Beneath the Gated Sky Page 7

  The cold struck without warning, without mercy.

  Bare feet stepped onto a slippery white world, and she began to slide, losing her balance and recovering it again, her feet twisting sideways and biting at the snow, saving her from the ignominy of a face-first fall.

  She gulped at the thin air, conscious of her mouth’s new shape and the eerie normalcy of balloonlike lungs working fast.

  Behind her, a single object—the essential key—lay on the foot-packed snow, anchored in place by the opened intrusion, looking for all the world like a simple mitten.

  More children appeared, features hidden by the darkness.

  Trinidad giggled, then slipped and spilled.

  Po-lee-een grabbed him by the arm and lifted, and thought penis.

  She herded the children together, making them share their warmth.

  This was a different world, a different mountain slope, with a brutal winter locked over the land. Her body warned that she wasn’t adapted to this climate, limbs shaking and her new teeth banging against each other. No one else was in view. What if something had gone wrong? What if there was no one to help them? But she saw strangers emerging from behind what looked like trees, and they were holding out gifts of polybutte underwear and wool trousers and ostrich-leather boots and heavy winter coats, everything freshly purchased in scattered sporting goods stores and packed deep into the wilderness for exactly this moment.

  Po-lee-een barely noticed the gifts.

  What caught her gaze were the faces, starlit and showing teeth—larger and fewer in number than jarrtee teeth—and she showed her teeth in the same fashion, muttering her first clumsy words to people on her new home.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Your sky,” she said.

  “I like…your sky…! ”

  6

  The refugees were clothed, and with the help of flashlights, ushered down a forested ridge that opened onto a snowy meadow. Bonfires roared. Half a dozen enormous Dutch ovens were filled with stew and greasy chili, cellulose bowls and big spoons begging to be used. A hungry soul receives a hungry body when it is translated through an intrusion. No one needed encouragement to eat, and everyone stood too close to the fires, relishing the heat as they wolfed down their belated dawn feast, everyone chewing jarrtee-fashion, mouths wide open.

  Father had become a tall human, the plain pink face surrounding tiny and sunken, nearly exhausted brown eyes. Mama-ma was smaller but not small, pretty and dark, her face streaked with quiet, reflective tears. Po-lee-een’s brothers were obviously related. The intrusion had given them Father’s face and Mama-ma’s build, and if examined, their DNA would not only prove parentage, it would show the effects of a life spent on the earth: Tiny mutations, the occasional large mutation, and wrapped among their own selves, an assortment of estivating, mostly harmless viruses.

  As on Jarrtee, Po-lee-een had more of her father’s build and her grandparents’ handsome features. And Trinidad was rooted in the same genetics, meaning that when they stood side by side, they looked like sister and brother—the long unkempt hair, the young faces eerily similar, and those tall, fast-maturing bodies fashioned around an easy, almost unconscious grace.

  Between bites of white potato, the girl said, “Earth,” loudly, with relish, the word natural and effortless.

  Intrusions weren’t passive filters; they were aggressive, relentless machines, taking cues from the immediate world before clothing any soul.

  The intrusion on that high ridge had taken its cues from their hosts.

  The apparent leader—a large-built woman who conspicuously didn’t offer any name—explained that they were built from European and African DNA. Heritage had its significance. “This is empty country,” she told them, her voice booming. “Few people come here. There was the chance that you’d pop out being Mescalero Apache.”

  “That’s a problem?” asked Mama-ma.

  The woman snorted, then said, “They’re a people and language that’s just about extinct. As it is, you belong to the victors.”

  The refugees contemplated those words.

  “We’ve got a long march out of here,” the woman warned. “The sun’s up in two hours, which is soon. We’ll leave then. We’ve got a storm bearing down on us, which is trouble. So try to rest now, if you can.”

  But Po-lee-een had never felt more alert.

  The nameless woman and two men began to march up the mountainside, each carrying a heavy pack.

