Ingathering

by Zenna Henderson

  “It means ‘daddy,’ ” said the man. “She is quite excited about being called daddy.”

  Meris swallowed her surprise. “Then you do have English,” she said.

  “A little,” said the man. “As you give it to me. Oh, I am Johannan.” He sagged then, and said something un-English to Lala. She protested, but even protesting, lifted herself out of his arms and back to the bunk, after planting a last smacking kiss on his right ear. The man wiped the kiss away and held his drooping head between his hands.

  “I don’t wonder,” said Meris, going to the medicine shelf. “Aspirin for your headache.” She shook two tablets into his hand and gave him a glass of water. He looked bewilderedly from one hand to the other.

  “Oh, dear,” said Meris. “Oh, well, I can use one myself,” and she took an aspirin and a glass of water and showed him how to dispose of them. The man smiled and gulped the tablets down. He let Meris take the glass, slid flat on the cot, and was breathing asleep before Meris could put the glass in the sink.

  “Well!” she said to Lala and stood her, curly-toed, on the cold floor and straightened the bedclothes. “Imagine a grown-up not knowing what to do with an aspirin! And now,” she plumped Lala into the freshly made bed, “now, my Daddy-girl, shall we try that instant sleep bit?”

  The next afternoon, Meris and Lala lounged in the thin warm sunshine near the creek with Johannan. In the piny, water-loud clearing, empty of unnecessary conversation, Johannan drowsed and Lala alternately bandaged her doll and unbandaged it until all the stickum was off the tape. Meris watched her with that sharp awareness that comes so often before an unwished—for parting from one you love. Then, with an almost audible dick, afternoon became evening and the shadows were suddenly long. Mark came out of the cabin, stretching his desk—kinked self widely, then walking his own long shadow down to the creek bank.

  “Almost through,” he said to Meris as he folded himself to the ground beside her. “By the end of the week, barring fire, flood, and the cussedness of man, I’ll be able to send it off.”

  “I’m so glad,” said Meris, her happiness welling strongly up inside her. “I was afraid my foolishness—”

  “The foolishness is all past now,” said Mark. “It is remembered against us no more.”

  Johannan had sat up at Mark’s approach. He smiled now and said carefully, “I’m glad my child and I haven’t interrupted your work too much. It would be a shame if our coming messed up things for you.”

  “You have a surprising command of the vernacular if English is not your native tongue,” said Mark, his interest in Johannan suddenly sharpening.

  “We have a knack for languages,” smiled Johannan, not really answering anything.

  “How on earth did you come to lose Lala?” Meris asked, amazed at herself for asking such a direct question.

  Johannan’s face sobered. “That was quite a deal—losing a child in a thunderstorm over a quarter of a continent.” He touched Lala’s cheek softly with his finger as she patiently tried to make the worn-out tape stick again on Deeko. “It was partly her fault,” said Johannan, smiling ruefully. “If she weren’t precocious—You see, we do not come into the atmosphere with the large ship—too many complications about explanations and misinterpretations and a very real danger from trigger-happy—or unhappy—military, so we use our life-slips for landings.”

  “We?” murmured Meris.

  “Our People,” said Johannan simply. “Of course there’s no Grand Central Station of the Sky. We are very sparing of our comings and goings. Lala and I were returning because Lala’s mother has been Called and it is best to bring Lala to Earth to her grandparents.”

  “Her mother was called?” asked Mark.

  “Back to the Presence,” said Johannan. “Our years together were very brief.” His face dosed smoothly over his sorrow. “We move our life-slips,” he went on after a brief pause, “without engines. It is an adult ability, to bring the life-slips through the atmosphere to land at the Canyon. But Lala is precocious in many Gifts and Persuasions and she managed to jerk her life-slip out of my control on the way down. I followed her into the storm—” He gestured and smiled. He had finished.

  “But where were you headed?” asked Mark. “Where on earth—?

  “On Earth,” Johannan smiled, “there is a Group of the People. More than one Group, they say. They have been here, we know, since the end of the last century. My wife was of Earth. She returned to the New Home on the ship we sent to Earth for the refugees. She and I met on the New Home. I am not familiar with Earth—that’s why, though I was oriented to locate the Canyon from the air, I am fairly thoroughly lost to it from the ground.”

