The Genocides

“And watch me die? It will take a while. No more than two days, though, and most of the time I’ll be making these awful noises. No—that would be no comfort to me. But there is something you can do. If you’re strong enough.”

“Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

“You must promise.” Blossom’s hand tightened over hers in assurance. “You must do for me what Neil did for your father.”

“Murder you? No! Alice, you can’t ask me to—”

“My dear, I’ve done it in my time for those who have asked. Some of them had less reason than I. A hypodermic of air, and the pain is—” She did not, this time, cry out. “—gone. Blossom, I beg you.”

“Someone may come. We’ll make a stretcher.”

“Yes, someone may come. Neil may come. Can you imagine what he would do if he finds me still alive?”

“No, he wouldn’t—” But immediately she knew he would.

“You must, my dear. I’ll hold you to your promise. But kiss me first. No, not like that—on the lips.”

Blossom’s trembling lips pressed against Alice’s that were rigid with the effort to hold back the pain. “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you like my very own mother.”

Then she did what Neil had done. Alice’s body twisted away in instinctive, unthinking protest, and Blossom let loose her grip.

“No!” Alice gasped. “Don’t torture me—do it!”

Blossom did not let loose this time until the old woman was dead.

The darkness grew darker, and Blossom thought she could hear someone climbing down the vines of the root overhead. There was a loud terrible noise as his body came down into the fruit pulp. Blossom knew what the Monster would look like: he would look like Neil. She screamed and screamed and screamed.

The Monster had an axe.

“Return soon,” she begged.

“I will, I promise.” Buddy bent down to his wife, missing her lips in the darkness (the lamp, by Neil’s authority, was to remain with the corpse) and kissing her nose instead. She giggled girlishly. Then, with an excess of caution, he touched one finger to the tiny arm of his son. “I love you,” be said, not bothering to define whether he was addressing her or the infant or perhaps both. He did not know himself. He only knew that despite the terrible events of the last months, and especially of the past hour, his life seemed meaningful in a way that it had not for years. The somberest considerations could not diminish the fullness of his hopes nor dampen the glow of his satisfaction.

In even the worst disaster, in the largest defeats, the machinery of joy keeps on grinding for a lucky few.

Maryann seemed more aware than he that their charmed circle was of very small circumference, for she murmured, “Such a terrible thing.”

“What?” Buddy asked. His attention was taken up with Buddy Junior’s teeny-tiny toe.

“Alice. I can’t understand why hc

“He’s crazy,” Buddy said, moving reluctantly outside the circle. “Maybe she called him a name. She has—she had a sharp tongue, you know. When he gets back, I’ll see that something’s done. There’s no teffing what rotten thing he’ll do next. Orville will help, and there are others, too, who’ve let a word drop. But in the meantime he has a gun and we don’t. And the important thing now is to find Blossom.”

“Of course. That must come first. It’s just that it’s such a terrible thing.”

“It’s a terrible thing,” he agreed. He could hear Neil calling to him again. “I have to go now.” He began to move away.

“I wish the lamp were here, so I could see you one more time.”

“You sound like you don’t think I’ll return.”

“No! Don’t say that—even as a joke. You will come back. I know you will. But, Buddy—?”

“Maryann?”

“Say it one more time.”

“I love you.”

“And I love you.” When she was quite sure he was gone, she added: “I’ve always loved you.”

The several members of the descending search party threaded their way through the labyrinth of divergent roots on a single slim rope, braided by Maryann from the fiber of the vines. When any member of the party separated from the main body, he attached the end of his own reel of rope to the communal rope that led back to the tuber where Anderson was lying in state beside the vigilant lamp.

Neil and Buddy descended the farthest along the communal rope. When it gave out, they were at a new intersection of roots. Buddy knotted one end of his rope to the end of the main line and went off to the left. Neil, having done likewise, went to the right, but only for a short distance. Then he sat down and thought, as hard as he could think.

Neil did not trust Buddy. Never had. Now, with their father passed on, wouldn’t he have to trust him still less? He thought he was so smart, Buddy did, with that brat of his. Like he was the only man in the world ever had a son. Neil hated his guts for other reasons too-which his mind shied from. It would not do for him to be too consciously aware that the presumable Neil Junior, if he existed at all, existed most probably as a result of other seed than his own. That was a thought that he had best not think at all.