HE HAD TRIED TO BRING the image back, but it wouldn’t come, at least not with the vividness or clarity it had come the first time.
He must have dozed off in the chair for a while, for the next thing he knew, he was startled awake by the sound of the door opening. It was Olaf and Oleg. They both looked resentful. A large bruise had spread over the right side of Olaf’s face, and Oleg’s nose was taped, both eyes blackened and bloodshot.
“He’s awake already,” said Olaf.
“Probably not too eager to sleep after being stored so long,” said Oleg, and smirked.
“What do you want?” said Horkai.
“We want you,” said Oleg.
“Time to go,” said Olaf.
And then they were taking hold of either side of his chair, starting to lift it up. Olaf was, anyway, nearly tipping him out of it—Oleg had turned to the desk and was looking at the paper.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“That’s nothing,” said Horkai.
“If it’s nothing, you won’t mind if he takes it,” said Olaf as Oleg tore the sheet off the pad and folded it up, put it in his pocket.
He opened his mouth to protest and then thought,
RASMUS WAS WAITING FOR THEM, standing beside his desk, hands clasped behind his back.
“You didn’t have to bring the chair,” he said.
“He was already awake,” said Olaf.
“And in the chair,” said Oleg.
Rasmus shrugged. “Put him down over there,” he said brusquely, “and go fetch the mules.”
“Mules?” said Horkai.
“Hmmm?” said Rasmus, half distracted. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Good morning, by the way. Mules. They’ll take you there.”
“Two of them?”
“You’ll ride one and then you’ll ride the other.”
He thought again of how difficult it had been to get from the bed to the chair. How would he manage to get from one animal to the other?
“Will they have a handler?” he asked. “A, what’s the word, a drover?”
Rasmus looked confused. “A what? What’s a drover, and why would you need one?”
“Will I be at least given a map? Look at me,” said Horkai. “I’m a paraplegic. How am I to control two animals?”
Rasmus face broke into a grin. He threw his head back, burst out laughing.
“What?” said Horkai.
“You think I mean mules like horses,” he said. “You really can’t remember anything, can you?”
“What do you mean?”
“There aren’t any animals anymore. Most were killed in the Kollaps, or eaten shortly after. The few that survived went extinct decades ago. Most of us have never even seen an animal.”
“But you said mules,” insisted Horkai.
“The mules I was talking about have two legs instead of four. They look human enough. They’ve been trained to carry you.”
“What, for forty-two miles?”
“More like forty-six. Two individuals, actually, taking turns, day and night. The roads are too ruined to do otherwise. They’ve been trained for it. It’s all arranged.”
The door opened and he turned toward it. “Ah,” he said, “we were just talking about you. Let me introduce you to Horkai, your burden.”
ONE OF THE MULES was named Qanik, the other Qatik; they told him to refer to them as the Qs. Both spoke awkwardly, as if waiting for the words to blunder up their throats and into their mouths. Both had dark hair and olive skin but also piercing blue eyes. Both stood well over six feet tall. They were broad shouldered and muscle- bound, identical in appearance as far as he could tell.
“This is your burden,” Rasmus told them, speaking slowly and carefully. “You shall deliver him as agreed, and then you shall bring him back safely. That is your purpose.”
The mules nodded. “We shall deliver him and we shall bring him back,” one of them said. “Or we shall die trying.”
The other turned to him. “Hello, burden,” he said.
“My name is Horkai,” said Horkai.
They seemed confused by that, turned to Rasmus for instruction.
“You may call him Horkai,” Rasmus said.
“Burden Horkai,” said one of the Qs.
“Just Horkai,” said the other.
“Yes,” said Rasmus. “Now take him to prepare for your journey.”
LIKE OLAF AND OLEG, the Qs seemed brothers, identical twins, but when Horkai asked Qanik about it, he just shrugged.
“We don’t have parents exactly,” Qanik said. “If you don’t have parents, how can you be brothers?”
“But I was first,” Qatik quickly added. “Of the two of us, I mean.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have parents?” asked Horkai. “Your parents are dead?”
But Qanik only shrugged. “We just know what they’ve told us,” he said.
The Qs not only looked alike—they also made almost identical, perhaps exactly identical, gestures. They even had the same facial tic, a slight quiver to their chin just before they spoke. He watched them for a while, moving around the supply room, each going for the same object at the same time. Finally, he couldn’t help but ask them if they were real.
“What do you mean, real?” asked one of the Qs, maybe Qatik.
“Of course we’re real,” said the other, offended. “We’re as real as you are.”
Which didn’t exactly answer his question, at least not in a way he was comfortable with.
WHEN THEY HAD A PILE of objects gathered, one of the Qs picked him up, effortlessly it seemed, and carried him over, seating him against the wall next to it. The other mule handed him a stainless-steel pistol, an old and well-greased semiautomatic.
“It’s a Mamba,” the Q said. “Or something like it. Probably isn’t really that old, just modeled after it. God knows where half the stuff around here comes from. Works basically like a Browning. Know how to use one?” he asked.
Horkai shook his head, but his hands were already breaking the magazine out as if they knew what to do. It was full, fifteen bullets in the magazine and one in the chamber.
The other Q nodded. “You know your way around it,” he said. “You’ll do fine.”
The first said, “That’s all the bullets we have, so be careful with them.”
“Which one are you?” asked Horkai. “Qatik?”
“
“Who’s them?” he asked.
The Qs exchanged glances. “You can start by shooting them,” said Qatik, “but that won’t be enough.”
“Why not?”
Qatik shrugged. “They’re resilient,” he said.
