Fear No More

George Anthony

Fear No More

"Fear no more the heat o' the sun…"
(William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, IV, ii)

Jonte faced playtime with mixed feelings. When the bell rang, the others would rush into the open air, laughing and chattering. He felt left out. Yet these were also times he enjoyed. He could daydream about how things might have been.
Sometimes, though, he would watch the play − not directly, that would have been impossible − but on the big screen in one of the classrooms. Cheering on his friends made him feel part of the action. Even through the screens, however, watching for long often made his eyes hurt. Sunlight reflected strongly off the silvery turf, and even more from the trees around the ground. Players in motion trailed flashes of light which left black spots in his vision.
It was during a tense game that the summons came through. The shelter Principal, no less, wanted him at once in his office. Jonte uttered a mild swearword, though realising that he had already been watching too long − his head was aching. He made his way to the admin sector; signalled his arrival; and went in.
The Principal was behind his desk directly opposite the door. He was a small man, with metallic black hair cut short, silver-grey hands in constant fidgety motion, and an expression of perpetual irritation. He waved in the direction of a chair placed in front of the desk.
But to Jonte's surprise, there were several other people in the office. It was difficult at first to see them all clearly: not only had the effects of watching the match still to wear off, but the lighting was poor. Perhaps the Principal had only remembered at the last minute to close the heavy shutters and switch on a lamp.
As his vision returned, Jonte's surprise grew. The six men and two women, who sat in a half circle to one side, judging by their job tags, were senior…very senior. Four were from the administration. The two women and the other two men seemed to be scientists from different research bodies.
Jonte was used to the fact that other people were inscrutable. He would have been able tell from gazing in a mirror into his own eyes, with their blue irises surrounding dark pupils, how he was feeling, even if he hadn't known already. But other people's eyes were silver discs, giving away nothing. He could sometimes see from the rest of their faces whether they were happy or sad, smiling or frowning; but their skin reflected the light, so that he could never be quite sure. From the way they were sitting, he thought, the visitors seemed anxious.

< 2 >
"Jonte", the Principal said, "these people have a favour to ask, and I hope you can help them. Please sit down."
Jonte's surprise grew. What possible favour could these people want from someone like him?
"I'll help if I can", he said.
"You know," the Principal went on, "that you have had to grow up here because going outside would be dangerous. Your body wouldn't be able to withstand the radiation, even at night-time. Ordinary people are born with protection; but in your case…."
"So you see", one of the women interjected quickly, "you are really a very interesting young man. We want you to let us get to know you better."
"The people here," the Principal resumed, "are from the government's science and research council. They would like to take you to one of their centres in the south, where the facilities are supposed to be better than we can provide…."
"But I'm quite happy here," Jonte felt he should say. "My friends….."
"….and in any case, "the Principal insisted a trifle sourly, "you wouldn't be able to stay much longer. The shelter is being closed down."
Jonte took this in. "So when do I have to go?" he asked.
"If you can pack your things together quickly, "one of the men replied, "we should like to move you this evening…say in an hour. Is that all right?"
An hour! The suddenness of it all puzzled Jonte. His condition had been known from the moment he had been born when his parents − so he had been told − had handed him over for special care. But it also excited him. Apart from a short journey when he had been much younger to a medical centre, he could not remember ever having left the shelter. He didn't really have much to pack anyway.
"OK", he said.


*
The transporter that was to take him south was a large one, larger than anything he had been in before. Even so, there was only one other person in the closed seating section besides himself: the woman who had said she wanted to get to know him better. Looking at her in the dim lighting that came from a single small unit on the roof, he thought she must be quite old. Her slightly puffy silver-grey face was framed by precise waves of bronze hair. The tag on her suit said she was chief psychologist at the Regional Institute for Human Research.

< 3 >
"Are you all right?" she asked. "Not too upset at having to leave suddenly like this?"
Jonte shrugged. "I'm fine", he said. "Where are you taking me?"
Behind her blank eyes, the psychologist seemed to be thinking. Eventually she said: "I'm going to be open with you, Jonte. Something has come up which makes it very important for us to…to examine you, give you some tests, things like that. But don't worry. It'll all be quite painless. Even fun, perhaps," she added, smiling. "By the way, my name's Eden."
"But the medics from the centre come and test me all the time!" Jonte exclaimed, not responding to the offered name. "There can't be anything they don't know by now. Why don't you get what you want from them?" But at the same time the thought came to him that this suggestion was stupid: that wasn't at all what they really wanted. He should have known straightaway from the "being open" bit at the start.
"Oh, the tests we want to run are quite different from anything done here," Eden replied. "Besides, our facilities are much better than theirs. And I'm afraid the level of expertise in those places is extremely low compared to what it used to be. Only in centres like the Institute…."
She stopped abruptly, as both she and Jonte were jerked from their seats. The transporter seemed to swing crazily from side to side before making a sharp ninety degree turn, and then slowly overbalancing onto one side. Eden rolled into one corner. Jonte pulled himself up by one of the seats and made sure they were still sealed from the outside. Fortunately the small centre light was still working.
From the front there came sounds of shouting; then three or four muffled thumps; then nothing. Eden tried unsuccessfully to get up, so that Jonte felt he was now the one in charge.
"You OK?" he asked. "I suppose we've been in a crash or something, but it can't be too bad. I expect they'll get this thing going again quite soon."
On cue, with faint scraping sounds, the transporter began to right itself. Eden pulled herself back onto a seat, and sat for a moment gasping. Then, in a strained whisper, she told Jonte to keep as quiet and still as he could, adding: "They may not know we're here."

