CHILDREN OF THE THUNDER

by John Brunner

  Another thread in life’s rich tapestry…

  Ellen waited long enough to be introduced, then kissed Peter and disappeared to her own room again. Dropping a laden bag on the couch, Claudia nodded after her.

  “Pretty kid! How does it feel to be a single parent?”

  “She’s making it easy for me,” Peter grunted, switching off the TV. “Goodness knows how, after all the traumata she’s been through.”

  “Tranquilizers?”

  “Won’t touch ‘em. Kamala’s influence—her mother, that is. She was a nurse. Ellen does have bad dreams, of course, and the social worker suggested sleepers, but she won’t take them either. Wakes me sometimes in the small hours so I have to go and comfort her, but—well, they do say it’s best not to repress grief, don’t they? Do sit down! Care for a drink?”

  “I wouldn’t mind.” Claudia leaned back, face eloquent of weariness, and ran her fingers through her pageboy hair.

  “I haven’t got much to offer, I’m afraid. My—ah—circumstances have changed rather radically. Scotch and water?”

  “On the rocks. I need a kick in the kishkas.”

  “Excuse me?”—thinking this was recent American slang he hadn’t yet caught up with.

  It was her turn to be confused. “Sorry! I took it for granted that with a name like Levin…”

  Realization dawned. “Oh! Was that Yiddish? Did you think I was Jewish?”

  “Well—uh—yes, as a matter of fact.” For the first time Claudia seemed visibly embarrassed.

  Does she think she’s offended me? No, I don’t think so. More likely she’s annoyed at having made a wrong guess.

  “You’re not the first,” he said lightly. “But in fact it’s an old English name. Started out as Leofwine—‘love-friend.’”

  “Sorry anyway. Should have known better.”

  She remained silent and preoccupied while he poured the drinks. When he had delivered them and sat down in an armchair facing her, she resumed, “After our last encounter I imagine you were moderately angry with me, hm?”

  “I wasn’t overjoyed… Cheers.”

  “L’chaim! That’s to make it clear that I am Jewish…” She took a sip and set the glass aside. “I can only say I had a lot on my mind. You did hear what happened at my university?”

  “I haven’t checked, but I can guess from what you told me. One of these fundamentalist takeovers, right?”

  “One of the worst. I knew the dean and most of the senior faculty were soft in the brain, but I never expected them to cave in so quickly the moment I wasn’t around.”

  “You were the prime target?”

  “Of course. Aren’t I the one who’s been attacking Mom and apple pie?”

  “So what exactly has happened?”

  This time Claudia took a generous gulp of her whiskey before answering.

  “The funders moved in with an offer of a million-dollar endowment for a department of ‘creation science’”—she made the quote marks audible—“on condition that funding for my sabbatical was withdrawn and my tenure cancelled.”

  “Can they do that? I thought once you had tenure—”

  “Plus whatever it might cost to contest any suit I bring against the university.”

  “I’d have thought it was cheaper and quicker to hire a Rambo squad,” Peter muttered.

  On the brink of saying something else, she checked. “You sounded almost serious!”

  “Why not?”

  “But I thought—”

  “You thought Rambo squads were an invention of the media? That’s what most Americans believe. No, they’re real enough. They operate in groups of three, one firearms expert, one explosives expert, and a communications specialist… But I wasn’t in fact being serious. Just cynical. More to the point: can’t your friend Mr. Strugman help?”

  “He may be rich,” was the tart response, “but he’s not that rich. For one thing, he’s not as rich as he was—he’s funded half a dozen lawsuits for us already. We won three and lost three. Win some, lose some… But he is prepared to underwrite my year in Britain, bless him.”

  “Ah, you’re staying on. With the friends who are putting you up?”

  “Scarcely”—with a sour smile. “ ‘Guests and fish stink after three days.’ In any case, my hosts have problems. My hostess’s sister died yesterday, after cutting herself with a kitchen knife.”

  “Good grief! Was she a hemophiliac?”

