The Smile of Anubis Read online

Darcy Louis Jones took the smoking pipe out of his mouth and said:

  “I did it for you, darling. After the death of Celia Marie Antoinette you were completely lost and I thought that you needed to take care of someone. Well-well, you don’t need to wring your hands. I accept your gratitude, of course. Give the boy back, we’ll find you another one. Or better yet – a girl. Do you agree?”

  For a couple of moments mother shifted a stunned look from Tyra 2634 Div Telek Tars to Darcy Luis Jones and back. Then I witnessed a true miracle: how the fragments of a broken refined lady, who has lost the illusion of support long time ago, gather themselves back into a new strong woman in just a few heartbeats. Her eyes glittered, maybe because of treacherous tears, maybe because of anger. She took a deep breath and said:

  “Let it be then: Clementine, pack up AnastAsiy’s belongings - only the necessary ones, choose clothes for different kinds of weather. We shall send later for the rest. Son, go check that everything important for you is packed. Tyra, how much time do we have?”

  “We?” the black woman asked dispassionately.

  “Yes, we!” Mom answered, backing her words with a nod. “The boy has lost his mother once. You don’t want it to happen again, right? Two mothers are better than one, but we shall discuss it on our way. Apparently, you have no plans to stay here and I see no luggage, most likely your flight is today. We shall move quickly so I am able to change my dress and buy a ticket for the trip.”

  Silence filled the room: I could not fully understand what was happening and I wanted to cry in fear, and laugh in joy, anticipating an adventure. Clementine froze, peering at my mother with her eyes narrowed. She probably was trying to find the features of her usual mistress, who would rely on her husband for everything, in this new Mrs. Jones. Mr. Jones, in his turn, looked no less dumbfounded than his wife a couple of minutes ago.

  “My dear! You can’t just leave me like that,” he croaked, after having choked on tobacco smoke and cleared his throat.

  “I easily can, my dear!” my mother replied with contempt. “You seem to have forgotten that I am Vasquez! However, I have to admit, that I myself have forgotten it for far too long. Expect the divorce papers by mail shortly. Do not worry, I will not leave you on the street, so be so kind as to sign them right away without further ado. Or family lawyers would have to remind you about the terms of our marriage agreement.” Then she added: “Clementine, will you stay to look after the house?” Not waiting for the answer she turned to me: “AnastAsiy, hurry up!”

  After then the commotion started: it seemed that the whole house was moving, except for the father, who froze in the midst of chaos, as if petrified. I haven’t seen him since, and I still see him in my head like I saw him that day: sitting still with his eyes half-closed and the extinguished pipe in his hand.

  Only when we left the house, did my mother throw back a slightly confused, uncertain look, but almost immediately nodded to herself, and then hugged crying Clementine and, taking my hand, walked steadily to the ecoplane.

  We learned the truth by accident, half way to the Canis Major. While recalculating the plan of action taking into account the unplanned element – my mother, Thirteenth weakened the control over facial expressions and voice, and it dawned on me. I realized what was bothering me from the very beginning, as soon as I saw Tyra.

  I’ve been fascinated with micropsychology since I was five, when I started sneaking into my parent’s library when I couldn’t sleep. Clementine was too old to watch over me at night, and I shamelessly exploited it. Despite a meager choice of worthy books in our house, I managed to learn that micropsychology is only a small part of cryptopsychology. We didn’t have any literature on the latter. Anyway, such an extensive science would have been too complicated for me at that age. Nevertheless, I was sure I would study it when I grew up. In the meantime, I was content with those five books on micropsychology which I found pushed behind disparate ladies’ publications on everyday parapsychology and other nonsense.

  I was always attentive to details and enjoyed observing people. This trait would often get me in trouble with mom or nanny. They were worried that I would have problems at the gymnasium because of it too. I still can’t understand why they always got angry! Mom told me I have a heavy, pressing gaze at such moments, that she feels it on her back. I would look at my eyes in the mirror after that: I watched and I watched – all I could see were normal eyes, a normal glance.

