a star. Just out of curiosity, scrolled through the other destinations. I found the “PN CC” setting that Adam and I had used before. I found one for “Maldy AC.” I might have read too much into it, but I figured the “AC” stood for “Adam’s Cabin.” If so, that portal would have probably led to a black patch of scorched dirt.

  I grew bored of the control room. My nose will never be as sharp as a bear’s, but even I smelled the disuse.

  Looking back, the rest of the blimp made perfect sense. There was a machine room, with circulators and replicators. Another room held supplies. His berries and greens were grown in a penthouse atrium. Some plants had withered, but others seemed to thrive without attention. I watched the intakes pulling in the atmosphere and wondered what kind of processing was extracting usable chemicals. The technology was way beyond me, but it was interesting to consider. Amidst the acid, there was carbon dioxide and nitrogen in that gas. Those were useful. I’m not sure how the bear’s blimp obtained usable hydrogen. From what I’ve read, it’s not that common on Venus. Eventually, I shook off my techno-lust. It was a dangerous place to sightsee. I made my way back down to the observation deck, so I could safely catch my fold back to my waiting apartment.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  * Future *

  “WHAT ARE YOU SO preoccupied with?” Vanessa asks me.

  We’re in our little breakfast nook. Before Vanessa, I wouldn’t have believed it possible to fit a little dining area near the window over the stairs. She had made it into a cozy little spot for two.

  “You remember about that trip I took a few months ago?” I ask.

  “Which one?”

  It was a fair question. I took frequent excursions to Maldy and Higg, just to keep tabs on what was going on. I never really saw anything useful, but I always told Vanessa about the trips. She was better at spotting patterns than me, even if she only had my poor accounts to go on.

  “I went to the bear’s blimp on Venus.”

  She wrinkled her forehead. Her tone was as flat as her lips. “You didn’t mention.”

  “Sorry. I guess I knew you wouldn’t approve.”

  No response.

  “Anyway, I got the idea that the bear might have a different hideout. It’s a place called Belgrade.”

  “Pretty land?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Isn’t that what it means? Belle for pretty, and grade for land?” she asks.

  “Oh. No. I think the name is Serbian.”

  “Oh. I thought it was French or something.”

  “No. I don’t think so,” I say. “Anyway, there’s a chance that the bear is hiding out there.”

  “So?”

  “I would like to talk with him one more time.”

  “This is the bear whose plans you ruined. This is the bear who almost killed Adam before he tried to chew your foot off. You want to have a chat with that bear?”

  I nod. “A little. Yeah.”

  Vanessa picks up her napkin and dabs at her mouth. She drops it on her plate and starts to slide from her seat.

  “Let’s go,” she says. “Wait, let me get my knife.”

  “Go where?”

  “If you think I’m letting you go off to confront that bear on your own, you’re crazy.”

  It’s funny how she turned this into a confrontation that would require a knife. I simply said I wanted to go talk with him.

  ---- * ----

  I use my trick with the camera again. It doesn’t show much. There’s snow and ice on the other side of the fold. Vanessa and I dress up in warm clothes and she takes my hand before I step through. She’s my lifeline. If I tug twice, she’s going to pull me back.

  It’s warmer than I thought on the other side. Imagine the first day of spring. Yes, there’s snow on the ground, but it’s not really cold. There is a wet heaviness in the air that might sink into the bones eventually, but I don’t plan on being here that long.

  I give one tug. Vanessa comes through.

  “Oh,” she says. She squints up at the su
n.

  “Not bad, right?”

  “No. Not bad at all.”

  She lets go of my hand and turns her eyes down to the snow. She points at the footprints. A bear’s footprint is wider and shorter than a person’s, and it has five little holes near the front where the claws dig in. We follow the prints for a few paces before Vanessa looks back. She’s getting a mental reference for where the fold is. She doesn’t see the golden glow yet, but I think she will eventually. We’ve been working on it, trying to teach her.

  “Two bears,” she says, pointing at the snow. I’ll have to take her word for it. I can’t see the difference between the tracks.

