No matter what, the soldiers would want evidence that Rabeea remained handicapped. Daliya’s eyes defocused while she considered an idea. Perhaps it could work.
“Rabeea, will you tell me about your family?” she said. “I would like to know about Jari and your mother and this man who would go to jail for his daughter.”
It was as if a lamp kindled in Rabeea’s eyes, sending the dark tones of Fahad’s living room recoiling for the corners. “They are the most wonderful people.”
The intercom crackled. “Are you ready, Rabeea?”
Daliya swallowed. She opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t trust her voice and settled for nodding.
“I suspect you know this process better than I, but you only need to step through the portal. Do it quickly, so that you aren’t too disoriented by the moments you’re only halfway ’neath.”
Another nod, and Daliya took a faltering step forward. She nearly collapsed when her weak leg took her weight—after two weeks of practice, she couldn’t yet maneuver confidently with her new paralysis. While she walked, she recited the details to herself: Jari’s favorite toys, the spice blend that Rabeea’s mother favored with lentils, the address of the father’s workplace. By the time she arrived on Rabeea’s world, thirty true-space years would have passed since the girl first left. Jari would be grown, the parents changed. She hoped that any gaps in her knowledge would be smoothed over by the decades.
Daliya wore eight hundred grams of clothing, and carried zero point two kilograms in her hand—a long, long letter that declared Fahad’s profound disappointment with his bride’s handicap and her refusal to undergo corrective treatment.
She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the stainless steel frame around the portal. Green eyes—the nanosurgeons had made them as striking as Rabeea’s. High-arched brows. Half a face that looked like candlewax, frozen midflow. A DNA test would expose her, as would an exacting measurement of height—Daliya was one tenth of a centimeter shorter than Rabeea. But Rabeea believed that testing of genomes was one of the technologies swept away in the wash of zealotry. And who would think to take a measuring tape to her?
Fahad looked on, his expression wooden. By his side, Rabeea wore Daliya’s face well. Though the surgery had added years to her skin, turning her from young to middle-aged, she stood straight. Daliya’s heart lifted when she recalled Rabeea’s first timid steps after the surgery, the wonder that crossed the girl’s face when her once-weak leg took weight without buckling. Perhaps down the line, once the eyes of the soldiers turned elsewhere, Rabeea would undergo another treatment to restore the appearance of youth. At least now she was free to choose.
Shaadi. Marriage. It is for the women to carry our culture between the stars. To bind us as one people, even as we scatter across the galaxy like salt spilled on a table.
No, Daliya thought. Marriage did not keep them whole. Shaadi was an ideal, like so many, that failed in execution.
She stopped before the portal. Ammi. She closed her eyes. Once she stepped ’neath, there’d be no way for her to receive the last few years’ worth of her mother’s messages. This was a last goodbye.
Daliya took a deep breath and stepped into neathspace. A new family stood on the other end of the span, ready for her love.
The Pushbike Legion
written by
Timothy Jordan
illustrated by
Cassandre Bolan
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Timothy Jordan grew up in Essex, England, a healthy bike ride from London, surrounded by a loving family where science and fantasy were always part of their evenings and games.
His passion for fantasy and fossils led to an early love of Tolkien and a childhood spent with his head stuck firmly in the clouds, inventing stories and fantastical worlds.
While studying electronic engineering at the University of Leeds, Tim stumbled across Frank Herbert’s Dune in a secondhand bookshop—an event that awakened a lifelong interest in sci-fi.
Tim’s mind traveled far, but his physical form never left England until his mid-twenties, when a career as a software engineer sent him chasing across the ocean to Alabama and California before he settled in Florida with his family.
He is an avid science fiction fan and futurologist who explores transhumanism through the lenses of science and fantasy. When not working or writing, Tim enjoys playing the guitar, building robots and creating artificially intelligent computer programs. He often collaborates with faculty at a nearby university on AI and human cognition projects, helping to bring these topics to a wider audience of students and the public.
This is his first publication, although he’s just finished writing the second novel in his sci-fi series—Glow.
Stay connected with Timothy on his website at: timothy-jordan.com.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Cassandre Bolan is also the illustrator for “Beneath the Surface of Two Kills” in this volume. For more information about Cassandre, please see here.
The Pushbike Legion
Late again, thought Aleck, rising up off his bike’s wooden saddle to push down hard on the pedals. The ancient contraption skidded and skittered along the dirt road, pebbles shooting like bullets as the leather tires rolled over pits and potholes, shattering their icy crusts like eggshells.
His feet spun faster as gravity eased him downhill into a tree-lined gully and around a hairpin bend, breath trailing like clean smoke in the frosty morning air. A river, a ford, bumping across slick rocks, knees flying up past his elbows as momentum carried him across the riverbed and up the bank where his feet reengaged with the pedals, and he began the tough haul up Church Hill to the Legion’s marshaling ground.
Tattledale Church loomed out of the mist. Aleck sped past the gaunt stone walls, weaving a course around the jutting porch with its woodwormed door. He sped out across the cemetery, fighting the long grass between the gravestones that seemed to reach up like tiny fingers, slowing his progress.
