by Sharon Webb
The dorm mother looked anxiously around and began to count noses one more time when he walked up. "Silvio!" Relief spread over her face, and then the edge of anger. "Where have you been?"
His lips crept into an innocent smile. "Bathroom," he said, gauging her reaction. "And then I fed the squirrels. I had some crackers." He stretched out his arms and hugged her waist, pressing his face against her body. He looked up at her and smiled angelically. "Did you miss me?"
The anger faded from her face and slowly a grin took its place. She ran her fingers through his dark hair, "You scamp. You had me worried." She gave a little slap to the seat of his pants. "Now go over there and get in line."
He smiled brightly up at her again; then, humming softly to himself, he joined the other children.
* * *
When the terrible retching stopped, Sean gasped for air. "Can't… can't climb up there… too much smoke."
Jorge's voice broke, "We're going to die." It ended in a fit of coughing as the suffocating blanket of smoke pinned them closer to the floor.
"Shoe… take it off… throw your shoe… Got to break the window." His stomach twisted again, and he began to gag. Dizzy, only half-conscious now, he heard Jorge scramble in response. The last thing he heard was a thud as the thrown shoe struck futilely against the wall.
* * *
Kurt Kraus buried his hands in Lauren's soft hair. His excitement was pain to him as he pressed his body against hers, bent his head toward hers again in another fingering kiss.
They lay on the ground under the screening mass of the giant mulberry bush. His hands moved, caressing her, when suddenly she pulled away. Blindly, he reached for her.
"Kurt, no! Look."
Only half-aware, he followed her gaze through the low-hanging branches. A column of smoke surged from a building across the wide field.
Lauren scrambled into a sitting position. "It's a class building."
He shook his head, staring, feeling his passion ebb to emptiness. As they watched, people ran toward the building. In the distance he heard the clang of a fire unit.
By the time they were halfway across the field, the fire unit skidded to a stop and spilled its crew, like ants, onto the ground. A hose snaked into the building on human legs.
Short of breath, Lauren grasped his arm, pulling him to a slower pace. "There's nothing we can do now."
He stared at the building for a moment and then looked down at her. "Thank God," he said. "Thank God it's Saturday and no one's in there."
* * *
Lauren still clutched at Kurt's arm as they watched at the edge of the crowd that had gathered. The wail of a siren grew. "Who is it?" she asked again. "Does anybody know?"
“Two of them," said a girl. “Two lads."
He couldn't see over the crowd. He felt vaguely ashamed of his curiosity and fell back as the ambulance pulled up, siren whining to a stop. He felt ashamed, and yet something held him there at the edge of the mass of people and made him watch.
"Stand back… out of the way." The crowd rippled apart as the ambulance attendants scurried in with its kits and stretchers. Behind them, bright flames squelched by streams of chemicals turned to spewing, fetid smoke.
The first stretcher deposited its burden in the ambulance-a dirty dark-skinned boy. Then the next. The last of the dying sun glinted on the coppery hair of a limp figure on the stretcher.
Kurt stared at the still form for a frozen, time-stopping second. The stretcher slid into place, doors clanged shut, and the vehicle sped away in a cloud of dust, but still he stared, not moving, not able to move.
He barely felt Lauren's hand on his, tugging; barely heard her say, "Kurt?" He barely heard his own voice, strangely altered, whisper, "Sean… he looked like Sean."
Chapter 2
Kurt jumped to his feet as the side door to the Trauma Care Unit of the compound hospital opened and a nurse stepped out. At a distance, Kurt followed him down the hall to a small nurses' lounge. He hung at the door watching the man as he extracted a cup of coffee from the bubbler.
"I want to know about Sean. Sean McNabb."
The man turned startled eyes toward him. "You're not supposed to be in here."
"I don't care about that. I want to know about Sean." He stepped inside, leaning against the door as sudden fatigue stole his strength. "I want to know. I've been waiting… I've waited a long time and I'm not going to wait anymore."
The man stared at him for a moment. "While you're not waiting, you'd better sit down. You've got the wobbles." He waved in the direction of a small couch. "Sit down." A sympathetic smile quirked the man's lips. "This room's not big enough to have you stretched out on the floor."
Kurt sat down. "How is he?"
The nurse pulled out another cup, filled it and handed it to Kurt. "Not good, but we think he's going to stay around."
The cup shimmied in Kurt's hand as if it had a life of its own. He set it unsteadily on the shabby table in front of him. "And the other boy?" He studied the man's face. Lines of strain traced it and deepened as he sank into a chair next to the little couch. "The other boy," he said again. "What about him?"
