John Barnes - Daybreak Zero

“But you’re really figuring I should just get in far enough to see what stopped the others, and then come back?” Ecco tried for a laconic drawl, but the more he looked at that map, the more his heart hammered and his stomach sank.

“Yeah,” Heather said. “Arnie is just making sure that if you get a really lucky break it won’t go to waste. You remember your Rogers’ Rangers rules, the bastard version?”

“‘Don’t take no chances you don’t have to’? You bet. Just by going on this trip, I’ve about used up my luck.”

“Right answer.” Heather nodded to Arnie. “I see why you said to send this guy.”

“I want him back,” Arnie said. “We’ve got beer to drink and waitresses to hustle.” The two men shook hands; Arnie added, “No kidding. I recommended sending you for a whole long list of good reasons. Make sure you come back!”

“Got it,” Ecco said. “And thanks for giving me the break; I wanted a mission like this.”

After he left, Heather said, “Is he crazy or what, to want this kind of mission?”

Arnie shrugged. “He wants to be the kind of man who can do it. Men all have dreams about what kind of guy they’d like to be—usually the kind of guy that can do something. It keeps you going when nothing else will, sometimes.” He rolled up the maps. “I myself want to be the kind of guy who hangs around with tough manly types. Why do you think I always come right over when you call, boss?”

Heather stuck her tongue out and made the raspberry noise.

On his way home, Ecco kept to the centers of the dark streets. The high, dark haze, the floating ashes of burned civilization, dimmed the waning moonlight more than usual. That was fine with Ecco. Nowadays, the moon was enemy territory; he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he could see it, it could see him.

The moon was still low in the sky and dim. Darkness wrapped the old, empty tract houses in monochrome shadow; not just a ghost town, but the ghost of a town.

Arnie wished he’d asked Ecco to walk with him. We could have gone over mission details, and I could’ve had somebody to eat late supper with.

Or he could have just taken a house close to the center of the city in the first place. I’d already be home. Why did I act like a guy who wanted to be lonely?

He could see the watch’s lantern glinting half a mile away. I could run and join them and just stay with them till they passed my house. Lots of people do that. But the time to have done that would have been to catch them on Main, in front of the courthouse; now, they’d wonder what had frightened him. They might ask. What could he say?

Deep breath. Walk and breathe like you’re going to fight; if it turns out you are, it’s one less thing to worry about, and if not, it calms and clears the—

“Doctor Yang. Doctor Yang, doctus in the doctrine, the indoctrinated doctor.”

Arnie spun one step backward into the space he’d been about to walk into, cross-drew his knives and held them at ready. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Teeth gleamed in the dark under the blanket; the eyes were black blobs around the greasy promontory of the nose. “Expecting to stab me?”

“If necessary.” Arnie shifted his weight for a better stance.

“Now, whatever happened to that civilized old academic world where everyone took the time to express mutual respect, and dallied a while in chat, and listened patiently to each other before entering into the actual business at hand, Doctor? Shouldn’t we be sipping sherry and considering—”

“Manners and respect are products of enough people having enough time and comfort; you are the ones who put an end to that.”

Aaron slowly, loudly applauded him. He was the only thing moving or making a sound in the oblong shadows of the houses and the splintered and sliced patterns of dingy moonlight. “You are thinking of holding me and shouting for the watch.”

Arnie shrugged. “Why not?”

“Because if you don’t, you might get three more questions answered. Whereas if you do capture me, you have to hope my nervous system is no more programmed than Ysabel’s was, so I have seizures only about as bad, and that my heart and arteries are in no worse shape than hers, so that I don’t have a fatal stroke or heart attack.”

“I don’t have to hope that hard. I’m thinking about stabbing you.” Arnie shifted his weight and let his rear foot rise, extending it in front of him and setting it down. About four more steps would close the gap. “But I would like your answers to some questions.”

“What is your first question?”

“What do you do, now, when you have doubts about Daybreak?”

“Daybreak forgives me because I am so powerless, and I let Daybreak fill my mind, so that I can go on and do the work.”

Arnie advanced a step; he wondered if weapons were trained on him in the dark. An arrow or a spear out of nowhere… but one lunge, tackle him, hold him down, capture a Daybreaker, think how people would look up to him, just one leap—

Teeth showed under the blanket again, and the spots of the eyes narrowed. “Exchange, Doctor Yang. Have you told your owners that you’re talking to me yet?”

Arnie swallowed hard; the question was shrewder than it looked, for either he’d have to say “yes,” and be led along; or “no,” and admit that he was conspiring with Aaron. Or I might… “I’ve told them exactly as much as I think they should know; does that make them my owners, or me theirs?”

“Ownership is always an error. Now your question.”

Another step brought Arnie close enough to spring, but Aaron was cooperating… but, dammit. He couldn’t think of what he intended to ask Aaron. He stalled with, “What is the purpose of Daybreak?”

“Purpose is so human, and therefore useless, of no value, a shame. Gophers dig; they don’t calculate angles of repose around their burrows. Geese fly; they don’t do celestial navigation. We do not need to know the relative marginal propensities to consume of the grasshopper and the ant. Daybreak will free them from human imputation, which makes all things dirty; to the pure, all things are purposeless. No thinky-thinks, no wordy-words, no math, no meaning, no purpose.” When had he closed the distance? How did his hands now press down on Arnie’s wrists, lowering the knives? “Exchange. My question. Mister Ecco’s mission has changed and he is going to the Northwest.”

Right, that’s the wrong direction, I can just say yes —Arnie’s head was turning slowly, indicating no.

“Going northeast.”

Arnie tried to keep his head still, but he had an eerie sense that Aaron was reading his thought: don’t nod, don’t nod, for God’s sake don’t nod.

“Going farther east, crossing the Wabash?”

Don’t nod. “Exchange,” Arnie croaked. His hands were down by his sides where Aaron had pressed them. They were face-to-face; Arnie could smell the dirty blanket and the foul breath.

“Ask.”

“What are you doing?”

“Daybreak only does till day is broken. After that Daybreak does not do . Daybreak is . I won’t take my final turn of exchange now; you will owe it to me.”

Arnie was alone on the street. In the distance, dogs and coyotes howled, the sharp yips mixing with the deep bellow of some hound; closer, he could hear the clatter of the watch, with all the gear hanging from their belts and harnesses; closest of all, the sound of the last breath of night wind rustling the leaves of a cottonwood.

Miserably tired, he headed home, resheathing his knives, his mind all on bed, reminding himself to record this in his journal, fighting off the question Record what?