Children of Tomorrow (9 page)

He thereupon trotted over to a door at the far rear of the big room, knocked on it, and called, ‘Mother, we’re leaving now.’

Silence.

‘Did you hear me, mother?’

‘Yes, Lee.’ Muffled. ‘I’m coming.’

Moments after that the door opened. Mrs David, a tall, attractive, blonde woman in her late thirties or early forties, emerged. She was reading a book, and she closed the door automatically behind her without looking up from the page in front of her. She paid no attention to Lee or Susan but, still reading, walked to a comfortable chair beside a bright light, sank into it and continued to read,

Lee and Susan glanced at each other significantly. Lee shrugged. ‘Good night, mother,’ he said, ‘I’m taking Susan home.’

‘Good night, Susan/ said Mrs David without looking up.

‘ ’Night, Mrs David/ said Susan from the door.

Out in the hall, after Lee had joined her there and closed the door, Susan continued. ‘When is your father due home?’

‘Another year or so/ was the reply.

‘Oh/ said Susan. She was silent as they walked to the nearest elevator. The others had already gone, and so they were alone in the big cage as it went noiselessly down, and the girl asked, ‘Are you going to be in the space force, Lee?’

Lee shrugged irritably. ‘Now, you know it doesn’t work that way/ he said. ‘You know as well as I that each generation of officers has been a brand new group. They come volunteering into Spaceport not for a minute suspecting what they’re coming to. On the way in, they meet the children of the last generation of officers. And do you know where those children are going, Susan?’ His eyes were big and round and humorous as they

gazed into hers.

‘I can guess,’ said Susan.

‘They’re on their way out, Susan. They don’t say anything to the newcomers. They don’t want to discourage anybody, and they keep their peace whenever they’re outside. But, Susan, do you know that they don’t even like to come back for a visit.’ ‘Isn’t there some hope,’ said Susan, ‘that the outfits will change all that? In fact, haven’t they already a little bit?’ She added,
‘
1 heard.’

‘It’s hard to tell,’ said Lee, ‘what the facts are and what the propaganda. A booter thinks nothing of twisting a truth into a half truth to fit his argument. And I hate to say it but I’ve heard outfit supporters among adults distort the picture when they’re dealing with people who are hostile to outfits.’

‘But why lie? What’s the point? The outfits are, well, just the outfits — that’s all. We exist principally because our fathers have gone off to other stars, and so we had to take care of ourselves; only now we do it in an orderly fashion. It shouldn’t amount to anything more than that. But somebody has got it into his head that it will also solve -other problems, and I guess they’ll be disappointed if that doesn’t happen.’

‘I guess we’d better start to think about that,’ said Lee. ‘Or pretty soon there’ll be an idea going around that the outfits have failed. This won’t be concerning me much longer, because I’ve only got a year and a month to go before I’m nineteen. But it’ll come up more and more if that’s what people are expecting. What we’ve got to promote,’ he analysed, ‘is what you said. We are what we are: we bring ourselves up through the difficult years. Nothing else. Nothing more.’

The elevator had come to a stop on the ground floor. The door opened, and they emerged from it and walked out into the night beyond the big plate glass doors. Outside, Lee went on, "All this is true, Susan, except once in a while a girl, a daughter of an officer, marries a particular attractive volunteer, who somehow made her forget which generation she belongs to.’

Susan made an impatient movement with her body. ‘If that remark is for my benefit, Lee David,’ she said, ‘you’re no friend of mine.’

You were the one that brought up the subject,’ he retorted. ‘Am
I
going to be in the space corps?’ He shook his head. ‘No, Susan, I am not.
’

They walked on into the darkness.

On the street ahead, the unseen watcher had joined Bud Jaeger, who presently turned off onto another street. The father
1
-le- pathed:
As I understand it, it is forbidden for the facial orifice
of a jabber to make contact with the same facial orifice of another jabber, or of an adult of the opposite sex - is that correct?

