Ascent

by Thorby Rudbek

  “Isn’t your home like this?” Karen was studying his expression, smiling to herself as she enjoyed his reactions.

  “What’s that?” Richard tore his eyes away, looked down from the incredible view. “Oh... not exactly,” he grinned wryly, sharing the joke at his expense quite willingly. “This is fantastic!” Then he vocalized his inescapable conclusion. “You’re not from Earth, are you?”

  “I was born right here, in this room,” she explained, then paused to collect her thoughts. “I don’t know about any other planet, or even any other place; I haven’t ever been outside Redcliff. I thought that there might just be a view like this from somewhere else on Earth.” She looked at him intently. “There isn’t, is there?”

  Richard shook his head slightly. “This is how I would have imagined it to look in the Galactic Centre, where the stars are far more abundant -- if I could ever have imagined anything so beautiful.”

  “I don’t know anything about a ‘Galactic Centre’,” Karen responded. “Tutor hadn’t yet begun to teach me about space or science, other than a little mathematics,” she swallowed, making an effort to control her emotions. “B-but he died – that is, he stopped working, and I had to carry on alone.”

  Richard looked closely at Karen, then spoke gently as a hunch formed within his mind. “Do you know how old you are, Karen?”

  “My Daddy told Tutor I was five when he taught him how to look after me. Then my Daddy went away… he was very sick, though I didn’t know it at the time. Tutor said that I have lived here with him for over ten years since then. Tutor told me Daddy left because he knew he would die soon, and he didn’t want me to be sad, or hurt.” Karen sobbed quietly, unable to handle the sudden and intensely welcome change in her circumstances that gave her someone to confide in after the devastating loss of her only friend, Tutor, who had been so much more than a foster parent to her for more than a decade. “M-m-mother died soon after I was born. I don’t remember anything about her. Since Daddy went away, I’ve lived here alone, rarely glimpsing another human being, only going out at night when no one was around. I always knew I would be safe with Tutor to guide me. Tutor protected me, taught me… cared for me. Then he, he…”

  Richard pulled her gently against him and held her close for several minutes, until she stopped crying. He stroked her dazzling silky hair as waves of intense emotion flooded through him and over him. Eventually she looked up at him through her tears, and he stepped back a little and loosed his hold on her as he sensed her tense slightly in his arms. Her eyes looked almost black.

  He said nothing for a moment, then: “Why did you decide to start in the last year of school? It might have been easier to maintain your low profile if the other students were the same age as you.”

  “You think I am much younger than you… But I don’t actually know how old I am; I know now I look pretty young. Maybe I was over five and-a-half and it’s been over ten and-a-half years since Daddy left. In any case, I don’t actually know why I chose the oldest class; I just thought I really should. When Tutor… went silent, I sat around and just stared at these stars,” she gestured up at the beautiful glowing scene, “I don’t know how long for. I lost track of things. I found myself outside, in the rain. Then I decided I had to do something. I realized that I had to survive somehow without Tutor. More than that, I had to learn how to unlock Citadel’s secrets. I knew I didn’t know enough about science to be able to do that; that’s why I decided to go to school. Tutor had been preparing me to go to university, and I knew he hadn’t finished yet, so I just walked through town and into the principal’s office. Whenever someone came close and looked at me, I looked back with my grey eyes, and they looked away. So no one tried to stop me. No one even noticed me,” she smiled somewhat bleakly up at him.

  “It was fairly easy to convince Mr. Stranberg that I was seventeen,” Karen looked at Richard, both realizing and feeling what he was thinking. “Yes, I know I didn’t want to tell a lie or have you tell one for me. I just felt this, this compulsion to be in the oldest class; I could hear him thinking what age students had to be for that class, and I didn’t know for sure if I was old enough. So I told him that I was, and he added me to the class without a second thought. I know he has many doubts about me now; I heard him think some of them when he stood outside the classroom the other day and looked at me during lessons. I tried to dis-interest him while I sat there, but he was thinking too strongly for me to affect him. The kids in the class are much easier to influence. Those doubts he had would eventually have led him, and then many others, to Citadel, if you had not helped me find a diversion.”

  The next question was a difficult one for Richard, but he felt he needed to ask it. “Why did you choose me to help you? What if I hadn’t come to Redcliff?”

  “There was no one else I could trust, no one at all,” Karen explained. “On Saturday I could feel someone coming. On Sunday I knew you were here, somewhere. Then, Monday, when the new student was standing in the doorway of my classroom, I watched him for a little while before I asked him to let me enter the room. I knew he was that someone,” she finished, simply.

  As Richard looked across the couple of feet between them, Karen’s upturned face seemed to glow. He noticed her eyes were tinted the deepest, clearest sky blue he had ever seen, and he felt a tremendous desire to kiss her. As he was about to step forward, she slipped her hands out of his and turned away.

  “I’ll show you where Tutor used to be.”

  Richard followed her across the room, trying to collect his thoughts, and control them. She knew what I was thinking of doing, I think!

  “So Tutor was the only companion you have ever had since you were five?” he began, once his mind and emotions had calmed somewhat. “I think your parents would be very proud of you, Karen.”

