Immobility (11 page)

Qatik nodded.

He heard, even through the suit, Qanik grunt, and then the sound of him coughing. It went on for a long time. Finally he stopped, took hold of the bottom of the gate, pulled on it again.

“You’ll have to help,” he said to Qatik.

Qatik crouched down, put Horkai on the asphalt, and joined Qanik. The two mules grunted and strained until finally, with a groan, the gate slid up a foot and a half before jamming.

“Enough,” said Qatik. “In you go.”

Horkai started crawling toward it. He had to let his breath out and wriggle to make it under, and finally one of the two mules gave him a shove. He was in.

He turned and looked back, regarded the two large figures in hazard suits standing there just on the other side, staring in at him, faceplates pressed against the grate.

“We will wait for you,” said Qanik, and then began to cough again.

“Hurry,” said Qatik. “Please.”

And only then did Horkai realize that something was wrong with Qanik, that something had, in all likelihood, been wrong with him for some time. Not only was he coughing, but he was coughing up blood. The lower part of his faceplate was streaked with it on the inside.
Will he be alive by the time I return?
he wondered.

“Hurry,” urged Qatik again.

He nodded, then turned. Dragging his useless legs behind him, he began to pull himself down the tunnel.

*   *   *

THE TUNNEL WAS WIDE AND HIGH,
rounded at the top, and continued back for what seemed to Horkai, pulling himself forward by his hands, a very long way. It ran deep into the mountain. The stone of the floor was cool and had been cut straight and polished. It was dusty, but other than that seemed to have suffered no damage.

The hall continued straight back, curving not at all. Every ten yards or so, the light that was now behind him would click off and a light in front of him would click on. He counted six lights before he saw, just beyond the sixth one, a thick metal door, like a door to a vault.

He pulled himself to it. It had neither handle nor hinges, and he wouldn’t have known it was a door at all except for the metal frame it was set in. Still, he thought, staring at it, it could just be a panel. It might not be a door at all.

He knocked on it, but his knuckles hardly made a sound. He looked around for something to strike it with but found nothing.

What now?
he wondered.

He sat there for a little while, staring at the door, gathering his breath. Finally he struck the door again, slapping it with his open palm this time. The noise it made was only slightly louder.

The light above him went out and he was plunged into darkness. Briefly he was seized by panic, his heart rising in his throat, but the light came immediately back on when he began to wave his arms.

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello!” he yelled as loud as he could. “Let me in!”

The noise resonated up and down the shaft of the hall, but there was no sign he had been heard.

What now?
he wondered again. Should he crawl back down the hall and out again, find the mules, get them to open another gate for him? And if that didn’t work, would they go on to the next, and then to the final one? And what if that one didn’t open either?

He pulled himself over until he was leaning against the wall.

And what if I’ve been sent on a wild goose chase?
he wondered.
What if Rasmus was wrong about what is actually here? What if someone was here but now they’re gone?

But that wouldn’t explain the redone road signs, unless whoever had done them had left recently. Even if they had left recently, it wouldn’t explain the plants they had seen—freshly watered, not even a day ago. No, someone was somewhere nearby. And with a little luck, they were here.

He cupped his hands around his mouth again, yelled anew. His voice echoed up and down the hall, but again there was no sign that anyone on the other side of the door had heard.

He stayed there, wondering how long he should wait. He was still wondering, when the light switched off again.

This time, frustrated, he didn’t bother to wave his arms, just let it stay dark.

There was a hint of something else other than darkness from the far end of the tunnel, the opening out into the night, where the sky was not completely dark but fading fast. There was something else, too, he realized as his eyes adjusted, a strange tint to the darkness around him, not enough to help him see, but something keeping it from being completely dark. He cast his eyes around, looking for whatever it might be, but saw nothing, no crack under or to the side of the door, nothing on the floor or the walls. But it was still there nonetheless, puzzling him.

And then suddenly it struck him. He looked all the way up, at the ceiling, and saw there, above his head, a small red light.