Yes,
was Bud’s reply.

Can you explain this to me? Why is this such a serious offense?

Since Bud had as yet no real idea, he changed the subject:
It looks like Fm not going to have the problem with Mr Jaeger that I feared. He arrived home again last night long after midnight. So, if that continues
-
He broke off, unhappily,
Fm afraid I pushed that boy, Joe Patton, too hard once when I re-
’
fused to be convinced. I wonder if he noticed -

The father ignored the interruption; remained intent, said:
I
should tell you, my son, that we were accidentally spotted out in space today. You know how big space is, and how carefully we evaluated which directions their vessels would most likely go. But there, suddenly, was this patrol craft. Naturally, and with reluctance, we had to act. Nobody knows what the repercussions will be, but we may have to end our study of this race suddenly ... So the sooner you find out why facial orifice contact is a matter of such paramount concern to, apparently, everybody, the better Fll like it. I feel that we have spotted an exceedingly significant behavior .
. .

And that was, substantially, the end of that conversation.

On the street behind them, Lee David had reached the stage with Susan where he could ask: ‘What’s this about a flight Sunday with Captain Sennes?’

‘I still have to get permission,’ parried Susan defensively,

Saturday. Susan and Estelle sat at the breakfast table. The woman glanced several times at her silent daughter. Susan was nibbling this morning, an action
which usually indicated that she wanted something. Her egg was a half-finished yellow curdle on her plate, and her toast sat on the edge leaning over wearily. Estelle drained the final drops of her second cup of coffee, and put the cup down with the pretended finality of a coffee lover who knows that she shouldn’t have a third cup. But - It must have been a recognisable signal from all the years that they had been alone together at mealtimes. For Susan stirred,
hh
h,., mother
!
she said,

The words were just about the only stimulus that the woman had needed. She recognised that the request, whatever it was, was about to be made; and for that she absolutely had to have another cup of coffee. 'One moment, dear,’ she said firmly to Susan. Her hand reached from the table’s edge to the cup and saucer - grasped it, and held it while her body made all those balancing and other efforts necessary for her to get to her feet, and walked over to the coffee pot, which she always deliberately placed beyond arm’s length from the table. There was a passage, then, of a small amount of time as she poured exactly the right amount of the steaming delightful liquid into the cup. Still balancing the now almost brimming cup, she returned to the table, and, still holding it, sat down. Slowly, she lowered her hand, making a perfect all points landing on the table cloth without spilling a drop. She took a deep breath, and said, ‘What is it, dear?
’

Susan, who always held her breath whenever the coffee ritual took place, sighed with relief as she saw that mission had been accomplished. But the entire hazardous feat had distracted her. She hesitated, and then said. ‘Where’s dad?’

Estelle was outraged. ‘That isn’t what you were going to say/ she accused. But she was guilty, and there was a possibility that her addiction to coffee had decided Susan to change her mind. Her next words fought to reinvoke the antestatus quo. She said, 'You’ve been sitting there with a look of deep though
t. Tell me, what’s on your mind?

'But where is he? Is he still in bed?

Estelle said reluctan
tl
y, “Yes/ She hesitated, then,
‘
He came in late last night/ Once more the hesitation. Finally, she must have decided that she might as well make a complete transfer of information. She said with a sigh, ‘There was some kind of an emergency/

‘Oh!’ Some of the color drained from Susan’s face, and there was the distinct expression that she saw whatever it was that had happened as a barrier to her own purpose, for she said reluctantly, 'Anyone hurt?’

The woman shrugged. 'I have no idea. I used to be so disturbed by these things
that...
well, your father just stopped telling me.’ A pause. ‘I doubt if it would bother me now. After ten years I feel very remote from all such details.’

