Sideshow (10 page)

had a larger trailer back home, one they had bought when they stopped sharing with Aunt Sizzy. This small one seemed suddenly very crowded, overwhelmed with aroma and presence.
“To what do we owe the honor of meeting you?” asked Nela, deciding simultaneously on participation and formality.
Celery considered this for a moment. “You are the most … the most similar-to-us being with language we have found on this planet. Since we are constrained by the death of our late, illustrious, much valued comrade to provide your planet a Boon, we sought a similar-to-us to hear our offer. Our sensitivity is so great, we cannot deal with those who are not similar to us.”
Nela and Bertran didn’t need to look at one another to share the questions both of them felt. Bertran’s left arm was across Nela’s shoulders, where it usually was. Nela’s hands were folded in her lap. Their thighs were pressed together, not too tightly. Their heart beat as one. Their breathing was slow, controlled. They understood one another’s feelings completely.
“Explain, please,” asked Bertran. “We don’t quite understand.”
“We share certain attributes,” said Celery, its gesture including them and itself. “The persons on this planet are, almost without exception and regrettably, singular, isolated, unable to fully empathize. You are not singular, not isolated. Neither are we, though in appearance we may seem so. While you are side-by-side, we are some-in-one, eventually many-in-one. Our own experience assures us it is the correct way to be!”
Bertran struggled with this concept and decided to let it pass for the moment. “What is this Boon?” he asked.
“I will utter in greater detail.” Celery scrunched slightly, achieving a more recurved configuration. “We are a people who have only recently been granted the great concession by the powers.”
“Great concession?” asked Nela.
“Permission to leave our galaxy. Permission to … expand.”
“You need permission?” she said disbelievingly. “From whom?”
Celery gestured vaguely. “You … you lack the concept. I search your language in vain. I find words: ‘quarantine,’ ‘border
guards,’ ‘Ellis Island,’ ‘immigration,’ ‘quota’ … None of them are right. You must simply accept what I say. We have only recently received permission to travel. Now we are on our way. You would call us, perhaps, pilgrims. Pilgrims to the holy land.”
“I see,” said Nela, who did not see.
“When in the course of our journey a comrade dies—as is inevitable, for all life hath an end—when our comrade dies, it is our custom to memorialize by providing a Boon to the nearest inhabited place. One Boon. One thing that, in our judgment, will be of greatest value to the inhabitants.”
“You can do this? Provide this … this Boon? Something of value?”
“We have done so from time to time.”
“World peace? Immortality?”
“We have done peace, yes. World peace is simple. We identify all inhabitants whose racial or tribal loyalties take precedence over their planetary ones and eliminate them. Peace inevitably results. Immortality, however, is one of the exceptions.”
Bertran and Nela shared a glance. “Exceptions?” Bertran asked.
“We do not regard immortality as a Boon. Theoretically, it is possible. Philosophically, we consider it an abomination. Also, in multiracial worlds we do not regard extermination of any intelligent race as a Boon, though other races might consider it so. We would not eradicate all your aboriginal humans or all your cetaceans, for example, not that you do not seem to be doing that very well on your own. And we do not regard sharing our knowledge as a Boon, except in limited fashion. If we were, for example, to decide upon the cure of some disease as the Boon for your planet, we would share enough of our methods to provide the cure, but only that. We ourselves have no disease. Unlike your race, which would perish utterly without disease to control its prolificacy, we no longer have use for it.”
Nela said, “Nobody is going to believe this.”
Bertran nodded. “She’s right. Nobody is. I can see it now. ‘Freaks Claim Contact by UFO!’ ‘Aliens Invade Big Top.’”
“Oh, we know you’d be disbelieved,” said Celery. “We have relied upon that and upon your pragmatic realization of that fact. We do not want to be known. Searched for. Noticed. We are pilgrims, not visitors. Our destination is far from here.
Only the necessity of memorializing our dead comrades brings us into contact with other races at all.”
Bertran shook his head. “Then why come to us? Why involve any of the inhabitants?”
Celery looked embarrassed. Afterward, Nela tried to decide what about the creature had made her think of embarrassment. Perhaps the slight flush of green about the features. Perhaps the slight jerkiness of motion in the limbs.
