by Nancy Kress
If Sor appeared and changed the t-port setting, they were all going to march through it and go home. Back to 2336. The Discovery kids too, who hadn’t been home in nearly seven years. Jofrid would go back to Iceland in 987, Robbie to London in 1810, and Jason to New York City. And she, Sharon, would go back with Tara to Spencerville and never see any of the others again.
A sudden sadness swept over her. Jofrid was the first real friend she’d ever had. Sharon would miss her.
“Someone’s coming,” Mant said suddenly. He had the best hearing. “Over the hill.”
All at once, Sharon’s heart began a slow, hard pounding in her chest. She could hardly breathe. “Get into the hut!” Jofrid said.
The six humans scrambled behind the earthen walls. It would only buy them a few minutes, but a few minutes seemed infinitely precious. If the Panurish were coming―
“It’s Jason!” cried the irrepressible Mant. “Jason and everybody!”
The human kids strode over the horizon, walking briskly and close together, a purposeful team. Sharon felt dizzy with relief. Now, if only the t-port shimmered into place the way Sor said it would!
“Okay, we’re here,” Jason said as fourteen kids rounded the corners of the three-sided earthen hut. “Look at you all! You look like you’re made of mud!”
“You don’t look so great yourself,” Mant retorted. “Why are there leaves tied to your ears?”
“Never mind that,” Jason said. “Jofrid, you got the table out and buried, good job!”
Even through all the dirt on her face, Jofrid glowed with pleasure.
“Okay, listen up, everybody,” Jason said. “Final-play time. When that t-port shimmers on, we’re out of here. I don’t think those chicken Panurish are coming after us, but we don’t know for sure, so Sor first, to set the coordinates of the t-port to Edge Station. Then the youngest kids: Betta, Mant, and Billin, then Sharon with Tara. Then everybody else. I go last, with Sor and Deel and Annit. If we―”
“Jason,” Deel said. “I can’t go.”
“Say what?” Jason said. Sharon saw him stop and look at Deel, really look at him. Deel’s face was sad but determined.
“I can’t go,” he repeated. “Neither can Annit or Cam. And probably Mikail shouldn’t try it either. I thought you understood. We’re too old.”
Jason gaped at Deel.
“We’re not really kids anymore,” Deel continued bravely. “Annit and I are nineteen. Cam is seventeen, and Mikail is sixteen and a half. If we try to t-port now, what happened to our parents could happen to us. Sor explained it to us days ago, and it made sense of what happened to the Discovery. Adults can’t t-port.”
“You mean...you mean, you’re stuck on Jump?” Jason blurted.
Annit lifted her chin. “I prefer to say that Jump has become our home.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Sharon felt intense admiration. Deel, Annit, Cam, and Mikail seemed to her the bravest kids she’d ever known.
Sor said suddenly, “But you needn’t be alone in your home. Now that we know that the colony is alive, people from 2336 can set coordinates for this t-port. They’ll send supplies and tools. And kids can come visit you. I can come visit you!”
Jofrid said, “And have you young kin in Sor’s city? He can tell them where you are, and they too can visit.”
Mikail said excitedly, “I had a cousin!”
“Me, too,” said Cam. “A whole family of cousins!”
"More importantly," Sor said, "this is a pleasant world, with air and biology and other factors compatible with Earth-type life. That's relatively rare, so you can be sure more young colonists will be arriving, and ships as well, eager to join you on this lovely world. The four of you will be frightfully busy, teaching them the secrets of life here."
“Good, good,” Jason said. “But look, we got no more time, team. Here comes the t-port!”
Sharon jerked her head around to look. Within the three-sided earthen hut, where a moment ago had been only emptiness, a rectangle shimmered.
“Here come the Panurish!” Billin shouted, looking back at the hill.
“Go, Sor!” Jason yelled. “T-port!”
Sor jumped into the shimmer and vanished. Swiftly Jason pushed Betta in after him. Billin followed her. Sharon took one frantic peek around the edge of the dirt hut. Eight Panurish kids and seven Panurish robots stood on the top of the nearest hill, but they were not coming forward. Were they too cautious to come down to the t-port until they understood what this new dirt hut was and what had happened to the table that had fried one of their robots? Oh, let the Panurish be that cautious long enough for everybody to get out!
