The Golden Space

by Pamela Sargent

  Then Gurit stood. “There’s an opening here,” she shouted down. Josepha sighed; the young people could not have suffocated. Gurit was bending over again.

  “Do you hear something?” Josepha asked Alf, sure she was imagining the sound of another voice. Alf shook his head.

  “They’re inside,” Gurit cried. She sat down suddenly at the top of the hill. “Call for help—they’re inside.”

  Josepha had expected Chane to be angry, to reproach her and the other parents for their lack of supervision or to turn his wrath on the children. Instead, he had silently thrown his arms around Ramli, then Teno.

  She had wanted to question the children about the reasons for their actions. But Teno and Ramli had been too tired to do more than bathe and eat a few raw vegetables before going to sleep. Chane’s journey home had wearied him as well. The accounting would have to take place the next day.

  She entered the living room. Chane was sitting on the sofa smoking a cigarette. She sat down next to him and touched his hand gently. He did not speak.

  Most of the village had gathered near the cave that afternoon, waiting as the robots dug, sighing and crying when the young people finally emerged. Merripen, standing near Josepha, had unexpectedly hugged her when he saw the children.

  The children had been tired and dirty but seemed to have few injuries. Three medical robots had treated the cuts and bruises while protein tablets and water were distributed and adults hurried to the young people. Josepha had waited with Teno and Ramli for the hovercrafts that would take them all home.

  Both children had been remarkably calm, describing some of their ordeal in steady voices. They had been trapped after taking shelter from the storm. After discovering that air could still reach them, they had parceled out the few provisions they had. Aided by the glow of their portable lanterns, they had tried to repair a Bond in order to signal for help.

  “We shorted out four Bonds,” Teno said quietly. “It’s not that easy to repair them after fooling with them. By then a few lanterns had given out and we had to conserve the rest. I was making some progress with my Bond when Gurit came.”

  It was impossible for her to tell if they had been frightened at all. She gazed at them, trying to discern some difference, then saw one; neither child would look at her directly. “We made a mistake, rigging the Bonds,” Ramli said.

  “Why did you do it then?”

  “We were sure you wouldn’t worry about us, and we didn’t want others to find us. You know some don’t wish us well.”

  “You could have died.” Instantly Josepha wished that she had not spoken so harshly.

  “I know. We all thought we might. We didn’t want to.”

  They had said little more on the way home.

  “Don’t be sad,” Josepha said now to Chane. He tried to smile, but his dark eyes remained morose. “They’re safe, and maybe they’ve learned something from all of this, something we couldn’t have taught. I’ll admit it’s learning things the hard way, but—”

  “They’ve learned they can die,” he responded. “And before that, when Nenum was killed, they learned they might have to hide. Do you think those are useful lessons, Josepha?” She did not reply. “They have learned fear.”

  “I don’t know if they have or not. I couldn’t tell.”

  “And they may react the way many of us have, by retreating.”

  “Is something else bothering you, Chane?”

  He put out his cigarette and lit another, passing the box to her. “I will tell you something you won’t find in any public record of my life,” he said suddenly. “Do you want to hear it? It’s not pleasant.”

  She lit her cigarette. “If you want to tell it, I’ll listen.”

  “You know that during the Transition I was in hiding. I trusted only two people with information about where I was. I wanted to live until it was over and like many in public life I had enemies. A friend contacted me, one of those I trusted. He pleaded with me to return to the capital. Another government had fallen and he wanted me to help form a new one; they needed my foreign contacts and experience. As you may know, some countries managed to restore civil order before many African countries could. As an additional incentive, he told me that my wife and one of my children were imprisoned, prisoners of a tribe sometimes hostile to my own. He was trying to get them and others released but needed my aid.”

  Josepha waited for him to continue, tapping her ashes into a pewter tray. Chane was hunched over, elbows on knees, staring down at his feet. “I didn’t go,” he said at last, so softly she could barely hear him. “It was too risky, I thought, telling myself I couldn’t have done much anyway. I didn’t go. I hid. In fact, I moved so that no one could contact me again.”

  She had to say something. She reached toward him, then pulled her arm back. “But,” she began. She swallowed. “You said,” she went on, “that your wife and children were still alive.”

  “They are. Does that make me any less culpable? Do you want to know what she went through during her imprisonment? Her body was repaired and her mind was wiped of the experience afterward, but I am still a witness to it. I was told everything. I will never have it wiped from my memory. That is part of my punishment.”

  She stubbed out her cigarette. He moved away from her and slouched at the other end of the sofa. “I have wanted to redeem myself since then. That’s why I came here and it is also why I left after Nenum’s death. At least that’s what I thought at the time—I wanted to stay here, but I thought speaking to others was more important. Maybe it was just an excuse to retreat from you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Don’t you see? At first I didn’t think I knew you well enough, and later … I couldn’t tell how you felt toward me. You never even argued with me very much.”

  She sat up. “Why should I have argued with you?”

  “It would have shown you cared.”

  “I thought trying to be rational and pleasant was a better way of showing care. There isn’t very much worth arguing about when you know sooner or later it’ll be forgotten.”

