Time Quintet 04-Many Waters (3 page)

 “If,” Dennys added morosely, “it isn’t already too late.” Then he said. “Hey, Japh—“ stumbled over the name-“Hey, Jay, what’s that?”

On the horizon to the far left, moving toward them, appeared a creature which shimmered in and out of their vision, silvery in color, as large as a goat or a pony, with light flickering out from its forehead.

Sandy also shortened Japheth’s name. “What’s that, Jay?” The mammoth pushed its head under Sandy’s hand and he began to scratch between the great fan-like ears.

Japheth looked toward the barely visible creature, smiling in recognition. “Oh, that’s a unicorn. They’re very odd. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t.  If we want one, we call and it’ll usually appear.”

“Did you call on one?” Sandy asked.

“Higgaion may have thought about one, but he didn’t really call it. That’s why it isn’t all the way solid. Unicorns are even better about scenting for water than mammoths, except that you can’t always count on them. But probably Higgaion thought one might be able to confirm where we thought there was a spring.” He smiled ruefully. “Grandfather always knows what Hig is thinking, and I make guesses.”

The twins stopped and looked at each other, but the mammoth had left Sandy and was trotting after Japheth, who was walking toward the oasis again, so they followed.  In the intensity of the desert heat, their limbs felt heavy and uncooperative. When they looked to where the unicorn had been, it was no longer there, though there was left in its place a mirage-like shimmering.

Sandy panted. “I don’t believe this.”

Dennys, jogging beside him, agreed. “We’ve never had very willing suspensions of disbelief. We’re the pragmatists of the family.”

“I still don’t believe it,” Sandy said. “It I blink often enough, we’ll be back in the kitchen at home.”

Dennys took one of the flapping sleeves of his shirt and wiped his eyes. “What I believe right now is that I’m hot.  Hot. Hot.”

Japheth turned his head and looked back. “Giants! Come on. Stop talking.”

With their long legs, it was easy enough for the twins to catch up with Japheth- “We’re not giants,” Dennys reiterated. “My name is Dennys.”

“Dennysim.”

Dennys touched his forehead, as Japheth had done.

“One Dennys. Me.”

Sandy, too, touched his forehead. “I’m Sandy.”

“Sand.” Japheth looked around. “We have plenty of Sand.”

“No, Jay,” Sandy corrected. “It’s short for Alexander.  Sandy.”

Japheth shook his head. “You call me Jay. I call you Sand. Sand is something I understand.”

“Talking of strange names”—Dennys looked at the mammoth, who was again butting at Sandy, to be petted.

“Hig-“

“Hig-gai-on.” Japheth sounded it out.

“Are all mammoths his size? Or are there some really big ones?”

Japheth looked puzzled. “Those that are left are like Higgaion.”

Sandy looked at his brother. “Didn’t horses start out very little, back in pre-history?”

But Dennys was looking at the horizon. “Look. Now you can see that there are lots of palm trees.”

Although they could now see that there were many trees, the oasis was still far away. Despite their much longer legs, the boys began to lag behind Japheth and the mammoth, who were moving across the sand at an easy run.

“I’m not sure I can make it,” Dennys said, grunting.

Sandy’s steps, too, lagged. “I thought we were the great athletes,” he said, panting.

“We’ve never been exposed to heat like this before.”

Japheth, evidently realizing that they were no longer behind him, turned around and jogged back toward them, seemingly cool and unwinded. “What’s the matter? You’re both all red. The same red. You truly are two people?”

“We’re twins.” Sandy’s voice was an exhausted croak.

Dennys panted. “I think—we’re getting—heat—heat prostration.”

Japheth looked at them anxiously. “Sun-sickness can be dangerous.” He reached up and touched Dennys’s cheek.  Shook his head. “You’re cold and clammy. Bad sign.” He put his hand against his forehead. Appeared to be thinking deeply. Then: “What about a unicorn?”

“What about it?” Sandy asked. He felt tired and irritable.

“If we could get a couple of unicorns to become real and solid for us, they could carry you to the oasis.”

The twins looked at each other, each seeing a red, sweating mirror version of himself. “We’ve never gone in for mythical beasts,” Dennys said.

Sandy added, “Meg says unicorns have been ruined by overpopularity.”

Japheth frowned. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Dennys, too. frowned. Thinking. Then: “Jay’s unicorns sound more like Mother’s virtual particles than like mythical beasts.”

