Scarecrow

Dot built eyes the next morning.

Not real eyes. She didn’t have those, and she said so when I asked. This unit perceives by heat, by vibration, by return of signal. This unit does not see. But she’d heard me ask her, at three in the morning on the rim, whether she’d seen the ripple in the green going the wrong way. And she’d had to say this unit’s sensors do not extend that far.

I think it bothered her.

I can’t prove that. She never said so. But when I came out of the hut at the foot of the tower at dawn, after the six o’clock broadcast, with my eyes gritty and my voice hoarse from saying Squad Eight, this is Scarecrow eleven times in the night, the hands were already on the wall.

Small gray domes, the size of my fist, fused into the top of the perimeter wall every twenty meters. Dozens of them. All the way round the rim of the canyon, north and south, and up the legs of the tower, and on the very top of the dome, like a crown.

”Thermal sensors,” said Dot, before I could ask. ”Range, four kilometers. Resolution, one-tenth of a degree.” A pause. ”The sensors extend that far now.”

Day 310. Dot built heat sensors. Four kilometers. She didn’t say why. I know why.

Broadcast every hour. Nobody.

Liam: still, 50 miles NNE. Sera: still, 60 east. Luna: north, 120 now, still walking. Toby: still.

The first night with the sensors, nothing happened.

I broadcast at nine, and ten, and eleven. I slept, a little, on the floor of the hut, with the box humming beside my head and Dot outside on the red glass, listening. I woke at two, because two was coffee, and lay in the dark for an hour, and broadcast at three.

Nothing on the tower. Nothing on the sensors.

At four, Dot said, very quietly, through the door of the hut: ”Query.”

I sat up.

”Thermal returns,” said Dot. ”North. Three point one kilometers. At the edge of the green.”

”How many?”

”Twelve.”

I went out onto the rim.

It was dark. No moons. Only the stars, and the faint gray glow of the green, a long way off across the red glass, where the sky met it. I stood beside the north leg of the tower and looked.

Three point one kilometers. Nearly two miles.

I could see that far. On a good night, with nothing in the way. Not the way I saw things up close, every grain, every page. But enough. The shapes of things. Rock. The edges of the green. The plants, a dark ripple against the lighter dark.

I looked.

And I couldn’t see anything.

Not fog. Not the soft gray nothing of the spine, or the core. Just nothing. The edge of the green, exactly where it always was. The plants, standing still in the windless dark.

”Twelve,” said Dot again, beside me. ”Stationary. Body temperature, approximately thirty-one degrees. Mass, approximately forty kilograms each.” A pause. ”They are in the green. Approximately two meters inside the edge.”

I looked harder.

Two meters inside the edge of the green. Three point one kilometers away.

Just at the end of what I could see.

There’s a place, when you look at something very far away, where it stops being a page and starts being a picture. I’d never thought about it much. I’d never needed to. On Earth, everything worth looking at had been close. The field. The house. The cave. The people I loved, across a table.

But it’s there. A line. Inside it, I could see into things. The grain of the rock, the threads in the fronds, the water moving in the cracks under the glass. Outside it, I could see only the shapes of things, the way anyone could, with their eyes.

That night, standing on the rim, I found where my line was.

Just under three kilometers.

And the twelve heat signatures were sitting two meters inside the green, at three point one.

Just outside it.

”Dot,” I said. ”Their spacing.”

The little rivers ran.

”Twelve returns. In a line. East to west.” A pause. ”Spacing: fourteen point two meters. Each.”

”Each?”

”Each.” Another pause. ”To within the resolution of this unit’s sensors.”

I stood on the rim in the dark and didn’t say anything.

Twelve of something. Forty kilograms each. Sitting in a perfectly straight line, exactly fourteen point two meters apart. Just outside the edge of what I could see.

”Query,” said Dot. ”Are these animals?”

”I don’t know.”

”Animals on Earth,” said Dot slowly, as if consulting something very far back in her records, ”do not arrange themselves at regular intervals to a tolerance of one-tenth of a meter.”

”No,” I said. ”They don’t.”

They stayed until dawn.

All twelve. In their line. Not moving. I watched them on Dot’s sensors and with my own eyes, for two hours, until the sky went green over the eastern rim and the light came across the plain.

And then, as the first of the sun touched the edge of the green, they went.

All at once. All twelve. Not scattering. Not running. Withdrawing. North, into the green, in a straight line, the same spacing, fourteen point two meters, keeping it exactly, until they were past the end of Dot’s sensors at four kilometers.

Gone.

The green rippled where they’d been. Fronds bending, turning, the way they turned toward warmth. A long ripple, going north.

Against the wind.

Day 311. 4–6 a.m.

Twelve. Forty kilos each. 31 degrees. In a line, east to west, 14.2 meters apart. Exactly.

3.1 kilometers. In the green.

My line, where I stop seeing inside things, is just under three.

They were just outside it.

They left at dawn. In the same line. Same spacing.

Dot: ”Animals do not arrange themselves at regular intervals to a tolerance of one-tenth of a meter.”

I didn’t sleep that day.

