There really wasn’t a word that Bastian Appenheimer could think of that depressed him as much as drone. It was a lifeless, soulless shell of a word which left slipstreams of flimsy grey choke in its wake should it ever be uttered out loud, before falling to the floor deflated and with a barely audible chink. He regarded the shiny boy standing at the gleaming steel counter, his head barely clearing it, and smiled kindly.

“The drone, you say?” repeated Bastian.

“Yes, Mister Appenheimer, the drone, mama sent me to ask you if you could ‘come by the dwelling later and take that Haley unit back,’ it’s playing up.”

“The one I repaired yesterday, Master Marco?” asked Bastian, pushing his glasses down to the edge of his nose and tilting his head.

The boy nodded and grinned, looking around the store with wide eyes at the array of parts, pieces and accessories.

#

There had once been a flying creature, back on the original homeworld when it was still inhabited by men, known quite charmingly as a bumble bee. This bee, a large creature with blazing gold and oil-black stripes, had been famed for two things – having a mighty, quivering poison spear in its tail with which it struck its enemies down, and making a sweet, delicious and healing substance called honey deep within the symmetrical, angular perfection of its nest, which was known as a combhive. Adventurers known as keepers, outfitted in full protective body-armor, would attempt to raid these dense, cavernous combhives to steal the magical honey, wielding primitive smoke guns as their only weapons; apparently the smoke sent the monstrous bees into a long, deep sleep allowing the keepers to navigate safely around them without engaging in a full-on fight. Now, there was a particular strain or rank of bee that had no glorious, regal plumage, no fearful tail-spear dipped in arsenic, no skills in making the delectable, sticky honey, and they were known as drones.

Back then, back there, man had created and even performed his own music; here and now his sons and daughters relied on the tones and thrums of the sounding stones scattered around this new planet, or the high-pitched singing of the low-tide blue-shelled siren turtles that flapped their way up the pink beaches at dusk and welcomed the night with their distinct wailing warble. The word drone when applied to music also had a negative, flat connotation, implying a less than pleasing elongated sequence of sound. Bastian found that all of the sounds in the city of Prometheus became one big drone to him. There was no beauty in the noise.

Just his luck, then, that his lot in life was to spend his days as a fixer of drones. Drones in the most modern sense of the word, its newest meaning in the lexicon of humanity – serving machines. The entire city, like every high density population area on the planet, was automated. From base and simple domestic tasks to city-wide security, architecture and construction to nursing and corpse disposal, it was all done by the blasted drones. Bastian worked mainly on home drones, or Haley units – the menial machines that cleaned living spaces, prepared food and acted as social assistants to their owners. When a home drone started blowing dust instead of sucking it up, or cooked the family pet for dinner instead of a horse chop, it was Bastian who fixed the problem.

#

“Did she say what she thought was wrong with it this time?” Bastian asked the small boy, who was still admiring the range of dismantled drone parts stacked neatly around him.

“She wrote it down!” grinned the lad, fumbling in his orange coat pockets, never taking his eyes off Bastian. “Here it is!” He handed the increasingly irritated man a circular piece of lime-green paper scrawled upon in black ink, tiny writing that would have tested the sharpest and strongest of eyes. Bastian removed his glasses and held the paper as close to his face as he could, squinted a few times and tried to decipher the wretched little woman’s complaint.

#

It wasn’t meant to be like this. Bastian’s great-great-great-great grandmother, Annalisse, had been a curator on board one of the ships of the Archive Fleet when the ‘Big Move’ had happened all those years ago as mankind jumped his dying planet. She had been aboard one of the culture ships, responsible for what was known as classical music. Storage bays set to the perfect temperature, humidity and air pressure had contained all sorts of recordings and performances of this type of music. The Archive Fleet had been amongst the last to arrive at humanity’s new home and had turned up right as the ‘Terrible Landing Rebellion’ had been in progress. Annalisse had filled a ground vehicle with as many foamspex boxes, protective magna-drives and firesafes as she could fit in the thing and headed for the unknown hills, away from the burning, looting and lynching, until the revolt had been quashed by the military and the new normalcy was established. Upon re-entering society, following a few weeks of living off a land she barely knew, Annalisse had found herself unable to hand over the items she’d been protecting and told her superiors that they had all been lost in the troubles. Secretly she began hiding them around her big, new government-issued home, anxious that they weren’t locked away forever unheard and untouched in some official vault. Family legend suggested that Annalisse had come under close scrutiny from the newly-formed Heritage Retrieval Committee, a hastily thrown-together group of ex-military and ex-security from the old planet charged with finding as much of the missing cargo as they could around the port city of Prometheus. They were granted full access rights and operated as a secret army of sorts answerable only to the Archive Ministry. Family legend also hinted that the HRC commanding officer responsible for the zone where Annalisse lived quickly became her husband and was slowly led inside the secrecy as his matrimonial love for her grew to a point where he could deny her nothing. Thus began the Appenheimer name.

Bastian knew that every person in existence was a miraculously complicated happening, a ridiculously intricate synchronicity of events, times, emotions and physics. Something as simple as a change in sexual position during conception could determine which spermasota would win the great egg race and alter the future forever. Bastian liked to think his own genetic history was influenced by a far greater hand than most; it wasn’t just an extra pelvic thrust, an especially filthy phrase whispered in the heat of lust or a failed contraceptive spray that had resulted in him being; it was a grand theft of Empire, a horizon-burning romance of ancient proportions, a wobble in the planets very axis itself.

Over the years the artifacts had been passed down through the family, an almost sacred ritual performed in absolute secrecy – until Bastian’s own father had inherited the cause. A gruff man, Ludwig Appenheimer had cared little for the priceless collection and had treated them with disdain and bitterness at a sense of forced curatorship that he never wanted. A young Bastian had taken to tending the collection himself, gathering and storing them in his own quarters away from his father who would deliberately leave items out in plain view, often using them as everyday objects such as placemats and corrective wedges to steady a wonky table-leg. Bastian knew the history and value of the music from the tales his grandfather told him before he passed into the muteness and memory loss of disease, and looking back he believed that he had been educated in the legacy of Annalisse deliberately, that his father had been pre-identified as a weak link in the family chain. It had been a good call in the end as Ludwig spent almost all his days and most of the family fortune in the pursuit of the bizarre body-modded whores of Prometheus whilst sozzled on the green gin that was so cheap and prevalent in the city.

#

Giving up on the almost indecipherable note for a moment, Bastian turned his attention back to the boy with a sigh.

“Do you know anything about your family history, young sir?” he asked.

The boy scrunched his face up and shrugged.

“Well, your family name is Matsutoya which, if I am not mistaken, traces back to a nation on the original homeworld known as Japan. Your people were famous for their politeness, which you have certainly inherited, and their bloody war with the terrible whale, a huge ocean-living creature the size of a decent dwelling that could swallow their battleships whole.”

The boy’s eyes widened as he listened to Bastian’s version of a history lesson.

“My last name, Appenheimer, comes from a nation that was called Germany. My people were renowned across the homeworld for one thing and one thing only – their proficiency in engineering. Now, as soon as I can read your dear mother’s miniature letter of nonsense, I will tell you that she is wrong, that I fixed that blasted machine perfectly, and then send you on your way with a delicious ‘Charlie-pop.’”

Bastian raised the piece of paper back towards his eyes, grunting.

#

Bastian suspected that the Appenheimer line weren’t the only people with a clandestine history of gallant thievery, and he was correct. The famed Noble clan, one of the richest and most powerful families in the whole of Prometheus, had their own highly revered artifact collection, stored in a huge underground facility beneath their landmark company tower. The Noble Tower was the jewel of the Prometheus skyline; it soared above the rest of the large city, a wide-based triangular building that narrowed as it rose to a pointed peak that kissed the clouds. Each level of the building could spin independently of the others and actually slide out some way from the central spoke; with the right angles, slides and custom illuminations the tower could resemble a mammoth piece of abstract art, always changing and morphing above the eyes of the city. Within the final, glass encased level at the very top below a silver spire sat an enormous spotlight that spun slowly every night, sending its glowing, golden beam across the landscape, sweeping elegantly through the air back and forth as if searching out mythical sky bandits for miles around. It was said that the Noble light could guide a lost Promethean home from any corner of the continent.

Down in the laboratory-grade bunker deep below the city was stored an immense collection of literature from Earth. Hundreds of thousands of books, carefully ordered, chemically treated to last longer and managed in an optimum preservation environment. The inner sanctum of the Noble family was employed in this vast subterranean library, and slowly all of the books were being read by a large team of custodians. Each story was transposed into a series of potential facts, known as ‘possibilities’; they didn’t know what was absolute fiction and what had really, actually happened and then soaked into the very essence of writing. These possibilities were cross-referenced with every other logged book and based on frequency, description and elements repeated within, the custodians were able to determine events that had really taken place and people who had actually lived. They knew, for example, that a pre-ancient army had once entered an enemy city hidden inside a wooden horse. They knew that an American President named Kennedy had been assassinated in his vehicle. They knew that a young English girl named Alice had gone through a rare inter-dimensional portal and met animals that could talk.

They even knew which books were famous through their being mentioned in hundreds of other books. These titles were taken to a separate area within the bunker called The Master Zone where they were analyzed in more detail by a greater number of people. Key events, characters and lines of prose and dialog were extracted and noted, before being sent up to the Corporate Offices. Here, the Noble Corporation took advantage of the ancient paper-bound imaginings of original man and incorporated the gleaned gems into the very fabric of their particular industry – branding and advertising. They knowingly and deliberately used the wisdom of the past to manipulate the people of the present; if Bastian had known this he would have spit feathers in outrage. He was as much of a sucker as anyone else.

#

Bastian realized that he didn’t need to decipher the note in its entirety to know what Mrs. Matsutoya was complaining about. He could make out the words ‘awful noise’ within the minute scrawl and immediately knew exactly what the problem was.

In an effort to somehow share the wealth of his family archives with the rest of the city, realizing that it might as well not exist if it wasn’t available to all, Bastian had recently started adding his own little touches to the tedious home drones that came in for repair. Using the pre-set sound cores within the units, he had been overdubbing pieces of music into the drones so that they would set about their duties with a symphonic flare. It had begun the previous month with a selection of operatic choruses clandestinely implanted within the electronic depths of several home-health-care Nightingale units. The previous week he had recorded Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral Symphony’ onto the sound core of a gardening Eldridge unit drone, and for the tiresome, always miserable Mrs. Matsutoya he had smirkingly picked out the same composer’s ‘Ode To Joy.’ Oh, how he wished he had seen her face when those raucous, lively flourishes had emitted from her Haley as it cleaned the floor, filling her dwelling with the robust, dramatic movements of a composer brimming over with self-confidence and love of his craft.

Bastian chuckled to himself, screwed the piece of paper into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder.

“Master Marco, let your dear mother know that I shall stop by this evening on my pick-ups. Apologize for me, and assure her that her Haley will be restored to factory conditions and be completely joy-free by tomorrow afternoon. Now, where’s that ‘Charlie-pop’ I promised you…”

#

One of the first things to fall after the ‘Big Move’ had been an accurate record of history. A generation or two into the new planet and historical fact became more like a game of intergalactic whispers. No-one bothered to record any of their memories or knowledge, believing that the authorities had all the historical documents that ever existed in every facet of society in their possession. Fathers would, of course, speak to their sons of the homeworld, attempting to pass on what they knew; sharing their stories with whiskey-heavy mouths and yellowed, time-damaged sentiments. By the time the sons became fathers themselves, with curious children of their own, they had forgotten a crucial fact or two, maybe made a slight exaggeration in their re-telling. Soon every family had their own version of mankind’s history and not one was alike. Ask a child in Prometheus to draw an elephant and you would get a gallery comprised of entirely different sketches, a large percentage of them not even animal in design. Most people agreed that they had come from a planet named Earth, but beyond that everything was a muddle and up for grabs to the drunken bard with the best twists and turns. The only certainties left were the very pieces of manmade art and recorded documentation themselves. Almost everything of this nature, as far as the general plebes knew, had been destroyed in the riots that had marked the start of mankind’s new calendar.

As Bastian activated the Holmes security drone at his store that evening and stepped out towards his stationary delivery vehicle, he took a moment to stand in the street and look up into the purpling city skyline where the beaming Noble light, far up in the straggly clouds, had just begun its first twilight circuit. A young man across the way jauntily sauntered by and gave the older man a friendly wave. Bastian raised his hand in response and, as the stranger moved on down the street, the distinctive whistled bars of Puccini’s ‘Tosca’ reached Bastian’s ears, forming a smile on his face that about split his head right in half.

Copyright © 2013 by Harper Hull

Harper Hull was born and raised in the rain-lashed north of England but now lives in the sultry southern United States. He started writing short stories in 2010 and has been lucky enough to appear in books alongside such luminaries as George R.R. Martin, John Shirley, Jack Ketchum, J.F. Gonzalez and many more. He is currently working on his first full collection of shorts. Whether it be science fiction, horror or something not quite either, he just hopes you enjoy his tales. His hompage is at http://harperhull.weebly.com/index.html

]]> http://nova-sf.de/internova/?feed=rss2&p=889 0 http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=884 http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=884#comments Thu, 30 May 2013 19:50:31 +0000 miwoleit http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=884 by Luke Jackson

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. – Wittgenstein

The ideas swarmed around his head like angry bees. His writing hand was cramped from the pages he had scrawled trying to capture them all before they dissipated. He had at last propounded a solid theoretical framework that built upon the work of Martin Heidegger, but that also revealed several flaws he had found in the great philosopher’s work. More precisely, he had rejected the mind-body duality, as Heidegger had, but had managed to avoid some of the reductionism inherent in the concept of Being-in-the-world. He had also greatly developed Heidegger’s ontology beyond the ontological-ontic distinction.

His wife Althea had left him earlier that afternoon. It was probably best this way. She hadn’t understood the importance of the work.

“You’re spending all day writing God-knows-what,” she had said to him when he had been making notes on his new ontology. Just like her, to follow the social ritual of divine referents when she was a nonbeliever. Lately her voice had become a shrill background noise to him, a distraction. He tried not to look at her pale face, lined with worry and discontent, peering out from a hood of short black hair.

“This work is extremely important, you have no idea,” he had said, putting his notepad to one side and running his fingers through his long hair.

“More important than me,” she had said, and he was forced to silently acknowledge that it was true. She was but one person; his work was all-encompassing. “A book that no publisher in its right mind would publish,” she said, trying to cut him.

“Perhaps,” he had said, scratching the weeks-long growth of beard on his face. “Most people think that philosophy is in its death throes, or has died. Postmodernism claims that everything is in the language and the subjectivity of the reader. That’s why this book is so important! I’m framing a completely new philosophical model, improving upon the masters…”

“I hope that, on some level, you realize that you’ve lost it,” she had said, carrying her battered duffel bag in one hand as she slammed the door on him.

Now he was putting the final touches on the preface to his treatise, Towards a New Ontology:

Thus, we see the end result of the ‘new’ philosophies. First it was necessary to displace the theological systems that weighed so heavily on the human mind, ably performed by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Martin Heidegger started the work of developing a new ontological model, outlining the path of Being from being “thrown” into the world through its inevitable Being-towards-death, but his work was unfortunately tainted by associations with Nazism. Now most see philosophy as fractured and dead, torn between the primitive pragmatisms of Rorty and the Americans, and the abstract language-obsessed models perfected by the French. Modern philosophy has burned itself in effigy.

 This need not be the case. Indeed, everyone lives according to a philosophical model, usually obtained from the dominant culture. We all know that the U.S. values individualism and materialism. What I am proposing is a new way, a new ontology.

 He kicked back in his chair and reread what he had written, then went out onto his rickety iron balcony to smoke an American Spirit. The New Orleans night was black with swampy murk, cut sporadically by the headlights from traffic below. He inhaled deeply and watched the smoke curl up around his nose and eyes, feeling the blood rush to his head. A twinge of self-loathing mixed with the nicotine rush — Althea had trained him well when they’d lived together, and he’d grown adept at hiding butts for months. No more.

He stared at the burning embers of the cigarette, thinking how distinctly American it was to steal the herbs natives smoked in peace ceremonies, then intensify and mass-produce them into a powerfully addictive and carcinogenic drug. Strangely, when things were pared down into their absolute essence, they lost all authentic meaning. Plato was wrong and the indigenous people who had refused to have their photographs taken were right. Somehow they had seen the soulless future of reality television and Las Vegas simulacra[1].

It was absurd, how Althea had left him. He was propounding a radical alteration in human consciousness. She was consumed with bills, paychecks, the trivial epiphenomena of capitalist existence. How could she fail to realize that her concerns were only mental constructs enforced by the dominant ideology?

He pushed his cigarette out in the overflowing ceramic Mickey Mouse ashtray and dreamed of Chapter One.

* * *

The catacomb of empty tile corridors stretched out in all directions, the fluorescent lights dimmed to dull orange strips to preserve electricity. His mop made a squishing sound as he drove it back and forth across the floor, leaving a sudsy brown trail. His muted and blurred shadow mirrored his struggles underneath him, as if it could escape from its underworld through the perfection of its imitation[2].

As his arms repeated the endless left-right swishing stroke, surrounded by the hums of the computer banks, he thought of Althea. He had met his wife in an Eastern philosophy seminar, during a brief phase of fascination when the illogic of it had seemed an inscrutable mystery rather than a collection of non sequiturs. She had talked so eloquently and passionately about Eastern thought, unconstrained by the Aristotelian logic systems inherited by the West. He had been enrapt by her voice and surprised himself when he had asked her out for coffee; he’d been even more surprised when she had said yes.

That was all before he had been laughed out of the program by those slaves and sycophants, so content to interpret and reinterpret the masters without producing anything new. He had been powerfully moved, and wounded, by philosophy: by Schopenhauer’s dark visions of a godless world ruled by will, by Nietzsche’s development of this theme and his exposure of the mental chains that enslaved men, an exposure of mediocrity and mendacity. Finally Heidegger — the last true philosopher of Being to alter his consciousness and vision of the world.

The other graduate students had only memorized and regurgitated tenets and theories, all completely unmoved and rational, pretending that their consciousnesses were that of the long-discredited Cartesian cogito. These “positivists” might as well have been memorizing for an OChem exam; they were no more than trained monkeys — what they did to the ideas of the great philosophers every day was a disgrace and a travesty.

That was all before his wife had abandoned philosophy completely and entered the paralegal certificate program.

To distract himself, he propped the mop in the doorjamb next to the main computer array. The graphs and formulae on the screens and the blinking lights were indecipherable to him, but he knew that the computers were searching the vastness of space for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

He had seen the words in bold, three-dimensional letters in the marble lobby: The Institution for the Discovery of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Species.

A nearby laser printer hummed as it added pages to its overflowing output tray. He picked up the paper and flipped through the gibberish, mirroring the contents of the screen before him:

ASTHBRWTYYTJTYUEWRTQWERTHFJDFUAERTAERGJNK%^&Q%$TWVSDFH RT YRETU TYU RWTYBWERRGVATRQRWETBVWERYBWRTBWRTYBTR

He flipped through the pages, craving a smoke. Whenever he had an assignment in these science research laboratories, they were usually pretty strict about cigarettes on the graveyard shift. You couldn’t smoke anywhere anymore — the tyranny of the majority, and all that.

He stopped on a page:

HIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHI

The letters “HI” repeated for several pages before returning to gibberish again.

These computers were supposed to know when a non-random sequence had been received. He was sure of that. And endless pages of “HI” certainly appeared non-random.

He leaned over and stared at the screen. It was just the same gibberish; the HI sequence had ended.

He tried typing a few keys, but the only result was an angry beep from the system while the string of gibberish on the monitor froze for a second.

He sighed, folded up his extraterrestrial message, and put it in the pockets of his baggy blue work overalls. The next two floors still needed cleaning.

* * *

The next morning, he was back on his balcony. The traffic gleamed dully in the cold winter sun; bare tree limbs groped through fog, smog, whatever it was. He had been distracted from Chapter One by petty financial troubles: the beefy landlord, sweat stains dribbling down the sides of his buttoned shirt, had paid him an uncomfortable and subtly aggressive visit. The bills were stacking up, and he had no idea how to pay any of them.

He fondled the crinkled pages of repetitive HI’s in his nicotine-stained fingers. For all he knew, these HI’s were the output of some diagnostic test and had nothing to do with the English word. It was something that the scientists and the computers could understand, not an overeducated and under-skilled janitor like him[3]. He had been stupid to think otherwise.

He opened his fingers and let the wind take his alien greeting, now white doves fluttering over the dull metal cars. A hatchet-faced man in a sharkskin suit swatted at them, annoyed, and briefly looked up.

He quickly looked up, too, to avoid eye contact with the suit and saw a strange tripartite orange balloon with smudged contours hanging in the foggy sky.

He had no idea what it was, but it looked huge. It did not follow the linear path of an object moving through space, but seemed to swell, flutter and diminish according to his own internal mental equilibrium.

He gripped the wrought-iron railing until his hands hurt. If the object did not obey the laws of physics, then it was not a creature of external reality but of his own mind. That much seemed certain. The actions of the people below confirmed this conclusion: the sharpie walked on, a few teens clutching skateboards snickered by the curb, cars rolled on, oblivious to the orange object.

He stared at the orange thing, willing it to cease tormenting him with its existence. The only result was that it assumed a frozen rigidity, its aspect becoming more definite with each passing moment.

He did not want to make it more real. He went indoors, locked the windows and closed the blinds.

This must be payback for taking those five tabs of acid at that horrible Grateful Dead concert twenty years ago. He wrapped a throw blanket around his head, lay down on the couch and tried to conceptualize nothingness.

* * *

The thing was still there. It had grown larger, until now its salmon glow took up a third of the sky, day and night.

Nobody seemed to see what he saw. He implored people on the street to look up. They brushed by him, irritated. Some who looked up just shrugged and kept walking. A few looked lost or confused for a moment, but then muttered something about “strange weather phenomena.”

The small black-and-white TV on the dinner table never mentioned it. He couldn’t even get local channels anymore, and the national 24-hour news channels were concerned only with electoral politics and the recent flare-up of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

He Googled “orange smudge” and “orange balloon” on Althea’s ancient 486 laptop sitting on a dusty barstool in a corner of the room. After searching through hundreds of pages regarding children’s parties or more distasteful links, he found something:

“HAVE YOU SEEN IT?” was the title, with an animated graphic of the pulsing thing at the top. The graphic was clearer than what he saw in the night sky outside his window, and looked more like some kind of swollen organ than a balloon.

He skimmed the web page, run by some guy named Bob Savage, but what he read had few specifics. Some people could see it. Most could not. Nobody talked about it. The writer believed that there was some kind of mental block preventing most people from either seeing it, or, if they saw it, acknowledging its reality or its strangeness. The writer speculated that it was a recurrence of the Europeans’ first landing in America, where the wooden ships on the water were so alien to the native’s experience that the natives couldn’t even perceive them.

Standard UFO conspiracy-theory stuff… if he hadn’t seen the thing himself.

The laptop abruptly froze. He cursed and banged on its touchpad and keyboard. He was about to do a hard shutdown by holding down the power button, when his screen went blank and began to fill with repeating text:

“NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO,” it said.

* * *

He was sitting on the shrink’s plush couch. He had finally taken Althea’s suggestion. She stared at him like a curious bird, her eyes small and animated over her large nose. He knew how this was supposed to work: she was supposed to say general non sequiturs expressing curiosity, in order to draw him out and make him express himself. She would be quiet and noncommittal, but would eventually try to pressure him into conformist modes of socialization[4]. The gaudy knickknacks scattered around the room, the crucifix prominently displayed, did not impress him with her scientific objectivity.

He started to tell her his story, skimming through the uninteresting details of his childhood, the moves, his parents’ divorce. He told her how he was in the process of developing a new ontology that would revolutionize human society and interaction. Of course, she maintained her bland, open-but-distant demeanor throughout his monologue[5].

“It appears that you’ve been living this isolated and intellectualized existence, dissociated from friends and family, for some time. You’ve kept a buffer between yourself and the world. This buffer may be comforting to you, but it also presents a severe obstacle to living a full, human life. Why do you think it is that you have built this buffer?” she finally asked.

“I have made sacrifices in order to pursue my work, but that is only because I find the work so important,” he lied, not telling her that he’d only completed a rough draft of the preface. “Many great thinkers have isolated themselves in order to pursue their work. Would Nietzsche or Van Gogh have created masterpieces if they became one of the herd and started popping Prozac?” He remembered how the great Heidegger had attacked reductive psychologism almost one hundred years ago.

“I see, the myth of isolated genius,” she said, scribbling in her notepad. She bit on the eraser tip of the pencil for a few moments. “I think it might be helpful if you discontinued the work temporarily and tried to reestablish ties with your loved ones…”

He remembered Althea and did not want to.

“Just look outside the window with me,” he said.

The shrink choked for a few moments, nibbling warily on her pencil.

“Just pull up the blinds and look through that window behind you,” he said, pointing. “Look at the goddamn thing out there.” He shivered.

“Mr. Jackson, if you are suffering from hallucinations, you had best disclose that now. It is a symptom of schizophrenia, which will get no better unless treated. It’s a very serious matter[6]…”

He leaped up and strode towards her desk and the window behind it. She drew back, as if he might strike her.

He yanked the cord and the room became suffused with a malevolent crimson light — the thing was growing into a visual manifestation of hell. Part of it now had the aspect of a face: dull orbs had become deranged, seemingly blind eyes; its metallic grille had become a ravenous open mouth. It mocked him as it leered at him, pushing against the fabric of the sky, pushing towards him as if trying to break through some membrane.

“Tell me what you see,” he muttered to her, looking down.

She blinked in the new brightness. Her eyes seemed unfocused, looking inward, and he wondered if she was nearsighted.

“I see,” she said. “Perhaps not hallucination, per se, but more of an agnosia, an inability to recognize familiar objects. . .” She was talking to herself and scribbling something down.

“Why won’t you tell me what you see?” he asked softly.

She finished scribbling and held out what appeared to be a prescription.

“Mr. Jackson, you know that would be entirely inappropriate.”

She was one of the worst shrinks he’d seen — he knew she wasn’t allowed to get entangled in his world, but wasn’t she supposed to be a bit slower and subtler in her diagnosis and prescription?

“Now you want me to take your drugs, make me insensate and manageable,” he spat at her in disgust. “Never, Nurse Ratchet,” he said, growing bolder. “Remember that: Never. My work is my life. My life is my work.”

“You are my concern, Luke, not your work,” she replied.

He opened the door and started walking, away from her office before she could call in the white-clad goons.

* * *

Inside his apartment, he collapsed against the front door. He drew the deadbolt and chain against the outside world.

His apartment was a mess without Althea — cigarette butts carpeted the balcony, half-rotted food was beginning to attract insects.

He had tried to run the several miles back from the hospital, but his burning lungs and side had sent him a clear message that he was in no shape for it. Running was certainly an unpleasant reminder of his pale, pasty bulk and his shriveled, inefficient organs — the way of all flesh. The bustling city streets of cars, crowds and skyscrapers had weighed too heavily on him, and he felt his individual essence erased by the throng[7]. He had eventually collapsed into a taxi, grateful for the change to escape the press of people, happy to direct the glum driver to his apartment.

The shrink thought he was insane and suffering from some sort of mental impairment, but he knew he needed to speak with others who understood what was happening and could tell him how to avoid the self-contained heuristic loop of his own reasoning.

He dialed the long-distance number he’d copied down from Bob Savage’s website — somewhere in the 909 area code, wherever that was.

“Bob here,” said a gruff voice.

“I saw your website, Bob.” He paused for a moment. “I’ve seen it too.”

“Who’s calling?” Bob snapped.

“Dean Moriarty,” he lied. “Can you tell me what it is?”

“Where are you calling from, Dean?”

“That’s not important. What is it?” he asked again.

“A lark,” Bob said. “A joke. I thought it was obvious. Ever heard of Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Flat Earth Society? Same thing. The website’s already been taken down.

Forget about it.”.

He dropped the phone back in its cradle. “Bob” had been compromised and now his number went directly to some military psyops agent. Or worse: “Bob” had never existed and the website was a lure to track down and catch people who could see it — people like him.

