Damon Knight - Orbit 14

As soon as the little girl can walk again, the children leave the hospital and vanish into the city once more. The old man sits alone in the examination room and feels empty for a long time after they leave. There were no good-byes, no words exchanged, no backward glances. That afternoon he returns to his apartment and stares at the work spread on his tables. It is many days before he can bring himself to open one of the Bibles again.

In December Ruth dies in her sleep. They bury her with the others at the west side of the park where the wildflowers carpet the ground in spring and ferns grow in summer. The night after tier burial Boy wakes the old man with a hand pressed hard on his lips. He drags at him, trying to get him out of bed, and thrusts robe and stout winter shoes at him. He has no light, nor does he need one. Boy is an owl, the old man thinks, awake now, but sluggish and stiff.

Boy leads him out and into the park, winding among the cedars that are as black as coal. A powdery snow has fallen, not enough to cover the ground, but enough to change the world into one unfamiliar and beautiful.

Boy stops abruptly and his fingers are hard on the old man’s arm. Then he sees them. The children are dragging Ruth’s body from the grave. Sickened, he turns away. Finally he knows by the silence that they have gone. Boy’s face is a white blank in the dark night, his fingers start to shake spasmodically on the old man’s arm. They can arouse the city, ring the church bell, hunt the children down, recover the corpse and rebury it, but then what? Kill the children? Post a grave watch? And Dore, what would it do to Dore? The old man can’t seem to think clearly, all he can do is stare at the empty grave. If they knew, if the people knew, they would hunt down the children, kill them all. Many of the men still have guns, ammunition. He has a shotgun and shells. It can’t be for this that the children have survived so long! That can’t be what they came here to find!

Finally he says, “Go get two shovels, Boy. Bring them here. Quietly. Don’t wake anyone.”

And they fill in the grave again. And smooth the tracks and then go home.

The winters have grown progressively worse for the people of the city. Each bitter cold snap enervates them all, and each winter claims its toll. This year Sam Whitten has become more and more helpless, until now he is a bed-ridden invalid who must be attended constantly. His talk is all of his childhood.

They seldom mention the children. It is hoped that they will depart with the spring. Meanwhile, it is easier to pretend that they are not in the city at all.

The old man nurses Sam Whitten so conscientiously that Sid intervenes, spokesman for the rest of the people, he says.

“If you wear yourself down, then who’ll they have if they need help?”

The old man knows Sid is right, but if Sam dies, will the children steal his body also? He is tormented by the thought and can tell no one of his fears. His sleep is restless and unsatisfying; he wakes often and stares into darkness wondering if he has been awakened by a noise too close by, wondering if the children are prowling about the city while everyone sleeps.

In January they have their first real snowfall, only a few inches, and it doesn’t last more than two days, but now the weather turns bitter cold, Arctic weather. And Mary Halloran disappears. This time the bell in the church tower clamors for attendance, and everyone who is able gathers there.

“Jake, you tell them,” Harry says, his voice harsh. He is carrying his rifle, the first time he has had it out in fifteen years.

“Yeah. Me and Eunice and Walter and Mary was going to play pinochle this afternoon, like we always do. Mary didn’t come and I said I would go get her. When I got to her house, she wasn’t there. And there’s blood on her floor. Her door wasn’t closed tight either.”

“She could have hurt herself,” Sid says, but there is doubt in his voice. “She could be wandering out there right now, dazed. We have to search for her before it gets dark.”

“Stay in pairs,” Jake says harshly.

“Today we’ll search for Mary, and tomorrow we’ll search for those goddamn kids,” Harry says.

“Boy knows where they are,” Jake says. He looks around. “Where is he? I saw him a minute ago.”

Boy is gone again. The old man waits up for him until very late, but he doesn’t come back. The next day the old man finds Sid in his room when he returns from his morning visit to Sam Whitten.

“You joining the hunt?” Sid asks.

“No. You?”

“No. They won’t find the kids. Too many places to hide. Someone’ll have a heart attack out there in the cold.” Sid looks out the window toward the park. “Will you come over to the hospital with me in a little while?”

“Something wrong, Sid?” The old man can’t keep the anxiety out of his voice.

Sid shakes his head. “I want to put my notebooks, diaries and stuff, in the vault. Seems like a good time.”

The old man is silent for a moment, then he says, “We can use Boy’s wagon. Do you have much to take over?”

“Couple of boxes. We’d need the wagon.”

That afternoon they walk through the park, two old men in dark cloaks, pulling a stout wagon over the frozen ground. Their breath forms white clouds in front of their faces.

“They didn’t get a glimpse of the kids,” Sid says. “Didn’t think they would.”

“Are they going out again?”

“Sure. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.”

They smile briefly at each other and walk, taking turns pulling the wagon. It is hard to pull over the uneven ground.

“I keep wondering,” Sid says presently, “if this wasn’t part of the plan. Give us all time to die off and then bring out the new people and let them take over.”

“They can’t take over,” the old man says bitterly. “If that was the plan, it’s as much a failure as the first one was.” And he tells Sid about the boys’ testicles.

“That will change their minds for them,” Sid says thoughtfully. “The others who are holding back now. Harry only got five others to go with him and Jake, you know. The rest will go out too if they know this. Why not? Them or us. And we’re all doomed anyway.”

“I know.” They are almost through the park now.

“You think you could get Boy near that girl?”

The old man makes a rude noise. “He’d sooner couple with a snake. I don’t think he could, anyway. Psychologically. Even if I could explain and make him understand, which I probably couldn’t.” He considers it another moment, then shakes his head. He could never make Boy understand.

They take the wagon up the ramp and inside the hospital, and with much struggling they get it down the stairs to the subbasements. The vault is a freezer unit. There is a second section where the temperature was even colder once, and this part made tears come to the old man’s eyes when he first found it. He closed the door of the sperm bank that day, long ago, and hasn’t opened it since. The vault hasn’t been chilled at all for sixty years. It is simply a good place to store valuables. They cleared the shelves of blood plasma, medicines, unidentified vials, and now in their place are boxes of jewelry, books, photographs.

“You in a hurry?” Sid asks. “Might make just one more entry. What you just told me sure has changed everything.”

The old man shrugs and lights another lamp. Already Sid is writing with concentration, and the old man goes out into the corridor. No one has ever visited this section of the hospital often. Machinery is stored here, spare parts for the surgical units, tanks for oxygen, collapsible wheelchairs. The old man has never paid much attention to the machinery. They have had little use for motors to raise and lower hospital beds. Now he strolls through the storage room. Near the back of the room, he stops and stares. A generator. Boxed, a metal-clad box, in fact. Meant to be stored for an indefinite time. Taped to the box is a booklet of instructions. The air in the subbasements is very dry, the booklet is legible.