  “They’re going to mark the intrusion,” her cousin told her. “Let’s watch them. Just to make sure they do it right.”

  They had strong legs, handling the slope and altitude without much trouble. Starlight and the snow made it easy to navigate, even with their tiny eyes. The snow proved to be a fascinating distraction. They would stop now and again, examining the tracks that people and strange animals had left. They played with the beautiful white stuff. Delayed, they missed watching their hosts set up the equipment. But they saw a flash of dull red light, then heard a sizzling roar, the foot-mashed snow around the intrusion vaporized and the ground beneath melted, its substance transformed in myriad ways, visible and not.

  The intrusion wasn’t just marked, it had been capped—in effect, changed from an open route between worlds to a secured doorway. Should humans ever learn how to pass between worlds, a capped intrusion would add another barrier, requiring not a single, relatively simple key, but six distinct keys, encrypted and acting together.

  It was an ancient precaution. The Few had learned and learned again: Keep strict control over your own gateways.

  Some night, in a year or ten thousand years, an identical disk—a second locked doorway—would be constructed on Jarrtee. But for the moment, capping the intrusion’s far end would draw too many curious, unfriendly eyes.

  Three adults were kneeling in the dark, speaking quietly as they warmed their hands over the cooling glass.

  The children ignored them. The nearby snow had partly melted, and they realized quickly that the stuff could be packed into icy balls.

  The big woman was doing most of the whispering. Then she hesitated, rose to her feet, and turned, snapping at the children, “What are your names?”

  Po-lee-een tried to say her name, but her mouth stumbled badly.

  Her cousin didn’t try to answer. Instead, he called out, “First, tell me your name!”

  The woman bristled, then said, “I’m not apologizing. I won’t.”

  Apologize for what?

  “I’m doing everything I can for you,” she snarled. “Don’t accuse me of anything but my best.”

  The woman had been talking about them.

  “But if it was up to me,” she continued, “I’d have left that stupid girl behind.”

  “Which girl?” asked Po-lee-een, softly.

  “The idiot who created this mess!”

  Po-lee-een opened her mouth, fully intending to tell the truth.

  But she never had the chance. With a solid grunt, Trinidad threw an icy lump of snow into the woman’s chest, punching the air out of it and nearly knocking her off her feet, nearly putting her into that steaming lake of molten stone.

  The woman was enraged. She charged down to the meadow and told everyone to break camp immediately. “We’re getting out of here!”

  It was a lucky rage. Grandparents and the smallest children slowed their hike out of the mountains. They hadn’t gone far when the sun exploded over the nearby horizon, its chill golden light washing over the strange parade. Looking at the people’s colorful coats and the knitted caps, Po-lee-een realized that her new eyes were picking up hues that she’d never imagined. Even when clouds spread across the sky, dulling the land, she found herself marveling at the emerald green of the pines and the indigo in a wild bird’s plumage, and even the gentle pink in her own hands, exposed to the raw wind as she retied her little brother’s boots, her breath visible as she asked him, and herself, “Isn’t this place lovely?”

  “I miss our home,�
�� was the boy’s only response.

  Before noon, snow was falling, the flakes delicate and intricate and taking her by surprise.

  By mid-afternoon, that miracle of frozen water had reduced visibility and the beauty down to nothing. It was as if the jarrtee storms had chased them through the intrusion, cold now but still intent on punishing them. At one point, they nearly filed past a row of automobiles standing on simple wheels. Realizing their mistake, the nameless woman doubled back, unlocked one of the metal doors, then sounded the horn—a piercing scream that resembled a balloon bird’s warning cry.

  Po-lee-een was too tired to laugh at the coincidence, too tired to even feel her fatigue. Climbing into a cramped back seat, she was dimly aware of being out of the wind, sandwiched between her brothers and feeling negligibly warmer. Every sensation was muted. The novelty of a new body and new world were fading. Gazing out at the roaring white storm, she felt nothing but a weary despair, the earth too simple and far too small for the likes of her, a secret piece of herself vowing to leave, just as soon as she was old enough to wander.

