On The Surface Tension Page 7

  He was unable to gain much distance on her, and within a minute she was running up a wooden ramp into a wooden walkway among the lower branches of the trees. Jeremy did not hesitate—he started up the ramp after her.

  At the top of the ramp, the woman pulled on the ends of the cords holding up the ramp, and it fell to the ground, Jeremy along with it.

  He fell into the soft sand, uninjured, and immediately regained his feet. The woman was on the wooden walkway above, out of reach, regarding him.

  “Leave me alone,” she scolded. “If you don’t get out of here I’ll call the men and they’ll come and kill you and eat you.”

  Jeremy regarded her with a wolfish grin. “Don’t worry, I don’t want you or your fruit. I just want the cordage.”

  She glowered at him. “We worked hard to make that. Leave it be.”

  He started untying the cordage from the wooden walkway.

  “What do you want that for?” she asked, growing curious.

  “I’m going to make something to kill those scorpions with.”

  She sat cross-legged and started eating a piece of fruit.

  Jeremy recovered several long lengths of cordage, which had been twisted from some kind of plant fibers. It was strong and pliable.

  “You can’t kill them. There is nothing hard enough to get through their hides.”

  “I bet there is,” said Jeremy, looking up at her. His eyes followed the wooden walkway, which connected to other walkways and platforms. Other ragged people had noticed them and started moving their way.

  Jeremy recalled Ang’s and the woman’s warnings about their cannibalism and decided it was time to go.

  “Thanks for the rope,” he said, then winked and trotted off down another path. He now had the scorpions and the tree house people to avoid.

  It was growing late in the afternoon. Jeremy decided to find as large a thorn bush patch as he could, like Ang 10 had advised. Before too long, he found one, with several narrow tunnels leading in from several directions into a central hollowed-out area. It appeared that it had been intentionally burrowed out by other humans in the past. Jeremy wiggled in on his belly through the thorns. He wondered whether any other wild people would join him that night, but none came. Perhaps they had been eaten long ago, either by the scorpions or the tree house people. The sand was soft, so he dug it into as comfortable a bed as he could. He longed to brush his teeth. He sniffed his armpit, but the deodorant was still holding up for now. It had only been that morning that he had woken up on Earth, he realized. He could still faintly smell the coconut of his sunscreen. He wondered how long it would take him to fully revert to wild-man status.

  The night passed fitfully; he could not sleep very well. Every rustle of the foliage he imagined to be a giant scorpion trying to get to him.

  Or maybe this hollowed out area is a trap set by the Treehouse People for fresh meat….

  In spite of not being able to sleep deeply, he was able to will himself to rest. He remembered doing the same in boot camp, when the rumors were that the drill instructors were going to wake them in the middle of the night for forced marches and PT.

  Morning came, and Jeremy woke to find his body had been feasted on by sand fleas in the night instead of cannibals. He crawled cautiously out of his thorn hive and foraged for some fruit. He craved protein and decided to try his luck on the beach for shellfish or crab. He gathered his coil of cordage and strode off towards the shore.

  The beach was three or four hundred yards away from the woods. He walked along the shore, looking for the jets of clams or anything else he could forage, keeping an eye on the woods for movement that would indicate a giant scorpion.

  He found a dead crab, and sniffed it hopefully. It appeared fresh enough, so he tore into it hungrily, cutting his hand on the jagged shell. There was not much meat, but he ate it gratefully. Jeremy looked at the cut on his hand, then at the crab shell. It dawned on him that this might be dense enough to pierce scorpion shell, but realized that it was nowhere near large enough to use for that purpose. That line of thought trailed away as he continued his solitary journey along the pounding surf.

  An hour later, his vigilance in looking out for scorpions was rewarded. He saw the dark shape of one far ahead of him on the beach, and realized that he would have to retreat to the woods. He started towards the tree line, glancing over his shoulder periodically to see if the scorpion would give chase. It did not.

  In fact, Jeremy noticed with growing curiosity, the scorpion had not moved. He stopped, peering towards the animal, trying to see what it was up to. Was it digging for clams? Jeremy wondered if he could scavenge a meal from whatever the scorpion had stirred up.

