God's Junk Drawer, page 41
Beau screamed. A long, angry scream. She aimed it up at the treetops and a couple of the little four-winged dinosaurs scattered out of the branches.
Billy flinched back.
Beau punched one of the trees. Hard. Just slammed her knuckles into the trunk and screamed again.
Billy looked around. “Inside voices,” he started to say, but he hadn’t even finished the first word when she let out another shriek and punched the tree again and again and again.
Ross stepped forward and set a hand on her shoulder. “Please, Miss Beau. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
She spun around and swung at Ross and screamed in his face when she missed. And then she stood there, breathing heavy like she did when she ran all the way from the watering hole to the cave. Her eyes were still sparkly, but she hadn’t cried yet.
She looked down at him and Billy thought she looked surprised. Like she’d forgotten he was there. She looked up at Ross. Back at Billy. She swallowed, and for a minute he was worried she was going to puke.
Instead she crouched, then dropped to her knees. Pulled him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I wasn’t scared.”
“Twerp.”
“Jerk.”
She hugged him even tighter and started to cry.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “We can have mushrooms again. I . . . I don’t mind.”
His sister laughed into his shoulder. But she didn’t stop crying.
38
NOAH
Noah was outside the wall, talking with Ross, when the Neanderthal came out of the woods.
Noah’d been talking with Ross a lot, trying to learn everything he could about the Empress. When and how she’d first appeared. When they’d realized she lived in the Ice Castle now instead of the Castaway. How she’d taken control of the Klaa and the valley, bringing everything under her heel.
And then, as they passed through the main gate, the gold-feathered raptor and its rider strode out past the tree line. Noah saw them as the resonant sound of the didgeridoo pulsed out across the fields. Recognized all the teeth decorating the rider’s arms and throat.
Breaker.
“We must retreat behind the wall,” Ross told him. The robot turned and his walking stick thumped against the ground. Noah took a few backward steps, not wanting to take his eyes off the Neanderthal, not wanting to miss if anyone else had come with him.
As the thought slid through his mind, another rider stomped out of the woods, and a third. They stopped on either side of Breaker, holding back a few feet. They stood at the edge of the forest, their raptors scratching at the dirt.
Noah waited. Hoped to see the saber-toothed tiger. But nothing else came from the woods.
The didgeridoo sounded again.
“Noah.” Ross touched his arm, and he realized he’d stopped moving to watch the trees. “We must go. Now.”
A few more backward steps. He glanced back once, a quick look to make sure he wouldn’t trip over anything, and then focused on the Neanderthals again. Still standing there. Waiting. Watching.
He locked eyes with Breaker. The Neanderthal stared at him. Remembering him from the other day with Pyr and Sam? Staring at him because he was outside the walls?
Because he’d been told to watch for him, maybe?
He turned and found the gate. Saw Ross already inside, his hood knocked down around his shoulders. Emerson waved him through.
Noah took one last look over his shoulder and someone grabbed his wrist, yanking him into Roanoke. The door swung closed. The bar dropped.
A few people were already running toward the ladders. He followed. Reached the walkway and looked across the field.
Breaker and the other two Klaa still stood by the trees. Definitely waiting. Noah couldn’t be as sure, but he thought Breaker looked along the wall and stopped to stare at him again.
Pyr appeared by his elbow. “You okay?”
“Is he staring at us?”
“It’s the brow ridge. Shadows their eyes, makes it look like they’re always looking at you.”
“It’s not that.”
Breaker jabbed his heels into his raptor’s side. The dinosaur twisted back and he yanked hard on the reins. The raptor clawed at the ground and took a few slow steps forward.
The other two hung back by the trees as their boss moved toward the wall. Noah couldn’t remember ever seeing a raptor move this slow as a child. It felt like the Neanderthal knew about the stashed spears and bows and was daring the humans to try something. His own weapon hung loose in his hand, but Noah remembered how fast it had moved out in the badlands.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Proclamation,” murmured Pyr. “Every couple of months the Empress sends us a message. Usually a new list of tribute items. Food. Supplies.”
Noah made a small gesture toward Breaker. “And he delivers it?”
“If it’s simple enough he’ll just tell us. Sometimes it’s a written list from her.”
“Written?”
“I told you, she speaks at least a dozen languages. Can write them, too. When Qiang became the elder, she started writing in Chinese.”
Noah had a moment to wonder where Beau might’ve learned Chinese and then Breaker had passed the fields. He shook the reins. The dinosaur shrieked once and stopped a dozen yards from the gate. Its big talons scratched at the path.
Breaker pulled something from the mess of rawhide strings and furs around his waist. A short, pale rod, or maybe part of a branch. Held it out toward Roanoke. His eyes slid across the people gathered along the top of the wall. Glared at Noah again.
The Neanderthal barked out a few quick words. Noah caught want and stranger but not the rest. Too out of practice. He got the scorn though. And the underlying threat. Those came back quick.
Breaker opened his hand and let the rod drop. It bounced off the raptor’s neck, and the way it moved told Noah it was light. Maybe hollow. It hit the ground silently. Breaker didn’t look at it as he turned away. So much confidence and disdain in his movements.