  As it happened, the big woman drove their automobile. If there was a road, it wasn’t visible beneath the seamless white blanket. Father and Mama-ma were wedged into the front seat beside her. With her eternally angry voice, the woman warned them, “In this nation, people drive. You’ll have to learn how.”

  “We will,” Mama-ma said gamely.

  “Can I drive too?” asked the youngest brother.

  “Soon,” Father promised. Then he added, “We have much to learn. We know.” He was trying to sound conciliatory. “And if I haven’t yet, please accept my thanks for all your welcome help.”

  “Tell that to her cousin,” the woman growled, thinking of the snowball.

  “I know it’s an imposition,” Father continued, unaware of the incident. “Little warning, and no time for the usual preparations. But I’m sure that we’ll blend in soon enough.”

  The woman gave the slightest nod.

  An uncomfortable silence descended. Finally, Father coughed, then said, “If I may ask, what are your plans for us?”

  “I’m dealing with a lot of immigrants, lately,” she replied. “Single adults, mostly. Young couples, sometimes. These are the first children to come past me.”

  “It’s not the ideal age to emigrate,” Mama-ma offered.

  “This sky everts in a few months. Everyone should be in position, their lives nicely established, before the natives can guess what’s happening.”

  “Very reasonable,” said Father.

  The woman squeezed the steering wheel until it squeaked, then straightened her back and said, “It was decided—and not by me—that we can’t risk keeping your entire family together. That would be too difficult to engineer, and too easy for someone else to doubt.”

  Po-lee-een’s parents glanced at each other, emotions playing across their faces.

  “You five will remain together, naturally. With your own family names, your own life stories—”

  “No,” Po-lee-een muttered, a sudden knife slicing into her belly.

  “Each little family gets a different name, and a separate home. As it is,” she warned, “we can’t guarantee perfection with any of you. There’s always that outside chance that someone will notice the incongruities.”

  “I understand,” said Father, the words not matched by his doubting voice.

  Mama-ma placed a hand on his shoulder, looking straight ahead.

  Quietly, sadly, her little brother asked, “What happens to my cousins?”

  “Officially, you won’t have any.” The woman spoke with a grim matter-of-factness. “You’ll be able to talk to them through secure means, on occasion. But it’ll be several years before you can see them again. And when you do, you’ll have to take precautions.”

  Po-lee-een peered out the back window. The other vehicles were following, one after another, looking tiny and half-real in the blizzard. They seemed to be hovering on the brink of being lost, dissolving into all that ice.

  “Humans are tribal, and aggressive.” Their driver spoke with a quiet menace. “These apes are something like your former species, from what I hear. But they’re younger. In fact, everything you’ll see is young. The cities, the technology. Belief systems, too.”

  Her audience nodded, trying to pay close attention.

  “It’s an inventive species, which makes them fun, and popular. And despite some world-killing weapons, there’s a genuine peace in effect.” With a dramatic flourish, she sighed. “The trouble is, this society is fundamentally, profoundly unstable. According to our computer models, any of a thousand events could wash away this peacefulness.”

  No one spoke for a long moment.

  The driver had reached one of her destinations. “We don’t dare let them know that we’re here,” she warned. “Judging by their history, they’d respond with fear, and probably violence. Against us and against the innocent, too.”

  “We understand,” Mama-ma promised.

  “In a few centuries, if things evolve properly, we’ll begin to show ourselves. But today and tomorrow, no.”

  “Of course.”

  There was a prolonged pause, nothing audible but the rumbling engine and the endless wind.

  No one so much as glanced at the girl sitting in the back seat.

  Then with a bleak, clipped voice, the nameless woman told everyone, “This is my neighborhood. Whatever you do, don’t fuck things up for me.”

  Sleep took Po-lee-een by surprise.

