Woman on the Edge of Time

“That’s the idea in very primitive—I mean rudimentary form. Of course now—I mean in our time—it’s composted centrally for groups of houses, and once it is safe, used in farming.”

“You’re trying to tell me you come from the future? Listen, in fifty years they’ll take their food in pellets and nobody will shit at all!”

“That was tried out late in your century—petrochemical foods. Whopping disaster. Think how people in your time suffered from switching to an overrefined diet—cancer of the colon—”

Connie giggled. “You get so serious when you talk about food and shit, you remind me of Shirley—my brother Luis’s second wife. She’s an Adelle Davis nut.”

Luciente shook his head sadly, his expressive dark eyes liquid with sorrow. “I was redded for this, but I can’t find the door to what you’re meaning half the time.” He combed his fingers back through his thick hair. “I worked sixmonth with nine other strong senders. Fasure we’re a mixed dish. A breeder of turkeys, an embryo tester, a shelf diver, a flight dealer, a ritual maker, a minder, a telemetrist, a shield grower and a student of blue whales. Youngest eighteen and oldest sixty-two. From James Bay to Poughkeepsie, our entire region. We’re called the Manhattan Project—that’s a joke based on a group—”

“I know what the Manhattan Project did,” Connie said with cold dignity. “What are you fixing to blow up? Just everything?”

“It’s a rib, you see, because that was a turning point when technology became itself a threat … . Cause we’re a mobilizing of inknowing resources—mental? We’re the first time travelers fasure—not that I’m actually traveling anyplace!”

“Like the bird that flies in narrowing circles until it goes up its own asshole.”

“We have that rib too.” Luciente beamed. “We must not chill each other. If you’re patient in spite of my bumping along, we’ll succeed in interseeing and comprehending each other. Alia—that’s the student of blue whales—told me that after months with them, Alia can only inknow the grossest emotions or messages. Those long epic operas that are their primary pastime are still garble to per. After a whole generation of com municating with the Yif, we are merely transmitting digital code. We think of the Yif as superrational, a world of mathematicians—and maybe that’s how they vision us … . Anyhow, if you and I suck patience, can we fail to clear our contact? We have only been at this a few weeks, and look how strong and clear we are talking. If we both work at it, we should hear better and better!”

“Work at it!” Connie chuckled, remembering Professor Everett Silvester in bed, working at sex. Her body was a problem he was solving. He put everything in pass-fail terms. “You’re crazy, you know that? If I’m not.”

“Crazy? No, actually I’ve never been able to. Jackrabbit went mad at thirteen and again at fifteen—”

“Who’s this Jackrabbit?”

“I am sweet friends with Jackrabbit. Also Bee. Both are my mems too—in my family? If we work at this, I hope you’ll meet them soon. Even though you laugh at me for speaking of it so. My own work is velvet for me. And this too fascinates.” Luciente took her hands and squeezed them.

“Second best to blue whales and the Yif—whatever they are!”

“Not to me, truly,” Luciente assured her, nodding vigorously. “I see you as a being with many sores, wounds, undischarged anger but basically good and wide open to others.”

“Ha! You know I’m a two-time loser?” Connie yanked her hands free.

“Encyclopedia: define two-time loser.” This time she saw that what she had taken for a watch on Luciente’s wrist was not only that, or not that at all. He was not lifting it to his ear to hear it tick but because it spoke almost inaudibly.

“What’s that?”

“My kenner. Computer link? Actually it’s a computer as well, my own memory annex. I don’t quite follow what you mean, but I myself have done things I regret. Things that injured others. I have messed up experiments—”

“Messing up is something I’m an expert on!”

Someone banged on the door. Luciente sprang to his feet, glancing around.

“Who is it?” Connie yelled.

“It’s me—Dolly! Let me in! Hurry!”

Luciente kissed her on the cheek before she could duck and ran long-legged into the bedroom, saying hastily over his slender shoulder, “Till when! Graze me when you’re free.”

She stood a moment collecting herself. Dolly was banging on the door and screaming. It was a funny time for her to arrive, on a Friday night, when she always had to be working. As Connie released the police lock, she felt the sensation of Luciente’s presence evaporating. She shook her head like a dog coming out of the water. Once Eddie had remained stoned for twenty-four hours on some strongly righteous grass … .

Dolly rushed in past her, blood running from her bruised mouth.

THREE