by Terri Kouba
Later that night I came to understand why Jacob made himself scarce following the afternoon’s successes. There were ten of us in one of the smaller eating rooms with Marla. From the Ireland colony there was me, my father, Derrick and Pappy, Ireland’s lead humanist. The Platonists included Deidra and Peter, two of the better cooks, the carpenters Paul and Zia-Lau, the biologist Pasquale and his companion Sarah. We were just finishing our desserts, a lemon sponge-cake slavered in quince-flavored whipping cream, when Robert entered the room. I have seen men’s face dark with rage before and I set my fork down and picked up my knife. I hid it in my lap, under my napkin.
“Tell me what I hear isn’t true,” Robert said to Marla as if she were alone in the room.
Marla smiled with mischief and started to respond “I do not know…”
Robert cut her off. “Do not toy with me.” His lips were two straight lines.
Marla sighed and set her fork across the top of her plate. “Yes. What you heard is correct. Today I figured out how to attach the Eigengrau light to my belt and I stood outside on my balcony, in the sunlight, without traditional armor, and the Slicers didn’t touch me.”
Deidra sucked in her breath and glanced at Peter .
Paul let out a whoop that echoed in the silence that followed.
I didn’t think was possible but Robert’s face turned even darker. A vein in the middle of his forehead pulsated intensely. “You tested it personally. On yourself.”
Marla rose to her feet and stood with her fingers barely touching the tabletop. She looked directly at him. Her voice was level. “Yes, I tested it myself.”
Robert picked up the only empty chair and flung it against the wall. The wood shattered, sending splinters everywhere. “Damn it, Marla. I told you not to do that.”
Everyone at the table jumped to their feet and stood with their backs pressed against the walls. I tightened my grip on the knife hidden under my napkin.
“And I told you that I was going to,” she countered.
Robert kicked at a broken chair leg and shook his head. “We’ve had this fight so many times, Marla. I just don’t know what to do anymore.”
Marla reached out but Robert pulled his arm away and he turned his back on her.
“Just let me be,” she replied.
Robert spun to look at her. “Just let you be?” he asked incredulously. “Just let you be, so you can continue to test these experiments on yourself until one day one of them doesn’t work out quite as you expected and it kills you?” His voice caught at the end. He cleared his throat. “You are too important to us. I can’t let you do that.”
“I keep on telling you, Robert. I’m no more important than anyone else here.”
He looked at her levelly. “And I keep on telling you how very wrong you are.”
She started to speak but he cut her off. He pointed at Paul who winced visibly. “If Paul has an accident and dies, Zia-Lau can take over for him. And even if we lose Zia-Lau and all of our apprentice carpenters, we can sit on the floor if we have to. But if you die, Marla, there is no one who can do what you do.”
“I’m training Jacob. Soon he’ll take an apprentice himself and teach some else.”
“Jacob is years away from catching up to you, much less surpassing you. I’m not sure anyone can.”
Marla shook her head rapidly as if she didn’t want to hear the words. “No one person should be valued more than another.”
Robert grabbed her arms in his hands. “Marla! Don’t tell me what should be. If we lived in the world of shoulds we’d still have seven billion people on the planet. I know you want to believe that every human life has the same value, but in this case, it’s just not true. You are the reason why Plato’s Cave exists. It is because of you that we can harvest new wood to build new furniture. It is because of you that we have fresh fruit and fish to eat, that we have…” Robert caught his words and looked around at the four of us outsiders.
He shook his head slightly and continued. “You may not want to be more important than anyone else, but you are.” He released her arm and placed his hand gently on the side of her cheek.
“It is your burden.” His voice was barely over a whisper. “You don’t want this any more than you wanted to be a widow. These are your burdens, Marla. You cannot fight them. You must carry them.”
“You are too concerned for the individual, Robert. You should be more concerned for the future generations.” Her voice did not carry the conviction of her words, though. She said them as if reciting past arguments.
“And without this one individual, there will be no future generations,” Robert reminded her.
She looked at Robert for a long time and then squeezed her eyes shut before opening them again. Her shoulders softened.
“The rational part of me knows that you’re right, Robert, but I cannot ask someone to do something that I am not willing to do myself.”
Robert closed his eyes too and his jaws clenched tightly. “I know. You don’t have to. I will.” He sighed and opened his eyes. “I will decide who tests your new inventions.”
Marla pulled away from him and walked toward the wall. “Phff. You expect me to come to you and say ‘hey, I have this new idea but I’m not sure if it’s going to work. Why don’t you have Paul here test it and we’ll see if he dies or not.’” She looked at Robert. “Come on, Robert. I can’t do that. It’s the same thing as asking Paul to do it myself.”
“No, it is not the same,” Robert said sternly. “As leader of Plato’s Cave, I am telling you to do this, Marla. You will cease to test inventions yourself. As of now you will have a guard with you at all times, to ensure you follow my rules.”
“What? You’re going to have me followed?”
“Protected. Twenty-four hours a day.”
“When I’m in my lab.”
“And when you’re in your home. And when you’re in the library. Where ever you go.”
“You treat me as if you don’t trust me.” Marla challenged him to refute it.
“With your antics today, you have proven to me that I can’t trust you,” Robert admitted.
Marla’s face hardened. “Are you so afraid of losing me that you’re willing to drive me away?”
The remark stung Robert as much as if he had been slapped. “Yes,” he whispered. “It would break my heart if you died, Marla.” His voice gained strength. “Strangely enough, because of what I have lost before, know I can live with that. But it’s not just you and me, Marla. If you die, everyone else here dies too.” He looked at his friends as he swept his arm over them. “If you died, all of them would be dead within a decade. And that I cannot allow to happen.”
He looked at Deidra. “I’m responsible for all of them, Marla. I have to do whatever it takes to keep them alive. And that means that you will not test any experiments on yourself.”
Robert turned his gaze to my father and me. “I expect you two to inform me when she tries to sneak something by her guards. You also have a vested interest in keeping her alive. In addition to your scientific pursuits, this is also your new duty.”
“I cannot…” my father started to object.
Derrick placed his hand on father’s arm. “We accept this as our duty. We will do this,” Derrick told Robert.
Robert nodded. He turned to look at Marla but she had turned away and was leaving the room. He followed her out of the room but turned left out the door, away from her direction. The guard outside followed behind Marla.
The room was silent. We still stood with our backs pressed to the walls.
“So, he has chosen,” Deidra said quietly, breaking the silence.
Paul turned toward my father to explain. “Robert has struggled for four years, not wanting to choose between his love for Marla and his duty to his people.”
“Today he has truly accepted his role as our leader,” Paul stated, not without pride.
“Today he has accepted the fact that he will be alone,” Deidra added. She
squeezed Peter’s hand.