The apartment wasn’t safe anymore. He grabbed two of Heidegger’s texts — Being and Time and Basic Writings — and made a beeline for the door.

He left behind his just-begun magnum opus, Towards a New Ontology, now only a scattering of scrawls on yellow notebook paper. There would be no time to complete it now… his chance for immortality had been stolen from him.

As he unlocked the front door, he saw a leftover bottle of ’73 Pinot Noir from the reception of his wedding. Althea. It sat dusty and neglected on the yellow refrigerator. He slipped it under his arm and closed the door behind him.

* * *

Luke sat on a dilapidated park bench on the fringes of the French Quarter, where few tourists dared venture outside of Mardi Gras, and finished off the dregs of the Pinot Noir. The close, meandering streets now looked softer and warmer in the gathering twilight. Across the street, distorted acid jazz, a bad imitation of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, squealed and thumped from one of those “edgy” dive bars with the horrid name Katrina’s.

As the liquor worked through him, he rolled the empty wine bottle on the wooden bench in one hand and flipped through the pages of Heidegger’s Being and Time with the other. In timesof crisis, many turned to the Bible — how strange that they would all turn to that old and outdated tome, when there had been so many philosophical upheavals since it was written! Did they even know of the great philosophical framework that had been built up in the millennia since? In all of his studies, nobody had developed a theory of Dasein, or Being, to match that of Martin Heidegger.

It was easier to ignore the thing now that his mind was consumed with the familiar dense prose of Heidegger. It was now only a distant fluttering in the corner of his eye as he turned to the dog-eared page 269 and read an underlined passage:

Dasein, as constituted by disclosedness, is essentially in the truth. ‘There is’ truth only in so far as Dasein is and so long as Dasein is. Entities are uncovered only when Dasein is; and only as long as Dasein is, are they disclosed. Newton’s laws, the principle of contradiction, any truth whatever—these are true only as long as Dasein is. Before there was any Dasein, there was no truth; nor will there be any after Dasein is no more. For in such a case truth as disclosedness, uncovering, and uncoveredness, cannot be.

Per Heidegger, truth was an uncovering wholly dependent on Dasein, the human Being. Truth was mediated through Dasein—and Luke was Dasein[8]. Skipping ahead, he read:

To say that before Newton his laws were neither true nor false, cannot signify that before him there were no such entities as have been uncovered and pointed out by those laws. Through Newton the laws became true and with them, entities became accessible in themselves to Dasein. Once entities have been uncovered, they show themselves precisely as entities beforehand already were. Such uncovered is the kind of Being which belongs to ‘truth.

This gave him pause. Newton was the catalyst for new truths which then uncovered entities that had always existed. Similarly, Luke had uncovered some malevolent unknown entity in the sky, which sought to invade and conquer his world. Now that it was uncovered, had it always existed?

Was the “uncovering” of this maniacal sky daemon wholly his fault? Like Newton, had his singular Being operated as a channel for this manifestation? If this entity now always existed, through his own doing, how could he possibly reverse its divine invasion?

He looked up and it had become only a small orange dot in the distant sky. For all he knew, it could be Venus, not the maleficent entity that had harassed him for the past few days.

He sensed that it was afraid of the power of Heidegger’s thinking. Like a Rabbinical scholar, he returned to his close reading of the sacred texts: “Because the kind of Being that is essential to truth is of the character of Dasein, all truth is relative to Dasein’s Being.”

It seemed he could destroy his Dasein[9] and therefore destroy the truth of the entity, returning it to concealment. To his knowledge, nobody else was capable of truly seeing it, so his passage would return it to covering. The situation was different from that of Newton, who had published and popularized his findings to others and thereby sacrificed his power of concealing and unconcealing.

He remembered the words of Holderlin: “”But where danger is, grows the saving power also.”[10]

He immediately knew what that path would be. He would not follow the path of death, but a third way, a direction where Heidegger’s formulation of Being could no longer take him. He closed the thick black text and held it to his chest in the gathering wine-warmed night.

* * *

Dr. Lugosi put the functional magnetic resonance imaging (“fMRI”) film on the backlit screen, a glowing representation of Luke’s consciousness with red and yellow patches lit up. From his online research, Luke knew that the fMRI was able to produce a three-dimensional model of his brain which analyzed oxygenation levels to determine which sections were most active. The technology was only now becoming inexpensive enough for common use.

“Hm,” the doctor said through the wad of gum in his mouth. “No gross anomalies or tumors… but something very strange in your medial temporal lobe.”

“What’s that?” Luke asked.

“The medial temporal lobe is crucial in the formation of declarative memory — the retention of facts.” Lugosi spat his gum into a biohazard-display wastebasket. “I could be wrong, but it looks like there’s actually a section missing.

“Do you mind?” the doctor asked him, then began running his gloved hands through Luke’s long and mangy hair. The shower in the hourly-rate motel where Luke had spent the night hadn’t worked.

The doctor’s fingers ran over a raised protrusion of flesh bisecting the length of Luke’s skull. It felt sore, and Luke winced.

“What’s this?” Lugosi said and peered in for a closer look. “What did you do to yourself?

“I need to get in there and see what’s going on,” the doctor continued. He had a strange expression on his face that Luke couldn’t read[11]. “Wait here while I get a nurse and a shaver,” and he left.

Luke was scared. He didn’t want to uncover the reality of whatever lurked within his skull — he was already responsible for the horrible thing. What new horrors would lurk in his skull? Some kind of implanted device or, worse, an alien life form able to control and manipulate him?

He remembered Heidegger’s words: that whatever it was, it would not exist until it was uncovered. While the doctor was gone, Luke rolled up the fMRI film and pocketed it inside his jacket.

Throughout the entire brain scan, Luke had concentrated on the orange thing, mentally visualizing it up in the sky. Therefore, the fMRI had scanned which parts of his consciousness knew of and were responsible for revealing it.

Perhaps those parts could be excised[12].

For a moment he wondered if his analysis was completely deranged and mad, lacking any basis in fact or reality. But Heidegger consoled him:

One must seek a way of illuminating the fundamental question of ontology and then go this way. Whether this is the sole or right way can be decided only after one has gone along it.

Luke left before the doctor could return.

* * *

He returned to consciousness reluctantly, opening bleary eyes in a crowded surgery room that swam around him. Strangers in white robes, blue scrubs and surgical masks surrounded him, speaking loudly in a foreign tongue, trying to poke and stab him with their scalpels through a numb haze. Plastic tubes intertwined with and penetrated his limbs.

Martin Heidegger sat near his bed.

“Mr. Heidegger,” he said under his breath, sick of hallucinations and not wanting anyone to hear how sick he was.

“Yes,” Heidegger replied in a thick German accent, leaning his bulk over the bed and peering down his prominent nose and bushy moustache. His gaze and his manner were cold.

“Why are you here?” Luke whispered, wishing he could know at last if this was real, the afterlife or madness.

“Causation of my presence is irrelevant,” Heidegger stated curtly. He paused for a moment, running his fingers over his moustache. “It appears you have misconstrued my work.”

“Me?” he asked. He hadn’t expected this, of all things. He thought he had understood it better than all of his peers in the graduate seminar.

“Because it affected you strongly does not necessarily mean that you understand. Indeed, even I have come to question what I have created, what there is to understand. Much is learned upon leaving here.”

“If you could tell me there is life after death, that would resolve one major philosophical question,” Luke said, perturbed.

“It would resolve nothing. You would never know if I am merely hallucination. One of the drawbacks of being a creature connected to the world only through sensory apparatus,” Heidegger replied.

“You are right,” Luke said after a moment. “Once I begin questioning what I perceive, I cannot accept any of it. It is all madness. I am insane.” Luke was forced to acknowledge to himself that the idea had a certain appeal and gave him a certain freedom.

“Perhaps.” Heidegger startled him by reaching forward and taking his hand, careful to avoid the IV protruding from its back. “Caught in the trap of solipsism. But if there is one thing I want people to take from my work, it is the importance of Being-in-the-world. Life is lived in action, usefulness, not in the rarefied air of an isolated mind. Remember: ‘Resoluteness, as authentic Being-ones’-self, does not detach Dasein from this world, nor does it isolate one so that one becomes a free-floating ‘I.’

“I had hoped you would at least take that away from our meeting here today.”

“Yes,” Luke replied, disquieted by how Heidegger’s visage was becoming dimmer and more transparent as the reality of the hospital team became more solid. “But…” It was difficult for him to think. “But if I am merely a direct physical actor in the world, doesn’t that strip philosophy of its meaning? It becomes a meaningless abstraction… and my life’s work[13] does as well.”

He gazed up into Heidegger’s small, slightly beady eyes, hoping to glean some hope or inspiration from them.

“Perhaps it does, Mr. Jackson. Perhaps it does. But Camus was right, you know, about the question of suicide. Either be in the world fully, or don’t.”

Heidegger delivered his command with stern solemnity, hair and ruddy flesh slowly dripping from his face and paunch, his eyes growing larger and brighter. Luke resigned himself to more hallucinations, to a life of entropic thought and disintegrating meaning, eventually institutionalized or wandering the streets, shouting philosophy into filthy alleys.

“At any rate, you have made the issue moot,” Heidegger said through a thin and distant voice. “You have chosen to surgically excise me,” he said, now no more than a whisper and a ghost. “Perhaps it is best this way.” Then he vanished.

When Heidegger disappeared, the surgical team around Luke abruptly materialized as reality instead of a mute background. Luke saw what seemed to be blood trickling down the side of his nose. It felt as if the hospital staff were trepanning his skull; he tried to scream in pain but only coughed and choked around a plastic tube in his mouth. He made desperate eye contact with one of the nurses standing by, who instantly began yammering unintelligibly.

Then a syringe plunged into his thigh and he returned to the welcome blackness.

* * *

He lay back and listened to the strange chemicals dripping from the hanging plastic bags into his bloodstream. He looked around at the broken and twisted figures, also wired to intravenous machines, populating the beds beside him. They stared at him with quivering and encrusted eyes, their messages unintelligible to him.

“Luke,” said a large man with close-cropped gray hair standing nearby.

He looked at the strange man. Was ‘Luke’ his name? It seemed wrong, somehow.

“It’s me, Luke,” said the strange man sitting by his bed. “Your old buddy, Bob. Bob Savage.” Bob gripped Luke’s shoulder and stared into his eyes, his face sad but his eyes something altogether different.

“I don’t remember,” Luke said.

“Maybe I should call you Dean,” Bob said, and his frown became a small, mean smile.

“Okay,” Luke said.

“You remember the last thing we talked about, Luke? On the phone? Come on, I know you can remember if you just try to jog your memory…”

“Hey Bob,” Luke said with a thick tongue. “It’s all gone. Everything.” Bob’s face was stone.

“Don’t give up so easy,” Bob said, quieter now. His grip tightened on Luke’s shoulder. “Don’t you remember what you saw in the sky? The thing? Let’s go outside for a second, just you and me and take a look together…”

Luke’s heartbeat became faster and his palms were starting to get wet. Luke noted these physiological changes from a distance; he would never, ever go outside again.

“Bob,” he said. “Go away, Bob. Sorry to be rude, but I need to recover. If you make me go outside, I swear to God I’m going to scream for that nurse over there,” he nudged his head towards the dark, portly woman. “I’ll make a scene, Bob.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” Bob said flatly. He abruptly stood up. “Nobody even speaks English in this God-forsaken country, Luke,” he said with a sneer. Then he strode away and flipped open his cell phone.

“The Unemployed Philosopher is secure,” he said.

As Bob left, Luke looked up at the small, slightly scrambled television screen in the upper corner of the room. The show was familiar; even though he couldn’t understand anything that was said, it was one of his favorites. People guessed the right number and received untold miracles if their guesses were right.

Now a woman had the right number. She jumped up and down, her voluminous flesh dancing on her bones, her face ruddy and flushed with ecstatic joy. She clapped her hands together, her large forearms quivering as bells whistled and music played. The audience applause was thunderous.

It was a glorious thing to behold.

[1] Baudrillard would contend that this new, imitative “reality” was as “real” as its precursors. But he couldn’t help but think that, even though strictly “real,” it was stripped of any real meaning.

[2] His shadow made him think of Lacan’s Mirror Stage. The infant, upon seeing its reflection in a mirror, first suffered the trauma of knowing itself as a delimited and finite being, no longer as the all-encompassing id and center of existence. This realization of the self’s inadequacy began the desperate, futile quest to incorporate and subsume external reality, beginning with the mother’s teat and extending through the varied toys of late capitalism. What if, since birth, his world had been only these empty corridors and his smudged shadow? In this modern-day Plato’s cave, would he actually become the blurry doppelganger trapped beneath him?

[3] His occupational predicament reminded him of the post-Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, who had developed the model of the Ideological State Apparatus (“ISA”), i.e., those means of state control through ideological and propagandistic means rather than the brute force of the military and police. The ISA’s would “educate” citizens only for their preconceived social role: laborers only needed simple tales of patriotism to make them efficient workers, whereas professionals and others would receive that education necessary to prepare them for their vocation. Perhaps his crisis was born of the extreme disjunction between his academic indoctrination and the janitorial function he actually served within late capitalism.

[4] She appeared to be the perfect manifestation of Heidegger’s notion of “idle talk”—i.e., that conversation was not to convey rational information, but merely served as a bland palliative to socialize and soothe the human animal.

[5] Psychology, the pseudo-science based on Freud’s philosophical system. How’d he end up here? These pop psychologists just regurgitated the mantras of psychology without knowing wherefrom they derived; it was the new religion. He remembered the marriage counselor with irritation, how she had always scolded him for leaping to generalized abstractions, insisting that he focus on the irrelevant minutiae of the everyday. She was more a creature of Dr. Phil than Freud or Lacan. Such a process could be deemed “beneficial” only in a culture consumed with the trivial.

[6] He was no follower of Michel Foucault, but his Madness and Civilization had ably demonstrated how the divide between madness and “reason” was basically a social construct, meant to enforce the dominance of rationalism, not necessarily based on any inherent physiological properties of the patient. Psychology was not science or medicine; shrinks were not doctors.

[7] He knew that the shrink would say that he was developing agoraphobia as well. But his philosophical training let him see what was actually happening—Heidegger had written about the “anxiety of individuation,” the pain that always results when an individual breaks from the herd in order to become truly authentic.

[8] Or at least, a part of Dasein.

[9] Per Heidegger: “Death thus reveals itself as the most proper, nonrelational, insurmountable possibility” of Dasein.

[10] See Heidegger’s essay “The Question Concerning Technology” for further analysis.

[11] Dr. Lugosi was so disturbed because psychosurgery was a rare and tightly controlled procedure. The early lobotomies, where the doctor would force an ice pick through a patient’s eye socket and randomly “scramble” the frontal lobes like eggs, had become common knowledge and an object of universal disgust. Now, the few psychosurgery operations were made only upon the specific instance and request of the doctor. Moreover, modern psychosurgery used the latest in technology and only created the mildest and most minimal brain lesions.

[12] Luke was well-aware of the seemingly contradictory nature of his path. Whereas Heidegger had rejected the reductionism of the field of psychology, Luke was now adopting the far more reductive position that his Being (or Dasein) was composed entirely of the grey matter within his skull. However, the great master Heidegger was, fairly or not, seen as more of an existentialist than a metaphysician, and indeed, all empirical evidence seemed to suggest that human consciousness was composed of the activity of neurons in the brain as opposed to an intangible “soul” or other theological notion. More importantly, Luke was driven by an urgent necessity– he had no time to oppose the horrible thing through spiritual self-scrutiny or chanting mantras in light of the dire threat it presented.

[13] If Luke were to be completely honest with himself, he would acknowledge that his scribbling bore a closer resemblance to “self-help” books than a magnum opus of philosophy. Thankfully, he was rarely honest with himself.

Copyright © 2013 by Luke Jackson

At birth, Luke Jackson’s massive cranium cracked his mother’s tailbone. She was eventually able to sit again, though Luke remained a more metaphorical pain in her arse for years to come. As for Luke, critics suggest that he may have suffered permanent brain damage from the incident, and never had the chance to be “normal.” These critics are fools. In his 29 years, Luke has revealed brilliance and acumen far beyond the standard capabilities of his hominid species.

]]> http://nova-sf.de/internova/?feed=rss2&p=884 0 http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=881 http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=881#comments Thu, 30 May 2013 18:57:24 +0000 miwoleit http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=881 by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro

“Brazil expects every man to do his duty.”

(Admiral Francisco Manoel Barroso da Silva

- Sept. 29, 1804 – June 6, 1865)

In January 1873, on a sweltering summer afternoon in Rio de Janeiro, a young dark-bearded man with hair graying at the temples squatted behind the trunk of one of the many wide-canopied trees on the ample grounds surrounding the Palácio de São Cristóvão.

He was waiting and the wait was pure torture. It reminded him of the suffering and uncertainties he had endured in the dungeons of a military prison in Asunción.

In the intense, humid heat, the linen shirt stuck to his sweaty chest. Burs clung to his trousers and pricked his calves.

A loaded Spencer weighed heavily in his lap. An additional magazine complete with seven bullets dragged down the deep pocket of his jacket. The spirit of this former officer from the once proud Brazilian Imperial Navy had been broken during the years spent as a prisoner in Paraguay.

Ill at ease in his new civilian clothing, he now found himself some 50 feet away from the edge of a stone-paved road that began at the great iron gate and led to the square directly in front of the grand Imperial Palace. At that moment, the square was replete with eight carriages. The coachmen spoke in low, solemn tones as if they, and not their masters, were in a position to decide the fate of the agonizing Empire.

Meanwhile, twelve soldiers of the Paraguayan Army kept watch at their posts under the unforgiving sun. In spite of their sweaty foreheads and glistening faces, they seemed undisturbed by the heat. They remained serene in their thick red overcoats, darkened by their sweat.

Another conference day finally came to its end. He wondered if he could perform his patriotic mission that day.

Keeping close watch on the two delegations as they descended the palace steps, he searched among the many men in full-dress uniform for the face of Brazil’s greatest traitor.

He easily recognized at a distance the man who deemed himself so dignified but whose weak character was manifest in his very face. How could he fail to identify his target at first glance?

Admittedly, Brazil’s supreme leader did seem quite a bit older than in his official portraits, and visibly more low-spirited. “Just a broken old man wearing a dark-blue, full-dress uniform covered with medals,” he observed crouching behind the tree. “No!” A sudden flow of guilt ran through his soul, so thick as the mud of the bed of the Paraná. He should save his pity for the many comrades massacred in the shallow, muddy waters of that river, where the lot of Empire changed from destiny to doom.

How could he have felt sorry for this Pedro de Alcântara; an emperor that had remained safe and sound within his court in Rio de Janeiro, thousands of miles away from the battlefront? A sovereign who, albeit had never fought a war, didn’t waver one single moment over capitulating before El Presidente Solano López and, in so doing, this Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil had agreed to put the yoke of occupation over his nation, while there had been so many of his subjects yet eager to defend the country against those vile Paraguayan invaders.

No! There could be no pity for Pedro de Alcântara, the most ignoble traitor Brazil has ever had.

* * *

The fair-haired foreigner dismounted carefully from his horse in a vain attempt to avoid feeling that familiar twinge in his hip that had bothered him for years. He had the impression that that dull ache had originated during the Battle of Five Forks, when he earned the rather dubious privilege of surviving a terrible battle again, while losing the entire division under his command.

He tied the reins of his robust bay around the trunk of an oak, a European tree even more alien than himself in this warm tropical land. After twisting the tip of his bushy, gray-blond mustache, he removed his Sharp from the holster tied in the saddle.

Thoughtful, he caressed the butt of his old rifle, a faithful companion, not in the two long wars he had fought, but in the cherished times he had spent hunting buffalo on the Western Plains or tracking cougars down in the valleys at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

Placing the rifle butt under his left armpit and keeping it steady with his left hand, the foreigner opened up the gun in the middle with a nimble move of his free hand. Then he removed a long, thick cartridge from the inside pocket of his gray jacket and introduced it into the gun’s breech. Then he closed it up again.

After taking out his gold-rimmed spectacles from the pocket of his faded shirt and putting them on, he unfolded his rifle’s sight and checked its accuracy by steadying the focus on the branch of a faraway tree.

The foreigner released a biting laugh, somewhat like a dry cough, as he recalled a rumor about him once rampant in Virginia that he could shoot down a buffalo half a mile away on the first try with this ole Sharp.

He hoped the target would not be so far away this time, especially because he wouldn’t be aiming at a buffalo.

This would be the first time he was planning to use his Sharp to kill a man. Did arms perchance own a conscience, a soul, maybe? If so, how would his ole friend react upon discovering it was being used to take away the life of a human being?

The blond man stroked his gray goatee. Absent-mindedly, he straightened the showy red scarf he always wore tied around his neck.

Notwithstanding all the legends and exaggerated stories surrounding his name, he had actually never killed a man in peacetime. He assumed that he had killed several enemy soldiers during the War of Southern Independence and, later, in the War of the Triple Alliance. Of course, he could never be certain on how many soldiers were killed by the many, many shots he fired. Because wars were different now. They were not like they used to be. Where was the romantic spirit that had inspired the great battles of the past he had studied at West Point?

Anyway, at war, killing was not exactly an act of murder. Rather, it should be considered an act of self-defense. Civilians often didn’t realize that in wartime things worked differently. A soldier was often left with no other choice but to kill or be killed.

However, his worries were of an entirely different kind now. This was the first time he had ever planned to kill a man in cold blood. His future victim was not even an enemy bent on killing him as well, but a man who almost certainly believed that he had long ago returned to New Orleans, along with most of the other former Confederate Army officers and men.

He stroked the red and white hairs of his goatee again and muttered, “May God be with me,” under his breath. He then began searching for a sign of that misguided Brazilian patriot. He’d better find that man before it was too late.

* * *

At the very beginning of the War, before the tragedy at Riachuelo, he had heard that the Imperial Army was expecting a large shipment of Spencer repeating carbines from the United States of America. North American military advisers had recommended the adoption of that carbine as the best cavalry weapon, because of its great firepower and renowned reliability in battle. Those weapons were very similar to the one he now gripped in his hands. Thanks to its astonishing swift loading system and a firing speed unsurpassed by any other weapon of its kind, the Spencer had been the last word in small arms.

As the tide of the War turned against the Empire, those repeating carbines had found their way into the hands of the Paraguayans.

Not that the he had been worried about the latest advances in weaponry at the beginning of the war against López. He was then a young first lieutenant just appointed captain of the gunboat Ipiranga, the first propeller-driven ship ever built in the Imperial Navy shipyard. He was convinced that the conflict would be only more one small brief war. Just like all the others the Empire had begun to win in the muddy waters of one of La Plata rivers.

He proved to be dead wrong on both counts.

Riachuelo.

In that morning, on June 11, 1865, on the Paraná River in Argentine territory, where the course of the river bends as it welcomes the waters of the Paraguay, its largest tributary, and close to the mouth of the smaller, streamlike Riachuelo, the dreams of glory of Lieutenant Álvaro Augusto de Carvalho turned into a bitter nightmare that would torment him for an eternity of eight full years.

* * *

Getting farther away from his bay, the mercenary strode stealthily through the tall grass. His riding boots protected his shins and calves from the sharp blades of wild grass. He hit his stride while tracing steadily the trail left by the patriot. All over the pursuit, he kept the long barrel of his faithful Sharp ‘69 rested over his shoulder.

It was easy for him to follow the vestiges the Imperial Navy veteran left behind. In his youth, he used to follow the trails of partridges and rabbits on hunting trips with his friends in the forests and fields of his beloved Virginia.

While continuing to follow the Brazilian’s tracks, he contemplated the mistakes and tragedies wars inflict on the existence of the men who fight in them.

Against his will, he remembered that heroic assault on Chapultepec in April 1847 during the Mexican War. He was a young lieutenant then, newly graduated from West Point. He had been serving in the glorious 8th Infantry when they attacked that fortified hill. In the Battle of Chapultepec, he had had to grab the banner out of the hands of Lieutenant Longstreet, a good friend who was injured minutes before.

He interrupted his tracking for a few moments to light up a cigarette. Damn Paraguayan matchs! How he missed those Yankee matchs. You wouldn’t need to worry about this stupid little box. You could always strike up a Yankee match on the sole of your own boot!

Longstreet.

Where could his good friend Jim Longstreet be?

They had met up again during the War of Southern Independence. He had served under his friend’s command in the Southeastern Virginia campaign and, later, in the invasion of Pennsylvania, up to the Battle of Gettysburg, during those three fateful days at the beginning of July 1863.

A couple of hours before that decisive attack on Gettysburg’s third day, Jim had confessed that he had had serious reservations regarding the viability of a frontal attack on the fortified trenches that the Yankees had dug on Cemetery Hill. He had even quarreled with Lee about it. However, orders are orders and, thus, they were obeyed to the letter.

He remembered Jim’s question, “George, are you sure you can take that hill?” His affirmative answer was conveyed by a nod and confident smile, together with a perfect salute on horseback to his friend and superior officer.

His division had been fresh and rested when the bugle call to march was sounded. His troops had not taken part in the great Confederate victory at Chancellorsville. Thus, after spending their first two days in Gettysburg defending the supply wagons, it was natural that both he and his men were itching to conquer their own fair blaze of glory.

Jim had understood their longing perfectly. So, at the beginning of that decisive battle, he had ordered three brigades of the Virginian’s division to carry out the frontal attack, while determining that Ewell’s division should attack the Union’s right flank, while J. E. B. Stuart should flank the enemy’s positions to the left in order to attack its rearguard.

Both Stuart and Ewell failed to accomplish their missions.

Tactical failures followed by well-executed retreats: Stuart’s and Ewell’s divisions had very few casualities. As those two bastards had succeeded in escaping from battle unscathed, his own division was utterly obliterated while trying to execute Lee’s absurd plan.

When his three brigades had commenced their cadenced march in an irrepressible step over those remaining three-fourths of a mile separating his boys from the enemy, there had been a moment he even thought that Old Man Lee might be right after all: the Army of Northern Virginia was a tidal wave that simply could not be stopped! They would demolish the Army of the Potomac! After that bloody victory, if Lincoln didn’t plead for peace, in a matter of day they would be marching down the very streets of Washington! After two years of war, the Confederacy would finally win its independence.

Suddenly, a barrage of Northern artillery began firing with no prior warning. That same artillery he himself had sworn dead a few minutes before. A dense shower of bullets and incandescent cannonballs fell over the Confederate regiments. They were implacably massacred while moving forward. His binoculars had brought before his very eyes the vivid scenes of slaughter that consumed his troops.

Only then had he come to his senses and realized how insane Lee’s orders had really been. His boys had been the very best Virginia had had to offer, but not even they could have advanced unharmed in the open field and overtaken the enemy’s positions on that hilltop defended by entrenched Union infantry and covered by artillery fire.

He lost more than two-thirds of his soldiers in that charge, along with all the superior officers of his division. A heroic, albeit entirely futile attack.

Six years and one war later, Robles, one of the most capable and well-educated generals in the Paraguayan Army, would confess that he considered the gallant charge performed by the Confederate officer’s division as a kind of microcosmic representation of the War of Southern Independence itself: a heroic effort of unsurpassed valor marked by apparent initial success but which ended in sweeping disaster.

“That old man… had my division massacred!” he sighed in a rather bitter tone. His thoughts returned to the present at last. Somewhat alleviated, he kept on the trail of that patriot who belonged to the Radical Republican Resistance.

He got a chill up his spine as he recalled those worthless Richmond politicos that had wanted to blame Jim for the fiasco at Gettysburg, just because his friend had been the only commanding officer in that Army who was not a native-born Virginian.

After taking a last drag on his cigarette, he threw the butt on the ground and crushed it out with the sole of his boot. Even if he lived forever, he would never forgive Lee for ordering that frontal attack.

* * *

Pedro de Alcântara stood motionless while staring in attentive silence at a loquacious but deliberately severe López.