  Shaking her head, Claudia emptied her glass. “She contracted antibiotic-resistant toxemia from beef that she was cutting up for a stew. Her family can sue, of course, but would you bet on their chance of winning?” She set the empty glass down with an angry slam and Peter rose hastily to refill it. He wanted Claudia in this expansive mood, and the whiskey seemed to be having a rapid effect.

  Over his shoulder he said, “So what will you do?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to waste Cecil’s money, and renting in this burg is horribly expensive, yet if I move out to the suburbs I’ll spend so much time commuting…”

  “I think I have the answer,” Peter interjected.

  “Tell me!”—in excitement as she accepted the fresh drink.

  “What say you take on my old place? It isn’t much, just three tiny rooms, a place to cook and sort of a bathroom. A shower, at least. It’s on the top floor, but I survived there for four years.”

  “You’ll rent it to me? How much?”

  “No, that’s not what I had in mind.” Peter resumed his chair. “I have to sell it—absolutely have to. In fact I thought I had, only the deal fell through.” He didn’t go into details. “What I think you ought to do is get a bank to buy it.”

  “A bank?” Claudia echoed incredulously.

  “Precisely. In the eighties a lot of them moved into real estate, especially in London where property prices haven’t gone down in more than a generation. Pretty soon they’re going to own more of this town than the Duchy of Westminster… With Strugman to guarantee you, you should have no trouble. Go to a bank—my own is a pretty good bet—and say you want my flat for a year. They’ll buy it. When you leave, they’ll sell it, or rent it again. Like you said, there’s a shortage of accommodation to let. All it’ll cost you will be interest on the bank’s investment, plus insurance and the running costs. It’s a sight cheaper than ordinary renting, I promise you.”

  Her face was alight with enthusiasm. It made her look almost pretty—though Peter doubted she would be pleased were he to say so.

  “Banks really do this?”

  “A lot. Mainly for overseas investment companies who need one of their executives to spend a year in Britain. I could kick myself for not thinking of it before.” He pulled a self-consciously comical face.

  “That’s wonderful! I’m so glad I came!” And, with a mercurial shift of mood: “Lord, I haven’t even mentioned the reason I wanted to see you, have I?”

  “Just a second before you get around to it. I ought to check that Ellen is okay.”

  On his return:

  “Fast asleep, thank goodness. Let’s hope it’s all night this time. Being woken up in the small hours is making me understand how parents can be driven to batter a squalling baby… Well, what about the reason for your visit? You said you were going to bring a disk.”

  “Right here.” She reached for her bag. “So if you’ll boot your computer…?”

  “No sooner said than…”

  But, as she was about to load the data, she hesitated. “In all fairness,” she muttered, “I ought to warn you. This may give you still more sleepless nights.”

  “Certainly that’s the effect it has on me.”

  And at that precise moment all the lights went off.

  Not yet fourteen, though she had the looks and manner of a sixteen-year-old, Tracy Coward was the youngest pupil in the top class of her school. But keeping company with her seniors had never troubled her. Nor did it seem to bother the other children, for she was extremely popular.

  W
ell, she must be. That at any rate was the view of her adoring parents Matthew and Doreen. Was she not forever receiving presents, sometimes quite expensive ones? And not just from boyfriends, either, as might be expected, but from girls as well!

  This morning was a school day. As ever Tracy rose in good time, despite a warning abdominal cramp—against which she took a painkiller after she had cleaned her teeth—donned her uniform, made herself up with a hint of blusher, a line of eyebrow pencil, the merest trace of lipstick… and opened her treasure chest, as she called the drawer of her bedside table, to decide what extra touches to add.

  Sooner or later, and probably sooner, she was going to need something larger than this drawer to store her acquisitions. There were rings, watches, brooches, pendants, necklaces, bracelets, hair-slides—a positive Aladdin’s Cave of jewelry, all carefully protected in crumpled tissue and cottonwool.