< 4 >
Jonte was about to object, when, all of a sudden, he caught on. They had been hijacked! This first long trip away from the shelter was turning out stranger that he could ever have imagined. He was just about to ask Eden what was really going on, when the transporter shot into motion, throwing them back against their seats. For a few minutes it travelled normally, then began to lurch and jolt about as if being driven over very rough ground. Jonte began again to ask what was happening and where she thought they were going; but the psychologist seemed not to hear. Instead she appeared in shock, gripping the sides of her seat tightly and staring straight ahead with opaque eyes.


*
The journey turned out to be a long one. After an hour of being tossed around as the transporter travelled at high speed over uneven terrain, Jonte had the impression that it had driven up a ramp and parked. Then it began to vibrate and lurch erratically from side to side. A loud, rattling engine noise came from outside.
"Oh my God!" Eden suddenly exclaimed, "they're lifting us out by helicopter!" The realisation seemed to revive her. She moved closer to where Jonte was sitting, and began talking in a rapid whisper.
"When we get there, Jonte, somehow you've got to escape. We can't let them have you. Jonte, this is terribly important. You'll have to hide until we can mount a rescue. Perhaps I should have said something earlier. As far as we know, you're the only one anywhere; and all the others want you too. I'll try and think of something."
Eden, it seemed to Jonte, had raised rather a lot of questions. He decided to ask the one he felt the most important: who were "they"?
"They could be any one of several," Eden whispered back. "In the Union, even, there are people who are acting behind our backs. Then there are the Chinese, the Latin-Americans, the Mid-East…all of them are running projects. Perhaps we'll get some idea from the time it's taken when we land."
This gave Jonte his second and third questions. "What exactly are these projects?" he asked; "and what have they to do with me?"
Instead of replying, Eden was suddenly very still. Her blank eyes were unreadable, but Jonte had the impression that she was regretting her first response. The projects, whatever they were, were meant to be secret; or at least secret from him.

< 5 >
Then he remembered Eden's earlier remark. The sudden removal from the shelter, and what had happened since, began to make sense. If it was true that he was unique, and with people after him, the administration would want to put him somewhere secure as soon as possible. But then: the only way in which he was unique, as far as he knew, was in being never able, for the whole of his life, to leave an environment shielded from the outside. And again: that had been known since his birth. So he was back to the question: why now?
For some time Jonte and Eden both remained silent, Jonte trying to work out possible answers, Eden inscrutable and unmoving. The vibrations and rattling engine noise continued to penetrate the interior of the transporter, though the lurches from side to side had stopped. Presumably they were in the air and moving forwards, though it was impossible to gain any sense of direction.
The silence between the two lasted about half an hour. By the end, Jonte had reached the conclusion that there must have been a sudden catastrophe or dramatic new discovery, with his peculiar condition significant in some way. Whatever the event was, it must have been a major one to justify what had happened. His own role, too, he realised with a mixture of sneaking pride and lurking panic, must also be major.


*
Abruptly, the transporter tilted forwards and side-to-side movements began again. Eden recovered from her apparent paralysis, and moved to Jonte's side.
"I think we're about to land," she said. "When we do, keep behind me if you can, and I'll try to find a way to get you hidden."
Jonte didn't think there was any chance of that happening. "Where do you think we are?" he asked.
"We've been just over three hours," Eden replied. "Not the Americas or China, then. Perhaps Africa; or the Mid-East; or still in the Union in the north or east."
The transporter began to level off; there was a sharp bump; the engine noise, together with the vibrations, stopped. At once the transporter began to moving again, as if being driven down a ramp. Jonte concluded that they had left the helicopter. After a short period of smooth motion, they once again began to travel over rough ground. Jonte saw Eden's eyes search the interior as if looking for a window or crack; but of course there could be no gap in the shielding. To know where they were they would have to wait until they arrived, though that place would have to be fully shielded too − that is, if whoever they were wanted Jonte alive and well.

