“We saw,” she said, “jack, it wasn’t your fault.”
I shook her off and walked a few paces, keeping my eyes fixed on the ground. I didn’t trust myself enough for eye contact, and at that stage I didn’t have the wit to consider that Nearly might be hurting too. She’d liked Suej; liked her very much.
“Maybe it was meant to-be,” she continued quietly, rubbing life back into her wrists. “Maybe it was better that way. I mean, if someone wanted her that bad it can only be because they needed her for parts.”
“Do you know where the others are?” I said brusquely. “David, Jenny?”
“Jenny’s been used already,” Vinaldi said, and I looked up to see him standing a few yards away. The right side of his face was one Targe bruise, and he was standing awkwardly. I guess he and Yhandim had discussed their unfinished business. He continued talking with the air of someone who knew he had bad news that had to be gotten over with. “Yhandim told us. They managed to keep her twin alive until she was found, and she was operated on immediately, the day Mal got killed. There was nothing left. The one called David has been taken to another Farm someplace. Where, I don’t know. They incinerated Mal’s body. The other two spares are dead. Their owners wouldn’t pay the ransom, so Yhandim got to kill them. He sounded pretty psyched about that.”
I barely heard the last few sentences. I didn’t know what to say, what to think, where to go, what to do. There didn’t seem anything large enough, any action sufficiently extreme or futile to express what was going through my head. It was less than a week since we had left the Farm, the spares scared out of their wits but hopeful that they might be able to have a life, become “proper people.” I brought five and a half human beings out of the womb and into the world, and now they were all dead—except perhaps David, who had been taken God knows where to be thrown back into a tunnel and wait for the knife.
That’s what I’d given them. That’s what their association with Jack Randall, Esquire had brought into their lives, and I’d only been trying to do the right thing. They say Jesus loves me, and I guess I can believe it. I’ve had weirder relationships—or as weird, possibly. My dad was pretty mean to me sometimes. But not as mean, I don’t think, and the highs were better too. Maybe Jesus does love me, but sometimes I wonder whether it isn’t time for a trial separation.
And this other guy, God—Him I have a real problem with. Someone needs to tell Him to keep His eyes on the fucking road.
“Jack, don’t beat yourself up over this,” Vinaldi said. “I say that partly because you can’t blame yourself for everything, and partly because you going nonlinear is going to be no help to us in what is still a far from ideal situation.”
“How come you’re still alive?” I asked. “How come Yhandim didn’t just whack you?”
Vinaldi shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think things are getting fucked up for those guys. When they came through and grabbed me, first they chased you for a while—and by the way, you can move when you have to, I’m impressed—then they brought me here and tied me to a tree. The guys had a quiet couple of words with me about the fact I got out of The Gap back then and they didn’t, and they slapped Nearly around a little, like they felt it was expected of them, but that was it.”
“They spent most of the time in a huddle over there,” Nearly said. “There was a lot of shouting.”
“They didn’t do anything else to you?” I asked her.
“No. I think maybe sex isn’t Yhandim’s core interest in life, you know what I’m saying? They just sat there and looked pissed.”
“Maybe Maxen’s fucking them around,” I said.
Vinaldi nodded. “Things are going sour in Psychoville, and I think they had to bring you in as part of the deal.”
“Why?” Nearly asked, turning to me. “They’ve got all the spares. What is this guy’s problem with you?”
“Jack knows,” Vinaldi said. “Don’t you?”
I glared at him and avoided Nearly’s eyes. The gunship was cruising slowly into the clearing, which gave me something to look at. Ratchet set it down gently in the center, and extruded the two supports which kept it upright.
Vinaldi looked at the gunship for a while and then laughed, a sound not often heard in The Gap. He shook his head admiringly.
“I have to admit I was kind of expecting I’d see you again, Jack, and sooner rather than later, but shit—that’s really overachieving. How did you manage to find a gunship, get it working, and then fly the fucking thing?”
“You know my methods,” I said. “Brute, dumb luck.”
Vinaldi didn’t look convinced, but I had nothing else to offer.
“What do we do now?” Nearly asked. “I mean, it’s been a blast and all but I’d really like to get the hell out of here.”
“I’ve no idea,” I said. “We can either stay here and have a bad time, or we can have one somewhere else. It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me.”
“Jack,” said a voice. Ratchet’s. It was relayed from an external speaker on the gunship, the kind usually employed to inform villagers that they were about to be destroyed.
I didn’t blame Ratchet at all for what had happened, and strove to keep my voice calm. “Yes?” I said.
“I can get you out,” he announced, quietly.
“What? How?”
“This gunship is equipped with partial sideslipping capability. They all were—in case the brass needed to get out in a hurry.”
“Yeah,” Vinaldi muttered in the background. “That figures.”
“It’s not very powerful,” Ratchet continued, “but if you know where you got in we can probably still get out that way.”
“We don’t need the full sideslip gear?”
“No. A semblance of cat-ness is programmed into me. It’s only an approximation—that’s why we need a place where it’s happened recently. We should really go as soon as possible.”
“What are we waiting for?” said Nearly, and started climbing the ladder. Vinaldi followed her, but I remained outside.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Ratchet said quietly.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “Just part of the whole big fuck up.” I looked away for a moment, at the trees, the blue light, the strange world around us, and I wondered again if something had changed. Though I felt very sad, and depressed, and angry, for once I didn’t feel frightened. Maybe there wasn’t any room left in my head.
“It didn’t end as you would have wanted,” he said, suddenly. “But it was still the right thing to do. You did the best you could for the spares, Jack. Sometimes that has to be enough.”
“Thanks, but why are you telling me this? We’re going to have years to Monday-morning-quarterback this one.”
“No,” said Ratchet. “We aren’t. I’m going to have to pilot this ship right up to the last second. This time it’s really good bye.”
Great, I thought, as I climbed wearily up the ladder. At this rate, in a couple more days there wouldn’t be anyone left for me to lose.
A last flickering run in the forest; through endless night, past never-ending trees, buried deep under a sky I’d never seen. I let Vinaldi perch on the pilot seat for the journey, and sat next to Nearly in the back row of the passenger section. None of us spoke, but instead looked out of the window or stared straight ahead into whatever was coming next.
After a while I pulled my hand out of my pocket, found Nearly’s, and held it. She looked at me with surprise, then gripped my hand tightly in return.
I didn’t know what I meant, what was being said. Perhaps nothing, but it felt better that way.
When Ratchet told us we were nearing our entrance point I went to the control panel. I pointed out the precise spot. It wasn’t hard to find: There was still a lingering shadow cast by the truck in the other world.