Abajo Nexus
Robert Walton
Robert Walton is a retired middle school teacher with thirty-six years of service. His interests include classical music (still playing the trombone!), rock climbing, with ascents in Yosemite and Pinnacles National Park, and writing. His novel Dawn Drums won the 2014 New Mexico Book Awards Tony Hillerman Prize for best fiction. His SF novella “Vienna Station” won the 2011 Galaxy prize and was subsequently published by Rosetta Books. More than a hundred of his short stories have been published both in print and online. Most recently, his “Joaquin’s Gold”, a collection of Joaquin Murrieta tales, was published on Amazon. You can visit him online at http://chaosgatebook.wordpress.com/
“The canal matrix is our first problem.”
“What’s the problem?” Oscar Koch turned and stared at Joe Tuba, his river guide. "You claim to be the best. That's why I'm paying you twice the going rate.”
“In the matrix,” Tuba finished coiling a rope. “There are many side canyons, many turnings.”
Koch turned back to the bow of the flat river skiff and studied red and ochre cliffs looming a few hundred meters away. “You have an anecdotal description and a map. What could possibly go wrong?"
Tuba shrugged, “Things change.”
“Change?" Koch turned again. “Those cliffs look pretty permanent to me.”
Tuba did not answer.
“You can read, can’t you?”
“Yes.” Tuba started the boat’s electric turbine.
“Then just follow my map and hit the checkpoints!”
Tuba pulled the tiller slightly toward his flat stomach and aimed the skiff at a black slit that split the cliffs from river to rim. He increased power to the magnetic drivers. The slender, fiberglass hull eased into the narrow opening like a blade sliding into its sheath.
Burnt sienna walls rose five hundred meters, though they were close enough on either side to touch with outstretched hands. The canal was deep and still, its surface a dark mirror beneath the skiff's prow. Silence perched between employer and employee like another passenger as kilometers slid by.
The canyon walls at last receded and the skiff entered a wide, limpid channel, blue as robins' eggs. Koch spoke for the first time in an hour, his voice rusty from the dry air. “That wasn't too tough.”
“No, sir,” Tuba murmured. “This is the Dulce, perhaps the most beautiful passage in the matrix.” Clear water glowed with sapphire brightness. Ruddy walls curved upwards like open hands.
Koch sniffed. “I didn’t come to Zion for sight-seeing.”
“No, sir.”
Koch stared ahead in silence.
“Most people do,” Tuba offered.
“Not me.” Koch glared at his guide. “This planet has many assets - geological, zoological, and many natural wonders. I have yet a different interest.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have no time for exotic beauties.” Koch shaded his eyes against light reflecting from the smooth water. “I'm a hundred and thirty-two and in good health. How much longer can that last?”
Tuba shrugged, “Perhaps a great while.”
“With good results from molecular regeneration, maybe ten years?” Koch chuckled, "But not much longer, I'd say.”
Tuba did not respond.
“Medical science has its limits. That's why I'm here.” The old man folded his hands in his lap. “Medical mysteries are suddenly important to me. I’ve learned that Zion possesses such a mystery.”
Tuba frowned. “You don't want to traverse the Abajo Nexus, do you?”
“What if I do?"
“You never mentioned it. That trip extension costs a great deal of money.”
“I have a great deal of money.”
Tuba pondered. “Double what you’re paying me now?”
“Done,” Koch nodded.
“It's risky.” Tuba looked up. “There are rapids and dangerous creatures live up there, things that don’t like visitors.”
“That may be,” Koch paused for a long moment, “but the Nexus is where I must go. Take us there."
Tuba sighed, “It's your party.”
“It is.”
Tuba turned the skiff into a tributary and the skiff ghosted over black water, sometimes passing side canyons, sometimes turning into them. An hour later, the enclosing walls drew away and the skiff bumped its rounded bow against a slope of golden sand.
Tuba spoke his first words since leaving the Dulce, “I've got to pee.”
Koch rubbed the back of his neck.
“You'd better go, too.” Tuba stepped out of the skiff. “The next part will be rough.”
