by Nancy Kress
Sharon said anxiously, “You’ll come to the celebration, won’t you, Robbie?”
“Robbie be there.” He still wasn’t smiling.
That afternoon, the five Yanks got a special tour of 2336.
“All you’ve seen of the future so far is the inside of this one building,” Dr. Cee said. “Edge Station One isn’t London or Mars City or Titania, of course, but at least it will give you the flavor of the future.”
The flavor of the future, Sharon thought, was dazzling.
The Yanks followed Dr. Cee through the door and immediately clutched each other for support. The ground was distorted. No, not distorted, just strange. In two directions, it stretched away normally, with streets and buildings and a little park. In the other two directions, left and right, the ground curved away so quickly that Sharon couldn’t see the bases of buildings less than a hundred feet away. It was as if the horizon was pushed up close to her, but only in two directions, not four. And the tops of the buildings leaned away from her, like pictures she’d seen of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
“Weird,” Jason said. “I think we ain’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
"I think..." Sharon added. "I think I saw this kind of idea on a TV science show. The whole thing rotates to make artificial gravity, right?"
"Essentially," Dr. Cee smiled. “Let me explain a bit about Edge Station. What the Gift Givers presented to humanity was a main sally port, which was a huge object shaped like a tin can.”
“A what?” Jofrid said. Of course, Sharon thought. There were no tin cans in medieval Iceland. Dr. Cee tried again. From her pocket, she took a folded piece of metal. When she unfolded it, it turned into a rigid computer screen, thin and flat.
“On. Draw a cylinder,” Dr. Cee said to the computer, and it did.
“Magic,” Jofrid breathed.
“Make sure nobody don’t fork that thing,” Robbie said.
“Does Bill Gates know about this?” Jason asked.
“Go on,” Sharon said. “You said the Gift Givers presented humanity with a cylinder. Where is it now?”
“You’re standing on it,” Dr. Cee said. “The cylinder is two miles long and a third of a mile in diameter. Inside is the alien technology that drives both the sally ports and t-ports. It’s a rotating gravity-line vortex which includes an exponential fall-off of the gravity field as you leave the center, an e-folding length of three hundred meters.”
Jason said, “Physics is senior year, and I’m not there yet.”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Cee said. “You don’t want to know the details. Let me just say that the Gift Givers made the first cylinder, and humans built a second cylinder around it. On. Draw a second cylinder encasing the first. See, we built our city between these two cylinders. That’s where you are now.”
“You mean, that’s not sky up there?” Jason said. “It’s a humongous tin can instead? Sure looks like the sky.”
“We light it to look like Earth,” Sor said. Sharon realized he must know all this already. It made her feel a bit strange. On Jump, Sor had been just another Yank. Now she remembered that he was at home in this strange culture so far ahead of hers.
“Look at those flowers!” Jofrid suddenly said. “Oh, what are they?”
The Yanks had walked behind Dr. Cee into the little park. Now they stopped in front of a flowerbed of pink and purple blooms, each one as wide as Sharon’s hand. It wasn’t just their size that made them so striking. Each flower was perfect, and the designs on the petals of each were different. A wonderful, spicy fragrance floated on the air.
Dr. Cee said, “They’re genemods―genetically modified. We can change flowers’ DNA to create any species we want.”
“Magic,” Jofrid repeated.
Sharon looked around her―really looked. It did seem like magic. She had never seen anyplace so beautiful. The buildings clean and graceful and glowed with faint color. The lovely little park, without litter or broken bottles or smashed benches. But it wasn’t the environment Sharon noticed now, it was the people.
Three little kids were playing happily in a sandbox, watched by a robot just as da Vinci had watched Tara on Jump.
Two adults were walking past, deep in conversation, looking as if the subject fascinated them both.
Three more adults were having lunch at a sort of outdoor café on a little platform surrounded by miniature waterfalls and more genemod flowers. The people laughed and nodded at each other.
Jason said suddenly, “Where are your homeless?”
Dr. Cee said, “We don’t have homeless, Jason.”
