David Ohle: The Old Reactor

“I can’t, really. My bowel is angry as hell. I’m afraid it’ll happen again.”

“Well, brother, I can’t thank you enough. It’s hard out here on the streets when it gets cold.”

“Don’t forget the letters. I’ll be living in the house when I get back. So I want it to be kept up. Please let me know if anything goes wrong.”

“Nothing to worry about, I guarantee it. I’m a clever person when I want to be. You know what I mean? I make friends easily, even with jellyheads.”

“I do. I know.”

“Good luck over there. I hear all that freedom can be pretty scary.”

“I’ll get by. I’ll make the best of it.”

As he waited in line to board the freighter Pipistrelle for the voyage to Altobello, Moldenke read the brochures made available to him. They covered the history of the liberation, gave general directions for getting around, lists of accommodations and streetcar schedules and the like. His plan was to settle down and make the most of his months or years of freedom. Maybe he would get a wild hair and sign on as a net mender on one of the big mud fish trawlers that went in and out of Point Blast Harbor or work on the docks unloading supplies from Bunkerville.

Zanzetti has completed a round of experiments that suggest jellyhead gel sacks contain living microscopic organisms and that these organisms may be communicating with similar life forms far beyond the moon.

He took a gel sack from his lab, set it on a stone in the sun outside, then attached wires to it and ran them into a simple galvanic device nearby. There he waited, sometimes as long as eight hours, for the signals to come in. He sipped tea and when the needles jumped and the green-faced scopes danced with lifehe rushed into action, jotting down figures and doing calculations. He said he doesn’t understand the meaning of the signals but he is sure they come from somewhere beyond all the twinkles we see in the night sky. He said there was a general chatter going on between distant animated life and the organisms in the gel sacks.

Zanzetti tried for six months to break the code. When it is finally broken, he warned, the vision of our species may change entirely. “We may no longer view ourselves as the paradigm of all living creatures on this globe but as perhaps the lowest form of all, which is suggested by the newest evidence coming in through these sacks.”

And why would minute life forms want to communicate with jellyheads? Zanzetti offered this explanation: “They’re not communicating with jellyheads. They’re communicating with gel sacks. The jellies are unaware of what is happening to them. They get impulses from the sacks and they act, for example, when they cut off the heads of their loved ones. That instruction comes from the gel sacks, which have a limited lifespan. Older jellies sometimes die of sack rot.”

When asked how far off he thought the source of the signals was, he said, “This chatter is coming from at least ten thousand miles distance, a little shy of where we think the moon is. It defies belief that any kind of signal could travel that far. Our own devices are primitive by comparison.”

On arriving at the Point Blast wharf, where newly freed people disembarked, Moldenke filled out all the forms necessary to get his pass card. He was issued light khaki pants and an equally light khaki waist-jacket. In another room he was fitted with underwear, linen shirts, a tie, sturdy boots, and several pairs of wool socks.

“Will I get a heavy coat? I hear the cold snaps here can be brutal.”

“No coats. Wool shortage. Maybe in a few months.”

“What do I do now? How do I get into Altobello proper?”

“Have some breakfast at Saposcat’s. The Altobello car comes at noon. Catch it right in front. Show your card — it’s free.”

Moldenke headed down Wharf Street toward Saposcat’s. Most of the residents of Point Blast were net menders or deck hands, often out to sea on one of the trawlers. But there were always free people coming there from Altobello to get commodities and mail sent over from Bunkerville. Their patronage allowed the Point to maintain a small Saposcat’s with a limited menu.

Moldenke shifted his weight from heel to toe to keep blood flowing to his cold feet, waiting for the place to open. Along the sidewalk came a man and a girl of fourteen or fifteen, perhaps older. “I’m Udo. This is my daughter, Salmonella.”

Udo carried a long, paper-wrapped package under one arm. The girl had a canvas bag over her shoulder. “Hello, mister,” she said. “You look a little stupid. Are you?” She grinned. “Just kidding.” Her teeth were mottled with blue, like a jay’s egg.

“The name’s Moldenke. I’m painfully shy, but not stupid.”

“You a new arrival?” Udo asked.

“Just now checked in. Got my uniform, my pass card, my maps, but no coat.”

“You’ll freeze,” Udo said. “Cold spells around here come up quick and hard.”

“They said I might get a coat in about a month. The shortage should be over soon.”

“Don’t bother. They just say that. You’ll never get one.”

“The scrapple is good here,” Salmonella said. “I really, really like it.”

“They make it with pigeon, you know,” Udo said.

“Whatever it is, I like it.”

In the alleyway, outside the back door of the deli, a kitchen worker dipped pigeons into hot water to loosen the feathers for plucking then dressed the birds and tossed them into a bucket.

Udo shrugged. “Moldenke…you want to kill a jelly or two?”

“I’ve never tried it.”

“It’s a sublime experience. They’re out there by the Old Reactor like herds of wildebeests. I pop them all the time.” Udo hooked a thumb behind his canvas belt. “Didn’t they tell you? You get time off for every ear valve you bring in. They got a valve return office in Point Blast.”

“No, they didn’t tell me that. And it wasn’t in the brochures either.”

“Well, let me tell you. Cutting off those valves is pretty disgusting. The stuff that squirts out’ll make you gag. It’s got cadaverine in it, and it smells like a dead body.”

For Moldenke, the idea of killing jellies and cutting off their valves wholesale seemed a little distasteful. Besides, his sentence was indeterminate. How could he shave time from that?

“He’s my daddy, but I don’t love him for the way he loves killing jellies,” Salmonella said. “It makes me sick.”

Udo raised his open hand. “I’ll slap you if you don’t shut down that tongue of yours.”

Salmonella folded her arms and looked away.

When Saposcat’s doors finally opened, the three new acquaintances were seated at a booth. Udo’s tightly wrapped package rested beside him.

A waitress took orders.

Moldenke said, “The mud fish, please.”

Salmonella ordered scrapple with a side of fried kerd and a glass of green soda.

Udo waived the waitress off. “A bowl of meal, that’s all.”

Moldenke said, “I’m told new arrivals can get a streetcar outside that goes to the downtown, to the west side. I think I’ll catch it. That’s where I’ll be going. It’s the address they gave me at relocation.”

Udo shook his head. “You’ll wait all day. I’ve got my motor parked around the corner.” He indicated the wrapped package. “We came here to get a new water tube for it, shipped in from Bunkerville. We’re driving back to Altobello. You want to ride with us?”

Salmonella said, “I’m warning you. He’s going to stop at the Old Reactor and shoot some jellies. He’ll try to make you do it too.”

“You want to shoot one, Moldenke? I got extra weapons.”

“I wouldn’t know what part to aim at.”

“Not at the belly and not at the head,” Udo said. “Huge stinking mess. They’ve got one gel sack inside the skull and eight in the belly. The one in the skull is what squirts out when you cut a valve. You don’t want to puncture any of those. Aim for the upper chest. There’s no sacks there. There’s a heart. Some kind of heart.”