The Old Reactor (18 page)

Grendon said, “Tell them I am long gone but not forgotten. I will run strong come the election. Tell them I have a plan. In the future I see underwater vessels as big as street cars, fish-like in shape, using lateral undulation as propulsion. This form of sub surface transportation will carry thousands at once—Bunkerville to Altobello, Altobello to Bunkerville—with every passenger as happy as a pig. And very inexpensively. Tell them all that.”

“A beautiful idea, sir.”

“Sublime would be a better word. The sublime always trumps the beautiful.”

“What do you see in Bunkerville’s future?”

“I can say this: that there will be no more rain. We’ll be in a sunspot minimum that will last for twenty years. We will tell the people that grasshoppers store water in their abdomens and that eight or more of them should be eaten every day. It won’t be long before we will require one hour of screaming as a daily practice.”

Grendon went on to reveal plans to starve himself unless elected. He will be dead by Saturday, the fourteenth day of the fast unless he is elected the day before, in which case he will take food. He’ll go this Friday to City Park, rent a pedal boat, and pedal his way to the middle. There he may or may not succumb to starvation, depending on the election results.

“What about housing, sir? Is Bunkerville prepared for the expected jellyhead immigrations?”

“This is what I can say about housing: as jellyheads progressed, they acquired cattle and roamed about searching for pasturage. Then they built a cave of skins to live in. When they learned how to fashion crude bronze tools they began cutting down trees and building homes that resembled log caves. When ice descended from the arctic, driving jelly-heads southward where there were no caves, primitive jellies built crude mud huts.”

“Thank you so much, sir. Good luck in the election.”

“As I’ve said before, if I’m not elected, my suicide will follow. Ask Zanzetti if he’s willing to do the same?”

While Salmonella slept in her nook, Moldenke fought to stay awake. The motor cruised monotonously down the Byway. There were other motors speeding to the Point. Happy riders waved from their windows. “We’re going home! We’re going home!”

Moldenke felt excited by the prospect of returning to Bunkerville. With his late friend Ozzie exploded and gone from the house, he and Salmonella would assess the situation with the artisanal jellies and see if they could work with them to put the place in order. With attorneys and clerks out of business, the maintenance funds could never be recovered. After the liberation, the currency would be worthless.

Pulling onto Wharf Road at Point Blast, Moldenke saw flood lights moving along the black hull of a freighter, the
Pipistrelle
. Passengers were boarding. He turned back toward Salmonella’s nook. “Wake up, girl. We’re almost there.”

There were dozens of motors arriving, the drivers jockeying for places to abandon them.

Salmonella hurriedly shucked her nightgown and got into traveling clothes.

Moldenke had only begun to look for a good place when the motor ran out of heavy water and rolled to a stop in a cloud of steam.

“It looks like the end of the line,” Moldenke said. “Goodbye, Altobello.”

Salmonella felt a small touch of sadness at leaving her birthplace.

It was an almost normal Friday night in Bunkerville, two days before the liberation, when radio-poisoned mud fish began to rain down. Anyone outdoors in much of the city was caught in the downpour. Dead fish piled up in gutters and sidewalks quickly. Walking or running was a slippery venture. Pedestrians, in their haste to get out of the shower, stepped on mud fish. Many fell in the process and sustained injuries in addition to a dose of radio poisoning that came with the fish.

There have been other falling-fish events reported from time to time over many decades in Altobello, Bunkerville, and elsewhere. Because the Altobello-Bunkerville fish falls occurred just before the liberation, those prone to superstition thought of them as forewarnings of the momentous changes to come. Many a Bunkervillian shared the belief.

“These fish had to travel from the Old Reactor pond in Altobello,” Scientist Zanzetti said. “Something, and we don’t know what, sucked them up into the air then carried them hundreds of miles to here. This has been a deadly rain and we expect many will die within months, especially the old and the young.”

The affected areas of the city are depopulated and a cleanup is thought to be in progress. Among those poisoned that night was perennial mayoralty candidate, Felix Grendon, who had gone to see Misti Gaynor and Enfield Peters in the comedy hit,
Eventually, Why Not Now?
Hundreds of glowing mud fish fell on him as he emerged from the theater.