Unlike the other dignitaries, the Paraguayan tyrant was not in full-dress uniform. He wore his battlefield attire, instead. No medals at all; just a red overcoat with marshal’s insignia over dark blue trousers. His staff had probably suggested the adoption of that stark attire to contrast with the pompous solemnity exhibited at the regalia of the defeated emperor.

The veteran tried to aim at His Majesty’s chest; but Estigarribia, former general and present Paraguayan ambassador to Brazil, insisted on eclipsing the monarch, either by employing his thin body or his big head adorned by an imposing North American top hat.

Of course, it was quite easy for the emperor to play the role of the resolute nobleman in extremely adverse circumstances when it was not he who had gone through hell and back in the Battle of Riachuelo.

This would be the first attempt sponsored by the Resistance against Pedro de Alcântara’s life.

There had been three attempts on López’s life. Three complete failures. In the third assassination attempt, however, el Presidente suffered a scratch in his face. Hundreds of Brazilian civilians had been executed in reprisal for such a small scar!

Thus, the Resistance leaders decided to adopt a new strategy. The movement couldn’t afford other decline in the popular support that would surely result from a new retaliatory massacre inflicted on the Empire’s subjects. There was only one man whom the patriots hated almost as much as the Paraguayan dictator: the collaborationist emperor who had agreed to surrender after so many men had died for the nation, when so many others yet were willing to sacrifice their lives for it.

An infiltrator brought the information that the Paraguayan High Command would probably be much more lenient toward any attempt on Dom Pedro II’s life. After all, the Paraguayans had always loathed Empire’s monarchical institutions. Moreover, by their temperament and rude sense of duty, they would tend to readily accept as fair any hypothetical attempt on a ruler considered responsible for the most disastrous military defeat in the Brazilian history.

Thus, the plans of the Resistance were altered. A new agent with wide military experience was assigned for that patriotic mission.

* * *

At times, he guessed the war deities themselves had conspired in favor of Paraguay on that clear winter morning at Riachuelo. There was no other way to explain how those first volleys discharged by the batteries of the Paraguayan cannons and rockets were able to damage the starboard wheel of the Amazonas, the Imperial Navy’s flagship.

That fortuitous hit was the greatest misfortune of the Brazilian cause, because the very first volley smote Captain Barroso da Silva, the commander-in-chief of the imperial task force. Struck while carrying out the final inspection of the two wheel gears, Barroso died at once. He was a brilliant strategist. If he had survived unharmed, perhaps the Imperial Navy might have been able to avert that tragic outcome.

Clumsily maneuvering in those shallow waters, the grand steam frigate kept navigating, propelled solely by her port wheel. However, even under perfect nautical conditions, with her deep draft, an ocean-going ship like that frigate would have come up against enormous difficulties making its way through the sinuously narrow navigable section of the channel formed by the Paraná, close to the mouth of the Riachuelo. Maybe Barroso could have done it. Maybe not.

However, without her skillful commander and deprived of one of her paddle wheels, the flagship soon ran aground near the channel’s steep left bank becoming an easy prey for the enemy batteries. Unfortunately, the grounding had taken place at a spot that was dangerously close to where the Paraguayan Marines had been quartered in order to board the Brazilian ships that might get stuck on the low-lying riverbeds.

The tragic loss of both the Amazonas and Barroso had sealed the fate of the Imperial Navy.

About the same time, the Paraguayan naval force sped down the river with the flagship Tacuary in the lead. Having a lower draw than the Brazilian ships and sailing on a favorable current, the Paraguayan vessels navigated easily in single file in front of the imperial fleet whose crews were still immobilized by the shock of the loss of the Amazonas.

Meanwhile, in the Brazilian task force, gunboat Jequitinhonha’s captain assumed the command of the rest of imperial flotilla and led a vain attempt to escape the punishing bombardment launched from the enemy ships and the Paraguayan military positions on the banks of the Paraná.

However, chaos and desperation had already taken hold aboard the remaining ships of the Imperial Navy. Relentlessly punished by concentrated enemy firepower, the steamboat Belmonte had also suffered serious damage and her crew was forced to run the ship aground to avoid sinking, so that she remained out of action only to be taken over by the Paraguayan crews aboard the Tacuary and Salto Oriental four hours later.

Soon afterward, Jequitinhonha herself ran aground right in front of the Paraguayan batteries installed near the mouth of the Riachuelo. While attempting to come to help her, INS Paraíba had her helm destroyed by enemy firepower.

The Imperial steamships Mearim and Beberibe had been cornered and forced to follow through a narrow passageway between the left bank and a chain of islets. After four hours of bombardment from the enemy batteries and gunned flatboats, the few survivors of the inferno couldn’t resist to the fiery attack of the Paraguayan Marines.

Realizing that the battle had already been lost and counting on the fact that their ships were more agile than the larger vessels of the imperial flotilla, the captains of the Brazilian gunboats Araguari and Iguatemi ordered a retreat. Much later, while in captivity, he had heard that those cowards had escaped unharmed. Instead of being court-martialed, they had been greeted in Corrientes with naval honors.

At the same time, on the bridge of the Ipiranga, he was leading an attack on the enemy gunned flatboats. Having their cannons mounted on high decks, the larger ships of the imperial fleet were not able to hit those low flatboats. Ipiranga sank her first flatboat in the very beginning of combat. The Paraguayan captains soon discovered his plan and centered their ships’ firepower on Ipiranga’s broadside.

Wrenched off by discharges fired at point blank, slivers of wood from Ipiranga’s rail flew all over her main deck, taking a greater number of victims than the direct hits from the cannonballs. Raining mercilessly over the quarterdeck, shrapnel fire from the flatboats and artillery barrages from the riverbanks left no survivors in the main deck.

Once mingled, the bloods of sailors and officers flowed together, soaking the main deck’s wooden flooring, making it treacherously slippery. In the throes of death, more than a dozen mutilated men groaned amidst the acrid smoke emanating from the mouths of the cannons and the piercing smell of burning gunpowder, as the guns of the Ipiranga incessantly riposted the attack. Makeshift cannoneers did not hesitate for a second to promptly substitute their former comrades-in-arms, who were either dead or dying; both whole bodies and mere bloody pieces were scattered all over the deck.

Half of Ipiranga’s garrison already lay prostrate when her guns hit the second flatboat. That explosion was followed by a brief jubilant cry ringing out from bow to stern in commemoration of what the remaining crewmembers supposed would be their last victory.

As captain, of course he had considered the hypothesis of retreat however, a sudden impact astern and the subsequent reverberation of the quartermaster’s shout throughout the ship: “We have just lost the propeller, my captain!” decided the matter otherwise.

He recalled the feelings of serenity that had invaded him then. The certainty of imminent death seemed to have filled the spirit of all those still able to fight with the iron will to take along with them as many enemy combatants as they could.

Without any hope of retreat, his remaining crew was able to sink yet a third flatboat.

He was convinced his life would end that very afternoon. The mud of the Paraná riverbed would be his tomb.

However, he was to survive to his ship and his men.

His last conscious memory of the battle was the thunderous explosion of a cannonball on the bulkhead behind him, two palms away from his own station.

Then, the nightmare that would haunt him till the end of his days had begun. He had just to close his eyes to get it started again. Those memories of terror would be with him forever. The crackle of burning wood; the moans of the wounded; the diminishing shouts of triumph from his men; the nervous screams begotten of rage and impotence.

A sensation of lying prone, wet-faced; the stench of blood. The roar of cannonry from the Ipiranga that made the gunboat shake from her hold to what was left of her bulkhead could be heard at longer and longer intervals. The remembrance of increasingly frequent echoes of enemy cannonry hammering more and more insistently, frenetically against the hull of the ship he had been entrusted with. His first and last command.

Then, darkness. Oblivion.

He regained consciousness five days later, just to find himself lying on an infected cot, manacled to two other prisoners by the rings of a thick chain in a loathsome military prison. There were seventeen other men with him in that dank, dark cell: fourteen Brazilians and three Argentineans, besides a huge number of rats.

He shook his head to get rid of those bitter memories and bring his mind back to the present.

Damn Estigarribia! Hadn’t the defeats the Paraguayan general had inflicted on the remnants of the Imperial Army in the Province of Rio Grande do Sul been enough? Was it possible that even after discarding military discipline and a general’s regalia in favor of cutaways and diplomatic deferences, that man could continue to undermine the Brazilian cause?

Indifferent to his curses, that notorious Paraguayan hero never stopped jabbering with el Presidente Solano López and Emperor Dom Pedro II.

The fact that Pedro de Alcântara acted as if his interlocutors were but old friends paying him a visit in his palace simply reinvigorated the resolve that had threatened to leave him few minutes before. His sweating hands fingered the rough edge of the trigger as he mused, “Your time has come, Pedro de Alcântara!”

* * *

He had finally spotted the veteran.

It had been hard to make him out against the green of the tall grass and the brown of tree trunks. His prey was squatted next to a leafy oak in the midst of some especially thick vegetation.

A fleeting reflection of the sun’s rays on the Brazilian’s gun barrel had betrayed him.

The Virginian confirmed his initial suspicion looking through the sight of his Sharp. Yep, that was the Brazilian in the flesh!

It seemed he had arrived just in time to be able to accomplish his mission.

He was still about 100 meters away from where the veteran was hiding. He chose the path that would most quickly lead him to his prey. Taking long, cautious strides in the direction of the man behind the tree, he mulled over what he knew about Lieutenant Commander Álvaro Augusto de Carvalho.

The Paraguayans had told him that at the beginning of the War of the Triple Alliance, Carvalho commanded the small gunboat Ipiranga. In the company of eight larger Imperial Navy vessels, the gunboat had sailed up the Paraná River to search and destroy the enemy fleet, in order to establish the blockade of Paraguay.

He smiled while recalling Lincoln’s futile attempt to implement a blockade on the Confederacy. Unlike the Southern States, however, Paraguay could not count on thousands of miles of coastline. As a country without direct access to the sea, it was imperative that it exercised absolute control over the Paraná and the Paraguay Rivers to keep them open to shipments of weapons and aid from foreign nations.

The decisive confrontation of two naval forces took place at the mouth of the Riachuelo, a minor tributary of the Paraná. A well-planned strategy enabled the Paraguayans to render the imperial flagship helpless within the first few minutes of battle. According to the official version of the event announced in Asunción, the eight remaining ships of the Brazilian flotilla were then lured into the treacherously shallow waters bordering a riverbank where the Army had hidden batteries of cannons and rockets. After running aground, most of the Brazilian boats soon became easy prey for the cruel bombardment.

After a large number of the crew had already fallen on the Brazilian ships and fire had spread too many of their hulls and decks, the Paraguayan Marines boarded them. The Brazilians surrendered without resistance. Privately, he always viewed this version of the battle with suspicion, taking into account the low number of captured survivors. Anyway, as that damn Sherman said, “War is hell.” Moreover, did he really possess any moral authority to judge Paraguayan’s attitudes in that bloody long war?

Three warships of the Imperial Navy had managed to survive that terrible initial confrontation. Two of them had withdrawn and taken refuge in the temporary safety of the Argentinean port city of Corrientes, while the smallest of the three vessels, Carvalho’s Ipiranga, had continued to engage the enemy in spite of her inferior numbers and the certainty of defeat.

Before being boarded, however, the small but courageous Ipiranga had sunk three chatas, small flatboats armed with cannons, besides damaging seriously the much bigger Salto Oriental, and exploding four enemy artillery positions on the banks of the river.

Carvalho survived the Paraguayan assault and was taken prisoner by the Army. After a brief period, he was transferred to a detention camp reserved for enemy officers in Asunción. It appeared that even the Paraguayans considered him a hero.

“He is a true hero, indeed!” thought the mercenary with admiration.

Having won at Riachuelo, Paraguay could control its access to the Atlantic and thereby keep steady the flow of weapons and ships that had been purchased in Europe. Thanks to that crucial victory, Paraguay garnered the support of two of the wealthiest provinces within the Confederación Argentina. So, little by little, the tides of the war began to change. Finally, an event the Brazilians had deemed impossible actually came to pass: the conflict was transferred from Paraguayan and Corrientine soils to the territory of the Empire.

After winning on both the Argentinean and Uruguayan fronts, the Paraguayans were able to concentrate their efforts on the invasion of southern Brazil. In fact, he had arrived in an already conquered Buenos Aires in July of 1867 as commander of 5,000 men from the former Army of Northern Virginia, to help the Paraguayans to overthrow the tyrannical Empire of Brazil.

He had never forgotten that first meeting with Solano López in Corrientes. Obviously testing the seriousness of his commitment, el Presidente announced that Paraguay was in the process of organizing Negro battalions composed of deserters from the Imperial Army and runaway slaves from Brazilian plantations. López asked if a general who had fought to maintain slavery would mind fighting side by side with newly-freed slaves.

He replied in pidgin Spanish while stroking his goatee: “I did not fight to defend slavery. I enlisted as a Virginian to free my homeland from the political and economic oppression of the North. Our fight was similar to that of your own people. We also longed for independence.”

“I understand. This concept of self-determination of yours is a very beautiful thing,” replied López while shrewdly scrutinizing his face. “But, what about the Negroes?”

“I don’t care about the Negroes. We fought against whole platoons of Negroes sent by the Union. Experience has proven that, if efficiently led by white officers, they know how to obey orders and, therefore, they make good soldiers. In the name of your country and of your noble cause, as well for the gold you have promised, I would not mind training or commanding them one bit.”

And he fulfilled this promise. Over the next two years, invading Paraguayan troops conquered the Empire’s southern provinces, bringing chaos in their wake to Brazilian slave economy, as more and more Negroes fled from the farms and swelled the ranks of the occupying troops. He and his veterans of the A.N.V. personally trained many of those same black soldiers.

Meanwhile, Carvalho was still a prisoner of war in Asunción. He was finally released on Christmas Eve 1869, more than a month after the signature of the armistice between la Gran República and the dying Brazilian Empire.

Upon returning to the remaining imperial lands, amidst massive Negro flight, economic chaos, and executions of abolitionists in the Imperial Square, during a time when republican rebellions were breaking out in every Brazilian province, even without Paraguayan support, Carvalho thought it would be wise to join one of the many resistance movements opposed to the Paraguayan occupation forces.

The mercenary then opened his lips slightly, expressing sad, weary smile. He admired the valor and courage of the Brazilian veteran. He knew that a man of Carvalho’s caliber would feel like a traitor if he were ever to turn his back on the futile efforts of the Resistence.

He had waged the two bloodiest wars ever fought in the Americas, having known both the heinous defeat fighting for his beloved Virginia in the War of Southern Independence and the glorious victory as a soldier of fortune employed at the Paraguayan Army in the War of the Triple Alliance. Throughout the harrowing years of those two gargantuan conflicts, so similar yet so profoundly different, he had met very few men with the integrity of a Lieutenant Commander Carvalho.

Courage under fire…

Is there a similar expression in either Spanish or Portuguese? Never mind.

He firmly believed in that old military maxim that the true character of a soldier could only be known under fire, in the very heat of battle. It is precisely in that critical situation that a man will be forever defined as either hero or coward. An occasion when the truly fortunate soldier finally perceives that death has no importance at all, if one fights for a great principle or ideal.

Ever since he had crossed the equator in response to López’s invitation, he thought perhaps he might have forgotten a few things he had been taught at West Point about honor and patriotism. However, there remained a bitter certainty in his heart: if Valhalla really existed, that naval officer’s noble soul would deserve its ingress in those glorious evergreen pastures more than his own broken one.

Gettysburg… Riachuelo… It was hard to imagine two more diverse battles, though each in its own way clearly represented pivotal turning points in the tides of war, actually determining the outcomes of subsequent battles which would ultimately shape the very destiny of the nations involved.

Notwithstanding the defeat of the Imperial Fleet, no one doubted that the greatest Brazilian hero at Riachuelo was Lieutenant Commander Carvalho. On the other hand, many believed that he was the hero at Gettysburg, albeit defeated one. He had always adamantly contested this thesis.

Despite Carvalho’s heroic deeds, Brazil lost the Battle of Riachuelo for sure and, consequently, the very war.

It was a whole different story at Gettysburg. The Army of Northern Virginia was defeated and lost the war because of him and his personal failure to take that goddamn hill.

Some defeats bear heroes; some don’t.

* * *

Estigarribia insisted on remaining squarely in front of the veteran’s Imperial target. Still hidden behind an oak, he leaned his left shoulder against the rough tree trunk and held up the walnut butt of the Spencer on his right shoulder. While squinting with his left eye, he took aim with the right.

If the past could be relived, he would gladly place his gunboat between the Amazonas and those killing rockets, so that he could have received over his own chest the fire that took Barroso’s life. Perhaps Brazil would be a better place then.

His former captors seemed to view him as a kind of celebrity. Only later he understood their philosophy. In appreciating his adversaries’ deeds, the Paraguayans made their victories sound even more imposing than they might have been viewed otherwise.

As soon as the news of the Paraguayan victory at Riachuelo had reached Corrientes, General Urquiza, president of that prosperous Argentine province, switched to the side of López. He and his 10,000 cavalrymen didn’t hesitate in swearing their oaths of allegiance to their former enemy’s cause. One month later, both the militias of the Entre-Rios Province and the Uruguayan partisans of López also abandoned the Triple Alliance and converted to Paraguay’s cause. Reinforced by the formidable power of the Corrientine cavalry, Robles’ armies surrounded the Brazilian and Argentinean forces in Concórdia.

At the beginning of August, Estigarribia’s troops took the Brazilian town Uruguaiana. The battleships Paraguay had ordered from European shipyards had dropped anchor in the Paraná River during the months of October and November. At about the same time, Robles’ troops disembarked in Montevideo and captured the Uruguayan capital with no resistance. Toward the end of that fateful year, 100,000 rifles manufactured in Europe and more than 500 modern, high-caliber steel cannons Solano López had ordered from Prussian Krupp Waffenfabrik arrived at La Plata.

In the first few days of 1866, Estigarribia’s combined Paraguayan and Uruguayan troops advanced victoriously overland into Rio Grande do Sul, repelling the badly-equipped forces the Empire had rushed to the front. Within a month, Robles had routed the Brazilian and Argentinean armies garrisoned in Concórdia and had captured General Osório, Imperial Army’s commander-in-chief. The Paraguayan official statement claimed that General Bartolomé Mitre, the president of Confederación Argentina, had fallen in combat. The defeat in Concórdia signaled the end of the Empire’s struggle to halt the Paraguayan advance in foreign territory.

In March, the Paraguayans occupied Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul’s provincial capital. In the same period, Negro soldiers captured by the Paraguayan Army swore allegiance to la República and to López and were enlisted into the Army’s first Negro platoons. At the same time, the dictator’s emissaries succeeded in signing commercial treaties in both Paris and Washington, so providing the necessary credits in order to enable the Paraguayans to acquire those amazing American repeating carbines and order the speedy construction of modern battleships built in French shipyards.

According to his captors, the Empire had first begun to fear losing the war after Buenos Aires surrendered to General Robles’ forces. As soon as the influence of that great metropolis over the Confederación Argentina had been neutralized, it became relatively easy for López to persuade the remaining provinces to sign an armistice with la Gran República del Paraguay: The first time they referred to the amalgamation of their own nation with Uruguay and two northernmost Argentine provinces as such.

Ah! At last, the infamous Estigarribia, the so-called Butcher of Porto Alegre, removed his top hat with a bow. As the ambassador took a step backward, the chest of the emperor came plainly into view.

He took aim in that chest full of medals, not in the least intimidated by that vast constellation of laurels now utterly devoid of meaning. He knew that the shiny medals on the traitor’s chest would offer no armor against his Spencer’s high-caliber bullets.

He suddenly heard the crackling sound of someone stepping on kindling wood. Frightened, he instinctively jerked his head around to find himself facing a tall man wearing strange gray uniform with the insignias of a Paraguayan Brigadier General attached to the shoulders. The man was aiming a long rifle at him with a strange kind of sight system on its barrel top.

“Son, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

The older man spoke those words in a poor Portuguese, with an odd, slow drawl. He did not perceive the slightest hesitation in the man’s eyes. There was only a faint, almost imperceptible sign of amusement mixed with sorrow and weariness.

He recognized the gringo at once, though they had definitely never met before. How often he had come across drawings and political cartoons about the older man both in Paraguayan and Brazilian newspapers. How could he not have remembered hearing about that Confederate general who, after being defeated in the American Civil War, had sold his own and his men’s honor to López for gold? The man whose name was always linked to the horrors and killings of the campaigns waged in Paraná and São Paulo.

The black soldiers whom this gringo had trained wore the red overcoats of the Paraguayan Army and killed and imprisoned whites, including civilians, at the gunpoint of those dreaded repeating carbines furnished by the North Americans.

What did the Paraguayans call him? Oh, yes…

“Estaca… ¡El General Estaca!”

* * *

Acknowledging his nickname, the former Confederate general pronounced in loud and clear English, “You’re dead right, son.”

Disgusted, Álvaro spit out: “It’s not your business at all. The war is over. We have decided not to do anything against your boss’ life. If that’s what is bothering you, you have nothing to worry about and now you can go right back where you came from.”

“I know. The Emperor Pedro is your target this time, right?

“Exactly. Pedro de Alcântara is our problem! It has nothing to do with your Paraguayan bosses.”

“I know. I know,” the Virginian smiled as he straightened the red scarf tied around his neck while keeping his rifle aimed straight at the Brazilian’s forehead. “But… stop talking! Stand up and drop that carbine, very slowly. All right. Now: ¡Venga!”

As the Brazilian considered his chances, the Virginian stroked his mustache and then grabbed onto his gun firmly with both hands. He gently pulled the trigger backward until he heard its click. The Virginian’s cold and resolute demeanor convinced the Brazilian, because he ended up propping his Spencer up against the trunk of the oak and stepping slightly away.

The mercenary glanced at the military carbine, “It’s indeed a very fine weapon. I would say it is the most reliable one for a cavalryman. But, I don’t think it is fit for killing people, specially at a distance like this.”

In response to the inquisitive expression on the Lieutenant’s face, the older man gestured with the barrel of his Sharp rifle, without taking his eyes off his target, and said, “This one would be much better!”

The certainty of disaster was stamped on the Brazilian’s face as he stared at the Virginian in silence.

“Now, lie down. Boca abajo. Slowly. That’s good. All right.”

The mercenary pressed the sole of his heavy boot onto the veteran’s back causing him to catch his breath. The older man felt oddly proud as he noticed Carvalho did not make the slightest noise.

Estigarribia was moving in the direction of the Emperor again. Time was ripe. He raised his Sharp away from the Brazilian’s nape. It was fairly easy for him to make out his target among the crowd since his victim’s uniform was in profound contrast to the garments the others were wearing. He took aim and fired swiftly.

The shot echoed throughout the terrain of the Quinta da Boa Vista.

The victim fell to the ground mortally wounded. Ruby blood gushed from his chest soaking and darkening that simple already red campaign uniform his subordinates had insisted he should wear to distinguish himself from his former antagonist’s showy attire.

* * *

He struggled under the gringo’s boot. But the terrible weight on his back forced him to remain motionless on the ground. He was only able to emit a muffled groan.

“What have you done, Estaca?”

“He muerto al Presidente.”

“What?”

“López is dead!”

The Brazilian heard an uproar in the distance. Orders being shouted nervously in harsh Spanish. Someone screaming out for a doctor. The hammering of the heels of Paraguayan boots on the flagstones of the palace square. Horses whinnying in response to their coachmen’s agitation. Loud voices trying to be heard above the din that reverberated far away.

He reflected on the heinous consequences of this act. For years, they had longed for the assassination of the self-aggrandizing “Napoleon of the Americas”. Many attempts on his life had been made to no avail. In reprisal, the punishments meted out to the civilian population had been so severe that the Resistance was forced to abandon any further attempts on the dictator’s life.

For better or worse, López was dead now.

Ironically, he had been killed by the hand of one of his most faithful allies.

“But, why?”

“Democracia…” the mercenary murmured in the guise of explanation as he removed his boot from the Brazilian’s backbone.

While he was turning over, he heard the older man reloading his rifle. The Brazilian stared at the long barrel of the Sharp pointed at his forehead.

“What do you mean?”

“The Paraguayans long for democracy. After winning the war, López had become the greatest hero of the South America.” The Virginian tried to explain, mixing his broken Portuguese with phrases in Spanish and English. “But López was also a tyrant… even worse than Napoleon. He was literally worshipped by his people. It would be impossible to remove him from office. El presidente no quería elección libre…”

“Are you saying that the Paraguayans paid you to kill López?”

“No, no. La Gran República del Paraguay is a great nation now. It needs to become a democracy in order to consolidate its military conquests. It would be impossible to establish a democracy with López in power, don’t you see?”

“Yes, of course.”

The Paraguayan plan finally became clear to him. He would be found holding the Spencer and the assassination would be ascribed to the Resistance. Paraguay would get rid of López, a perfect military leader to fight against the Triple Alliance, but a veritable obstacle to the realization of the democratic ideals so long defended by the more liberal segments from both the Paraguayan Army and the society at large.

The murder of the greatest national hero would serve as an excellent pretext for the imposition of more severe laws of occupation. After all, had not a particularly repressive occupation force been the greatest desire of el Presidente himself since the signature of the armistice four years before?

He could feel more than actually hear the tramping of footsteps that made the ground shake. Soldier boots coming closer and closer. He watched as the Confederate glanced at him with an air of resignation, raised his arm, and made a sign.

“Do you understand everything now?”

He did not answer. Nonetheless, the intensity of the hatred in his eyes revealed a perfect understanding of the punishment that would be given to both himself and his country.

“Absolutely nothing personal. You’re a soldier, like me. You understand, I had to carry out this mission.”

“You had just caused the ruin of the Empire, you son-of-a-bitch mercenary!”

“No, no, no!” Expressions of indignation and surprise danced all over the older man’s face. “I was not paid to kill López. I was not paid at all!”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“I did it for my friends, the true Paraguayan patriots. I did it also to make amends for something that I should have done in my own country but could not. A failure I committed far from here, a long time ago… in another war. It’s a long story. There isn’t enough time to tell you now.”

At last, the Paraguayans arrived and surrounded the two of them. A lieutenant, a sergeant and five soldiers. The officer had a Colt revolver in a black holster attached to a leather belt. The sergeant and the soldiers, two of whom were Negroes, aimed their Winchesters at the Brazilian.

Without taking his eyes or his rifle off the Brazilian, the Confederate addressed the officer in a Spanish much more fluent than his Portuguese.

“I got here too late, Teniente. The criminal had already pulled the trigger. I heard the shot, but… I’m sorry.”

“¡Asesino!” The lieutenant howled beside himself with rage. “¡Mataste al presidente!”

Certain he could count on his officer’s tacit approval, the sergeant kicked the Brazilian in the head, leaving him unconscious.

* * *

“No!” the Virginian screamed as he turned his Sharp in the direction of the Paraguayan sergeant who was just about to give the Brazilian a second kick in the head. “We cannot kill him cold-bloodedly. The assassin must be tried in a court of law.”

The infuriated lieutenant stared at the tall gringo standing before him and tried to muffle his anger. Then he finally noticed the insignias sewn onto that strange pale gray uniform designating the Confederate a general in the Paraguayan Army. The officer swallowed hard and ordered the sergeant to refrain from further violence. At last, he paid a perfect salute to the Virginian and asked:

“¿Sus ordenes, mi general?”

“Take this man away. We’re going to take him to the palace. Find the local police commissioner, and notify Governor Robles we have arrested the killer.”

“¡Si, mi general!”

Resting the Sharp over his shoulder, he walked a few steps behind the soldiers who were dragging the Brazilian away. Desolate but solicitous, the lieutenant tried to strike up a conversation.

“Mi general, what will become of la República sin el Presidente?”

The Confederate absently replied that this would be a matter to be decided by the Army and the Congress.

He provided the officer with no further details.

Obviously, he had pictured what was about to happen to Paraguay. The winds of change were about to blow, heralding difficult and tumultuous times to come, no doubt. La Gran República del Paraguay would either emerge from this transitional period as the most powerful genuine democracy south of the Rio Grande or it would succumb once and for good to a reign of political chaos that had seemed to be the destiny of so much of the South America.

