If Tomorrow Comes

by Nancy Kress

  Then they were in Salah’s small room, on his sleeping mat, her brief wrap coming off more easily than his Terran pants, shoes, shirt. Even in the windowless room, she was lovely, a faint strip of illumination from alongside and under the hastily built door striping her body with light. She had a tattoo on her arm—a rose? He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter.

  He filled himself with the weight of her, the smell of her, the juiciness of her until nothing else mattered.

  When they were finished, breathing quietly beside each other, she wanted to talk, but not about Kindred. About anything, it seemed, except Kindred.

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “Boston. You?”

  “New Jersey. I wouldn’t have gone to have my mitochondria tested in New York if it was any farther away. You know, when the Kindred were looking for those with the same haplogroup? All of us that came here are L-31. Their group.”

  Of course he knew that. All of Earth knew that. He said only, “But all of Kindred is not one lahk.”

  “No.” She shifted on the pallet, pulling her leg slightly away from his. He regretted that. She said, “Are you L-31?”

  “No. The US government wasn’t as fussy as the Kindred.”

  “How old are you?”

  For a moment he resented what felt like an interrogation, but only for a moment. This was Isabelle, more direct than anyone else in what had been his social circle. “Forty-five. You?”

  “Thirty-three. I’ve heard you say ‘Inch Allie’—are you Muslim?”

  “‘Insha’Allah.’ There—I get to correct your pronunciation for a change.”

  She laughed but wasn’t deterred from questioning. Salah had the impression that nothing deterred her. “Are you Muslim?”

  “No, not now. I was raised in a lukewarm version of Islam, but my family’s real gods were correct behavior and achievement.”

  “I see.”

  She didn’t; the last thing Isabelle would ever worship was the kind of drifting along preset “right” paths that had characterized Salah’s life.

  “Are you—”

  “My turn, Isabelle. Tell me about you. Your history.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “It was bad. Kayla and I had an abusive stepfather. We left home as soon as we could and lived pretty rough. I did a term in prison, for grand theft auto and other things—nothing violent. Kayla tried to escape by getting married at seventeen—that didn’t work out but at least she got Austin out of it. I was looking around for some way to change both our lives when the Kindred landed. This chance came and I took it.”

  I took it, not we. Isabelle decided for Kayla, and probably always had.

  She said, as if she knew what he’d been thinking, “She’s my sister. I’m responsible for her, before anyone else, because she’s really just a child. You don’t have children, do you, Salah?”

  “No.”

  “Were you ever married?”

  She had been so open, so honest. And they would never leave Kindred. Possibly he would die here, soon. All at once, for the first time, he wanted someone to know the truth about him. To know him. Or maybe he just wanted to make some definite decision for once.

  He said, “Here is a fable. A very young couple marries. They don’t know each other very well but that doesn’t matter because they are so much in love. She’s his only anchor, the only thing he wants. He admires that she is so sure of what she wants: to be a painter and create great beauty. He has to do something and so he drifts into becoming a doctor, a sort of default decision, and it turns out he is very good at it. She, however, does not become an artist. She lacks something—persistence, or talent, or resilience. Something. What she becomes is very unhappy. The world does not understand her, and does not give her what is due her. She begins to drink, which only makes her feel worse.

  “She blames him because, after all, he does not feel this bad, and is that fair? It is not. So she does things that make him feel bad, too, like drink even more and sleep around. And that works—now he feels bad, too. But only for a while. After some time, he just works longer and longer hours to get away from her.

  “Which, of course, is enraging. She blames him even more—he is neglecting her, which is in fact true. She does the one thing that can still make him feel horrible. She leaves him.

  “And that works, too, for a while. He feels worse than he has ever felt in his life. But eventually he realizes that his life is actually better without her. He becomes slightly happier.

  “But she does not. All her problems are still there—the failed work, the failed love affairs, the drinking, the empty days. In fact, her days are emptier still, without all the fighting. So she changes her mind and wants to come back to him.

