Kansas, She Says, Is the Name of the Star Read online

  “My name is Amy. And I am on the run, but I don’t know to where. Last night, I tried to wish upon the first star, and it fell from the sky, trailing fire. I’ve been following it ever since.”

  “That was me,” Dorothy declared, happily splashing her feet in the stream. “Couple of saucers got us.”

  “Saucers?”

  “UFOs,” Dorothy explained. “Those moving lights you see at night.”

  “Dad says that’s swamp gas.”

  Dorothy rolled her eyes. “See any swamps on your way here?” She hadn’t. Just lots of corn, and summer wheat.

  “Saucers are scary smart,” Dorothy warned, “and can see for miles. UFOs are why I was lying low, until those Bushwhackers arrived.”

  Amy told Dorothy about her own adventures since leaving home, dodging Wheelers, then Bushwhackers. Dorothy was impressed. “You saw my ship shot down, and came straight here? That shows good sense, and keen navigation.”

  Amy was not so sure. “I thought it was a star.”

  “Still, you got here, and that’s what counts.” They headed off downstream, walking in the water to confuse their scent, in case the Bushwhackers brought dogs—which they did when they had difficult girls to track. Bushwhackers kept in practice by hunting coons in the dark. This little stream led them to the Republican River, which ran down from Republican County and the Pawnee Nation. They camped on the south bank of the Republican, making a fire, and staring up at the stars, while chewing hard sausage. Amy smirked, saying, “This was going to be my wedding night.”

  “Disappointed?” Dorothy asked.

  “Not at all.” Thirteen and unmarried. Only that morning Amy thought it was impossible, now it felt wonderful. With nowhere to go, this warm campfire seemed the perfect place to be. “Where is Kansas, the star you came from?”

  “You can barely see it from Earth.” Dorothy searched the sky, then pointed, saying, “That dim one, there.”

  “I see it.” Amy knew the night sky by heart.

  “Kansas is the name of the star. It has two terraformed planets, Wichita and Topeka—but I’m not from either of them. I was born aboard ship.”

  “So, how old are you?” Amy asked suspiciously.

  “In Earth years?” Dorothy smirked. “Way older than you.” Small surprise, Dorothy acted much older than anyone Amy knew, except maybe Dad. “But you look like a kid.”

  “I’m a Munchkin.” Dorothy acted nonchalant. “We are bio-engineered not to mature, or even go through puberty.”

  “Why?” That was the strangest thing Amy had heard since leaving home, weirder than flying monkeys.

  “Because some folks thought it would be fun.” Dorothy sounded breezy, but still a bit bitter. “Rich pedophiles, high-end pimps, and greedy genetechs. I was rescued from a slaver harem when I was four.”

  “Slavers?” One of those words Amy had heard whispered by adults, when she was not supposed to be listening.

  “Like Bushwhackers, only worse.”

  “So how old are you?”

  Sitting in the flickering firelight, Dorothy looked nine or ten, at most. “Thirty-two standard years, not counting relativity effects. I have lived half my life at light speed.”

  “So you have no family?”

  “Conceived in a lab, and born in an incubator. My earliest memories are of living in a creche, with a bunch of other babies for sale, aboard the slaver Hydra. But I have a perfectly fine foster family on Topeka. They’re the folks who raised me.”

  And Amy thought her life was weird.

  Next morning they were up with the birds, breakfasting on the last of her birthday cake. As Amy fed crumbs to the sparrows, Dorothy laid out the day. “We can follow the Republican up into the next county. Once we get past Kackley there are no towns to worry about until we get to the pickup point just beyond Jewel City. Ham was supposed to drop me off, then fly me to safety—but in case something bad happened, there are other arrangements.”

  Something bad had happened, especially to Ham, spattered all over his cockpit. Now it was just assumed that they were both going to this “pickup.” If Amy had another choice she might well have taken it.

  Dorothy sensed her fear. “Just remember, west of Jewel City, tomorrow night, near to dawn. Get there, and we are both okay. What you don’t know, Bushwhackers can’t beat out of you.” A happy thought. Like parents and teachers, Bushwhackers had the authority to thrash the truth out of flagrant liars, or errant runaways. Amy was both.

