The Bones of Old Carlisle (33 page)

“That’s what I heard,” Hatfield replied. “Army told me that a few
days ago, but prefer it not get out at this time.”
Arrowroot looked at Smiley. “So they weren’t supposed to land
that thing, were they?” he asked. “If they had brains of the sort that
can’t do math, you wanted ‘em all to burn up, didn’t you? C’mon,
Nebby, fess up.”
“That’s correct,” Smiley said.
“Yup,” Arrowroot said. “And if they all crashed, you’da known it,
and that would have told you, finally you found one. Finally. You been
screaming for a friend for what, like 3,000 years? And finally you
find a race that’s your equal. Like you. No math, but pain and
happiness and all. Like you.
“But the main point is, they landed,” Arrowroot said. “Weren’t
supposed to, but they did. You know that? You know the lesson there?
Never underestimate people. Never underestimate homo sapiens. They’ll
blow your mind, they will, doin’ all kinda stuff you never imagined.
And Tamani and her people, turns out they just screwed everything up.
By livin’ and somehow landing that space bus out at the Carlisle
place, they just screwed up the whole, uh, the whole protocol.”
“Are you a book group?” Mixson asked. “Are you putting on a
play?”
“Nope, this is all for real,” Arrowroot replied, “all real as far
as I know. Just bear with me. So here they are, on earth now, landed
at Fort Shergawa, not far from the Carlisle place. And for several
days, they raised all kinds of hell, fighting with each other, gettin’
eat up by these roach robots that went all haywire, and they’re
waitin’ for what they called the rescuer. It’s all in the crystal,
crazy as hell, but in the end it was accurate in a sense. They’re
waitin’ for a rescuer, and after a few days, one of Nebby’s people
shows up. But you know, I don’t think he was in Nebby’s club, so to
speak. He was a vicious son of a bitch, if you will. And that’s where
we get near to the end of the crystals I was talking about. So I’ve
got some very interesting reading to share with everyone.”
“How long is this going to take?” Mixson asked, looking at her
watch.
“You don’t have to stay,” Arrowroot said. “But I believe your
client would like to hear this out. Ain’t that right, Nebby?”
“It’s very important,” Smiley said, looking at Mixson. “I hope
you’ll stay.”
Mixson looked at him sharply. “So you could talk the entire
time?” she asked. “It was all an act?”
“I couldn’t talk at first,” Smiley said. “I learned along the
way.”
Mixson continued to stare at him, clearly not believing. Danielle
mostly looked at her feet, although she cast a glance now and then at
Tamani. For her part, Tamani was staring at Smiley, clearly not
trusting him. After sniffing everyone, Othercat had chosen Hatfield’s
lap, and as she bathed, he leaned back in his chair, keeping an eye on
everyone.
“So like I said, this other fellow, from Nebby’s planet, he was a
mean son of a gun,” Arrowroot said. “And he shows up, and his only
concern is getting rid of everyone who was left, and destroying all
the evidence. The crystals don’t say why. My personal theory is he
didn’t want Tamani and her people to go back, back to their home
planet, and wake up there, and say ‘Damn, there’s something else out
there. Damn, we gotta be like that, maybe.’ Like, kinda open up
Pandora’s box or something, I don’t know. So there were five left at
that time. Tamani, her boyfriend Drune, then two girls, Jundy and
Nantia. And Hengi, also a mean bastard.
“So here’s what Nebby’s guy does. Hey, maybe we should call him
Pre-Nebby. That okay? Tamani’s people called him the Rescuer, but he
didn’t exactly live up to that name. Anyway, Pre-Nebby shows up at the
Carlisle place, says ‘Okay, you all are done, it’s time to terminate
you so you can go back to your home planet, keep farmin’ and all.’ But
first he has ‘em all tell their stories. Takes the stories straight
out of their heads. Burns ‘em on those crystals I mentioned. Then
Tamani and the others go into the kitchen of the Carlisle place, and
they all lie down. They’re agreeable to being terminated, but maybe a
little sad too, at least Tamani was, but she’s still willing. But PreNebby, he’s got a trick up his sleeve. A really mean trick. Instead of
just killing their human forms so they’ll go back to their home
planet, you know, wake up and go about their business, he knocks ‘em
out. Near death experience is what I would call it. Near death. He
knocks ‘em out, then he brings ‘em back. You know, like revives ‘em a
little, sorta keeps ‘em in limbo or some such, and then he kills ‘em
all the way. The spirit going back and forth across the galaxy, first
one way and then another, and that kills ‘em on the home planet, and
it kills ‘em on earth, and does away with ‘em altogether. And then he
powderizes ‘em. The bodies, that is. Once they’re dead, he uses a
gizmo that turns ‘em to dust. So no one would ever know what happened.