“Deel, Annit, Cam, Mikail, run!” Jason shouted. “Go back to the Discovery. The aliens won’t follow you. They’re too busy with us. Billin, Mant, go!”
The four oldest colony kids took off at a wild run, circling around the Panurish to get to the Discovery.
“Sharon, go!”
Jason grabbed Sharon, who stood holding Tara, and shoved them both through the t-port. Sharon felt a sharp twinge just behind her eyes and let out a gasp...and then someone else grabbed her, pulling her free of the precious portal. It was Dr. Cee, and Sharon was back at Edge Station Three.
The room was full of people. They kept pouring in through doors on either end of the t-port chamber. Not just Dr. Cee and Dr. Orgel, but also a lot of other people Sharon didn’t recognize. Then, through the t-port, Corio appeared. Everybody was shouting. Tara started screaming in Sharon’s arms.
“Jofrid!” Sharon shouted, adding to the general noise. “Get Jofrid out!”
Alli tumbled through the t-port booth and was snatched out of the way to make room for the next kid.
Next Wu.
Then Isor.
Billin screamed at everybody and nobody, “Are they attacking yet? Are the Panurish frying anybody?”
Senta.
Max.
“Where’s Jofrid?” Sharon cried. “Is she fried?” More people crowded into the room from hallways, all talking. “Where’s Jofrid?”
Daryo.
Tel.
Finally, Jofrid shimmered into shape in the t-port booth. Sharon tried to push her way toward her. She couldn’t; there were too many people in the way. Sharon got stuck between two adults and could only watch as Jofrid was yanked out of the way. Somewhere behind her, she heard Mant say to somebody, “No, we didn’t find it. We didn’t get the communication cube.”
Robbie shimmered into shape in the t-port booth. He clutched the vase holding da Vinci’s identity chip, and at that moment, it all came together in Sharon’s mind. All at once, she knew.
The vase. The poem. Da Vinci. Talking to the Panurish.
“I said we don’t have the communication cube!” Mant yelled more loudly, evidently trying to be heard.
Jason shimmered into view, the last human kid through. He blinked to see so many people, so many strangers, crowded into their homecoming, all talking and shouting questions and hugging the Discovery kids. Jason held up a hand, but before the room could quiet, the t-port shimmered again.
Even though everybody was through!
With a flash of metal, a Panurish robot appeared. Billin started screaming, “It’s going to fry us!” and the room exploded into frenzied fear. Kids rushed for the doors, but then somehow, over all the incredible noise, Robbie made his voice heard.
“The Panurish pay off their vowels, they do! Robbie was owed an alien metalman, and here it be!”
“It’s payment on a debt?” Jason screamed, and Robbie nodded happily and put his hand on his new property.
"Is that it?" asked Dr. Orgel. "Is that everyone?" When Jason confirmed it was, a technician made some adjustments, and the sally-port changed the color of its shimmering, switching to transmit mode. "Team Two, go!" Orgel shouted. "Defensive perimeter around the Jump-side port. Make sure it stays under our control until we can debrief Jason’s team!"
Half a dozen compact figures rushed past Jason and Sharon
, clearly kids, no more than fifteen years old, but dressed in formidable-looking combat suits with gleaming helmets. Each one was accompanied by two hovering robot-drones. They looked well-armed and competent.
"Don't shoot the Panurish," Jason urged. “Hold your ground but don't provoke them. Just sit tight, defend the gate and the Discovery, and wait. We've got a lot to tell before you should do any more than that."
The leader of Team Two glanced at Orgel, who confirmed Jason's order with a curt nod. His relief over the return of Jason's team had been short-lived. Now, he had one more team of brave teenagers to worry about.
With Team Two departed, the room slowly calmed down. Examining Robbie's Panurish robot, Sor said, “Now we can learn as much about the Panurish as they know about us, after all!”
“Dr. Cee,” Jason said, “can we―”
Before he could finish his sentence, Sharon heard another voice, louder and more assured even than Jason’s. After a shocked moment, she realized the voice was her own.
