Fictions

by Nancy Kress

  He said, with slow weightiness, “If the workers in the family stayed to raise crops, we could bring the goats and the infertile women . . . in easy stages, I think, before fall. Provided we map ahead of time where the safe water is.”

  “O, I know you can!”

  Tam frowned thoughtfully, and reached out again to touch the silent, unreachable egg.

  Just before the small expedition left the Wilkinson farm, Dr. Sutter showed up on his dirtbike.

  Why did he have to come now? Tam didn’t like Dr. Sutter, who always acted so superior. He hiked around the farms and villages, supposedly “helping people,”—O, he did help some people, maybe, but not Tam’s family, who were their village. Not really helped. O, he’d brought drugs for Gran’s aching bones, and for Suze’s fever, from the hospital in St. Paul. But he hadn’t been able to stop Tam’s sisters—or anybody else—from being born the way they were, and not all his “medical training” could make Suze or Nan or Calie fertile. And Dr. Sutter lorded it over Tam, who otherwise was the smartest person in the family.

  “I’m afraid,” Suze said. She rode the family mule; the others walked. Suze and Calie; Nan, led by Tam’s cousin Jack; Uncle Seddie and Uncle Ned, both armed; Tam and Juli. Juli stood talking, sparkly eyed, to Sutter. To Tam’s disappointment, no baby had been started on the honeymoon.

  He said, “Nothing to be afraid of, Suze. Juli! Time to go!”

  She danced over to him. “Dave’s coming, too! He says he got a few weeks’ vacation and would like to see the egg. He knows about it, Tam!”

  Of course he did. Tam set his bps together and didn’t answer.

  “He says it’s from people on another world, not from God, and—”

  “My gran said it was from God,” Tam said sharply. At his tone, Juli stopped walking.

  “Tam—”

  “I’ll speak to Sutter myself. Telling you these city lies. Now go walk by Suze. She’s afraid.”

  Juli, eyes no longer sparkling, obeyed. Tam told himself he was going to go over and have this out with Sutter, just as soon as he got everything going properly. Of course the egg was from God! Gran had said so, and anyway, if it wasn’t, what was the point of this whole expedition, taking workers away from the farm, even if it was the mid-summer quiet between planting and harvest.

  But somehow, with one task and another, Tam didn’t find time to confront Sutter until night, when they were camped by the first lake. Calie and Suze slept, and the others sat around a comfortable fire, full of corn mush and fresh rabbit. Somewhere in the darkness, a wolf howled.

  “Lots more of those than when I was young,” said Uncle Seddie, who was almost seventy. “Funny thing, too—when you trap ’em, they’re hardly ever deformed. Not like rabbits or frogs. Frogs, they’re the worst.”

  Sutter said, “Wolves didn’t move back down to Minnesota until after the Collapse. Up in Canada, they weren’t as exposed to endocrine-mimicking pollutants. And frogs have always been the worst; water animals are especially sensitive to environmental factors.”

  Some of the words were the same ones Gran had used, but that didn’t make Tam like them any better. He didn’t know what they meant, and he wasn’t about to ask Sutter.

  Juli did, though. “Those endo . . . endo . . . what are they, doctor?”

  He smiled at her, his straight white teeth gleaming in the firelight. “Environmental pollutants that bind to receptor sites all over the body, disrupting its normal function. They especially affect fetuses. Just before the Collapse, they reached some sort of unanticipated critical mass, and suddenly there were worldwide fertility problems, neurological impairments, cerebral. . . Sorry, Juli, you got me started on my medical diatribe. I mean, pretty lady, that too few babies were born, and too many of those who were born couldn’t think or move right, and we had the Collapse.”

  Beside him, Nan, born loose-brained, crooned softly to herself.

  Juli said innocently, “But I thought the Collapse, it came from wars and money and bombs and things like that.”

  “Yes,” Sutter said, “but those things happened because of the population and neurological problems.”

  “O, I’m just glad I didn’t live then!” Ned said, shuddering. “It must have been terrible, especially in the cities.”

  Juli said, “But, doctor, aren’t you from a city?”

  Sutter looked into the flames. The wolf howled again. “Some cities fared much better than others. We lost most of the East Coast, you know, to various terrorist wars, and—”

  “Everybody knows that,” Tam said witheringly.

