The Golden Space

by Pamela Sargent

  Nola could not bear it. She leaped up and ran from the room, stumbling down the stairs in the darkness. She imagined the stairs continuing endlessly, leading her to a black, subterranean realm. She reached the bottom and hurried toward the door. The sunshine made her blink; she covered her eyes.

  She went to Mikhail in the evening. He was alone in his house, seated by the pool. One hand dangled, rippling the water.

  Nola said, “Come with me.”

  “You should have knocked.”

  “Come with me.”

  Mikhail was silent.

  “I thought you cared about Teno. How can you stay here after what happened to your friend? Teno will have to leave now. Only people with souls can stay.”

  He looked up. “I can’t go.”

  “You must.”

  “You saw what happened, Nola.”

  “Yes, I did. It doesn’t matter. Your visions are illusions; this proves it. They may be nature’s way of easing death, of making it less painful.” Something in her recoiled at the words.

  “That’s not what it proves.”

  She wanted to strike him. “You can’t stay, Mikhail. If Giancarlo goes on, he’ll have to try to stop anything the biologists attempt to do. Maybe he’ll start with speeches and spreading the word, but it won’t stop there. When that doesn’t work, there’ll be stronger measures. You saw Hilde. She meant it. You ought to be able to figure out what she might want to do.”

  “I must stay, Nola.” His blue eyes searched her face, as if he wanted to say more.

  She raised a hand, let it fall, and hurried from him.

  As she strode toward Yasmin’s house, she noticed that Leif’s tent and cart were gone. He would try to warn others. She stared at the spot where his tent had been, hoping he would succeed. She had almost been fooled herself. She could no longer recall how she had felt when, for a brief moment, she had believed Giancarlo.

  Yasmin was standing next to the hovercraft. Nola had already packed her things. “I’m sorry you’re leaving,” Yasmin said.

  “I’m not sorry,” Nola replied.

  “I wish you’d stay. If you would endure the little death, you’d understand.”

  “Would I? Maybe I’d be like Teno. Maybe I wouldn’t see the correct vision.”

  Yasmin shook her head. “Oh, no. You’re human.”

  “Am I? Are you sure? Where do you draw the line? How many genes have to be altered before you lose a soul? Is there a gene for that, too? Maybe somatic changes would do the trick. If the soul’s not made of matter, then how can altering the body change it? You’d better start asking questions, Yasmin.”

  Nola got into her hovercraft and pulled away. As she turned toward the gate, she saw a shadow in the road. A hand was raised. Nola stopped.

  Teno came to the side of the craft. “May I go with you?”

  “Where to?”

  “There’s a town one hundred kilometers south. I have friends there.”

  “Get in.”

  Teno walked around the vehicle and got in on the other side. Nola drove through the open gate and did not look back.

  They moved toward a hill. “Didn’t you bring your things?” she asked.

  “There’s nothing there that I need.”

  She glanced at her passenger, thinking she detected bitterness in the words. But Teno seemed composed. “Did it bother you, Teno?” she said carefully. “Going through that, I mean.”

  “Why should it bother me? I had no expectations, and my curiosity was satisfied.”

  She signaled her implant and set the vehicle’s course, then leaned back. “Maybe you lied. Maybe you lied to them about your vision.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you wanted to see what would happen. Maybe you were doing a little experiment of your own. Maybe you wanted to find out whether Giancarlo would abandon his ideas, or find another way to explain what happened to you.”

  “Is that what you want to think, Nola? Would it make it easier for you to accept his ideas then?”

  “I don’t care about that.”

  “Perhaps you do. I saw what I said I saw.”

  The sky was growing dark. She would see the stars soon, and the familiar black heavens she knew. She would travel through a comforting darkness. She would leave; Earth would once again be a distant globe on the horizon. In the caverns and enclosures below Luna’s surface, she would no longer have to look at it at all.

