~ * ~
Interlude: Mark & Meris 5
“Chee!” Meris’s breath came out in a long sigh.
“Hmm,” said Mark, unfolding his long legs to attend again to the fire. “Not exactly—” He broke off, absorbed in poking the coals.
Debbie laughed. “Not exactly the behavior you would expect from one of the People?” she said.
“Well, I guess that’s it.” He reached for another length of wood.
“Don’t think it wasn’t a big blow to me, too, when I finally stepped back for a good look.” Debbie sobered, the flaring fire lighting her face. “Of course the People are far from perfect, but it was terribly humbling to me to realize that I was a big, fat part of the clay on the feet thereof and an excellent object lesson to the rising generation. Believe me, I’ve learned to check myself often against a standard more reliable than my own egocentric two-foot yardstick.”
“Thann-too,” mused Meris. “Eva-lee’s husband was named Thann.”
“Yes,” said Debbie. “He was one of my-Thann’s Befores. Thann is a fairly common name among us.”
“Speaking of names,” said Meris casually, “do you know a Timmy and—”
“And a Lytha?” Debbie laughed. “I passed Bethie on my way in! She said you were wondering— Maybe someday you can hear their story from them in person. I don’t have it well enough to pass it on.”
“Well, I just thought...” Meris smiled.
“Bed.” Mark stood and stretched. “Bed for our guest along with our many thanks. How long can you stay?”
“Only tonight and tomorrow night,” said Debbie. “I have involvements back with the Group, but Bethie wants me to stay long enough to tell you about Shadow.”
“Shadow?” Meris laughed.
Mark laughed. “Look at her ears prick up!”
“Yes, Shadow,” said Debbie. “She’s a Too, too. In fact she is Bethie-too. She and—you know her brother—Remy had quite an experience not so long ago. In the light of recent developments, Bethie thought you might like to hear of it. Also, it all started pretty close to your summer cabin. You see, from where you live, you go northeast about—” She broke off. “Bed,” she said firmly. “Bed, right now. Talking is almost as addictive as listening.”
~ * ~
The next evening—school keeps, guest or no guest, and Mark had daily duties—Debbie settling down on the couch between Mark and Meris said, “I suppose that Bethie was relieved to be called away before she could tell you this segment of our story. It concerns mostly her own family and she’s so shy about talking of herself or those close to her.” Debbie laughed. “It is to smile a little ruefully for me to realize how parallel my actions and thinking were with Remy’s, only he’s really a Teener and I was supposed to be a responsible married woman.
“Well, anyway, give me your hands and listen to Shadow—”
<
~ * ~
Shadow on the Moon
“No, we can’t even consider it.” Father smoothed his hand along the board he was planing. It was to be a small table for Mother’s birthday. I curled one of the good-smelling shavings around my finger as I listened.
“But, Father—” I could see Remy’s hands clenching themselves as he tried to control his voice and keep it low and reasonable—a real job for the volatile person he was. “If you’d only—”
Father put the plane down and looked at Remy. I mean really looked at him, giving him his full attention. “Has anything changed materially since last we discussed the matter?” he asked.
“Apparently not.” Remy laughed shortly. “I hoped you might have— If you’d only consider it—”
“You know I’m not the only one that thinks this way,” said Father. “Though I concur heartily with the thinking of the rest of the Old Ones. No good would be served. Can’t you see that, Remy?”
“I can’t see any flat statement like that!” cried Remy, his control of his impatience beginning to slip. “Every step of progress anyone makes is some good. Why don’t you let us—”
“Look, Remy.” Father sat on one hip on the edge of the workbench. “Shall we A B C it again? A—we couldn’t possibly let anyone else know we had gone to the moon in a spacecraft. B—to the best of our knowledge, there is no immediate need for anything to be found on the moon. C”—he smiled—” ‘We bin there already.’ At least on our way in. And that was enough for most of us. It looked as good to us as the Statue of Liberty did to the flood of immigrants that used to come over from Europe, but we’re most of us content to stay where we are now—looking at it from this side, not that.” He grinned at Remy. “Unless you have any information that would materially alter any of these three checkpoints, I’m afraid the discussion is closed—”
“Why couldn’t we tell?” cried Remy desperately, feeling the whole situation going down the drain. “Why do we have to keep it a secret? Isn’t everyone risking their lives and spending fortunes trying to get into Space? Why can’t we help?” He broke off because his throat got so tight with anger and frustrated tears that he couldn’t talk any more.