  Sutter was undeterred, “—and California to rioting and looting. But St. Paul came through, eventually. And a basic core of knowledge and skills persisted, even if only in the urban areas. Science, medicine, engineering. We don’t have the skilled population, or even a neurologically functional population, but we haven’t really gone pre-industrial. There are even pockets of research, especially in biology. We’ll beat this, someday.”

  “I know we will!” Juli said, her eyes shining. She was always so optimistic. Like a child, not a grown woman.

  Tam said, “And meanwhile, the civilized types like you graciously go around to the poor country villages that feed you and bless them with your important skills.”

  Sutter looked at him across the fire. “That’s right, Tam.”

  Uncle Seddie said, “Enough arguing. Go to bed, everybody.”

  Seddie was the ranking elder; there was no choice but to obey. Tam pulled Juli up with him, and in their bedroll he copulated with her so hard that she had to tell him to be more gentle, he was hurting her.

  They reached the egg, by the direct route Tam had mapped out, in less than a week. Another family already camped beside it.

  The two approached each other warily, guns and precious ammunition prominently displayed. But the other family, the Janeways, turned out to be a lot like the Wilkinsons, a goat-and-farm clan whose herdsmen had discovered the egg and brought others back to see the God-given miracle.

  Tam, standing behind Seddie and Ned, said, “There’s some that don’t think it is from God.”

  The ranking Janeway, a tough old woman lean as Gran had been, said sharply, “Where else could it come from, way out here? No city tech left this here.”

  “That’s what we say,” Seddie answered. He lowered his rifle. “You people willing to trade provisions? We got maple syrup, corn mush, some good pepper.”

  “Pepper?” The old woman’s eyes brightened. “You got pepper?”

  “We trade with a family that trades in St. Paul,” Ned said proudly. “Twice a year, spring and fall.”

  “We got sugar and an extra radio.”

  Tam’s chin jerked up. A radio! But that was worth more than any amount of provisions. Nobody would casually trade a radio.

  “Our family runs to boys, nearly all boys,” the old woman said, by way of explanation. She looked past Tam, at Juli and Calie and Suze and Nan, hanging back with the mule and backpacks. “They’re having trouble finding fertile wives. If any of your girls . . . and if the young people liked each other . . .”

  “Juli, the blonde, she’s married to Tam here,” Seddie said. “And the other girls, they aren’t fertile . . . yet.”

  ‘“Yet?’ What do you mean, ‘yet’ ?”

  Seddie pointed with his rifle at the egg. “Don’t you know what that is?”

  “A gift from God,” the woman said.

  “Yes. But don’t you know about the princess and her twins? Tell her, Tam.”

  Tam told the story, feeling himself thrill to it as he did so. The woman listened intently, then squinted again at the girls. Seddie said quickly, “Nan is loose-brained, I have to tell you. And Suze is riding because her foot is crippled, although she’s got the sweetest, meekest nature you could ever find. But Calie there, even though she’s got a withered arm, is quick and smart and can do almost anything. And after she touches the egg . . . but, ma’am, Wilkinsons don’t force marriages on our women.
Never. Calie’d have to like one of your sons, and want to go with you.”

  “O, we can see what happens,” the woman said, and winked, and for a second Tam saw what she must have been once, long ago, on a sweet summer night like this one when she was young.

  He said suddenly, “The girls have to touch the egg at dawn.”

  Seddie and Ned turned to him. “Dawn? Why dawn?”

  Tam didn’t know why he’d said that, but now he had to see it through. “I don’t know. God just made that idea come to me.”

  Seddie said to Mrs. Janeway, “Tam’s our smartest person. Always has been.”

  “All right, then. Dawn.”

  In the chill morning light, the girls lined up, shivering. Mrs. Janeway, Dr. Sutter, and the men from both families made an awkward semi-circle around them, shuffling their feet a little, not looking at each other. The five Janeway boys, a tangle of uncles and cousins, all looked a bit stooped, but they could all walk, and none were loose-brained. Tam had spent the previous evening at the communal campfire, saying little, watching and listening to see which Janeways might be good to his sisters. He’d already decided that Cal had a temper, and if he asked Uncle Seddie for Calie or Suze, Tam would advise against it.