  The trail winds between two hills that protect a little area. The snow is packed down in front of the entrance to a cave. Icicles hang down in front of the entrance except in the middle. In the middle, they’ve been broken off and snow has been tracked into the darkness.

  Vanessa starts forward with her knife in the lead.

  “Wait,” I say. I put a hand on her shoulder and pull her back. “Hello?”

  No response.

  “Hello?” I call again.

  There’s a scraping sound. Vanessa wants to start forward again. I hold her back one more time.

  Finally, we hear a slow, shuffling walk. The bear’s form materializes gradually from the darkness.

  We back up and allow him to step outside.

  The bear sits down and rolls backwards so he can scratch behind his ear with his hind leg.

  “Hibernation? Ever heard of it?”

  “Bears don’t hibernate,” Vanessa says. “It’s not a true hibernation, just a deep sleep.”

  “Whatever,” he says. “What do you want?”

  “Why did you do it?” I ask. “You went to all that trouble to save Earth from the asteroid, and then you built that machine which screwed everything up. Why?”

  “Please,” the bear says. “Why don’t you just accept your guilt and move on?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The bear rolls his eyes and yawns. He looks about one deep breath away from falling back asleep. If he does, I’m going to kick him or maybe even let Vanessa stab him.

  “You, Dennis. You blackmailed the brown bear into moving the asteroid. You only used me as a bargaining chip. You built the machine. I was just the one who kept your team motivated. Then once you got everything working, you swept in and sabotaged the damn thing. What exactly was your motivation for that? Your people finally had access to a power source that wouldn’t destroy the planet and you blew it up.”

  “I was trying to keep my brother from blowing it up.”

  The bear nods slowly.

  “Good job. You developed a system that would run perfectly forever. There was no way for it to break down. There was no danger whatsoever. Then when it proved itself unbreakable, you swept back in and found a way to break it. Even if he had wanted to, your brother couldn’t have broken that machine.”

  “Then why was he building the Grids? Why was he getting ready for the end of the world if he wasn’t the one working to cause it?”

  The bear scratches his chest with a front paw while he’s scratching behind his ear with the opposite hind. It’s amazing that he doesn’t fall over. “Your brother ran a simulation. It predicted a high probability of Armageddon. He knew it was coming, but he never believed that it was coming from you.”

  I cross my arms. This is all too convenient. I expected the bear to blame everything on Arthur. He would let me be angry at a dead man and get himself off the hook. I didn’t expect that he would put everything back on me, but it makes sense. If I’m defensive, there’s less of a chance of me being aggressive towards him. I appreciate the strategy.

  “I don’t believe it,” I say.

  “Go ask Arthur then,” the bear says.

  I look at Vanessa. She’s as confused as me.

  “He’s dead. I’ve seen the body,” I say.

  “You saw the body, but not the mind,” the bear says. “Go to Llanive. Go to the shore near the point. That’s where he’s living.”

  “Suicide,” Vanessa says.

  “He’s managing okay,” the bear says. “By the way, you might want to clear out of here before my girlfriend gets back. She’s pretty ornery, and she doesn’t think much of people.”

  This is another convenient circumstance for the bear. He’s good at manipulation. He makes me defensive, gives me something else to do, and then puts a time clock on the whole situation by introducing a new threat.

  “I thought you were hibernating.”

  “I was, but before I went in there, I ate her cubs. Now she’s ornery and horny. That’s a bad combination if you don’t happen to be a stud bear.”

  “You ate her…” I start. Vanessa interrupts me by pulling on my elbow. I see what she’s looking at. There’s an angry-looking black bear coming over one of the snowy hills. The bear rushes forward. Vanessa pulls me back enough that the black bear is almost between us and the charging female. The black bear rears up and engages with the female bear, drawing her attention into a snarling, growling fight. At least it looks like a fight to me. It could be foreplay.

  Vanessa stars looping around the couple to get back to the path. I catch up to her and guide her towards the fold. We step through.

