No Different Flesh (34 page)

Remy and I exchanged troubled looks as we neared the jagged heap of broken reek.

"Do you suppose he had a heart attack?" Remy hurried ahead of me, edging past the rockfall.

"Remy!" I gasped. "Oh, Remy, come back!" I had Sensed ahead of him and gulped danger like a massive swallow of fire. "Remy!" But it was too late. I heard him cry out and the sudden triumphant roar of Tom's voice. "Gotcha!"

I pressed myself against the far side of the drift away from the narrow passageway and listened.

"Hey, Tom!" Remy's voice was carefully unworried.

"What you got that cannon for? Looks big enough from this end for me to crawl in."

"'Tain't not a cannon," said Tom. "It's a shotgun my son gave me to guard the ship so'st you couldn't kill him and keep the ship from taking off. Now you've killed him anyway, but that's not going to stop us."

"I didn't kill.-"

"Don't lie to me!" The snarling fury in Tom's voice scared me limp-legged.

"He's dead. I uncovered his hand-my son's dead! And you did it! You pushed all that stuff down on him to try to hide your crime, but murder will out. You killed my son!"

"Tom, Tom," Remy's voice was coaxing. "I'm Remy, remember? You showed me where your son lay. Remember the little flag-"

"The little flag-" Tom's voice was triumphant. "Sure, the little flag. He was going to put it on the moon. So you killed him. But now you're going to put it on the moon-or die in the attempt." He laughed. It sounded like two stones being rapped together. "Or die in the attempt! Get going!"

"But, Tom-there's no fuel!" protested Remy.

"You got what was in the tank room, didn't you?" demanded Tom. "Well, then, get to flying. My son said it would go. It'll go!"

And I heard their footsteps die off down the drift and Remy's distress came back to me like a scarlet banner.

"Shadow! Shadow!"

I don't remember racing back to the ladder or opening the trapdoor or leaving the shack. My first consciousness of where I was came as I streaked over the ridge, headed for home. The stars-when had night come? the treetops, the curves of the hills all lengthened themselves into flat ribbons of speed behind me. I didn't remember to activate my shield until my eyes were blinded with tears.

I hit the front porch so fast that I stumbled and fell and was brought up sharp with a rolling crash against the front door. Before I could get myself untangled, Mother and Father were there and Mother was checking me to see if I was hurt.

"I'm all right," I gasped. "But Remy-Remy!"

"Shadow, Shadow-" Father gathered me up, big as I am, and carried me into the house and put me down on the couch. "Shadow, clear yourself before you try to begin. It'll save time." And I forced myself to lie back quietly, though my tears ran hotly down into both my ears-and let all the wild urgency and fear and distress drain out of my mind. Then, as we held each others' hands, our three minds met in the wordless communication of The People.

Thoughts are so much faster than words and I poured out all the details in a wild rush-now and then feeling the guidance of my father leading me back to amplify or make clear some point I'd skidded by too fast.

"And now he's there with a madman pointing a shotgun at him and he can't do a thing-or maybe he's already dead-"

"Can we handle him?" Father had turned to Mother.

"Yes," she whispered whitely. "If we can get there in time."

Again the meteoric streaking across the dark hills. And Mother's reaching out ahead, trying to find Tom-reaching, reaching. After an eternity, we swung around the shoulder of a hill and there was the Selkirk-but different! Oh, different!

A shiny, needle-sharp nose was towering above the shack, the broken rock and shale had been shed off on all sides like silt around an ant hole. And the ship! The ship was straining toward the stars! Even as we watched, the nose wavered and circled a wobbly little circle and settled back again, out of sight in the shadows.

"Remy's trying to lift it!" I cried. "A thing that size! He'll never make it-And then Tom-"

We watched the feeble struggle as the nose of the ship emerged again from the shaft not so far this time-much more briefly. It settled back with an audible crash and Mother caught her breath. "There!" she breathed, clasping her hands.

"There!" Slowly she drifted down toward the shack, holding firmly whatever it was that she had caught. Father and I streaked to the shack and down the ladder. We rushed along the drift, past the huddle of rocks, and into the shaft. It took Father a fumbling eternity to find how to get into the ship.

