“Come morning—”
“Wouldn’t find much. It’s exponential.”
“The other exhibits—?”
“Have ways of biting.”
“My three?”
“The only ones that are genuine. The rest kill. You passed the test.”
The implications overwhelmed Jem. The faces on the canvas just now. Visitors dropping by.
“Surely there’d be investigations. Missing person reports.”
“Always are. They find nothing. We have ways.”
“But why? It can’t be just trimming the bush.”
“Much more, Jem. We’re back to words again, see. Names. Ways of saying, seeing. If trees are solar engines exchanging gases, and people are living furnaces, burning away day and night, making more living furnaces, what does that make a carnival like this one? The Heirloom Carnivals? The Sly Carnivals?”
“Not just entertainments, distractions?”
“Try harder. Go deeper?”
“A machine? A device? A means for catching souls? Making a hell on Earth?”
“Too corny. Too clichéd. Harder. Deeper.”
Jem tried to grasp what Mr F. wanted. Completions? Ways of resolving something? He didn’t want to say.
Mr Fleymann read that hesitation. “Ever heard of the face in Skylab’s window?”
“The what?”
“You picked all our space features.”
“A face in Skylab’s window?”
“Our favorite urban myth. Favorite conspiracy theory so far. Too much time on your hands in space. Lots of boredom. Lots of astronaut humour you never hear about. Pranks among the different mission crews. The Skylab 3 crew leaving dummies wearing flight suits for the final Skylab crew to find, stuff like that. Somewhere in there is talk of a face peering in the single wardroom window, Al Bean seeing it but staying mum, figuring it was just a reflection, rogue optics, then Jack Lousma and Owen Garriott seeing it, which later had them quizzing the other crews, but all agreeing to keep it to themselves. No use drawing bad psych ratings, screwing up reselection eligibility or their pensions. But somehow it got round, somehow it became a face peering out, of course, which became the face peering out when the station fell.”
“Skylab Land!”
“Go on, Jem. It’s your pick. Finish it!”
“Where exactly did Skylab land?”
“That’s the way! Let’s have it!”
“We’re in the debris field!”
“Most certainly are. This is where she came down — all the way from Esperance and Balladonia up to where we’re standing right now.”
“Then your spaceman. That getup!”
“Who knows exactly? Parts of the Multiple Docking Adaptor or the Apollo Telescope Mount. Bits of hull, who can say? We’re not about to call NASA and have them verify what’s what.”
“But the faceplate—?”
“Glass burns up pretty quick, Jem. That may not be any part of the actual window.”
“But—”
“Let’s continue, shall we? This is your test, remember. THE MERMAID?”
“That view from space. It can’t be Mer-maid. It has to be Mir-maid, for the Russian space station Mir that came down in the late nineties!”
Mr F. beamed his approval. “Well done. In March 2001, to be exact. Following some interesting mishaps: a fire in February 1997 and a major collision with a supply ship a few months later, temporary loss of contact with the station at the end of 2000. But we miscalculated, didn’t allow for the extent of official efforts to control reentry. She came down in the Pacific east of New Zealand. We only managed to secure the tiniest fragments.”
“Then the ISS in ISSUS! The Issus Trip has to be the ISS, the International Space Station!”
“Bravo, Jem! You’re a true paragon! Worth a thousand drop-ins.” And in his near-manic delight he gestured up to where the imaginary audience watched, the faces on the inside of this largest tent.
And no obligato could keep that thought from Jem’s mind.
“These tents! Your suits! — ” He tried to speak it.
“Oldest tradition among the Heirloom Carnivals, yes. Something worthwhile passed on. Probably comes from the steppes of Russia long ago, but who can say?”
Jem looked up, again saw beyond the terrible glare of the spot to what lay in the spread of shadow: dozens, hundreds of masks, faces, fixed, peering down. Faces on the canvas. Faces made of canvas!
Canvas made of faces!
The display case miniature the bait, a distraction to keep candidates looking down, looking in, looking away. This is what had happened to those who failed in their choices, the uninvited, the unsuccessful ones. Those tents, all deadly, all capable of biting.
This was how the Heirloom Carnivals replenished themselves, added to themselves, repaired, maintained, made new tents, new suits.
Mr Fleymann may have regretted his exuberance, though it seemed that he always revealed how it was like this. “One Sly Carnival specialises in the sinking of great passenger ships. I’m sure you remember a certain White Star Line vessel meeting an iceberg, and can recall a rather more recent disaster off Isola del Giglio. Another works at upsetting Royal Houses and world governments. Our specialty is bringing down balloons, aircraft, and, more recently, space habitats — the first haunted houses ever to be off the planet. A real cachet in that.”
“What becomes of me?”
“We keep you on a bit longer. Use your services again.”
“Again? Why, what have I done?”
“Enabled us, Jem. Given us the power to begin work on our next target. You could be invaluable. Who knows what else you’ll help us do?”
“Unless I guess your secret name. Some do, you said. It’s likely I’ve seen it, you said.”
“Correct. We keep to the rules.”
Everyone had gone still again, holding, waiting.
Jem looked down at the case, at the tiny world contained there, trying to grasp what he’d seen amid the misdirection, the deflections, the wordplay, desperately seeking a Get Out of Jail Free Card, some ultimate name of power that compelled obedience.
Maybe it was in old carnival lore, old circus customs, like “Hey, Rube!”—the old carny cry for calling for help in a fight, a special Mayday. And Mayday itself — a distress call in all kinds of emergencies, from m’aider—come help me! — in French. Things meant things. Words mattered here. Things half-heard. Misdirection.
Like Skylab Land!
The Mermaid!
And Mr Fleymann! Flayman indeed! Power in names.
Mum on the Sofa. Couch Ma! Cauchemar! Nightmare.
And Mally Quinn, for heaven’s sake! How could he have missed it? Mallequin! Mannequin!
He looked down at the glare and the dazzle, the tiny world, at everything the world was here. The only world.
Corpse Rose!
Could it be? Of course.
That name! That name of power!
That was it! He knew it.
He said it out loud, blurted it, said it a second time.
“Dammit!” someone said, possibly Mally.
“Bugger!” muttered someone else.
Mr F.’s grin held, but the light went out of it like sand sliding around stones. Just the grimace remained, leached and horrid. Finally it relaxed, broke apart.
“Well played, Jem. But no matter. You’ve set us on our way. Tomorrow, the International Space Station will have a small but annoying toilet blockage, and one of its lesser windows will get the first signs of pitting. Nothing major yet, and a bit theatrical, I know, but it made the folks in Washington and Moscow very nervous when those faces appeared in their station windows. More nations involved with the ISS. Harder to hush up. It’s time to bring the house down, but we’ll make sure it’s haunted first.”