by Carol
Homa awoke when he felt Amanda stirring beside him. He opened his eyes, slowly rolled toward her. The sun was setting; her face was outlined in a pale glow. She was on her knees, buttoning her blouse hurriedly. He reached out, touched her elbow. She turned her head quickly to him.
“You’re leaving,” he said sleepily. “You wanted to be gone when I woke up.”
She looked at him, and he tried to see directly into her eyes, but they were lost in the shadows. “It hurts • so much less this way,” she said. Abruptly, she took his head in her hands and kissed him. Then she was running away from him, down the hill, toward the village.
Homa stood, watching her run down the hillside, occasionally losing sight of her against the brightness of the setting sun. He thought of running after her, and of returning to the creek and meditating, but neither seemed to make much sense. Finally, he stretched himself out on the cool grass and, once again, slept.
The car slowed; Homa was pressed back into the padded seat. “You are approaching Redwood Village,” a low female voice said from somewhere behind him. “Your living quarters have been prepared for you and are ready for occupancy. When the car comes to a complete stop, please enter the elevator. It will take you to the public square, where you will find the New Arrivals Office. A representative from New Arrivals will be waiting for you when you disembark from the elevator. You will be given your identification card, which operates the lock to your apartment door, and two hundred dollars spending money for the coming month. The representative will be able to answer whatever questions about Redwood Village you may have.”
The car stopped; two sets of doors slid open. Homa undid the restraining straps on his seat, stood, and stepped inside the elevator.
Everybody I meet, he thought, will be dead before the year is out. Til outlive every one of them.
The doors closed behind him and the elevator ascended.
He awakened to the sight of a sky peppered with stars. The moon was full, and it lit the hillside dimly.
He lay still for several minutes, staring at the sky, trying to determine the time by the position of the moon. He wondered if the patrol would come for him immediately after midnight, then gave up on the thought.
He found the food Amanda had brought him and ate slowly, silently, savoring its taste and texture. Then he walked slowly back to the village.
Nobody but Amanda knew that this was his last day; it was an unwritten law that no one made public the date of his or her own execution.
He strode through the brightly-lit streets of the village. On a street comer half a dozen people were smoking marijuana and drinking liquor, and singing loudly. Homa joined them, asked for some marijuana, was passed a joint. He toked on it idly for a few minutes, then passed back the roach and walked on. He was restless.
He walked through the shopping arcade, where all the stores were open all night. A thought struck him and he went into the hallucinogen dispensary.
The shopkeeper, a thin, short, balding man, looked up from a book he was reading when Homa walked in. "Can I help you, sir?” he said.
"Do you know what time it is?”
The man glanced at his wristwatch. "It’s just past eleven.”
"You work here,” Homa said. "You don’t live here. Where do you live?”
The man’s face registered surprise. "In Elyria, about twenty miles away.”
Homa said, "I never saw a retirement village in my life until I came here. You can’t reach them at all, or even see them, unless you live there or work there. What made you take a job here?”
"Sir,” the man said, polite but insistent, "this is a dispensary. I’m authorized to give out drugs for your personal enjoyment, not personal information. I’m not permitted to, even if I wanted to.”
“Have you ever heard of the year-gods?” Homa asked.
“No. Should I have? Is it a new movie?”
Homa turned and walked out the door. “No,” he said.
He and Amanda stood on the street corner near the shopping arcade, eating ice cream from plastic cups. They were stoned, and were talking and laughing wildly. She got mad at something he said and threw her ice cream at him. It struck him in the face, and they both stood there, giggling hysterically like small children.
They heard a commotion behind them, and they turned. A man was running past them frantically, shrieking. Four men dressed in dark green uniforms ran behind him. From around a corner three more patrolmen appeared, cutting the fleeing man off. He screamed again and stumbled, finally falling to his stomach on the red tiled floor, sobbing. “Please,” he mumbled through streaming tears as the patrolmen picked him up, held him. “Please, I made a mistake. I didn’t really want to come here; I'm only twenty-three years old. I didn’t know any better. It was all a mistake.” His words turned into a hysterical babble; the patrolmen dragged him away, down the tiled street.
Homa found Amanda hugging him, pressing her chest and thighs against him.
United States Government would like to thank you for making your important contribution for the care of the nation, and hopes your stay at Redwood Village will be a pleasant
He was reading a novel in his living room when the call came.
“David Homa?" the unfamiliar voice on the telephone said. “Long distance call from your parents.”
“From whom?” he heard himself ask, tossing the novel on the floor behind him.
“Your mother and father. Do you want us to connect the outside extension?’
