Dante's Equation Part 34

"Jill!" Nate was pointing at an oval fixture on the wall. It was emitting light.

Jill's mouth went even drier at the sight. She followed Nate into the hall. The doors, as they had already learned, opened by proximity, even in the buildings without power. Now Nate stepped right up to a door and it slid back silently. She knew he was being brave, stepping into the doorway like that, and she had a bad moment before the door had fully opened.

But there was no one inside; it was just another boxlike room. Nate made a bowing gesture to let her through.

She headed toward a long narrow counter in the corner. It was like the ones they'd seen in other buildings. The counter had a concave depression with holes arranged around in a ring. It reminded her tantalizingly of a drain and spigots.

"Please, please, please, please, please . . . " Nate was muttering as he came up behind her.

The sink operated as soon as she stepped in front of it. Water spouted from the ring of holes around the basin.

Jill was past worrying about whether the water was viable for humans. She stuck her hands in it, making a crude cup, and drank greedily. It tasted wonderful, like good, clean water. Her mouth and throat relaxed into a semblance of soft tissue. When Nate took his turn he stuck his whole head in the sink, his close-cropped hair trickling with errant streams as he drank. Then he tried to roll up his sleeve.

"Do you mind if I wash my arm?" he asked, looking sheepish. "It's still pretty sore."

"Of course not."

His sleeve would not roll up far enough, so he took the shirt off and put his forearm in the basin, splashing the water up onto his bicep and shoulder, face grimacing with pain.

"I just wish the water were hot," Nate said, forcing an uncomfortable smile. "Wait-it's warming up now."

She stepped away, not wanting to stand there watching him, and began moving around the room. The water-both the drinking of it and the relief of having found it-had made her feel a thousand percent better. Her curiosity returned. They were no longer in imminent danger of dying and, by G.o.d, if they weren't, she was going to take a d.a.m.ned good look around.

There were two plain chairs with impossibly narrow seats and a long cotlike bed against one wall. The bed was topped with a hard cushion, and it emerged from the wall much like the molded counter. Near the door was a metal plate they'd seen in many of the buildings. It resembled a fuse box cover, but it didn't open-wouldn't budge under her prying fingertips. There were raised designs on the plate that Jill realized-at last-were alien writing. She moved her fingers over it, an expectant smile tilting the corners of her mouth. The characters were like Morse code in their simplicity-horizontal lines and dots in a variety of directions and groupings. She pressed against the writing, trying to get a sense of it through her fingertips. There was a dullthudbehind the plate.

Jill had eaten dinner in too many college dorms not to recognize that sound. Her stomach growled and her fingers probed the metal surface hungrily for what she knew had to be there. At the bottom the metal folded neatly inward, revealing a drop bin and a thick, solid bar the size of a brick.

"Food," she breathed, picking it up and sniffing it. She spent some minutes trying to unwrap a shiny film until it began to melt to her fingers and she realized it was edible. She was about to try a small bite when Nate came over.

"You got it to work!"

"Wasn't difficult," she said. Like an old pro, she pressed the writing again to get another bar and

held it out to him. "Try it." "Oh, I see. I'm the guinea pig." "No! I-" She took a hurried bite. The bar crumbled under her teeth. She made a face. "What's it taste like?" "Honey, cardboard, and machine oil." "Yum. My favorite." He took a bite and woofed out his cheeks in disgust. "The good news is we can lubricate a gasket with our breath." "We shouldn't eat much. Not until we see what it does to our system." "It's fine. Really. I feel just-" Nate gasped, bent over, contorting in pain. He fell heavily to the floor, face in agony.

Jill blinked at him for a moment, then sank down to the floor, folding her legs to sit next to his p.r.o.ne body. She took another small bite. He opened one eye to see if he'd gotten her. "That's what I like about you, Nate. Your maturity."

They drew a cache of the bars and made a pack from Jill's sweater, but they couldn't find any way to carry the water. At least they knew where to find it if they needed it.

"What now?" Nate asked as they reentered the lobby.

"I want to try the elevator."

"And, um, why would we want to do that?"

"Because we need a better plan than just walking around. Because this is a relatively tall building. Because if we can get to the roof we might get a strategic view. Any more questions?"

"I liked it better when your mouth was too dry to talk," Nate said, stepping onto the platform beside her.

There was more of the alien script on a panel on the wall. Jill and Nate were debating about what to push when the elevator began to rise of its own accord.

