The Beginning of Sorrows

by Gilbert, Morris

  Dancy looked up at her grandmother, startled. “But Grandmother Tessa Kai, don’t you know? Don’t you understand? When Mama’s upset, she’s all pin-striped and focused, like she is when the commissars are coming. When she’s relaxed and happy, she’s—you know, kind of absentminded and—weird.”

  Tessa Kai didn’t laugh, as she might have under different circumstances. And Dancy wasn’t trying to be amusing, not at all. “Yes . . . yes, she has been very much the proper pro today, but I’m not sure she’s what you’d call upset, or anything bad, Dancy. I don’t think it’s anything to be worried about, little girl.”

  Dancy dropped her head again. “But I do worry, Grandmother. Because I don’t think she’s upset, either. I think she’s afraid.”

  Tessa Kai shifted restlessly, then picked up Dancy’s hand. It was cold. “Afraid of what, darlin’?”

  But Dancy never answered, for the door again burst open and Victorine ran in, her strained white face a blur in the deep shadows. Slowly she said, “For some strange reason, the flashlight in 703 doesn’t work, either . . . and neither does the one in 705. I’m going to go downstairs and start the emergency generator.” She turned and hurried back toward the door, but stopped and said in as normal a tone as she could muster, “Don’t worry, you two. I buy all of the batteries for the emergency flashlights in bulk. I’m certain it’s just a bad batch or something.”

  “Mother, wait,” Dancy said, jumping to her feet and holding out her hand in a beseeching gesture.

  Victorine said calmly, “Now, don’t worry, Dancy, everything will be all right. You just stay here with your grandmother and keep her from bashing her other shin, or worse.”

  “Be . . . careful, Mother,” Dancy said tremulously. “It’ll be dark in the stairwell.”

  “I know, I’ll be careful. I’ll be right back.”

  Again she had to fight the door to close it. The wind was like a cavalry charge now, stampeding first this way and then the other way. Victorine, from decades of habit, turned left to go to the elevators. After a few steps she stopped, grunting with disgust at herself, and turned around. The exit to the stairwell was directly across from her front door.

  For a moment she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get the door opened; it was a three-inch-thick metal fire door, and the wind was charging up the stairwell, fighting Victorine. Then the wind grabbed it and temperamentally tossed it open, and the metal clang sounded like a car crash. Victorine flew down the first six steps. But at the first landing she slowed a little and grabbed the rail. The wind was fitful, slashing her face with stinging fine sand. Almost blinded, she made herself walk carefully. “That would be a nice touch, if I fell down six flights of stairs,” she growled to herself. Of course, she wouldn’t. There were only six steps, then a landing and turn, and then another six steps to each floor.

  At each landing was a three-foot-square open porthole, for which Victorine was glad. If it hadn’t been for even the little ambient light from the outside, it would truly be ink-black in the stairwell. Abruptly she stopped and stared upward. Dancy had been right, though how she’d known was a mystery . . .

  The emergency lights weren’t on.

  They were supposed to switch on as soon as the main power source went down.

  But Victorine was a practical person, so she added this to her mental list of problems, and started down the stairs again.

  When she reached the fourth floor, she stopped and threw herself against the wall, her eyes wide, her heart banging painfully against her chest.

  Was someone in the stairwell with her? She thought she’d heard . . . something . . .

  She heard it again; it was like a shrieking insane laugh—

  “Uhh . . .” A tiny little moan of fear escaped her, and Victorine pressed against the gritty cold concrete wall as if she could plaster herself into it.

  It . . . can’t be . . . there can’t possibly be anyone there . . . I’m just—just—imagining things . . .

  She stayed still, straining with every muscle in her body, as if that would help her to hear.

  But now all she heard was the wind, beginning as a low groan, rising to a frantic wail; now a banal howl, then an ominous growl . . .

  Victorine swallowed, and it was like trying to eat sand, for her mouth and tongue and throat were parched and gritty with fright. “It’s just the wind,” she said loudly. “It’s just the storm!”

  The echoes of her voice were lost in the din.

