Memorymakers (5 page)

A surprisingly cold breeze suddenly caught her hair and lifted it, slapping it painfully against her face, The cold became a freezing blast that crept beneath the collar of her dress and chilled her to the core. Emily moved to escape it, but the breeze intensified to a ferocious, howling creature that pummeled her body with fists of ice. Tears of pain filled her eyes, and she attempted to run, but the wind blocked her. A shower of evergreen needles roared across her head, scratching her painfully and filling the air with a sharp smell of spice.

“Help me!” she cried, her eyes closed.

But no answer came.

Emily was pushed backward. She stumbled, inhaled air with sharp, pain-fused gasps and tried to shout again. Terror thickened her voice and only a mumble of sound escaped her lips.

Then as suddenly as it had begun, the wind whispered itself away and the woods were silent once more.

Directly in Emily’s path stood the huge, snouted beast she thought she’d left behind, its back arched in an angry curve. Sharp teeth protruded from its half-open, underslung jaw. Emily stood mesmerized, and desperate thoughts fought their way into her mind.

You’re not here!
she thought.
Go away!

The folds of the monster’s skin, the sheen of its horns and the glisten of its tiny pig eyes all seemed lifelike. Beads of saliva dribbled from its mouth, and she thought she saw its eyes flicker. When she looked closer, the eyes became flat and unblinking. Dead eyes. Eyes of stone.

“You’re only cement!” she shouted. “You can’t run or make noises or eat. You can’t eat me!”

The animal vanished from her path.

Emily looked back through a filtering of bees, and saw the snouted beast statue on the side of the path, exactly where it belonged, its back arched above the underbrush. She stared at the animal, and it stared back without expression.

“I’m dumb,” she said. “Dumb, dumb . . .”

Victoria’s criticisms flashed through her mind, hostile whisperings. “Little Miss Crazy Brat.”

Moisture dripped from the beast’s mouth, and Emily’s throat tightened. She thought she detected a small movement of its jaws, a minute trembling, and she suppressed a scream.

“You’re a statue . . . a statue,” she repeated to herself as she turned to leave. Fortified by these words, she walked briskly along the path, somewhat comforted. Until she heard a sound behind her, slow and thudding, gaining on her.

She ran. And bumped into Thomas at the exit.

“I thought something was after me!” Emily wailed. “There was a wind and . . . ” She let her tears flow, with great, heaving sobs.

Thomas put his arms around her and held her until she grew quiet. “You’re okay now,” he said.

“Sometimes you seem older than I am,” Emily said.

“Not just because I’m bigger? For other reasons, you mean?”

“For other reasons.”

They rejoined their grandparents and walked back to the car.

“This amusement park is getting an old-fashioned merry-go-round,” Panona said. “I read that Jabu Smith is bringing in a real antique with wood carvings you don’t see everyday. People don’t do much of that anymore. Takes too much patience and time.”

“Someday the last craftsman will die,” Nonna said. “Then what?”

“Hats off to Jabu Smith and people like him,” Panona said.

They drove down the highway to an oceanside eatery that advertised kilometer-high hamburgers and ice cream cones as big as Antarctica.

On wooden tables outside, they spread a plethora of food in the bright sunlight, and Emily and Thomas began gorging themselves.

An ocean breeze wrapped around Emily, a perfect, warm breeze that caressed her and soothed her from the harshness of the other wind.

“Smell the flowers in the air,” Nonna said, “all mixed with briny odors from the ocean. It’s the wind blowing petals from a tropical paradise, bringing perfume from faraway.”

“The wind is sharing its bounty,” Thomas said with his mouth full.

“One day you’ll write poetry, young man,” Nonna remarked. “Same as I do, but more cheerful, from the happiness in your heart.” She gave Emily a hug. “And you, dear one, will wear a rainbow. I wish . . . Well, it doesn’t matter what old folks wish.”

“Wish what?” Thomas asked. He was always the curious one.

“That life gives you the best of everything,” laughed Nonna. “And more selfish things. I’d like to steal you from Victoria and your dad so I can see you every day.”

“I’d like that,” Thomas said with enthusiasm. “We could always go home for visits.”

Emily was without words, and she pressed snugly against her grandmother’s bosom.

When they returned to the Harvey home just before dark, Victoria and their father were still on their trip.