Susan gulped, saw that her moment had come
that
unexpectedly, and said with a rush, ‘Then it wouldn’t bother you if I went with Captain Sennes tomorrow on a routine flight he has to make outside the atmosphere/

The request flabbergasted Estelle. The effect was actually as if she had been struck suddenly from behind by an unknown assailant. The result: instant emotion of a highly disturbed kind. She mumbled, ‘I don’t think I - ’ She stopped, and now she was outraged. ‘So that’s what you’ve been fidgeting about.’ A key word in Susan’s announcement belatedly reached her awareness, and she finished her first reaction on a note of helplessness by simply echoing it. ‘Routine?’ she said.

Susan was experienced in recognising negative signals when she heard them, and she had just heard them. It was clearly a situation that already, in these first seconds, called for the fight of her life. Her voice went up from its normal sweetness to a tone that was distinctly thinner and sharper. “Look, mother,’ she challenged, ‘I’m the daughter of one of the heads of Space Control, and it’s kind of ridiculous that I’ve never been up.’

‘And I,’ said Estelle with color high and voice spirited, ‘am the wife of one of the heads of Space Control, and I don’t feel at all ridiculous that I’ve never been up.’

‘That’s different,’ the girl began with equal spirit. But that was as far as her energy could carry her. The hopelessness of defeat was already upon her. Never in the past had a counterattack from her mother been so quick, so hard hitting, and so uncompromising. Down she went into the darkness of the sadder emotions. ‘Aw, gee, mother,’ she pleaded. ‘Please don’t say no. It really is a routine flight. Captain Sennes, being an active flight officer, has to put in so many hours a month even when he’s grounded keeping newly built craft in flying condition.’

What does it take for a daughter to shoot down her mother? It happened right there. For ten years Susan had been Estelle’s deep love, her darling sweetheart child, substitute for all her emotional needs. It was the begging note in the girl’s voice that penetrated as far as sound and feeling can go. The woman sagged onto the table, her chin cupped in her hand. Sitting like that, she made a final attempt to salvage Susan — for that was how she thought of it. She did it by shifting responsibility to what she hoped would be a sturdier shoulder.;

‘All right, dear - ’ she began.

Susan leaped to her feet. ‘Oh, mother, thank you.
’

"Let me finish!’ Estelle spoke stridently. “You can go if your father gives his permission.’

The final words caught Susan as she was putting one arm around Estelle, and with her head bent to plant a kiss. She still completed the caress squarely on one cheek, but she was slightly disturbed as she straightened. ‘Mother,’ she said finally, ‘I’ve got outfit duties. So will you be a darling and ask dad?’

‘Absolutely not,’ the woman said in an adamant tone. Yet a minute later she had wearily yielded to more pleading. And an
hour after that there she was presenting Susan’s case to a John Lane eating a late breakfast. The way she put it was, ‘Susan’s argument is that you have no business sending other people into dangerous situations if you’re not prepared to send your own daughter,’ She finished swiftly. ‘I’m just being an honest reporter. I don’t agree with a single word of what I have just said.’ ‘Susan is absolutely right,’ said John Lane, after a pause - after he had completed chewing a bite of toast and swallowed it and after his silence had aroused the hope in his wife that the request had evoked in him an outraged resistance.

‘Now, don’t be so easily persuaded,’ yelled Estelle in alarm. Lane was actually having a hard time to conceal his triumph. For just a moment there flashed into his face and eyes the look of a man whose scheme was working perfectly, and the realisation was elating to him. He said finally in a dismissing tone, ‘I’m proud of Susan. Her interest in such a flight tells me she hasn’t been totally destroyed by the outfits.’ He broke off. ‘In case you’re wondering, I made a small inquiry yesterday and discovered that outfit members do not become space volunteers. So much for that gang of bums.’

The woman was outraged. ‘So much for your informant. An F in statistics for that villain,’ she snapped,

“What do you mean?’

^Remember,’ she said, ‘the kids of space officers
never
volunteered . . . Now, you remember that perfectly
well...
don’t you?’ ‘For heaven’s sake, Estelle,’ said die man. ‘Calm down. Look, all I said was — ’