2012 (31 page)

“The brain of the bee is microscopic, son, so they couldn’t really be all that conscious.”

Trevor smiled a little. “Just let yourself happen, Dad. You’ll be fine.”

Watching the chaos of kids moving here and there with stakes, with boxes and ropes, singing, laughing, you would never think that they were working together, and carefully organized at that. But they were, and exactly at the moment the tent shuddered and collapsed, four of them came out carrying all the bags and buckets of refuse that had accumulated inside.

Not a word was said as it was rolled and folded and carried off, followed, improbably, by a little boy who was completely overshadowed by the huge Cougars bass drum balanced on his head.

Their efforts looked a lot like those of worker bees, Martin thought, and then that a shared mind would naturally be far larger than any single component.

It hit him then-all mind is shared. That’s the way things work. Just surrender to it. Let yourself happen, like Trevor said.

“Okay, Dad, let’s go.”

Of course, Trevor could read his thoughts.

“Don’t let it bother you.”

“But I can’t read you.”

“Sure you can.” He headed off into the caressing sunlight.

Following him, Martin did see into his son’s thoughts, which were of that gateway, and going through it. But that wasn’t possible, look at the river!

“It’s possible, Dad. But you have to not think about it and not worry about it. Concentrate your thinking on your body, the way your feet feel as you walk, your hands, every physical sensation.”

-Why?

-This is why, what you’re doing right now.

Martin was stunned. The exchange had been so perfect. Of course, he understood the recent advances in mind-to-mind communication that were being achieved at Princeton, but that was with the help of implanted microchips.

-No implants here, Dad.

Trevor headed up the sharpening rise that separated them from the Saunders and the gateway. Martin looked ahead in his mind, and saw the outriders still guarding the gateway, and the water just a literal torrent. As soon as his mind touched them, though, every outrider turned this way and raised its forelegs. Some of them began to march.

“Blank your mind, go to your body!”

He forced his awareness into his flexing muscles, his feet, his heart and lungs. Although he could no longer see the outriders in his mind’s eye, he could still have clear awareness of them, and he knew that their alarm had subsided.

To do this successfully, you had to be like animals were, looking out at the world without looking in at your thoughts. Not easy for a professor.

-If you start to hear that rattling noise, stay in your body. Do not let your mind go out to it or they’ll be on you.

Why was nobody else coming? This was obviously extremely dangerous and more would be safer.

Trevor glanced over at him. His eyes said it all: this is my job. Our job.

At that moment, they came up the rise, and Martin saw that the Saunders, even in just the past few minutes, had risen more. It had been bad before, but now it was a great, surging mass of gray-black water full of trees, roofs, walls, floating staircases, even a car’s wheels appearing and disappearing as it went tumbling downstream.

Across the stream, he could see their house, the windows dark, empty, and forlorn. The water extended almost to the front door. And water wasn’t the only problem, five outriders lay curled up on themselves halfway down the ridge, ready to spring into action if anybody came into their range. And the ones on this bank still patrolled.

“This is impossible,” he said aloud.

He was confused to see the water getting closer, looming up toward him. Then he realized that he was seeing it through Trevor’s eyes. His son was scrambling down the bluff right toward the patrolling outriders and the thundering river.

Martin raced down behind the last of his children, throwing himself forward, trying to reach him, to at least get his attention-whereupon one of the outriders on this bank turned from its patrolling and came straight toward him…but past Trevor, whom it did not seem to see.

And indeed, Martin felt a surge of fear, he couldn’t help it. The thing’s metal fangs moved so fast that they sparked.

“Run downstream, son,” Martin bellowed. He picked up a rock and threw it at the thing. It bounced off the head, causing it to rear back and hiss, and making two more of them come prancing toward him.

To his utter horror, Trevor walked right into the flood. “Son! SON!”

He could not escape the outriders and Trevor was about to be killed. But he could escape, all he had to do was to leave his fear, leave his mind, let himself happen. He paused in his headlong dash, closed his eyes, and emptied his mind. He put his thought on his roaring blood and the roaring water. His prayer came to him then, Franny’s prayer, and joined itself to the whisper of his blood.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself face to face with an outrider. Its eyes stared straight at him, its jaws moved slowly. Carefully, he stepped around it, then past another, so close that he could see that there was venom caked to its abdomen, and a stinger tucked in the size of a butcher’s meat hook.

