by Nancy Kress
Sor got the loudest applause of all. Yeah, you got grit, Jason thought at him, yet Sor gave others the credit. A dude worth knowing.
“And now Dr. Orgel with the big news,” Jason said.
Dr. Orgel stood. To Jason, he didn’t look like a man with big news. He scowled; when didn’t the man scowl? He was the only Gloomy Gus in 2336, seemed like. Oh, well. Always one.
“We on the Yanks project wish to extend our gratitude and thanks to every one of you,” Dr. Orgel said. “You’ve made a significant contribution to our understanding of the Gift Givers. I have three things to tell you. Before I do, however, let me repeat some background for our time visitors.
“You should remember that the Gift Givers arrived only six years ago. When they gave us the sally ports and t-ports, they promised yet more wonderful technology that would let us explore the universe in ways we can hardly dream of, but only if we first take the Nine Great Steps. We have already taken the First Step: colonizing our own solar system without destroying our homeworld. We think the Second Step is to show initiative about discovering what the Third Step is, and the Third Step may have been outlined for Captain Kenara by the Gift Givers who helped him land the Discovery just before all the adults on it died.”
Jason looked at Mant, then at Billin, Corio, Wu, and all the Jump kids whose parents had died with Captain Kenara. They stared steadily at Dr. Orgel. Jason suddenly realized that they wanted to hear that their parents’ deaths had at least accomplished something. That as a result, humanity was a bit closer to completing the Nine Steps. Well, Jason thought, if it were my mom that died, I’d want to know that, too. He found he was holding his breath to hear what Dr. Orgel would say next.
Dr. Orgel seemed to know how everyone felt. His voice softened from its usual harshness. “I said I had three things to tell you all. Here they are.
“First, the vase from the Discovery was indeed hastily painted with Morse code. Sharon was right; Captain Kenara chose Morse code so no aliens could easily steal information meant for humanity alone.”
Jason whispered to her, “Way to go, Sharon.” She blushed and smiled.
“Second,” Dr. Orgel said, “we translated the Morse code on the vase, using the arcane-language library stored in our data banks.”
Dr. Orgel paused. Jason felt everyone in the room tense even more.
“Third, we now know what Step Three is. It’s this: We must share our own most advanced technology with at least one other alien race that is not more advanced than we are.”
Jason’s mind raced. Share their most advanced technology! But... He called, “Does it count as ‘sharing’ if the Panurish stole the advanced technology? They stole all that stuff from the Discovery!”
Corio asked, “Are the Panurish more or less advanced than us?”
Sor said, “The technology the Panurish stole was six years old! Does that count as ‘our most advanced technology’ or not? We wouldn’t let them get da Vinci’s identity chip, which is more advanced!”
Everyone talked at once, calling out questions and arguing with neighbors. Dr. Cee held up her hand for quiet.
“We don’t yet know the answers to these things, but we’re going to study what we have and try out various possibilities. Meanwhile, we wouldn’t even know this much if it weren’t for the Yanks and their true grit, so I’d like to propose a toast.”
She stood and raised her glass. Everyone else did the same. “To the Yanks,” Dr. Cee said. “May all the times of your life enrich you.”
Good one, Jason thought. He laughed and raised his glass.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It had been almost twenty-four hours since they had returned from Planet Jump, and the four time-yanked kids were preparing for an even greater voyage: through the fourth dimension to their own eras and families and whatever troubles they had left behind. Those seemed smaller now. Somehow.
“Look!” Sor nudged Sharon and Jason, pointing through a second-floor window overlooking the sally port chamber that led to Planet Jump. “It’s Team Three. Another yank-crew blended from several times.”
Sharon blinked, staring down at six teenagers who seemed unaware that they were being observed. Two were obviously from this present era. She could tell because this pair was showing the other four how to change into s-suits, the way Sharon had been shown—was it only two weeks before? From the clothes they removed, she could hazard a guess about where and when they came from.
The tall, Hispanic-looking girl was from some time in the late twentieth century, perhaps someplace exotic and lively like Brazil. She seemed only a little modest while changing, having to remove multiple beaded bracelets and a gaudy wrist-pod e-device of some kind. Meanwhile, an Asiatic boy—she overheard him joking in what seemed to be Chinese—was taking off a shirt that gleamed with patterns she had seen recently on TV, so he must have been yanked from her own era, or maybe a little after. The team members all laughed at the boy’s jest, though Sharon did not understand. Her Broca translator had already been removed.
The remaining members of Team Three included a petite girl whose smile showed no fear as she ducked behind a curtain to remove an ornate low-collared dress from maybe the eighteenth century. She spoke something like French, though Sharon wasn’t sure. The last boy did not speak. His garments were all leather, sewn together with rawhide thongs. He made a show of nonchalance when he put down a bow and quiver of arrows to be taken away by a robot, though he followed them with his eyes before finally shrugging and changing clothes.
Well, Sharon thought, their mission isn’t to fight, it’s diplomacy. Diplomacy of a kind that would challenge teenagers who, according to history, had a profound gift for it.
“Those guys look more relaxed than we were,” Jason murmured.
