Bridgers 3_The Voice of Reason Read online

  “Indeed,” Abel said. “Exhaust all foolhardy options, thus making it more palatable to you when you must seize the bailiwick.”

  The musk monkey was starting to get on Infinity’s nerves. “We need to know if there’s any chance the colony could survive in the wild land,” she said to Desmond. “We’re running out of options.”

  He studied her for a few seconds. “Then I’ll go with you.”

  She shook her head. “One of us needs to stay here. The refugees need to know a bridger is with them.”

  “Then you should be the one to stay, and I should go. I’m more qualified to determine whether the wild land can sustain the colony.” He raised his brows. “Biologist, remember?”

  Infinity felt her jaw muscles tighten. “If you’re just trying to protect me, I’ll beat you to a—”

  “No! I know better than that, Infinity. The refugees need a real bridger here—not me. You stay here and do what you do best, and I’ll go and do what I’m more qualified to do. You have to admit it makes sense.”

  She considered this. Reluctantly, she nodded. “Take Arty with you, maybe a few more. Look for anything that might suggest the colony could survive there, even for just the first winter. Look for roads or any evidence of cities. Their best bet is to—”

  “I know, Infinity. I’ve got this.” He flashed an annoying grin that didn’t make her feel any better about things.

  The musk monkey shifted its position impatiently. “Seeing as how the wild land will not suit either of you, your parley is hardly worth the breath used to spawn it. I could be resting high in my favorite tree. Are we going, or ain’t we?”

  “We’re going,” Desmond said. Then he eyed Infinity. “We’ll explore for two or three hours, tops. Even if we don’t find much, at least we’ll have more information than we do now.”

  “They will be safe in my company,” Abel said to Infinity, raising his venomcrook as if to reinforce his point. “If, before we return, you decide to seize the bailiwick, I ask that you wait. I find bloodshed and savagery to be unsavory, but the mongrels will transfigure my sorry carcass into a possum if I fail to arbitrate the fracas.”

  Infinity closed her eyes for a moment to calm her mind. Finally, she opened them again and nodded. “If you’re not back when group thirteen arrives at noon, I’ll assume you’re dead.”

  11

  Wild Land

  September 2 - 8:29 AM

  Progress was slow through the oak-hickory forest’s late-summer undergrowth. The group had been hiking for about twenty minutes, and Desmond still hadn’t seen any signs of civilization, not even a cleared swath where a road may have once been. Arty and a woman named Gretchen Watkins had volunteered to come along. Both of them were more physically fit than Desmond, but neither was accustomed to hiking barefoot, which slowed the group’s progress. These were pretty much the same woods in which Desmond had trained near SafeTrek’s facility, but even his feet were bleeding in two places.

  Abel had remained mostly quiet so far. But Desmond needed to talk, to get his mind off what might be happening to Infinity and the refugees. Getting straight answers from the musk monkey had already proven to be a challenge, so he decided to try a new approach.

  “Abel, if you were new to this place, like we are, what information would you most need to know about the mongrels?”

  Abel’s body was clearly designed for moving through the trees, but for some reason the creature had decided to walk on the ground beside the humans. The musk monkey paused briefly and gazed at Desmond, although Desmond was never sure exactly what Abel was looking at, given that the creature had no whites in its eyes.

  “Clever human,” Abel replied. “I reckon I know what knowledge you’re fishing for, so here it is. I’d be obliged to know that the mongrels reign over this land. A domicile of mongrels rules each bailiwick. The mongrels might provide sustenance if they find you’ve an aptness for amusing them. If you ain’t got such an aptness, you’re better off making yourselves scarce. Problem is, bailiwicks already got herds. You can join a herd, you can drive a herd out of a bailiwick with violence and savagery, or you can join the ferals in the wild land. That right there is the gist of it—the meat and the marrow.”

  Arty spoke up. “I don’t suppose a group of over seven hundred of us could join a herd, could we?”

