Virginia Hamilton (14 page)

Good-bye. Good-bye, Celester, toned the unit. Thank you for all you taught the four.

“Good-bye, only unit of twentieth century,” came the faint but pure toning.

The last time: i am the Watcher!

The Crossover swarmed and heaved. Mal was there in smothering darkness. The unit cried out against the fierceness of Mal, whose purpose was to keep misfits away from domity. The unit heard itself heaving for air, for Mal was ghastly and oppressive. The unit felt breathtaking stabs. It feared it would not have strength to beat Mal down and set itself free at the same time on the far side of Crossover.

Let go of me! warned the unit. It tasted sickening bile.

i am the Watcher!

Watcher was there, a blast of color in the center of Mal-dark. Light enclosed the unit in its care. Watcher fought Mal and guided the unit through.

I am Mal!
spoke Mal, whipping its deep shade to taunt the light.

Careful, Mal, or i will turn you inside out, warned the Watcher.

Who dares speak to me in waves of light?

i. You will know me soon enough.

It was a splendid Watcher, growing more serene and powerful each second. All at once it exploded in billions of sparks, lighting up the black of Mal. Watcher burned holes through the dark to gather itself in one spectacular beam on the outside. Watcher surrounded Mal and pressed Mal on all sides.

Get away!
cried Mal.
Hurting, get gone!

The dark heated under burning pressure. It melted in a solid weight, was rounded, glowing with heat. Mal fought with Its sickness, but light knew no sickness.

Watcher heaved the unit far out of range of the glowing ball of Mal to keep it safe. Burning pressure the Watcher had fixed on Mal kept It heating and glowing. Mal became a solid weight, shining, hanging in the Crossover. T’beings swarmed over It, sensing weakness. They knew It had been a living entity. They thought that now It was quite dead. Hordes of them picked at the ball of Mal until Watcher came, singeing them in its light.

Not for you, Watcher informed them. When i am done, this Mal will be my treasure.

Watcher concentrated on knowing and observing and on getting the unit home. It steadied light-motion. It softly lit the unit’s way through the nothing of no-time. For had not the unit performed well, a spaceship carrying the Watcher safely to its place?

i am the Watcher. Observing, surrounding the unit with utmost attention and clear purpose. So much did Watcher comprehend. It was light. Never did it not know.

For a non-moment it glowed especially in the Justice one, where it had waited, changing and growing all of this long time. Years in the genetic life of the child.

Then it was free!

i am the Watcher.

A wrenching pain sent the unit’s mind reeling. Sparks flew, exploding on the unit; then, one by one, most of the sparks went out. They did not burn the unit. A measurable few remaining disappeared inside the unit. The unit thought such pain was Mal. It couldn’t comprehend what was happening. It was so confused with pain, it thought Mal had struck a fatal blow.

i am dying.

Watcher, now free, left the unit on the seam between Crossover and the present.

Wait. The unit looked toward future for help. There it saw the sweetest blue light covering the darkest, shiniest ball. Light and dark retreated, blinking on and off, through Crossover’s opposite end.

From the distance spoke the Watcher: You do not die so easily, First Unit. You who brought me safely to Colossus. Farewell, unit.

And far, far distant the grand, deep tone of Celester was humming in good humor.

The unit plunged from the seam.

T
HERE BEGAN THE PRESENT.
Thomas’ eyes blinked rapidly. He thought he had been dreaming. Then he remembered everything all in a rush.

Must’ve been knocked unconscious, he thought. He saw the Quinella Trace lands he had known all his life.

We’re here!

The lands teemed with life, shadowy and frisky. There was dusk of dawn wrapped around odors of decay. Overripe scents made his mouth fill with saliva. He managed to swallow, keeping his stomach down.

Am I by myself inside? With mental fingers and inward eyes he searched out every nook and cranny of his mind. He felt no other presence. But Justice still might be there. She knew how to get inside his head without him knowing.

Girl, if you’re there, you’d better move out! He turned his mind icy cold and laughed to himself.

I’m alone. No more First Unit. No more being scared to death in a place who knows how many thousands of years from now. Oh, man!

His hands commenced tingling.

Good, relax the fingers. Easier said than done. I can’t move a muscle. Wait a little while. Take it easy.