Ahead, the other legionaries were poised on their bikes, spears and shields at the ready, awaiting orders.
“Ah—tent—shun!” Praetor Jones’s gruff voice barked out through the thick air, reflecting back off the nearby hills like the bark of a dog. “Shun! Shun … shun …”
“I’m here,” Aleck gasped.
“Move … out!” With a clank of chains and armor the pushbike legion of Tattledale Town headed out on morning patrol.
Aleck crested Cemetery Hill as the sun broke through, and for a fleeting second he saw the entire Land, a perfect circle of green hills, fields and cottages surrounded by the stark brown and yellow of desert dunes. Blinking hard at the morning sun, he tagged onto the back of the legion as it wound its way downhill toward the perimeter road. There, it would circle the entire six-mile circumference, before returning to the town center and the Sheep and Shearer pub for ale and breakfast.
“Morning, Fossy,” Aleck hissed as he swept past the rearguard. Old Foster Mason was already falling behind the other nine soldiers. It wouldn’t be long before bad health forced his retirement. Aleck was his intended replacement, in training for a full week and late every day. He knew how much Praetor Jones frowned upon such tardiness.
“Morning, lad,” grumbled Fossy, his eyes heavy and sad. His wife had died three months ago and his own health had gone into rapid decline.
“How’s your leg?” Aleck asked his routine question to the old man who walked with a profound limp.
“Got a bone in it,” was Fossy’s usual reply.
Aleck concentrated on keeping in line, focusing on the broad back of Centurion Sheppard, who started weaving from side to side as they descended the hill. None of the bikes had brakes; those had all worn out
decades ago, and replacement parts were hard to make. Weaving, boot jamming and plain old falling off were the only available methods of slowing down or stopping, and since they all carried weapons and armor, misjudgments often led to calamitous pileups and a group effort to fish at least one legionary out of a ditch or thorn bush.
“You’re late, boy!” Praetor Jones said, dropping back along the line to Aleck’s side.
“Yes, sir, sorry, sir, it won’t happen again, sir.”
“You said that yesterday.” He glanced sideways at Aleck, his eyes leaving the road long enough to make him wobble and almost run off into the ditch. Jones had a weak chin, caused by his complete lack of teeth. His face was grizzled leather with piercing, authoritative eyes that glared out from beneath his imposing but bizarre-looking helm. The helm had once been a huge can, probably for beans, carefully stripped and beaten into shape with twisted cow horns fastened on either side to give it a barbaric appearance. Aleck’s own helm was a simple basin held on with a chinstrap and painted military green—specially made for the new recruit. It had been over ten years since the legion last had a new recruit.
“Sorry, sir,” Aleck hung his head.
“And could you run some sausages out to the Mannings’ farm this afternoon?” Jones said in a hushed tone. “My delivery boy’s not been well the last few days.”
“Yes, sir.” Aleck perked up as Praetor Jones returned to the front of the line. The day was young and so were his legs. It seemed he wasn’t in too much trouble after all, but he vowed to try and get out of bed at the proper time tomorrow morning.
The legion pushed on toward the perimeter, passing Bill Trotter’s pig farm and the ramshackle residence of Martha Seamstress and her ever-clucking chickens—the only birds left in the Land. They passed through the last remaining oak grove, then up and over Pilot Hill, pausing occasionally to retrieve a fallen bike part or to let the older soldiers catch their breath.
The exhilarating plunge down Pilot Hill ended at the Land’s perimeter: a perfect cutoff where the grass and road turned to sand, its edge as sharp and defined as if freshly cut with a scalpel that very morning. Long ago, the road had continued out across green hills and valleys to the next village. A village whose name was lost in time, along with the road, the hills and, for all they knew, the whole of England and the rest of the world.
There had been no sight or sound of life, human or otherwise, for over sixty years. Few remembered the night the desert came, silent and unexplainable. Now, only stories of the old world remained, stories Aleck soaked up eagerly from the few old books and newspapers that remained. That lost world of planes and cities and spaceships seemed so fantastic, so unreal, he wondered if it had ever really existed at all.
After a sharp right turn onto the perimeter road, the legion paused at the flint farmhouse for their daily arms drill. As the rest of the troops caught up, Aleck inspected the old building. Cut clean in half along the perimeter line, one half of the building had turned to sand and vanished into the desert, and the half on his side of the perimeter stood like a sentinel, a poignant reminder not to take a single step farther.
He jabbed playfully with his spear at the gaps between the flints, watching the ants whip into a combat frenzy at the inexplicable attack coming from outside their realm of understanding.
A shout echoed through the still air, interrupting his daydreams of cloud-cities and motor-driven bikes. “Fossy, no, man, stop!” Aleck turned to see the old man speeding downhill toward the perimeter. For a second, Aleck thought Fossy was out of control, unable to defeat gravity with the toe of his boot, but then with a shock, he noticed that Fossy was still pedaling, his legs churning feverishly, face set in a determined grimace.