  Dr. Sutter had said nothing at the campfire, listening to the others become more and more excited about the egg-touching, about the fertility from God. Even when Mrs. Janeway had asked him questions, his replies had been short and evasive. She’d kept watching him, clearly suspicious. Tam had liked her more and more as the long evening progressed.

  Followed by a longer night. Tam and Juli had argued.

  “I want to touch it, too, Tam.”

  “No. You have your certificate from that doctor two years ago. She tested you, and you’re already fertile.”

  “Then why haven’t I started no baby? Maybe the fertility went away.”

  “It doesn’t do that.”

  “How do you know? I asked Dr. Sutter and he said—”

  “You told Dr. Sutter about your body?” Rage swamped Tam.

  Juli’s voice grew smaller. “O, he is a doctor! Tam, he says it’s hard to be sure about fertility testing for women, the test is . . . is some word I don’t remember. But he says about one certificate in four is wrong. He says we should do away with the certificates. He says—”

  “I don’t care what he says!” Tam had all but shouted. “I don’t want you talking to him again! If I see you are, Juli, I’ll take it up with Uncle Seddie. And you are not touching the egg!”

  Juli had raised herself on one elbow to stare at him in the starlight, then had turned her back and pretended to sleep until dawn.

  Now she led Nan, the oldest sister, toward the egg. Nan crooned, drooling a little, and smiled at Juli. Juli was always tender with Nan. She smiled back, wiped Nan’s chin, and guided her hand toward the silvery oval. Tam watched carefully to see that Juli didn’t touch the egg herself. She didn’t, and neither did Nan, technically, since her hand stopped at whatever unseen wall protected the object. But everyone let out a sharp breath, and Nan laughed suddenly, one of her clear high giggles, and Tam felt suddenly happier.

  Seddie said, “Now Suze.”

  Juli led Nan away. Suze, carried by Uncle Ned, reached out and touched the egg. She, too, laughed aloud, her sweet face alight, and Tam saw Vic Janeway lean forward a little, watching her. Suze couldn’t plow or plant, but she was the best cook in the family if everything were put in arm’s reach. And she could sew and weave and read and carve.

  Next Calie, pretty if Juli hadn’t been there for comparison, and the other four Janeway men watched. Calie’s one hand, dirt under the small fingernails, stayed on the egg a long time, trembling.

  No one spoke.

  “O, then,” Mrs. Janeway said, “we should pray.”

  They did, each family waiting courteously while the other said their special prayers, all joining in the “Our Father.” Tam caught Sutter looking at him somberly, and he glared back. Nothing Sutter’s “medicine” had ever done had helped Tam’s sisters, and anyway, it was none of Sutter’s business what the Wilkinsons and Jane ways did. Let him go back to St. Paul with his heathen beliefs.

  “I want to touch the egg,” Juli said. “I won’t get no other chance. We leave in the morning.”

  Tam had had no idea that she could be so stubborn. She’d argued and pleaded for the three days they’d camped with the Jane ways, letting the families get to know each other. Now they were leaving in the morning, with Vic and Lenny Janeway traveling with them to stay until the end of harvest, so Suze and Calie could decide about marriage. And Juli was still arguing!

  “I said no,” Tam said tightly. He was afraid to say more—afraid not of her, but of himself. Some men beat their wives; not Wilkinson men. But watching Juli all evening, Tam had suddenly understood those other men. She had deliberately sat talking only to Dr. Sutter, smiling at him in the flickering firelight. Even Uncle Ned had noticed, Tam thought, and that made Tam writhe with shame. He had dragged Juli off to bed early, and here she was arguing still, while singing started around the fire twenty feet away.

  “Tam . . . please! I want to start a baby, and nothing we do started one . . . Don’t get upset, but . . . but Dr. Sutter says sometimes the man is infertile, even though it don’t happen as often as women’s wombs it can still happen, and maybe—”

  It was too much. First his wife shames him by spending the evening sitting close to another man, talking and laughing, and then she suggests that him, not her, might be the reason there was no baby yet. Him! When God had clearly closed the wombs of women after the Collapse, just like he did to those sinning women in the Bible! Anger and shame thrilled through Tam, and before he knew he was going to do it, he hit her.

