Robert Sawyer - End of an Era

“No.”

The word, as before, sounded raw, torn from the animal’s throat. That the reptile was a vehicle for a Het made me no less nervous. In fact, I thought I’d better take some precautions. “Back off,” I said. “I want you to stay at least five meters away from me.”

“Why?”

“So you won’t try to enter me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t trust you.”

“What is trust?” said the thing.

“Back off! Now!” I gestured with the rifle.

The troodon hesitated for a moment, then took a couple of steps back.

“Farther,” I said.

It took two more long steps.

I set the rifle on the ground in such a way that I could scoop it up in an instant. I then swung my backpack off my shoulders. Inside I had a bunch of things, including two cans of Diet Coke and our only can amongst all our provisions of diet A W root beer. I grabbed the root beer with my left hand and fumbled for my walkie-talkie with my right. I thumbed the unit on. “Klicks?”

Static for several seconds. Then: “Hey, Brandy—good to hear from you. Listen, I’m finding a dusting of iridium in a recent sedimentation layer, all right—as you’d expect given the impact crater we saw in Mexico—and there’s some shocked quartz, too. But neither are present in the quantities I’d have anticipated based on terminal-Cretaceous samples collected in our time, and—”

“Not now,” I said.

“What?”

“I’ve been approached by another troodon occupied by a Het.”

“Where are you?”

“About ten kilometers west of the Sternberger , I think.”

“I’m at least twenty-five kilometers east,” said Klicks. Probably a couple of hours’ drive for him, given the rough terrain.

“Klicks, I’m holding in my hand a can of A W diet root beer.”

The troodon tilted its head at me oddly.

“Good for you,” said Klicks.

“ Shut up and listen ,” I snapped. “I’m holding the only can we’ve got of A W diet root beer. I’ve got my finger on the pull-tab. If the troodon gets too close to me, or if I’m attacked in any way, or any attempt is made to enter me, I’ll pull the tab.”

“I don’t—”

“When you next see me, make me show you the can. Make sure it’s unopened.”

“Brandy, you’re paranoid.”

The troodon’s head bobbed. “Un-nec-esss-ary,” it hissed.

“Klicks, I want you to get some object that you can use the same way,” I said into the walkie-talkie. “I want you to have a signal for me.”

“Brandy—”

“Do it!”

Static again. Then: “I’ve got a pen here. I could click it open if I’m entered.”

“No. It’s got to be something that’s not undoable. Something you can do fast. And something that we only have one of.”

More static. “Okay. I’ve got a cellophane-wrapped package with two Twinkies in it.”

“You’ve got Twinkies?”

“Uh, yes.”

“All right. What are you going to do with them?”

“Umm, okay. They’re in the breast pocket of my jacket now.”

“You’re wearing that loose-fitting khaki jacket, right?”

“That’s right. If I’m approached too closely, I’ll squish them.”

“Okay. One more thing, Klicks. How much do you weigh?”

“About ninety kilos.”

“ Exactly how much? You had a final physical just before we left. Exactly how much do you weigh?”

“Umm, eighty-nine point five, I think.”

“All right. I’m one-oh-four point nothing.”

“That much? Goodness!”

“Just remember the damn figure.”

“One hundred and four. The number of weeks in two years. Got it. But Brandy—”

He was about to point out that we didn’t have any scales with us, except for a tiny mineralogical one that only went up to two kilograms. “That’s fine,” I said, cutting him off. “I’m heading back to the ship now.”

“I want to finish these core samples,” Klicks said. “I’ll still be several hours.”

“Okay. Just don’t eat the Twinkies. Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

I returned the walkie-talkie to my backpack and picked up the rifle again.

“About what was all that?” hissed the Het.

I held up the pop can. “Just keep your distance. See this metal tab? If I pull it, it will break the seal on this container in such a way that it can’t be reclosed. It’ll only take me half a second to do that. I doubt you can enter me that quickly.”

“I do not intend to enter you now.”

“ And ,” I said, “if you do enter me, Klicks knows how much I weigh. The discrepancy caused by your mass within me would be a dead giveaway.” Actually it wouldn’t. Even if we’d had a big enough scale, Klicks’s and my weight would normally fluctuate by more than the weight of a Het glob, depending on how much food and waste we were carrying around. Still, it was a credible-sounding threat.

“You seem concerned about us,” said the Het. “All we want to do is talk.”

I lowered the gun barrel, but made no move to return the rifle to my backpack. “Very well. What do you want to talk about?”

“Cabbages and kings,” said the beast. That was my taste in literature, not Klicks’s, and this troodon also spoke with what Klicks would call a Canadian accent. Although this wasn’t old Diamond-snout from yesterday morning, evidently its rider was the same Het I had encountered then. Or maybe—it was hard to wrap my mind around these concepts—maybe, as the Het had tried to explain before, individuality meant nothing to them. Did they all know what any one of them knew? How did they communicate?

“Cabbages and kings?” I repeated, then shrugged. “Charles III is king. And I only eat cabbage in coleslaw.”

The dinosaur, still many meters away, cocked its head at me and then digested the information with a measured one-two blink. “Thank you for sharing that,” it said, a vacuous little phrase that I’d picked up from Dr. Schroeder. “You are some considerable distance from your timeship.”

“Humans have to walk for exercise. It—aids our digestion.”

“Ah.”

I regarded the beast. “This isn’t one of the troodons that we encountered before,” I said.

“True.”

“But you are the same Het?”

“More or less.”

“Why did you change dinosaur bodies?”

The troodon blinked. “It’s medium-rare for us to occupy the same vehicle for more than a day or two. We find it…” The rasping voice trailed off as the Het searched for the appropriate term. “Claustrophobic.” It shuffled its feet. “Also, we need to leave our vehicles so that we can interact directly to share memories.”

If that was true, then the Hets vacating Klicks’s and my bodies of their own volition didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t evil. I wondered…

“Tell me,” the thing said casually, “where exactly is asshole Klicks?”

“What?”

“Klicks the bastard asshole. Where is he?”

“Why are you calling him that?”

“Klicks? Ah, is pun. Pun links now. His unique identifying word is Miles, but you call him Klicks, short form for kilometers.” The beast tossed back its long face. “Ho ho.”

“No, why are you calling him names? Asshole, bastard. Why those names?”

“Names you call him. I just—Is usage wrong?” The troodon tipped its head a little. “Your language difficult, imprecise for us.”

“You’ve never heard me call him those things. He’d knock my teeth out.”

“Interesting. But you call him by such words constantly. We absorb that from you.”

Oh, shit. “You mean, that’s what you found in my head?”

“Yess, strong connections. Syllogism, no? All Klickses are assholes, but not all assholes are Klickses. Asshole, bastard, home-wrecker, wife-stealer, shithead, coon—”