Sol and Sarai used money loaned from Reichs University to receive limited Poulsen treatments in Bussard City. They were already too old for the process to extend their lives for another century, but it restored the look of a couple approaching fifty standard rather than seventy. They studied old family photos and found that it was not too difficult to dress the way they had a decade and a half before.
Sixteen-year-old Rachel tripped down the stairs with her comlog tuned to the college radio station. “Can I have rice cereal?”
“Don’t you have it every morning?” smiled Sarai.
“Yes,” grinned Rachel. “I just thought we might be out or something. I heard the phone. Was that Niki?”
“No,” said Sol.
“Damn,” said Rachel and glanced at them. “Sorry. But she promised she’d call as soon as the standardized scores came in. Three weeks since tutorials. You’d think I’d have heard something.”
“Don’t worry,” said Sarai. She brought the coffeepot to the table, started to pour Rachel a cup, poured it for herself. “Don’t worry, honey. I promise you that your scores will be good enough to get you into any school you want.”
“Mom,” sighed Rachel. “You don’t know. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.” She frowned. “Have you seen my math ansible? My room was all messed around. I couldn’t find anything.”
Sol cleared his throat. “No classes today, kiddo.”
Rachel stared. “No classes? On a Tuesday? Six weeks from graduation? What’s up?”
“You’ve been sick,” Sarai said firmly. “You can stay home one day. Just today.”
Rachel’s frown deepened. “Sick? I don’t feel sick. Just sort of weird. Like things aren’t … aren’t right somehow. Like why’s the couch moved around in the media room? And where’s Chips? I called and called but he didn’t come.”
Sol touched his daughter’s wrist. “You’ve been sick for a while,” he said. “The doctor said you might wake up with a few gaps. Let’s talk while we walk over to the campus. Want to?”
Rachel brightened. “Skip classes and go to the college? Sure.” She faked a look of consternation. “As long as we don’t run into Roger Sherman. He’s taking freshman calculus up there and he’s such a pain.”
“We won’t see Roger,” said Sol. “Ready to go?”
“Almost.” Rachel leaned over and gave her mother a huge hug. “ ’Later, alligator.”
“ ’While, crocodile,” said Sarai.
“Okay,” grinned Rachel, her long hair bouncing. “I’m ready.”
The constant trips to Bussard City had required the purchase of an EMV and on a cool day in autumn Sol took the slowest route, far below the traffic lanes, enjoying the sight and smell of the harvested fields below. More than a few men and women working in the fields waved to him.
Bussard had grown impressively since Sol’s childhood, but the synagogue was still there on the edge of one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. The temple was old, Sol felt old, even the yarmulke he put on as he entered seemed ancient, worn thin by decades of use, but the rabbi was young. Sol realized that the man was at least forty—his hair was thinning on either side of the dark skullcap—but to Sol’s eyes he was little more than a boy. Sol was relieved when the younger man suggested that they finish their conversation in the park across the street.
They sat on a park bench. Sol was surprised to find himself still carrying the yarmulke, passing the cloth from hand to hand. The day smelled of burning leaves and the previous night’s rain.
“I don’t quite understand, M. Weintraub,” said the rabbi. “Is it the dream you’re disturbed about or the fact that your daughter has become ill since you began the dream?”
Sol raised his head to feel the sunlight on his face. “Neither, exactly,” he said. “I just can’t help but feel that the two are connected somehow.”
The rabbi ran a finger over his lower lip. “How old is your daughter?”
“Thirteen,” said Sol after an imperceptible pause.
“And is the illness … serious? Life threatening?”
“Not life threatening,” said Sol. “Not yet.”
The rabbi folded his arms across an ample belly. “You don’t believe … may I call you Sol?”
“Of course.”
“Sol, you don’t believe that by having this dream … that somehow you’ve caused your little girl’s illness. Do you?”
“No,” said Sol and sat a moment, wondering deep within if he was telling the truth. “No, Rabbi, I don’t think …”
“Call me Mort, Sol.”
“All right, Mort. I didn’t come because I believe that I—or the dream—am causing Rachel’s illness. But I believe my subconscious might be trying to tell me something.”
Mort rocked back and forth slightly. “Perhaps a neuro-specialist or psychologist could help you more there, Sol. I’m not sure what I …”
“I’m interested in the story of Abraham,” interrupted Sol. “I mean, I’ve had some experience with different ethical systems, but it’s hard for me to understand one which began with the order to a father to slay his son.”
“No, no, no!” cried the rabbi, waving oddly childlike fingers in front of him. “When the time came, God stayed Abraham’s hand. He would not have allowed a human sacrifice in His name. It was the obedience to the will of the Lord that …”
“Yes,” said Sol. “Obedience. But it says, ‘Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.’ God must have looked into his soul and seen that Abraham was ready to slay Isaac. A mere show of obedience without inner commitment would not have appeased the God of Genesis. What would have happened if Abraham had loved his son more than he loved God?”
Mort drummed his fingers on his knee a moment and then reached out to grasp Sol’s upper arm. “Sol, I can see you’re upset about your daughter’s illness. Don’t get it mixed up with a document written eight thousand years ago. Tell me more about your little girl. I mean, children don’t die of diseases anymore. Not in the Web.”
Sol rose, smiled, and stepped back to free his arm. “I’d like to talk more, Mort. I want to. But I have to get back. I have a class this evening.”
“Will you come to temple this Sabbath?” asked the rabbi, extending stubby fingers for a final human contact.
Sol dropped the yarmulke into the younger man’s hands. “Perhaps one of these days, Mort. One of these days I will.”
Later the same autumn Sol looked out the window of his study to see the dark figure of a man standing under the bare elm in front of the house. The media, thought Sol, his heart sinking. For a decade he had been dreading the day the secret got out, knowing it would mean the end of their simple life in Crawford. He walked out into the evening chill. “Melio!” he said when he saw the tall man’s face.
The archaeologist stood with his hands in the pockets of his long blue coat. Despite the ten standard years since their last contact, Arundez had aged but little—Sol guessed that he was still in his late twenties. But the younger man’s heavily tanned face was lined with worry. “Sol,” he said and extended his hand almost shyly.
Sol shook his hand warmly. “I didn’t know you were back. Come into the house.”
“No.” The archaeologist took a half step back. “I’ve been out here for an hour, Sol. I didn’t have the courage to come to the door.”
Sol started to speak but then merely nodded. He put his hands in his own pockets against the chill. The first stars were becoming visible above the dark gables of the house. “Rachel’s not home right now,” he said at last. “She went to the library. She … she thinks she has a history paper due.”