“Don’t forget Mrs. Belfer is here,” Emily said.

“The one who sleeps,” Nonna said with an edge to her voice. “I don’t think I’ve exchanged ten words with her.”

“We’ll be fine,” Thomas said.

They kissed each other goodbye, and the children entered the house.

Moments later, the doorbell rang, and Emily peered through the window by the door.

“It’s a man,” she whispered to Thomas. “The salesman who was here yesterday.”

Chapter 5

Our race is winding down, melting into the soil. I see it in diminishing population and Nebulon counts, and I feel it in my bones . . . racial shittah!

—“The Frozen Journal of Jabu”

Malcolm Squick saw the brown-haired girl at the window by the front door, peering around the curtains. He smiled at her, knew from the amoeba-cams he’d left that she and her brother were alone, except for the alcoholic housekeeper, asleep in her room off the back porch.

The drunken sot would not interfere.

A screen from Squick’s training flashed in his mind, with frost around the lettering, just as he had seen it in the great ice auditorium of Homaal:

Amoeba-cams: living radio-optic organisms stealth-encapsulated so they occupy a wavelength of light invisible to Gweens. They buzz, but only within a sound range beyond the auditory perception of the target race. When released in a structure by a fieldman, the amoeba-cam divides into the number of rooms and hallways, providing visual and auditory sensors in each.

Squick had released an amoeba-cam here the day before.

“Flies on the wall,” Director Jabu called them.

With these remarkable devices from Jabu’s Inventing Corps, fieldmen knew when adults were home so that calls could be made upon unattended children. If adults appeared suddenly, there were deadly contingency plans.

“Remember me? I was here yesterday,” Squick said loudly enough so that the girl could hear him through the glass. “I forgot to ask a couple of things.” He lifted his briefcase.

“Our parents aren’t here,” Emily shouted back.

“You’re Emily, aren’t you?”

No response. She gripped her lower lip in her teeth as if afraid, then released it.

A boy appeared beside the girl, obviously younger than she but taller, with curly dark hair and similar features. Even through the glass Squick could see that the irises of both children lacked the pale red glow of Nebulons that characterized the eyes of the Ch’Var race, confirmation to him that these were Gweenchildren, target children. Only Ch’Vars could see the luminosity in Ch’Var eyes.

“Ah, this must be the birthday boy!” Squick exclaimed loudly. He popped open his briefcase without putting it down, removed several colorful party hats. “Which would you prefer? What about cookies? And games? Which games do you want to play?” He held up a red and black party favor for them to see.

The girl scowled, but the boy disappeared from the window and opened the door. “I’m Thomas Harvey. I like the blue hat, the one with the yellow clowns.”

“May I step inside for a moment? I have several selections to show you . . . even sample cake and ice cream flavors!” Squick bubbled with feigned excitement. He saw Emily Harvey behind the boy, near the doorway to the living room, her small, pretty face pinched in disapproval. A more difficult child to convince than her brother.

Thomas looked at his sister. “Is it okay?”

“I don’t have much time,” Squick said with urgent cheer. “So many orders to fill!”

“All right,” answered a hesitant Emily. “We’re not supposed to let in strangers, but if it’s for the party . . . well, I guess . . .”

Squick assumed his most benign expression. “I’m not a stranger. Your mother and I had a nice conversation yesterday.”

“She’s not our mother,” Emily answered. “She doesn’t like us to use that word.”

As she let the caterer in, Emily recalled Mrs. Belfer’s statement that the only safe males in the world were under twelve years of age and puny. Mrs. Belfer commented often that she hated men and had no interest in them, but Emily suspected otherwise. Once, when the intercom didn’t operate, Victoria had sent Emily to Mrs. Belfer’s room. The housekeeper’s quarters were crowded with heart-shaped lace pillows, and scattered across her bed were assorted paperback books with lush, juicy titles such as
Golden Passions, Island of Desires,
and
The Lust of Louise.

It was best to let the salesman in. If Victoria had asked the man to stop by and talk to Thomas and Emily refused to answer the door, Emily didn’t want to think about the consequences.

With a briefcase, conservative dark suit, white shirt and sedate tie, the caterer resembled a banker or an accountant. One pocket of his suit bulged a little, and Emily recalled the peculiar pipe he had stuffed into his tweed jacket the day before. The pipe had a little animal face like a weasel, with ferocious eyes. It seemed clearer to her now than when she had actually been looking at it.