And there we found them both-Tom sprawled across his gun, his closed eyes sunken, his face a death mask of itself. And Remy-Remy was struggling to a sitting position, his hand pushing against the useless box from the tank room.

He smiled a wavery smile and said in a dazed voice, "I have a little Shadow That goes in and out with me-And what can be the use of her-I see, I see, I see.-"

Then he was held tight in Father's arms and I turned my tears away only to be gathered into Mother's arms. And Tom slept peacefully the quiet sleep Mother had given him as we had a family-type wallow in tears and sobs and murmurs and exasperated shakings and all sorts of excited explanations and regrets.

It was a much more solemn conclave back at the house later on. Tom was still sleeping, but in our back bedroom now. I think Mother was afraid to waken him for fear the shock of opening his eyes on Earth might kill him. She had experienced his gigantic, not-to-be-denied, surge toward Space before she had Slept him, and knew it for the unquenchable fire it was.

Of course by the time we finally reduced to vocal words, most of the explanations had been made-the incredulity expressed, the reprimands given, and the repentance completed-but the problem of Tom was still unanswered.

"The simplest way, of course," said Remy, "is just to write 'finis' to the whole thing, wake Tom up, and then hold his funeral."

"Yes," said Father. "That would be the simplest."

"Of course, Mother and Shadow will have to be ready to Channel instantly to bypass that agonized moment when Tom realizes he has been betrayed." Remy was inspecting his jagged thumbnail and didn't meet Father's eyes.

"Bethie, what do you think?" Father turned to Mother.

She blushed pinkly-that's where I get my too-ready coloring up-and murmured,

"I think we ought to look at the ship at least," she said. "Maybe that would help us decide, especially if we have Ron look it over, too."

"Okay, tomorrow." Father parted the curtain at the big window. "Today." He amended as he blinked at the steely gray light of dawn. "Today we'll get in touch with him and take a look. After all, the ship is finished." And he turned away with a sigh, only a faint quirk at the corner of his mouth to betray the fact that he knew Remy and I were having a hard time containing our jubilation.

After lunch-even our frantic impatience couldn't pry Mother and Father away from what seemed such minor matters-Ron finally arrived and we all went out to took the ship over. Remy and I streaked on ahead of the others and I laughed as I caught myself visualizing me dusting the ship frantically from end to end so it'd look its best for our visitors.

There it was! The shaft at least, with the concealing shale and rock shed away on all sides. When we arrived above it, we could see the gleam of the nose of the ship. In all the excitement the night before, we had forgotten to conceal it. But it didn't matter now. Soon that bright nose would be lifting!

Remy and I turned joyous somersaults as we shot down to the old shack.

The men I include Remy in that-were like a hunch of kids with a new toy.

They toured the ship, their eyes eager and seeking, their manner carefully casual, their hands touching and drinking in the wonder of it. A spacecraft!

Remy's replies to their questions were clipped and practically monosyllabic.

His containment surprised me and I wondered if this was a foretaste of what he'd be like as an adult. Of course, Ron's being there-the head Motiver of the Group-may have awed him a little, but it wasn't awe in his eyes, it was assurance. He knew the ship.

Mother took advantage of the preoccupation of the men to get in touch with Valancy and, through her, with Dr. Curtis, who hadn't gone back Outside yet. I suppose they discussed Tom's condition and what-if anything-could be done for him. Mother was sitting near a wall of the fuel room, to all appearances, daydreaming.

So again I was a Shadow. Not a part of the inspection team-not meshed with Mother. I sighed and wandered over to the fuel box where it sat lonesomely in the middle of the floor. I lay down on my stomach beside it and looked at the shining upper surface. It reflected softly the light in the room, but the reflection seemed to come from deeper into the box than just the upper surface. It had depth to it. It was like looking at the moon. I have never quite believed that the light of the moon is just a reflection of the sun, especially a full moon when the light seems to have such depth, such dimension. And now-and now-if the ship were found spaceworthy, we'd be able to see firsthand if the moon had any glowing of its own.

I caught my own eyes shadowed in the surface and thought, We'll be going up and up and more up than anyone has ever been before-lifting, soaring, rising-Mother cried out. Everything shook and moved and there was a grinding, grating sound. I heard the men shout from somewhere in the ship. Frightened, I rolled away from the fuel box and cried, "Mother!"