As it ascended to reveal the next floor they could see alien feet waiting, then legs. Nate and Jill backed into the far side of the elevator. Jill sought, and found, Nate's hand. A torso appeared, then those big, buglike eyes. The elevator stopped and the alien stepped onto the platform.

It wasn't the same alien they'd seen in the streets, Jill was sure. It didn't have the same overbite. This one had a tiny mouth that was perfectly flat. But again, it stared right through them without a flicker of interest, then turned to face the panel. Its fingers moved over the panel briefly. The elevator began to descend.

Nate was gripping her hand so tightly it hurt. "h.e.l.lo?" Jill ventured, her voice sounding hollow. Nate squeezed, hard. "Ouch!" She glared at him and he shook his head mutely, pleading. But the alien had heard something. It looked around the elevator, its eyes grazing right past them. It scanned the ceiling, blinking translucent lids over thick, gooey eyeb.a.l.l.s. The elevator stopped on the ground floor. The alien, after taking one final look around, got out.

Nate dived for the control pad, banged on it. The elevator began to rise.

"Jill," Nate hissed, "did you see that? I told you, they can'tsee us!" His eyes were large and dark-freaked-out eyes. She knew what he was thinking-some weird, supernatural thing, like maybe that they were ghosts after all. She felt a flash of irritation.

"Maybe this species is blind. How would we know?" "Withthose eyes? That'd be a sorry waste of real estate." "Anyway, they canhear us, at least. Why didn't you want me to speak? We're going to have to make contact sooner or later."

"What if they're dangerous!"

"Why a.s.sume they're dangerous?"

He gave her a look like she was being incredibly stupid. "Um . . . because it's a h.e.l.l of a lot safer

than a.s.suming they're not?" She rolled her eyes, but she had to admit . . . She was just as glad herself that the alien in the elevator hadn't seen them. There was something about those huge eyes and husklike bodies that was not very pleasant at all.

The roof was a flat, dusty surface made of the same stuff as the rest of the City-a dense white material that was difficult to distinguish as either synthetic or stone. Nate looked around the rooftop for more aliens before deigning to get out of the elevator. He walked to the edge.

"So . . . what are we looking for?"

"I don't know yet." Jill studied the street grid. There were no plazas, no circular turnabouts, no variation in the street widths-just endless rows and columns. The air was very clean, startlingly so for a cityscape, which meant they didn't burn fossil fuels. And the planet seemed to have little precipitation. The sky was cloudless.

"Do you think those are power indicators?" Jill asked, pointing to a light on a roof down below.

Nate perked up. "Cool! I don't think that's what they'refor, but they sure work that way, don't they?"

Every building had a large light at the center of the roof-including their own. The original purpose of the light was probably for communications or rooftop landings. But looking out over the cityscape now, these roof lights were an ideal indication of which buildings had power. They'd been designed to be visible even in this perpetually bright world-shining a determined red. Jill sucked in a breath as the full implications. .h.i.t her.

They were looking over a city so vast they could not see the far edges of it. And all that theycould see-all of the buildings surrounding them for blocks and blocks and blocks-was 90 percent dead, turned off, deserted.

"Oh my G.o.d. Look at that," Nate muttered.

They were standing in a pocket of red, maybe twenty buildings in all. A few blocks away was a street running northsouth that had to be a major artery. The lights on that street were red all the way into the horizon. There was another artery, perpendicular to the first, that was also red down its entire length. Other than this red cross, there were only rare splashes of red dotting the landscape. The rest of the city was dark.

"What happened to them?" Nate asked, his voice faint.

"I don't know."

"Do you think it might have been a disease? It couldn't have been an atomic weapon or a meteor- there's no damage."

"No."

"You'd think war would have left some damage, too, unless they have some pretty funky weapons."

Jill's hands floated to her collarbone and tapped thoughtfully. She didn't reply.

"So what do you think? This place must have hadmillions of inhabitants-where'd they all go?" Nate insisted. She knew he wasn't really asking her; he was just asking.

"Ithink we'll find more clues, if we're patient." Jill sighed. "This could take a while."

The thought was somehow satisfying. Nate shot her a look that she ignored. She was focused on those red patches. "There!" She pointed.

To the east, about a mile away, was a round building in a patch of red. It had a dome shape, incongruous in this square-filled field. Even more interesting was what was next to the dome-an enormous field of antennae.

"Communications," Nate guessed.

