Worlds Apart (22 page)

The terminal was just a standard communicator, without the feedback touchboard, so we couldn’t use it for elementary teaching (it would only accommodate one student at a time anyhow). But I taught Indira how to use it for data access, and she was captivated. She knew how to type, though she hadn’t done it in years, and soon was using New New’s library as effectively as anyone her age who’d grown up with it.

We started calling the place “the farm” and a noisy farm it was. The chickens kept up a constant dialog and the goats, still hobbling around with their legs in casts, complained to anyone who would listen. The Frommes caught a small deer and penned it. The children were charmed, but the goats waxed even more existential. Before long we had baby chicks, and the seedlings were starting to look like vegetables.

There was a general feeling of happiness, of relief. For some reason I couldn’t share it. Things were going too well.

Charlie’s Will

Jeff and Tad had been on the Island for several months before the question came up. They were sitting with Storm, watching the sun go down over the weathered hulks of the vessels that lolled in the harbor.

“You know, I been feelin’ real useless,” Storm said. “Don’t know how long it’s been since somebody got the death.”

“Only one since we got here,” Jeff said. “How often do you expect it to come?”

“Three or four a year, anyhow. Last year we got ’em almost every month.” He threw a shell at the water, trying to make it skip. “I’m gettin’ sure as hell tired of fish.”

“Some places don’t get it nearly as often.”

“Yeah,” Tad said. “I’ve heard there’s places up north that don’t get it at all.”

“Sure. Where are all the oldies, then?”

“Stayin’ up north, maybe. Where they don’t get it.”

“Shit.” He threw another shell, harder, and this time it did skip once. “Who’d want to go on that long? Feel like I’ve lived forever already.” There was a note of bravado in his voice.

“Come on,” Jeff said. “You wouldn’t mind a few more years.”

“Shet that up.” He brooded, looking out over the glaring water, mouth set. “Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn’t. Sometime I’m curious ’bout you, ’bout how it feels. You know a hell of a lot.”

“I was still in school when the bombs fell. I was thirty-one.”

“Boy howdy,” he said softly, and thought for a minute. “But you hurt all the time. You can’t hardly walk when you git up in the morning. That’s another thing you git for gettin’ old.”

“No, that’s the thing I was born with. I used to know really old people, like a hundred years old, who didn’t hurt at all.”

“I did too,” Tad said. “You’re not that young, Storm. Didn’t you have grandparents and all?”

“Naw. I mean I had ’em, I guess, like anybody. But I was raised up in a home, you know, up Tampa. Said my mother was a whore, she got killed when I was still a baby. That’s what they said, anyhow.” He tried another shell. “Guess I saw old people, yeah, outside. On the street. Didn’t know any.”

“I think maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with Charlie,” Jeff said carefully. “I think the death might be just a disease, and maybe people aren’t getting it anymore.”

Surprisingly, Storm nodded. “I’ve thought about that myself. Be hell to pay.” He looked sharply at Tad and Jeff. “Don’t you tell nobody. But I figure it that way.”

“Yeah,” Tad said. “It’s what I’ve been thinking, too. I didn’t want to say anything.”

“People I been
wait
in’ to see get it,” Storm said savagely. “People I really want to cut into. And now what?”

“Have to learn to like fish,” Jeff said.

Storm made a retching sound. “Maybe not. General’s talkin’ about goin’ inland, hunting trip. Bring back some pedros to smoke.”

“All this talk about food,” Jeff said, getting up. “Think I’ll go get some soup.” Tad stood up too.

“You guys go on,” Storm said. “I have to get hungrier.”

They walked toward the kitchen through deepening twilight. Sticky perfume of magnolias and jasmine in the thick still air. “Maybe we should keep our traps shut,” Tad said.

“No, we did right. It’d look more suspicious if we avoid talking about it.”

“What’ll we do when someone puts two and two together?”

“God, I don’t know. Just deny it.”

“I sure as hell don’t want to get eaten.”

“Ah…what’s the difference?” He laughed. “Tell you what, though. If they come after us, I’ve got some arsenic. They try to eat us afterwards, we’ll get revenge.”

Tad nodded soberly. “That’s a good idea.” He scuffed at a pebble and it skittered on ahead of them. “You know, I been thinkin’ about the boat again.”

