Wildcard (46 page)

It had taken him about two weeks to find the
box. The false Trident had plane tickets and train tickets and
camels and translation when he needed it, so he kept the thing. He
had been there for a few days and ate and drank very little. He was
rationing.

He had a hat. He had gotten it from a gypsy
caravan that he caught his last ride with. The false Trident told
him they were going near the box. They gave the hat to him as a
gift. They seemed to like him very much. When they passed by the
box, the gypsies became extremely interested. LuvRay told them that
was his destination and he would leave them. He was concerned that
they would want to take the box. A small party detached with him to
go there. When they got about ten meters from the box, the gypsies
all panicked and ran away. LuvRay did not see them again.

It was a black sea chest, with rounded metal
caps on all eight corners. The lip of both the lid and the bottom
were lined with the same metal and the clasp was metal as well. The
clasp was a hinged affair shaped like an upside down keyhole which
fit over a metal loop on the bottom part. The metal was aged, not
rusty, but pitted from sandstorms. It was ordinary. Even LuvRay had
seen one before. It was padlocked shut. The lock was not so big,
and LuvRay thought he could kick it off, or break the clasp, if he
chose to.

Taped to the top was a stack of papers and a
scroll. The papers were some man-business thing. LuvRay chose not
to understand business along with many other aspects of man.
Entertainment, for one. He felt instinctive aversion, and when he
thought about why, he realized he would lose too much in order to
gain the knowledge. He would sacrifice peace, and simpleness.

Business; busyness. He did not want to be
busy. Such an approach made no sense to LuvRay. He felt maewe te
for the Sergeant and the General in their busyness. Maewe te, an
Indian word, meant “seeing those whose spirit has lost its way.” It
implied sadness and knowing that one could not help. Maewe te. He
had felt it often since leaving his desert.

He deciphered the paper well enough. It was
a list of city names. Some he knew, others not. This box had been
many, many places. He lifted the pages. It was just lists of places
the box had been. He tried to open the box, but couldn’t open the
lock or pick it. Indians and wolves did not use locks. He lifted
his foot to kick it.

Wolf-fear
. Primal fear, the fear
beyond death rose like a tidal wave.

He fell back, twisting around to bolt, ran
on all fours a short way. The fear subsided. He crouched in the
sand, panting, eyeing the box warily. Brought himself back to
ground, back to human. He stood and returned to it.

LuvRay looked at the scroll. He sat down
against the box. Someone watching might have thought that he had
decided to wait. But he was just being a wolf in the desert.

“LuvRay?” Karl asked, floating outside the
Star Portal of the Heart of wildspace. The Portal was gone.

“Yes,” LuvRay responded. “You are okay,
Karl?”

“Good enough. How are you?”

“Yes, good.”

“Heard any new poems lately?”

“No.”

“Where are you?”

“Sit on box in desert. Three days, now.”

The box. Karl and the Sergeant smiled at
each other.

“I suppose we should go there.”

“Maybe,” said Karl. “I’m not certain, but
you may be right. What do you think, LuvRay?”

“I not know,” he said. “I wish see you.”

“So no poems, lately, huh?”

“I not say that,” said LuvRay. “I say not
hear. I finded. It was lie in roll on box.”

“Yeah, what was it called?”

“Not looked. Maybe is not poem.”

“Hmmm. Will you read it to us? By the way,
we’re stranded in space. How should we get out of here?”

“Your way is no clear.”

“Maybe it’s in the poem,” said the Sergeant.
“Read it, LuvRay.”

“We would have met the Lone Wolf. Wait…”
LuvRay began again, reading slow as if he barely knew how.
“Wildcard would have met the lone Wolf

gladly brought him into the heart

what could he have taught us before our
final hour

a moment of deeper understanding is a moment
of life worth living

the greatest lesson he gave

to meet us or not, he did not care

“Did it say ‘we’ or ‘Wildcard’ in the
beginning?” Karl asked. “You changed it the second time you read
it.”

“It changed by self.”

“Anything on the back?” asked the
Sergeant.

They heard LuvRay flip the paper over.

“No.”