  Micropsychology studies the smallest movements of a human body, the slightest changes in his voice timbre, micromimics - details in general. It creates a whole picture of a real person, hidden behind social and psychological masks. It deciphers his essence.

  What I am trying to say is that any person produces a lot of unconscious movements, giving out his or her excitement, anger, fatigue, character. But you, metamorphs, have only necessary movements: you blink at even intervals, swallow periodically, correct your clothes mechanically – you just pretend you are people. I understood this looking at Thirteenth, who was playing the role of my missing biological mother.

  Ten years have passed since then, robotics and roboengineering have made a huge step forward and the Church, with its endless prophecies and limited fantasy, haven’t abandoned its attempts to tame me. But we also did not lose time in vain. I was able to master cryptopsychology a long time ago and the three main laws of robotics have remained unchanged for centuries now.

  So now you’d better get dressed and go out that door, Thirteenth will explain how to operate from now on.

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  The copper-haired stocky young man heaved a deep sigh looking after the leaving girl, who literally fell on him in the restaurant where he was having dinner the evening before, and, like all the rest, was trying to earn his trust through his bed.

  “She is the sixth this month,” he said to a thin silhouette that appeared in the doorway of a noiselessly opened secret door. “It’s time to move on. Otherwise we will have an army of metamorphs with no notion of what to do with them.”

  “All in good time, son, all in good time,” the shadow answered gently.

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  AnastAsiy, whom the Church awaited for centuries, laying the responsibility for implementing the impossible on the fragile child’s shoulders - changing the human nature through the efforts of a single person; Sieggy, who in one way or another was called for in the prayers of the inhabitants of all the planets humankind had occupied; Tayiin, who was hunted by many, each with their own motives; a member of the Div clan, having lost his birth family and found a new one; together ‘AnastAsiy Sieggy Tayiin Div’, who dreamed of being an ordinary boy, who would not need to flee anywhere, dreading his destiny.

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  Stretching his back, the young man took a small paper book from under his pillow. It was a collection of poems by an unknown author, who had sent his works to Mrs. Jones long ago hoping to acquire a rich patron, but instead gained just one little reader, who carried those poems through the years and galaxies, lulling himself to sleep with abrupt lines a thousandth time:

  No outrunning our fate,

  No shielding life with bare hands,

  No making eras change their gait,

  No seeing where a childhood spans.

  Protect the kingdom of your dreams

  And make the time to slow its pace.

  Set free forever your heart’s screams,

  Come first among your foes in race.

  Restore the meaning of your life.

  Provide your army with a faith.

  Ignite the eyes of Love with drive.

  Imagine that you live in grace.

  Rewrite the code of happiness.

  Reshape the fabric of the worlds.

  Reduce the feelings’ timid-ness.

  Release anew the bo
ok of odds.

  Without stirring tears’ load,

  Nor picking up old dust from soul,

  Remain yourself and face your bode,

  Stop playing hide and seek in whole.

 

 

  Smithers

  1

  Here, two steps from the sea, the sense of loneliness was stronger than ever. It would come in soft waves, rustling the sand, tenderly whispering something indecipherable, while covering me with a thick and heavy blanket of hopelessness. From time to time a strong desire to shout filled me. I wanted to cut this smothering viscous cocoon with the sharpness of a sound and finally get free. But I had no power to do that.

  I was sitting beside the window, warming my hands with a hot cup of tea and my legs wrapped in a quilt, as if an old lady. The flavor of far-away herbs was cradling and carrying me off to where the past was merging with fantasies, creating a bizarre blend of a reality and a dream: where I was, where he was, where we were.

  Shaking my head I squinted, grabbed my hair like Baron Munchausen and pulled myself out of the swamping squash of ethereal regrets, might-have-been hopes, chronic hurts and childish illusions. What for? I longed to give up, I desperately wanted to unclasp my fingers and let myself sink into a fabled world, live an unreal bright life, breathe an impossible savory air, feel a phantom exceptional love, be joyous over an imaginary incredible happiness. Weird and mysterious realm of dreams always beckoned me, giving me