Phases of Gravity (37 page)

Robert Sweet Medicine looked out to the east. Baedecker followed his gaze. Far out on the plains, sunlight glinted on a window or windshield. "You may know more science than I do," said the old man. "If the natural world is the universe, how much do you think we know of it, understand it? One percent?"

"No," said Baedecker. "Not that much."

"One percent of one percent?"

"Perhaps," said Baedecker although as soon as he said it he doubted it. He did not believe that the universe was infinitely complex—one ten-thousandth of an infinite set was still an infinite set—but he felt in his gut that even in the limited realm of basic physical laws, humans probably had not glimpsed a ten-thousandth part of the permutations and possibilities. "Less than that," he said.

Robert Sweet Medicine pocketed his folding knife and opened his hands, fingers spreading like petals in new sunlight. "Your friend is wise," he said. "Help me up, Baedecker."

He stood and grasped the older man by the arms, prepared to lift hard, but Robert Sweet Medicine weighed nothing at all. The old man came to his feet with no effort from either of them, and Baedecker had to thrust a leg back to keep from falling backwards. His forearms tingled where the Cheyenne's fingers gripped him. Baedecker felt that if they were not holding on to each other, they could have floated off the ground at that instant, two untethered balloons drifting over the South Dakota prairie.

The Indian squeezed Baedecker's forearms once and released him. "Have a good walk up the mountain, Baedecker," he said. "I have to go all the way down the hill to get water and to use their smelly outhouse. I hate squatting in the bushes; it is not civilized."

The old man picked up a three-gallon plastic jug and moved slowly down the hill, walking in a comical, flatfooted shuffle. He stopped once and called back, "Baedecker, if you find a deep cave up there, a very deep one, tell me about it on the way down."

Baedecker nodded and watched the old man shuffle away. It did not occur to him to say good-bye until Robert Sweet Medicine was out of sight around a curve in the trail.

It took Baedecker forty-five minutes to reach the summit. Not once did he feel winded or tired. He did not find a cave.

The view from the top was the finest he had ever seen from the earth itself. The mountains of the Black Hills filled the south, an occasional snowy peak rising above forested folds. Overhead a succession of weightless cumulus marched from west to east, reminding Baedecker of the flocks of sheep he and Maggie had watched on the Uncompahgre Plateau. To the north, the plains stretched off in brown-and-green undulations until they blended with the haze of distance.

Baedecker found a natural chair made of two small boulders and a fallen log. He settled into it and closed his eyes, feeling the sunlight on his eyelids. The pleasant emptiness in his stomach spread through his body and mind. At that second he was going nowhere, planning nothing, thinking nothing, wanting nothing. The sun was quite warm, but in a minute even that warmth was a distant thing, and then even it was gone.

Baedecker slept. And as he slept he dreamed.

His father was holding him, teaching him to swim, but they were not at North Avenue Beach in the shallows of Lake Michigan; they were on top of Bear Butte and the light was very strange, soft and brown yet very rich, as clear as the summer heat lightning that had once illuminated the patrons of the Free Show in Glen Oak's little park, freezing them all in time, preserving the instant with a single, stroboscopic flash of silent light.

There was no lake to swim in atop Bear Butte, but Baedecker noticed that the air itself was as thick and buoyant as water, more so, and his father was holding him horizontal, one arm under Baedecker's chest, another under his legs, and was saying, "The trick is to relax, Richard. Don't be afraid to put your face down. Hold your breath a second. You'll float. And if you don't, I'm here to hold you up."

Baedecker obediently put his face down. But first he looked at his father, looked closely at the familiar face inches away, the mouth he would always know, the lines around the mouth, the dark eyes and dark hair he had not inherited, the half smile he had inherited. He looked at his father in his baggy swimming trunks, the dark tan line ending on the upper arms, the slight pot belly, the pale chest beginning to curve in at the center as age approached. Baedecker put his face down obediently but first, as he had done before, he lifted his face to the hollow of his father's neck, smelling the soap and tobacco smell of him, feeling the slight scratch of tomorrow's whiskers, and then, as he had not done before, had not done, he lifted both arms around his father's neck and hugged him, lifting his cheek to his father's cheek, hugged hard and felt the hug returned.