  “He says no.

  “She pleads, cries, begs. He still refuses. She is stunned, panicked, and furious. Really furious. She wants to punish him for making her feel like this. She also wants to escape what her life has become. So she kills herself, leaving him a long letter explaining exactly why.

  “And for the third time, this works. Completely. He feels incredibly bad, consumed with guilt. Because she is right—this is in part his fault. He, who helps others so effortlessly, has refused to help her, to recognize her despair, to do something, anything, for her. She, the only free choice he has ever made in his life, has won their catastrophic battle with each other.

  “There is only one way he can cope with this. Well, two ways. He works more and more. And he turns off all feeling about his work, his patients, his life. The surprise is that this does indeed give him some peace. Years go by, and he is admired for his coolheadedness and competence and decision making, when in fact he has never made a real decision since he was twenty years old and married his wife. Who ended up dead, while he ended up happy.”

  Isabelle was quiet for a long time. Salah waited. Finally she said, “That’s not happiness.”

  He didn’t answer. A soft knock came on the door. “Dr. Bourgiba?” Branch’s voice said. “Are you in there?”

  “Yes. What do you need?”

  “Somebody in Big Lab cut herself on some glass and said to go get you.”

  “Coming.”

  He fumbled in the gloom for his clothes. Isabelle sat up.

  “Salah—after the spore cloud comes and almost nobody is left—”

  “Yes?”

  “This was sweet, although I certainly didn’t plan to—I just want to say that I like you. But I’m not making any promises, for after.”

  “I know that,” he said truthfully. Then, “Neither am I.” A lie.

  “Good. So we’ll just see what happens. Is that all right?”

  It seemed a staggering way to accept the end of civilization: We’ll just see what happens. But, Salah realized wryly, pretty much his entire life could be summed up in the phrase.

  He said, “Of course.”

  Insha’Allah.

  * * *

  Marianne woke from restless sleep. Everything creaked as she hoisted herself off her pallet. She was really too old to be sleeping on the floor. Too old, too pampered by American inner springs and memory foam. But on the plus side: They had done it. They had an effective synthetic vaccine, to replace the ones that young criminal Austin had stolen. (Why? Was he going to attempt to sell them?) The synth-vac was a triumph of will and luck over inadequate machinery and deficient knowledge.

  On her way to the kitchen for a bowl of the vegetable soup kept perpetually simmering by the two Kindred cooks, she met Branch coming from Big Lab. The Kindred scientists, under Claire’s direction, were hard at work manufacturing the new vaccines. Branch carried a mass of hardware in his arms; Marianne could barely see him around the machinery. When he did cock his head to one side, she was surprised to see him smiling. He’d been heartsick over his lapse in guarding the safe.

  “Dr. Jenner! I found out something!”

  “Is Austin back? Or Noah?” Noah had been away during last night’s attack from the camp, but surely it would be on the ra
dio and he would know about it by now.

  “No, no, this is different. It’s about the Kindred spaceship!”

  Marianne blinked. Hadn’t the ship, on which Noah and Isabelle and the others traveled to Kindred ten years ago, been completely destroyed in the Russian attack?

  Branch saw her confusion. “The other ship, Dr. Jenner. The colony one.”

  Oh. The first ship the Kindred had built, which had become infected with R. sporii that killed everyone aboard. That was how Kindred had first discovered the spore cloud on its relentless path through the galaxy. Direct encounter on the colony planet.

  “Isn’t that ship still on a planet somewhere?”

  “In orbit around it. The spore contamination came from an EVA. You saw the recording the Kindred brought to Terra, the last one the captain made.”

  She had. The recording had been horrific.

  “But what I just found out from Llaa^moh¡ is that the ship is still sending signals!”

  She was staggered. “You mean people are still alive inside?”

