Which then took him for a target. Fortunately, the missile was inert. By frantically deploying chaff and other countermeasures, Second Lieutenant Downey had been able to avoid being shot down by something he’d launched. He even earned praise from his instructor for “getting ahead of the syllabus,” which didn’t call for countermeasure instruction for another two weeks.
That night in the O-Club, Shawn Beckman said to Patrick, in front of half a dozen other pilots, “Dude, you are your own worst enemy.”
And Jeff Zajac, another pilot, just happened to say, “Yeah, like that old comic strip. ‘We have met the enemy, and he is us.’ What the hell was it called?”
A third pilot, Rickie Bell, said “Pogo,” and a call sign was born.
The rule with call signs was, if you don’t like what’s suggested, don’t worry; something worse will follow. Bell wound up hearing “Tinker” for his entire flying career. Beckman earned the relatively neutral “Beckerwood,” but Zajac, after an unfortunate shaving accident that left him with temporary damage to his face, was henceforth saddled with “Scabber.”
In Pogo’s mind, it served him right.
But why was he thinking about that? Nellis training was almost twenty years ago.
He’d been dreaming. No more.
Suddenly he had questions. Where? What? How?
He couldn’t breathe! Something covered his face! He clawed at it, found that yes, he could see . . . he could suck air into his lungs. God.
But he was in a coffin! Wait, there was light. As he began to thrash, the walls gave. They were like thick plastic.
Then he remembered the Sentry. The big sweep . . . the sickening horror of knowing he had been cut, sliced, vision going red, feeling himself literally fall to pieces: dead.
But no more.
He slid out of the cell.
For the first time in his life—lives—he screamed. It was both terror and joy and there was no chance he could stop it. It was as if his body had to announce itself, or calibrate itself.
He was naked where he wasn’t covered in second skin. Yes, he was obviously in Keanu. . . .
But he was alive!
And, from the looks of things . . . the lifeless cells around him, the quiet gray “sky,” the lack of wind and sound . . . apparently alone.
Thinking, thinking. Zack and the others . . . were they nearby? God, maybe they’d left. Maybe he’d been “dead” for a long time. Weeks. Months. Centuries.
He stood up, stretching. It felt as though he’d been immobile for a while. But, then, he was in a new body. He twisted, touched his toes, flexed. Aside from a growing hunger, and a nagging headache, he felt right.
He looked at his surroundings, from the wall of cells to the surface of the ground, now mossy as opposed to icy rock, to the oddly shaped trees that effectively blocked his view toward Keanu’s interior.
As he took tentative steps, he was grateful for the moss . . . it felt soothing on his bare feet, which turned out to be as tender and callus-free as a baby’s—or an astronaut’s after a six-month stay in space.
He looked back at the cells . . . the three he had seen with Zack, Natalia, and Lucas lay open, dried out, dark. As if the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, to put it in biblical terms. Not that he was making any blasphemous comparisons; his resurrection was not that Resurrection, though, given the events of the past day, he was feeling more secure in his belief in the latter.
His cell was still oozing, pieces of its walls and sheaths of second skin hanging off it. Afterbirth was the word that came to mind. Well, technically, afterdeath.
Only now did he notice that there were at least two other open cells, too . . . not as weepy and moist as his own.
At least two someone elses had been reborn.
Pogo wondered where they had gone, and when. And who they were?
But he was racked with questions . . . no doubt contributing to the throbbing in his temples. For example, if he returned to the site of his “death,” what would he find? His torn body? The remains of his EVA suit?
Why did he care? Because he felt the clear urge to have that suit and the helmet. He needed them—
Don’t panic, Pogo.
He was an operational sort, trained to look at the mission, then take the necessary steps. Given the goal of returning to Venture, then the first step would be . . . search for his suit.
If he found other revived beings, he would deal with them. If, miraculously, Zack and the other astronauts remained here, so much the better. He had a message to share, with them, with the people of Earth.
Time to move. To find something to eat.
And for his head to stop hurting.
Pogo Downey headed into the woods.
It is very appropriate to infer that the Veda was given to the world only by persons endowed with all powers.
SRI SATHYA SAI BABA
Within five minutes, they had reached the place where Tea and Taj had left Pogo’s remains. Zack was, momentarily, struck again by how little of Keanu he had seen. It was likely less than a couple of square kilometers . . . while the chamber proper was at least fifty times larger.
And this chamber was only a fraction of Keanu’s interior volume. Was the rest of the NEO solid, or were there other similar chambers, each with its own glowworms, its own environment? With other Temples and Sentries?
“Over here!” Tea had run ahead of him. She and Taj had come with Zack, to act as guides.
“You didn’t bury him.”
“With what?” Taj said, over her shoulder. “The closest thing we have to a shovel is a space pen.”
She stopped suddenly. Zack joined her, kneeling at the spot, gently lifting giant leaves and uncovering the rendered remains of the late Pogo Downey, essentially three big pieces of former human somewhat wrapped in blood-soaked shreds of an EVA undergarment. “Is this the way you left it?”
“No! He was still . . . in the suit!” Tea said. Then, “And I left his helmet right there, too. It was the grave marker—”
“Was this stain here?” Zack pointed to a discoloration that surrounded the body . . . it was dark, not exactly the color of blood, though it was difficult to tell in this light.
“No,” Tea said. “It was all dirt before. What do you think it means?”
“No idea.” He saw something else, too—the foliage had been disturbed. “I think there’s also a trail here,” he said. Rising, he followed it deeper into the brush.
He didn’t have to go far, maybe twenty meters. “Found it!”
Tea and Taj were only a few steps behind. They stopped when they saw what lay at Zack’s feet. “Oh, there it is.”
The white EVA suit and its bulky backpack lay in a clearing like a fallen soldier. It bore the clear signs of severe damage: three huge gashes across its front, one of them so deep it effectively tore the garment in half.
Zack touched the jagged tears, the multilayered fabric thick in his fingers. It took a lot of strength to just slice through a suit like this.
“This,” Tea said. “is extremely fucking bizarre.”
“Okay,” Zack said, “if Pogo’s body is still here . . . who’s that red-haired naked guy?”
“Is it possible that what Camilla saw was an entirely different revived being?” Taj said.
“It has to be!” Tea said. “It’s not the same at all! Megan and Camilla’s bodies weren’t here!”
“Right and right,” Zack said. “But it’s logical that there might be some commonality between these revivals.” He indicated the discarded suit. “I mean, look at the evidence.”
Taj wiggled an index finger, reminding Zack of a college professor. “I think this entire world consists of molecular machines or whatever you want to call them. Everything that enters this environment is nothing but fuel or materials to be reassembled, if needed. Everything that you see can become anything its designers want.”
Tea allowed herself to join in the speculation. “Even the ice and snow on the surface . . .” She looked alarmed. “Have we ingested anything?”