“We have already decided upon the Boon for your planet. However, we are going … a long way. We hope to be on time for a particular event that, our great prognosticators tell us, will occur in foreseeable time. If we stay to accomplish the Boon, we may get sadly out of phase. It has been suggested that you might accomplish the thing for us, without compromising our journey, for a suitable reward.”
“Accomplish what?” Nela’s mouth fell open. She found herself unable to imagine anything she might do that would benefit the world.
Celery scrunched itself once again. “Shortly, within the year, on your planet will manifest a thing originating from a great distance. Let me see. How shall I make it clear to you? Another race of creatures—a race your people will know, in the future, as the Arbai—have adjacently established a transportation and communication network that is spreading automatically throughout the galaxy even though the Arbai, so we believe, either already are or are about to be extinct. The Arbai envisioned a universe unified by their network. One of the, ah, way stations? Nodes? Gateways? Doors? One of whatever you choose to call them will manifest itself on this planet shortly.”
Nela caught her breath. “How marvelous!”
Celery nodded, then shook itself, saying yes, no. “Indeed. The Arbai, though a people of inflexible philosophy, have subtle and wonderful intelligences regarding the natural universe. They are capable of marvelous things. But, no, this gateway will not be marvelous for you Earthians, for if it is left here, it will first contribute to great unrest among all the people of Earth, after which it will allow a plague to enter that will exterminate the human race.”
They stared for some moments, trying to absorb this. “How do you know?”
“Prognostication is our science. We are very good at it. Not perfect. Nothing is ever perfect. But we know of the
Arbai and of their network. And we have seen with our science certain consequences that have happened or will happen. We speak a close approximation of truth when we say the way station, the gate, the door, must be closed if your race is to continue. A close approximation to truth is the best that can be achieved. To anticipate the opening of the door, to close it before mankind ever becomes aware of it, this is the Boon we provide.”
“And you want
us
to close it?”
“We will give you the means. A simple matter. The door will open near where you will be at the time. It will not inconvenience you. And we will reward you for your help.”
“How?” Bertran asked bluntly. “How? What will you offer us?”
“What would you like? Riches? Your people enjoy riches. A long life? We can offer that.” “Could you separate us?”
The creature before them shivered all over, as though stricken by cold. It made a gagging noise and bent awkwardly in the middle, shaking again, then composing itself with seeming difficulty. “No,” it gasped. “We would regard that as an obscenity. We came to you because you are, as we are, multiple. Would one of us willingly separate? Would we commit such an atrocity of isolation upon one of our kind? We cannot even discuss matters with separated persons!”
Nela started to say something, but Bertran laid his hand over hers.
“If you were attempting to discomfit me, you have succeeded,” the being muttered. “I should not be offended. Undoubtedly I discomfited you. Let us proceed gently.”
Bertran asked, “Do we have to decide about the reward now? You’ve given us very little notice.”
“No,” Celery said, pulling itself into rigidity once more. “No. We can grant your wish later on, even from a great distance. Be as quick about it as you comfortably can, but leave it for now.”
This time it was Nela who spoke. “What do you want us to do?”
The matter was simple enough. Celery repeated it several times, being sure they understood it completely. The thing would manifest itself at a time and place foreseen. The twins would be there when it happened. They would fasten upon it a device, and the door would demanifest. The world would be
saved. No one would know. Later, when they decided, the twins could request their reward.
“Discuss your reward,” suggested Celery. “State it in words, clearly, saying what you mean. Then speak it into the transmitter I will leave with you and smash the transmitter against some durable surface. We will get the message.”
“One reward for both of us?” asked Bertran, wondering if, perhaps, he might achieve a personal desire that Nela did not share. Once. Just once.
It was not to be.
“One for both of you, when you agree,” the thing confirmed, with obvious distaste, as though asking the question had again transgressed a taboo. It fell silent, as though thinking. When it spoke again it was in a tone conveying both grief and pride. “This Boon will be the m#dk’clm*tbl [Muh-gurgle-duhk-click-cullum-rasp-tubble] memorial. m#dk’clm*tbl was not only a great friendship but a related aggregation. We have warm memories of them/it. This Boon will be suitable, in memory of very great camaraderie.”
