Imagination Fully Dilated: Science Fiction Part 15

I thought about it even though I didn't want to. "For a short time perhaps. But we all wind up dust in the end, so what difference does it make?"

"Dust is matter. Matter is energy. Energy survives. One can become like unto a G.o.d. Or at least a son of G.o.d. Maybe Jesus learned something up there on the cross, when he was staring down at his mother and a kneeling wh.o.r.e. Or he forgot what he'd learned and needed someone else to remind him. With wisdom come the keys to the cosmos."

"Lady, give it a rest. I just write books."

She leered, grabbed a fork and dug into my apple pie. With a full mouth dripping sugar she murmured, "Homnulk comes."

Max walked into the diner, not really all that surprised to see me there. He almost looked as if he wanted to turn and rush away but was held to his course. I waved him over and Max reluctantly shambled forward, head down, shoulders hunched.

"h.e.l.lo, Thomas," he said. "I didn't know you were still in town."

I forgot myself for a second and abruptly all the rage came swelling up. "Yes, Max, I'm staying."

"Are you?"

"n.o.body is driving me out."

The anguished expression on his face s.h.i.+fted momentarily to something else. It was hatred and fear. He held his hands up as if to fend off another unwanted battle.I saw that three of his fingers had large blisters on them, and then I knew.

The realization rocked me, and I let out a gurgling moan that grew louder until my head became as heavy and black as the cinders of my past.

Khyre said, "Go get him, boss."

I hurtled over the table and grabbed Max by the collar. "You did it. You burned down my house!"

Now I understood why he'd smelled so friggin' fruity. He'd showered and scrubbed beneath soaps and oils to get rid of the gasoline smell.

"There has to be a heaven awaiting us after this," Max whined. "There has to be an ultimate reward!"

"Did I ever say there wasn't?"

With a burst of strength he grabbed hold of my wrists and broke my grip. "Yes, it's number four on your credos. 'There is no heaven, only earth. Live in the now.' Don't you even remember?"

What was I doing? What was I supposed to do? I turned to ask Khyre and she wasn't there anymore.

"Why do you need a heaven so badly, Max?"

A razor slash of a frown cut across his lips. "I can't accept that I'll never see my wife again."

Another whiff of apricots, lemon. I c.o.c.ked my head at him and realized how it fit together. The pagan driving the heathen out.

"I'm sorry but I want you to leave Silver City," he said. "I need you to go. Right now."

"Oh, Max . . . Jesus Christ-"

"Please just go and leave us alone before I kill you."

Max seemed only to have been put here for this very reason, to be the enemy of a man who needed an enemy. To betray whom he loved.

He grabbed a dull knife off the table, raised and drove it down hard against my right wrist. I screamed and he kept driving deeper until he'd nearly chopped through my hand.

"Why am I doing this?" he shrieked.

Blood spurted into my eyes and we were almost there again, where we had to go.

The time for I is gone. The I moves, as it must, and now you and I are he. It's necessary and right. This is the way that must be followed, as it's been done throughout eternity.

He understood the implications. The wisdom of the ages flowed through him as it must, but he himself wasn't wise. Perhaps he had learned something staring down at his mother and a kneeling wh.o.r.e. He was chosen to carry knowledge like a sackcloth of ashes on his back. Or perhaps he chose himself.

He had as many names as there are names to be had, sometimes written in the sand, on papyrus, parchment, paper, or burning screens of electrons ushered together in his purpose. There were still suns he had not visited, sentients he had not spoken with. The asteroids have called for him to return into the night, and the ice planet blues sang only for him and the likes of him.The hunchback Homnulk swings his blade again but is stopped by Linda, who stands in defense. Her skills are put to good use-balance, proper distribution of weight across both legs, a ghotthal killing strike stance. Her power is known throughout galaxies. She swings the side of her hand hard against the odd rise of Homnulk's twisted back. A noise like the five winds of the earth heaves from his lungs, and Homnulk sways and sinks to his scarred knees. His hands twine together in prayer as his life seeps out of him inch by inch. Perhaps heaven will take him now, having fulfilled his purpose once more.