  “No, no, everyone’s dead. The ship is sending automatic signals. They were recorded all this time at Kam … Kat … the capital city that the Stremlenie destroyed. The equipment to receive the signals was on the other Kindred ship, and of course that’s gone, too. But I think I might be able to rig up some sort of receiver to record them here!”

  “Why? If it’s just ship’s signals, position, and planetary data and such, what good would it do us here?”

  Branch seemed to not understand the question. “They’re signals, Dr. Jenner. And I might be able to receive them. I’m only going to work on it when there’s no need for me in Big Lab.”

  She saw, then, that he needed to do this, needed to do something to make up for letting the vaccines be stolen. That was how Branch saw it, anyway. For not the first time, Marianne ruminated on how very often brilliant young men invested themselves in pointless problems. But she was fond of Branch, and so she smiled and said, “Go to it. Good luck.”

  “The only place to set this all up is the leelee lab, but that’s good because I can keep an eye on the leelees.” He unlocked the door.

  The animals, dead and alive, now stank like sewer rats and chittered like crickets. Moving away, Marianne heard Branch cry out. She turned back and ran into the room.

  The cage of leelees treated with synth-vac was ominously quiet.

  Marianne stared through the glass. Two of the three leelees were dead. The third moved sluggishly, coughing, obviously very sick.

  The synth vaccine had provided only partial protection, and not for long. They had failed again.

  * * *

  Austin and Kayla arrived at the cave entrance at midmorning. Why was his mother so slow? She wasn’t that old, maybe the same age as Dr. Patel. But at one point in the night she just lay down and slept on a patch of thick grass, not even telling Austin she was going to do it. Just lay down and closed her eyes. The rest of the time she trudged along, eyes down, like she didn’t even care that Austin was rescuing her from the collapse of civilization. Didn’t even care!

  All his life, Austin had known there was something wrong with his mother. He never knew, one tenday to the next, whether she would be laughing and talking fast and thinking up adventures, or staying in bed and crying. He learned to take his requests and problems to Isabelle or Noah. But Kayla was still his mother, and she and Isabelle were the only members of his lahk—Graa^lok always pointed this out when they had a fight—who should really be in it, by blood. Isabelle said that Kayla couldn’t help her strange behavior; the problem was genetic and there was no medicine for it on World because Worlders didn’t get this disease.

  Yet another reason to let civilization collapse without Austin and Kayla! World would be sorry when it lay in smoking ruins and they were safe in Haven.

  If only she would walk faster.

  Eventually, they reached the cave. “Mom, I’m going to go in first. Then when the doors inside are open, I’ll come back out for you.” He had to do it that way; if he went first, she would never get the bushes arranged right to hide the entrance. Noah knew where the cave was, but Tony didn’t know that Noah knew, and Austin didn’t want Graa^lok arriving from his lahk’s illathil and tattling about badly placed bushes. Austin and Graa^lok weren’t getting along so well these days. Graa^lok’s fault—he always thought he was so damn smart.

  Austin crawled along the tunnel and rang the bell. A few moments later Beyon-kal’s face appeared at the grill, looking annoyed. “Austin? What are you doing here?”

  “I got away,” Austin said. “We did. In the confusion after the bomb.”

  He expected Beyon-kal to say breathlessly, “What bomb?” but was disappointed. Beyon-kal said, “It was on the radio.”

  “Me being gone was on the radio?”

  “No, of course not. The attack on the compound was. Do they have a vaccine yet?”

  “No. How did you understand … is Graa^lok here already?”

  “Yes. What are you doing here?”

  This wasn’t the welcome Austin had hoped for. “Let me see Tony.”

  “I’ll decide if you see Tony or not. For the third time, why did you come?”

  “I’m here for good. I brought my mother. This was our only chance to escape while—”

  “You brought Kayla? Now?”

  “I just told you, Beyon-kal, we might not get another chance to escape! The Rangers aren’t letting people in or out of the compound!” This was not strictly true; only the Terran scientists weren’t allowed to leave, but Beyon-kal didn’t know that.