Father sighed patiently. “So we go to the moon and back and announce it. So they all swarm around. Can’t you hear them screaming?— What propellant? What engine? Escape velocity—air pressure—radiation—landing—return launching—reentry! What would you tell them? Go on, boy-type, answer the nice people. Show them the engines. What? No engines! Show them the fuel tank, ¿Que? No fuel tank! Show them our protection against radiation. Quoi? No protection?
“No, Remy. I wish, because you want it so much, that we could make this expedition for you. Your grandfather’s memories of Space can hardly be much comfort to you at your age. But it’s out of the question. We cannot deliver ourselves over to the Outsiders for the whim of just one of us. If only you’d reconcile yourself to it—”
“What’s the use then?” Remy flung at Father. “What’s the use of being able to if we don’t?”
“Being able to is not always the standard to go by,” said Father. He flicked his fingers at the ceiling and we three watched the snowflakes drift down starrily to cover the workbench. “Your mother loves to watch the snow,” he said, “but she doesn’t go around snowing all the time.” He stopped the snow with a snap of his fingers and it dampened the wood shavings with its melting. “No, just being able to is not a valid reason. And reason there must be before action.”
Remy kicked a block of wood out of the workshop and all the way up the slope to our walnut tree on the hill above the twisted, glittering string that was Cayuse Creek. I followed along. I always follow along— Remy’s shadow, they call me—and he usually pays about that much attention to me. What can I expect else, being a girl and his sister besides. But I like it because Remy does things—lots of things—and he can usually use a listening ear. I am the willing ear. I’m Bethie-too, because Mother is Bethie.
“Then we’ll do it by ourselves!” he muttered as he dug a rock out of the ground where it was poking his shoulder when he tried to relax against the hillside. “We’ll build our own craft and we’ll go by ourselves!” He was so used to me that he automatically said “we”—though it usually meant he had decided he’d do something—a sort of royal “we. “ He lay back under the tree, his hands under his head, his eyes rebelliously on the leaves above. I sat by him, trying to snow like Father had, but all I got was cold fingertips and one big drop of rain that I flicked at Remy. He wiped it off and glared up at the canopy of leaves. “Derned old birds!”
I laughed.
“Go on! Laugh!” he said, jerking upright. “Fine deal when my own sister laughs!”
“Remy.” I looked at him, smiling. “You’re acting about ten years below yourself, and a seven-year-old isn’t very attractive in a frame the size of yours!”
He sank back and grinned. “Well, I bet I could. A craft wouldn’t be so hard to build. I could use scrap metal—though why does it have to be metal? And we could check in the newspaper for when Canaveral says is the best tim
e—”
“Remy”—the light in his eyes quenched at the tone of my voice— “how far is it to the moon?”
“Well, uh—I’m not so sure. I think it’s about 250,000 miles, give or take a couple of blocks.”
“How far have you ever lifted a vehicle?” I asked.
“Well, at least five miles—with your help! With your help!” he hastened as I looked at him.
“And how far out of the atmosphere?” I asked.
“Why none at all, of course! Father won’t let me—”
“And in free fall? And landing in no air? And coming back?”
“All right! All right! Don’t rub it in,” he said sulkily. “But you wait!” he promised. “I’ll get into Space yet!”
