Enigmatic Pilot

“You, young sir”-the gambler shrugged, and then could not control a crest of emotion-“are the son I’ve never had. Always raising the ante. And then some.”

“You taught me what an ante was,” Lloyd replied.

“Friends always?” St. Ives said, offering up his mechanical hand once more.

“Partners,” Lloyd answered, squeezing down on the metal digits. “This is the biggest mystery of all. Why do you think they gave it to you?”

“Who can say?” the gambler grumbled, a storm of anger and grief filling his eyes. “I would not rule out pure cruelty as their motive. I sensed it in them. Some conspiracy of hatred. A mania. What does your intuition say?”

Lloyd frowned and then stared out across the river to a stand of cottonwoods. “I feel that they are one… a different kind of creature than we are familiar with. Of one mind. I sense this being or beast is some holdover from long ago… and I feel some shadowy sympathy with all that you have related, which raises the question whether I am in fact who I believe myself to be-or as young as I appear.”

“But you are just a child! A boy!”

“Am I? I know how many syllables you have spoken in the last minute. Give me the materials and a bit of time, and I could make this hand. But that is not all. Do you see the dog I am thinking of? Boomer. That was my old dog, buried back in Zanesville. Smell his ragged blanket.”

“Oh…” The gambler shivered, seeing in his mind… smelling… “How did you do that?”

“I cannot say,” Lloyd answered. “It has something to do with the rapport we have. This is one of the reasons we have done so well at the tables. Seeing the others’ cards through my eyes. It is a species of communication like unto the cube you discovered, but the mechanisms that underlie it are obscure to me. I’m now thinking of a number between one and one thousand. What is it?”

“What?” the gambler squawked caught off guard. “Uh, seventy-three.”

“Correct,” Lloyd replied. “The odds are very long against you getting that right. I suspect you may have hidden talents, Mr. St. Ives, which is why we work so well. That may have something to do with why you were chosen. And it may provide some hint as to their larger purpose. You said you could not see the gathering’s mosaic diagram whole and clear, yet they or it can. Perhaps the adversary is working to a plan we cannot perceive… and we are a part of that plan. The hunger for human form may be part of the struggle to endure so as to fulfill that plan. What I find puzzling is that your hand is a baser technology than what you described in the female you were offered. If they can cultivate a fully fleshed human, real enough for you to find attractive, why bother with these metal joints and hinges?”

“Well, the hand is useful.” The gambler shrugged. “For years I hid it in a glove and loathed it. Resented the sensation of being able to direct it. I have no idea how I am able to make it work. It is a part of me, though.”

“To graft nerves onto raw metal is no small feat,” the boy agreed. “But this may be another hopeful sign-that they have had to become more mechanically ingenious because of some other lack. In any case, you have not finished your story. I can see that the oppression did not leave you when you fled.”

Rage gripped the gambler’s face. “Too true,” he said, sighing. “I went to Boston and into hiding. Two weeks later, I read that an enormous conflagration had swept through the estate. Whether it was an accident or a strategic retreat I cannot say. And what would provoke the need for retreat? It seems like an extravagant price to pay to withdraw, but who knows what resources such an organization or entity has at its disposal?

“Not long after, I learned that the Enigma Formulary and Gun Works had been acquired by a European consortium based in London calling itself the Behemoth Innovation Company. They have empty offices in several American cities, but there is no information about any of their directors. I poked and sniffed around a bit-made inquiries and checked records-but there were so many bank ledgers and writs and decrees, deeds and lawyer’s gobbledygook, there was no way to find the end of the knot. I withdrew and took up banal bookkeeping for the most colorless mercantiler I could find in Boston, where no one knew me, and I kept the hand concealed as much as I could. In time I came out of hiding enough to migrate West, using what wits I still had left to pursue the trade you found me in. I came to make peace with the hand, though it is an abomination and a constant reminder of the brutality. But it has often saved me from harm, as you have seen, and so it may be an unexpected and unintentional gift.”

“Up to now,” Lloyd answered. “Get as far away as fast as you can. Somehow I sense I am a lightning rod for these people, this other creature-whatever.”

“Say it is not so, Lloyd, please!”

“You may have gotten lucky before, although I understand you may not think so. But your luck may run out at the next encounter. Go far.”

“What about you?” the gambler garbled, the hand opening and retracting.

“I am destined for some confrontation of my own. Sooner rather than later, I believe. If you are my friend, you will take my advice and keep the hand hidden.”

“I know not what to say,” the gambler replied after a moment’s pause. “You have shed light brighter than any moon or candle. And you have cast shadows darker and more supple than I have imagined. What should we do if this… thing… is among us?”

“There is no ‘if,’ ” Lloyd answered. “You told me at the start there was a time to cut and run. That time has found you. It’s possible that there are many people throughout the world who have stories similar to yours. Our insane asylums, prisons, and military hospitals may be full of them. But there are chinks… like the need to find human form. And they, or it, have some mission of destiny-a master stratagem. That is a strength and weakness, too. Great plans usually fail. On that we can perhaps hang our hats in hope.”

“Here’s to that then,” said the gambler, and tossed his fine brim into the river. “Good night, my friend, however old you are. Tomorrow we will play our last hand, and this hand will be kept under wraps. Perhaps when I reach my new destination I will find someone with the skill and discretion to remove it, as was my first inclination years ago. Sleep well, and may the dreams that find you be your own.”

The gambler headed for his stateroom. Lloyd remained on deck, watching the hat floating away in the moonlight. He had forgotten all about the music boxes-he was taken by the vividness of the hat bobbing along on top of the water. It was the vividness of the hat in the river that finally caused him to wake.

I waited for a moment to summon him outside the tepee-into the light of the deeper horror. He felt my call, even groggy and disjointed as he was. At first he imagined it was the creature somehow escaped from its chain and prowling about the camp, sniffing out the new arrivals.

As remarkable as he may have found that specimen, I knew that he would be more surprised to see me. Vague intuitions had flashed like ripples of star-strewn river through his dreams, but this would be absolutely different and decisive. It could cause untold rents in the spiral schema, but I had no choice. He was a long silent moment longer gathering the concentration and the courage commensurate with his curiosity. Then he appeared-and the image was almost as shocking to me.

To discover yourself standing in the moonlight in waiting is not an easy thing. His jaw cracked, and my green eyes shone back at me.

“What are they? Who-?”

“I think you know too well,” I said as simply as I could. “You are not who you think you are. Or where-or when, either.”

“But!”

“Shh,” I said. “I cannot help the intrusion. And I cannot remain master of the spiral if you resist.”

“I’m still dreaming!” he gasped, for what other explanation could there be? Except for-

“You are in a different kind of wilderness than you imagine,” I said. “And now I must take your place, because I need a deeper hiding place, and to lay a snare.”

“Who?” he hissed, and I could tell that the trauma was already accommodating itself to some terrible new acceptance of the larger hellequinade.

“The Vardogers? The Spirosians?”

I let him gather his wits. Or try to.

“You must go through the door,” I said.

“What door?” he demanded. Just as I would.

“One I have made,” I answered. “The bridges I will have to build now from inside. You will find it right behind me. And you will understand.”