  “Karen Amer!” She smiled sheepishly. “That’s not my real name, of course. I wanted to sound typically Amer -ican,” she emphasized. “So that I would blend in.” She touched a section of the wall that to Richard looked like any other, and a panel like a video monitor appeared, with a keyboard under it. The screen was blank and the keyboard had fewer keys than he was used to. Richard leaned over it. He was not surprised to find that the symbols on the keys were unfamiliar to him, that he could not even identify the numbers. If there are any in her language – though I suppose there’d have to be.

  “Tutor taught me about the history of Earth, from the fifteenth century onwards. We had just started on the Boer War when, well, you know…” Karen looked helplessly at Richard. “Do you think you can fix it?” she asked desperately.

  “Karen, I…” he began, then stopped himself. He decided to change the subject. “How is it that Citadel has been here for years, but no one even notices it exists? Even the mailman didn’t seem to know it was here until I pointed it out to him.”

  “Oh, that’s easy to explain. Some time ago, Tutor told me that Daddy had created a ‘Disinterest Zone’ for all of Redcliff. Tutor said it was artificially maintained using power from Citadel. When Tutor stopped functioning, I believe the system failed at the same time. Anyway, I can’t detect the effect any more, even when I sit outside on the grass and really concentrate.

  “As for the people here, I think the effect on them began to wear off after a few days, so everyone in town will probably start noticing Citadel and asking questions about me very soon. Mr. Stranberg will get that letter out of his file any moment now, if he hasn’t already, and he’ll start to wonder why he accepted a letter that I wrote. Then he’ll want to see Daddy.” Karen stared past Richard, not seeing the stars with her now-blue eyes.

  “Maybe his files burned down with the school,” Richard suggested hopefully.

  “I don’t think so.” Karen responded soberly. “Somehow I can’t imagine a man like him losing any important documents, even to a fire.”

  “He’ll be so busy getting alternative arrangements made for all the students, he won’t even think of you for a moment.”

&
nbsp; “I bought a little time, that’s all.” Karen shook her head slowly. “Tutor said that Daddy had kept the town so disinterested that nothing had ever been written in the civic records about Citadel. Perhaps if you could restore Tutor, I could get the Disinterest Zone working again,” she finished, trying to be positive. “Then Mr. Stranberg will forget all about me.”

  “Karen,” Richard sighed. “I can change a light bulb, or maybe even mend an old reel-to-reel tape player, given enough time and some basic equipment, like a soldering iron, a circuit diagram and a multi-meter, but how can I begin to hope to be able to fix Tutor?” He threw up his hands and shook his head slowly. “This is light years ahead of my understanding.” He reached tentatively for the console, only to inadvertently reset it to its ‘off’ mode, so that it disappeared back into the wall. “I wouldn’t know where to begin. I’m really sorry,” he said sadly, and reached out and squeezed Karen’s shoulder sympathetically.

  As he did so, she covered his hand with hers. As her fingers touched his, huge waves of depression flooded into his mind from Karen’s like the aftermath of a broken dam. His mind was overloaded, swamped and swept away by her intense emotions. Consciousness went too, washed away with the deluge. He collapsed against the wall and slid, in a strange kind of slow-motion gracefulness, senseless to the floor.

  Chapter Twelve

  There is no giving without receiving – Penchetan

  When Richard regained consciousness, he opened his eyes and found Karen was kneeling right next to him, leaning over him, but being careful not to actually touch him.

  “What happened?” He looked around, and then down, discovering that a section of the mossy floor had been raised somehow and formed into some kind of reclining chair, supporting him in total comfort.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, once she saw his eyes open, “I’ve been trying to control my emotions, especially my fear, but I think that time you got all of it.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t suppose it did me any harm. I want to help… only in all the stories I’ve known, the girl is the one who is supposed to pass out!” Richard joked a little feebly, and sat up slowly, cautiously. As he did so, he noticed that the surface underneath him adjusted automatically to his new position.

  “Perhaps if I could learn your language, I might be able to do something,” he suggested. “But that would probably take a lot of time.”

  “Maybe not,” Karen began hesitantly. “Remember when you helped me up from the grass? I picked up something of the way you speak, as we shared our thoughts for a moment. Maybe I could give my language to you, myself.”

  Richard leaned back a little in his ultra-comfortable recliner, so that he could observe Karen more easily. Against the starry backdrop she looked like an angel hovering over him, her hair floating behind her like wings.

  “Your English has improved dramatically, that’s true,” he replied, amazed that he had not consciously realised this had happened. “So, how could you do that? How could you give me your language? Will some helmet with wires and valves and glowing coils appear out of the wall for me to put on?” he inquired, although he felt sure he already knew the answer.

  “No, nothing like that. You would have to… hold my hands again. Do you think you could stand it?” she implored.

  “Hold your hands?” He smiled to himself, and bit back the first response that came to mind. “I think I’ll manage,” was all he ventured.

  “Perhaps you should lie down in case you faint again.” Karen, in her mental turmoil, missed reading his feelings completely.

