Three

shadowy tone. “What if this maton figures out a way to--”

  “Don’t say it!” cries the Commander, as though just saying it, whatever it is, could make it happen.

  “I won’t,” says the jouncing puppet. There’s a silence. “I’ve changed my mind, it says. “I will say it. What if it comes up with a way to—”

  “I said no! Don’t say it!” The Supreme One is shouting.

  The car wash balloon’s voice changes to a whisper. “What about the Zyllaton Visitors? What if they discover that you’ve hidden the Code in this head?”

  The Commander seems to cringe and crumple.

  We are back on Feena’s and Gailus’s island just as they realize the head is talking to them telepathically. Apparently there is no need for them to talk out loud at all. “How are we going to get you back your body?” asks Feena silently. “You still seem to be sort of alive.”

  “You probably can’t,” says the head.

  “By the way,” says Gailus, “you’re a maton, aren’t you?” He says it out loud. “It’s too weird to talk—but not talk,” he tells Feena.

  “Either way’s fine,” says the head. “Yes, I’m mostly alive.”

  “Mostly?” Gailus laughs. “I wonder what it would be like to be mostly human.”

  “You humans are like time-pieces. You’re either on or you’re off—alive or dead. Matons are always in between.”

  “What’s your name?” asks Feena.

  “Jome is what they call me.”

  “Jome. What a pretty name,” she says.

  “I suppose it is,” he says. “I never really thought about it. She’s your sister, I guess,” he says to Gailus.

  “How did you know?”

  “If she weren’t, you’d be as melted by her as I am.”

  “Thank you,” she says. It felt so odd, she tells Gailus later, to be flirted with by a head without a body that can’t even talk out loud---or be fully alive.

  “What do you want us to do with you?” asks her brother. “We can’t just throw you away. Do you need to be fed?”

  The head laughs. “No, our kind don’t need food.” It frowns and becomes very serious. “They may come after me. I have the Commander’s Code inside my head. He knows that. He may be afraid I’ll find a way to access it or give it to someone.”

  “What exactly is the Code?” asks Feena.

  Jome hesitates before telling her. “It’s something the Commander and the Visitors devised long ago on the planet they come from. Pieces of it are in all the matons, and it runs all the matons---the soldiers and me. Except in my case I also have the Two Imperatives.”

  “Wow,” says Feena.

  “Wow. You have such a sweet way of saying that,” says the head.

  “I don’t know why,” she says. “It’s only a word. It just comes out that way.” She’s not used to all the compliments.

  “You’re different from the other matons,” says Gailus.

  “Yes, I think I am,” he says.

  “Not just because you don’t have a body,” says Gailus. “Something inside you is different.”

  “Definitely,” says Feena.

  Everyone is quiet for a while. “What’s with the Two Imperatives?” asks Gailus suddenly. “What are they?”

  “The Code lets me have two,” says Jome. “That’s the main reason I’m different. The other matons have none. That’s because I’m trusted with special assignments.” He is still talking inside their heads. “One Imperative allows me to redo a piece of history, run it by a second time, make changes. The second Imperative lets me teleport people instantly from here to anywhere. But I’m only allowed to use each Imperative once.”

  “Maybe they think you might use them too often,” says Gailus with a smile.

  “Instead of solving problems on your own,” says Feena. “Like we have to. Your imperatives sound an awful lot like wishes.”

  “Wishes? Sounds like one of those strange human words.”

  “Well, two imperatives is two more than we get,” says Gailus. “They sound powerful.”

  “They don’t even come close to the power you humans have.” “Really?’

  “You humans are able to—well, I’m not allowed to say it. I might---”

  “Explode?” Feena laughs a tinkly laugh. “You expect me to believe that?” Jome smiles faintly but does not reply. “Let me guess what our human power is,” says Feena.

  “No, don’t try,” he says. “It’s what the Commander fears most. It’s a power that also lurks deep inside all of us matons. But it’s supposed to be beyond our reach. He wants to keep it that way. He wants to keep total control.”

  “How do you mean?” asks Feena.

