FSF, September-October 2010 Page 12

  Doc looked over and saw Axel at the foot of the table where Dio lay. Tom noticed, turning around to retrieve Axel before he attempted to climb up onto the table on his own.

  "But, but—I gotta see!” Axel said as Tom placed him on the desk next to Doc.

  "My good friend,” Doc said, “we'd better see him together. You'll understand. Just be patient."

  Doc went on with his story.

  "The boy would awake from his nightmare and hold me tightly. ‘Doc! Doc! The shadow man is here!’”

  Axel, staring at the table, whispered “Shadow guy!"

  "And I would tell him not to be afraid, that I would keep the shadow man away."

  Doc looked up at Tom. “It was a lie, but a lie I wanted to believe. And I know, had there been some way to trade my life for his I might have done so. But the ‘fiercest predator ever to have walked the earth’ is no match for a degenerative disease."

  "The Shadow Guy got him?” Axel turned to Doc, whose heavy eyelids rose enough to reveal the deep auburn color of his irises.

  "His last words were, ‘Doc! Help! They're coming!’ They are coming, he said—the shadow thing apparently brought reinforcements.” He lowered his brows and took a deep breath. “I told you the child had a good imagination.

  "But I told him—promised him—I would protect him. And I was helpless. The boy's grandmother took me on afterward and again, as she grew ill, I was helpless."

  "The Shadow Guy again,” said Axel.

  Doc nodded. “At least I made no promises to her. She knew I could barely protect myself."

  Doc held out his forepaw to Tom. “Forgive me for burdening you with this tedious memoir. It's by way of saying—"

  Tom nodded and took the offered forepaw between his index finger and thumb.

  The phone chirped again. Its suddenness and volume shook all three.

  Axel, frozen in a startled posture, looked at the phone and asked, “The Shadow Guy doesn't, you know, call, does he?"

  Tom wouldn't answer at first, but Doc pointed to the phone and said, “Perhaps—"

  Tom picked up the handset.

  "The origin of this call—"

  "Accept.” He pressed the button for “speaker” so they all could hear the man with the professional voice, now somewhat more insistent, starting in without “hello” or introduction.

  "It's not as if you wouldn't be handsomely compensated, Tom. You could go anywhere. Do anything. Be anything. Is this any kind of life you have now? All day, all night, with little human contact. Spending your days with—with toys."

  "He sounds like my mother,” Tom whispered.

  "A tissue sample,” the voice continued. “A few drops of blood, or any fluid. And from that sample might come the cure for a fatal disease. Or we might increase human longevity twenty, thirty years. Isn't it worth those few little drops to make the world a better place?"

  Tom looked at Doc, and Doc looked up at him, then at the phone, extending a digit of his forepaw to the phone speaker.

  "Shall I?"

  "Be my guest."

  "My dear sir,” Doc said into the phone, “I too would like to make the world a better place."

  The voice at the other end did not reply.

  "Not that I am interested in compensation,” Doc continued. “Nor are you, I'm certain. Nor the corporation you represent. I know that for the benefit of humanity your cures and vaccines would be distributed to all the corners of the world, and to all its creatures without regard to profit or even price."

  At the other end—no reply.

  "And in the pursuit of such noble goals, my dear sir, wouldn't it be more appropriate to negotiate with the donors themselves? Here I am, sir. Will you ask me if I wish to contribute my tissue, a few drops of my blood, or any other fluid?"

  They heard the loud click of the phone disconnecting.

  Doc smiled sadly at Tom. “They never want to speak to us, do they?"

  Tom took Doc's forepaw again. “Thanks."

  "Thank you, my friend. I think I enjoyed that."

  But then Doc looked at Axel, who couldn't stop looking at the table, and Dio.

  Doc sighed again. “Do you really want to see him?"

  Axel nodded.

  Doc looked at Tom. “Forgive my poor judgment. For a moment I thought—or perhaps I didn't—"

  "We're here,” said Tom. “I don't think we can turn him back now."

  "Very well.” Doc put his forepaw on Axel's back.

