CHAPTER 8

MUTUAL ANNIHILATION

Laneff woke beside Shanlun, drifting in the rose-gold haze of dream. Reliving a familiar dream that unrolled itself inexorably before her mind's eye while she was caught in the supreme lethargy between waking and sleeping, she became once again a child enjoying the last days of childhood.

The golden warmth of spring wrapped around the two-story house surrounded by the bright emerald lawn and carefully planted saplings. The houses in the out-Territory neighborhood seemed cramped close together with only narrow strips of lawn and symbolic fences between them. Up the street, a machine was laying surface on a driveway. Across the way, a family was moving in.

Laneff got out of the car in front of the large house labeled with the number ten. After politely thanking the driver who'd brought her here, she exerted all her strength to slam the car door. It didn't latch. The Sime driver reached across and pulled it shut.

At ten years of age, Laneff was as tall as some adults, but her spindly arms lacked strength. When I'm Gen, she thought, my muscles will grow.

Holding that thought to her like a warm blanket, she faced the strange house alone, uncertain and shy. The car drove away. She couldn't make her feet move up the walk. She'd never been out-Territory before.

The cold, black, lonely moment broke when the screen door burst open and Fay ran down the path toward Laneff, her beribboned pigtails flying, her bright black shoes making clicks on the pavement. Joyfully, Laneff dropped her overnight case and ran to meet her friend who was squealing happily, "You came! You came!"

They danced around each other on the lawn, and then Fay dragged Laneff inside. The house held odd, heavy cooking odors, and the furnishings exuded a background of smells that added up to different. In a whirlwind tour, Fay displayed the family possessions with pride and explained things with adult-sounding confidentiality. "Now, this is where you'll get to sleep—right in my room. I made up the spare bed myself."

Closing the door, she began hauling out special treasures, chat– tering madly. Laneff remembered how she'd behaved the same way when Fay had come to visit her. They had met at a summer camp in-Territory, and become fast friends when they discovered they were both set on becoming Donors. Laneff had pleaded and begged until she was allowed to have Fay come stay with her at the Sat'htine children's dwelling where she lived. But she'd won only because she'd insisted on it for the Union Day holiday. Quite unexpectedly, then, Fay's parents had insisted that Laneff come to their house for Faith Day. The Sat'htine foster parents in charge of the residence had consulted Laneff’s parents, and after much deliberation—during which Laneff piped up with urgent suggestions, begging and pleading and even crying until she was sent from the room, insisting she'd run away if they didn't let her go—the adults had permitted her to come, but only for two nights and one day in between.

That afternoon, Fay and Laneff played Sime Center with Fay's collection of Sime and Gen dolls; she even had a channel doll that lit up to show both the primary and secondary systems in the channel. When she was in transfer mode, the doll's channeling system was brighter. Otherwise, the regular system was brighter.

It had been the happiest afternoon Laneff could remember, but it was followed by the most difficult dinner ever. She was very careful to say "Mr. Ravitch" and "Mrs. Ravitch," but her command of English beyond that evaporated. The food was strange, and though they only gave her vegetables, she knew the gray stuff they were eating was meat. It stank. Her stomach revolted, and she just picked at her food.

But that night made up for the ordeal. She and Fay lay awake until nearly dawn just talking. In the small hours, the topic naturally came to changeover. "Since I'm a Farris," said Laneff, "and known not to be a channel, it's practically certain that I'll be a Gen, and a whopping good Donor, too."

"I'm gonna have to work to get that good," responded Fay wistfully. "But I have a cousin who's a four-plus Donor, and he says I have the personality for it."

Laneff woke to Fay's mother calling them to breakfast. She ached from overexcitement and lack of sleep and was wholly uninterested in food, but it was Faith Day today. Mr. Ravitch was already outside cutting the grass, and she and Fay were alone at breakfast, so Laneff got away with eating only a banana and some milk. "I'm saving my appetite for the party."

Soon, all Fay's aunts, uncles, cousins and their assorted in-laws began arriving. A swarm of children, tots to teens, thronged the backyard, playing tag games Laneff didn't know. But she ran with them anyway and pretended to belong. After a while, one of them took her aside and explained the rules, and she began to play in earnest. She even won a few times, and by the time Mr. Ravitch had a smoky fire going in the stone pit near the patio, she felt a warm friendliness among Fay's relatives.

The spring sun was hot, the air still, and the sky almost Zeor blue. Some trees were in bloom, yellow daffodils around their bases. Women were spreading the table, ferrying pitchers of cold drinks and cookies to the children. Laneff drank and ate a couple of the big cookies, but they seemed to settle into a lump in her stomach.

Not wanting to run anymore, she sat down on the lawn. Soon, the girls joined her while the boys ran off to the front yard. From the open windows of the house, the echoes of utensils clattering against porcelain drifted around them. In some other yard, a radio played. The girls concocted a sedate game of "trin tea and truth" in which they lied and giggled.

Tardily, Laneff remembered the Faith Day gift she'd brought and sprinted upstairs to get it from her overnight case. She ran back with the flat, polished wood case and presented it to Mrs. Ravitch. Other mothers gathered around exclaiming, "How nice—a Faith Day gift from in-Territory!"

Mrs. Ravitch opened the case discovering the array of cheeses, each wrapped in a different-colored paper. She put the whole case on the table, making Laneff translate the labels on the cheeses.

The smoke from the fire hung over the patio tables during the entire festival meal, and the vile odor ruined Laneff’s appetite. She ate a few bites of something she thought had meat in it, thinking, Since I'm going to be Gen, I ought to be able to eat what Gens eat.

Inside, after the meal, the television was turned on, showing the traditional Faith Day Pageant at Westfield's Border Stadium. It was the one familiar observance so far, and it made Laneff homesick. One of the men turned from the television, wiping his hands on the white towel around his waist as he returned to the sink where he'd been washing dishes.

"They've got heavy storm warnings up for tonight."

A chill foreboding shot through Laneff, and after that families began saying early goodbyes. Soon the house was empty again, bags of litter stacked by the back door, piles of clean dishes on the table. All the toys were out of the toy closet in Fay's room. "Those boys!" she stormed, about to go yell to her mother, but Laneff promised to help her put them away, and she quieted.

Outside, the wind picked up, battering trash against the house. Laneff huddled cozily under the blankets. Fay slept. Laneff, though, couldn't fall asleep. She didn't feel well. Her head ached and she had weakening waves of nausea. I knew I shouldn't have eaten that stuff!

She held off as long as she could, then crept to the bathroom down the hall, closed the door, and by the night-light alone, she curled up on the floor by the toilet.

Gusts of wind drove torrential rains against the window, and whistling breezes filtered through the cracks, chilling Laneff. At last, though, she retched productively, and it Was an immense relief.