Pym_ A Novel - Mat Johnson [58]
“Are you sure you might not rather deposit the chattel elsewhere as we conduct our business?” he asked me. There was a fermented smell to his breath that I hadn’t noticed until we came close to each other. I didn’t see how wobbly he was on his feet either till he was walking next to me.
“You’re not actually serious, are you?” was Nathaniel’s response. He had a polite, indulgent smile on his face as he said this, whether because he was amused by this character’s display of racism or in disbelief. I told Pym that we were all of the same crew, and when he heard this c word, the guy relented.
The hut we entered was a construction entirely of ice, as was the rest of this primitive subterranean village. It was a good thing to be in a small space for the moment, because the majesty of the larger hollow was just too damn much.† While the space was still considerably colder than what we would ever think of as comfortable, I noticed that it was significantly warmer. The skins of some unknown animal, probably some form of walrus or seal, had been placed along the bulk of the floor, paler side up, enabling us to take seats without literally freezing our asses. This Pym, for his part, seemed to come further into consciousness the longer he was awake, and the more awake he got the more excited he was about our presence. Mine in particular. The white man began to rant on about how long it had been, and how bored he’d been, how eager he was to finally hear stories of the North he had left behind. Here, I was forced to interrupt him.
“Mister? Mister, listen. Who are these people? Where are we?”
I spoke to him loudly enough that he paused from his verbal riff on “the calming effect of staring directly into the ice walls.” A look of utter perplexity came over this would-be Pym’s face when he realized the depth of my confusion. He solemnly took my arm and spoke in comparatively sober, measured words.
“My good man, do you not realize? These creatures around you, they are perfection incarnate. They are the end of being, for after them there is nowhere to go. You, sir, are in the presence of the Gods,” he said calmly. Hearing this statement, I looked to my co-workers where they sat behind me, and they looked back at me. In that moment, silently, we agreed that we were indeed in the presence of an exceptionally delusional white man—which is of course one of the most dangerous things in the world.
“And what exactly is this place here? Tekeli-li?” I followed with.
“Well, is it not obvious? Where else would the Gods reside? Tekeli-li is Heaven, of course,” he finished, his mustache hairs twitching at the ends much like the whiskers of a mouse.
“Well they’re obviously not gods, so we can begin from there,” Nathaniel offered after the uneven crunching rhythm that was this Pym’s gait had sufficiently receded into the distance. “But what in God’s name are they?”
“As spectacular as it sounds, I think it’s pretty clear we’re dealing with some sort of lost Neanderthals here. Or possibly another line of hominid, a spur of Homo erectus,” I offered. They were already looking at me funny, as if what I had to say could somehow be more fantastic than what was just beyond our frozen walls. I didn’t care.
“Their size: there was a humanoid that walked the earth relatively recently that we call ‘Colossus,