Trevor was now well out into the flood. Martin threw himself in and began swimming.

The water grabbed him as a giant would, and he saw a great oak, stately, from somebody’s yard over in Harrow, no doubt, come sweeping toward him and with it death in the tangle of branches, drowning as he was swept away.

Trevor still waded forward, though-and then seemed not to be wading but walking. He was visible inside the water-but not affected by it. Walking inside it. “Trevor!” Martin forced himself to dive to avoid the oncoming tree, forced himself to swim, felt the water ripping at him-and then saw Trevor beside him walking easily as water and limbs and pieces of cars and houses and bodies and drowned cattle went not only around him, but through him. In the other world, of course, the stream wasn’t in flood, so crossing this way would be easy.

He looked down at his own body, and saw that a great limb of the tree was moving through him, and a human arm, white and bloated, and a spatula and dozens of poker chips, all passing right through him and leaving not the slightest sensation. A lawnmower went through him, then theater seats, a TV, a tangle of shrubs.

He took another step forward and the flood was gone. Instead, he was on the far side of the Saunders. Behind him, the little river flowed quite normally, tinkling faintly where it hurried across some stones.

“Be very, very careful, Dad. I don’t know what’s going on up there.”

“I can’t hear your thoughts.”

“Not over here, it doesn’t work.”

Martin looked back toward the Saunders. The bluff was there, but everything was quiet, washed with golden early sun. It was a view he’d looked at a thousand times, and on summer Sundays heard from here the faint bells of the town.

They had gone through the gateway, and on this side, in this universe, the Saunders wasn’t in flood.

“Come on, we’ve gotta see what gives with that Hummer.”

“It looks like typical army issue.”

“Their military’s Hummers are all camouflaged. This is something the seraph brought here.”

“They’re here?”

“Apparently.”

Trevor started off, moving quickly up the familiar hill toward the familiar house. As he walked behind his son, Martin experienced a sense of déjŕ vu so powerful that it was actually disorienting, even painful. This looked like home and it felt like home but it was not home. It was not home.

Trevor stopped. “They’re noisy,” he said.

“It’s dead quiet.”

“That’s the problem. His car is in the garage, but it’s just really quiet.”

He saw what looked like a Saab in the open garage. “It’s blue.”

“Their cars have all sorts of different colors. Blue, red, white.”

Martin had never heard of anything so outlandish. Who would be willing to drive around in a colored car? Cars were black. This Wylie must be an eccentric, which fit the literary pretensions, he supposed.

Trevor approached the place cautiously, moving up the steep hill, his eyes always on that Hummer.

Martin whispered as loudly as he dared, “Trevor!”

His son motioned at him furiously. The message was unmistakable: Shut up!

Trevor dropped down on all fours, then onto his stomach. The Hummer was between him and the house, but he could almost certainly be seen if anybody looked closely enough. From the Hummer, definitely.

Then he motioned again, this time indicating that Martin should come forward.

Eagerness flashed through him. He jumped to his feet. Trevor’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open-and then there was a terrific crash and something went whanging off into the woods. “Get your ass outta here,” a voice crackled. “We got you in crossfire, shitheel!” A shot whipped past him so close that he felt a hot blast of wind.

He threw himself to the ground. “No,” he called, “we’re friends!”

Another shot kicked up gravel beside his head. He tried his best to back away, attempting to reach the brow of the hill so that he could slide back down.

But then a shot rang out behind him, and this one was closer, much closer. There was only one thing to do. He stood up and raised his hands. “Okay,” he said, “okay.”

From the woods came a boy’s voice, “It’s a guy, Dad. A guy and a kid hiding by the Hummer. Back wheel.”

Silence.

“We mean no harm,” Trevor called. “Please, we need to talk.”

The boy appeared coming up the far side of the driveway. He carried a big rifle, hefting it expertly. Martin realized what was happening here, that this was an historic meeting, the first contact between human beings from two different universes.

“Hello,” Trevor said as he stood up. He walked out from behind the Hummer, into full view of the house. “Mr. Dale, I’m Trevor.”