  She decided on a silver clip that drew up her dark tresses in a 1940’s style, reminiscent of pictures of Veronica Lake, a quartz watch with a silver bracelet, and a silver brooch set with brilliants. Nothing so flashy as to irritate the teachers—not that they dared to reprimand her nowadays—but enough to reinforce her friends’ opinion of her as a stylish person. Few of the other pupils dared to wear jewelry with uniform, it being discouraged.

  And, after breakfast, it being a fine morning, she set off as usual to walk the three blocks to her school.

  As she approached, however, she realized something most unusual was going on. Waiting for the bell to call them to assembly, the younger children were as always rushing about in the playground, shouting and taunting one another. But a group of the older girls, her own classmates, were standing on the pavement outside the gate, surrounding someone she could not quite recognize at first.

  A stir of annoyance arose in the back of her mind. That was what she had come to think of as her personal prerogative: being the honeypot surrounded by bees was the way she expressed it to herself… though of course she would never have admitted as much even to her best friend.

  If she had one. Sometimes she felt she didn’t. Although she was accepted, indeed sought after, although the other girls and often even boys turned to her for advice and repaid her generously with prized possessions, she seemed not to have any real friends—people with whom she felt wholly at ease, to whom she could confide secret fears and ambitions.

  But such thoughts belonged rather to bedtime, before sleep, than to the morning. In any case she was distracted from them as, drawing closer, she suddenly realized who was the focus of the other girls’ attention.

  Of course!

  It was Shirley Waxman, who having reached sixteen had left at the end of the last term in order—and this had caused a mild sensation, because the puritan backlash engendered by AIDS was far from over despite the existence of an effective vaccine—to live with her boyfriend. Now it looked as though…

  Oh, no doubt of it. She was holding out her left hand, turning it this way and that, while the other girls oohed and aahed. She must be, could only be, showing off an engagement ring.

  Tracy had involuntarily quickened her footsteps. Slowing to a more deliberate pace, she approached quietly and was within arm’s reach before anyone took notice of her.

  That wasn’t the way it ought to be. She had decided long ago—well, eighteen months ago, anyway—that she was always going to be the center of attention. And somehow she had found a means of achieving it.

  The painkiller had fixed her cramps, but it had side effects: she wasn’t thinking altogether clearly. In vain she sought for the sense of perfect calmness and clarity that had always preceded her greatest coups.

  Well, not to worry. She’d worked the trick so often, she must have the hang of it by now.

  “Oh, Tracy, look at my ring! Isn’t it featly?”

  And Shirley, beaming, was displaying it for her. It was indeed splendid. Of course the brilliant in the center was probably only zircon, but it glittered near enough like a diamond, and the setting was beautiful. A wave of greedy resentment swept through Tracy’s mind.

  She’s fat, the bitch! She isn’t even pretty! And she’s got that magnificent ring, and she lives on her own—well, with her boyfriend, or I suppose now you have to say fiancée—and she doesn’t have to put up with puky stupid teachers and parents so thickheaded they don’t know what kind of a daughter they’ve got, and…

  But none of this showed on the surface. Instead, taking Shirley’s hand as though to admire the ring from closer to, Tracy said in her sweetest and most cajoling tone, “Oh, it’s lovely, isn’t it? I’d so much like to have it! You will give it to me, won’t you…?”

  And abruptly realized that the magic wasn’t working.

  Letting the hand fall, she stepped back a pace in dismay, to meet harsh and hostile glares.

  “Are you mad?” Shirley cried, clutching her left hand in her right as though afraid Tracy meant physically to rob her (but it had never been physically, only mentally, and by a means she did not understand).

  “Typical!” That was Jackie, who had been a close friend of Shirley’s while she was at school. “Always wants everybody else’s best things!”

  “And gets them, the bocky cank, though God knows how!”—from Netta, who was on the other side of the group. “That clip in her hair! That was mine!”

  “That’s my watch!” exclaimed Vanessa, next to her, and grabbed Tracy’s watch.