Then he put his face down and held his breath, bringing his arms out in front of him, straightening his legs, holding his body in a single plane, rigid but relaxed.

And he floated.

"There, it's easy, isn't it?" said his father. "Go on. I'll catch you if you get in trouble."

Baedecker floated higher, rising easily above the rock and pine summit of the butte, floating with no effort on the gentle currents, and when he looked below, his father was gone.

Baedecker let out a breath, took in a breath, struck out calmly with arms and legs, and swam upward with long, sure strokes. The currents were warmer higher up. He passed between two flat-bottomed cumuli and continued on, feeling no need to rest. He swam higher, seeing the mountain dwindle below until it was only a dark pattern glimpsed between the carpet of clouds, indistinguishable from the geometries of plains and forests and rivers and other mountains. When the currents grew noticeably stronger and colder, Baedecker paused to tread the thick, buoyant air with easy motions of arms and legs. The wonderful light allowed him to see very well. The long, graceful curve of the horizon to the south and east offered no obstacle to his sight.

Baedecker looked and saw the space shuttle sitting on its pad with gantries pulled away and the blue crest of the Atlantic beyond it. The people in the bleachers by the tall white building were all standing now, many with their arms raised above them, as brilliant flames ignited under the rocket and caused it to rise, slowly at first on its pillar of clear flame, then very quickly, arching like a great, white arrow fired from the earth's bow, turning now as it climbed, the fire from its passing dividing into long columns and billows of fragrant smoke. Baedecker watched the white ship soar on until it turned away from him, falling confidently over a far curve of sea and air, and then he turned his gaze back to find Scott in the multitude of watchers, found him easily, and saw then that Scott's arms were also raised, fists closed, mouth open in the same silent prayer the others were offering as they helped the white arrowhead of the spacecraft on its way, and Baedecker could see the tears on his son's joyous face.

He swam higher. He could feel the cold biting at him now, but he ignored it, working hard to overcome the riptides and pressures, which threatened to pull him back. And then, suddenly, there was no further need for effort and Baedecker hovered far up, seeing the planet again as the blue-and-white ball it was, curtained in black velvet, small enough and beautiful enough for him to put his arms around. Closer, tantalizingly close, was the great white-and-gray serrated curve of his other world. But even as he pivoted and prepared to stroke across the short distance

remaining, he knew that this one thing was denied to him. No, not denied he realized, for once it had been allowed. Only return was denied. But then, as if in recompense, he was floating over the familiar white peaks and shadowed craters, and he could see even more clearly than before.

He could see the gold-and-silver devices his friend and he had left, dead metal, useless now, their minimum warmth and mindless activity leeched away by years of baking days and freezing nights. But he also saw the more important things they had left, his friend and he, not the tumbled flag or dust-covered machines, but their footprints, as deep and sharp-edged as the second they had lifted their boots away, and a few true artifacts catching the rising sun—a small photograph, a belt buckle set to face the crescent earth.

Then, before returning, chilled and shivering, Baedecker saw one more thing. Crossing the band between light and dark where knife-black shadows cut ragged holes in the faint earthlight, Baedecker saw the lights. Strings of lights. Circles of lights. Lights of cities and transportways and quarries and communities, some burrowing, some spreading proudly across the dark mare and highlands, all waiting tenaciously for the dawn.

And then Baedecker returned. He paused a few times, paddling to stay in place, but mostly he allowed the great tug of the earth to pull him in, gently, inexorably. It was only then, holding his breath for a short while at the end, floating gently above the high shoal of the butte and seeing the blue pickup stop below, watching the young woman emerge and break into a run up the tiny trail . . . it was only then that he finally accepted the pull of the earth and saw clearly that it was more than the mindless call of matter to matter. And with that realization, Baedecker felt the same energy in himself, flowing through him and from him, bringing together and binding people as well as things.

Baedecker hovered there, but even as he did so he felt the return of the warmth of the sun on his face, knew that he was sleeping, heard the familiar voice calling in the distance, and knew that in a second he would wake and rise and call back to Maggie. But for a few more seconds he was content to hover there, neither earthbound nor free, waiting, knowing there was much to be learned and happy to be waiting and willing to learn.

Then Baedecker touched the mountain, smiled, and opened his eyes.