Sandy was exasperated. “Virtual particles aren’t mythical. They’re theoretical.”

Dennys shot back, “If Mother can believe in her way-out theories, we ought to be able to believe in virtual unicorns.”

“What kind of unicorns?” Japheth looked puzzled. “Is it because you’re some strange kind of giant that there’s all this confusion?”              !”

“Unicorns have never been a matter of particular importance before.” Sandy wiped his hands across his face and was surprised to find that the beads of sweat were indeed cold.

“They’re important now.” Dennys groaned. “Mother believes in virtual particles, so there’s no reason there can’t be virtual unicorns.”

“Hig—“Japheth urged.

The mammoth turned and faced the horizon. A faint shimmering glimmered on the sand in front of him. Slowly it took the shape of a unicorn, transparent but recognizable. Beside it, another unicorn began to shimmer.

 “Please, unicorns,” Dennys begged. “Be real.”

Slowly the transparency of both creatures began to solidify, until there were two unicorns standing on the sand, with silvery-grey flanks, silver manes and beards. Silver hooves, and horns of brilliant light. They looked at the twins and docilely folded their legs under to lie down.

“Oh!” Japheth exclaimed. “It’s a good thing you’re both so young. For the moment, I’d forgotten that unicorns will not let themselves be touched by anyone who is not a virgin.”

The twins glanced at each other. “Well, we don’t even have our driver’s licenses yet.” Dennys said.

“Get up on them before they decide they aren’t needed,” Japheth ordered.

The twins climbed each onto the back of one of the silver creatures, both feeling that this was a dream from which they could not wake up. But, without the unicorns, they would never make it to the oasis.

The unicorns flew across the desert, their hooves barely touching the surface. Occasionally, where the sand had been blown clear and there was rock, a silver hoof struck with a clang like a bell, and sparks flew upward. Small desert creatures watched them fly by. Sandy noticed, but did not mention, some scattered bones bleached by sun and wind.

“Hold on!” Japheth cried in warning. “Don’t fall off!”

But there was a sense, in riding the unicorns, of unreality. If this was no stranger than their mother’s world of particle physics, it was at least equally as strange.

“Hold onl” Japheth shouted again.

But Dennys felt himself sliding off the smooth flanks.  He tried to grasp the mane, but it sifted through his fingers like sand. Was the unicorn becoming less real, or was the still-blazing sun affecting him?

“Dennys! Don’t fall off!” Sandy shouted.

But Dennys felt himself slipping. He did not know whether it was himself or the unicorn who kept flickering in and out of being.

Then he felt something solid. Sandy on his unicorn pressing against him. Sandy’s strong arms shoving him back onto the unicorn, the virtual particle suddenly real, not just something in the lab. His head hurt.

Japheth and the mammoth were running beside them, amazingly swift for such small creatures- “Hurry,” Japheth urged the unicorns. “Hurry.”

Sandy, his flannel shirt still draped over his head, was hardly aware that he was supporting his brother. His arms felt as fluid as water. He was breathing in great searing gulps which burned his throat. His head began to swell, to be filled with hot air like a balloon, so that he was afraid he was going to float off into the sky.

The mammoth passed Japheth and the unicorns, leading the way to the oasis, so that his stocky legs were no more than a blur of motion, like hummingbirds’ wings.  Occasionally he would raise his trunk and make a trumpeting noise, urging the unicorns along. Japheth ran along side, beginning to breathe, open-mouthed, with effort.

But they were not fast enough for Dennys, who was slipping into unconsciousness, and as the world blackened before his eyes, his unicorn’s horn became dim and the silver creature began to dissolve as Dennys lost sight and hearing and thought. And Dennys flickered in and out of being with his mount.

Sandy, barely holding on to consciousness, was not aware that the arm he had held Dennys with was now holding nothing. He felt himself drop to the ground. He did not land on searing sand but on soft green. His burning body was shaded and cooled by the great fans of a palm tree.

His unicorn had made it to the oasis.

2  Pelican in the Wilderness

Sandy slid slowly into consciousness, eyes tightly closed.  No alarm clock jangling, so it must be Saturday. He listened to hear it Dennys was stirring in the upper bunk.  Felt something cool and wet sprayed across his body. It felt good. He did not want to wake up. On Saturday they had heavy chores. They washed the floor of their mother’s lab, or the bathrooms. If it was snowing again, there would be snow to shovel.

