Damon Knight - Orbit 21

Marie brought back a little bundle wrapped in old yellow paper. She showed me how to use a little bit in the soup and cook it a long time to make sure it is done. Then she told me it is cold enough that if I put the meat by the kitchen window at night it will not spoil. During the day I must wrap it tightly so water cannot get in and put it in the back of the toilet where the water is always cold.

When we are finished with the meat I can dry the wrapping paper and use it for more pages for my journal. I think I will give half of it to Carrie, too, so she can draw a real picture that we can hang on the wall and keep. I hope she can remember how to draw Momma sitting in her chair.

I went down to find Marie after I put the kids to bed but when I knocked there was no answer. I turned to go back upstairs and the man was standing by his door watching me. He said he had a few extra cans of food and asked if I would like to have them for the children. I remembered what Marie said about him. But I remembered, too, that Momma said we should be kind to people like him and they would begin to be kind back. I followed him through the door. It was dark in his room but when I turned around I saw him shut the door and stand in front of it. I was suddenly very scared but I asked him where the cans were. He said I would have to pay for the food and I told him I didn’t have any money. He said I didn’t need money and I knew what he meant. I stood still while he took off my dress. He pushed me down on his bed, unzipped his pants and got on top of me.

I lay still and tried not to think about what he was doing. When he rolled off me I jumped up and grabbed my dress. I made myself stand still, put it on and ask him where the food was. He started laughing and I knew then that he didn’t have any extra food and I wanted to hit him in the face and stop his laughing but I ran instead.

In our bathroom I washed myself again and again. After my bath I put another piece of wood on the fire and curled around Jane and Baby Anna and tried to get warm.

I have thought about it a lot. What the man did to me was ugly and it hurt but I know Marie gets food and money from the protector for it. I am going to ask her how I can do that, too. And how I can make the man pay me to let him touch me.

This morning when I went to get Marie to go to Line I told her about what the man did. I asked her about letting a protector touch me for food and she looked at me for a long time. Then she began crying and I got embarrassed and left. I don’t know if she will help me get to know a protector or not.

Marie didn’t come up to have supper with us and I was afraid she was still upset, so after I put the kids to bed I went down to talk to her. The man’s door was open and I heard Marie call me from his room. She was lying on the floor covered with blood. The man was on the floor, too. There was blood and hair and skin and brains where his head should be. It made me sick. When I stopped throwing up I went upstairs and got Ned. We dragged Marie to her room and put her on the bed.

I’ve cleaned her up and her shoulder has finally stopped bleeding. She is very white and cold. I had Ned bring down another blanket but her skin still feels cold. While I was cleaning her she talked to me a little. She said she was very angry at the man because of what he did to me and she went to tell him to leave me alone. The man laughed at her and she slapped him. He came at her with the knife. She saw the hammer, grabbed it and hit him. Sometime while they were fighting he cut her with the knife. She said she kept hitting him until he fell down and didn’t move anymore. She cried while she was telling me about it. She cried until she fell asleep.

I’ve sat with Marie all night. I don’t know what to do to help her. I don’t know what to do about the man across the hall. I have to go to Line and get our food.

I walked the two blocks to Line and tried to figure what to do. No one ever speaks to the protectors but I knew I had to ask them to give me Marie’s food for her. When I was in front of Nextplease I asked him if I could please have the food for my friend Marie Christen. When he looked up at me I wanted to turn and run and I almost did but Grayeyes stepped over and laid his clipboard down beside the name book. When he spoke to me I looked into his eyes and I knew it would be all right because they were soft gray and not angry and there was understanding in his voice. He told me that I could have the food this time but the next time my friend was ill she must send a written message that I was to pick up her food. Nextplease marked off both my name and Marie’s. When I picked up the bag of food Grayeyes spoke to me. He said, “Tell Marie I will be there soon.”

Marie is still very white and cold and I cannot wake her up. I’ve made a fire and there is nothing to do but wait for Grayeyes.

It was snowing and the room was almost dark when he came. He asked me what had happened and I told him everything. About the man touching me and about Marie getting mad and the man cutting her and her killing him. While he listened we moved Marie’s mattress closer to the fire and he had me light the candle so he could look at her shoulder. He held her wrist and told me to be quiet a minute, then, after a little time, he told me to go on.

When I finished talking he sat on the mattress by Marie and stared at the candle. We didn’t say anything or look at each other until Ned came down to ask about supper. He stopped talking when he saw the protector sitting by Marie, but Grayeyes smiled at him and told me to go upstairs and take care of the kids. When I had fed them and made them get into bed to keep warm, I told Carrie to read to them and took a cup of soup down to Grayeyes.

He took the soup and thanked me. I sat on the floor by him and watched him eat. A little later he put his jacket around me and I fell asleep leaning against his knee while he stroked my hair.

My life has changed very quickly. Marie is dead. She died two days after she killed the man. Grayeyes and I stayed with her all the time but she never woke up. A week ago the protectors took away both Marie’s body and the body of the man across the hall. I went down and brought all of Marie’s things to our apartment. Her clothes and shoes are only a little too big for me. Ned and I went through the man’s apartment and found shirts and pants that I can make over for him and Carrie. There were also a pair of boots and a blanket. We will be warm now through the winter.

I made Ned help me drag Marie’s and the man’s mattresses upstairs. We laid them together on one side of the stove for Ned and Carrie. Jane’s and Baby Anna’s mattress is on the other side. They will be warm that way. Then we dragged the other mattress into the kitchen.

I will be colder sleeping alone in the kitchen away from the fire. But Grayeyes has come to me a few nights already and I will not always sleep alone. In the kitchen the little ones cannot see what I do. On those nights when Grayeyes comes he brings us things. He brought Carrie a tablet for drawing and he brought me a dictionary. He also brings extra food or a little money to buy extra food. We will survive through the winter.

Sometimes I dreamed about Icehenge, and walked in awe across the old crater bed, among those tall white towers. Quite often in the dreams I had become a crew member of the Persephone , on that first expedition to Pluto in 2541. I landed with the rest of them on a plain of crater-pocked, shattered black basalt, down near the old mechanical probes. And I was there, in the bridge with Commodore Ehrung and the rest of her officers, when the call came in from Dr. Cereson, who was out in an LV locating the magnetic poles; voice high, cracked with excitement that sounded like fear, radio hiss sputtering in his pauses: “I’m landing at the geographical pole— You’d better send a party up here fast. . . . There’s a ... a structure up here. . . .”