Greg Bear - Darwin's Children

The air got cooler as the truck climbed the gentle grade into the high country. The Spent River was not on the itinerary of most tourists. Surrounded by forest, in the long shadow of Mount Hood, it consisted of a winding, flat sandy bed cutting through black lava cliffs, leaving tufty islands and curving oxbows. The river itself hadn’t flowed for many thousands of years. It was not well known to archaeologists, and with good reason; the geological history of alternating floods—gravel beds filled with pebbly lava and rounded bits of granite and basalt—and periodic eruptions of lava made it hellacious to dig and disappointing to those who did. Indians had not built or stayed much in these areas over the last few thousand years.

Out of time, out of human interest, but now Eileen Ripper had found something.

Or she had looked into the sun too long.

The road mesmerized him after a while, but he was jounced to full alertness when it started to get rough from washouts. The land had taken on a five o’clock stubble of trees and grass. The asphalt switched to gravel.

A small state sign came and went: spent river recreation area: three miles . The sign looked as if it had been out in the sun for at least fifty years.

The road curved west abruptly, and as he turned, Mitch caught a gleam about a mile ahead. It looked like a car windshield.

The old truck barked out blue smoke as he took a short grade, then he spotted a white Tahoe and saw a stocky figure standing up and waving from the open driver’s door. He pulled over to the side of the road and draped his arm out the window. Enough grip remained in his hand to clutch the door frame and make the gesture look casual.

Eileen had gone completely gray. Her clothes and skin and hair had weathered to the color of the land out here.

“I recognized your taste in trucks,” Eileen said as she walked across the gravel shoulder. “God, Mitch, you’re as obvious as a sailor with a stack of two-dollar bills.”

Mitch smiled. “You’re a regular Earth mother,” he said. “You should at least wear a red scarf.”

Eileen pulled a rag from her pocket and draped it from her belt. “Better?”

“Just fine.”

“How’s your arm?” she asked, patting it.

“Limp,” Mitch said.

“We’ll put you on toothbrush detail,” she said.

“Sounds good. What have you got?”

“It’s dishy ,” Eileen said. “It’s grand.” She did a little jig on the gravel. “It’s deadly dangerous. Want to come see?”

Mitch squint-eyed her for a moment. “Why not?” he said.

“It’s just over there,” she said and pointed north, “about ten more miles.”

Mitch scowled. “I’m not sure my truck will make it.”

“I’ll follow and scoop up parts.”

“How can you tell me when to turn?” Mitch asked.

“It’s a game, old friend,” Eileen said. “You’ll have to sniff it out, same as I did.” She smiled wickedly.

Mitch squinted harder and shook his head. “For Christ’s sake, Eileen.”

“Older than Christ by at least eighteen thousand years,” she said.

“You should wear thicker hats,” he said.

Eileen looked tired beneath the bravado. “This is the big one, Mitch. In a couple of hours, I swear to God you won’t even know who you are.”

ARIZONA

At eleven in the morning, Stella walked with all the girls from their barracks through a gate in the razor wire fence to the open field, attended by Miss Kantor and Joanie and five other adults.

Once a week, the counselors and teachers let the SHEVA children mingle coed on the playground and under the lunch table awnings.

The girls were uncharacteristically quiet. Stella felt the tension. A year ago, going through the fence to socialize with the boys had been no big deal. Now, every girl who imagined herself a deme maker was plotting with her partners as to which boys would be best in their group. Stella did not know what to think about this. She watched the demes form and disintegrate and reform in the girl’s dorms, and her own plans changed in her head from day to day; it was all so confusing.

The sky was sprinkled with broken clouds. She shaded her eyes and looked up and saw the moon hanging in the pure summer blueness, a wan face blankly amused by their silliness. Stella wondered what the moon smelled like. It looked kindly enough. It looked a little simple, actually.

“Single file. We’re going to South Section Five,” Miss Kantor told them all, and waved her hand to give them direction. The girls shuffled where she pointed, cheeks blank.

Stella saw the boys come through their own fence line from the opposite rows of barracks. They were more touching heads and weaving and pointing out the girls they noticed. They smiled like goofs, cheeks brown at this distance with indistinguishable color.

“Oh, joy,” Celia said listlessly. “Same old.”

The sexes would be allowed to mingle with heavy supervision for an hour.

“Is he here?” Celia asked. Stella had told her last night about Will.

Stella did not know. She hadn’t seen him yet. She didn’t think it likely. She indicated all this with a low whistle, a few desultory freckles, and a twitch of her shoulders. “My, you’re-KUK touchy,” Celia said. She bumped shoulders with Stella as they walked. Stella did not mind.

“I don’t know what they expect us to do in an hour,” Stella said.

Celia giggled. “We could try to-KUK kiss one of them.”

Stella’s brows formed an uneven pair of curves and her neck darkened. Celia ignored this. “I could kiss James Callahan. I almost let him hold my hand last year.”

“We were kids last year,” Stella said.

“What-KUK are we now?” Celia asked.

Stella was looking down a line of boys drawn up in the sun beside the lunch table awnings. The tallest she recognized immediately.

“There he is,” she said, and pointed him out to Celia. Three other girls moved in and followed her point, all smelling of aroused curiosity—smoke and earth.

Will stood, looking at the ground with shoulders slumped and hands stuck firmly in his pockets. The other boys seemed to be ignoring him, which was to be expected; boys didn’t cloud as quickly with newcomers as girls did. It would take Will a few days to form tight bonds with his barracks partners.

Or maybe not, Stella thought, watching him. Maybe he never would.

“He’s not very pretty,” said Felice Miller, a small, brown-haired girl with thin, strong arms and thicker legs.

“How do you know?” asked Ellie Gow. “You can’t smell him from here.”

“He wouldn’t smell pretty, either,” Felice said disdainfully. “He’s too tall.”

Ellie winced. She was known for her sensitivity to sounds and a preference for talking while lying under a blanket. “What’s that got to do with a cat’s fart?”

Felice smiled tolerantly. “Whiskers,” she said.

Stella paid no attention to them.

“Someone you met when you were young can exert a profound influence,” Felice continued.

“I didn’t see him for very long,” Stella admitted.

Celia quickly told them the story of Stella and Will, speaking in her halting double, while the counselors and teachers huddled and arranged the rules of the confab. The rules changed week to week. Today, on the outskirts of the field, three men stood watching them with binoculars.

Nine months ago, Stella had been taken aside and driven to the hospital with five other girls after such a meeting. They had all given blood and one, Nor Upjohn, had suffered other indignities she would not describe, and afterward she had smelled like a mildewed orange, a warning scent.