Seeklight

Daenek nodded, letting his facial muscles relax and his own features reform. He watched as Rennie gave Uncle Goforth some more money. In his own mind he was brooding, wishing they were already back aboard the caravan and moving again, towards that inevitable point where the past would reveal itself at last. He wondered if the time would come when his own face could say who he was, without shame or hiding.

A steam whistle blew, its white plume feathering into the air from above the caravan’s bridge. Leaning against the guardrail, Daenek could feel the engines’ vibration increase. With a noise almost below his hearing the caravan shifted slightly as the power was transmitted to the treads beneath.

“Two years,” he mused, resting his chin on his hands. Far below, the mertzer village began to slowly move away. The women and children stood clustered at the edge of the buildings, silently watching their husbands and fathers leaving. No one waved, either from the village or aboard the caravan.

“Less than that,” said Rennie. She was leaning with her back against the rail, eating a fruit. She turned her head slightly and spat a seed out over the side. “We’ve been here six months already.”

“It’s still a long time.” The faces at the village’s edge were receding faster as the caravan’s speed increased. Daenek had already begun to alter his own face, following Uncle Goforth’s instructions.

“So learn some patience.” She tossed the core of the fruit over her shoulder. “It’s a virtue.”

Chapter XIII

It must be nearly a year now, thought Daenek, since the old man showed me how. He studied in the bathroom mirror the final alteration upon his face. The mask was complete now. His own had to be summoned with a conscious effort, so well practiced were the muscles. The face in the mirror was the one with which he awoke.

He heard the door from the corridor open. Looking into their sleeping quarters, he saw Rennie gesture to him.

“Hey,” she said, “come on topside. Wait ’til you see this village we’re at.”

“What’s so special about it?” he said.

“Just come on up and see it.”

He followed her up the stairs and onto the deck. Nearly all the mertzers aboard the caravan were crowded together at the rail.

After he and Rennie had jostled for a good position, it took a few seconds before he saw what the others were remarking upon.

The village was deserted. Daenek gripped the deck’s guardrail and gazed down into the distance. Only a few scraps of debris, propelled by the wind, moved in the narrow streets. The wooden buildings sagged beneath their mantle of dust. In the tiny village square a wagon lay collapsed on its side, a wheelless spoke pointing up to the blank sky.

“What did they used to do here?” said Daenek. He squinted into the sun’s overlay of glare.

“How should I know?” Rennie leaned against the rail and spat.

“Factory workers, I guess. Look over there.”

Daenek followed the direction of her hand and saw the dark, rectangular shapes of the buildings massed at the far side of the village. For a moment he wondered what the villagers had produced inside their factory; then, which had given out first, the machines inside or the people tending them. Victims of time, he thought grimly.

“Well, what happens now?” Daenek looked around at the other mertzers clustered at the guardrail. The caravan had pulled up to the edge of the village only a few minutes ago. The sounds of the rest of the convoy could be heard in the distance as they slowly approached the former loading area.

“What it means,” said one of the other men to one side of Daenek, “is less work for the cargo-handlers, that’s for sure.”

Another man farther down the rail nodded. “We’ll just rest up for the night, and then be on our way to the next village. And the navigators can cross this one off their maps, just like the others that are this way.”

“The others?” Daenek leaned over the rail and looked at the man who had spoken. “You mean there’s more villages than this one, where everyone’s just walked away?”

“Well, sure.” The man looked around himself at the others who nodded in confirmation. “Seems like every run we make we always find at least one village where they all just packed it in.

Gave it all up, that’s what they do. Up into the hills, digging up roots to eat, just like animals.”

Daenek’s spine seemed to chill with a dismayed horror.

Giving up, he thought. Not the fight to survive. But to stay human.

He looked away from the mertzers at the guardrail and back towards the abandoned village. A group of three mertzers had emerged from among the shabby buildings and were returning to the caravan. One of them cupped his hands to his mouth. His shout was faint and smeared by the wind. “They’re all gone.

There’s nothing here.”

“Well,” said Rennie, pushing herself away from the rail. “Too bad for them, I guess.”