  Victorine wrenched herself away from the wall as if she were physically attached to it and started down the stairs again. Her eyes stung, watered, and her skin crawled, and she was panting shallow little desperate breaths. She felt as if someone . . . or some thing . . . would any moment lay a hand, clammy and chilling, on her shoulder. Wild and panicked, she ran down the stairs, sling-shotting herself around the corners.

  But finally her stolid common sense and her strength of will took over, and Victorine stood still on a step. Though her mind cried out to, she refused to look behind. Straightening her shoulders and grasping the railing hard, she walked with dignity down the last flight of stairs.

  As soon as she opened the ground floor door and stepped outside, she lifted her head and gratefully took deep breaths, even though the savage wind tried to snatch them away. Her hair was wild, like thick whips about her face and neck. Impatiently she shoved it back and went to the maintenance room.

  The maintenance room was, indeed, flat and impenetrable black, for it had no windows. Victorine struck a match, and was shocked to see her hands shaking as if she were palsied. With a great effort of will, she made them stop trembling, and then lit the candle she’d brought. On the workbench were two small flashlights. Victorine grabbed them and tried first one, then the other. The measure of her confusion and disarray was evident when she was astounded that both of them actually worked. They were castoffs, cheap plastic lights, and the batteries in both were weak because the lights were blinky and dim. Still, they did work.

  But the generator didn’t.

  It was a keyed-ignition gasoline generator, old but in good condition, for it was used very little, and Victorine serviced it regularly.

  But now it had no spark of life, none at all. When Victorine turned the key, it was utterly silent.

  “What is going on?” she muttered.

  Another small rebellion: She switched off the small flashlight as she stood still and made herself think. Not going to scare me, not going to get me . . . , winged by in the back of her mind, but she quickly dismissed such foolish defiance of imaginary terrors.

  She stood, concentrating, for perhaps ten seconds. Then, moving deliberately, she switched the flashlight back on and went out to her car. It was a small, beat-up Smith-Deal, ten years old, and it sounded like an ancient sewing machine.

  Without even bothering to get in the car, she leaned over to insert the key for manual start.

  It was dead.

  Her movements slow, she shut the door and leaned against the little car, staring blankly at the boiling clouds above. Three fat raindrops splatted down onto her face, but she didn’t notice.

  Could it be solar flares? I know that if they are a certain magnitude, they can disturb electrical fields . . . But for how long? Seems that I read it could be for days . . . maybe even months?

  Is that what Project Final Unity is? Some—program to deal with the effects of solar flares . . . if it is this strong, if it even affects 9 volt batteries . . . it must be powerful, and the effects must be widespread . . .

  But that doesn’t make sense! If they knew it was going to happen, and they were formulating some sort of disaster plan . . . why hasn’t it been publicized?

  As if an immense bucket had been overturned in the heavens, a fierce torrent of rain started.

  Victorine jumped as if she’d been stung. Her eyes were wide with alarm. But it wasn’t because of the sudden flood of water soaking her.

  She ran, her steps hard and frantic, to the stairwell. />
  It was a terribly hard climb, up seven stories. Victorine ran the entire way, but when she finally reached the condo, she could hardly talk.

  Throwing open the door, she stumbled inside. She was soaked, and she was gasping painfully and clutching her side. Hoarsely she shouted, “Water! Now! Fill . . . the tubs . . . and anything you can . . . find! Hurry!”

  The water ran for about ten minutes.

  And then it, too, died.

  SIXTEEN

  NIKLAS KESTEVEN WAS A MAN who liked his comforts. He spared no expense when something appealed to him aesthetically, and now as he leaned back with his heavy-lidded eyes half closed, the feel of the honey-colored leather under his body pleased him exceedingly. It had cost him four hundred credits, but now as he ran the tips of his fingers over the material, a sense of satisfaction came to him.

