Terraplane (32 page)

"Drop, Luther," said Jake, having already grounded. As I slid
down I refused to feel my rib's ache, the bandage's boalike clutch;
landing, I collapsed, unbroken. Seeing blood soaking the towels as
I unclutched my hands, I thought momentslong that I'd harmed
myself without noticing; realized when I dropped the cloth away
that another's blood wetted them as I reached the end of the line.
His foot-first landing was so hard, driving his broken legs up and
against his chest, that his knees might have shattered his jaw had
his head not been pulled away at the conclusion of his drop. He lay
in twain on the ground, to either side of me in the empty courtyard
in which we stood; his teeth's metal shone through his grimace.
One eye was shut, as if to wink us luck.

"Which way?" I asked, staring round at the courtyard's multi-
eyed walls, the heavy stone trim and iron bars. Jake gestured
towards an archway, behind us, that led onto one of the side streets.
Twenty-eighth, I hoped.

"There," he said, almost, but not quite, running. "I eyed from
on high."

Deciding for one, for eighty, for a thousand or for a million; in strategic theory no difference should show, which kept it all the
more problematic when it did. Crawling towards her, gun readied,
I burned inside, raging at this world that was no world for anyone
any longer, and especially not for little ones. Katherine never
understood how deeply I felt that rage which prevented me from
wishing to bring life to the world, no matter how often I tried to
give the feeling word. If that caused her decision to be done with
me, then it couldn't have been helped after all. Raising my pistol,
trying with barrel tip to brush back the hair from the side of her
head, I repeated to myself: mercy, mercy, rain mercy down on us;
no need to suffer them overlong. Staring at me as if she knew me,
making no move to run, crying no plea to deaf-eared heaven,
seeming satisfied that I would decide the most suitable conclusion,
the little girl lifted her hand and pushed her hair away. In theory, no
difference; one decision, one solution, no choice-

"There's the car," I said, seeing its blackness, vizzing Wanda
sitting within, filling the interior with smoke. None had yet
noticed the scene above but for the one we'd left untrammeled. For
another minute, we were preserved.

"Any luck?" she asked as we climbed in, pulling the doors shut
quickly behind us.

"None. "

Whose decision? Who decides? By distant word I'd killed children before; killed children after. Jake never killed at distance, and
always faced the adults he plucked, as if to honor their end.
Whether it was deliberate or pure chance, that was his method, so
merciful as might be allowed. I hadn't mercy enough to kill the
little girl; wrapping my shirt around her, I carried her back to
camp.

"SLAUGHTER ON EIGHTH AVENUE," THE JOURNAL-AMERICAN'S
late edition's head read; Jake laughed, scanning highlights. Oktobriana lay alongside him as if awaiting the last incision, indigoed
arms crossed upon her chest. Her country's color darkened her halfshut eyes; when she breathed the sound was as wind rustling reeds.
In the front Wanda and I studied a fairground map. Earlier in the
month she and Doc had visited the fair; those of darker shade were
admitted on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons so long as they left
by nightfall. Pinned now to my lapel was another souvenir, a small
blue-and-white tin button Doc had been given at GM's Futurama,
warning, I Have Seen the Future.

"It's so twentieth century," said Jake, continuing to read as if
there were nothing else to be done. "Naught ragged here but
sensation and braindiddly."

"They'll tell of nothing essential," I said. "Keep lipshut on any
supposed Stalin connection. Now that they'd been worded about
Bellevue I'd think they'd only expand on their design-"

"'Quack's wife missing-' "

"Quack," said Wanda, angered. "Not a medical school would've
took him even if he'd gone to college. Bastards."

"You're imagined dead," Jake said, reading further, sounding
envious.

"Probably imagined eaten," I said, "considering article's tone
towards us-"

"New's shock," said Jake. "The unfamiliar upsets them."

We'd parked on Rodman Street above Fifty-seventh Avenue,
close to the fair's Flushing gate. Rising directly behind its stiles
was, according to the map, the Soviet Pavilion, its Lenin's Tombmaroon tower capped by some oversized worker clutching a red
star. Beyond, the far-flung buildings stretched out before our view,
their multiform roofs capped with white domes and narrow shafts,
their curving walls heavy with mural and abstract design. Tb our
left, in the distance, rose what on the map was referred to as the
parachute jump; almost directly before us, much nearer, the Tryon aimed towards the sky. Through the gate's stiles passed hundreds, returning exhausted into the world of the present, making
their break before storm settled in; clouds washed the sky with deep
gray as sunset's time approached.

"According to what you've said," Wanda remarked, studying the
map, "if ever'thing happens like she seems to say it might happen,
then we're going to want to aim for here."

On the map she fingered a spot marked Washington Square, beyond Constitution Mall, past Borden's and Heinz's, next to the
World of Fashion pavilion and almost directly before the spire and
ball.

"Where's the ceremony taking place?" I asked. "Will we have to
cut through?"

She shook her head. "That'll be over here on the other side of the
thing, in City Hall Square. You won't even have to see'em. It's still
going to be hard walking in, under the circumstances-"

"Lights go up when?" Jake asked. "When's the show?"

"Eight-thirty," I said. "Duskbreak. Soon as the charge starts
we'll have to run for it."

"Running for what?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," I said. "But we'll know it when we see it." The
dash's clock read seven-fifty.

"You ever figure out from those figures of hers just how this
thing's supposed to work, anyway?" asked Wanda.

"No," I said. "It's above my head. Something to do with the
amount of electricity produced in regards to the frequency of the
resonator. But if all goes as theorized then we should be prime
to go-"

"Think it'll work?"

"Maybe," I said. "We're at ultimate option and that exes debate
under circumstance. If all doesn't happen, we'll just toss ourselves
into police's arms and have them waltz us to the cutter."

