Upon This Rock

by David Marusek

  So Jace’s mind was elsewhere when he first spotted the light in the distance, and it took him by surprise. He stopped his snowmobile and consulted the GPS. The light appeared to be within his search area, and at first he supposed it came from snowmobile headlights. Someone had discovered all of his grid tracks in the snow and was investigating. But the light didn’t move and didn’t look like headlights. He stood on top of his seat and opened his helmet for a better view. The light shimmered a little, was rosy at its center, and radiated pale violet streaks around the edges. No, not headlights.

  Then what?

  Jace’s heart began to pound.

  FC5 1.0

  FOR ALL THE time and effort Jace had spent chasing the tiger, he’d neglected to plan for what he’d do once he caught it. He pulled the Ski-Doo to within a dozen yards of the source of the strange light and stopped. A slender, glowing, translucent stalk appeared to have sprouted from the snow. It was taller than he, maybe eight or ten feet high (2.4–3.0 m), and it was crowned with a tulip-shaped bell. The bell threw off enough pinkish light to illuminate the entire area, but it wasn’t too bright to look at directly.

  Jace let the engine idle and climbed off the snowmobile. He knew where he was, at ground zero, the center of the snow circle and origin point of his search grid. He’d been right all along. This was it. Whatever it was, this was what he’d seen fall out of the sky.

  Jace wanted to get a closer look at the odd lamppost and took a few cautious steps toward it. A child of Star Trek, he understood the profound importance, incredible fortune, and unforeseen dangers of the first contact between two intelligent species. A stupid blunder on his part could doom humankind to years of intergalactic warfare. A positive first impression, on the other hand, could launch a new era of innovation and discovery for both civilizations. He extended his arms out from his sides to show he carried no weapons. “Greetings,” he said in a friendly, confident voice. “On behalf of the National Park Service, allow me to welcome you to planet Earth.” He lowered his arms slowly and added, “I mean you no harm.”

  As Jace waited for a reaction or response of some sort from the tulip person, an incredible wave of fatigue washed over him. He felt like he’d been going non-stop for days. He shook it off and took another step closer. “Do you understand my language? I am a human being. What are you?”

  The glassy stem appeared too delicate to support its own weight, let alone its tulip corolla. It tapered from about the thickness of his pinkie at the top to that of a spaghetti noodle at the ground where it disappeared in the snow. A gust of air should bring the whole thing down.

  When Jace was confident that the lamppost was not trying to communicate with him, at least not on any channel he could receive, he took another step closer.

  Maybe the thing wasn’t a life form at all but a robotic probe, one of billions sown across the galaxy as part of a deep-space inventory of planets and solar systems that were ripe for exploitation. Maybe it was already transmitting data back to its Death Star, and he would be the alien race’s first glimpse of an Earthling. What would inhabitants of Tulipia make of a creature with a high-impact plastic head and puffy nylon skin? If it was a probe, at least it hadn’t vaporized him yet, as the ones on the ice world of Hoth were known to do.

  Another possibility crossed Jace’s mind. What if this oversized flower was neither person nor probe but the fruiting body of some kind of spacefaring, planet-eating, invasive species, the cosmic equivalent of elodea or bird vetch? Maybe, instead of welcoming it in the name of Earth he should be bashing it to pieces with a wrench before it could spread.

  Not his call. Let NASA do that. Now that he had indisputable proof positive of a close encounter of the freaky kind, Jace would not hesitate to call in the experts with his discovery.

  “I’m going now,” he said. “I’ll be back, with scientists.” He turned and trudged to the snowmobile. Although only a few steps away, it felt like a long journey reaching it. Long enough for him to realize that he didn’t actually have any more proof than he’d had before. Who would believe a story about tulip probes? He needed some kind of solid evidence. So he lifted the seat cushion of the snowmobile and grabbed the Canon camera he had borrowed from the backcountry gear room. He had to remove his outer mitten to operate the tiny buttons. Tulip person was probably impressed. They can remove parts of their body at will! And reattach them!