  She thought of her work. She would return to it, watching the clouds and gathering the storms, her implant murmuring to her all the while, guiding her again. She might turn her attention from the earth to the stars. The dynamics of a galaxy, awesome and stately, dwarfed human lives; but were they more interesting, more meaningful, than the jagged orbits and splintered attractions of human existence?

  She needed her humanity, with all its narrowness, to feel dwarfed, to be awed, to think the galaxy stately. She needed the smallness of self-conscious intelligence. She would fall around Earth, weightless and alone; yet not alone. She needed the peopled earth to be there; but she also didn’t need it.

  The Summer’s Dust

  I

  Andrew was hiding. He sat on the roof, his back to the gabled windows. He had been there for only a few minutes and knew he would be found; that was the point.

  He heard a door open below. “Andrew?” The door snapped shut. His mother was on the porch; her feet thumped against the wood. “Andrew?” She would go back inside and find that he was still near the house; tracing the signal, she would locate him. He glanced at his left wrist. The small blue stone of his Bond winked at him.

  He looked down at the gutter edging the roof. The porch’s front steps creaked, and his mother’s blond head emerged. A warm breeze feathered her hair as she glided along the path leading down the hill. From the roof, Andrew could see the nearby houses. At the foot of the hill, two kobolds tended the rose garden that nestled near a low stone house. The owner of the house had lived in the south for years, but her small servants still clipped the hedges and trimmed the lawn. Each kobold was one meter tall, and human in appearance. On pleasant evenings, he had seen the little people lay a linen tablecloth over the table in the garden and set out the silverware, taking their positions behind the chairs. They would wait silently, small hands crossed over their chests, until it was night; then they would clear the table once more. A troll stood by the hedge; this creature was half a meter taller than the kobolds. The troll’s misshapen body was bent forward slightly; its long arms hung to the ground, fingertips touching grass. At night, the troll would guard the house. The being’s ugly, bearded face and scowl were a warning to anyone who approached; the small silver patch on its forehead revealed the cybernetic link that enabled it to summon aid.

  Farther down the road, the facets of a glassy dome caught the sun, and tiny beings of light danced. Andrew’s friend Silas lived there with his father Ben and several Siamese cats. Andrew frowned as he thought of Silas and of what his friend wanted to do.

  Andrew’s own house was old. His mother had told him it had been built before the Transition. Even with extensive repairs and additions to the house, the homeostat could not run it properly. The rooms were usually a bit warm, or too cold; the doors made noises, the windows were spotted with dirt.

  He watched his mother wander aimlessly along the path. Joan had forgotten him, as she often did. They could be in the same room and she would become silent, then suddenly glance at him, her eyes widening, as if she were surprised to find him still there. His father was different; Dao was completely attentive whenever Andrew was around, but content to ignore him the rest of the time. He wondered if Dao would ever speak to him at all if Andrew didn’t speak first.

  He moved a little. His right foot shot out and brushed against a loose shingle. Andrew slid; he grabbed for the windowsill and held on. The shingle fell, slapping against the cement of the path.

  Joan looked up. She raised her hands slowly. “Andrew.” He
r voice was loud, but steady. He pulled himself up; he would not fall now. Joan moved closer to the house. “What are you doing up there?”

  “I’m all right.”

  She held her arms up. “Don’t move.”

  “I’ve got my lifesuit on.”

  “I don’t care. Don’t move, stay where you are.” Her feet pounded on the steps and over the porch. The front door slammed. In a few moments, he heard her enter his room. Her arms reached through the open window and pulled him inside.

  Andrew sighed as she closed the window, feeling vaguely disappointed. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “I’m wearing my lifesuit.” He opened his shirt to show her the protective garment underneath.

  “I don’t care. It’s supposed to protect you, not make you reckless. You still could have been hurt.”

  “Not at that distance. Bruises, that’s all.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  Andrew shrugged. He went over to his bed and sat down. The bed undulated; Joan seemed to rise and fall.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do I have to have a kobold follow you around? I thought you were too old for that.”

