Behind the Eyes of Dreamers (26 page)

Aleph leapt at the girl. The other copper-clothed outsiders moved in and Josepha could no longer see Aleph’s stocky form. “They’re fighting,” she said uncertainly.

Li Hua got up and came to the gate. Josepha said, “We’d better stop it.”

“Don’t bother, I think they can take care of themselves. Look.” Ramli and three others were running toward the battle. They reached the outsiders and pushed them away, dodging their punches. Teno and Aleph got to their feet. The tall girl and one of the boys moved back in, flailing wildly with their fists. Josepha saw that the village children were fighting defensively, blocking the blows, then pushing the others away.

The outcome, she realized, was not in doubt. There were six villagers to four visitors. Teno and the others also had quicker reflexes and sturdier muscles. They chopped and kicked efficiently. The visitors quickly retreated a few meters and stood together grumbling, nursing their injuries.

The violence sickened Josepha. She pushed the gate open and walked across the park with Li Hua close behind. She passed the outsiders, who seemed curiously unmarked by the fight in spite of their groaning. She reached Teno. One of her child’s eyes was discolored. Aleph, Ramli, and the others were scratched and beaten; their clothes were torn. Yet they had won, or so it seemed.

“What was that all about?” she asked harshly. Teno stared back calmly.

“We had to defend ourselves.” The child’s voice sounded regretful. “They wouldn’t have stopped trying to hurt us unless we did.” Josepha spotted the scratches on Aleph’s face and an ugly bruise on Ramli’s arm. The visitors had tried their best to hurt them, yet the village children had responded only with defensive gestures.

“But how did it start?” she said.

“They don’t like us and they’re afraid.”

Li Hua sighed. “What now?”

“We’d better talk to them,” Ramli murmured. “We shouldn’t just leave them there.”

“It was hardly a fair fight anyway,” Li Hua said. “Six against four, and you being stronger.”

The young people seemed mystified. “What’s fair about a fight?” Aleph asked. “The point is to stop it.”

“Let’s go,” Teno said. They moved past Li Hua and Josepha toward the outsiders.

But the visitors were already leaving the park. Teno called to them; they did not answer. Josepha watched them get into a blue hovercraft parked near Warner’s empty house and drive away.

The children had gone camping in the foothills.

Josepha had seen Teno and Ramli off, helping them pack their gear, seeing them meet their friends outside the courtyard. As she watched them stride away in groups of two or three, hands clasped, packs on their slender backs, she had felt tired and old.

There had been no reason to worry. The young people wore Bonds and needed little food and water. But now a week and a half had passed and the children had not returned, nor had they transmitted a message. Josepha, somewhat uneasy, consulted her computer, which indicated that they were still in the foothills.

She called Alf Heldstrom. His image, seated behind a compositor, appeared. “Josepha! Haven’t seen you since Lulee’s party. Why don’t you come over for lunch?”

“I’m worried about the children, Teno and Ramli haven’t called in at all. Have you heard anything?”

“You shouldn’t worry. They’re in the foothills, I know the region, they can take care of themselves.”

“I know where they are, I just found out.”

“Look, if anything was wrong, an emergency signal would have come in by now.”

“Does Merripen know what they’re doing?”

Alf shook his head.

She noticed a light flashing on the console. “Alf, someone else is calling, can I get back to you?”

“Sure. Come on over if you like.” Alf disappeared and was replaced by the image of Chane.

They exchanged their ritualized greetings. Josepha wanted to reach out to him, mend the rift, but she did not know how to do it. He asked about Ramli and Teno.

“They’re not here now. The children all decided to go camping more than a week ago.”

“I guess they’re all right then.”

“I’m sure they are, they haven’t called in, but … well, I have to admit I’m a little worried.”

“Did they say why they were going?”

“No, but …”

“Didn’t anyone ask?”

“It’s hard to ask them anything now, they seem to resent it, if they can resent anything. You’d know that if you …” Josepha caught herself in time. “They’re older now, they aren’t docile little children.”

“So everyone just let them go off.”

“Oh, Chane, it isn’t as if they aren’t prepared or hadn’t gone before. If something was wrong, we would have had a signal.”

He looked exasperated. “As if nothing could go wrong with their Bonds or they couldn’t make a mistake or someone couldn’t harm them.”

“Who the hell are you to be so concerned?” she burst out at last. “You aren’t even here most of the time.” She stopped. This was no time to pick a fight with him. “Very well,” she continued, “we’ll go look for them. I imagine they’ll be annoyed with us, or at least puzzled.” They might have made an error, she thought. It was too easy to assume that because the young people were rational, they were infallible. “Chane, do you have any appointments today?”

“Late this afternoon.”

“Break them. Please come home.”

“What for?”

“I thought you were concerned about the kids.” She paused. “That isn’t the only reason. I miss you.”

“I was just there.”

“Almost five months ago.”

“That’s not so long.”

“It is, it seems longer here. I miss you.”

“You get along pretty well by yourself.”

“Yes, I get along by myself, but I don’t like it. I get along because, like you and everyone else, I think there’ll be plenty of time to take care of things later on. It’s a bad habit all of us have. And you see what happens. Later never gets here. I love you, Chane.” Her face perspired. Her hands shook. She drew them under her desk where Chane could not see them. “Please come home.” She waited, expecting him to smooth it all over while refusing.

“I’ll be home tomorrow.”

Startled, she gazed at his image silently, then held out a hand to it. “I’ll go look for the children,” she managed to say. “I’ll let you know what’s happened.”

