FSF, September-October 2010 Read online

  "I see. And you don't mind?"

  Axel shook his head. “Space Guys might be real busy. Besides, I like to tell them stuff because I have to think about what's happening and a lot of times I don't think about stuff enough."

  Doc tipped his head down in a brief nod. “It's good to think about things sometimes."

  Axel leaned forward as if to confide something of importance in softer tones, but in his full voice announced, “It is! Thinking is good if you're not doing other stuff!"

  "Indeed. But speaking of ‘other stuff,’ I believe that Bronte and Kara are about to start reading to Hetman in the library."

  "Hey!” Axel brought himself upright, forearms outstretched, in a manner that would have met Agnes's strongest reproval. “And I gotta ask Hetman something after they finish!"

  "And you will wait this time until they're really finished reading, won't you?"

  "Yes! Yes! I promise! Let's go!” Axel was already on the second step of the plastic stairs.

  "You go on, my friend. I'll catch up with you momentarily."

  Axel charged down the plastic stairs like nothing either quadruped or biped, but more like some multi-limbed piece of stair-descending machinery whose sole purpose was to run down stairs as quickly as possible. At the bottom, he called out, “See you in a minute!” and instantly transformed into a piece of floor-running machinery, expertly balanced.

  Doc glanced at him, knowing it would be more, much more, than a minute before he could catch up, and turned to the computer screen.

  "Reggie, if I may beg a moment of your time."

  The Reggie icon on the screen shifted from profile to face-forward and increased in size until Doc could look into the serene, attentive black eyes of the green sea-serpent-whatever thing.

  "Reggie is ready."

  "Thank you. I was wondering just now what the chances are, let's say, of our friend Axel's weekly messages to his space friends being—well, intercepted.” Doc didn't ask by whom and he didn't suggest why anyone would want to intercept a message from Axel. “I just want to know if it's possible."

  "Axel's messages are sent from Reggie in an encrypted form to the Mount Herrmann radio telescope. For security protocols, the Mount Herrmann team is required to see a decrypted message, but afterward they send the message as it was initially received."

  "That would be the weak link, then."

  "The decrypting of the message is not technically an interception,” Reggie reminded Doc. “It is merely a protocol. It is possible for a decrypted message to move through the Mount Herrmann system unviewed."

  "But if someone wished to view the message—"

  "It could be viewed and read by any member of the Mount Herrmann staff."

  "I see."

  "Reggie needs to remind you that such a reading does not constitute an interception."

  "I understand, Reggie. But if an employee of this radio telescope were to be approached by someone, or by some organization—"

  "That would, by your definition, constitute an interception."

  "So it is possible."

  "It is possible."

  "Thank you, my friend."

  "It is also possible that a person or persons would have the ability to decrypt the message en route to Mount Herrmann. It is also possible that a person or persons could intercept and decrypt the message while it is being sent to its destination."

  "Possible, but not probable, I venture to guess."

  "Reggiesystems encryptions have to this date not been decoded by anyone other than the acknowledged recipients."

  "To your knowledge."

  "To Reggie's knowledge,” the computer confirmed.

  "Many thanks to you, good Reggie.” He smiled at the icon and turned to the plastic stairs.

  "Oh, one more thing.” Doc halted and looked at the screen with a reluctant, slightly embarrassed expression. “These financial matters are quite beyond me, but I'm sure you're quite familiar with the share portfolio of the C. M. Willis Trust."

  The Reggie icon blipped away for no more than a fraction of an eyeblink, as if needing to disappear and retrieve the information Doc was requesting.

  "The C. M. Willis Trust, managed by the firm of Moore and McCabe for the benefit of—"

  "Yes, thank you. I would be very grateful if you could inform Moore and McCabe they have permission to acquire any loose shares of Biomatia currently on the market. They may use the funds set aside for such purposes in the Anatole Fortier index fund."

  "The message is on its way."

  Doc bowed graciously, dipping a little more to the left than he intended until he caught his balance.

  "Again, my thanks. I am a cautious investor, but I like to think I'm something more than a commodity."