  “I’m all right.” I wouldn’t have died or anything, he thought.

  Joan watched him silently for a few moments. She was drifting again; he knew the signs. Her blue eyes stared through him, as if she were seeing something else. She shook her head. “I keep forgetting how old you are.” She paused. “Don’t go out there again.”

  “I won’t.”

  She left the room. He rose and crossed to the windows, staring out at the houses below and the forested hills beyond. His room suddenly seemed cramped and small; his hands tapped restlessly against the sill.

  Andrew was sitting on the porch with Dao and Joan when Silas arrived. The other boy got off his bicycle and wheeled it up the hill to the porch. He parked it and waved at Andrew’s parents. Joan’s thin lips were tight as she smiled. Dao showed his teeth; his tilted brown eyes became slits.

  Andrew sat on the steps next to Silas. His friend was thirteen, a year older than Andrew. He was the only child Andrew had met in the flesh; the others were only holo images. Silas was big and muscular, taller than Joan and Dao; he made Andrew feel even smaller and slighter than he was. Andrew moved up a step and looked down at the other boy.

  Silas rose abruptly. Brown hair fell across his forehead, masking his eyes. He motioned to Andrew, then began to walk down the hill. Andrew followed. They halted by the hedge in front of the empty stone house. The troll waved them away, shaking its head; its long tangled hair swayed against its green tunic.

  “How about it?” Silas said as they backed away from the hedge.

  “What?”

  “You know. Our journey, our adventure. You coming with me? Or are you just going to stay here?”

  Andrew held out his arm, looking at his Bond. “We can’t go. They’ll find us.”

  “I said I’d figure out a way. I have a plan.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll see,” Silas said. He shook his head. “Aren’t you sick of it here? Don’t you get tired of it?”

  Andrew shrugged. “I guess.”

  Silas began to kick a stone along the road. Andrew glanced up the hill; Joan and Dao were still on the porch. They had lived in that house even before bringing him home, making one journey to the center to conceive him and another when he was removed from the wombart. They had gone to some trouble to have him; they were always telling him so. “More people should have children,” Dao would say. “It keeps us from getting too set in our ways.” Joan would nod. “You’re very precious to us,” Joan would murmur, and Dao would smile. Yet most of the time, his parents would be with their books, or speaking to friends on the holo, or lost in their own thoughts.

  Joan could remember the beginnings of things. Dao was even older; he could remember the Transition. Dao was filled with stories of those days, and always spoke of them as if they had been the prelude to great adventure and achievement. Gradually, Andrew had realized that those times had been the adventure, that nothing important was likely to happen to Joan and Dao again. Dao was almost four hundred years old; Joan was only slightly younger. Once, Andrew had asked his mother what she had been like when she was his age. She had laughed, seeming more alive for a moment. “Afraid,” she had answered, laughing again.

  Silas kicked the stone toward the hill. “Listen,” he said as they climbed. “I’m ready. I’ve got two knapsacks and a route worked out. We’d better leave this week before my father gets suspicious.”

  “I don’t know.”

  The taller boy turned and took Andrew by the shoulder. “If you don’t go, I’ll go by myself. Then I’ll come back and tell you all about it, and you’ll be sorry you didn’t come along.”

  Andrew pulled away. Silas’s face was indistinct in the dusk. Andrew felt anxious. He knew that he should be concerned about how his parents would feel if he ran away, but he wasn’t; he was thinking only of how unfair it had been for them to assume that he would want to hide in this isolated spot, shunning the outside world. They had told him enough about death cults and accidents to make him frightened of anything beyond this narrow road. He knew what Silas was thinking: that Andrew was a coward.

  Why should I care what he thinks? Andrew thought, but there was no one else against whom he could measure himself. He wondered if he would have liked Silas at all if there had been other friends. He pushed the thought away; he could not afford to lose his one friend.

