LOST AND FOUND (first half)

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  She slits open her eyes and screams. The Rhine flows newly under its moon:

 

       "You say, ‘Let‘s pardon the Naysayer.’ No my friends, you have it wrong way to; we were anathema, not she. Ah,                           that spirit, her incarnation inspires us forever." Hervioux 18 Yafdit, Dominant. Excerpt from an address to the                                 Council of Philosophers, Expando Federation, Cycle 78,632.843 after the Transfer. (Historians have shown that the                         Naysayer’s transposition from fiend to saint began three cycles before the Dominant’s speech, during the time of                           Yana 6 Lan.)

 

  Breathing relief from the lightening, thunder and torrents, Yana and Yenig bust through the portal like kittens then skid to a halt within the terminal. Blinking in light streaming from thousands of crystals rotating near the ceiling, they have arrived just in time, for suddenly a holographic dispatcher appears fifty paws above the floor of galaxies. He yowls a warning: “Mappers to their vats. Thirty millicycles to firing.”

  For a moment, the paramours stare at this visual then begin biting and raking each other. Two passing couples bare their fangs as if remembering when they too had promised love forever. Yana withdraws then saunters toward storage, her eight breasts swinging free under curls of gold. Yenig follows in her scent until he loses it in the deluge of odors from machines and bodies.

  Once through the gap, Yana lopes to her vat in the middle and jumps in. Yenig strides through the glow that protects the vats with correct polarity. When he reaches Yana’s container, he hangs his head over the edge, and there she lies, settled in her purring.

  "Yana, don't you dare alloy observation. Forget about finding ancestors. If you just witness, you'll promote to senior mapper. Then, we'll rock the stars. Whom should we invite to our mating, do you suppose?"

  The idea of mating with Yenig would have excited her if she had not disembodied. She hangs circled by the spin guns that line her tank.

  Studying the grimace on his lover's lips, Yenig realizes she has begun her mission. Every trip she undertakes sets him to fidgeting. He snarls as she spirits away. Will she return? Will she forget him? Will she embroil herself searching for the Lost?

  The robo-technician assigned to her tank completes life-support hookup then switches on the shield. Yenig gazes up to where he imagines her to float then rubs the Icon for the Lost. Yana believes the ritual meaningless, but he recites the prayer against entrapment anyway.

  Without her body, Yana weighs less than a midge. Drawn by anti-grav, she careens into prep. Each pulse, however, saddens her. Already she misses her body, her life, Yenig. She creates a void and fills it with compensation ‒ Yenig riding a shooting star to their mating. But, no more than a nanocycle passes before bio-flux yanks that illusion away.

  Yenig’s pelage ruffles ‒ Yana forgetting him for even a few millicycles? No. He agrees with the priests: Sacrosanct, memories should not scurry away. If the ancestors had abandoned their memories before the Transfer ‒ well, nothing would shine on Old Home. Nevertheless, stripping disentangles mappers from hang-ups and distractions, so they can observe objectively.

  Yana's last memory vanishes like a dissolving starburst. Buried deep, however, she inculcates tracings of the transfer from Old Home and the loss of the billions who did not survive the trip.

  The priests do not yield in their view. They had convinced the authorities that those traces (in approved form) could help orient mappers. Still, for Yana lost attachment impounds her.

  The loss of the ancestors supposedly resides in the subconscious, but out of thousands of missions, not once has a mapper sensed one. Many philosophers began to doubt the stories. Even the priests had difficulty in teaching the tale upon which ancestor worship depends. The whole of Expando began to despair of ever rejoining any.

  Set-up completed, Yana accepts nudges to the next step, mental separation from Expando. Legions of philosophers and priests have discussed the similarity of such severance to death, but their conclusions mean little to her.

  Like her absent memories, the draw of Expando vanishes. Thrust reverses to stop her spin. Apathy overwhelms her as the thought guns implant destination coordinates in her mind.

  She has become merely a friction-less source of energy. Scans the emptiness. Cannot reach out. Her body gasps, shudders then stills for the duration.

 

  No matter how many times she’s undergone prep, Yana wants to ditch too late. Mission code, programs, sub-programs and tasks flood into her bins. She courses through a helix, where technicians patch several glitches. Devoid of hope, she pulses to a far-off point, one of a thousand firing stations, then into a thought tube to join hundreds of other mappers, each ready to visit an archival planet. Within the twitch of a whisker, carrier waves fire, the destination sub-program deploys, and the speck that is Yana vanishes.

  Lacking awareness of her trip, she penetrates space-time, coming from nothingness into colors, movements, masses and distances of galaxy 1,528. At the vision, she expels a pulse of energy. The destination sub-program allows her only an instant for wonder as it calculates position, time and attitude. A sudden shift, the physical universe disappears, once more placing her outside space and time.

  Three more transients pass before she reaches her destination, galaxy 1,381,747. Within a millicycle, she merges with a point in the third spiral. She seems not to have arrived from outside the galaxy. More like she simply appeared.