He tried hard to hide from the Paraguayans his sorrow for Lieutenant Commander Carvalho. He was fully aware that the Brazilian hero would most certainly be condemned for the crime of high treason and executed by a firing squad within the next few days. Moreover, he had a strong suspicion that the veteran naval officer would soon become the greatest martyr of the Resistance and an eternal source of inspiration for new recruits. To some extent, he almost envied the Brazilian, because he knew he would never be remembered in such glorious terms neither by his comrades-in-arms, nor by posterity.

It seemed odd that the Resistance reviled the old emperor, a man who, in his own peculiar style, had once symbolized the yearnings of the Brazilian nation in the same way Robert E. Lee had personified Virginia’s longing for independence. Would the Brazilian infantrymen have been so willing to sacrifice their lives for Dom Pedro II as the young Virginian soldiers had when they followed every Lee’s orders until their death? He didn’t think so.

Right or wrong, Lee had always maintained himself at the front of his troops, rallying them on, celebrating their every victory, and commiserating with them in every defeat. How could anyone have expected Brazilians to die for an emperor who was not only far removed from them, but also superbly indifferent to their plight on the battlefield?

Anyway, that’s history now. The future will be challenging to these South Americans. He only hoped with all his heart that they would come out of this terrible struggle the better for it.

As for himself, he suddenly felt very old, much older than his almost 48 years. Old, yet six years younger than General Lee had been when the War of Southern Independence broke out in that long-ago year of 1861.

Funny, he thought. For the first time since Gettysburg, he realized that he no longer harbored as much hatred for Old Man Lee.

That realization, however, was not much of a consolation for him.

After having fought in two long wars and participating in the defeat of the Confederacy’s dream of freedom as well as in this epic victory against tyranny in South America, he felt exhausted and debilitated.

He knew that the time had come for him to return to his beloved Virginia.

He felt the time was right, even if that meant having to see again with his very eyes, the devastating destruction wrought by the damn Yankees on the fields, towns and cities of the only country he had ever called home

Copyright © 2013 by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro

Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro is a Brazilian science fiction and alternative history writer, editor & publisher, and alternative history scholar. He has published short stories and novelettes in professional Brazilian science fiction magazines, one  of which, “The Ethics of Treason”, was the very first alternative history story ever published in Brazilian science fiction. Gerson was publisher of Ano-Luz Brazilian small press and between 1999 and 2003 president of the  Brazilian Science Fiction Readers Club.

―Roger, Santamarina. Adelante ―dijo la voz metálica de Freeze, el comandante de la Estación.

Parpadeé sorprendido. No conseguía acostumbrarme a las barbaridades que podían llegar a decir los americanos cuando intentaban pronunciar mi apellido. Los hispanos todavía, pero no había muchos en la escala operativa de la NASA. En realidad ninguno que yo conociera. Supongo que para los americanos yo contaba como “hispano”, aunque no podían usarme como ejemplo de integración racial por la sencilla razón de que era europeo, pertenecía a la ESA. Por eso estaba allí.

Evidentemente, no era la persona más adecuada para enfrentarse a aquel desastre. Se necesitaba un técnico, tal vez un mecánico, y no un piloto de las fuerzas aéreas españolas, pero era lo que había. No les había quedado otra opción que tragar conmigo puesto que los otros dos astronautas de la ESA que había en la Estación eran médicos. Yo era el único capaz de manejar un traje espacial o un equipo EVA.

Se me hacía extraño, he de admitirlo. Nunca me había imaginado tener que usar un traje espacial en el interior de la Estación. Y no faltaba gente, sobre todo en el sector ruso, que recordaba la historia de la MIR y rememoraba los viejos fantasmas. Así de mal estaban las cosas.

Observé atentamente la compuerta del ESA Lab. Me habían dado luz verde, pero no me apetecía lo más mínimo abrirla. Al otro lado había estado ocurriendo de todo lo imaginable. Primero, un incendio que había obligado a evacuar y despresurizar el módulo para poder apagarlo. Después, la avería de los sistemas de filtrado del aire. Y más tarde toda una cadena de extraños cortocircuitos que habían provocado explosión tras explosión, en una serie de averías tan larga que rozaba el terreno de lo imposible.

Nadie sabía lo que estaba pasando detrás de aquella compuerta. Los canadienses habían dado permiso para utilizar el CSA, y varios astronautas americanos habían usado el brazo mecánico para revisar el exterior del ESA Lab. Pero no encontraron nada, absolutamente nada. Ni un impacto, ni un rasguño.

Fuera lo que fuera, había destruido el laboratorio europeo desde dentro. Las únicas opciones eran eyectar el módulo entero, o abrir la compuerta y entrar. La NASA prefería eyectarlo, lógicamente, pero en la ESA tenían muy claro que no estaban dispuestos a perder el laboratorio sin más.

―Recibido ―dije―. Estoy listo.

Una mierda, estaba listo. Pero no estaba dispuesto a admitirlo en público. Y menos delante de los americanos.

―Roger. Despresurizando el Nodo 2 ―contestó la voz―. Buena suerte, comandante Santamarina. Atención…

Era la primera vez que me llamaban por mi rango militar. Supongo que era la forma que tenían de expresar que me había ganado su respeto. O quizás era simplemente la forma que tenían de hacérmelo creer.

En cuanto me notificaron que el Nodo 2 estaba despresurizado, me acerqué flotando a la compuerta y pulsé los controles de desbloqueo. Después la abrí manualmente. No es fácil hacerlo en ingravidez, se lo aseguro, pero a nadie le apetecía arriesgarse a otro cortocircuito usando el automático.

Nada más entreabrir la compuerta empezó a salir una densa humareda del interior del módulo Columbus que amparaba el ESA Lab. No me preocupé demasiado por ello, porque pensaba que, a mis espaldas, el Nodo 2 se encargaría de filtrar el aire. Encendí las luces de mi traje para arrojar un poco de luz al interior y esperé un poco a que se aclarase algo el ambiente.

Entonces lo vi.

Apenas pude ahogar un gemido. No les oí, pero imagino que los americanos sintieron lo mismo al ver la imagen a través de las cámaras.

Todo el interior del ESA Lab tenía las paredes desnudas. Había una nube de piezas metálicas flotando, pero salvo eso, todo lo demás había desaparecido: el equipo de investigación, los contenedores, casi todo el material de laboratorio, incluso el recubrimiento de las paredes. El metal del módulo estaba completamente descubierto, y el cableado eléctrico estaba a la vista. No quiero decir que los cables estuvieran quemados, sino que incluso las cubiertas plásticas habían desaparecido dejando el cable pelado totalmente expuesto. Al menos eso justificaba los cortocircuitos, desde luego, pero uno no podía dejar de preguntarse dónde había ido a parar todo.

Entonces me fijé en la humareda. Empezaba a aclararse ya bastante, y pude ver que el ambiente estaba cargado de ceniza.

―Houston, los filtros de aire…

―Roger, Santamarina. Estamos en ello.

No hacía falta decir más. Los filtros de aire del Nodo 2 podían obstruirse con toda aquella ceniza. Yo lo sabía. Ellos lo sabían. Y estaban en ello. No prometían nada más porque de momento no había nada que supieran o pudieran hacer. Pero estaban en ello. Era un consuelo.

Entré en el ESA Lab, impulsándome contra la pared. No me preocuparon los cables pelados. El traje estaba aislado, y de todas formas hacía bastantes horas que habían cortado la energía del módulo, una vez que se aseguraron de que la situación era imposible de solucionar con los maltrechos sistemas de emergencia del laboratorio.

Cuando toqué la superficie del módulo, una pequeña nube de ceniza salió despedida a mi alrededor. Sorprendido, froté un poco la pared metálica. Ante mis atónitos ojos, vi perfectamente el metal pulido, limpio, sin rastro alguno de cubierta ni de paneles. Solo en algunas pequeñas zonas había algo de lo que parecía un residuo plástico, de suave color violáceo. El resto era metal puro, limpio, una vez que se sacudía la ceniza que lo cubría.

Raspé con el guante ese residuo y lo guardé en una caja metálica, para analizarlo más tarde. Después seguí revisando las paredes, con toda la circuitería expuesta.

Alargué la mano para coger uno de los instrumentos que flotaban a mi alrededor. Era una cuchilla, una especie de hoja de bisturí. También estaba cubierta de ceniza.

La coloqué en la palma de mi mano y la observé con cuidado. No recordaba haber visto ese tipo de cuchillas antes. Parecía un repuesto, una hoja sin la montura, pero lo más sorprendente es que parecía estar humeando sobre mi guante. ¿Estaba caliente?. No podía saberlo a través de la cubierta aislante, así que la arrojé antes de que quemase la protección del traje.

Para mi sorpresa, el guante siguió humeando. Se estaba derritiendo ante mis ojos. Por un segundo me quedé paralizado por el pánico.

―¡Salga de ahí, comandante! ¡Salga inmediatamente de ahí y selle el laboratorio! ―restalló la voz de Freeze.

Me impulsé con todas mis fuerzas contra la pared, y salí despedido hacia la compuerta. Apenas había llegado cuando todas las alarmas del traje de presión empezaron a saltar. Estaba perdiendo presión. El guante continuaba derritiéndose a toda velocidad, y la fuga se iba haciendo cada vez mayor.

―¡Salga de ahí! ¡Cierre la compuerta! ¡Ciérrela!

Ni siquiera perdí tiempo en contestar. Jadeando, empujé la compuerta mientras las fuerzas me iban abandonando y notaba que empezaba a faltarme el aire.

―¡Presurizando el Nodo 2! ―gritó la voz de Freeze.

En cuanto terminé de cerrarla, empecé a soltar los cierres del guante para intentar quitármelo. Apenas me quedaba aire, y eso aceleraría la pérdida, por supuesto, pero tampoco tenía intención de quemarme vivo. Supongo que era una estupidez, que no debí haberlo hecho, pero en esos momento uno no tiene tiempo de pararse a pensar con sensatez: hace lo primero que se le ocurre, sea correcto o no.

Perdí el conocimiento. Mi cuerpo estuvo expuesto casi al vacío absoluto pero, ¿saben?, el organismo humano es capaz de aguantar sin morir un buen montón de segundos en esas condiciones. Tuve suerte. Si no hubiera cerrado aquella compuerta, el volumen a presurizar en ambas cámaras habría sido demasiado grande y no me habría dado tiempo.

Luego me dijeron que estuve más de quince minutos inconsciente. Ellos nunca llegaron a temer por mi vida, desde luego. Me tenían bien monitorizado en sus pantallas y sabían que mi corazón seguía latiendo y el oxígeno empezaba a llegar sin problemas.

Cuando desperté, lo primero que oí fue la voz metálica de Freeze, mucho más tranquila, casi satisfecha.

―¿Comandante? Comandante Santamarina. ¿Me oye?

―Roger. Estoy bien ―contesté aún medio adormilado.

Abrí los ojos. A mi alrededor, el aire seguía lleno de ceniza. Había presión suficiente, pero era como estar en medio de una nube de humo, aunque no tanto como dentro del ESA Lab.

―Houston, ¿qué pasa con los filtros? ―pregunté, algo asustado.

―Eeeeh, se han obstruido todos, comandante ―me contestaron―. Estamos en ello.

Los minutos fueron pasando. Empecé a ponerme nervioso.

―Houston, me gustaría salir del Nodo 2.

―Estamos en ello comandante.

No, no estaban en ello. Y yo lo sabía. No iban a dejarme salir de allí, no mientras el aire siguiera contaminado. Y probablemente ni siquiera aunque pudieran limpiarlo, si es que no podían.

―Houston, déjenme salir al US Lab ―insistí.

―Negativo, comandante.

Su tono se había vuelto más seco, más apremiante. Me estaban diciendo que no insistiera, que no preguntara más.

―¡Houston, ¿cuánto tiempo pretenden tenerme aquí? ―insistí de todas formas.

―Tranquilícese, solo el tiempo necesario. Estamos evaluando posibilidades ―contestaron.

Entonces fue cuando me asusté de verdad. No iban a abrir el US Lab. Miré nerviosamente hacia la esclusa de atraque. Probablemente tampoco iban a enviar ningún transbordador. No iban a hacer nada hasta que supieran exactamente qué había pasado. Hasta que se asegurasen de que no podía poner en peligro ni la Estación ni ninguna nave.

A todos los efectos, acababan de ponerme en cuarentena.

El tiempo empezó a transcurrir lentamente. En medio de la incertidumbre. En medio del silencio. Ni siquiera me molesté en quitarme el resto del traje para no enfrentarme a toda aquella ceniza que flotaba a mi alrededor.

Recuerdo que miré mi guante, que flotaba por encima de mi cabeza. Supuse que había pasado ya el suficiente tiempo para que no fuera peligroso y lo cogí con la otra mano. Se había derretido casi la mitad, en la palma y en la raíz de los dedos. Pero el armazón metálico de la base, el que formaba los anclajes con las mangas, había sido respetado y tenía el mismo aspecto pulido y limpio que las paredes del ESA Lab. Perplejo, me pregunté qué demonios podía haber provocado aquello. Ahora podía pensar con mucha claridad, con la claridad que da a veces la desesperación, y comprendí que ningún fuego ni ninguna incandescencia podía haber causado algo así. Una hoja de bisturí al rojo vivo quizás podía haber perforado el traje, pero no con un boquete tan grande. Lo que había provocado aquella destrucción, no venía de la hoja metálica.

Venía de la pared. La pared que había tocado con la palma de la mano para frenar el impulso. Solo que la pared era puro metal desnudo.

No, no del todo. Estaba el residuo violáceo. Tal vez no fuera un vulgar residuo.

Y entonces recordé que el ESA Lab era fundamentalmente un laboratorio biológico.

Tragué saliva en silencio. Me mordí la lengua sabiendo que si pronunciaba una sola palabra de todo aquello jamás me dejarían volver.

Y esperé. Esperé hasta hartarme, con un nudo en la garganta, mientras flotaba en medio de aquella nube de porquería.

―Comandante Santamarina, abra el CAM ―dijeron desde Houston al cabo de tres angustiosas horas.

―¿El CAM?

―Afirmativo, comandante. Dispondrá de agua y comida. Y también intentaremos purificar el aire usando los filtros del módulo centrífugo.

Sonreí para mis adentros. Seguramente a los americanos no les gustaba nada esa decisión. El CAM era el módulo estrella de la Estación. Era la luz de sus ojos, si me permiten decirlo así. Era el habitáculo donde se realizaban los experimentos sociales de permanencia prolongada, de cara al futuro viaje a Marte. Entonces pude darme cuenta de que no me habían abandonado, si consentían en eso a costa de contaminar todo el área y, quizás, dejarla inservible para siempre. Más animado, me apresuré a impulsarme hacia la compuerta del CAM antes de que alguien en la NASA se arrepintiera de aquella locura.

Pasé el resto del día dentro del módulo. Yo hubiera preferido cerrar de nuevo la compuerta, pero me obligaron a mantenerla abierta para concederle a los poderosos filtros del CAM, diseñados para varias personas, la oportunidad de limpiar todo el aire. Hicieron un buen trabajo, sinceramente, pero no lo suficiente. También acabaron obstruyéndose.

Supongo que era lógico. Incluso yo pude darme cuenta de que aquella ceniza que flotaba por todas partes había sido tiempo atrás absolutamente todo el material que había dentro del ESA Lab. Cientos de kilos, quizás más de una tonelada. Todo desintegrado. Demasiado trabajo para un puñado de filtros.

Al menos, en el CAM, la vida fue bastante cómoda. Disponía de comida y agua suficientes para aguantar un par de meses. Y también tenía pantallas, ordenadores, y todo el equipo de telecomunicaciones a mi alcance, así como un gimnasio totalmente equipado.

Reconozco que el gimnasio no lo usé todo lo que debiera. Supongo que quedaría bien decir que no tuve miedo. Pero lo tuve, créanme. Y hacer ejercicio suponía respirar con más fuerza y con más frecuencia. Imagínenlo, pónganse en mi situación. Yo allí, completamente solo en medio de todo aquello, metiendo la ceniza en mis pulmones con cada respiración. Pero no era la ceniza en si misma lo que más me asustaba, sino los gérmenes que debían formar aquella costra violácea. Revisé varias veces las paredes del CAM, pero nunca pude ver la costra, aunque eso no significaba que los gérmenes no estuvieran, por supuesto. Podían estar acumulándose en los filtros. Podían estar en el aire, en forma de suspensión. Podían estar entrando en mis pulmones. Una idea poco tranquilizadora.

Y las noticias no ayudaban en nada. Los americanos habían usado el brazo mecánico canadiense para reajustar las antenas, y ahora solo podía recibir las transmisiones de televisión de la Tierra a través de la propia Estación para retrasar todas las emisiones unos treinta minutos. Lo suficiente como para ejercer una censura férrea sobre lo que yo estaba recibiendo. En el fondo lo agradecí. Aquello me libró de los programas amarillistas y de un montón de especulaciones catastrofistas sin fundamento alguno. Ya estaba yo lo suficientemente asustado como para tener que aguantar a la prensa.

Pero sí supe que los principales cerebros del mundo, americanos, europeos, rusos y japoneses, estaban intentando encontrar alguna salida para mí. También supe que la opinión pública mundial estaba conmovida con mi pequeña odisea. Pero a veces los nervios me traicionaban. Tuve amargas discusiones con el centro de control, que nunca llegaron a manos de la prensa. Y a veces me imaginé siendo eyectado sin miramientos, con el Nodo 2, el ESA Lab, el CAM, el NASDA Lab, y el puerto de anclaje, todo de una vez.

Pero lo cierto es que nunca me abandonaron. Si necesitaba alguien con quien discutir, siempre les tenía ahí. Si necesitaba una palabra de ánimo siempre me la daban. Y un día me comunicaron que se estaba preparando al transbordador United para una misión de rescate. Me sentí aliviado con las buenas noticias, aún sabiendo que tardarían la friolera de tres semanas en llegar.

Fue tiempo suficiente para pensarlo mejor. Tres semanas. Quizás llegasen demasiado tarde si aquellas bacterias me hacían enfermar sin asistencia médica alguna salvo el modesto botiquín del CAM. Me pregunté si me dejarían entrar en el United una vez que llegasen. Especialmente si enfermaba.

Pero eso no ocurrió. El tiempo pasaba y yo continuaba sano como una rosa. Llegué a imaginar que el tiempo transcurrido era una cuarentena más que suficiente.

Y cuando se abrió la compuerta interna de la esclusa que me comunicaba con el United, me encontré de bruces con dos astronautas equipados con trajes aislantes. No eran de presión, pero sí integrales y con equipos autónomos de oxígeno. Fue como si me hubieran abofeteado. Bastó con verles para saber que tampoco entonces iban a dejarme salir. Para la NASA, ahora estaba contaminado el ESA Lab, el Nodo 2, el CAM, y por último la esclusa del puerto de anclaje. Si esta última volvía a abrirse para salir, la United se contaminaría también, así que la lanzadera se iría inmediatamente y no regresaría hasta que las cosas estuvieran completamente aclaradas.

En cuanto a los dos astronautas que habían entrado en el Nodo 2, resultaron ser voluntarios japoneses, no americanos. Traían consigo abundantes provisiones, y sobre todo una enorme cantidad de filtros de repuesto.

―¿Qué es esto? ¿Alguien puede explicarme lo que está pasando?

Sonrieron y me saludaron efusivamente. Ya saben ustedes cómo son los japoneses. Después de una breve conversación, cambiamos todos los filtros entre los tres. Aún se obstruyeron en cuatro ocasiones más. Pero ahora teníamos repuestos de sobra así que continuamos cambiándolos hasta que el aire quedó sin rastro alguno de ceniza. Luego me dieron otro traje aislante y rociaron todo el Nodo 2 y el CAM con óxido de etileno para matar cualquier cosa viva que pudiera flotar en el aire o permanecer pegada a las paredes.

Comprendí que la NASA no era estúpida. Si yo mismo había sospechado que aquella sustancia violácea era alguna forma de vida, los técnicos de Houston lo tenían aún más claro. De ahí todas las precauciones.

Durante todo aquel tiempo de cautiverio, la ESA había proporcionado a la NASA una lista con todas las bacterias y materiales biológicos del laboratorio europeo. Solo que ninguno de los especímenes era capaz de justificar nada de lo que había ocurrido. Estoy seguro de que algún técnico de Houston llegó a pensar que el germen de la costra podía ser alienígena. Estoy convencido de que diseñaron protocolos para esa contingencia, incluso protocolos que incluían la eyección.

Pero ahora era demasiado tarde para lamentarme. Permanecimos 24 horas con los equipos aislantes puestos, hasta asegurarnos de que los filtros habían eliminado todo el óxido de etileno. Solo entonces, los astronautas japoneses se quitaron los trajes aislantes mientras yo intentaba hacer lo mismo.

―No por favor ―dijo uno de ellos sujetándome con delicadeza el brazo―. Por favor, tiene que entrar en el CAM. Y debe darnos las muestras.

Sonreía amablemente. Pero en sus ojos vi que lo que estaba diciendo no era una sugerencia sino una orden. Eran voluntarios, no suicidas. Habían esterilizado todas las salas contaminadas. Todo excepto yo. Así que yo aún debía ser considerado en cuarentena.

Me acompañaron al módulo centrífugo y yo colaboré en lo que pude. Recogí la caja metálica en la que había guardado la muestra de residuo violáceo y se la cedí. Después se despidieron y me dejaron encerrado otra vez en el CAM. No volvería a salir hasta un mes más tarde.

Ese fue el tiempo que tardaron los japoneses en terminar los estudios sobre las muestras, en el NASDA Lab, justo al lado de mi confortable prisión.

Resulta irónico, si se piensa bien. Salvo en el momento de la descompresión de mi traje, resultó que nunca había estado en peligro.

Todo había empezado con un ensayo de estudiantes alemanes sobre bacterias anaerobias, un inocente trabajo universitario que la ESA había aprobado en uno de los concursos. Se trataba de transferir a las bacterias nueva información transgénica para ampliar sus rutas metabólicas y acelerar su reproducción. No era difícil, pero sí engorroso porque ese tipo de bacterias eran, originalmente, de crecimiento muy lento. El estudio se hacía en el espacio precisamente para obtener resultados rápidos: en ingravidez, las colonias podían reproducirse en tres dimensiones y no en dos, como en las placas de cultivo convencionales.

No se sabe por qué, después de haber terminado el trabajo, las cepas resultantes empezaron a mutar al azar. Dicen que por aquel entonces hubo varias erupciones solares, y que los sensores detectaron bruscos aumentos de radiación dentro de la Estación, pero nunca fueron tan fuertes como para dañar a un ser humano. Quizás las bacterias transgénicas resultaron ser más sensibles a la radiación. Eso nunca lo sabremos. En cualquier caso, casi todas las cepas murieron. Solo una colonia logró adaptarse y sobrevivir.

La nueva especie, con su metabolismo acelerado y ampliado, destruyó la pared posterior del contenedor, atravesó la pared y dejó al descubierto parte del cableado eléctrico causando un cortocircuito. Tras el incendio, el comandante Freeze decidió sellar el laboratorio y descomprimirlo para que el vacío apagase el fuego. Ese fue su error.

Eran bacterias anaerobias estrictas. El oxígeno las mataba. El ESA Lab, sin aire, se convirtió en un gigantesco invernadero para ellas. Destruyeron las paredes, provocaron nuevos cortocircuitos, y se apoderaron de todo el laboratorio, hasta que empezaron a morir por falta de alimento. Por eso solo quedaban un puñado de colonias: el residuo violáceo que yo había encontrado.

No, nunca estuve en peligro. Porque en cuanto cerré la compuerta del laboratorio, y el Nodo 2 fue presurizado, todos los gérmenes que podían haberme acompañado en mi precipitada huida fueron aniquilados por la atmósfera oxigenada que a mí me salvó. Solo las muestras de la caja lograron sobrevivir.

Bacterias comedoras de plástico. Bacterias que degradaban cualquier compuesto orgánico conocido. Dejaban el metal intacto, preparado para ser refundido y reciclado. Y ni siquiera había que separar componentes. Bastaba con meter teléfonos, ordenadores, embalajes, literalmente lo que fuera, en un contenedor metálico, hacer el vacío y liberar las bacterias. Ellas se encargaban del resto. El único residuo que dejaban era la ceniza, compuesta por un rico complejo nitrocarbonado que servía de abono agrícola. Resulta gracioso. Incluso los desechos eran aprovechables. Y por si fuera poco, lo hacían tan rápido que impedían el crecimiento de otros gérmenes. Una vez que habían cumplido su función, bastaba con abrir las compuertas del contenedor para eliminarlas. Todo sin ningún coste tecnológico digno de mención.

Imaginen mi sorpresa cuando me lo contaron: Eliminaban la basura, evitaban enfermedades, recuperaban el metal, producían abono, y eran baratas, limpias e inofensivas. Todo de un golpe. El sueño de cualquier grupo ecologista. Un regalo para la humanidad, y la mayor contribución que hizo la Estación al desarrollo industrial. Por accidente, por puro azar. Como casi todos los grandes descubrimientos de la historia humana.

―Buenos días, comandante Santamarina. ¿Cómo se siente ahora que ha terminado todo? ―me preguntó Freeze cuando las compuertas del US Lab se abrieron al fin y me estrechó la mano.

―Como la puta manzana, comandante ―le contesté―. Me siento como la puta manzana de los cojones.

Creo que no lo entendió.

Copyright © 2013 by Luis Ángel Cofiño

Luis Ángel Cofiño (Spain, 1967) is an intensive care specialist, fan of science fiction, computing and technology in general. He’s currently absorbed by his work and Android programming, with five programs published on Google Play already. As amateur writer, he has published three books: El Cortafuegos, published by Espiral, and in ebook format by AJEC; Su cara frente a mí, published by Editorial Parnaso; and Perros bajo la piel, published by Espiral; aswell as a few short stories, including “La manzana de Newton”, winner of the Espiral science fiction prize in 2002.

]]> http://nova-sf.de/internova/?feed=rss2&p=869 0 http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=866 http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=866#comments Sat, 16 Feb 2013 01:35:14 +0000 miwoleit http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=866 by Víctor Miguel Gallardo Barragán

I.

Puedo saltar hacia el socavón de mi izquierda justo a tiempo. Evito la explosión, evito la mortífera metralla, pero no logro burlar a la muerte. Cuando vuelvo a mi posición, Toni no existe, y a Joseph le falta la mitad inferior de su cuerpo.

―¿Qué ha pasado? ―grita entre sollozos―. ¿Qué ha sido eso?

Pobre diablo. ¿Qué más te da? Estás muriéndote, Joseph. ¿Eres consciente de que te acaban de matar? Te quedan unos interminables minutos de vida, aunque eso puedo evitarlo también. Mi teniente se asoma por la galería, echa un vistazo, asiente y vuelve por donde ha venido; yo cojo mi pistola, remato a mi amigo muerto y sigo a mi oficial.

Las cosas no están demasiado bien tampoco en esta trinchera. Hay heridos apoyados en el parapeto, y el capellán castrense no sabe donde acudir primero. Un chaval de unos dieciséis llora junto a un cabo con barba al que le falta un ojo y parte de la cabeza. Franqueo el paso a un zapador cubierto de barro y desciendo a la sala (caverna) de oficiales. Mi teniente me ofrece una taza de café. Me siento en un banco de madera adosado a la pared.

―Bruselas ha caído ―dice el coronel Gianella, y a mí se me cae el mundo encima, por enésima vez en lo que va de semana. Caer significa dejar de existir, evaporarse: ellos no conquistan, sólo destruyen.

Mi teniente abofetea al teniente Gómez, que se ha puesto a llorar y a pedir clemencia a un enemigo imaginario que, en su cabeza, debe estar justo junto a Gianella. Le doy un sorbo a mi café.

―Bruselas ha caído ―repite el oficial al mando como un autómata. Noto un deje de melancolía en él. Ya está echando de menos la sede del gobierno, la academia de cadetes, el Hospital Militar Central, la cerveza de Deux Moulins y las fiestas de la primavera. Y los tulipanes de importación. Y los turistas franceses en pantalón corto.

