The Bones of Old Carlisle (25 page)

“I’m right behind ya,” Karl Arrowroot said, rising.
“No,” Hatfield said, stopping at the office door. “You can’t help
and you might get hurt.” He passed into the hall, pulled the door
closed and then opened and stuck his head back in to say one more
thing. “Since you’re the only person who claims to have any
understanding of what’s going on, I’d like you to stay alive.”
Arrowroot kept a police scanner in his office, of course, on a
table by the window. Although it was highly unlikely any of Hatfield’s
people would be using the town frequency to discuss their hunt for
rapacious, meat-eating roach robots, he turned it on.
For a time, he merely stared out the window, wishing he knew what
was happening.
Looking west, he could see all of Fort Shergawa from here, even
the Carlisle place, a small purple dot among the trees.
It was about the same view, he thought, afforded by his home. So
if Mr. Smiley dropped down from the sky to where the Carlisles used to
live, a person with exceptionally good vision watching from his
bedroom would have seen him fall. And maybe it would have scared her.
That’s why she screamed. Right before the people from the fort showed
up at his house that Sunday morning, Tamani had screamed. Like she was
expecting Mr. Smiley, maybe, but she didn’t really want to see him.
And she certainly didn’t want to go out there, either. So why was
that? Weren’t Tamani and Mr. Smiley and everyone else all on the same
team?
Arrowroot, still standing, leaned against the window and looked
down toward the Promenade where it ran up against City Hall. To his
amusement, the ladies of the Heligaux Free Association Literary
Creation Society were down there, staring up at him, some pointing,
some jotting in their notebooks. The girl from Traxie was with them
again.
He assumed they were still working on the same book as before,
where he’d been killed while on a safari. He gazed down at them
solemnly, the way a ghost might, and wished with all his heart that he
could go back to that day two weeks ago, when he was looking for
Wedding Girl and he thought Robert was still alive. When the world was
far less complicated. When it was happy.
After glaring down long enough to give the ladies something to go
on, he turned back toward his desk and forced his way into his to-do
pile.
He’d just talked to a man who more or less admitted he was from
another planet, a claim supported by compelling evidence. He’d just
made fun of this interstellar visitor’s name and face, then sent him
back to the hall, where the man from what was undoubtedly a vastly
superior race swept up debris into his dustpan. And it all seemed
completely, ridiculously normal.
Most of what was in Arrowroot’s inbox was junk, offers for this
service or that software, desperate pleas from people all over the
world who just wanted one more sale, one more customer, one more
chance. They went into the trash one by one.
Halfway down the pile, he turned up a light blue envelope
addressed to him in a familiar hand. Shaking, he opened it.
“Dear Karl,” it read. “I’m very sorry to hear of your loss. Ben
expresses his condolences as well. Please give me a call when you can,
I look forward to talking. With warmest affection. Maria.”
Slowly, like all the others, Arrowroot let the missive drop into
the trash, and then he stood and looked out the window again, cursing
silently to himself.
His phone rang. It was Danielle.
“I’ve got news!” she said breathlessly.
“Oh god, what?” Arrowroot asked.
“I figured out who killed Robert,” she said.
“Who?” Arrowroot said, and he felt his spirits rise immeasurably.
This was something he could understand. This wasn’t robots or
outerspace visitors. This was a dead son, killed by someone else, most
likely human.
“His name is Aaron,” Danielle said. “Aaron Mailor. He works out
there.”
“How you know it’s him?” Arrowroot asked.
“It has to be!” Danielle replied, her voice shaking with rage.
“He works out there, he’s a gunnery trainer, he knew Robert was out
there. They’d seen him when they were flying over. They knew he was in
the house. It was nighttime. They knew he was in the house. This is
the guy that pulled the trigger. They thought it was a joke!”
“Can you prove it?” Arrowroot inquired. “Can you take the
evidence to the Army?”
“Errk!” Danielle cried. “Do you not get it? They killed him.
Vincent Mailor pulled the trigger, but they all killed him! The Army
is the last place we go.”
“Well, what the hell are you going to do?” Arrowroot demanded.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” she said. “Have you read the
translation?”
“What translation?” Arrowroot asked.
“Of the crystal,” she replied. “Have you read what’s online?”
“I did this morning,” he said. “Doesn’t seem to have been much
progress. If it were up to me, I’da left it alone, no reason to—“
“Art just posted a big new section,” Danielle interrupted. “We’ve
got some linguists picking it apart, and Adele’s helping too. It’s
amazing.”
“You mean Tamani, right?” Arrowroot asked. “Can you give me a
summary?”
“Yes, Adele,” Danielle said. “Someone wrote a book, then they
made up a language and put it all on a crystal. Then they acted it
out, or were made to act it out, probably the latter. Really, really
sick stuff.”
“Is that what it says?” Arrowroot asked.
“Is that what what says?” Danielle replied.
“So the crystal says that someone wrote a book and made everyone
act it out?” Arrowroot asked.
“No, the book doesn’t say that, it just gives the story,”
Danielle said. “I mean, it’s fiction, but then what it talks about
came true. At the Carlisle place. Then they had to act it out.”
“Well, who the hell wrote it then?” Arrowroot demanded. “And why
would anyone make them act it out?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Danielle replied. “But the fact
it all went down on an Army base should give you some clues.”
“No, it doesn’t give me anything,” Arrowroot complained. “It
makes absolutely no sense.”
Danielle was silent, so Arrowroot spoke again. “Okay, humor me,
give me a quick rundown of what you’ve got so far.”
“It’s online already,” Danielle said. “Plus you heard some of it
from Adele last night.”
