River of Blue Fire (22 page)

Long Joseph turned, but more slowly than usual. His growl was a ghost of its former self. “What you doing, watching me sleep? Following me around at night? You come after me, try to get mannish, I'll whip you. That's the truth.”

Jeremiah smiled despite himself. “Why is it that people like you always think that every homosexual you meet is dying to get you into bed? Believe me, old man, you are not my type.”

The other glowered. “Well, that pretty damn sad for you then, because I the only one here.”

Jeremiah laughed. “I promise I'll let you know if you start to look good.”

“What, something wrong with me?” He seemed genuinely insulted. “You like those little soft fellows? Pretty-boys?”

“Oh, Joseph . . .” Jeremiah shook his head. “Just go do something. Go read a book. The selection is not very good, but there are some interesting ones.”

“Read books? That's like eating
mielie pap
—it start out bad, then it get no better.” Joseph took a deep breath and let it out slowly, overburdened by the mere thought of literature. “Thank God there is some net, that's all I say. If we had no net, I would have to kill myself right now.”

“You should not watch it so much. We are not supposed to use any more power than we have to—that Martine woman said it made it easier to disguise the power we were stealing if we kept it to a minimum.”

“What are you talking about?” Long Joseph had found his outrage again. “We running those . . . those big tank things there,” he waved at the wire-festooned sarcophagi, “and all this nonsense ‘round here,” his irritated swipe took in the computers, the lights, and Jeremiah himself, “and you worrying about me getting a few drops off the net?”

“I suppose you're right.” Jeremiah picked up the headphones again. “Well, why don't you go watch some, then. Let me do my tests.”

A minute later, Long Joseph's spare shadow fell across him again. Jeremiah waited for the other man to say something. When he did not, Jeremiah pulled off the headphones; it had been days since they had heard Renie or !Xabbu speak, in any case. “Yes? Come back for a recommendation on some reading material?”

Long Joseph scowled. “No.” He was not looking at his companion, but rather at everything else, as though he tracked something which had both the power of flight and the wandering indirection of a goldfish.

“Well, what is it?”

“I don't know.” Long Joseph leaned on the railing, still staring up into the four-story expanse overhead. When he spoke again, his voice had risen in pitch. “I am just . . . I don't know, man. I think I am about gone crazy.”

Jeremiah slowly put the headphones down. “What do you mean?”

“It just . . . I don't know. I can't stop thinking about Renie, thinking about my boy Stephen. And how there's nothing I can do. Just wait while all this foolishness go on.”

“It's not foolishness. Your daughter's trying to help her brother. Someone killed my Doctor Van Bleeck over this. It's
not
foolishness.”

“Don't get angry. I didn't mean . . .” Long Joseph turned to look at Jeremiah for the first time. His eyes were red-rimmed. “But me, I doing
nothing
. Just sit in this place all day, every day. No sun, no air.” He raised his fingers to clutch his own throat. “Can't breathe, hardly. And what if my Stephen needs me? Can't do him no good in this place.”

Jeremiah sighed. This was not the first time this had happened, although Long Joseph sounded more distressed than usual. “You know this is the best thing you can do for Renie
and
for Stephen. Don't you think I'm worried, too? My mother doesn't know where I am, I haven't visited her for two weeks. I am her only child. But this is what we have to do, Joseph.”

Long Joseph turned away again. “I dream about him, you know. Dreams all strange. See him in water, drowning, I can't reach him. See him going away, up one of those escalators, don't even see his face, but I'm going down, too many people and I can't get after him.” His broad hands spread, then gripped the railing. The knuckles stood up like tiny hills. “He always going away. I think he is dying.”

Jeremiah could think of nothing to say.

Long Joseph sniffed, then straightened. “I only wanted a drink so I don't have to
think
so damn much. Think about him, think about his mother—all burned up, cryin', but her mouth wouldn't work right, so she just made this little sound,
hoo, hoo
. . . .” He wiped angrily at one eye. “I don't want to think about that no more.
No more
. That's why I wanted a drink. Because it is better than killing myself.”