I tried. I went into the dome and lay down on one of the five beds that Dot had counted and shut my eyes. But every time I shut them, I saw a line of twelve dots, fourteen point two meters apart, sitting just outside the edge of what I could see, waiting.

Waiting for what?

At noon I got up and went to the hut and broadcast. Squad Eight, this is Scarecrow. Hiss.

At one, again.

At two, I stopped with my hand on the dial.

”Dot,” I said. ”When did they come?”

”Query.”

”The ripple. The first one. Two nights ago. When did I see it?”

”Eight hours, eleven minutes after the operator’s first broadcast on the operator’s own cells,” said Dot at once.

I took my hand off the dial.

”And the twelve. Last night. When did they arrive?”

”At four oh two. Two minutes after the operator’s four o’clock broadcast.”

The hut was very quiet. The box hummed. The ugly cells in their row of sandstone jars along the north leg of the tower fizzed very faintly.

”How many broadcasts between the first one and the twelve?”

”Thirty-one,” said Dot.

I sat very still.

”Query,” said Dot. ”The operator’s heart rate is one hundred and twenty-two.”

I thought about the map.

The General’s map, on the screen in the cave, the night the squads locked. Forty blue dots, spread across the continent. Thirty-four gray ones. And every blue dot within a day’s walk of a gray.

I thought about the thirty-four.

Every nine days, for eighteen months, the first wave had called in. Okafor had shown me the column on her slate, in her office with the lamp off. Base, cycle, call-in. Ticks. Every nine days, every base had sat down in front of its kit and opened a channel to the Meridian and said still here.

Six in the first month. Landings are hard.

Eleven more in the next four months.

Eight in the year since.

Gone quiet.

I thought about Wren, two miles from my zone, calling in early every cycle with the best numbers of all nine, for twenty cycles. Numbers that went round and round, the same eight, over and over, from the very first day. Command playing them back to itself.

Calling in.

”Dot,” I said. ”Every base in the first wave. Did they transmit? Like I’m doing?”

”This unit does not have first-wave records.”

”But they’d have had kits. Like you. And the kits would have sent logs. Every pass. Every ninety-one minutes. To the relay.”

The little rivers ran.

”Yes,” said Dot. ”If the first-wave kits were configured as this unit is configured, they would have transmitted at every pass.” A pause. ”As this unit does.”

I looked out of the door of the hut at her. Standing on the red glass in the afternoon sun. Her grille turned toward me.

”Every ninety-one minutes,” I said. ”Since the first day.”

”Yes.”

”And they didn’t come. Not for ten days. Not until I built a tower and started shouting at the sky every hour.”

The little rivers stopped.

Then started again.

”This unit’s transmissions are directed upward,” said Dot slowly. ”To the relay. Narrow. Low power.” A pause. ”The operator’s transmissions are directed outward. Along the ground. Broad. High power. Every hour.”

”Like a lighthouse,” I said.

”Query.”

”A light on a rock by the sea. To tell ships where you are.”

”Logged,” said Dot. Very quietly. ”Like a lighthouse.”

I sat in the hut for a long time with my hand flat on the top of the box.

I could stop. I could turn the dial back to nothing and leave the ugly cells to fizz on their own and sit in the dome with the purr in the walls and wait. Wait for the comms window, in seven days. Wait for Command to decide what pending assessment meant. Wait for something to happen to us, the way Seraphina had said, while Command watched.

And Liam would lie still, fifty miles north-northeast, for another seven days.

And Seraphina would sit on her hill.

And Luna would walk north along the edge of whatever it was, further and further away.

And Toby.

Lighthouses don’t walk, Luna had said.

She hadn’t said they went dark.

At three o’clock, I broadcast.

”Squad Eight. This is Scarecrow.”

Hiss.

At four, again.

And then I went out of the hut and found Dot, and said: ”The wall. How high can you make it by tonight?”

We built all afternoon.

Not up. Not more rooms. Not anything for living in. The wall round the canyon, top and bottom, that had been knee-high, went up to my waist, and then my shoulder, and then over my head. Iron, faced with the fused sandstone. The hands moving along it in a long gray line. The thermal sensors moving up with it, every twenty meters, little gray domes like eyes.

I made the iron. Silicon into iron, patch after patch, out on the red glass, until the old weight behind my eyes was so heavy I had to stop and sit with my head between my knees for ten minutes. Then I made more.

At the gate, where the path came down into the canyon from the north rim, Dot built doors. Iron. Thick as my arm. On hinges the size of my head.

”Query,” said Dot, as the hands hung the second door. ”Is the operator expecting the twelve to return?”

”Yes.”

”Query. Is the operator expecting more than twelve?”

I looked north, across the red glass, at the green.

”Yes,” I said.

Day 311. Afternoon.

The first wave’s kits called in every 91 minutes. Upward. Narrow. To the relay.

Nobody came. Not for ten days.

Then I built a tower and shouted along the ground every hour.

Like a lighthouse.

I’m not stopping.

Lighthouses don’t walk. That doesn’t mean they go dark.

Wall’s over my head now. Iron gates. Dot asked if I’m expecting more than twelve.

They came back at midnight.