  Tom picked them up gently and carried them over to the table. He could feel Axel tremble, and as he set them down he looked at the long scar down Axel's back. It was long healed but, he thought, how can you say a scar is ever healed?

  All three of them looked at the still body—more still, it seemed, than anything they had ever seen.

  They each looked at the stricken, frozen face of Diogenes, each reminded of previous encounters, each for the moment overwhelmed by the frailty of living things, like little paper boats lost in a storm.

  It may be that no one felt the storm more than Axel. He was the only one of the three who spoke. He looked into Dio's eyes and said, “Lancelot!” as if it were something he'd forgotten in the normal rush of things—until now.

  And when he couldn't look anymore he put his head down, so the word came out muffled when he spoke it.

  He said, “No!"

  * * * *

  A Miss Christine Wonderleigh arrived in an unmarked van. She was short and pear-shaped, with close-cropped graying hair betraying a youthful face. She dressed with no funereal formality, in canvas slacks and a flannel shirt. And she carried with her a satchel that resembled a plumber's toolcase.

  When she saw Diogenes on the table, she made a soft moan-like sound of exclamation, then quickly apologized to Tom.

  "I loved dinosaurs when I was a kid,” she said.

  She reached for a spot just under Dio's neck and worked her fingers like a masseuse until the pained expression on the saur's visage relaxed. She pressed his eyelids down and closed his jaws firmly, so that Dio looked much more in repose.

  "That looks better, doesn't it?"

  Tom nodded. “I suppose Susan Leahy already explained to you—"

  "That he can't be moved from the premises? Yes, my partner and I understand all about that."

  "There are people—"

  "I've already been approached by those ‘people,'” Miss Wonderleigh told him. “And yes, they did offer us money. No, we weren't interested."

  She put her hands on her hips and looked at Dio again. “I have a child's coffin that would suit him perfectly. We can place him on his right side, just as he is now. We'll need to curl his tail a bit and we'll bring those forepaws up to his chest before the rigor sets in any further."

  She explained to Tom that there was a process currently in use where a body could be prepared for a funeral service without the ordeals of embalming and elaborate cosmetology. They used a kind of fixative, sprayed over the body. She could conduct the procedure right there, within a little airtight tent. Even so, Tom would have to vacate the room for a few hours. The chemicals used in the process were pretty strong.

  "I know it sounds like we're glazing him. I guess we are, in a way. But it suits your needs and under these circumstances, I can't think of a better way. Can you?"

  In the morning, she said, her partner would dig the grave with a backhoe and cover it after the service. They could have a stone in a few days, once he let her know what the inscription would be.

  Tom, betraying for once a token of relief, thanked her.

  "I have to go down to the van and bring back some equipment,” she said.

  "You turned down the offer of money.” Tom opened the door for her. “I wonder why that was."

  Miss Wonderleigh looked up at Tom and pressed her lips together in a thoughtful way. “I can't say. I can't even say why I do this at all. Can you tell me why you do what you're doing?"

  Tom bowed his head. “What I do I don't do very well."
>
  "Not from what Sue Leahy tells me."

  Miss Wonderleigh stepped out of the office and carefully made her way through the crowd of saurs gathered in the hallway. She looked at them all looking up at her and turned back to Tom.

  "She's right, Sue Leahy."

  "About what?"

  "About you.” Then, looking back at the saurs: “And she's right about you, too."

  She bent down and said to the closest saurs, “My partner and I will do the best job we can. We're very sorry for your loss."

  As Miss Wonderleigh made her way to the stairs, Axel looked up at her. He was hoping she was another doctor, like Dr. Margaret, but a doctor who specialized in bringing guys back—who could bring Dio back. As she walked down to the first floor, the light from downstairs cast a long silhouette along the staircase wall—not the silhouette of a small, pear-shaped, short-haired woman. It was something taller, thinner, with exaggerated features in the profile.

  Axel recognized it instantly. “The Shadow Guy!” he whispered.

  The little ones nearby repeated it as if they understood exactly who the Shadow Guy was. They gathered close together until the silhouette disappeared down the stairs.

