Lawrence Schoen: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard

Pizlo bit his lip and pushed away from the door, heading to the Sloth where she stood alongside the Yak.

“He’s just talking with Jorl. And this is important. I have to do it now. I’d climb him like a tree, but my hands don’t work right and I can only use my trunk.”

“Climb him? Who, the senator? What are you talking about?”

He tugged at her clothes. “Please, we’re almost out of time. Pick me up.”

Frowning, Druz swept her diagnostic sleeves back and carefully lifted Pizlo, bracing the boy against her side, until he was positioned between her and senator Bish.

“Thanks!”

“Now, what was so important that—”

Pizlo’s whipped his trunk across the Bos’s chest and into his robe, darting and questing until his nubs closed around the object of his desire.

“Here now! What are you doing? Stop that!”

Pizlo pulled his trunk back, coiling it against his chest. In its tip he gripped an odd ring of metal and wood like stone. He squirmed and wriggled and pushed against the Sloth with both feet until of necessity she had to let him go. He careened to the floor, changing the fall into a shoulder roll at the last moment and ultimately ended up on his feet. He scurried back to his place by the door.

“That was the last bit. I almost forgot, but now it’s done. He’ll go all quiet now.”

Druz frowned. The senator hadn’t moved or changed in any way since she’d arrived. She shifted her attention back to the young Fant and went to join him at the door. “You said that before. Why?”

“He’s going to wake up soon. But when he does, you won’t remember him. Nobody will.”

“What do you mean, Little Prince?”

“You know how you’re talking to me? And how, later on, even if I’m not there, you can remember us talking? It’s cuz a bit of my voice stays with you.”

The Brady smiled. “That’s a funny way to describe nefshons and memory, but I think I follow you.”

“And you’ve got little bits of voices of everyone you know, right?”

“I suppose.”

“When Senator Bish wakes up, it will be because everyone who ever had a bit of his voice will have had it taken away. It’s horrible. He’ll be more quiet than anyone ever. And no one will remember him at all.”

“That can’t happen.”

“It can. It will. You won’t even remember me saying these things, because it’s about him, and you can’t even think about him without hearing that little bit of his voice. Everything it touches will go away with it. Everything.”

“Nothing like that is possible.”

“It is . Because of what Arlo did.”

“You know Arlo?”

Pizlo sobbed. “He’s … he’s my dad.”

Druz blinked, paused, and regrouped before his eyes. “Little Prince, what are you holding in your trunk? Did you take something from the senator?”

“Yes…”

“Show me.”

“I had to. He’s not going to need it now, and I do.” He uncoiled his trunk and held up Bish’s ring of office.

The Sloth’s gasp of surprise trailed off at the same moment that the Yak began shouting.

“Ha! I knew that coward would give up. Druz! Very good that you are here. Contact the Resolute Purpose . Instruct Nonyx-Captain Selishta to ignore previous orders and activate contingency plan B.”

The Sloth pulled her gaze from the child by her side and stared at the Yak in the middle of the room. “How do you know my name?”

Pizlo brought his bandaged hands up to cover his eyes, whispering, “Horrible.”

“Now, Druz, before that miserable freak tries any more of his tricks. And take the boy with you. If half of your findings are accurate, with a bit of training he’ll grow up to be a grand addition to my staff … Wait, what are you playing at? Why does he have my ring?”

The Brady scooped up Pizlo under one arm like a bag of grain and pointed with the other straight out at the Bos, the gleaming trio of steel talons visible within her voluminous sleeve.

“Stay back. I don’t know who you are, or what you’re doing on the senator’s vessel, but if you take so much as a step I will drop you where you stand.”

“What nonsense is this?”

She pressed a hidden release high on the door and out of Pizlo’s reach. They backed out while it was still sliding open. Bish ignored her warning and came forward but she had it closed before he had crossed half the distance to the door. She dropped the Fant and pressed both hands to the threshold. Several slivers on her sleeves glimmered as spoke to the air. “Seal this door from all internal access. Emergency override.”

“He can’t get to us?”

“You know him? Who was that? How did he appear on this ship?”

“You worked for him.” Pizlo, wiped at his eyes with his trunk. “But you don’t remember him.”

The Sloth frowned. “I don’t work for him. I’m the senator’s personal aide.”

“Which senator?”

“Don’t be silly, Little Prince. I work for Senator … Senator … Oh my. I don’t understand. How can I not know that?”

“I tried to tell you. Come on. Let’s go find Jorl. He’s really good at explaining stuff.”

“Jorl? Is there someone else on my ship I don’t know about?”

“No, he’s on the station.”

“What station?”

“That’s where your ship is docked. You remember telling me about that, don’t you?”

“Actually, I do. I just don’t remember what station.” She looked down at him. “And I don’t remember how we met.”

“It’s not important. What’s important is that you’re my new friend. And I’m going to introduce you to my oldest friend.”

“ I HADit wrong. Three different times, I had it completely wrong.”

Castleman knelt next to Jorl, hands to his arm and shoulder helping him sit up. “What are you saying? What just became of Bish?”

Jorl struggled to his feet and steadied himself, ears fanning briskly.

“You remember Senator Bish?”

“What? Why wouldn’t I. He was just here.”

“Who was here?” Senator T’Minah stepped from the line of committee members. “What just happened?”

The other senators murmured in agreed confusion.

“Senators,” said Jorl, “Do you remember why I brought you here?”

“You brought us this human from Before, upsetting some of my fellow senators,” answered Welv, now the ranking member on her committee, whether she knew it or not. “And you yammered on and on about that Fant prophet of yours and her vision of the Silence.”

“Hmm. Well, I was wrong about that. Margda’s Silence wasn’t the secret you’ve been harboring about our origins. It was what just happened to Senator Bish.”

“Who?”

Jorl sighed and spread his hands. “Your committee has twenty-five members, yes? Look among yourselves, all of you. Can any of you tell me who is missing?”

The senators’ murmuring grew louder as they gestured at one another.

Castleman whispered to Jorl, “Why don’t they know Bish any longer?”

“Because I’ve stripped all his nefshons away, and with them their memories of every interaction.”

“So none of the senators can remember him?”

“Not just the senators. Almost no one. I still do, because I did it. And you, I think, because you have no physicality; your knowledge of him exists only in this construct I created for you. There are doubtless thousands of physical records that refer to him, but the people who created them don’t remember doing it. Nothing he did that touched another person remains in memory.”

The Prairie Dog erupted with a shrill whistle to get Jorl’s attention.

“We concede you have stumped us, young man. And we stipulate to being impressed, both by your ability to summon us all together here, and with your display of the human. But to what point?”