~ * ~
That evening, Father quirked an eyebrow when Remy said he wanted to start training to become a Motiver. Oh, he could learn it—most any of The People could—but it’s a mighty uphill job of it if you aren’t especially gifted for it. A gifted Motiver hardly needs any training except in how to concentrate on a given project for the time necessary. But Remy would have to start from scratch, which is only a notch or two above Outsider performance—which is mostly nil. Father and Remy both knew Remy was just being stubborn because he so wanted to go out into Space, but Father let him go to Ron for study and I got pretty lonely in the hours he spent away from camp. After all, what is there for a shadow to do when there’s no one to follow around?
For a day or two I ranged above the near slopes and hills, astonishing the circling buzzards by peering over their thin, wide wings, or catching a tingly downward slide on the last slants of the evening sun through the Chimneys. The Chimneys are spare, angular fingers of granite that thrust themselves nakedly up among the wooded hills along one bank of the Cayuse. But exploring on your own stops being fun after a while, and I was pretty lonesome the evening I brought Mother a little cottontail rabbit I’d taken away from a coyote on the edge of night.
“I can tell he’s hurt,” I said, holding the soft, furry thing gently in my hands and securely in my Concern. It lay unwinking on my palms, its quick nose its only movement. “But I can’t decide whether it’s a break or a strain. Tell me again how to tell the difference.”
Mother laid her hand softly on the creature after reassuring it with her Concern. “It’s a strain,” she said softly. “Don’t you sense—” And the rest of it was thinking that has no separate words for it so I can’t write it down. And I did finally Sense the strain in the rabbit’s muscles and the difference between it and how a break in a bone would feel.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I won’t forget again. Shall I let him go, then?”
“Better put him in the patient-pen,” said Mother. “At least for the night. Nothing will fright him there and we can let him go tomorrow.”
So we slipped him into the pen and Mother and I leaned over to watch him hide himself in the green tangle of growing things at the far end. Then I carefully did as Mother did. We reached inside ourselves to channel away the pain we had Sensed. That’s one of the most important things to be learned if you’re a Sensitive—which we both are. When Mother was a girl, she lived among Outsiders and she was almost destroyed before she found our Group and was taught how to Channel.
Still full of the warm, prayerlike feeling that follows the Channeling, we walked back toward the house in the half dark.
“You’ve been missing Remy,” said Mother.
“Yes,” I sighed. “It wouldn’t be so bad if we were back with the Group, but being up here till Father’s shift is over makes it kinda lonesome. Even with Remy coming back here to sleep, it’s not the same. There’s nothing to do—
Mother laughed. “I’d like a dime for every time a child has said that to a parent! Why not use this so empty time to develop a new Gift or Persuasion?”
“Like what?” I wasn’t very enthusiastic.
“Well.” Mother considered. “Why not something that would go along with being a Sensitive? You’re Gifted with that already. Choose something that has to do with Sensing things. Take metal or water or some Awareness like that. It might come in handy sometime, and you could map the springs or ore deposits for the Group. Your father has the forestry maps for this area, but the People haven’t mapped it yet.”
Well, the idea was better than nothing, so that evening Mother helped me review the Awareness of water and metal and I set my mind to Group Memory that night so by morning I had a pretty good idea of the Basics of the job. It’d take years really to be an expert, but I could play around with it for the rest of the summer.
Water wasn’t scarce enough in Cayuse Canyon to make looking for it much fun, though I loved the little blind stream I found in a cave above the creek, so I tried the metal Awareness and got pretty adept by the evening of the first day. Adept, that is, at finding campers’ dumps and beer cans— which isn’t much to brag about. It’s like finding a telephone pole when you’re really looking for a toothpick.
By the end of the week, I had fined down my Sensing. Hovering a hundred feet or so over the surface, I had found an old, two-tined fork buried under two and a half feet of silt at the base of one of the Chimneys, and an ox shoe caught in a cleft of rock six feet above the creek on another of the Chimneys. Don’t ask me how it got there.
