The Sudden Star (16 page)

Aisha was asleep on a couch in the corner; Rocca sprawled on the floor. Simon, feeling trapped, surveyed the room, which looked like it had once been a lounge. The thin old woman had told him to consider himself honored; astronauts had once used this room. He slumped down on the couch, wondering how he was going to get out of here. He was locked in, and someone was standing guard on the other side of the door. He doubted he could have left the area anyway. He would never even get to the barbed wire surrounding the complex; the old woman had told him an alarm would go off if he left the room, even if he got past the guard. He made a fist and punched his thigh. He didn't know how to act with these people, what to tell them. He had permissions to enter Miami Beach, stamped by armies on both sides of the Maryland border—the thing he had thought would be most difficult to accomplish—and he was a prisoner of a bunch of old fools in an abandoned industrial complex.

Rocca rolled over on his back and opened his eyes. His long black hair lay in snakelike tresses on the rug. "Shoulda kilt the Snake," the boy said. "Shoulda kilt him right there."

Aisha sat up and yawned, gazing vacantly around the room. The door opened, and the woman who had brought them to the room entered, carrying a large tray. She kicked the door shut with her foot and walked toward Simon, setting the tray down on the low table in front of the couch. "Breakfast," she muttered. She stepped back, putting her hand on the revolver at her waist. "Remember, there's still a guard outside, so don't try anything."

Simon looked at the tray of food. Rocca scampered across the floor and grabbed a piece of bread. "There's bread, oranges, scrambled eggs there. You'll have to eat with your fingers. There aren't any knives and forks for you. I was told not to bring any."

Simon didn't care. He scooped up some eggs with his fingers and put them on a slice of bread. Aisha, still yawning, wandered to the table and picked up an orange.

"What's in the cups?" Simon asked, his mouth full.

"Herb tea." Her face was like a bird's, small, dark eyes, a big nose, a pointed chin. Her yellowish skin looked leathery. Simon finished the eggs and bit into an orange, chewing the bitter fruit.

"Good orange," he mumbled as he chewed.

"Good orange," the woman said. She chuckled. "Oranges used to be sweet, and twice that size, but I guess you wouldn't know about that."

Aisha slurped some tea. Simon finished the orange, feeling full, wishing he could eat more. He leaned back. "What's going to happen to us?" he asked.

"I don't know. We're going to have a meeting about it later on."

"We won't make trouble for you. Can't you let us out of here?"

"Not right now." The old woman shifted her weight, sticking out her left hip. "I'm going to be looking after you for a bit. My name's Jeri Chapman. Don't ask me anything else because I can't tell you anything right now."

"I don't care," Simon said. "I don't want to bother you. Why can't you just let us go?" He glanced over at Rocca as he spoke. Aisha, at least, was his ally, but this boy was excess baggage he'd have to ditch sooner or later.

"I never runs from food," Rocca said, as if guessing what Simon was thinking.

"You don't understand, Dr. Simon," Jeri Chapman said. "We don't want people finding out about this place and coming here. So far we've done a good job of keeping them away."

"But I don't care about what's here," Simon said. "Why should I tell anyone?" He thought of the hard-eyed women who had questioned him yesterday; his ribs were still bruised from where the younger one had poked them with her gun. Every time he had winced, she had laughed. "We're of no use to you anyway."

"You might be," the old woman answered. "And if you're not, I guess they'll shoot you."

They'll shoot you.
She had grimaced as she said it.
They.
She obviously disapproved. She might become an ally. "Finished with that food?" she asked.

Simon nodded. Rocca grabbed the last piece of bread. Jeri picked up the tray and balanced it on her hip as she opened the door, then disappeared into the hall. The door slammed shut.

"What do we do now?" Aisha said sadly.

"What can we do?" Simon replied. "We wait. We behave ourselves." He thought of the permits in his pocket. He had to get out of here, and soon. If he didn't get to Miami before spring, too many questions might be asked about papers stamped the previous fall. He couldn't think about it now; he had more immediate problems. His only hope rested with Jeri Chapman, who would probably shoot him herself if he seemed dangerous. He gritted his teeth.