His wrist is severed and she sews his flesh together with thread made from her own eyelashes.

The world's made him because he is the world-maker. As she st.i.tches him back together she says, listen, about this Khyre Magdalene- He pleads with her, Linda, what am I supposed to do? The tyrant Po Duk is already headless. Which cross do I climb? Who am I now?

No, no, no, she tells him, no,that isn't whatthis is all about. It's not about you. It never has been.

Besides, I'm not your memory. She is.

A mistake has been made, he's made a mistake, and perhaps now, this time, he'll learn what it is.

The gilded turrets of fate stand firm in the distance, and again he tries to do the same. Giant leaves and stems a quarter of a mile high drape themselves on water towers and apartment buildings. Mighty herbaceous plants which cannot support themselves, rest-as if for only a moment-against the spires of gla.s.s, stone, and steel.

He's been almost everywhere and done nearly everything many times before, but now there's a fresh odyssey to undertake, hopefully. There are new tribes growing from the bone meal every day.

He came here for a different reason-something to do with finding a conclusion to what the prophets have long ago ordained. He's failed in his mission once again, but not entirely. Khyre will help him, she always does, that's why he created her. She's his memory, his holiest spirit, and a cunning one at that.

It's why he's chosen her, and himself. The past catches up.

There's more than one G.o.d.

G.o.d has more than one son. Yes.

Go.

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

-Psalms, Cx.x.xVII, 5

Cleave

Therese Pieczynski & A. Alicia Doty

In the cold, the mother's pharynx extended. She pierced the father's carotid artery and fed him her ecstasy as the daughter crawled from her womb. The blood stopped flowing to an appendixed chamber of his heart. She slashed through his chest and into the chamber.

Trembling, he bound the child to himself, swaddling sinews about her newness, securing each tiny limb.

He murmured to her:My fierce infant .My dawnstar .My all . When she was snug, the mother's pharynx detached and the father's heart valve opened. As the warm river of his blood bathed the daughter, he sealed the heart-womb with silk from his mouth, then pulled the birth skin across his chest and closed the opening with his teeth. She curled within him like a worm, a small thing dreaming of wings.

Such joy he felt.

His body hummed to her as he sped through the gathering snow, of what may be, what will be, what was. As he fled up the birth-trails, into the mountains, he paused often to scan the sky for the killer. Its blunt face was the color of fire and fire flew from its long limbs wherever it found the mother.

He came to the twisted, wind-stunted trees marking the ancient fissure that opened deep into the mountain's heart. Over many lifetimes the father-brothers had widened and expanded the mountain's fissures into countless tunnels and vaulted chambers. As he entered, he opened his flesh eyelids and the nict.i.tating membranes that protected his fragile eyes to gather light. Around him, other fathers loped down the tunnels, onward and down, in twos and fours, toward the vents where the mountain breathed.

Lichen crusted the chamber walls with wan light, and soft fungus carpeted the cavern floors. The father-brothers curled together in its warmth and grew torpid as the throb of their daughters' lives and the pulsing of their own hearts became one.

Rilk could tell by the cyclic venting at the mountain's core that they'd been in the birthing caves many weeks now. He hummed as he stroked his swollen chest. Beside him rested Diamid, brother dearest to his heart, and at a short distance from them slumbered Fen. Fen was too young to bind a child, but he helped the fathers, tended their food stores and water basins, and learned in preparation for his own birthing time. Many creatures sustained themselves near the vents, among them an aggressive, ill-tempered plant the brothers calledblack petals . If their food stores dwindled too low, it was Fen who must do the dangerous work of harvesting its pistils. Farthest from the three, cleaning between his spurs with his tongue, was Opnay, littermate to Rilk and Diamid.

"Rilk," Diamid whispered. "A story to soothe. This daughter grows restless in my heart."