He had been deaf to sound; now it overwhelmed him as indistinct noise. It took time for him to figure out that he had just heard his sister bursting into tears. She started crying like she intended going on forever; then stopped.

One of them cried, usually, on a return. The crying somehow released tension for all of them. But this was the first time Justice had cried.

I cried once, he remembered. Now I feel like laughing. Yeah; Home free! No more rope around my neck. I’m really, really home.

Dorian Jefferson faced away from the Quinella River toward the field of long grasses, and weeds through which they passed to and from the Quinella lands. Beyond the field the Quinella Road twisted its way up the steep hill. He grew conscious of breathing deeply, squinting against bright sunlight. His eyes burned and watered, and he wished he could wipe them dry. He realized their hands were still joined, and that he had dreamed the sunlight. He closed his eyes to rest them and tried to get a picture of what had happened and how long ago. Then he sucked in his breath, remembering the great light and the ball of dark receding.

It’s over! But does it mean—?

He didn’t finish the thought. Impressions bombarded him; sights and sounds were so wonderful, they made him tremble. Incredibly, he was staring at a rabbit, having opened his eyes again just as it hopped from brown weeds some thirty yards away. He could see it clearly through the wild whips of branches growing out of the buckeye trunk. He was sure the rabbit didn’t see him. They were very still under the tree. The rabbit sniffed and made a whistling sound, which astounded Dorian. He watched it until it disappeared in the weeds. If he could see the rabbit, then it was day. What he saw was vague light, the light that gathers ghostly before the dawn.

Then he thought of all the animals there were on earth. All the life! Future was
so
empty.

He could not feel his hands, but knew the weight of them locked tightly with Thomas’ hand on one side of him and Levi’s on the other.

He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t work. He kept trying; knew his mom would be around close by.

She doesn’t even know we’re back. How could she, unless she was looking into our eyes?

Mom? Mom! That’s stupid, she can’t hear you.

Dorian thought to send a healing aura out through his hands to the other three. He willed it to them the way he always did from someplace within that felt as though it existed behind his eyes. He willed the healant down his neck and shoulders and through his arms and hands. He waited for the warmth of giving that always came into his hands, but he felt nothing.

Levi thought someone was holding their hands in front of his face. It came to him that the hands were green. They weren’t hands at all. What he saw were clusters of buckeye leaves spread out like fingers. They were lovely.

He stared, transfixed, seeing into his own mind. He became aware of things most astonishing.

With her back against the tree, Justice felt the weight of gravity. As she came to, she had the sensation of being pulled down and she could not move against the force. Her hands were gripped by Thomas’ hand and Levi’s. Soon she was able to think clearly. She started crying because she felt sad being home; then she felt glad, so she stopped crying. Tears blinded her. Once they dried, she saw Mrs. Jefferson just beyond the branches. Her back was to the tree. She was deep in thought, staring at the river, which looked black in the pale light. Warily Mrs. Jefferson glanced around at nearby beds of garter snakes. Here was where the snakes nested, lived and died. Heat had caused her dress to stick hotly to her, and she pulled at it and wiped the sweat from her neck.

Justice wondered why the Sensitive had not become aware of their presence. She watched as Mrs. Jefferson rubbed her knees. That was why—the rheumatism in her legs had filled her mind with pain. Softly, softly the Sensitive began singing in a throaty voice that got stronger as it went along:

“A-workin’ in the field

A-wearin’ my bandanna

Ol’ sun were a woman

An’ they call her Hannah

Oh, won’t you go down, go down Hannah, go down.”

Justice listened, startled by the loving, long-ago race sound of it. The sun, a woman. Miacis had called the sun Star. Hannah was such a better name. When you got too tired in the fields, you asked Hannah and she would set herself down.

A husky voice broke in: “Mom. Mom, I’m home.” Dorian had found his voice.

Mrs. Jefferson leaped up and spun around. Justice had never thought a woman her age could move so fast.

She’s only a couple of years older than Mom, I bet. She just seems old. Being a Sensitive must make you old.

The Sensitive was beneath the branches. She looked into Justice’s eyes.