No witnesses, no evidence, so to speak. Not on earth, nor on the home
planet neither.
“But Tamani, God bless her, she figures it all out. While her
soul is zipping from one place to another, she figures it out. She
figures out what he’s up to, and she decides to fight it. It’s like I
said. Don’t count out a human. Don’t count us out. Never.
“Now, let me read what happens next, it gets quite interesting.”

“Okay,” Karl Arrowroot said, “Tamani, did you read this part?”
“No,” she said.
“Is any of it coming back to you?” Arrowroot asked.
“A little of it,” she replied.
“Is it okay if I read it?” Arrowroot asked. “Is this going to

stir you up again?”
“Go ahead,” Tamani answered tensely.
“Okay, then let me set the stage here,” Arrowroot said. “PreNebby, he’s got ‘em all lying down on the kitchen floor, and he’s
given them all something, a drug I guess, that puts them in a deep
sleep. Almost dead like, but not entirely dead. Spirit zipping about.
Then he wakes ‘em back up, one by one, then he kills that body for
good. Uses poison out of a metal box.

“So he’s been doin’ ‘em one by one, putting them to sleep, wakin’
‘em up, killin’ em, and turning the corpses to powder. He’s taken care
of the two girls so far, Nantia and Judy. They’re dead, nothing but
dust where they were layin’.”

Tamani stifled a sob and put her thumb in her mouth.
“Now just hang with me,” Arrowroot said to her. “Just stay with
me if you can. You see, Tamani figures it all out. Then she forgot it
all, because it was so dreadful, what had happened. But she figured it
all out then.
“So anyway, Pre-Nebby is moving down the line, puttin’ ‘em to
sleep one by one, wakin’ ‘em up, then killin’ ‘em one by one. He’s
killed Nantia and Jundy, turned ‘em to dust, and he’s killed Drune for
good, but he hasn’t turned him to dust. And he hasn’t killed Hengi
yet. Tamani’s wakin’ back up, eyes open, pretending she’s all groggy
and whatnot, but she’s just actin’. Wide awake, she is, and so he
walks up to her, and he’s about to kill her, but she knows what he’s
up to. So let me start reading.”

I saw a pain in his eyes and then a hardness and I sensed the
movement of his hand toward me.
The metal box inches from my neck, I reached up, wrapping my
fingers around his wrist.
He looked surprised but not frightened. Weak resistance was not
unexpected.
He brought his other hand around to grab the box from the first
hand and complete my destruction. I was expecting this and moved
quickly, snatching and squeezing both his wrists together as the
poison box clattered harmlessly to the floor beside my hip.
He looked down at me with confusion, but not yet fear. For a
moment we simply stared at each other, and then I spoke.
“I will not die today,” I said.
I felt his pulse quicken, his skin grow hotter, and there was an
edge to his voice when he spoke: “Submit to termination.”
“I already did,” I replied. “It didn’t work.”
“You are correct. Submit again.”
We were speaking an ancient tongue, full of words I did not yet
know, but I had heard enough of his language that I was able to
continue the conversation.
“I don’t want to. My other body’s dead.”
“You are disordered. Submit again.”
His pulse was slowing, voice growing more calm. He did not
understand yet what was happening.
“Do you believe I will, Axenforur?”
His eyes grew wide when I spoke that last word, the name for a
member of a race that we were told should no longer be, creators of
the survey, since destroyed with their planet and all their kind by a
dying sun. The destruction of Axen was a lie, of course, one of many
we were told during our brief introduction to the survey – an
introduction meant less to prepare us for the survey than to prevent
questions.
“You are disordered,” he said again, voice rising an octave.
“Release me and submit to termination.”
“I find you disordered, Axenforur,” I said, spitting the last
word. I tilted my head toward Drune’s corpse. “You terminated my–” I
paused, ignorant of the word for lover and choosing a phrase whose
meaning was a little vague to me but seemed to fit. “He and I made
poetry together. You killed him.”