  * * * *

  Dinner was a disaster. Few of the saurs could eat, and those who did ate very little.

  After dinner wasn't much better. No games. No music. No video. Preston sat at his screen with Elliot and Veronica, putting together a site, with images and videos and whatever pieces of evidence they could find that their friend had existed here. He was supposed to write a little tribute to go at the top, but all he could manage was, “We have lost our dear friend, Diogenes.” It was still too soon to write any more than that.

  Kara glanced ahead at the copy of A Little Princess, still open on the floor by the library window. It wasn't a good idea. A few pages ahead of where she and Bronte left off reading—when Diogenes collapsed—Sara, in her frustration and misery, throws her doll to the floor, breaking its nose. Kara read: “'You are stuffed with sawdust. You never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a doll!’”

  Perhaps they should just put the book back on the shelf, Kara thought, unless Hetman—

  Hubert, who had been silently standing over her, bent down and retrieved the book, taking it up carefully in his forepaws. He moved so quietly and deliberately—the big saurs always did.

  "When we're ready,” he whispered in his rough, unpracticed voice and walked back to the shelves.

  Sleep time was the worst.

  The saurs always slept in a pile in the center of the room. Dio and Hubert would remove the blankets from the chest next to the window, cover everyone, and take their places in the pile.

  Now, someone was missing. The little ones who slept on Dio, or next to his tail, or his back—they didn't know where to go. The ones who slept next to the ones who slept next to Dio, and the ones who slept next to them....

  As much as there was no formal arrangement for where the saurs would sleep, someone was missing. They scattered into little groups around the room. They looked at each other, at the place where the sleep pile should be—where Tom and Hubert had brought the blankets—but they couldn't bring themselves to sleep.

  Tom brought a blanket and some cushions. He stayed in the sleep room that night. So did Dr. Margaret.

  "I remember my mom telling me, ‘Say your prayers,'” Dr. Margaret said. “That was her answer for everything. ‘Say your prayers, sweetheart.’ And I prayed and I prayed until there were so many things to pray for I couldn't sleep."

  Tom nodded. “I took my mother out to my father's grave once. She's a pious woman. Never misses church. Always talks about my dad ‘where he is now, watching us.’ We got to the grave, and she looked at the little stone and the plastic flowers she'd placed there before. I could see a patch of dried yellow grass down at the foot of the grave. It was a dry summer. She looked at all of that, trembled, and said—not to me, just out loud—'You're born. You work all your life and you die and it's for nothing! Like you were never there!’”

  Axel, deep in thought, heard the humans talking, even whispered “Never there!” as he paced back and forth across the room. He blocked out the words with the refrain, “Gotta help Dio! Gotta think! Gotta do something!"—as if Diogenes were a captive, and it was Axel's job to spring him.

  But Diogenes wasn't in a prison cell or a dungeon. He was in Tom's room, in a little coffin, covered with his favorite blanket, in an airtight plastic glaze.

  It was a fact not lost on the egglings, somewhat puzzled by the behavior of the others not sleeping, not gathered in a pile, looking upset and afraid.

  "It's because we've lost our friend and we're very sad,” Bronte told them.

  "Diogenes?” asked Leslie. “He isn't lost. He's in Tom's room."

  "Maybe ‘lost’ isn't the best word. What I mean—"

  "What she means is that he's dead,” Agnes said, putting a hard emphasis on the last word. She turned her head and addressed the egglings directly. “You've heard us say ‘dead’ before, this afternoon. It means Dio can't breathe, can't move, can't think. It's all stopped! He can't come back. What's left in Tom's room is just dead matter. He can't come back!"

  For a moment Axel stopped pacing. He'd heard the words but tried to keep them from moving any further into his head than his ears. He bent his head down and tried to cover his ears with his forepaws. “Gotta help Dio! Gotta think! Gotta do something!"

  Some of the little ones who heard Agnes—and no one ever had any difficulty hearing her—started to wail.

  She looked into the eyes of Leslie, Guinevere, and the other egglings, and saw how frightened her words had made them—not so much afraid of death as of her, or at least of her anger.