  “I’m going to take your picture now,” Jace said. “Your photograph. Photos aren’t dangerous, and this won’t hurt a bit. I promise.”

  The camera wouldn’t turn on; the battery was completely dead. No mystery there. He’d left it out in the cold for days, and the battery was simply frozen. But he still had his iPhone. He always kept it buried deep in an inner pocket where it stayed nice and warm. So he unzipped and unsnapped and reached into his parka. They can open their skin to reach inside their bodies!

  His phone was dead too. There wasn’t even enough juice to display the lock screen. This was harder to explain than the camera; he’d charged it up at the ranger station yesterday and hadn’t used it since.

  Jace sat hard on the snowmobile seat. He needed to think. He needed to map out his next move. He reached into his parka again and retrieved his water bottle. He fumbled while opening it and dropped the cap in the snow. No matter, he drained the bottle and was still thirsty. His heart was fluttering in his chest.

  The snowmobile engine, which had been idling unobtrusively, sputtered a few times, backfired, and died. The fuel needle was pegged at Empty. Another puzzle — he’d topped off the tank that morning.

  Jace always carried three gallons of spare gas in a jerry jug, but when he checked the jug, it too was empty.

  That was a problem because he was about twenty-four miles (39 km) from town. Ordinarily, he could hike twenty-four miles with ease. Once he’d hiked two hundred miles (322 km) of the Iditarod Trail in six days. But that was when he was in good form. Right now, Jace wasn’t even sure he had a mile left in him. Why was he so tired?

  He slouched on the seat and worried away at his plan. He might have even drowsed a bit. If this were a movie, he and everyone in the theater would be yelling at the schmuck on the screen to Get off the snowmobile and run for your life!

  “I hear you,” he said, jerking awake. He struggled to his feet. He would leave the snowmobile, leave the scene. It was good advice. Thank you, studio audience.

  The first step was stupid difficult, and the second was just as bad, but by the third step he’d built up a shambling momentum that he was able to maintain, and he kept going. The further he retreated from the lamppost, the clearer his thoughts became. But physically he was still shot, and he stumbled on and didn’t look back.

  Once outside the reach of the alien light, it was too dark to see. Only the barest sliver of moon hung in the sky. He removed his helmet, letting it drop in the snow, and cinched up his insulated hood into a face tunnel. He figured his flashlight would be dead, but he tried it anyway. It was dead. He continued on by starlight, picking out the trail by the faintest of shadows in the snow.

  After a very long time, another hard-packed track crossed the one he was on. He looked up to see where he was and realized that it was the track he had made the day of his trash run. It led to the trapline cabin that he had investigated. He could stop there and recover. And the Bunyan place was not much further. At least it was closer than town.

  FC6 1.0

  WHAT WAS HE thinking? Jace had known there was no stove in the trapline cabin, but when he arrived, he was surprised not to find one. For the last hour he had followed the odor of boiled cabbage on the breeze and had lived out a whole fantasy in which the cabin was finished and occupied and welcoming. It wasn’t. It was empty and unfinished and cold. He sat on a sawhorse in the dark. With his flashlight and headlamp dead and his iPhone dead, he sought to illuminate the cabin with the little stub of plumber’s candle that he always carried in his cargo pocket. But he couldn’t find it. For that matter, his Bic li
ghter was empty too.

  What Jace wouldn’t give for some junk food around now. Warm, cheesy, juicy meat. He would ravage a Big Mac this instant if he could, even though the Big Mac said no a thousand times and begged for him to stop.

  Oh, Mister Ranger, spare me. Spare me my secret sauce. Spare me my greasy virtue.

  No! I will not spare you!

  He did keep a few emergency energy bars in a pocket. He hadn’t been able to find them while he was walking, but he turned out his pocket now and found two empty Clif Bar wrappers. They were still sealed, and when he tore one open with his teeth, all he found inside was a pinch of dust.