  As they came toward the house, Andrew saw his parents go inside. A kobold was on the porch, preparing for its nightly surveillance; behind it, a troll was clothed in shadows. Silas got on his bicycle.

  “See you,” he mumbled, and coasted down the hill recklessly, slowing as he reached the bottom, speeding up as he rode toward his home.

  The kobold danced over to Andrew as he went up the steps. It smiled; the golden curls around its pretty face bobbed. A tiny hand touched his arm. “Good night, Andrew,” it sang.

  “Good night, Ala.”

  “Good night, good night, good night,” the tiny voice trilled. “Sleep well, sweet dreams, sweet dreams.” The troll growled affectionately. The kobold pranced away, its gauzy blue skirt lifting around its perfect legs.

  Andrew went inside. The door snapped shut behind him, locking itself. He walked toward the curving staircase, then paused, lingering in the darkened hallway. He would have to say good night.

  He found his parents in the living room. He knocked on the door, interrupting the sound of conversation, then opened it. Dao had stripped to his briefs; Joan was unbuttoning her shirt. On the holo, Andrew saw the nude images of a blond man and a red-haired woman; a dark-haired kobold giggled as it peered around the woman’s bare shoulder. The flat wall-sized screen had become the doorway into a bright, sunny bedroom.

  “Five minutes,” Dao said to the images. “We’ll call you back.” The people and the room disappeared. “What is it, son?”

  Joan smiled. Andrew looked down at the floor, pushing his toe against a small wrinkle in the Persian rug. “Nothing. I came to say good night.”

  “Good night, son.”

  He left, feeling their impatience. As he climbed the stairs, he heard the door below slide open.

  “Andrew,” Joan said. She swayed, holding the ends of her open shirt. “I’ll come up later and tuck you in. All right?”

  I’m too old for that, he wanted to say. “I’ll be asleep,” he said as he looked down at her.

  “I’ll check on you anyway. Maybe I’ll tell you a story.”

  He was sure that she would forget.

  In the end, he went with Silas, as he had known he would. They left two days later, in the morning, stopping at Silas’s house to pick up the knapsacks. Silas’s father was out in the back, digging in his garden with the aid of a troll; he did not see them leave.

  They avoided the road, keeping near the
trees. When they were out of sight of Andrew’s house, they returned to the road. Andrew was not frightened now. He wondered what his parents would say when he returned to tell them of his journey.

  Silas stopped and turned around, gazing over Andrew’s head. “A kobold’s following us.” Andrew looked back. A little figure in blue was walking toward them; it lifted one hand in greeting.

  “What’ll we do?”

  “Nothing, for the moment.” Silas resumed walking.

  “But it’s following us.” Andrew walked more quickly, trying to keep up with his friend’s strides. “We could outrun it, couldn’t we? It won’t be able to keep up.”

  “That’s just what we can’t do. If we do that, it’ll tell the others, and we’ll have your parents and my father on our trail.”

  They came to a bend in the road. Silas darted to one side and hurried through the brush. Andrew ran after him, thrashing through the green growth. It had rained the night before; the ground was soft and muddy, and leaves stuck to his boots. Silas reached for his arm and pulled him behind a tree.

  “Wait,” Silas said. He glanced at Andrew, then peered at him more closely. Andrew stepped back. Silas was looking at his chest. Andrew looked down. One of his shirt buttons was undone, revealing the silver fabric underneath.

  “You’re wearing a lifesuit.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Of course not. You’re stupid, Andrew. Don’t you know you can be tracked with that on?”

  “Not as easily as with a Bond.” He wondered again what Silas was going to do about their Bonds.

  “Take it off right now.”

  “You can’t hurt me, not while I’m wearing it.”

  “I’ll leave you here, then.”

  “I don’t care.” But he did. He took off his knapsack and unbuttoned his shirt. Twigs cracked in the distance; the kobold had tracked them. Andrew removed his lifesuit and handed it to Silas.