Josepha, accompanied by Alf and Gurit, glided swiftly over the treetops, surveying the ground below. The belt around her waist was constricting, the jet on her back heavy. But this way they had maneuverability; a vehicle would have restricted their movements. She steered herself carefully as they passed over a small clearing and saw the remains of a campfire, a blackened area surrounded by stones and covered with dirt.

Josepha was frightened now, trying desperately not to give in to panic, not wanting to suspect the worst. Immediately after the call from Chane, she had contacted a robot in the foothills and sent it to where the children should have been. Looking through the robot’s eyes, her screen had shown only a deserted clearing while the computer told her that the young people were not there.

The signal she and the others were following, a low hum, grew louder. They were in the foothills. Josepha saw a glint of metal through the trees up ahead.

They came to another clearing and circled it, focusing on the signal. The robot Josepha had sent out waited there. The signal hummed in short bursts, telling her that the children were here. But they saw no one; only the signs, once again, of a campfire.

They dropped quickly to the ground. Josepha landed clumsily, stumbling onto her hands and knees. Alf helped her to her feet.

“I don’t understand it,” Gurit said as she strode around the clearing, peering at the trees, searching the ground for signs. Her middle-aged face was tense with worry; the lines near her lips were deep. Josepha waited unsteadily, still feeling unbalanced by the jet. Gurit stopped, bent over, then stood up. She held something in her hand.

She came back to Josepha and Alf, holding out the object. “Look, a Bond bracelet.”

“I don’t understand,” Alf murmured.

“Very clever,” Gurit said.

“But we should be getting signals from the other Bonds, shouldn’t we?” Josepha shook her head, bewildered.

“This is a tricky business,” Gurit replied. “Someone has relayed the signals through this one device and has managed to do it without triggering any emergency alert systems. I wouldn’t know how to begin doing that.”

“Then how,” Alf said, his trembling voice betraying his fear, “are we going to find them?”

“The computer can track them if we turn off this Bond,” Gurit said, “assuming, of course, that no one’s fooled with the other Bonds.”

“You think the children could have done this?”

Gurit looked from Alf to Josepha. “Possibly. I don’t know why they would.”

Josepha felt sick and cold, as if the weather had suddenly changed. “What should we do, Gurit?”

“We can go back home, put the computer to work, send robots out to search, and request a satellite scan of the entire area, but that might take days.” She paused. “Or we can keep searching.”

“But we don’t know where …” Josepha began.

“I have an idea,” Gurit interrupted. “Don’t get scared when I tell you this. There was a landslide near here four days ago after that severe storm we had. My computer mentioned it after the storm was over, but I didn’t think about it, I was sure the children had found shelter or else …” Gurit gazed guiltily down at her feet. Josepha knew what she was thinking: all of them had relied too much on the machines to guard the children. “They may be trapped,” Gurit finished. She did not mention the other possibilities.

“That settles it, then,” Alf said. “We must look for them near the landslide.” His voice quavered.

A hill of dirt and rocks stood before them.

“There was a cave here, I think,” Gurit murmured. “They might have gone inside during the storm.” She removed her jet as she spoke, dropping it on the ground with a soft thud. She hurried to the mound and began to climb carefully.

Josepha reached for Alf’s hand. She was numb, imagining Teno entombed inside, without food, without air. They could live without the food, but air … She thought: nature has killed them because they’re mutants, travesties—and it wants to let us know that we can still die here, that nothing can protect us forever. She recalled the frequent trips of the young people from the village, their attempts to understand the natural world that was part of them and yet outside them.

Alf gripped her hand tightly, and she realized she would be hysterical if she gave in to her thoughts. Alf’s hand was sweaty, his delicate face frozen. His blue eyes were filled with fear. He leaned against her heavily; she put her arms around him and his jet.

She watched quietly as Gurit scrambled over the rocks near the top of the mound. Gurit fell to her knees and did not move. Josepha waited, wondering what the woman had seen.

Then Gurit stood. “There’s an opening here,” she shouted down. Josepha sighed; the young people could not have suffocated. Gurit was bending over again.

“Do you hear something?” Josepha asked Alf, sure she was imagining the sound of another voice. Alf shook his head.

“They’re inside,” Gurit cried. She sat down suddenly at the top of the hill. “Call for help, they’re inside.”

Josepha had expected Chane to be angry, to reproach her and the other parents for their lack of supervision or to turn his wrath on the children. Instead, he had silently thrown his arms around Ramli, then Teno.

She had wanted to question the children about the reasons for their actions. But Teno and Ramli had been too tired to do more than bathe and eat a few raw vegetables before going to sleep. Chane’s journey home had wearied him as well. The accounting would have to take place the next day.

She entered the living room. Chane was sitting on the sofa smoking a cigarette. She sat down next to him and touched his hand gently. He did not speak.

Most of the village had gathered near the cave that afternoon, waiting as the robots dug, sighing and crying when the young people finally emerged. Merripen, standing near Josepha, had unexpectedly hugged her when he saw the children.

The children were tired and dirty but seemed to have few injuries. Three medical robots had treated the cuts and bruises while protein tablets and water were distributed and adults hurried to the young people. Josepha had waited with Teno and Ramli for the hovercrafts that would take them all home.

Both children had been remarkably calm, describing some of their ordeal in steady voices. They had been trapped after taking shelter from the storm. After discovering that air could still reach them, they had parceled out the few provisions they had. Aided by the glow of their portable lanterns, they had tried to repair a Bond in order to signal for help.

“We shorted out four Bonds,” Teno said quietly. “It’s not that easy to repair them after fooling with them. By then a few lanterns had given out and we had to conserve the rest. I was making some progress with my Bond when Gurit came.”