“Alright,” Karl asked. “How do you think we
get there LuvRay?”

“I am not know. Is no my world. How you
think get here? Maybe here is not your right place at now.”

Karl and the Sergeant exchanged glances.
Neither was sure.

“Yeah, I think it’s all we’ve got to go on
presently,” said the Sergeant.

“Except the Poet. Wherever he is.”

“That’s the problem. Ideas, anybody?”

“Something comes.”

“Describe it.”

“It is a box in air. Floating. Four metal
wheels on top.”

“Metal wheels?”

“The things to hold into air.”

“Propellers. It’s a helicopter? A large
one?”

“Large? Big, big. It could not be in
General’s large room.”

Karl looked at the
Sergeant. BIG helicopter. They could hear the noise of the thing as
it approached LuvRay and the box. It was deafening. “Dammit,” said
the Sergeant. “The Benefactor. She’s found a way into
Mansworld
.
How
did you get in, LuvRay?”

The signal was gone.

“Listen to this,” Trident said. It was a
crackly radio voice. “The voice is Winston Churchill.”

Wildcard invents ethos; invents barbarian
futures

sweeps them into distant corners but never
ignores this creation

Wildcard invents Wildcard, each second
invents patterns

guidelines without words with which the
world may be drawn anew

this is the beautiful burning of all ideas
of what is

and what could ever be

the proof that nothing is ever the same, and
never changes

Wildcard invents the air you breathe

so that you may leap towards the light,
alone

“I believe it’s a clue,” Trident said.

“Obviously, it’s a clue.”

“Not that obvious, Karl. Trident filters a
lot.”

“Many things come my way that I do not pass
to you.”

“Why not?” Karl was surprised that the
Sergeant seemed so lackadaisical about the filtered
information.

“I receive more than a human mind could
possibly cope with.”

“He’s pretty good.” The Sergeant said. “If
he constantly deluged us with M-E info, we would be non-functional.
He has to do it.”

“It would disable even you?”

“Yes, it’s machine speed. Way too much.
Constant torrent of entire books, packing lists, chemical
compositions, recipes, blueprints …”

“I have blueprints.” Trident interrupted.
“They came through at the precise instant you said blueprints.”

“Totally cool. Bet it’s bullshit, though.
Bullshit here, anyway. We’re in space. What good are
blueprints?”

“Should we hurry to get to LuvRay? He might
need help with the Benefactor.”

The Sergeant managed to begin a spinning
motion, head over feet, backwards. “No. I believe we should set a
plan, but not move too quickly.”

“Let’s go to the box.”

“Poet.” Karl said.

“Trident? Break the tie.”

“The box.” The response was instant.

“That’s unfair, you and Trident are
practically the same.”

“It’s called command edge, Karl. I may be a
boy, but I’m still the Sergeant. And, no, it’s not fair. Never
accuse me of playing fair. I don’t. I win.”

“Alright. Let’s go to the box. How do we get
there?”

“Yeah. We’re pretty well stranded. I see no
way to move. The nano-stuff won’t create enough propulsion, and we
would be moving so slowly it would be idiotic. We might never get
there that way. We could be dealing with stellar distances.”

“I may have a solution,” Trident said.

“How?”

“To move, I believe we need :3:, and to find
out where to go, we need Dartagnan.”

Immediately, a musketeer was there. He wore
high, black, soft leather boots folded over the top, floppy,
wide-brimmed, stylish black hat with a long, large white feather,
white low-buttoned, lace-cuff shirt, cream-coloured vest, and
pantaloons tied with a sash. He had long curly black hair and a
smirk.

“Hello, gentlemen. Allow me to introduce
myself. I am Dartagnan.” He drew his sword and bowed while holding
it out behind him. “At your service.” He looked back along the
length of his sword and moved the point slightly, as if drawing a
bearing. He held it for a long moment, then stood, and sheathed it.
“Let’s make a deal.”

The enormous floating ship came in about 15
metres from LuvRay, quite close considering its power. They were
trying to be the alpha. LuvRay had heard that term about dogs and
wolves and liked it. It said a lot. Alpha male, alpha dog. Not top
dog or boss, but most important and the one who held an edge which
could be easily lost. The edge had to be maintained among wolves,
watched always.

