The People

by Зенна Гендерсон

  "The Home-" I burst into tears and all the rest of the time that the 'copter circled back and found a settling-down space on a flat already awash with two inches of water, Jemmy and I talked. Mostly I did the talking. We shifted out of verbalization and our thoughts speeded up until I had told Jemmy everything that had happened to me since that awful crashing day. It was telling of someone else-some other far, sad story of tragedy and graceless destitution-Outsider makeshifts. I had just finished when the 'copter door swung open and Jemmy stepped out to hover above the water that was sucking my sneakers off the slant of the boulder I was crouched on.

  "Oh, thanks be to The Power," I cried, grabbing for Jemmy's hands, but stubbing my own on my personal shield.

  "Oh take me out of this, Jemmy! Take me back to The People! I'm so sick of living like an Outsider! And Child Within doesn't want to be born on a dirt floor in a mine! Oh, Jemmy! How horrible to be an Outsider! You came just in time!" Tears of thankfulness wet my face as I tried to smile at him.

  "'Debbie!"

  Surely that couldn't be my name! That cold, hard, accusing word! That epithet-that­

  "Jemmy!" I collapsed my shield and reached for him. Unbelievably, he would not receive me. "Jemmy!" I cried, the rain wetting my lips. "What's the matter? What's wrong?"

  He floated back so I couldn't reach him. "Where are Glory and Seth?" he asked sternly.

  "Glory and Seth?" I had to think before I could remember them. They were another life ago. "Why back at the cabin, I guess." I was bewildered. "Why?"

  "You have no concern of them?" he asked. "You ask for rescue and forget them? What did The Home do to you? You're apparently not one of Us any more. If you've been infected with some sort of virus, we want no spreading of it."

  "You don't want me?" I was dazed. "You're going to leave me here! But-but you can't! You've got to take me!"

  "You're not drowning," he said coldly. "Go back to the cave. I have a couple of blankets in the 'copter I can spare. Be comfortable. I have other people who need rescue worse."

  "But, Jemmy! I don't understand. What's wrong? What have I done?" My heart

  was shattering and cutting me to pieces with its razor-sharp edges.

  He looked at me coldly and speculatively. "If you have to ask, it'd take too long to explain," he said. He turned away and took the blankets from the 'copter. He aimed them at the mine entrance and, hovering them, gave them a shove to carry them through into the mine.

  "There," he said, "curl up in your comfort. Don't get your feet wet."

  "Oh, Jemmy, don't leave me! Help me!" I was in a state of almost complete collapse, darkness roaring over me.

  "While you're curled up, all nice and safe," Jemmy's voice came back to me from the 'copter, "you might try thinking a little on 'Just who on Earth do you think you are!' And if you think you have the answer to that, try, 'I was hungry-'"

  I didn't hear him go. I sat hunched in my sodden misery, too far gone even to try to puzzle it all out. All my hopes had been built on when my People would find me. They'd set everything right. I would be freed from all my worry and hardships-and now-and now­

  A wave of discomfort that had been building up slowly for some time suddenly surged over me and my fingers whitened as I clutched the rock. How could I have mistaken that other pain for this? "Glory!" I whimpered. "It's Child Within!" Now I could remember Glory and Seth. I was back in the miserable half-life of waiting for my People. I scrambled to my feet and closed my shield, setting it to warmth to counteract the chill that stuck to my bones. "I can't face it alone! Anything, anything is better than being alone!"

  I streaked back along the hogback that had almost disappeared under the creeping muddy tide. The cabin was in a lake. The back door was ajar. The whole thing tilted slightly off true as though it were thinking of taking off into the roar of the incredible river that swept the creek bed from bank to bank. I staggered against the door as another hard surge of pain lightened my hands and wrung an involuntary cry from me.

  When it subsided, I wiped the sweat from my upper lip and pushed the door further open. I stepped into the magnified roaring of the rain on the roof. Blue light was flooding serenely from the baking powder can on the table in the empty kitchen. I snatched it up and ran to the bedroom.