“Fossy?” Aleck barely had time to speak as the old man flashed past, crossed the perimeter line, and shot out into the desert. He kept going for a fraction of a second before the bike’s front wheel bogged down in the sand, sending Fossy flying over the handlebars. As he went airborne, he came apart, exploding like a clump of bees going in different directions, then the bees broke up into smaller bees and on until he became just dust.
Fossy never hit the sand. He simply vanished along with his bike and his pain, no sound, no scream … nothing.
“Silly old goat,” someone said.
“Waste of a good bike,” muttered Praetor Jones.
“… and then he was just gone … nothing. Why? Why would anyone do that to themselves?” Aleck prodded a small chunk of meat around the edge of his bowl. His stomach rumbled with hunger, but he still felt sickened by what he’d seen earlier. In his mind, the bowl was the Land filled with a stew of people, all bounded inside the perimeter, and the chunk of meat …?
“Old Fossy had been sick for a long time. Sometimes people just can’t take life anymore.” Aleck’s mother was a thin, nervous woman who never stood still. She whirled around the kitchen, cleaning and rearranging the few pots and pans they had left. She fussed over a vase of fake roses, placing them on the side table, adjusting the stem angles and leaves, then standing back to inspect the view. She was clearly trying to make the place look special, which could mean only one thing—Martha was on her way over. “Eat up now, no waste. We’re not made of food, you know.”
“Yes, we are, actually.” He winced, waiting for the crack of knuckles across his ear that generally followed such flippant remarks. It never came; instead she chose to lurk uncomfortably close to his side, just in his peripheral vision, a large wooden spoon raised threateningly.
“You’re a legionary now, and soldiers don’t cry, and that lovely Martha girl is coming over soon, and we don’t want her to think we’re crybabies, do we?”
“I guess not …” Aleck mumbled into his stew. He had heard all the rumblings at the town meetings, the shrinking population, not enough young people coming along to do the work. Arranged marriages were the answer; get them all married off and breeding fast before the population died out. That had been the general sentiment at the last meeting, an idea first proposed by Father Haslop, and wherever his thoughts went, the whole town generally followed like sheep. “Baaah!”
“What?”
“Nothing …” He swirled the meat around his bowl until it flipped over the rim and onto the table. He stared at it, half expecting it to disappear into a puff of dust, but it just stayed, staining the tablecloth with brown juice.
It wasn’t that Martha was a bad girl. Two years older than Aleck, and a lot taller and more adult-looking, she had bumps and curves that the girls his own age just didn’t have. Not that there were many girls, or boys, for that matter. They all fit comfortably into the single-room schoolhouse, where Mrs. Rattlebee divided the lessons and her attention across the spectrum of ages from toddler to near adult. Soon, he’d have to leave that classroom and take on work and a wife, even though he still felt like a kid, and really didn’t know what a married person was supposed to do.
A loud knock popped him out of his reverie, and the kitchen door swung open. Martha stood twiddling her thumbs and looking down at him through thick eyelashes.
“Well, chop-chop, Aleck … let the lady in. We haven’t got all day.”
“Yes, we have.” He refused to move or meet Martha’s gaze. He saw the spoon twitch toward his ear, and winced.
Instead, his mother scratched the top of her head with the spoon and rushed to the door. “Do come in, my dear. Excuse Aleck; he’s a bit upset about that Fossy thing earlier today. He’s a legionary now, you know, so he gets to see all sorts of horrors and things in defense of the Land.”
“Yes, I heard about that … terrible
really.” Martha was in and at the table, eyeing Aleck’s stew before his heart could manage another beat.
“Now you two sit and have a nice little chat. Aleck can tell you all about his new adventures. I’ll just be in the next room making lots of noise, so excuse me, won’t you …”
Saved by the sausages, thought Aleck as he viewed the town from up on Pilot Hill for the second time that day. Mr. Jones’s sausage delivery had made an excellent excuse to escape the forced rendezvous with Martha. As he sat astride his bike looking back toward his home, he couldn’t shake the thought that she was still there, lurking in the kitchen, eating and awaiting his return.
On a whim, he rode down a different dirt track and past the pig farm out onto a small flat plain lined with rows of vegetables. He hovered next to a rickety wooden water tower that leaned as if about to topple. Usually there was a mule tethered to a lever-and-screw mechanism that lifted water from the underground reserve to fill the tower. A branching network of pipes and ditches carried the water out across the acres of vegetables. Today must be the mule’s day off. It stood off to the side in a small paddock, chewing carrots from a string basket.
Aleck meandered through the rows of beets and potato heads, leaving a winding tire track in the dirt behind. Nearer the perimeter, he saw the familiar sight of old Charlie Potato sitting on his bench, looking out over the desert.
“You’re not thinking of riding out as well, are you?” he said bumping over the broken paving to where Charlie sat.
“Not today.” Charlie was not one for words. Old and supposedly wise, he was one of the few left alive who remembered the coming of the desert.
“What do you mean … not yet?” Aleck sat on the bench next to him and let the bike flop into a nearby hedgerow.