Koch stirred. “Rough? We have seen no ripple bigger than our wake since we started.”
“Trust me, I mean rough.”
“If you say so.” He joined Tuba on the bank. Canyon walls curled like a flamingo’s wings above them. They returned to the skiff a few moments later, launched, and rounded a jutting promontory. Ahead lay a perfectly round cave.
“Hold on,” Tuba warned.
Koch grasped handles on either side of his bench seat as the skiff’s bow thrust into deep darkness. A roar engulfed them, and their craft became a mote of dust in a fire hose's gush, an insect swirling over the lip of Niagara. Foaming water boiled up, down and around, then up again until they spouted out of another tunnel mouth into a whirlpool.
The skiff turned in circles and finally washed up on crimson sand. Both men sat drenched and shaken.
Tuba grinned at last. “That was smoother than I thought it would be.”
Water dripping from his chin, Koch frowned. “This is the Abajo Nexus?”
The guide tilted his head toward a faint path. “Up that trail a hundred meters.”
Koch rose, stepped onto glittering sand. “Wait here.”
“Mr. Koch,” Tuba cleared his throat. “I don't know what stories you've heard about the Nexus — fountains of youth, magic, whatever, but . . . ”
“Magic is nonsense. I deal in facts,” Koch paused. “You are Navajo, right?”
“My people came to this place long ago and brought Hózhǫ́ with them,” He looked at Koch, “I am Navajo.”
“Hózhǫ́, what’s that?”
“Balance,” Tuba took a deep breath, “peace.”
“I’m looking for something else,” Koch shrugged his daypack into a more comfortable position. “A former colleague of mine — actually, a competitor — came here and met a woman. He was dying but she healed him. I intend to meet this same woman.”
“A shaman lives up there sometimes, a keeper of wisdom.” Tuba considered his next words, “but something else lives up there, too, something evil, something you don’t want to meet.”
Koch leaned forward. “You’ve seen it?”
“Nobody has seen it and lived. You should . . . ”
“I don't need advice,” Koch interrupted him. “Just be here when I return.” He strode up the beach toward a red cliff. Looking straight ahead, he followed a faint, gently rising path.
An orange display from Koch's data implant danced in the middle distance to his right. Monitoring its changing numbers, he paced forward — unmindful of the cliffs to either side, not noting shapes of great trees carved from stone — his mind fixed upon the prospect of not just health, but extended life — long life, perhaps eternal. He deserved it. He’d struggled, sacrificed, and achieved wealth beyond all but a few. None dared stand between him and what he desired: more life, millennia of life, eons.
He entered a miracle, but did not see it, his vision of immortality blinding him. A crystallized forest sprang high around him. He walked beneath frozen branches glinting amber and amethyst.
A rattling and clacking, as of castanets and Flamenco heels, broke into his consuming dream. He stopped, looked to his right. A nightmare greeted him.
It was most like a scorpion. Four arms ending in pincers waved hypnotically. Its arched and segmented tail ended in twin shining blades instead of a sting. Its vertical slit of a mouth dripped ichor.
Koch groped for his weapon, a military grade sonic blaster. His fingers found its empty holster on his belt. Fear flashed through him. He’d tucked it in his waterproof pack before the passage of the rapids. He shrugged his left shoulder to loosen the pack’s strap.
The creature shook its tail three meters above the ground and the rattling redoubled.
Koch lurched backwards, fumbling the pack off his back.
Azure feelers twitched.
Groping in the half-open pack, his legs struck a block of crystal and he toppled. The giant insect scuttled toward its fallen prey, black pincers reaching. Koch flung up his right arm in feeble defense.
A small woman jumped over the magnate’s outstretched legs, landing between him and the rattling horror. She raised her hand. The creature slowed, its pincers descending, touching the woman's shoulders, her right cheek, her breasts.
She pointed toward the crystal trees.
The creature remained motionless, its menacing tail frozen against the sky. Then it scrabbled back, disappearing among gleaming trees.
Koch took a shuddering breath, “Damn.”
