Robert Reed - Down the Bright Way

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DOWN THE BRIGHT WAY

By ROBERT REED

It took me years to discover that science, with all its brilliance, lights only a

middle chapter of creation, a chapter with both ends bordering on the infinite, one which

can be expanded but never completed. —Charles Lindbergh

BOOK ONE

LINCOLN

KYLE

Sometimes, when I am tired and distracted, I forget—showing my

age, perhaps?—and I consider my colleagues as if for the first time. They

are Wanderers, authentic human beings, yet they come with many faces

and no two have the same precise color and shape. Each of our species has

its own talents and its own distinct intelligence and I have to marvel at

them; I couldn’t imagine such a multitude if I tried. All of us began as the

same upright primate, roaming tropical savannas on a million identical

earths, and look at us now. We have so many ways of living, and so many

colors of thought . . . !

Revelations like these can fill me with such joy.

Yet sometimes, at damnably unpredictable moments, that joy

dissolves into a sudden chill. A blackness is within me, for no reason

whatsoever, and I start to shiver . . . and quietly moan.

—Jy’s private journal

The first sample of any new earth is a small volume of common

seawater. Its isotope ratios and dissolved gases are studied, radioactive

traces are identified, and a tentative profile of the new earth is compiled.

Then if the sample is relatively free of toxins, each scout, according to

tradition, wets a finger and places it on the tongue, tasting salts as well as

the bitterest planktons. —A scout’s chronicles

She didn’t play fair, Kyle was thinking. Just like a woman, he was thinking. It

was two, maybe two-thirty in the morning, and they lay on his bed with the sheets

everywhere and every window open and the breeze blowing lazy-warm across them. Her

damp body was snuggled up against him, and she was talking. She was using her

plaintive little-girl voice, saying, “I know this is a lot to ask. But I was wondering . . .

after the rally and all? Maybe we could borrow Janice’s car, I can borrow it, and we

could go out to the new portal. Out where Jy’s supposed to stay?” A pause. A purposeful

sigh. “And if it’s not too much trouble, maybe you can take me to meet Jy? Like you can

do sometimes?” You meaning Wanderers. Every Wanderer. “Please, please?” she said,

somehow snuggling closer. “I’d love to go. Just to shake her hand. Just once.”

Kyle said nothing.

Billie bit her lower lip. “Is that okay? Could we?”

The breeze felt warmer all at once, almost hot. It was as if someone had started

the furnace in the middle of August.

Billie was watching his face. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Is it too much?” she wondered.

“What . . . ?”

“Am I asking too much?”

He tried shaking his head. “No.”

“You’re sure?”

“No, it’s fine,” he promised. “Nothing is wrong.”

She didn’t speak. She just held her breath and pressed an ear against his chest,

waiting.

The girl wasn’t being unreasonable. How could he consider her unreasonable? A

Wanderer could bring guests to meet Jy. Only it didn’t happen very often, and Billie

hadn’t mentioned it until now. Kyle hadn’t even considered the possibility, not once. I’ll

just tell her it’s impossible, he thought. She’ll understand. I’ll make up some excuse. I

can fool her. Only he kept thinking of her plaintive voice and her certain disappointment,

and all at once he was talking. He heard his own voice and felt a strange detachment. “All

right,” he was saying. “We’ll go and see if we can see her—”

“Jy!?”

“The Glorious One,” he promised.

“You mean it?” Billie sat upright and applauded, kicked her feet and shrieked.

“Really?”

He nodded.

“Oh, good good good. Good, good.”

He watched her body in the yellowy glare of the street lamps. She was small and

small-breasted and firm in an incidental, youthful way. Kyle was always surprised by her

youth, and pleased. He started stroking her cool damp belly, wondering why he’d agreed.

