Had some cosmic crystal gazer suggested to Margaret Hatchell that she would try to smuggle a concert grand piano onto the colony spaceship, she would have been shocked. Here she was at home in her kitchen on a hot summer afternoon, worried about how to squeeze ounces into her family's meager weight allowance for the trip—and the piano weighed more than half a ton.
Before she had married Walter Hatchell, she had been a working nurse-dietician, which made her of some use to the colony group destined for Planet C. But Walter, as the expedition's chief ecologist, was one of the most important cogs in the effort. His field was bionomics; the science of setting up the delicate balance of growing things to support human life on an alien world.
Walter was tied to his work at the White Sands base, hadn't been home to Seattle for a month during this crucial preparation period. This left Margaret with two children and several problems—the chief problem being that one of their children was a blind piano prodigy subject to black moods.
Margaret glanced at the clock on her kitchen wall: three- thirty, time to start dinner. She wheeled the micro-filming cabinet out of her kitchen and down the hall to the music room to get it out of her way. Coming into the familiar music room, she suddenly felt herself a hesitant stranger here—almost afraid to look too closely at her favorite wing-back chair, or at her son's concert grand piano, or at the rose pattern rug with afternoon sun streaming dappled gold across it.
It was a sensation of unreality—something like the feeling that had caught her the day the colonization board had notified them that the Hatchells had been chosen.
"We're going to be pioneers on Planet C," she whispered. But that made it no more real. She wondered if others among the 308 chosen colonists felt the same way about moving to a virgin world.
In the first days after the selection, when they all had been assembled at White Sands for preliminary instructions, a young astronomer had given a brief lecture.
"Your sun will be the star Giansar," he had said, and his voice had echoed in the bamlike hall as he pointed to the star on the chart. "In the tail of constellation Dragon. Your ship will travel sixteen years on sub-macro drive to make the passage from Earth. You already know, of course, that you will pass this time in sleep-freeze, and it'll feel just like one night to you. Giansar has a more orange light than our sun, and it's somewhat cooler. However, Planet C is closer to its sun, and this means your climate will average out warmer than we experience here."
Margaret had tried to follow the astronomer's words closely, just as she had done in the other lectures, but only the high points remained from all of them: orange light, warmer climate, less moisture, conserve weight in what you take along, seventy- five pounds of private luggage allowed for each adult, forty pounds for children to age fourteen...
Now, standing in her music room, Margaret felt that it must have been some other person who had listened to those lectures. I should be excited and happy, she thought. Why do I feel so sad?
At thirty-five Margaret Hatchell looked an indeterminate midtwenty with a good figure, a graceful walk. Her brown hair carried reddish lights. The dark eyes, full mouth and firm chin combined to give an impression of hidden fire.
She rubbed a hand along the curved edge of the piano lid, felt the dent where the instrument had hit the door when they'd moved here to Seattle from Denver. How long ago? she asked herself. Eight years? Yes... it was the year after Grandfather Maurice Hatchell died... after playing his final concert with this very piano.
Through the open back windows she could hear her nine- year-old; Rita, filling the summer afternoon with a discussion of the strange insects to be discovered on Planet C. Rita's audience consisted of noncolonist playmates overawed by the fame of their companion. Rita was referring to their colony world as "Ritelle," the name she had submitted to the Survey and Exploration Service.
Margaret thought: If they choose Rita's name we'll never hear the end of it... literally!
Realization that an entire planet could be named for her daughter sent Margaret's thoughts reeling off on a new tangent. She stood silently in the golden shadows of the music room, one hand on the piano that had belonged to her husband's father, Maurice Hatchell—the Maurice Hatchell of concert fame. For the first time, Margaret saw something of what the news service people had been telling her just that morning—that her family and all the other colonists were "chosen people," and for this reason their lives were of tremendous interest to everyone on Earth.