“Jason, I know where the communication cube is.”
The noise started over again.
Chapter Twenty
“All right, Sharon, just say whatever you want at your own pace,” Dr. Cee said. She smiled kindly at Sharon, who still felt a little shaky. Too much tension, too little food. She hadn’t exactly fainted, but right after she spoke up in front of everyone―she, Sharon, who had once been too afraid to open her mouth in class!―she had started trembling. Dr. Cee and Dr. Orgel had cleared the room of most of the shouting people. The scientists who worked here were gone, and so were the Jump kids, who’d been taken someplace to phone their aunts and uncles, or however you contacted long-lost relatives in 2336.
The Yanks had insisted on staying, so Jason, Sor, Jofrid, Robbie, Sharon, Dr. Cee, and Dr. Orgel sat around the conference table. The adults looked crisp and clean in their white clothes. Sharon, Jofrid, and Robbie were covered with dirt. Sor didn’t look too bad, but why did Jason have leaves tied to his ears?
Sharon was feeling shaky. She tried to concentrate on what was important here.
“About the communication cube,” Dr. Cee said.
“That’s just it,” Sharon said. “There is no communication cube.”
“Come again?” Jason said at the same moment Sor said, “But Sharon, in the cube that Captain Kenara made after the Gift Givers landed the Discovery, he said he recorded Step Three in a second cube―”
"Unless Kenara was hallucinating," Jason added. "His implants were keeping him going like electric shocks to that dead frog in Mrs. McCluan's biology class. There was no 'clue to a third step' other than his final dream-wish. I've been leaning toward that theory." Jason wasn't happy about it, but he was apparently grimly determined to face a disappointment.
“No, you've both got it all wrong,” Sharon said. “Captain Kenara was in agony, but he was in command of himself, with courage I can barely imagine. And he said he recorded Step Three. He didn’t say it was in a cube! We just all assumed it was in a cube because that’s how his dying speech was recorded, and maybe because cubes are the usual way of storing durable and important information in this time, aren’t they?”
Dr. Cee nodded. “Yes.”
Sharon said, “But there are other ways of storing information. That’s why the Panurish took everything electronic from the Discovery, right? Because they didn’t know just how Captain Kenara would code his information. It might be in any kind of computer program, but computer programs aren’t the only way to code information, either.”
Sharon took a deep breath. “I put it together because I remembered the Panurish making me talk and talk so they could learn all about humans to defeat us. I tried to give them stuff that was so old it wouldn’t reveal anything about humans today. I recited an old Keats poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn. That made me think of da Vinci’s identity chip that Robbie keeps in that vase, even though he doesn’t really understand what an identity chip is.”
Robbie scowled. “Metal Guv’nor’s soul, Sor said. He did.”
“Yes,” Sharon said. “Robbie thinks about computer chips in...in the words of his time. He doesn’t understand computer language. Just like I didn’t understand the language of semaphore that the cheerleaders in Spencerville were using in their Technology & Communications project, not until I looked up the meanings of their flags in the encyclopedia. It was in a language nobody uses anymore.”
“Sharon, dear, I think you must be very tired,” Dr. Cee said gently. “You’re not making sense.”
“Yes, I am,” Sharon said. “Don’t you see?”
“No, babe, not yet,” Jason said. “But keep talkin', ‘cause we're listening.”
“The vase,” Sharon said. She reached across the table and took the vase from Robbie’s hand. “Captain Kenara wanted to put the Gift Givers’ information in a form no enemy aliens could read, so he didn’t use a communication cube. He did what Keats did―he saw in a vase a way of teaching lessons. He did what I did—reached back in time for something old so that the Panurish wouldn’t know what it was. I wouldn’t have even known what it was if it weren’t for my research for my school project.”
Sharon held up the vase. In the soft light of the room, its curved metal shone. Beautiful sleek lines, and decorations painted on the bottom, colorful interrupted lines, some long and some short.
“The Gift Givers’ information is right here,” Sharon said, touching the vase’s painted decorations. “All you need to know about the next step for human beings. It’s all here.” She ran her hand again over the dots and dashes that Captain Kenara had hastily painted on as he lay dying. Dot-dash, space, dot-dot-dot.