  Impressive. The energy thief could eat a Clif Bar through its wrapper. Forget NASA; he needed the Army. He needed the Marines.

  JACE WAS RELUCTANT to completely trust his senses, but the temperature seemed to have dropped off a cliff, as it had been forecast to do. He didn’t have the spare energy to dig out his camp thermometer to check. Just say it had gotten cold and leave it at that. It was better to concentrate on the task at hand which was one thing and one thing only — making it to the Bunyan house alive. Nothing else mattered. Anything that distracted him from attaining this goal was inherently evil and must be resisted. Anything furthering this goal was good and must be trusted. Life could be simple when it hung from a thread.

  Whoever had renovated the cabin had used the Trapper’s Slough Trail to bring in material. This trail joined the Stubborn Mine Trail four or so miles away. Six miles further was the Bunyan place. About ten miles all told (16 km). Ten miles. He could do ten more miles. He had ten miles in him. He launched himself up the trail.

  ALTHOUGH JACE WAS half-asleep and ready to drop, he didn’t feel the cold. That was because when he had first come north, he put together a set of winter gear that could handle anything the Alaska winter could dish out. For parka and overalls he went with a brand that competitive dog mushers wore on the trail, Apocalypse Design. It was made in a little shop in Fairbanks by a guy named Dick and his team of needle monkeys.

  Jace’s boots were Eiger Polars made by Baffin. They were rated to minus 148 degrees (–100 C). Unlike other shin-high snowmobile boots, they crossed over well for hiking, as he was proving to himself one tired step after another. All in all, he was glad he’d spent the money.

  If anything, Jace was feeling a little too tropical, even at his snail’s pace, and he was tempted to open his parka to cool off a bit. You didn’t want to sweat in your gear if you could help it. It fouled the insulation and left you chilled when you stopped moving. But Jace wondered if he was really overheated or just imagining it? Delusions at sixty below (–51 C) could be deadly. Nevertheless, Jace unzipped his parka halfway down his chest and opened the flaps. He still felt warm. Which senses do you trust, the ones telling you it’s really cold out, or the ones telling you you’re roasting? He unzipped a little more.

  When Jace left the flats and entered the forest, the starlight turned the trail into a dark corridor in which the walls were only slightly darker than the floor. As long as he stayed equidistant from the walls, he was bound to be on the hard pack. Tack too close to either side and he’d stumble into deep snow. He’d lost the trail twice already but had been able to find it again both times. Otherwise, the corridor walls never changed, and he might as well be hiking in place on a slightly inclined treadmill. Until it curved, that is, and then he knew for sure he was still making progress. Constant Progress was a good thing and his Prime Directive.

  People did just that, undress before they froze to death. The EMT trainers at the academy had covered it. He’d seen the photos. The clothes neatly folded and stacked in the snow. Next to them the nude victim curled up in a snowbank, like they crawled into a warm bed. What was going on in their heads so that their last act in life was not only undressing in the cold but taking the time to fold their clothes? Whatever train of thought that takes you to that place is a train you never want to board, and Jace swore an oath to himself then and there that if he ever saw that train coming down the tracks he would let it go by. You don’t want to be one of those people, Jace, the dumb fucks lying blue-cheeks-up in a snowbank.

  After a little while, Jace was feeling chilled, and so he zipped up again. See? His senses were working fine, thank you very much.

  Just then, a yellow cab pulled up alongside him, and the driver leaned out the window to size him up before zooming away in a cloud of French fries. It made him laugh out loud. So, things had gotten to the point of full-on hallucinations. That was a welcome sign. Jace had experience with hallucinations. Hallucinations were harmless. They could be good fun. It was the delusions you had to watch out for. It was the delusions that could kill you.

  JACE HEARD THE approaching snowmobiles before he saw their headlights poking through the trees. He couldn’t imagine who would be out riding after midnight in this cold on this trail, but he would be most grateful for a lift. Also to warn them not to go down to the river flats.