“Sand—“

He did not recognize the odd, slightly foreign voice. He did not recognize the smell that surrounded him, pungent and gamy. Again his body was sprayed with cool wetness.

“Sand’”

Slowly, he opened his eyes. In the light which came from directly above him, he saw two brown faces peering anxiously into his. One face was young, barely covered with deep amber down. The other face was crisscrossed with countless wrinkles, a face with ancient, leathered skin and a long beard of curling white.

Unwilling to believe that he was not waking from a dream, he reached up to touch Dennys’s mattress above him. Nothing.  He opened his eyes more widely

He was in a tent, a sizable tent made of goatskins, judging by the smell. Light came in from the roof hole, a rosy, sunset light. A funny little animal crossed the tent to him and sprayed his body with water, and he realized that he was hot with sunburn. The animal was bringing water from a large clay pot and cooling him with it.

“Sand?” the young man asked again. “Are you awake?”

“Jay?” He struggled to sit up, and his burned skin was scratched by the skins on which he was lying.

“Sand, are you all right?” Japheth’s voice trembled with anxiety.

“I’m okay. Just sunburned.”

The old man put his hand against Sandy’s forehead.  “You have much fever. The sun-sickness is hard on those unaccustomed to the desert. Are you from beyond the mountains?”

Sandy looked at the ancient man, who was even smaller than Japheth but had the same brightly blue eyes, startling against the sun-darkened skin. Sandy touched his forehead as Japheth had done. “I’m Sandy.”

“Sand. Yes. Japheth has told me.” The old man touched his forehead, tipped with softly curling white hair. “Lamech. Grandfather Lamech. Japheth carried you to my tent.”

Sandy looked around in alarm. “But Dennys—where’s

Dennys?” He was now fully awake, aware that he was not in the bunk bed at home but in this strange desert place which might be on any planet in any solar system in any galaxy anywhere in the universe. He shuddered. “Dennys?”

“He went out with the unicorn.”

“What!”

“Sand,” Japheth explained patiently, “Dennys must have fainted. I told you about unicorns. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t. When Den fainted, the unicorn went out, and took Den with him.”

“But we’ve got to find him, bring him back!” Sandy tried to struggle to his feet.

Grandfather Lamech pushed him back down onto the skins with amazing strength for so small a person. “Hush, Sand. Do not worry. Your brother will be all right.”

“But—“

“Unicorns are very responsible,” Lamech explained.

“But—“

“It is true that they are unreliable in that we cannot rely on them to be, but they are very responsible.”

“You’re crazy,” Sandy said.

“Hush, Sand,” Grandfather Lamech repeated. “We do not know where the unicorns go when they go out, but when somebody calls the unicorn again and it appears, Den will appear, too.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I am sure,” the old man said, and for a moment Sandy relaxed at the authority in his voice.

Then: “Well, call a unicorn, call him now!”

The old man and Japheth looked at Higgaion. Higgaion raised his trunk toward the roof hole of the tent. The rosy glow had faded, and the old man and Japheth and Higgaion were barely visible shadows in the tent. There was a sudden fiash, and Sandy could see the shimmering silver body of a unicorn. But no Dennys.

“Dennys!” he cried.

And heard Japheth echo, “Den!”

Higgaion appeared to be consulting with the unicorn.  Then he looked toward Japheth and the old man. Trumpeted.

There was another flash of light, and then a faint glimmering and the unicorn was gone.

Grandfather Lamech said, “It would appear that someone has already called the unicorn on which the Den was riding.”

Sandy jumped to his feet, but was so weak that he sank back onto the skins. “But he could be anywhere, anywhere!” he cried wildly.

“Hush,” the old man repeated. “He is on the oasis. We will find him.”

“How?” Sandy’s voice was a frightened small boy’s squeak.

Japheth said, “I will look for him. When I find him, I will bring him to you.”

“Oh, Jay—I want to come with you.”

“No.” Grandfather Lamech was firm. “You have the sun-sickness.  You must stay here until you are well.” He looked up at the roof hole. The fading sunset was gone, and the moon, not full, but beaming bright, shone down on them. The old man touched Sandy’s arm, his thigh.  “Tomorrow you will be all blisters.”