Teeth gleamed in the dark under the blanket; the eyes were black blobs around the greasy promontory of the nose. “Expecting to stab me?”
“If necessary.” Arnie shifted his weight for a better stance.
“Now, whatever happened to that civilized old academic world where everyone took the time to express mutual respect, and dallied a while in chat, and listened patiently to each other before entering into the actual business at hand, Doctor? Shouldn’t we be sipping sherry and considering—”
“Manners and respect are products of enough people having enough time and comfort; you are the ones who put an end to that.”
Aaron slowly, loudly applauded him. He was the only thing moving or making a sound in the oblong shadows of the houses and the splintered and sliced patterns of dingy moonlight. “You are thinking of holding me and shouting for the watch.”
Arnie shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because if you don’t, you might get three more questions answered. Whereas if you do capture me, you have to hope my nervous system is no more programmed than Ysabel’s was, so I have seizures only about as bad, and that my heart and arteries are in no worse shape than hers, so that I don’t have a fatal stroke or heart attack.”
“I don’t have to hope that hard. I’m thinking about stabbing you.” Arnie shifted his weight and let his rear foot rise, extending it in front of him and setting it down. About four more steps would close the gap. “But I would like your answers to some questions.”
“What is your first question?”
“What do you do, now, when you have doubts about Daybreak?”
“Daybreak forgives me because I am so powerless, and I let Daybreak fill my mind, so that I can go on and do the work.”
Arnie advanced a step; he wondered if weapons were trained on him in the dark. An arrow or a spear out of nowhere… but one lunge, tackle him, hold him down, capture a Daybreaker, think how people would look up to him, just one leap—
Teeth showed under the blanket again, and the spots of the eyes narrowed. “Exchange, Doctor Yang. Have you told your owners that you’re talking to me yet?”
Arnie swallowed hard; the question was shrewder than it looked, for either he’d have to say “yes,” and be led along; or “no,” and admit that he was conspiring with Aaron. Or I might… “I’ve told them exactly as much as I think they should know; does that make them my owners, or me theirs?”
“Ownership is always an error. Now your question.”
Another step brought Arnie close enough to spring, but Aaron was cooperating… but, dammit. He couldn’t think of what he intended to ask Aaron. He stalled with, “What is the purpose of Daybreak?”
“Purpose is so human, and therefore useless, of no value, a shame. Gophers dig; they don’t calculate angles of repose around their burrows. Geese fly; they don’t do celestial navigation. We do not need to know the relative marginal propensities to consume of the grasshopper and the ant. Daybreak will free them from human imputation, which makes all things dirty; to the pure, all things are purposeless. No thinky-thinks, no wordy-words, no math, no meaning, no purpose.” When had he closed the distance? How did his hands now press down on Arnie’s wrists, lowering the knives? “Exchange. My question. Mister Ecco’s mission has changed and he is going to the Northwest.”
Right, that’s the wrong direction, I can just say yes—Arnie’s head was turning slowly, indicating no.
“Going northeast.”
Arnie tried to keep his head still, but he had an eerie sense that Aaron was reading his thought: don’t nod, don’t nod, for God’s sake don’t nod.
“Going farther east, crossing the Wabash?”
Don’t nod. “Exchange,” Arnie croaked. His hands were down by his sides where Aaron had pressed them. They were face-to-face; Arnie could smell the dirty blanket and the foul breath.
“Ask.”
“What are you doing?”
“Daybreak only does till day is broken. After that Daybreak does not do. Daybreak is. I won’t take my final turn of exchange now; you will owe it to me.”
Arnie was alone on the street. In the distance, dogs and coyotes howled, the sharp yips mixing with the deep bellow of some hound; closer, he could hear the clatter of the watch, with all the gear hanging from their belts and harnesses; closest of all, the sound of the last breath of night wind rustling the leaves of a cottonwood.
Miserably tired, he headed home, resheathing his knives, his mind all on bed, reminding himself to record this in his journal, fighting off the question Record what?
2 DAYS LATER. CAMP OF THE PEOPLE OF GAIA’S DAWN, IN THE FORMER HELLS CANYON NATIONAL RECREATIONAL PARK. 9:30 PM PST. THURSDAY, JULY 24, 2025.
It had been impossible to conceal that Larry was a Fed—“Dad, you’d have better luck trying to pass yourself off as Sasquatch”—so their story was that Debbie had converted him to Gaia’s Dawn while they were both being held by the Blue Morning People, and then the two of them had escaped during the Federal raid.
Tonight he would see The Play of Daybreak, the last part of what she wanted him to witness. The tribe performed it every Thursday; this was to be the 483rd performance by the People of Gaia’s Dawn.
“But—,” he started to say, and shut his mouth, angry with himself for that microbreak in cover.
“Yeah, I know, it’s a lot of work, but it’s really important,” Debbie said, giving him cover. The fast-calculation part of his brain had been about to object that that would have had the first performance on April 28, 2016—more than eight years before Daybreak day, and of course the People of Gaia’s Dawn were much newer than that. So even though they’ve only been here since mid-February, when Debbie was a Founder, they’re already claiming a much longer pedigree.
Debbie’s hand found his under the table and squeezed,
u wil c
smile n stay very cool
while she explained, “The Play of Daybreak is set up so the whole tribe have parts in it—you’ll have a part next week—but there’s only a few on stage at a time, and while we’re not in it, we watch. Since I’ve only been back for one day, my part has three simple lines, and they’ll steer me through it. Otherwise you and I can watch together.”
The communal evening meal was a small chunk of unidentified meat and a fist-sized pile of wild greens with some roots and berries. With their current level of survival skills, he guessed around a third of the tribe might make it through the winter, and they’d lose all the kids under five.
At full dark, two big fires burned brightly on each end of the playing area, a flat grassless space backed by a low, crumbling rock cliff. The tribe’s dozen slaves carried out full-length mirrors and set them up on lashed-stick frames to mask the fires and reflect the light into the sandy playing area. The reflected firelight did not quite reach the cliffs except when a fire flared up; players spoke before a dark space where rocks or bushes occasionally swam briefly into being, like a world striving to be created out of chaos.
Larry expected something like a small-town Founder’s Pageant or a high-school production of Our Town. In the first few minutes, he realized he’d underestimated the power of conviction.
The story began with the Seven Misters: Mister Clock, Mister Gun, Mister Electron, Mister Atom, Mister Chemical, Mister Medicine, and the dark god who ruled them all, Mister Smart. Each of the actors, his face and chest painted to represent the power he spoke for, boasted that he feasted on the innocent creatures of the forest, the beautiful body of Mother Gaia, and human flesh, and finished by declaring, “But Mister Smart is smarter than all of us!”