“I’d love some, thank you. You just stay where you are, I’ll get it for both of us.”
“Thanks.”
From a small heating kettle on the nearby window sill, Lashi poured two cups of hot water, then dropped a bag into each of the cups to allow the tea to steep. She put a little sugar in each of them, then took one of the cups to Zorlok. Sitting down across from him, she drew her long legs up into the chair, and cupped the tea in both hands.
“Are you all right?” Zorlok asked, looking up at her.
“I’m fine,” Lashi replied, pensively. She chortled. “Well, as fine as can be expected, under the circumstances.”
“Yes, I guess that’s all any of us can hope for.”
“Professor Cyr, how do you think people are going to react? Will there be wide spread depression? Panic in the streets?”
“Oh, I’m sure there will be. Just as I’m sure there will be courage and calm.”
“Are you frightened?”
Zorlok shook his head slowly. “No, I wouldn’t say that I’m frightened. Fear has more to do with the unknown than anything else. And what’s going to happen is going to happen, so there is nothing to be frightened about. But I do admit to being depressed, and frustrated. There are so many things I wanted to do, and now I –” Zorlok let the sentence hang. “But what about you? What do you regret most?”
“I regret that I’ll never have children,” Vilna answered. A tear slid down her cheek and she reached up to wipe it away with a finger. “I always said there would be plenty of time for that later. Now, I learn that there is no later.”
“Perhaps it’s for the best that you won’t have a child,” Zorlok said. “Would we really want our children facing this?”
Despite the tears, Vilna’s face broke into an unexpected smile. “Our children, Zorlok?”
“Yes, well, not yours and mine, exactly,” Zorlok stuttered, red-faced. “It was just an expression.”
“An expression, yes.” Vilna’s smile remained. “I remember you and your expressions from when I was your student. Sometimes I would catch you looking at me, and I particularly recall the expressions on your face then.”
Zorlok cleared his throat. “I – I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”
“Embarrassed me? Not at all. I was flattered by your attention. Then, when I came to work here I thought – perhaps. But it wasn’t to be. Oh, our relationship has been cordial, friendly, even. And from time to time I have caught you looking at me the way you did when I was your student. Still, nothing has ever developed between us. Why is that, Zorlok? I was attracted to you, and I know you were attracted to me. Why was there never any romance for us?”
“As you said, you are working here. It would be as inappropriate for me now, as it would have been then.”
“Why? We are both adults.”
“Because – ” Zorlok started, then he stopped in mid-sentence. “Because I was an idiot,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Just as I am an idiot for grading papers for students who are no longer interested in the outcome. Well, there’s not enough time left for idiocy.” He dropped the papers, graded and ungraded, into the waste basket, then brushed his hands together. “Oh, that felt good,” he said.
Vilna laughed, a bubbling-brook kind of laugh.
“It sounds good to hear you laugh, Vilna,” Zorlok said. “It sounds good to hear anyone laugh now, but especially to hear you laugh. Listen, have you had your dinner? Why don’t we walk down to the Food and Mood?”
Vilna uncurled from her chair, then reached across the desk to take Zorlok’s hand in hers. “I thought you would never ask,” she said in a throaty voice.
As they walked down the street toward the Food and Mood Restaurant, an open-topped land-transporter whizzed by much faster that the speed allowance. The transporter was filled with young men and women and they were screaming and laughing as the vehicle roared by. One of them casually tossed a bottle over his shoulder and it broke on the pavement behind them, the shattered pieces glistening in the reflected blue of the tail lights.
“Those crazy kids are going to get killed, overriding the limits to make the transporter go that fast,” Vilna said.
“Yes, but the threat of death is no longer a limiting factor.”
“I know,” Vilna agreed. “I’ve seen the reports on the image screen news. People are being killed while doing such things as para-jumping, not only from sky-vessels, but from the tops of tall buildings and off bridges. They are also having accidents by participating in dozens of other hazardous activities.”
“Those are the people who have already given up on life,” Zorlok said. “If you ask them what they are doing, they will tell you that they want to go out on their own terms.”
“I’ve heard that there has been a sharp increase in suicide as well.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. And I’m sure that the rate is going to go up, especially among those who have dropped out of society, left school, quit work, and in some cases, even abandoned their families. But I believe they will always represent only a small minority. I believe most of us will just go on as if nothing is going to happen.”
“Why is that, do you suppose?” Vilna asked. “I mean, how can anyone just continue to go to work, as if everything is the way it always was?”
“It is a way of coping with it, I suppose,” Zorlok explained. “And a very good way, I think. Take you, for example. You haven’t missed any days of work since all this began, have you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My work is my comfort zone,” Vilna replied. “I need it, and I need the associations it provides to keep myself from completely falling apart.”
“As I said, it’s a way of coping. The restaurant we are going to, for example. It isn’t easy working in a restaurant, yet Gnonloma tells me that only two of his employees have left.”
They had reached the Food and Mood by then and the restaurant owner, a man named Beati Gnonloma, met them at the front door.