And what was going to happen a couple of nights from now? Did they just go see Jy as if

it was nothing? Did they knock on her door and say, “Oh, hi! We were in the

neighborhood. How are you?” God, he thought. Billie didn’t play fair. She’d been a joy

tonight, doing whatever he wanted and working him into a mood where he couldn’t say

no. He was so stupid. Sometimes he was the stupidest asshole on this earth . . . probably

on every earth . . . and he blinked, hearing Billie’s voice. “Is everything all right?” she

was asking. “Kyle?”

“Perfect,” he muttered.

“Really?”

“Sure.” He shut his eyes and withdrew his hand.

Billie seemed to believe him. She started talking to herself, debating what she

should wear and promising herself not to be any trouble, none at all, and wouldn’t Janice

flip when she heard? Janice was her roommate and best friend in the world. “I’m going to

meet Jy!” She began to clap again, fast, like a child. She was going to come face to face

with the most important person on a million earths, and she couldn’t wait. How could she

last another minute? She trembled and confessed to being excited, practically crazy, and

was it okay if she told others? “Can I?” There was Janice. And her friends at work. Plus

other friends, and maybe her family too, maybe . . . !?

“Whoever you want,” Kyle told her. He made himself open his eyes, and he took

a long deep breath. The air wasn’t getting any cooler and he could feel his heart, rubbery

and quick.

Billie said, “Thank you,” and kissed his kneecap.

“It’s sort of late,” he remarked.

“Oh, but I don’t think I could sleep.”

“Maybe you should go home and try.” He spoke with certainty, sitting up and

kissing her twice before climbing off his bed. He started dressing in yesterday’s clothes,

Billie watching him. He felt her eyes. He could practically hear her mind working. But

she didn’t ask about his moods or anything else, thank God, and he sat back down beside

her and coaxed her to start dressing. Maybe? Please? “You’ve got to work all day, don’t

you?”

She nodded.

“So you’ve got to go home sometime and get ready,” he said, “and you know

what happens if you stay here.”

“Nobody sleeps,” she responded, and she sighed.

He kissed her salty forehead and the small rounded nose and then her perfect

mouth, twice on the mouth, and he stood and left the room. The air in the hallway was

stale and even warmer. Or did it just feel that way? He stood in one place and picked at

the eroded wallpaper. A long train was passing to the south, blaring its horns with every

crossing. It was probably a coal train from Wyoming. He imagined a hundred identical

hopper cars filled with the flammable earth, and he listened to the horns and the deep

bass roar of the locomotives. Then Billie emerged. She was wearing shorts and a dark T-

shirt, her book bag on one shoulder, and they went out his apartment door and downstairs

and out the front door. He didn’t lock anything; it was a quick walk to her place. They

went a couple blocks in the moonlight, then behind another old house and up footworn

wooden stairs to a hanging porch, and Billie fumbled for her keys. She could never find

her keys in the bag, never, and Kyle was irritated by her predictability. “Here . . . .” She

had the ring full of keys and found the right one, then she unlocked her door and turned

back to him. She was a small girl with wiry black hair and a pretty round face with that

sweet perfect mouth, and after a long moment she told him, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have

asked you. She shook her head, saying, “It was rude. I guess—”

“No, it’s all right,” Kyle responded. “Don’t worry.”

“You’re sure?”

“You just surprised me. That’s all.”

She faltered for a moment, then confessed, “I’m just . . . I don’t know. I’m

bothered—”

“What about?”

“Are you angry with me?”

“How could I be angry?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. She hugged herself and looked at her feet and

sighed. Billie had a way of sighing with her entire body, in one dramatic motion. Nobody

could seem as happy as she, or as sad. She asked, “Aren’t you angry?”

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摘要：

DOWNTHEBRIGHTWAYByROBERTREEDIttookmeyearstodiscoverthatscience,withallitsbrilliance,lightsonlyamiddlechapterofcreation,achapterwithbothendsborderingontheinfinite,onewhichcanbeexpandedbutnevercompleted.—CharlesLindberghBOOKONELINCOLNKYLE1Sometimes,whenIamtiredanddistracted,Iforget—showingmyage,perhap...

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Robert Reed - Down the Bright Way

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