"Have some tea," Aisha said.

Jeri looked at them all, sitting around the glassy conference table, the feeble remnants of the dream. William Lorris sat at the head in his wheelchair, directing the meeting: Colonel Lorris, who had once seen Mars and later ridden a damaged space shuttle down to earth, reduced to this parody of a conference, where all they were trying to do was decide whether or not to kill two children and a doctor. "You heard my arguments," she finished. "The practical ones, at least. I just want to add one more. I remember when we wanted to bring more people here and try to rebuild, save something from the rubble, pass on what we knew. I think we should remember that now."

"Irrelevant," Lorene Skalton shouted from across the table.

Lorris tapped on the table with a stylus. "Just a minute, just a minute. Jeri, are you finished?" He lisped, smacking his lips; he had lost most of his teeth.

"I'm finished," Jeri said.

"I said, it's irrelevant," Lorene went on. "We decided to change our goal years ago, and you know it, Jeri. We have to think about our safety."

Jeri looked away from Lorene, who, of course, was right. They had once been sure they would rebuild; the Space Center was to have been a refuge, welcoming those fleeing from the ruin around them. They had everything then, access to knowledge and technology, trained people, a mild climate, high hopes. Even food was no problem; citrus groves bordered the area, and game birds could be hunted in the wildlife refuge to the north; they had learned how to grow other foods.

But that had been before the onslaughts of bands wanting only to steal what was there. Even nature had turned against them; new vegetables, some poisonous, had appeared in the gardens, the birds in the refuge would often attack people hunting there, the oranges were small and sour. They had lost some of their children in battles against marauders, others to illness; still others had left, deciding to take their chances in the outside world. Gradually the people left at the space center had come to realize that all they could hope for was to preserve what was there, in the hope that a calmer future world would find it and use it. They had given up on this world.

"Let's take the vote," Ved Reese was saying. Jeri peered down the table at him. He nodded at her, smoothing his hand over his bald head; at least she knew how Ved would vote.

William Lorris tapped the table. "All those who think the visitors should stay, raise your hands." He sputtered as he spoke. Jeri raised hers and saw Ved raising his. She glanced around at the others. Ted Olssen shrugged his big shoulders and put up his hand. Then Leo Carlson stretched out his right hand, propping it up with his left. Jeri let out her breath; the intruders would live. Lorris smiled, apparently satisfied.

Bob Rothstein said, "You're making a mistake. We can't trust outsiders." He scowled at Jeri. His bushy eyebrows and long, gray beard made him look fierce.

"It's decided," Lorris muttered. "Jeri, find out what you can about the visitors. Watch them. Don't let them wander alone."

She nodded, not particularly wanting the responsibility, but glad at least he had not assigned it to Lorene.

"Why can't we just go and save you the trouble?" Simon asked. They stood under a palm tree in front of the large building where they had been imprisoned. Most of the building—the old woman named Jeri had called it the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building, or some such thing—seemed deserted and unused; several windows were broken.

"I explained that," Jeri answered. "We have to preserve what's here. We can't have you deciding to come back with others, trying to take it."

"Believe me, I don't want to come back, alone or with anyone else." He felt a tug at his sleeve and looked down at Aisha. Her eyes narrowed. She was right; he should be more patient.

"Let me give you a piece of advice," Jeri said. "Our governing committee voted to let you stay, but a few people are still distrustful of you. They'll use any excuse to shoot you if you get out of line, so don't do anything to worry them."

"I don't intend to," Simon said. Rocca was fidgeting, scratching his ribs, hopping on one foot and then the other. Simon could trust Aisha, but the boy was unpredictable. Jeri sat down, her back to the tree, and motioned to them. He and Aisha sat also. Rocca threw himself on the weedy, overgrown grass. The road which ran past the front of the building was in poor repair, filled with potholes. Across the road, in a square area surrounded by old roads, vegetables and wheat grew. In one fenced-in corner, surrounded by wire, stood coops; in the yard, ducks and chickens pecked at kernels, clucking and quacking. Six old people were in the field, picking vegetables and, Simon supposed, looking for weeds.