“I’m Mr. Squick,” he said, and latched his briefcase.

“Our housekeeper could talk with you,” Emily said. “But I’d rather not disturb her.”

“Mrs. Belfer goes to bed early,” Thomas said. “She’s old—forty-seven, I think. She wears a red wig that slides around on her head when she walks, and you can see darkish hair under it.”

“I don’t want to waken her,” Squick answered, and he stepped inside and closed the door.

The house changed.

Emily wondered if Thomas felt it. An odd sensation, as though something had been shuffled about, moved from its familiar position. The feeling was ice-cold and prickled the back of her neck. She looked about the hallway and saw everything in its proper place: the narrow bench with coat hooks on it, the pickle-finish side table with a Tiffany lamp, the paintings to each side on the walls. Still, the agitation on Emily’s neck remained. The order of the house had been disturbed.

“I’m afraid we won’t be of much help to you,” she said.

Squick moved a little closer to the children. “Oh, but you will! So many details you can help with. You want to participate in the party, too, don’t you, Emily?” He looked at the boy and added, “Say, that’s a great T-shirt. Mind if I call you Tom-Tom? It’s easier to talk to someone when you know their nickname.” He patted Thomas’s cheek.

“Emily printed it,” said Thomas. “With a waterproof marking pen. Our stepmom hates this shirt.”

“I see you’re wearing it anyway.”

Thomas beamed.

“It’s the way children assert independence,” Squick said. “A necessary step.”

Thomas’s smile weakened. He looked puzzled.

“Adults always want you to do things their way, right?” Squick asked. “Never realizing you’ve got a mind of your own.” He paused a moment. “I’d like to see your room, Tom-Tom. It will reveal the things you like, give me ideas for the entertainment. All right?”

“Okay,” Thomas said, and led the way down the hallway to his room.

As Emily followed, she recalled that long ago she had decided Thomas had the disposition of a puppy. He loved everyone, missed people too much. Like he’d trusted his friend Booger, a boy who picked his nose in class and drew realistic skulls on his forearms in red ink. Booger was a square-faced boy who wore his hair parted in two places. He smashed Thomas’s toys, the toys that Thomas shared with him, because Booger enjoyed smashing things. Toys or people, it made little difference to Booger.

Her brother could calculate complicated mathematical problems, could read and understand his father’s medical journals and once, when he was five, he had constructed his own steam engine. But sometimes he couldn’t see things, things that were obvious to Emily. This Squick was a question mark, and Emily hadn’t quite made up her mind about him.

Upon entering the bedroom, Squick shook his head slowly from side to side. “Funny the things adults demand of kids, wouldn’t you say? Most children tell me their parents deny them their rights.”

Emily watched her brother show Squick his space books and science fiction anthologies, and thought how extraordinarily odd the man’s comments were. She didn’t like the easy familiarity of this caterer-salesman, or the fact that he called her brother Tom-Tom. It sounded too intimate, almost perverse. But good manners prevailed, and she made no comment.

Squick sat on the bed, briefcase open on his lap.

Emily cleared her throat and her voice rose. “I was just wondering: How did you know my name?”

“From computer files on our clients. Not enough information on file, though. That’s why I’m here today.”

“But it’s not my party.”

“You’ll be there, I presume, and as the birthday boy’s sister you’ll occupy a very important position.”

“Victoria might not like that,” Emily said.

“I’ll discuss it with her,” Squick said. “She shouldn’t ignore your role.”

“You’d do that?” Emily asked.

“I would.”

For the moment he seemed like a nice man to Emily, one who saw through Victoria. Emily stared at the samples in his briefcase without focusing on them. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked with a smile. “Or a cold drink?”

“Coffee’s fine. Black please.” Squick returned her smile. It was the toothy smile she’d thought insincere the day before. Now it seemed different.

“It’ll take me awhile,” she apologized.

“Don’t rush,” Squick said.

When she was gone, Squick asked the Seven Sacred Questions, firing them at Thomas in the hypnotic Ch’Var voice that had to be answered truthfully. Squick ran through them quickly. He asked for the boy’s happiest and saddest memories, whether he looked forward to each day, what he enjoyed doing most, what he thought of the people closest to him, what the best or worst things were about being alive, and whether he was afraid of anything or anyone.