< 6 >
At last they came to a halt. Eden moved to the rear door and signalled that Jonte should stand behind her. When the door opened, Jonte saw at once that he had been right about their destination. The transporter was inside a large, windowless, dome-shaped hanger, the only lighting provided by suspended neon strips. Three men faced them, one carrying a hand-gun of some kind, another a large reel of adhesive tape. The third silently beckoned Eden. It was possible they had not yet noticed Jonte behind her.
Shouting "Run and hide…now!" Eden launched herself at the man with the gun. She did not even reach the ground before being struck by what turned out to be a taser. Jonte stood still at the open door of the transporter, and looked down at the men. All three had metallic grey European faces, close-cropped metallic copper hair and were wearing nondescript over-suits without identity panels or other markings.
The third man silently signalled to Jonte to leave the transporter, pointing first to the man with the taser and then the crumpled figure of Eden on the ground. The message was clear enough. Jonte lowered himself from the rear of the transporter and turned to take a better look at where he had arrived. He was virtually certain that no immediate harm would come to him − not, at least, from the three in the welcoming party − given the trouble taken to get him there.
He was only partly right. His hands were quickly taped behind his back, a loop placed round his neck, and another strip attached to it like a dog-lead. Two of the men then led him to a doorway at the other side of the hanger, while the third, Jonte could just see, was taping Eden's arms to her side and hobbling her legs at the ankle.
Jonte and his escort reached the door, which one of them opened. The other went though, pulling Jonte after him.


*
As he quickly looked around, Jonte's first impression was that the room they had entered was vaguely familiar: rather like the medical centre to which he had been taken some years before. After a moment's thought, however, Jonte realised that this was bound to be the case. If Eden had not been entirely deceitful, both the authority she belonged to and its competitors wanted him in order to carry out some kind of medical research.

< 7 >
Still without saying a word, the third man led Jonte through an archway into a weakly-lit passage, turned to another door, opened it, and signalled that Jonte should go through. He did so; and at once his lead was slipped, the tapes round his neck and hands swiftly cut, and the door closed behind him. He hardly needed to confirm that it was also locked.
Looking round, Jonte saw that the room was much like his study/bedroom at the shelter − but of superior quality. Besides a bed and washing area there was a comfortable-looking easy chair and a low table; and one wall was almost entirely taken up with a video screen, almost as large as the ones in the shelter classrooms. A recess held a water spigot and a glass, besides a bowl of the specially-grown, unmodified fruit which Jonte had until now only experienced as special treat. This was not, Jonte realized, a randomly-chosen prison cell. It had been prepared − and that must have been some time in advance − for just him.
How did such long-term planning fit in with the abrupt move to get him away from the shelter, and his guess that people were after him as a result of some unexpected event?


*
The next few hours brought no answers. Nor did the next few days. One of his three captors would silently bring his meals at appropriate times. At first, he had expected that the large screen would quickly provide him with information; but when he switched it on all he received were instruction videos in his own language, hardly different from those he would have been seeing back in class. Once, he had been told, it had been possible to access many hundreds of channels, sounds and pictures too, sent out from anywhere in the world and without cable connections. The radiation had ended that. Communications were now quite difficult − almost, he had heard, at the level of the telegraph systems existing two or three hundred years before.
Remembering what he had learned on the journey, he expected at any moment to be taken for medical examination. Nothing happened. As the days passed he began to feel in need of some different surroundings, and also some company apart from the three silent men. What, he wondered, had happened to Eden?

< 8 >
This started as a casual thought. Bit by bit, though, it grew into something more: a question to which he really wanted to know the answer, and then a plan of action. Instead of spending day after day in one room, following school courses for anything better to do, he would get out somehow and find the psychologist. She would be able to go out into the open, and find out exactly where they were. Then they could work out how to get home.
The best way to escape, Jonte thought, was to make sure that the door could be unlocked after he had been brought a meal. He knew a trick with a piece of cloth and a fork or knife which worked on the simple locks on cupboard and bathroom doors in the shelter. Fortunately the lock to his present room was virtually identical.
He decided to try out his plan on the next day as soon as breakfast had been delivered − the trick was to insert the cloth before the door was fully closed. Nobody would be coming again until lunchtime.


*
Jonte looked through the archway; and then back down the passage in the other direction. It led to a dead-end. However, opposite his own room, from which he had escaped without difficulty was a second door of much the same type. Jonte tried the handle, but it was locked. If he was not going to be trapped, he would have to risk the medical centre.
Then he heard a sound coming from behind the door. He put his eye to the keyhole and pulled back in surprise: a silver eye was about to look through from the other side. A quiet voice said: "Jonte, is that you?" Then "yes, I can see it is."
He had found Eden at the first attempt!
"Are you all right? Can you get me out?" Eden went on.
"I'm OK," Jonte replied. "But I don't think I can open the door." Then, after a pause, he realized he needed the answers to some questions of his own.
"Do you know where we are?" he whispered. "And why are they keeping us locked up? I thought you said they were going to do tests on me; but all I've had so far is school work."