  Abel released a burst of air that ended as a brief whistle. “I hear tell of a bailiwick somewheres to the south with a tad more than three hundred. My mongrels provide sustenance for 250. The mongrels to the east provide for less than a hundred. Those to the north provide for only thirty, which explains why ferals run them off and take their bailiwick every new moon, only to be run off and replaced again. Not enough in the herd to hold strong. That’s good, but only for the mongrels. The mongrels fancy a good fracas.”

  “So the answer is no,” Arty said. “Great.”

  “What’s your role in all this?” Gretchen asked the musk monkey. It was the first time she’d spoken since they’d started walking. “Why are you here, and why are you helping us?”

  Abel unfurled his long tail, snaking it up around his neck, where it then hung loosely, as if this were an easier way to carry it. “I act in service of the mongrels. Likewise did my ancestors.”

  “So you’re a slave?” Gretchen asked.

  Abel glanced at her without breaking stride. “Musk monkeys ain’t slaves. We are free to go elsewhere if we’ve a hankering to. So happens I prefer the hospitality of my mongrels. They give sustenance, and I do chores they find thorny and arduous, such as speaking to you folks. Or holding sway over the herd. Or doing just about anything needs being done. I’m a jack-of-all-trades.”

  Desmond looked at Abel, and the creature twisted its face, exposing a mouth with jagged black ridges instead of teeth. It was an expression that might have been a musk monkey’s version of a smile.

  “Sounds like a slave to me,” Gretchen muttered.

  Abel stopped and wheeled around to face her. The creature shook its venomcrook in her face, and she pulled back warily.

  “So speaks the plump varmint who looks to have nary missed a feeding. Your sentiments may wear a more obliging face come tomorrow, or tomorrow’s tomorrow.”

  “Okay, okay,” Gretchen said, her eyes wide.

  Abel lowered his weapon and continued walking as if nothing had happened.

  Desmond eyed Gretchen to make sure she was okay.

  “Who the hell is he calling plump?” she said as she resumed following Arty and the musk monkey.

  Gretchen was a big woman, but she was all muscle. In fact, she had earned a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which was why she’d volunteered for this hike to the wild land. She looked almost as fierce as Infinity, minus all the scars. But when compared to the comparatively gaunt natives, Desmond could see how Abel might consider all of the refugees to be plump.

  8:50 AM

  Abel led them alongside a barely-trickling stream into a valley between two hills. On either side of the stream rose increasingly impressive limestone and shale bluffs. Desmond hadn’t seen these bluffs while exploring the woods near SafeTrek, and they would certainly exist in his version of Earth, so he assumed the group had moved beyond SafeTrek’s 400-acre property.

  “Abel,” Gretchen said, “can I ask a personal question? I don’t mean to offend or upset you.”

  “Musk monkeys do not get upset,” Abel replied.

  She paused. “Okay, well… are you a male or a female? Because I can’t really tell.” Gretchen’s curiosity apparently outweighed her caution.

  “Your conjecture is as good as mine,” the creature said.

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Ain’t never known and don’t care.”

  This piqued Desmond’s interest, so he asked, “How does your kind reproduce?”

  Abel stopped walking and looked up at the bluffs to the right, and then to the left. “That ain’t the way things work. Maybe long ago it was. But these days? If I get a bug
up my butt and decide to leave, or if a tree falls on my sorry carcass, the mongrels will make a new musk monkey to take on my chores. Simple as that.”

  “So, how do mongrels make new musk monkeys?” Gretchen asked.

  “I can’t explain mongrel shenanigans. Sometimes they make musk monkeys from humans in their herd, sometimes from other critters. Me, I don’t know what I was summoned up from. Tadpoles and minnows, maybe.”

  Desmond thought of Gavin being transformed into a white-tailed deer. The mongrels definitely had technology—or abilities—humans hadn’t even imagined.

  Abel cupped three of his hands to his mouth and cried out, “Ferals! Yoo-hoo. Show yourselves.” He lowered his hands and waited.

  A barred owl hooted in the distance, but nothing else happened.

  “Ferals,” Abel commented. “Scarce only when you need ’em.” He then started walking again.

