Wilson Tucker - The Year of the Quiet Sun

Katrina was there.

The aged woman was sitting in her accustomed chair to one side of the oversized steel table — sitting quietly in the darkness beneath the extinct ceiling lights. As always, her clasped hands rested on the tabletop in repose. Chaney put the lantern on the table between them and the poor light fell on her face.

Katrina.

Her eyes were bright and alive, as sharply alert as he remembered them, but time had not been lenient with her. He read lines of pain, of unknown troubles and grief; the lines of a tenacious woman who had endured much, had suffered much, but had never surrendered her courage. The skin was drawn tight over her cheekbones, pulled tight around her mouth and chin and appeared sallow in lantern light. The lustrous, lovely hair was entirely gray. Hard years, unhappy years, lean years.

Despite all that he knew a familiar spark within him: she was as beautiful in age as in youth. He was pleased to find that loveliness so enduring.

Chaney pulled out his own chair and slid down, never taking his eye off her. The old woman sat without moving, without speaking, watching him intently and waiting for the first word.

He thought: she might have been sitting there for centuries while the dust and the darkness grew around her; waiting patiently for him to come forward to the target, waiting for him to explore the station, fulfill his last mission, end the survey, and then come opening doors to find the answers to questions raised above ground. Chaney would not have been too surprised to find her waiting in ancient Jericho if he’d gone back ten thousand years. She would have been there, placidly waiting in some temple or hovel, waiting in a place where he would find her when he began opening doors.

The dusty briefing room was as chill as the cellar had been, as chill as the air outside, and she was bundled in one of the heavy coats. Her hands were encased in a pair of large mittens intended for a man — and if he bent to look, he would find the oversize boots. She appeared bent over, small in the chair and terribly tired.

Katrina waited on him.

Chaney struggled for something to say, something that wouldn’t sound foolish or melodramatic or carry a ring of false heartiness. She would despise him for that. Here again was the struggle of the outer door, and here again he was fearful of losing the struggle. He had left her here in this room only hours ago, left her with that sense of. dry apprehension as he prepared himself for the third — now final — probe into the future. She had been sitting in the same chair in the same attitude of repose.

Chaney said: “I’m still in love with you, Katrina.”

He watched her eyes, and thought they were quickly filled with humor and a pleasurable laughter.

“Thank you, Brian.”

Her voice had aged as well: it sounded more husky than he remembered and it reflected her weariness.

“I found patches of wild strawberries at the old barracks, Katrina. When do strawberries ripen in Illinois?”

There was laughter in her eyes. “In May or June. The summers have been quite cold, but May or June.”

“Do you know the year? The number?”

A minute movement of her head. “The power went out many years ago. I’m sorry, Brian, but I have lost the count.”

“I don’t suppose it really matters — not now, not with what we’ve already learned. I agree with Pindar.”

She looked her question.

He said: “Pindar lived about twenty-five hundred years ago but he was wiser than a lot of men alive today. He warned man of peering too far into the future, he warned of not liking what would be found.” An apologetic gesture; a grin. “Bartlett again: my vice. The Commander was always teasing me about my affair with Bartlett.”

“Arthur waited long to see you. He hoped you would come early, that he might see you again.”

“I would have liked — Didn’t anyone know? ”

“No.”

“But why not? That gyroscope was tracking me.”

“No one knew your arrival date; no one would guess. The gyroscope device could not measure your progress after the power failed here . We knew only the date of failure, when the TDV suddenly stopped transmitting signals to the computer there . You were wholly lost to us, Brian.”

“Sheeg! Those goddam infallible engineers and their goddam infallible inventions!” He caught himself and was embarrassed at the outburst. “Excuse me, Katrina,” Chaney reached across the table and closed his hands over hers. “I found the Commander’s grave outside — I wish I had been on time. And I had already decided not to tell you about that grave when I went back, when I turned in my report.” He peered at her. “I didn’t tell anyone, did I?”

“No, you reported nothing.”

A satisfied nod. “Good for me — I’m still keeping my mouth shut. The Commander made me promise not to tell you about your future marriage, a week or so ago when we returned from the Joliet trials. But you tried to pry the secret out of me, remember?”

She smiled at his words. “A week or so ago.”

Chaney mentally kicked himself. “I have this bad habit of putting my foot in my mouth.”

A little movement of her head to placate him. “But I guessed at your secret, Brian. Between your manner and Arthur’s deportment, I guessed it. You put yourself away from me.”

“I think you had already made up your mind. The little signs were beginning to show, Katrina.” He had a vivid memory of the victory party the night of their return.

She said: “I had almost decided at that time, and I did decide a short while afterward; I did decide when he came back hurt from his survey. He was so helpless, so near death when you and the doctor took him from the vehicle I decided on the spot.” She glanced at his enfolding hands and then raised her eyes. “But I was aware of your own intentions. I knew you would be hurt.”

He squeezed her fingers with encouragement. “Long ago and far away, Katrina. I’m getting over it.”

She made no reply, knowing it to be a half-truth.

“I met the children—” He stopped, aware of the awkwardness. “Children they are not — they’re older than I am! I met Arthur and Kathryn out there but they were afraid of me.”

Katrina nodded and again her gaze slid away from him to rest on his enveloping hands.

“Arthur is ten years older than you, I think, but Kathryn should be about the same age. I am sorry I can’t be more precise than that; I am sorry I can’t tell you how long my husband has been dead. We no longer know time here, Brian; we only live from one summer to the next. It is not the happiest existence.” After a while her hands moved inside his, and she glanced up again. “They were afraid of you because they’ve known no other man since the station was overrun, since the military personnel left here and we stayed within the fence for safety. For a year or two we dared not even leave this building.”

Bitterly: “The people out there were afraid of me, too. They ran away from me.”

She was quickly astonished, and betrayed alarm.

“Which people? Where?”

“The family I found outside the fence — down there by the railroad tracks.”

“There is no one alive out there.”

“Katrina, there is — I saw them, called to them, begged them to come back, but they ran away in fear.”

“How many? Were there many of them?”

“Three. A family of three: father, mother, and a little boy. I found them walking along the railroad track out there beyond the northwest corner. The little fellow was picking up something — pieces of coal, perhaps — and putting them in a bag his mother carried; they seemed to be making a game of it. They were walking in peace, in contentment until I called to them.”