Specimen Days

"And so you think I should go with them. You think I should spend the next thirty-eight years on a spaceship with these idiots because you dreamed I'd be happier on another planet."

"Yes."

"You're crazy, too."

She made some sort of breathy sound he had never heard from her before, a modest three-note trill.

"Did you laugh?" he asked.

"No."

"Yes. You did. That was actual laughter. I'll be goddamned."

She made the sound again.

He leaned over her. He said, "Are you in pain?"

"No pain."

"What does it feel like?"

"Dying."

"More specific, please."

"Less. Am less."

"You feel like you're less."

"Room is big. Bright."

"You feel like the room has gotten bigger and brighter."

"Yes."

"Do I seem bigger and brighter?"

"Loud, too."

He lowered his voice. "Sorry," he said.

"No. I like."

"You like me being big and bright and loud?"

"Yes."

She closed her eyes then, and slipped away.

Simon went downstairs again and walked onto the front porch of the farmhouse. The evening sky was dull red, striped with cloud tatters of livid orange. He could hear the children's voices but could not see them. Soon, however, Luke ran into view. He was being chased by Twyla, who brandished the pool-cue spear. Her cardboard wings rattled behind her. Luke shrieked. Simon could not determine whether he was delighted or terrified.

When Luke saw Simon he immediately stopped running. He collected himself. He seemed to wish to appear as if he had never run or shrieked in his life. Twyla stopped as well. She stood examining the point of the spear, as if that had been her true objective, while Luke approached Simon on the porch.

Luke said, "Geekville, U.S.A."

"You seem to be having a reasonably good time," Simon answered.

"I'm mingling with the locals. I can pass for just about anything."

He ambled up onto the porch and stood beside Simon, looking out at the deepening sky. Twyla remained where she stood, adjusting the knife on the end of the pool cue.

Luke said, "I've been thinking. I might want to go with them."

"Uh-huh."

"To tell you the truth, I like the idea of being a valued member. As opposed to being, say, stuck in Denver again, with no money."

"I understand that." "And you?"

"They're an odd bunch." "No question."

"Emory thinks he could make some modifications on me during the trip."

"That'dbegood." "It would."

"And you know," Luke said, "I'd rather go if you go, too. You've come to feel familiar to me."

"Ditto."

"Okay. See you later, then."

"See you."

Luke left the porch and went back out to the place where the little Nadian stood waiting for him. She did not raise the spear as he approached. They spoke to each other softly. Simon could not make out what they said. They went off together, away from the house and the barn, in the direction of the open country.

* * *

The next morning, Catareen was more receded. She appeared smaller in the small white bed. She lay compactly atop the sheet with her eyes closed, breathing rapidly and shallowly. She had folded her hands over her abdomen. Her legs were pressed together. It appeared as if she were trying to make herself as small as possible, as if death were a narrow aperture and she had to be ready to slip through.

Apart from her rapid breathing, there was no sign of illness. And yet she was diminishing. Simon could see it. No. He could apprehend it. Her flesh was unaffected, but she was drawing in, as if some animating force were retreating inward from the skin's surface. Her skin was darker now, more deeply emerald. It put out a slick, mineral shine. She was becoming not alive.

She awakened, however, when Simon entered the room. Her eyes were changed. They were fading from orange to a deep, unhealthy-looking yellow, like egg yolks gone bad.

"Good morning," Simon said. "How do you feel?"

"Dying," she answered.

"But no pain."

"No much."

"Do you think you could eat something?"

"No."

"It's not irradiated groundhog, you know."

"I know."

He stood beside her. Still, even in extremis, there was this feeling that they were on a date that wasn't going well but refused to end. He made to put his hand on her forehead but decided she probably wouldn't wan't him to. Besides, it would have been an empty gesture, a ritual expression of concern for the afflicted. There was no point in performing such gestures for a Nadian.

He said, "They killed your family and sent you to Earth."

"Yes."

"I wonder-"

She waited for him to finish the question. He waited as well. He hadn't been sure when he launched that sentence where, exactly, he expected it to land, though he could think of any number of possibilities. / wonder ifthafs why youre so remote and strange. I wonder ifthats why you came with me. I wonder if you helped me because you feel guilty about what you brought down on your own family.

When it had become apparent that he was not going to speak further, she said, "Simon?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Window."