  Desmond, Arty, and Gretchen exchanged glances and then followed.

  “I got a question of my own,” Abel said. “Why would you folks come to this place if you’ve no inkling of musk monkeys or mongrels? Seems a mite bit ill-considered to me, like eating a toadstool without knowing if it’ll turn your brain to mud.”

  Desmond didn’t see any reason to hide the truth from this creature. “Our world is collapsing. Everyone on it is going to die. Eight billion people.”

  Abel turned to look at him but didn’t say anything.

  Desmond went on. “We’ve been bridging colonies of people to different versions of our world, trying to save as many as we can. Time is running out. We sent some animals here to make sure the place was livable, and all of them came back alive, although one was in the form of a miniature musk monkey.”

  “Mongrel shenanigans, no doubt,” Abel said.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Desmond said. “Anyway, we decided to go ahead and send the colony here. Infinity and I will bridge back to our world after the last group of twenty arrives. But everyone else will be here to stay. That’s why we need to figure out where the colony can live. We have been counting on them living with the humans here.”

  “In cities,” Arty said.

  Gretchen added, “With grocery stores and coffee shops and apartments.”

  Still walking on his feet and two lower hands, Abel stared straight ahead for what seemed like a full minute. Finally, he spoke softly. “I dare say, you have picked the wrong toadstool.”

  After they had hiked another five minutes or so in silence, Abel stopped and cupped three hands to his mouth again. “Ferals! Do you think me a fool? I know you’re here!”

  “Go back, musk monkey,” a man’s voice called out. “You and the vassals ain’t welcome here.”

  Desmond tried to spot the man who had spoken. It had come from ahead and above, among the crags of the rocky bluff.

  “These folks ain’t vassals,” Abel replied to the unseen feral. “You might consider showing them some hospitality, seeing as how they’re contemplating taking up residence in the wild land.”

  A shuffle came from above, and a pebble bounced its way down the bluff. Another shuffle—this one from a different location. Desmond glimpsed a brief movement in a third location, perhaps someone’s shoulder or head.

  “We got no need for more ferals here.” The voice sounded closer this time. “Autumn’s coming and we’re full up.”

  Abel let out a warbling grunt and muttered, “Dunderheaded ferals.” Then much louder, “I figured as much! Which is why I brought them here. They’re the kind that needs showing, not telling.”

  More shuffling above, along with muffled voices. A head and pair of shoulders appeared over one of the crags—a black man with a haphazardly-cropped afro and beard. His shoulders were bare, rather than painted like the bodies of those in the herd had been. Another head appeared a few yards from the first, this one with paler skin, but not white—the person appeared to be Native American.

  “They don’t look like ferals,” the black man said.

  “If you’d be courteous enough to come down, we could explain,” Abel replied.

  Another voice came from the bluffs on the opposite side of the stream. “Either lose the venomcrook or back away a good distance. Then we’ll come down.” It was another black man, this one almost bald.

  Abel grunted again, but then he walked to a rocky slope fifteen yards away, crawled atop a half-buried boulder, and sat on his haunches. “This distance suit you?”

  More shuffling above, this time from all sides, and soon about ten ferals were clambering down the rocks. Four of them were clearly black. The others ranged from pale white to brown. And then two unusual figures caught Desmond’s eye—musk monkeys.

  Seconds later, Desmond, Arty, and Gretchen were surrounded by two musk monkeys and eight gaunt, unpainted, nearly-naked humans. The musk monkeys’ oily garlic smell was nearly rivaled by the unmistakable odor of unwashed human bodies. Although the musk monkeys were naked, the humans—all of them men—wore ill-fitting shorts made from crudely-woven fibers. The best of these were filthy and ragged, the worst nearly disintegrated. Each man wore moccasin-like coverings on his feet, appearing to be made of animal hide. Three of the men carried bags made of woven plant fibers, bulging with hidden contents. Several long seconds of silence passed as the ferals studied the newcomers.

  “You folks vassals?” asked the man who had spoken first.

