Chapter 38

 

 

It was late when Jared and Cara and Saizy gathered for coffee at the breakfast bar; the morning sun had been up for hours, and the coffee had been ready and waiting for some time. It was quiet outside. Jared took his cup to the window, to see if Willis had driven to work, if Issio's car was in the car port or if Issio had gone on to Multicultural.

Sitting at the picnic table with the Drs. Wood and Mimi was a black man with a well-groomed little beard, wearing a white shirt and very new black jeans and holding a white lily in one hand. Making a point to his audience, he waved the lily for emphasis.

Jared stepped out on the porch, leaving the door open for Cara and Saizy. "Well, Logan, good morning," he said, and Logan turned and saluted him with the lily.

"Dr. Ramirez," he said. "A lovely day, is it not? You are late waking this morning."

"So we are," agreed Jared, coming down his steps, Cara and Saizy leaning out the door behind him. "And you got an early start, I see."

"He was sitting in the kitchen," said Louise, "when Ned and I got up. Willis went to work at the usual time, so I suppose he didn't see Logan. I don't know about Ann."

"She left very fast," said Logan. "She also woke late, and dressed quickly while Mr. Clancy waited for her. I felt I should not be in the way. I stayed in the basement. The other body is still there," he told Jared. "The one with the wings. I readjusted it, but I did not turn it on."

"You did this by yourself," said Saizy, and sat down beside Mimi. "Well, why not? You moved into the gargoyle body by yourself. The Its move into what bodies they select without help. I suppose you can do the same thing."

"The Its usually kill the bodies they leave," said Cara. "I have the impression they don't know how to get out of them otherwise."

"You can't kill a robot body," said Jared.

"That is barbaric," said Logan. "We need kill no body. Grace can be moved leaving the lizard alive."

"She can't move herself?" said Cara, sitting down at the end of the table.

Logan shook his head. "No, no, the Defenders do not have the power to do this without help. They cannot think of such things by themselves. It must be that they work in a group to change bodies, to have the power. Still, even they need not kill the first body to move into a second. Did I kill Sandra? I did not. I would not."

"Especially," said Jared, taking the opportunity to explore this side trail, "when you and Maud and Lt. Price and Sandy have something planned."

"Planned?" said Logan, as one who barely knew the concept, let alone the word. So great was his innocence, it was plain that whatever it was, it did indeed involve him as well as the women, and it did not make Jared feel any more comfortable being aware of this.

It was, he saw by Mimi's watch, just past ten-thirty; he got up, leaving his cup on the table. "I'll be back in a little while," he said. "It's very nice to see you, Logan. Your body seems to function very well."

"Willis did excellent work," said Logan, flexing his free hand with satisfaction.

"Where are you going?" asked Mimi.

"I have something to say to Sandy," he said, "before she goes for the weekend."

"Well, you're too late already," said Mimi. "She left about half an hour ago. Just before Louise and Ned brought Logan out to see us. She said she'd call along the way, like she did last time, so if you want to talk to her – was it something important?"

And that depended; Jared wasn't sure what the answer was. "I certainly hope not," he said, and looked at Logan, but Logan was inspecting his fingernails very closely and did not look back.

 

Delighted to hear what had happened, Denise put Grace into her jacket pocket and brought her outside to see Logan for herself. Grace was not delighted. Grace stuck her head out of Denise's pocket, let out a shriek, and vanished again. It had to do, Jared thought, with the immense spaces of outside, more than with Logan who was, in fact, smaller and much less impressive in his Earthian body than he had been as a gargoyle.

Conscience-stricken, Denise put her hand over her pocket to protect the occupant and started back to the Hardesty house and Jared stopped her and moved her hand to peek into the pocket, where the small red lizard was buried in the very bottom, head down and eyes closed. "Don't be frightened, Grace," he said, trying to keep his voice very gentle. "I know it looks big and scary out here, but in your new body, it will be much more manageable. You'll be bigger yourself, and you'll be able to handle it."

"You can trust Dr. Ramirez, you know," said Denise.

"'We will all help," said Logan. "I will help. I will protect you."

Grace reared up and thrust her snout and one eye out of the corner of the pocket opening and gave Logan a look of disdain. I trust Dr. Ramirez, she said, and buried herself in Denise's pocket again.

Logan seemed hurt. "I do not know why she would rather trust one of another species," he said. "You are very kind, Dr. Ramirez, but you are not as familiar with her people as I am. I can provide – much better assistance." He sought for vocabulary. "Appropriate," he said. "More appropriate."

"You believe," said Jared, feeling his way, "that your species is superior to hers. She resents this."

"Why? This is only a fact," said Logan, surprised. "The Defenders were bred for their function. They are limited in other ways. You can see they do not think well, do not plan well, do not reason. Once, in our own place, they were able to carry out orders by themselves. They were able to – " he sought words again. "Decide what to do," he said. "To obey the orders."