Sharon said, “You mean, you don’t have them here on this space station. But on Earth, you do.”
“No,” Dr. Cee said. “We don’t.”
“You’re bamming us,” Robbie said. His eyes had narrowed to slits.
“No,” Dr. Cee said. “Let’s sit down. There’s something I want to explain to you all.”
They went farther into the park and sat down on a group of benches. More children played just beyond. The view of buildings and houses from here was just as wonderful.
“This is why I wanted you to see the future,” Dr. Cee said. “Your future. I know there is a lot of misery in each of your times. Homelessness, poverty, disease, starvation, drought, war. And Sharon and Jason, it’s going to get worse in the century after the one you left. The Time of Troubles is coming. I won’t go into detail, but I will say that humanity goes into a crisis, or rather a series of crises, so bad that it will look doubtful for a long time whether people will survive on the planet.”
Dr. Cee’s voice became intense. She leaned toward them as if trying to will them to understand something of immense importance.
“But, Sharon, Jason, humanity did survive. We came through, partly because of the sacrifice and intelligence and sheer grit of a group of human beings scattered all over the world, people we now call the Ten Thousand Heroes. They kept civilization going, talking down crises that almost led to war, persuading tens of millions...and finally ten billion people to follow their example. And slowly, Homo sapiens pulled out of the Time of Troubles. When it was over, we began the slow process of learning how to eliminate all mankind’s old enemies. Violence. Desperation. Disease. Poverty. Hunger.”
“You did all that?” Jason said. “You mean, like, it’s heaven here now?”
“No,” Sor said. “People still get into private disappointments and all that. Society as a whole works now, for the first time ever, for every single child born into it.”
Sharon tried to think what that would have been like for her—a life that worked. Her mother not a drunk, her father still around. Johnna taking care of her own baby, responsible and stable. Robots to help when you felt overwhelmed by stuff. People like Dr. Cee to offer help to every kid who needed it...
It was too different from what she’d known. She couldn’t picture it.
Sor was looking directly at her. “Believe it, Sharon,” he said softly. “The future works.”
“And that should give you hope,” Dr. Cee added.
“Why should it give me hope?” Jason demanded. “I don’t live in your future. I got to go back to New York tonight, don’t I? My New York’s got its share of violence and disease, and then some!”
Dr. Cee said, “Don’t you want to go back? Would you rather stay here?”
Jason was silent for a long minute. Finally he said, “No. My family’s there, and my buds. I want to go back, but why you showing me the good times I can never have? And promising me that I'll see all those bad things?”
Dr. Cee said, “Because you’re going to help end the bad things, and help create the goodness that you see and...and oh, so much more. You too, Sharon.”
Jason did a double-take. Sharon sat very still. Dr. Cee said, “You don’t believe me, but it’s true. Remember when I said that a group of ten thousand heroes would save civilization in the next century? Well, we’ve had a few centuries since then to use sophisticated computer techniques to discover exa
ctly who they were. Come with me; I want to show you something.”
She led them across the park into a low colonnade with a roof but no walls. Inside grew more genemod flowers. No, they weren’t flowers, they were some sort of computer hardware with tiny screens inside cups on stalks. No, the cups and stalks were flowers.
“They’re both,” Dr. Cee said. “Living plants, but they’re also programmable. Listen.”
As the Yanks entered the colonnade, the plants began to sing softly, the music barely audible but so lovely Sharon stood transfixed. At the same time, the flowers began to display names on their petals and in their flowery hearts, holding each lovingly for a few long moments. Sharon gasped.
“It said...it said...”
“That’s right,” Sor said. “`Rose-of-Sharon Myers.’ And ‘Jason Trayvon Ramsay.’“
Dr. Cee added, “You’re both among the Ten Thousand Heroes, or will be when you grow up. Didn’t you wonder why you two particular kids were yanked? And you, Robbie and Jofrid, the data banks record that in your own times, you will also make a significant difference for the better.”
