FSF, March-April 2010 Read online

  A vehicle awaited them. It appeared to be very flimsy. A semi-transparent teardrop laid on its side, with the rounded end facing away from them and no wheels, similar to the thing that had flown over his head.

  The alien gestured for him to climb inside it. Wolverton, in his orange balloon, had no idea how to do it. He didn't detect any doors or windows, even though he could see right through it. It appeared to be empty except for a round fuel cell connected to a network of bunched fibers near the tapering back end that looked something like a brain. Wolverton figured that must be the engine.

  The alien slapped him on the back, and Wolverton stumbled forward. The exterior of the car gave under his weight. He tumbled through and landed inside. The car's exterior sealed seamlessly behind him. He was still inside the balloon.

  The alien sauntered around to the other side and plopped in. It lay back, turned its spherical head toward Wolverton to make sure he was secure, and then gave its full attention to the vehicle. Fibers snaked out from the brain-engine, and the alien's squirming digits played on one of them for a moment. The engine hissed, the car lifted off the ground, and they shot forward.

  Wolverton strained to hang on, but there was nothing to hang onto. Inertia pushed him deeper into his balloon as the alien manipulated the fiber. The car was highly maneuverable, banking around spires and shooting out at terrific speed in the straightaway. Wolverton's stomach lurched into his gullet once again.

  He screamed as he bobbed inside the flying car, zipping to who knew where. He saw other teardrop-shaped cars, ridden by all manner of odd-looking creatures. This city teemed with alien races, but what did they do with an uninvited species?

  What if he were being tested by the aliens, to determine if he were worthy of living among them, and found wanting? How could he convince them he didn't intend to stay? He just wanted to find Nozaki. But how could he explain himself without a translator, and where would he and Nozaki go if he did find her?

  If any food had been in his belly, Wolverton would have upchucked as his three-armed driver squeezed the fiber and flew upward at a steep angle. It cut the power above a kidney-shaped landing platform on a rooftop a hundred meters or so above the ground.

  They settled onto the platform.

  The alien let go of the fiber, and it whipped back into the cortical engine. After it gestured for him to get out, Wolverton swam through the vehicle's permeable exterior, clutching his helmet under the pale orange sheen of his oxygen balloon. Now that the brief flight was over, he nearly collapsed on the platform. It had been too long since he'd last slept. He was barely able to stay on his feet as the alien led him to a slit in the roof a few meters away from the car.

  The slit widened, and they stepped inside the opening. They began to descend. This could be it. The alien could be taking him to a prison, or even to be executed, for all he knew.

  The ceiling closed over them. Trembling, Wolverton was led through a corridor to a room with a transparent membrane over its doorway. His captor pointed at it. The membrane stretched as he passed through it and popped back into position.

  Wolverton was alone in a room with a concave ceiling. On a platform lay a human body.

  Not just any body.

  His body.

  He'd have known himself anywhere, from all the times he'd looked unhappily in the mirror. Red hair, pale skin, freckles, gangly limbs, overbite. He was gaping even in death.

  Hearing a faint susurration, Wolverton assumed it was the sound of a stasis field, because the body was perfectly preserved.

  Was this the version of him that had been left behind on LGC-1 by Nozaki? Or was it some other Wolverton, plucked out of a reality he hadn't yet dreamed of? How had this Wolverton died? His mind raced with ghastly possibilities, but his tired body wanted only to lie down next to his doppelgänger and sleep.

  Maybe that was the idea. Maybe the alien wanted him to be unconscious before doing something dreadful to him. This could be a euthanasia chamber.

  But why would it show him his own corpse if it wanted to be sneaky about killing him? He was simply too exhausted to think straight, yet there had never been a time in his entire life when thinking straight was more important.

  Wolverton reeled backward, turning to pass through the membrane again. The alien was waiting for him. He sagged against a wall.

  "What do you want?” he cried in despair, bone-tired and weak from hunger. “What are you going to do to me?"

