Safeguard

by Nancy Kress

Jana gasped, “What's that? Sudie, shut up!” Kim began licking all their faces.

  The bright thing didn't seem to be falling on them. Li said, “I think ... I think it's morning."

  "That's silly,” Jana said. “Morning comes all over the whole sky at the same time."

  "Not in this world,” Li said. He felt a little dizzy, as if he'd been playing the spinning game. “Jana, this place is so big."

  "Then how are we going to find Taney? I think we should walk on the path.” She pointed.

  Li had to turn his back on the morning and squint before he could see what she pointed at. A faint path, no more than a pressing down of rocks, led away from the real world. Closest to him, it had a broken pattern of triangles in the dust.

  "Come on, Sudie,” Jana said. “Get up. We're going to find Taney. Li, follow me and she'll come, too."

  Li followed Jana, who didn't look around but just walked fast on her thin, long legs. Sudie and Kim stumbled after them, Sudie complaining that all the stones on the ground hurt her feet. Jana seemed to have become the leader now, but Li didn't care about that, or his feet. All he wanted to do was look and look.

  Rocks, growing redder as the morning rose in the sky. The morning looked like a rock, too, brighter and brighter, so that looking at it for even a second hurt Li's eyes. And there, on that flat rock...

  Sudie started to scream again. Jana, who had used up all her kindness, hit her. The thing on the rock scurried away, underneath more stones. Li said, “Don't hit Sudie, Jana!” at the same minute that Jana said, “I'm sorry. She won't—what was that, Li?"

  "It was alive, I think,” Li said uncertainly. “Like birds."

  "Then why didn't it fly away?"

  "I don't know.” He had never seen anything alive except themselves, Taney, and the birds in the old world. A memory came, himself asking Taney, "What do the birds eat?” “The world gives them food high up on the sky,” she'd answered, “just like the feeder gives you food. The world keeps you both safe."

  They weren't in that world anymore. Li said, “Watch out for other living things. Don't step on any because you might hurt them. You might even make them dead.” They had all seen dead birds in the real world. Taney always took the bodies away with her.

  They walked for a long time. The morning rock in the sky got brighter still. Something was wrong with the air; it got way too hot. Li was very thirsty but there was nothing to drink. They walked silently, even Sudie, and Li began to feel very afraid. The hard-to-see path didn't seem to go anywhere. Why would there be a path that didn't go anywhere? What if they couldn't find Taney?

  "Look,” Sudie said as they trudged over a low rise, “a big path!"

  She was right, but this path was different: very wide and very straight and very hot. Putting a foot on the black stone, Li yelped and immediately pulled it back. But immediately he forgot about the pain. Something was coming very fast along the path.

  Sudie screamed until Jana raised her hand and Sudie stopped. Li could feel Jana tremble beside him. All four children huddled into a knot. The thing made a lot of noise, growing bigger and bigger until it stopped with the loudest noise yet and a person jumped out.

  A person who was not Taney, and not in a slippery white covering or a faceplate. Again Li's mind wrinkled and dizzied. Even Sudie was too scared to make noise. The only one who moved was Kim, licking everyone's faces.

  "Oh my God, you kids caught in the earthquake? What in hell happened to you? Jack, one of ‘em's bleeding!"

  Another person got out of the moving thing. Now Li could see that the thing wasn't alive, like the not-bird had been, but it still made puffing noises. The second person had a lot of hair growing on his face, which looked silly and scary. But his voice was kind. “Where's your folks? And your clothes? Sally, they look damn near dehydrated. Get the water. Kids, what happened?"

  Jana said, “We have to find Taney."

  "Taney? Is that a town?"

  Jana said, Li wondering at her bravery, “Taney's a person. The world broke and before that the feeders didn't give us any food and we have to find Taney!"