  ---- * ----

  It’s a beautiful day on the beach, but Vanessa can’t enjoy it. She’s busy looking every direction and jumping at every sound. Her attention is mainly focused on the water. Whenever she sees the ripple of an incoming wave, she tents her hand over her eyes and studies it.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I told you—they leap right out of the water and snatch animals from the beach. The whole thing happens in under a second.”

  “Then why bother looking? If they get us, they get us. There’s no use in worrying about something we can’t prevent.”

  “We could easily prevent it. All we have to do is go back to Earth and we’ll prevent it.”

  “I want to see if he’s telling the truth about my brother. Where’s the point?”

  It’s obvious once she shows me. There’s a spit of rock that juts out from the beach. Near the land, the tumbled rocks are worn away. I could walk right from the beach on top of it. As it reaches deeper and deeper into the ocean, the rocks gain elevation. The waves only crash halfway up the face of the peninsula, if that. Near the end, there’s a hole worn in the side of the rock face. On the top surface, one of the yellow-fruit trees grows.

  I start in that direction. Vanessa runs to catch up. She takes my arm and whispers in my ear. “Just be careful.”

  I have a lot of confidence in my ability to evade danger. I’ve had a lot of practice. I’m not so good at rock climbing. The jagged black boulders don’t provide good places to set my feet, so before long I’m using my hands as well. We’re about ten feet up the rocks when I hear Vanessa take in a sharp breath behind me.

  I follow her eyes to the beach. From the surf, a long purple and white tentacle has emerged. It has felt its way up the sand. It’s gingerly touching our footprints, moving from divot to divot slowly. Vanessa turns to me and waves me forward. She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I pick up the pace and we climb the rocks, gaining elevation as we move out on the spit that bisects the waves.

  When we get to the top, the rocks flatten out. From here, we have a much better view of the water. The tentacle is gone—it has retreated back into the water—but I can see a dark shape lurking in the water beyond where the waves break. It might just be seaweed, or perhaps dark rocks jutting through the sandy bottom. But it might be the owner of the tentacle, keeping an eye on us as we walk across the rocks. I have no way of judging how long that arm is. I can only hope that it’s not long enough to find us up here.

  I turn to Vanessa. “Is that what you were worried about getting us?”

  She shakes her head. “No. The things I heard about were much scarier.”

  As we walk down the rocks, we’re moving away from
the domain of land and becoming surrounded by the ocean. It’s a humbling feeling. Even though we’re on solid ground, the water around us removes some of the stability I’m accustomed to. It’s almost like being on a boat. I don’t like the feeling.

  I see the animal when I’m about fifty paces from the tree. It’s leaning back against the trunk—it might be asleep.

  Vanessa moves to the side. The spit of land isn’t all that wide, but she’s trying to flank, just in case.

  As I get closer, I see that it’s a chimp. He’s an old one, or at least a very gray one. His fur is thin on the top of his head and on his shoulders. His muscles bulge through his hair. Chimps are fast, strong, and ruthless. At least on Earth, they are. On Llanive, the only chimps I met seemed pretty rational, but I never talked to a wild one asleep against a tree.

  We stop about ten paces away.

  “Hello,” I say.

  He opens his eyes. They dart back and forth between me and Vanessa.

  “We’re looking for a man. He’s supposed to live somewhere around here.”

  The chimp tries to insert one of his thick fingers into his ear. When he’s done, he puts the finger to his nose and sniffs. I glance at Vanessa.

  “His name is Arthur,” Vanessa says. “This is his brother.”

  I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but Vanessa knows more about chimps than I do. Maybe the fraternal bond will mean something to him. Of course, that assumes that this is a speaking chimp, and not some garden variety chimp who doesn’t know what the hell we’re talking about.

  Something occurs to me. I turn to Vanessa. “Do pandas speak Chinese?” I ask her.

  She frowns and gives her head a tiny shake. “Pandas don’t talk.”

  “Oh.” It didn’t seem like such an absurd idea when it was coming out of my mouth. Based on Vanessa’s reaction, it was.

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Vanessa says to me. “Can you get us out of here without going back onto the beach? I don’t want to end up as reverse sushi today.”