  Heading upriver, they crossed over into Republic County, named for the Pawnee Republic, lying farther upstream. Amy wished the Pawnee would take her in, but late summer was when they had their virgin corn-sacrifice to the Morning Star. Not the best time to go knocking on Pawnee long lodges. Eventually they came to a bridge, and a road crossing it, paved with yellow bricks. Each brick was stamped Golden Brick Company, Jewel City.

  They set out down the yellow brick road, talking and laughing. Only to find Kackley full of Wheelers, some headed south into Cloud County, most just speeding around town, kicking up dust. Not a pretty sight.

  This meant another miles-long detour through the fields, consuming most of the morning. Twice, Dorothy begged food and DNA samples from farm families. When they got back to the yellow brick road, it was afternoon already, with many long miles to go. At the county line, the road jogged to the south, for a while forming the border; then it turned decisively into Jewel County. Almost at once, their luck changed. They came upon a repair robot mortaring up a pothole—a tin-plated mechanical man, bearing the company motto on his chest, “We Lay Good and Gold Brick.” On his shiny back it said, “Golden Brick Company, Jewel City and County.”

  “Just what we need,” Dorothy decided, producing an electronic bug, shaped like a spider. Amy watched in amazement as the bug scurried across the gold bricks, then raced up the robot’s tin-plated leg and body. As soon as the spider clamped itself to the robot’s head, the brick layer froze in midmotion.

  “These repair robots don’t have much of a brain,” Dorothy expained. “Hop aboard. He will do whatever we want.”

  Dorothy had the robot dump his bricks and pick them up instead. “So long as that bug stays attached, the robot will obey both you and me. Try it out.”

  Amy told the mechanical man to head west, and he did, carrying them easily over the yellow bricks. This was the way to travel, with no effort, sitting on the robot’s shoulder, able to see all around, with her feet resting in his metal hand. Though the robot could not outrun the Wheelers, they could easily spot them coming. Amy asked, “What if Wheelers are waiting for us at Jewel City?”

  “Wheelers are at their worst at night.” Dorothy had no fear in the dark, being able to gather firewood and count stars long after Amy gave up.

  They ran into trouble well before dusk. As the sun dipped into the southwest, a silver disk separated from the corona and started sweeping the sky between them and Jewel City. Dorothy ordered the robot off the road, headed north fast and hard, saying, “That UFO is hunting us. It came right out of the sun to sweep the road. We dare not approach until dark.” Not content just to hide, Dorothy told the mechanical man to keep going north toward Webber, up by the Pawnee Nation. “Those disks see a long way, and tell the Bushwhackers where to search.” Amy believed it. Bushwhackers had been on to her faster than she ever thought possible. As the sun set behind them, they kept on going, crossing the White Rock fork of the Republican, and skirting Webber in the dark. Amy worried aloud, saying, “There are nothing but Pawnee up here.”

  “That’s why we are going through in the dark,” Dorothy explained. “It’s virgin sacrifice season.”

  “Don’t have to tell me,” Amy whispered back. The Pawnee habit of sacrificing stray virgins to the Morning Star was the only drawback of an otherwise friendly and hospitable people. “What’s beyond the Pawnee?”

  This was a question Amy had never thought to ask before. Pawnee to the north, Cheyenne to the west, and Ottawas to the south, those were the li
mits of her world—heard of, but hardly ever seen. All Dorothy said was, “You’ll see.”

  And Amy did. Without much warning, the open prairie and creekbed farmlands favored by Pawnee and Ottawas turned into sandy desert, followed by fenced wheatfields shining in the moonlight, backed by stands of corn.

  She had thought that beyond the Pawnee there could only be more Indians. Instead it looked like home.

  “Where are we?”

  “This is Mitchell County. We are still headed north, aiming to cross the Solomon, west of Beloit.” Amy could tell they were headed north, aimed smack at the Little Dipper, but the rest made no sense. Mitchell County was south of Jewel City. Beloit was just about even with her home, only one county over. “How could we get here by heading north?”

  Dorothy sighed. “Here’s where it gets hard. You’re not living on Earth. Not even close.”

  “Not Earth?” Where else could she be?

