VACANCY & ARIEL

I dragged the case to the fire and sat cross-legged in front of it. With the fire leaping, casting the case in a hellish light, and the shadows of flames dancing on the side of the tent, I felt like a shaman staring at a magic box. I’d assumed it would be tricky to open, but was surprised to find that there was only a simple catch. Emergency equipment, I told myself. Designed for those who were losing their memories and might not be able to deal with something more complex. That did not explain, however, why they hadn’t secured it with a lock keyed to DNA. Perhaps they allowed for the possibility that the person stranded might be critically injured and require help in accessing the case. Overcome by fatigue, it was not until that moment I understood the magnitude of what I had found or considered the difficulties that might arise from the discovery. Cold, I grew colder yet.

“You gon’ open it or what?” Henley asked, squatting at my side.

“Maybe you don’t want to see this.”

“I been waitin’ around all day for it!”

“There’s people who might ask you questions about what’s inside. They’re not good people.”

Henley tipped back his cap, rubbed his forehead with a knuckle. “You think it’s drugs or somethin’?”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“Hell, I’ll take a peek if you don’t mind,” Henley said, kneeling. “Seein’ how she like to half-kill me, I reckon I got a stake in things.”

Sap popped in the fire; silence seemed to gather itself into something big and black and bulging above the trees.

I lifted the lid.

Inside the case was a gray metal panel indented with several dozen shallow depressions—three dozen to be exact—most occupied by silver cylinders, each slimmer and shorter than a fountain pen. Four held larger items, also silvery in color, but with claw-shaped ends. I had no idea what I was seeing. My initial assumption was that they were tools, but thirty-two tools of the same shape and size…it made no sense. I lifted one from the case. It had to weigh half a pound. The metal was warm, signifying a heat source within.

Henley picked another up and held it to catch the firelight, turning it this way and that. I set my cylinder back in the case and when I glanced at Henley again I saw that he appeared to be frozen in place, staring at the cylinder with a confused expression.

“What is it?” I asked.

He gave no answer and I touched his arm. The muscles were rigid.

“Whirlie?” I said; then, after a pause, “You hear me?”

He remained unmoving, not even a twitch.

For several minutes during which I began to fear for him and wondered how I would explain a catatonic redneck, Henley did not stir; then, expelling a hoarse sigh, he dropped the cylinder and sank onto his side. Greatly relieved, I asked what had happened.

“I can’t sort it out,” he said dazedly. “It was a buncha pictures and things.” He sat up. “They started comin’ when I was studying it up close and pushed in the ends. Go on…give ’er a try. Didn’t hurt or nothin’. It’s just weird.”

Holding a cylinder up to eye level, I did as he had instructed. I felt a weak vibration in the metal. Then the pictures and things started to come. For the duration of the experience I was a receiver, accepting a flow of information relayed as images, and was unable to gain a clear perspective on what I was seeing. If, like Henley, I’d had no knowledge of the situation, I would have been mightily confused, and even given the knowledge I did have, I was somewhat confused, my head so full of strangeness, I too had difficulty sorting it out. But I understood that the cylinders contained what would be essential should one of the Akashel encounter an emergency and be stranded far from home: memories.

Ariel’s memories.

I tried four cylinders in all. One was a collection of images relating to the operation of the sarcophagus-like ships in which the Akashel traveled. The second offered an overview of the current state of the Weave; the third provided language instruction—I assumed it was the language Ariel had once spoken. All three used images to convey concepts and—in the case of the language instructional—to illustrate word sounds and ideographs, and these had been culled from her experience. It was her long-fingered grayish hands operating the controls of the ship, her voice sounding out words in my mind, her memories of missions past that increased my understanding of the Weave.

Why hadn’t she taken advantage of this resource?