CHAPTER 49
Alice grimaced as the ball rolled out of the court yet again. As soon as it was returned by a course official in an incongruous black and white striped shirt, two players headed for it at once and managed to knock each other down. They grabbed each other’s hands and pulled in order to right themselves. Theoretically, they’d practiced, but it looked like they’d practiced at rodeo clown school. The yokes about the player’s waists were so heavy most of the men managed lumbering runs at best; only three out of ten seemed both comfortable and fast in the regalia. Two had already gone off to the sidelines with permanent injuries.
And yet all of the modern players were bigger than the old Mayans.
“Mom!”
Nixie raced up the stairs, trailing Peter behind her like a nerd balloon. Alice craned her neck. No Ian. She patted the bench beside her. “Nix! Thank God you’re safe!”
Nix slid into a seat, Peter behind her. Nix held up her hands. “Shhhh . . . Hun Kan’s in trouble and something weird is happening. It’s freaking Peter out.”
“What?” Alice asked.
“
I don’t know
,” Nixie shook her head, her voice high and stressed. “But something’s happening.” She noticed Oriana. “You danced great!”
Oriana’s face glowed.
Marie’s hand snaked onto Nixie’s shoulder from above. “Introduce me to your friend.”
Nix shook Peter’s shoulder to get him to look up. “Peter,” she said, “Peter, this is the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.”
He blinked at Nixie.
“The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. She works for the president.”
Peter swallowed and glanced at his screen. He might have been willing to ignore a nuclear bomb.
“Marie Healey. She wants to know what you’re seeing.”
He stared at Marie with eyes as wide as flying saucers or plates, and Alice swore she could almost a see a thought balloon filled with exclamation points floating over his head. Finally the exclamation points seemed to leak out into the air and he held up a bony hand. “Okay, pleased to meet you.” He flicked his eyes toward Alice. “Hi,” and then looked back at Marie. “But
you
must know!”
“Know what?” Marie’s eyes burned with curiosity inside a deadpan expression. She did know something. Alice wanted to giggle, except Peter looked so serious.
Nixie scooted closer to Peter. “What got you so excited right before we . . .
came back
?” she whispered, loud enough for Alice and Marie to hear. “What did you see in your computer?”
“Data.” He licked his lips and looked at Alice, at Oriana, at Marie. “Data nobody understands. It’s streaming down from the sky, like a sat-shot, except it’s not from a satellite, it’s from further away.” He pointed at something she couldn’t quite read on his screen. Maybe Marie and Nix could see it. “It’s coming here, but also to Florida and Cuba, but not Europe or Asia or Chile or Canada, as if you drew a big circle and this was the middle of it. This very spot—the Yucatan anyway. Maybe even this Ball Court.” He stopped and took a sip of water. “Okay, there’s a flood of chatter on the nets, and everybody is trying to capture it.” He set his screen down and looked more intently at the three women, as if sensing they weren’t quite getting it. “There’s so much data falling out of the sky—riding
our
wireless or being re-sent across it—I don’t know, no one seems to know.” His voice rose with tension. “It’s like being inside the middle of a beam of light. It’s filling our systems, shutting some down. I mean not everybody, okay, not all the computers, but the people getting the thread and trying to figure it out. The data is getting shuttled to universities and secure botnets in hope of finding anyplace with enough storage to hold it all.”
Not enough storage in the world? She had terabytes just in her hotel room. Alice leaned across Nixie, speaking to Peter. “What does it
mean
?”
Peter shook his head and looked around and if someone could tell him the answer to her question. “I don’t know,” Peter said. “Okay. Nobody knows. The data isn’t getting as far as any of the big SETI installations, I mean, there’s a skeleton crew left at Arecibo, but they aren’t getting anything except what people send them from here. The common thread is that it must be alien.”
Alien
?
Peter spoke directly to Nix. “Okay, there’s cryptographers working on it—people that break codes.”
Nix looked a little affronted, but then Alice knew she understood the word cryptographer. At least she didn’t snap at Peter for talking down to her. “Are they succeeding?”
“I don’t know.”