  The alien waggled its fingers, directing him to another doorway. Tears streaming down his cheeks, Wolverton almost fell through the membrane this time.

  He was relieved to find a bed inside. There were oxygen balloons and pale green and blue tubes. Food? Water? He wanted to find out, but he had no choice but to lie down first, still holding his helmet in the crook of his arm. Maybe he would never get up, but he couldn't stay awake any longer.

  He fell asleep within seconds.

  * * * *

  His dreams were invaded by the digger. It swallowed him, but he wasn't chewed up. He traveled through its innards to its very core. He struggled desperately to stop it, but he couldn't lift his feet. He was rooted to a place that seemed to encompass all of time in all the multiverse. His inability to act would cost the lives of fifty-two people...and one of them was Nozaki.

  Wolverton awakened from the nightmare, at first uncertain where he was. He saw the room through an orange pall. It took him a moment to realize the coloration was a remnant of the balloon clinging to his eyelids. He looked down to see that it had darkened and desiccated, and that he was breathing through his nose. He was still alive. The aliens must have pumped a nitrogen-oxygen mix into the room. Wiping away the dried balloon skin, he got to his shaky feet.

  Sticking his index finger into the green tube, he pulled it out to taste what was on its tip. It was a thick paste, sweet but mild. It would fill his ravenous belly quite satisfactorily if he could find a way to eat it. He looked around for something to aid him and found a bowl, a spoon, and a ladle.

  He sat on the edge of the bed to eat and drink.

  It didn't take much to sate his hunger. He was thinking of what he had to do. He smelled awful, so he got out of his suit and quilted underwear to bathe as best he could, leaving a puddle on the floor.

  Much refreshed, he sized up the situation as he dressed himself. Was he a prisoner? He peered out through the transparent membrane, and could see nothing beyond it but the corridor wall. Was there breathable air out there, or was it pumped only into this room?

  As if recalling a nightmare, he pictured his own corpse lying in state across the hall. He guessed that the aliens had constructed this little human habitat after they rescued his doppelgänger from the asteroid. Lucky for him.

  But what had killed the other Wolverton? He'd had food, water, air to breathe, and a place to live. Had he succumbed to loneliness? It was a terrible thought. Wolverton had been lonely all his life, but now he had Nozaki to think of. Had his counterpart realized that he'd lost her and could never get her back?

  Why had the aliens displayed the body? Did they even know he was the same person? Or did one human look pretty much like another to them?

  He might never find out. Now that he'd eaten and rested, he was determined to go back to see if he could stop the digger. There was nothing for him here, not without Nozaki.

  Wolverton had just put his helmet on when the alien came back. It beckoned from outside the transparency.

  Wolverton accessed his air tank and went out. He took one last, mournful look at the entrance to the room that contained his corpse.

  The alien led him back up to the roof. The sun was setting, and the hazy atmosphere was aquamarine, the skyline silhouetted against the twilight sky.

  A vehicle was waiting. Wolverton could see an orange balloon on the passenger side. He jumped in and took off his helmet as his host got in on the other side. In a few seconds they were off.

  They headed straight across the city to a hovering ship that lo
oked like a big seashell. A funnel extended from its underside. The alien slowed their speed and they were drawn up into the funnel. They emerged inside the ship, surrounded by efficiently stored gas balloons, food tubes, stringy things hanging from the low ceiling, and bumpy instruments. After seeing the cortical engine, Wolverton could barely guess at what powered this machine.

  Clouds, green sky, and the city's tallest spires were visible all around as Wolverton clambered out of the vehicle, his oxygen balloon clinging to him.

  There were two other aliens like his host sitting at the controls, and they turned to gurgle their greetings.

  "Nice to see you, too,” Wolverton said. “Where are we going?"

  There was only one way to find out. Wolverton settled into his balloon, watching the funnel coil underneath the ship.

  They began to ascend. There was little sense of inertia, but within seconds the green planet was below them and the stars were above, behind, and in front of them. They were released from the green world's gravity, and the blue creatures floated through the cabin, going about their duties.

