Woman on the Edge of Time

“Without water we can grow nothing. Our ancestors destroyed water as if there were an infinite amount of it, sucking it out of the earth and dirtying and poisoning it as it flowed,” Otter said indignantly. “Let us not be cavalier about water. What does the soil bank say?”

“I’ll direct the question.”

Luciente leaned close. “That’s the rep from Cranberry. That person is chair today.”

“Who’s that with green hair?”

“Earth Advocate—speaks for rights of the total environment. Beside per is the Animal Advocate. Those positions are not chosen strictly by lot, but by dream. Every spring some people dream they are the new Animal Advocate or Earth Advocate. Those who feel this come together and the choice among them falls by lot.”

The computer was flashing figures and more figures on the displays. After everyone had stared at them, the Ned’s Point rep spoke. “The woods in question are fasure catchment. To take these acres from forest would cut our capacity to hold our water table.”

“How can we up our grain output if we can’t pull land from scrubby woods to farming?” the Cranberry rep asked.

“Then we must up the output of the land we have,” the Earth Advocate said. “We’re only starting to find ways of intensively farming, so the soil is built more fertile instead of bled to dust”

Otter was still studying the display, her fat braid hanging over one shoulder. “These woods are birch, cherry, aspen, but with white pines growing up. Will be pine forest in ten years. Its history as we have it is: climax forest, cleared for farming, abandoned, scrub to climax again, bulldozed for housing, burned over, now returning to forest.”

At her ear Luciente murmured, “We arrive with the needs of each village and try to divide scarce resources justly. Often we must visit the spot. Next level is regional planning. Reps chosen by lot from township level go to the regional to discuss gross decisions. The needs go up and the possibilities come down. If people are chilled by a decision, they go and argue. Or they barter directly with places needing the same resources, and compromise.”

A vote was taken and Goat Hill was turned down. The Marion rep suggested, “Let’s ask for a graingrower from Springfield to come to Goat Hill and see if they can suggest how to grow buckwheat without clearing more land. We in Marion would be feathered to feast the guest.”

Luciente’s kenner called. “How long?” Connie heard her say, and then, “We’ll come soon.”

“The old bridge is beautiful,” a middle-aged man was arguing. “Three hundred years old, of real wrought iron. We have a skilled crafter to top-shape it.”

“Nobody in your village has bled from the old bridge being out. We need ore for jizers,” an old woman said. “The bridge is pretty, but our freedom may depend on jizers. Head before tail!”

“Weren’t you advised last year to look out for alloys that use up less ore?” the rep from Cranberry said.

“We’re working on it. So is everybody else!”

The Goat Hill rep suggested, “For the bridge, why not use a biological? It’d corrode less. Repair itself.”

“We must scamp now,” Luciente said, pulling her up. “Fast. We’ll hop the dipper.”

“What about the bike?”

Luciente looked at her blankly. “Somebody will use it”

The dipper turned out to be a bus-train object that rode on a cushion of air about a foot off the ground until it stopped, when it settled with a great sigh. It moved along at moderate speed, stopping at every village, and people got on and off with packages and babies and animals and once with a huge swordfish wrapped in leaves.

They sat down in a compartment with an old man facing them, wizened up like a sultana, fiddling constantly, with a satisfied air, with the blanket wrapped around his baby.

“Why do you have the bus cut up in little rooms this way? You’d get more people in if it was like we used to have, just one big space inside.”

“It’s easier to talk this way,” Luciente said. “Warmer.”

“You’re a guest?” the old man said. “From where? Or are you a drifter?”

“From the past,” Luciente explained.

“Ah, I heard, I heard. So …” He peered at her curiously.

“Where do you live?” Luciente asked.

“Ned’s Point, where I just got on, where else? We’re Ashkenazi,” he told Connie.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“We’re the flavor of Eastern European Jewry. Freud, Marx, Trotsky, Singer, Aleichem, Reich, Luxembourg, Wassermann, Vittova—all these were Ashkenazi!”

“They build kenners,” Luciente said. “We were just visiting the planners.”

“Look, I don’t understand,” Connie said. “If workers in a factory, say the kenner factory, want to make more kenners and the planners decide to give them less stuff, who wins?”

“We argue,” the man said. “How else?”

“There’s no final authority, Connie,” Luciente said.

“There’s got to be. Who finally says yes or no?”

“We argue till we close to agree. We just continue. Oh, it’s disgusting sometimes. It bottoms you.”

“After a big political fight, we guest each other,” the man said. “The winners have to feed the losers and give presents. Have you been to a town meeting?”