  Her approved memories arrive within seconds. They flood into her mind. For esprit de corps, she announces: "Yana 6 Lan, Junior Mapper of The Historical Society."

  That’s handled. She begins establishing orientation, surrounding it with flux, and layering warp around that, so she can exit at any sector. She sculpts the point she occupies: a bit of sphere here, a screen there, enough vibrations to make the place come alive.

  Contented, settled in to reflect on her mission, she studies the target. Analysis of variations shows the place a backwater, still materialistic, limited by matter, energy and distances. Half a dozen wars mar its face.

  She copies from its depositories several million books, 1000s of interactive games and billions of computer files, which allows her to absorb information on the planet’s progress and regress in culture, myth, pattern and technology.

  The inhabitants call their planet, “Earth.” Life spans average one hundred of their years. Although dysfunctional, their biped forms remind her of stories about the bodies abandoned at Old Home.

  Because she has newly appeared in a definite time and place vis a vis the planet, a message on her wavelength surprises her, "What are you doing here?”

  In the Bronx, an old lady smooths out her gingham before taking another sip of green tea. Having no response, she addresses the air again, “Ah, well, I don’t blame you for not talking. Hardly anyone does these days. Take the newlyweds upstairs. The wife, her name’s Barbie, moans, ‘Oh Charlie, you’re the best.’

  “He’ll say, ‘Baby, baby, baby, you feel on soooo good.’ Not one word have they said to me in five months. I doubt if I exist for them at all. They’re lost up there among the sheets. Still, I smile, say greetings and hope they will return a 'hello' one day.

  “I’ve spent most of my 87 years in the Bronx.” Spirit, her Persian, eyes her. She sits in front of the refrigerator waiting for her tuna-chicken. As long as she gets her victuals, she does not seem to care that her mistress speaks to the air.

“Before that, well, that’s something else. Where I’ve carried out life doesn’t concern me none because I’m right here now. That’s all that counts, wouldn’t you say?” She cocks her head toward the sky.

  Modulation and the noise filter work okay, so Yana suspects the programming. She cannot fix it but hopes that Central Collection will handle the malfunction.

  The old lady smiles all the time of the world.

 

  Time resets when she hits her orientation point again. Now, trillions of mega-paws distant, the target sub-program provides Yana’s 948th assignment ‒ Berlin, Germany, 1914. She merges with the aura of "Saul Herschel," baby. She will remain until Saul fades. For now, she tracks along, and Saul’s rumblings fall into her bins like flower petals settling onto a quiet pool.

  "Outside the ghetto, I must face goyim. Most of them seem decent though a few bad ones torment me. They make fun of my locks, call me 'kike'. Father says I must learn to get along with them to become prosperous. God blesses the successful ten times over the poor, he says. So, he sends me out among them.

  "One winter's day, while trying to escape three toughs, I slip on a patch of ice. Before I can rise, they catch me. Two of them hold me down, while the other kicks me in the teeth and gonads. Excruciating. I double up and spit blood and a broken tooth.

  "Citizens neglect my plight. A policeman advances, saying, 'Get up scum. Go home to the whore who spawned you’. He raises his club. I manage to stagger away, laughter counterpointing my tears.

  "Father sends me out day after day. Eventually, I learn to exist even with the more atavistic. I learn success among the goyim ‒ become servile, polite and sly.

  "When my apprenticeship began, I learned simple tasks first, like pushing the cart at proper speed and pause to draw people out of their houses. Father showed me how to hone knives such that ladies do not cut themselves. He said that life mimics a knife ‒ too sharp, it will slice you.

  "Lately, fewer hail us. They stand behind curtains. Still, Father sings his song till jeering children dismiss us with rocks. The contagion spreads to poorer neighborhoods. One morning as I prepare the cart, father says we will stay in the ghetto, we will not service goyim anymore.”

  Yana escapes these regurgitations by blanking out occasionally. Twenty-five years of recording pass before she interests herself again in Saul’s abasement….

   "Today we enjoy respite; the gentiles celebrate Martin Luther. May they have 365 holidays a year, for they find peace then. I cock my ear; their voices, mingled with tinkling, hint at crystal chandeliers swinging in the wind.

  "Phantasms arrive in the discordance. Stel asks what is going on. As I start for the door to find out, a brick shatters the window. The object transfixes me as it tumbles across the floor.

  "No sooner than its clatter dies, the door bursts inward. Crazed, cursing men invade the shop. I stand amazed, while, with clubs and axes, they destroy my equipment and pawn. I can’t control my shaking.

  "Stel flies down the stairs midway between terror and anger. A man strikes her down with a pipe. As I lurch toward her, he hits me too. My son’s screams follow me into twilight."

  Saul awakes to chill coming through the broken window. Blood mats his hair. As he crawls to where Stel lies unmoving, he passes his son huddled in a corner. Stel lies dead. The boy stares. The police come just as Saul picks up his son. He can only shake his head. He grasps for meaning as the maria takes them from the ghetto....