  The sensation differed from estivating, brief and soft and finished before it had begun. When she woke again, she discovered that they were driving fast on a wide, wide highway, the mountains left behind and the sun lost and the dark land, flatter than any ground she had ever seen, empty of snow and almost devoid of vegetation.

  There was a sound, a relentless clicking, that must have roused her. Sitting forward, she saw a blinking green arrow near the steering wheel. Was it telling the driver to look to her right? No, she realized. They were moving right, leaving the highway and losing momentum. A wonderland of peculiar buildings and machines and brilliant-colored lights was approaching, and some half-born skill of hers could interpret the scene—those lights were inviting passersby to stop and rest their weary ape bones.

  “We can eat here,” said their driver. “Afterwards, you’ll be taken to the acculturation centers.”

  “Different centers?” Father asked, with apprehension.

  “According to the slots available, yes.”

  Everything would always be Po-lee-een’s fault. Yet she didn’t feel the old shame. Had human sleep cured that pain? If so, no wonder the earth was a popular world.

  They turned onto an asphalt plain, then parked behind the largest structure. A second vehicle pulled up beside them, Po-lee-een’s grandparents greeting them with a jarrtee finger waggle. Nobody disembarked. The other vehicles arrived in short order, and everyone remained seated, their guides taking this last opportunity to brief them.

  “This is called a truck stop,” said the woman. “Stay with me, follow my lead, and don’t stare at strangers. Humans find stares threatening.”

  Naturally, their guide would pay for their meals. But in case of disaster, she handed out leather packets filled with money—rectangular slips of colored paper covered with dense, artistic scribblings.

  The brothers tasted the young leather, leaving behind tooth marks.

  Almost as an afterthought, the woman told them, “You’ll need names, too. Bland, blending names. And sooner is better than later, of course.” Then because it was expected, she asked, “Are there any questions?”

  Po-lee-een was holding one of her money papers up to the truck stop’s glorious lights, a half-formed comprehension doing more to confuse than enlighten. “Ma’am,” she replied, “can you tell me your name?”

  The three adults turned together, in surprise.

  “Why do you want to know?” the woman asked, words dripping in s
uspicion.

  “I don’t want to choose it,” Po-lee-een confessed. “Even by mistake.”

  An icy silence took hold. Then the angry, nameless woman climbed outside, and Father, then Mama-ma, slipped the girl mercurial looks of approval.

  The cold was worse than Po-lee-een had expected, the wind cutting into her flesh. Air brakes and tired diesel engines sounded like animals, making the newcomers nervous, and the nervousness didn’t end when they stepped into the warm fluorescent indoors. A tired woman, miffed by the sudden onslaught, showed each group to a different squeaky orange booth. The nameless woman gave them a brief tour of the menu, sounding out the printed words while pointing at the corresponding photographs. Then a tired waitress appeared, taking orders while attempting small talk, asking about the weather and the traffic, and how would they like their eggs, and that’s funny, but the people in the other booths had also ordered double portions of sausage.

  Po-lee-een’s cousin sat with his back to her, plastic ivy between their heads. They weren’t supposed to know each other, so she whispered, asking if he had slept. Not only had he slept, he’d had a dream. “Snow fell on the City,” he told her with a wonder-struck voice. “It was very deep, and very beautiful.”

  “Not here,” Uncle Ka-ceen growled. “Quiet, you two.”

  Her cousin rose, and while combing back his long hair, announced, “I’ve got to piss.”

  His guide whispered some advice, then sent him off.

  The nameless woman was lecturing her parents about the dangers of high-fat diets. “In that way, humans are weak,” she warned. “They’re adapted to lean meat and vegetables.” Then, noticing the girl rising to her feet, she asked, “What are you doing?”

  “My bladder’s weak.”

  The others chortled. But the woman, made of sterner stuff, simply said, “You want the ladies’ room. Don’t talk to anyone, and don’t leave this building. Please.”

  “I won’t.”