“They are, thanks to you. They have had weeks of training and a recent, very extensive briefing. Also, they were chosen for slightly different skillsets, now that our side has the upper hand. Your team was special. Urgent. We needed Yanks who might stand a chance, even with no time to prepare.”
Again, Sharon shook her head, unable to even begin to grasp what that said about her, or what history would somehow wind up thinking of her.
“Good luck.” Sharon whispered the brief wish at her fellow Yanks in Team Three, though she would never know their names.
Finally, the members of Team Jason stood in the time-port chamber beside Dr. Cee. Jason, Jofrid, Sharon, Robbie, Sor, and da Vinci looked at each other. There were no words, but they could hug each other, and they did. Even Robbie.
Then, with a heavy sigh, Jason Ramsay squared his broad shoulders, glanced over the left one at Sharon, gave her a wink, and stepped through.
We lived in almost the same time, she thought. I wonder if our paths will ever cross?
But she was having trouble following her thoughts. The big chamber was becoming more vague and strange to her by the minute as the memory removal drugs and nano-machines worked within her brain, hunting down the tagged recollections of her twenty-fourth-century adventure.
It's not fair, she thought while having trouble remembering what she was losing. I did good! Something really good, and it's not fair I have to forget it!
Even so, a part of her, stronger than she ever imagined, replied, Life was never "fair" for humanity across all the ages...until you, Sharon, got to help change that forever. You will do it as a grown-up someday, and you did it at a time when you seemed weak and helpless.
Sharon tried to square her shoulders the way that big, gorgeously impressive black guy had, whatever his name had been. She smiled encouragement at Jofrid and Robbie as each of them waved and stepped through the...the gate to home and vanished.
The gate to home. I was going to ask to be sent back two weeks later, so the librarian could give me a job! She had a vague recollection of two doctors telling her they couldn't do that, but that Tara would be all right anyway. They promised, and these people, whoever they were, did not lie. She knew that much with absolute cert
ainty.
Getting a firm but gentle grip on Tara, Sharon set her jaw and stepped forward, unsure why she was walking into a gate of light but knowing it was the right thing to do. She told herself, Remember something. It was wonderful, so remember something!
Sharon shook her head. For just a minute, she’d felt the weirdest sensation: a sort of painful tingling in her head between her eyes. Then it was gone.
She stood on the glassed-in back porch with Tara buttoned under her coat. What had she been about to do? Oh, yes―take Tara out for some air.
But that wouldn’t solve her main problem. What was she going to do with Tara while she was in school all day?
Inside Sharon’s coat, Tara started to struggle. The baby didn’t like being held so close. Sharon loosened her coat and lifted her out. She set the baby on the porch floor, then sat down on a broken lawn chair to think. If she balanced carefully, the lawn chair wouldn’t fall over. She’d been meaning to fix it, but she knew she wasn’t very good at fixing things. She wasn’t mechanical.
Mechanical. A sudden picture flashed in Sharon’s mind: a mechanical man with long tentacles holding Tara. Weird! Where had that come from?
Grit isn’t fearlessness, Sharon. It’s not giving up, even if you have to try twenty-eight different plans before one works.
What on earth was that? Sharon’s mouth made an O of pure astonishment. There’d been a voice in her head, a strange woman’s voice. Whose? In fact, where did this powerful feeling come from, that something wonderful had just happened? Something exciting and terrifying and utterly surprising, in which she had done utterly unexpected things? She clutched at it like she was scrambling to recall a dream that had blended nightmare with wonder with...unlikely pride in herself.
What was happening to her?
She waited, but the voice didn’t speak again. Instead, with the shrug of knowing that a dream had fled, Sharon found herself thinking about her problem more calmly and clearly than she had before.
I need money so that Mrs. Northrup will watch Tara.
I can’t earn it at the library.
I’m not good at mechanical things.
What am I good at? Schoolwork. Homework. Organization. Taking care of small kids.
I could tutor younger children and earn more money than I could at the library. I know the material, and all my teachers would give me references.
Slowly, Sharon got up from the lawn chair. She could do it. She could go down to the middle school and the elementary school and see if they had a tutoring program. If they didn’t, maybe her old teachers could suggest the names of kids who needed help.
She could do this. She was sure of it. Her plan would work.
And if it didn’t, she’d think of another.
Tara, tired of crawling on the porch floor, held up her arms. Sharon picked up the baby. She opened the porch door and carried Tara down the steps, starting toward the elementary and middle schools. As she walked, Sharon found herself humming.
“Yo, bro. You gone deaf and dumb?”
Jason looked up. Brian stood beside him in front of the magazine rack. Outside the grocery store, he could hear the traffic on Amsterdam Avenue, cabs honking and bus brakes hissing. “Hey, Brian. How you doin’?”
“How you doin’?” his brother retorted. “I come in here and find you standing like a zombie. You okay?”
“Sure,” Jason answered. Actually, he felt a little strange. Was he maybe coming down with a bug? But he didn’t exactly feel sick, either. A headache, yeah. A nasty one, but no worse than any of the other times that he had jumped through a—
Through a...what? Some explanation for the headache and dizziness lurked on the edge of his grasp, an explanation that was perfectly reasonable and spectacularly impossible and... That reason faded just as quickly as the headache. Gone. Pffft.