With hundreds of returnees on the
Pipistrelle
, there was a shortage of cabin space. Most shivered on deck in the open air. Moldenke and Salmonella considered themselves lucky to find a space to sit down against the fo’c’sle, where they had something to lean back against.

Moldenke closed his eyes for a few minutes of rest, but sat up when his bowel began to anger. There were free people sleeping everywhere. Could he find a place to relieve himself without stepping on them, or worse, cutting loose inside his uniform on the way to the ship’s rail? Given that choice, he elected to stay where he was and let go right there if it came to that. He thought back on what he had eaten that day.

“I’m having an attack,” he told Salmonella. “That scrapple this morning. It was a mistake. I can’t stop it.” He lifted a hip and emptied his bowels into the leg of his uniform.

In a moment, the Captain, standing on the fo’c’sle deck, looked over the rail and said to a mate, “Lower a lantern. I want to see what’s making that stink.”

When the lantern was lowered, Moldenke felt the heat of it on his head. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s a condition. These attacks come at the worst times.”

“You could have gone to the rail like everyone else.”

“I didn’t have time to get there.”

Salmonella affected a whine. “He’s my daddy and he’s very sick. Please. Leave him alone.”

The Captain turned to the mate. “The returnees are always sick and stinking. I’m going to my cabin and I’m closing the door.” He waved to the crowd on the deck. “Good night, all. We’ll be in Bunkerville by morning.”

In his conclusive study of the jellyhead gel sack, Scientist Zanzetti revealed his findings. These sacks have had a long history of study, always yielding contradictory evidence. The ontogenic contributions of the sack to the jellyhead brain vary greatly. Many theories have been proposed to account for its modifications. Whatever its phylogenetic significance, the gel sack is an important structure formed by invaginations of the head capsule.

When pressed, Zanzetti admits puzzlement. “We can’t understand it. The sacks communicate with distant sentient beings or entities, but why? Do they mean us harm?”

An aide of Zanzetti’s added, “We think they may be trying to use the jellyheads to weaken or destroy our culture, but haven’t perfected the training regimen. That’s why jellies do crazy things now. But in the future we see them getting better and better at civil behavior. Their influence then will be so subtle, so insidious, we’ll never notice. If this keeps up, we’ll
become
them. We’ll be jellyheads.”

A
City Moon
reporter on the scene asked the famous scientist if he meant that given enough time we could become indistinguishable from jellies.

“If my thinking is right, you can bet on it,” Zanzetti said.

“Is there no way to stop it? Is it too late?” the reporter asked.

“Don’t worry. Individuals won’t feel any change. It will happen slowly, over generations. Every thirty years or so the populace forgets the past. No one’s ever the wiser. It’s a brilliant strategy. Hats off to whoever designed those sacks.”

Salmonella pinched her nostrils closed. “You can’t sleep all night with that in your pants, or me either with the smell. Go over to the rail and dump it.”

“All right.”

Moldenke pulled his pant leg tight to contain the relatively small mass until he could get to the rail, stepping over sleeping passengers all the way.

One of them spat at him. “Watch where you’re stepping, you stupid son of a bitch.”

Once at the rail he extended his leg over the side and shook out most of the mass. There would be some streaks left behind in his unders and down the leg, but the better part of it was gone. Now he could sleep. He was tired enough that the slight odor that still clung to him wouldn’t interfere. He hoped there were still some of his clothes in the closet on Esplanade. He had a disturbing image of going into the house and finding the jellyhead tradesmen wearing them.

Having made his way back to the spot under the fo’c’sle, he fell asleep beside Salmonella, who kissed him lightly on the cheek, then poked him to stop his snoring.

As dawn broke, passengers awakened to a cloudy-butwelcome sunrise and Moldenke wasn’t alone in anxious anticipation. As the
Pipistrelle
made her docking maneuvers at Bunkerville Harbor, rumors flew among the passengers as they queued for disembarkation.

“I hear the city is in chaos.”

“No law, no money, no property, nothing. Just like Altobello. It’s crazy.”

“Did they close the hospitals and throw out the doctors? I’m feeling sick. I got radio poisoning.”

“A lot of us do. Will they take care of us?”

“You think we’ll get pass cards or money?”