She noted her son's bat-eye radar box and its shoulder harness atop the piano. That meant David was somewhere around the house. He never used the box in the familiarity of his home where memory served in place of the sight he had lost. Seeing the box there prompted Margaret to move the microfilming cabinet aside where David would not trip over it if he came to the music room to practice. She listened, wondering if David was upstairs trying the lightweight electronic piano that had been built for him to take on the spaceship. There was no hint of his music in the soft sounds of the afternoon, but then he could have turned the sound low.
Thinking of David brought to her mind the boy's tantrum that had ended the newsfilm session just before lunch. The chief reporter—What was his name? Bonaudi?—had asked how they intended to dispose of the concert grand piano. She could still hear the awful discord as David had crashed his fists onto the keyboard. He had leaped up, dashed from the room—a dark little figure full of impotent fury.
Twelve is such an emotional age, she told herself.
Margaret decided that her sadness was the same as David's. It's the parting with beloved possessions... it's the certain knowledge that we'll never see these things again... that all we'll have will be films and lightweight substitutes. A sensation of terrible longing filled her. Never again to feel the homely comfort of so many things that spell family tradition: the wing-back chair Walter and I bought when we furnished our first house, the sewing cabinet that great- great grandmother Chrisman brought from Ohio, the oversize double bed built specially to accommodate Walter's long frame...
Abruptly, she turned away from the piano, went back to the kitchen. It was a white tile room with black fixtures, a laboratory kitchen cluttered now with debris of packing. Margaret pushed aside her recipe files on the counter beside the sink, being careful not to disturb the yellow scrap paper that marked where she'd stopped microfilming them. The sink was still piled with her mother's Spode china that was being readied for the space journey. Cups and saucers would weigh three and a half pounds in their special packing. Margaret resumed washing the dishes, seating them in the delicate webs of the lightweight box.
The wall phone beside her came alive to the operator's face. "Hatchell residence?"
Margaret lifted her dripping hands from the sink, nudged the call switch with her elbow. "Yes?"
"On your call to Walter Hatchell at White Sands: He is still not available. Shall I try again in twenty minutes?"
"Please do."
The operator's face faded from the screen. Margaret nudged off the switch, resumed washing. The newsfilm group had shot several pictures of her working at the sink that morning. She wondered how she and her family would appear on the film. The reporter had called Rita a "budding entomologist" and had referred to David as "the blind piano prodigy—one of the few victims of the drum virus brought back from the uninhabitable Planet A-4."
Rita came in from the yard. She was a lanky nine-year-old, a precocious extrovert with large blue eyes that looked on the world as her own private problem waiting to be solved.
"I am desperately ravenous," she announced. "When do we eat?"
"When it's ready," Margaret said. She noted with a twinge of exasperation that Rita had acquired a tom cobweb on her blonde hair and a smudge of dirt across her left cheek.
Why should a little girl be fascinated by bugs? Margaret asked herself. It's not natural She said: "How'd you get the cobweb in your hair?"
"Oh, succotash!" Rita put a hand to her hair, rubbed away the offe
nding web.
"How?" repeated Margaret.
"Mother! If one is to acquire knowledge of the insect world, one inevitably encounters such things! I am just dismayed that I tore the web."
"Well, I'm dismayed that you're filthy dirty. Go upstairs and wash so you'll look presentable when we get the call through to your father."
Rita turned away.
"And weigh yourself" called Margaret. "I have to turn in our family's weekly weight aggregate tomorrow."
Rita skipped out of the room.
Margaret felt certain she had heard a muttered "parents!" The sound of the child's footsteps diminished up the stairs. A door slammed on the second floor. Presently, Rita clattered back down the stairs. She ran into the kitchen. "Mother, you..."
"You haven't had time to get clean." Margaret spoke without turning.
"It's David," said Rita. "He looks peculiar and he says he doesn't want any supper."
Margaret turned from the sink, her features set to hide the gripping of fear. She knew from experience that Rita's "peculiar" could be anything... literally anything.