  Seth lay white and unmoving on his bed, his eyes sunken, his chest still. I pressed the back of my clenched hand hard against my mouth, feeling the bruise of my teeth. "Oh, no!" I whispered, and gasped with relief as a quick shallow breath lifted the one thin quilt Glory had left him from the bundle of bedding.

  "You came back."

  My eyes flew to Glory. She sat on the other side of the bed, a shoe box in her lap, one hand clutching a corner of the battered old quilt.

  "You didn't come," I whispered. "I waited."

  "No need to whisper." Her voice was quite as usual except for a betraying catch on the last word. "He can't hear you."

  "But you must come!" I cried. "The house will go in a minute. The creek's already-"

  "Why should I come," she asked without emphasis. "He can't come."

  We both watched another of the shaken breaths come and go.

  "But you'll be washed away-" "So'll you if you don't git goin'." She turned her face away from me.

  "But Glory-" Her name came, but twisted-a muffled cry of pain. I clenched both hands on the doorjamb and clung until the pain subsided.

  "Child Within," said Glory-her eyes intent on me.

  "Yes," I gasped. "I guess so."

  Glory stood up and laid the shoe box on the corner of the sagging dresser. She leaned over and smoothed the covers under Seth's chin. "I'll be back," she told him. She waded through the ruffle of water that covered the floor ankle-deep and rounded the bed.

  "We better go," she said. "You'll have to point me the way. The trail's gone-"

  "You mean you'd leave him here alone!" I was stunned.

  "Your own husband!"

  She looked back at Seth and her lips tightened. "We all die alone, anyway," she said, "He'd tell me to go, if'n he could."

  Then I was still as I caught the passionate outpouring of her grief and love-her last, unspoken farewell to Seth. With an effort she turned her eyes back to me. "Our duty's to the living," she said. "And Child Within won't wait."

  "Oh, Glory!" Anguish of sorrow filled my chest till I could only gasp again. "Oh, Glory! We can't, we can't!" My throat ached and I blinked against tears of quite a different sort than those I'd been shedding since Thann died.

  I snatched the glowing nickel out of the baking powder can and shoved it into my pocket. "Tuck him in good," I said, nodding at Seth. "Bring whatever you need."

  Glory looked at me briefly, hope flaring in her eyes, then, with hasty shaken hands, she tucked the covers tight around Seth and, grabbing up her shoe box, she pushed it under the covers next to him. There was a grating grind and the whole shack swung a quarter circle around.

  "Can we get the bed through the doors?" I asked shrilly.

  "Not unless we take it apart," said Glory, the quietness of her voice steadying me, "and there isn't time."

  "Then-Then-"

  "The mattress will bend," she said. "If both of us-"

  With all my faith and power I withdrew into the Quiet within me. Help me now, I prayed. I can do nothing of myself. Strengthen me, guide me, help me­

  The last words came audibly as I clutched the foot of the bed, waiting until the wave subsided. Then, slowly, deliberately, quietly and unhurried, I lifted the mattress Seth lay on and bent its edges enough to get it out of the bedroom. I hovered it in the kitchen. Glory and I both staggered as the house swayed underfoot-swayed and steadied.

  "Have you something to put over him to keep the rain off?" I asked, "I can't extend my shield that far and lift that much at the same time."

  "Our slickers," said Glory, her eyes intent on me with that different took in them. "They'll help a little.'’ "Get them then," I said, "and you'll have to get on the mattress, too, to keep hi
m covered."

  "But can you-" Glory began.

  "I will," I said, holding my Quietness carefully in my mind. “ Hurry-the house is going.”

  Hastily, Glory snatched the two yellow slickers from the nails behind the front door. She scrambled into one and spread the other over Seth. "His head, too," I said, "or he'll nearly drown. You'd better cover your head, too. It'll be easier to take. Hurry! Hurry!"

  Glory gave one look at the hovering mattress and, setting her lips grimly, crawled on and lay beside Seth, one arm protectively across his chest. She'd hardly closed her eyes before I started the mattress out the door. The house began spinning at the same time. By the time we got outside, it had turned completely around and, as we left it, it toppled slowly into the creek and was lost in the tumult of the waters.

