HOMECALLING
I
THERE WAS NO warning. Deborah heard her mother shout, `Dee! Grab the baby!'
Petey's limbs hung loose; his pink young mouth fell open as he bounced off the foam-padded floor of the play-space, hit more foam on the sidewall, at a neat ninety-degree angle, and bounced once more. The small ship finished upending itself, lost the last of its spin, and hurled itself surfaceward under constant acceleration. Wall turned to ceiling, ceiling to floor and Petey landed smack on his fat bottom against the foam-protected toy-bin. Unhurt but horrified, he added a lusty wail to the ever shriller screaming of the alien atmosphere, and the mighty reverberations of the rocket's thunder.
'... the bay-beeee ... Dee!'
'I got him.' Deborah hooked a finger finally through her brother's overall strap, and demanded : 'What do I do now?'
'I don't know; hold on to him. Wait a minute.' Sarah Levin turned her head with difficulty towards her husband. `John,' she whispered, 'what's going to happen?'
He gnawed at his lower lip, tried to quirk a smile out of the side of his mouth nearest her. 'Not good,' he said, very low. 'The children?'
'Dunn.' He struggled with levers, frantically trying to fire the
tail rockets—now, after their sudden space-somersault became
the forward jets. 'Don't know what's wrong,' he muttered fiercely. 'Mommy, it hurts..?
Petey was really crying now, low and steady sobbing, and Dee whimpered again, 'It hurts. I can't get up.'
'Daddy's trying to fix it,' Sarah said. 'Dee ... listen..? It washard to talk 'If you can, try to ... kind of ... wrap yourseh around Petey ...'
`I can't..? Deborah too broke into sobs.
Seconds of waiting, slow eternal seconds; then incredibly, gout of flame burst out ahead of them.
The braking force of the forward rocket eased the pressure inside, and Dee ricocheted off a foamed surface—wall, floor cell• ing? She didn't know—her finger still stuck tight through Petey'; strap. The ground, strange orange-red terrain with towering bluish trees, was close. Too close. There was barely time before the crash for Sarah to shout a last reminder.
'...right around him!' she yelled. Dee understood; she pulled her baby brother close to her chest and wound her arms and leg( around his body. Then there was crashing splintering jagged noise through all the world.
It was too warm. Dee didn't want to look, but she opened an eye.
Nothing to see but foam-padded sides of the play-space, with the toys scattered all over.
A bell jangled, and a mechanical voice began: 'Fire ... Fire .. . Fire ... Fire ... Fire . . .' Dee knew what to do. She wondered about letting go of Petey, but she'd have to, she couldn't ask her mother, because the safety door was closed. Her mother and father were both on the other side in front—that was where the fire would be. She wondered if they'd get burned up, but let go of Petey, and worked the escape lock the way she'd been taught. While it was opening, she put on Petey's oxy mask and her own. She didn't know for sure whether they would be needed on this planet, but one place they'd been called Carteld, you had to wear a mask all the time because there wasn't enough oxygen in the air.
She couldn't remember the name of this planet. They'd never been here before, she knew that much; but this must be the one they were coming to, or Daddy wouldn't have started to go down, and everything wouldn't have happened.
That meant probably, at least the air wasn't poisonous. They had space-suits and helmets on the ship, and Dee had space-suit drill every week; but she was pretty sure she didn't need anything
more than the mask here. And there wasn't time for space-suits anyhow.
The lock was all the way open. Deborah went to the door and recoiled before the blast of heat; it was burning outside. Now she had to get away, quick.
She picked up Petey, looked around at all the toys, and at the closet where her clothes were; at the blackboard, the projector, and the tumbled pile of fruit and crackers on the floor. She bent down and stuffed the pockets of her jumper with the crumbly crackers and smashed sticky fruit. Then she looked around again, and felt the heat coming through the door, and had to leave everything else behind.
She climbed out, and there were flames in the back. She ran, with Petey in her arms, though she'd been told never to do that. She ran straight away from the flames, and kept going as long as she could; it was hard work, because her feet sank into the spongy soil at every step. And it was still hot, even when she got away from the rocket. She kept running until she was too tired, and began to stumble, then she slowed down and walked—until Petey began to be too heavy, and she couldn't carry him any more. She stopped, and put him down on the ground and looked him over. He was all right, only he was wet—very wet—and the whole front of her jumper was wet too, from him.
Deborah scowled, and the baby began to cry. She couldn't stand that, so she smiled and tried playing games with him. Petey wasn't very good at games yet, but he always laughed and stayed happy if she played with him. Sometimes she thought he liked her better than anybody else, even Mommy. He acted that way. Maybe it was because she was closer to his size—a medium size giant in a world full of giant-giants; that's how people would look to Petey.