< 9 >
"Listen," said Eden rapidly, "this is important. We're in the Ukraine. They let me have some medical things with writing on the packaging. So we're still in the Union. They seem to be using you as a hostage to get whatever it is they want, and I'm supposed to contact the authorities and put terms to them."
"What should I do?" Jonte asked.
There was a pause before Eden replied. "I think the best thing," she eventually said, "is for you not to do anything rash. I'm going to agree to get in touch with council headquarters; and if I can let them know roughly where we are they may be able to send a rescue team."
To Jonte, this did not seem very heroic. His first thought had been somehow to steal a transporter and find help − admitted, he had no idea how to drive; wouldn't, in any case, be able to sit in an un-shuttered driving cab; and didn't speak a word of Ukrainian. Then a second thought came to him: he had only a few hours either to hide or escape, because the man coming to deliver his lunch and take away his breakfast tray would discover that he wasn't there. He could, or course, go back. But what would happen when they found the door unlocked?


*
Jonte cautiously slipped through the arch into the medical examination room. Opposite was the door leading to the domed hangar. At either end of the room were two more doors, both shut, but with glass panels to see through. In the room itself were various pieces of equipment, some display screens and terminals together with a couch and racks of bottles, boxes and small instruments.
Jonte decided to see what was beyond the doors with the glass panels. He tiptoed to the one on the left and looked through; then immediately retreated in alarm. Beyond the door he had seen what seemed to be a small conference or dining room, and had caught a glimpse of about ten people sitting round an oblong table. That was not the main reason he had run back, however. The room had been lit, not by the artificial lighting he was used to, but by direct sunlight coming through an un-shuttered window.
He crept to the door on the right. Beyond was another passage leading to a further door. The passage was lit by low-power bulb; but the light coming from under the far door was too bright to be artificial. There was no way out for him there.

< 10 >
That left the hangar, and the possibility of, perhaps, stowing away in a shielded transporter. This time, his luck was in: beyond the hangar door it was pitch dark. There was still time before lunch, he calculated, to talk again with Eden, and perhaps work out some joint plan. If it hadn't been for the fact they would find him missing at lunch-time he could even have told her how to get out when her own meal was delivered.
Then a solution occurred to him. He went back through the arch and tapped on Eden's door.


*
Once again in his own room, Jonte sat with a dry mouth and the sound of his heartbeat loud in his head. The odds, he told himself, were mathematically 50:50. But his instincts told him they were probably better: they would serve Eden first. As the usual time for lunch approached. Jonte put his ear to the door. The sound of footsteps drew near and at first appeared to stop just outside. Had he lost the gamble? But then Jonte heard the key turning in the door opposite. If Eden could carry out the trick with the cloth and a knife, they would have a few minutes to get home free.
The footsteps receded down the corridor. There was a click. Jonte opened his door and stepped into the corridor to see Eden there on the other side. Rapidly he led through the arch and across the still deserted examination room to the door leading to the hangar.
Then it all began to go wrong. Jonte confidently pushed the door wide open; but, instead of darkness, bright light from the suspended neon strips illuminated the entire hangar. Beside the parked transporter a group of men were sitting on a bench, eating. Worse: in probably less than a minute the man with Jonte's lunch would appear. Going back to their own rooms would involve explaining why they were unlocked. They had only seconds to take the remaining option: the door to the second corridor.
They listened as footsteps delivered Jonte's lunch, discovered that he was not in his room and ran back to report. There was a rush of other footsteps, and a short while later a loud shout, as − presumably − Eden was also found to be missing. They probably had only a minute or two before someone thought to look where they were hiding.

< 11 >
"I suppose you'd better get out," Jonte said miserably. "There's nowhere I can go now except back to my room. Do you think they'd believe me if I said I'd been hiding under the bed?"
"No," Eden said. "Not when I'm missing too." Then: "besides, you must come with me. I can contact the Council office in Kiev, and they should be able to locate us before we're caught."
Jonte looked at Eden in disbelief. As soon as there was no shielding from the sun's radiation he would quickly fall ill, and probably die within days. Wasn't that what all this was about?
"But, Eden, you know I can't!" he cried out
All Eden replied, though, was: "Trust me". Turning, she grasped the lever-handle of the door at the corridor's end; pushed it down; and pulled the door open. Raw sunlight poured in. He threw his arms over his eyes and sank to the floor. Was Eden trying to kill him?
The psychologist seemed unruffled. She bent down, put her hands under Jonte's shoulders and lifted him to his feet.
"Here, swallow these," she said, handing Jonte three pink, oval pills. "They'll keep you safe for a time. I'm afraid I've no water, so you'll just have to get them down without." After nearly choking on the first, Jonte managed to swallow all three.
"Now keep your arms over your eyes," Eden said, steering him through the open door. "In a while, though, you'll be able to take them away"
Jonte staggered forward into what he knew must be the outside. He could feel the heat of what must be direct sunlight on his head and hands, and waited for the expected harmful effects to strike. How long before he burned up, or fell unconscious; or died?
"Try to keep moving as fast as possible," Eden said, pulling him along by one arm. "We're going to turn right. Then we need to get over a fence, and make for some trees. See if you can look directly now."
Jonte risked opening his eyes and glancing between his arms. They were on a path beside the wall of a building, the corner of which they immediately rounded. Ahead was the promised wire fence − fortunately a low one − and beyond a strip of silver field and then some woodland, which sparkled in metallic greens and polished copper as the leaves moved in the breeze. It looked very much like the countryside round the shelter which he had seen through the screens.