  “Mark.” Meris leaned over and tapped Mark’s knee. “He thinks he has explained everything.”

  Mark laughed. “Maybe he has. Maybe we just need a few years for absorption and amplification. Questions, Mrs. Edwards?”

  “Yes,” said Meris, her hand softly on Lala’s shoulder. “When are you leaving, Johannan?”

  “I must first find the Group,” said Johannan. “So, if Lala could stay—” Meris’s hands betrayed her. “For a little while longer,” he emphasized. “It would help.”

  “Of course,” said Meris. “Not ours to keep.”

  “The boys,” said Johannan suddenly. “Those in the car. There was a most unhealthy atmosphere. It was an accident, of course. I tried to lift out of the way, but I was taken unawares. But there was little concern—”

  “There will be,” said Mark grimly. “Their hearing is Friday.”

  “There was one,” said Johannan slowly, “who felt pain and compassion—”

  “Tad,” said Meris. “He doesn’t really belong—”

  “But he associated—”

  “Yes,” said Mark, “consent by silence.”

  The narrow, pine-lined road swept behind the car, the sunlight flicking across the hood like pale, liquid pickets. Lala bounced on Meris’s lap, making excited, unintelligible remarks about the method of transportation and the scenery going by the windows. Johannan sat in the back seat being silently absorbed in his new world. The trip to town was a threefold expedition—to attend the hearing for the boys involved in the accident, to start Johannan on his search for the Group, and to celebrate the completion of Mark’s manuscript.

  They had left it blockily beautiful on the desk, awaiting the triumphant moment when it would be wrapped and sent on its way and when Mark would suddenly have large quantities of uncommitted time on his hands for the first time in years.

  “What is it?” Johannan had asked.

  “His book,” said Meris. “A reference textbook for one of those frightening new fields that are in the process of developing. I can’t even remember its name, let alone understand what it’s about.”

  Mark laughed. “I’ve explained a dozen times. I don’t think she wants to remember. The book’s to be used by a number of universities for their textbook in the field if, if it can be ready for next year’s classes. If it can’t be available in time, another one will be used and all the concentration of years—” He was picking up Johannan’s gesture.

  “So complicated—” said Meris.

  “Oh, yes,” said Johannan. “Earth’s in the complication stage.”

  “Complication stage?” asked Meris.

  “Yes,” said Johannan. “See that tree out there? Simplicity says—a tree. Then wonder sets in and you begin to analyze it—cells, growth, structure, leaves, photosynthesis, roots, bark, rings—on and on until the tree is a mass of complications. Then, finally, with reservations not quite to be removed, you can put it back together again and sigh in simplicity once more—a tree. You’re in the complication period in the world now.”

  “Is true!” laughed Mark. “Is true!”

  “Just put the world back together again, someday,” said Meris, soberly.

  “Amen,” said the two men.

  But now the book was at the cabin and they were in town for a day that was remarkable
for its widely scattered, completely unorganized, confusion. It started off with Lala, in spite of her father’s warning words, leaving the car through the open window, headlong, without waiting for the door to be opened. A half a block of pedestrians—five to be exact—rushed to congregate in expectation of blood and death, to be angered in their relief by Lala’s laughter, which lit her eyes and bounced her dark curls. Johannan snatched her back into the car—forgetting to take hold of her in the process—and un-Englished at her severely, his brief gestures making clear what would happen to her if she disobeyed again.

  The hearing for the boys crinkled Meris’s shoulders unpleasantly. Rick appeared with the minors in the course of the questioning and glanced at Mark the whole time, his eyes flicking hatefully back and forth across Mark’s face. The gathered parents were an unhappy, uncomfortable bunch, each overreacting according to his own personal pattern and the boys either echoing or contradicting the reactions of their own parents. Meris wished herself out of the whole unhappy mess.

