Nnnnnn-gt-vvv—June 21, 1949, 4 a.m.:
I’m monitoring the stasis room, listening to the reassuring harmony of well-tuned systems, when the alarm goes off. The wards assure me at once that it’s a drill, and I settle into the practiced rhythm of emergency procedures. Fortunately this is one of the minor exercises: only embodied need evacuate, and the emergency protections raised by the skeleton crew are minimally onerous. That doesn’t prevent me from wishing myself off-duty. If I hadn’t taken tonight’s shift as a favor to a travel-mate, I’d be waiting out the tedium in the comfort of the outskirts.
Halfway through the required checks, I notice an oddity. By now, my own repair procedures should be synchronizing with those in the ward room. Instead, the monitors report discord. I force my cilia in the same direction and explore more closely. I find the guards deep in the ward controls, making changes too swift and consistent to be error. My wings spread reflexively in search of safer dimensions. They’re reprogramming the wards to keep the evacuees from returning. No one will get back in without explicit approval.
The records confirm my sick intuition: Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt arranged the drill.
I’ve long since outgrown the childish terror of being outside homespace, but I feel it now: the irresistible, irrational awareness of how my body violates local physics, and of the thousand artifices preserving my existence in the face of that violation. Core among those artifices is the haven of the mine itself, enough like home to restore coherence between trips. Without its protection, those outside will languish swiftly.
Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt meant me to be outside now, with the other dissenters. I’m no ward-writer; I can’t reverse the changes they’ve made. My mind recoils from the thought of what they’ll do when they notice me. I have minutes at best.
I set the monitors to automatic. A projector pendant hangs just outside the stasis room. With moments to choose, I key it to Shelean. When I examine my choice later, I’ll realize that of all my travel-mates, she’s the one with the greatest experience of betrayal.
“Don’t say anything through your canister,” I tell her.
She doesn’t question, doesn’t squeal or argue. “I won’t. But I’ll watch.”
I snatch Clara from the street outside the mine, where she waits sweating, into the outskirts. She shrieks at the unexpected transition, then laughs and clings to me. For a moment she assumes this one of her childhood games, the fairies come to pull her out of the world for another adventure. But she sobers quickly as I explain the drill’s true nature. One at a time, I find and confer with the evacuees who share my opinions. We slip away still immersed in somber discussion.
We came to New York to resolve a vitally important debate, with civilizations hanging in the balance. Until now, I thought we’d find a way to do so peacefully. This schism is like nothing I’ve experienced before, and I can only hope Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt is as disoriented by its actions as I am.
* * *
It had been easy, Nnnnnn-gt-vvv told us, to hope the bloodless coup a local aberration. But when the evacuees sought refuge at the Vermont mine, they discovered that parallel revolts had taken place elsewhere. Messages to Yuggoth had received no response. A few people had set off toward the edge of the solar system to learn what was happening there, but they feared the worst. The rest had scattered, searching for safe places to call their brethren back into congregation.
The number of Outer Ones was small but influential: fewer than a hundred across the planet, with perhaps two dozen in the hands-off faction. And of course, there were many more humans, some loyal to one of the factions and some simply trying to understand their patrons’ rift. Most of the nonhumans were in canisters, and therefore under the control of the interventionists regardless of their actual political proclivities.
“So the first thing you need is a safe place to regroup?” I asked. I thought of the tunnels under Innsmouth’s temple, the ones we’d never made it to during the raid. “What constitutes safety?”
“Somewhere we can put down wards, for a start,” said Nnnnnn-gt-vvv. “They scaffold our survival in this space. If we can’t grow new wards, and the interventionists have taken Yuggoth, we’ll soon need to surrender or die.” It paused. “I’m tempted to try to exploit the mine seed you found earlier. But they may have built in the same restrictions they’re using to keep us out of the full-grown mines. I don’t know if that’s possible—I’m not a deep ward-writer.”
“What’s the risk of trying?” asked Spector.
“More than you might think,” I said. “Those caves are already inhabited.” Glabri’s token burned dark in my mind. I knew its precise location in my pack. I hesitated—but Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt could not have missed the colony’s existence when it planted its seeds, and Nnnnnn-gt-vvv wouldn’t miss them when it went to look. Better to forestall the potential for conflict now. “It looks to be a ghoul warren.”
“Nor were they pleased,” added S’vlk. “What was it they called the Outer Ones, Acolyte Chulzh’th?”