That brought Sharon up short. Robbie, make a difference for the better? He had “grit,” sure, and he had helped the Yanks mission to succeed, but he was also a thief, a killer of small animals, a liar, and a cheat. Suddenly Sharon didn’t believe in the Ten Thousand Heroes. She herself wasn’t a hero type. Why, until she came to Jump, she was hardly brave enough to open her mouth in public.
Once again, Dr. Cee seemed to know what Sharon was thinking. Dr. Cee said, “Grit isn’t fearlessness, Sharon, and it isn’t insisting other people do what you want. Grit is finding other ways to get something done, even when people refuse to cooperate with you. It isn’t pushing other people around. Instead, it’s not giving up, even if you have to try twenty-eight different plans before one works. It’s persistence in the face of fear.”
Sharon didn’t answer. She felt too embarrassed to answer. Even Jason looked a little embarrassed at seeing his own name among the Ten Thousand Heroes. Did he believe it was true? Sharon couldn’t tell. All Jason said was, “Coach Patterson wouldn’t ever believe this.”
“Well,” Dr. Cee said, “people don’t always―”
“Look!” Robbie suddenly yelled. “The metal guv’nor!”
And then Robbie was sprinting across the park, yelling and laughing. Sharon saw a robot rushing toward the small nineteenth-century kid. The robot looked like da Vinci… It was da Vinci! Even his voice sounded the same when the others rushed close enough to hear it. Robbie had thrown his arms around the robot and hugged him―Robbie, who never let anyone touch him except in a fight!
“Metal guv’nor, Robbie thought you was dead!”
“No, no, merely temporarily inactive,” da Vinci said. “But now I’m retrofitted and upgraded. Our plan with the Panurish and the gambling game worked, I’m told.”
“Bang up to the echo!” Robbie said. His sunny smile was back. He looked, Sharon thought, like himself again. “And you know what, metal guv’nor? This lady says Robbie’s going to be a bleedin’ hero when I grow up!”
“The historical data banks confirm it,” da Vinci said.
“I never would!” Robbie said. “But long as you’re not dead, metal guv’nor, it don’t matter. Right as rain, Robbie is.”
Sor said, “You have more good in you than I once thought, Robbie.”
Jofrid said, “If Dr. Cee had a dream about the future, you should listen, Robbie. Dreams are sometimes powerful messages.”
Jason said, “Welcome back, da Vinci. How you doin’?”
Sharon said nothing, but she looked around at the beautiful, peaceful city. At the contented, productive people. At the colonnade of the Ten Thousand Heroes.
She still didn’t believe she would be one of them, but another belief was growing in her. Despite her mother, despite Johnna, despite the meanness and selfishness she saw every day in Spencerville, Sharon had a thought she’d never thought before, and would once have believed to be stupid.
Maybe, she thought, maybe the future will be okay.
Maybe it will be wonderful.
Chapter Twenty-One
“That was a great meal,” Jason said. “I sure pigged out. On behalf of all the Yanks, we want to say thank you before we say good-bye. We know we got to go back to our own times now, but I know we’re all gonna be raving about this great place to all our buds back there for a real long time.”
Every single adult face at the table went rigid.
Now what did I say? Jason thought. His speech was going so good! The Yanks and the Jump kids and the seven scientists on the project had really been into the party, eating and talking and laughing. Then Dr. Cee asked Jason to “say a few words” before Dr. Orgel spoke, so Jason did. Now everybody looked like he’d slapped them with a dead fish.
He tried again. “I know that when I’m back in New York, I’m going to say nothing but good things about all you guys. I’ll tell everybody that 2336 really has its act together, and it was, like, my privilege to help you guys out with the Panurish.”
More silence. Dr. Orgel was scowling like a major thunderstorm. The other scientists, even Dr. Cee, looked unhappy.
"This is what happens when we rush a mission and skip most of the initial briefing." She looked upset, but continued, “Jason, we thought you understood that. Didn’t you run the program da Vinci gave you after we got back from the tour of Edge Station? Remember, he gave everybody a communication cube to listen to?”
“Well, yeah, he did that. But I didn’t exactly have time to play it, what with one thing and another.” The truth was, he’d taken a nap instead. He’d really needed some Z’s. “What did it say?”