  The machines passed from left to right without coming any closer.

  At first he took them for another hallucination, like all the baby turtles on the trail he’d been forced to step over for the last hour.

  Then he realized that they weren’t on the same trail as he. They were on the Stubborn Mine Trail, and he was nearing the intersection. He also knew who the riders were, the Prophecys, home from wherever they had been.

  Reaching the main trail forced Jace to reconsider his decision to turn left to the Bunyan place. At the intersection, the Bunyans were still about six miles away, three times further than the Prophecy place. If he turned right, he could be at the Prophecy door in an hour or so. The question was — would they be willing to put aside their hatred of parkies and flat hats long enough to let him in, or, as was more likely, would they be content to watch him freeze to death on their porch? (She would be there. Would she plead his case?) If they did help him, they’d want to know what he was doing out here on foot after midnight in this cold, and the last thing he wanted was for that family of all families on the planet to learn about the alien artifact. Yet, regrettably, his tracks in the snow would lead them directly to the prize, and there was nothing he could do about it. On the other hand, if they messed with the artifact, as he had, it might kill them, and wouldn’t that be a fucking shame?

  Jace decided to deal with the artifact later. If he remained at the Y in the trail much longer, he’d freeze in place. So he turned left and plodded on to the Bunyans.

  FC7 1.0

  SOME TIME AND many baby turtles later, Jace heard the snowmobiles again, this time approaching him from behind. They sounded real enough, and he wanted to jump off the trail and hide in the trees until they went by, but he just didn’t have enough spark left in him to do so. A pulse of anger flooded his weary brain, and he wished he was carrying a gun.

  Of course, if the tulip had been able to eat his Clif Bars through the wrappers and slurp his gas from the tank, what chance was there that bullets would have any gunpowder left in them?

  Rumbling, gaseous, blinding: the snowmobiles nipped at his heals. Men were shouting at him, but he continued slogging up the middle of the trail. Finally, one of the machines roared past him in the loose snow. It regained the trail in front of him and stopped. Now he was boxed in, and he stopped too.

  “Who is it?” the man behind him shouted over the engine noise.

  “It’s the ranger,” replied the one in front. The man was wearing a hood and thermal mask in lieu of a helmet, but Jace recognized the voice as belonging to the youngest of the three. Proverbs was his stupid name. The other one was Adam. Any man who names his firstborn Adam must have a God complex.

  “Which ranger?”

  “The one lives in town.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, ask him.”

  “Hey, Ranger Rick, how’re things?”

  Jace tried to reply, but his jaw wouldn’t work and all that came out were mumbles.<
br />
  “What he say?”

  “I don’t know. Hey, ranger, you okay?”

  What Jace wanted to do was to ask for a lift to the Bunyan place.

  “Well?”

  “He looks half-froze.”

  While the interlopers were discussing his situation, Jace saw that the freight sled blocking his way was empty. Moreover, it was pointed in the right direction. It looked real enough, and so, without over-thinking matters, he climbed aboard and lay down. Christ, it felt good getting off his feet. Wake me up when we reach Kalamazoo.

  Jace’s trip was short-lived. One of the men was pulling his feet.

  “What’re you doing?” the other one said. “He needs help.”

  “That don’t mean we have to be the ones to help him.”

  “Of course it does. The Samaritan finds an injured man on the side of the road.”

  “This ain’t Samaria. You heard Poppy. It’s the Apocalypse. The center don’t hold no more.”

  Proverbs dragged Jace off the sled and into the snow by the side of the trail. Adam didn’t help, but he didn’t intervene either. Jace tried to get to his feet but couldn’t manage it until Adam helped him up. When Jace was standing on his own, Adam said, “There you go, Ranger Rick. This is how we found you, and this is how we’ll leave you. Good luck now. You’re free to go. And as you do, never forget that as long as you draw breath, it’s never too late to pray for forgiveness and save your soul.”