“There is nothing so eloquent as a Rattlescorp’s tail,” the woman smiled. “It will bother you no more.”
Koch took another breath. “Thanks. My name is . . . ”
“I know who you are, Mr. Koch. I am Tsosie Begay.”
He looked closely at her. She wore a long black skirt and a rose satin shirt. Snowy hair peeked from beneath a blue scarf and framed her brown, deeply lined face. “Tsosie?” he asked.
“You may call me Shimá,” She nodded. “I am the grandmother who sits beneath cedars.”
Koch shook his head, “Grandmother doesn’t sound right. We are of an age, you and I.”
“You think so?” She smiled, “You might call me wizard or shaman, but those are loaded words. Grandmother will do.”
Koch cleared his throat. “I don't understand what happened just now.”
“I cared for that scorp when it was small.” Shimá chuckled, “It remembers me, fortunately.”
“You know my name?”
“You’re a very important man,” Shimá smiled sardonically. “Very rich, no?”
“I don’t like your tone,” Koch scowled.
“There is a proverb: A man can't get rich if he takes proper care of his family.”
Koch’s scowl deepened, “There’s no need to be insulting.”
“Truth is never insulting, just occasionally blunt.”
“Thanks for the clarification.”
Shimá shrugged. “I seek to enlighten when I can.”
"Would you care to tell me why water was flowing uphill through that tunnel back there?” Koch sneered, “The short answer, for unenlightened people?”
Shimá nodded benignly. “Certainly.”
Koch snorted, “Well?”
Shimá spread her hands. “Waters from the canyons you traversed this morning fall into the Nexus, as do the waters of many worlds. You perceived the river to be flowing uphill, but it wasn't. Abajo Nexus, you see, exists in multiple dimensions - universes? Call them what you will. Your journey through the tunnel brought you to a lower place in a different universe. The change fooled your senses. What you thought was upward rushing water was actually falling."
"We changed universes?"
“Essentially,” Shimá shrugged. “The mathematics is complex, and a time distortion took place, as well.”
Koch spoke carefully. “Can I return?”
“If your guide is competent. However, a wrong turn will take you into yet another universe, a transition which is not likely survivable.”
“Tuba's competent, at least so far.”
“Ah, Tuba! I know him. You should be safe.”
“That’s good to hear.” Koch leaned forward. “Shimá, I came here to find you and ask you . . . “
Shimá extended her hand. “Here is what you seek.”
“What?”
“This gem. It is born of this forest. Ingest it.”
Koch peered at an emerald resting upon the old woman's none too clean palm. “What is it?”
“Life’s essence — a crystallization of energies found only here at Abajo Nexus.” Shimá glanced skyward. “I care for this place, these trees. I gather their gems as they mature and dispense them as I wish. This is a good one.” She offered it again.
Koch stared at the sparkling stone. “Why should I swallow it?”
“When you do, a dozen standard lifetimes become yours.”
“Standard lifetimes?”
“Each is a hundred years, more. Also, your elderly, desiccated body will be renewed.”
Koch breathed deeply. “That is a great gift.”
Shimá shrugged. “Or a curse.”
Koch looked up. “You're joking!”
“Despite what you think, life is not unending existence.”
“You exist.”
The woman smiled, “Not all of the time, but I coalesce when necessary.”
“Coalesce?
“It's something of a paradox. You may not comprehend my explanation.”
Koch smiled dryly. “Try me.”
Shimá nodded patiently. “As you wish. You are old enough to suspect that the universe holds all you can imagine and infinitely more. Your most fevered imaginings are, in fact, mundane compared to what transpires beyond the reach of your senses. I could speak for all the years of your compounded life and not reach the beginning of its wonders.” She raised her palms to morning star-shine, “though you need only breathe in this air to understand all.”
“I am breathing. And with this,” Koch plucked the gem off the old woman's palm, “I'll do so for years to come.” He placed the emerald on his tongue and swallowed.
Shimá stood with her palms raised and her eyes closed.
