Children of Tomorrow (23 page)

The words postponed the decision, and that was clearly what Susan wanted. Her face showed so much acceptance that it seemed like a good time to end the conversation. Estelle stood up. ‘You think about it, and perhaps sleep on it, dear,’ she said gently, 'and in the morning I’ll come in at get-up time, and we’ll see what the situation is.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘Sack?’

The girl was obviously glad to end the conversation. ‘Sack,
’
she nodded.

The blonde woman walked to the bed, leaned over, cheek- kissed her daughter, and receive a kiss on her own cheek in turn. Then she went out of the room, and so back to the kitchen to her book and a now cold cup of coffee. Which, of course, she poured out, and lovingly replaced with delicious hot liquid, exactly right in flavor and strength.

By this time, it was almost eight thirty by the kitchen clock. A few minutes later, on the dot of the half hour, Desmond Reid called Lee David from the library of his own home. After the preliminary greetings, the man launched at once into the pur-
¹
pose of his call. ‘Lee,’ he said, ‘in my conversations with Susan’s father, it has become quite clear to me that he should be faced, and asked three questions. I think, being the kind of man he is, he will answer all of them truthfully, at which point the outfit can make a judgement on him that may bring him to his senses. I don’t know what will happen. But something has to be done. I’ve known Susan, and loved her, longer than has her father, I absolutely refuse to stand by and see her damaged. Will you take outfit action?’

The boy was a little flustered, but he had actually reaffirmed within himself his determination
to
be a proper leader of
the
Red Cats. And so, now, after a pause,
he
said,
‘What
are the three questions that you think we should ask?’

He wrote them down as Reid slowly spoke them, and then he said, ‘If the outfit decides to do this, have you any idea how we can discover when Commander Lane will be coming home tomorrow? Susan told me that he has no fixed hours.’

‘He’s due home about eleven o’clock tonight,’ said Reid. ‘Is that too late?’

Lee was startled. He had picked up the phone while doing his homework, and it now sat on top of a couple of notebooks. ‘Well,’ he said a little breathlessly, ‘this is homework night, but I should

be through by ten thirty.’ He broke off. ‘You really are in earnest?’

‘Never meant anything more in my life,’ said the man grimly,
‘
1 want a stop put to the nonsense right now, if possible.’

Lee said, after another pause, ‘Wel-1-11, sir, I can’t see anything wrong with your reasoning, or your motive. If Commander Lane answers the three questions in the affirmative, then he will be convicted out of his own mouth. So that’s fair. Tell you what. I’ll call my friend, Mike. If he agrees, we’ll do it.’-

‘You mean - do it tonight?’

“Yes,’ was the reply. ‘And Mr Reid - ’ The blond boy’s face
Showed another thought had come to
him.

What is it?’

‘I have an idea we should have two adult witnesses for this facing.’

‘A very good idea,’ said Desmond Reid firmly.

Three men and two women emerged from the Subsurface into the soft, warm night shortly after 11 p.m. One of the men was John Lane. In his courteous
fashion, he held back while the couples, laughing and talking, went off to the right. A preoccupied Lane turned to the left and started up the street toward his home.

He was only vaguely aware at first that there were people on the sidewalk between him and his house. Since he did not connect them with himself, and was personally not alarmed by the presence of human beings, he paid them no more attention than he would have any group of people on any street. Absently, he saw the two men off to one side. And that was reassuring, not in the sense that he felt anxious, but because somehow he associated the youths - who were on the sidewalk ahead - with the two men. If he had been asked, reassuring in what way, he would have had a hard time putting words to the unclear thought. But it went something like: here are two fathers out with their grown-up boys. All by itself it was a ridiculous thought. But the truth was, his mind at rest tended to revert to old-fashioned ideas of his own boyhood. In this instance, the fact that there were seven boys did not immediately sink in.

Several things and awarenesses occurred simultaneously to

clarify the reality. As he approached, the boys politely stepped off the sidewalk. Apparently, they did this so that he might go by. But when he was a half dozen feet from the group, the nearest boy, a good-looking, huskily built blond youth, said, ‘Mr Lane, may we talk to you briefly?’

The words were spoken in a nonantagonistic fashion. And Lane, who was accustomed to respond with a certain gentleness when addressed courteously, said, ‘Why, of course. What - ’

He stopped. The first - incredibly, the very first - implication of
so many
boys, all looking at him... penetrated. The possibility that
he
might be the person they were interested in was so . . . improbable . . . that he stood there, after halting. Stood for an eternity of several seconds - long enough so that Lee David had time to say, ‘Sir, we are some of the members of the Red Cat outfit, to which your daughter, Susan, belongs, and we would like to ask you three questions - ’

The blond boy said something else. But that was all that Lane actually heard. At that precise moment, the shock of what was happening, reached into the region of his guts and gave a hard tug. A skitter of mentation flicked in several directions through his mind. A memory: What Susan had described at dinner time about being faced ... A second memory: Desmond Reid’s words of warning in the corridor outside his office, a few hours before.

The third mental event was a realisation:
He was being faced by an outfit.

The thunder of that awareness poured through Lane. It darkened his face. It stiffened every muscle. For another timeless period of several seconds, the degradation of it held him speechless with shame.

All these inner happenings
showed
in his face and his body. The jump from shame to icy rage came next. It required only one of his automatic responses: his brain grew sharp within the frame of the threat - not a millimeter beyond it. At once, decisions on the matter of outfits (decisions he had made and reaffirmed a number of times in the past few days) were triggered into the forefront of his mind. They remained there, positioned like bullets in an automatic pistol, ready to be fired.