  He sighed. “That sounds like selfishness, not concern.”

  “Why?”

  He rose and paced to the window, then turned to face her. “It keeps you from getting involved, from committing yourself. I know, I’m guilty of the same thing. Why didn’t you get angry over Warner?”

  Josepha opened her mouth to speak, but Chane continued. “Because you would have had to admit your pain and maybe that it was partly your fault as well. Why did I do it? Maybe in some way I was testing you, Josepha. Why didn’t you do the same thing? Because you could make me feel guilty by not retaliating, yet avoid any real confrontation where we might have had to make a decision one way or another.”

  “But I love you,” she said, feeling the words were almost useless. “I have for a while. What you did long ago doesn’t matter to me now. All of us did things like that or we wouldn’t be alive today.” She paused, then forced herself to continue. “I worked for a shady cryonic service, even though I suspected many of their clients would never be revived. I bought longevity shots illegally. I didn’t do much to make anyone’s life better. And before that, out of fear, I ran away from the only man I ever really loved, and when I was an adolescent, I tried to run away through suicide.”

  “I guess,” Chane replied, “that we have at last laid our cards on the table. We humans are peculiar, aren’t we? I can see why Merripen wanted a change.”

  She stood up. “What do we do now, Chane?”

  He crossed the room and put an arm around her. “We settle things with Teno and Ramli, between ourselves, and then …” He paused. “Right now, I think we need rest.”

  The children, Josepha noticed, looked almost guilty. They poked at their bananas and milk, gazing obliquely at her and Chane across the table.

  “You caused us a lot of pain and worry,” Chane began. “I want to know the reasons.”

  “Chane,” Jos
epha said hesitantly, “can’t we wait until we’ve finished breakfast first?”

  “No.”

  “We made a mistake,” Teno said softly. “We needed to be alone for a while, we had some things to work out and decisions to make.”

  “Couldn’t you have made your decisions here?” Chane asked.

  “We had to be by ourselves. We didn’t think you would worry and we wanted to make sure no one hostile to us knew where we were.”

  “But you could have gone to the lodges,” Josepha said. “You could have had robots protect you there.”

  Teno stared directly at her. “That didn’t help Nenum.”

  “We’re sorry,” Ramli said. “Maybe we should have told you. We thought you’d have more trust in us. We forgot that you don’t see things quite the way we do. And we didn’t count on an accident, though we should have. We were too busy protecting ourselves from other people.”

  They’re trying to twist it around, Josepha thought, trying to make it our fault. It should not have surprised her; quite naturally, the young people thought themselves more rational than their parents. “Have you decided anything?” she asked.

  “We had to decide,” Teno said calmly, “whether to stay here, voluntarily exile ourselves, or pursue a third course.”

  “Wait a minute,” Chane interrupted. “Don’t you think your parents have anything to say about what you’re going to do?”

  “Please let me finish,” Teno replied tonelessly. “You were right when you decided to speak to people outside the village and to have more visitors here. The problem is that you didn’t go far enough. We need to live with other people now. Maybe we should have been brought up with other children from the beginning. We want to move away from here. It will be hard— I don’t know how well we’ll get along, but we have to start.”

  “You want us to build another village somewhere else?” Chane said.

  “No,” Teno responded. “That would be the same thing we have now. We want to live with others. Some of us may live off-planet, the others in different societies here. It won’t be easy, having to leave each other, but it’s the only way. People won’t see us as a group then, but as individuals. And we’ll be forced to learn, to get along, to find out what to do, each of us, because we won’t have the others to lean on. Instead of isolating ourselves, we’ll learn how we can help.”

  “But you’re so young,” Josepha said, looking to Chane for support. “You’re children, you don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t decide something like that yet.”

  “We’re not like you, Josepha,” her child said. “We don’t have much experience, but that doesn’t make us children. Physically, we’re grown. We don’t have the hormonal changes and emotional problems others do at our age.”

  “It’s time for us to lead our own lives,” Ramli added.

  “And what are we to do?” Chane said, sounding weary. “Go with you? Stay here? Do what we want? Did you think of us at all?”

  “Do what you think is best,” Ramli said. It sounded cold to Josepha; the child seemed to realize that. “We’re not abandoning you,” Ramli went on. “You’ll see us often; you can advise us. You’ll have to tell us if we’re doing something wrong.”

  Josepha, looking at the two serious young faces, knew that they and the others would have their way, whatever the parents or Merripen or anyone else thought. The children would take their leave; she and Chane would have their own decisions to make. They would leave the village; there would be no point in remaining. It all reminded her of death, the end of one thing, the beginning of another.

  V

  The autumn leaves, bright spots of orange, red, and yellow, covered the ground near the creek. They rustled under the feet of Josepha and Teno, muffling the cracks of dead twigs. Overhead, sunlight shrouded by gray clouds penetrated the webbing of bare tree limbs.

  Teno, clothed in sweat pants and a heavy red jacket, walked with hands shoved into pockets. The child’s gray eyes matched the cloudy sky and seemed to hide as much. “I’ll call you from

  Asgard,” Teno was saying. “I may go to the moon afterward.”