“Big deal!” Remy shoved the shoe with his finger when I showed the family my spoils after supper that night. “Both of them iron—both manufactured. Big deal!”
I flushed and talked right back at him as I practically never do. “How far did you move the world today, wise guy? Was that the house I heard roaring past me this afternoon or a matchbox you managed to tilt off the table?”
Which was hardly fair of me, because he was having a lot of trouble with his Motiving and had got his reactions so messed up that he could hardly lift anything now. Sort of a centipede trying to watch his feet when he walks. The trouble would clear up, of course, with further training, but Remy s not the patient type.
“Who’s a wise guy?” Before I knew it, I was pressed against the ceiling, the light fixture too hot near the back of my neck.
“Remy!” Mother cried out. “Not at the table!”
“Put her down.” Father didn’t raise his voice, but I was tumbled hack so fast that the hem of my skirt caught the flower bowl and nearly pulled it off the table.
“I’m sorry.” Remy glared at his clenched hands on the table and shut us all out so completely that we all blinked, and he kept us out all the rest of the evening.
He hardly said good-by when he left next morning, kicking petulantly at the top of the pinon tree by the gate as he went by. Mother and Father looked at each other and shook their heads like parents and Father folded his mouth like a father and I was sorry I had started the whole thing—though I’m not sure I did.
~ * ~
I had fun all day. I was so absorbed in sorting out the different junk I Sensed that I lost track of time and missed lunch completely. When I checked the shadows for the time, it was long past the hour and I was too far to bother with going home. I wanted to finish this part of the Chimneys before going home anyway. So I sighed and filled my empty stomach with fresh cold spring water and took off again, enjoying the sweep of wind that brushed my hair back from my neck and dried the perspiration.
Well, concentration paid off! Around about four o’clock I sensed a metal deep inside the last of the towering Chimneys. Or the first one, depending on which mountain you started counting from. Anyway, I sensed a metal near the base of the last one—and not iron and not manufactured! Excitedly I landed on the flank of the mountain and searched out the exact spot. I tore my shirt and scratched my cheek and broke two fingernails before I found the spot in the middle of a brush pile. I traced with my finger the short, narrow course. Wire gold. Six feet inside the solid rock beneath me. Almost four inches of it, as thick as a light bulb filament! I laughed at my own matchbox I’d tilted off the table, but I was pleased anyway. It was small, for sure, but I’d found it
, hadn’t I? From over a hundred feet up?
It was getting late and I was two-meal hungry, so I lifted up to the top of the last Chimney and teetered on its crumbling granite capstone to check my directions. I could short-cut home in a fraction of the time I’d taken to get here. The panorama laid out at my feet was so breathtakingly lovely that I could hardly leave it, but I finally launched myself in the direction of home. I cut diagonally away from the Chimneys, headed for the notch in the hills just beyond the old Selkirk mine. Half unconsciously I checked off metal as I passed above it. It was all ABC easily detected stuff like barbwire fence, tin can, roofing, barrel hoop—all with the grating feeling that meant rust.
Then suddenly there it was in my Awareness—slender and shiny and smooth and complicated! I checked in mid-air and circled. Beer can, wire fence, horseshoe—slender and shiny and smooth and not iron! I slid to a landing on the side of the mountain. What could it be? A water tank? Some mining equipment? But it was unrusted, sleek and shiny and slender. But how tall? If only I knew a little about sizes and contents. I could tell sizes of things I was familiar with, but not of this thing. I lifted and circled till I caught it again and narrowed my circle smaller and smaller until I was hovering. Over the old Selkirk mine. I grimaced, disappointed, and Sensed, a little annoyed, the tangly feeling of all the odds and ends of silver left in the fifty-years-abandoned old mine, and the traces of a lot of other metals I didn’t know yet. Then I sighed. Must have misinterpreted, but big and shiny, smooth and complicated—that’s what it still felt like to me. Nasty break! Back to the Differentiations again, girl!
Ingathering - The Complete People Stories Page 56