The nurse stared at the cup he held for a moment before he said, "He, uh, moved away about two hours ago."
"Dead? He's dead?"
A slight nod affirmed it.
The obscenity tore from him before he could give it thought, the words twisting his lips like an echo from the twisting sickness he felt inside.
The nurse gave him a level gaze. "Rip off again, if you want," he said kindly, "if it helps."
"Does Sean know?"
"Not yet. He’ll have to play that hand soon enough. But kids… kids deal better than adults sometimes."
"I want to know what happened. I want to know all of it." He had to know all of it; had to know why this had happened, why anyone would do such a thing. "The door was locked; I know that. What else?"
The man stared at him, "I shouldn't be telling you any of this." He took a swallow of coffee, then he said, "The other boy, Jorge, tried to break a window. He was barefoot. He climbed through the smoke. Got up on a table and smashed the window with a shoe. The updraft got him. He inhaled a lot of smoke and his lungs were seared. We tried an implant, but it was too late. He died in surgery. When he smashed that window, it killed him-but it saved the other boy's life. The updraft sucked fresh air under the door-a sort of chimney effect. They had to chop a hole in the door to get them out. The McNabb boy was blocking it."
Kurt shook his head and slumped back onto the couch. "Why? Who did it? Did he say? Did Sean tell you?"
"He's not saying anything right now. He's trached. He's on a respirator." The man stood up and tossed the cup into the recycle chute. "Time's up for me; I have to go back now."
Kurt was on his feet, "I want to see him. Let me go with you."
"No. No visitors until Dr. Olivo says so. He's sleeping now anyway." The man grasped Kurt's shoulder, squeezed once, then gently, but firmly, stee
red him toward the door. "It's nearly three. Go get some sleep before the sun comes up. There's nothing you can do here anyway."
Kurt let himself be guided down the hallway.
Outside, the night air felt clammy against his skin; the tang of the bay was in it, the dampness. He walked in the darkness toward his dorm, on unsteady legs, remembering another night over five years ago when a fifteen-year-old boy had learned first-hand what hate could do.
In the years since, his life had been a routine of school and dormitory life-often boring, often deadly in its sameness, but safe. Safe, while outside his fenced boundaries the world swung in diminishing arcs toward a precarious balance.
Now, unbelievably, it was starting again. Someone, sick to the core, had waited, watched, until he could trap two nine-year-old immortal boys in a flaming room.
"You wanted to take them with you, didn't you?" he said aloud to the black shadows that clotted the streets. "You knew you were going to die, and you wanted company."
He felt his rage sicken him, and with it came a creeping fear and a memory of an old pain-a length of chain winding around his ribs, snapping them, crushing out his breath. With what was left of it, he whispered, "Well, he didn't die. He's going to live."
…going to live and watch you die…
* * *
He followed dimly lighted streets toward College Sector, passing the tech-school buildings that squatted near the old air strips, passing the tech dorms with their dark windows, passing the theater. He came at last to the area defined as MacDill College.
He felt an aching fatigue, and yet sleep lay as far away as sunrise. Inside his dorm building, he went down a dim hall, turning once, then once more, to his room.
This night, as on many nights before, he was glad he shared the room with no one. It was one of two privileges he held, privileges he shared with the other members of M.Y.G.A. He had been on the Discipline Committee of MacDill Youth Government for two years now-and for two years he had enjoyed a treasured privacy.
He flicked on the light to a Spartan room-narrow bed against one wall, desk and dresser against the other. The only decorations that relieved the stark walls were a bright poster of L-5 Habitat and his oboe, hanging from a gold-tasseled rope above his desk.
Next to his reader, slim-cased discs marched across the scarred desk in military rows by subject-prescribed texts for his score range-each one embossed with the WorldCo symbol: a globe held in a curved, protecting hand. World History and Governmental Concepts stood next to Psychology: An Overview; Calculus, next to Biological Patterning; The Arts For All tilted against World Literature; World Communication Through Language touched the last-One Tongue, Volume 2. Next to these, spaced by a clear cube embedded with a musical note, his own discs began-a catholic collection of natural history, astronomy, biography, science fiction, and music.
A pile of flexi-sheets and a package lay in scattered confusion on the otherwise neat desk. His mail. Lauren must have left it there for him. He scooped it up absently and, flicking on the small lamp next to his bed, settled down to look through it. He laid aside the notice of a M.Y.G.A. meeting and smiled faintly at the package addressed in his grandmother's tilting hand. Cookies again. It was always cookies, crumbly, flavored with ginger and brown sugar. But this night, although he was empty, he had no appetite for them.