Koch offered his hand and said, “Thanks for your gift, Shimá.”
The woman's palms remained upturned. “Remember that our search for gifts to offer is more important by far than the gifts we receive.”
Koch grinned. “If you say so.”
A faint quiver trembled through sand and stone, making the crystal trees chime like silver bells. The woman's eyes popped open. “Alacran comes.”
“Alacran?”
“The mother of the rattlescorps. It lives beyond these crystal trees and uses the Nexus to move through dimensions unavailable to us. You should leave.”
“It’s big?”
“Enormous — a being beyond my powers to confront. It breeds thousands of rattlescorps . . . and then feeds upon them.” Shimá paused. “It also eats such as you.’
“It preys on humans?”
“Eventually.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Shimá scanned the trees. “Alacran attaches living humans to its carapace with nutrient tubes, nurturing them for months while consuming their minds.”
“Right. I’ll watch out.” Koch again offered his hand. The chiming trees suddenly rang like the bells of a thousand cathedrals.
“Run!” Shimá’s upturned fingers spread wide. She became a fountain of sparkling bubbles and disappeared.
“Run, my ass.” Koch plucked up the big blaster from where it had fallen from his pack. “No jumped-up insect can threaten my new life.” The canyon’s walls trembled again. He peered into deep shade beyond the purple and gold of the crystal trees. “Nothing there.”
“Still, there is no need to tempt fate. Abajo Nexus, farewell. I’ve got what I came for.” He turned down the path, savoring his victory, savoring his hoard of years, and even savoring the hint of danger this Alacran posed. Life is sweet for those at the top of the food chain, for those who deserve to live at the top, for those who are invincible.
Such thoughts warmed him as he trotted leisurely down the path toward Tuba and the skiff, looking from side to side, but never above.
Above, Alacran unfolded meters-long blue diamond claws as its hooked proboscis descended toward his back.
* * *
Joe Tuba stared toward the purple crystal trees. Sounds he could not name made them shimmer in the afternoon light.
“Grandson,” spoke a quiet voice from behind him.
He turned. “Shimá?”
“Go, grandson.”
“But my client?”
“He no longer needs your service.”
Tuba lowered his head.
“Go in beauty.”
Tuba nodded. “And you.”
Shimá watched him push his skiff away from the bank. It caught the current and swept downstream. Joe did not look back.
“Be safe, grandson. Alacran waits and she is always hungry.”
“What’s the problem?” Oscar Koch turned and stared at Joe Tuba, his river guide. "You claim to be the best. That's why I'm paying you twice the going rate.”
“In the matrix,” Tuba finished coiling a rope. “There are many side canyons, many turnings.”
Koch turned back to the bow of the flat river skiff and studied red and ochre cliffs looming a few hundred meters away. “You have an anecdotal description and a map. What could possibly go wrong?"
Tuba shrugged, “Things change.”
“Change?" Koch turned again. “Those cliffs look pretty permanent to me.”
Tuba did not answer.
“You can read, can’t you?”
“Yes.” Tuba started the boat’s electric turbine.
“Then just follow my map and hit the checkpoints!”
Tuba pulled the tiller slightly toward his flat stomach and aimed the skiff at a black slit that split the cliffs from river to rim. He increased power to the magnetic drivers. The slender, fiberglass hull eased into the narrow opening like a blade sliding into its sheath.
Burnt sienna walls rose five hundred meters, though they were close enough on either side to touch with outstretched hands. The canal was deep and still, its surface a dark mirror beneath the skiff's prow. Silence perched between employer and employee like another passenger as kilometers slid by.
The canyon walls at last receded and the skiff entered a wide, limpid channel, blue as robins' eggs. Koch spoke for the first time in an hour, his voice rusty from the dry air. “That wasn't too tough.”
“No, sir,” Tuba murmured. “This is the Dulce, perhaps the most beautiful passage in the matrix.” Clear water glowed with sapphire brightness. Ruddy walls curved upwards like open hands.
Koch sniffed. “I didn’t come to Zion for sight-seeing.”
“No, sir.”