“Well, you gonna stand there all day, or we going home?”
“I’m right behind you,” Jason said.
The brothers fell into step as they walked north on Amsterdam. Brian checked out the babes. Jason felt preoccupied…by what? He didn’t know until suddenly he stopped dead. “I know that girl!”
“Yeah? Which one?” Brian said interestedly.
“Across the street! In green!”
A small girl in a green skirt and top flagged down a cab. Shining red braids hung over her shoulders.
“No, wait, it’s not her,” Jason said.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Brian peered at him. “You get whomped with the ball today, Jason?”
“No. No, I just thought... Forget it.”
The brothers walked on, Brian shooting small concerned glances at Jason. Finally Jason said, “Brian?”
“Yo.”
“You know them exams on Saturday? At school?”
“The PSATs? Yeah, what about ‘em?”
“I think I might take them after all. If I can still sign up. I been thinking I might...”
“Might what?”
“Might think about college in a few years. Maybe. If I don’t, like, make it in pro ball.”
Brian let out a long breath. “Good move, bro. You do it. You're smart enough.”
“I don’t work hard, though. Coach says I don’t work hard enough at anything.”
Brian said, “But you can.”
Jason considered. “Yeah, I can.” He considered some more. “Yeah. I really can.”
Jofrid blinked in the bright sunlight. What had she been doing? Oh, yes, bringing fresh water to the Hall, where visitors had just arrived. Men from the Allthing, they were, to see her father on some matter, and her mother had sent Jofrid for water. What ailed Jofrid, stopping on the way to daydream like this?
Bucket in hand, she hurried to the springhouse. The May afternoon was bright and warm at Langarfoss. Jofrid filled her bucket with sweet water and started back toward the homestead.
She heard a sound overhead and looked up. Four singing swans, a sign of good luck! Whatever the visitors had come for, it would bring good fortune to her father’s homestead. Jofrid watched the swans until she could no longer hear their song, and yet, it seemed she could.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Jofrid stopped so suddenly that a little water sloshed out of her bucket. How had that bit of a poem come into her head? She was no skald, and the poem sounded like no epic or lay or saga she had ever heard.
Mayhap she was going mad. Sometimes trolls, which could take any shape they chose, turned themselves into singing swans to drive a person crazy.
But there was no time to worry about it now. Her mother waited for this water to add to the stew bubbling on the hearth. They would have two more mouths for dinner.
Jofrid carried the bucket into the Hall, careful not to spill any more. From the High Seat, her father called to her, “Dottir, come here.”
Jofrid exchanged looks with her mother. It was unusual for her father to summon any woman to the High Seat, let alone his most willful and rebellious daughter. He disliked the idea that she might disgrace him by talking back and appearing too bold, yet he was summoning her in front of visitors!
“Yes, father?” Jofrid said as she approached the High Seat. She should keep her eyes cast down, of course, but she couldn’t help taking sideway peeps at the visitors.
Her father noticed and scowled at her. “This is my girl, Kettil. As I have told you, I wish I could say she is obedient and maidenly, but I cannot. She was handfast to Thorfinn Egilson, but he told me this very day that he wishes to break the handfast because of Jofrid’s sharp tongue. He says he does not want a wife who will talk back to him and dispute him. However, I can vow that while Jofrid may be outspoken, she is quick and skilled at all of the women’s arts. She can cook and spin and weave and nurse, and you know that there are times
when a man likes a strong woman at home when he forays far away.”
Two men stood with her father. The older, a richly dressed homesteader, inspected Jofrid as if she were a horse he might want to buy.
“A pretty girl, Sigurd. I have heard of her willfulness, but my Erik saw her at the market and spoke with her twice—in proper ways—at the Allthing last summer, and he insists on asking for her.”
Jofrid’s head flew up. Asking for her! That meant this man’s son wanted to marry her. Why? Who was he?
Her eyes met those of the young man standing beside his father. She didn’t remember ever speaking to him at the market or at the Allthing. Erik Kettilson stood a head taller than Jofrid. He was handsome, she thought, with curly dark hair. For just a moment, he reminded her of somebody, but she couldn’t think who. The moment passed. Maybe...maybe I do remember him after all.
Or else, perhaps that wisp of a daydream she had had about having adventures with gods who treated her as an equal had meant something! A premonition of this Erik's arrival.
The young man caught her staring at him, which of course she should not do! But he reacted by smiling at her before he turned to address her father.
“Sigurd Aronson, I like a woman who knows her own mind. Who will speak out frankly with me, that we may have conversation in my homestead. Who will work and plan beside me, that we may prosper together. I think Jofrid is such a woman. I ask you for her.”
Her father said, “Your father and I have discussed the dowry and come to an agreement. You have my permission to be handfast to Jofrid.”
Jofrid knew that no one would ask her permission, but if they had, she might have been inclined to give it. She liked what this Erik Kettilson said about working and planning side by side. And if he really liked a woman who spoke her own mind…