  The person with the hair on his face looked away from Jana. His face above the hair looked very red. The other person came hurrying toward them with a white thing in her hand. “Here, drink first. Jack, go get some sheets or something from the trunk. Poor kids must have been asleep when the quake hit, you know these hippie tourists just let their kids sleep buck naked, it's a disgrace but even so—"

  Li stopped listening to her words, which after all didn't even make sense. The white thing was sort of like a food bowl closed at the top and sort of like the spring faucet in the real world, giving out water. Li passed it first to Kim, as always, who drank greedily, the water dribbling down her chest. Then Jana, then Sudie, and by the time it got to Li, he felt he couldn't wait another moment. Nothing had ever tasted as good as that water, nothing.

  The person called Sally handed a big thin blanket to Jana, who let it drop to the ground. “Put it on you, for God's sake,” Sally said, and the kindness in her voice was getting used up.

  Jack still not looking at them, said, “Sal, I think maybe they're in shock. Or maybe a little feeble-minded."

  "Oh!” Sally said, and she looked at Kim, still trying to lick Sudie's face. “Oh, of course, poor things. Here, honey, let me help you.” She picked up the blanket, tore it in half, and began to wrap Jana in it.

  Jana pushed away. “It's not time to sleep!"

  "Jana, let her,” Li said. He didn't know what these people were doing, but the kindness had come back into Sally's voice, and they were going to need kindness, Li realized, to find Taney. This place was much different from the real world. Brighter and harder and hungrier and bigger.

  From the corner of his eye he saw another of the not-birds watching him, stretched out on a flat gray rock. Its eyes were shiny and black as pebbles.

  Sally tied blanket pieces around all of them and said, very slowly, “Now get out of this sun and into the car before you all broil. Honey, you're burning already, and bleeding, too. You get hit by debris in the quake?"

  She was looking at Sudie, but Li answered. “She got scraped by the crack in the world."

  "I knew it. Get in, get in!"

  The “car” was just another covering, made of the same material as the place the sky met the ground in the real world. Inside the car, however, the air was more like the real world: cooler and not so bright. The four of them squeezed into a space in the back, and Sally and Jack climbed into the front space. Sally turned around.

  "Now what all are your names?” She still spoke very slowly, making each word with her lips all pushed out.

  Li said, “I'm Li. This is Jana and Sudie and Kim."

  "Good,” Sally said, smiling wide as a cartoon person. “Now tell Aunt Sally what happened. How you got all alone out on the desert."

  Li said, “The ground shook last night and then this morning the world broke. We squeezed out through a crack in the sky and walked. We have to find Taney."

  "Is Taney a town, son?” Jack said.

  Li didn't know what a town was. “Taney's a person. She takes care of us."

  "A foster mother?” Sally said.

  Jack said, “I don't think a foster mother could handle four retards, Sal. More likely some sort of institution. Might be in East Lancaster."

  "Doubt it,” Sally said. “East Lancaster got hit pretty hard by the depression, only been minimal facilities there for fifteen years, and now with the quake and all...."

  "Well, them kids didn't walk very far buck-naked in the desert,” Jack said. Li could hear that the kindness was getting used up in his voice. “Somebody must of took them camping or something. But I can't go racketing around looking for some institution when we need to see how badly our place got hit. Best bring them home with us tonight and check the Internet for this ‘Taney.’”

  "Right,” Sally said. “Kids, don't worry, everything'll be all right."

  Jack snorted. />
  The covering round them leapt forward and Sudie screamed. Jana pinched her hard and Sudie stopped, although she didn't look any less terrified. Kim began licking Sudie's face. Sally watched a minute and then turned away, the tips of her mouth turning down. Li didn't want Sally's kindness to get used up again. He leaned forward.

  "Sally, thank you so much for the water. It was very good."

  "Oh, God, you're welcome,” Sally said.

  "My name is Li. Not God."

  Jack laughed. “He's not so dumb after all!"

  * * * *

  The “car” walked a long way, and everywhere on the long way looked the same. Li watched everything, inside and outside the car, until despite himself, he fell asleep. He woke up when the car stopped at a big square thing which, Li realized when they went inside it, was another world, with its own ground and sky. How many worlds were there?

  "Still standing, by the grace of God,” Sally said. “We're damn lucky. Jack, you get on that computer and start searching. Li, what did you say your last name was?"

