Home Again, Home Again

I'd ever seen. It spanned three quarters of the length ofthe bat-house, and was five storeys high. The spots where he'd dissolved thefoam walls away with solvent were rough and uneven, and rings of foam encircledeach of the missing storeys above. I couldn't imagine getting that much solvent:it was more tightly controlled than plutonium, the subject of countlessaction-adventure vids.

  At one end of the apt stood a collection of tall, spiny apparatus, humming withelectricity and sparking. They were remarkable, but their impact was lost inwhat lay at the other end.

  The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla had an ocean in his apt. It was a clearaquarium tank, fifteen meters long and nearly seventeen high, and eight metersdeep. It was dominated by a massive, baroque coral reef, like a melting castlewith misshapen brains growing out of it.

  Schools of fish -- bright as jellybeans -- darted through the ocean's depths,swimming in and out of the softly waving plants. A thousand neon tetra, a flockof living quicksilver sewing needles, turned 90 degrees in perfect unison, thendid it again, and again, and again, describing a neat, angular box in the water.

  "Isn't it beautiful? I'm using it in one of my experiments, but I also find itvery _calming_."

  #

  I hail a pedicab and the kids back on my adopted homeworld, with their accusing,angry words and stares vanish from my mind. The cabbie is about nineteen andmuscular as hell, legs like treetrunks, clipped into the pedals. A flywheelspins between him and me, and his brakes store his momentum up in it every timehe slows. On the two-hour ride into downtown Toronto, he never once comes to afull stop.

  I've booked a room at the Royal York. I can afford it -- the stipend I receivefor the counseling work has been slowly accumulating in my bank account.

  Downtown is all foam now, and "historical" shops selling authentic Earthcrapola: reproductions of old newspapers, reproductions of old electronics,reproductions of old clothes and old food and other discarded cultural detritus.I see tall, clacking insect-creatures with walkman headphones across theirstomachs. I see squat, rocky creatures smearing pizza slices onto theirdigestive membranes. I see soft, slithering creatures with Toronto Blue Jaysbaseball hats suspended in their jelly.

  The humans I see are dressed in unisex coveralls, with discreet comms on theirwrists or collars, and they don't seem to notice that their city is become abestiary.

  The cabby isn't even out of breath when we pull up at the Royal York, which,thankfully, is still clothed in its ancient dressed stone. We point our comms ateach other and I squirt some money at him, adding a generous tip. His face,which had been wildly animated while he dodged the traffic on the long ride is astony mask now, as though when at rest he entered a semiconscious sleep mode.

  The doorman is dressed in what may or may not be historically accurate costume,though what period it is meant to represent is anyone's guess. He carries my bagto the check-in and I squirt more money at him. He wishes that I have a nicestay in Toronto, and I wish it, too.

  At the check-in, I squirt my ID and still more money at the efficient youngwoman in a smart blazer, and another babu in period costume -- those shoes lookpainful -- carries my bag to the lift and presses the button.

  We wait in strained silence and the lift makes its achingly slow progresstowards us. There are no elevators on the planet I live on now -- the wildgravity and wilder windstorms don't permit buildings of more than one story --but even if there were, they wouldn't be like this lift, like a human lift, likeone of the fifty that ran the vertical length of the bat-house.

  I nearly choke as we enter that lift. It has the smell of a million transientguests, aftershaves and perfumes and pheromones, and the stale recirc air Iremember so well. I stifle the choke into my fist, fake a cough, and feel aself-consciousness I didn't know I had.

  I'm worried that the babu knows that I grew up in the bat-house.

  Now I can't make eye-contact with him. Now I can't seem to stand naturally,can't figure out where a not-crazy puts his hands and where a not-crazy puts hiseyes. Little Chet and his mates liked to terrorize people in the lifts, play"who farted" and "I'm gonna puke" and "I have to pee" in loud sing-songs, justto watch the other bats squirm.

  The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla thought that these games were unfunny,unsophisticated and unappetizing and little Chet stopped playing them.

  I squirt extra money at the babu, after he opens my windows and shows me theshitter and the vid's remote.