He clapped his hands once and when the light came on saw, on the wall above him, a small camera. As he watched, it made a slight whirring sound, angling differently, looking for something. Looking, he realized, for him.

He knuckled across the floor and to the other side of the hall, where the camera could see him. It whirred for a little longer as it tracked past him. He stared at it, one hand lifted in greeting. Suddenly it stopped, moved to point directly at him.

“Hello,” he said to the camera. “Can you hear me?”

The camera didn’t move. He turned to determine if it possessed a microphone or speakers, but saw no evidence of either. Feeling helpless, he raised his hands high above his head as if surrendering, then gestured at the door.

Immediately he heard a thunking sound and the door loosened in its frame. As he watched, it swung open a few inches, then stopped. Because of where he was in the hall, all he could see was the door itself, not what lay behind.

“If you have any weapons,” said a voice through the crack, “we ask that you leave them outside.”

“I don’t have any weapons,” Horkai lied, stifling the urge to touch his boot and make sure the knife was still there and, if it was, that it was still hidden.

“If you come in peace,” said the voice, “you shall find us to be your friends. If you come to make war, you shall find in us formidable enemies.”

It was a statement rather than a question, so at first he didn’t bother to respond. But when the person on the other side of the door seemed to be waiting he finally said, “Duly noted.”

The door swung open a little wider. A hand, hairless and pale and strangely transparent, appeared around the edge of it, extended and open.

“You may enter,” the voice said.

Slowly Horkai began to drag himself across the floor.
And now,
Horkai thought, his heart pounding,
we will see what is inside. If it is a trap, then I am walking into it. If it is not a trap, I will take what I came for and leave.

Jaw set, he pulled himself along. He rounded the door and for the first time saw the man on the other side.

And that was the moment that everything irrevocably changed.

PART THREE

16

THE MAN ON THE OTHER SIDE
of the door could have been his double. His skin was exceptionally pale, almost the color of bleached bone. His head was hairless, even the eyebrows missing, and from what Horkai could see—forearms, hands—the rest of his body appeared to be hairless as well. His features, though not identical to Horkai’s, were not dissimilar either, and they were roughly the same height. The man was wearing a long tunic, belted at the waist, a pair of worn leather boots below that. Horkai was too surprised to do anything but stare.

The man smiled. “Ah, brother,” he said. “You’ve come home at last.”

He lowered his extended hand in Horkai’s direction, but Horkai pushed it away. “Can’t stand,” he said. “Fell off something a few days ago and must have broken my spine.”

“No need to worry, brother,” said the man. “Time heals all wounds.”

“How long since I saw you?” asked Horkai. “Do I know you?”

“You haven’t seen me, brother,” said the man. “I was speaking metaphorically. I do not need to know you to recognize that you are my brother. Look at you and then look at me, and then tell me if you dare that we are not brothers.”

Horkai slowly pulled himself over the threshold of the door and inside, the man stepping a little to one side to let him enter. On the other side was a small office, four desks in all. On the wall were the door controls and a small screen showing what the camera was seeing just outside the door. A track pad for moving the camera was beside it. The office itself was lit by a battery of long-stalked LED bundles making up a lamp in the middle of the floor. It gave the room a stark and unearthly pale glow. The lamp, Horkai saw, had a hand crank to charge it. On the far side of the room was the opening of another hall.

“You look exhausted,” said the man.

“I am,” said Horkai.

“You’re lucky I thought I heard something,” said the man. “If I hadn’t and you hadn’t moved into the camera’s range when you did, I wouldn’t have checked again until morning.”

The man pulled the door closed by a handle on the inside, then used the wall switch to trigger the door lock.

He came back over to stand above Horkai, shaking his head.

“No, no, no,” he said. “It just won’t do. But if I’m not mistaken.” And then, lifting a finger, he turned on his heel. He plucked at one of the light bundles in the lamp and it came free, battery and all, the end of the bundle still glowing. He walked briskly across the office and down the hall on the other end. This, Horkai glimpsed briefly in the light cast by this makeshift flashlight, was lined with row upon row of metal cabinets. He watched the light slowly fade down the hall until it was gone.