Moldenke said, “If they make us wear uniforms, I hope they’re nicer ones than these.”

There were Bunkervillians out in the streets, gathered into groups, gesturing and talking. Some looked around as if waiting for an indication of what was to come now that the city was liberated, as if waiting for a motorcade with flags, loudspeakers, announcements, and insignias. “Everyone be calm. The city is in good hands.” But nothing official appeared. No one knew what to do. Had the liberation been no more than rumor?

Despite the anxiety and confusion on the streets, the Esplanade car from the Harbor to City Park was only an hour or two late. Moldenke and Salmonella ran to catch it. Through the windows they could see that there were only two or three seats unoccupied.

The jellyhead driver turned the crank on his fare meter. “That’s a half mil for each.”

Moldenke showed his Enfield Peters pass card. The driver cast a quick glance in his direction, then wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “That’s no good here, Peters. I don’t care who you are. We’re still using money until word comes down not to.”

“This card is all I have,” Moldenke said. “We’ve been in Altobello.”

Salmonella said, “I don’t have any money.”

The driver shrugged and put the car in gear. “This could all change tomorrow, friend. But till they tell us different, we’ll be taking cash. So pay or get off, the both of you.”

The passengers began to yell. “Get off! We can’t wait all day. You stupid morons.”

The car stopped.

“All right,” Moldenke said. He took Salmonella by the elbow and led her off.

After walking a few blocks, they passed Bunkerville Charnel, where a jellyhead demonstration was in progress. Forty to fifty of them, faces inked black, stood in front of the building beating on gongs and kettles with dunce caps on their heads. Around their necks were buckets full of stones. The eldest, most enfeebled among them had a deep incision in his neck caused by the heavy weight. They all knelt down on crushed glass, lit candles, looked up at the night sky and repeated the phrase over and over: “Give us liberty or give us death…Give us liberty or give us death.”

Scientist Zanzetti floats in the surf off Point Blast, going in and out with the tides. His assistants have spotted him from a distance and thought he was a log rolling in with the cool morning swells. He has rigged himself a tether line more than fifteen miles long, which allows him to float out considerable distances and explore the luminous fauna living near the edge of continental shelf. When he wants to come back to land quickly he need only push a button on his full-body flotation gear and he is reeled in automatically.

The walk from Bunkerville Charnel to the house on Esplanade was thirty or forty blocks. “We’ll be there in a few hours,” Moldenke told Salmonella.

After they’d walked for an hour, Salmonella said, “I’m hungry. Is there a Saposcat’s?”

“In a few blocks.”

But when they got there, a sign in the door said, “Relocated to Altobello.”

“Oh, no, I’m really starving. I’m growing. I need food and sleep.”

“There’s a little market at the corner of Broad and Esplanade. If it’s open they might accept pass cards.”

The market was open, but in the process of closing. Moldenke and Salmonella were allowed in and told to hurry. “We’re packing to go,” the grocer said, “off to Altobello.”

“Strange,” Moldenke said, “we were just sent back. It’s hard to know what’s going on…Do you take pass cards?”

“Yeah, we’ll take them. It doesn’t matter. We just heard money’s worthless now.”

“Thanks.”

Moldenke and Salmonella walked through aisles of mostly empty shelves looking for anything edible. There were a few tins of meat, some packets of dried mud fish, a bottle of green soda, and a cake of kerd. They gathered all of it into Salmonella’s shoulder bag and Moldenke’s pockets.

“Thank you, sir. We really do appreciate it. The best of luck in Altobello.”

“You live around here? You look familiar.”

“Not far. It’s a house my aunt left me. I heard there were some jellies living there. I’m a little concerned.”

“Don’t worry. Those are good jellies, fine jellies. Their cook used to shop in here. They’ve made that sorry old wreckage of your aunt’s into a showplace.”

“My old friend Ozzie was living there, too, but he was exploded.”

“The hell he was. I just saw him yesterday.”

“He was a labor organizer. He violated a law. Didn’t they explode him?”

“You’re out of touch, my friend. All that stopped when we were liberated. They spared him. He had minutes to go.”

It was not welcome news to Moldenke. Dealing with the jellyheads was one thing. Dealing with Ozzie, dull-witted and untrustworthy, was another.