Beyond the Trylon and Perisphere a host of bright balloons rose
as a flock of birds, disbanding as they ascended; part of the ceremony, I estimated. Studying the people departing, watching them
move past us, uncomprehending of how they kept so cheerful,
living in such a world where war would so soon erupt, where
poverty never ended, where the plague's shadow had forever darkened all. They seemed such happy Martians.

"You've decided your actions?" I asked Wanda.

She shoved the map aside as if tossing off a blanket. "No. Don't
have much left here anymore, but what've I got over there? Why
would I want to go, Luther-"

"For new life," I said.

"That is, even if this thing works like you hope it's going to work.
If it doesn't it won't make no difference. If it does, well, I just don't
know-"

"Fear's felt?"

"Hell, yes," she said, her voice near-inaudible, as if to admit
such loud would call down lightning on its own accord. "If you all
are from the future like you've been saying then it's a hell of a lot
different place from anything they've come up with." She gestured
towards the gateposts of the World of Tomorrow. "Judging from
how you act, anyway. How you talk. Sometimes you act like us.
Sometimes you don't. I don't know which's scarier."

"We're adjusted to the familiar," I said. "Our fear's been so great
here, but even now we're adjusting. In time all here would show
true to us as in time all of ours would show as well to you."

"Yeah, well. Somebody born without an arm never misses it but
ever'body still calls 'em stumpy," she said, a near-smile soften ing her face. "Norman was the one who oughta been able to
come along. He was always hot to trot talking about the future.
He'd've gone along in the blink of an eye. Anything to get out of
this."

By this, had she meant this world, this country, this life; meant
the relationship so demanded by others and lived with thereafter?
Would anything have brightened him, I wondered; who nurses the
doctor?

"I don't know, Luther," she continued, embracing the wheel as if
for support. "You all don't need me along. You can walk over there
and once you get through the turnstile you can just go on through.
Forget about me-"

"Even if the authorities judge you as noninvolved," I said, "say
no persecution awaits. Even then, what's left?"

"Nothing. "

"So accompany," I said. "I can assist, once we've homed. You'd
adjust-"

"You mean I'd turn into you all."

"People change," I said. "It's nature's way."

With care she groped for words as if fumbling with foreign
tongue, mindful of translation's pitfalls, fearful of gesture's giveaway. "You all don't even act like people," she said.

"That's unreasoned-"

"Not like people I know," she said. "Way you look at things. Way
you do things. Killing people like you was fixing breakfast. It's just
not-" She paused. "I'm not trying to insult you, I just want to
explain and it's hard-"

"Understood," I said. "Dayplain."

"I mean doesn't life mean anything to people anymore?" she
asked. "Means something to us here, Luther. Ever'body's seen too
many people they love lose theirs. What is it to you?"

"Something to live with," I said, responding as felt.

"But is it important or not-"

"Important." Important, the lives of those known, loved and
lost; the lives of the millions or the life of the stranger in the street
could never be so important, for you couldn't overmuch dwell on
the all-surrounding tragedy without knowing madness. There could be no saving of all, and no sense in trying; all to be done was
to protect those you could.

"But not in the same way," she said. "Least that's the impression I
get. How'd we turn into you all, Luther? What went wrong?"

"Nothing," I said. "No one notices the changes until they
happen. "

"That's even worse, then," she said. "Turning into something
awful and not even knowing it. Jekyll and Hyde."

"You find me so awful-"

"Luther," she said. "Look what's happened. I can tell you're not
bad at heart but there's just something not there. I think it's something must have happened a little bit at a time. One day something
happens and you don't see any way around it but to do something
you wouldn't have ordinarily done, then the next time around, you
do something a little worse. Next time, a little worse. Time you've
finished up . . ." Her voice trailed away, faded into star's static.
"You got the faintest idea what I'm talking about?"

As she eyed me I wondered what she saw. "Overmuch," I said.
`All'll happen here as well."

"Maybe not," she said. "I think it's just a way you've taught
yourself to act, but it's no way to live-"

"I know no other," I said.

"Then things shouldn't have happened way they did," she said,
here where so much had happened as it hadn't. "Lot of things
shouldn't have happened way they-did. "

"Luther." Jake's voice came whisper loud; I turned, to see
what was needed. He held Oktobriana's arm, its skin glossy dark
with bruise's sheen; with her fingers she petted air. "She wants to
code. "

Taking her hand, feeling her fingers press slowly down into my
palm, I listened to her finalities.

"If she's coming out of it," said Wanda, barely heard, "that's
curtains. "

LIGHTNING WILL ASSIST, she said, referring, I supposed, to the
tower and coil once the switch was thrown. IF OPENING SEEN GO
THROUGH AT ONCE.

Jake patted her forehead with his own hand, seeming neither relaxed nor accepting. Evening's gloom settled deeper, darkening
all within and without.

TELL JAKE, she tapped; her fingers shivered, as if stricken by
chill.

"Yes?" I said, holding them, awaiting conclusion.

HE IS LOVE OF LIFE. I nodded. Her eyes opened, barely seen in
dusklight. Afterthought: BLESS ME.

"What's passed?"

Once I told him he took her up within his arms and lifted her;
her head wobbled on her neck, her eyes rolled back beneath her
lids, a thin cord of spittle trickled from her mouth. Looking upon
the two of them made me feel as if I were betraying a scene of
deepest intimacy, yet I couldn't turn away from the sight of the
nearly dead.

"Ya Iyuba-" he began to say; stopped. "Ya lyub-"

Somewhere he'd attempted to learn to say "I love you" in Russian tongue, as if to tell her in natural lingua would give away the
game; he'd not, needless to say, mastered its phrase.