  She shut her eyes and sighed until her back plates clicked against each other. “Forget it. Forget I ever said a thing."

  She looked around the room for a distraction. Sluggo stared at her, in shock, it seemed, at hearing Agnes tell anyone to forget something she had said.

  Half a meter away, a ceratopsian little one named Ludwig was standing over a little puddle, his mouth open as if holding back a sob.

  "Hey!” Agnes walked up to him. “You'd better clean that up! What's the matter? Why didn't you go to the litter room before sleep time?"

  "I'm sorry,” Ludwig said. “I—I tried to hold it, but—"

  "Why hold it? What do you think the litter room's for? You think it's some sort of damn art gallery or something?"

  "I didn't want—I—was afraid."

  "What are you afraid of?” Agnes grumbled. “You're not afraid of Dio, are you? He can't hurt you—this isn't one of those stupid human videos with corpses crawling around—"

  "I—I don't know. I'm just afraid. Maybe it's, it's—"

  "What?” Her voice became sharper. “What is it?"

  Kara was about to intercede when the little one burst out and cried, “The Shadow Guy!"

  "Shadow—” Agnes reared back a little. “What the hell are you—"

  She looked at Axel, still pacing the room. She opened her mouth, ready to tear into him with his crazy talk and idiocies and Shadow Guys and his refusal to accept the facts, damn it! The facts!

  "Agnes,” Sluggo said softly, “please."

  The back plates clicked again.

  "Okay,” she said. “Who else didn't go to the litter room because they were afraid? Come on! I'm not taking you down more than once and I don't want to see a dozen puddles around here in the morning. Come on!"

  Slowly, a group of nine saurs, mostly little ones but including one mid-sized theropod named Oliver, gathered around Ludwig, their expressions bearing equal measures of fear, embarrassment and urgency.

  "Okay, that it? This is your last chance until morning! Let's go!"

  Tom went off to get a towel. “I'll clean it up."

  "Big help!” Agnes grumbled. She led the way out of the sleep room until she heard two of the little ones whispering behind her.

&nb
sp; "What's that?” She eyed the little ones fiercely. “What are you on about now?"

  "Nothing,” said Ludwig. “Just—thank you."

  "Shut up,” said Agnes, turning back toward the hallway.

  Axel, still pacing, watched them leave. Maybe he should go with them. Maybe he should say he was going to follow them and dart over to Tom's room and check on Dio again.

  Maybe—

  He didn't know what to do, except keep pacing.

  "Gotta help Dio! Gotta think! Gotta do something!"

  If he couldn't build a machine to shoot the lightning-stuff into him or spring him from the prison of death, was there some way he could intercede? Was there someplace he could go, like a court? He'd seen a video once about a guy named—Opie? No. Orfy. Yes! The Orfy Guy, who spoke in a funny language that made words appear down on the bottom of the screen. Everyone in the video talked that way, and Alphonse, who said he could understand what they were all saying, said the words at the bottom of the screen didn't match what they were really saying (they were cursing more)—but that wasn't important. Axel could still understand the story, even though there was strange stuff going on with funny-looking human guys, in goggles and helmets, riding around on motorcycles.

  The Orfy Guy's wife gets hit by one of the motorcyclists. She has to go to the land of the dead and she has to walk through a mirror to get there. So the Orfy Guy has to walk through the mirror too to get her back.

  Axel thought: are there any mirrors in the house? He looked at the walls and saw only a picture in a frame—a landscape with a big mountain. Agnes once told the little ones it was a picture of Sauria, the land where saurs run everything. Axel tried to remember if there were any mirrors downstairs. Funny, but he never really looked at the walls, or the pictures. He couldn't remember any of them, and he couldn't remember any mirrors.

  There were other things in the story—all sorts of other things, like The Shadow Guy was a female, with scary dark eyes, and the Orfy Guy was sitting in a limousine copying down words he heard over the radio. But something else, something special—what was it? There were guys walking backwards, and sometimes they pressed to the walls like...like gravity was coming in sideways. And one guy was selling glass in the land of the dead, which was a place that looked all dark and broken-up and ruined—like a suburb. What else?