Thomas’s answers came without hesitation and were concise, as required by the voice. They revealed to Squick’s trained ears that the boy had a positive outlook about the world and that he got along well with people around him, even with a stepmother who apparently could be difficult at times. The boy’s saddest memories concerned the loss of his mother. No longer could he remember her face, and this bothered Thomas a little. But these feelings were not enough to disqualify the child, since he had overcome them to a remarkable degree.

All answers went into the hand-held radio-optic transmitter and presently the screen read: “Embidium fits 32 orders. Extract.”

I’ll take the girl’s, too,
Squick thought,
without questions. She seems happy.

Squick had done this before—extracted childhood memories on intuition without the Seven Sacred Questions. Such decisions involved an inherent risk, he knew, but thus far he’d made no mistakes.

Jabu spoke of this on occasion to all fieldmen, however, hammering home the importance of following proper procedure. “Procedures are for a purpose” was his mantra. “Only employ your Nebulons after following prescribed steps. Nebulons must not be wasted!”

Once used for embidium extractions, the viruslike organisms could not be reused. They had but one function, Squick realized.

Of course, the holistically healthy Ch’Var body produced replacement Nebulons all of the time, especially in Squick’s body. If anyone could afford to waste a Nebulon, it was Malcolm Squick, fieldman extraordinaire. His rare physical prowess when it came to Nebulons bolstered him and diminished his fear of Jabu’s wrath.

The necessity of filling orders was instinctual in the Ch’Var race, and virtually nothing could interfere with the drive for completion. The fulfilling of an order was a satisfying experience, almost sexual in its intensity.

When Emily returned with a steaming mug of coffee, she saw Squick slip a small black device into his inside jacket pocket. She didn’t give it much thought, deciding it was probably a calculator, and set the mug on the nightstand.

Squick spread his wares on the bed: party favors, balloons and samples of food wrapped in elegant little packages. He opened a large book of photos, displaying a variety of birthday cakes, some in the shape of thunder beasts, some formed to look like clowns or acrobats or animal trainers, even one that looked like a spaceship. The colors of the creations ranged from an unusual yellow-green to deep violet-blue—entrancing hues with lambent rays of light that reflected firelike against the underside of Squick’s chin.

Emily didn’t like the thunder beast cakes and was glad when Squick turned the page so she couldn’t see them.

“Let me see,” Squick said. “You’ll be eleven, Tom-Tom. What about this for your tablecloth?” He brought forth a length of deep blue fabric, as a magician might pull an object from a hat. Silver stars glittered on its surface, glinting like suns in distant space, flickering and fading and flickering again.

“Weird,” Thomas exclaimed. “I like that one.”

“I thought you would.”

Squick began a monologue about his wares and services that filled the room with words. Words spilled down the hallway into the farthest corners of the house, and Emily began to feel drowsy. She sat on the carpet and watched Squick’s mouth, the incredible gyrations of his perfect lips. And she watched his eyes, the luminous, almost red eyes that made little clicking sounds when he blinked.

Thomas sat on the bed beside the array of wares, seemingly too many things to have come from one briefcase. He fingered a party favor, looked up, frowned and said, “I hear buzzing again.”

This child hears an amoeba-cam?
Squick could hear the buzzing of stealth transmitters distinctly; one was in the corner of this very room, identifiable to his Ch’Var eyes as a pale red glow. He hadn’t studied the amoeba-cam reports on this household thoroughly, but recalled the conversations between the children about buzzing noises. Could it mean both children heard the secret frequency? It didn’t seem possible.

The fieldman stared into Thomas’s eyes. Detecting no Nebulon luminescence there, he reconfirmed this was not a Ch’Var child. It must be something else the boy referred to, though Squick heard no other buzzing. Might it be a different sound, one that only Gweens could hear?

Squick’s monologue continued, and Emily tried to focus her attention on it. His hypnotic words might have been mouthed by an alien, but she felt she understood chunks of thought, concepts of great significance. Yet if someone had asked her to explain his words at this moment, she would have been helpless to do so. They were a blur. Her head felt excessively large for her body, and she had a strong desire for sleep.

With his mouth turned in a foolish grin, Thomas said, “Odd-to-the-mega. My head feels like a watermelon. I think you put too much stuff in there, Mr. Squick.”