"Show initiative," said Jared, and Logan weighed this against the vocabulary he had picked up, not in its entirety, from Sandy.

"Oh," he said. "Yes. Yes, show initiative, in this area only. Otherwise, they study proper skills, mate, teach young. Children."

"Don't read or record," said Jared, and Logan nodded.

"Minds do not function in this way," he said.

"In some ways," said Mimi, "this fits. The Its don't plan very well, don't think ahead, get distracted very easily. I don't remember anyone with an It reading. Did Dr. Lindstrom?" she asked Cara.

Cara frowned, trying to remember. "She had a stroke," she said finally. "She had brain damage. She could read a little, nothing heavy, not serious material, like she used to. But she read articles in the trade journals, I remember."

"This one had a Defender in her?" said Logan. He thought about it. "Not well in control," he decided. "If she could read, it was she herself, not under control."

"So you're saying that Grace," said Jared, "won't be able to read, to make that connection among symbols and words and meanings. And she can't plan ahead, or make reasoned choices."

"This is not criticism," said Logan earnestly. "This is not saying anything against her people. This is only a fact. This is how she is built."

There was a brief pause as the group absorbed this.

"Grace learned speech very quickly," remarked Saizy. "I did not think she would grasp the principles so soon, coming as she did from a very different universe, a different life form altogether. She learned speech, and also I observed how quickly she grasped the rules of a game of dice, not a simple game, requiring some mathematics and a grasp of strategic planning to play successfully. Which she did," she added, "beating Faashi quite fairly twice, although he allowed her to win at the start, to encourage her. He does not allow her to win now; he works to win for himself."

We read, Grace had said, giving Logan a look of cold scorn. We do not tell you, break custom, that is all. We read. This could be boasting, of course, but Jared thought it might be interesting to find out for himself before he accepted Logan's estimation of Grace's limitations. The Its hadn't seemed all that good at planning their attacks, Mimi was right about that, but he thought it had more to do with the distractions presented by this very enticing world of physical sensations, less to do with their mental limitations. Their attacks were still random, but much more frequent; they certainly seemed more focused right now, he thought. They were working hard to get rid of what they saw as threats, as if they had agreed to put their energy into this aim. As if they saw a deadline looming.

And Logan, convinced that his people were superior and so, in the nature of things, in charge, might not have the control he imagined he did. In their universe his species was at the top of the pecking order, it seemed, but this was a new universe, and Jared had the impression that the Its had been here longer, finding their feet, literally and figuratively, and enjoying their freedom from the race that boasted of breeding them for their function, not a picture that appealed to Jared. He knew history very well. He knew how such assumptions had worked in the past. His sympathies tended to be with Grace and her people, although it was risky to sympathize with persons likely to put bombs in your cars and to shoot at you at unexpected moments.

He was aware of Saizy's mind, exploring his thoughts; she wasn't in any doubt at all. She was acquainted with Grace, she liked her, and she disliked Logan's patronizing tone, although she didn't object to him in general. She felt he was mistaken here, and felt a certain amused scorn; these foolish prejudices, she said to Jared, thinking of Margaret red-faced and screaming at Faashi and Denise, and Sofi throwing childhood mementos out of her house when her father refused to accept Issio and Shamri. Speak of limitations; persons with such ideas limit themselves very much.

They do, said Jared, and heard an echo of agreement from the house next to his, where Sofi was sorting laundry with a bit too much help from her younger daughter, and Gina was flipping through a math text she had borrowed from Phyllis.

"Well," he said to Logan, "we'll see what happens with Grace. The important thing is to get her into a more versatile body, and we'll work together to take care of her, all of us and you, too." Logan knew that Jared was smoothing things over for the moment; that was in his expression, but he nodded and flourished his lily and smiled at all of them.

A delivery truck turned the corner and started up the street, and Rocky came charging out of Ann's yard with a volley of barks. Luckily it wasn't manned. It stopped in front of Ann's house and the robot arm extruded two huge boxes and a noter, which it waved in the air until Louise got up and went to sign it. The boxes were marked "PARTY GOODS GALORE; LET THE FUN BEGIN!"

"I wonder if she got the streamers with the lights," said Cara.

"Or the cake plates which sing," said Saizy, and Zarei ran from Sofi's porch across the street to help Louise move the boxes onto Ann's front step, no further, Louise said, because they had to be sorted out and moved up to the Hardesty house. They appeared to be not only bulky but heavy, and Jared, remembering Ann in Willis' arms last night, remembering the feelings for Ann he had found in Willis' mind, remembering how much he respected the man this boy had become, got up and went to help. He wasn't fond of singing cake plates, but he supposed he could, for Willis' sake, put up with them.