Marie spoke. “They are. Sort of. Fragments of what seems like songs and poems. What are your friends saying?”
Peter got the exclamation point look again, and then dove back into his computer.
Alice glanced up, looking for Ian. No sign yet.
Peter mumbled, squinting at his screen and flicking his finger across it as he went, the colors shifting. “Same thing. Fragments. But there’s layers. It’s not English—but glyphs like Mayan or Egyptian glyphs—pictures that mean words or parts of words or many words. Only it’s not Mayan or Egyptian, or any language we’ve decoded, although some linguists are suggesting a relationship. Kyle Mi—” He cut himself off, as if he didn’t want to speak names. “Someone thinks they found the formula for the Mandelbrot set buried in what might be a poem.”
Alice blinked at the impossible, the idea finally starting to sink in and seem real. Aliens? Strange messages?
“Like the Rosetta Stone?” Nix asked.
Alice grinned. Smart kid.
Peter squinted at his screen, swiped at it with his fingers. “It’s a key of some kind.”
Marie nodded. “Go on.”
Nixie craned her neck, watching the crowd. Probably for Ian. She’d mentioned Hun Kan. How had she seen Hun Kan? It was tough to focus on any one thing.
Nixie stopped watching the crowd to look at Marie. “So does hearing from aliens mean we get world peace?”
Out of the mouth of babes! A cliché, but who cared?
“Alice!”
She stood, a thrill running through her. “Ian!”
He was walking up the path, an old man beside him in blue tennis shoes. But the shoes were a ruse. She knew it. He was an old Mayan. His forehead, his hair, the way he carried himself. Funny: she’d thought Don Thomas might be an old Mayan when he wasn’t, but she
knew
the real thing when she saw it.
Ian and the old man turned up the steps between the rows of crowded bleachers. Alice bit her lip and looked around. “Marie,” she spoke loudly enough to drag Marie’s attention from Peter, pointing at Ian and the old man. “Marie—these two need a place to sit. By us.”
Marie sighed, glancing from side to side at the full benches. She wet her lip with her teeth, and pulled her hair out of her face with one hand, a familiar gesture from college days.
She’d do it. Alice beckoned Ian up.
Ian returned her smile, just as broad, and Marie leaned down, a downright evil grin on her face. “This must be jungle-guy.”
Alice blushed. Marie’s watchers must have reported the kiss. “He has someone from . . . from what you and I saw yesterday morning with him.”
Marie’s eyes flickered with understanding.
Ian’s eyes widened, but he didn’t comment directly. He nodded at Marie. “Pleased to meet you.”
“They can sit in the middle,” Marie said. “On the steps.” She glanced up toward the president, on the top steps. He was watching the Ball Court, but appeared to be listening to something else, almost as distracted as Peter. “Maybe that way it won’t start a diplomatic incident.”
“What took you so long?” Nix demanded.
Ian laughed and pointed at Cauac. “Remember when I said I didn’t want him to see this game? He’s horrified. I swear he wanted to run out there on the field and show the players what’s what, even as old as he is.” He helped make room for Cauac to sit down and then took a seat. Nix was between her and Ian. Alice really wanted to trade places so she could touch him, but how stupid and needy was that?
She smiled at him, and he smiled back, and it felt like a touch.
She was out of her mind. “Well, they are playing pretty badly.” She focused on the old man: the creases around his eyes, the red, black and blue colors of his clothes, the patterns of the weave. Hopefully Nixie had a picture of him.
Marie looked down at the Mayan from one seat up. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Marie Healey.”
He shook his head.
“Tardes. Mi nombre esta Marie Healey,” she said quickly.
Ian translated into Mayan, or something close to Mayan.
“Can you tell him who I am?” Marie asked.
Ian laughed. “I can try. All the Lords of the Chichén Itzá he knows are men.”
Marie glanced up toward the top of the bleachers again. “There’s no time to drag in anyone higher. Do your best. Get him up to speed.” With that, she turned right back to Peter. “Yes, I’m getting reports on this. They say pretty much what yours do. It hasn’t hit the major news sources yet, but there won’t be any keeping it secret.” She hesitated. “Will you work with my people?”
