Immobility

“Soon,” said Qatik. “Soon.”

What soon meant, it was hard to say. They trudged uphill. The sun had slipped lower in the sky. For the first time, Qanik stumbled, almost pitched Horkai off his shoulders. Qatik was immediately there, steadying him. Shall I take him? he was saying. Shall I have my turn? But Qanik, waving him off, kept going.

And then Qatik took off on his own, running hundreds of feet ahead of them, finally vanishing off the side of the road.

“Where’s he gone?” asked Horkai.

“Do not worry,” said Qanik from below him. “He will come back.”

“I’m not worried,” said Horkai. “I just want to know what he’s doing.”

But Qanik kept walking and didn’t respond.

They went a little farther in silence, Qanik grunting occasionally, his steps slightly less steady.

“How many hours have passed?” Horkai finally asked.

“What do you mean, hours?” asked Qanik.

“You don’t know what hours are?”

Qanik didn’t bother to respond.

“How much time has passed since we started?” asked Horkai.

“Most of the day,” said Qanik.

“Can’t you be more specific than that?”

“How?”

He was traveling with a man who seemed not to know what hours were.

He had no watch, no way to measure time, nor had he seen anything like a clock at the community. “When night falls, I can be more specific. Then it will be one day.”

Something had appeared in the road, perhaps a half mile in front of them, perhaps more. It was moving. Horkai’s heart skipped a beat before he realized it must be Qatik.

“Isn’t there anything alive out here?” he asked.

“Roaches,” said Qanik without hesitation. “Sometimes there are roaches, but only sometimes.”

“Anything else?”

Qanik pondered for a long time, his footsteps growing a little less certain. “We are alive and we are out here,” he finally said.

“Other than us,” said Horkai. “Other than the roaches.”

“No,” said Qanik. “Nothing can live here.”

“Then why can I live here? Why don’t I need a suit?”

Horkai felt Qanik’s shoulders twitch, wondered if he had forgotten he was carrying Horkai and had tried to shrug.

“You can survive,” Qanik said. “That is all I know.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because you are not dead yet.”

Qatik loped up, his black suit now covered with white dust.

“I’ve found a place,” he said. “Just off the road, a facility of some kind. Industrial or farming related. A central building, a series of round cylinders as well, ten in all, on supports, with entrances near the base. Some are still standing.”

“Anyone living in them?” asked Qanik.

“Not that I could see,” said Qatik.

Qanik nodded, gestured the other mule forward with one hand. They followed him up to where the freeway had once crossed over another road—the bridge collapsed now. They clambered down the slope to the roadway below.

What Qatik had called cylinders Horkai recognized as silos. They weren’t far, only a few hundred feet from the freeway. The two or three largest had collapsed, caving in on one another, and were little more than bits and pieces of metal ribs now. But many of the others, smaller and perhaps shielded by the larger ones, were more or less intact.

They went toward them, the two mules pointing and nudging each other. They came close to one, walked around it until Qanik pointed to a huge tear in the metal. They moved on to the next one.

“What are you looking for?” asked Horkai, but neither of them answered.

The roof of the next was gone and they passed it by. The next still was slightly larger and they walked completely around it, squeezing their way through the gap between it and the next one. Finally Qatik turned, eyebrows raised.

“It will do,” Qanik stated.

With Horkai’s help they found the manual hatch release and Qatik tugged on it, but nothing happened. He pulled harder and Horkai heard the metal groan, but it was not until Qanik lumbered forward and grabbed hold as well that the hatch finally sprang open and tens of thousands of husks of long-dead beetles poured out, a fine powdery dust along with it.

When it had stopped, Qatik crunched to the top of the pile and, grabbing the lip of the chute, tried to pull his way in, but the opening was too small. He shucked the two backpacks and this time wriggled in. A moment later, his gloved hand was thrust back out, waited there, palm open.

“Come on,” said Qanik, and reached up to lift Horkai off his shoulders. He hung there helpless in the air, his lifeless legs dangling, like a child’s doll, and then Qanik thrust him up to the chute opening and Qatik’s hand closed around his shirt, dragging him awkwardly in, setting him down roughly on a narrow metal ledge.

“Find something to hold on to,” said Qatik, and thrust his hand out again.

There was a ladder beside him and he grabbed it with one hand. His gun was digging into his side so he took it out, balanced it on the ledge beside him. It was extremely hot inside, the air almost unbreathable. It was also very difficult to see. The only light was that coming up through the hatch and from an opening high above, a flap in the top of the roof, where the grain must have in the past been poured in. The backpacks flopped in beside him and then, suddenly, the light dimmed and, grunting, the black-suited form that was Qanik forced itself through. Once he was all the way in, he turned around and reached back out, pulled the hatch door closed with his fingers.

“Are you sure we’ll be able to open it again?” asked Horkai.

“Should be,” said Qatik, and then started up the ladder, nearly crushing Horkai’s fingers. Down below, beside Horkai, Qanik braced his legs against the inner edge of the hatch chute and dug through one of the backpacks, at last removing a fusee, which he cracked and threw down to rest on the hatch itself. It lay there, burning with a pale red light that cast wavering shadows all through the bottom of the silo. The acrid smoke made Horkai cough. Meanwhile, Qatik had climbed all the way to the top. Leaning far out, he pulled the upper opening closed.

Once he was down, the two mules untaped their hoods, careful to try to preserve the seal for later. They didn’t take them off, just slid them back on their heads so that their mouths were visible. Their chins, Horkai saw, were slick with sweat.

“Hungry?” asked Qanik. It was strange to watch someone talk when all you could see of their face was their mouth.

“This isn’t a good idea,” said Horkai. “The silo is going to fill with smoke.”

“We will not stay here long,” said Qatik. “We have enough air for what we need.”

“We will eat and then we will go,” said Qanik. He twisted the end off a metal cylinder and handed it to Horkai, motioned for him to drink. He did—water, warm and with a somewhat metallic taste. Qatik was already handing him a tin box that, when he opened it, he found to be full of hardtack.

“Pour some water into the box and wait a moment,” said Qatik. “Otherwise you will break your teeth.”

He poured the water in and waited. His eyes were burning from the smoke, making it difficult to see. He felt like he was suffocating.

“You’re certain I don’t need a suit?” asked Horkai. “You’re certain I’ll be all right?”

Qanik nodded. “You always have been,” he said. “If not, we’d already know.”

“How?”

“Skin rash at first, mild in the beginning but getting worse and worse. Then you would start to vomit blood. Around here, it wouldn’t take long for your skin to break into sores and ulcerate. If we were exposed to as much as