From the counseling booth Harold’s enraged roar came: “Now what the devil!” The door to the cubicle shook, then gradually slid wide enough for a boy to squeeze through as Harold shoved it open manually. “What’s going on?” he demanded, glaring at Sneezy and Oniko. “The stupid program just cut off in the middle of asking me a question!”
Sneezy said helpfully, “I would guess that the power has gone off.”
“Oh, Dopey, what a fool you are! The power never goes off”
Sneezy looked around at the wall screen, now blank; at the lounge lighting fixtures, all dark; at the door that would no longer open at anyone’s approach.
“But it has, Harold,” he said reasonably. “So what are we going to do now?”
When the power was off the lights were off, and the corridors of the school buildings were now dark and disturbing. When the lights were off the elevators were off, and so their only way down to the main buildings and thence to the beach was to climb down the never-used stairs.
That was not a practical choice for Oniko and her rubbery legs.
“We’ll have to walk,” said Harold accusingly, and Sneezy agreed.
“But it will be better to go outside and use the road,” he pointed out.
Harold scowled out the mountainside window, then at the smaller one that let them see down onto the beach. Although the school was dead, the students were not. Nearly all of them were there, tiny in the distance, milling about the beach. The scene on the beach didn’t look frightening. It looked rather like fun, and Harold sighed.
“Oh, good lord, I suppose we have to go by the road to take care of Oniko. Well, let’s get on with it.” He didn’t mention that with the school out of service, the alternative was to slip and slide down the hillside, which wouldn’t be much easier for him than for the girl. He walked toward the door. Having had little experience with doors that did not open when desired, he nearly bumped his nose before he stopped short and angrily wrestled it open.
It was nearly full dark now, and of course even the streetlights were out. That didn’t matter much. There would be a quarter of a moon before long, and even the Pacific starlight would be nearly enough to see by. What worried Sneezy more than the power blackout was Oniko. She had rarely cried on the Wheel, even when bigger children had teased her. Now she seemed unable to stop for long. The tears had begun again, slow drops forming in the corners of her eyes; as one rolled down her chin, another was ready to take its place. “Please, Oniko,” Sneezy begged. “It is only a problem with the electricity. Nothing is serious.”
“It’s not the electricity,” she sobbed. “It’s my diary.”
“How silly you are,” said Sneezy dismally, wishing he could at least convince himself, if not Oniko. “That must be a coincidence. Do you think the Foe would bother with a child’s compositions?”
She shifted on her crutches to gaze at him. “But they did!” she wailed. “My exact words, and yours, too.”
“Yes, Dopey,” Harold cut in roughly. “Don’t try to get out of it! It’s all your fault-and hers, I mean.”
“Including the power failure?” Sneezy inquired. But he got no satisfaction from the retort. In some sense, he acknowledged to himself, it was their fault. The odds against coincidence were frightful. The Heechee had no analogy of forty million monkeys typing out the complete works of William Shakespeare, but that wasn’t necessary to convince Sneezy. Coincidence was, to all intents and purposes, impossible . . .
Just about as impossible as the only alternative he could see, namely that somehow the Foe had been watching over their shoulders as they completed their notes.
Confronted with two equally preposterous alternatives, Sneezy did what any sensible child, Heechee or human, would have done. He put it out of his mind.
He pointed along the road to the winding driveway used by the hovertrucks. “Let’s go down to the beach that way,” he suggested.
“But it’s kilometers,” Harold groaned.
“Very well,” said Sneezy, “you take a shortcut if you like. Oniko and I will use the road.”
“Oh, lord,” sighed Harold, adding one more charge to the indictment against Sneezy and Oniko, “I guess we might as well all stick together. But it’s going to take all night.”
He turned and led the way, Sneezy and Oniko following. The girl was tragic-faced and silent, limping along and refusing Sneezy’s help. After a dozen meters Harold looked around and scowled. He was already far ahead. “Can’t you go any faster?” he called.
“You may go without us,” said Sneezy, wishing he would not. For reasons he could not identify, Sneezy was ill at ease. When Harold irritably came back to walk with exaggerated patience next to them, he was glad of the company.
Was there, really, anything to be afraid of?
Sneezy could think of nothing real. It was true that it was dark and that they could easily be run over by some speeding vehicle-but it was also true that there weren’t any vehicles on the road; their power, too, was off.
All the same, he was very nearly afraid.
Sneezy had never felt fear of the island before. Of course it was human and remote and therefore wholly strange to a Heechee boy, but it had not occurred to him that there was anything to be afraid of. Certainly not of the few Polynesian natives who remained. They were almost all old people who kept to their homes and ways while most of the young ones had gone off to more exciting places than Moorea. He had not even been afraid of the prison buildings, because it had been explained to the children that there were almost no living convicts still there. In any case, although the couple who remained had done terrible things, they were not only securely confined but very old. There was, Sneezy assured himself, absolutely nothing to be afraid of beyond the chance that they might be late for the luau.
As a rational Heechee, he allowed the logic to convince him.
And thus he was only startled, but not really afraid, when he heard a sudden squawk from Harold and saw two old men step out of the uphill path to confront the children.
“You’re a Heechee,” said the smaller of the two men, with a pleased smile of recognition.
“Of course he’s a Heechee,” Harold blustered. “Who the dickens are you?’ The old man beamed at him and reached out a hand to his arm. It looked like a pat of reassurance, but the man didn’t let go.
He said, “I am General Beaupre Heimat, and this is my colleague, Cyril Basingstoke. What a pleasant surprise to meet you here. I suppose you are students at the school?”
“Yes,” said Sneezy. “My name is Sternutator, but I’m generally called Sneezy.” As he introduced his companions according to diligently mastered Earth protocol, he tried to make out the expressions on the men’s faces. The general was a tall man, though not as tall as his companion, and he had a broad face that wore a not very reassuring grin. Sneezy was not particularly attuned to the subtle ethnic differences that distinguished one sort of human from another, but it was apparent that the second old man was noticeably dark-skinned. They did not seem especially threatening, although the expression on the black man’s face was concerned. As the general moved toward Oniko, Basingstoke said worriedly, “Man, we are so lucky to be out, please don’t do anything to start trouble.”
Heimat shrugged. “What sort of trouble? I just wanted to tell this pretty young lady how glad I am to see her.”
“Sooner or later they’ll get the power on again!”
“Cyril,” said Heimat mildly, “flick off.” There was no palpable threat in the look he gave his companion, but the black man’s eyes narrowed.
Then he turned toward Sneezy and took him by the arm. Basing-stoke’s grip was strong; under those layers of human blubber and the dried, tough skin of age there was a good deal of strength. “You are also the first Heechee I have seen in person,” he announced, the subject changed. “Are your parents here?”