Том Светерлич - The Gone World

Dear Durr. If I show up someday demanding my cut of the money, then the deal’s still on but for now it’s too late for me haha so use this info in good health. H is coming tonight, Nicole told me so. I was at my buddy’s when she told me so had to run. She’s a nice kid but a rat and squeals whenever H pushes her. It cuts me she ratted me out to him but at least she confessed to me, gave me a heads up. At least love’s worth that much. NO ONE knows you not even Nicole so don’t worry you’re safe. So now’s the time for brass tacks. Included: location of Krugger, location of Esperance, location of Libra and that special tree, the Vardogger, just like I promised. I know you haven’t believed most of what I told you but after tonight you’ll at least know the danger I am in is real, so please watch yourself too. I was with H from the beginning with all his bullshit because I wanted to LIVE. I wanted to live, that’s all. But I can’t stomach all his killing. I saw someone he burned alive with acid and couldn’t take it. Sometimes I wish I would have helped Remark make that black hole, a cascade failure to obliterate us all. Too late, too late for all. I will not get my money or my pardon, but my cut will be for you to sell this information to Navy or FBI, make a good buck for yourself but stop this man. He wants to kill us all. Krugger walks every path. He worships death. Worships death like most men worship Jesus. He prays to it. He takes their fingernails and uses them like relics, like holy things. He will be at my house soon and so I left my family there, left him to kill my family to slow him down some so I can get this information to your safe deposit box, per our agreement and also get somewhere safe. You might think that sounds harsh to let my family die but here’s something else you won’t believe but it is truth: merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. No matter what happens to my family tonight, I can find another one. I’ll walk the Vardogger trees to some other place and time and there my wife will welcome me home, safe and sound. They will be dead here, but they will be alive somewhere else. My wife will be a young woman there and my Marian will be a young child, she’ll be five again, and I’ll watch her grow up again happy and I’ll watch my youngest come into being all over again. Durr we are all just shadows that come through the woods, shadows that cross the river. It’s like this, that old poem I used to recite to my Marian when she was a child and I rocked her to sleep in my lap: ’Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed, As if it could not be, And some folk thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed, Of sailing that beautiful sea. Anyway I look at the time and know even now my family is dead or dying. I cry over my children but I know they will live yet. I will drop this information at your box, then will drive to a space I like, this calm spot where I like to think, where I like to stay sometimes and sleep. I’ll think of my family that was here and prepare for my new family that will be there. You’ll never see me again—MUR.

Patrick Mursult thought he would escape through the Vardogger, walking the paths, start a new life in some other IFT. But he was killed at the Blackwater Lodge before he could escape.

Marian will be a young child… But how was that possible? None of us can go back, can we?

The Terminus had followed Libra , but Libra was caught in a space-time knot, somewhere beyond time. The Onyx , however, had returned to terra firma. The crew of the Onyx had shed their clothes because they were infected with QTNs, Moss thought, remembering how her own skin had burned. That had been the sensation in the minutes before her crucifixion: burning skin. She had stripped off her clothes despite biting winter wind, and was crucified.

“ Onyx , please call Apollo Soucek Field.”

She heard the tone for “failed command.” Moss found one of the ship’s computers, saw: …ACCESS NOT AUTHORIZED.

“Override,” said Moss. “Please place a call to Apollo Soucek Field.”

…ALL CHANNELS REQUIRED FOR OPERATION SAIGON.

“Damn it,” she said. “ Onyx , override. Send out emergency signal. Please place a call to Apollo Soucek Field or to the Black Vale.”

…ALL CHANNELS REQUIRED FOR OPERATION SAIGON.

“Fuck.”

The bodies in the cabin moved when she brushed against them. They looked like they danced, like someone’s dreamy joke of a morgue ballet. She escaped belowdecks, exploring the galley, the recreation room. She found an American flag, stiff without gravity, a fabric rectangle thumbtacked to the floor. On the ceiling were a camcorder and tripod. She checked the camera, found a tape, wondering if these people had filmed themselves murdering one another. She loaded the VHS tape into the entertainment system, figured out how to turn everything on. The screen was filled with an image of Senator Charley, wearing a blue polo shirt and khaki shorts, tube socks pulled near to his knees. The American flag was over his shoulder, a backdrop. Moss had seen the man countless times on television, but he looked much younger here, sparked by a childlike wonder, the circus ride of weightlessness.

“Fellow Americans, I have been on the journey of a lifetime, of a thousand lifetimes,” he said, and then a woman’s voice, off camera, asked him to try again. The senator cleared his throat, plastered on a practiced smile, and said, “I have been on the journey of a lifetime. Fell Americans. I mean, fellow Americans—”

“Go ahead,” said the woman’s voice. “We can edit.”

“Fellow Americans, on March twenty-sixth, 1997, aboard a Navy vessel, the USS Onyx , a group of men and women embarked on the journey of a lifetime, a journey of a thousand lifetimes. We traveled a distance once only dreamed of. No longer the ‘final frontier,’ the vast distances of space have been opened to us… Wait, wait, let me try that again.”

“You used the word ‘distance’ several times,” said the woman off screen. “We can use cue cards.”

“No,” said Senator Charley. “I want this to feel natural.”

“Let’s practice the section about Majesty,” said the woman.

“Okay,” said the senator. He smiled to the camera and said, “We have discovered a planet rich in wondrous, strange materials, beautiful fauna and undreamed-of life. Yes, life . I have had my eyes opened anew to the miracle of God’s creation and have had my mind opened to the possibilities of his grandeur. As Christians, and as Americans, we have called this planet ‘Majesty.’”

“A touch too preachy. Oh, hold on,” said the woman’s voice, off camera.

The image of the senator turned to fuzz, but a new image appeared. Someone had filmed through one of the ship’s windows—an image similar to pictures of Earth seen from a distance, the curved sphere of a planet, but the planet filmed here was a sphere white with ice and black with oily seas, crater-pocked and scarred with jagged mountains. A sizable moon rose over the crescent horizon, a golden giant. The monitor turned to static.

“—Shannon?” from over the comm.

The sudden voice startled her.

“Shannon, was that you? Are you okay?” said O’Connor. “I received the emergency signal.”

“I’m… I found something important up here,” she said, her voice shaking.

“I have rendezvous instructions for you, enact immediately,” he said. “You have been assigned to TERNs Group 5, the Cancer . Don’t come home, Shannon—”

“Listen to me,” she said. “The Onyx went to Esperance, they went to the—”

“I understand,” he said. “But it’s too late now. Once you reach Cancer , set the autocourse on the Onyx for Apollo Soucek. We need more ships for the evacuation, we need every ship. The Navy has seized control of the Grey Dove . They’ve recalled the ship, but we need more.”