“Just a summary,” Arrowroot said. “Please. I don’t have time for
a lot of reading today.”
“Okay,” Danielle replied. “But I haven’t been to bed since
yesterday morning, and things are running together in my brain, so
don’t complain if this is hard to follow.”
“Go ahead, I’m all ears,” said Arrowroot.
“Okay,” Danielle began, “so thousands of years ago, some sentient
races on some planets decide they want to find other sentient races,
but the universe is super huge, okay? So they send out these capsules,
like ships, bus-sized, all over the universe. No one’s on them, just a
bunch of carbon and water and minerals. With me so far?”
“Yup,” Arrowroot assured.
“So these capsules – there are thousands of them – these capsules
fly super fast somehow – total science fiction, but whatever – and
they all go off their separate ways, looking for planets. Okay? So
they figure out if there’s intelligent life down there somehow, take
samples or something, and if there is, they go to work. With me?”
“Yup, got ya so far,” said Arrowroot. “And then they find earth
of course.”
“Yes, they find earth,” Danielle continued. “And the capsule
decides there’s sentient life here, so bodies start getting grown in
the capsule. You know, bodies that match the DNA or whatever of the
race on the planet, so they can function on earth. Like, they’re grown
or something, I don’t know. And they send over their souls or their
personalities or whatever to occupy the bodies once they’re done being
made. Does that make any sense?”
“No,” Arrowroot admitted. “Who sends over their souls?”
“Oh, I skipped part of it, but this is almost at the end of what
we’ve translated so far,” Danielle said. “The nearest planet, they get
a message or something: ‘Send some personalities or whatever to this
capsule, we found a planet, we need to do a survey of it.’ So some
people on the nearest planet go lie down somewhere, and they’re put to
sleep so their personalities can go into the bodies in the capsule. I
mean, their souls or personalities or whatever travel through space,
to the capsule, go into the new bodies, and then they wake up in the
capsule. In bodies that can function on the earth.”
“Okay,” Arrowroot said dubiously. “I think you’re translating the
wrong book. All of what happened to Tamani was at Fort Shergawa.”
“I’m getting to that,” Danielle said. “She comes to the fort, but
you need to know how the book says she got there. It’s probably
relevant to what they did to her at the fort. Okay?”
“Okay, fine, I’m listening,” Arrowroot replied.
“So her planet gets this message from the capsule, it’s automatic
or something: ‘I found a planet with intelligent life, bodies have
been grown, I need some souls for them, you’re chosen,” Danielle says.
“So she goes to sleep, her personality flies to the capsule. You know,
the capsule’s in orbit around earth, in outer space. So she wakes up
in one of the bodies, in the capsule. And it sucks, and all hell
breaks loose, and then they crash land on earth.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Arrowroot protested. “So what
sucks?”
“When she becomes human,” Danielle explained. “When they all
become human. It hurts. On the other planet, they never had pain, so
it’s super hard to become human, and two of them kill themselves right
then and there.”
“Wait, what?” Arrowroot asked. “I’ve lost you completely. Who
kills themselves? What the hell is going on?”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s just a story,” Danielle said. “Someone
wrote a book. It’s confusing and not that well-written. It’s a science
fiction book about how hard it is to be a human being. That’s the
theme so far, at least. How much pain there is. So it hurts when
they’re in the capsule, and then they land at the fort, and it still
hurts, and people are dying. Like, four people die, two in space and
two when they crash. Then the rest of them start walking around. At
night in the rain. And that’s as far as we’ve gotten. And whatever
happened at the fort, Tamani— Adele was forced to act it out with the
other people, and more people died and she lived, but it was horrible
so she forgot everything. Hey, I’m getting another call, can I call
you back?”
“Aw, hell,” Arrowroot said, as the line went dead. He looked with
frustration at the pile of mail on his desk, turned to his computer
and clicked to the translation site.
Then his mind wandered. His daughter had found the man who’d
killed his son. God knows what she’s going to do to him, Arrowroot
thought. She could be cruel and devious when she wanted to be. He
almost felt sorry for Aaron Mailor, but whatever was done to him, he’d
done worse. Arrowroot imagined confronting the murderous soldier.
Confronting him with a baseball bat, or an axe handle, or even just
his fists. “You killed my son,” he’d say, and Aaron Mailor would know
exactly what Arrowroot was talking about, and he’d probably laugh,
making what happened next all the easier. Temporary insanity. That’s
what the police would call it. The insanity of a bereaved father. No
jury would convict him. “You killed my son, you bastard,” Arrowroot
would say. “You got any last words?”
Lief Pullmon didn’t deserve to have his nose broken, in that
confrontation in Traxie long, long ago. Lief hadn’t killed anyone. And
he’d grown up to be a decent human being. Served on City Council,
voted Arrowroot’s way more often than not. He came to Robert’s
funeral, was one of the few men that hugged everyone in the family,
even the mayor.
Revenge was sweet to contemplate, but after a few minutes,
fantasies of retribution always left Arrowroot feeling soiled, so he
turned his mind back to his computer and the translation website.
About 20 pages from the crystal had been posted online. It was
written in the first person, from the perspective of a female, and
addressed to humans. Either Tamani has written it somehow, or she’d
been forced to live it out. Either way, it was her story.
Arrowroot wasn’t a big fan of science fiction, so he skimmed it
quickly until he got to the section where the female character, either
Tamani or the character Tamani was forced to play, first awakens in
her human form and feels the pain of the new body:

Can you truly not feel the constant pains, people of Earth,
overlapping, one atop the other, doubling upon you, sliding in and out
like sheets of dusty glass across the eyes of your mind? For you, who
are born barely conscious and burdened each day with thin new layers
of fear, uncertainty, hunger, tedium, hatred – the pain shrouds your
vision slowly, thicker and thicker, its growth unperceived, its
existence all but unknown. But for me, coming to life fully conscious
as an adult being who had never known pain, it settled over me all at
once, and I felt it the way you would feel a thousand pounds of nails.

I looked at the termination mat, a green rectangle just within
the airlock, and knew with all the logic of my being I must go to it
now. But I did not, I could not, so frozen was I in fear and
discomfort.

Time passed and I calmed myself, focusing on a place in the
capsule above my head and taking a small measure of comfort as I
noticed the pains of my body beginning to fade. More forms stirred,
and I heard other voices. Another “ahh,” a consonantless groan, and
someone murmuring in a monotone rhythm. With each sound, I felt less
alone.

I was struck by your bulk. Yours is a race of muscled arms and
legs and rippled bellies. Even your necks swell with muscles.
I looked at my breasts. I was certain they were a malformation
and realized they would render me unqualified to continue the survey,
even if my mind and body were not in spasm. Why were they so
pronounced? And why did they make me ashamed? Some others were
similarly malformed, I saw through the dimness, but this did not
relieve my feelings.
Time passed. I listened to the breathing of the Surveyor to my
right. There was a little movement, some shuffling, another moan.
I heard a gurgling sound from the surveyor at my left and saw a
jet of bile and blood shoot from her mouth. She screamed, vomited
again and then issued a deep, despairing groan. Not one throat in the
rest of the known universe has ever made such a noise, or ever could,
so at first I looked to make sure the sound had come from her mouth
and not a leak in the bulkhead.
She looked at us, at me, her eyes wide, her hair clumping across
the vomit on her chin. She gestured but could not seem to make her
hands work. With another deep groan, she stood, the movement pulling
the tubes from her belly and arms. That seemed to cause her
intolerable pain, for she shrieked and bent over, gasping, before she
staggered on through the darkness to the termination mat. She lay down
upon it, and cried anew louder, longer and more horribly, coughing
blood as the ultrasound destroyed all the soft tissue of her chest
cavity.
The mat did not kill quickly enough. In the painful reveries that
visit me in this body, I can still hear the last, frantic screams of
the first human form I watched die.
Another Surveyor, a male, rose, removed his tubes with a loud
gasp and approached the mat. He attempted to push the first body off
with one hand, but it was too heavy or he too weak, so he scowled and
groaned, kicked it savagely, jumped on it, pushed with both arms and
finally slid it off. He lay down, stifled a sob, then screamed and
jerked violently as his mission ended.
His last spasm forced his body against the form of the female.
When I had intercourse later in the survey, I remembered these two
broken shapes lying together, and wished I had looked away.