Dead Space: Martyr (16 page)

“We’ve met before,” said Ada. “You’ve told me your stories. Don’t you remember?”

The man looked at her with his watery eyes but did not answer. After a long moment, he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He stayed like that for long enough that Altman wondered if he hadn’t fallen asleep.

Suddenly he asked in Spanish, “What are your names?”

“Michael Altman,” said Altman. “This is my girlfriend, Ada Cortez. What is your name?”

The man ignored the question. “Thank you for the drinks,” he said, his Spanish excessively polite. He turned to Ada. “Cortez, a good, vigorous Spanish name, but not one my people care for, for reasons that you must know. We have a very long memory. You must not hold it against us.”

Ada nodded.

“Ada, from Hebrew, meaning ‘adornment.’ It is a lovely name for a woman as beautiful as you. Centuries ago, it was the name of the daughter of a notorious and handsome club-footed poet. And, a century or more later, the name, too, of a book by a famous writer.”

“How do you know this?” asked Ada.

“Names were a hobby of mine,” the man said. “Before drinking became my only hobby.”

He turned back to Altman. “Michael, the name of the archangel on God’s right hand. Are you a religious man, Michael?”

“No,” said Altman. “I am not.”

“Then we shall refer to you not as Michael but as Altman. The name Altman, it is German, is it not?”

“Yes,” said Altman. “But I’m from the North American sector.”

“You do not have a German face,” the man said. “I hope it
does not offend you that I say this. What places are there in you?”

“I’m a mongrel,” said Altman evasively. “A mix of everything.”

“I can see from your face that you are one of us as well,” said the drunk. “The devil thinks he knows you, but he does not know all of you.”

“My mother was part Indian,” Altman admitted. “I don’t know what tribe.”

“I would say she was of our tribe,” said the drunk.

“I don’t know,” said Altman.

“What?” said Ada. “Your mother was part Indian? You’ve never told me that before.”

“She didn’t like to talk about it,” said Altman. “I don’t know why. I don’t think about it often.”

“You are here for a reason,” the man said.

“I came here with Ada,” said Altman.

“That may very well be,” said the man. “But that is not the reason.”

“And what is the reason?”

The man smiled. “Your name,” he said. “Altman.
Alt
meaning ‘old,’
mann,
with two
n
’s, meaning ‘man.’ You are not an old man. You are a young man. Can you explain this to me?”

“It’s just a name,” said Altman.

“You understand the importance of a name only once you have lost yours. As I have.” He leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes.

“There is perhaps another meaning,” he said.
Alt
could mean ‘ancient,’ but that is not so different from ‘old.’
Altman
might be an ‘old man’ or an ‘old servant’ or, if I am not taking too many liberties, a ‘wise man.’ ” He opened his eyes again, gave Altman
an intense stare, his eyes glittering in the crosslight from the flash beam. “Which one shall it be for you?”

They sat in silence. Again, Altman thought the drunk had fallen asleep.

“Ready to go?” he asked Ada.

“If you buy me another drink,” said the drunk quietly. “I will tell you what I know.”

“About what?” asked Altman.

“About the thing you have been asking of all over the town.” He crossed his fingers. “About the tail of the devil.”

Here we are,
said the old man, sipping his drink,
living on the edge of the place where the devil dug down to hell, leaving only his tail behind. Perhaps you do not believe this to be true,
he said.
You, Altman, are no believer. But I have come to tell you that it is we, it is you and I and the other Yucatec Maya, who have been called to watch over the devil and to drive him back to hell whenever he appears.

This is not the only body burned on the beach. My father told me of others. He had not seen them and his grandfather had not seen them, and his great-grandfather had not seen them, but perhaps his great-great-grandfather had. Or if not him, some ancestor before. There is a clock ticking within the devil’s tail, a clock that measures the hour in its own way and judges us accordingly. When the hour is ready, the devil’s tail awakens. Its curse sends our dead back onto our shores and into our heads. We destroy the messengers on the shores, and plead with those in our heads to put the tail back asleep, we are not ready to listen to it.

