“Home?” For a stunned moment the word hung almost visibly in the air above us.
Then, “Home!” The cry rose and swelled and broke to audibility as the whole Group took to the sky as one. It was such a jubilant ecstatic cry that it shook an echo sufficient to frighten a pair of blue jays from a clump of pines on the flat.
“Why they must all think the way I do!” I thought, astonished, as I joined in the upsurge and the jubilant chorus of the wordless Homeward song. Then I flatted a little as I wondered if any of them shared with me the sudden pang I had felt before. I tucked it quickly away, deep enough so that only a Sorter would be able to find it, and quickly cradled the Francher kid in my lifting-he hadn’t learned to go much beyond the treetops yet, and the Group was leaving him behind ….
“There’s four of them,” I thought breathlessly at Obla. “Only four. They brought the ship to take us Home.”
Obla turned her blind face to me. “To take us all? Just like that?”
“Well, yes,” I replied, frowning a little. “I guess just like that-whatever that means.”
“After all I suppose castaways are always eager for rescue,” Obla said. Then, gently mocking, “I suppose you’re all packed?”
“I’ve been packed almost since I was born. Haven’t I always been talking about getting out of this bind that holds us back?”
“You have,” Obla thought. “Exhaustively talked about it. Put your hand out the window, Bram. Take a handful of sun.” I did, filling my palm with the tingling brightness. “Pour it out.” I tilted my hand and felt the warm flow of escaping light. “No more Earth sun ever again,” she said. “Not ever!”
“Darn you, Obla, cut it out!” ! cried.
“You weren’t so entirely sure yourself, were you? Even after all your protestations. Even in spite of that big warm wonder growing inside you.”
“Warm wonder?” Then I felt my face heat up. “Oh,” I said awkwardly. “That’s only natural interest in a stranger-a stranger from Home!” I felt excitement mounting. “Just think, Obla! From Home!”
“A stranger from Home.” Obla’s thought was a little sad.
“Listen to your words, Brain. A stranger from Home. Whenever have People been strangers to one another?”
“You’re playing with words now. Let me tell you the whole thing-“
I have used Obla for a sounding board ever since I can remember. I have no memory of her physically complete. I became conscious of her only after her disaster and mine. The same explosion that maimed her took my parents. They were trying to get some Outsiders out of a crashed plane and didn’t quite make it. Some of my most grandiose schemes have echoed hollow and empty against the listening receptiveness of Obla. And some of my shyest thoughts have grown to monumental strength with her uncritical acceptance of them. Somehow, when you hear your own ideas, crisply cut for transmission, they are stripped of anything extraneous and stand naked of pretensions, and then you can get a decent perspective on them.
“Poor child,” she cut in when I told her of Salla’s hair being caught. “Poor child, to feel that pain is a privilege-“
“Better that than having pain a way of life!” I flashed. “Who should know better than you?”
“Perhaps, perhaps. Who is to say which is better-to hunger and be fed, or to be fed so continuously that you never know hunger? Sometimes a little fasting is good for the soul. Think of a cold drink of water after an afternoon in the hayfield.”
I shivered at the delicious recollection. “Well, anyway …” and I finished the account for her. I was almost out of the door before I suddenly realized that I hadn’t mentioned Davy at all! I went back and told her. Before I was half through her face twisted and her hair swirled protectively over it. When I finished I stood there awkwardly, not knowing exactly what to do. Then I caught a faint echo of her thought. “A voice again….” I think a little of my contempt for gadgets died at the moment. Anything that could pleasure Obla …
I thought I was troubled about whether we should go or stay, until the afternoon I found all the Blends and In-gathereds sitting together on the boulders above Cougar Creek. Dita was trailing the water from her bare toes, and all the rest were concentrating on the falling of the drops as though there were some answer in them. The Francher kid was making a sharp crystal scale out of their falling. I came openly so there was no thought of eavesdropping, but I don’t think they were fully aware that I was there.
“But for me-” Dita drew her knees up to her chest and clasped her wet feet in her hands, “for me it’s different. You’re Blends, or all of the People. But I’m all of Earth. My roots are anchored in this old rock. Think what it would mean to me to say good-by to my world. Think back to the Crossing-” A ripple of discomfort moved through the Group. “You see? And yet, to stay-to watch the People go, to know them gone-” She laid her cheek against her knees.
The quick comfort of the others enveloped her, and Low moved to the boulder beside her.
“It’d be as bad for us to leave,” he said. “Sure, we’re of the People, but this is the only Home we’ve known. I didn’t grow up in a Group. None of us did. All of our roots are firmly set here, too. To leave-“
“What has the New Home to offer that we don’t have here?” Peter started a little whirlpool in the shallow stream below.
“Well-” Low stilled the whirlpool and spoke into a lengthening silence, “ask Bram. He’s all afire to blast off.” He grinned over his shoulder at me.
“The new Home is our world,” I said, drifting over to them, gathering my scattered thoughts. “We would be among our own. No more concealment. No more trying to fit in where we don’t fit. No more holding back, holding back, when we could be doing so much.”
I could feel the surge and swirl of thoughts around me-each person aligning himself to the vision of the Home. Without any further word they all left the creek, absorbed in the problem. As they slowly scattered there was not an echo of a thought. Everyone was shutting himself up with his own reactions.
All the peace and tranquility of Cougar Canyon was gone. Oh, sure, the light still slanted brightly through the trees at dawn, the wind still stirred the branches in the hot quiet afternoons and occasionally whipped up little whirlwinds to dance the dried leaves in a brief flurry of action, and the slender new moon was cleanly bright in the evening sky-but it was all overlaid with a big question mark.
I couldn’t settle to anything. Halfway through ripping a plank at the mill I’d think, “Why bother? We’ll be gone soon.” And then the spasm of acute pleasure and anticipation would somehow turn to the pain of bereavement and I’d feel like clutching a handful of sawdust and-well-sobbing into it.
And late at night, changing the headgates to irrigate another alfalfa field, I’d kick the moss-slick wet boards and think exultantly, “When we get there we won’t have to go through this mumbo-jumbo. We’ll rain the water where and when we want it!”
Then again, I’d lie in the edge of the hot sun, my head in the shade of the cottonwoods, and feel the deep soaking warmth to my very bone, smell the waiting dusty smell of the afternoon, feel sleep wrapping itself around my thoughts and hear the sudden creaking cries of the red-winged blackbirds in the far fields, and suddenly know that I couldn’t leave it. Couldn’t give up Earth for any thing or any place.
But there was Salla. Showing her Earth was like nothing you could ever imagine. For instance it never occurred to her that things could hurt her. Like the day I found her halfway across Furnace Flat, huddled under a pinion pine, cradling her bare feet in her hands and rocking with pain.