I sat up, still gripping his wrists, and jerked him forward until
our noses were almost touching. “Submit to termination,” I hissed,
grabbing the poison box and pressing it against his neck.
It stung and he winced, and then he smiled with contempt. “It
won’t work on me.”
“I needed to be sure,” I said, lying. I had known all along it
wouldn’t kill him. I had other reasons for what I was doing.
“Do you feel the strength in my hand, Axenforur?” I asked. “That
capsule didn’t make disordered surveyors. It made optimum surveyors,
as all the capsules do. Optimum in mind. Optimum in body. I know who
you are, and I could crush your neck in less than a second.”
I slid the poison box across the floor. It made a hollow sound as
it bounced against the wall. We both watched it come to a stop near
the back door, and then I raised my hand to his throat.
Fear and outrage spilled from his mouth. “What are you?” he
demanded.
“I am a surveyor,” I said. “One in a long line of beings you
exploited as you looked for someone else like you. For 3,700 years,
you used us all, finding everywhere the same kind of race, without
emotion, or curiosity, or inventiveness. Perfect races that could not
dream or change or fight or make mistakes. Or feel pain. Until now. At
last you have found what you’ve been looking for, a people as
murderous and beautiful and lonely as you.”
“Ah!” he cried. I could feel him physically recoiling from the
truth of my words.
“You have found them at last,” I said. “In fact, you are talking
to one now.”
I leaned back, tucking my legs beneath me, relaxing everything
but the hand that held his wrists together.
“It only took us three days to become them, to become you.
Killing and learning and understanding.” I looked up into his eyes.
“You should have come sooner.”
He stared down at me in horror and tried to pull his hands away,
grimacing as I applied almost enough force to break the smaller of the
two bones that ran the length of his forearms.
“Why did it take you so long?” I asked him. This was an important
question, one whose answer would tell me much. He said nothing, but I
read a hint in his face.
“You forgot about the survey, didn’t you?” I asked. “You set it
in motion and hoped and waited, but for thousands of years, you found
nothing but my kind, 721 planets full of my kind, producing in quiet,
unfeeling contentment. The universe has been a very lonely place for
you, hasn’t it?”
I saw a shadow of something else in his eyes, a fraction of a
second’s worth of sorrow, and I knew I was correct.
“You forgot there even was a survey, didn’t you? But this time,
at last, something was different, and the system tried to tell you,
but you had long since pulled away, given up on the rest of the
universe, and you didn’t hear or didn’t understand at first, and now
it’s been three days, and you are too late.”
I saw behind his eyes to his brain, working furiously to process
everything, the reality of what I was telling him sinking in. He was
trying to devise a new plan, and he began to calm. His pulse slowed
and his skin cooled and his eyes assumed a different cast.
“I will not die today,” I repeated. “I am one of them now, and I
will be joining them.”
I wanted him to agree, but he said nothing. There was much more I
wanted to say, and to ask, but I sensed that Hengi would be waking
soon and behaving in ways I couldn’t predict. “I want to live,” I
repeated.
At last, the Rescuer understood what sat before him cross-legged
on the kitchen floor, holding his wrists together with the strength of
three of him. And he finally tried to reason with me. He had wasted
precious time on threats and insults.
“They will dismiss you as disordered.”
“I accept that risk,” I said.
I braced for whatever the Rescuer might do next, wondering if I
would be ending his life soon.
“Alright, you fuck them then,” he said, using his language’s most
vulgar word for intercourse. The word took me a moment to translate.
“But don’t be surprised if they will not have you.”
I raised an eyebrow, unsure of his meaning.
My uncertainty seemed to embolden him.
“You are not of a form they will like,” he said, adding, “I find
you ugly.”
I was struggling with his words. I found them completely
irrelevant, but strange and troubling and I wasn’t sure why.
“I have seen what you did,” he continued as my vision dimmed and
my breath came faster.
“You fucked him,” he said, nodding toward Drune. “Whom else did
you fuck?”
Despite all I had learned, of my body and mind and the three
races represented at this moment on your Earth, I could not keep
myself from doing what I did next. I glanced briefly past the Rescuer
toward Hengi’s body, still asleep.
“Him too?” the Rescuer sneered. “You were fortunate either of
them touched you. Perhaps they felt sorry for you, ugly whore.”