“Wait a minute. I thought there was a rule about no outside influence. No visitors, no communications from the outside, no letters or packages in or out.” “There is one exceptional situation” the strange voice said. “Shall I complete the connection?’
Homa mumbled an affirmative.
“Dave? How are you, Dave?” It was his mothers voice.
He found himself empty of response; the absurdity of the situation was draining him of all thought.
“Just fine, Mom” he said.
“That’s good. Your father and I are both glad you’re happy.” If there was sarcasm in her voice, Homa could not detect it.
“How are you and Dad?’
His father’s voice answered him. “That’s what we’re calling about. We’re going in for retirement ourselves, next Tuesday.”
Homa felt a physical jolt; he sank down into a chair. His head reeled. “But why? You could have lived for a long time. Retirement wouldn’t have been mandatory for you for another ten years.”
“Five years” his mother said. “They lowered the age”
There was a pause. “Well” his father said, “we really are getting on in years. I’ve gotten tired of my work; we just haven’t got the energy we used to. Besides, it’ll be nice, to have our cooking and cleaning and everything done for us for a year. And I’m sure we’ll meet a lot of nice people.”
“Are you enjoying it, David?” his mother asked. “Don’t you think we’ll like it?”
“Oh, I like it a lot,” he said hastily. “I think you’ll enjoy it. I don’t know what the country’ll be like where you’re going, but around here it’s beautiful. And the people are nice. Of course, it’ll be different
for you; I mean, you’ll be living with people your own age, and with other married couples.”
There was another pause. Finally his father said, “That’s another part of it. Sarah and I are separating; we’re going to go to villages for singles, separate ones.”
Homo’s hand began to tremble. “Why?” he could not help but demand.
“We just thought it would be better, that’s all.”
“One of your friends called us the other day,” his mother said. “He asked us how you were.”
“Tell him I’m fine.” The trembling worsened. “Give him my regards.”
“We will.” Another pause. “David?’ his father said. “Yes?’
“Take care.”
“I will.”
His mother said, “Goodbye, David.�
��
“Goodbye, Mom. Goodbye, Dad.”
“Goodbye.”
He had wandered through the streets all night, waiting for the patrol. He did not return to his apartment, although the night was cold and he wanted its warmth and quiet; he knew the patrol was almost certainly waiting for him there.
His legs felt sore, and his head ached. As the sun rose above the hills outside the village, he found himself walking away from the buildings, toward the woods.
His awareness vanished then, and the next thing he was conscious of was drinking from the brook near the big pine tree. He drank well past the point where his thirst was quenched, then sat down cross-legged on his meditation mat and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again the sun was high in the sky. He felt refreshed, cleansed, aware. His arms and legs tingled. He stood and took in deep breaths of air.
He heard a rustling behind him. He turned and saw three men in dark green coming toward him. They wore dark visors over their heads and faces; only their jaws were visible. He stood still, watching them, until , two of them took his arms gently and led him back toward Redwood Village. He did not struggle. The third man walked silently behind.
“How much money do you earn doing this?" Homa asked mildly.
To his real surprise, the man behind him said politely, “Twenty-five thousand a year. Of course, you have to go through plenty of training and have the right kind of mental outlook. I mean, you can't take plea sure in what you do, and you can't let it get to you either."
Homa tried to stop and turn around to look at the man, but the pressure on his arms, though gentle, was insistent.
“You're allowed to talk, then?" Homa asked, stumbling over the words.
All three of the men uttered small chuckles, and the one on Homa's right said, “God, if we weren't, it'd get to be hell in no time. It's just that the villagers never talk to us”
They emerged into the clearing on top of the hill. The sun was hot and bright; the village in the valley below gleamed in the light.
“I feel like all my life I've been waiting for something," Homa said. “When I was young, I waited to grow up; when I was in school I waited for something to happen, and nothing did, so I dropped out. At my job I would wait for the working day to be over, and when I went home I waited for the next day to begin. I moved away from home and waited to be free, but I didn't feel any different, so I moved back in with my parents. I waited for something to change in me, and nothing did. Now here I am again, waiting for my own execution. It's like I've never really done anything, just walked around in circles with my hands in my pockets. I don’t even know what I was looking for all this time.”
"To get laid,” one of the men said, giggling. The other two patrolmen laughed politely.
They were approaching Redwood Village. A crowd of people were laughing and talking near the village’s entrance; when they saw Homa and the patrolmen approaching they quieted, stared at them for a moment, then tried to resume their conversation. A few of the people crept away silently. Homa deliberately looked away, hoping none of the people were those he knew.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked.