< 12 >
By the time they reached the fence Jonte risked lowering his arms completely, and was able to get over without difficulty. Eden still held on to him as they ran across the field, but let go as soon as they reached the cover of the trees. They kept going for some minutes to get completely out of sight, then stopped for a rest.
Eden said: "It's time I told you the truth."


*
"I'm sure you've been taught about the environmental crisis of the mid-twenty-first century," said Eden: "the floods, the storms and so on. But the worst, of course, was what no-one had predicted: the rise in solar radiation. At first they thought it would be enough to build huge shelters, or go underground; but that didn't deal with the dying of the forests, the grass, the animals − in fact practically the whole of the natural environment."
"I've often wondered," Jonte broke in "what would have happened if they hadn't made the changes."
"We would have become extinct," Eden replied shortly. "It's been calculated that nothing would have survived much above the level of bacteria."
Both remained silent for a moment. Jonte hadn't realized until then how enormous a problem the people then had faced.
"Fortunately", Eden went on, "the science of biotechnology was making great progress at the time; and you know what was done. In a single generation, not just human beings, but plants and animals too, were genetically engineered to live with the higher radiation. It worked for most species − though not all" she added, more to herself than to Jonte. "Actually, we probably lost more than half the biosphere."
They had reached the crucial question.
"Why hasn't it work for me?" Jonte asked.
Eden paused again for several seconds before replying. "We don't know," she eventually said.
"Perhaps you've wondered, Jonte," she went on, "why everyday things we use like video-screens and transporters are much the same as those you read about in history books? They're not. They're worse, a lot worse. The Great Crisis caused huge disruption, and resources had to be put into saving our and other species. Did you know men were about to build a settlement on the moon then, and even travel to the planet Mars? That had to be abandoned. So did practically every other attempt at progress in science or technology."

< 13 >
"And now, it seems", Eden concluded with a trace of bitterness, "we've gone backwards. We can recreate the original vegetation and most animals from seeds and zoos. But we can't sequence the human genome any more, let alone change it!"
"Why do you need to?" said Jonte.
"Why do you think I let you come out here in the open?" Eden responded. "Why do you think every science centre in the world wants you? It's been kept from you in case you tried to leave the shelter."
"Because the radiation is dropping, of course; in fact has dropped so suddenly and so fast that it may soon be back to where it was before the Crisis. In that case, we'll all be freaks, hopelessly unsuited to the environment. That is, all except you, Jonte − you and your DNA."


*
Jonte found the walking among the trees an amazing experience. Though he had of course seen scenes like it on the screens, they were nothing compared to the reality. He could hear birds calling from among the branches, and even saw a couple, their varicoloured metallic wings catching the sunlight that filtered down. If it was really safe for him now, he thought he wouldn't mind staying outside.
After no more than ten minutes' walk, however, they came to the other edge of the woodland. Looking out, Jonte saw a complex of single-storey buildings on the other side of a sloping field, with more trees beyond. Several small transporters were parked along access roads, and every now and again someone emerged from one of the buildings to cross over into another.
"I need to find a terminal quickly and contact Kiev," Eden told Jonte. "You stay here and wait. It shouldn't take long if I can make them understand. Then I'm afraid you'll have to get back into a shelter: even with the radiation lower and the pills, you shouldn't be outside for more than an hour or so."
Leaving the cover of the trees, she quickly crossed the field and went to a side entrance to the nearest of the buildings. The door opened and she disappeared inside.
After about half an hour, Jonte began to get anxious. Even with the language problem, it couldn't take that long to get the use of a terminal; and then, surely, she would come back or at least signal him to join her? After an hour his anxiety had grown considerably. He began to wonder what he should do: stay where he was as Eden had said, or go down and find her?

< 14 >
Another half an hour passed. The sun he had feared so much was falling below the horizon − a sight he watched, for the first time, in some awe − and it was beginning to get both colder and darker. Artificial lights began to come on in some of the buildings below. He had already been outside more than double the time that Eden had said was safe.
Crouching down where he could behind tussocks of silvery grass, now turning black in the dusk, he made his way cautiously over the field to the nearest building. The side door was half-open, with light coming from inside, and Jonte flattened himself against the wall next to it to listen. He heard nothing. Leaving the wall, he pulled the door fully open, and went inside. A man was standing only a few feet away.
"Welcome back," said the Principal.


