Eye and Talon (38 page)

As Iris watched, the man started walking across the luminous sands toward her; the owl remained on his raised arm. When the dark figure had approached only a few yards closer, Iris realized that there was someone else with him, a smaller figure walking at his side; a child.

Both figures, separate now in her gaze, strode unhurriedly toward her. When they reached the toppled section of fence, the man had to stretch his free hand toward the child and help her across; Iris could see that it was a girl, with dark hair drawn back into a single braid. With the gun dangling loose in her hand, Iris waited as they crossed the interior of the compound, past the inert machinery and the corpses face down in the sand.

'You won't need that,' said the man. 'The gun - it's not necessary.'

The bright gold eyes of the owl regarded her without blinking. From where the owl perched on his raised arm, its eyes were at the same level as his. Eyes, and a face that Iris had recognized, even before he spoke.

'You're Deckard.' A statement, not a question. 'The blade runner.'

'Sure.' He didn't even have to nod to let her know she was right. 'You should know. You saw the movie.'

Deckard looked older than he had in the movie, the close-cropped hair flecked with wiry gray stubble at his temples. His face, with the tiny scar on the chin, was creased and weathered, but definitely the one that the female replicant in the movie had fallen in love with.

He and the girl had stopped a yard or so away from her. The gaze of the dark-haired girl was nearly as unblinking as that of the owl; she still held onto Deckard's hand. 'And my name,' she announced in a quiet voice, 'is Rachael.'

'Of course.' Iris didn't know what else to say. 'Of course it is.' What she couldn't say, but knew in her heart with absolute certainty, was that she was looking at the child that the woman in the movie, the one also named Rachael, had once been. There was no mistaking the resemblance between the child and the adult.

Or, Iris also had realized, between the child and herself.

'You've come a long way,' said Deckard. 'Farther than you realize. But in some ways' - the same lopsided, ironic smile from the movie showed on his face - 'you haven't gone anywhere at all.'

'I don't know what you mean.' Fatigue had washed across her again, like some invisible tide across the desert, the surge of its waves bearing her on the surface, without will of her own. 'Really . . . I don't.'

'You will. Everything gets revealed, eventually. Whether you want it to or not.' Deckard let go of the child's hand and took hers. 'Come on.'

'Wait a minute.' Iris resisted the pull of his hand. 'You were the one, weren't you? You had to have been.'

'What do you mean?'

'The one who took the owl from me,' said Iris. 'When I had it in my apartment. I can tell. When you're standing this close to me, I can tell.'

Deckard waited a moment before replying. 'It was necessary,' he said finally. 'And it was for your sake as well. If I hadn't taken the owl from you . . .' He glanced at the golden-eyed creature perched on his raised arm, then back to Iris. 'You wouldn't be alive right now.'

'Maybe not.' She couldn't decide whether that would have been better.

She let the blade runner and the child lead her across the compound, toward the fence. In the distance, out where the owl's shadow had led her gaze, she saw now an unmarked spinner parked in the hollow of one of the dunes.

'Where are we going?' After all that had happened, Iris knew she had no way of stopping anything else from overtaking her. 'Back to Los Angeles?'

'Don't be silly,' said the little girl, trudging beside Iris. 'How could we? It's not possible.'

'Why not?'

Deckard kept walking, leading her toward the spinner; he had let the owl fly ahead, the beat of its great wings audible in the desert's silence. He glanced over at Iris. 'You can't go
back
to LA - not the real LA - if you've never been there in the first place.'

'What do you mean?' Iris stopped in her tracks, pulling her hand away from his. She had tucked the gun inside her tattered jacket, its weight against her ribs. 'What're you talking about?'

'She doesn't know,' said the girl Rachael. 'You have to tell her.
Everything
.'

'Soon enough,' said Deckard. He raised his hand, pointing up to the night sky. 'Look. Take a good look. Those aren't the stars you see from Earth.'

Iris tilted her head, gazing up at the disordered constellations. None of which she recognized; in the farther corners of her memory were the bright images of other stars, other wordless patterns that she had never put a name to.
But maybe I never saw them
, thought Iris. There had always been the clouds and the rains, in LA. In some LA.

'That doesn't prove anything,' said Iris. She could hear the desperation in her voice, the attempt to hold onto at least one thing she had thought was true. 'It doesn't—'

'Nothing does.' Deckard started walking again, with the little girl beside him. He didn't look back. 'Then you find out for yourself.'

Iris waited a moment, feeling the desert winds slide through her jacket and across her skin. She glanced up at the unfamiliar stars once more, then lowered her gaze and followed after the man and the girl, toward the waiting spinner.