  “Brace yourself,” Dorothy advised. “Your world is not even a planet, it’s a habitat, a spinning torus about a hundred miles across, orbiting in a dead system. Everything looks flat to you because of gravity control and 3V effects. North just means moving around the inner surface of the torus counter-clockwise.” Amy stared at Dorothy in disbelief, but the little girl in gingham just said, “Get used to it. Every world is finite. Yours is just smaller than most, and turned in on itself, like an overgrown doughnut. North is counter-clockwise, south is clockwise, east is spinward, and west is anti-spinward. If you go straight in any direction, you will come back to where you started.”

  Apparently. Amy still could not believe it.

  “Same is true in the big universe outside,” Dorothy told her, “discounting relativity effects. Ottawas and Pawnee have known this for a long time, but settled folk tend to hide it from the kids.” Proof of this outrageous claim came when they crossed the Solomon west of Beloit, and Amy recognized the big covered bridge, having been there before. Soon they were back in Jewel County, and she could see Jewel City sparkling in the distance. Just to the north of them was the yellow brick road that they had left many miles to the south.

  Dorothy weighed their chances of making the rendezvous. “This is the area they searched yesterday afternoon. They found nothing, so it should be safe to enter, especially from the south. I’ve programmed the pickup point into this robot, so whatever happens, try to stay with him.” With nowhere else to go, Amy nodded vigorously. Supported by the swift, strong metal man, she felt invulnerable. From what Dorothy said, there was a huge wide cosmos beyond the narrow limits of her world. This was her best chance of getting there. If she did not go with Dorothy, she might as well give herself to the Bushwhackers.

  Before they even got to the yellow brick road, Amy saw lights blinking to the east, between them and Jewel City. Dorothy told the metal man to put them down, saying, “We should go on foot from here. It’ll attract less attention.”

  “What about him?” Amy had grown fond of the robot.

  Dorothy smiled at her concern, saying, “I’m leaving the bug on him, just in case. Hopefully we’re home free.”

  “Home” and “free” were two words Amy never put together, but Dorothy was full of such odd sayings. As they approached the road, Dorothy whispered for silence. “Pickup is now, two hundred meters north of the road. If you lose me, just keep heading for the Little Dipper.” Amy nodded. Follow the Drinking Gourd. Holding onto Dorothy’s hand, she crept up to the road. Dawn glowed faintly in the east, beyond the lights of Jewel City, but by now the moon had set, leaving only starlight to the north. Amy did not see the road until she stumbled hard on an invisible brick.

  “Shit!” Dorothy hissed. “We’ve been seen.”

  By whom? Amy peered about, nursing her hurt toe, seeing nothing. Dorothy shoved her back off the road, saying, “Run.”

  Run where? Suddenly, stabbing bright lights flashed in her eyes, blinding her even more. Unable to see, she fell to her knees, holding her hat. Dorothy stepped between her and the glaring lights, a small dark blur.

  Wheels whined in the dark, and the lights leaped forward, flashing down the road toward Dorothy. Amy wanted to scream, but did not dare, as the lights sped past and Dorothy disappeared. Blinded again, Amy stared into darkness, still on her knees, listening for Wheelers. Nothing. Amy could not hear any Wheelers, or see the lights of Jewel City. She wanted to call out to Dorothy, but it would do no good.

  Suddenly, strong hands seized her, lifting her up. She struggled against the merciless grip, expecting to hear a triumphant Bushwhacker yell. But the hands holding her were cold tin-plated metal. It was the robot, and he began to run with her, across the yellow brick road and on into the night.

  Cowardly Lion

  Dawn found Amy sitting in a cold wheatfield, miserable and alone, with the silent robot at her side. Tall fluffy clouds dotted the bright 3V sky. Pickup, whatever that meant, had not happened. Instead she had lost Dorothy, the best friend she ever had. Practically her only friend. Sure Dorothy was weird, but no weirder than tutoring her seventh-grade step-mom, or having Dot call her “Aunti Em.” Given her family, anyone Amy got to know was sure to be strange.

