The Cydonian Pyramid (30 page)

D
R
. A
RNAY TOOK A CIGARETTE FROM HIS POCKET AND
tapped it idly on the arm of his chair. “Are you ever going to get to the part where you end up here at the North Pole?” he asked.

“We’re almost there,” Tucker said. “I mean, here.”

Arnay rolled his eyes. Tucker took that as permission to continue.

“I thought that Awn would just be able to tell me where Lahlia went, but it didn’t exactly work out that way.”

“This was the same old woman you met before?”

“Yeah. Only
she’d
never met
me
before. She was younger. I don’t mean she got younger, just that I was visiting her at an earlier time.”

“I get it,” Arnay said. “I don’t
believe
it, but I
get
it.”

“She told me Lahlia had just been there, but I think maybe that was an earlier version of Lahlia.”

“Wait . . . are you trying to tell me that you followed this girl into a time-traveling maggot in Hopewell, but now all of a sudden you’re chasing after the girl she used to be?”

“I guess. But I didn’t realize it at the time — it wasn’t until I talked with Awn that I kind of figured out what had happened. I think the Boggsians didn’t know what to do with me, so they sent me to Awn. Maybe it was a coincidence that Lahlia had just been there. Or maybe not.”

T
UCKER SAT AT THE FAMILIAR WOODEN TABLE AND
spooned lentil stew into his mouth as Awn spoke.

“Yar Lia did not come alone. She had a Medicant woman with her. The Medicant wanted to return to Mayo. I guided her to a suitable disko, and she departed.”

“What about Lahlia?”

“She expressed a desire to return to your time period in Hopewell. She felt you were in danger. She seemed to think that you were going to be killed.”

“I was, but that already happened. She was there, so she must have found me.”

“Therefore, she will succeed in preventing your death.” Awn smiled. “But in this timestream, she still searches for you — an earlier iteration of you.”

“So where is she now? I mean, I know she went from Hopewell to a Boggsian laboratory of some sort, but where did they send her from there?”

“The Yar Lia who was here had come from Romelas. I sent her to see a Boggsian.”

“Why?”

“Herr Boggs controls a technology that may give her what she wants. In fact, we may assume that he did so, since here you stand.”

Tucker put down his spoon. “How long ago was this?”

“It was this morning.”

Tucker jumped to his feet. “Show me which disko she went through!”

“The Yar did not use a disko. She went on foot.”

“There are Boggsians here? Now?”

“Not here, but now.” Awn pointed though the wall. “To the east.”

“Last time I was here, you said you were alone.”

“The events you remember have not yet come to pass. A few Boggsians yet remain.”

“How do I get there?”

“I will tell you what I told her. Keep the afternoon sun to your back, and walk until you reach a wide river. There you will come upon a trail that runs along the bank. Follow the trail north until you come to a footbridge made of rope. Cross the river. The path at the far end of the bridge will take you to Harmony.”

Tucker wanted to leave immediately, but Awn insisted that he wait.

“You will be walking for many hours. You may be spending the night in the woods.”

“I can walk pretty fast,” Tucker said.

“The way is not easy. I provided Yar Lia with food. I will do the same for you.”

Tucker waited impatiently while Awn loaded a shoulder bag with a small loaf of crusty bread, a wedge of dark-yellow cheese, and an apple.

“You can drink the water you find on the way,” she told him. “Your Medicant enhancements will keep you from getting sick.”

“How do you know I have Medicant enhancements?”

“I sense their handiwork.” She handed him the bag.

“Thanks. I’ll . . . um, I’ll see you later?”

“I will see you. You have already seen me.”

Tucker set off with the sun at his back, walking quickly. At times he found himself on a deer path that led in the right direction, and broke into a run — but the paths inevitably veered off, and he was forced to bushwhack his way through copses of gooseberry and buckthorn. Awn was right. The way was not easy.

Near mid-afternoon, he came upon Lahlia’s trail: broken twigs, trampled grass, and once, in the mud along a small creek, the clear print of a heeled boot. He lost the trail on a rocky ridge. After casting back and forth for half an hour, he gave up and headed east again. He would find her in Harmony.

Tucker was traversing another bog — a tangled mass of stunted cedars, tamaracks, and mossy hummocks — when the forest suddenly fell silent. A second later, he heard a hiss, then a popping sound from above. He looked up. An orange spark was hovering in midair, about thirty feet above his head. The spark ballooned into a fluorescent pink blob, then fell straight toward him. Tucker dove to the side. The maggot hit the forest floor like a five-hundred-pound sack of jelly, flattening on impact, its sides bulging out, then oozing back into an oblong blob. Tucker scuttled off to hide behind a lightning-blasted cedar stump as the maggot re-formed itself, making crackling, hissing noises and giving off a nose-clenching reek of hot metal and burning plastic. It smelled like a trash fire.

That is one sick maggot,
Tucker thought. He noticed several tears in the skin around its orifice and a scorch mark on one side. It looked like the maggot Master Gheen and his father had tied up in the tent — the same maggot he had jumped into in his attempt to follow Lahlia.

The maggot shivered and made a gurgling sound. Tucker, breathing shallowly, remained perfectly still. Minutes passed. The popping and hissing subsided. The maggot sat without moving. The only sign that it was still alive — assuming that maggots were alive in the first place — was a pulse of darker pink that began at its front end, rippled down its body to its tail, and repeated. Eventually the pulsing ceased and the maggot’s color settled to a dull pinkish-white.