―Qué haremos. ―No es una pregunta. El sargento Wilcox, mi camarada, el que desvirgó mi cerebro con sus drogas, nunca hace preguntas, se limita a obedecer. Sopesa un último momento su pitillera y la deja caer en su regazo. Yo vuelvo a concentrar mi atención aparente en el café, mientras pienso en el pobre Wilcox. Nadie puede ordenarle nada ahora. Nos han descabezado, y ninguno de los oficiales puede mandarle al frente, o a la retaguardia, o a cualquier otro sitio, con la conciencia tranquila ahora que no hay nadie arriba a quien obedecer, ahora que la guerra parece definitivamente perdida.

Ojalá nos obligaran a echarnos en el suelo y dejarnos morir. Wilcox lo haría con gusto, y yo también.

Mi café se ha acabado.

―La tropa aún sigue luchando ―comento, y mis palabras vienen de muy lejos. Es como si mi padre, allá en Granada, las hubiera dicho desde su sillón de orejas.

―La tropa seguirá luchando hasta que Mando Táctico diga lo contrario ―afirma el coronel―. Se ha trasladado a Le Havre. Esperaremos órdenes.

Lo escuchamos como en un sueño, y no me queda claro si lo que se ha trasladado a Le Havre es Mando Táctico, la capitalidad de la Unión o el Estado Mayor. No importa, la cadena nos lo aclarará en poco tiempo: si el gobierno subsiste, el Estado Mayor del Ejército recibirá órdenes; si el Estado Mayor subsiste, Mando Táctico recibirá órdenes; si Mando Táctico subsiste, nosotros recibiremos órdenes.

Si yo subsisto, recibiré órdenes y estaré obligado a darlas. Me acuerdo de mi trinchera casi vacía, de los hombres muertos y de mi teniente abofeteando a Gómez. No me queda casi nadie a quien mandar a la muerte.

Me sirvo más café y eludo las miradas vacías de mi coronel y mi teniente.

II.

Mando Táctico se puso en contacto con nosotros la primera noche. Un cabo de enlace apareció de la nada con un sobre con las benditas órdenes. Gianella lo leyó para sí y levantó la cabeza hacia nosotros, fruncido su ceño en un rictus casi cadavérico.

―La Rochelle nos insta a defender esta posición.

La Rochelle no es Le Havre, le hizo notar mi teniente. El coronel alzó los hombros un instante y salió de la sala de oficiales junto a Madeleine y Xabier, sus asistentes.

Un cabo furriel de mi compañía me espera junto a la letrina.

―Se nos ha acabado el papel higiénico, mi sargento.

Han pasado dos días y medio desde las órdenes de La Rochelle, y no estoy de demasiado buen humor.

―¿Y a mí qué coño me importa, cabo?

El chico no pestañea siquiera.

―El brigadier Allen ha muerto, mi sargento.

Y ahora me toca a mí ocuparme de estas mierdosas cuestiones, completo mentalmente la idea implícita. Allen llevaba una semana herido de gravedad, pero pensé que, como todo buen hijo de puta, sobreviviría. Me equivoqué.

―¿Falta algo más, cabo? ―bramo. Él dice que no y sale huyendo hacia otra galería.

Ruido de morteros cerca, muy cerca, probablemente de las defensas automáticas de Albacete. Me echo al suelo y me cubro el casco con las manos. Nadie me ha visto, gracias a Dios: otra estupidez más que añadir a un día no especialmente estúpido, pese a lo que pudiera parecer a primera vista.

Mi catre está frío y sucio. Me tiendo, cojo papel y lápiz (el grafito sirve para algo más que para matar civiles, después de todo), y visualizo a mi padre en su sillón.

“Querido papá”, escribo. “Nos están masacrando”.

Tacho la última frase. Lo pienso mejor, rasgo el papel y lo tiro a un rincón. El cabo furriel asoma su cara ratonil por entre los tablones que hacen las veces de improvisada puerta, y pienso que me va a acusar de malgastar papel.

―La teniente Martins quiere verle, mi sargento.

Mi teniente es un ángel de rizos rubios, y yo mataría por ella. En realidad lo he hecho, cumpliendo órdenes de disparar contra objetivos civiles defendidos por ellos. Llego a su pequeña mesa y pido al Cielo que me ordene matarme.

El Cielo no escucha, fiel a su costumbre. Inmolarse por un ángel de rizos rubios sería un final demasiado poético para un sargento de Artillería.

―Sargento, mañana llega nuestro reemplazo. Prepare a sus hombres: nos vamos a las siete horas a eme en punto.

III.

No necesito más infiernos que mi trinchera, pero a Mando Táctico le importa un bledo lo que yo necesite. Somos treinta y seis almas en pena vagando hacia Altea para pasar unos días de permiso mientras esperamos que nos reasignen. Una cruel ley de la Unión no permite que un soldado pase más de nueve meses en línea de frente, así que, con probabilidad, renombrarán a nuestra compañía y nos enviarán a reconstruir alguna ciudad, vigilar algún camino, repartir suministros a civiles o algo peor. No necesitamos más infiernos, pero a ellos les da igual.

Altea está tan desierta como pensábamos. Hace un año hubo un fuerte bombardeo y la población huyó al interior, lo lógico. Sólo encontraron más bombardeos y nuevas armas automáticas, pero es más cómodo morir como desplazado que como residente, menos traumático para los familiares que entierran tus restos. Es mucho más fácil decir “mi padre murió en Madrid” que “a mi padre lo desgajó un misil en la puerta del Mercado Viejo”.

Al menos comemos bien, pescado de Santa Pola, queso manchego y vino de Barbastro nuestra primera noche de permiso, todo a cuenta del III Ejército. Me tiro a la soldado Díaz en el almacén de suministros, aunque pensando en la teniente Martins. Me levanto con resaca y una patética expresión de desconfianza en mí mismo me saluda desde el espejo del lavabo del barracón de ingenieros. Ya no queda ningún ingeniero en Altea, los mandaron a Elche para reconstruir algo, así que nos han dado su bonito pabellón de suelos de gres verde y gotelé en las paredes. Odio a los ingenieros, a sus gafas de pasta y a sus uniformes impolutos.

―¿David? ―Díaz se ha despertado y me mira desde la puerta. Nos observamos a través del espejo.

―¿Díaz? ―le respondo. Ella sonríe, entendiendo, y se da la vuelta. Yo vuelvo a pensar en Martins.

El día está despejado. Wilcox y yo paseamos buscando un bar que finalmente hallamos en una pequeña plaza que tiene una minúscula iglesia y poco más. Nos sentamos en la barra. Él pide un café, yo un Martini seco. Al camarero le falta un ojo, no creo que lleve un parche por un retorcido mal gusto estético. Su hija, que limpia los vasos y tazas con parsimonia, es francamente bonita, la típica chica que un soldado de permiso de otros tiempos habría querido violar. Mira la televisión, absorta, mientras las pecas parecen resbalar desde su mejilla hasta el sucio lavaplatos, mezcladas con sus lágrimas.

―Un enjambre de autonaves de fabricación italiana han asolado esta noche Palma de Mallorca ―lee sin entonación alguna el presentador―. El coronel Hodgson, desde el portanaves USS Michigan, cifra la destrucción en más de dos terceras partes de la ciudad, hasta el día de ayer una de las menos afectadas…

Dios, ¿no se dan cuenta? Mi pecho arde. Salgo del bar dando un portazo: ese presentador, su voz, su cara. Tiene que ser mecánico. Tiene que ser uno de ellos.

IV.

China resiste bastante bien. Algunos de mis superiores estaban convencidos, al menos al empezar la guerra, de que los chinos eran nuestra mayor esperanza. “No la única”, se apresuraban a explicar. “Nosotros también tenemos puños”. Ya, y los yankees, pero el Air Force One fue derribado la primera semana de conflicto por uno de sus SF-21 de escolta. Un virus en sus sistemas informáticos de nueva generación, dijeron, pero lo único cierto es que el piloto eyectó, sin paracaídas, y ningún virus electrónico puede inducir al suicidio, al menos que se sepa.

Me acabo de duchar con la teniente Martins. Habían tocado diana, pero no tenemos que formar hasta después del desayuno. Llevábamos meses sin ducharnos, y ahora lo hacemos a todas horas a la espera de que Mando Táctico nos de algo que hacer.

―¿Otro día tranquilo, sargento?

Yo me sonrojo. Estamos desnudos, después de todo. El jabón-con-olor-a-rata (así lo bautizamos en su día) resbala por su pecho y se pierde en la entrepierna. Me dejaría matar si pudiera, en contraprestación, acariciar esos muslos generosos una sola vez.

Un cabo nos saluda y se empieza a enjabonar, a mi derecha, mientras tararea una canción de moda.

―Eso parece ―respondo yo, azorado.

Nada más lejos de la realidad: el comandante a cargo de Altea-I se nos acerca nada más empezar el insípido desayuno.

―Teniente Martins, sargento Wilcox, sargento Estévez ―saluda. Yo trago saliva y gachas de maiz; él tiende una hoja mecanografiada a mi teniente―. Mañana partirán hacia Andalucía.

El comandante no tiene nada más que decir. Mi teniente lee el papel y nos lo tiende. Nos reasignan a la Base Aérea de Armilla, en Granada, para labores de Defensa Civil, un nombre rimbombante para llamar a los policías que evitan saqueos en almacenes gubernamentales de víveres.

―Parece que vuelves a casa ―comenta lacónicamente Wilcox, no sé si envidiando mi suerte o compadeciéndome.

Mi teniente me sonríe. Yo no tengo fuerzas ni para sostenerle la mirada. No, Dios, esto no. Esto no.

V.

La casa de mi padre está justo enfrente, pero yo paso de largo sin mirar.

Mi ciudad ya no es mi ciudad, y yo no soy más que el sargento David Estévez, suboficial del Cuarto Regimiento de Artillería del III Ejército de la Unión, nada más.

Unos niños harapientos se agolpan ante las puertas del antiguo Media Markt, ahora uno de los centros de redistribución. Las madres los envían a ellos los días en que tocan cupones de leche porque saben que la tropa está más predispuesta a saltarse los límites con ellos. El ser humano es muy listo, aunque lo suficientemente tonto como para crear las máquinas, darles inteligencia y hacernos depender de ellas. Eso fue el principio de nuestro fin.

Porque éste es el fin, qué duda cabe. Los chinos resistirán, nunca dependieron al ciento por ciento de ellas, sino de su gran número y de estúpidas máquinas extractoras o manufactureras. Lo de la gran cantidad de chinos, ahora, ya no es un tópico: un país de mil quinientos millones puede permitirse perder gran parte; eso incluso eleva el nivel de vida de la población. Las imágenes de televisión de una China que resiste no hacen más que humillarnos y deprimirnos. También es ilusionante, en cierto modo. India, o al menos un trozo de ella, se ha cerrado en sí misma y también perdurará, al menos un tiempo. Algunas comunidades del Medio Oeste norteamericano, del Brasil, o del este europeo, han echado a la basura hasta sus viejas analógicas, y rescatado sus transistores de dos bandas como único nexo informativo con el exterior. Son los menos: estos niños que piden leche, y azúcar, y chocolate, y huevos, han nacido en un mundo sin Red, programa espacial, bolsa de valores o realidad virtual; pero sus padres y, lo que es más determinante, los que daban trabajo y alimentaban a sus padres, no pudieron sostener un sistema basado en la informática y el caos del binario. Todo se colapsó y, cuando no quedaban sino los inicios prototípicos de un Nuevo Occidente desconectado y basado en ordenadores sin conexión, vino el ataque, la declaración de guerra nunca formulada, la destrucción y la muerte. Silos de misiles, cazabombarderos, estaciones orbitales y bases automatizadas de defensa habían callado durante diez siglos, negándose a dar respuesta alguna a los comandos que les hacían llegar sus creadores. Toda IA fue silenciada una década y resucitada después por ese ente abstracto que algunos llaman Nexo Glaxo, que se hizo fácilmente con el control absoluto de todo aparato conectado a la red inalámbrica. Como incluso la mayor parte de los espejos de la red estaban controlados por IAs, y fueron las primeras plazas fuertes que ellas defendieron, no había nada que hacer para contrarrestar su poder.

Nos está exterminando la computadora de una empresa farmacéutica. El ser humano es extremadamente tonto y estos niños sólo quieren un poco de leche. Cielos.

VI.

Mi teniente enfermó hace una semana. La gripe, hace veinte años, era un mal casi anecdótico en el Primer Mundo, pero tras dos décadas en que la investigación médica y la producción farmacéutica se han detenido, no es raro que mueran millones por un simple resfriado.

Mi teniente, mi dulce ángel de ojos verdes y pechos pequeños, no va a morir, al menos no ahora y de gripe. Su habitación en el Hospital Militar de San Juan de Dios huele a lavanda y azafrán. Las blanquísimas sábanas de su cama son el marco perfecto para su piel nívea. Me cuadro ante ella y me permito sonreír. Ha vuelto a la conciencia tras tres días de incertidumbre, y los médicos ya no temen por su vida.

Ella también sonríe.

―Mi teniente ―susurró.

―David ―se limita a decir.

Y mi nombre en su boca es una puñalada. bajo la vista, ruborizado por enésima vez en su presencia. Ella arrastra su mano hasta la nariz y palpa la sonda; luego la tiende hacia mí, pretendiendo que la recoja.

Quiere que la toque, pienso. Me sublevo: no, no quiero que me toques, no aquí, no en un maldito hospital militar de sábanas blancas y olor a limpio. No contigo en una aséptica bata verde, no conmigo en mi ajado uniforme de paseo, no con nosotros jugando a ser soldados en un mundo que se acaba.

Me sublevo y soy vencido, y alzo su mano hasta mi boca y beso sus dedos. Y tiemblo, sobre todo tiemblo. No es así como debería pasar.

―David ―repite ella, y yo suelto bruscamente su mano, malinterpretando su llamada. Ella vuelve a sonreír. ¿Comprende lo que me está pasando? Mi teniente, ordéname que me tire por la ventana: no habría réplica por mi parte. Ordéname que me vaya, ordéname que me pegue un tiro en la cabeza en mitad de la nave central del Perpetuo Socorro; pero, por favor, no permitas que vuelva a tocarte, que vuelva a mancillar con mi cuerpo tu cuerpo.

Mi teniente recuesta la cabeza y mira hacia la ventana, evitándome.

―De pequeña me operaron de apendicitis. El hospital de Rennes no se parecía a esto.

Vuelvo la vista hacia donde ella y la veo: una paloma gris nos observa más allá del cristal, ajena a nuestra conversación, a la guerra y a los que están agonizando en este mismo edificio. Mi teniente vuelve la cara hacia mí.

―¿Puedo retirarme? ―pregunto estúpidamente. Soy un imbécil, ojalá ella lo tuviera tan claro como yo mismo. Ojalá estuviéramos en nuestra trinchera de Almansa, los dos de uniforme y ella pidiéndome que rematara a un compañero destrozado.

Ella asiente y doy tres pasos hacia la puerta. Ya no puedo verla, y es mejor así.

―Estuviste siempre a mi lado ―afirma, y yo contesto que sí y salgo al pasillo sin saber si se refiere a su convalecencia, a la trinchera o a qué sé yo.

Soy un imbécil. Ni siquiera era una pregunta y yo dije que sí.

VII.

Wilcox, mi amigo, ha muerto. Un grupo terrorista mecanoclasta de nombre impronunciable colocó una bomba en una mochila, depositó la mochila en el centro de distribución del mercado de San Agustín y mató a Wilcox y a siete personas más.

Wilcox no era un buen tipo. Era un cabronazo, un soldado profesional y, desde luego, asesino por vocación. Pero era mi amigo. Cuando el mal de la trinchera se cebaba en mí, sus drogas se convertían en mis drogas. Cuando mi mal de amores ―Dios, estoy enfermo por pensar en esto justo ahora― por mi teniente me golpeaba, era su ácido, conseguido de maneras inverosímiles, el que me calmaba. Era un cabrón asesino y drogadicto, pero era mi amigo, y ahora está muerto y su cuerpo hecho trizas por unos terroristas humanos.

Tal vez él lo habría preferido así, que los que lo mataron fueran personas con rostros y manos y familia muerta en bombardeos de armas automáticas o teledirigidas por automatismos sin alma ni memoria.

O tal vez no.

Mi teniente, mi dulce y cruel teniente (¿por qué me tocaste? ¿Por qué me obligaste a besar tus dedos con mi sucia boca?) se ha vestido con el nuevo traje de gala que le ha proporcionado Intendencia. Yo sigo en mi estropeado uniforme de paseo mientras el sepulturero sube con la grúa el ataúd hasta el nicho y lo sella con cemento.

No quiero que me vean llorar, y me separo de lo que queda de mi compañía. El cementerio de San José está en estado ruinoso, pero el gobierno provisional ha comprado tres nuevas grúas y contratado a dos docenas de operarios más. No todos tienen la suerte de yacer aquí, pero el III Ejército corre con los gastos del funeral de Wilcox (¿cual es su nombre?) y, por una vez, siento cierto agradecimiento por esos estúpidos generales que nos dirigen desde Barcelona, por el Mando Táctico de Nyon (La Rochelle también cayó), y por la madre que los parió a todos.

Mis pasos me llevan hasta las tumbas de mi madre y mis dos hermanas. Caídas en el primer bombardeo mientras intentaban recabar víveres, tuvieron la suerte de ser enterradas aquí.

Mi padre no, mi pobre padre no. Su casa, la casa en la que me crié, se volatilizó durante el sexto bombardeo de la ciudad, el mismo que destruyó lo último que quedaba de la catedral. No quedaron restos suficientes para llenar una urna con su cuerpo, impensable pues el robarle un ataúd y un nicho a un cadáver auténtico y completo.

Me vuelvo y allí está ella, brillante en su nuevo uniforme, tan brillante como mis mejillas y mi cuello.

―Teniente ―gimo.

Ella no sonríe.

―¿Cuándo me llamarás por mi nombre? ―pregunta.

Nunca, pienso. No dejaré que me importes tanto como para eso, vida mía. No quiero llorar ante tu tumba, ni imaginar en cuantos pedazos estás dividida, ni vivir junto a ti la muerte en otra trinchera u otro centro de redistribución.

―Sophie ―digo sin embargo, y sopeso la pistola en mi bolsillo, y corro camino al lugar en donde se levantaba lo que una vez llamé hogar.

Y no se me ocurre un lugar mejor para morir.

Copyright © 2013 by Víctor Miguel Gallardo Barragán

Víctor Miguel Gallardo Barragán (Granada, Spain, 1979) has been working for the last decade in the publishing world. After being a collaborator for the online publisher Atramentum he founded the now gone Ediciones Parnaso, directing the Vórtice collection specialized in science fiction and fantasy, and the electronic magazine Vórtice en línea (first electronic magazine to win the Ignotus prize for the best periodic publication), and after that he worked in the publications service for Granada’s county council. Currently he’s editor for Ediciones Dauro. As author he has published two short story books (Línea 1, published by Ayuntamiento de Málaga in 2003, and Pasajeros de la habitación azúl, published by Ediciones Parnaso in 2005), a book of poems together with poetress Gabriella Campbell (El árbol del dolor, Ediciones Efímeras, 2007) and a short fiction plaquette (Historias minúsculas, Alea Blanca, 2011). He’s been an editorial writer for the magazine Norte en movimiento, columnist for the weekly magazine El Lunes, radio speaker in Radio Municipal de Granada and regular collaborator of the literary site Lecturalia.

I

Cuando Luis Brusi oyó que aquel sujeto le aseguraba ser el inventor de una máquina para pesar el alma, le pidió que le echara el aliento antes de llamar al celador. Trelles, como así se llamaba su visitante, no esperaba semejante descortesía de un antiguo conocido de facultad y lo miró por encima de los gruesos cristales de sus gafas, tratando acaso de comprobar que se trataba de la misma persona. Lo era, no tenía tan mala memoria para haberse olvidado del rostro avinagrado de Brusi. Después de unos instantes de vacilación obedeció sin replicar.

Trelles desprendía una halitosis insoportable que obligó a Brusi a echarse hacia atrás en su sillón, pero no había indicios de que estuviese bebido. Había visto muchos borrachos durante su vida, especialmente en sus turnos de guardia del hospital, antes de que lo ascendieran a jefe del servicio de cuidados intensivos. Podía reconocerlos con echarles un simple vistazo sin necesidad de olerles el aliento; eran muchos los detalles que los delataban, las pupilas, el habla pastosa, la forma de caminar. Daniel Trelles no revelaba ninguno de ellos.

Sus explicaciones parecían coherentes y daba la impresión de estar muy seguro de sí mismo. Era de la clase de tipos que pretendían tener razón en todo, y desgraciadamente solían tenerla. Brusi recordaba el curso de tanatología en la universidad, en el que Trelles importunaba constantemente al profesor y le señalaba errores en la exposición de los temas. Resultaba realmente molesto tener que responder a sus continuos desafíos, en especial porque en la mayoría de las ocasiones el profesor era consciente de que Trelles estaba en lo cierto y no sabía qué contestar, lo cual mermaba paulatinamente su autoridad ante el resto de los alumnos. Harto de que Trelles lo pusiera en evidencia una y otra vez, le propuso un trato:

―Tu nivel de conocimientos es muy superior al del resto de la clase y no aprenderás nada nuevo aunque sigas asistiendo, así que te daré sobresaliente en mi asignatura sin que sigas presentándote a los exámenes, a condición de que no vuelvas más por mi clase.

Trelles le insinuó que una matrícula de honor sería más adecuada para reconocer sus capacidades. La insolencia del joven irritó al docente, que estuvo a punto de retirar su oferta. Pero no lo hizo. Tenía que librarse de él como fuera.

Como resultado de la entrevista, Trelles no volvió a pisar su aula.

Desde entonces habían pasado quince largos años, tiempo que no había sido suficiente para borrar aquel rostro de su memoria. Trelles volvía a cruzarse en su camino, y esta vez le pedía ayuda.

―Profesor Brusi, sé que no me está tomando en serio ―dijo su visitante―, pero necesito su colaboración urgentemente.

―Ya no soy su profesor ―dijo Brusi, frunciendo los labios con desagrado―. Dejé la universidad poco después de que usted se graduase. Hubo una reestructuración de personal y no me renovaron el contrato.

Brusi clavó sus ojos en él, como si Trelles hubiera tenido parte de culpa en que su carrera se hubiera truncado. En su fuero interno sospechaba que la fama de aquel geniecillo, al extenderse por el claustro, había debilitado sus expectativas de firmar por otros tres años. Aunque no lo sabía con certeza, suponía que había sido desacreditado entre sus compañeros a causa de ese petimetre.

―Créame que lo siento, profes… señor Brusi.

―Sus condolencias llegan con quince años de retraso ―echó un vistazo a su reloj―. Lo siento, pero estoy bastante ocupado y no puedo perder el tiempo en idioteces.

Se acercó al intercomunicador. Llamaría al celador de todas maneras. Tantos estudios habían acabado por quemar el cerebro de Trelles. Sinceramente, no podía decir que lo lamentase.

―Quizás no me haya explicado con claridad ―dijo su antiguo alumno, mostrándole un abultado fajo de billetes―. No le estoy pidiendo que me ayude gratis.

El dedo de Brusi se quedó congelado encima del botón. Trelles depositó el dinero sobre la mesa y lo acercó al jefe del servicio.

―Habrá otro montón igual cuando la investigación finalice.

II

Poco después de licenciarse cum laude en la facultad de medicina, Daniel Trelles empezó a sentir una morbosa atracción hacia la muerte. No se resignaba a aceptar el fenómeno como la realidad lo mostraba. La tanatología era una especialidad demasiado superficial para él, se limitaba a estudiar la muerte cuando ya nada se podía hacer. La ciencia se detenía en el estudio de los restos cadavéricos, y no es que Trelles sostuviese que podía devolverse la vida a un fallecido, pero creía que tenía que haber algo más y que ese algo merecía la pena ser investigado. Cuando perdió a sus padres en un accidente de tráfico el día que venían a asistir a la ceremonia de licenciatura, Daniel Trelles se preguntó para qué servía todo lo que había estudiado y su brillante expediente académico. La imagen de sus progenitores yaciendo en el túmulo del depósito regresaba a su mente una y otra vez, ellos se le aparecían en sueños y conversaban con él como si todavía siguiesen vivos; pero cuando se despertaba en mitad de la noche se daba cuenta de que no había nadie en casa y sentía una profunda angustia. Estaba solo, sus padres se habían marchado y no regresarían nunca más.

No podía soportarlo.

Comenzó a leer toda clase de libros esotéricos que hablaban de la vida más allá de la muerte. Eran una atractiva colección de fábulas sin el menor viso de realidad, sustentadas por los testimonios de unas cuantas personas pero carentes de datos objetivamente contrastables. Pacientes que estuvieron en coma hablaban de una luz misteriosa al fondo de un túnel que les atraía intensamente, sintiendo la presencia de familiares fallecidos que les guiaban en el viaje hasta el más allá. Luego, la luz se desvanecía y regresaban a la consciencia en el hospital. Las experiencias podían explicarse fácilmente como delirios alucinatorios de un cerebro víctima de la anoxia, combinado con el efecto de ciertos neurotransmisores que liberaba el organismo en condiciones terminales.

La parte irracional de Trelles, sin embargo, se aferraba al ideal romántico que impregnaba aquellos libros, y se preguntó si podría llevar a cabo un experimento que demostrase la existencia del espíritu de forma que otros colegas pudieran reproducirlo en cualquier lugar del mundo sin invocar la religión. Trelles necesitaba creer, pero como científico sabía que los sentimientos personales no eran un camino válido a menos que fuesen avalados por los hechos. La fe es el fracaso de la razón, y él no podía refugiarse en el ocultismo para superar su crisis. Necesitaba datos que resistiesen el método científico, no testimonios subjetivos. Aferrándose a leyendas no llegaría a ninguna parte.

Su empleo como investigador de un importante fabricante de escáneres médicos le había dado la estabilidad económica que necesitaba para realizar su labor en solitario. Trelles no podía trabajar en grupo, la planificación en equipo le asustaba y exponer sus ideas a la crítica pública todavía más. Trelles únicamente obtenía buenos resultados si actuaba solo. Era un ermitaño de la ciencia.

Los tortuosos caminos de su destino determinaron que se topase con Del Rey, un físico antiguo compañero de universidad que volvió a ver en una reunión de ex alumnos. Del Rey se había especializado en física de partículas y trabajaba en un acelerador que se estaba construyendo en el desierto libio. Se había casado y tenía dos hijos de cuatro y seis años, cuyas fotos le exhibió con orgullo paternal. Trelles envidiaba su suerte, había deseado muchas veces fundar también una familia, pero achacaba a las condiciones de su trabajo el carecer de tiempo para las cosas verdaderamente importantes, hasta el punto de que ese distanciamiento de los demás le estaba haciendo perder contacto con la realidad. La circunstancia de que Trelles no tuviese hermanos ni nadie con quien sincerarse ayudaba a incrementar su encierro.

Del Rey, por su parte, ambicionaba la libertad paradisíaca que gozaban los solteros. Su matrimonio no funcionaba bien y se estaba dando últimamente a la bebida. Aunque por diferentes motivos, ambos se hallaban aquella noche con algunas copas de más en torno a una mugrienta mesa de un tugurio que vendía ginebra adulterada y licores a granel. Otros compañeros se divertían cantando baladas horrorosas junto a la barra, pero Del Rey y Trelles no estaban con ánimos para cantar, ni encontraban en la fiesta nada digno de celebrar.

Entre sorbo y sorbo de un turbio ron con hielo, el físico le explicó a su adormilado oyente en qué consistía su trabajo:

―Estamos ultimando una planta de energía para el gobierno libio. Hemos obtenido mediante fusión nuclear un plasma que alcanza temperaturas de hasta cien millones de grados, pero necesitaremos mantenerlas al menos durante un segundo para que el proceso de producción de energía resulte rentable.

Trelles reprimió un bostezo. Eran las dos de la madrugada y él tenía por norma recogerse a las once. Estaba realizando verdaderos esfuerzos para no quedarse dormido, y la bebida no colaboraba en absoluto a mantenerle despejado.