Jeremiah stared intently at the displays on the console in front of him, as if to look up, to turn his gaze onto the other man, would be to risk everything. At last Long Joseph turned and walked away. Jeremiah listened to his steps receding around the gallery, slow as an old-fashioned clock striking the hour, followed by a hiss and muffled thump as the elevator door closed behind him.

“T
HERE are people coming, Renie.” !Xabbu touched her hand. “More than a few. The voices I hear are women's voices.”

Renie held her place, breathless, but the only sound in her hear-plugs was the wind soughing through broken cornstalks. Cullen staggered to a stop beside her, as volitionless as an electronic toy separated from its controlling signal.

“We have no idea who they are,” she said in a whisper. “Or what this place is, except that it's some kind of imaginary United States.” She wondered if they had somehow wandered back into the Atascos' alternate America. Would that be bad or good? They knew the place already, which would be a definite advantage, but the Grail Brotherhood would be scouring its every virtual nook and cranny looking for the people who had fled Temilún.

Now she could hear what !Xabbu had detected almost a minute earlier—voices approaching, and the sound of many feet tramping through the devastated cornfield.

“Get down,” she whispered, and pulled Cullen onto his knees among the shielding stalks, then eased him onto his stomach with !Xabbu's help. She hoped the wounded entomologist had enough sense left to keep quiet.

The sounds grew nearer. A good-sized party was passing them, perhaps headed for the damaged fence. Renie strained to hear their conversation, but caught only a few disjointed fragments that seemed to be about the merits of treacle pudding. She also heard several references to someone named Emily.

Something rustled beside her, an almost inaudible scrape among the leaves near her head. She turned to see that !Xabbu had disappeared. Frightened, she could only lie as silently as possible while the invisible group crunched past a few meters away. Her hand rested on Cullen's back, and she did not notice for long moments that she was rubbing in circles the same way she had done many times to soothe a frightened Stephen.

The voices had just stopped two dozen meters away when !Xabbu appeared again beside her, popping out of the cornstalks so suddenly that she almost shouted in surprise.

“There are a dozen women fixing the fence,” he said quietly. “And a strange thing, a mechanical man, that tells them what to do. I think they will be working there a good time, though—the section of fence they must lift is very large.”

Renie tried to make sense of this. “A mechanical man? A robot, you mean?”

!Xabbu shrugged. “If robots are the things I have seen on the net, like our friend T4b, no. It is hard to explain.”

Renie gave up. “It doesn't matter, I guess. Do you think we should . . .”

!Xabbu's small hand abruptly flicked out and lightly touched her lips. By moonlight she could see little more than his silhouette, but he was frozen in a posture of alarm and attention. A moment later she heard it: something was moving toward them, swishing through the trampled vegetation with little regard for stealth.

Although they had no reason yet to suppose the inhabitants of this simulation to be hostile, Renie still felt her heart speed. A thin shape pushed through into a small clear space nearby, separated from them only by a single row of bent stalks. Moonlight revealed a very young Caucasian woman with wide dark eyes and a ragged short haircut, dressed in a crude smock.

As Renie and !Xabbu watched, she dropped into a crouch, lifted the hem of her garment, and began to urinate. As she did so, she sang tunelessly to herself. When she was certain that the puddle forming was moving away rather than toward her feet, the girl reached into the breast pocket of her smock, still humming and murmuring, and pulled out something no bigger than a grape which she lifted up above her upturned face until it caught the moonlight, then inspected with the ritualistic air of someone doing something important for the hundredth or perhaps even thousandth time.

The moon's soft light glinted for a moment on the facets. Renie gasped—a strangled little noise, but enough to startle the young woman, who hurriedly thrust the tiny golden gem back into her pocket and looked around wildly. “
Who's there
?” She stood up, but did not immediately retreat. “Who's there? Emily?”