  He turned around to make the descent from the table in his usual slow, careful fashion and make his way to the library—except that a small brown sauropod stood between him and the stairs. A very small sauropod—small enough to fit into a human's open hand.

  Geraldine.

  Doc's weight seemed to shift all to his left side as he felt a jolt. His mouth opened, but the delay between the motion and any words escaping from him was extended.

  "Good afternoon—I didn't hear you—” But no one ever did. There were times Geraldine seemed to appear out of nowhere. Little ones insisted they had seen her levitate and Doc, though doubtful, never seriously disputed them.

  Geraldine, as usual, smiled. Many found her smile at the least unsettling, at worst terrifying. It had an air of omniscience to it—a sense that its owner was always a few moves ahead of you.

  In a voice so quiet you could never be certain you were really hearing it or only imagining you did, she exaggerated the space between each word, “Are you stupid?"

  Doc took no offense. Geraldine said this to everyone, as much as if it were a greeting as an inquiry.

  "Yes, Geraldine. At heart I am a profoundly stupid being. But were I any less stupid I wouldn't know myself for what I am."

  Geraldine smiled but didn't reply.

  "Abby! Ab-by! Hi!” Ross shouted from the center of the room. He listened to the voice of the traffic reporter and sucked on his parsnip.

  "Is there any way,” Doc asked Geraldine, “at the moment, I am being more stupid than usual?"

  She said nothing but shifted her small head to stare at the screen. Doc glanced back to see if the Reggie icon was still there or had gone into hiding. Reggie was visible, slightly less inscrutable than the brown sauropod, but when Doc looked back to where Geraldine had been standing she was gone.

  "Did you—?” Doc started to say to the Reggie icon, but to his relief he saw Geraldine quickly heading across the floor to the library.

  "At least,” Doc whispered, taking careful notice of the rapid movement of Geraldine's tiny legs, “she isn't levitating."

  * * * *

  "Axel, please!” Kara lowered her long neck and whispered sternly in Axel's ear. Her first warning, a curt “Shhhh!” was briefly heeded, but as Bronte read a passage where the heroine of the story says, “'I—I can't help making up things,'” Axel had to say, “Yes!"

  "Sorry sorry sorry!” He tried to squeeze his voice down to a whisper but the effort was about as successful as pushing a rock through a straw.

  "Don't interrupt!” Kara lowered her head as if preparing to send Axel out of the library with a strong nudge. A third warning would be all he would get.

  Bronte, reading from the book propped up against a stool, paused only briefly to glance back, plaintive but insistent. Guinevere, the tiny eggling standing beside Bronte, also looked back, serene and curious.

  Axel's jaws remained far open, as if ready to whisper “Sorry!” again. Kara lowered her head and assumed a “butting” posture, successfully halting any further utterances. He shifted his weight impatiently from foot to foot, as if waiting to use the litter room, laboring to calm himself by staring at the walls of books.

  The library was a large, well-lighted room furnished with
a dark oak desk, a worktable, and several comfortable chairs. At one end was a set of tall French windows that faced out toward the front yard. Hetman liked to have his bassinet-sized bed rolled over to the window at that time of day. He couldn't feel the heat of the sun, as he did in the morning (the windows faced eastward) but he claimed he could feel the light on a good afternoon.

  Hetman's condition—limbless, eyeless, his tail crushed and twisted—permitted him few pleasures. Time can be hard on a toy (though rarely as hard as a toy's former owner, or the owner's parents, or nature—when the toys were abandoned). Of those few, none meant more to him than to hear stories read aloud. Recorded books were certainly available, but to hear a real voice, coming from someone in the room—well, it was more immediate, more vital.

  At first, Tom had done the reading. Bronte and Kara didn't mind taking over for him. Not simply because they often, though not always, enjoyed the stories they read, but for them reading was an active pursuit. And it was communal—about two dozen saurs gathered around for every reading, sometimes more.

  Diogenes selected the books and was the unofficial librarian, assisted by Hubert. The two tyrannosaurs each stood over a meter tall. With the aid of a stool and a stepladder they could reach even the highest shelves of the library.

