Woman on the Edge of Time

They both laughed together, that merry belly laughter. “How not?” Luciente asked. “The enemy is few but determined. Once they ran this whole world, they had power as no one, even the Roman emperors, and riches drained from everywhere. Now they have the power to exterminate us and we to exterminate them. They have such a limited base–the moon, Antarctica, the space platforms–for a population mostly of androids, robots, cybernauts, partially automated humans, that the war is one of attrition and small actions in the disputed areas, raids almost anyplace. We live with it. It’s the tag end. We fear them, but we’ve prevailed so far and we believe we’ll win … if history is not reversed. That is, the past is a disputed area.”

“I don’t understand! And it makes me dizzy! But if Jackrabbit goes in the army, he could get killed. Aren’t some people worth sparing?”

“Show me someone who isn’t,” Luciente said. “Who isn’t precious to self? How could we decide who to spend and who to save?”

“Risk, danger … we don’t find them evil,” Jackrabbit said slowly. “I don’t twitter to go. I fasure don’t want to give back. But I don’t want to be ignorant. The creature inside a shell is a soft slug, like a worm. Who should protect me? Bolivar? Luciente? Bee? Hawk? Who’ll stand between me and death, me and sickness, me and drowning? I must serve the talent that uses me, the energy that flows through me, but I mustn’t make others serve me. Don’t you see the difference?”

“Won’t you miss him? You must mind his going?” she asked Luciente.

“Mind? How not? I mind too we’re still at war. I mind that we can’t enjoy peace and push all energies into what people need and want. I’ll miss Jackrabbit fasure. And I think it grossly unfair that I should be missing first Bee and then Jackrabbit in one year … .” Luciente looked at Jackrabbit, her eyes liquid and somber. Then her face lightened. “But I’m excited about Jackrabbit mothering. I’m a kidbinder. I’ll mother away too … .” Luciente turned to stare at the rush of the waters. “Deborah and Orion must decide if they’re going to go on working here alone this sixmonth without you, or if we should close your workshop till you get back.”

“They have a week yet to decide.” Jackrabbit took Connie’s hand. “Why are you shy with me? What do I do that tightens you?”

“Nothing!” She glared at Luciente in appeal.

“Then why do you tug your hand away?”

“Why do you want to …hold it?”

Jackrabbit smiled. “When I come back from defense I’ll be running mature. Then you won’t be shy with me. Bee is nice, but I’m just as nice.” He made an exaggerated face of flirtation, batting his eyes. “Don’t you feel sorry for me, exiled for six‑month? Don’t you want to comfort me?”

“Don’t tease Connie so.” Luciente made a fist at him. “You promised not to tease Connie!”

“Don’t you like to be teased? At least a little?”

“When you’re a mother,” Connie said, laughing for the first time in days, “then you can tease me.”

“If you experienced a pain in your abdominal region, if it was diagnosed as appendicitis, you might be afraid of the operation, but you wouldn’t resist it. You wouldn’t attempt to leave the hospital, because you’d know that you were sick and needed help.” Acker had cornered her again in the day room, where she had been watching a serial about a lawyer. Behind Acker’s back, Tina made faces to Connie to give support. “Now, you can’t see your brain. But you can see the output from the EEG machine. You can’t read it, because you aren’t trained, but your doctors can. You can’t see your appendix either. But you accept the expert’s opinion in either case, or condemn yourself to getting sicker and sicker.”

“Except for not getting exercise and lousy food and those meds that knock me out, I’m fine. I walked twenty miles, didn’t I?”

“And came back with abscesses on your feet. You can see those. But you can’t see abscesses in your brain, so to speak. Connie, you’re going to thank us. Because thanks to modern medical science, you’re not condemned to spend your life in a psychiatric unit.”

“Look, I guess it’s cheaper to keep me on welfare than in here. But I’ll go home tomorrow. I’ll kill myself trying to get work. I promise! I’ll scrub floors. I don’t care anymore. I’d rather do housework for white ladies than be in here!”

“Of course. And we want you to be able to return to useful work, to return to society safely–safely for you and for others. But there’s the rub, Connie. No one can trust you. If you had typhoid fever, you wouldn’t expect us to let you march out the door untreated and go walking through the streets of Manhattan freely infecting others. Now would you?” Acker waited, beaming, his hands on his slightly spread knees. Behind him, Tina was miming a gruesome death.

“I don’t think I got TB or typhoid fever–”

“I was speaking by comparison.”