Robert Wilson - The Harvest

Matt Wheeler said, “I thought the radio blew up.”

“Call came early this morning, Dr. Wheeler.”

“Did it? Who took it?”

“I did.”

“Did anybody else hear this call?”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Wheeler. I didn’t feel it was necessary to have a witness.” Jacopetti laughed out loud.

Wheeler said, “It would be nice to be able to confirm the message, Colonel Tyler.”

“Mr. Commoner offered to find a replacement for the radio. I’m sure we’ll be up and running in due time. Until then, let’s keep a lid on the paranoia, shall we?”

Abby raised her hand: “A truckstop is hardly a place to spend time.…”

“Agreed. In the morning, we can take a look at the farmhouse to the south of here. I’m sure it’ll be more comfortable.”

Tyler registered, but didn’t understand, the sudden look of concern from the boy, William.

Wheeler again: “Maybe we ought to keep moving—we can always find shelter if the weather turns bad.”

Suspicious son of a bitch refused to drop the issue.

“After what happened to Buchanan,” Tyler said, “I don’t think we want to take any chances with a storm, do you? And there’s another consideration. One of our company chose to leave us today. A particular friend of yours, Dr. Wheeler. All things considered, maybe we should stay in the neighborhood long enough to give Mr. Kindle a chance to change his mind. If he elects to come back to camp, at least he’ll know where to find us.”

This hit home with Abby Cushman, a potential swing vote; she folded her hands in her lap.

“All in favor of staying,” Tyler said. “Show of hands.”

It was an easy majority.

They filed from the restaurant, subdued and silent, until Tim Belanger stabbed a finger at the sky: “Hey—anybody notice something?”

Tyler looked up. “The Artifact,” he said, and calmly checked his watch. “It should have risen by now.”

By Christ, Matt thought, for once the bastard’s right. That ugly alien moon was overdue.

Missing. Gone.

“Dear God,” Abby said. “What now?”

There was nothing in the sky but a bright wash of stars—no Artifact but the second one still grounded on the southern horizon.

The Earth was alone again. Matt had wanted it so badly, for so long, he hadn’t allowed himself even to consider the possibility. It was the kind of desire you could choke on.

But here, mute testimony, was an empty Wyoming sky.

Too late, he thought bitterly. If they left, they left because their work was finished.

The starlight on the second and motionless Artifact, the so-called human Artifact, was cold and merciless. In scale and design, Matt thought, that object was wholly inhuman, no matter who owned it or what went on inside.

“The aliens are gone?” Abby asked, and Matt said, his voice a whisper, “Why not? We have our own aliens now.”

It was an auspice that couldn’t be read, an indecipherable portent, and they went to bed weary of miracles.

Deep in the cold Wyoming springtime dark, sooner or later, each of them slept…

Except one old woman, one ageless boy.

“William?”

His eyes were wide and moon-bright. “Yes?”

“Don’t you ever sleep?” He smiled. “Sometimes.”

Miriam’s battery-operated bedside clock bled numbers into the night. 3:43. 3:44. There was a fresh new pain in her belly. “The Travellers are gone, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re still here.”

“We’re still here.”

Humanity, he meant. The polis, he had called it, the world contained in that blister on the horizon: Home. “William?”

“Yes?”

“Did I ever show you my journals?”

“No.”

“Would you like to see them?”

His smile was unreadable. “Yes, Miriam, I would.”

She left her bed and took down from their shelf the fat scrapbooks full of clippings from the Buchanan Observer. They had gotten wet in that terrible winter storm and the pages were thick and warped. But the clippings, for the most part, were still legible.

William sat up in his cot and leafed through the books one by one. It was a strange history contained there, Miriam thought. She remembered how everyone had been frightened by the first appearance of the Artifact in the sky. It had been enigmatic, terrifying, an emissary from another world. Now, less than two years later, it was these clippings that seemed like messages from another world.

The universe, Miriam thought, turned out to be a more peculiar place than any of us expected.

William said, “You obviously worked hard at this.”

“Yes. It seemed important at the time.”

“Not now?”

She had fought to protect these journals. But what were they? Tonight they seemed like so much paper and ink. “No… not now.” He looked at them carefully and then put them aside.

Miriam steeled herself to ask the essential, the final question: the question she had postponed, had dared not ask.

Give me strength, Miriam thought. One way or the other. Give me strength.

“William… is it too late for me?”

She trembled in fear of his answer. She closed her eyes, squeezed them tight, tight.

“No, Miriam,” the boy said gently. “It’s not too late. Not yet.” A chaste kiss on the lips.

The neocytes, he said, would work quickly inside her.

Before dawn, when Miriam was finally asleep, the boy crept out of the camper into the chill air.

A fingernail moon rode low in the sky. His breath made plumes of frost, and there was frost on the tarry surface of the parking lot, sparkling in the fragile light.

The Artifact had left orbit hours ago, resuming its long itinerary through the unexplored spiral arms of the galaxy. Its physical presence wasn’t necessary any longer. The collective knowledge of the Travellers had been duplicated and stored in the human Home, and Home would begin its own journey soon—once certain controversies had been resolved.

William’s bicycle was roped to the back of Miriam’s camper. Silently, he untied it and examined it.

The trip from Idaho had coated the bicycle with dust. The action of the chain and the derailleurs sounded thick and gritty. But he didn’t have far to go. He climbed on the bike and pedalled down I-80, a young boy, legs pumping in the moonlight, the banner of his breath streaming behind him in the chilly air.

He turned left past an open gate, down a private road to the Connor farmhouse.

Rosa, hurry, he thought. They’re coming in the morning. Hurry now.

William was with her as the sun rose.

Rosa lay on the farmhouse bed. The winter’s cold and wind had given the bedroom a dishevelled look. The oaken dresser had faded and its mirror had dulled; the curtains had tangled on the rod. The single large window looked southeast, where Home occupied a portion of the sky. Sunrise was a faint vermilion on those distant slopes.

The gray cocoon on the bed had cracked on its long axis and the two pieces had begun to separate. William gazed without visible emotion at the pulsating mass inside.

Rosa—they’ll be coming soon.

Help me, then, Rosa said.

William moved to the bedside, considered the problem, then grasped the two chunks of dense, porous material and began to pry them apart. Hurts, Rosa said.

William broadcast a voiceless apology. No. It has to be done.

The boy agreed, and grasped the cocoon again and strained his thin arms until he heard the material split along its back seam—a dry, fibrous sound like the crack of a walnut shell.