  Many saurs loved to look at the books, even the ones who might not have been able to read, or simply chose not to. Some liked the illustrations; some liked the smell of the paper and ink; some liked the colophons, historiated initials and typography; and some just liked to watch “Dio” and Hubert bring them the books, scaling the shelves like some sort of biblio-mountaineers, pulling out requested volumes and returning others. The two applied themselves industriously and without complaint.

  Hetman's taste in books usually ran to tales of heroes and great deeds: Dumas, Ariosto, Sienkiewicz, Tolstoy, Hugo. Bronte and Kara had taken on Shakespeare several times, reading various parts between them, and they struggled but persevered once on a reading of Huckleberry Finn.

  Not long before, Diogenes had chosen a book that he thought was a translation of Homer: Ulysses, by James Joyce.

  The mistake was quickly discovered, but Hetman insisted that Bronte and Kara continue reading the book. Hetman said that something about young Mr. Stephen Dedalus, Mr. Leopold Bloom, and his wife Molly were effectively heroic in their own ways.

  Heroically, in their own way, Bronte and Kara maneuvered through the novel and all its difficult passages.

  When Bronte at last reached the final words, “...yes I said yes I will Yes,” the gathered saurs—some of whom had stayed with the story from the very first page in spite of finding most of it incomprehensible—shouted “Yes!” with her.

  Hetman, in his deep, raspy voice, concluded their odyssey by saying, “Perhaps we should find something shorter to read next. And something a bit more—conventional."

  All the gathered saurs replied, “YES!"

  Diogenes chose—thinking perhaps of Bronte's eggling, Guinevere, the first saur ever to be hatched in the house—a book called A Little Princess. There were no battles in the story, no cavalry charges or stands at the barricades, but Hetman found the little girl, Sara Crewe, heroic: motherless, then fatherless, losing her status and descending into poverty.

  The saurs who listened with him also liked Sara, which was unusual: they were not accustomed to sympathizing with human children in any story. But Sara and her friends struck them as different. It may have been that Sara seemed to have an innate sense of decency and justice, which they found at best uncommon.

  Perhaps the reason was even simpler: Sara spoke to her doll, Emily. She was a human who respected her toys, and that was a quality that nearly any saur could appreciate.

  Even Jean-Claude and Pierrot—two tyrannosaurs whose attention could rarely be diverted from the catalog of the Idaho Steak Ranch—sympathized with Sara's hunger in her cold, dark attic room.

  "If I had a hamburger,” Jean-Claude whispered as they listened to Bronte reading, “I'd give her some."

  "If I had a hamburger,” Pierrot replied, “I'd give her...well, the story says she likes buns."

  The saurs listened intently. Axel liked the name Sara had given the rat who lived in the walls, Melchisedec. Silently, he moved his jaws, trying out each syllable, closing them for the “em” sound, open for the vowel, tongue to the palate to make the “k,” pressing the air through the tiny passage he formed to make the little hiss—the further he got with the name the less he imagined the rat as a rat and more like a little one: hairy and dirty, with bigger and sharper teeth, but with a little one's eyes.

  Hubert picked up a great slab of a leather-bound atlas and slipped it back onto one of the lower shelves, so carefully Axel had to watch and marvel at the precision—and the silence.

  Diogenes, close by, carried a volume of Tristram Shandy from the reading table and stopped, momentarily lost in Bronte's reading.

  She had reached the part where Sara explains to her friend that she is pretending she's a prisoner in the Bastille, tapping on the wall to communicate with the occupant of the adjacent cell.

  "'Oh Sara!’ she whispered joyfully. ‘It is like a story!'” Bronte read, capturing the exhilaration of Sara's companion.

  "'It is a story,’ said Sara. ‘Everything is a story. You are a story—I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story.’”

  "A story!” Axel whispered, just as Tristram Shandy slipped from Diogenes's forepaw. It fell to the floor with a loud, sharp slap.

  Fortunately, no little ones were beneath the fallen book. The few who stood close by squeaked and quickly backed away.

  Axel didn't notice that Bronte had stopped reading as Diogenes's face twisted with a sudden spasm. All he could see was Dio and all he could hear was an agonized grunt.