  I unpack mechanically, my meager bag yielding more-meager clothes. I'd thoughtI'd buy more after earthfall, since the spaceports' version of human apparelwasn't, very. I realize that I'm wearing the same clothes I left Earth in, lothose years before. They're hardly the worse for wear -- when I'm in myexoskeleton on my new planet, I don't bother with clothes.

  #

  The ocean seemed too fragile to be real. All that caged water, held behind aflimsy-seeming sheet of clear foam, the corners joined with strips of thickgasket-rubber. Standing there at its base, Chet was terrified that it wouldburst and drown him -- he actually felt the push of water, the horrid, dyingwriggles of the fish as they were washed over his body.

  "Say there, son. Hello?"

  Chet looked up. Nicola Tesla's hair was standing on end, comically. He realizedthat his own long, shaggy hair was doing the same. The whole room felt electric.

  "Are you all right?" He had a trace of an accent, like the hint of garlic in asalad dressing, an odd way of stepping on his vowels.

  "Yeh, yeh, fine. I'm fine," Chet said.

  "I am pleased to hear that. What is your name, son?"

  "Chet. Affeltranger."

  "I'm pleased to meet you. My name is Gaylord Ballozos, though that's not who Iam. You see, I'm the channel for Nicola Tesla. Would you like to see a magictrick?"

  Chet nodded. He wondered who Nicola Tesla was, and filed away the name Gaylordfor making fun of, later. In doing so, he began to normalize the experience, tostructure it as a story he could tell the other kids, after. The guy, the ocean,the hair. Gaylord.

  A ball of lightning leapt from Tesla/Ballozos's fingertips and danced over theirheads. It bounced around the room furiously, then stopped to hover in front ofChet. His clothes stood away from his body, snapping as though caught in awindstorm. Seen up close, the ball was an infinite pool of shifting electricity,like an ocean of energy. Tentatively, he reached out to touch it, and Teslashouted "Don't!" and the ball whipped up and away, spearing itself on the pointof one of the towers on the opposite side of the room.

  It vanished, leaving a tangy, sharp smell behind.

  The story Chet had been telling in his mind disappeared with it. He stood,shocked speechless.

  The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla chuckled a little, then started tolaugh, actually doubling over and slapping his thighs.

  "You can't _imagine_ how long I've waited to show that trick to someone! Thankyou, young Mr. Affeltranger! A million thanks to you, for your obviousappreciation."

  Chet felt a giggle welling up in him, and he did laugh, and when his lips cametogether, a spark of static electricity leapt from their seam to his nose andmade him jump, and laugh all the harder.

  The guy came forward and pumped his arm in a dry handshake. "I can see that youand I are kindred spirits. You will have to come and visit again, very soon, andI will let you see more of my ocean, and maybe let you see 'Old Sparky,' too.Thank you, thank you, thank you, for dropping in."

  And he ushered Chet out of his apt and closed the door, leaving him in thefeatureless hallway of the 125th storey.

  #

  I had never been as nervous as I was the following Thursday, when my regularappointment with The Amazing Robotron rolled around again. I hadn't spoken ofthe guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla to any of my gang, and of course not tomy parents, but somehow, I felt like I might end up spilling to The AmazingRobotron.

  I don't know why I was worried. The guy hadn't asked me to keep it a secret,after all, and I had never had any problem holding my tongue around The AmazingRobotron
before.

  "Hel-lo, Chet. How have you been?"

  "I've been OK."

  "Have you been stud-y-ing math-e-mat-ics and phys-ics? I had the supp-le-ment-almat-e-rials de-liv-er-ed to your apt yes-ter-day."

  "No, I haven't. I don't think I wanna be a pilot no more. One of my buds tole methat you end up all fugged up with time an' that, that you come home an' it'sthe next century an' everyone you know is dead."

  "That is one thing that hap-pens to some ex-plor-a-tor-y pilots, Chet. Have youthought a-bout any o-ther poss-i-bil-i-ties?"

  "Kinda. I guess." I tried not to think about the 125th story and the ocean. Iwas thinking so hard, I stopped thinking about what I was saying to The AmazingRobotron. "Maybe I could be a