  He inched closer. The scorpion remained motionless. Jeremy approached within twenty yards, then ten. He realized that there were flies buzzing around the beast. With a flood of relief, he realized that it was dead.

  His first thought was of eating…he wondered if there was any good meat on this carcass. He imagined tasting a giant lobster, but the overwhelming stench that assaulted him when he got close cured him of that ambition. He was about to leave, when he remembered his cut hand and the crab shell. A possibility crept into his mind. He located the huge stinger at the back of the segmented tail. It was the perfect size to affix to the end of a shaft as an axe. It was very sharp, black, and hard as obsidian. He broke it off, with some difficulty.

  Jeremy considered the rest of the carcass. He eyed the sharp segments at the end of the scorpion’s legs, and broke off several of them for use as spear heads or axe hafts. They, too, were quite sharp.

  Jeremy walked slowly back towards the trees, with the stinger, legs, and cordage; components for his weaponry.

  “This,” he thought, “is a game-changer.”

  *****

  Ron Golden and Jack Strong chased the gnomes down the mountain. At first, they were able to keep them in sight, but the gnomes quickly gained on them and did not seem to need rest. Soon Ron and Strong were bent over with heaving chests, hands on knees, while the gnomes got farther and farther ahead. Soon they only caught glimpses of their red hats through the rocks and tree trunks far ahead. They jogged after the gnomes when they caught their breaths again, but they were gone.

  “We could just follow their tracks,” Strong suggested hopefully.

  “Do you know anything about tracking?” Ron replied sourly.

  Strong could only shrug.

  “If only Smithson were along. He knows how to do stuff like that,” Ron sighed, hands on hips.

  They actually did find some small footprints after looking carefully for them, and followed them for some time downhill through the woods. After an hour, the ground started to level out more, and the trees started to thin out. The ground became more rocky and the trail harder to follow. Soon the trees thinned out completely, and they found themselves at the top of a rocky slope overlooking a vast wasteland.

  The skies were a dusty brown, and it was hot. The terrain was flat, with random patterns of scrubby vegetation. Dark streaks could have been shadows or ravines. Far across the plain, they noticed a dust devil spinning disjointedly towards them. The wind scoured the ground clean of any tracks.

  “Shit,” Strong said simply.

  They stood at the top of the slope, trying to formulate a plan.

  “We could just set out in a straight line and keep looking,” said Ron, “but if they are going at another angle, every step we take will be getting farther and farther from them.”

  “That, and we have no idea where they are heading for,” said Strong, shaking his head. “Sacred Mountain my ass.”

  “The Sacred Gnome Mountain is straight that way,” said a gravelly voice nearby. Ron and Jack nearly jumped out of their skins and swiveled their heads looking for the source of the voice.

  Sitting with their backs to a large rock nearby were two figures, one short, one tall. They were dressed in cloaks that were colored the same as the rock, which explained why Ron and Strong did not
see them at first. The smaller one was stocky, with long hair and a long, bushy, brown beard. His face was heavily lined, and his eyes glowed like black coals from under bushy brows. His gnarled, strong hand rested on the head of a huge, double-bladed axe.

  The taller of the two was fair-skinned and fair-haired, with refined, handsome features. His ears were slightly pointed. The feathered ends of several arrows extended from what must have been a quiver at his back.

  Ron and Strong stared stupidly at them for several long seconds.

  “An elf and a dwarf traveling together?” whispered Strong.

  “You have read us,” said the taller one with a smile, and stood. “What work are you from?”

  Ron and Jack exchanged glances.

  “What work are we from?” Ron asked.

  It was the elf and the dwarf’s turn to exchange glances.

  “You are not from here,” said the dwarf. “Are you begotten?”

  “That is the second time I’ve heard that term since we’ve come here,” said Ron. “What does it mean?”

  The elf’s eyes narrowed. “Where are you from? How did you get here? Are you dead or dreaming or did you come through magic?”

  Ron debated telling him momentarily, but realized at the moment he had nothing to lose. “We are from Earth. We came here using a…a device that allows us to travel from there to other times and places.”

  “Ahhh…,” said the dwarf. “Technology then. And did the wee gnomes steal your machine?”

