Woman on the Edge of Time

“The Cree, he said? Like Indians. You still have real Indians?”

Luciente nodded. “Those lands are strongly protected, under their control. Only hunting, gathering, and some scientific activities go on … . The Cree have a mixed way of living. They hunt and fish, they’ve created some Far North agriculture, some handicraft, limited manufacture. They have to take care, for the land is fragile.”

“What’s to study there?”

“A discipline, a sense of wholeness. Something ancient. They are often part‑time hunters or gatherers, part time shamans, part‑time scientists.”

“But was that his atoning? Going up north and living that way?”

“Never!” Luciente laughed from the belly. “That’s a great privilege. That’s why Waclaw had to wait six years. Don’t know what person did to atone. Ask, if you must, but we usually don’t. We feel it’s closed–healed. Forget!”

Connie followed at Luciente’s heels into the experimental fields where Luciente was recording comments on performance. “This chews it up. I think we found some good strains to work on next year.”

“How come you leave so much woods?” Connie asked. “Like that argument at the council. All over Mouth‑of‑Mattapoisett I see patches of woods, meadows, swamps, marshes. You could clear a lot more land.”

“We have far more land growing food than you did. But, Connie, aside from the water table, think of every patch of woods as a bank of wild genes. In your time thousands of species were disappearing. We need that wild genetic material to breed with … . That’s only the answer from the narrow viewpoint of my own science.”

Bee waved to them, leading a group of kids through the fields on a combination bug survey and lesson in insect life. “Good luck in Oldtown!” he shouted. “Push us over!”

Connie looked after his broad glistening back, the shirt peeled off and tied around his waist. “What’s he talking about?”

“I have to fall by Oldtown later and present our new recks.”

“Wrecks?”

“Half word, half rib. Grasp, it’s a request but we wish it was a requisition. For what we want to do scientifically this winter.”

Connie made a face. She let Luciente burble on awhile about the Shaping controversy, but finally she burst out, “It’s so hard for me to think of you as a scientist!”

“How not? I don’t comprend.”

“I mean the only scientist I know is Dr. Redding … . I guess we’re his experiments. But I’d hardly ever meet a scientist, I mean, like in East Harlem. Not that I’d want to …”

“What’s different about meeting a scientist and meeting a shelf diver?”

“Like my sister Inez, she lives in New Mexico. Her husband drinks, she has seven kids. After the sixth, she went to the clinic for the pill. You know–No, you can’t! It’s so hard for a woman like her–a real Catholic, not lapsed like me, under his thumb too and him filling her with babies one right after the other–so hard for her to say, Basta ya! And go for the pill. See, she thought she went to a doctor. But he had his scientist cap on and he was experimenting. She thought it was good she got the pill free. But they gave her a sugar pill instead. This doctor, he didn’t say what he was doing. So she got heavy again with the seventh child. It was born with something wrong. She’s tired and worn out with making babies. You know you have too many and the babies aren’t so strong anymore. They’re dear to you but a little something wrong. So this one, Richard, he was born dim in the head. Now they have all that worry and money troubles. They’re supposed to give him pills and send him to a special school, but it costs. All because Inez thought she had a doctor, but she got a scientist.”

“All this is really so?” Luciente stared from black eyes hard with wonder.

She looked away to the river, just a stream here with coffee‑brown waters. They were heading back toward Mattapoisett now, passing as always older people, children, young people working here and there, weeding and feeding, picking off beetles, setting out new plants, arguing earnestly with scowls and gestures, hurrying by carrying a load of something shiny balanced in a basket on the head or in a knapsack or basket on the back, baby under arm or on hip or back. “They like to try out medicine on poor people. Especially brown people and black people. Inmates in prisons too. So … you must test drugs on people too? You have to.”

“We use computers for biological modeling. Most drugs are discarded long before the testing stage. In your time I think people talked about effects and side effects, but that’s nonsense.”

“How? Like when I take Thorazine, the effects are controlling me, making me half dead, but I get lots of side effects, believe me, like sore throat and … constipation, dizziness, funny speech.”

“But, Connie blossom, all are effects! Your drug companies labeled things side effects they didn’t want as selling points. It’s a funny way to look at things, like a horse in blinkers.”

She thrust out her chin. “But there’s a difference. The main effect is the thing you do something for.”