Chapter 9
It was greening time; the willows were the first to show nebulous traceries of green along the graceful branches. Forsythias and flaming bushes were in bloom, brilliant yellows and scarlets against the gray background. The river was high with spring runoffs up north and heavy March rains, but it was an expected high, not dangerous, not threatening this year. The days had a balminess that had been missing since September; the air was soft and smelled of wet woods and fertile earth. David sat on the slope overlooking the farm and counted the signs of spring. There were calves in the field, and they looked the way spring calves always had looked: thin legs, awkward, slightly stupid. No fields had been worked yet, but the garden was green: pale lettuce, blue-green kale, green spears of onions, dark green cabbage. The newest wing of the hospital, not yet painted, crude compared to the finished brick buildings, was being used already, and he could even see some of the young people at the windows studying. They had the best teachers, themselves, and the best students. They learned amazingly well from one another, better than they had in the early days.
They came out of the school in matched sets: four of this, three of that, two of another. He sought and found three Celias. He could no longer tell them apart; they were all grown-up Celias now and indistinguishable. He watched them with no feeling of desire; no hatred moved him; no love. They vanished into the barn and he looked up over the farm, into the hills on the other side of the valley. The ridges were hazy and had no sharp edges anywhere. They looked soft and welcoming. Soon, he thought. Soon. Before the dogwoods bloomed.
The night the first baby was born, there was another celebration. The elders talked among themselves, laughed at their own jokes, drank wine; the clones left them alone and partied at the other end of the room. When Vernon began to play his guitar and dancing started, David slipped away. He wandered on the hospital grounds for a few minutes, as though aimlessly, and then, when he was certain no one had followed him out, he began to trot toward the mill and the generator. Six hours, he thought. Six hours without electricity would destroy everything in the lab.
David approached the mill cautiously, hoping the rushing water of the creek would mask any sound he might make. The building was three stories high, very large, with windows ten feet above the ground, on the level where the offices were. The ground floor was filled with machinery. In the back the hill rose sharply, and David could reach the windows by bracing himself on the steep incline and steadying himself with one hand on the building, leaving the other free to test the windows. He found a window that went up easily when he pushed it, and in a moment he was inside a dark office. He closed the window, and then, moving slowly with his hands outstretched to avoid any obstacle, he crossed the room to the door and opened it a crack. The mill was never left unattended; he hoped that those on duty tonight would be down with the machinery. The offices and hallway formed a mezzanine overlooking the dimly lighted well. Grotesque shadows made the hallway strange, with deep pools of darkness and places where he would be clearly visible should any one happen to look up at the right moment. Suddenly David stiffened. Voices.
He slipped his shoes off and opened the door wider. The voices were louder, below him. Soundlessly he ran toward the control room, keeping close to the wall. He was almost to the door when the lights came on all over the building. There was a shout, and he could hear them running up the stairs. He made a dash for the door, yanked it open, and slammed it behind him. There was no way to lock it. He pushed a file cabinet an inch or so, gave up on it, and picked up a metal stool by its legs. He raised it and swung it hard against the main control panel. At the same moment he felt a crushing pain against his shoulders, and he stumbled and fell forward as the lights went out.
He opened his eyes painfully. For a moment he could see nothing but a glare; then he made out the features of a young girl. She was reading a book, concentrating on it. Dorothy? She was his cousin Dorothy. He tried to rise, and she looked up and smiled at him.
“Dorothy? What are you doing here?” He couldn’t get off the bed. On the other side of the room a door opened and Walt came in, also very young, unlined, with his nice brown hair ruffled.
David’s head began to hurt and he reached up to find bandages that came down almost to his eyes. Slowly memory came back and he closed his eyes, willing the memory to fade away again, to let them be Dorothy and Walt.
“How do you feel?” W-1 asked. David felt his cool fingers on his wrist. “You’ll be all right. A slight concussion. Badly bruised, I’m afraid. You’re going to be pretty sore for a while.”
Without opening his eyes David asked, “Did I do much damage?”
“Very little,” W-l said.
Two days later David was asked to attend a meeting in the cafeteria. His head was still bandaged, but with little more than a strip of adhesive now. His shoulder ached. He went to the cafeteria slowly, with two of the clones as escorts. D-l stood up and offered David a chair at the front of the room. David accepted it silently and sat down to wait. D-l remained standing.
“Do you remember our class discussions about instinct, David?” D-1 asked. “We ended up agreeing that probably there were no instincts, only conditioned responses to certain stimuli. We have changed our minds about that. We agree now that there is still the instinct to preserve one's species. Preservation of the species is a very strong instinct, a drive, if you will.” He looked at David and asked, “What are we to do with you?”
“Don’t be an ass,” David said sharply. “You are not a separate species.”
D-l didn’t reply. None of them moved. They were watching him quietly, intelligently, dispassionately.
David stood up and pushed his chair back. “Then let me work. I’ll give you my word of honor that I won’t try to disrupt anything again.”
D-l shook his head. “We discussed that. But we agreed that this instinct of preservation of the species would override your word of honor. As it would our own.”
David felt his hands clench and he straightened his fingers, forced them to relax. “Then you have to kill me.”
“We talked about that too,” D-1 said gravely. “We don’t want to do that. We owe you too much. In time we will erect statues to you, Walt, Harry. We have very carefully recorded all of your efforts in our behalf. Our gratitude and affection for you won’t permit us to kill you.”
David looked about the room, picking out familiar faces. Dorothy. Walt. Vernon. Margaret. Celia. They all met his gaze without flinching. Here and there one of them smiled at him faintly.
“You tell me then,” he said finally.
“You have to go away,” D-l said. “You will be escorted for three days, downriver. There is a cart loaded with food, seeds, a few tools. The valley is fertile, the seeds will do well. It is a good time of year for starting a garden.”
W-2 was one of the three to accompany him. They didn’t speak. The boys took turns pulling the cart of supplies. David didn’t offer to pull it. At the end of the third day, on the other side of the river from the Sumner farm, they left him. Before he joined the other two boys who left first, W-2 said, “They wanted me to tell you, David. One of the girls you call Celia has conceived. One of the boys you call David impregnated her. They wanted you to know.” Then he turned and followed the others. They quickly vanished among the trees.
David slept where they had left him, and in the morning he continued south, leaving the cart behind, taking only enough food for the next few days. He stopped once to look at a maple seedling sheltered among the pines. He touched the soft green leaves gently. On the sixth day he reached the Wiston farm, and alive in his memory was the day he had waited there for Celia. The white oak tree that was his friend was the same, perhaps larger, he couldn’t tell. He could not see the sky through its branches covered with new, vivid green leaves. He made a lean-to and slept under the tree that night, and the next morning he solemnly told it good-bye and began to climb the slopes overlooking the farm. The house was still there, but the barn was gone, and the other outbuildings — swept away by the flood they had started so long ago.