  It's no more than the windows and siding, I whispered to myself. In fact, it's less because there's no glass to break. But all my frantic reassurances didn't help much. There were still two olives hanging on my ability to do the inanimate lift and transport them: Doggedly I pushed on, hardly able to see beyond the cascade of rain that arched down my shield. Below me the waters were quieting because they were getting so deep that they no longer quarreled with the boulders and ridges. They smothered them to silence. Ahead and a little below me, rain ran from Glory and Seth's slickers, and the bed, other than where they lay, was a sodden mess.

  Finally I could see the entrance of the mine, a darker blot in the pervading grayness. "There it is, Glory!" I cried.

  "We're almost there. Just a little-" And the pain seized me. Gasping, I felt myself begin to fall. All my power was draining out thinly-my mind had only room for the all-enveloping anguish. I felt the soggy end of the mattress under one arm, and then two strong hands grabbed me and began to tug me onto the bed. "Try-" Glory's voice was almost too far away. "Help yourself! Onto the bed! Help yourself!"

  Deliberately I pushed all thought of pain aside. As though in slow. motion I felt myself lift slightly and slide onto the end of the bed. I lay half on half off and tried to catch my breath.

  "Debbie," Glory's voice came calmly and deliberately.

  "We're almost in the water. Can you lift us up a little?"

  Oh no, I thought. It's too much to ask! Let me rest.

  Then for no reason at all I heard Jemmy's voice again.

  "Where's Glory and Seth?" as though in some way I were responsible. 1 am! I cried to myself. I am responsible for them. 1 took their lives in my hands when we left the bedroom. Even before that! 1 made myself responsible for them when they took me in­

  With infinite effort I pushed myself into the background and reached out again to lay hold on The Power and, slowly, the bed rose from the lapping of the waters and, slowly, it started again toward the mine entrance and I held Glory's hand in such a bruising grasp you would have thought I was birthing something or someone out there in the pelting rain.

  The events of the next few minutes ran hurriedly and clear, but as far removed from me as though I were watching everything through the wrong end of binoculars. I settled the mattress near the glowing wheel. Glory was off in unflurried haste. She spread my bedclothes and got me undressed by the light of the nickel she had propped up on a ledge on the wall. I cried out when I felt the warmth of my tekla nightgown gliding over my head. I'd forgotten the clothes for Child Within! The muddy waters were tumbling all their softness and smallness now.

  Another pain came and when it subsided, Glory had brought a coffee pot from somewhere-one of those huge enameled camp pots-and had filled it from somewhere and put it on the wheel-stove to heat. The cases were gone from our pillows and they lay beside my bed torn into neat squares in a little heap, topped by a battered old jackknife with one sharp blade open. One of the thin blankets had been ripped in four.

  Glory's face appeared over me, rugged, comforting.

  "We're doin' fine," she said. "Me and Seth had a few things stashed here in the mine. Seth's breathing better. You got nothing to worry about now 'ceptin' Child Within. Nothing to worry about there neither 'ceptin' what you'll name him now that he won't be within any more." "Oh, Glory!" I whispered and turned my cheek to press against her hand.

  From there on, I was three people-one who cried out and gasped and struggled with the pain and against the pain and was bound up in the blindness of complete concentration on the task at hand, and an accusing one-one sitting in judgment. And the third me was standing before the bar of that judgment, defenseless and guilty.

  The indictment was read from the big Book.

  "I was hungry," came the accusation, "'and they fed me."

  "I ate their food," I admitted. "Unearned-"

  "I was naked and they clothed me-"

  "'Now we can have decent clothes,'" I heard myself saying again.

  "I was a stranger and they took me in-"

  "I condescended to let them care for me," I admitted.

  "I was in the prison of my grief and they visited me."

  "And I accepted their concern and care of me as an unquestioned right. I took and took and took and gave nothing-" Remorse was sharper than the pain that made the other cry out and struggle on the thin bedclothes.

  Think no more highly of yourself than you should. The voice had stopped. Now

  the words ran in ribbons of flames, wavering before my closed eyes, searing the tears dry.

  To whom much is given, much is expected. Who would be first must be last. Who would be greatest must be the servant of all.