Koch stared ahead in silence.
“Most people do,” Tuba offered.
“Not me.” Koch glared at his guide. “This planet has many assets - geological, zoological, and many natural wonders. I have yet a different interest.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have no time for exotic beauties.” Koch shaded his eyes against light reflecting from the smooth water. “I'm a hundred and thirty-two and in good health. How much longer can that last?”
Tuba shrugged, “Perhaps a great while.”
“With good results from molecular regeneration, maybe ten years?” Koch chuckled, "But not much longer, I'd say.”
Tuba did not respond.
“Medical science has its limits. That's why I'm here.” The old man folded his hands in his lap. “Medical mysteries are suddenly important to me. I’ve learned that Zion possesses such a mystery.”
Tuba frowned. “You don't want to traverse the Abajo Nexus, do you?”
“What if I do?"
“You never mentioned it. That trip extension costs a great deal of money.”
“I have a great deal of money.”
Tuba pondered. “Double what you’re paying me now?”
“Done,” Koch nodded.
“It's risky.” Tuba looked up. “There are rapids and dangerous creatures live up there, things that don’t like visitors.”
“That may be,” Koch paused for a long moment, “but the Nexus is where I must go. Take us there."
Tuba sighed, “It's your party.”
“It is.”
Tuba turned the skiff into a tributary and the skiff ghosted over black water, sometimes passing side canyons, sometimes turning into them. An hour later, the enclosing walls drew away and the skiff bumped its rounded bow against a slope of golden sand.
Tuba spoke his first words since leaving the Dulce, “I've got to pee.”
Koch rubbed the back of his neck.
“You'd better go, too.” Tuba stepped out of the skiff. “The next part will be rough.”
Koch stirred. “Rough? We have seen no ripple bigger than our wake since we started.”
“Trust me, I mean rough.”
“If you say so.” He joined Tuba on the bank. Canyon walls curled like a flamingo’s wings above them. They returned to the skiff a few moments later, launched, and rounded a jutting promontory. Ahead lay a perfectly round cave.
“Hold on,” Tuba warned.
Koch grasped handles on either side of his bench seat as the skiff’s bow thrust into deep darkness. A roar engulfed them, and their craft became a mote of dust in a fire hose's gush, an insect swirling over the lip of Niagara. Foaming water boiled up, down and around, then up again until they spouted out of another tunnel mouth into a whirlpool.
The skiff turned in circles and finally washed up on crimson sand. Both men sat drenched and shaken.
Tuba grinned at last. “That was smoother than I thought it would be.”
Water dripping from his chin, Koch frowned. “This is the Abajo Nexus?”
The guide tilted his head toward a faint path. “Up that trail a hundred meters.”
Koch rose, stepped onto glittering sand. “Wait here.”
“Mr. Koch,” Tuba cleared his throat. “I don't know what stories you've heard about the Nexus — fountains of youth, magic, whatever, but . . . ”
“Magic is nonsense. I deal in facts,” Koch paused. “You are Navajo, right?”
“My people came to this place long ago and brought Hózhǫ́ with them,” He looked at Koch, “I am Navajo.”
“Hózhǫ́, what’s that?”
“Balance,” Tuba took a deep breath, “peace.”
“I’m looking for something else,” Koch shrugged his daypack into a more comfortable position. “A former colleague of mine — actually, a competitor — came here and met a woman. He was dying but she healed him. I intend to meet this same woman.”
“A shaman lives up there sometimes, a keeper of wisdom.” Tuba considered his next words, “but something else lives up there, too, something evil, something you don’t want to meet.”
Koch leaned forward. “You’ve seen it?”
“Nobody has seen it and lived. You should . . . ”
“I don't need advice,” Koch interrupted him. “Just be here when I return.” He strode up the beach toward a red cliff. Looking straight ahead, he followed a faint, gently rising path.