Peter licked his lips, staring at his computer. He didn’t even look up. “Sure. But tonight I want to stay with my friends. There’s things happening in real, too.”
In real. It took a second for Alice to realize he meant in the physical world instead of a virtual one. But then he was the kind of guy who probably made his physical money virtually. Good for him. As weird as he was, Alice felt better with him around.
“I know about the real world.” Marie gave Alice a meaningful glance before she turned back to Peter. “If you accept, you’re officially hired now, and you can start tomorrow. Will that work?”
Peter nodded absently, his gaze already back on his screen.
Marie muttered into thin air, telling someone she’d just hired Peter.
Alice shook her head, amazed. She’s never seen anyone so good at ignoring everyone around him. Even what little they’d said so far had been absorbed, and various people around them were also whispering into thin air, undoubtedly connected to their own minions or security goons. But then, no need to be secret if whatever it was fell from the sky like a river. She shivered. At least their faces showed more confusion than fear.
For now.
Surely it would come to fear, pass through fear, whatever it ended up as.
Below them, the game ball hit the ground again, and Cauac winced.
Oriana stood up. “I have to go,” she said. “I promised to be in the food booths before the end of the game.”
Nix grinned at her. “Find us afterward? Does Ian have your number?”
“Yes, and yes.” Oriana scrambled over Alice and Nix, stepped carefully between Ian and Cauac, and then she was down the steps and gone.
Even if aliens were talking to the earth, people needed to eat. And all around them, except here in the VIP bleachers, most people seemed to just be watching the game or talking amongst themselves.
Alice whispered in Nix’s ear. “Tell me about Hun Kan.”
She sat still as she heard Nix’s story. Only as she listened did it sink in that Cauac had come here, was here, sat on a metal bleacher, wincing at a bad modern rendition of something sacred to him, surrounded by the bones of his civilization.
It made her dizzy, made it seem like her own world was as stable as heck. Poor man. Strong man.
At the end of Nixie’s story, Alice shivered. “It must have been hard when she—wasn’t there anymore.”
“Yeah.” Nix went silent for a minute, then looked around, her gaze panicked. “Where’s my feather?”
Marie must have ears on all sides of her head. She handed the quetzal feather to Nix without missing a beat and turned back to Peter’s quiet babbling.
Nixie took the feather from her and sat, stroking it. She closed her eyes. “They’re here,” she said. “Hun Kan and the bird man. Ah Bahlam. They’re here.”
CHAPTER 50
Nixie sensed Hun Kan and Ah Bahlam, as if she could reach through time and touch them. In this place. She glanced around. It was a cinch they weren’t on the bleachers. Those were from now. But they were close.
The bleachers backed up to a path behind them, and on the other side of the path, the wall of the Ball Court rose. Too steep to climb. But they were there. She’d read somewhere that people used to sit on the wide top and watch, that in the old days there were ladders on the back of the wall. She put a hand on her necklace, so she had one on the necklace and one on the feather, and closed her eyes. A whiff of the old world traveled down to her, carried on a stream of warmer air.
She had to trust herself.
There wasn’t any ladder in this time, and if she chose to climb the wall she’d probably get arrested for assaulting an antiquity or something. She eyed the gap between the top of the bleachers and the top of the wall. She could jump it. Maybe. Falling might break her neck.
She needed help. “Mom?”
Her mom looked almost scared. “Yes?”
She looked around. “Mom, will you and Ian come get an ice cream with me? Or a water?” A thin excuse, but would her mom see it for what it was? She’d been careful in how she told her mom about Hun Kan and not mentioned time except to say that Hun Kan showed her the dance near some benches, so her mom would know it was this time. She stared at her mom, willing her to understand.
“Okay.”
Nixie breathed out a long relieved sigh. “Come on Ian,” her mom said, not asking.
He didn’t question. “I have to bring Cauac.”
Nix nodded. Good. She turned to Marie and gave her the most disarming smile she could come up with. “We’re going to get Cauac some water. We’ll be back.”
