Children of Tomorrow (20 page)

Realisation grew stronger. 'Am I to understand — ’ he began, louder now.

‘Ssssh, dear
!
said Estelle. ‘Let the poor girl alone. You’ve caused enough trouble.’

If a space fleet commander could be said to be in a spluttery state without actually spluttering, that was abruptly the condition of Commander John Lane, and all in the time period of about a minute. He pushed his chair several inches away from the table. And then he sat there. Presently, he brought a hand up to the table surface, and began to drum on the cloth with his fingers. His wife carefuly avoided looking at
him
. So he
finall
y
ceased his finger rat-a-tat, and said in a dangerous tone of voice. ‘I thought it was a tenet of parental psychology that neither parent shall be negated in the presence of the son or daughter who is being discussed. So what is this comment that I have caused enough trouble.’ He stared at his daughter, ‘Have I- caused you any trouble, Susan?’

The girl twisted uneasily, glanced apologetically at her mother, and said. ‘No, dad. Not really.’

Lane continued, ‘I came home this evening, and discovered that you were in trouble with your outfit. I considered the problem and offered you a solution. Have I ordered you to accept that solution?’

‘No, dad.’ Some color was back in her cheeks.

The husband turned toward the wife. ‘Well, Mrs Lane, what have you got to say to that?’

There was color in Estelle’s face, also. Without looking at him, she said to Susan, ‘Wi
ll
you inform your father what the penalty is for the solution that he is proposing?’

‘Oh, mom - really.’ The girl was embarrassed.

‘It’s all right, Susan,’ said Lane quickly, ‘I don’t wish to hear it. So don’t degrade yourself or me by describing it.’ He finished coldly, ‘I assure you, my dear, I shall never take penalties into account in this matter. Act as if they don’t exist.’

‘Oh, my God/ moaned Estelle. ‘Now, we’ve triggered the male principle.’

‘Estelle, for heaven’s sake/ her husband yelled, ‘Stop negating me in front of my daughter.’ He was abruptly too angry for further conversation. He jumped to his feet. ‘I’d better leave before I say something I regret.’ But he paused for a final remark to Susan. ‘That offer holds/ he said in an even voice. ‘You can go to an ouside school - if you wish.’

It was, in fact, his final remark. He spun on his heel, left the room, and moments later, the house.

He left behind him, pressure. One a girl who already felt overwhelmed. It was the kind of illogical pressure that derives from someone having to make a choice. All this was in Susan’s face, as she sat there
b
riefly across from Estel
l
e. ‘Oh, mother, what am I going to do? If I don’t do what he wants, he’ll be mad -
’

‘And if you do, darling,’ said the woman earnestly, ‘the outfit will face him. So your kindest reaction is to treat this conversation of today as if it never occurred. And,’ she went on, her eyes flashing, ‘leave your father to me. I’ll talk to him in, as we say ... ’ She smiled suddenly, as she sat there, slim for her age, with an attractive personality that was intensively reflected by the smile. She finished:
‘...
in the privacy of the bedroom, where all real decisions are made.’

Susan seemed not to hear. She was staring at the wall behind her mother. Her eyes were vague at first, and still misty. The mist cleared swiftly. The vagueness faded into a kind of decision, and her lips tightened. ‘Oh, mother, I wish I were grown up!
^s
she burst out. And now, it was she who jumped up and raced out of the room. Estelle could hear her foosteps in the corridor. At that point the phone rang. Estelle started to get to her feet to answer on the extension in the kitchen. Before she could more than maneuver her legs and push at the chair, Susan’s voice floated back to her, ‘I’ll get it, mother.’

The girl had been passing the den door. So, momentarily forgetting her own despair, she zoomed as of old through the door, and instants later had the phone. It was a boy’s voice, briefly unfamiliar. Then: ‘Oh, Bud!’ she said. ‘What is it?’