The expression “whore” was also difficult for me. All my mind had
to work on it, deciphering the context, reading his tone and factoring
in my limited understanding of his culture. As soon as I understood
his words, my conscious began constructing an elaborate refutation,
keyed on the emotions that accompanied intercourse with Drune, our
discoveries, our last hours and minutes together, followed by a
justification in survival terms of what had happened with Hengi.
But I could feel his words going deep into my mind, beyond
conscious and into the hidden places where his assessment of me as
unlikely to succeed at reproduction had to be interpreted, evaluated
and accepted, rejected or accepted with modifications. His motives had
to be surmised, and his judgment of me had to be weighed against all
the other evidence of my attractiveness. And if I determined he were
correct, new approaches would have to be devised to increase the
probability I would successfully reproduce.
Consciously, I knew it was all nonsense. But he had chosen his
words carefully and my brain could not refuse them. I had lost control
and could only watch in horror as pain was ordered up from multiple
calculation centers in my brain, rushing through my conscious with the
unstoppable intensity required to generate the highest level of
motivation.
It all broke through at once, not the greatest pain I had ever
felt in the last two days, but the fierce, biting agony of self doubt
and self-loathing, a sense of inescapable failure and profound shame.
The Rescuer sensed the arrival of pain and struck again.
“If I promise to fuck you, will you let me go?” he asked in a new
voice, flat and passionless, as if he were resigned to having
intercourse with me to resolve a minor annoyance. “That is what you
want, isn’t it? I saw it in your eyes this morning, and it is why you
won’t let me go now.”
My conscious and subconscious were completely engaged, with what
he had said before and now this new offer. I was hurt and furious and
desperate for him to take it back. I am not ugly, I thought to myself,
but I knew that, with all my knowledge, I did not know what ugly was,
what attractive was. Perhaps I was ugly after all. And perhaps that
mattered.
I knew that violence in response to insult was a symptom of my
new, disordered mind, bringing nothing of real value, and yet I wanted
to strike him, to slap him, to smash the side of his head in as Jundy
had done to Creat.
I looked into his eyes and he was blurry and I realized I was
crying.
“You are ugly!” I screamed, choosing the empty violence of
alliterative disparagement. “I don’t want to fuck you or any of your
kind. You are all dead, Axenforur. You know nothing, Axenfailure.
Axenfucker. You failing failure from a fucking failure race! You hid
and lied and pretended not to exist, and for all this time, you did
nothing. You are failures, all of you!”
I leaned forward, drawing in my breath for another round of
insults. I planned to shout them so close to his face he would feel my
spit as I continued to explore the themes of his failure, the failure
of his race, and his own lack of suitability for intercourse.
I was completely lost within myself, desperate to fight the
things he had said, a part of me enjoying this fight, and so I did not
understand what it meant when his eyes narrowed.
My fingers had grown fatigued and had relaxed just enough that,
as I prepared for another round of screaming, he was able to pull his
hands free.
His left hand immediately went to a pocket in his coverall and he
drew out another small box, black and frightening. This was the box
used to convert dead surveyors to ash. He’d already used it on Jundy
and Nantia. He was going to use it on Drune just before I awoke and
interrupted him. I knew he was supposed to use it only after he had
killed us, because to do otherwise would be inhumane, and I knew he
was planning to use it on me regardless, because he had no other
choice.
I stopped his hand just before it reached my body, and then we
froze, him trying to kill me, and me certain of nothing except that I
must not be touched by what he held.
I could have snapped his arm. I could have smashed his head. But
I realized that I didn’t want to add any more dying screams to my
memories. I had seen too much death, too much dismemberment already.
Perhaps we could continue to talk, I thought, without hatred,
without contempt, in the spirit of cooperation and mutual
understanding that had eluded the Axen for all their days, until this
very moment.
“Is the pain still a torment for your kind, Tiamage?” I asked,
using the most intimate form of his name. His expression softened,
almost imperceptibly, and he opened his mouth to ask a question. “How
did you know my--”
But only the first few word escaped when his body rocked
backwards, his hand slipping from my grasp.
Hengi had awakened. He took the Rescuer’s arm in one hand and his
neck in the other, forcing their faces together, the Rescuer’s two
good eyes inches from Hengi’s good eye, and the swollen, purple eye I
had struck the day before.
“Where are the Being?” Hengi demanded in a corruption of the Rescuer’s
tongue, his voice raspy and urgent. “Where are the Being?”