Rilk's humming deepened. It was not good that Diamid's daughter be restless. At least two more cycles should pa.s.s before her birth. He nuzzled his brother and quietly sniffed. The smell was not good, but he did not want to upset Diamid or Fen, who woke easily and grew skittish when frightened-and so he did not snort. He sat beside Diamid and licked his brother's coa.r.s.e pelt, which had curled at the tips in the cave's humid warmth. At a distance he heard steam burst from a vent, and, inside the cave, the continuous trickle of water drained into the basin. Oil fromFather's comfort , a naturally a.n.a.lgesic plant that grew within the vent, condensed with the scalding water and seethed into channels that carried it to the fathers' den. It gave the cave a sour smell."Long ago," he hummed to Diamid, "Oh-Ten the Great, Queen among Queens and the mother of Queens, came to Deydey to drink its sun as her food . . ."

At the sound of Rilk's voice, Fen woke and stretched, then slouched closer to nuzzle. But their brother Opnay, who vexed easily and did not like to touch or be touched, stayed beyond the three and turned around and around on the cave floor trying to settle. Finally, he, too, rose and stretched, then lumbered to the chamber's entrance that opened onto the tunnels. As Rilk told the story of how Oh-ten came down into the world, in a chrysalis of fire . . . and the killer followed, Opnay curled within the entrance with his mouth open, sensing.

". . . Oh-ten slipped into a crack beyond the searcher's reach, but it thrust its blade into the rift and raked her side. A warning rumbled from Oh-ten's chest. She screeched into death's maw, saw its silver tongue.

Instinctively, the skin flexed from her muscular arms exposing her sun-scales. Above ground the scales would have caught and focused the sun's light in a searing beam, but in darkness they were useless. She and the searcher clashed, claw upon blade and blade upon spur as the stone crumbled 'round them.

"She fought until the searcher lay still within the cave and the killer withdrew in frustration."

"It was her triumph," Diamid said with contentment. His eyes fluttered closed and beside him, Fen's breathing slowed.

Rilk felt Diamid's daughter quiet.Perhaps, I was wrong , he thought.Perhaps all is well . The silence lengthened. Opnay still lay as sentinel at the tunnel's entrance with his mouth open. Their eyes met, and they regarded each other solemnly.

Rilk retracted his second eyelid. For a moment, the lichens' glow reflected in his exposed eyes; then he, too, curled beside Diamid and slept.

When the birth smell came, Rilk was still asleep. In his dream he'd gone above ground to chase the twilight fliers that are like twigs drifting in the air and the fat buzzers that cling to the eye and whine in the ear. Dizzyingly, the valley spread before him like a green cus.h.i.+on. He did not stray far from the mountain's entrance. The birth smell weighed heavily. He felt it tracking his movement.It is not time, he said and tried to glide beneath a bower, but the bower's thorns wove in the air as if to strike, and the smell hooked him like a daughter's spurs and dragged him to wakefulness.

Beside him, Diamid spasmed. Rilk whined in horror as the daughter's claw broke through the birth skin.

It meant she'd already severed the birth tendons that held her within the whorls of Diamid's heart. The claw slid slowly upward, ripping through flesh. Diamid howled. Opnay and Fen came quickly and together the three dragged Diamid to a basin, then laid him within the warm, plant-oil-saturated liquid and bathed his chest.

When the daughter burst forth, her emerald legs quivered, the spurs at knee and ankle extending into hooks. Her folded wings trembled, slick with blood. She slashed into Diamid's neck. He shuddered as her pharynx extended into a secondary carotid artery and she fed from him-fought against him as he tried to comfort her, scratched him with her little claws. When she settled, tears welled from his eyes. He cradled her in his forelegs as she s.h.i.+vered, still wrapped in her b.l.o.o.d.y caul. He cleaned her then in the basin water, until the blue stripes of her body scintillated and her ocher highlights shown like gloss. Her sensitive filaments moved like gra.s.s across her taut belly. Her fine wings unfurled, wrinkling forward like wind over water.