  Desmond cleared his throat and stood up straight. “We don’t know what vassals are.”

  “Vassals are them who live in bailiwicks,” Abel said from his rocky perch. “Humans are either vassals or ferals. Musk monkeys, too, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  The feral musk monkeys simultaneously let out warbling grunts. One of them said, “Abel’s a vassal, no two ways about it. Carries that dad-blamed venomcrook around like he’s a king. But Abel ain’t nothing more than a mongrel’s squire.”

  “You look to be freshly washed,” one of the men said, staring Gretchen’s body up and down. “And I don’t see a hair on you. Did the mongrels conjure you folks? Is this mongrel trickery?”

  “They look broad in the beam to me,” another man said. “Gotta be mongrel-made—else how’d they get so plump?”

  “Gotta be mongrel-made,” another man agreed.

  “For crying out loud!” Abel said. “Refrain from spouting nonsense long enough for them to explain. You might be interested in what they got to say.”

  The ferals fell silent but continued eyeing Desmond and his two companions with suspicion.

  “There are about seven hundred of us,” Desmond said. “We’re not friends of the mongrels. We don’t even know anything about mongrels. But I think we came to this place in the same way the mongrels did, by bridging from another version of this world. Only two of us are going home. The rest have to stay here. We’re looking for help. We need a place where seven hundred people can live.”

  The ferals remained silent, exchanging glances.

  “Seven hundred of you?” one of the men asked.

  Abel spoke up again. “They’re inquiring if they can come here to the wild land and live among you ferals. Every last one of them.”

  Again, there was a long period of silence. Finally, the man who had first spoken from the bluffs stepped forward and put his hand on the top of Desmond’s head. He caressed the bare scalp slowly, as if he’d never felt anything so smooth. He looked Desmond in the eye. “My name’s Prudence.” He pulled his hand from Desmond’s scalp and pointed to the other ferals one at a time as he introduced them. “This here’s Respect, Proficience, Calm, Wonder, Tact, Resolve, and Patience. Them two musk monkeys, they’re Perseverance and Resilience.”

  “I’m Desmond. This is Gretchen and Arty.”

  The man flicked his eyes toward Desmond’s companions for a brief second. “We don’t wish to agitate a herd of seven hundred, as we’re but forty-six humble ferals. Your herd could seize our parcel of wild land without hardly trying. And every parcel within a day’s walk. So maybe you should come with us. I
’d like you to witness with your own eyes what you’re figuring on seizing.”

  “Exactly my sentiments,” Abel said. “Show them.”

  “Will you come?” Prudence asked. He looked down at Desmond’s bleeding feet and frowned. “It ain’t far.”

  Desmond nodded. “We’d appreciate any help or information you can give us.”

  The men and the two musk monkeys then turned and began walking. Abel hopped down from his perch to follow them. “Shan’t take long, I reckon. Not much to see.”

  Together they followed the ferals, making their way along the nearly-dry stream bed.

  12

  Shenanigans

  September 2 - 10:19 AM

  Infinity stood before the mongrels’ bubble with her hands up, palms forward, hoping the creatures within it would understand the gesture and stop approaching. The bubble had been creeping closer to the bridge-in site every hour, after the arrival of each new refugee group. It was moving at this moment, and its leading edge was beginning to encroach on the site’s trampled area. The bridging device had never bridged anyone into a solid object—it had built-in safeguards that would shift the bridge-in site to avoid solid objects—but Infinity had no idea whether the mongrel bubble would even register on its sensors. If the bubble continued its advance, the next incoming refugees could find themselves swimming in glowing goo.

  That would no doubt end badly.

  The bubble stopped, causing its outer membrane to jiggle. Had it stopped in response to her gesture? There was no way to know.

  After waiting a few seconds to be sure the bubble wasn’t simply pausing, she walked around its entire perimeter trying to see the mongrels inside, but she didn’t see anything. Most of the painted natives were now gone, although she could still see five of them watching her from a distance, perhaps stationed as lookouts.