  “This chair, sir,” the representative had told him smoothly, “is covered with leather from cattle grown in a secluded area of Argentina. The cattle are kept in open fields without any barbed wire, which would scratch and mar their hides. This gives a perfect material, none like it in the world.” Somehow the idea of cattle being grown in another hemisphere kept by stock riders for no purpose other than to give him pleasure was most agreeable to Niklas. He also got a furtive pleasure from defying the mandates of the MAB Animal Protection Trade Protocols.

  But if the leather-covered chair that gave with each motion of his body pleased him, the program that he had been watching for the past hour on the Cyclops did not. Niklas was an accomplished musician, playing the violin, the flute, and the piano with equal skill, and had looked forward to the program that was a historical survey of the history of music in America. The first part of the program had dealt mostly with theory, for, unfortunately, only old tintypes existed of the earlier musical genius of America. And of course, none of the actual sounds that preceded the invention of the phonograph had been preserved. He had been clinically interested in the sounds of the first recordings and had been mildly amused at the awkward methods of recording a symphony by a small orchestra. Since there was only one microphone, the musicians had been forced to rush forward, getting themselves as close to the single mike as they could in order to get on the wax tube. Niklas had laughed aloud as players on the woodwinds stampeded forward at the same time, trying to keep the tempo as they crowded around the microphone—and then had made a clumsy retreat as men wagging trumpets had come to take their place. “A barbaric system,” he muttered. But at least he had found this segment of ancient film amusing.

  When, however, the program had reached the 1960s, Niklas’s disgust had begun. He had watched with a scowl as a young man with long side burns, heavy eyelids, and a sensuous face twisted and contorted on the screen of the Cyclops. He was singing a song whose lyrics—as well as his music—made Niklas wince. “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog” was apparently the title, and the gyrations of the young man were more gymnastic than graceful. The fruity-voiced commentator had said, “Elvis Presley quickly became known as ‘Elvis the Pelvis,’ and the adulation that young people heaped upon Presley brought a sense of despair and fear to parents throughout America.”

  Niklas poured himself another drink from the half-empty bottle that sat on the table beside him. He drained it quickly, braced himself for the jolt, then shuddered. “Elvis the Pelvis!” he muttered. “Now there’s an abomination for you!”

  He continued to watch for a time, growing more and more dissatisfied. He watched as a group called the Beatles, according to the commentator, changed the history of the Western world. Again the lyrics and the music seemed to Niklas abominable. And as the rapturous commentator gushed on through hard rock, metal, soft rock, hip-hop, rap, salsa, shock rock, snuff rock, tribal, synthesised, computer-created, and finally Ultimate Reality Self-Expression, his musings evolved from disgust to alcohol-enhanced anger.

  What does any of it have to do with music? Niklas ranted to himself. There’s been no real music made for two hundred years! As he poured another drink, he realized that his movements were slow and unsteady. Draining the half-full glass, he let it drop to the table, and when the sound of it falling seemed muffled and far away he knew that he was, indeed and again, drunk.

  In slow motion he reached out, picked up the remote, and switched the Cyclops video off. He then tried a sequence of keys—three times—and finally the sound of a piano filled the room. It was Chopin, Opus Number Ten from the Twelve Etudes. Closing his eyes, Niklas lay back and let the chair embrace him. As the music filled his mind almost like wine filling a bottle, he found peace for a time. He hated all the new music, particularly the artificial and meaningless sounds of the Cyclops-generated self-expressionists. As a student of history, he felt that something had gone wrong; he knew that music, like painting and drama and fiction, had taken a wrong turn somewhere in America. Something close to ecstasy filled him as the recording continued. At least the Cyclops had sound systems of excellent quality. With his eyes closed, he could almost picture Chopin himself playing the melody. Of course, Niklas felt that he himself was better on the piano than Chopin. This streak of egotism touched Niklas in almost every facet of his being.

  For a long time the music went on, and he drifted into a coma-like sleep. He came awake with a start and a feeling of vague discontent. Rolling out of the chair, he shut off the music that had gone to Berlioz’s “Harold en Italie,” a symphony based on an English poet, Byron’s Childe Harold. Unsteadily he stood up, holding on to the arm of his fine leather chair, waiting for the room to stop revolving. I drink too much—and I don’t sleep well. He made a ridiculous sight, a big shambling man much like a shaggy bear, sleepy and bewildered. Niklas had always looked more like an illiterate wrestler than he did a physicist and a scientist, but behind the dark brown eyes lay a brain that was almost never inert.