  “Well, the part that makes it work,” said Ron. “Did you see which way they went?”

  “You will have great difficulty catching them,” said the elf. “They struck out straight across the Dream Plains.”

  Ron and Strong exchanged glances. “Are those the Dream Plains?” Strong asked, waving his hand at the dusty wasteland.

  “Yesss…,” said the elf confusedly. “You do not know the Dream Plains?”

  “They have no idea where they are,” said the dwarf with dawning realization.

  “How did they decide to come here, then?” the elf asked him.

  “It must have been by mistake. I don’t think they had any idea what this place is,” the dwarf answered.

  “How about you educate us, then,” Ron said.

  The elf and the dwarf exchanged glances.

  “You tell them,” said the dwarf. “I have no tongue for such things.”

  The elf rubbed his chin, looking for somewhere to begin.

  “Your world,” he said after a long pause, “is quite different from here.”

  He said nothing for some time. Ron wondered if he was waiting for a question.

  “Well that was eloquent,” growled the dwarf. “Look, this world was made through the power of awareness collapsing the quantum uncertainty, the wave function, the fuzzy nothingness until something observes it, see? In your world it is done jointly—

  you could say co-created between living beings and their Creator. Here it is made only by the created beings, the sentient awarenesses, either through intentional creation or random dreaming.”

  Ron and Strong stood blinking at him.

  “I’ll try to be plainer,” the dwarf continued. “You know how nothing exists as anything other than a quantum uncertainty cloud until it is observed?”

  “Where is Professor LaGrue when we need him?” whispered Strong.

  “Let’s assume we have heard these principles long ago and do not remember them,” said Ron.

  The dwarf munched his beard with frustration.

  “Allow me,” interrupted the elf. “In your world, assuming nothing exists unless a consciousness observes it, does the moon disappear if nobody is looking at it? Some of your scientists would say ‘yes,’ but those are either the outer fringe or cranks. It doesn’t disappear, of course, but it is not because there is no consciousness collapsing the wave function. There is always a consciousness there to collapse the wave function and bring things into being—if not a human being or other living thing, then God is there to do it. He is infinitely aware in your world, down to the farthest star or tiniest grain of sand. But not so here. We are made by the imaginations of humans and only continue to exist as long as some other human is reading, watching, or remembering us.”

  “You mean, you are actually just book characters?” asked Strong.

  “Yes,” said the dwarf. “We are made, by a writer, and continue to live beyond him because others continue to read him. Others who are made will fade to oblivion when they are forgotten. We are among the lucky who are able to roam this world and travel to other lands from other creations and meet other Made.”

  “You mean,” said Strong, “that not only are you characters from books here, but the worlds from those books too?”

  “Of course,” said the elf. “But that map eventually changes too: As those memories fade, the lands fade too. Maps are in constant need of revision around here. Not only because of memories, but the architecture of the place. You’ll see.”

  “So,” said Strong, waving his hand across the plain, “out there somewhere is Middle-earth? Old England with King Arthur? Sherlock Holmes’s London? Atlantis? And up there are Star Treks and Star Wars? Are they all here? With all their characters?”

  “Yes,” said the elf. “All here, laid out, like a vast, interconnected map. Even the ‘dead’ characters are still around as long as someone is still actively reading or watching or remembering them.”

  “Why would they call this ‘Hell?’” railed Strong.

  The elf and the dwarf exchanged troubled glances.

  “Think about it, laddie,” the dwarf said quietly. “There is no hint of God here. When we fade, we are gone forever. And not only that, we were created by fallible humans; not only is there monstrous evil here in their creations, but whatever good there is can only be what their human creators can imperfectly make. Whereas you, you begotten of other living God-created beings, are parts of that glorious whole! You don’t realize your fortune.”

  “I thought Hell was some place that bad people’s souls go to after they die,” pondered Ron.

  “Oh it is,” said the elf. “But not as disembodied ghosts. And the whole punishment for eternity in a lake of fire business is way over there to the East many days journey. Disembodied ghosts don’t have nerves to suffer pain with, right? But Hell is bigger than that. It takes those souls a while to figure out they can just walk out of that part of it. If a Begotten is so wrapped up in themselves that they create their own little world instead of living in the real one, then that is usually where they choose to remain after they die. They don’t realize that whatever worlds that they or others create cannot possibly compare with the ones that God made. But people don’t just come here after they die. You all die little deaths every night and create little worlds in your dreams. Hence the Dream Plains,” the elf said, pointing across the brown, whirlwind-full plains.