A quick jab with his heels and the raptor broke into a jog, long strides carrying it back to the tree line. Breaker never slowed. The dinosaur dashed between the two flanking Neanderthals and plunged into the forest. The other two turned and followed.
Noah looked down at the white rod. A message from the Empress. Waiting below.
Emerson had opened the gate and stepped outside by the time Noah got back to ground level. He held the rod. A piece of birch bark, maybe, with a thin string of leather looped around it.
Noah cleared his throat. “Is that . . .”
Emerson walked past him and handed the scroll off to Qiang. The elder unrolled the rough paper. His face hardened. He glanced at Noah and let the scroll pull itself back into a cylinder. “Would you walk with me, please?”
They went out the gate and turned left, walking along the wall. Noah glanced out at the forest, the cornfields, the red spacesuit scarecrow. “Is it safe to be out here?”
“I’d say we’re safe for the next day or so. From the Klaa, at least.” He tapped the scroll against his palm. “Pyr says you think the Empress is your sister.”
“I do.”
Qiang handed Noah the scroll.
The bark had been beaten and pressed until it almost felt like heavy construction paper. Noah couldn’t guess how time-consuming it’d been. He pulled it open and it resisted, curling back at the corners.
Your Empress
Demands the presence of the man who claims to be Billy Gather
In her castle
Tomorrow by midday
The handwriting was exquisite. Bordering on calligraphy. The lines were dark and firm, like fine brushwork. He tried to remember what Beau’s handwriting looked like but mostly he pictured big, round teenage girl letters.
He’d looked over the five lines of text at least half a dozen times before Qiang made a polite noise in the back of his throat. “One thing about the Empress is she’s consistent. If she wants to see you tomorrow, she won’t do anything that might stop that from happening. Neither will the Klaa. They don’t want to upset her.”
“Until tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
Noah relaxed his fingers and the bark-paper rolled back into a cylinder. “Why tomorrow?”
“I think you’d call it a power play. She wants to make us wait. She wants you to come to her. She enjoys having her orders followed, even when they’re pointless orders.”
They reached the corner of the wall, went around it. Another field, this one rows and rows of simple stakes holding up thin bean plants, or maybe peas. The people of Roanoke ate a lot better than he had as a kid. Then again, he wasn't sure how much of it went to the Klaa.
“To the best of my knowledge, she’s never asked to see anyone in the Castle before.”
Noah’s heart jumped. “Never?”
“She’s demanded to see newcomers, like she did the other day. But we’re rarely invited into their territory. And never into the Castle. As far as I know. Ross might remember someone.”
“This is good then. She recognizes me. She wants to meet.”
Qiang made the polite noise again. Not a sigh. Not a clearing of the throat. A good, professor-y sound, and it struck Noah that Qiang gave off the same vibes as his dean back at Monrovia University.
He guessed where the conversation was going. “It’s her.”
“How can you know?”
“I mean . . . I can see her. It’s obvious to anyone who knew her.”
“Ross knew her. He’s never once suggested the Empress could be your sister.”
“I know it’s her.”
“Forgive me, Noah, but you also ‘knew’ we were all wrong about the valley and you were the only one who was correct.”
“That was different.”
“Was it?”
Noah tried to think of a simple answer. A quick response. One with more behind it than the solid confidence in his gut. But he knew the first three or four things that came to his mind could all be individually dismissed as coincidences or reaching, and then Qiang spoke again.
“I’ve been here for forty years. I barely remember my family back in China, or even the friends I arrived here with. My whole life’s been in the valley. And the Empress has been here for all of it.”
They took another step and the ground shifted beneath their feet. Earthy farmland to stone. Hundreds and hundreds of smooth, round stones, like a beach in Maine, clicking and shifting beneath their feet. Two more swaths of space and time butting up against each other.
Qiang noticed him looking at the stones. “It appeared about twenty-five years ago. All those and a few hundred thousand liters of seawater. One of the loudest things I’ve ever heard. And we still can’t get anything to grow out here. Too much salt.” He gestured past the stones to a barren swath of ground that looked like gray sand dotted with a few scraggly patches of grass.
“My sister . . .”
Qiang made the dean sound again. “You know, everyone here knows your name. Everyone here owes their lives to you and your family, one way or another. Beau more than any of you. Surviving here over four years, with only Ross for the last two.”
“She’s still—”
A quick gesture from Qiang silenced him. The man really had all the professor tricks down. “The Empress, on the other hand, is a brutal dictator. I’ve seen her kill as many of her own people as ours. With her own hands. I couldn’t even guess how many people were doomed just by arriving on the wrong side of the valley. Confused about where they were and how they got here, and then brutally killed for ‘violating’ Klaa territory. A few times, out in the forest, I’ve heard screams and wondered . . .”
He sighed. Shook his head. Made a point of not meeting Noah’s eyes as they turned another corner.
“For a few years now, Emerson and Neith have pushed to kill her.”
“What?!”