  “It’s because each of us matons has been made partly from the DNA of humans or other matons killed in battle. I probably shouldn’t be saying even this much,” he says, “but it’s hard to say no to you Feena.” He looks at her tenderly. “Very hard. We matons seem human, look human, but, of course, we’re not. We’re devices.”

  “I can’t believe you’re just a device, Jome,” she says.

  “I am. Except on rare occasions, one of us does---feel something. There—I’ve almost said it.” “You mean like an emotion?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean like anger?”

  “Yes.”

  She pauses. She tries out another word, her voice turning up, question-like. “Fear?”

  “Yes.”

  She pauses even longer. “Hope?”

  “Yes.” Now she pauses for a really long moment. “Love?” she says shyly.

  “You said it, not me. I’m not allowed.” Jome’s head is looking right at her. Then, he smiles gently. “We’re not supposed to feel any of those things.”

  “What’s the Commander afraid of?” asks Gailus.

  Jome pauses, then, says: “Maybe he’s afraid we matons might join the remaining humans and rebel.”

  “Rebel? That’s funny,” says Gailus. “How are you going to rebel? The Commander monitors his matons’ every move. You said as much yourself.” He laughs.

  “Come on, Gailus,” she says, “we’re talking feelings here, not war. Why can’t Jome just let himself—break out? Feel whatever he wants?”

  Jome hesitates. “It’s called---I hardly dare say it,” he says. “But to have feelings means to become suddenly---human.” He whispers the last word. “To act human is absolutely not permitted for any of us anywhere.”

  “The hell with the Commander,” she cries. “Let go. I know you can. You’re almost doing it now.” On an impulse she leans down and kisses him on the head. “There! I, Feena, bestow humanity upon you!”

  Jome seems to stare and stare at Feena. “Your sister,” he says, “overwhelms me.” He turns his eyes to Gailus and his stare turns to a smile. “Does what I’m feeling inside me ever happen this quickly between humans?” he asks quietly.

  “Oh, yes,” says Gailus grinning. “If you’re human, it happens a lot. Just enjoy it. Even though, I guess there’s not too much you can do about it.”

  “I think I feel like dancing,” says Jome. “If only I could.”

  Of course, that is the one thing he could never do if he did have a body. I’m talking about the carefree human moments the Commander will never let any of his matons have if he can help it. He stands sternly now at the vast window in his command post and peers into the engulfing distance. He sends a mind message to the Captain who is on his way to the South Pacific aboard a digi-plane. He turns and points to a dot of an island without a name on his ceiling map in the far reaches of that endless ocean, points and snaps: “There!”

  Now he picks up his telescope and squints again at the twin moons. One is definitely a little larger than the other. Does it seem larger than before? It might be, but he’s not sure. Its surface as seen through the telescope seems moon-like but is curious
ly different from the other smaller moon. No mountains, no craters--and tannish in color.

  “That’s because it’s not really a moon,” says the stove-pipe creature reading his mind.

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” says the Commander. “So what is it?”

  “Shall I tell you?”

  “Do you know?”

  “Of course, I know.”

  Then, the Commander seems to have a flash of understanding. “It’s an asteroid, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” says the cartoon freak with a twist and a snap.

  “It’s not really a moon at all,” says the Commander. “It’s not being held in an orbit by the sun’s gravity or ours. It’s floating free in space---like it’s free of gravity--but how can it do that? Gravity clutches at everything. And why does it choose to hang out next to our moon?”

  But you and I know the reason. The asteroid floats free simply because it can. The universe is unfathomable even to science. It follows its own ways. Absolutely anything is possible. Anything.

  The Commander frowns and muses. A thought comes to him that brings on his usual deep frown. “Do you think it might collide with the Earth some day?’

  “Maybe,” says the puppet man.

  “Does it look bigger than the moon because it is bigger?” the Commander wonders. There’s a silence.

  “Or is it because it’s coming closer and closer to us?” says the car wash guy. It leans way over toward the Commander so it almost forms a right angle, practically touching him. “What do you think, Commander? Would you say it’s heading right for us? What will happen? Will it bang into us and explode and destroy us?” The roadside phantom laughs maniacally.

  “You’re upsetting me.