Forever Free

But how could we tell which of the applicants might be unstable, on the basis of a few paragraphs? The people who said some version of “You’ve got to take me; Man is driving me crazy!” were just echoing my own sentiments, but they might also be revealing an inability to get along with others, which would make them bad company in our mobile prison.

Both Diana and Marygay had studied psychology in school, but neither claimed any expertise in the detection of loonies.

We narrowed the applications down to four hundred, and wrote back a form letter emphasizing the negative aspects of the ten-year joyride. Isolation, danger, privation. The absolute certainty of returning to a completely alien world.

About 90 percent of the people wrote back and said okay; I’ve already taken these things into consideration. We dropped the ones who didn’t respond before the deadline, and scheduled holo interviews with the others.

We wanted to wind up with a list of two hundred, fifty of them being alternates, to be called if we lost people from death or cold feet. Marygay and I interviewed half, Charlie and Diana the other half. We gave a slight edge to married couples or people in some long-term relationship, but tried not to give het preference over home. You could argue that the more homosexuals, the better, since they were unlikely to add to the population. We couldn’t handle more than a dozen, maybe twenty, children.

Charlie and Diana would take longer than Marygay and I, since Diana had to keep clinic hours. Marygay and I were in the twenty-day recess between semesters.

That also meant that Bill and Sara were home, underfoot. Sara spent a lot of time on her loom, trying to finish up a large rug before school started. Bill’s big project for the twenty days was to talk us out of this insane quest.

“What’re you running away from?” was his basic question. “You and Mom won’t let go of that damned war, and we’re going to lose you to it, centuries after it’s over.”

Marygay and I argued that we weren’t running away from anything. We were taking a leap into the future. A lot of our volunteers were his age or a little older, who had also grown up with Man, but had a less sanguine view of them.

About two weeks into the recess, Bill and Sara dropped their separate bombshells. I’d spent a pleasant hour in the kitchen, fixing polenta and eggs with the last greens of the season, listening to Beethoven and enjoying not talking to strangers over the holo. Bill had set the table without being asked, which I should have recognized as a danger sign.

They ate in relative silence while Marygay and I talked about the day’s interviews–mostly about the rejects, who made for better conversation than the sane, sober ones who passed the test.

Bill finished his plate and pushed it slightly away from him. “I passed a test today.”

I knew what he was going to say, and it felt as if the heat had been sucked out of my body; out of the room. “The sheriff’s test?”

“That’s right. I’m going to become one of them. A Man.”

“You didn’t say anything about–”

“Are you surprised?” He stared at me like a stranger on a bus.

“No,” I finally said. “I thought you might wait until we were gone.” And not be so obviously a traitor, I kept myself from saying.

“You still have time to change your mind,” Marygay said. “They’re not starting the program until deep winter.”

“That’s true,” Bill said without elaboration. It felt like he was halfway there already.

Sara had put down her knife and fork and was not looking at Bill. “I’ve decided, too.”

“You’re not old enough to take the test yet,” I said, perhaps a little too firmly.

“Not that. I’ve decided to go with you. If there’s room for me.”

“Of course there is!” No matter who we have to leave behind.

Bill looked startled. “I thought you were going to–”

“There’s plenty of time for that.” She looked at her mother with pretty earnestness. “You think that Man will be long gone when you return. I think they’ll still be here, in improved, evolved form. That’s when I’ll join them, and bring them all that I’ve learned and seen on the voyage.” Then she looked at me with her dimpled open smile. “Will you take me, as a spy for the other side?”

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