“It’s right here,” Sharon said. “In Morse code.”
That evening, after showers and new clothes, the docs gave Jason's team a quick treatment of drinks and pulsating rays that left them feeling as fresh as if they’d had a full night's sleep. Then the Yanks had a long meeting with Edge Station scientists. “Debriefing,” Jason called it, and he seemed to love it. So did some of the others. Sharon didn’t, not really; she’d have preferred to just talk quietly with Dr. Cee and Jofrid, although she liked sitting in the big conference room, the one she’d seen when she first came to Edge Station, with the walls that kept shifting color. Violet to blue to blue-green to green. It looked so beautiful.
Actually, everything looked better after that rejuvenation treatment. Five Yanks and eleven Jump kids sat around the huge table, clean and excited and eager to tell their adventures.
Billin and Mant, as irrepressible as ever, covered the six years of sad life as exiles, followed by the Panurish raid and the miraculous arrival of Jason's team. Sor and Jason told about the way they’d kept the Panurish confused that last day on Jump. Jofrid related her story about trapping and burying the deadly table in a pit. Then the Jump kids set in again, telling about the basketball-football game to rescue Tara from the Panurish.
Only Robbie refused to relate his story of gambling to keep the Panurish occupied during Tara’s rescue. The small street thief looked better after he’d had a bath and his eighteenth-century clothes were washed, but he didn’t look any happier. His was the only unsmiling face around the big table. Dr. Cee had taken the vase so the computers could read the Morse code, but Robbie had kept the identity chip that had been inside it. He refused to let it out of his fist.
“It’s the metal guv’nor’s soul,” he kept saying.
Finally, Dr. Cee asked Jofrid and Sharon to persuade Robbie to give it up. Doubtfully, they said they’d try. They got Robbie alone in the corridor outside the conference room.
“For just a little while, Robbie,” Jofrid said. “Give da Vinci’s soul to Dr. Cee for just a little while. She promises you’ll see it again. Don’t you trust her?”
“Don’t trust nobody,” Robbie replied.
“But this afternoon, we’re going to take a tour of this city. You can leave your treasure here for that long, can’t you?”
“No,” Robbie said.<
br />
Suddenly Sharon had an idea. “Robbie, what did you call those things a person has to pay, no matter what? The gambling debts?”
“Vowels,” Robbie said. “Man got to redeem his vowels.”
“Yes. Suppose Dr. Cee gives you a...a `vowel’ for da Vinci’s soul? Then would you let her have it for a while? You know Dr. Cee would redeem a vowel.”
“Have to,” Robbie said. “Well...all right. Robbie will take the doctor’s vowel.”
When Sharon and Jofrid told her about this conversation, Dr. Cee said, “Good work! Only, what does a vowel look like? Never mind, I’ll ask the library computer.”
Evidently she did because she presented Robbie with a handwritten piece of paper. “There, Robbie―a vowel for da Vinci’s identity chip.”
Robbie looked suspiciously at the paper. Then he handed it to Sharon. “Read it for Robbie, then?”
Sharon nodded. She hadn’t realized Robbie couldn’t read.
Owed to Robert of London: one identity chip for the robot da Vinci. To be repaid by this evening, unless Robert of London should choose to forgive the debt. Interest due, to be paid at the same time: ten pounds.
The Londoner said, “Robbie don’t forgive no debt.”
“You don’t have to forgive it if you don’t want to,” Sharon said. “The vowel just says you can.” Robbie nodded and pocketed the paper in his baggy brown pants. He didn’t smile.
“Be of good cheer, Robbie,” Jofrid said. “Tonight is the feast. Even on Jump, they will feast. Right now, people are preparing to take a celebration to Deel and Annit and Cam and Mikhail."
"Along with another whole team, now fully briefed, ready to offer the Panurish on Jump a deal," Sor added. "They’ll talk and start negotiating with humanity and commit to further diplomacy if they want us to let them use the gate again to go home."
Jofrid resumed. "And all the other Discovery children will leave tomorrow morning for the homesteads of their kin, so we must enjoy our last celebration together. Dr. Orgel will announce the meaning of the Morse runes on the vase.”