Renie held her breath, trying not to make the damage any worse, but the young woman was more curious than fearful. As she scanned the surrounding vegetation, something caught her eye. She moved toward them with the caution of a cat approaching a new household appliance, then abruptly leaned forward and pulled the corn to one side, revealing Renie and the others. The girl gave a squeak of surprise and jumped back.

“Don't scream!” Renie said hurriedly. She scrambled up onto her knees and held her hands out placatingly. “We won't hurt you. We're strangers here, but we won't hurt you.”

The girl hesitated, poised for flight and yet with curiosity again taking the upper hand. “Why . . . why do you have
that
with you,” she said, jutting her chin at !Xabbu. “Is it from Forest?”

Renie didn't know what would be the proper thing to say, “He's . . . he travels with me. He's friendly.” She took a risk, since the girl did not seem to mean them immediate harm. “I don't know what forest you're talking about. We're strangers here—all of us.” She pointed to Cullen, who was still lying on the ground, almost oblivious to what was going on. “Our friend has been hurt. Can you help us? We don't want to make any trouble.”

The girl stared at Cullen, then darted a worried glance at !Xabbu before returning to Renie. “You don't live here? And you're not from Forest? Not from the Works either?” She shook her head at the wonder of it all. “More strangers—that's two times just during Darkancold!”

Renie spread her hands. “I don't understand any of that. We are from somewhere else entirely, I'm pretty sure. Can you help us?”

The girl started to say something, then tilted her head. In the distance, voices were calling. “They're looking for me.” She wrinkled her forehead, pondering. “Follow us back. Don't let anyone else see you. You're
my
secret.” A sly look stole over her face, and she suddenly looked far more a child than an adult. “Wait at the edge of the corn when we get there. I'll come back and find you.” She took a step away down the row, then turned back to stare in gleeful fascination. “More strangers! I'll come find you.”

“What's your name?” Renie asked.

“Emily, of course.” The young woman made a clumsy mock-curtsey, then laughed, mischievous, strangely febrile.

“But you were calling for Emily when you heard us—your friend, someone.” The voices were getting louder. Renie stepped back into the shadows and raised her whispering voice so it would carry. “Is your friend named Emily, too?

“Of
course
.” Confused, the girl narrowed her eyes as she backed toward those who were searching for her. “Silly.
Everyone
is named Emily.”

They did not wait long at the edge of the cornfield. Renie had scarcely had sufficient time to note the huge factory silos and jerry-built buildings, like a township on the industrial outskirts of Johannesburg, and to worry again about Cullen's condition, when Emily's slender shadow crept back across the open dirt toward them.

!Xabbu reappeared at Renie's side at just that moment, but had no time to tell her what he had seen on his brief scouting expedition before the girl reached them, talking in a quiet but nonstop babble of excitement.

“I knew it would be a day for things to happen today, I
knew
it! Come on now, follow me. We had treacle pudding, see, two days in a row! And it wasn't Crismustreat, because we had that already, just a few days ago—we always count the days in Darkancold until Crismustreat, of course, but I can't remember how many days it's been since.” The girl, showing little more than basic concern for stealth, led them across a vast yard littered with the angular shapes of parked machinery. She took only a short breath before continuing. “But there it was, treacle pudding again! And the happymusic wasn't that
falalala
, so I knew it wasn't Crismustreat come around again, and anyway it would have been much too early. And then we had that incoming—terrible bad, that one was—and I thought maybe that was the strange thing that was going to happen today, but it was you! Think of that!”

Renie was able to understand very little, but knew there was probably vital information to be had. “Where did you get that thing from? That little . . . gem or jewel?”

Emily turned and looked at her, eyes squinty with suspicion. A moment later, as if the wind had changed, she seemed to decide the newcomers were trustworthy. “My pretty thing.
He
gave it to me. He was my other surprise, but he was the first one. You're the second one. And treacle pudding twice this month!”

“Who was . . . he?”

“The other stranger, silly. I told you. The strange henry.”