“Speaking of suicide.” There were several sailboats around the island. They’d talked about trying to get to the English-speaking Bahamas, to the east. But neither of them had ever sailed.

“Well, hell. What if it came to that? Sail or be someone’s lunch?”

“Sail, I guess. Be some shark’s lunch.”

“All we have to do is get General mad at us. And he’s the craziest asshole I’ve ever met.”

“I wouldn’t worry about him. When I treated his herpes I told him he had to get shots twice a year. Or his dick’d fall off.”

“That keeps
you
safe, maybe. Hey, though.” He stopped suddenly and whispered. “Why don’t you give him a shot of something else? Why don’t you kill ’im? He’s so old, nobody’d think anything.”

Jeff shook his head. “I don’t think I could do that.”

“You’ve killed plenty.”

“Yeah, but not
mur
der.”

“Hell, that wouldn’t be murder. He’s just a fuckin’ animal.”

“You think whoever took his place would be any better?”

“It could be you.” He shook Jeff’s arm. “Half the family thinks you’re some kind of god.”

Jeff started walking again. “The other half wants to see me on a cross. No thanks.”

The soup was a bland chowder of fish and bean curd. They took their bowls outside; the cafeteria’s air conditioning was set too high for Jeff’s joints.

“You don’t want to go back north because it’s too cold. Sure as hell ain’t goin’ any other direction without a boat We stay here, our luck’s gonna run out.”

“I don’t know,” Jeff said. “We may have plenty of time. And things could change.”

“Haven’t seen much change.” Tad went back inside to scrape himself some salt.

“You ever think about the Worlds?” Jeff said when he returned.

“Aw, they’re all dead. Saw it on the cube the day of the war.”

“What if that was a lie? Suppose they aren’t all dead.”

“So what? They ain’t comin’ down here and we ain’t goin’ up there.”

“You think they caused the war?”

“Huh? Sure, them and the Easter Bunny. It was the fuckin’ Soshies. Maybe us, who cares anymore?”

Jeff finished his soup in thoughtful silence. “They are still there. That’s where I got the vaccine.”

“You’re shittin’ me. How the hell you get up there?”

“I didn’t go there. They sent it down, in a robot rocket. From New New York.”

“You feel all right?”

“It’s true. That’s why I needed the fuel cell from you, so I could talk to them, let them know where to send it.”

“New New York, that’s where the girl was from. That Newsman showed us the picture of.”

“Yes, and I…I’ve talked to her, from the hospital in Plant City. She helped with the vaccine. She’s even been back to Earth, since the war, to Africa.”

“This is really straight? You’re not yankin’ me off?”

“It’s true.”

“So what, you think she’s comin’ here? Gonna come get you?”

“I don’t think she can. They went to Africa because it was the only place left with a spaceport.” He set down the bowl and stared out into the darkness.

“I’d just like to get back in touch with her. Let her know I’m alive. That’s why I’ve been hanging around the library with Newsman, thinking maybe I could fix up the dish and talk to them up there.”

“The dish antenna, there’s nothin’ wrong with that.”

“Not outside. All the gear inside’s been pretty well smashed. I think I can learn enough electronics to rig up a simple transmitter, though. We have all the raw materials here and plenty of power.”

“Okay,” Tad said slowly, “so you get to talk with your girl. But that don’t solve anything. We’re still takin’ a big chance stayin’ here. Bigger every day.”

“Maybe not, maybe not. It could be the key.” The door opened behind them, and they both looked up to see Elsie the Cow squeeze through. She was taller than Jeff and weighed twice as much. Her features were large and coarse and she had a downy growth of beard.

“Warm night,” she said, and settled ponderously between them on the steps. She balanced a pail of soup on her lap and stirred it noisily with a large kitchen spoon.

“Come on, Elsie,” Jeff said, “we’re talking man talk.”

“You’re a man,” she said, and slurped at the ladle. “He just a boy. All of ’em boys.”

“We’re
talk
ing,” Tad said. “You want me to hit you?”

“This ain’t your step. You wanna talk, you go talk someplace.”

Jeff stood up. “I’ve had as much of this stuff as I want, anyhow.”

“Yeah.” They took their bowls back inside and went out the back door, heading toward the deserted southern part of the Island, the abandoned naval base.

“You got some kind of a plan?” Tad said.