"How do you mean peculiar, dear?"
"He's so pale. He looks like he doesn't have any blood."
For some reason, this brought to Margaret's mind a memory picture of David at the age of three—a still figure in a hospital bed, flesh-colored feeding tube protruding from his nose, and his skin as pale as death with his breathing so quiet it was difficult to detect the chest movements.
She dried her hands on a dishtowel. "Let's go have a look. He's probably just tired."
David was stretched out on his bed, one arm thrown across his eyes. The shades were drawn and the room was in semidarkness. It took a moment for Margaret's eyes to adjust to the gloom, and she thought: Do the blind seek darkness because it gives them the advantage over those with sight? She crossed to the bedside. The boy was a small, dark-haired figure—his father's coloring. The chin was narrow and the mouth a firm line like his grandfather Hatchell's. Right now he looked thin and defenseless ... and Rita was right: terribly pale.
Margaret adopted her best hospital manner, lifted David's arm from his face, took his pulse.
"Don't you feel well, Davey?" she asked.
"I wish you wouldn't call me that," he said. "That's a baby name." His narrow features were set, sullen.
She took a short, quick breath. "Sorry. I forgot. Rita says you don't want any supper."
Rita came in from the hallway. "He looks positively infirm, mother."
"Does she have to keep pestering me?" demanded David.
"I thought I heard the phone chime," said Margaret. "Will you go check, Rita?"
"You're being offensively obvious," said Rita. "If you don't want me in here, just say so." She turned, walked slowly out of the room.
"Do you hurt someplace, David?" asked Margaret.
"I just feel tired," he muttered. "Why can't you leave me alone?"
Margaret stared down at him—caught as she had been so many times by his resemblance to his grandfather Hatchell. It was a resemblance made uncanny when the boy sat down at the piano: that same intense vibrancy... the same musical genius that had made Hatchell a name to fill concert halls. And she thought: Perhaps it's because the Steinway belonged to his grandfather that he feels so badly about parting with it. The piano's a symbol of the talent he inherited.
She patted her son's hand, sat down beside him on the bed. "Is something troubling you, David?"
His features contorted, and he whirled away from her. "Go away!" He muttered, "Just leave me alone!"
Margaret sighed, felt inadequate. She wished desperately that Walter were not tied to the work at the launching site. She felt a deep need of her husband at this moment. Another sigh escaped her. She knew what she had to do. The rules for colonists were explicit: any symptoms at all—even superficial ones—were to get a doctor's attention. She gave David's hand a final pat, went downstairs to the hall phone, called Dr. Mow* ery, the medic cleared for colonists in the Seattle area. He said he'd be out in about an hour.
Rita came in as Margaret was completing the call, asked: "Is David going to die?"
All the tenseness and aggravation of the day came out in Margaret's reply: "Don't be such a beastly little fool!"
Immediately, she was sorry. She stopped, gathered Rita to her, crooned apologies.
"It's all right, mother," Rita said. "I realize you're overwrought."
Filled with contriteness, Margaret went into the kitchen, prepared her daughter's favorite food: tuna-fish sandwiches and chocolate milkshakes.
I'm setting too jumpy; thought Margaret. David's not really sick. It's the hot weather we've had lately and all this tension of getting ready to go. She took a sandwich and milkshake up to the boy, but he still refused to eat. And there was such a pallid sense of defeat about him. A story about someone who had died merely because he gave up the will to live entered her mind and refused to be shaken.
She made her way back down to the kitchen, dabbled at the work there until the call to Walter went through. Her husband's craggy features and deep voice brought the calmness she had been seeking all day.
"I miss you so much, darling," she said.
"It won't be much longer," he said. He smiled, leaned to one side, exposing the impersonal wall of a pay booth behind him. He looked tired. "How's my family?"
She told him about David, saw the worry creep into his eyes. "Is the doctor there yet?" he asked.
"He's late. He should've been here by six and it's half past."