"Maybe." Jill squinted to see the antennae better. Something had just crossed her mind, a possibility that, in all the hours they had spent in this place, had so far eluded her. As the idea fully revealed itself in her brain, almost bashfully due to its enormity, she found her mouth dry once more. She understood now her initial feeling of excitement at the wall. There was a moment, standing at the edge of that rooftop, when she completely accepted the City. Not just accepted it but embraced it as her right, as part of her purpose, her destiny.

"Jill!" Nate's voice, eager, broke the moment. He had moved to the other side of the roof and was pointing as excitedly as a kid at a toy shop window.

There, on the southern edge of the city, miles away, was another domed structure. This one looked even larger than the first. Around it was a smooth sea of tarmac. And parked at one end of the tarmac was a planelike craft that, despite its small size from here, had to be enormous close-up.

"It's a s.p.a.ceship!" Nate crowed. "They have interplanetary travel! Whoo-hoo!" Jill smiled tentatively. "Good ol' Earth! Christ, what are we waiting for?" Nate walked toward the elevator. "Just a second. What about the antennae?" Jill's eyes drifted magnetically back to that other dome. "What about theantennae ? What about theantennae ?" His voice got her attention. That boyish face of his, so ingeniously expressive, was disbelieving and hopelessly young. "Jill, h.e.l.lo? I don't know about you, but I want to gohome ." She was used to diagnosing Nate's moods in a rational framework for her experiments. One look told her that arguing with him would take more energy and tact than she could muster. She tried anyway. "But, Nate," she said gently, "we have an entire city to explore." He folded his arms over his chest. His dark eyes stared at her, daring her to say anything more. "Okay," she sighed. "All right. We'll check out the airport first." He grinned. "It's as.p.a.ce port." "Fine. Whatever. I guess it won't hurt." She looked out over the cityscape. "How 'bout we go down that main artery? That'll give us food and water most of the way. It might take us a while. I have a feeling it's even further than it looks." "Why don't we nab one of those air cars? We can be there in an hour." "We willnot . I'm not crazy about flying when the pilotknows what he's doing."

"They're probably user-friendly! They probably drive themselves!" Jill gave him her best freezing look. "And how would you know until you were up in the air and couldn't get down? We'll walk."

"Fine! Have it your way." Nate looked at the distance between them and the s.p.a.ceport and got into the elevator, a very determined look on his face.

15.4. Thirty-Seventy Aharon Handalman At what point do we lose our conscience? Our call to the divine? There are things, maybe they're different for everyone, but there are things . . . and from these experiences no man can return.

-Yosef Kobinski,The Book of Torment, 1943 Everything he had ever held back or held in, everything he had pushed aside, refuted, argued against with Talmudic vigor, these doubts, fears, and shadows, now crowded Aharon's mind. He had been proud and strong in the wind; he had been a mighty oak, a wall, unbreachable, like the walls of Zion. But Kobinski had blown his trumpet and the wall that was Aharon Handalman had come tumbling down.

The weight on his chest, on his limbs, was a mocking presence. It wasn't gravity: Death sat on him there. Satan sat on him; despair and hopelessness and an utter and complete emptiness where once G.o.d had dwelled, these things pressed him down. The tent in the wilderness of his heart, where the priest had to remove his shoes, where sacrifices were made, where the living presence of Yahweh shone like a bright and terrible thing, this place was empty. G.o.d's spirit had left him.

The Holocaust-what it had done to a man like Yosef Kobinski! And if it had done this to such a learned man, who was Aharon to say, "I will not be bowed"? Who was he to deny that G.o.d's chosen had gotten the raw end of the deal? That maybe Hedidn't have a plan? If He knew what He was doing, why had Aharon been given the knowledge of what might happen to Earth and then had his lips sealed forever? To lie here helpless, knowing that his beloved Hannah, his Devorah and Yehuda and Layah, were all in harm's way, waiting to be victims of perhaps the worst weapon ever known to man? Andthis place? This terrible h.e.l.l: was this really the reward for the faithful? For those who stood tall and said, "No, I will not compromise! I will not fudge on G.o.d's teachings? I will not-"

The torch next to his bedside flickered and beckoned. He spent long hours staring at it. Alternately, he sobbed, tears of blood coming from the depths of his soul. He stuffed his mouth, fearing who might come in answer. But no one came. He wanted to die, truly, but what could he do? Try to roll himself out of bed? Crack his head on the floor hoping he could splatter his brains before he pa.s.sed out? Could he work his arm up to grab the torch, fling it onto the bed he lay in? As much as he wanted to die, burning to death unable to move lacked a certain appeal.

