Woman on the Edge of Time

“I can’t interfere in the past, Connie,” she said slowly. “But I can give you advice. That’s free as the wind. As we say, nobody asks for it and everybody gets it.”

“I thought I might fake a sickness scary enough to make them take me off the ward and then I could escape.”

“You’d have to be able to create and sustain a high temperature. I could teach you, but it’d take time. I must discuss these problems with my time-travel proj.” Luciente marched over to her television set, fiddled with some dials and spoke into her kenner. In a short while she was meeting with several people. Most of them appeared on the screen as they spoke, but a couple were apparently too far from a set and spoke only through the kenner. Connie strained her ears to hear, but most of the argument was in a weird jargon, about gliding, and fast and slow marcon, flebbing, achieving nevel.

“I’m sorry I bothered the two of you. I guess you were planning to be alone,” Connie said to Jackrabbit, his long body curled up.

“It’s like my naming. Every time I take a step, I start jagging. I want to go back where I was. Not really. But I need Luci today, I need a clear interseeing of who I am and what I was wanting. I feel lost, a little bottomed.”

“You don’t want to go on defense?”

“Fasure I do. I put in for it. Only, after I make a decision, I feel thinned. As if I just lost eight other selves.” He sighed, writhing restlessly on the bed and casting a baleful glance at Luciente in tense discussion at the TV set.

When Luciente turned to them, she was frowning lightly. “Everybody agrees your pass is urgent. But no one is confident you can learn to control body temperature in a week. Marat recommends acute appendicitis, a common health problem in your time. It wasn’t always accompanied by fever and could be easily faked.”

“No good!” Connie said. “They wouldn’t think it was such a big emergency. Why take me off ward? They’d wait till the doctor came in. Weekend is the time to get out, because they’re understaffed. And, Luciente, appendicitis, it’s not contagious. They never believe us anyhow when we say we’re in pain.”

“Zo, what about a head injury? Faking unconsciousness is easy. I could teach you to go into delta in a few lessons.”

“Let me think.” Connie turned and almost tripped over an object leaning on the wall. “What’s that?”

“Careful! It’s a weapon. I didn’t get a chance to turn it in today. We had practice at noon.”

Connie detoured it carefully. “I’m trying to think. Maybe.”

Luciente’s kenner spoke in a loud, demanding voice. “Corydora here. Thought you were planning to test those results from Tennessee.”

“Tonight. I’ll do it tonight after supper.”

“Thought we were having a town meeting about the Shaping controversy.”

“Fasure. Will do it between supper and the meeting. I set everything up.” Luciente spoke calmly. Connie could sense she was feeling great pressure. As she spoke into her kenner she stood there flatfooted, with her legs as if braced, and looked from Jackrabbit to her with level measuring gaze. Immediately she flicked her kenner and spoke. “Morningstar, can you take Dawn to have her teeth checked? I’m caught to my neck.” Then she spoke to Dawn. “My appleblossom, Morningstar is taking you to Goat Hill. I will see you at supper and tomorrow we’ll work together in the upper fields.”

Suddenly Connie saw her mother’s mother: a peasant woman dressed in black with her hair pulled back tight as if to punish it. With eight children, with close to forty grandchildren, with cows and pigs and chickens, she stood with that calm weighing expression as crisis after crisis broke over her. Everyone would be fed, everybody would be comforted, everyone would be healed, to each would be given a piece of herself. Luciente had some of that in her, Connie thought, but with more control and less ultimate despair.

“I think I want to learn how to play dead … or knocked out anyhow. I’ll let you know for sure tomorrow.”

“I’ll ask Magdalena how best to teach you,” Luciente said, and smiled at Jackrabbit. “In about an hour I’ll ask her. Tomorrow morning, Connie sweetness, graze me and we’ll start.”

Embarrassed, Connie immediately broke contact.

“Tina, please. Watch for us. I want to talk to Sybil for a minute only. Momentito?”

Tina nodded, looking them over curiously. Perhaps she thought they were lovers. Anyhow, she stood near the door watching for attendants, while Connie whispered to Sybil, “Would you stage a fight with me?”

Sybil touched Connie’s cheek lightly. “Why not?”

“They’ll give it to you afterward. They’ll come down on you.”

“Maybe they’ll send me off this ward. Outside I know the rules. I’m an old hand.”

“Maybe they’ll just do you sooner.”

“Maybe the saddest person will be the last to be ‘done.’ Like death row.”