When he was happy again, she gave him half a cracker from her pocket, and a piece of fruit for his other hand. He tumbled over backwards, and lay down, right on the muddy ground, smearing the food all over his face and looking sleepy.
Sooner or later, Dee knew, she was going to have to turn around and look back, meanwhile, she sat on the ground, crosslegged,watching Peter fall asleep. She thought about her ancestors, who were pioneers on Pluto, and her father and how brave he was. She thought once, very quickly, about her mother, who was may-be all burned up now.
She had to be brave now—as brave and strong as she knew, in her own private self, she really was. Not silly-brave the way grown-ups expected you to be, about things like cuts and antiseptics, but deep-down important brave. She was an intrepid explorer on an alien planet, exposed to unknown dangers and trials, with a help-less infant under her wing to protect. She turned around and looked back.
Her own footsteps faced her, curving away out of sight between two tall distant trees. She looked harder in the direction they pointed to, if the fire was still burning, she ought to be able to see it. The trees were far enough apart, and the ground was clear between them—clearer than any ground she'd ever seen before. There were no bushes or branches near the ground, higher than a rocket-launch—tall yellow orange poles with whispering foliage at the top.
The overhead canopy was thick and dark, a changeable ceiling with grey and green and blue fronds stirring in the air. She couldn't see the sky through it all, or see beyond it to find out whether there was any smoke. But that made it dark here, underneath the trees, so Dee was sure she would be able to see the fire, if it was still going.
She got up and followed her own footsteps back, as far as she could go without losing sight of Petey, that was the spot where the trail curved away in a different direction. It curved again, she saw further on; that was strange, because she was sure she'd been going in a straight line when she ran away. The trees all looked so much alike, it would have been hard to tell. She'd heard a story once about a man who went around and around in circles in a forest till he starved to death. It was a good thing that the ground was so soft here, and she could see the footprints so clearly.
Petey was sound asleep. She decided she could leave him alone for a minute. She hadn't seen any wild beasts or animals, or heard
anything that sounded dangerous. Deborah started back along her own trail, and at the next bend she saw it, framed between two far trees : the front part of the rocket, still glowing hot, bright orange red like the persimmons Daddy had sent out from Earth one time. That was why she hadn't been able to see it before, the colour was hardly different from the ground on which it stood: just barely redder.
Nothing was burning any more.
'Mommy I' Deborah screamed, and screamed it again at the top of her lungs.
Nothing happened.
She started to run towards the rocket, still calling; then she heard Petey yelling, too. He was awake again and she had to turn around and run back and pick him up. Then she started the trip all over again, much slower. Petey was dripping wet now, and still hollering. And heavy. Dee tried letting him crawl, but it was too slow. Every move he made, he sank into the soft ground an inch or so; then he'd get curious and try to eat the orange dirt off his fingers, so she had to pick him up again.
By the time they got back to the rocket, Dee was wet all over, plastered with the dirt that Petey had picked up, and too tired even to cry when nobody answered her call.
II
THE LADY OF the house sat fat with contentment on her couch, and watched the progress of the work. Four of her sons—precision masons all—performed deft manoeuvres with economy and dispatch; a new arch took place before her eyes, enlarged and re-designed to suit her needs.
They started at the floor, sealing the jagged edges a full foot farther back on either side than where the frame had been before. They worked in teams of two, one to stand by and tamp each chip in place with sensitive mandibles, smoothing and firming it into position as it set; the other stepping off to choose a matching piece from the diminishing pile of hard-wood chips, coating it evenly with liquid plastic from his snout and bringingit, ready for placement in the arch, just at the instant that his brother completed the setting of the preceding piece.
Then the exchange in roles : the static partner moving off to make his choice; the second brother setting his new chip in perfect pattern with the rest : Two teams, building the two sides of the arch in rhythmic concert with each other. It was a ritual dance of function and form, chips and plastic, workers and work, each in its way an apparently effortless inevitable detail of the whole. Daydanda gloried in it.
The arch grew taller than ever before, and the Lady's satisfaction grew enormous, while her consort's fluttering excitement mounted. 'But why?' he asked again, still querulous.
'It is pleasant to watch.'
'You will not use it?' He was absurdly hopeful.
'Of course I will!'
'But, Lady ... Daydanda, my dearest, Mother of our children, this whole thing is unheard of. What sort of example ... ?'
'Have you ever,' she demanded coldly, 'had cause to regret the example I set to my children?'
'No, no my dear, but..?
She withdrew her attention entirely, and gave herself over to the pure aesthetic delight of watching her sons—the two teams of masons—working overhead now on the final span of the arch, approaching each other with perfect timing and matched instantaneous motions, preparing to meet and place the ceremonial centre-piece together.
Soon she would, rise, take her husband's arm and experience—for the first time since her initial Family came to growth—the infinite pleasure of walking erect through her own door into the next chamber.