  Despite Dorothy’s genetic deformity, the Munchkin was the bravest, smartest person Amy had ever known. The only one to say, “Look girl, this is totally nuts. We’re getting you out of here.” Now she was going nowhere. Whoever was coming for Dorothy, did not come for her—leaving Amy with no notion what to do next. Her big, shining, tin-plated robot was strong, fast, tireless, and obedient, but unable to offer suggestions. Worming advice out of the metal man got answers like:

  PLEASE REPHRASE QUESTION

  Or maybe:

  SPECIFY POINT-SECOND

  And repeatedly:

  VOID DATA FIELD

  If he only had a brain. Taking a drink from her waterbag, Amy noted it would need to be filled. Not so easy this far from the Solomon, where creeks were few and dry.

  Deciding to pee, she got up and walked around behind the metal man, going a good ways into the wheat. Sure, he was just a machine that saw and talked, but it made her feel better. Pulling down her scarecrow pants, she squatted in the wheat, wondering what to do next.

  Nothing came to mind. As Amy finished, and pulled up her pants, she was blindsided by a tawny blur that shot out of the wheat stalks, knocking her off her feet.

  Clawed hands seized her, one covering her mouth, the other pressing her into the wheat. Something heavy and hairy had landed on top of her, holding her down and hissing in her ear, “Stop thrashing and squealing. You’re going to give us away.”

  Us? What did this beast mean? Though it had hands and fingers, the thing holding her most resembled a man-sized panther, with tan fur and a slight lisp. He whispered, “Promise not to scream, and I will take my hand away.”

  She nodded vigorously, and his hand relaxed. Amy breathed out, then turned to look at her attacker. Seeing a tawny, yellow-eyed cat face, with white saber-like canines inches from her throat, Amy shrieked.

  His hand cut off her cry. “You promised,” he hissed. “Screaming will just bring Bushwhackers.” Neither of them wanted that. Amy nodded again, and he relaxed his grip. She asked, “Who are you?”

  “Call me Leo,” the big cat suggested, “a lot of humans do.”

  “What are you?”

  “Never seen a SuperCat?” Leo sounded sorry for her. “We’re a genetic improvement on humanity, faster, stronger, smarter, and fiercer, created centuries back from human and big cat DNA, to tackle superhuman tasks.”

  So far, all Leo had tackled was her, but he was rigged for trouble, wearing battle-armor, and a string of gas grenades that dug into Amy’s side. She was also getting her first close-up look at the butt of a military-style stinger, tucked into the SuperCat’s furry armpit. Leo’s sly saber-toothed smile widened.

  “My current task is simple. Have you seen a small dark-haired female in a blue dress? I fear she is in distress.”

  “Maybe.” Leo was no Bushwhacker.
Or Wheeler. This heavily armed, gene-spliced catman fairly screamed “off-world.” Animals in Cloud County usually knew their place. Only parrots talked, and even the worst chicken-thief coyotes stole about unarmed.

  “My orders are to rescue her,” Leo explained. “She is Peace Corps, assigned to this world.” Peace Corps. Another word adults only whispered. Besides runaway girls, Bushwhackers were on the lookout for Peace Corps spies, who were the worst sort of Jayhawkers, fiends that came in the night to steal naughty girls like Amy. What they did with them, heaven only knew. Dorothy hardly fit the image. Smiling slyly, the SuperCat cocked an eye at her. “Tell me you never heard of the Peace Corps?”

  “I have heard of them.” She just did not know who they were.

  “Good.” Leo got up, setting Amy back on her feet. “’Cause they are the only folks within a billion light-years who give a hoot about your naked-monkey ass. So you need to help me.” Amy finished pulling up her pants, telling her attacker, “You didn’t have to jump me while I was peeing.” Leo laughed, standing up on his hind legs. “Second best time to hit an awake human. I didn’t want to tackle your robot too. That was the only time you parted from him.”

  “Right.” Good thing she had already peed. It was nice to know that he feared the robot, which was programmed to defend humans from animal attack.

  Her captor patted chaff off her pants, asking, “So have you seen Dorothy?”

  “Wheelers took her.” Amy pointed back toward the yellow brick road. “Heading west.”

  “Probably taking her back to Wheeler,” Leo decided.

  “What will happen to her?” By now she was horribly worried for Dorothy. Wheeler sounded worse than the Concordia Academy for Reluctant Virgins.

  Furry shoulders shrugged. “Do I look like a Wheeler?”

  Not a lot. “So what will you do?”

  “Report that she did not make pickup.”