Horkai pulled himself over to a chair and then, with great effort, managed to climb into it without tipping it over. From there, he regarded the room. On each desk was an old computer covered in plastic, the plastic dusty enough that it was clear it had been years since any of the computers had been used. He opened the drawers of the desk he was sitting at, found them empty except for a nub of pencil, its tip broken off, and a key chain with no keys on it. The key chain had a representation of a golden figure blowing a trumpet on it, the words
FLIRT TO CONVERT
etched below.

Flirt to convert what?
he thought. What could it possibly mean? The golden figure above the words made him wonder if he’d stumbled upon a relic from some sort of alchemical cult, a Midas cult interested in converting flesh into gold. But that was crazy, wasn’t it? And why
flirt
?

And this place,
he wondered, looking around,
what was it before?
Storage of some kind obviously, but for what?

He heard a distant clattering noise and a moment later saw light bobbing up the corridor and toward him. The man was pushing something in front of him that gradually resolved from the darkness to become a wheelchair.

“I thought we had one, and I was right,” the man said, resocketing the bundle in the lamp. “It’s just been sitting back there in storage, but now it has come in handy. Shall we?”

He helped Horkai slide out of the chair and into the wheelchair, making little encouraging but inane comments the whole while. When he realized Horkai was looking at him strangely, he apologized.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone to talk to.”

Horkai nodded.

“Now you’ll be able to move around on your own power,” the man said. “Or I can push you if you’d rather. Maybe a little bit of both?” The man stopped speaking, narrowed his eyes. “By the way,” he said, “how did you manage to get here? Surely you didn’t crawl the whole way?”

“Of course not,” said Horkai quickly. “I had a wheelchair,” he said, “but it broke down.”

“Where?”

“Not far from here. Maybe a quarter mile back.”

“You’re still on miles, are you? We thought the ones left alive might have switched to metric by now. Apparently not. I’ll go fetch your other wheelchair in the morning,” he said, “see if it can’t be fixed. Must have been hard going, considering the condition of the roads. I’m surprised you could make it at all. Did you see my plants, by the way?”

Horkai nodded.

“How are they doing?” the man asked. “But excuse me,” he said, “we haven’t been introduced. Mahonri, same spelling as the prophet, the one who saw the finger of God. And you are?”

“Josef Horkai,” said Horkai.

Mahonri gave him a bemused look. “Strange name,” he said. “Who are you named after?”

“I don’t know,” said Horkai. “I’m not sure I’m named after anyone.”

“That’s odd,” said Mahonri. “Here, all of us are named after someone from the Scriptures. You look like us: why aren’t you? Shall I give you a new name?”

“You asked earlier about your plants,” said Horkai. “They’re fine.”

“Splendid,” said Mahonri. “I’m glad to hear it. Best effort so far: they’re still alive.”

“The others have died?”

“Of course,” said Mahonri. “These will die as well, it’s inevitable, but they’re doing better than the last batch. Of course I cheated a little: I started growing them inside.”

“Why do you plant them if you know they’re going to die?”

“Because someday they won’t die,” said Mahonri. “And to measure how safe it is outside. It’s getting safer for humans. A little safer all the time,” he said. “But I’m forgetting my manners,” he added. “You don’t want to stay out here in the office all night, do you? Shall we go somewhere more comfortable?”

Without waiting for an answer, he plucked another light bundle from the lamp and started back down the hall. Horkai fumbled getting the wheelchair turned around and maneuvering it through the desks, but after a moment was following him down into the hall.

Only it wasn’t a hall exactly, he realized once he was in it. It was a vault: crossing through the door, he could see rows of cabinets stretching to either side of him, dozens of rows, maybe more. The one Mahonri took him down was just big enough for his wheelchair; he kept clipping the handles of the lower cabinets, which were hard to see in the near dark. The row seemed to go on for dozens and dozens of yards. He hurried as quickly as he could, trying to catch up.