  "My name is Li."

  "No, honey, your other name."

  Li just stared. He had no other name. Jack sighed and went around a part of this world's sky. The place the children stood in was cool and dim, with large, funny-shaped rocks covered in blankets to sit on, and a feeder. The children crowded near it, waiting.

  "Y'all are hungry, right?” Sally said. “Can't say as I blame you. Well, go ahead sit at the table and I'll rustle up something. A lot of smashed crockery in the kitchen, but that can wait."

  This feeder was broken, too; no bowls rose from it. But apparently Sally had saved food from before it broke because she brought out big bowls. The food looked strange but tasted wonderful, and Li ate until his belly felt full and round. Afterward sleepiness took him again, and he stretched out on the floor beside Jana, who was making strange sounds in her throat.

  "You got allergies, hon?” Sally said. “Never mind, I don't expect you to know. Jack, you making any progress in there?"

  "Just over a million hits on ‘Taney,’ is all,” Jack said, which made no sense. Nobody was hitting anybody. “This ain't going to be easy."

  Li's throat felt strange, and not in a good way. Jana kept making strange noises in her throat. Li must have slept, because when he woke it was night again, and very dark. Something glowed in a far corner of the room, and at first that scared Li. He lay on the ground, watching to see if the glowing thing moved. It didn't. Slowly he crawled toward it, until he could see that it was a tiny ball of morning, like the big one in the sky of the big world, but not so bright. Li touched it, and snatched back his finger. The tiny morning was hot.

  Carefully he studied it. It was a made thing, like the pretty folded things Jana made from Taney's paper bags. Li's breath came faster. All these things were made: the feeder and the bowls and the blanket-covered rocks—"chairs” Sally had called them—to sit on, and maybe even the sky of this world.

  Of any world.

  Li's mind raced. He never got back to sleep. All the rest of the night he either crawled around, touching things and trying to figure out how they'd been made, or else lay still, thinking. His throat still hurt but he ignored it. Made things. Other people. Worlds within worlds.

  When morning—the big morning—returned, the girls still lay sleeping on the ground. All of them breathed too heavily. Li stood, stretched, and went to look around the parts of sky that touched the ground for Jack and Sally.

  Jack sat slumped over a small screen, which still glowed. Sally lay on the floor. Both of them were dead.

  * * * *

  Not here.

  Katherine made another, equally futile tour of the biosphere, stumping heavily, leaning on her cane. She'd fallen two days ago, twisting her knee, which had led her to put off her visit to the children. Then had come the first quake, which had made her fall again as she hobbled across her living room. No one had predicted the second, massive quake.

  She called again, knowing it was pointless. She'd seen the blood on the crack in the supposedly shatter-proof dome. The children had squeezed themselves through and set off, probably looking for her. They wouldn't get far, naked in the desert, without water. There was, by design, nothing within fifty miles of the biosphere. Scavengers, of air or ground, would get the bodies.

  Tears welled in her eyes, behind the faceplate. Stupid. This was one solution, maybe the only solution, to a problem that could only grow as years passed. Katherine was nearly seventy—what would have happened after she could no longer carry on this long, painful fight? Some days she felt ninety. Some days she felt already dead, even as the world slowly revived itself from the bad years of the war.

  Li, with his dark expressive eyes and quick mind ... delicate Jana, who in another world would have been a startling beauty ... funny emotional Sudie ... even Kim, afflicted with both Down's and autism ... even Kim she would miss. Her children. She'd had no other.

  Katherine put herself through detox, leaving her biohazard suit behind, even as she doubted that detox was any longer necessary. She hobbled toward her car. The AC felt blessedly cool. Fifty miles to the village of Las Verdes, where a group of Native American descendents eked out a subsistence existence, survivors of past injustices just as the children had been of a future one. A mile outside Las Verdes, Katherine had built a house, which was now a pile of debris. The Indians would rebuild it for her; they were good at starting over. Although now there was no reason for her to stay.

  Li. Jana. Sudie. Kim.

  She drove home through a desert wavery with heat and tears.

