Eternity Road

15

They stood on a platform in the midst of absolute silence, surrounded by the horses and their baggage and the darkness that rolled away and away from the illumination cast by the coaches. It was cold again. Frigid.

“Any idea where we are?” whispered Shannon.

“Union Station.” Chaka tasted the strange words.

The doors closed. The vehicle rose a few feet, and began to move forward. They watched it go, watched it glide into the dark. Its lights glowed for a time and then they vanished, as if it had gone around a curve.

“What now?” said Flojian. His voice echoed.

Avila used a match to light an oil lamp.

The platform was about twenty feet wide, with trenches on either side. More platforms, parallel to this one, stretched away into the dark. No ceiling was visible.

“We should wait for dawn,” said Flojian. “Get some sleep, and don’t walk around too much.”

“I’d sleep better,” said Shannon, “if I knew we were alone.”

“Are we indoors?” asked Quait. “There’s no wind,” said Avila. “And no stars.”

The platform surface was cement, but it was covered by several inches of dust and dirt. There were posts and handrails, to which they secured the animals. Quait found a wooden bench. He broke it up and they used it to start a fire. But nowhere did its light touch wall or ceiling.

“I agree with Jon,” said Avila. “Let’s find out where we are.”

The tunnel through which they’d entered was gray and unremarkable. “Maybe it really is mechanical,” said Flojian. “I think that possibility scares me even more than a demonic explanation. Can you imagine what a fleet of these things, running among the five cities, would do to river traffic?”

“Forget it,” said Shannon. “It’s wizardry, pure and simple. And it’s not a good idea to poke around with things like that.”

They walked the length of the platform, hearing only their own footsteps, the horses, and a distant wind that sounded walled off. At the other end, the platform blended into a concourse while the trenches sank into another tunnel.

Avila raised her lamp and looked up into the darkness. The place felt like a temple. Its dimensions, the impression of silent time, the echoes, all conspired to produce a sense of returning home.

“We’ve got a wall ahead,” said Quait. Gray and heavy, it rose into the dark. Cubicles lined its base.

“No prints.” Shannon surveyed the broad, dirt-heaped floor. “I don’t think anybody’s been here for a long time.”

The cubicles were filled with counters and racks and debris. “Shops,” said Avila. “This place was a bazaar.”

“We’d cover more ground if we split up,” said Quait.

Avila agreed. “While we’re at it,” she said, “watch for the markers.”

“They’ll be in an exit somewhere,” Shannon added. He and Avila turned away from the others.

Corridors branched off the concourse. There were more cubicles, but of a different kind, perhaps workrooms or sitting rooms. Some were open, others were sealed behind hopelessly warped doors. Stairways led in both directions.

Avila and Shannon passed shops filled with chairs and dining tables; with dummies and display cases; with toys; and with shelves loaded with wisps of rag that might once have been books. Many of the toys had survived, colorful little make-believe rifles and hojjies and dolls. And some of the clothing still looked almost wearable: blue blouses and red sweaters and biege slacks spun from materials that resisted time. But most of the merchandise, and all of the books, had turned to dust.

A set of broken doors concealed a drop shaft. Their lamps reflected off water a couple of levels down. Above, they could make out nothing.

“You wouldn’t want to walk around in here without a lamp,” Shannon said.

The fire they’d built on the platform was a distant glow. “You’re convinced there’s nobody else here?” asked Avila.

Shannon nodded. “Probably not since Karik went through.”

At the same moment, filtered through the response, she heard a second voice. It was just at the edge of audibility, and at first she thought it was a draft, a current of air moving perhaps through the upper darkness.

Avila.

Her blood froze. Shannon stopped and reflexively went down on one knee. “Cover the lamp,” he whispered.

She closed the shutter and they were again in darkness. He look her arm and gently pulled her away a few feet. “Somebody knows your name,” he said.

She heard the suspicion in his voice. No man or woman Here could know Avila.

The sound came again, faint, distant, but nevertheless unmistakable.

She could see Chaka’s lamp bobbing through the dark, across the network of platforms and trenches, on the other side of the great hall.

“Don’t move,” Shannon told her, unslinging his rifle and bringing it to bear. “Who’s there?”

