robbed the universe of mystery. We desperately need our mystery, you
said. In the mystery is the hope. That’s what you believe. Well, what I
saw over on the other side.
Kevin, what I saw over there is more mystery than a million years of
scientists can explain. The universe is stranger than we ever conceived
… and yet, at the same time, it’s eerily like our most primitive
concepts of it.” He drove in silence for a minute or so and then began
to murmur to himself in that cryptic language.
Bobby said, “Who’s Kevin? ”
“His brother? Earlier, he referred to him as big brother. I think Kevin
might be a reporter somewhere.” Still speaking what was gibberish to us,
Delacroix shut off the recorder.
I was afraid this was the last piece of an incomplete testament, but
then he returned.
“Pumped cyanide gas into the translation capsule. That didn’t kill
Hodgson, or what had come back in Hodgson’s place.”
“Translation capsule, ” Bobby said.
“The egg room, ” I guessed.
“We pumped all the atmosphere out. The capsule was a giant vacuum tube.
Hodgson was still alive. Because this isn’t life … not as we think of
life. This is anti-life. We kept the capsule operative, powered it to a
new cycle, and Hodgson, or whatever it was, went back where it came
from.” He switched off the recorder. Only four entries remained in his
testament, and each was spoken in a more confused, fearful voice. I
sensed that these were Delacroix’s few fitful moments of coherence.
“Eight of us on the second expedition. Four came back alive. Me among
them. Not infected. The doctors declared us free of all infection.
But now …” Followed by, ” … infected or possessed? Wrus?
Parasite? Or something more profound ? Am I just a carrier … or a
doorway? Is something in me ..
. or coming through me? Am I … being unlocked … opened … opened
like a door? ” Then, with decreasing coherence, ” … never went
forward … went sideways. Didn’t even realize there was a sideways.
Because we all long ago … we stopped thinking about .
.
. stopped believing in a sideways …” Finally, ” … will have to
abandon the car … walk in … but not where it wants me to go. Not to
the translation capsule. Not if I can help it.
The house. To the house. Did I tell you they all died? The first
expedition?
When I pull the trigger … will I be closing the door … or opening it
to them?
Did I tell you what I saw? Did I tell you who I saw? Did I tell you
about their suffering? Do you know what flies and crawls? Under that red
sky? Did I tell you? How did I get … here? Here? ” The last words on
the tape were not in English.
I raised the bottle of Corona to my mouth and discovered that I had
already emptied it. [ Bobby said, “So this place with the red sky, the
black treesis it your mom’s future, bro? ”
“Sideways, Delacroix said.”
“But what does that mean? ”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they know? ”
“Doesn’t sound like they did, ” I said, pressing the rewind button on
the remote.
“I’m having some quashingly funky thoughts.”
“The cocoons, ” I guessed.
I “Whatever spun the cocoons did they come out of Delacroix? ”
“Or through him, like he said. Like he was a doorway.”
“Whatever that means. And either way, does it matter? Out of or through,
it’s the same to us.”
“I think if his body hadn’t been there, the cocoons wouldn’t be there,
either, ” I said.
“Gotta get some angry villagers together and march up to the castle with
torches, ” he said, his tone of voice more serious than the words he had
chosen to express himself.
As the tape rewound and clicked to a stop, I said, “Should we take the
responsibility on this one? We don’t know enough. Maybe we should tell
someone about the cocoons.”
“You mean like authority types? ”
“Like.”
“You know what they’ll do? “