"Everyone here seems old," he commented idly to Jeri.

"That's not so strange," she responded. "A lot of us came here soon after the star appeared, or were here before." She did not have to say which star she meant.

"That's what caused it all, isn't it," Simon said. "Everyone says things were different before that."

"That's what they say," Jeri said sharply. "I'm not so sure it's true. Things were already changing. Maybe the star just speeded up the process. If we'd just had more time, maybe—"

"Maybe what?"

"We could have had more people on the moon who might have survived, living under the surface. We could have brought in a big asteroid, built a settlement inside it, and some of those people might have lived. I don't know. We got held up by one thing after another. There always seemed to be something more important going on somewhere else, so we never got quite what we needed. And after a while, it was too late anyway."

Simon scratched his head, not quite grasping what Jeri said; it sounded like a mixture of fact and old legends he had heard. "Are there still people on the moon?" Aisha asked. "I read an old book about it."

Jeri grinned joylessly. "William Lorris thinks there are. He's tried to contact them, but nobody answers. He thinks they're up there, but they've disconnected their communications equipment to use for other things. I think he's wrong. I think they're all dead."

Simon stretched out his legs. "What happens to us now?" he said.

"Right now, we wait for Ved Reese. He's the doctor here. He'll check to see if you're healthy. After that, you'll have work assigned."

"I'm a doctor too, you know," he said. "I think we're in reasonable shape."

"I don't want to insult you, Doctor, but I think Ved knows more than you do. Besides, we have laboratories here, we can run a great many tests. You'll find out exactly how healthy you are."

Rocca sat up. "We getting fed soon?" he asked. Jeri nodded absently. Simon looked around, still thinking of escape, but knowing he'd have to wait, ready for a likely opportunity. That, after all, was how he got the permits for Miami in the first place.

"What do you do?" Aisha asked Jeri.

"Do you mean what do I do, or what do all of us do?"

"Both."

"I wasn't very important," Jeri said. "I helped negotiate contracts with companies doing work for us. I was also working on a degree in engineering, a master's, I would have finished it, but—" She paused and cleared her throat. "That doesn't matter anyway. Now we're just interested in storing all the knowledge we can, details about everything, scientific papers, research, everything, even a history of what happened and why."

"You must have a ton of paper, then," Simon muttered.

The old woman glanced at him. "Paper, huh? I'm afraid not. Microfiche, and computer storage. Everything has to be cross-indexed so it can be retrieved properly. It's a very complicated job."

"What for?" Aisha asked. "What are you going to do with it then?"

Jeri chuckled. "Why, nothing. We'll just hope that someday, when it's needed, it'll be found and can be used." She climbed to her feet. "We may as well go back inside," she said. "I'll bring Ved to your quarters when he wants to see you."

"Can't we stay out here?" Rocca whined.

"No. Come on."

The boy got up, swinging his arms aggressively, looking angry. "Shit," Rocca said. "Shit, shit, shit." Simon glared at him, shaking his head. The boy stomped toward the entrance. Once again, Simon wondered what trouble he might cause.

Aisha said, "Maybe we should stay."

"Stay!" Simon was chewing a piece of stringy chicken. He swallowed it quickly and almost choked. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"Well, at least for a while, Simon."

He shook his head. "Not even for a while." He gazed at the dinner tray; only one piece of bread was left. Rocca, after finishing half of what was on the tray, had stumbled into the adjoining room, which Jeri had opened up for them, and collapsed on one of the beds. Simon had looked in a few minutes later; the boy had been curled up comfortably on the floor. There was a wet spot on the rug in the corner; Rocca, shunning the toilet next to the bedroom, had apparently taken a piss there.