Damon Knight - Orbit 14

The old man starts to loosen the bands about the boy’s chest and throat. “Now, you listen to me, son. I’m taking you back to where your friends are. I’m going to keep your hands tied until we get there, and I’m going to hold the cord. You understand. No rock throwing, no biting. When we get there, I’ll turn you loose and I’ll leave. If you want us, you can come back here. Tell the others the same thing. We won’t come to find you again.”

The old man takes the boy out the front of the hospital, through the ruined city streets. He doesn’t want him to associate the park with any of the people in the city, just in case there are adults using the children as decoys. He talks as they go.

“We have plenty of food and warm clothes. There are a lot of empty buildings and oil to heat them. You and your friends, or brothers and sisters, whatever they are, can live here if you want to. No one will hurt you or bother you.”

The boy walks as far from the old man as the tether will permit. He looks at him from the corner of his eye and gives no sign of comprehension.

“I know damn well that you understand,” the old man says conversationally. “I don’t care if you ever answer me. I’m just telling you what to tell the others. The oldest one, the girl, you tell her what I said, you hear? And the big boy. They’ll know what to do. You tell them.”

Midway to the dock area the old man knows they are being followed. The boy knows it also. Now he is looking over his shoulder, past the old man, to the other side of the street. They won’t start throwing as long as the boy is so close to him, the old man hopes. He stops at the mouth of an alley and takes out his knife. The boy’s eyes widen with fear, and he is shaking when the old man cuts through the cord.

“Now scat,” the old man says, and steps into the dark alley. No rocks are thrown. He doesn’t wait to find out if the truce is to be a lasting one.

It is a time of waiting. The old man visits Sid often; his head is healing nicely, but he is nervous and demanding. Eunice is caring for him.

Most of the people are staying indoors now, waiting. A week has gone by since the children arrived, and no one has seen or heard them again. The old man visits all his friends during the week. Dore and Ruth are pretending that nothing at all has happened, nothing has changed. Ruth’s heart has developed a new palpitation that the old man does not understand, does not know how to treat.

Monica is in her palace creating her garden and refuses to see him. Boy is still in hiding. Every afternoon now, the old man walks to the hospital and remains there for an hour or two.

The hospital corridors have remained bright; the windows are unbroken except for a pane or two on the west side where the storm winds most often come. The old man’s sandals make little noise on the cushioned floors. He walks each corridor in turn, examines the surgery wing, pauses there to people the rooms and watch the skillful surgeons for a time, then walks some more. The children have been all through the hospital. They have found the food. There are open containers, contents strewn about; they don’t know about freeze-dried food, to them it is inedible. They have raided the blankets, however. At least they will be warmer. And they have taken a number of surgical instruments.

In his room the old man continues to work on his Bible project. It is a lifetime occupation, he knows, more than enough for one lifetime. Of those who now survive, only one or two do not have such preoccupations. Harry Gould has become a fine leather craftsman; they all wear his sandals and shoes. Dore has studied until he has made himself an expert in chess. He has written several -books, reanalyzing championship games of the past. Myra is copying the library of music in India ink on skins, to preserve it forever. And so on. The empty ones were the first to go.

The old man glances over his most recent notes and presently is engrossed in them once more. The Biblical narrative from the Creation to the Ten Commandments is treated in his Bibles in the first eighty pages or so. By editing out the many begats, he thinks, that will come down to fifty pages. He has a theory that the begats are simply to show with some force that before the Flood man’s lifespan was over eight hundred years, and that after it, his span gradually decreased to about one hundred years. He has written: A drastic change in climate? An increase in the amount of ultraviolet light penetration of the atmosphere? If the begats are included in order to establish a lineage, then the same thing could be done with a simple statement. The same is true of the census in Numbers. Then there is the question of the function of the Books of Moses— part of Exodus, almost all of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. They exist in order to detail the numerous laws of the Israelites. Since the laws, with the exception of the Decalogue, were so temporal, applying to such a small group of people in particular circumstances, he has decided to extract and summarize them in a companion volume. A modern counterpart of the Books of Moses, he thinks, would be a city’s books of ordinances, or a state’s laws, including everything from the legal definition of murder down to grade-school admission requirements. He has been puzzled by the various versions of the story of Abraham and his wife, Sarah, whom Abraham calls his sister. Which is the original? He stares at the fine print, tapping his fingers, and then swings around to find his notebook. Boy is standing at the door. The old man doesn’t know how long Boy has been in the room. He stands up and embraces Boy, makes him sit down in his usual chair.

“Have you eaten? Are you all right?”

Boy is fine, he has eaten. He keeps glancing toward the window, but now his terror is contained.

The old man doesn’t return to his work. He sits opposite Boy and says quietly, “Do you remember when I found you? You were very small, no more than seven or eight. Remember?” Boy nods. “And you were hurt. Someone had hurt you badly, left you for dead. You would have died if I hadn’t found you, Boy. You know that, don’t you?” Again Boy nods.

“Those children will probably die, Boy, if we don’t help them.”

Boy jumps up and starts for the door again, his face quivering. Boy has never learned to read or write. He makes things, finds things; that is his preoccupation. What he is thinking, what he feels, is locked inside him. The outer signs, the quivering of his face, the tears in his eyes, the trembling of his hands, how much of the whirlwind of his mind do they convey? The old man stops him at the door and draws him back inside.

“They won’t hurt you, Boy. They are children. I’ll keep you safe.” Boy is still pulling away. The old man says, “Boy, I need you,” and Boy yields. The old man is ashamed of himself, but he is afraid that Boy will run away, and winter is coming.

“Can you find them for me, Boy? Don’t let them see you. Just find out where they are, if they are still nearby.”

Boy nods and indicates with a lowering of his hand and a wave at the sky that he will wait until night. The old man is satisfied. “Go rest now, Boy. I’ll be here. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Boy has found the children. His hands fly as he describes their activities of the past three days. They hunt rats, birds, dig up grubs and worms to eat. They huddle about a fire, wrapped in blankets at night. They avoid the buildings, staying in the open, under trees, or in the ruins where they are not threatened by walls. Now they are gathered at the hospital, apparently waiting for someone from the city to come to them. Belatedly Boy indicates that one of them is hurt.

“I’ll go,” the old man says. “Boy, fake a note to Sid for me. I’ll want him. They should see that he is not dead, that I cured him.” He scribbles the note and leaves, feeling Boy’s anxious gaze on his back as he starts across the park. He walks fast.