“You got the laptop?” Wylie Dale asked.

“No.”

“This is my dad, Martin,” Trevor said. “We need to look at the book again.”

“The laptop was stolen. Plus, it’s been rough around here. Real rough. I haven’t even thought about writing.”

Martin realized that the smell he had been noticing was meat, and it was coming from the Hummer. As he walked closer, he could see blackened ruins in it, the shattered bodies of seraph. And then, around the side of the house, one of the outriders. For a moment, he froze, but then he understood that they had destroyed it, too.

“So you’re Trevor,” Wylie said. “Hey, Brooke, here’s the people from my goddamn book, come to life!”

The boy had walked up to Trevor. “Hiya, Nick,” Trevor said.

“Hey.” Nick put his hand out.

Trevor looked at it. “Can we?”

“Dunno.”

Martin watched. Wylie watched. His wife Brooke watched. A little girl’s voice said from behind the very lovely mother, “Bearish thinks it’s okay.”

Bearish! Winnie had called her stuffed toy Bearish, too. As the mother and daughter came closer, Martin saw that her Bearish wasn’t a zebra but an elephant.

“He’s cryin’, Mommy.”

“They’ve lost Winnie and Lindy,” Brooke said, “you know that, honey, you know what they’ve lost.”

“What happened here?” Trevor asked.

“You better get inside with us,” Wylie said.

The house showed signs of a terrific fight. Martin was quietly astonished. These people were unhurt, obviously, but there had been a lot of killing around here, a lot of it. The rugs had blood on them, and he thought he saw a bloody body wrapped in a sheet behind the couch.

“There’s been a spot of bother around here, boys,” Wylie said. “But me an’ mine, we did ‘em.” He drew a long brown object out of a pocket of his heavy leather jacket. “Cigar?”

Martin watched in silence, unsure of what, exactly, was meant. The intonation of the unfamiliar word had suggested a question. Was it some sort of offering? There must be differences between the universes, obviously there would be-look at the colored cars-but this was perplexing. Surely it wasn’t a sacrificial offering, they must be past that.

“I think I’ve earned house rights,” Wylie said.

“Wylie.” Brooke strode to him, threw her arms around him. “You are the most amazing damn man,” she said, “smoke your lungs out, lover.”

“Ew, Mommy!”

He inserted the thing in his mouth, produced a book of matches, and lit the free end of it. He gave Martin another glance. “It’s a Partagas straight out of Fidel’s humidor.”

“It’s tobacco,” Trevor explained. “They burn it and eat the smoke.”

“But…it’s powder. Snuff is powder.”

Nick said, “Dad, I don’t think they have cigars.” Nick regarded Martin. “You, do you know what he’s doing?” Then he frowned. “Jesus, look at their eyes.”

“You haven’t read my book as well as you imagine, son,” Wylie said as he ate smoke. Or rather, breathed it. Martin enjoyed snuff, but he didn’t care to join the hordes with cancer of the sinuses, so he’d sworn off. No doubt this method eliminated that problem. They could smoke the tobacco, he guessed, without fear of health problems.

“Your friend Fidel makes those things?”

“Well, he’s dead, but yeah, they’re genuine Cubans, imported all the way to Kansas City.”

“Tobacco is legal in our world, but it’s dangerous. It’s sold in a powder called snuff.”

“Dangerous here, too. These suckers are really cancer sticks. But I do love ‘em.”

“Ask him about Fidel Castro,” Brooke said.

“I have no idea who that would be,” Martin replied. “Do you know, Trev?”

“No.”

Nick said, “Cuban dictator, died a few years back. Communist.”

“Communist, as in, uh-Trev, can you help me, here?”

“A nineteenth-century philosopher called Karl Lenin invented a system of labor management that became a huge movement in this universe. Dad, they’ve had total chaos here for over a century. That’s why they’re so tough. It’s why there are dead seraph and outriders all around this house and these people put fire in their mouths. In this universe, human beings have been at war so long they’ve become incredibly strong.”

“No wars in your universe?” Wylie asked.

“No, Wylie, not really. The British and the French bicker over their African holdings, of course. And the Boer Contingent is an irritant for the British in South Africa. The Russians had a war with the Japanese.”