  He did so, and, once he felt comfortable, reached for her hands. This time he closed his eyes and tried to relax. Images flashed through his mind too quickly to be recognized, until finally, after what could have equally well been either an instant of time or an eternity, he lapsed into unconsciousness once more.

  ***

  When he tried to open his eyes this time, the stars looked fuzzy and a series of extremely bright fireworks seemed to be exploding inside his skull. He shifted slightly, then groaned as the pain seemed to double.

  “Sorry.” Fingers touched his forehead lightly and – incredibly – the pain flowed away. “Worse than that football injury, huh?”

  He sat up gingerly and moved his head experimentally from side to side. The room seemed suddenly familiar to him, like the old Fletcher home he had grown up in, and more than that, his perceptions seemed to have altered subtly; even the unearthly, moss-like surface beneath him felt comforting, like the worn-out slippers he had stubbornly continued to wear as a nine year old, until they had literally fallen apart.

  “Nothing’s broken.” He looked at Karen intently, realizing with a sudden flash of insight that the flow of information must have gone both ways, then smiled in an attempt to reassure her (and himself, too).

  “Now let’s see what’s wrong with Tutor,” he said as he reached towards the wall. The screen and keyboard bulged out automatically and Richard typed ‘status report’ on the suddenly familiar keyboard. “Hey!” He exclaimed excitedly pointing at the symbols along the bottom edge of the keyboard. “Look – ab, co, hin, fat, bil, wil, lim, tim, fo, and xot[1]! I can understand it!”

  Faintly glowing characters appeared on the screen, and he leaned closer and shielded the surface with his hand, cutting the slight glare from the star field projection to make it possible to read the symbols more easily. “Infrared receptor: low power,” he murmured. He turned to Karen, excitement sparkling in his eyes. “It seems totally familiar to me... I can’t even tell that it’s not in English or that there was ever a time when I didn’t understand this – if that makes any sense… unless… I force myself to imagine specific English letters or numbers next to it.”

  “Do you know what’s wrong?” Karen’s grin was still hesitant. “What it really means, now you can read it?” she asked hopefully.

  “Perhaps something has happened outside; unless I’m very much mistaken, an infrared receptor is some kind of heat collector… Let’s look!” Richard walked through the wall, hardly noticing the shimmering effect in his preoccupation with his newfound knowledge. He stopped and turned, as a previously insinuated concept grew alarmingly real to him.

  “You gave me more than just your language,” he declared, as Karen appeared next to him behind the bushes.

  “I gave you everything I know about Citadel, too,” she confirmed. “But I think, perhaps, that when minds are connected like that, other things get shared, too. I’ve never done it before – didn’t really know how to, exactly…”

  Richard blushed as he caught the full meaning of her words.

  “I hope you don’t mind some of the garbage you must have gotten from me,” he whispered, looking at her uncertainly.

  “Please. Don’t talk like that.” Karen grasped his shoulders and looked into his eyes with an expression of exquisite kindness. She reached one hand up and touched his cheek. An incredibly warm sensation burst into his consciousness as she made that physical contact again. “You are my friend. You have been since the moment I saw you, or perhaps, even though it seems impossible, from much earlier. And I feel much closer to you now than I did then.” Karen looked at him a little strangely as she came to a stunning conclusion.

  “You already know me better than Tutor ever did, I think.” Her hands dropped to her sides as she contemplated this comparison.

  Richard looked up, noticing how high the sun was in the sky.

  “Hey, how long was I unconscious for, anyway?” He was relieved to be able to change to a less sensitive topic.

  “Only for a few minutes – the mind link took over two hours, though,” she explained. “That’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like that.” She found herself repeating herself, as she sensed that he was still uncomfortable with the depth, extent and duality of the transfer.

  Richard paused for a moment to digest this, and then began to walk around Citadel. The incredible, unbelievable, impossible nature of the situation grew cryst
al-clear in his mind, then he looked at Karen of the dazzling hair and chameleon-coloured eyes, and his last, faint doubts faded away – like condensation evaporating from his camera lens when he had brought it back into the warm house on a winter’s day – without leaving a trace.

  Stopping on the grass in front of Citadel, Richard looked closely at the walls of the structure; he realized that they bulged out as if Citadel were some kind of gigantic inflatable balloon, reminiscent of the rubberized, air-filled castles which he had jumped around inside when he was half his present height. He smiled wistfully at the memory; his little brother had been refused entry and was made to stay outside and watch with their mother. He touched the surface and found that, unlike the amusement park jumping areas, this one was solid as a proverbial rock and felt very cold.

  “I wonder what it would look like if those battlements weren’t there?” he murmured to himself as he followed Karen around the forward turret. “Does anything look different? Damaged, maybe?” he asked more loudly, when they had circled the building completely.

  “No, but perhaps something has gone wrong up there,” she suggested, pointing to the top of Citadel, her mind beginning to function normally at last after the panic of the days following Tutor’s unexpected and devastating departure.

  “How do we get up there?” Richard asked, looking at the smooth surface of the exterior and finding nothing that would enable him to climb the curved surface.