Marie didn’t look really happy, or even very fooled, but she nodded. “Hurry back.” She put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Will you stay?”
He glanced up, looking confused. Nixie felt like saying
he won’t notice we’re gone
, but Peter himself said, “Okay,” and turned back to his computer screen.
In a few moments they were off the bleachers. Nixie led them behind the bleachers, and along the side of the wall, toward the gate. It wouldn’t do to materialize in the middle of an ancient ball game. They had to figure out how to be in a crowd. She glanced down at her clothes. Between her and her mom and Ian, and Cauac’s shoes, they were going to stick out.
Oh well. No choice.
She motioned them all close. “We have to go back to get them. I can feel them. I wouldn’t be able to feel them if it didn’t matter.”
He mom looked really skeptical—Nix could practically see the word “no” leap to her lips.
“Mom—please. This is all happening for a reason.”
People shouldered past them, and a few of the VIP guards watched them. “How?” Ian asked. “We can’t exactly do the shell and bloodletting thing here.”
He didn’t really need to mention that part, did he?
Her mom narrowed her eyes.
Nixie did her best to sound confident. She’d needed Cauac to help her find Hun Kan. “I’ll just have to do it. I did it on the sacbe.”
Ian looked doubtful. “Maybe we can find Don Thomas.”
That didn’t deserve an answer. Unless Don Thomas found them, it would be like searching for a grain of sand on a beach. She closed her eyes, feeling for the past, feeling for Hun Kan.
Nothing.
She stroked her feather. It had come from the past. Another hand went to her necklace.
Someone put a hand on her hand where it held the quill. She didn’t even have to look to know it was Cauac. His hand felt gentle, warm, and dry. His eyes were closed and he murmured something under his breath.
Did he even know what they were trying to do?
She closed her eyes again, struggling to shut out the modern noise of the announcer, the scent of hot dogs and popcorn and perfume. She tried to line up her breathing with Cauac’s.
Someone bumped into her. “Excuse me.”
A modern reply. She squeezed her eyes shut harder, and smelled the air, searching for the old world.
Sounds swirled around her. “Mom, I dropped my iPod . . . ” a groan—probably at a bad move in the ballgame . . . the click of high heels . . . a monkey chattering . . . feet walking . . .
Bare feet.
She breathed in jungle and copal and heat and sweat.
Ian gasped. “Nix! Look!”
It would be nice if she at least felt a dizzy moment or something. But when she blinked, she wasn’t all in one time. Like standing by the yellow hair-band, and for just a moment, seeing two times. People in colorful party clothes and modern sandals stared at the modern ball game, or talked between themselves, or spoke into phones, but just beyond, the Ball Court grass gave way to dirt. Standing in the dirt, Don Thomas beckoned to them.
She kept Cauac’s hand in hers and raced toward the dirt, ignoring her mom’s shriek of protest. She’d follow.
All four of them surrounded Don Thomas, the three men chattering in Mayan while Nixie craned her neck. Nothing now but the past. The ball game was on the far side of the court, and the watcher’s attention almost all there. Still, if anyone looked, they’d be noticed.
She tugged on Ian’s shirt. “I have to find Hun Kan.”
He glanced down at her, nodded, and returned to speaking a stream of Mayan at Don Thomas. He’d better be doing what she needed him to. She bit her lip and looked around. People sat in tight groups on the parapet above the wall that had been behind the bleachers. Here there were no bleachers, of course. Not in this version of the world. Just the vast expanse of the Ball Court.
The ball players didn’t slow down, or even seem to notice them. They moved like wild animals—like deer or wolves—darting and dipping, thrusting hips and elbows at the ball. The ball itself flew high and fast, and instead of two sides entirely at odds, Nix had the impression this was two teams moving together, almost as one. As if keeping the ball in the air mattered more than the competition itself, as if the game were part play, part ritual, part dance.
She shivered—it was beautiful and brutal. Not even close to the modern version. The modern players had been correctly decked out, but it was like watching five-year-olds dance
The Nutcracker
.