"She is as beautiful as the first Queen," Diamid whispered in awe."Yes, she is," Rilk said, sadly, and licked his brother's pelt.

Outside the mountain caves, the snow was still deep.

"It is too soon. If the killer sends its searchers it will be able to track the thrumming of her wings and our chamber will be revealed," Opnay whispered. He, Rilk, and Fen had withdrawn to the entrance so Diamid and his daughter wouldn't hear.

"It can't track her wings amidst the hum of so many brothers. The danger comes when the many daughters are born," Rilk said.

"She will use up her father's food too soon," whined Fen. "Even if the killer does not come-when Diamid is empty, what of you? Are you or Opnay to feed her and risk your own daughters?" He had a way of unconsciously extending and turning his head that suggested nervousness.

"What then are we to do? Kill our brother and the child of his heart? Who is to do this? You Fen?" Rilk demanded. He swayed in agitation.

Fen nuzzled his shoulder. "You are the eldest, Rilk. The decision falls to you for the greater good. You risk much if you do not."

Opnay nipped at Fen and the two scuffled in the moss until Fen, who was much smaller, howled and skittered out of reach.

"Fen isspah , but he is right," Opnay said quietly. "The decision falls to you."

Rilk snorted. "I will not kill my brother's daughter." He went to Diamid's side. Already Diamid's body diminished and the trance of ecstasy that came with the daughter's feeding shone from his eyes. Uneasily, Rilk looked away.

Diamid nuzzled him. "Do not worry the many chambers of your heart," he rasped. His blood gurgled around the daughter's pharynx as he spoke. "I amstrong . I will last long enough for my daughter to launch her chrysalis. Now . . . finish the story of Oh-ten. Perhaps it will soothe this impatient child."

"Would you not rather speak . . . before it is lost to you?"

Diamid's eyes glittered. "Do not be saddened, my brother. All daughters pull themselves up by grabbing onto the end of their fathers' lives. So it has always been. I am content."

Yet, I am not,Rilk thought sullenly and settled into the warm moss. "What will the daughter of my brother be called?"

"She is Cleave."

Rilk nodded. For his brother's ease he would speak and under the compulsion of his voice he felt Cleave quiet and listen, too . . .

"In the beginning, before there were daughters to bind a father's heart, the brothers' founding queen was called Moe-ma. When Moe-ma was a young queen, Moe-ma's birth den was destroyed and always afterward it was her thought to flee the mainland and the predators bound to it. So it was that on her nuptial flight she brought her mate to the mountain's isolation, reasoning that when he broke off her wings, their lair would be forever separate from all that had come before.

"Without challenge, Moe-ma's children prospered. Her sons' numbers grew without censor until theirdigging caused the very mountains to s.h.i.+ft. To protect her children, Moe-ma restricted building. But her body was forever caught in the writhings of birth and as more were born the tunnels and vaulted chambers of her fortress grew too few to accommodate so many. She began to reabsorb her broods, but because it was her sons' nature to bind and gestate their child-brothers, they rebelled. Many did not understand the queen's wisdom and thought she withheld children to foster her own power."

Diamid wrapped himself protectively around his daughter, gurgling in his ecstasy and contentment. He was whispering to her, chemical words that flowed through the rich river of his blood.

"What does she say?" Rilk asked. Diamid rolled the juices from a mandibular gland along Cleave's jaw and offered them to his brother. She said, -let me live.

As Diamid diminished, Cleave grew more alert. When she was able to detach her pharynx from her father for brief periods, Rilk knew that very soon she would have to return to the surface. Like all the daughters of Oh-ten, she was a creature of the sky. Rilk watched her fan her beautiful wings. From her every pore seeped joy thatshe was .

Cleave rolled the juices from the gland along her jaw and offered them to Rilk. He hesitated, swaying slightly before accepting.

-To know.

"To know, Cleave? What is to know? That you are alive and hungry? That you will kill and die?" His answer rode the aggressive edge of butyloctenal.