"Probably busy as a bird dog," he said. "It doesn't really sound as though David's actually sick. Just upset more likely ... the excitement of leaving. Call me as soon as the doctor tells you what's wrong."
"I will. I think he's just upset over leaving your father's piano behind."
"David knows it's not that we want to leave these things." A grin brightened his features. "Lord! Imagine taking that thing on the ship! Dr. Charlesworthy would flip!"
She smiled. "Why don't you suggest it?"
"You're trying to get me in trouble with the old man!"
"How're things going, dear?" she asked.
His face sobered. He sighed. "I had to talk to poor Smythe's widow today. She came out to pick up his things. It was rather trying. The old man was afraid she might still want to come along... but no..." He shook his head.
"Do you have his replacement yet?"
"Yes. Young fellow from Lebanon. Name's Teryk. His wife's a cute little thing." Walter looked past her at the kitchen. "Looks like you're getting things in order. Decided yet what you're taking?"
"Some of the things. I wish I could make decisions like you do. I've definitely decided to take mother's Spode china cups and saucers and the sterling silver...for Rita when she gets married... and the Utrillo your father bought in Lisbon... and I've weeded my jewelry down to about two pounds of basics ... and I'm not going to worry about cosmetics since you say we can make our own when we..."
Rita ran into the kitchen, pushed in beside Margaret. "Hello, father."
"Hi, punkin head. What've you been up to?"
"I've been cataloging my insect collection and filling it out. Mother's going to help me film the glassed-in specimens as soon as I'm ready. They're so heavy!"
"How'd you wangle her agreement to get that close to your bugs?"
"Father! They're not bugs; they're entomological specimens."
"They're bugs to your mother, honey. Now, if..."
"Father! There's one other thing. I told Raul—he's the new boy down the block—I told him today about those hawklike insects on Ritelle that..."
"They're not insects, honey; they're adapted amphibians."
She frowned. "But Spencer's report distinctly says that they're chitinous and they..."
"Whoa down! You should've read the technical report, the one I showed you when I was home last month. These critters have a copper-base metabolism, and they're closely allied to a common fish on the planet."
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"Oh... Do you think I'd better branch out into marine biology?"
"One thing at a time, honey. Now..."
"Have we set the departure date yet, father? I can hardly wait to get to work there."
"It's not definite yet, honey. But we should know any day. Now, let me talk to your mother."
Rita pulled back.
Walter smiled at his wife. "What're we raising there?"
"I wish I knew."
"Look... don't worry about David. It's been nine years since ... since he recovered from that virus. All the tests show that he was completely cured."
And she thought: Yes.. .cured—except for the little detail of no optic nerves. She forced a smile. "I know you're probably right.
It'll turn out to be something simple... and we'll laugh about this when..." The front doorbell chimed. "That's probably the doctor now."
"Call me when you find out," said Walter.
Margaret heard Rita's footsteps running toward the door.
"I'll sign off, sweet," she said. She blew a kiss to her husband. "I love you."
Walter held up two fingers in a victory sign, winked. "Same here. Chin up."
They broke the connection.
Dr. Mowery was a gray-haired, flint-faced bustler—addicted to the nodding head and the knowing (but unintelligible) murmur. One big hand held a gray instrument bag. He had a pat on the head for Rita, a firm handshake for Margaret, and he insisted on seeing David alone.
"Mothers just clutter up the atmosphere for a doctor," he said, and he winked to take the sting from his words.
Margaret sent Rita to her room, waited in the upstairs hall. There were 106 flower panels on the wallpaper between the door to David's room and the comer of the hall. She was moving on to count the rungs in the balustrade when the doctor emerged from David's room. He closed the door softly behind him, nodding to himself.
She waited.
"Mmmmmm-hmmmmm" said Dr. Mowery. He cleared his throat.
"Is it anything serious?"asked Margaret.
"Not sure." He walked to the head of the stairs. "How long's the boy been acting like that... listless and upset?"