A group of women with gray hair and long white dresses turned their way. A young girl, maybe seven years old, saw them and stood with her mouth open, then took a step toward them. An old man with turquoise inlaid teeth grinned and watched them. Her mom took Nix’s hand, whispering, “They see us.”
“Don’t look afraid.” Nix said. “Even if you are afraid, don’t look it. Keep your head up.”
“I am afraid,” her mom said from behind her, but there was a laugh in her voice. Maybe a kind of edgy one, but better than hysteria. Nixie smiled as her mom said, “Be careful.”
Right. Most of the men carried knives or clubs, and a few had spears or bows and arrows. Even the women generally wore knives. Part of the ceremony? Were they always armed or were they at war? Her mom clutched Nixie’s hand tighter and moaned lightly. “Stay brave,” she told her mom. “Don’t let them scare you.”
The men behind her were still chattering. Nixie tugged at her mom, wishing she’d stayed back in the new time. Having her mom beside her, and so clearly scared, made Nix shiver.
She led her mom toward the wall. They were still behind the people watching the game, but the women who had seen them stepped away, hands on the knives in their belts and confusion on their faces.
She ignored them, watching only out of the corner of her eyes, and kept walking, slowly.
She and her mom got close enough to see individual stones in the wall. She stopped there and looked behind her. Ian, Cauac, and Don Thomas were finally following.
Drums kept a quiet heartbeat rhythm, so soft she hadn’t picked it out at all at first. She wanted to move in time with the sound.
She turned her attention back up to the top of the wall. The bird-man—Ah Bahlam—stood on top of it, just above them. He stared down at her with a shocked look on his face. No, not at her. Well, at her, and at Cauac.
She waved at him.
He had a wide-eyed, confused look on his face.
She motioned Cauac closer, and whispered to Ian, “Tell Cauac to get us up on that wall.”
He nodded, spoke, and then fell back so Cauac was in front, then Nixie and her mom, then Ian and Don Thomas.
Nixie liked that. It felt . . . safer somehow. Like Cauac was a good shield. Maybe he was. People kept their distance and one or two seemed to be calling to him, although the fast speech made it hard to tell for sure.
She kept looking around, drinking the bright lively colors, snapping pictures quietly from time to time. She framed the Temple of the Jaguars at the end of the Ball Court, zooming in.
Something dark and wet dripped from the Chac-Mool, black in the fading light.
She knew what it was.
Her stomach cramped and she almost retched.
Her mother glanced in the direction she had been looking, and leaned down, whispering in Nixie’s ear. “Be brave.”
Okay. She could do this. She could find her friend. Cauac’s blood had helped her friend. As they neared the wall, more people surrounded them, close in but leaving room to pass. Nixie didn’t look directly at anyone, afraid she’d get stopped. The air smelled of wool and animals and sweat, wood and jungle and the smoke from fires. She focused on Cauac’s back, on keeping her mom’s hand in hers.
Someone touched her hair. “It’s okay, Mom,” she whispered. “Let them touch you. Don’t flinch.”
“I know.”
Cauac led them to a wooden ladder around the back of the wall, so wide it was more a scaffold then a ladder. Thick, smooth tree trunks had been tied together with sinew. She squinted down the long wall. The ladder followed the whole length. Like the huts from her dream, all of the wood would be long-rotted and turned to dust and soil before her own time. She took a picture.
Before they started the climb, Cauac glanced over his shoulder as if making sure everyone was with him, and his gaze stopped on Nixie’s for just a second, full of warmth and . . . apprehension. It felt like he was hoping she could tell him what to do.
She shook her head, overwhelmed. Even on the sacbe it had been like watching a movie, and on the beach, it had been just her and Hun Kan. On the grass, tonight, it had been all people she knew.
This was an alien civilization.
Cauac gestured for her to go first, and she grasped the thick cross-beam just above her head and hopped up onto the lowest step. The sticks that made the steps were thinner than ladders, and set further apart. They gave a little under her weight. She felt like she was in a climbing-gym, with one long pull and big step after another.
Her mom came just after her, then Cauac and Ian and Don Thomas all in a line.
Even Ian looked scared.