He had never been alpha as a boy. Too young.
Later, though, as a man, he found a wolf-pack and joined. It was
easy. He brought food, a whole dead deer, to them. He persuaded the
alpha to relinquish alpha. He showed the pack they would eat
better, much better, with him as alpha. No violence or threats were
used. He spoke to their instinct. In the end, he could not get them
to breed with him there. Only the alpha male mated. He had to leave
so that the pack could survive. Occasionally, he brought food to
them and ran with them. But he would not let them follow when he
left.

No more, he thought, looking out from under
the brim of his hat, peering through the now fiercely blowing sand
as the immense structure settled. It was shimmering black, and felt
like the Sergeant’s devices often felt. Many things buzzing. Tek,
they called it. Lots of it. He wondered who was inside, and knew
this alpha battle would not be bloodless.

Men descended, wearing suits, with short
hair and sunglasses. They were talking to their wrists, holding one
ear, walking around the great beast and the surrounding desert.
They made signals to each other, waved instruments, squinted
against the driving sand. One approached him, looking at a white
device he held. He turned to the sides, walked around at a
distance, talked to his wrist. The motor noise stopped. The
spinning wheels on top slowed. The men stood where they could watch
LuvRay. A few minutes later, Martha stepped out of the beast and
walked up to him.

They looked at each other, not speaking, for
a very long time. Two, maybe three minutes.

“You are no Martha. Is this trick?”

“No, mister Chose. I would not attempt to
trick you. Not in that way, at least. I have too much respect for
your special skills. Such a ruse would be transparent to you. This
is merely the body I have in this world.”

He doubted that. LuvRay sensed she had more
control over her appearance than that. He did not care. She just
smelled wrong, to him.

“Big ship.”

“Thank you.” She made a signal to one of the
men, dressed more formally than the others, wearing white gloves
and a tuxedo. He went inside the ship.

“Who is Doctor?”

“Who was the Doctor, you mean? Until you
killed him, he was the most talented quantum brain interface
surgeon in the universe. He brought Karl into Mansworld in the
first place. He created the tek to bring all of us here.”

“I thank him. I no want be here.”

She nodded. “He was a vile, evil man.”

“You are no cool brook.”

“Is that an Indian expression?”

“Yes. Terrible insult.” It was a trivial
insult. But he wanted to see if she smelled the lie.

“Well, Mister Chose, what shall we talk
about?”

Dartagnan had placed himself at an angle
between them, so that they formed a triangle where they could only
reach him if he wanted them to, if he reached out as well.

“Dartagnan,” the Sergeant said. “How
powerful are you in the Space Between?”

“More so than you.”

“Kinda figured.”

“I’m not so sure,” Karl said. “You have some
obvious advantages, but I think human instinct will be better out
here than you might guess.”

“The Sergeant has trained all human instinct
out of himself, Karl. He is a machine. Would you care to hear a
poem?”

“Not really,” they said.

“Good. I wasn’t going to tell you one
anyway.”

“Look, Dartagnan, let’s negotiate. What do
you want?”

“I don’t want anything, really. I just want
in. I want to play. This is the best party happening, so once I’m
invited, I’m in. No cost to you. Good deal, wouldn’t you say?”

“All right,” said the Sergeant, a bit wary,
then he nodded his head. “Let’s rock. What can you do? Where do we
go? We’ve been trying to choose between the Poet and the box,
and-”

“Yes, yes. Trident played it for me.”

“When did he do that?” Karl asked. “That was
not OK’d.”

“I did it as soon as you came to agreement.
When the Sergeant said ‘all right.’”

“You should have waited, T. Don’t tell him
any more for now.”

“Why not? You always lay out it out.”

“The old couple just died. It’s in flux. I
may need to lie in some situations. Too volatile.”

“Yes, the texture is changing. The fabric is
being rewoven.” Dartagnan spoke in a comically dramatic voice.
“Wildspace eases into a new era, the dawn of an unknown age is upon
us. A sense of-”

The Sergeant interrupted. “Let’s go to the
box.”