  Midway in the proceedings, the door was flung open and Johannan, who had left with a wiggly Lala as soon as his small part was over, gestured at Mark and Meris and un-Englished at them across the whole room. The two left, practically running, under the astonished eyes of the judge and, leaning against the securely closed outside door, looked at Johannan. After he understood their agitation and had apologized in the best way he could pluck from their thoughts, he said, “I had a thought.” He shifted Lala, squirming, to his other arm. “He—the doctor who came to look at my head—he—he—” He gulped and started again. “All the doctors have ties to each other, don’t they?”

  “Why, I guess so,” said Meris, rescuing Lala and untangling her brief skirts from under her armpits. “There’s a medical society—”

  “That is too big,” said Johannan after a hesitation. “I mean, Dr.—Dr.—Hilf would know other doctors in this part of the country?” His voice was a question.

  “Sure he would,” said Mark. “He’s been around here since Territorial days. He knows everyone and his dog—including a lot of the summer people.”

  “Well,” said Johannan, “there is a doctor who knows my People. At least there was. Surely he must still be alive. He knows the Canyon. He could tell me.”

  “Was he from around here?” asked Mark.

  “I’m not sure where here is,” Johannan reminded, “but a hundred miles or so one way or the other.”

  “A hundred miles isn’t much out here,” confirmed Meris. “Lots of times you have to drive that far to get anywhere.”

  “What was the doctor’s name?” asked Mark, snatching for Lala as she shot up out of Meris’s arms in pursuit of a helicopter that clacked overhead. He grasped one ankle and pulled her down. Grim-faced, Johannan took Lala from him.

  “Excuse me,” he said, and, facing Lala squarely to him on one arm, he held her face still and looked at her firmly. In the brief silence that followed, Lala’s mischievous smile faded and her face crumpled into sadness and then to tears. She flung herself upon her father, clasping him around his neck and wailing heartbrokenly, her face pushed hard against his shoulder. He un-Englished at her tenderly for a moment, then said, “You see why it is necessary for Lala to come to her grandparents? They are Old Ones and know how to handle such precocity. For her own protection she should be among the People.”

  “Well, cherub,” said Mark, retrieving her from Johannan, “let’s go salve your wounded feelings with an ice cream cone.”

  They sat at one of the tables in the back of one of the general stores and laughed at Lala’s reaction to ice cream; then, with her securely involved with two straws and a glass full of crushed ice, they returned to the topic under discussion.

  “The only way they ever referred to the doctor was just Doctor—”

  He was interrupted by the front door slapping open. Shelves rattled. A can of corn dropped from a pyramid and rolled across the floor. “Dern fool summer people!” trumpeted Dr. Hilf. “Sit around all year long at sea-level getting exercise with a knife and fork, then come roaring up here and try to climb Devil’s Slide eleven thousand feet up in one morning!”

  Then he saw the group at the table. “Well! How’d the hearing go?” he roared, making his way rapidly and massively toward them as he spoke. The three exchanged looks of surprise, then Mark said, “We weren’t in at the verdict.” He started to get up. “I’ll phone—”

  “Never mind,” boomed Dr. Hilf. “Here comes Tad.” They made room at the table for Tad and Dr. Hilf.

  “We’re on probation,” confessed Tad. “I felt about an inch high when the judge got through with us. I’ve had it with that outfit!” He brooded briefly. “Back to my bike, I guess, until I can afford my own car. Chee!” He gazed miserably at the interminable years ahead of him. Maybe even five!

  “What about Rick?” asked Mark.

  “Lost his license,” said Tad uncomfortably. “For six months, anyway. Gee, Mr. Edwards, he’s sure mad at you now. I guess he’s decided to blame you for everything.”

  “He should have learned long ago to blame himself for his own misdoings,” said Meris. “Rick was a spoiled-rotten kid long before he ever came up here.”

  “Mark’s probably the first one ever to make him realize that he was a brat,” said Dr. Hilf. “That’s plenty to build a hate on.”

  “Walking again!” muttered Tad. “So okay! So t’heck with wheels!”

  “Well, since you’ve renounced the world, the flesh, and Porsches,” smiled Mark, “maybe you could beguile the moments with learning about vintage cars. There’s plenty of them still functioning around here.”