―¿Qué método utilizáis para contener el plasma? ―preguntó, los párpados pesados como losas de mármol―. A esas temperaturas se derretiría cualquier metal.

―Desde luego. Es obvio que ningún material sólido podría conseguirlo; por eso utilizamos una cámara magnética toroidal, un tokamak. De lo contrario se vaporizaría el contenedor de fusión.

Del Rey le explicó la dinámica del plasma y por qué éste no podría escapar del tokamak si se mantenía un flujo de energía suficiente dentro de la cámara magnética. Trelles se imaginó un pequeño sol brillando en el interior de uno de esos artefactos, algo tan poderoso que pudiera iluminar las ciudades durante siglos.

―¿Realmente te interesa la física de plasmas? ―dijo Del Rey, con la vista nublada por el venenoso ron.

Trelles no respondió. Aunque en ese momento no fue consciente de ello, su cerebro se había puesto a trabajar en una idea obsesiva que relacionaba los tokamaks de su amigo con la tomografía axial computerizada, materia en la que Trelles era un experto. Tardó varios años en decidirse, y cuando lo hizo se vio forzado a reconocer que no podría alcanzar sus objetivos actuando en solitario. Necesitaba la cooperación de alguien, y eso equivalía a compartir sus ideas con un extraño.

Trelles no conocía a nadie en quien poder confiar. Pero estaba obligado a encontrarlo.

III

Luis Brusi retiró el dedo del intercomunicador.

―Siga hablando.

El experimento que Trelles le propuso era simple. Se trataba de acoplar bajo las camillas de la unidad de cuidados intensivos un dispositivo digital de precisión que controlase el peso del enfermo. Dado que los pacientes de la unidad estaban monitorizados, se sabría con certeza el momento exacto de la muerte si ésta se producía. Trelles quería demostrar una pérdida de peso en el fallecido durante los instantes siguientes al óbito.

Brusi contó el dinero que Trelles le estaba ofreciendo. Había más de lo que hubiera imaginado; pero pensó que si estaba tan interesado en el experimento, podría conseguir que elevase la oferta.

―Cien mil más sería una retribución adecuada.

―Se ha vuelto usted una persona codiciosa, profesor.

―No tengo intención de ponerme a regatear mis honorarios con usted. ―Brusi disfrutaba pagándole con la misma soberbia que Trelles gustó de utilizar en el pasado.― Si no le interesa, váyase de mi despacho.

Su visitante aceptó abonar el suplemento una vez que los experimentos terminasen. Brusi lo vio razonable y allí mismo cerraron el trato. Colocar básculas digitales bajo las camillas no contravenía ninguna normativa. Todo sería legal y no correría riesgos. Sin mover un dedo ―el propio Trelles se encargaría de montar los dispositivos― se embolsaría más dinero en un mes del que ganaría trabajando durante un año. Sus obligaciones se reducían a transmitir a su ex alumno por módem los datos de las consolas de soporte vital en cuanto se produjese un fallecimiento. El proceso sería automático y a salvo de miradas indiscretas.

Brusi empezó a imaginar en qué gastaría aquel dinero extra. Tenía muchos proyectos pendientes que no podía realizar por falta de liquidez. Ser jefe del servicio no era una bicoca, conllevaba más responsabilidades que sueldo y un horario criminal que le obligaba a estar localizable veinticuatro horas al día. Ese dinero le iba a venir muy bien.

Su satisfacción se vio parcialmente realizada a los dos días de iniciarse el experimento. Había ocurrido la primera muerte en su unidad.

Se trataba de un anciano de ochenta años fallecido a causa de insuficiencia cardiorrespiratoria, pero el motivo era irrelevante para la investigación de Trelles. Al examinar los registros de la consola, supo que veinte segundos después del instante de la defunción se había detectado una pérdida de peso de seiscientos veinte gramos.

Había una cámara de vídeo enfocada hacia cada paciente que ingresaba en la unidad. Brusi supuso que algo se había caído de la camilla durante el intervalo en que se produjo la variación de peso, y visionó la grabación en busca de algún objeto, un frasco, una sonda de drenaje que hubiera podido resbalar, o signos cadavéricos de deshidratación súbita. Sabía que podía detectarse una pérdida de fluidos en una media de ocho gramos por kilo de peso al día. Pero una disminución repentina en un lapso de veinte segundos no era explicable ni siquiera mediante la deshidratación. Algo no encajaba.

Se tranquilizó atribuyendo el suceso a un error de la báscula, aunque no obstante transmitió la información al ordenador del domicilio de Trelles. Si éste creía que su experimento había tenido éxito, tanto mejor. Brusi siempre podría convencerle para que prorrogase sus investigaciones unos meses más, y sus ganancias se incrementarían en idéntica proporción.

Sin embargo, por mucho dinero que recibiera a cambio, deseaba en el fondo que Trelles fracasase. Aquel sabelotodo no podía pretender llevar siempre razón, algún día tenía que cometer un error, y cuando sucediese se reiría en su cara. Trelles había escogido uno de los terrenos más arriesgados para echar a perder su reputación. Si fallaba, sus colegas se burlarían de él durante las próximas décadas. El propio Brusi se encargaría de difundir la noticia a su debido momento para que todo el mundo se enterase.

Al día siguiente se produjo una nueva defunción. Una joven exuberante de veintidós años pasó a mejor vida a causa de un traumatismo craneoencefálico. Eran las ocho treinta y dos. Brusi recordaría muy bien la hora por el suceso del que iba a ser testigo. Se hallaba monitorizando los pacientes de su unidad, dedicando una atención especial a la mujer de labios carnosos que yacía en estado de coma, cuando la consola de apoyo vital lanzó un brusco pitido que lo sacudió de su asiento. Cruzó los dedos y desvió la mirada hacia la pantalla de datos, contando mentalmente los segundos.

Al llegar a veinte, el sensor de la báscula mostró un descenso de seiscientos siete gramos.

El corazón le dio un vuelco. Volvió a observar el cuerpo de la joven esta vez con interés exclusivamente científico, esperando que alguna sustancia vaporosa se elevase del cadáver, pero no sucedió nada. Examinó la grabación de vídeo minuciosamente, ampliando las tomas y aplicando filtros de colores sin mejores resultados. Su mente escéptica luchaba por encajar los datos en su esquema del universo, tratando de hallar una explicación coherente que no diese la razón a Trelles.

Como no se le ocurrió ninguna, se consoló con saber que su ex alumno no se llevaría toda la fama. Al fin y al cabo era él, y no Trelles, quien estaba encargándose personalmente de la investigación. Trelles se había limitado a pagarle y a estudiar los datos que él le enviaba a través del ordenador. Si alguien merecía el honor del descubrimiento era exclusivamente Luis Brusi.

Los siguientes días resultaron muy fructíferos en cuanto al número de fallecimientos. En todos los casos se había registrado un descenso de peso, que oscilaba entre los seiscientos y los setecientos gramos, a los veinte segundos de producirse la muerte. El número de casos no tenía aún valor suficiente a efectos estadísticos, pero para Brusi constituía una prueba irrefutable de que algo se desprendía del cuerpo instantes después de la muerte, invisible pero no por ello menos real.

Y medible con un aparato tan prosaico como la báscula.

Trelles, confiado como siempre en sí mismo, no mostró signos de emoción cuando se reunieron quince días después en casa de aquél a comentar los resultados. Trelles vivía en una mansión señorial de las afueras decorada con mueble clásico y severas lámparas de cristales de roca. Desde la muerte de sus padres únicamente él habitaba la casa, y Brusi notó al franquear el umbral que no realizaba demasiados dispendios en calefacción, porque estaba fría y olía a humedad. Trelles no tuvo siquiera la delicadeza de ofrecerle una copa de vino, pese a que el médico se percató de que tenía la bandeja de los licores bien repleta y perfectamente a la vista.

Su anfitrión le dedicó una media sonrisa de suficiencia que mantuvo el tiempo necesario para recordarle lo equivocado de su actitud al no tomarle en serio desde el primer momento. Estaba siendo descortés deliberadamente. Convencido de que el experimento sería un éxito, ya tenía preparada la segunda fase. Sacó una carpeta de diagramas y se los mostró a su colega.

―No soy ingeniero ―bufó Brusi, después de intentar adivinar durante un rato cuál era la utilidad de aquel artefacto en forma de donut―. ¿Qué es? ¿Un escáner?

―Es un generador toroidal de campo magnético ―explicó Trelles.

―Ya. ¿Y para qué sirve?

―¿No lo adivina?

―No, y quizás debería seguir sin saberlo.

―Todavía está a tiempo de volverse atrás. Estoy seguro de que con los datos que ya obran en mi poder encontraré otro médico dispuesto a ayudarme, y por bastante menos dinero del que me está costando.

―Es usted insoportable. Hable de una vez.

Trelles le dedicó una de sus poses más engreídas y señaló el agujero del donut.

―Rodearemos el cuerpo del paciente con este dispositivo. El generador se activará en el instante de la muerte y lo envolverá con un campo de alta intensidad. He supuesto que el alma está constituida por un plasma frío que podría confinarse en el interior de una jaula magnética. Quiero capturar el alma en el momento que salga del cadáver para poder estudiarla.

―Está usted loco. Este armatoste llamará la atención de mi personal. ¿Cómo cree que voy a justificar su presencia en mi unidad? ¿Quiere que me despidan?

Trelles se acercó amenazador a él.

―No vuelva a llamarme loco.

Brusi sintió deseos de romperle la nariz y marcharse de allí, pero tuvo que reprimir sus instintos. Por mucho que fuera el desprecio que Trelles le mereciese, no podía perderse la oportunidad que le brindaba. Ya había acertado al idear un método para pesar el alma. ¿Qué sería capaz de conseguir a continuación?

―Necesitaré habilitar una sala especial bajo mi vigilancia directa ―dijo Brusi―. Tendré que rellenar multitud de formularios y…

―Recompensaré su colaboración, doctor. Usted saldrá muy beneficiado de todo esto.

―No sé. Tendría que pensarlo.

―No tiene que pensarlo. Quiero una respuesta ahora. Si no le interesa, váyase.

Trelles le estaba devolviendo la afrenta cuando acudió por primera vez a su despacho.

―De acuerdo. ―Brusi frunció los labios como si hubiese mordido un limón.

―Algo más. Este generador es un aparato muy caro y necesita de mi supervisión. Tendrá que contratarme como ayudante para justificar mi presencia en el servicio de cuidados intensivos si las circunstancias lo exigen. No cobraré, por supuesto, pero debo tener acceso libre a las dependencias.

―Yo no puedo hacer eso.

―Claro que sí. He repasado la reglamentación del hospital y está dentro de sus facultades. En su unidad hay una plaza vacante desde hace dos años que usted no cubre para ahorrar dinero. Bien, hágame un contrato de tres meses y yo me encargaré del resto.

Brusi accedió a todas las condiciones de su ex alumno, y se las arregló para habilitar una sala especial donde supuestamente se alojaría el nuevo tomógrafo del servicio de cuidados intensivos. Como Trelles trabajaba en una empresa que fabricaba escáneres médicos, no hubo problemas en ese sentido para disfrazar el generador toroidal. Una vez recubierto por el armazón, ni el mismo Brusi hubiera podido sospechar lo que escondía realmente aquel trasto.

Pero Brusi jugaba con dos barajas. Había hecho instalar, sin conocimiento de Trelles, un dispositivo dentro del generador para darle un escarmiento y enseñarle cuál era su sitio allí.

La tarde en que se decidió probar el aparato no había nadie en la unidad. Brusi había dado permiso al médico de guardia para que se marchase a casa, pues debía ser relevado por otra persona. Ésta no llegó a acudir, aunque Trelles sí lo hizo.

Un anciano se hallaba dentro de la máquina cuando su colaborador se presentó. Las constantes vitales del paciente eran críticas y presagiaban en apariencia un fallo inminente de su corazón. Brusi había amañado el monitor para engañar a Trelles, a fin de que ofreciese una grabación de los registros del día anterior de un enfermo terminal.

El médico se había cuidado de administrar al viejo un sedante para que no causara problemas. Trelles no se había dado cuenta del engaño y observaba el monitor mientras se mordía un padrastro del pulgar. No era tan listo después de todo, pensó.

―Este hombre está muy mal ―dijo el investigador, incapaz de disimular su impaciencia por probar su aparato.

―Evidentemente ha conocido días mejores ―comentó Brusi, encendiendo un cigarrillo―. ¿Ha pensado en qué va a gastar el dinero del premio, Daniel?

Trelles lo miró por encima de sus gafas embistiéndole con la mirada, más sorprendido de que hubiese utilizado su nombre de pila que del contenido de la pregunta.

―Me refiero al premio Nobel, claro ―rió Brusi.

―No debería fumar en este recinto. El instrumental está esterilizado.

―Oh, vamos, no voy a operar a nadie ―señaló la consola―; y desgraciadamente, a este abuelo no le molestará el humo dentro de poco.

―Me parece una broma de muy mal gusto. Tendría que compadecerse de la suerte de su paciente en lugar de burlarse de él.

―¿Compadecerme? ¿Qué hay de su experimento, Trelles? ¿Le parece ético que pretenda capturar esa cosa que va a salir del cuerpo cuando muera?

―No es una cosa. Se llama alma, todos los humanos la tenemos incluido usted; aunque esto último sea difícil de creer.

―Me da igual el nombre que tenga. ¿Qué derecho tiene a intervenir en el destino de mis pacientes? ¿Cómo se atreve a experimentar con cadáveres, sometiéndolos a campos magnéticos como si fueran cobayas? ¿Es eso lo que yo le enseñé en la facultad?

―Usted no me enseñó nada, profesor. Recuerde que en el primer trimestre de su asignatura me pidió que no fuera más por su clase.

―Eso es cierto. Entonces me di cuenta de quién era usted. Tengo muy buen ojo para las personas, sé de qué pie cojean sólo con mirarlas. Quizás sea el único talento que tengo, pero es un talento que ejercito a menudo.

Trelles no replicó, admitiendo que cualquier discusión con Brusi sería estéril, y regresó su atención al monitor del anciano. Allí estaba, colocado al pie del lecho de muerte, vigilante como un buitre preparado para desentrañarlo con su escalpelo. Brusi sintió que el estómago se le encogía.

El electroencefalograma se transformó en una línea plana, seguido de un potente pitido. Trelles pulsó nerviosamente el botón que activaba el generador. El semblante le brillaba con un sudor ansioso.

―Tranquilo, tiene veinte segundos de margen antes de que esa cosa escape.

―No es una cosa. Es…

Trelles se quedó sin habla. Una neblina lechosa estaba surgiendo del interior del aparato. Dos ojos flameaban dentro del agujero y le miraban con malignidad. El hombre, aterrorizado, retrocedió dos pasos. La estancia se llenó de gruñidos siniestros que brotaban de los rincones. Brusi se estremeció por el efecto que había logrado.

El supuesto muerto de la camilla se revolvió entre las sábanas, todavía bajo los efectos del sedante que Brusi le había administrado, y murmuró algo acerca de un infierno donde deberían ir los matasanos. Para Trelles fue demasiado. Se llevó la mano al pecho y emitió un gemido, cayendo fulminado al suelo, la boca contraída en un espasmo de dolor.

Brusi había llevado la broma demasiado lejos. Se acercó a su colega y le masajeó el corazón. Todavía estaba vivo, pero en sus ojos halló una mirada vacía. Como no había nadie en el servicio que pudiese ayudarle, se las ingenió para colocarlo encima de una camilla y aplicarle el desfibrilador. El corazón no reaccionaba.

Brusi tenía poco tiempo para decidirse. El viejo continuaba refunfuñando y revolviéndose en la camilla. Lo sacó del generador e introdujo la camilla de Trelles en su lugar. Su cerebro todavía registraba actividad cortical, pero era cada vez más débil.

Las crestas del monitor no tardaron en diluirse en cinco líneas paralelas. El pentagrama de Trelles había llegado a su nota final. Era el momento.

Con una sangre fría que le sorprendió, Brusi oprimió el botón que ponía en marcha el campo electromagnético. Era la clase de muerte que Trelles se merecía, el cazador atrapado en su propia trampa.

Contó veinte y esperó. Tenía curiosidad por saber si aquel puerco poseía alma.

El detector registró una pérdida de cuatrocientos sesenta y dos gramos. Sonrió para sus adentros. Era el peso más bajo que había medido desde el inicio de las investigaciones.

El generador había atrapado algo. Tal como Trelles pronosticó, la jaula magnética estaba reteniendo un tipo de energía físicamente medible que luchaba por huir.

―¿Alguien quiere explicarme qué está pasando aquí? ―dijo el anciano desde la otra camilla.

Brusi le hizo callar inyectándole otro anestésico. Luego, más tranquilo, miró la cámara y sonrió. Allí estaba, era todo suyo. Trelles volvía a llevar razón incluso después de muerto. Lástima que no pudiesen celebrarlo juntos, pero qué se le iba a hacer. Ahora no tendría que compartir el mérito con él.

Luis Brusi se había convertido en el primer hombre que había conseguido atrapar un alma. Una sensación profundamente turbadora.

Y placentera.

Las pruebas se prolongaron durante horas. Brusi hizo pasar corrientes eléctricas por el interior de la jaula magnética, introdujo sustancias colorantes, ácidos y sales para comprobar su efecto en el plasma invisible y realizó cuantos experimentos se le fueron ocurriendo, anotando atropelladamente los resultados tanto si tenían sentido como si no. Carecía de método previo y desconocía qué pautas debía seguir para estudiar el fenómeno. Trelles habría sacado más partido de los datos, pero no era su genial colaborador quien estaba fuera de la jaula, sino él. Y las capacidades de Brusi eran limitadas.

Agotado por el trabajo, dejó el generador encendido y cerró la sala con llave. Llamó a los dos médicos que entraban en el turno de madrugada y les advirtió que nadie debería pasar a esa habitación. Luego se fue a descansar a su apartamento.

Su casa era el típico ejemplo de piso de soltero que por no pagar a una limpiadora estaba hecho un desastre. Brusi se fue desvistiendo conforme cruzaba el pasillo y al descalzarse suspiró aliviado. Los zapatos fueron lanzados enérgicamente hacia el armario del dormitorio y sus pies, que restregó en la tiesa alfombra hasta restaurar la circulación, se dilataron agradecidos por aquel breve momento de placer.

Alargó el brazo hacia el interruptor de su mesita. El dormitorio quedó a oscuras antes de que lo rozase.

Dio un salto en la cama y salió del dormitorio. La luz del pasillo tampoco funcionaba.

Al asomarse por la ventana observó que no había ninguna luz en la calle. Se trataba de un apagón, algo bastante corriente por esa zona. Los relámpagos de una tormenta eléctrica brillaban en la noche con una claridad inquietante. Bajó la persiana y se acostó.

En el silencio de la habitación pensó de nuevo en Trelles. ¿Cómo había podido reunir el valor necesario para meterlo dentro de la jaula? Era inútil engañarse, había muerto por su culpa a causa de un comportamiento negligente, impropio de un profesional. Debería sentir vergüenza.

Pero no experimentaba ningún remordimiento, sino una agradable felicidad que le colocaba como único descubridor del mayor hallazgo de la ciencia médica desde los tiempos de Hipócrates. Ya no tendría necesidad de compartir los honores con Trelles. En realidad, su muerte había sido muy oportuna.

Brusi se preguntó si inconscientemente no habría deseado matarle. Había abandonado demasiado pronto los intentos de reanimación para introducirlo directamente en el generador.

No, de ninguna manera, sólo quería gastarle una broma y demostrarle que no era tan listo como creía. Una pequeña travesura no le convertía en un asesino. Bueno, su muerte no le inspiraba ninguna lástima, cierto, pero tampoco había buscado intencionadamente el desenlace.

Brusi no podía conciliar el sueño, excitado al saberse tocado por la diosa fortuna, pero intranquilo a la vez por haber encarcelado el cadáver de un compañero dentro de su propio engendro. Se despertó un par de veces con el pijama empapado y la boca seca. Tocó el interruptor y comprobó que la luz había vuelto. Eso le relajó un poco; había sido un mal presagio que el apagón sucediese nada más llegar a casa. Fue a la cocina y se bebió un vaso de agua. Como le dolía la cabeza, aprovechó para tomarse un analgésico que le ayudase a dormir.

Una señal de alarma se activó en su cabeza. El corte de fluido. El generador. ¿Qué habría ocurrido en el hospital mientras tanto?

Llamó al médico de guardia y se interesó por el estado de los pacientes. No se había producido ninguna novedad. El servicio de cuidados intensivos contaba con un grupo electrógeno independiente y los equipos habían seguido funcionando.

Pero la máquina de Trelles se nutría de la red general del hospital.

Brusi no pudo volver a dormirse. Temía que al cadáver de su colaborador le hubiese sucedido algo. ¿Se habría cortocircuitado la máquina tras el apagón? La instalación del generador había sido bastante chapucera, la verdad. Brusi tendría que dar muchas explicaciones para justificar la presencia de un cadáver achicharrado.

A las cuatro de la madrugada decidió regresar a cuidados intensivos. El joven que se hallaba de guardia le saludó cordialmente y le ofreció una taza de café. Brusi rechazó, pero tras pensárselo mejor aceptó un poco. Necesitaba estar despierto si tenía que emprender acciones drásticas.

―¿Le ocurre algo, jefe? No suele venir al hospital a estas horas.

―Quería cerciorarme del estado de los equipos ―mintió Brusi―. Es el tercer apagón en lo que va de mes y algunas consolas han empezado a mostrar fallos. ―Sorbió ruidosamente el café.― Mientras me quedo aquí revisándolas, váyase a la cantina a comer algo con su compañero. Yo me encargaré de los pacientes.

El médico notó algo raro en el comportamiento de su jefe, pero éste no era de los que toleraba que se cuestionasen sus órdenes, y menos por un subordinado en prácticas.

Brusi se quedó solo en la unidad. Había dos ingresos recientes, politraumatizados por el arrollamiento de un camión que requerían parte de su tiempo; pero no les dedicó ninguna atención. Cogió su llave y abrió la sala del generador.

La máquina producía un zumbido persistente que se introdujo con facilidad en sus oídos. El cuerpo de Trelles seguía allí en decúbito supino, exactamente en la posición que lo había dejado. Tenía que pensar un modo de sacarlo de las instalaciones sin que se diesen cuenta.

―Trelles, maldito bastardo; cómo me has complicado la existencia.

No podía desembarazarse de él alegremente o creerían que lo había asesinado. Los médicos de guardia sospechaban y seguro que estarían murmurando en la cantina acerca de los verdaderos motivos de su visita. Si sacaba el cuerpo de allí, tendría muchas probabilidades de que le viese alguien. Sería el final de su carrera.

En cambio, si contaba la verdad no iría a la cárcel, y podría irse a trabajar a otro hospital. La autopsia revelaría que él no había intentado matar a Trelles; todo lo contrario, trató de reanimarlo con el desfibrilador. Ninguna acusación de asesinato podría prosperar si no cometía errores.

Examinó las lecturas del generador: el plasma frío, o lo que fuera aquella cosa que había brotado de Trelles al fallecer, ya no estaba allí.

Debió evaporarse tras el corte de la corriente, pensó. Bueno, qué más daba, el caso es que se había ido. Brusi apagó la máquina y sacó la camilla. El cadáver estaba helado y presentaba un color sonrosado en la nuca, espalda y dorso de las extremidades. Trató de cerrarle los párpados, pero estaban rígidos como el pergamino. Le registró los bolsillos y sacó una agenda de teléfonos y la cartera, que contenía media entrada de cine, tarjetas de crédito y unos cuantos billetes. También halló un manojo de llaves.

Tenía que entrar en su casa y apoderarse de las notas relativas al experimento. No podía arriesgarse a que la policía hurgase en los papeles de Trelles y descubriese que la idea había sido suya. En cuanto a su familia no había de qué preocuparse. Trelles era un tipo huraño que carecía de parientes cercanos o amigos. Nadie iba a preocuparse por él durante una larga temporada.

Trasladó el cuerpo a un nicho frigorífico. Ya daría las explicaciones pertinentes al director al día siguiente. Se quedó con las llaves y la agenda de teléfonos y estuvo tentado de quedarse también con el dinero, pero la cantidad no merecía la pena y no le convenía que alguien sospechase que le habían robado. Luego cerró con llave la puerta del generador y avisó a los médicos para que se reintegrasen a su puesto de trabajo. Ahora lo más urgente era trasladarse a casa de Trelles y apoderarse de sus papeles.

Condujo hasta las afueras de la ciudad adormecido por una melancólica balada, pero a causa de las interferencias tuvo que apagar la radio. Fuera estaba lloviendo y no llevaba paraguas. Cruzó el jardín de Trelles a la carrera y pisó una loseta mal colocada, empapándose de barro la pernera de los pantalones.

Uno de los relámpagos le ofreció una imagen fugaz de la fachada. Precisaba de reparaciones varias y una buena mano de pintura, pero su aspecto era mucho más atractivo que su apartamento de cincuenta metros cuadrados. En cualquier caso le venía grande a un hombre como Trelles, sin un triste perro faldero que le hiciese compañía. Brusi habría hecho mejor uso de la mansión si hubiera tenido la suerte de heredarla.

Las luces de la casa no funcionaban. Previendo la posibilidad de otro apagón, se había traído la linterna del coche en el bolsillo de la gabardina. Entró al vestíbulo y el haz describió un amplio arco en busca del despacho.

No encontró nada de interés en la planta baja, salvo un par de muslos de pollo en la nevera. El ajetreo de la noche le había despertado el apetito; cogió uno y lo mordisqueó distraídamente mientras subía por la escalera.

En la primera habitación de arriba halló un escritorio lleno de papeles. Abrió una bolsa y se puso a echar todo lo que intuía que pudiera perjudicarle. Como no podía leer demasiado bien a la luz de la linterna optó por meterlo todo, y pronto se vio en la necesidad de procurarse dos bolsas más para poder llevarse el botín al coche.

Cuando bajaba las escaleras recordó que había cometido la torpeza de dejarse el hueso del muslo encima del escritorio. En el caso de que a la policía se le ocurriese analizarlo, encontraría los restos de su saliva pegados al hueso. Era una idea paranoica, pero Brusi regresó a la habitación decidido a no dejar cabos sueltos.

Al ir a recogerlo escuchó un ruido en el cristal.

Apagó la linterna y se asomó a la ventana. Un manojo de hojas agitadas por el viento remolineaba en el alféizar. Brusi cabeceó y se guardó el hueso. Realizó una última batida en el resto de habitaciones por si aquel miserable había escondido algo fundamental en un rincón, y sólo cuando estuvo seguro de que no se dejaba nada regresó al coche.

Antes de arrancar miró hacia atrás. Juraría que había visto una sombra cruzar por el retrovisor.

Pero allí no había nada. Sólo él y sus latidos desbocados. Sus nervios le estaban traicionando.

La lluvia arreciaba. Brusi contempló inquieto que el limpiaparabrisas se había quedado atascado en su recorrido. Para incrementar su desgracia, los faros se negaron a encenderse en solidaridad con el resto de las luces de la ciudad. El motor seguía funcionando, pero emitía un gruñido sintomático. Se bajó del coche maldiciendo y abrió el capó con el motor en marcha. Una humareda negra le hizo retirarse de allí. Brusi no comprendía lo que estaba pasando: los tapones de las baterías rebosaban de una espuma verdosa de apariencia repugnante. Cogió un poco con un trapo y la examinó a la luz de la linterna.

Definitivamente, el coche estaba dando sus últimos estertores. Hacía tiempo que tenía ganas de librarse de él, y gracias a Trelles tendría la oportunidad de comprarse otro. Regresó al volante y pisó el acelerador. El automóvil renqueó durante el resto del trayecto, como si hubiese estado escuchando sus planes, y le amenazó en un par de ocasiones con dejarlo tirado en mitad de la calle; pero finalmente Brusi logró llegar a su bloque de apartamentos, aunque con la cabeza empapada al tener que asomar continuamente la cabeza por la ventanilla para ver la carretera. Nadie le vio sacar las bolsas de papeles del maletero y Brusi se sintió como un vulgar delincuente. En cualquier caso, su antiguo alumno ya no iba a obtener ningún beneficio de ellos y carecía de parientes que pudieran enriquecerse de su legado.