 

Phyllis, aware that her newest boarders had different requirements in comfort, had not bothered with a bed in Logan's room. She instead had Tim and Vinnie and Faashi and Nelson haul the old chairs up from the storage room in the basement, so there were two armchairs, faded patches covered with afghans until she could get them properly reupholstered, and a table with two dining room chairs and a lamp, and a small chest of drawers, already containing a basic selection of underwear and socks, and shelves, so far empty. She and Denise had hung Logan's new wardrobe in his closet. He would need more clothes, they agreed, but it was hard telling ahead of time what Logan would want.

Now they were at work in Grace's room, and Jared, having left Logan installed in one of his armchairs looking through a reader with lots of illustrations and almost no text, stopped to admire their efforts. They had hung Gina's old curtains, the ones printed with pretty pink clouds and pretty pink fairies which Gillian had sent along with the customary birthday doll when Gina turned ten. The doll had gone down to the basement to join the other dolls in her collection; Jared didn't recall her even opening the box. She had dutifully hung the curtains, however, and lived with them almost three months before asking Lillian where she had stored her old curtains.

He wasn't sure Grace was the cloud and fairy type either, but Grace really didn't know much about clouds and nothing at all about fairies; she would accept them, no doubt, without much thought. And there was a matching spread, draped over a love seat that had been in the study until Terry dropped a full pitcher of red punch on it. The spread nicely covered what remained of the stain. Grace also had a table, which Denise covered with a crochet-trimmed table cloth, and two small chairs, and a chest of drawers in which Phyllis was distributing various items of underwear, and a closet with Grace's wardrobe, basic, like Logan's.

"Very nice," said Maud behind him, and he nodded to her, feeling relief that she was present and not off on whatever project she contemplated. "I hear that Willis had a nightmare," she said, getting right to the point, and Jared nodded again, watching Denise trying to decide exactly where she should put the potted plant, a good-sized one with thick foliage. She tried the middle of the table, but she apparently didn't care for the effect. She moved it to the top of the chest of drawers instead. "Like Gina's?" asked Maud.

"Yes, very much like Gina's," said Jared, "but he wasn't quiet about it; he was yelling and punching in his sleep. Scared Ann to death; she ran across the street to get us."

Maud digested this. "She could hear him all the way back in the bedroom?"

"No," said Jared. "She heard him beside her on the foldout couch. And she went and got Louise and Ned in the bedroom."

As he expected, neither Phyllis nor Denise seemed surprised at this revelation; by now the neighborhood had the whole story, he was sure. "That must have been upsetting for her," Phyllis remarked, closing the top drawer. "He didn't punch her by accident, did he?"

"No, she's fine," said Jared, "but Louise thought he might be having convulsions, and that frightened all of them."

Denise, shaking her head at the potted plant, removed it from the chest of drawers and tried the windowsill. "But it was those Its?" she said. "And you got rid of them?"

"Yes," said Jared, "the group of us did. It doesn't mean they'll stay away," he told Maud, who appeared to be still digesting.

"I better write down that you're sure about the Its," said Denise, abandoning the plant to dig her noter out of her pocket. "You should have woken me up. And Ollie said Shamri said her first word last night, too. Out loud," she explained to Maud. "All the interesting things happen when we're not there."

Making up his mind, Jared took Maud's arm and steered her down the hall. It was hard to find any private place in the Hardesty house, but Vinnie and Tim were in the dining room with Weston and more plans and schematics than Jared could imagine any project required, and Faashi was out on the porch with Saizy, who was filling him in on the protocols for tonight. Al was in the kitchen frosting the cake for Ann's little party, according less to Ann's instructions than his own vision. Grace was with him, in her enclosure, watching his efforts and probably trying to figure out the purpose.

So it was reasonably quiet at the end of the living room. "You're aware," he said, "that Logan moved into his new body by himself this morning?"

"I know he wanted to try," said Maud. "So he succeeded?"

"Yes, he did very well, and the gargoyle is in Ann's basement until Willis checks him out and sends him back to the rooftop. Tonight we'll try to move Grace."

"And celebrate with Ann's party favors," said Maud, shaking her head. "Does Zarei know about Ann and Willis? What am I saying? Of course she knows; Ann tells her the most amazing things, things most girls would never dream of telling their mothers."

"Yes, they have a lot in common," said Jared. "And then there's Cedaena," he added, wickedly, and Maud gave him a dark look.

"Don't look at me," she said. "Whoever she is, she isn't my child."

"Only a co-conspirator?"

"I don't know why you'd say that," said Maud at once. "We did work together to trap Lincoln, I admit that. I told you, it was easier to take her along than to keep tripping over her."

"And Sandy, of course," said Jared.

"Well," said Maud, "sometimes things get out of hand; you know that."

"And now Logan?" said Jared.

Maud eyed him. "You are much too suspicious," she said. "I wonder, with all that's been happening, if it's making you paranoid."