Even the report, shortly afterwards, of a fire spreading on the eastern boundary. failed to diminish her pleasure. She assigned three fliers to investigate the trouble, and dismissed it from her mind.
III
FOR A LONG, long time Deborah sat still on the ground, hugging Petey on her lap, not caring how wet he was, nor even trying to stop his crying—except that she rocked gently back and forth in a tradition as ancient as it was instinctive. After a while, the baby was asleep; but the girl still sat crosslegged on the ground, her shoulders moving rhythmically, slower and slower, until the swaying was almost imperceptible.
The rocket—the shiny rocket that had been new and expensive a little while ago—lay helpless on its side. The nozzles in the tail, now quiet and cool, had spouted flame across a streak of surface that stretched farther back than Dee could see, leaving a Hallowe'en trail of scorched black across the orange ground. Up forward, where the fire in the ship had been, there was nothing to see but the still-red glow of the hull.
Deborah tried to figure out what flames she had seen when she left the ship with Petey; but it didn't make sense, and she hadn't looked long enough to be sure. She'd been taught what to do in case of fire : get out! She'd done it; and now ... The lock was still open where she'd climbed out before. Very very carefully, not to wake him she laid her baby brother on the soft ground, and step by reluctant step she approached the ship. Near the lock, she could feel heat; but it was all coming from one direction—from the nose, and not from inside. She touched a yellow clay stained finger to the lock itself, and felt the wall inside, and found it cool. She took a deep breath, ignored the one tear that forced its way out of her right eye, and climbed up into the rocket.
It was quiet in there. Dee didn't know what kind of noise she'd expected, until she remembered the last voice she'd heard when she left, saying calmly, `Fire ... fire ... fire ...'
She thought that out and knew the fire had stopped; then it was all right to open the safety door to the front part. Maybe ... maybe they weren't hurt or anything; maybe they just couldn't hear her call. If there was just a little fire in there, itmight have damaged the controls so they couldn't open the door for instance.
She knew where the controls on her side were, and how to work them. Her hand was on the knob when she had the thought, and then she was afraid. She knew from T.Z.'s how a burning body smelled; and she remembered how hot the outside of the hull was.
Her hand withdrew from the knob, returned, and then with-drew again, without consulting her at all.
That wasn't any little fire.
If they were all right, they'd find some way to open the door themselves; Daddy could always figure out something like that.
If people ask, she told herself, I'll tell then: I didn't know how.
`Mommy,' she said out loud. 'Mommy, please ...'
Then she remembered the tube. She ran to it and took the speaker off the hook, fumbling with impatience so that it fell from her hand and dangled on its cord, it buzzed the way it should; it was working!
She grabbed at it, and shouted into it. `Mommy! Daddy! Where are you?' That was a silly thing to say. `Please answer me. Please. Please!' I'll be good all the rest of my life, she promised silently and faithfully, all the rest of my life, if you answer me.
But no one answered.
She didn't think about the door controls again. After a while she found she could look around without really seeing the locked safety door. She had only to try a little, and she could make-believe it was a wall just like the sidewalls, that belonged there.
Eight and a half years is a short span of time to an adult; no one seriously expects very much of a child that age. But almost nine years is a long time when you're growing up, and more than time enough to learn a great many things.
Besides the sealed-off control room, and the bedroom-playspace, the family rocket had a third compartment, in the rear. Back there were the galley, bathroom facilities, and the repair equipment, with a tiny metals workshop. Only this last section held any mysteries for Deborah. She knew how to find and pre-pare the stored food supplies for herself and the baby; how to
keep the water-reuser and air-fresher operating; where the oxy tanks were, and how to use them if she needed them.
She knew, too, how to let the bunks out of the wall in the play-space, and how to fasten Petey in so he wouldn't smother or strangle himself, or fall out, or even get uncovered in the night. And she knew where all the clean dothes were kept, and how to change the baby's diapers.
These things she knew as naturally and inevitably as a child back on Earth would have known how to select a meal on the push-panel, how to use the slide-walks, how to dial his lessons.
For five days, she played house with the baby in the rocket.
The first day it was fun; she made up bottles from the roll of plastic containers, and mixed milk in the blender from the dried supply. She ate her favourite foods, wore all her best clothes, dressed the baby and undressed him, and took him out for sun and air in the clearing blasted by the rocket jets. She discovered the uses of the spongy soil, and built fabulous mud castles while Petey played. Inside, when he was sleeping, she read films, and coloured pictures, and left the T.Z. running all the time.
The second day, and the third, she did all the same things, but it wasn't so much fun. Petey was always crying for something just when she got interested in what she was doing. And you couldn't say, `Soon as I finish this chapter,' because he wouldn't under-stand.
Deborah got bored; then she began to get worried, too.