There was another scraping sound that shook the ship, and then a crunching thud. For a half second there was silence and then a clatter of feet as the men rushed into the fuel room, and Father, seeing us unhurt, was demanding,

"Who lifted the ship!"

"Lifted the ship?" Remy's jaw was ajar. Father's eyes stabbed him. "Did you, Remy?"

"I was with you!" Remy protested.

"Bethie?"

Mother colored deeply and her eyes drifted shyly away from the sternness of Father's face. "No," she said, "I'm not a Motiver. I was talking with Valancy."

I scrambled to my feet, my eyes wide, my color rising as Mother's had.

"Father, I'll bet I did it!"

"You bet you did it?" Father was annoyed. "Don't you know?"

"I'm-"I'm not sure," I said. "You know I'm not even as much a Motiver as Mother is. I still have to struggle to lift the pickup, but-but I was looking at the fuel box and thinking. Father, I'll try it again. You and Ron had better stand by, just in case."

I lay down beside the box again, my eyes intent on the surface, and consciously lifted with all my might.

There was no grinding, grating this time. There was a shriek of metal on stone, a gasp from Mother as her knees buckled under the sudden upthrust, and Father's voice came clear and commanding, "Let go, Shadow. I've got it."

Light was streaming into the ship from windows we'd hardly noticed before. We all exchanged astonished looks then rushed to look out. We were hovering above the Selkirk-hundreds of feet above the gaping shaft visible off to one side.

The scraping on its walls had thrown us sideways.

Father turned to Ron and said, "Take over and maintain, will you?" Then he knelt beside the little box, prodding it with his fingers, smoothing it with his palm. Then he said, "Release to me," and, kneeling there, he brought the nose of the ship down so we lay horizontal to the ground. We all started sliding down as the floor slanted, but we lifted and waited until a wall became a floor, then Father moved the ship to an open flat below the Selkirk and brought it down gently on its side.

We all gathered around him as he stood looking at the box that was now head-high on the wall. We all looked at it and then Father's voice came slow and wonderingly, "It's an amplifier! Why, with that, it wouldn't even take a Motiver to make it to the moon. Three or four people lifting, coordinating in this, this amplifier, could do it, if they didn't tire."

" 'Coordinate and lift off!'" cried Remy. "Four exclamation points!"

Father had laid the ship on its side so we could find what damage had been done by Remy and me when we churned the poor thing up and down in the shaft.

Mother and I went back home to check on Tom and to ready things for the voyage. No one needed to say we'd go. We all knew we'd go. The men were busy repairing the beat-up undercarriage or whatever you'd call that part of the ship, and we brought a picnic supper out to them a little while before sunset.

We all sat around on the flat. I sat on an anthill first and moved in a hurry. We ate and feasted our eyes on the ship. Remy had come out the other side of ecstasy and was serenely happy. Father and Ron were more visibly excited than he. But then they hadn't lived with the ship and the idea as long as Remy had.

Finally a silence fell and we just sat and watched the night come in from the east, fold by fold of deepening darkness. In the half light came Ron's astonished voice.

"Why, that's what it is! That's what it is!"

"That's what what is?" came Father's voice, dreamily from where he lay looking up at the darkening sky.

"The ship," said Ron. "I've been trying all afternoon to remember what it reminds me of. Now I know. It's almost the same pattern as our life-slips."

"Our life-slips?" Father sat up slowly. "You mean the ones the People escaped in when their ships were disabled entering Earth's atmosphere?"

"Exactly!" Ron's voice quickened. "It's bigger and it's cluttered with a lot of gadgets we didn't have, but basically, it's almost identical! Where did those fellows get the design of our life-slips? We didn't keep any. We don't need to with our Group memory-"

"And it's motive power." Father's voice was thoughtful.

"It's the power the People use. And Tom's son was supposed to know how to make it go. Did you suppose Tom-"

"No." Mother's voice came softly in the darkness. "I Sorted him after we took him to the house. He's not one of Us."

"His wife then, maybe," I said. "So many of us were scattered after the Crossing. And their son could have inherited-" My voice trailed off as I remembered what his son had inherited-the darkness, the heap of stones, and no chance ever for the stars, not even a reflection of them.