  “I’ve never been off Earth,” Josepha murmured. “It seems silly now, sort of unenterprising.”

  “Maybe you’ll visit me,” her child said. “Isn’t it about time you went?”

  “Probably. I hope I can bring myself to set foot in a shuttle.”

  “The future may be there. We talked about it, all of us. We want to find out more. We’re curious. I think we’ll go on a long journey someday, or our descendants will. They probably won’t be anything like you or us.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Even we might not be the same. We’ve talked about somatic changes, readjustments in our bodies, but I think we’ll need more experience before deciding what to do.”

  They turned from the creek and walked back toward the house. The old maple tree still remained; the apple tree Josepha had planted still lived, although its fruit was small and bitter. The house itself looked the same but felt old, unused, musty. She had left the village hoping to gain some strength from her old home and had felt only displaced. She could no longer live here.

  “Will you go live with Chane, Josepha?”

  “Yes, at least for a while. He wants me to travel with him, meet some of his friends. He feels he has to continue speaking for you. He’s probably right.”

  “He is right. Our plans may not work out. Some call us infiltrators—as if we’re subversive.” Teno sniffed loudly. “It’s good that you’ll be with Chane. Without Ramli and me to worry about all the time, you’ll be able to work things out between you.”

  Josepha stopped and turned to her child, gazing into Nicholas Krol’s gray eyes. “Teno,” she said hesitantly, “there’s one thing I have to ask. It may seem strange or silly to you, but humor me for a bit.” She paused. “I don’t know how to put it exactly. Do you have any feelings for me at all, as a parent? Do you really, deep down, feel any sort of an attachment, any concern? I just want to know.”

  The gray, quiet eyes watched her calmly. “It would be strange,” the child answered, “if we could have lived among you without coming to some understanding of your feelings. Of course I’m concerned. I care about you and I’d feel a loss if I no longer saw you or couldn’t speak to you. If one loses a friend or companion, one loses another perspective, another viewpoint, a different set of ideas and the personality that has formed them.”

  “That isn’t quite what I meant.” Josepha struggled with the words. “Do you feel any love?” She waited, wondering what Teno thought.

  Teno was silent for a few moments. Josepha thought: I shouldn’t have asked. A person could profess love, but actions were what counted. Teno and the others had tried to show all the love they were capable of feeling, if they could feel it at all. One could not ask, should not ask.

  “Do you believe,” Teno said softly, “that only your physiology, your glands, your hormones can produce love? It isn’t true. Love is part of a relationship—it can’t be reduced to physical characteristics or body chemistry. I love you, Josepha. I’ll care about you as long as I know you or remember you.”

  She should not have asked. The words could tell her nothing. She could still doubt, still wonder if the child was telling her what would be most comforting.

  But Teno’s face was changing. As she watched, she saw the child’s lips form a crescent, and realized with a shock that Teno was smiling. It was a slow smile, a gentle smile, compassionate but impenetrable. A softness seemed to flicker behind the gray eyes. It was Teno’s parting gift.

  The smile, too, might be a comforting mask. But as she entered the house with her child, Josepha decided she would accept it.

  Unguided Days

  I

  Earth was a faraway pearl in the blackness.

  It grew into a mottled marble as the ship drew nearer. Pinpoints of light glittered on the nightside. The globe waned into a silver crescent, offering a setting for the
jewel of the rising sun.

  The seat held her. She tensed, eyes closed, waiting for the gravitic shield to shut down.

  Her legs jerked, and Nola opened her eyes. She was in a floater; the gravitic generator, a small golden square resting on the floor, shimmered. Nola lifted her head, gazing through the transparent shields of the floater at the empty room’s pale yellow walls. She saw the green outside the window on her left, and remembered.

  The dream had faded. She signaled to her implant, and the generator shut down; Earth’s gravity bound her again. The slender silvery wires that held her body began to stimulate her muscles and nerves. The shield slid open. Arms at her sides, she crossed the room with tiny steps, catching a glimpse of her hand as she opened the door. Her hand was a pale claw; the silver threads on it glistened.

  Nola left the room and passed through the hall. Her long pants were weights pulling at her hips; her blouse seemed to bind her, pulling at her shoulders. As she descended the spiral staircase, she smelled onions and garlic and heard someone singing. The song was a wail. Yasmin, her hostess, was cooking.

  The first floor of Yasmin’s house was a large room with sofas and chairs in one corner, a table and chairs in another. The rest of the room was cluttered with piles of books, tapestries, manuscripts, vases of flowers, and a few dust balls. The dust made her nose twitch. She threaded her way carefully among piles of books and stood by a window, studying the settlement. It seemed primitive and dull. One man in a nearby house tended a garden; a man and a woman strolled by along the road.

  In the late afternoon light, the grass outside was a deeper green; the hills in the distance were blue. She squinted at the unfamiliar, disorienting landscape and thought of Luna’s long afternoon, the black shadows and tall pale mountains.

  Nola turned away from the window and walked toward the kitchen, which was separated from the large room by a partition. She peered in at Yasmin. The short, dark-haired woman stood before a butcher’s block, chopping onions.