“Clutch-thieves,” said Chulzh’th, with somewhat less relish than S’vlk.
“They were quite upset about the mine seed,” I said. “Maybe we can convince them to help stop the people who planted it.”
“By letting Outer Ones stay in their caves?” asked Charlie. “They seemed awfully territorial. Do we have anything to offer them, aside from the chance for revenge on the interventionists? Not, ah, food, I hope.”
“That’s traditional,” said S’vlk. “Invite ghoulish aid in battle, in exchange for leave with the dead.”
Charlie shuddered, and Deedee said, “Ick,” more cheerfully than was perhaps warranted.
“Will it come to that?” asked Caleb.
Nnnnnn-gt-vvv’s hum edged into a high-pitched keening, resolving again into words. “I hope there won’t be corpses. There haven’t been so far. We must talk with the ghouls if they hold the mine seed. It’s just like Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt not to care whether its reserve site is inhabited.”
I had an unpleasant thought. “Did it plant the mine by the ocean because of us? You said it was interested in me, because I’m—” I paused, trying to retrieve the term.
“Zzzzz’v’ck,” said Clara. “Someone who connects people. Like me—the ‘social hub’ of whatever street you happen to be on.”
Shelean’s voice echoed from the pendant. “Oh, yes. If you have to run away, you want someone strong at the other end to help out. Especially if you think you’re strong enough to make them help you, even in retreat.”
“That wouldn’t be his only plan, though,” said Clara.
“Such a cautious creature,” agreed Shelean. “If I were him, I’d put little seeds all over the city. But we don’t exactly have them on a map, do we?”
I thought of the fantastic skyscrapers and ethereal bridges beyond the cave ridge, marble plazas and tumbled ruins, skies swarming with gaunts and dark caverns sheltering ghouls. And among them, spreading tendrils through all the levels of reality, scarlet fungus taking root. “The people who have to live where the seeds are planted, they’ll know. We’ll ask the ghouls what they’ve found.”
* * *
It wasn’t simply a matter of dreamwalking and calling for Glabri. Chulzh’th settled in to demand details from Nnnnnn-gt-vvv: how many Outer Ones it needed to house in the cave, what they might have to offer, and whether the ghouls would be stuck with them as permanent neighbors. I should have stayed to help, but I felt overwhelmed. The solstice’s opportunity for contemplation had frightened me, but I’d needed it. That contemplation shattered the moment I saw Clara. The shared revelations that should have been my reward at the day’s end had been replaced with all-too-pragmatic planning.
“Go wash your face,” said Chulzh’th. “We’ll be here when you get back.” Advice for a child, but at the moment I didn’t mind.
The quiet moonlight glinted sparks on the ocean’s shifting contours. Salt and seaweed overpowered the smell of the beach’s debris. Cool water cleared my head and throat. I lingered with fingers trailing in desultory waves.
It was easy to get caught up in the urgent tide of great powers in conflict. What did I want out of this? Or rather—letting the solstice remind me of my community—what did we want and need?
The Outer Ones, in their fear for humanity, risked awakening my species’s basest instincts. We wanted to be better—but that was long work and had little to do with the Outer Ones. If S’vlk was any indication, it might be very long work. She was old and wise, but no less prone to blinding hatreds than any man of the air.
What we needed from the Outer Ones was the time to do that work. If the interventionists had their well-meaning way, they could send us spiraling into xenophobic wars. We needed Nnnnnn-gt-vvv’s passivist faction to reassert their influence and to hold sway over what their species did on Earth.
But it was harder to fathom what form the relationship between our species might then take. Barlow already knew about the Outer Ones, and now about the Yith. He’d almost certainly pass that intelligence on to his masters. Would some treaty now be needed between the state and the Outer Ones? Promises of aid to soothe newfound fears? By deceiving Mary we might have forfeited our ability to influence that process.
We had too narrow a place to stand, and too little we could do to stop cities from burning. But as long as humans survived there was something for us to save. And even after we lose the fight to save them, we’ll still have work to do.
All I wanted, in that moment, was for my family and species to survive this moment, this year, this decade. Millennia felt too painful to plan for.
The faint crunch of sand made me turn, and Charlie and Audrey joined me by the water. Audrey knelt to anoint herself. Charlie began the awkward process of lowering himself to the sand, and I hastened to offer him a handful of water so he could cleanse himself standing.
“You don’t have to do this,” said Audrey.
“Do what?” I was still thinking about preventing atomic war.