  Ron gazed across the vast plains and the little dust devils that crossed them.

  “You mean,” he said, “that those little tornadoes are dreaming people?”

  The dwarf nodded. “Yes. If you cross the plains in search of your wee gnomes, try to avoid them. You get caught up in whatever dream the dreamer is having. Some are nice, some are not.”

  “The gnomes!” Ron remembered, slapping his forehead. “Where did you say they went? And who the hell are they?”

  “They have been here since the beginning, when God sundered Hell from the original world line. They have their purpose. Their Sacred Mountain is across the plains in that direction. If you cross straight through,” he said, drawing a line in the dirt with the toe of his boot, “in that direction, without veering even a wee bit, you’ll hit it. If you wander off to the right even a little, you’ll hit 20th Century Subdivision Land. Off to the left and you’ll run smack into Pornlandia.”

  “Pornlandia?” mused Strong, eyebrow rising.

  “Believe me,” said the elf, “you don’t want to get stuck there.”

&n
bsp; Ron and Strong stood quietly, not knowing what to say.

  “Well, good luck tracking them down,” the dwarf offered.

  “Hey, you two feel like coming along? Helping us?” Ron asked hopefully.

  “Yeah, you have a lot of experience tracking,” added Strong, hoping to make points for remembering their book.

  The elf and dwarf chuckled uncomfortably. “No thanks,” the elf said. “We’re on our own path.”

  “Right. Started at the caves and have lots more of the worlds to see,” added the dwarf. “We’re off to see Arrakis. Here, you might need this,” he added, reaching into his belt behind his back. He produced a small futuristic-looking gun and handed it over to Ron, grip first.

  “Careful, there, laddie!” the dwarf said. “That thing packs a punch. It’s from a Man in Black. Had to trade a variable sword for it.”

  Strong’s eyes widened. “Wow, thanks!”

  “Good luck to you,” said the elf, and the two of them walked resolutely off in the direction Ron and Strong had come from.

  “I have a feeling we will wish we did a better job of convincing them to come along and help us,” Ron mused, looking across the dusty plains with the brown skies. There were now more whirlwinds, they noticed, that came and went. Some lasted only a brief time; others took several minutes to disperse.

  They looked carefully at the arrow the dwarf had drawn with his foot and tried to find some landmark across the plains that they could aim for, but there was nothing that they could discern in that direction but more brown sky. They decided to strike out across the plain as best they could and look for a landmark that they could work their way towards as soon as possible.

  They were already tired when they started. The dusty ground was hard going, and occasionally they ran into deep ravines that had to be circumvented. Once on the other side, they made their best guess as to what direction they had been traveling, but Ron had a sinking suspicion that they were making a hash of it. After several ravines, he also began to suspect that Strong was intentionally angling towards Pornlandia.

  It was after three hours of this that the first whirlwind overcame them. It came suddenly from behind Ron, forming out of nowhere. Before he could react, he felt a rush of wind, and found himself in a room with wooden, curved walls and plank floors. It was lit by a gas lantern, and the floor swayed and rocked. He realized he was on a sailing ship of some kind. The edges of the room faded in and out of blackness, like dreams do. He was not alone. Sitting in an elaborate animal skin and metal framed chair was a tall, thin man, with incredibly long arms and legs. His head was massive, covered with a matted black beard, flecked with foam and spittle. The man’s eye sockets were empty, and a rattling, wet exhalation coughed up from somewhere within the beard. Ron felt that the eyeless sockets somehow sensed him, and were scanning the room for him. A pointed, pale tongue began worming its way out of the beard. Ron realized with a visceral shock that it wasn’t a tongue, but some kind of suckered tentacle. The tentacle disappeared into the hole in the beard, then a black, tarry substance began to ooze out of it. Ron was engulfed in dread, then a hand grabbed him. He screamed, then was pulled out of the dream by Strong.