  Beyon-kal said flatly, “We can’t have you here. Your absence—and Kayla’s—will attract attention.”

  “Graa^lok is here!” Austin said, hating that he sounded like a little kid.

  “Graylock’s lahk is not researching a vaccine, surrounded by a refugee camp, or watched by radio reporters from around the entire continent. Yours is.”

  Reporters? Austin hadn’t known that. It made him feel kind of important, which restored some of his confidence.

  “Unlock the grill. I have to see Tony. I have important information.”

  “Tell it to me.”

  “No.” When had he ever before defied Beyon-kal? Never. But now was different.

  Beyon-kal scowled. Austin stared him right in the eyes, no blinking. Beyon-kal unlocked the grill.

  “I’m going to get my mother,” Austin said. And then, as Beyon-kal retreated along the tunnel, “Tony will really want to hear my information!”

  Just as soon as he invented it.

  He got Kayla through the crawl tunnel, going ahead of her to help her down to the big tunnel. She fell heavily but wasn’t hurt. She still had not said a word. Austin went back to bring in his pack and rearrange the bushes. When he returned, Kayla was right where he’d left her, staring at the rock floor, tears falling from her eyes.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” He hugged her briefly—he was too old to hug his mother but this was different—and led her through the open metal door to Haven. Tony waited, looking furious. Graa^lok stood behind him.

  “Austin, what the fuck—”

  “She left a note,” Austin said. “I wrote it. Nobody will miss her or come looking for us. It’s only two more weeks until the cloud. We’re staying.”

  “You’re not.”

  “She is,” Austin said. It came out higher and squeakier than he intended, and he tried again. “My mother is staying. She won’t be any trouble.”

  Kayla sobbed softly. Austin’s heart swelled with pity, with irritation, with fear, with love. He had to save her!

  His words came out in a desperate rush. “Listen! I have information you want! I’m friends with some of the kids in the refugee camp”—Graa^lok shifted his weight but said nothing, which was a good thing or Austin would have slugged him—“and they told me when the next assault on the compound will be!”

  “So?” Tony said.

  “So that’s your only chance to get C
laire—Dr. Patel—out of the compound and into Haven. You’re going to need a doctor, you said so yourself, and she knows how to doctor Terrans, a lot better than any World doctor would. When an attack on the compound comes, everything is really confused. Shooting—Leo Brodie shot three Worlders so far, you probably know that from the radio. And a bomb! The confusion is how I got away. Dr. Patel and I can escape during the next attack. I can bring her here.”

  Tony said, “She won’t want to come. What are you going to do—drag her here?”

  “No, she does want to come! That’s the information I was coming to bring you. I heard her say to … to Dr. Jenner that she’s afraid of what will happen when everybody in the camp rushes the compound to get vaccines.”

  “You said they don’t have vaccines yet.”

  “But they will. Or at least they might. She’s afraid of the collapse of civilization.” There—that should make Tony believe, because it was his own phrase. For good measure, he added, “She’s really little, you know.”

  Tony said, “So say that I believe you. Dr. Patel wants to come to Haven. You can bring her here. How are you going to do that if you and your mother are ‘here for good’?”

  Austin hadn’t thought that far. “Well, I misspoke. My mother is here for good but I’m going back. To bring Dr. Patel.”

  Tony looked at Beyon-kal, who rolled his eyes. Finally Tony said, “Okay. Here’s the deal. Kayla can stay. You go, and when the refugee camp assaults the compound, you guide the doctor here. But if you’re followed by Rangers, you don’t get in—no, don’t ask stupid questions, of course Rangers can track you. If you come too soon, like in the next eight days, you don’t get in. I don’t want a Ranger assault on Haven, but after about eight days they’re going to be too busy with the collapse of civilization to chase you. If you come back without Dr. Patel, you don’t get in, and your mother goes out. Got it?”