  Soon the ship was headed straight toward a shifting darkness that distorted space and time a few thousand kilometers above the green planet's troposphere.

  The ship turned on its side and skimmed along the amorphous edge of the bubble, passing through without appreciable physical effect.

  They slowly banked and arced about to face a bloodred reality. Gamma Crucis's hydrogen shell hurt his eyes with its killing radiance.

  Once around the sun, and they were slingshotted by its mass deep into what was left of the solar system. It seemed to take only minutes, as if time were shrinking. The consortium had clearly mastered many of the anomaly's fringe effects, and matter-of-factly made use of what seemed miraculous, compared to human technology.

  Below them lay the landscape of LGC-1, a familiar and welcome sight. Perhaps not so familiar, now that he took a closer look. The surface was pitted with craters.

  They kept going until the bubble came into sight again.

  His hosts’ dialogue sounded like coffee percolating. Wolverton wished he knew what they were saying to one another.

  The aliens at the controls both seemed to be piloting the ship at the same time. Their fingers coiled around bumps in the panel, guiding the ship toward the bubble.

  And then they were inside it once again, bursting through to another reality.

  The pilots concentrated on their task, bringing the ship down toward the asteroid's surface.

  Something was coming toward them. Was it another alien ship?

  No, it was the flyby. The pilot deftly avoided colliding with it, arcing above its orbital path.

  They passed over base camp. It was just as it had been before the digger destroyed it. Wolverton wanted the aliens to put him down on the surface, but he knew he couldn't get the job done that way.

  The bubble hove into sight again, looking as if India ink were spilling over the asteroid's smooth, red-reflective surface. It was hard to tell its dimensions from here. Wolverton could get a sense of its breadth only by the stars it obscured.

  It was big, much bigger than it had been in the other realities. The longer he stared at it, the more it seemed to grow. It hung in space, several times the size of the asteroid.

  They were headed straight for it.

  Wolverton couldn't take his eyes off the growing anomaly. He saw that its edge was touching the asteroid's surface.

  And then they were through it, flying out the other side.

  Once more around LGC-1, and they had reached their destination. Below was the digger.

  "You did it!” Wolverton shouted. “How did you know where to bring me?"

  They ignored him, and he saw that another ship had beaten them to it. It resembled a black wasp.

  The digger was stationary. A groove opened along its carapace. The black ship came to rest on it. The groove widened, and the ship sank inside the digger.

  The groove closed as the black ship descended.

  As the pilots brought them down toward the digger, Wolverton realized with alarm that they too were about to land on its rounded back. He hoped that they had some means of concealing their presence from those inside the digger, in case of hostility.

  They alit softly. No sooner had they come down than the digger began to lurch forward.

  "No!” Wolverton cried. It was too soon. He hadn't thought through a plan. He had no idea how to slow down the digger, let alone stop it. But now that they were sitting right on top of it, his three hosts turned toward him.

  "What do you expect me to do?"

  Fifteen eyes stared at him. What were they thinking? Did they simply want him to get out, so they could go back to their reality? What more could he ask of them? They'd brought him to the exact point in the multiverse he needed to be, and he could hardly blame them if he didn't know what to do next.

  The funnel uncoiled beneath him. Wolverton got to his feet and looked down at the digger's glistening black carapace, just a few meters below where he stood. It was time to go, despite his uncertainty.

  "Thank you for your help,” he said through clenched jaws, “even if you are leaving me here to die."

  As he was putting on his helmet, one of the stringy things hanging from the bulkhead leaped down, spread out into a spidery form about a meter across, and trundled on eight legs down through the funnel. Another followed it. These “spiders” were extremely light and agile, he observed, as still others jumped to the deck and went after the first two.

  Scores of them crawled past him in single file and climbed down the funnel. Watching them, it occurred to Wolverton that he could have completely misinterpreted the meaning of this mission. What did he know about the motivations of these aliens?