  "The women stagger in another line. One by one they file into their shower as we do into ours. All naked, but care not, modesty long gone. The skeleton in front of me enters. I follow.

  "Under a shower, I await the water. Weeks ago, to forestall madness, I convinced myself that its discomfort aped pleasure. There, pummeled by freeze, I regain some pride of manhood. In the showers, at least, I remember Who made me one of the Chosen.

  I wait for the water. Nothing comes. I wait. Finally, the pipes shudder. A few drops spurt. I brace for the deluge. None comes, then hissing. Still I wait. The water is coming." 

  The water does not come. Something unseen does. The naked men do not credit it. They mill about mouthing prayers until the gas kisses them. Saul stands quietly, resigned to liberation. A blessing, he falls.

  At the same moment, Yana and Saul leave Saul’s body. Saul spins confused 10 feet above his prone form. Yana considers helping him, but does not. Against code.

  At her vat on Expando, none see her paws raise in capitulation.

 

  For only the third time since becoming a mapper, Yana hits orientation off center ‒ a full 0.7593 millipaws. Troubleshooting deploys and finds her field skewed by empathy for her last ride.

  A subprogram feeds her visions of Old Home while setting her on point. When done, programming implants a consideration, "A ride is just a ride," and Yana believes it.

  She prepares herself for another sojourn, but spiraling up from the planet, a voice interrupts, “You can call me ‘Beve’ if you’d like.”

  Yana locates the source of that noise. She runs a scan of MayBeve Poldofsky of the Bronx. MayBeve had retired early from the borough due to mental problems. She had received disability until she qualified for social security.

  Yana avoids riding her. No way can she front up to the interference that would bring. She files the information about the misfit in a catch-all bin and vibrates into the aura of a gypsy baby. As that body grows, love and hate exhilarates both her and the ride. When the girl reaches puberty, even forced mating with Nazi officers she makes tolerable. She buys limited freedom with her gifts. What some would call degradation, the gypsy calls survival.

  She escapes to Switzerland, laughing, drinking and dancing life. Years later, Yana leaves this spirit floating above a bier in Zurich.

  Leaving the gypsy’s longing sets Yana pondering, but troubleshooting removes her thoughts, replacing them with approved traumas: Images of the Great Ordeal flood into her mind ‒ one hundred billion ancestors lost fleeing the trap on Old Home.

  The voice from the planet pipes again, “Once I spent five weeks in Brooklyn taking care of my sister after she’d had surgery for female trouble. She got over it, although she never wanted to do it anymore. She tried that freedom thing for a while. Her husband figured I had encouraged her, so kicked me out. I had to go to another borough to get my benefits.

  "When I came back to the Bronx, I went to the corner store, drug store, liquor store and all around to discover if my credit still held. Well, nobody knew I had gone away. Seemed as if I had not gone to Brooklyn at all. If not missed, maybe you didn't go in the first place.”

  Yana asks, “To whom do you talk?”

  “To whom am I talking? Why, I am talking to you, dear, who else?”

  Of course, programming catches and handles that code break. Then, to keep Yana focused, it rehabilitates her goal of promotion to Senior Mapper of The Historical Society.

 

  Not all her rides are victims. Yana continues her mission, hitching, mapping, exiting, again and again. Finally, she enters the environs of a baby destined for the priesthood, although a priest whose robes will dirty on the inside. Forty years pass, and the priest bears his cross deftly.

  (Central collection tags his area a war zone.) "They come to Mass because of bombs, not faith. The confessional is being misused. Some confess abomination: disagreements with government, sympathy for Jews and others caliginous. Even for these sins, I give penance. Not of will, but from duty. God loves traitors also, I must allow.

  "Why, this kneeling Fraulein confessed only last week she hid her money in the event Germany lost. Oh, the weariness of confession. If I had not become a priest, I would have turned her in. Instead, I alerted the burgomaster to have her watched."

  "Father Hans." The priest turns from his maundering. His acolyte defers, "Begging your Grace, that was the last communicant."

  “We finish our duty. After shedding my vestments, I traipse to the rectory, where a special faithful awaits me. We salute the Fuhrer. The first order of business is the Jew in our district. That parasite connives with the Devil. His presence debilitates all. We plan. Josef will alert the police. Wilhelm will observe the Jew's dwelling. We pledge ourselves to a neighborhood free of vermin. Heil Hitler."

  Yana sends a warning, but the Jew ignores it. A sub-program logs her violation.

  "As we leave the meeting, Werner asks about priests in France spiriting Jews to Switzerland. I tell him, ‘foreign priests’. He understands. I do not reveal that many German clergy misguide themselves too.

  "Outside, our militia parades by, filling me with esteem. But a passing soldier says they evacuate the area. The enemy is only hours away. Holy Mother, do we forfeit the war?

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  A new story from the book Eve of Valor will post on or about 1 Jan.

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   To get the book Eve Valor: click here.