An orange display from Koch's data implant danced in the middle distance to his right. Monitoring its changing numbers, he paced forward — unmindful of the cliffs to either side, not noting shapes of great trees carved from stone — his mind fixed upon the prospect of not just health, but extended life — long life, perhaps eternal. He deserved it. He’d struggled, sacrificed, and achieved wealth beyond all but a few. None dared stand between him and what he desired: more life, millennia of life, eons.
He entered a miracle, but did not see it, his vision of immortality blinding him. A crystallized forest sprang high around him. He walked beneath frozen branches glinting amber and amethyst.
A rattling and clacking, as of castanets and Flamenco heels, broke into his consuming dream. He stopped, looked to his right. A nightmare greeted him.
It was most like a scorpion. Four arms ending in pincers waved hypnotically. Its arched and segmented tail ended in twin shining blades instead of a sting. Its vertical slit of a mouth dripped ichor.
Koch groped for his weapon, a military grade sonic blaster. His fingers found its empty holster on his belt. Fear flashed through him. He’d tucked it in his waterproof pack before the passage of the rapids. He shrugged his left shoulder to loosen the pack’s strap.
The creature shook its tail three meters above the ground and the rattling redoubled.
Koch lurched backwards, fumbling the pack off his back.
Azure feelers twitched.
Groping in the half-open pack, his legs struck a block of crystal and he toppled. The giant insect scuttled toward its fallen prey, black pincers reaching. Koch flung up his right arm in feeble defense.
A small woman jumped over the magnate’s outstretched legs, landing between him and the rattling horror. She raised her hand. The creature slowed, its pincers descending, touching the woman's shoulders, her right cheek, her breasts.
She pointed toward the crystal trees.
The creature remained motionless, its menacing tail frozen against the sky. Then it scrabbled back, disappearing among gleaming trees.
Koch took a shuddering breath, “Damn.”
“There is nothing so eloquent as a Rattlescorp’s tail,” the woman smiled. “It will bother you no more.”
Koch took another breath. “Thanks. My name is . . . ”
“I know who you are, Mr. Koch. I am Tsosie Begay.”
He looked closely at her. She wore a long black skirt and a rose satin shirt. Snowy hair peeked from beneath a blue scarf and framed her brown, deeply lined face. “Tsosie?” he asked.
“You may call me Shimá,” She nodded. “I am the grandmother who sits beneath cedars.”
Koch shook his head, “Grandmother doesn’t sound right. We are of an age, you and I.”
“You think so?” She smiled, “You might call me wizard or shaman, but those are loaded words. Grandmother will do.”
Koch cleared his throat. “I don't understand what happened just now.”
“I cared for that scorp when it was small.” Shimá chuckled, “It remembers me, fortunately.”
“You know my name?”
“You’re a very important man,” Shimá smiled sardonically. “Very rich, no?”
“I don’t like your tone,” Koch scowled.
“There is a proverb: A man can't get rich if he takes proper care of his family.”
Koch’s scowl deepened, “There’s no need to be insulting.”
“Truth is never insulting, just occasionally blunt.”
“Thanks for the clarification.”
Shimá shrugged. “I seek to enlighten when I can.”
"Would you care to tell me why water was flowing uphill through that tunnel back there?” Koch sneered, “The short answer, for unenlightened people?”
Shimá nodded benignly. “Certainly.”
Koch snorted, “Well?”
Shimá spread her hands. “Waters from the canyons you traversed this morning fall into the Nexus, as do the waters of many worlds. You perceived the river to be flowing uphill, but it wasn't. Abajo Nexus, you see, exists in multiple dimensions - universes? Call them what you will. Your journey through the tunnel brought you to a lower place in a different universe. The change fooled your senses. What you thought was upward rushing water was actually falling."
"We changed universes?"
“Essentially,” Shimá shrugged. “The mathematics is complex, and a time distortion took place, as well.”
Koch spoke carefully. “Can I return?”
“If your guide is competent. However, a wrong turn will take you into yet another universe, a transition which is not likely survivable.”
“Tuba's competent, at least so far.”
“Ah, Tuba! I know him. You should be safe.”
“That’s good to hear.” Koch leaned forward. “Shimá, I came here to find you and ask you . . . “
Shimá extended her hand. “Here is what you seek.”