“Underground. You go by railcar to a place about a half mile outside of the village.”
They turned a comer; Homa caught a glimpse of a retreating form he thought was Amanda. He could not be sure, however, and he did not look back at her. He opened his mouth to shout her name, then stopped himself.
“How is it done?” he said.
‘They attach electrodes to your brain. Very simple, very quick. They gas you first in the train car to make you unconscious. You don’t feel anything.”
“How are the electrodes attached? By men, or by machine?”
“I don’t know,” said two of the patrolmen together.
They neared the elevator tube leading to the railroad, set in one comer of the public square. The man holding Homa’s left arm pressed his palm against a plastic panel, and the doors to the elevator opened. He led Homa inside; the other two men remained outside. The elevator doors closed and the car descended.
“How old are you?” Homa asked.
“I have fifteen years left,” the patrolman said.
“Does this place scare you?”
The elevator slowed, stopped. The doors opened into a small compartment with rounded walls and a single passenger seat. Automatically, Homa stepped inside and seated himself.
“It terrifies me.” The man lifted his visor. He had large features and huge brown eyes. He stared into Homa's face. “But I’d kill myself before I’d let them put me to sleep. But if I’m lucky, they’ll never get me; I’m working on a plan.”
“Good luck,” Homa said. The man grunted. The doors closed and the car began to move.
To Mark the Year on Azlaroc
by Fred Saberhagen
Fred Saberhagen has worked as an encyclopedia editor and in electronics, but for the past 14 years he has spent as much of his time as possible writing science fiction, and now he has no time for encyclopedias or electronics. He is best known for his famous “Berserker” series of science-fiction stories, which has been widely enjoyed and even more widely imitated.
They had been quarreling in the ship, and were still at it when they disembarked and left its sprawling metal complexities behind them. Ailanna snapped at Hagen: “So what if I misplaced your camera! What does it matter if you have one more picture of the stars? You can take a dozen when we depart.” And when it turned out that they had missed the ground transport machine that was taking the other passengers across the smooth undulations of the golden plain toward the city, Hagen was almost expecting her to physically attack him.
“Son of a nobody!” Ailanna hissed. “Where are we to stay if you have made no reservations?” A kilometer away was the only real city on the star, and
Hagen realized that to one coming to Azlaroc for the first time, the city must look quite small. On the surface there appeared only a few fairyland towers, and little evidence of the many chambers and passageways dug out beneath the plain.
“I haven’t made up my mind where to stay.” He turned away from her and began to walk after the transport machine.
She followed. “You can never make up your mind about anything.” It was an old, intermittent quarrel. If the reservations had been in perfect order, there would have been something else to quarrel about.
She nagged him for a hundred meters across the plain, and then the scenery began to come through to her. The enormous golden-yellow land was humped here and there by paraboloid hills and studded with balanced spheres of matter. The surface looked more like something man-made than like soil, and it stretched in places up to the low, yellowish, sunless sky, in asymptotic spires that broke off in radiant glory at an altitude of a few hundred meters, at the upper edge of the region of gravity inversion.
“What’s that?” Her voice was no longer angry. She was looking toward the top of a golden sphere which loomed over the distanceless horizon, at right angles to the way they were walking. The sphere reminded Hagen of a large planet rising, as seen from some close-in satellite, but this sphere was entirely beneath the low, peculiar sky.
“Only part of the topography.” He remained calm, as usual, taking her bickering in stride.
When they had gotten under-surface in the city, and arranged for lodgings, and were on their way to them through one of the smaller side passageways, Hagen saw some man or woman of a long-past year approaching through the passage from the other direction. Had there been three or four people of the present year or of recent years in the same part of the corridor just then, the passage of such an old one would have been almost unnoticeable. The old one did not appear as a plain solid human figure. Only a disturbance in the air and along the wall, a mound of shadows and moire patterns that throbbed with the beat of the pulsar somewhere beneath their feet. The disturbance occupied hardly any space in this year’s corridor, and Ailanna at first was not aware of it at all.
Hagen reached out a hand and took her by the upper arm and forced her, strong woman that she was, into three almost-dancing steps that left her facing in the proper way to see. “Look. One of the early settlers.”
With a small intake of breath Ailanna fixed her eyes on the figure. She watched it out of sight around a comer, then turned her elfin face to Hagen. Her eyes had been enlarged, and her naturally small chin further diminished, in accordance with the fashion dictates of the time, even as Hagen’s dark eyebrows had been grown into a ring of hair that crossed above his nose and went down by its sides to meld with his moustache. She said: “Perhaps one of the very first? An explorer?”