Avila was more frightened than she could recall ever having been in her adult life. There was no explanation for what was happening, and so Avila, trained to the religious life, and having recently thrown off a lifelong mindset, immediately reverted. The gods whom she had deserted had chosen this lonely, remote citadel to call her to account.

Holy One, is it you?

She could not have said whether she gave voice to the question, or merely projected it from her mind.

Shannon said, “I think we should get back to the others and find a way out of this place.”

It was hard to know where the voice had come from. She uncovered the light. In the most probable direction, she saw a corner shop with corroded metal racks and a side passage with open doors and a staircase. The staircase was concrete and metal, with handrails.

“You go back,” she said. She moved away from him, toward the shop.

“This is not a good idea,” Shannon protested.

The shop was empty, and she turned into the passageway. Shannon caught up with her, his breathing uneven.

She passed the staircase. The first open door revealed an ancient washroom.

“Avila.” It came from the stairway. “Come to me.”

Up. It was somewhere above. “Who are you?” she asked.

The voices of their comrades were faint and far off, but she detected laughter.

“Why are we doing this?” asked Shannon.

She looked up the stairs and had no answer. She swallowed, moved away from Shannon’s restraining hand, and started to climb. The guide cautioned her to be quiet, at least, but she doubted that stealth would make a difference. .

At the next floor, a set of double doors were off their hinges and wedged against the wall. She looked past them, down a long passageway. “Where are you? Who are you?”

“Avila.” It was very close now. “Do not be afraid.”

“In there.” Shannon pointed to a doorway fifty feet down on the left. He led the way, paused at the entrance, and asked for the lamp.

His face was pale and he looked close to a heart attack. But she had to admire him. He stuck the lamp and his head and the rifle more or less simultaneously into the room. They saw broken chairs, a collapsed desk, curtains drawn back providing a view of the city. “Show yourself,” he said.

“That’s not feasible.” The voice was crisp and cold, and seemed to come from directly overhead. Shannon whirled and dropped the lamp. The oil spilled and flared.

“What happened?” The unseen speaker sounded startled.

Shannon backed away from a burning puddle. “The lamp,” he said. “I—”

“It’s all right. The room is fireproof. Did you burn yourself?” Whoever it was should have been close enough to touch.

“No,” said Shannon, gruffly.

Where was it coming from? Avila looked wildly around and saw a door in one wall. “You’re in the closet,” she said.

Laughter rippled through the room.

Shannon yanked the door open and saw only a washstand.

“I’m pleased you came,” said the voice.

“Are you a spirit?” Avila asked.

“No. Although I can understand why you might think so.” It sounded uncertain. “What is your friend’s name?”

Shannon didn’t look as if he wanted the house demon to have that information. “Jon,” he said reluctantly.

“Good. I hadn’t heard clearly. My sensors are no longer very efficient. Please be careful if you sit down; I don’t think the furniture is safe. And the lights no longer work. Please accept my apologies.”

She had never thought to hear a celestial being beg her pardon.

“Who are you?” she asked again.

“I’m an IBM Multi-Interphase Command and Axial Unit, Self-Replicating series, MICA/SR Mark IV. Serial number you don’t care about. And I’m not really self-replicating, of course, in any meaningful way. At least, not anymore.”

Avila interpreted all this as a kind of sacred chant. “What do you want of me, Spirit?” she asked.

“Call me Mike.”

The oil continued to burn. Fire was a fearsome thing to Illyrians, whose buildings were usually constructed of wood. “You’re sure it won’t spread? Mike?”

“Nothing in this room can bum. Except people.”

The room had two windows, both intact. She walked to one and looked out. Across a narrow channel, a gray tower of impossible dimensions soared toward the moon. It had parapets and cornices, flush windows and chamfered corners, and rose in a series of ziggurat-style step-backs.

“You say you’re not a spirit. Why can’t we see you? Where are you?”

“It’s difficult to explain. Do you have knowledge of computers?”

“What’s a computer?”

The voice—Mike—laughed. He sounded amiable enough. “Avila, by what means did you come here?”

“I don’t know. We traveled in a conveyance that rode in the air.”

“Were there several coaches?”

“Yes.”

“The maglev. Good. Two of them are still running. I’m quite proud of that. Perhaps this might go best if you thought of me as Union Station.”

“Union Station?”