There was a short note from Eric inviting him to his recital next Friday: "…don't forget. Sign up for your pass now- while you're thinking about it…" A pass whenever he wanted it-the other privilege of M.Y.G.A.
He held the note without really seeing it. On his last pass home, he had brought Sean with him. Eric would want to know. He'd have to call him in the morning. Finally he laid the note down next to the package of cookies and examined the last of his mail.
At the bottom of the stack was a flexi with the WorldCo emblem across it, just above his name. He snapped it open:
KURT J. KRAUS-41738890
World Coalition summons you to Conclave 3000.…
He stared at the sheet. What did it mean? He searched the summons for an explanation and found none-only directions that he appear at twelve hundred hours at MacDill Operations for transport orders. He was to bring clothing for two days.
He had to be at MacOps in less than eight hours, and he had no idea why.
He undressed and, lying in the darkness, tried to coax sleep into his brain, but too many questions, too many emotions, roiled there. Finally he snapped on the light, crossed to his desk, and opened the reader. He might as well study. Might as well… No sense in staring at nothing all night.
He pulled out the Arts for All disc and slid it into the reader. Crawling back into bed with it, he stuck the little speaker in his ear and opened the book. He flicked it on scan, stopping at the section on music.
Another, slower scan and then the text appeared on the Thai composer Sucharitkul. He read for a time, listening to the illustrative excerpts from the early works. Then he came to the section on the later works-the muscular yet haunting music, the music that spoke of magic, and grieving at its loss, created it anew.
Rebirth began to play, and Kurt's eyes blurring with something more than fatigue, abandoned the text and closed. As he listened to the opening oboe passages, he remembered when he had played those notes; remembered that day with a clarity so crystalline that he could see the light and shadow play again on the auditorium walls; see the sunlight dance on the white hair of Mr. Hernandez as he conducted.
That was the beginning, he thought. The day it all began, the first day into forever. It seemed so long ago now, that first day… and there would be no last.
As the music played, he fell asleep. The reader, slipping from his hands, clicked shut, turned off. And the light from the single lamp burned on, reflecting from the desk, the walls, onto his oboe hanging from its brave gold rope.
The oboe hung at an angle on the wall. Its reed was split, its slim black body coated with a graying layer of dust.
* * *
After less than five hours of troubled sleep, Kurt got up, showered, and packed a few things in a small gray canvas pack.
He made his way to the commons room and pecked out a number on the comset.
A woman's face appeared on the screen. "Compound Hospital."
"Sean McNabb," he said, "how is he?"
"One moment." She bent over the in-house set, fingers touching one button, then another. "Condition serious."
"Can I see him?"
She glanced at the screen again, then said, "No visitors authorized except parents."
As he said, "Thank you," she clicked off. He placed a call to Eric; and when no one answered, he left a message.
He wanted to find Lauren and say goodbye, but as he headed for the door, he remembered that she was gone for the day-a field trip. To one of the bay islands, wasn't it? Bi
ology.
His fingers moved again, storing his short goodbye for her, ending with the words "…miss you. Back soon with news about the mystery trip."
When he arrived at MacOps, there was only one other person waiting there-a girl. He vaguely remembered seeing her around, but didn't know her name.
She stuck out a slim black hand, "I guess we ought to introduce ourselves. I'm Hallie. Hallie Washington. It looks as if we're the only ones going."
He took her hand, shook it, and searched her face. "I'm Kurt," he said. "And where… Where are we going?"
Her lips tilted in a rueful grin, and she shrugged. "I was hoping you could tell me."
Chapter 3
"I just think it's going too far," said the kindergarten teacher. "They're hardly more than babies."
"Babies, they're not," said the other woman. "There are some surprisingly adult thought processes going on in those little heads. Remember Kurtin and Clift’s study about children's fantasies?"
She quirked a smile, "Would any teacher admit she'd forgotten a standard text? But still… I just don't think it's necessary."
"It probably wasn't in our day, but these children…" She looked around at the group of youngsters playing on the swings and slides while another group squealed with anticipation as they dodged a large programmed ball. "These kids are different, Margaret. Anyway, when the stuporvisors and obstinatricians send down orders, there's nothing we can do about it."
Margaret shifted on the bench toward a shadier spot. "I know… I know all about that theory." She parroted the text, " '…In order for the immortal child to have respect for life, the child must be exposed to the realities of death…’ Well, I just don't like it." She glanced across the playground toward the blackened wall of the kindergarten building and shuddered. "It's ghoulish."