A calming hand from Qiang. “We’ve always said no. The risk is too great. If the Empress dies, the Klaa will turn to B’Kar.”
“But he’s a man.”
“And until they determine a new matriarch, who will they turn to? The right hand of the Empress. He’s been her lieutenant for the past decade, and he’s as bad as her.”
“They’re people. Just like us.”
“Yes, people. Like us. People do ridiculous, horrible things all the time, Noah. You know this. Especially when they’re scared and their leader tells them to. And this place . . . this place scares the Klaa just as much as it scares all of us. They don’t understand it, but they know it’s unnatural.”
“Thank you. For not letting them kill her.”
“The Empress is vicious. Hateful. Selfish. In every way the opposite of what we’ve been told Beau Gather was like.”
“It is. The opposite of what she’s like.”
Qiang shook his head. “No, Noah. This is who’s asking to meet you. There’s half a chance the Klaa will kill you as soon as you walk into their territory. An excellent chance she’ll kill you herself the moment you say something that annoys her.”
“She won’t.”
“I’d like to think that, but I must be honest. From my point of view, I’m letting you walk into the lion’s den. Every encounter I’ve ever had with her, every story I’ve ever heard, going back centuries, tells me the most likely outcome is we’ll never see you again.”
“I appreciate your concern.”
“Oh, it’s not about you, Noah. I’m looking out for my people. My friends. The truth is, your return’s brought a lot of life and energy back here. But by the same token, it would crush many of them to find out Billy Gather returned here only to be killed by the Empress.”
“She’s not going to kill me.”
“I wish I shared your confidence.”
A waft of something awful and familiar struck him in the face. Big herbivore waste. Hard to forget that smell. They had to be getting close to whatever corral the farmers kept their styracosaurs in.
“What about this,” he said. “You’re absolutely certain I’m wrong?”
“I probably wouldn’t say ‘absolutely’ but . . . yes. I’m certain.”
“Have you considered what it means if I’m right?”
Qiang finally met his eyes.
“You’re right. I don’t know what’s happened here over the past four hundred years. I don’t know how things shifted. How the Neanderthals became so aggressive. How she came to rule them. How she became so . . . terrible. But if I remind her of who she was, who we were, think about what it could mean for the valley.”
“Go on.”
“There could be peace. My sister isn’t a bad person. Not at heart.”
Qiang sighed. “Noah, I’m afraid you’re missing the point. Even if the Empress was Beau at one point, I don’t believe there’s anything of your sister left in her.”
39
JOSH
Josh found them all one by one around dinnertime and asked them to come to Monique’s cottage. He told them Olivia had improved, but didn’t want to say much more than that. Easier for them to see it.
He’d been playing word games with Olivia for a lot of the day. Trying to see how she responded. How she could respond. It made him feel like a World War II codebreaker. Or maybe Amy Adams in Arrival. Normally a little too hard sci-fi for his taste, but now it paid off.
Olivia seemed happy for the company, but still looked a little worried and confused. She’d be talking with him—trying to talk with him—and then it was like she suddenly remembered where they were. She’d look all around the room like she expected the walls to close in on her, or monsters to crawl out of the ceiling. The kind of behavior a small dose of alprazolam could do wonders for, if he’d had any. Instead, he’d talk to her some more, calm her down, and she’d start babbling out more random words.
And then, a few hours after lunch, they had her big breakthrough. They’d worked on it for another hour before he’d called Monique to join them, and maybe an hour later he’d gone to collect everyone. And now they were all here in the largeish room inside her front door with the chairs and couch, what he’d first considered the waiting room, but Monique had since referred to as her parlor.
Olivia sat on the couch, wrapped in an old quilt. Monique sat next to her, ready to end things if she felt it got to be too much. Sam and Parker sat in some of the other chairs. Noah stood by the door with his android. Apparently he was heading out again tomorrow so the album cover Empress could kill him.
Josh pressed his hands together, realized he was starting to make a presentation, forced himself to put his arms at his side. He looked at Olivia. “Do you still feel up to this?”
“Yes truth positive correct confirmed accurate.”
Everyone straightened up. Sam smiled. “Hey, she’s making sense. Are you feeling better?”
“Self recovery problem partial improvement difficulty.”
“Still doing the backward-alphabetical thing,” Noah observed.
“And still six words.” Parker frowned.
Josh shook his head, held up his hands. Presentation after all. “No, no, no. Sorry. I see where it looks that way. I should’ve explained a little more up-front.”
They all looked at him. Waited. Even the android.
“So, I’ve been talking to her all day, and it’s pretty clear Olivia can understand us, she’s just having trouble responding. Or saying anything. Her brain’s this big jumble and she can’t find the right words or get them in the right order.”
Parker nodded. “That’s what we’d already figured.”
“Right. And she and I worked on it all morning and couldn’t find a way around it. Too many random words, essentially in random order, it’s too many . . .” He waved his hands, encouraging them to finish it for him. To get them involved.
“Too many variables,” said Noah.
“Right.”
Sam shook his head. “It’s not random though. It’s alphabetical. Backward.”