  Hubert raced over to him, but Dio's left leg was already buckling.

  "Get back!” Hubert shouted to the little ones as Diogenes made a vain effort to balance himself against the reading table before dropping to the floor on his right side.

  The little ones squealed and called out Dio's name as Hubert bent over him.

  "Diogenes!” he whispered as he lifted his friend's head. “What—?"

  "Don't—let the little ones see.” His gaze became very still.

  Axel's first impulse was to run up to Dio, but he couldn't move—couldn't stop watching.

  "Run upstairs!” Bronte said to Axel. “Get Tom! Hurry!"

  But Axel could only stand there, jaws open.

  "Axel! Please!"

  "Go!” Kara shifted her hind legs and smacked him with her tail.

  He jumped into motion and ran for the stairs with all his considerable speed, shouting, “Tom! Tom! Dio is hurt!"

  Tom must have heard the commotion. He was standing in the doorway to his office by the time Axel arrived upstairs.

  "Tom! Tom!"

  "What is it?"

  "It's Dio! He fell down! He dropped the book and then he fell down!"

  Tom was already reaching for something in the closet. “I'll be right down!” He took out what looked like a small pair of paddles and a slim plastic box, then tucked a metal canister under his arm.

  "Is Dio sick?"

  "I don't know.” He took a cone-shaped piece of plastic from the closet.

  "Can we help him?"

  Tom dialed his phone. “We're going to try."

  Axel kept outrunning Tom and running back, as if everything in the world were running too slowly.

  "Margaret?” Tom spoke into the phone. “Can you get here right away? It's Dio."

  Tom walked faster after he said, “She's on the way,” but Axel still had to run back to him two more times, like he thought Tom might have lost his way and had to be shown where the library was.

  Downstairs, the saurs were already gathered around in the library or making their way there. Bronte and Kara tried to keep them back as Hubert hunched over Diogenes, administering a sort of CPR, pressing his chest with the digits of his forepaws.
/>   "Is he breathing?” Tom knelt down next to Dio and unraveled the wires of his portable defibrillator.

  Hubert shook his head.

  "Can you feel a pulse?"

  "No."

  "Let's try to get him on his back."

  These were no simple directions. A theropod has a very narrow back and is not easily balanced. But they worked at it as best they could.

  They tried the CPR, then the canister of oxygen Tom had brought with him. He fitted the cone-shaped mask over Dio's jaws but they still couldn't get a pulse.

  With defibrillation, Dio's body jerked with the first two jolts, but the effect lessened after each try.

  The two kept at it—the CPR, then the defibrillation—until both were visibly exhausted.

  When Dr. Margaret arrived, Tom was soaked with his own perspiration. Hubert's right leg trembled as he refitted the oxygen mask over Dio's snout.

  "Tom,” she said, but he kept working.

  "Tom!"

  Tom didn't, couldn't, hear.

  Dr. Margaret put down her medical bag and knelt next to Tom and Hubert. She placed her hand on the oxygen mask, shook her head at Hubert, and removed it. She touched Tom's shoulder gently and shook her head at him as well.

  "He's gone."

  A chunk of parsnip—with tiny lengthwise grooves—dropped to the floor and rolled until it came to rest against Baraboo Bob's tail.

  Axel saw all this, and with the doctor's words felt himself falling as if the floor and the ceiling had at once disappeared and he was under no power but gravity's. In another circumstance this would have been the greatest thrill to him, but at present gravity meant nothing but emptiness and coldness and an unrelentingly indifferent scrutiny.

  The saurs broke their silence in one collective sob but it only added to Axel's sense of being thrown to the winds.

  Hermione, an apatosaur standing next to Hetman's bed, whispered up to him, “Hetman! Diogenes! He's—"

  "I know,” said Hetman. “I think I felt the life flee the room. It's darker now, isn't it?"

  A short while had passed since Bronte had stopped reading, but autumn light withdraws quickly. Everyone seemed to feel it, humans and saurs. The cries and sobs receded and the darkness moved in a little further.