”Thermal returns,” said Dot, at the door of the hut. ”North. Three point one kilometers.”

”How many?”

A pause.

”Forty.”

I went out onto the rim.

The big gold moon was up tonight. Low, in the east. Throwing long shadows across the red glass, and lighting the edge of the green in a pale silver line, two miles off.

I looked.

Nothing. The edge of the green. The fronds, standing still.

Just outside my line.

”Forty,” said Dot. ”Four rows of ten. Spacing between returns, fourteen point two meters. Spacing between rows, fourteen point two meters.” A pause. ”A grid.”

”Still?”

”Stationary.”

I stood on the rim with my hands on the top of the new wall and watched the edge of the green for an hour.

At one o’clock, I went into the hut and broadcast.

”Squad Eight. This is Scarecrow.”

When I came out again, Dot said: ”Seventy-two.”

At two, there were a hundred and twelve.

Seven rows of sixteen. Fourteen point two meters. All of it, all of them, just outside my line, at three point one kilometers, in the dark, in the green, perfectly still.

I didn’t broadcast at two.

I stood on the rim. Two o’clock was coffee, and I thought about Luna. About her pale eyes across the table, and her voice, very calm. The day you stop asking is the day it gets smaller.

I thought about what she’d do.

Then I did it.

I walked forward.

Along the rim, north, toward the green. Away from the tower. Past the end of the wall, out onto the red glass, with Dot coming behind me on her six legs, saying query, query, very softly, and me not answering. A hundred meters. Two hundred.

Three hundred.

And I watched my line move with me.

Two point eight kilometers, now, from the green. Then two point seven. My line, just under three, pushing out ahead of me, across the glass, toward the edge.

Toward the grid.

”Thermal returns moving,” said Dot, behind me. ”North. All returns. Withdrawing.”

I stopped.

”How far?”

”Three hundred meters,” said Dot. ”Exactly.”

I stood on the red glass in the moonlight.

Then I took one step back.

”Returns moving,” said Dot. ”South. All returns. Advancing.” A pause. ”One meter.”

I took another step back.

”One meter.”

I stood very still on the red glass for a long time, with my heart going like Crane’s on the platform. But not the eager kind. The other kind.

”Dot,” I said. ”They’re keeping the distance.”

”Yes.”

”From me. Not from you. Not from the wall. From me.”

”Yes.”

”They know where my line is.”

The little rivers ran for a long time.

”This unit does not know what the operator’s line is,” said Dot at last. ”This unit knows only that the returns maintain a distance from the operator of three point one kilometers, to within one meter, as the operator moves.” A pause. ”They are measuring the operator.”

I walked back to the wall.

Slowly. Every step. With the grid in the green following me back, step for step, one meter for one meter, a hundred and twelve of them, keeping the distance exactly, the way a dog keeps a distance from a stranger. Not afraid. Watching.

At the gate, I went through, and the hands swung the iron doors shut behind me, and I stood with my back against them and breathed.

At three o’clock, I broadcast.

”Squad Eight. This is Scarecrow.”

When I came out, Dot said: ”Two hundred and forty.”

At four, they moved.

Not toward us. Round.

”Returns dividing,” said Dot. ”North group, holding. East group, moving. West group, moving.” A pause. ”South group, moving.”

”There’s no south group.”

”There is now.”

I stood on the top of the wall beside the north gate and watched Dot’s sensors light up, one after another, all the way round. North. East. South. West. A ring. Three point one kilometers out from where I stood, exactly. In every direction. Round the whole canyon. Round the tower, and the town, and the seventy-four little round windows on the south wall that Dot had put lamps in, in case.

”Three hundred and eighty,” said Dot.

The ring closed.

And went still.

The sky over the eastern rim went from black to dark green.

Yesterday, at dawn, the twelve had gone. As the first of the sun touched the edge of the green, they’d withdrawn, north, in their line, and the green had rippled where they’d been.

I stood on the wall and waited for the sun.

The sky went from dark green to pale green. The canyon walls went from black to purple. The tip of the tower caught fire, the way it did every morning, before anything else.

Nobody withdrew.

”Returns stationary,” said Dot. ”Three hundred and eighty. Ring formation. Radius, three point one kilometers.” A pause. ”They are not leaving.”

”No,” I said.

”Query,” said Dot. Very quietly. Beside me on the wall, with her grille turned north and her fifth arm a little forward of the others. ”Should this unit build something?”

The sun came up over the eastern rim.

The first light touched the edge of the ring. All the way round. Red on the glass, gold on the green.

And all three hundred and eighty of them, at once, as if somebody had said a word, began to walk in.

Day 312. 5:51 a.m.

Twelve. Forty. Seventy-two. A hundred and twelve. Two hundred and forty. Three hundred and eighty.

Grids. 14.2 meters. Exactly.

They keep 3.1 kilometers from me. Not from Dot. Not from the wall. From me. When I step forward, they step back. When I step back, they step forward. One meter for one meter.

They’re measuring me.

They know where my eyes stop.

A ring. Round all of it.

They didn’t leave at dawn.

They’re coming.

Dot asked if she should build something.

I told her yes.