*
In the Principal's study, Jonte sat looking out of the now only half-shuttered window. He had been out there only a few minutes before, looking down at the shelter without recognizing it; but, of course, he had never seen it from the outside before. The Principal, on the other hand, had been able to see him coming without difficulty − and, of course, Eden coming before him.
"You have caused a lot of trouble," the Principal said. "And that psychologist has been criminally irresponsible. We shall have to give you a thorough medical examination as soon as possible."
"Is Eden all right?" asked Jonte.
"As well as can be expected," replied the Principal curtly.
"And what's going on? Why all this?" Jonte continued.
The Principal's silver-grey hands, which had been lying twitching on the desk in front of him, became even more agitated.
"Do you think I was going to allow those people down there to take all the credit?" he said, as much to the room as to Jonte. "When it's me, my team here, who have brought you up, provided your special food, studied you, done all the basic research? I suppose you know now what the situation is. We're about to save the human race − and they want to close us down!"
The Principal hands sank back to desk and he appeared to calm down.
"You're bright," he resumed. "No doubt you've worked out by now what happened".

< 15 >
Jonte had. The long journey in the transporter and the helicopter had been intended to convince him that they had taken him somewhere far away, whereas it had merely circled back to where they had started. But why?
Then the answer came to him. He wasn't the one who needed to be deceived. The long journey had been for Eden's benefit. Once she was convinced they were in the Ukraine, she would get a message through asking for help. No-one would guess that he, Jonte, was back near the shelter.
Jonte said what he had deduced.
"Nearly," the Principal replied. "Actually there was no helicopter. We couldn't have got hold of one anyway. But we did find an old training machine that would simulate being in one; that and a noisy engine." For the first time Jonte could remember, the Principal smiled.
"So now, while the authorities are scouring the Ukraine − yes, we arranged for your psychologist friend to get off a message before she guessed where she was − I shall be left in peace to complete the project," he said. "If we could only get the equipment, it would be a matter of just months."
"What if you can't?" said Jonte.
This time the Principal did not reply. Instead he pressed a button on his desk, and one of the school assistants, a woman whom Jonte recognized, came into the study.
"I think it would be best if you went back to your old room now," the Principal said. "Hanna here will take you."
It was not until he had been lying in his bed for about an hour than Jonte began to feel sick.


*
He knew immediately that he was back in the medical centre from the smell. Looking round, he recognized the room from which he and Eden had escaped, it seemed to him, only hours before. The room was now full of people: three doctors whom he recognized, two of the men who had served him meals, two nurses….he looked for Eden, but she was not there. He found that was loosely tied down to the couch and that a tube was feeding something into his right arm.
Jonte remembered waking up in the night with a bad headache, and then throwing up violently while trying to reach the washbasin. He had then slept badly and been sick twice more before the normal waking time. He had tried to get up, but had felt disorientated and weak. The last he remembered after that was falling backwards as he pulled open the study/bedroom door.

< 16 >
The doctors, together at one end of the room, were arguing. One of the nurses noticed that Jonte was awake and quickly came to the side of the couch.
"How do you feel?" she said to Jonte; and then to the doctors: "He's round at last."
Jonte felt terrible, but said feebly: "OK, I think. What happened?"
"You passed out," one of the doctors replied, checking Jonte's pulse and smiling. "Don't worry; you probably ate something that doesn't agree with you. You'll be all right."
The other two doctors, however, were not smiling. One looked very angry.
"Wouldn't it be better to face the truth, Komar?" the angry one said, his voice loud enough for Jonte to hear clearly. "Good God, this is radiation sickness! No-one's treated a case like this for more than a century. Have you any idea what to do?"
"The first thing is for you to be quiet!" the first doctor replied in a harsh whisper. "We can handle this if we keep our heads."
The third doctor gave a discordant laugh. "If we can't, we'll certainly lose them," he added.
"Let's discuss this outside," the first doctor responded; and all three went through into the meeting room.
Jonte had heard enough to know that he was in very bad trouble. For his whole life it had been drummed into him that going outside could prove fatal, and he had always taken care never even to go into a room unless the windows were heavily shuttered. Until the day before. Why had Eden done it? Why had he believed her? To his shame, he found himself beginning to cry.


*
Jonte was not sure how long it was before open dispute broke out. He still felt sick and weak, and remained tied down. Doctors and nurses came and went, and from time to time angry shouting came from the meeting room. Suddenly there was a commotion in the passage from which he had left the building, and one of the doctors and a nurse were violently pushed back into the room. Following them were the two men who had been there earlier; and following them, the Principal.
"I'm taking over here," the Principal announced. "There will be no question of calling in any outside help."
The doctor − the one who had laughed − got up from the floor.