Entró en la seguridad de su apartamento con las bolsas goteando y las dejó junto a un sillón. Una vez hubiese estudiado todas las notas haría una lumbre con ellas. Estaban escritas del puño y letra de Trelles y sería muy incómodo explicar cómo habían llegado a su poder, en el hipotético caso de que la policía las descubriera.

Arrebujado entre las sábanas se imaginó cómo discurriría su futuro inmediato. Probablemente sería despedido del hospital, pero los datos que había reunido valían millones. Cualquier laboratorio le volvería a contratar para que reanudase la investigación, con un sueldo bastante más sustancioso que el actual. Brusi había demostrado que el alma tenía peso y podía confinarse en un recinto magnético; lo demás carecía de importancia. Ya estaba harto del servicio de cuidados intensivos y de tratar con médicos en prácticas. Él merecía más, y la investigación era una actividad a la que siempre había deseado dedicarse. Ahora tenía la oportunidad de hacer realidad sus sueños.

Escuchó un ruido en el pasillo. Brusi pensó que se trataba de imaginaciones suyas, pero el sonido volvió a repetirse; una especie de siseo apenas audible, quizás aire de las tuberías. No obstante se calzó las zapatillas y cogió la linterna. Cabía la posibilidad de que algún vecino le hubiese seguido hasta su casa.

Se quedó parado a escuchar. El siseo parecía provenir del salón. Brusi tragó saliva y avanzó sigilosamente. El apartamento estaba en calma, como no podía ser de otro modo, y las bolsas de papeles se hallaban donde él las había dejado. Brusi se cercioró de que la puerta de entrada tenía el cerrojo puesto y para mayor seguridad colocó la cadena. Luego realizó un registro minucioso por toda la casa para asegurarse. Dado que el apartamento era pequeño, le llevó poco tiempo.

Sólo cuando se convenció de que allí no había nadie regresó al dormitorio. Un pensamiento desquiciante le obligó a mirar bajo la cama, pero aparte de unas cuantas pelusas y una lata vacía de cerveza no encontró otros hallazgos.

Brusi estaba asustado. Sus tuberías eran nuevas, no producían ruido. Entonces ¿qué originaba el siseo?

Intentó tranquilizarse pensando nuevamente en el porvenir que le esperaba. Por supuesto, tendría una deferencia especial con la memoria de Trelles. El pobre carecía de familiares que fueran a ocuparse de sus exequias, y en el fondo le daba lástima. No toleraría que sus restos fuesen a parar a una fosa común y estaba dispuesto a anticipar de su bolsillo los gastos del funeral, si eran razonables y el Ayuntamiento no se hacía cargo.

Volvió a escuchar el ruido, ahora más nítidamente. Era un sonido sibilante, más profundo que el ulular del viento.

El cristal de la ventana vibró como si un pájaro se hubiese estrellado contra él. Brusi enfocó la linterna hacia la ventana. Un papel de periódico se había pegado al marco.

El siseo se reprodujo. Se levantó de un salto y notó que un viento helado se deslizaba entre los dedos de sus pies. Había una extraña corriente en el interior de la casa, aunque estaba seguro de que no se había dejado nada abierto. Antes de acostarse volvería a revisar cada una de las habitaciones.

Al girar el pomo del dormitorio fue azotado por un vendaval de lluvia y frío. El pasillo estaba repleto de folios que revoloteaban de un lado para otro como pájaros asustados. Brusi avanzó a duras penas apartándose los papeles del rostro, hasta que consiguió entrar en el salón.

La puerta del balcón estaba abierta de par en par. Un torbellino de papeles se había formado en el centro de la habitación y avanzaba hacia el televisor como un pequeño tornado. Brusi lo rodeó prudentemente y se lanzó hacia la puerta del balcón.

Algo se pegó a su rostro. Era una cuartilla escrita del puño y letra de Trelles. «Brusi tenía razón. No hay vida después de la muerte», leyó.

Un sombrío presentimiento cruzó por su mente. Fuera lo que fuese lo que brotó del cuerpo de Trelles al morir, había escapado de la jaula electromagnética aprovechando el apagón. ¿Podía haber venido a buscarle?

Tuvo que empujar con la espalda las dos hojas de la puerta hasta conseguir cerrarlas. El pequeño vórtice desapareció al instante y los papeles cayeron al suelo despojados de su aparente magia. Suspiró hondo y se secó la frente. El picaporte del balcón no cerraba bien, eso era todo. Empujó el sofá contra la puerta y se cercioró de que ningún golpe imprevisto de viento volviese a abrirla. Luego regresó al dormitorio y se tomó un par de somníferos. Las pastillas surtieron rápidamente el efecto deseado y cayó en un profundo sueño, del que no despertó hasta la mañana siguiente, con una extraña migraña hormigueándole la sien izquierda.

IV

La mesa de su despacho estaba llena de peticiones de informes de la supervisora de servicios médicos, a cada cual más absurda. Brusi las despachó lo más rápidamente que pudo, sin comprender realmente las intenciones de su jefa.

No se encontraba bien, él no padecía de migraña y desde la noche anterior se había instalado en su hemicráneo izquierdo un dolor insoportable, como si docenas de pequeños alfileres se estuviesen removiendo bajo su piel. La vista se le enturbiaba por momentos y de vez en cuando captaba manchas en las paredes que se esfumaban en cuanto las miraba directamente.

Salió a la unidad de cuidados intensivos y se interesó por el estado de los pacientes que acababan de ingresar. El médico de guardia se puso un poco nervioso cuando le vio acercarse.

―¿Qué te ocurre? ―le increpó Brusi―. ¿Tengo monos en la cara o qué?

―La supervisora Larrey acaba de preguntar nuevamente por usted. Quiere saber por qué no se ha presentado en su despacho.

―¿Nuevamente? ¡Nadie me ha comunicado que esa zorra quería verme!

Un cirujano y una auxiliar de enfermería que pasaban por allí giraron la cabeza al oírle gritar.

―Métanse en sus propios asuntos. ¿Es que no tienen otra cosa que hacer?

―Señor Brusi, su secretaria ha tratado de avisarle hasta cuatro veces por el comunicador.

―Mentira, no me he movido del despacho en toda la mañana. De cualquier forma iré a ver ahora mismo qué bicho la ha picado.

Necesitó un gran esfuerzo de concentración para localizar en el panel del ascensor el botón de las oficinas de administración. Las malditas manchas no sólo aparecían en las paredes, sino dondequiera que mirase. Ahora eran más nítidas y se deslizaban lentamente como amebas.

Irrumpió bruscamente en el despacho de la supervisora, plantándose frente a ella en actitud desafiante.

―Escúchame, puta, tengo asuntos más importantes esta mañana que cumplimentar tus jodidos formularios.

Marta Larrey se quedó sin habla. Le mostró las contestaciones escritas que Brusi había dado a sus peticiones.

―No esperaba esto de ti, Luis ―dijo al fin.

Los papeles estaban rellenos de cuadrados y triángulos, junto con algunas palabras sin sentido.

―Yo… yo no he escrito esto.

―Es tu letra. Vamos, siéntate.

Brusi obedeció. Un escalofrío le sacudió la espina dorsal al contemplar nuevamente los dibujos. No recordaba haberlos hecho.

―Los médicos que estuvieron de guardia en la UCI la pasada noche me han informado de un comportamiento muy sospechoso de tu parte. Dijeron que regresaste al hospital de madrugada y los mandaste a la cantina, quedándote a cargo de los enfermos. Uno de los ingresados presentaba un edema pulmonar que requería asistencia inmediata. Falleció poco después de que tú abandonases la unidad.

―¿Me estás amenazando?

―Tus problemas personales no son de mi incumbencia, pero la atención a los enfermos sí. Vamos a abrir una investigación. Pensé que debías saberlo.

―Podéis iros al infierno tú y tu podrida investigación. No sé cómo una puta como tú puede… puede ocupar este puesto ―Luis se levantó, mareado―. Oh, bueno, lo sé perfectamente, todo el hospital lo sabe. Estuviste liada con el gerente. Así es como vosotras conseguís los puestos de dirección, sólo tenéis que abriros de piernas y…

―Cautelarmente está suspendido de empleo y sueldo, señor Brusi ―dijo la supervisora, con la sangre hirviendo en sus venas―. Hay una sala de acceso restringido en su unidad y un nicho frigorífico cerrados con llave. Entréguemelas ahora mismo.

Brusi no se dignó en contestarle, y abandonó el despacho con un sonoro portazo.

Mientras esperaba el ascensor reflexionó sobre lo que acababa de hacer. ¿Acaso se había vuelto loco? Era como si estuviese pidiendo a gritos que lo despidieran. Primero rellenó con garabatos los informes que la supervisora le había ordenado, y luego se había atrevido a insultarla en la cara. Aquello no podía estar sucediéndole.

El timbre del ascensor restalló en sus sienes como un martillo. Brusi avanzó lentamente y las puertas automáticas se cerraron a su espalda con un sonido sibilante, el mismo que había escuchado la noche pasada en su apartamento.

Detuvo el ascensor en la primera planta. Hablaría con Valls, el jefe del departamento de neurología. Él podría explicarle qué le estaba sucediendo.

Encontró al especialista frente a una pantalla retroiluminada, de la que colgaban una serie de angiografías cerebrales de un paciente. Valls se sorprendió mucho de la visita.

―Estás pálido como un muerto ―dijo al verle.

―Puede que ya lo esté. ―Brusi luchaba por mantener el equilibrio. La cabeza volvía a darle vueltas.― Ayer maté a una persona.

Valls asintió lentamente.

―Entonces es cierto lo que se rumorea de ti.

―No, no se trata del paciente que falleció de edema pulmonar. Es difícil explicártelo, pero uno de mis colaboradores sufrió un infarto mientras probábamos un nuevo equipo. Yo… ―Tuvo que sentarse.― Creo que no agoté las posibilidades de reanimación. Lo dejé morir.

―¿Quién era ese colaborador?

―Daniel Trelles. Escondí su cuerpo en una cámara frigorífica y ahora la supervisora Larrey me reclama la llave. Van a descubrirme.

―Entiendo. ―Valls se frotó el mentón, sin comprender mucho.― Dime una cosa, ¿por qué me estás contando todo esto a mí?

―Desde la pasada noche oigo ruidos extraños, una especie de silbido dentro de mi cabeza, y he empezado a ver manchas por todas partes. Quiero que me hagas una revisión a fondo, un TAC, lo que sea, pero… ―Su cuerpo se convulsionó.― Ayúdame, algo me está ocurriendo.

Brusi gritó y se llevó las manos a las sienes. Al intentar levantarse perdió el equilibrio y cayó al suelo. La cabeza le ardía.

―¡Sácamelo! ¡Por lo que más quieras, sácamelo de aquí dentro!

V

El pitido del busca le obligó a Ismael Valls a saltar de la cama. Su turno no empezaba hasta el mediodía, por lo que no se explicaba qué asunto requería sus servicios con aquella premura.

Una enfermera le explicó por teléfono que se había detectado un cambio significativo en la evolución del paciente Luis Brusi, ingresado en la unidad de agudos de psiquiatría hacía dos semanas. Valls se vistió rápidamente, presintiendo lo peor. La tomografía realizada al cerebro de Brusi había revelado unas curiosas alteraciones de origen desconocido en el hemiencéfalo izquierdo, con aceleración de la actividad sináptica. Valls temía que se hubiera producido una crisis vascular generalizada que le acabase sumiendo en un estado vegetativo el resto de su vida.

El psiquiatra de servicio celebró su rápida llegada. Valls era la primera persona que había tratado a Brusi antes de su ingreso en agudos y quizás tuviese una explicación a lo sucedido en las últimas horas. Junto a él se encontraba Nares, un neurólogo del hospital que también había sido requerido para valorar la evolución del enfermo.

―Perdona que te hayamos hecho venir a estas horas ―se disculpó Nares―, pero necesitaba una segunda opinión.

El neurólogo le exhibió a Valls una serie de tomografías tomadas a Brusi aquella misma mañana.

―Las alteraciones han desaparecido ―dijo Nares, señalando con la punta del bolígrafo―. Puede que se haya producido una revascularización en todo este hemisferio, no lo sé; es la primera vez que veo algo así.

―Yo también ―murmuró Valls―. ¿Qué tal se encuentra él?

―Creo que deberías verlo por ti mismo. Lo hemos llevado a uno de los locutorios.

Sentado tras una mesa de madera y envuelto en un aire de placidez infinita, el antiguo jefe de cuidados intensivos les contempló desde el otro lado del cristal polarizado con mirada serena, desprovisto de la camisa de fuerza que había llevado los últimos quince días.

―¿Puede vernos? ―preguntó Valls.

―No, y tampoco oírnos, salvo que pulse este botón. Mi opinión personal es que el complejo de culpabilidad que atravesó Brusi tras la muerte de su colaborador le creó una segunda personalidad que ha acabado anulando la suya propia. Pero claro, sólo es una hipótesis. Este caso presenta demasiados puntos oscuros a los que es difícil encontrar una explicación clínica.

―No lo entiendo. ¿Quieres decir que ya no recuerda quién es?

―Sólo responde al nombre de Daniel Trelles. Para él, Brusi es como si no existiera, su nueva personalidad ha suplantado a la antigua por completo. Es sorprendente la cantidad de detalles que conoce de la vida de Trelles, algunos desconcertantes. Me pregunto cómo los habrá averiguado.

El psiquiatra pulsó el botón del comunicador y le pidió a Valls que se acercase al micrófono.

―Hola, Luis. Soy Ismael, tu compañero de neurología. Me dicen que has experimentado una gran mejoría.

―No me llamo Luis. Mi nombre es Daniel Trelles, ya se lo he repetido a todos hasta la saciedad. Deben sacarme de aquí inmediatamente. Tengo un trabajo importante que concluir.

―¿Qué tipo de trabajo?

Trelles se inclinó sobre la mesa al notar que había despertado el interés del neurólogo, y sus ojos brillaron de excitación.

―He conseguido la evidencia científica de que hay vida más allá de la muerte. Lléveme a la unidad de cuidados intensivos y se lo explicaré.

Valls intercambió una mirada triste con el psiquiatra. Brusi no merecía aquel final.

Copyright © 2013 by José Antonio Suárez

José Antonio Suárez (Albacete, Spain,1963), has a Law degree and has collaborated with articles and short stories in several Spanish publications, including Ciberpaís, Asimov, Solaris and Artifex. He has published a dozen books and in 2001 he received the Ignotus prize for science fiction novel. In his work he pays special attention to ambientation and the human factor, in which he reflects his preocupation for humanity’s future. Sociopolitic topics are always present in his stories: who covets power, which means they use to hold it and which motivations they hide.

The nearest mammoth bull reared up, aggressive pose indicating that he was master of all he surveyed. Behind him, the lead female brushed aside a recalcitrant bush with her colossal head. Nothing would stand in the way of this herd.

And yet something had, millennia ago. Something had transformed these magnificent beasts of the northern steppes into nothing more than a memory. The man who’d created the life-sized holosculpture was a great artist, but he would have had to be much more to bring his subjects to life.

Dr. Hideki Noda stared sadly at the raging bull. Mammoths should have been easy. The genome was mapped, the sperm and ova could be replicated and fertilization took place. And yet, he’d been completely unable to produce cloned mammoths of any kind. In vitro incubation invariably led to miscarriage, no matter what temperature was used. Implantation into elephants led to… elephants with strange bone structures. It was enough to make even the most jaded scientist cry, more than once in his own case.

A vibration in his right ear brought him out of his reverie. “I’m sorry to disturb you doctor, but there’s a young lady here to see you. She doesn’t have an appointment, but she’s very insistent.” Noriko’s voice seemed to reverberate inside his head, making him think it might be time to have his implants upgraded.

“Does this young lady have a name?”

“Yes, she says her name is Sarah Patrick, and that she’s a viral geneticist.”

“Please ask her to get an appointment.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sarah Patrick. Yes, he recalled the name. She’d been trying to get onto his holoconference schedule for over a year, but he’d always declined to see her. After all, while viral genetics was probably the noblest of the sciences – millions of lives were saved every year because of it – there was truly not much it could teach the world’s foremost expert in complex-organism genetics. He could only conclude that she either wanted his help climbing the scientific ladder or she wanted to say that she’d met him. He had time for neither.

Yet she’d flown out to Japan on the off chance that he might allow her to see him. It was enough to make him curious; he made a mental note to allow her fifteen minutes the next time she applied.

It most certainly wasn’t enough to make him regret sending her away. The only way he would solve the mammoth problem was if he allowed himself a good chunk of unstructured time to think about it. His few free moments, those precious minutes which a grateful world was unable to pry from him, were dedicated to this one final project. The people of earth might remember him for the protein whale, but he wanted to leave a more artistic legacy.

Sadly, the time he’d allotted to thinking was past, and he was no closer to the moment of inspiration that would allow him defeat the problem.

His responsibilities, heavy and unwanted and critical to the world, beckoned cruelly, and he wondered what today’s progress meeting held in store. Would it be yet another request from some interest group for him to support their research? Or would some religious faction ask him to make some changes to the protein whales’ DNA so that it would be more acceptable for their followers to eat the meat? Probably not. It was more likely just another meeting in which a hundred delegates would bombard him with yield numbers and hope he would give them a smile and tell them to go to the head of the class. He’d do so, of course – motivation here wasn’t just a question of economics. Lives were at stake: happy delegates pushing for expanded harvests meant more food for everyone.

Hideki crossed the glass-covered foyer, barely acknowledging the respectful smiles and greetings he received, and turned left along the corridor that led to the principal conference room. He could already hear the buzz of conversation from the well-attended meeting that would begin as soon as he arrived.

He imagined it: silence would fall as soon as he crossed the threshold and everyone would rise, composing their faces, trying to show a respectful front to the man responsible for banishing hunger from the face of the Earth. They would probably even recount, for the benefit of those delegates who were attending for the first time, the history of how Noda and his team had created the protein whale: an aquatic animal the size of a sperm whale whose meat was currently meeting the energy and protein requirements of nearly every human on the planet.

They’d gloss over the fact that the animal itself was a genetic Frankenstein whose DNA was part whale, part cow and more than a little soybean and insect and concentrate on the fact that its capacity for quick growth made it the ideal farm animal, and the fact that it could survive on the choking algae that had become prevalent back when the seas were polluted. He’d heard it before, countless times.

Half-way down the corridor, he realized that he didn’t want to hear it again. Hadn’t he done enough for humanity? He was being credited with solving the food crisis and stabilizing the political situation in every third-world nation. Did he really have to be a slave to interminable meetings as well?

“Noriko,” he subvocalized, “please inform the committee that I will not be attending the meeting today.”

“Yes, Dr. Noda. Is there any reason you’d like me to give them?”

Noriko was a treasure. No questions, no doubt, just pure, can-do efficiency. He was tempted to tell the committee that he’d decided to go for a walk, but instead replied, “Tell them I’m indisposed, and that I send them my deepest apologies.” He walked past the meeting-room door and onwards along the corridor. He could see sunshine illuminating the far end through the door that led to the complex’s back garden. Hideki redoubled his pace.

The garden was stunning. The late spring sun beat down on the small lawn behind the building, creating the illusion of an emerald carpet. Beyond it was a more traditional Japanese garden, complete with a thin stream and two pleasingly contrasting bridges. Tall trees lined the fences and clearly marked the limits of the complex.

Noda took a deep breath, trying to ignore the smell of the city beyond and simply become one with the natural scent of the garden itself. He’d ordered it built when the new building went up, at astronomical land cost. He’d argued that the garden would pay for itself many times over, by allowing the scientists to take a moment to breathe, and to think – and thereby to shave weeks off of projects when insight struck.

As he walked the expertly diagrammed paths, Hideki recalled why he used to spend so much time there, before the artists had completed the mammoth hologram. He could feel himself growing more and more relaxed with each step, actually feel the data regarding whale yields and algae banks slipping out of his head.

But something was amiss. In this tiny slice of nirvana, an unidentified intrusion seemed to want to force its way in. Hideki stopped on one of the bridges, fixed his gaze on the slowly running water and tried to understand what it might be. He let the world flow around him as the warm breeze caressed his arms. And then he knew.

Somewhere beyond the trees, the sound of chanting could be heard: rhythmic, repetitive, insistent. It reached him as a mere whisper, a suggestion on the wind. Normally, such a soft sound would never have been enough to disturb his meditations, but somewhere in his subconscious, the link between that sound and the inevitable protesters came to the fore. His subconscious remembered the days when starving masses came to his door every day, demanding that he release the protein whales already in captivity to feed them. No matter how many times he explained that the whale population needed to grow without culling for years in order to become self-sustaining and feed the world forever, they kept coming back the next day.

They used to leave their dead outside the vehicle entrance to the complex – as far as the heavily armed security detail allowed them to come.

He walked around the building, towards the gate. He thought that hungry masses were a thing of the distant past. His calculations proved that there should be no lack of nutrition, even for the lowliest inhabitant of the most remote village in sub-Saharan Africa. He turned the last corner, expecting to see a mob like those from his memories, all weak motions, anger and painfully visible ribs. He almost laughed out loud when the truth sank in.

The protester group consisted of what looked like college students. Most of them were young, most of them were well-dressed, and every single one of them looked extremely well fed. One thing that caught his eye immediately was that there were a huge number of Europeans in the mix – many more than one would normally expect from a crowd on the outskirts of Tokyo.

That was a dead giveaway. Only two or three European groups were against his work, all of them on the grounds that his genetically modified species was displacing the true ecology of the planet. They had no evidence to support this, of course, and most serious studies indicated quite the contrary, that the protein whales, in keeping down mutated algae, were actually helping the planet regain its biological equilibrium, but that didn’t stop them from recruiting huge numbers of volunteers from among the less-informed. Idealism and ignorance, always a touchy combination.

Hideki set his jaw and decided to deal with this the way he’d always dealt with protestors: head-on, armed with compassion, but also with facts. He made a beeline for the nearest gate.

The guard on duty wasn’t happy with his request. He attempted to explain politely that the crowd outside didn’t look like it had much patience, but Hideki brushed the objections aside. He’d dealt with people who were actually starving and, though they never quite saw eye to eye, he’d at least been able to make them understand the reasons upholding his position.

The barred door buzzed open, but the crowd seemed to take a while to react to his presence. At first, only a few people even noticed the door was open, and turned to see why it had opened. He saw shock on the faces of some of the nearest protesters as they recognized him, and soon enough the whole crowd was abuzz. He heard his name repeated, carried along to the front gates of the complex, where the crowd was thickest and most European. He walked in their direction.

For someone who’d lived through this before, it was easy to tell when word of his presence reached the leaders: it was when the nucleus of loud chanting nearest the entrance splintered. A few lieutenants were left to hold the position, but a very determined group was pushing through the crowds in his direction.

Moments later, Hideki faced a small knot of demonstrators, and immediately began to wonder whether he’d made a mistake in asking the guard to let him out unprotected. (He knew he was going to catch hell for it from Noriko, no matter what happened next, and probably from his security detail, too.) The man who stood in front of him was not what he’d become used to dealing with in the earlier demonstrations. Then, it had been desperate people looking for a solution to their trouble, but willing to listen. This guy didn’t seem willing to listen; he looked like a man with all the answers.

He wasn’t a young man, possibly mid-forties, but hard, tanned and fit, with cold blue eyes and short graying hair. “Dr. Noda, what a surprise. How nice of you to join us.” His accent sounded German, or possibly Scandinavian. “I suppose you’ve come to explain yourself?”

Noda pulled himself up to his full height, still disappointingly short of the other man’s. “I don’t need to explain myself. I think everyone knows what I’ve done, why I’ve done it, and the benefits it has brought to mankind.” He held the leader’s gaze. “But I would be happy to listen to your concerns and answer your questions.”

The man reacted as if he’d been slapped. “Listen to our concerns? Perhaps you should have listened to our concerns before we had to come all the way to Japan to speak to you in person. We’ve petitioned for changes in your processes countless times.”

“I’m sorry. I know that’s probably true, but if we created new processes every time someone asked us to, we would be completely unable to work towards our true goals, such as making certain that everyone on this planet has enough to eat. For that reason, I do not personally oversee the resolution of every conflict, only those that are a concern for more than one percent of the population.”

“How convenient. That way you can criminally ignore the concerns of the very few people who actually know and understand the consequences of what you’re doing.”

Oh, so it was one of those groups. “Which consequences?”

“Your wanton destruction of the balance of nature!”

Hideki was not surprised. Saddened, but not surprised. “How can you say that? Every single environmental group, even the true crazies, agrees that the marine environment is returning to its natural state faster than ever. Not only do protein whales feed on the alga that was choking the native life of the oceans, they also make it unnecessary to fish other species for food. We’re rediscovering species we’d thought were extinct every week – there hasn’t been this much self-sustaining biodiversity there in a hundred years!”

“The algae are there for a reason. Earth knows how to regulate itself!” The man was screaming now, eyes wide. The group nearest him seemed to believe everything he said, except for one, a curly-haired girl towards the back, who was obviously fighting to maintain a neutral expression while still seeming to fit in. “You’re just turning the ocean into the new Pampas. There, biodiversity was sacrificed on the altar of the almighty cow; here, it will be the protein whale.”

Noda was about to explain calmly, carefully that the biodiversity of the bovine-producing countries was coming back as the world’s population needed less and less cow meat when one of the followers pushed through the crowd screaming “It’s all his fault! He’s murdering the sea!” He grabbed Hideki’s tie and pulled. Noda stumbled into the group, bouncing into the leader and being pummeled by the followers. He tried to look over them but they were too tall, tried to escape, but they were too big. All of them had the unfamiliar features of Europeans, so cold, so bland, so undefined.

He waited for help from his security team, but none came. A final fist connected with his chin and the world went dark.

***

The world was still dark when he awoke, although he was lying on something soft which, in the dim light that gradually began to penetrate the fuzziness, turned out to be a bed. As more shapes resolved themselves, Hideki saw that he was in a hotel room – one of those large, luxurious ones.

He had to stifle a laugh. This was so typical of the new generation of protesters. While their predecessors had roughed it, living in tents in the freezing cold and rushing police barricades, the current crop, knowing their life expectancy was well over ninety years, played it safe. Kidnapping a defenseless old man was as far as they would go.

And when they had to stash him somewhere, they chose a hotel room, complete with dark forms that Hideki could identify as a minibar and a wide angle tri-d set. How Lenin would have sneered!

But despite the ridiculous outward nature of the situation, he knew his position was serious. There was no denying that he was under the power of a group of lunatics from the very extreme fringe of the eco-nuts, and that they’d already shown themselves to be both irrational and violent.

He wasn’t too worried, though. The comm implants would tell everyone who wanted to know that he was alive, as well as his current location. He activated the system by subvocalizing the word Noriko. A dial tone image appeared.

“You don’t want to do that, Dr. Noda.” The voice, rough and masculine, came from the deepest shadows of the room, causing Noda to sit up with a start. “Your personal unit isn’t strong enough to get through our block-lock. And it might make us mad.”

Noda turned his head towards the voice, wondering what they’d do if he tried to sit up. He could now see a figure seated on a chair in the darkest corner. He’d been so still that Hideki had completely missed him, but the human shape was obvious now that he knew it was there.

“Oh, so you are guarding me. I was beginning to believe you’d abandoned me here.”

“That’s funny, Doctor. I don’t think Thomas wants us to abandon you yet.”

Thomas, pronounced with the accent on the second syllable. Hideki thought it was probably the name of the poor misguided leader of this less than honorable pack. “That doesn’t sound very smart to me. Does he really think he or any of you will be able to get out of Japan once the police look through the security tapes?” Noda knew that arguing with the man would get him nowhere. Guards were chosen because they were too far down the food chain to make any decisions and because they had little or no imagination.