  It was only a slap. Juli put her hand to her cheek, and Tam suddenly would have given everything he possessed to take the slap back. Juli jumped up and ran off in the darkness, away from the fire. Tam let her go. She had a right to be upset now, he’d given her that. He lay stiffly in the darkness, intending every second to go get her—there were wolves out there, after all, although they seldom attacked people. Still, he would go get her. But he didn’t, and, without knowing it, he fell asleep.

  When he woke, it was near dawn. Juli woke him, creeping back into their bedroll.

  “Juli! You . . . it’s nearly dawn. Where were you all this time?”

  She didn’t answer. In the icy pale light, her face was flushed.

  He said slowly, “You touched it.”

  She wriggled the rest of the way into the bedroll and turned her back to him. Over her shoulder she said, “No, Tam. I didn’t touch it.”

  ‘You’re lying to me.”

  “No. I didn’t touch it,” she repeated, and Tam believed her. So he had won. Generosity filled him.

  “Juli—Tm sorry I hit you. So sorry.”

  Abruptly she twisted in the bedroll to face him. “I know. Tam, listen to me . . . God wants me to start a baby. He does!”

  ‘Yes, of course,” Tam said, bewildered by her sudden ferocity.

  “He wants me to start a baby!”

  “Are you . . . are you saying that you have?”

  She was silent a long time. Then she said, “Yes. I think so.”

  Joy filled him. He took her in his arms, and she let him. It would all be right, now. He and Juli would have a child, many children. So would Suze and Calie, and—who could say?—maybe even Nan. The egg’s fame would grow, and there would be many babies again.

  On the journey home, Juli stuck close to Tam, never looking even once in Dr. Sutter’s direction. He avoided her, too. Tam gloated; so much for science and tech from the cities! When they reached the farm, Dr. Sutter retrieved his dirtbike and rode away. The next time a doctor came to call, it was someone different.

  Juli bore a girl, strong and whole except for two missing fingers. During her marriage to Tam, she bore four more children, finally dying while trying to deliver a sixth one. Suze and Calie married the Jan
eway boys, but neither conceived. After three years of trying, Lenny Janeway sent Calie back to the Wilkinsons; Calie never smiled or laughed much again.

  For decades afterward, the egg was proclaimed a savior, a gift from God, a miracle to repopulate Minnesota. Families came and feasted and prayed, and the girls touched the egg, more each year. Most of the girls never started a baby, but a few did, and at times the base of the egg was almost invisible under the gifts of flowers, fruit, woven cloth, even a computer from St. Paul and a glass perfume bottle from much farther away, so delicate that the wind smashed it one night. Or bears did, or maybe even angels. Some people said that angels visited the egg regularly. They said that the angels even touched it, through the invisible wall.

  Tam’s oldest daughter didn’t believe that. She didn’t believe much, Tam thought, for she was the great disappointment of his life. Strong, beautiful, smart, she got herself accepted to a merit school in St. Paul, and she went, despite her missing fingers. She made herself into a scientist and turned her back on the Bible. Tam, who had turned more stubborn as he grew old, refused to see her again. She said that the egg wasn’t a miracle and had never made anyone pregnant. She said there were no saviors for humanity but itself.

  Tam, who had become not only more stubborn but also more angry after Juli died, turned his face away and refused to listen.

  Transmission: There is nothing here yet.

  Current probability of occurrence: 28%.

  III: 2175

  Abby4 said, “The meeting is in northern Minnesota? Why?”

  Mai held onto his temper. He’d been warned about Abby4. One of the Biomensas, Mai’s network of friends and colleagues had said, In the top 2 percent of genemods. She likes to throw around her superiority. Don’t let her twist you. The contract is too important.

  His friends had also said not to be intimidated by either Abby4’s office or her beauty. The office occupied the top floor of the tallest building in Raleigh, with a sweeping view of the newly cleaned-up city. A garden in the sky, its walls and ceiling were completely hidden by the latest genemod plants from AbbyWorks, flowers so exotic and brilliant that, just looking at them, a visitor could easily forget what he was going to say. Probably that was the idea.