Breathless (34 page)

Cammy said, “Puzzle and Riddle. They weren’t made in some lab.”

“No,” Lamar agreed. “Humankind has never created a new life form and will never have the knowledge to do so. We can selectively breed, modify, but not create. And your Puzzle and Riddle … they’re
new.”

Perhaps sensing that he was no longer the wonder at the center of their attention, Merlin wandered off, sniffing the floor for the scents of his missing pals.

“Then where did they come from?” Cammy pressed.

Lamar shrugged. “Taking a strictly materialist point of view, their sudden appearance suggests some mechanism entirely different from evolution through natural selection. In the Cambrian period, at some point during a five-million-year window, which is as close as we can calculate it, a hundred new phyla appeared, thousands of species. They could have appeared steadily throughout that period—or in an instant, for all we know. No phyla have appeared since. No new phyla have
evolved
. Today, only thirty phyla remain, the rest having become extinct. Now maybe we have thirty-one.”

“So what are you saying?” Cammy asked. “That one minute, Puzzle and Riddle didn’t exist—and the next minute they did?”

“I’m a mathematician and a scientist, and from that materialist perspective, I’ve told you what there is to tell about the origins of those two stunning creatures. To give you an answer that makes any practical sense, I have to turn away from materialism and turn to intuition, to that knowledge with which we’re born and from which we seem to flee most of our lives. T. S. Eliot wrote, ‘What you do not know is the only thing you know.’ What I do not know is where Puzzle and Riddle came from or how they got from there to here. But what I believe is that one moment they were inert matter or perhaps not even matter but only concepts, existed only as thought—one moment breathless, the next moment breathing.”

A noise drew their attention to the back door, which opened.

F
rom the cage to the table to the floor, Puzzle and Riddle descend, fearing neither capture nor harm of any kind. They trust in the wit they have been given and in the covenant that has been made with them.

They cross to the closed portal in the eastern wall of the room, through which no one ever enters and no one ever leaves. The way out is zippered shut, the pull-tab resting on the floor. Puzzle pulls the tab up, and the wall becomes a door.

She steps with Riddle out of strong light into night, into early moonlight, as only the previous day they had stepped out of infinity into the finite, from out of time into time. She has no memory of her creation, but of suddenly existing and filled with elation. She is here for a reason, and her life in time must be well-lived to ensure that she lives again outside of time. This she knows.

On all fours, they hurry around the place in which they were caged, across the grass on which so recently they played, to the steps and to the door.

They would rap, but the door is unlocked. They enter from the dark into the light, where the fearless gentle good dog greets them with delight. And the three people abruptly rise from chairs, Cammy and Grady, and the one who cried when he took their hands through the cage bars.

Puzzle approaches Cammy to return the short blade she used to extract the cage bolts, and Cammy drops to her knees. She is full of grace, it shines in her, and yet somewhere she is sad inside. This Puzzle knows.

As Cammy takes the offered blade, Grady says, “Mom’s old cheese spreader. She loved that Santa Claus handle.”

Having listened to many people talking, having listened well and closely, Puzzle believes that time has brought them to the next path, to the next step, as time always will. She looks at Riddle, and Riddle looks at her—and, yes, the time has come.

To Cammy, Puzzle says, “You are clear, so clear, and good and beautiful. You are a strong, strong light.”

P
ART
T
HREE
Life in Death

A
turning point in the history of science and of humanity, the passing of one great theory and eventually the devising of another: That was one thing, that was a major event, but the moment Puzzle spoke,
major event
became an inadequate description, and even the word
singularity
, used as scientists used it, would not suffice.

Cammy was no less shaken by what Puzzle said to her than by the fact that Puzzle spoke in the first place. The creature’s voice was mellifluous, the sweet voice of a child, and with her strange eyes, she seemed to see to the heart of Cammy, as a child sometimes can see a truth to which adults have willfully blinded themselves.

When Riddle spoke to Grady in the equally musical voice of a young boy—” Please don’t be afraid. We would never devour you in your sleep”—the clock began ticking and their course was set. No discussion was necessary between her, Grady, and Lamar; they knew in the instant that they could not allow Paul Jardine and Homeland Security to keep these creatures secret from the world.

This was not merely the event of the century. This was perhaps
the most significant event of a millennium. The future of humanity, the paths that mankind followed and the choices it made, would be affected by this event in more ways than she could imagine. No one, no bureaucrat or king, no institution, no government, had the right to deny this news to the world.