“Professor, how good it is to see you,” he said. He smiled at Vilna. “And you, as well. And it is especially good to see the two of you together.”
“Good evening, Gnonloma,” Zorlok replied. “You look busy. Can you find a place for us?”
“For you? Always. Come, I have a wonderful table for two.”
Zorlok and Vilna followed Gnonloma through the dining room. It was crowded with customers who were eating, drinking, laughing, and talking almost as if they were on a holiday. The restaurant, inside and out, was festooned with Observance decorations; multi-colored lights, silver and gold balls, evergreen boughs, ribbons of orange and black, and large cut-outs of lightning bolts. A papier-mâché mannequin of the Gift Giver, an elf with red cheeks and a long stringy beard, sat astride one of the thunderbolts. Children believed that the Gift Giver delivered toys on Observance Eve, and a flash of lightning was the only means fast enough to allow the orange and black clad pixie to visit all the children’s houses during Observance.
“I see you are starting the holiday season a little earlier this year,” Zorlok said.
“Yes. Well, it is going to be our last one,” Gnonloma said, “so we may as well get as much from it as we can.” It wasn’t a sad statement, nor even a bitter statement. It was merely a statement of fact.
“I can’t get over how many customers you have,” Vilna said.
“That’s true, and every night is better than the night before,” Gnonloma replied. “I am doing so much business that I have no doubt but that I will die a rich man,” he added with a laugh. “Oh, I haven’t invited the two of you, have I?”
“Invited us to what?” Zorlok asked.
“To the Terminal Event party. I am going to set up a buffet on TE day. I’m holding nothing back. All the food and drink I have left will be prepared and put out for my guests. We’ll watch the approach of the Plym Stel on the giant Image Screen.” He laughed. “Maybe we can’t stop it,” he said, “But by Omo, we’ll go out wi
th a bang.”
“A party?” Vilna asked in surprise. “Do you really expect anyone to show up for an ‘end of the world’ party?”
“Yes, I do,” Gnonloma answered.
“But the idea of a party on the last day, it just seems so – so inappropriate,” Vilna said.
“On the contrary, my dear,” Gnonloma replied. “I’m sure you know that many of my regular customers eat here because they have no family with whom to share their meals. To a degree, we have become family for each other. And where better to be than with your family when the end comes?”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Vilna said. “But what you say makes sense.”
“Won’t you consider coming?”
“I’ll do more than consider it. I’ll be here, Gnonloma,” Zorlok said. He looked at Vilna. “Vilna, I would be honored if you would come with me.”
Vilna reached out to take Zorlok’s hand in her own. “Yes, I’ll come with you.”
“And so now, two more people will be less alone. Come you must let me fix you something special to celebrate.”
18
Flag Officer Balik’s wife had gone to Croce to spend Observance Day with the Baliks’ son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren. She wanted Balik to go with her, to spend the last Observance Day as it should be spent, with family, but Balik begged out of it, citing his duties in Biskandal.
He didn’t really have to stay in Biskandal. First Director Lemil had offered him leave, but the truth was Balik didn’t want to go. He was certain the visit would deteriorate into weeping and wailing and he had no wish to go through that.
Sitting alone in a darkened room of his house, Balik nursed a drink and listened to the audio receiver. The music was almost all canticles. He had always liked Observance canticles. Some, especially those sung by the large choirs, could be particularly soul-stirring, and never more so than now on this, the last High Holy Observance the world would ever know.
The music broadcast was interspersed with listeners who were calling in to share their memories of Observances past. Most of the stories were poignant, many speaking of an Observance when they were too poor to buy gifts but despite that, or perhaps because of it, were able to discover the true meaning of the High Holy holiday.
As Balik sat there in the dark listening to the music and stories, he recalled a memorable Observance of his own. It happened during the Great War.
The war was begun by Kambye when a crazed genius named Bawalombawa, an exceptionally charismatic man whose oratory could stir the masses, declared himself to be leader for life. He began a campaign to dominate the world, and turned an eye toward the rich prize of Korsra. That drew Amalon into the war, putting them on the side of the Korsrans, an alliance that, though uneasy, was unbeatable.
Though all three countries had nuclear capability when the war began, Kambye was the first country to actually use the weapon, dropping four high-yield atomic bombs on Korsra. The bombs were well targeted so that Korsra’s ability to respond in kind was severely diminished.
Bawalombawa knew that Amalon possessed nuclear weapons, but mistakenly believed that they had no way of bringing them to bear in the conflict that was raging in Gondwanaland. In fact, Amalon had secretly developed an intercontinental missile delivery system and this ability finally tipped the scales in favor of the Amalon-Korsran alliance.
Until the introduction of nuclear weapons in the last year of the war, it had been one of attrition, fought for four long years in the trenches of northern Gondwanaland.
It was in one of those trenches that Balik, then a young ground officer, experienced the High Holy Observance that would become his most memorable.