  * * * *

  "Why don't the buttons have cartoon pictures on them?” Jana said.

  "It isn't for cartoons,” Li said slowly. They stood around the little screen where Jack had died. Li and Sudie had pulled him off the chair and laid him on the floor beside Sally, and Jana had covered the people with a blanket. Li didn't know why she'd done that, but it seemed a good thing to do.

  The children had examined this world. It had four places, two with faucet springs. In those two places a lot of things were broken, and sharp pieces of clear sky had fallen down. Jana cut her foot on one piece, but it only bled a little. One of the places had more of the strange food, but not very much of it. They'd eaten it all.

  "If the screen isn't for cartoons, what is it for?” Sudie said. She stood behind Li, breathing heavily into his neck, and her voice sounded ... thick, somehow. Like food was stuck in her throat, although she said it wasn't.

  "I don't know what it's for,” Li said. “But we can't take it with us because it's tied to where this sky touches the ground."

  "Take it with us? Where are we going?” Sudie sounded frightened and Kim began to lick her face.

  Jana said, “We can't just walk like yesterday, Li."

  "We're not going to walk. I watched Jack make the car go. I think I can do that."

  "But where?"

  "We'll go along the big path. There's no more food here, Jana. Maybe the path will take us to Taney."

  Jana considered. “Okay. You're right, we can't stay here. We have to find Taney. But first fill those white bowls with water from the faucet spring."

  They went out the leaving door and climbed into the car, lugging blankets and water. Sudie had untied the blanket from her body, but Li made her put it back on. “People here are different,” he said. “They use up their kindness faster if you don't have blankets around you. Oh—wait!"

  He went back inside and brought out a big armful of the blankets behind another leaving door in the biggest place. They were like the blankets around Jack and Sally, all shaped like bodies and fastened together with tiny little strings or hard bumps that Li had examined in great detail. “Put these coverings on you,” he told the girls.

  "Like Taney has,” Sudie said happily, even though none of Jack's and Sally's coverings were slippery like Taney's. But some were white, and Sudie picked one of those.

  Li turned the thing that Jack had tur
ned to make the car go, and it started making noises. But it wouldn't go forward until he pushed down with his feet on the flat things on the car's ground. Then the car stopped.

  "It's dead,” Sudie said.

  Li made it start again, and pushed the flat things. The car stopped. “Maybe I should just push one."

  The car raced away so fast that Sudie screamed, even Jana gasped, and Kim started licking everyone frantically. Li pushed on the other flat thing and the car stopped.

  Eventually he figured out how to make it go-stop-go-stop-go-stop, and they started down the wide dusty path, under the hot ball of morning high in the sky, to look for Taney.

  * * * *

  "—eight point one on the Richter scale, slightly higher than the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The president has declared southern California a federal disaster area, and the Department of Domestic Rescue is mobilizing to—” Katherine turned off the car radio.

  She drove past the village. Las Verdes—a bitter joke of a name, if there ever was one—had gotten off fairly lightly because when all buildings were one-story adobe brick, collapse was quick and clean. No fires, no burst gas mains, no floods. The underground spring, the only reason this village existed at all, was still there, although the well-house had crumbled. The windmills and lone cell tower lay on their sides; TV satellite dishes littered the rubble; somewhere a woman wailed, a high keening borne on the thin wind.

  Katherine's house was a pile of dirt, but the shed in the back yard still stood. Under its deceptive façade of cheap plastic was a reinforced steel frame, thief-proof and, unlike the biosphere dome, far too small to crack. She let herself inside with the key around her neck. A generator-powered computer running encrypted, military-grade software sat on a table that nearly filled the small space. It had a direct uplink to a military satellite.

  TOP SECRET

  CODE WORD ACCESS ONLY

  NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

  CASE NO. 254987-A

  CODE NAME: ACHILLES

  DATE: 6/12/28

  AGENT IN CHARGE: SIGMA INVESTIGATOR K.M. TANEY

  SUBJECT: DEATH OF GM JUVENILE AGENTS

  * * * *