Specimen Days

Arrayed behind the house was a dome village, clusters of white in-flatables and Insta-Dwells of various ages, none of them new or clean. At the far end a neglected garden drooped and crisped in the sun. It might have been the summer encampment of a particularly dissolute and discouraged band of Inuits.

As they went, Emory put his hand familiarly on Simon's elbow.

Emory said, "I have so much to ask you."

Simon had hoped for answers, not questions. "I have a thing or two to ask you myself," he said.

Luke was walking with Catareen just ahead of Simon and Emory. "So what's this great-warrior business about?" he said.

Catareen did not respond.

Emory took them into the farmhouse. He said, "There are beds upstairs. Perhaps we should take the boy up there and let him sleep a little."

"Absolutely not," Luke said. "Luke-"

"I'm hungry. I'm starving. We all are. Have you got anything to eat?"

"Of course," Emory said. He led them through the foyer into a kitchen. They passed what had been the living room and was now an office with two desks, one steel and one plastimorph. Pushed to one side were two ratty armchairs and a glass-fronted cabinet that held a collection of brightly colored odds and ends. Simon recognized them: a Chia Pet shaped like a lamb, PEZ dispensers, a pink plastic squeeze bottle of Mr. Bubble, a rubber statuette of Bull winkle the Moose in a striped bathing suit from the 1800s.

The kitchen was like a kitchen from fifty years ago. It had an atomic stove and a refrigeration module and a sink with a faucet and handles. It might have been a display in a historical museum.

"Sit, please," Emory said, indicating a battered wooden table surrounded by mismatched chairs. The table was covered with a cloth that depicted dancing blue teapots.

Simon, Catareen, and Luke sat at the table. Emory set down three glasses and a pitcher of what appeared to be tea. He took eggs and bacon from the refrigerator.

He said, "Today of course is the twentieth. We're set to leave tomorrow."

As he spoke, he cracked eggs into a bowl. He put slices of bacon on a grill.

Luke asked, "And this new planet is?"

"We call it Paumanok. It will take thirty-eight years for us to get there. Some of us will no longer be alive when the ship lands."

"Hence the children."

"Yes. And they're our children. We would naturally take them along."

Emory poured the eggs into a pan. He said, "I got the ship from the Jehovahs. They sold the whole fleet after things fell apart with HBO."

"And what exactly do you know about the planet in question?" Simon asked.

"It's the fourth planet from its sun. It's about half the size of Earth. It is probably temperate and almost certainly has a breathable atmosphere. We can't know whether or not there's life there."

"And the worst-case scenario is?"

"Well. It could be entirely barren. It could be too hot or too cold to sustain life. There is of course a very narrow range in that regard. Even a small variation would render it unlivable."

"If you get there and find it unlivable?"

"There we'll be. There's no way of getting back."

"Got you."

"We've had visions," Emory said.

"Visions."

"Myself, Othea, and some of the others. We've been seeing a world of mountains and rivers. We see enormous fruit-bearing trees. We see brilliantly colored birds and small, intelligent animals that are like rabbits. I had the first such vision several years ago, and when I told Othea about it she confessed that she had had a similar one, months earlier, but hadn't mentioned it."

"That's very Nadian," Simon said.

"When I told the group about it two others, a child and an old man, stepped forward and said that they, too, had imagined this world in just this way. Since then the visions have come to many of us, at unpredictable times. They're always the same, though they keep expanding. I was visited just last week by an image of a small fishing village on the shore of a vast sea, though I couldn't see anything of its inhabitants. Twyla, the group's second-oldest child, clearly saw a warm rain that swept through every afternoon and lasted for under an hour, after which it was brilliantly clear again."

Simon glanced at Luke and Catareen. Catareen (of course) was expressionless. Luke, however, returned a signifying look. Crazy. These people are crazy.

"We understand that it's a risk," Emory continued. "It's a risk we are all willing to take. We prefer it to remaining here. All of us do. You're welcome to come with us, if you decide you're willing to take the risk, too."

"We'll have to think about it, won't we?" Simon said.

"You have about thirty-two hours to decide. Here, then. Your food is ready."

* * *

After they had eaten, Emory took them upstairs and guided them into bedrooms that were spare and white, each containing only a bedshelf and a wooden chair. Luke and Catareen settled in. Simon asked to speak privately to Emory.

"Certainly," Emory said. "I suppose you and I have a few things to discuss, don't we?"