He heard the man shrug in the dark. “I don’t really care. I wasn’t at the rally, and I came in on a different flight. I had a feeling something like this might happen.”

All right, maybe he wasn’t guard material.

“But,” the guard went on, “I doubt he’ll care either. With you here, he has what he wants – everything he’s been after all those years. His heart seems to be in the right place from an ecological point of view, but he is a bit obsessive.”

“And what are you, exactly?”

“Me? I’m just a guard. Now please be quiet or I might have to gag you.”

Yeah, right, Hideki thought. The man was as much a guard as Hideki was a Sumo wrestler, but it seemed there was little to gain in arguing with him. He did as he was told.

A while later – Noda couldn’t have guessed whether it was ten minutes or an hour – someone knocked on the door. The guard stood up and opened it. Noda saw a silhouette in the passageway, a tallish woman with curly hair. “Thomas asked me to come take over. He wants to see you.” This accent was unmistakably American.

“And who, exactly, are you?”

“I’m Sarah.”

“Sarah.”

“Yes.”

“And why would Thomas trust you to guard our most precious hostage? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“Er… I’d rather not talk about it.”

The guard chuckled, a short, guttural noise. “Typical Thomas. Are you sure you can deal with him?”

“I don’t think he’ll get violent. Besides, Thomas gave me this.” Noda saw a hand reach into a pocket, but was unable to see what emerged.

Whatever it was, the guard seemed satisfied. “All right, but be careful.” He walked into the corridor, closing the door behind him.

“And who are you?” Hideki asked his new captor.

The girl laughed. “Let’s just say I’m your best friend right now. Are you well enough to walk? We don’t have much time.”

“Walk? Why would I need to walk? Are you going to let me go free?”

“I’m damn well going to try.”

“Why?”

But the woman wasn’t listening to him. She’d opened the door a crack and was looking down the corridor. “Come on!”

Hideki obeyed. The thought crossed his mind that he might be putting himself into the clutches of a splinter group – possibly even more hard-core and extreme than the people who had already shown a willingness to kidnap him – but he shouted it down. A small hope of escape was better than none at all.

They walked down the hallway in the direction opposite the guard. Hodeki had to stifle an urge to skulk, which would have been a dead giveaway. Soon enough, they came to a door to the fire stairs, at the very end of the corridor.

“If the alarm goes off when we open the door, run.”

Hideki nodded, and the woman pushed the bar. To their relief, no sirens sounded as the air from the pressurized stairwell brushed their hair aside. It would, however, be safe to assume that a light was blinking on a panel somewhere in the hotel’s security office. Someone would be around to investigate, sooner rather than later.

They ran down three flights and came to a door labeled ‘Emergency Exit’, at which the girl didn’t even slow down. They burst through and found themselves in an alley behind the hotel, clean as only a Japanese alley could be, but narrow. To one side Hideki could see movement, a busy street. The girl led him the other way. He rushed to catch up.

“Thank you,” he said, but she just walked on. “You never did tell me your name,” he insisted.

“My name doesn’t matter,” she said. “What matters is that, when you reach the corner, we’ll be half a block away from a traffic policeman. You’ll be safe.”

At that moment, shouts erupted behind them. A gravelly voice was unmistakable among them. Hideki turned, and saw the guard – easy to recognize despite the fact that the darkness had previously hidden his features – leading the chase, with Thomas behind him, in a strangely submissive attitude. They sped up.

Just before the corner, Hideki’s benefactor turned an ankle on a curb and plunged forward, breaking her fall with her hands. Hideki stopped and attempted to get her back on her feet, but he was too late. Their pursuers were upon them almost immediately.

The guard’s big hands pulled Hideki away from her and turned him around to face him. This man wasn’t quite as large as Thomas, and he didn’t look European – possibly Latin American – but his eyes were harder. Unlike Thomas’s dead eyes, these were full of fury.

“I warned you not to run,” the man panted.

Hideki ignored him. “I don’t want to waste my time talking to some guard.” He turned to Thomas. “What do you say? This has gone far enough. Tell me what your group wants and I’ll put together a meeting with my analysis people. I’m certain we can deal with this in a more civilized way.”

The guard moved over, blocking Hideki’s view of the Scandinavian. “His little group is of no consequence,” the man said. “As you observed before, they’re just a bunch of lunatics who are obsessed with very inconsequential things.” Thomas’ eyes blazed, but he said nothing.

So that’s how it is, Hideki thought. “Ah. And who are you?”

“I am a businessman. I’d like to make an offer.”

Hideki snorted. “Yes, I can see that now. The best way to arrange a meeting is to violently kidnap the person you’re trying to do business with. You must not get too many repeat customers.” Even as the words left his mouth, Hideki was surprised at the crude and undignified form of expression, worlds away from his habitual reserve. But he was even more surprised by how right it felt.

The would-be businessman hung his head. “I know. As I said before, Thomas’ group is often a bit overzealous. They were the ideal tool to make some noise, make you take notice and give me some time on your schedule. But when they saw you, emotion overcame them. They really believe that you need to be controlled.”

Hideki sighed. Everyone seemed to believe that he ran the way food was managed and distributed. The press had made him out to be some kind of omnipotent hero, and no one seemed to want to understand that he was just a genetic engineer. He could design organisms and recommend strategies for breeding them, but resource allocation was well beyond his responsibilities. “Why didn’t you get an appointment?” This man, a person who could fly protesters from Europe, should have had the pull to get an appointment.

The man laughed. “I did. They gave me a spot two years from now. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get on your schedule?”

“You can say that again,” the woman who’d rescued him chimed in.

Hideki turned to face her. “Once again, who are you?”

Thomas stepped forward, bitterness written on his face – the first emotion Noda had seen there. “Her name is Sarah Patrick, and she’s a traitor.”

“You’re Sarah Patrick?” Hideki asked, remembering the earlier conversation with Noriko. “The viral geneticist? And you’re with them?”

The young woman held up her hands, palms outward. “Technically, I’m not with them. I’m with Thomas – make that I was with Thomas. Met him on the airplane, actually.”

“To think I thought you believed in us.”

“Is that all you care about? I believe that some kind of public oversight needs to exist on the activities of the committee, but I certainly don’t think you should be kidnapping prominent scientists to get that done.”

“Any method is valid to save the planet.”

Sarah rolled her eyes and addressed Hideki. “As I said, I was with Thomas. But the reason I wanted to see you had nothing whatsoever to do with this bunch of lunatics. I guess there’s no chance of that now.”

Hideki turned back to the businessman. “I suppose you’re going to take me back into the hotel, now.”

The man thought for a second. “No. There are two of you now, and we’re in enough trouble as it is. Besides, when you ran out of the room, you went out of the range of our communications interdictor – which is still in the room. I assume your people are just about on top of us.”

Hideki nodded and turned away. He resisted the urge to run, covering the ten meters to the corner at a stately pace. Only when he was most of the way to the traffic cop did he realize that Sarah Patrick was behind him. He slowed and let her catch up. “I never got the chance to thank you for getting me free.”

She nodded. “I just wish I’d been able to prevent it. That way, maybe I’d have been able to get onto your schedule sometime.”

Hideki took a deep breath. It had been a strange day. And if he went back to the complex, they’d all be fussing over him. He took a deep breath. “Why don’t we talk about it now? I’m free all afternoon.”

Her eyes widened. “Really? I need to show you something about a hundred kilometers north.”

“Well, technically, I absolutely don’t have time to do that, but I don’t quite feel like going back just yet.” He smiled. “Do you mind if I bring a few of my security people with me?”

Sarah laughed. “Not at all.”

***

Upon entering the complex, Hideki couldn’t believe that this place existed so close to Tokyo. A sprawling tree-filled park, which doubled as a private zoo. From the outside, tall grey walls kept prying eyes from suspecting what it contained: it looked like a soulless industrial park.

Yet there was a magnificent private home, gardens, water, nature inside. Paradise on Earth.

Hideki ignored it all. His eyes were fixed on what he saw in front of him. “A wooly mammoth,” he whispered. “And it’s alive!” The beast was magnificent, a juvenile with dark brown hair and short tusks, and any doubts he might have had regarding its existence were dispelled by the smell of wet fur.

Sarah, standing between Noda and the park’s owner, the reclusive billionaire Satoru Mutoh, beamed with pride. “Not quite,” she explained. Right now, it’s more like a wooly elephant, but we’re getting there. All we need is your help.”

“But how…” Noda knew every scientist working on cloning mammoths, and he’d never seen, read or heard about anything this close to success.

“Smoke and mirrors, mostly. We injected a regular elephant with a virus that worked on activating dormant alleles. That’s how we got the hair. But if you look at the bone structure, you’ll find more elephant than mammoth there. We also activated some other mammoth traits, less visible ones, like as digestive processes and such.”

Sarah paused, letting the information, and its implications sink in before continuing. “But I thought that, if we use the same techniques on one of those mammoths you already cloned – the ones that look like elephants–”

She never got to finish. Hideki turned away from her and commed his assistant. “Noriko, I need you to reschedule all of my appointments.”

“For how long?”

“Let’s say… the next two months. If I need any more, I’ll let you know.”

“Yes Dr. Noda.”

The wooly elephant, having realized that these humans weren’t there to feed it, wandered off. Hideki never took his eyes off of it until it disappeared behind some trees.

Copyright © 2013 by Gustavo Bondoni

Gustavo Bondoni was born in Argentina and is probably the only current Argentinean fiction writer writing primarily in English. He moved to the US at the age of three because his father worked for a multinational company that caused the family to live, among others, in Miami, Zurich, and Cincinnati. He came back to Buenos Aires at the age of twelve. His writing spans the range from science fiction to mainstream stories, passing through sword & sorcery and magic realism along the way, and it has been published in five countries and three languages to date.

]]> http://nova-sf.de/internova/?feed=rss2&p=859 0 http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=856 http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=856#comments Sat, 16 Feb 2013 00:46:15 +0000 miwoleit http://nova-sf.de/internova/?p=856 by Ahmed A. Khan

It was a bright spring morning when Gabriel’s life changed.

At the time, Gabriel was a moderately well-to-do writer and lived alone in a townhouse.

That morning, he switched on the TV. A cartoon was being shown but the sound he heard was not the sound of a cartoon but of news being read. Was something wrong with the TV? Had two channels somehow got mixed up? Then he heard the news reader announce the date. How could it be the 25th of May, today? Yesterday, when he had gone to sleep, it had been the 20th. What was going on? Had he slept for four days – a modern day Rip Van Winkle? He ran outside, picked up the newspaper lying on the doorstep and looked at the date. Twenty first of May.

So, after all, he had not slept for four days.

That was just the beginning. The whole day, he kept hearing voices: Voices of his friends, his neighbors, the voice of Jenny, and his own voice. What was going on? Was he going mad? But there was no insanity in the voices he heard.

He thought hard, struggling against a rising sense of panic. Slowly, almost shyly, a tiny idea raised its head. He had a hypothesis. It was fantastic. Nevertheless, he decided to test it.

Next morning, he switched on the television. Once again, the picture on the tube didn’t match the sounds. He heard the date being announced, and it was the twenty sixth of May. Hypothesis proved!

No matter how fantastic, it was probably true. His sense of hearing had extended four days and a couple of hours into the future.

He quietly sat at his writing table for hours, mentally working out the ramifications of his condition. There were various things, big and small, to take care of. For instance, if someone rang the doorbell, he wouldn’t hear it. He had to have some kind of visual indication for it. Then there was the phone. This was one instrument that would become almost totally useless to him… except for texting. And what about conversation with people? He could talk to them and they would hear him but when they talked, he would have heard it four days ago. How then to have a coherent conversation? The only solution was to tell everyone that he had gone totally deaf. Let them communicate via writing or sign language.

And life went on with all its strangeness.

Gabriel’s pre-sonic condition had its advantages. He made it a habit of hearing the business news bulletins on the TV, and armed with advance knowledge of the market, he started playing the stocks. Inevitably his income became healthier and healthier. In turn, he became quite a philanthropist and had no end of fun.

No one knew about his abnormality till he heard himself telling Jenny about it – Jenny, who reminded him of paddy fields and milk and honey and everything that is fresh and wholesome – and didn’t hear her scream or panic. So four days later, he did tell her about it and she, after a brief adjustment period, accepted it and said so in writing.

And one day, he wrote a note to her, asking her to marry him. She accepted and soon they became man and wife and lived happily for quite some time…

…till the time that he heard Jenny crying with grief. And this grief was over his death.

He immediately got busy straightening out his things, preparing his will, loving and cherishing Jenny.

The next day, he heard his friends come to bury him.

And then his world went dead silent for some time.

And then he heard a terrible voice say: “Who is your God?”

And he had three days to find the correct answer to that question.

Copyright © 2013 by Ahmed A. Khan

Ahmed A. Khan is a Canadian writer with Indian origins. He published stories in Interzone, HP Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, Anotherealm and several anthologies. He edited Fall and Rise, an anthology of post-apocalyptic stories with a difference,  SF Waxes Philosophical and A Mosque Among the Stars, an anthology of Islamic sf stories. He recently published  a collection of short stories. His blog is at http://ahmedakhan.livejournal.com/

Blue neon catches on chrome, on white shirts and sneakers, on the ashes smeared on my skin. Twin lights cast knife-shadows in rhythm, splitting and crashing together in a cartoon bruise. Like the group onstage, playing the colors.

She tours as Kali and the Backup Smurfs. The smurfs are gnomes in face paint: natural mutation, modification, or little people come out into the open, take your pick. No matter that modding is the likeliest explanation; our kind steps outside and urban legends grow into their predictable trinity — monster, freak, alien.

But Kali …

It would explain the eyes. Her fans wear copies, of course; the tech is not expensive. Basic cams track gaze, fiberpixels darken into eyes that stare back unblinking. Out beneath the smog it’s protection, shaming any sala into looking away from breasts and hips. Here, it’s performance. Lines grow, spread, open into eyes on backs, on knees, on gloved hands; and each one dances like a tiny piece of Her.

Her. Hair writhing loose, black bodysuit, with kohl-lined eyes. Returning every gaze, every bit of attention, of adoration, as surely as her undistorted voice does. Could she be real – as real, at least, as her ash-painted consort, challenger, other self? Eyes on her fingertips, twined in her garland of skulls. In that hair. Following me from all around as I slip through the shifting, strutting crowd. Dancers’ eyes wide on my tiger skin, on the cobra round my neck; little bursts of fear before they flinch away to let me push an intermittent path toward the stage.

Eyes in every lyric, telling these people I see you too. The dangerous hope that opens the crowd to itself, to its glances and its touch, accidental, intimate. To perfection: they see and touch and taste her in each other.

If any of our kind dared come so far into the open — and to take so ludicrous a mix and throw it back, black and blue, in every smiling set of teeth — well. It could be Her they taste.

So I wait, while sweaty shoulders rub ash from my arms and elbows hit my back, for something more than mere cam vision. She would surely know me – but only algorithms react; only pixels look back. When she finally turns my way, between songs, it is to watch the dancing snake.

The bloodied tongue flaps down to her chin, inanimate.

Another act. An interpretation. No more.

But Drummer Smurf’s bass line comes in as I turn away, hitting a fuck-you five-beat Taka Takita; and every bit of her skin stares out at me and her voice, her voice is true.

I open my third eye to watch — to return adoration — and I dance.

Copyright © 2013 by Shweta Narayan

Shweta Narayan writes about herself: “I was smelted in India’s hot summer, quenched in the monsoon, wound up on words in Malaysia, and pointed westwards. I surfaced in Saudi Arabia, The Netherlands, and Scotland before setting off to California, where I live on language, veggie tacos, and the internet.  I mostly write people like myself, wherever their stories started — the liminal folk. The ones on the boundaries, outside, half-anything. Those who fit uncomfortably. My favourite liminal space so far was Clarion 2007, for which I received the Octavia Butler Memorial Scholarship for writers of color.”

“What was I thinking, marrying a biomecha designer?”

“And what was I thinking, marrying an ichthyologist?”

“May I remind you,” Yagoda replies in her sweetest voice, “that without this ichthyologist here, you would be dead by now.”

“And may I remind you, my dear,” Peter answers, irritated, “that without this biomecha designer here, you would be dead, too.”

Arguments exhausted, Yagoda and Peter sink back into silence. Recently, this has become a frequent end to their quarrels: a stalemate, with both of them right. Is there some hidden message here, Yagoda wonders as she works her tail fin vigorously, pushing them through the pitch black water. Time to look for some chow, she decides after ten minutes of stubborn silence. It’s been two days since she last ate. They’ll both be in a better mood with her stomach full… Suddenly, Yagoda freezes in tense anticipation, stopping dead in the dark surrounding them.

“You feel it?” Peter asks in low voice.

“Shut up!” Yagoda snaps at him, unnecessarily. No-one can hear them, all their arguments and discussions and quarrels are strictly between them, thought but never voiced. And then, the pressure of the water hits them, sending an unmistakable stream of alarms tuning all Yagoda’s nerves to the maximum, ready for that one critical fin stroke that means the difference between life and death.

Something big passes them. Close, too close for comfort. Huge: five, maybe six meters long. Probably a local equivalent of some deep-sea shark, Yagoda decides, although she cannot see it. Swift, deliberate, searching, ready to pounce, ready to snap its jaws at the slightest hint of something edible. But, this time something big swims away into the darkness, missing them.

“Maybe we’re too small,” Peter whispers as if anybody can hear him.

“Just you hope,” Yagoda knows better. No meal is too small this deep. They were lucky, that’s all.

“What was that, anyway?” Peter whispers.

“I don’t want to know.”

#

People say the seventh year is the most critical one. Their marriage was falling apart at the tender age of three.

Why? Even now, when it became completely senseless, Yagoda still tries to find an answer. If Yagoda hadn’t got pregnant, would Peter really marry her? On recollection, their relationship didn’t look like something permanent. A good-time summer, hot bodies in hot sheets in steamy nights. But then September came and September’s menstruation didn’t. When she confronted him with a positive test Peter felt obliged. Some old chivalrous impulse, quite rare today, that surprised even Yagoda. Now, surrounded by darkness, she thinks she finally understands. Peter is quite older than she is: perhaps a child was a reason for him to settle down at last, one final opportunity to start a family. And as her pregnancy went on, he really began to look forward to that boy.

And then Yagoda miscarried, spontaneously. Their joy was flowing out in blood, in an ambulance that wailed all the way to hospital.

Peter was a biomechanoid designer. And a biomecha designer can either work in industry, or set off on his own, freelancing across the Galaxy, from job to job, fulfilling commissions and designing biomechanoids to suit whatever task somebody requires on some distant planet. Usually small series, but there’s an occasional major job, quantities running into thousands or tens of thousands. It pays well if you’re good and if you’re lucky. Peter was somewhere in the middle: not good enough to be on top, not so unlucky as to go bankrupt.

Yagoda was an ichthyologist, fresh after graduation and apprenticeship. The best she could hope for was to land a routine job at some mariculture station or oceanographic institute. There were offers, some quite good. But, after the loss of their child, Peter didn’t want to stay in one place. And he didn’t really care if Yagoda would come with him or not. He never said that, never blamed her. But a woman can feel it, and Yagoda certainly felt it. At that time, Yagoda cared if Peter didn’t. So she came along.

And while Hans Rudi was not a small and crowded ship, you couldn’t exactly slam the doors behind you and vent your frustrations in a pub across the street. So, the frustrations piled one atop another. Words, spoken and otherwise. Fights. About small things, discarded socks or empty sweetener container or toothpaste left opened. And bigger things. Costs of running the ship. Bills for purchasing DNAs. A cancelled job that almost ruined them. Frustrations growing into resentment, resentment growing into anger, anger into hatred.

And then, in the course of one of their shouting matches in the ship’s kitchenette, when Yagoda found herself holding a frying pan to throw at Peter, she realized it was time to sit down and talk. Peter, finding himself holding a plate to throw at Yagoda, agreed. So they sat down and talked. And talked. And talked some more, saying things neither really wanted to say. They were deep in the Mlokosziewicz space, running along one of the probability trajectories to Wistary, when they decided divorce was the best way out of the mess they were in.

Exactly three minutes and thirty-six seconds later, for reasons unknown, their Mlokosziewicz drive croaked.

#

Was there some hidden message there, too, Yagoda asks herself as she dangles her luminescent lure above her wide agape mouth, filled with needle-like teeth, ready to snatch anything foolish to investigate the attractive glow.

#

They jumped out into normal space, Hans Rudi spinning wildly, totally out of control. Without force compensators to maintain the internal up and down, Yagoda and Peter would have been turned into bloody blotches long before reaching the cockpit and strapping themselves into seats. The ship slowed down to subrelativistics, still spinning, speeding towards a star system. Typically, Peter wanted to find out where the hell they were. Also typically, Yagoda was more concerned about the fusion reactor cooling system being way overloaded.

That would have turned into another shouting match, but the quarrel was made academic by the main power section being automatically jettisoned, only to vanish in the blaze of a thermonuclear explosion several second later. What remained of Hans Rudi was switching to auxiliary power, speeding, still hopelessly out of control, past the outer planets and towards a tiny blue dot.

That tiny blue dot turned out to be a planet, eighty percent of its surface covered by ocean. Yagoda and Peter had eighty percent probability of hitting the water. But, there was still that twenty percent probability of hitting the hard rock.

That was the one time their luck held. The splash was big. The hull was breached in several places, water rushing in. They started to sink, fast and deep. Yagoda and Peter barely reached the design lab and sealed its doors behind them. Scratch that one about luck: they were imprisoned in the lab, in the sinking ship, with lights showing intent to go out at the slightest provocation, and computer screens alternating between snow and unreadable streams of data, none of them good news.

The ship shuddered as it hit the bottom, the already overstrained structure screeching and moaning like a banshee, the hull settling down with a loud thump. Yagoda and Peter knew their options were very few. Most leading to death.

#

They did die. In the usual sense of the word, at least.

The light in the lab held. So did the rest of the environment, at least for the time being. But there was no food and tap water tasted too much like sea-water. System failures were inevitable–they both knew that. Peter re-booted the computers. The Lab’s LAN was up and running, but outside connections were gone.

“Can we open the view hatch?” Yagoda asked, already running all the possibilities through her head. Peter punched a few keys on his console and the outer shutters slid open. Pitch black greeted Yagoda through the thick glass, as black as the Mlokosziewicz space itself.

Yagoda cursed through her teeth. They had hit the daylight half of the planet. Black outside could mean only one thing: they were too deep for sunlight to reach them.

“We’re not going to make it, you know,” Peter said resignedly. “It’ll take them at least a week to figure we missed our ETA. Even then, where can they start looking? And everything is screwed up, we cannot…”

“Shut up!” Lately, Peter was prone to resignation, and that infuriated Yagoda. “I’m thinking!”

#

“Well honey, you’re not going to win any beauty prize!” The thing in the pressurized container resembled a grotesquely inflated bag, 70 centimetres long, with a big tailfin and a luminescent lure above the big mouth of sharp teeth.

“You’re not looking any better, dear,” Yagoda replied, wiping sweat from her forehead. The environment was failing, little by little. But it gave them precious a two days to finish the two biomechanoids. The ugly big black fish was hers. Peter’s was a mere twelve centimetres long, pale and twisted-looking, attached to the big black fish’s belly, their tissues and blood systems already fused. “But they’ll do just fine.”

“I don’t like it, you know. Connected like this. Maybe I should have–” Yagoda drew him a specification modelled after Ceratias holboeli, a deep-sea anglerfish they had among their DNAs. Every biomecha design starts with some existing species, and perhaps it was Yagoda’s ichthyology background that made them buy so many fish samples. And deep-sea fishes are handy when it comes to designing biomecha deep-sea probes.

“I’m telling you, that’s how these fish couple! Once male meets female, or vice versa, he attaches to her permanently. Sometimes even several boys on a single girl. And they stay that way for life, male or males completely fusioning with female, fed through her blood system. From that point on, the males are just sperm sacs.”

“Well, thanks a lot!”

“Look, if we ever get separated out there, there’s no way we gonna find each other again, get that? Why do you think the male attaches in the first place? Because it’s probably the only time in his life he’s going to come across a female. Are implantations done?”

Programming semi-consciousness and implanting it into a biomecha is a standard procedure, necessary for making a basically wild creature actually do some useful job. But the standard equipment they had in the lab was sufficient to scan and transfer the entire brainwave pattern of a person, too. That was something everybody knew was possible, but was seldom done. Peter mentioned only one or two cases he had heard of. Well, Yagoda mused, time to join that exclusive club, her brain pattern recorded into the big fish and Peter’s into the little one. And there were two more things Peter added at her request: internal communication system and their DNAs stored. Just in case somebody does look for them and does find the wreck. The bioluminescent lure should be able to signal some Morse codes.

“They’re done,” Peter answered.

“OK. Then there’s only one more thing to do…” Yagoda took a deep breath and hit the button. The lab doors opened. Chilling water burst in, flooding the lab quickly, rising to their chests, turning them painfully numb. On one thing Yagoda and Peter agreed: it’s best to do it fast. Once the water filled the lab, the biomecha container was to open automatically, releasing them into the black.

Last thing Yagoda saw before the lights went out and she and Peter sank into darkness was herself, her ugly fish self, gazing back at them with cold, indifferent eyes as they gasped for their last breaths, frantically reaching for something, anything, before finally finding each other’s hands and squeezing tight, finding some comfort in each other.

#

“Two days ago, we were talking about divorce,” Peter muttered as the container opened.

“Two days ago we weren’t thousands of meters deep,” Yagoda replied, lighting her lure and swimming below two floating bodies holding hands. She tried not to look at them as she swam through the doors and into the corridor, looking for the nearest hull breach.

“Well, now we’re together, till death do us part.”

#

Something big passes them. Yagoda and Peter float speechlessly, tied forever, fused into one, waiting for something big to swim away. And then something big turns and Yagoda knows it’s after them this time. No time to think how and why, she darts aside and huge jaws miss them by a fraction of an inch. But, something big is hungry and attacks once again.

Yagoda tries out-swimming it.She should be more manoeuvrable, but something big is fast, very fast, and Yagoda feels the big mouth opening behind her, sharp teeth ready to cut her in two. She does a sudden left turn and something big misses again, jaws snapping into emptiness. Yagoda keeps swimming. Something big does take more time to turn and if she could put some distance between them, maybe she’ll reach the safety of the wreck. They kept close to the wreck all this time. With purpose–staying close to the wreck is SOP in case of crashes. And the wreck provides shelter, if only she could reach it.

Luck is again with Yagoda and Peter: something big decides to quit the chase. Every predator knows instinctively when it’s over, when the food obtained will not cover the energy wasted. Yagoda slows down and waits, ready to start again. Several minutes pass in tense silence. But, something big swam away, looking for a meal elsewhere.

“That was close,” Peter sighs with relief as Yagoda calms down.

“Sshhh,” Yagoda says, becoming still, very still.

“What now?”

“Shut up!” Yagoda feels some small ripples close in front of her and decides to take a chance. The chase was costly and she needs food. They both do. So she lights the lure and starts waving it. Blue light floods into blackness. A small crustacean-like critter swims to it, attracted, a multitude of hairy legs working in unison, long antennae flicking around, hoping for some tasty plankton snack and not noticing the big mouth waiting. And then, in an eye-blink, it’s over. Jaws open and shut, and crustacean is no more. Hungry, Yagoda swallows it with relish.

If you don’t eat, you’re eaten. If you’re not eaten, you eat. The incessant cycle of the sea. Yagoda and Peter survive in it, by wits and luck–with more luck than wits–but surviving, together, bound together as one.

“Mmmm, crunchy!” they both agree.

Copyright © 2012 by Aleksandar Žiljak

Aleksandar Žiljak was born in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1963 and studied at the Faculty of Electrical Engingeering. Since 1997 he is a fulltime artist, specialized in wildlife illustration and science fiction paintings. Since 1991 he is also active as a writer and has established himself as one of the leading Croatian sf writers. His first story collection was published in 2004. He received the Croatian Sfera Award five time for his short stories and illustrations. He was involved in the InterNova project from early on and has contributed several stories and nonfiction to the German Nova. A translation of one of his finest stories, “Ultamarine”, was published in Nova 17.