Sor answered for Dr. Cee. “It said you won’t remember anything about your trip into the future.”
“Come again?” Jason said, incredulous. Everybody else at the long table was either looking at Jason or glancing sideways at each other.
“I’m afraid it’s true, Jason,” Dr. Cee said. “You will undergo a selective-amnesia field before we return you to your own time. We return you within a few minutes of when you left, so nobody has time to miss you, and you remember nothing.
“Why? That’s so cheesy!” Jason blurted. They weren’t going to let him remember this major mission? That he’d led so successfully? They were going to take that away from him?
“Try to understand,” Dr. Orgel said. “If you remember what happened to you, or if you aren’t returned to the same few minutes we yanked you from, it could change the past. Our past. You might act in ways that are different from how history says you acted. That could lead to a different future, but we live in this future. We can’t risk losing it. In addition, our scientists think even worse things might result, like damage to the fabric of space-time itself, so it’s better if you don’t remember what happened to you.”
Jason considered. It made sense, but he still didn’t like it. “You mean, not anything? I won’t remember anything?”
Dr. Cee sighed. “We don’t know for sure. We think the selective-amnesia field is one-hundred-percent effective, but we can’t t-port back in time ourselves to check it out. Remember, Jason―all of you―we haven’t been yanking kids for very long. These are new procedures.”
Jason felt better. Maybe he would remember some of this.
“Well, then, if we won’t recall this, we better do it right now while we definitely got it. So I’m going to ask my fellow Yanks to each say a few words, too. Sharon, you first.”
Sharon looked alarmed. “No, not me.”
“Yeah, you,” Jason said. “Chill, Sharon, it’s no big deal. Just a few words.”
Sharon stumbled to her feet at her place around the table. Jason could see her tremble slightly. She really was a shy babe, but she was all right.
“Th-thank you for bringing me here, and for treating Tara and me so well. And...and...”
She stopped. Jason thought she was too tongue-tied to say anything more, but
she surprised him.
“And even though I won’t remember you all, you’ll be with me anyway. Like the poet Keats said,
“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter.
“All of you will remain unheard melodies in my heart.” Sharon sat down. Everyone applauded.
Jason stood stunned. Who thought shy Sharon could turn so eloquent? Aloud he said, “Girl’s got the gift, all right. Jofrid?”
Jofrid stood. She wore her same green dress, clean now, and her red-gold braids hung shining over each shoulder. She said simply, “May the gods smile on each of you. And should you travel to Iceland, the hospitality of Langarfoss is open to you all.”
Jason led the applause, although he doubted that he’d be going to 987 Iceland anytime soon. Did Jofrid even understand she’d been traveling in time? It was hard to tell. “Robbie?”
Robbie stood, looking very small. Da Vinci sat beside him. Robbie started to say something, stopped. He looked at da Vinci, who said, “Yes, Robbie. You must.”
Robbie looked momentarily sad. Then he pulled from his pocket the small folded computer on which Dr. Cee had drawn the nested-cylinder diagram of Edge Station. Dr. Cee gasped in surprise and felt her empty pocket, where she had last put the computer. Robbie laid it on the table. Next he pulled out a small bag of tools that made Sor plunge his hand into his own empty pocket. Next, a packet of Jofrid’s plant powders. Finally, Jason’s wristwatch.
“Robbie gives ‘em back,” he said. “To my friends.”
Nobody knew what to say.
Finally Jason said, “Good job, Robbie!” and applauded. Everyone else followed. Robbie smiled at them sunnily.
I still wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, Jason thought, but he had to laugh anyway. Robbie was Robbie, and he was a survivor. Jason retrieved his wristwatch.
“Sor, say a few words?”
Sor stood. After Robbie, he looked tall and healthy and handsome. I’d play him on center guard, Jason thought. A natural.
“I wasn’t yanked from a different time for this mission,” Sor said, “and unlike the others, I hadn’t demonstrated grit in the past. But I’m grateful I got to meet those who did, and to work with them, and to learn that I, too, could make a contribution. To quote Jason, ‘we got it done!’”