At first she had known that help would come; the people who lived on this planet would come looking for them. They'd rescue her and Petey; she'd be a heroine, and perhaps they'd never even ask if she knew how to open that door.
The third day, she began to think that perhaps there weren't any people on the planet at all—at least not on this part of it. There always had been a few people at least, whenever they went any place. The Government didn't send out survey engineers or geologists, like John and Sarah Levin, until after the first wildcat claims began to come in from a new territory. But this time maybe nobody knew they were coming. Or perhaps nobody had seen the crash. Or maybe this wasn't even the right planet.
She worried about that for a while, and then she remembered that her father always sent back a message-rocket when they arrived anyplace. He'd told her it was so the people on the last planet would know they were safe; if it didn't come at the right time, somebody would come out looking, to see what had happened to them.
Dee wondered how long it would take for the folks back on Starhope to get worried and come and rescue them. She couldn't even figure out how long they'd been in space on the way here. It was a long trip, but she wasn't sure if it had been a week, or a month, or more. Trips in space were always long.
The fourth day, she got tired of just waiting, and decided to explore.
She wasn't bothering with the masks any more. The dials still said full after the first three times they went out, and that meant air had enough oxygen in it so that the masks weren't working. So that was no problem.
And she could take along plenty of food. The only thing she wasn't sure about was Petey. She was afraid to leave him by him-self, even in the play space, and he was too heavy to carry for very long. She took his stroller out and tried it, but the ground was too soft to push it when he was inside.
The next morning, early, Deborah packed a giant lunch, and took the stroller out again. She found out that, though it wouldn't push, it could be pulled, so she tied a rope to the front, and loaded it up with bottles and diapers and her lunch and Petey. Then she set off up the broad black avenue of the rocket jets; that way she could always see the ship, and they wouldn't get lost.
IV
DAYDANDA WAS TIRED. Truthfully, all this walking back and forth between chambers was a strain. Now she submitted gratefully to Kackot's fussing anxiety as he plumped the top mat here and pulled it there, adjusting the big new dais-couch to conform to her swollen body.
'I told you it was too much,' he fumed. 'I don't see why you want to do it anyhow. Now you rest for a while. You ...' 'I have work to do,' she reminded him.
'It can wait; let them think for themselves for once!'
She giggled mentally at the notion. Kackot refused to share her amusement.
'There's nothing that can't wait half an hour anyhow.' He was almost firm with her; she loved to have him act that way some-times. Contentedly, she stretched out and let her weight sink into the soft layers of cellulose mat. Her body rested, but her mind and eye were as active as ever. She studied the new shelves and drawers and files, the big new desk at the head of the bed. Every-thing was at hand; everything in place; it was wonderful. The old room had been unbearably cluttered. Now she had only the active records near her. Everything connected with the departed was in the old room : easy to get at on the rare occasions when she needed it; but not underhand every time she turned around.
Daydanda examined the perfect arch her sons had built, and exulted in the sight of it. When she wanted anything on the other side, all she had to do was walk right through.
She was aware of Kackot's distress. Poor thing, he did hate to have her do anything unconventional. But no one had to know, no one who wasn't really close to them ...
'Lady! Mother Daydanda!'
Kackot's image blanked out. This was a closed beam, an urgent call from an older daughter, serving her turn in training as relay-receptionist for messages from the many less articulate children of the Household.
'What's wrong?'
'Mother! The Stranger Lady has left her wings at last! She came out from inside them! And with a babe in arms! She ... oh Mother, I do not know how to tell it; I have never known the like, She is not of our people. The wings are not proper wings. She has no consort. A Family of one! I do not understand...'
'Be comforted, child. There is no need for you to understand. With her own mind seething, Daydanda could still send a message of ease and understanding to her daughter. 'You have done well. She is not of our people, and we must expect many strange things. Now I want the scout.'
The daughter's mind promptly cleared away; in its place, Daydanda felt the nervous tingling excitement of the winged son who had been sent out to report on the fire in the east, and then to keep watch over the Strange Wings he had found there.
'Mother! I am frightened!'
The message was weak; the daughter through whom it came would be struggling with her curiosity. She was of the eighth family, almost mature, soon to depart from the Household and already showing signs of individualism and rebelliousness. She would be a good Mother, Daydanda thought with satisfaction, even as she closed the contact with the scout and shut the daughter out with a sharp reprimand for inefficiency.
'There is nothing to fear,' she told her son sharply; 'tell me what you have seen.'
'The Strange Lady has left her Wings. She has not enough limbs, and she uses a Strange litter to carry her babe. She ...'
'She is a Stranger, son! And you have already quite adequately described her appearance. If you fear Strangeness for its own sake, you will never pierce the tree-tops, nor win yourself a Wife. You will remain in the Household till your wings drop off, and you are put to tending the corral..?
As she had expected, the familiar th...
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