Exiting the bunker that Observance night, he had taken his position on the fire step, a plank set into the side of the trench high enough to provide a firing platform, and looked out across no-man’s land, the quarter mile between the Amalon trench, and the forward trench of the Kambyese. The area between the two trenches was filled with barriers of barbed wire and pocked with holes and craters torn from the bowels of the earth by heavy mortars. Out there, too, were grotesquely decaying and putrefying lumps, for no-man’s-land was littered with thousands of warriors’ bodies, friend and foe alike, forever joined now in the communion of their grisly death.
Some of the bodies had been buried only to be unearthed again by the constant bombardments, but most had never been buried at all, and the frequent attempts to do so had brought on additional deaths. Balik watched as long fingers of mist crept up from the shell craters and depressions, then drifted across no-man’s-land in ghostly tendrils. It was as if the souls of the battlefield dead were trying to escape the hell of their own creation.
Then, in the midst of that hell, he heard someone singing from the trenches on the other side. It was an Observance canticle.
On Observance Day
We all rejoice
For those we pray
Whose spirit hath voice
The holy of all holies
That lone voice was joined by another, then another, and another still, until an entire choir of Kambyese voices were lifted in song.
Balik began singing with them, soon joined by other warriors on his side of the line until perhaps a thousand or more voices were singing the same song. Warriors started crawling out of the trenches then, a few at a time, then dozens, then hundreds, and they moved toward each other until they met in the middle. There, they shook hands; exchanged small gifts and wished each other a joyous Observance. Finally, as dawn arrived, the men returned to their own trenches.
Shortly thereafter the war resumed, and with the renewed fighting, some of the men who had shared the holy day were killed by the same ones who had greeted them in fellowship during the night before. But, for that one shining moment, Balik had seen the true spirit of Observance.
Balik was a warrior and therefore not a particularly religious man. But one of the manifestations of the Terminal Event watch was an almost universal revival of faith. The worship centers of all the faiths were filled to overflowing, not just because it was High Holy Observance, but also because so many were trying to come to terms with the harsh truth that they faced.
On this night, Balik, who had not been to a worship service in almost two years, found himself on his knees in the dark.
“Omo, God of all, I come meekly before you with a confession of failing in thought and deed. I have not given the honor and glory due you, for my faith has been weak. Now, as the entire world faces extinction, I ask only that you give me the strength to meet my fate in a way that will bring comfort to those for whom my position in life makes me responsible. And if it be your will to accept me into the eternal assembly, I ask that it be done. In humble obedience to Omo.”
Zorlok Cyr had a brother somewhere, but his brother was married with three children and had his own family to deal with. Vilna’s parents had been killed in an air vessel crash four years earlier, so she had no one. It was only natural then that the two of them would spend Observance together. They had a fine dinner at the Food and Mood, and afterward, returned to Zorlok’s apartment to share a bottle of wine and exchange gifts.
The gifts they exchanged were much more valuable than they would have been under normal circumstances. Zorlok bought Vilna a diamond necklace; she bought him an image-generator that could recreate any barrage ball game played for the last twenty years.
“Look through the music disks,” Zorlok said as he started a fire in the fireplace. “Pick out anything you like.”
“Zorlok, do you mind if it isn’t Observance canticles?” Vilna asked as she began looking through the disks.
“I don’t mind at all. I like canticles, but if you want to know the truth, I’m about canticled out.”
Zorlok worked the cork out of the wine bottle, just as the first song began:
Perfume from a fragrant bloom
A breeze drifts through a darkened room
Stels in the sky above
A perfect n
ight to fall in love
“Oh, good choice,” Zorlok said. “That’s one of my favorites.”
“Really? I’ve always liked it too.”
Zorlok poured them each a glass of wine, then they sat together on the sofa. Through the window they could see the stel-strewn sky.
“Look at them, Zorlok. They are all so beautiful,” Vilna said. “To think that one of those little dots of light is a death-stel.”
Zorlok shook his head. “Not one of those dots of light. They say you can’t see it with the naked eye, yet.”
They were quiet for a moment, then Vilna leaned her head on Zorlok’s shoulder. Turning toward her, he put his finger under her chin, lifted it, then kissed her. The kiss started gently enough, but it quickly deepened as she opened her lips against his. Finally, they separated.
“It isn’t fair,” she said.
“Fair never was part of the bargain of life.”
“We have such a short time remaining.”
“Among the ancient ones, there was a saying,” Zorlok said. “They said there is no difference between the soul of a tree that lives a thousand years and that of a flower that blooms and dies in a single day. They figure the flower gets as much out of life as the tree. We can be like that flower, Vilna. True, time is about to run out on us. But we can get as much out of the time we have remaining, as most get from years of togetherness.”
Vilna smiled. “Actually, I’ve had more time than you think,” she said. “Zorlok, don’t you realize that I fell in love with you the first day I ever walked into your classroom?”
“Yes but – ” Zorlok began, only to be interrupted by Vilna, who put her finger on his lips.
“No,” she said. “Don’t speak, Zorlok. We’ve said all the words that need to be said. We have other ways to communicate now.”
Zorlok stood and held his hand down to her. Rising from the sofa, she followed him into his bedroom.
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