At the Jaeger home, Mrs Jaeger was in the kitchen, and Bud was in the living room sitting with the phone close to his mouth, and his back to the kitchen. It was the best he could do to attain a privacy of communication that was not absolutely necessary, but still desirable. He said, ‘I wonder if you can tell me where this Captain Sennes live that you went to Tombaugh with. I’d like to go and see him.’

For Susan the question was no problem. ‘Sorry, But, I don’t have his address. I only have his phone number. Wait, I’ll get it for you.’ She put the receiver down, and raced off to her bedroom.

Bud meanwhile hurried awkwardly into his bedroom, also, procured a pencil and a notebook, and hurried out again. Moments later he had the phone number. Not until he had written it down did a second thought about his request occur to the girl. Then she asked, somewhat astonished, ‘What do you want Captain Sennes for?’

‘He took you to Tombaugh, didn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s got to take a plane for testing every few days, doesn’t

he - didn’t you say?’- ‘That’s true,’ replied Susan.

“Well, I’d like to ask him i
f he’ll take me along next time!

‘Oh!’ said Susan. Her face indicated that she realised that Bud didn’t understand the real world, and that while a good- looking sixteen-year-old girl might be acceptable to him as a companion, it was doubtful if a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy would be considered. She said as much. ‘I hate to say this, Bud, but Captain Sennes doesn’t do things out of the goodness of his heart - as I discovered. Now, if you were a pretty seventeen-year-old girl - but you’re not. So don’t build up any hopes,’ she concluded. ‘But call him if you wish.’

‘Oh, I will,’ said Bud. ‘See you at school tomorrow,’ he finished.’

'Maybe you will and maybe you won’t/ said an unwary Susan.
‘
It’s just possible that my father will be sending me to a private school outside of Spaceport - ’

The words burst forth automatically in an airy tone of voice from the disturbed girl. They were defiantly spoken, an irrevocably precipitated into the outside world . . . before a single restraining thought came belatedly to cut them o£F. By the time Susan had come to an abrupt unhappy awareness of what a mad thing she had done, she heard the click of Bud’s phone disconnecting. For long moments she stood there stunned into immobility by her indiscretion. Suddenly she jerkily grabbed the phone and called Bud back. To her horror, she got a busy signal.

Actually, it need not have been a serious situation. But an equally disturbed Bud had push-buttoned the number Susan had given him, immediately after he disconnected from her. It developed that Sennes was not in, but the young officer with whom he shared rooms, was. Bud’s request for the address caught the man by surprise. ‘Well, I suppose it really won’t hurt if you come and talk to him/ he said doubtfully. ‘But, still, I think you’d better call him in the morning - that’s the best time to get him - and let him make the decision. Sack?’

The boy was desperate, and he said, ‘When does he take his next routine flight?’

‘Oh, that’s not until Wednesday/

Bud made a last effort. ‘Why not give me the address, and I’ll be there in the mo
rn
ing?’ he urged.

‘Well, no/ The young man had recovered, and now knew the correct thing. ‘These are courtesies/ he explained. ‘We do not intrude on other people without their permission. You talk to him in the morning - sack?’

‘Sack,’ said J3ud gloomily. He hung up, and promptly left the
house. When die phone rang a minute later, sad little Mrs Jaeger emerged from the kitchen and answered. ‘No, Susan, Bud has gone out ... I think he left about five minutes ago. Well, I’m sorry, dear, I don’t know whether or not I’ll be up when he gets home. He said something about an outfit meeting, and you know how late those things can be.
All
right, goodbye.’

She hung up, and made her sad little return to the kitchen,

After the decision was rendered, Lee David sat for a while staring at the floor. Or rather, at the carpet. It was an Oriental rug of a magnificent texture, and
it reflected considerably more wealth than was to be seen at any other house of an outfitter.

Without looking up, the boy said irrelevantly, ‘When does your dad come back from his hike, Mr Sutter?’

‘About a year.’ Mike was tense, and he looked at the others, and made a body and hand gesture of bewilderment. His lips formed the words, ‘What’s all this?’ But he did not speak them out loud.