We do not talk of this with strangers. But you are only partly a stranger, so perhaps it is not wrong to talk to you. And I myself have become a man with no name, so it no longer matters what I do or whom I tell. For how can I be punished if I do not have a name? When I heard your name and in it heard that you were a wise man, I told myself I would speak.

I saw the creature with my own eyes. Had I a name and children, I would tell my name to them, and have them memorize it, just as my father had me do, so that they could tell their own children, and their children’s children. Such is the way we learn and understand. Such is the way we remember.

I saw the creature with my own eyes. It was like a man but it was not a man. Where a man would have had separate legs and arms, its legs had joined with its arms and there was no parting them. Where a man would have a face, this creature had a hole. Where a man would have a cage of ribs to frame him, the ribs of this creature’s back had opened and curled upon themselves in a scroll. Where a man has lungs that obey him and keep the same shape and form, the creature had lungs that kept swelling and swelling, rising from its back like nothing so much as an inflating balloon.

How can this be? It is not the same creature that my father told me of and made me memorize, but another. Bodies do not do what this creature did. And when it breathed air in, the air it breathed out was not the same. The air had been bled of its life and become noxious and stinking, and choking.

There are rituals associated with the appearance of the devil or his minions, ways of driving the devil out. There are forgotten languages that can be spoken and that are remembered in time of need, that the dead come whisper in our ears. This time it was a boy who led us, a boy who understood what he was doing almost not at all. There are dances and measured steps that one can take to contain the darkness. Each stage of the dance is a stage of the development of life and as we dance the development of life, the creature becomes caught in them and becomes vulnerable. When it is tight in the trap, then we destroy it.

But there is one thing that I saw about this creature that I would not put in the stories, that I would not tell to my children, did I have them, and for this reason I could not bring myself to dance with the others. One thing I saw that I cannot make fit with the stories I have heard and which I can only drive away by telling it to you. There, on what would be its arm—were it human—was a tattoo. It was a tattoo I had seen before, in a bar a few weeks before, on the arm of a sailor sitting at the bar beside me. In his cups he showed me his tattoo, the image of a woman riding on a wave, the sun cupped in her hand, the workmanship very fine. The next day he was gone, shipped out, and then his tattoo reappeared on the creature that we burned on the beach.

Now tell me this, Altman. Tell me this, wise man, if that is what you are and not an old servant instead. Was the tattoo there because the creature, through a power known only to itself, had stolen it? Or was the tattoo there because the creature had not always been a creature? Was the tattoo there because the creature had once been a man?

On the way home, his arm wrapped protectively around Ada’s shoulders, both of them silent, he felt like there was too much moving around in his head, too much to consider. He tried to tell himself that he didn’t believe the old man’s story, that it was simply a fantasy, but he had seen the remains. He simultaneously couldn’t believe and couldn’t
not
believe, which made him feel like he was carrying a whole heavy indecipherable world in his head. He needed to do something. To forget about this entirely or do something.

Back at the house, after he got ready for bed and was waiting for Ada to come out of the bathroom, he switched on the newsfeed and set it for voice. Nothing interesting. Trade negotiations between the Scandinavian sector and the Russian sector. DAM
announcing that it had developed and patented a new genetically modified wheat that was even better than the previous genetically modified wheat, and that it would soon be available for purchase. Problems with drug smugglers a hundred miles down the coast: a brief vid of a drifting empty boat, its deck slick with blood. The death of William Tanner, manager for DredgerCorp Chicxulub, formerly known as Ecodyne.

“Go back,” he said.

The holo flipped back to the drug dealer story, opened it up.

“No,” he said. “One later.”