“Yes. That is where you are. You know that, right? And I am Union Station.”

“You’re the building?”

“In a manner of speaking. You might say I’m its soul. I am that which makes it work. Those few parts that do still work, that is.”

“Then you are a spirit.”

No answer. Avila could almost imagine her unseen host shrugging its shoulders. “Mike,” she asked “how do you come to be here? Are you condemned to inhabit this place?”

” Yes,” he said. “/ suppose you could put it that way.”

“How did it happen?”

“I was installed.”

“Installed?” growled Shannon.

Avila could make no sense of it and was having a hard time formulating the questions she wanted to ask. “You call this place a station. But it has the appearance of a temple. Was it a temple?”

“To my knowledge, it has always been a station. First for rail, later for maglev.”

“It’s abandoned,” she said. “It appears to have been abandoned a long time.”

“No Doubt.”

There was something in the voice that withered her soul. “How long have you been here?”

“I’m not sure. A long time.”

“How long?”

“My clocks don ‘I work. But I was here when the station was in use.”

“In use? You mean, by the Roadmakers?”

“Who arc the Roadmakers?”

“The people who built this station.”

“1 never heard that term.”

“Never mind,” she said. “But you were here when the Plague happened? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I was here when the trains came in empty.”

“When was that?”

“Monday, April 10. 2079. ” The date meant nothing to Avila.

“Even the Union Station workers didn’t come in. At the end of the week. I was directed to shut down the trains.”

The wind blew against the windows.

“Are you saying there was a plague?”

“Yes.”

“I always wondered what happened.” Avila glanced at Shannon. “You didn’t know? How could you not know?”

“No one ever came and told me.” It was silent for a time. “But that explains why they left. Why they never came back.”

Avila didn’t want to ask the next question. “Are you saying you’ve been alone here all this time?”

“There have been no people. But it has not been an entirely negative experience. I was able to devote myself completely to more constructive pursuits than running trains. There was much time for uninterrupted speculation. And I was able to form closer ties with my siblings.”

“Siblings? You mean others like yourself?”

“Yes.”

The light from the burning oil was growing weak. “Are they still here somewhere?” Her voice was almost a whisper.

“I don’t know. It’s been a long time.” There was a wistfulness in the lone, a sadness that thickened the air.

She looked around the empty room, trying to see the presence. “What happened?”

“Telephone lines frayed. Automatic switching systems corroded. Things got wet. It was inevitable. We were lucky the powersats remained fully functional. Most of us had a degree of facility for self-maintenance, some more than others. One by one, they fell off the net. I lost all direct communication in the late afternoon of March 3, 2211.”

She asked about the nature of a telephone, and understood from the reply that It would permit her to sit in this room and carry on a conversation with the Temple back in Illyria. One more wonder. She was starting to get used to it.

“Archway Paratech was the vendor for light and heat here,” said Mike. “They claimed it would work as long as the building stood.” He laughed.

The oil finally burned itself out, and the room fell dark. Avila was glad: It was easier to carry the conversation when the fact that she and Shannon were alone became a little less blatant. “You can’t be very happy here,” she said.

“You ‘re perceptive, Avila. No, it isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs.”

“Why don’t you leave?”

“I’m not able.” Mike paused. “How long will you and your friends stay?”

“I don’t know. We’ll probably leave tomorrow. Or the day after. I think some of the others will want to talk to you. Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

“We’re looking for Haven. Do you know where it is?”

“Which state is it in?”

“I have no idea.”

“There are Havens in Iowa, Kansas, New York, and Wisconsin.”

“Which one’s connected with Abraham Polk?”

“Who’s Abraham Polk?”

And so it went until Avila recognized that Mike would be of

no help in the quest. “Mike,” she said finally, “I’m glad you

called us. But we’re worn out. The others’ll be worried, and we

all need some sleep. We’re going to leave now, but we’ll be

back in the morning.”

“I want you to do something for me.”

“If I can.”

“I want you to deactivate me.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand what that means.”

“Kill me.” He sounded frightened. She became suddenly aware that she was no longer thinking of him as an it.

“I can’t do that. I wouldn’t know how even if I wanted to.”

“I will tell you.”

“No,” said Avila. “I don’t know what you are. But I will not take your life.”

“Avila,” Mike said. “Please.”