Lee said, ‘Too bad he didn’t do what his parents wanted, and go into the family banking business.’

Mike made a face. ‘Meaning, I suppose,’ he said, ‘that if
he
hadn’t got hike happy,
I
wouldn’t be here to cause problems.’

The blond boy continued to stare at the rug with slightly narrowed eyes. Around him, the brilliant room was lighted with a brightness that rivaled daytime. Everyone was silent, staring at the seated' Lee. On one side stood the members of his own outfit. On the other, in addition to Tom Clanton and Johnny Sammo, there were the leaders of two other outfits, Ben Kismo, a Negro, and Martin Tate, a small, thick-built boy with unruly, sandy hair. What might be called a third group consisted of Dolores Munroe with Bud Jaeger hovering close to her. It was Martin Tate who walked over and stood above Lee.

He said, ‘Lee, you’re among your friends and Susan’s. We’ve listened to what Dolores says she saw. You didn’t say that you didn’t believe her.’

Lee replied without looking up,
‘
No, I believe her, though I don’t know what she was doing there.’

Martin went on in his odd, husky voice, ‘Mike has reported

what Susan told him - which you didn’t challenge.’

Lee said in an even tone, ‘No, I didn’t think Mr Sutter would lie.’

‘Mister
Sutter?’ echoed Mike, involuntarily. The instant grief that came into his face was observed. There was silence while he got control of himself. Marianne stepped close to him and gave him sympathetic glances. Quietly, after a period, Mike freed himself from her restraining hand. He walked to a nearby chair, sank into it, and he also stared off into an inner distance.

Martin continued, ‘Then, Lee you stated your objections. But we decided that Susan is guilty. And now, looking at you, I think we all have the feeling that you’re not going to accept the judgement. That’s a very seri
o
us thought.’

The older boy shook his head. ‘You’re wrong. I am accepting it, but with a reservation.’

‘Jack it out.’

For the first time since he had seated himself, the blond youth looked up. ‘I am no longer,’ he said, ‘the proper leader of this outfit. Therefore, for the rest of my time I’ll just become an ordinary member, doing minor duties. The outfit should elect another leader.’

‘Is that the whole push?’

‘No.’ Reluctantly.

‘Jack it all out.’

‘I find myself critical of the intelligence of the members of my own outfit. They voted against Susan, who has been a good jabber from the day she joined - never had a mark against her. I don’t understand such thinking. I have only one explanation for it.’

‘Push it out.
¹

‘I think,’ said Lee, ‘we were all disturbed when Dolores scraped the outfit. I have a feeling they held it against me, because it looked like I switched from "Dolores as my moocher to Susan without any real reason. However, the truth is I warned Dolores many times that her attitude towards me was not that of a moocher. Toward the end, she was always trying for lip-kissing
which I wouldn’t do.’

‘Did you ask for advice?’

‘No.’

From the rear of the room, Dolores’s voice came loudly, ‘It’s a lie. He scraped me for Susan. All the rest is - ’

Mike was on his feet. ‘Shut up, Dolores!’ he yelled,

‘One day,’ continued Lee, ‘I told her that if she tried for lip- kissing once more, I’d scrape her. She tried right there. And that was the end between us - right there. I turned and walked away

from her.’

In that brief space of time, Dolores had made her switch to seductiveness. ‘After all,’ she said with a swing of her shoulders, ‘I just grew up quicker than the rest of you. It happens to some girls, and I was one of them.’

This time it was Tom Clanton, of the Yellow Deers, who shushed her. ‘Dolores, the human cortex isn’t fu
l
l-grown until about age eighteen. That’s why we have outfits, to protect partly grown cortexes from bulging. You bulged. And now you’re just a little confused slab . . . But we’re beginning to get a view of how it happened,’ He looked around. ‘Sack, jabbers?’

There was a chorus of ‘sacks,’ and Johnny Sammo, who was as big and strong as Albert but was quick - and not slow like Albert - glided up beside Martin Tate. He said to Martin, ‘I have a thought. May I offer it for scanning?’