“Long-drawn periods of indecision are not good,” he said without preliminary. “The ship has been here two weeks. We have all faced our problem-to go or to stay. There are many of us who have not yet come to a decision. This we must do soon. The ship will up a week from today. To help us decide we are now open to brief statements pro or con.”
There was an odd tightening feeling as the whole Group flowed into a common thought stream and became a single unit instead of a mass of individuals.
“I will go.” It was the thought of the Oldest from his bed back in the Canyon. “The new Home has the means to help me, so that the years yet allotted to me may be nearly painless. Since the Crossing-” He broke off, flashing an amused.
” ‘Brief’!”
“I will stay.” It was the voice of one of the young girls from Bendo. “We have only started to make Bendo a place fit to live in. I like beginnings. The new Home sounds finished, to me.”
“I don’t want to go away,’ a very young voice piped. “My radishes are just coming up and I hafta water them all the time. They’d die if I left.” Amusement tippled through the Group and relaxed us.
“I’ll go.” It was Matt, called back from Tech by the ship’s arrival. “In the Home my field of specialization has developed far beyond what we have at Tech or anywhere else. But I’m coming back.”
“There can be no free and easy passage back and forth between the Home and Earth,” Jemmy warned, “for a number of very valid reasons.”
“I’ll chance it,” Matt said. “I’ll make it back.”
“I’m staying,” the Francher kid said. “‘Here on Earth we’re different with a plus. There we’d be different with a minus. What we can do and do well won’t be special there. I don’t want to go where I’d be making ABC songs. I want my music to go on being big.”
“I’m going,” Jake said, his voice mocking as usual. “I’m through horsing around. I’m going to become a solid citizen. But I want to go in for-” His verbalization stopped, and all I could comprehend was an angular sort of concept wound with time and space as with serpentine. I saw my own blankness on the faces around me and felt a little less stupid. “See,” Jake said. “That’s what I’ve been having on the tip of my mind for a long time. Shua tells me they’ve got a fair beginning on it there. I’ll be willing to ABC it for a while for a chance at something like that.”
I cleared my throat. Here was my chance to broadcast to the whole Group what I intended to do! Apparently I was the only one seeing the situation clearly enough. “I-“
It was as though I’d stepped into a dense fog bank. I felt as though I’d gone blind and dumb at one stroke. I had a feeling of being torn like a piece of paper. I lost all my breath as I became vividly conscious of my actual thoughts. I didn’t want to go! I was snatched into a mad whirlpool of thoughts at this realization. How could I stay after all I’d said? How could I go and know Earth no more? How could I stay and let Salla go? How could I go and leave Obla behind? Dimly I heard someone else’s voice finishing:
“… because Home or no Home, this is Home to me!”
I closed my gaping wordless mouth and wet my dry lips. I could see again-see the Group slowly dissolving-the Bendo Group gathering together under the trees, the rest drifting away from the flat. Low leaned across the rock. “S’matter, feller?” he laughed. “Cat got your tongue? I expected a blast of eloquence from you that’d push the whole Group up the gangplank.”
“Bram’s bashful!” Dita teased. “He doesn’t like to make his convictions known!”
I tried a sort of smile. “Pity me, people,” I said. “Before you stands a creature shorn of convictions, nekkid as a jay bird in the cold winds of indecision.”
“Fresh out of long-johns,” Peter said, sobering. “But there’s plenty of sympathy available.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Noted and appreciated.”
I couldn’t take my new doubt and indecision, the new tumult and pain to Obla-not when she was so much a part of it, so I took them up into the hills. I perched like a brooding buzzard on the stone spur outside the little cave, high above the Canyon. Wildly, until my throat ached and my voice croaked, I railed against this world and its limitations. Hoarsely I whispered over all the lets and hindrances that plagued us-that plagued me. And, infuriatingly, the world and all its echoes placidly paced my every argument with solid rebuttal. I was hearing with both ears now, one for my own voice, one for the world’s reply. And my voice got fainter and fainter, and Earth’s voice wasn’t a whisper any more.
“Nothing is the way it should be!” I hoarsely yelled my last weary assault at the evening sky.
“And never will be, short of eternity,” replied the streak of sunset crimson.
“But we could do so much more-“
“Whoever heard of bread made only of leaven?” replied the first evening star.
“We’re being wasted,” I whispered.
“So is the wheat when it’s broadcast in the field,” answered the fringe of pines on the crest of a far hill.
“But Salla will go. She’ll be gone-“
And nothing answered-only the wind cried and a single piece of dislodged gravel rattled down into the darkness.
“Salla!” I cried. “Salla will be gone! Answer that one if you can!” But the world was through with answers. The wind became very busy humming through the dusk.
“Answer me!” I had only a whisper left.
“I will.” The voice was very soft but it shook me like a blast of lightning. “I can answer.” Salla eased lightly down on the spur beside me. “Salla is staying.”
“Salla!” I could only clutch the rock and stare.
“Mother had a quanic when I told her,” Salla smiled, easing the tight uncomfortable emotion. “I told her I needed a research paper to finish my Level requirements and that this would be just perfect for it.
“She said I was too young to know my own mind. I said finishing high in my Level would he quite a feather in her cap-if you’ll pardon the provincialism. And she said she didn’t even know your parents.” Salla colored, her eyes wavering.
“I told her there had been no word between us. That we were not Two-ing. Yet. Much.”
“It doesn’t have to be now!” I cried, grabbing both her hands.
“Oh, Salla! Now we can afford to wait!” And I yanked her off the spur into the maddest wildest flight of my life. Like a couple of crazy things we split and resplit the air above Baldy, soaring and diving like drunken lightning. But all the time part: of us was moving so far, so fast, another part of us was talking quietly together, planning, wondering, rejoicing, as serenely as if we were back in the cave again, seeing each other in quiet reflective eyes. Finally darkness closed in entirely and we leaned exhausted against each other, drifting slowly toward the canyon floor.
“Obla-” I said, “let’s go tell Obla.” There was no need to shield any part of my life from Salla any more. In fact there was a need to make it a cohesive whole, complete with both Obla and Salla.
Obla’s windows were dark. That meant no one was visiting her. She would be alone. I rapped lightly on the door-my own particular rap.
“Bram? Come in!” I caught welcome from Obla.
“I brought Salla,” I said. “Let me turn the light on.” I stepped in.
“Wait-“
But simultaneously with her cry I flipped the light switch.
“Salla,” I started, “this is-“
Salla screamed and threw her arm across her eyes; a sudden overflooding of horrified revulsion choked the room, and Obla was fluttering in the far upper corner of the room-hiding-hiding herself behind the agonized swirl of her hair, her broken body in the twisting of her white gown, pressing itself to the walls, struggling for escape, her startled physical and mental anguish moaning almost audibly around us.
I grabbed Salla and yanked her out of the room, snapping the light off as we went. I dragged her out to the edge of the yard where the canyon walls shot upward. I flung her against the sandstone wall. She turned and hid her face against the rock, sobbing. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her.