Because if you don't bend you will break; G.o.d will teach you, teach you to bend.

He was left alone too long. He messed the bed. That, too, was appropriate! Was a literal symbol of the horror he lived in! Kobinski didn't come. Nothing human came. They cleaned him, these animals, they gave him food and, when he didn't eat it, forced it into his mouth. It was vile, vile, like the gall he drank from his own heart.

Argeh came, the "enemy" Kobinski had mentioned. And where was Kobinski when this thing showed up? Nowhere. Argeh smelled Aharon, screamed at him with barks and growls. As much as Aharon wanted to die, it was not at the hands of this horrible creature. Aharon stared at the torch, terrified, wishing the beast away. Argeh left.

Tevach, the mouse-faced servant of Kobinski, was the only thing that wasn't completely awful. There was something in his eyes, something gentle, that made Aharon look forward, a little, to his visits. And Tevach's visits were no picnic. He came to work Aharon's muscles. He pushed and prodded, flipped Aharon around with iron hands in a way that was most undignified. And as much as he wanted to die, overexercise wasalso not Aharon's idea of a way to go. On Tevach's third visit the urge to complain overcame even his depression and Aharon broke his silence.

"You want to kill me?" Aharon said as Tevach pushed his head toward his knees. It didn't go that way, not even in Earth's gravity. "You keep this up, and you'll get your wish."

Tevach groveled, but a second later he shoved Aharon back on the bed and urged him to do a sit-up. "You must get strong. You must walk. My Lord wishes it."

"Where is 'My Lord'? Why hasn't he come back? Why does he leave me here?"

Tevach only bit his lips nervously, nibbling at them like the mouse he so resembled.

"What does it matter?" Aharon said bitterly. "What does anything matter?"

Tevach dared a glance at Aharon, then looked away. "You are from Mahava. Why sad like Fiori?"

Aharon made anu face. He didn't answer.

Tevach grunted. "Work is good for one who is sad."

"I don't have any work."

Tevach pushed his leg up into the air and ordered Aharon to hold it. He did, with a little more energy than he had previously displayed, thinking,If I get strong, at least I can get out of this bed and find myself a decent knife to slit my wrists!

"Work is good," Tevach said when the leg had been lowered.

"I don't have any work!"

They did the other leg.

When Tevach had finished, he wiped Aharon's sweat away with a cool cloth and propped him back on his pillows.

"Is there something I can bring?" he asked, preparing to leave.

Aharon looked at the torch and sighed. He almost didn't say the words; then he almost did, almost didn't. Finally, he decided it wasn't important, one way or the other. What did anything matter anymore?

"Yes, Tevach. Would you ask Kobinski if I could read the ma.n.u.script?"

My Lord was so agitated by the Jew's presence in the House of Divine Ordinance, even unseen, even avoided, as he was avoiding it, that he at last told Tevach to order his carriage. He put on fresh robes and Tevach helped him down the stairs, into the creaky conveyance.

Like everything else in this accursed place, the carriage was not working half the time. Between the pressure of gravity and the rocky ground, very little could be kept mobile for long, including, it seemed, his knee joints. He settled back onto the gra.s.s-stuffed pillows, breathing deeply, waiting for the excruciating pain to pa.s.s. Tevach, beside him, was full of concern.

My Lord had had many servants over the years, but he'd grown close to only a few. There was Decher, the male he'd promoted to captain of his guard (a smaller and quite separate unit from the Gestapo-like priests that Argeh controlled); Erya, a female who acted as nursemaid and caretaker; and Tevach, his constant companion and leaning post. He had learned much about the Fiore, spent the first ten years here putting together theories about them and this planet. The part of him that put together theories had still been linked in some way to the man who had been in Auschwitz, was separate from the man who now survived here at all costs, the king of Gehenna.

What Decher and Erya and Tevach shared was a spark of curiosity, a leaning toward openmindedness absent in most of their species. Naturally, they had learned to hide it well. To My Lord they had only appeared a little softer at first. It took him time to decipher why, and then he understood. They were souls on the way back up. If Fiori was a lesson about the dangers ofgevorah , they had learned it, had learned the price of restriction, and were rebounding, maybe slowly, but still rebounding, back toward openness,chesed -back toward the center of Jacob's Ladder. They were more advanced than the Jew in that regard.

The planet as a whole, of course, was not going anywhere.