  Staggering to the bathroom, he switched on the light, then leaned forward, putting his weight on the lavatory. Staring into the mirror he was filled with disgust at the bleary, bloodshot eyes that stared back at him. “I’m drunk,” he muttered. His mouth formed a petulant curve and he snarled, “All right! So I’m drunk! So what? I’m a better man drunk than any other man is sober . . .”

  A searing pain struck him over his right eye and nausea rolled low in his gut. He stood shakily, holding on to the lavatory, until the stabbing pain dulled somewhat and the nausea subsided. He filled the lavatory with cold water and splashed his face. Then, with jerky movements, he turned on the shower and the small bathroom steamed up quickly. It was almost too hot to bear, but it felt good to Niklas, who suddenly realized he couldn’t remember when he’d last taken a shower. He was letting his personal habits slide, too, and that was an even worse sign than his drinking. With a brush he scrubbed himself all over, even his face and head, until he felt almost raw. Finally he stepped out, shaking his shaggy hair like a wet dog and drying himself briskly. Dressing in clean khakis and a shirt made of old, soft denim, he felt much better.

  His stomach rumbled, and he wondered what time it was. Blearily he thought that he didn’t even know, down in his steel cocoon, if it was day or night. He headed toward the kitchen, already grimacing, thinking that he had nothing appetizing in his quarters. Then a bland, metallic voice came over his Cyclops: “Attention, please. As of 1900 hours, all Man and Biosphere Directorate facilities in the Shortgrass Steppe Biome are on a Code Yellow Alert. Repeat, Lab XJ2197 is now on a Code Yellow Alert. Unauthorized personnel are to remain in their quarters. All personnel are requested to remain in their directorate facility until all clear on Code Yellow Alert is signaled. Next notification will be at 1950 hours. This Code Yellow Alert is authorized by Chief Commissar Alia Silverthorne.”

  A red flush crept up the neck of Niklas Kesteven and he cursed eloquently. “Chief Commissar Alia Silverthorne,” he grunted. “You, little girl, have never, and will never, tell me what I can and cannot do!” If Niklas had faced it, the depth of his anger and resentment toward his former lover was telling. He
flatly denied to himself that he cared for Alia at all, or that he missed her, or that he regretted that he’d lost her. Staunchly he told himself that she’d treated him badly by taking his chacos and disappearing like that. Then, after she’d joined the exalted circles of the president and the Lady of Light, she’d snubbed him. So he hated her.

  So he told himself . . . sometimes a dozen times a day.

  “Stupid commissar drills,” he rasped, stamping impatiently into the small cubicle kitchen. “Think they’re like real soldiers with real jobs. Idiots.” He was like a huge bear that had been confined in a cage and now was being poked by the sharp, pointed sticks of those above him. Rage contended in him, for he was not a man who could bear being controlled. He mimicked the inhuman voice. “No one will be permitted to leave . . .” He cursed again, then grinned ferally. “We’ll see who will be ‘permitted’ to leave . . . !” He lurched toward the door and struck it with a blow as he passed through, leaving his apartment.

  Gildan Ives prepared the injector while humming a tune from her childhood. The show had been called “Farmland,” and it was the direct reason that she’d eventually decided to become a veterinarian. Gildan had loved the show, with its quirky animals that managed to come up with an amazing problem to solve every week for their viewers, which were many and worldwide. Even Gildan’s mother had liked watching the show with her.

  She gently picked up a brown and white guinea pig that was very tame and did not struggle. This was the part she hated still, even after twelve years of treating animals. “You trust me enough to let me pick you up, then I do this,” she told the pig regretfully, boosting the serum into the meat behind its right shoulder. The guinea pig twitched but made no sound. Setting it back into the open-topped cage, she said, “If it makes you feel any better, it’s for your own good, believe me.”