Having arrived back to an attitude of strength, he said in an even, deadly voice, ‘What are the questions?’

‘Are you opposed to Susan being in an outfit?’

He was a man who could recognise a decisive question when he heard it. And there was no doubt. That one struck at the very heart of the matter. But for such as he there was no turning back. And no compromise. The crisis had come to him by surprise. It was unwelcome. Its consequences were unknown. But such, in fact, was exactly the kind of environment he had lived in as Commander of the First Fleet, And so he was always, so to say, ready for a battle with an unknown ending.

So, in the same curt voice in which he had already spoken, he said, ‘Yes!’

The next two questions were: Have you already taken any action that will cause Susan to leave her outfit?’ and ‘Do you intend to try to get her away from her outfit?’

Lane answered ‘Yes!’ to each question. He was aware as he did so in some totally rational part of his brain, that the questions were singularly comprehensive. He recognised, also, that the only alternative answer would be a complete refusal to reply, or even to discuss the matter. But he had gone into one of his automatic states. And as long as that persisted, he told his truth.

Moments after Lane made his final admission, he saw a movement from the corner of one eye. It was one of the adults. The man walked rapidly from where he had been standing in the middle of the street, stopped a few feet away, and said, ‘Commander, my colleague and I are the adult witnesses to your statements. We wish you to know that we shall report that this outfit facing was conducted by the Red Cat outfit as the rules require. Thank you.’

Having spoken, he backed off almost as rapidly as he had come. Within seconds, he was standing again beside the other, slightly younger man.

But he left behind him a confused Lane.

Poised there in the half-darkness under the trees, the officer recognised the
official
formalness of what had happened. It was a new thought. And it blanked him. In his mind was a fixed idea that these outfit members were young gangsters.

He was still grappling with the contradictions in his understanding, when the blond boy delivered the ultimatum: ‘Air Lane,’ said Lee, “you have until noon tomorrow to change your mind. I’m sorry.
⁵

It was too much. The man muttered something, and started forward. It happened that Albert Mayo stood on the sidewalk. Albert was a big boy, and he occupied a lot of sidewalk. Lane paused in front of the muscular youth, and said through clenched teeth, ‘Get out of my way!’

Involuntarily, Albert braced himself. He was the strong boy of the Red Cats, and he had on occasion had to hold ferocious young people, away from each other. So being threatened was not a new situation for him. Experience caused him now to place his right foot behind him for better balancing against an attack.

Confronted by such an obviously powerful young man, Lane

stopped. But he was furious now. ‘Step aside!’ he commanded.

From off to one side, Lee spoke quietly, firmly, ‘Albert ... let Mr Lane go.’

Albert relaxed, and moved off the sidewalk with the no-loss-of- face of an outfitter obeying his authorised leader.

Incredibly, the man did not forget his automatic good manners. ‘Thank you,’ he said. But he marched straight forward along the sidewalk without a backward or sideways glance. Strode all the way to the gate of his house. As the male members of the Red Cat outfit watched, Lane opened the gate, entered the yard, closed the gate behind him, and walked rapidly up to the veranda. The key in the lock, turning. The door opening ... shutting.

Inside the house, the man noticed that his hands were trembling. He clenched his fists, and clamped his teeth together. And he stood there, with a solid look of rage on his face.

‘Is that you, John?’ Estelle’s voice came from a distant room.

Lane swallowed, and then he walked quickly to the hall mirror. He paused to call out, “Yes, dear!’ Then he stared at his reflection in the glass, hastily rubbed the tension out of his cheeks and jaws. The sound of approaching feminine footsteps alerted him. But he kept stroking the skin; and, as his wife appeared in the doorway, he mustered a semblance of a smile, and turned to face her.

In spite of all his effort, there must have been something in his face that gave him away. Because the woman said, ‘What’s the matter, John? You look... awful.’

He stood for a moment, uncertain. During that moment he evidently considered telling her what happened. The impulse passed, and he suddenly affected weariness, and said, ‘I guess I’m finally getting tired.’

‘You poor darling,’ she soothed. ‘Those long hours.’ She took his arm, and tugged him toward the door through which she had come. Tell you what. I will not, as I intended to, pound your ear about Susan until morning. There. Does that make you feel better?’

Her husband’s eyes narrowed. The smile faded. ‘I see no point,’ he said in a formal tone, ‘in
any
further discussion at
any
time about Susan and the outfits. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner
my
daughter is away from that bunch of young gangsters, the better I’ll like it.’

The blonde woman stiffened. Then:
'Your
daughter?’ she said. She was about to go on, but at that instant she caught, a glimpse of his face.

All the rage was back in his cheeks. His lips were drawn back, and his teeth showed in an actual duplicate of a snarl. With a wordless sound, he brushed past her, and walked with swift, purposeful strides to Susan’s room. It had taken a moment for Estelle to recover. But as he walked, she came running up behind him, and clutched at him with her fingers. Lane ignored her. He stopped in the lighted doorway of the girl’s room, and glared straight into her startled eyes, and said, ‘Susan, tomorrow morning I shall advise your school that you are not returning, but that you will, beginning almost immediately - as soon as I can arrange it - be going to a private school outside of Spaceport.’

There was not a sound from the bed. Simply, a tense, girlish face stared up at him.

That was all Lane had to see. At the point, he spun around, obviously intending to charge away as swiftly as he had come. He found his wife blocking his way, and he stopped, teetering on tiptoes, slightly off balance.

The woman had time to speak. ‘Have you gone crazy? What’s the matter with you?’ Her voice was up almost an octave.

Lane was suddenly tired again. He stood there, the awful rage fading a little - but only a little. Enough for him to say wearily, ‘Let me past.’