William Tanner, manager for DredgerCorp Chicxulub, formerly known as Ecodyne, was found dead this morning, an apparent suicide. According to local police, his body was discovered at nine thirty this morning with its throat slit, after Tanner failed to report to work at the DredgerCorp facility. A knife was found in his right hand. The police have not yet stated whether this knife was the instrument he used to kill himself. Though it is unusual for someone to commit suicide by slitting their own throat, it is not unheard of. Said Sergeant Ramos, “Though there is every indication that Mr. Tanner committed suicide, we cannot yet rule out the possibility of homicide.” There has been a marked rise in suicide in Chicxulub and environs over the last several weeks, including—

“Off,” he said.

The feed stopped. He sat heavily on the bed. One more thing to hold suspended in his head: Could be murder, could be suicide. He couldn’t tell Ada about it, not so soon after their fight, not so soon after Hammond’s death. It would just make her try to stop him.
It’s not that I’m lying to her,
he told himself.
I’m just trying to protect her.
Ada climbed in beside him and he kissed her, feeling guilty the whole time. Then he turned off the light and braced himself for the nightmares to begin.

30

Lenny Small, president of DredgerCorp, was still sleeping when the vid-link went active. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he became aware of it. At first he thought it was the maid, talking on her phone, and he yelled, “For God’s sake, shut the hell up and get the hell out!” putting the pillow over his head.

“Wake up, Small,” said a voice. It was a deep gravelly voice, a certain edge to it. Definitely not the maid.

Curious, he peeked out from under the pillow. The voice was coming from the holoscreen.

“Oh, it’s you, Markoff,” he said.

“Damn right it’s me,” said the man on the screen. Craig Markoff had white hair, slightly longer than a military man usually had, carefully combed back and gelled in place. He had an imposing, square-cut jaw and steady, ice blue eyes. He was wearing the dress uniform and insignia of government intelligence. As with all intelligence agents, his rank was not indicated even on his dress uniform.

Small stretched. He moved to the edge of the bed and got out, naked, quickly slipping into his robe. Real silk, not synthetic. Because of environmental legislation, he had had to smuggle it into
the North American sector. This had cost him a small fortune, but damned if he could tell the difference.

He looked out the penthouse window and sighed. “Can’t it wait until I’ve had my coffee?” he asked.

“We have a situation. Tanner’s dead.”

Instantly, Small was focused, his gaze alert, mind sparking. “How’d he die?”

“Killed himself.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Markoff. “Guilt, perhaps.”

“Not possible,” said Small. “I’ve known the bastard for twenty years. He’s handled much worse than this Chicxulub thing without batting an eye. You sure he wasn’t killed?”

“I’m certain,” said Markoff. “I had a camera installed in his room. He’s just chatting away to himself and then he cuts his own throat. You can watch the vid of his death if you’d like.”

Small winced. “No thanks,” he said.

Markoff shrugged. “Suit yourself. I have a script for you,” said Markoff. “Things that you can and can’t say about his death. I want you to memorize it.”

“Word for word? I’ve never been much good at memorization. It’ll sound canned.”

“The gist is fine,” said Markoff. “Put it in your own words.”

“Working with you is like making a deal with the devil,” said Small. “No question as to who’s in charge.” He waited, but Markoff didn’t say anything. “All right,” Small said. “Send it over.”

Markoff spun the script through the holoscreen. Small left it unopened. He’d deal with it later, after his coffee.

“Anything else?” asked Small. “Or can I have my coffee now?”

“One other thing,” said Markoff. “The signal pulse has stopped.”

“It’s stopped? What does that mean? What do we do?”

“The gravity anomaly is still there. The object is still in place. It’s just no longer signaling.”

“Do you think that it’s broken? Maybe those two bastards damaged it when they went down there.”

“I don’t think so,” said Markoff. “If that were the case, it would have stopped a few days ago instead of now. No, I don’t think that’s it. Something else has happened. Or it’s made a decision to stop on its own.”

“You talk about it as if it were sentient,” said Small.

“It may be,” said Markoff. “I’m sure it’ll surprise us in more ways than one.”

“You really think you can control it?”

“I’ve never met anything I can’t control,” said Markoff. “Present company included. I don’t see any reason to think this will be an exception.”

“So, signal pulse or no, proceed as planned?”