  Yet he couldn't imagine why they would have brought him here unless they had some notion of what had happened. With all of space and time interconnecting through the multiverse, how had they known about this one incident?

  He watched the last spider crawl into the funnel. As soon as it was out of sight, he jumped in behind it.

  Wolverton rolled through the funnel and came to rest on his buttocks. The digger's carapace was as hard as titanium. Even so, he was unharmed, because of LGC-1's light gravity.

  Now what? He looked around and saw the last few spiders vanishing under the digger's curved hull.

  Wolverton got to his knees, worried that he'd be knocked off his feet by the digger's motion if he stood. He looked behind him to see that the ship was invisible, just as he'd hoped. He crawled as quickly as he could to catch up with the spiders, hoping they knew where to go. He certainly didn't.

  He went as far as possible on his hands and knees. If he crawled any farther, he'd fall off the digger's slick back.

  Wolverton peered over the side and saw the line of spiders climbing down the bulging metal hull, seeming to defy gravity in much the same way that living spiders do. Wherever they were going, he wouldn't be able to follow them.

  Ahead was the encroaching sunrise. It was nothing more than a rosy haze on the horizon, but it wouldn't take long for the digger to meet it. Wolverton had to get out of its way, or he'd be burned to a crisp.

  He sensed something moving behind him, and turned in time to see the alien ship becoming partially visible as it rose like a shimmering oyster.

  "Don't go!” he cried.

  But even if they'd heard him, it wouldn't have mattered. The ship hovered for a moment and shot off over the horizon, leaving him kneeling alone on the digger's back. Wolverton had never felt so vulnerable in a lifetime of vulnerability. But he knew it would do him no good to succumb to fear.

  The first thing to worry about was survival. He could either get out of the sun's way, or he could stay here like an idiot and fry.

  He jumped. During his slow descent, he brushed against a spider as he tumbled over the side. It looked so fragile that he thought he might damage it.

  Instead, four wire-thin legs lashed out and ca
ught him. Wolverton sank down a meter or so, but the spiderlegs held him. He bobbed back up, firmly in their grasp. Other spiders broke ranks to help. A dozen spindly legs lifted him, and he was carried along like a crumb to an anthill.

  As he was borne underneath the bulge in the digger's side, Wolverton was suspended over the ground.

  The spiders shifted him so that he was facing downward. He was fascinated to watch the asteroid's surface roll beneath him. There was barely light enough to see it, but it was there, a faint red coursing a few meters below his face. The digger's immense legs churned on either side of him. He was pretty far from the ground, fearful that the spiders might drop him.

  But they didn't. He was plunged into complete darkness, in the shadow of the digger's undercarriage.

  Wolverton's heart pounded furiously. He was going to be ground up with the spiders. Pieces of him would be shot out behind the digger. He was as good as dead.

  Suddenly there was an upturn. A tubular corridor led to a hatch, where the spiders were clustered. They tugged at its edge, their multi-jointed legs stretching with tensile strength until the hatch was forced open.

  Wolverton was carried inside.

  It was dark, but Wolverton could faintly see the spiders working on another hatch. Apparently he was inside an airlock. He kept his helmet on, since whatever the digger's builders breathed wasn't likely to be his kind of atmosphere.

  The inside hatch jerked open and Wolverton was set on his feet in a narrow corridor inside the digger. He expected to hear alarms, but it was quiet. He looked back to see the spiders closing the hatch.

  Wolverton stood in the corridor, waiting for something to show up and attack him. He was ready to fight. The digger's masters were his enemies, since they'd already savaged his home, his friends, and the woman he loved. They'd made life miserable for everyone at base camp, and now he was prepared to strike back.

  There wasn't much to see from where he was standing, just a path that wound around some unidentifiable clusters of machinery.

  Wolverton stole his way along the corridor, determined to find a way to undermine the digger. He wondered if he were being watched. He certainly didn't hear or see anything that indicated an alarm had been set off by the break-in. But that didn't mean much. For all he knew, the digger's builders didn't possess any sensory apparatus he'd recognize.