< 17 >
"And what will you tell them when Jonte dies?" he asked the Principal.
"Jonte will not die," the Principal replied. "Dr. Komar assures me he can handle it."
"If Dr. Komar told you that," the other said, "he's a bigger fool than I thought."
So that's it, Jonte said to himself. Everything about being special and being able to help save humanity is fantasy. Between them, the Principal and Eden have condemned me to death.
He felt a new rush of tears coming.
And then chaos broke out. There was a loud explosion behind the door leading to the hangar, some gunfire, and an amplified voice demanding that arms be laid down. Simultaneously the door to the meeting room burst open, and the angry doctor, accompanied by two orderlies, came in.
Behind them came Eden. Her silver-grey face was no longer puffy, but gaunt and streaked with dirt, and her bronze hair was dishevelled. At the same time she seemed somehow younger and more forceful. She went up to the Principal.
"You are despicable!" she told him. "How did you think you could get away with keeping Jonte to yourself? You've got no equipment and no proper staff here. You could have damned us all. Fortunately this doctor had the good sense to let me contact the authorities."
She turned to Jonte. "How are you doing?" she asked.
Jonte looked at her through his tears. "I'm going to die," he said. "Because you took me outside".
The room suddenly filled with more people: military personnel in helmets, a number of those whom he had first seen in the Principal's study before the journey. Everything seemed to have turned out well…except that he was dying.
"Nonsense," said Eden. "You'll be perfectly all right once the effect of the pills wears off. I'm sorry you had to go through all this; but it was our insurance."
"Which worked just as well here as it would have in the Ukraine," she added, turning to the Principal. "Even better, in fact. − your people have no idea what radiation sickness is actually like, do they?"
"On this occasion," she added, with an apologetic half-smile in the direction of the doctor who had come with her, "Dr. Komar's diagnosis was quite correct."


*
Jonte was extremely surprised to find that he would be staying in the shelter for at least a time. Eden − who appeared to be a great deal more important than mere chief psychologist at the Regional Institute for Human Research − explained that an inter-regional agreement had been reached to provide samples of his DNA to every research centre working on the retro problem. It wouldn't hurt at all: as little as a hair or a swab of saliva from him would do.

< 18 >
Meanwhile it would probably be better for him to continue his education where he was, where his special needs could be met and among people he knew. The Principal and a number of others would be gone; but the teachers and, of course, his contemporaries, had not been involved.
Jonte felt a little let down. And then the thought came to him that at least he would be able to get outside with the others at playtime. He wouldn't need to watch every game through the screens any more. Was it possible he might even be able to join in…?

She

Charles Kaufmann

She

She sits in a rustic A-frame cabin, looking out a set of double glass doors. It's a humid summer day. She's not fashionably dressed: a grey, short-sleeve expedition shirt with two front pockets — in one a mechanical pencil; a scratchy, drab-colored set of insect-shield convertible pants torn in a few places by bramble. Her forearms, scented with the remnant odor of lemon eucalyptus oil insect repellant, are well-muscled enough to show she can push her way through overgrown trails; her rough bare feet are masculine enough to prove she's walked on tough terrain.
Her eyes follow a sloping meadow: beyond, the flat plain of salt marsh divided by a meandering estuary; further, a white swath of granite outcroppings; beyond this, the marsh rising again into upland forest. The only sounds she hears are the hum of an old refrigerator, the chirping of crickets, the moan of a foghorn from a hump of an island just off the coast.
For the past three weeks she has been counting birds, making entries into a laptop computer log: 1 Medium-tailed Guternatch; 2 Truncated Pipsqueaks; 1 Roasted Titmouse; 1 Nappy-headed Hoot Owl; 4 Sharp-shinned Slinkers (females only); 1 Albino Albatross; 1 Picbald Porcupine Flicktippery; 1 Jack-booted Thugwhomple; 2 Slack-jawed Yokels.
She likes being alone; better than working in an urban high rise. It's a lovely day, and she can't think of any better place to be — more or less.
"Drab-colored?" she says abruptly, apparently to no one. "You call 'chocolate heather' drab-colored?"
That's what it is – drab-colored. I can decide. Does that justify her interruption of a carefully planned scene?
"Well, I don't like what you've done. Are you seriously going to leave me alone in a wilderness bird sanctuary? For how long?"
Not much longer.
"Oh, really."
She's going to meet someone new.
"But you said I like being alone."
She does and she doesn't.
"Just who or what in this desolate place is going to be aroused by my masculine-looking toes? A black bear?"
It's not desolate. It's paradisiacal. I like her feet.
"Oh, come on. What, exactly, am I supposed to be?"
She's an ornithologist.
"Oh, brother. Just what is at stake here?"
She's very smart; she has a Ph.D. in biology from Cornell University. Her thesis was on the female reproductive anatomy of the wild turkey.