"Paranoid, certainly," he said. "Of course I am."

"I take it you saw Sandra and Lt. Price and me with Logan the other day and got this ridiculous idea in your head because of a chance meeting and a little friendly conversation. You must get a grip on yourself, Jared. Too many people depend on you here. Do you think you might need to take a little break? Maybe a weekend? Or a couple of days next week; you and Cara could go off together –"

"Maud," he said. "What are you planning?"

She folded her arms and walked off to the window, glowered at Faashi and Saizy out on the porch swing using their Ears to converse. The mad inventors in the dining room talked in ordinary fashion, voices rising and falling. Al, in the kitchen, clattered pans and whistled a scrap of a song, and Jared was aware of Grace, listening with bewildered attention to this different form of communication. Upstairs Denise laughed at something Phyllis said, and Patterson, on the stairs to the attic, called a greeting to Logan.

Maud sighed and shrugged. "If you must know," she said, turning back to him, "we're trying to figure a way to open a dialog with Logan. We have a lot of questions, and it occurred to us – Lt. Price and me – that since our ancestors actually shared a universe with his ancestors, perhaps on that basis – and he and Sandra are surprisingly close. I suppose they got acquainted when he was in her head, although I must say in her place, I don't know that I'd be all that forgiving. But they understand each other very well, so Lt Price and I thought, in some neutral place, without pressure or stress, the three of us might be able to get a good deal of information from him. Which we could then impart to our project director, without having raised his expectations beforehand by telling him."

"That's a good story," said Jared admiringly. " I might even believe it, if you hadn't spent a week or two chasing Lincoln around the north side, losing the Verve to vandals, inserting metal rings into Lt. Price's bathroom in her old apartment, so that Numum had to replace the wall – and if you hadn't appeared with a car full of weapons, which I don't think you found by answering personal ads on the screen. You never did tell us the full story, you know. How about telling me the truth now? I might even be able to help; you never know."

Maud gave him a look that reminded him of Cara, in the heat of battle, accusing him of making a power grab. "I don't know why you think I would ever lie to you," she said. "We are merely following up on our own ideas; you don't need to concern yourself now."

"Ridiculous, I know," he agreed, not laughing, but it did occur to him to wonder if he really was, in some unconscious way, trying to take over from those around him, assuming only he could manage, patronizing, in fact, as Logan patronized Grace, taking all the glory for himself. He didn't like the picture. It made him hesitate, and Maud sensed it.

"Don't get all upset over nothing," she said. "All we want to do is talk with him, just as you do. When Grace is a little easier to converse with, no doubt we will approach her, too. And that should be very soon, if you succeed tonight. I'm told I'm supposed to drop by, with Chazaerte, if I can locate him. He's still fussing around about fishing; he said something about another shopping trip. Some sort of a reel he liked? He said you wouldn't let him buy it, so I don't know; I do think that fish detector thing was bad enough."

"He insisted," said Jared. "It was better than the sinker with the flashing lights." He noted the change of subject, wondered if he should bring her back to the original topic, hesitated again.

Out in the street, he heard a car turn past the D'ubian house; Faashi and Saizy waved from the porch swing, and Maud glanced over her shoulder. "Willis is home from work," she said. "Willis and Ann. I really don't know what to think about that. Her genes are excellent, I can tell you that, but I never thought Ann would be the one to appeal to Willis, of all people."

"He's worried," said Jared, "that people will have a problem with their ages; she's several years older than he is, you know."

Maud turned back to him and smiled, and he felt comfortable smiling back. It was long over, but it had once been the best thing in his life, and he wouldn't do without the memories for anything, no matter what happened in the future.

"A piddling little ten years or so," she said, dismissing them.

Daddy daddy daddy daddy, screamed Alexander, and Shamri roused with a yell both vocal and mental, and in the kitchen, Grace gave a shriek that brought a curse from Al, and the sound of dropping dishes. Somewhere upstairs there was a bang and a thud and someone started running down the stairs from the attic; Patterson yelped.

And a great thunderous sound erupted down the street, shaking the air itself, and Willis fell back into his car just before a mass of debris crashed against it. A tree bowed over the street, wavered, and then fell, with great dignity, onto the pavement.

Willis struggled out of his car, through the scattered branches and hunks of foamboard and shingles and less easily identified items, and watched with interest as the top of the evergreen by the gate detached itself from its trunk and dropped to the sidewalk. There were spots of blood visible on his sleeve; he brushed at it absently, as Jared with Maud behind him ran down the Hardesty front steps, others appearing at doors and on porches up and down the street. Rocky arrived, barking savagely. Leroy launched himself from the roof, swept overhead, and scattered spectators gathered across the street to stare at what their peculiar neighbors were doing now.

"It exploded," said Willis, sounding a little surprised.