“What?”
“This gem. It is born of this forest. Ingest it.”
Koch peered at an emerald resting upon the old woman's none too clean palm. “What is it?”
“Life’s essence — a crystallization of energies found only here at Abajo Nexus.” Shimá glanced skyward. “I care for this place, these trees. I gather their gems as they mature and dispense them as I wish. This is a good one.” She offered it again.
Koch stared at the sparkling stone. “Why should I swallow it?”
“When you do, a dozen standard lifetimes become yours.”
“Standard lifetimes?”
“Each is a hundred years, more. Also, your elderly, desiccated body will be renewed.”
Koch breathed deeply. “That is a great gift.”
Shimá shrugged. “Or a curse.”
Koch looked up. “You're joking!”
“Despite what you think, life is not unending existence.”
“You exist.”
The woman smiled, “Not all of the time, but I coalesce when necessary.”
“Coalesce?
“It's something of a paradox. You may not comprehend my explanation.”
Koch smiled dryly. “Try me.”
Shimá nodded patiently. “As you wish. You are old enough to suspect that the universe holds all you can imagine and infinitely more. Your most fevered imaginings are, in fact, mundane compared to what transpires beyond the reach of your senses. I could speak for all the years of your compounded life and not reach the beginning of its wonders.” She raised her palms to morning star-shine, “though you need only breathe in this air to understand all.”
“I am breathing. And with this,” Koch plucked the gem off the old woman's palm, “I'll do so for years to come.” He placed the emerald on his tongue and swallowed.
Shimá stood with her palms raised and her eyes closed.
Koch offered his hand and said, “Thanks for your gift, Shimá.”
The woman's palms remained upturned. “Remember that our search for gifts to offer is more important by far than the gifts we receive.”
Koch grinned. “If you say so.”
A faint quiver trembled through sand and stone, making the crystal trees chime like silver bells. The woman's eyes popped open. “Alacran comes.”
“Alacran?”
“The mother of the rattlescorps. It lives beyond these crystal trees and uses the Nexus to move through dimensions unavailable to us. You should leave.”
“It’s big?”
“Enormous — a being beyond my powers to confront. It breeds thousands of rattlescorps . . . and then feeds upon them.” Shimá paused. “It also eats such as you.’
“It preys on humans?”
“Eventually.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Shimá scanned the trees. “Alacran attaches living humans to its carapace with nutrient tubes, nurturing them for months while consuming their minds.”
“Right. I’ll watch out.” Koch again offered his hand. The chiming trees suddenly rang like the bells of a thousand cathedrals.
“Run!” Shimá’s upturned fingers spread wide. She became a fountain of sparkling bubbles and disappeared.
“Run, my ass.” Koch plucked up the big blaster from where it had fallen from his pack. “No jumped-up insect can threaten my new life.” The canyon’s walls trembled again. He peered into deep shade beyond the purple and gold of the crystal trees. “Nothing there.”
“Still, there is no need to tempt fate. Abajo Nexus, farewell. I’ve got what I came for.” He turned down the path, savoring his victory, savoring his hoard of years, and even savoring the hint of danger this Alacran posed. Life is sweet for those at the top of the food chain, for those who deserve to live at the top, for those who are invincible.
Such thoughts warmed him as he trotted leisurely down the path toward Tuba and the skiff, looking from side to side, but never above.
Above, Alacran unfolded meters-long blue diamond claws as its hooked proboscis descended toward his back.
* * *
Joe Tuba stared toward the purple crystal trees. Sounds he could not name made them shimmer in the afternoon light.
“Grandson,” spoke a quiet voice from behind him.
He turned. “Shimá?”
“Go, grandson.”
“But my client?”
“He no longer needs your service.”
Tuba lowered his head.
“Go in beauty.”
Tuba nodded. “And you.”
Shimá watched him push his skiff away from the bank. It caught the current and swept downstream. Joe did not look back.
“Be safe, grandson. Alacran waits and she is always hungry.”