  “My brooch!” shouted Jane, next to her again. And the last of the group, Marian, chimed in.

  “It’s not just things she takes! I was going out with Brian until she decided she wanted him!”

  “She broke up me and Harry!”—from Vanessa.

  “And me and Tom!” Jackie exploded. “And took my tickets for the Black Fire concert! Well, I’m sick of it! And I’m sick of her!”

  “Right! Right! Right!”

  Terrified, Tracy shook off Vanessa’s grip and spun on her heel to flee. But Jackie adroitly tripped her so that she crashed face-down on the hard paving.

  Then they fell on her, not only to reclaim their belongings but to vent their pent-up hate. By the time the playground supervisor realized what was happening, they had achieved their aim. Tracy went to hospital with countless cuts and bruises, a broken nose, a ruptured spleen, and a great raw patch on her scalp where furious Netta had ripped away not only the silver clip but a lock of hair as well.

  Later, to Matthew and Doreen’s horror, the police confiscated the contents of the drawer in Tracy’s bedside table, calling them stolen goods. Yet, when the case came to court, it was the other girls who were reprimanded and put on probation, and ordered to return everything to the defiant Tracy, still wearing plaster on her many wounds.

  That, though, was in the middle of her month.

  It was her greatest triumph so far. In between wheedling her parents around to the view that she absolutely must move to a different school—which wasn’t hard—she savored the discovery that her “magic” could be made to work on adults, too.

  Provided, of course, the time was right.

  You’re watching TV Plus. It’s Newsframe time.

  Holiday-makers and home-owners on the French Riviera are in a state of panic. Following the price-hike imposed by the uranium-producing countries’ cartel, UPAS, the French, who depend heavily on nuclear power, set about stripping the hills of Provence in search of more of the mineral. Now northerly winds are dumping radioactive dust on many popular beaches, including Cannes, Nice and St. Tropez.

  Here in Britain, supporters of General Thrower held a rally in Leeds today. Police called out to control the crowds are to be disciplined, says the Chief Constable, for breaking ranks and joining in, instead of…

  Cursing, Peter found a flashlight—powercuts were so frequent nowadays, he always kept one handy—and cleared down the computer to avoid draining its battery pack.

  “Maybe it’s as well,” Claudia said with a wry grimace. “I shouldn’t throw you straight in at the dee
p end. Let me take the chance to supply a bit of background.”

  “As you like,” Peter muttered. “A refill?”

  “Oh, why not? This is strictly a case of going the whole hog, and for someone who was supposed to turn into a traditional Jewish momma… Sorry again! But—uh—you don’t smoke by any chance, do you?”

  “No.” Peter blinked. “I didn’t think you did.”

  “Used to.” Another grimace, this one more like a scowl. “Gave up five years ago. But now and then under stress—Oh, hell, it’s a disgusting habit, and if I can learn to handle stress without a disgusting prop… How about that refill you suggested?”

  “Coming up.”

  Installed again on the couch, she leaned back, crossed her legs and gazed into nowhere.

  “You remember I told you I’m worried in case my original argument turns out to be wrong after all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you follow that up?”

  “I got in touch with Jim Spurman,” Peter admitted.

  “I suspected as much.” She gave a bitter chuckle. “You know, that growser is terribly disappointed in me! He got his professorship on the strength of being my British protagonist, and when he discovered I was a turncoat…”

  “In what sense?” Peter said with sudden impatience.

  “This one!” Abruptly she was fixing him with her strange striped irises, and her tone and expression alike were intense. “I’ve established to my own satisfaction that there are cases of juvenile delinquency—hell, no! Juvenile crime, because some of them go ‘way beyond anything you could excuse as mischief or high spirits or poor social adjustment—there are cases that aren’t allowed for by my theory because something far more like a literal power of evil is involved.”

  She was breathing hard, staring at him through the dimness as though daring him to disagree.

  Oh dear. This bears all the signs of a conversion.