“Dreamwalk to talk with the ghouls,” said Charlie. “Chulzh’th can do it, and we’re good enough to go along without you.”
“You tried for a few minutes yesterday, and it was really hard on you,” said Audrey. “You may have to keep stretching, but you should wait ’til that can be the focus. We’ve got no control over how long this is going to take—and we have other people who can do the negotiating.”
I thought about it, and about whether I could bear to stay behind. “That’s very sensible.”
“I’ve known you to be sensible, sometimes,” said Audrey.
Charlie glared. “Do you mind explaining why this can’t be one of those times?”
“I…” That was harder. “It’s my fault that Mary and her team were so vulnerable, and my responsibility that Neko’s caught up in all this. And Nnnnnn-gt-vvv came to me. And Freddy’s my cousin, in danger from Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt even if he refuses to realize it.” And, if I admitted everything to myself, I wondered if there was something to the way the Outer Ones saw me—as someone with a talent for connecting people who wouldn’t otherwise have met or spoken. If that were true, I might be able to help in ways no one else could. “I can come back to rest as often as I need to. But I’ll do what I can.”
Charlie twisted his cane, drilling into the wet sand. “What happens after these negotiations? We aren’t ready to pull through another world war, let alone a war with other worlds.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. It’s why I can’t just wait somewhere safe. Hold back, and there may not be anywhere safe to go.”
As we returned to the others, Audrey tugged at my elbow.
“Do you trust her?” she asked.
I didn’t need to ask who she meant. Her usual mask wavered, revealing a glimpse of apprehensive bewilderment. Her inner trembling echoed hazily through the confluence.
“I don’t know. I believe what Shelean’s saying—but that’s different from trusting her. Usually I trust people because of their actions. But Shelean can’t act, only speak. I don’t know how to judge that. Except for the way she talks—and I think Neko’s right about that—she’s not what I would have expected. I never thought about how they must suffer.”
“Neither did I.” She leaned against me, and I stroked her hair as one might a child. She went on: “After I found out—I thought maybe we were conceived in a star-crossed romance. But more likely they kept some poor woman prisoner and forced her to bear children … I pictured cackling scientists, but I never thought … She’s a victim, but she thinks what they did to us was a good idea. And I can’t argue with her, because I wouldn’t exist otherwise. I don’t know how to talk to her.”
“I think deep conversations may be more than we’re ready for. But she doesn’t like what Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt is doing, and I’m provisionally willing to believe her and Nnnnnn-gt-vvv—they’re the only window we have into what happened.”
Back under the boardwalk, Chulzh’th was drawing the necessary diagrams. Deedee was talking to Clara, looking more comfortable than I would have guessed from her first reaction; Caleb stood behind her massaging her shoulders. Spector watched everyone, looking worried and disconnected. When I passed near, anxious and uncharacteristic sweat underlay his familiar cologne. This must have been a very strange day for him; I resolved to arrange some opportunity for him and Charlie to be alone. Chulzh’th finished the last geometric swirl of her work and stood, brushing sand from her hands.
“You insist on going, I assume?” Grandfather asked me.
“You know her so well,” said Audrey.
Chulzh’th looked me over with a rumbling sigh. “You’ll go back when I tell you it’s time.” I nodded. She could have ordered me not to go; either of them could have.
The three of us who’d already met Glabri—Chulzh’th, Charlie, and I—would go again, joined by Grandfather. The elders judged the greater show of strength was worth the risk of drawing attention.
“If this goes well,” said Chulzh’th, “we can tell the ghouls that we have an Outer One who’d like to negotiate, and complete the discussion on our native level of reality. Ghouls can walk here comfortably enough.”
“I thought they could only travel through gravestones,” said Charlie. I remembered reading that as well. My mind wandered the shelves of our collection, seeking the source. Encyclopedie du Pays Dormant, that was it.
“A story the Puritans told to comfort themselves,” said Grandfather dismissively. “Graves have meaning to us, not to the universe.”
“But men of the air believe it,” said S’vlk. “Everywhere I’ve gone ashore, you find such stories about the places people leave corpses. Ghouls may not need to come through in those places, but it’s where they have regular business. You might just as well suppose elders can only come ashore near where our descendants dwell.”
This time, Grandfather sang the lullaby. His bass voice vibrated in my chest, carrying the cadence of sea shanties into even the gentlest song. It was as much a thing of flesh as of mind. I couldn’t imagine losing track of my body, with that song guiding me.