It gave them the device, a thing about the size of a lipstick. It told them how, when, and where to use it. It gave them another, slightly smaller device, the transmitter. It got up, bowed or nodded, went out the door, stumbled down the steps, strolled across the hard-packed earth of the parking area and around behind the Mangini trailer. It did not emerge from the other side. Bertran and Nela went out to look. There was no one behind the Mangini trailer. There was nothing there at all but the trampoline frame and the practice trapeze rig where the youngest Mangini daughter, Serafina, spent her mornings training to do multiple somersaults.
“Do we believe this?” asked Nela wonderingly.
“Does it matter?” asked Bertran in return. “Even if we don’t, should we take the chance on not doing it? Celery said he was sure the world would die….”
“Remember Sister Jean Luc?” asked Nela suddenly.
“Yes. Of course.”
“Remember what she told us, about God needing us for something. The creature talked to us because we are as we are, Berty. If we’d been ordinary, he wouldn’t have talked to us at all. Perhaps …”
“You think this is what God’s purpose is?” asked Bertran. He didn’t mean his question to sound ironic or cynical, and yet it did, a little.
“Why not?” she demanded. “Good Lord, Berty, saving the world and all its people is a fairly big thing, wouldn’t you say. Reason enough….”
He hugged her. “Reason enough,” he agreed, tears in his throat. Why didn’t he believe it?
They went back into their wagon, shutting the door behind them, leaving the parking area untenanted except for a strolling cat who stared at the sign on the side of the wagon without interest or comprehension. “Bertran and Nela Zy-Czorsky, the Eighth Wonder of the World!”
“You were here in the Swale all day yesterday,” Zasper said to Fringe, offering her half the fried berry pie he’d just bought from a passing cart. “Don’t you ever go home?”
“I told you before about how Ari’s sister came to visit. She’s a real old lady.”
“Ah?”
“I mean, she’s really old, Zasper. Everybody said it was just for a visit, but she’s not going anywhere else because she doesn’t have anywhere to go.”
“Where did she come from?”
“One of the Seldom Isles, I think. Something dreadful happened there, and most everyone died.”
Zasper nodded, his lips tight. Yes, indeed. Something horrible and inexplicable had happened there, quite recently, and no one had been able to find out how, or why. Enforcers had been sent and come back paler than usual. No one had figured it out.
Not noticing his distraction, Fringe went on, “Yesterday, Ari got this old room module for her to live in and put it out behind the house.” She pursed her lips. “I mean, he stole it.”
Zasper drew his mind back to the conversation and elicited the story. Everyone in the family knew the module was stolen. There had been a yelling match between Char and the Tromses, at the end of which Fringe, with a fine show of indifference, insisted on moving into the module herself, “So Aunty and Nada could be together.”
The two old women had always hated one another (Ari had confided this to Fringe, laughing heartily over it), but angry as Char was, everyone was keeping quiet, so by the time Char and Souile had calmed down enough to pay attention, Fringe was already moved.
“Nobody’s going to find the module there, behind our house,” Fringe said. “The local Enforcers aren’t going to find it. It’s so banged up, I’ll bet they aren’t even looking. I said I liked it, I told them all really, I like it.”
“Do you like it?” asked Zasper when she finished her tale.
She sighed. “Well, it’s real little. And it’s pretty drafty. And the saniton doesn’t always work.”
“But?”
“But what?”
“But something, Fringe. Your voice had a but in it.”
“But, it’s better to have a space of my own.” Far better than trying to hold on to her sense of herself in a room with one or both of the old women. Nada filled whatever space she was in, leaving no air for anyone else to breathe. Adding Aunty made a suffocation. Fringe felt herself smothering. The two old ones hawked and sniffed and got up and down all night long. Their bits and pieces littered every surface. They bickered with each other, and when they tired of picking at each other, they pecked at Fringe.
Aren’t you finished with that schoolwork? Turn off the Files. Turn off the light. What’s that funny noise you’re making. Quit coughing. Quit chewing your fingers. Quit picking your nose. What are you doing under the covers? Your clothes are on the floor! You’d think you were a boy, the way you leave your stuff around for other people to pick up!
Either that, or they talked about her as though she weren’t there.
Look at that outfit. She looks like the pig’s dinner. Miss Professional, tryin’ to be like the Dorwalks; thinks she’s something, don’t she? Chaffer can’t change its shell; pig can’t change its smell; she’s in for a surprise.