“Child!” she exclaimed, touching her cheeks with gentle, knowing hands. Quickly she crawled around the tree and came back with Dorian, dragging him slung under her long arm like a sack of flour. She had unlocked his hands, and he was stretching his fingers to get the circulation working. She pried Justice’s hands from Levi’s and Thomas’. “Oh, my! You don’t know how good it is! Yes! I never thought the day would come. I fixed my mind y’all might be gone another week. Happy birthday, Justice-chile. Yes, happy birthday to you!”

“Is it my birthday?” Justice whispered.

“Already past the time,” the Sensitive said. “You still a year older, though, even if you missed the birthday.”

“I’m twelve!” said Justice.

“But your mother ...” Mrs. Jefferson stopped. Something.

The brothers were on opposite sides of the tree. Mrs. Jefferson could see only their profiles. They hadn’t moved. There was something in their stillness.

She let Dorian gently down in the tight space between Justice and Levi. She crawled around until she could see Levi’s face. “How you doin’, Number Two?” she said, smiling at him, looking into his eyes. She took his hands and rubbed them vigorously.

“Ow!” he said weakly, with a bit of humor at her enthusiasm. He did not smile exactly, but his face was calm. The depths of his eyes showed no sickness.

“I’m well, I think,” he mumbled, his voice husky from the long silence. “I’m very well.”

“Did they do it over there?” she asked. “Did
they
make you well?”

“Yes,” he said. A vivid image of Sona, imagining he breathed the antiseptic, tranquilized air.

“Must be some place, over there,” she said, but asked no questions. She would have the story from Dorian soon enough.

She moved over to Thomas. He had managed to turn his head so that he confronted her first. That was always his first concern, to be in control. He stared her down. Coldness. She would welcome him in any case, as she had the others.

“How you doin’, Number One?” Clasping his hands in the warmth of hers, she felt his revulsion in a slight tremor in his fingers. She entered his mind smoothly, still smiling and without his knowing, as she could do even to one such as Justice. For she was the Sensitive, the bridge over deep waters. She was the tool and the divining instrument.

Thomas’ mind was an elaborate weave of emotions and manners of acting that were hard to follow. She found his knotted obsession that he must be better than Justice. All of his many dislikes were exaggerated. Now that he was home, he had no fear.

She saw nothing about him that she had not already known. She kept her gaze steady on him, forcing him to respond to her greeting.

Stupid spirit woman! he thought. “I … I’m fu-fu-ine,” he stammered, furious that only in the wretched future could he talk as he wished. “I’m fine, I’m fine!” he told himself, speaking beautifully in his head.

“Oh, that’s good, Number One,” Mrs. Jefferson said. “Y’all sure had a time, too.”

She turned back to her son, crawled over to him. “Get y’all working again. Goodness! You as stiff as a board.” She had Dorian by the shoulders. “Feel them muscles—just like rocks.” Expertly she kneaded the trapezius muscles and deltoid muscles of the neck and shoulders. Oh, she knew muscles, all right. Soon Dorian felt pins sticking him all over.

“Oh, man!” he moaned.

“But you’ll live,” she said, laughing.

Justice touched her arm. “Mrs. Jefferson. Mrs. Jefferson. It’s … it’s gone,” she said, sounding as tired and apprehensive as she felt.

“Shhh, now,” Mrs. Jefferson said, “don’t you worry. We gone get y’all moving and we can talk tomorrow, or even next week. It’s for sure you home now, and we got plenty of time.”

All of them had their voices and could move their necks and arms and, clumsily, their legs, by the time Mrs. Jefferson had taken the last one of them in hand. Levi was standing, looking quite fit.

“It was the twilight of the breaking day when you come back,” said the Sensitive. “See the sun-up coming!” Just then the sun winked over the horizon, lighting the trees, the field in a fresh yellow glow.

They drank in the clean brightness of the air. They could have cried, but Mrs. Jefferson wouldn’t give them a sentimental moment.

“Come on, Dor,” she said to her son. “Shoot, be gettin’ on back before your daddy catch the house all empty.” She was already walking away. She was beside herself with happiness to have the boy back, to have the three others back. But best to keep herself under control. No sense having a child break down by her example.

She stopped, turned back. Dorian, close behind her, almost ran into her; he stopped himself from bumping her by stepping quickly backward.