“Not definite. Just a few notions.” They picked their way along the broken sidewalk. There was no moon, and all the street lights were out in this part of town. “Look at it this way. The oldest people around were thirteen or fourteen when the war came. That’s old enough to have been following politics.”

“Some people, yeah. It’s Florida, though.”

“If we just came right out and explained about the war, about the death being caused by biological warfare, a lot of them would agree with us… most would at least understand, even if they didn’t—”

“But hell. One wrong person says the word and we’re fresh meat. No way around that.”

“The thing to do is to get to those people first. The people in power.”

“General and Major and Hotbox? They’re all buggy. Hungry, too—start talkin’ against Charlie and we’re the menu, sure as shit.”

“There’s Storm. He’s obviously ready.”

“Yeah, but you never see him go against any of them. He’s got a safe place and aims to keep it.”

“It’s a tough problem,” Jeff admitted. “Another reason to get in touch with the spacers. There are lots of people who have special training, dealing with adolescents and crazy people. Psychiatrists, maybe they could give us an angle.”

“What are they gonna come up with that you can’t? Hell, you spent most of your life in school.”

“Mostly criminology, a little business administration. These dingos are murderers, cannibals, and sadists, but they aren’t criminals. They’re
normal
, by the standards of those around them. Most of what I know about dealing with people just doesn’t apply.”

“I still think we oughta fade. Another couple of months with nobody gettin’ the death, hell. They’re dumb, but
they ain’t
that
dumb.” He stumbled, cursed. “There’s anybody dumb around, it’s you. Why’d you give the vaccine to General and Major? They’d be the first ones to go.”

“That’d be the same as murder.”

“Shit. I don’t understand you at
all
.” There was a pale flickering light down at the Navy docks. They steered toward it. “Now, Hotbox, I can see keepin’ her. I’d like to pork her myself.”

Jeff laughed. “Just ask.”

“Think I haven’t? Christ and Charlie.” They walked over to the dim pool of light. It was a creepy place, the mountainous warships indistinct shadows looming over them, creaking, smell of greasy rust. It was a mothball fleet; some of the ships had been out of service for most of a century.

“Too bad we can’t take one of these,” Tad said. “We could—”

“Take it where?” Storm stepped quietly out of the darkness, barefoot, holding a pistol. “I been behind you since Duval Street. You guys got some real explainin’ to do.”

5

I do admit to a number of personality defects, none serious, but I never thought jealousy was in my repertoire. Least of all sexual jealousy, since my husbands and I established at the outset, conventionally, that we were all free to do whatever we wanted with whomever. But when I got the news I was suddenly overcome with this alien emotion.

Daniel asked to marry Evelyn Ten. John wouldn’t veto it. I told him I had to think about it, snapped off the monitor, and shocked Sam Wasserman with my vocabulary. I went out into the garden to think. To fume.

I’ve known Evelyn since she was a child. She’s Ahmed’s granddaughter, a born charmer, talented but modest. Also young and quite beautiful, which I had to admit was the problem. I’m no longer one and never was the other.

Leave the coop for six weeks and the goddamned rooster goes on the prowl. Well, I knew it was deeper than that; it had been building for a couple of years. I did spend more time with John, and enjoyed sex with him more, though Daniel had better technique and raw material. The sex itself probably wasn’t that important. I hadn’t given him much affection lately, either, nor asked for much from him. If I needed a shoulder it was always John’s I would go to.

I really had only two choices. I could allow Evelyn to join the line, or ask Daniel to leave it. I didn’t see how I could refuse Evelyn and keep Daniel. So it was really a question of whether I loved Daniel enough to share him. Or little enough not to care. I looked myself straight in the heart for a long time over that. Finally I went back to the monitor and called Evelyn and welcomed her to our family. Asked her to relay my consent to Daniel and give him my love; I couldn’t hog the monitor. I could, of course.

Instead I went back out into the garden, dark now, and sat on the damp earth and listened to things growing. There was a hint of wild honeysuckle on the air, that somehow disgusted me. I didn’t feel much like springtime. Evelyn was twelve years younger than I. Under other circumstances she could be my own child (not as pretty and somewhat lighter in complexion). I think the jealousy faded away there in the garden, but what replaced it was a hollow and cold feeling of mortality. Finally I did cry, but I don’t think it was over Daniel. I think it was over everything dying eventually.