They couldn’t hide the two anywhere here and hope to ride out the search, for the search would not end until Puzzle and Riddle were found. Jardine had considerable manpower at his disposal, and he had as well the laser polygraph.

“The scientific team’s at dinner in the mess tent,” Lamar said. “Then they’re scheduled to stay there for at least an hour to blue-sky this as a group. As long as the guard at the tent doesn’t glance inside and see the cage empty, we’ve got a couple hours before the alarm bells.”

“We can’t drive out, no way,” Grady said. “Two guards at every house on Cracker’s Drive, to see us going past. And then an entire contingent, a roadblock most likely, at the intersection with the state route. If we didn’t stop, if we tried to run it, I think they’d shoot the tires out,
at least
the tires. If we use four-wheel drive, go overland, they’ll hear us, even see us in this moon, and cut us off.”

No phones, no text-messaging devices, no computers with Internet access were available to get a message out. Besides, there was no way to describe Puzzle and Riddle that would convince and energize anyone who hadn’t seen them.

“Going overland in any direction, I mean on foot,” Cammy said, “where’s the nearest house? The MacDermotts’?”

Grady shook his head. “That’s over two miles through some rough territory, ravines and rockslides.”

Sitting prairie-dog style, Puzzle and Riddle flanked Merlin, each
with an arm across his back. The three of them listened to the big furless folks, heads cocked one way and then the other.

Grady said, “The Carlyle place is a mile and a half, and that way is all deer paths through easy woods and a meadow or two, before you come to their open fields.”

“Jim and Nora Carlyle? I take care of their horses. They’re good people, and they’re smart. When they see Puzzle and Riddle, they’ll understand what’s at stake, they’ll let us use one of their vehicles. Then we drive out from there, and we’re past all the guards, the roadblocks.”

Lamar said, “I should stay here, do what I can to delay them from discovering you’ve gone, then confuse and misdirect them. Chaos is what I do.”

“No,” Grady said. “Jardine knows about me in the army, so he knows about me and Marcus, so he probably knows about the connection between you and me by now. You’ll grow old and die in the slammer. Your best hope is to stay with us all the way until we can present Puzzle and Riddle to the TV cameras, when and wherever we’re able to do that.”

“What about these shoes? Will I make it in these shoes, maybe slow you down?”

“Aren’t those Rockports? Sure, you’ll be fine. We aren’t rock climbing, just walking in the woods.”

“I’ve never been a walking-in-the-woods kind of guy, but I’ll do my best, I’ll keep up with you.”

“Will there be guards between us and the woods?”

“Yes,” said Lamar. “Definitely.”

“We’ll know,” Puzzle said. “We see everything in the dark, all the way to the bottom of the night.”

To Cammy, Grady said, “I’ll grab a jacket. Collar Merlin for me. We can use flashlights when we’re so far into the woods no one here can see them, but for some distance, when the branches are too thick to let the moonlight in, we might need Merlin on a leash to lead us. He knows the paths that way, it’s one of our favorite walks.”

Cammy slipped into her jacket, collared Merlin, and clipped the leash to the collar.

Standing at the door, ready to open it, Lamar Woolsey said, “Too bad I don’t have time to run a probability analysis on this plan of yours. I have a nasty feeling, there’s chaos brewing in it.”

Puzzle said, “What is leads to what will be, and all will be well if we do what is right.”

Lamar nodded. “If you say so.”

“She did,” Riddle told him. “She said so. And she’s right. Never fear the future. Whatever happens, the future is the only way back.”

The novelty of hearing them talk was probably years away from wearing off, and Cammy listened, rapt. “The only way back to what?”

“Back to where we belong forever,” said Riddle. “The future is the one path out of time into eternity.”

Grady returned with three flashlights. “Are we ready?”

“Absolutely,” Lamar said. “The coach just gave us a pep talk, and we’re in gear for action. I’ll scout the way.”

Lamar stepped onto the back porch, leaving the door open, and after a moment motioned for them to follow him.

I
n Jim’s cramped study, Henry Rouvroy put down the hand grenade, looked over the books on the shelves, and removed the volume of his brother’s haiku.

The noise in the attic faded away. He took no comfort in the silence. He knew the rapping-out of meter on a ceiling beam would soon resume.