  Whatsoever you do unto the least of these­

  Then suddenly the separation was over and the three of me coalesced in a quick blind rush and I listened blissfully to the lusty, outraged cry of My Child.

  "Oh, Thann!" I whispered as I slid into a cloud of comfort and relaxation. "Oh, Thann, he's here. Our child-our Thann-too."

  "You're mighty sure, aren't you?" Glory's voice was amused. "But you're right. He's a boy."

  I pushed sleep away from me a little to fret, "Let .me see my poor naked baby. All his little clothes-"

  "Not so naked," said Glory. "Here, hold him while I get things squared around." She laid the blanket-wrapped bundle beside me and I lifted up on one elbow to look down into the miracle of the face of my child. I brushed my forefinger across the dark featherdown of his damp hair and lost myself in the realization that here was Child Within. This was what had been Becoming, serenely untouched, within me during all the tumultuous things that had happened. I protested from my half sleep when Glory came back for my child.

  "Just going to dress him," said Glory. "You can have him back." .

  "Dress him?" I asked fuzzily.

  "Yes," said Glory, unwrapping the blanket. "I had that sugar-sack gown in my shoe box and them old pillowcases make pretty soft diapers. Not very wetproof though, I'm afraid."

  "A boy?" It was Seth's voice, shaken but clear-his first words since the cabin.

  "A boy!" Glory's voice was a hymn of thankfulness. "Want to see him?"

  "Sure. Us men gotta stick together!"

  I lay and smiled to keep from crying as I heard their murmuring over my child.

  "Dark like Davy," Glory finally said softly. "Well, better give him back, I guess." She laid him beside me.

  "Glory," I said, "the gown could have been for Davy's child. So you and Seth must be grandparents for my Thann-too."

  "I-" Glory bit her lips and smoothed his blanket with a trembling hand. "We-" She swallowed hard. "Sure. It's a pleasure."

  "Hey, Grandma," called Seth, hardly above a whisper. "I could do with some coffee!"

  "Okay, Grampa, keep your shirt on," said Glory. "One coffee coming up!"

  That night after Glory had got us all settled and the nickel light was tucked under a rusty tin can and sleep was flowing warmly around us all, I roused a little and leaned up on one elbow, instinctively curving myself around the precious bundle of my child. The wheel-stove glowed on, taking a little of the raw chill off the rocky room. Glory and Seth were sleeping on th
e other side of the wheel, their bedding augmented by one of the blankets Jemmy had left. When I told Glory where they were, but not where they came from, she got them and, looking at me over the folded bulk of them, opened her mouth, closed it again, and silently spread one blanket for me and one fur them. Now they were both asleep and I was awake listening to the "voice of many waters, praising-" and added my praise to theirs. Outside, the sky was clearing, but the murmuring lap of the waters reminded that the numberless creeks in the hills had not yet emptied themselves and the tide was rising higher.

  I turned over in my mind the odd duality of events of the night. I heard and saw again all the accusations, all the admonitions. They must have all been waiting for just such a chance when the Distorted Me wasn't watching, to break through and confront me with myself. I had known all the words before. Their pertinent wisdom had been familiar to The People before they ever arrived on

  Earth and it was one of the endearing things of Earth that we had there found such beautifully rhythmic paraphrases of them.

  As I had laid down the burden of Child Within only to assume the greater burden of Thann-too, so also must I lay down the burden of my spoiled-brat self and take up the greater burden of my responsibility as one of The People toward Glory and Seth and whatever the Power sent into my life. Jemmy had been right. I wasn't of The People. I had made myself more of an Outsider than an Outsider, even. Well, remorse is useless except insofar as it changes your way of doing things. And change I would-the Power being my helper.

  Then I closed my eyes and felt them begin to dampen a little, as I wondered wistfully how long it would be before Jemmy would come again. Thann-too stirred in the curve of my arm. I looked down into the shadow that held him. "But I do think Jemmy was unnecessarily hard on Child Within!" I whispered as I gathered the warm little life closer.

  "I do, too," came a voice-subvocally.

  Startled, I glanced up. There were two of them standing in the cave entrance.