  “Vintage cars?” said Tad. “Never heard of them. Imports?”

  Mark laughed, “Wait. I’ll get you a magazine.” He made a selection from the magazine rack in back of them and plopped it down in front of Tad. “There. Read up. There might be a glimmer of light to brighten your dreary midnight.”

  “Dr. Hilf,” said Johannan, “I wonder if you would help me.”

  “English?” bellowed Dr. Hilf. “Thought you were a foreigner! You don’t look as if you need help! Where’s your head wound? No right to be healed already!”

  “It’s not medical,” said Johannan. “I’m trying to find a doctor friend of mine. Only I don’t know his name or where he lives.”

  “Know what state he lives in?” Laughter rumbled from Dr. Hilf.

  “No,” confessed Johannan, “but I do know he is from this general area and I thought you might know of him. He has helped my People in the past.”

  “And your people are—” asked Dr. Hilf.

  “Excuse me, folks,” said Tad, unwinding his long legs and folding the magazine back on itself. “There’s my dad, ready to go. I’m grounded. Gotta tag along like a kid. Thanks for everything—and the magazine.” And he dejectedly trudged away.

  Dr. Hilf was waiting on Johannan, who was examining his own hands intently. “I know so little,” said Johannan. “The doctor cared for a small boy with a depressed fracture of the skull. He operated in the wilderness with only the instruments he had with him.” Dr. Hilf’s eyes flicked to Johannan’s face and then away again. “But that was a long way from where he found one of Ours who could make music and was going wrong because he didn’t know who he was.”

  Dr. Hilf waited for Johannan to continue. When he didn’t, the doctor pursed his lips and hummed massively.

  “I can’t help much,” said Johannan, finally, “but are there so many doctors who live in the wilds of this area?”

  “None,” boomed Dr. Hilf. “I’m the farthest out—if I may use that loaded expression. Out in these parts, a sick person has three choices—die, get well on his own, or call me. Your doctor must have come from some town.”

  It was a disconsolate group that headed back up-canyon. Their mood even impressed itself on Lala and she lay silent and sleepy-eyed in Meris’s arms, drowsing to the hum of the motor.

  Suddenly Johannan leaned forward and put his hand
on Mark’s shoulder. “Would you stop, please?” he asked. Mark pulled off the road onto the nearest available flat place, threading expertly between scrub oak and small pines. “Let me take Lala.” And Lala lifted over the back of the seat without benefit of hands upon her. Johannan sat her up on his lap. “Our People have a highly developed racial memory,” he said. “For instance, I have access to the knowledge any of our People have known since the Bright Beginning, and, in lesser measure, to the events that have happened to any of them. Of course, unless you have studied the technique of recall—it is difficult to take knowledge from the past, but it’s there, available. I am going to see if I can get Lala to recall for me. Maybe her precocity will include recollection also.” He looked down at his nestling child and smiled. “It won’t be spectacular,” he said. “No eyeballs will light up. I’m afraid it’ll be tedious for you, especially since it will be subvocal. Lala’s spoken vocabulary lags behind her other Gifts. You can drive on, if you like.” And he leaned back with Lala in his arms. The two to all appearances were asleep.

  Meris looked at Mark and Mark looked at Meris, and Meris felt an irrepressible bubble of laughter start up her throat. She spoke hastily to circumvent it.

  “Your manuscript,” she said.

  “I got a box for it,” said Mark, easing out onto the road again. “Chip found one for me when you took Lala to the rest room. Couldn’t have done better if I’d had it made to measure. What a weight—” he yawned in sudden release—“What a weight off my mind. I’ll be glad when it’s off my hands, too. Thank God! Thank God it’s finished!”

  The car was topping the Rim when Johannan stirred, and a faint twitter of release came from Lala. Meris turned sideways to look at them inquiringly.

  “May I get out?” asked Johannan. “Lala has recalled enough that I think my search won’t be too long.”

  “I’ll drive you back,” said Mark, pulling up by the road.

  “Thanks, but it won’t be necessary.” Johannan opened the door and, after a tight embrace for Lala and an un-English word or two, stepped out. “I have ways of going. If you will care for Lala until I return.”