Tucker waited as long as he could, but his legs were cramping, and the maggot seemed to be inert. Maybe it was dead. He moved slowly backward, trying not to make any noise. A branch crackled under his foot. The maggot raised its scarred front end and turned it toward him.

Tucker took off. He dodged around trees, leaped over a small hummock, ran along the side of a low ridge, then climbed to the top of the ridge and doubled back. He stopped where he had a clear view and scanned the woods. The maggot was nowhere in sight. He stood there for several minutes before he heard it — the sound of its fat, soft body slithering over sticks and leaves. A few seconds later, it came into view, slowly following Tucker’s trail. Tucker set off at an easy lope, running down the other side of the ridge and continuing his journey east. If he kept moving, the maggot would never catch him. Maybe it would break down completely.

He had gone only a few hundred yards when he hit the sinkhole.

At first he had no idea what had happened. He was running, and the next moment he was chest deep in ooze, as if the earth had swallowed him. He flailed his arms, trying to find something to grab, but there were only clumps of moss that tore loose when he grasped them. With every movement, he sank deeper into the mire.

Tucker forced himself to relax. Was he still sinking? His arms, shoulders, and head were free. If he remained perfectly still, he remained stable. He’d read something about quicksand once — if you moved slowly, you could swim your way out. But this wasn’t quicksand; it was some sort of fibrous, stinky muck.

A small tamarack sapling was growing at the edge of the muck hole, about three feet beyond his fingertips. He tried lifting one leg, very slowly, then kicking down. That moved him a fraction of an inch closer to the sapling, but it also sank him slightly deeper into the ooze. He repeated the maneuver a few times, which brought his hand within a foot of the sapling — and also sank him up to his neck.

He stopped kicking, trying to figure out how deep he would sink before he could grab the sapling. Even if he could get to it, it was a tiny tree. It wouldn’t take much to tear it out by its roots.

As he was considering this, he heard the sound of crunching leaves. A moment later, he smelled the reek of burning plastic. Tucker made several desperate kicks and was able to grab the sapling, but at the same time, he sank farther. The muck was up over his chin. He wrapped his fingers around the thin trunk and tried to drag himself out of the hole. The sapling bent, then separated from its mossy base.

By the time the maggot arrived, the only thing showing above the ooze was Tucker’s nose.

T
UCKER STOPPED TALKING
.

“And then what?” asked Dr. Arnay.

“The maggot sucked me up and spit me out here,” Tucker said.

Arnay stared at him. He seemed about to ask a question, then shook his head, reached into his breast pocket, and brought out a cigarette.

“I don’t get why you smoke,” Tucker said.

“It relaxes me.” He lit his cigarette. “And don’t give me any more of your crap about smoke being bad for you. I’ve listened to your fairy tale; you can deal with my smoke.”

“You don’t believe any of it.”

“Not really, but it’s a hell of a story.”

“What if it’s true?”

Arnay blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “For one thing — let’s consider the part you just told me — how come you’re not covered with mud?”

Tucker had been surprised by that, too. When he’d landed on the ice, he had been dry and clean. It seemed that the maggot’s disko had transported only him and his clothing and had left the muck and stuff behind. That would explain how come he didn’t reek after several days of traveling the diskos without a shower. He was about to explain when another thought stopped him. What if the doctor
did
believe his story? What then?

“Well?” Arnay asked.

An idea flickered in Tucker’s mind. Maybe he wasn’t as powerless as he thought.

Arnay took a drag off his cigarette.

Tucker coughed. “I want to go outside.”

“I already told you, no.”

“I’m feeling claustrophobic.”

“Tough.” The doctor clearly did not believe him.

“Also . . . I’ve been lying to you.”

Arnay raised one eyebrow. Tucker wanted to tell him he looked like Mr. Spock, but the doctor wouldn’t know about Mr. Spock.

“Maybe I made it all up. All of it.” Tucker waited for the doctor to say something.

After several seconds had passed, Dr. Arnay cleared his throat and stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Does this mean you’re ready to tell me the truth?”

“Let me get some fresh air. I’m not kidding about the claustrophobia. It reeks of sweat and cigarettes in here. I can’t breathe.”

“Why don’t you tell me how you really got here? Maybe that would help you breathe a little easier.”

“Take me up on deck and maybe I’ll breathe good enough to tell you.”

“How do I know you won’t just come up with another fairy tale?”

“No more fairy tales, I promise.”

The doctor shook his head. “I can’t believe you had me going with all that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But you’re staying right here.”

“Why?”

“Quarantine.”

“You know I’m not sick. You’re not even wearing your mask anymore. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to run off. Where would I go? Just let me go up on deck for five minutes, then I’ll tell you everything.”

“Why don’t you tell me something right now? Then maybe I’ll see if Captain Calvert will let us go upstairs.”

Tucker thought fast. What could he say that the doctor would believe? That he’d been dropped off by another sub? That he had arrived by dogsled? That he’d parachuted in from a Russian airplane? The airplane thing gave him an idea.

“Okay,” he said. “First off, I’m American, from Minnesota, like I said. And I got here on an airplane.”

Dr. Arnay nodded. “That’s what I thought. You sure weren’t dressed for overland travel, and if there was another sub in the area, we’d have detected it. But why make up that crazy story about time travel?”