< 2 >
"And you call yourself a writer."
I think she's attractive.
"Sure; if you're into cloacae."
Trust me.
"Do I get a name, or are you going to call me 'she' for the rest of the story?"
I haven't quite decided. I was thinking 'Midge,' or something, I don't know; I'll work it out later.
"You've got to be kidding. Did I ask to be insecticide-reeking, muscle-bound, big-footed Midge-the-Ornithologist in a mediocre piece of fiction by a second- or third-rate fictionalist?"
See? She shows signs of being an intelligent woman.
"Stop calling me ‘she,' and, no, I did not ask for that. Being nothing is better than what you've planned for me."
She's going to fall in love.
"In the middle of nowhere? Brilliant."
She's going to meet some guy in the woods.
"What, like you?"
I can't just stop the story. I've created her, and I'm going to do something with her.
"Well, then, change the scene. Manhattan, how about it, and pronto?"
Manhattan's loud and smelly. Here there'll be this guy and the birds — -
"As if I haven't had enough. Make me into a sexy New York literary agent."
I don't want her to be a sexy literary agent. I want her to be an ornithologist.
"Afraid I'd reject both you and your book?"
Listen; the scene is a remote bird sanctuary. She's an ornithologist whose job is to count birds. She's going to fall in love with some guy she meets by chance in the forest. Want me to change the feet? Give her small, delicate feet – like a ballet dancer? Dress her in ballet-style shoes that lace up around her slender ankles while she looks out the glass doors counting birds?
"And I could be unbuttoning the top three buttons of my 'expedition shirt' — like this, see? — because it's so hot, and right now I'm bending down to unlace my ballet shoes — -"
If I want to undress her, I will.
"Creep."
But that's not what I have in mind. She's an intellectual. This is a subtle story.
"Well, watch me, Mr. Subtle, while I unsnap the fly-button of my 'drab-colored insect-shield pants,' unzip half-way down because it's so sticky today, lean my hip on the unfinished pine kitchen table. Take a closer look: you've given me a small and very artful tattoo one inch above my shaved, lemon-eucalyptus-oil smudged — -"

< 3 >
I've done no such thing.
"Then maybe I don't want to be in this story."
She doesn't have a choice.
"You think so?"
She can't just walk out.
"Watch me. Out this glass door. And quit calling me she."
It's a point of view thing. Some novelist won the Nobel Prize in Literature using the third-person singular human/animate female personal pronoun alone.
"Watch me."
It's going to rain – really hard. With lightning and thunder. And the bears.
"Your cheap fragmentary sentences don't frighten me."
Coyotes, feral cats, rabid foxes, bull moose. I'm not kidding — you have to be careful. I'd worry.
"I don't care what you try to do to me."
Oh, really? She doesn't care? Well, then, fine; let's see how far she gets, sliding open the left door of the double glass doors, slamming it shut behind her, walking barefoot (oh, lovely feet) out into the lush, green meadow, the sky clouding up, the heavy air foreshadowing a storm, she, walking down the long slope toward the salt estuary, a dragonfly floating past her, vibrating, trembling its tiny wings, gliding on the dead-still air, she, becoming smaller and smaller as the distance increases, disappearing behind a dip in the meadow above the marsh grass, forever gone.
Oh, the crickets chirping melancholically, the refrigerator's mechanical buzzing making the rustic old A-frame suddenly seem unbearably, intolerably silent, the historic lighthouse bemoaning 156 years of reclusion. She's on her way to Manhattan.

The Other Option

Jamie Brindle

The Other Option

"Yes, children, three of them," Quince concluded, leaning back slightly and smiling his winning smile, "But they die very quickly, and you do it on account of all the virgins you think you'll get your hands on once you get to heaven."
Quince was a salesman, although he never went door-to-door. He never had the need. All his clients came straight to him, because there was simply nowhere else to go.
"I see," breathed the Poor Soul, "I suppose that makes it quite acceptable,"
It frowned slightly.
"But tell me," It went on softly, "What is a virgin?"
Quince levered his smile up a notch.
"My friend," he enunciated warmly, "If you take this life, then that question will never bother you again."

Quince was a salesman, but he'd never so much as held a vacuum cleaner or driven a car. What he sold was much more precious.
What he sold was life itself.
He sat in his office – which was both infinitely huge and immeasurably small, on account of the fact that it existed in a place outside of both space and time – and dealt out lives to the Poor Souls, who came to him ever and again. Technically, his realm was not quite the beginning of existence – but it was so close that he almost fancied he could see it on a clear day.
The only beings he ever came across – as far back as he could remember, at least, which was very far indeed, if not quite forever – the only beings he ever saw were these Poor Souls, these clients of his. Essentially, they were lifeless shells, waiting to be filled with whatever life Quince took it into his head to offer them. There was never a lack, either of clients or lives to give them.
Personally, Quince regarded existence as rather an obvious choice – a bit mainstream – and he was constantly surprised that his clients didn't look around more first and see what their other options were. But then, after all, why should he care?
As long as he had clients, that was all that mattered.

< 2 >

"No, I don't think you understand," said the scruffy-looking Soul, leaning back and regarding Quince with something that almost bordered on disdain, "I don't want that blasted life. I don't want any of your petty little lives, so just put them away and listen for a minute, won't you?"
Quince frowned darkly – he was unused to being addressed in such a tone – and shook his head woefully. But he liked to think of himself as a reasonable man – or at least, creature – so he put the life he had been offering the Soul away again, and cleared his throat wearily.
"And while we're at it, my name's not ‘hey, you,' either, it's muttermutter."
"What?" said Quince, who couldn't stand people who mumbled.
"I said, it's ‘Soul Dog'," repeated Soul Dog, at least having the grace to look abashed.
There was a pregnant silence.
"I see," said Quince at length. He paused, "Go on then, what is it you want?"
The scruffy-looking Soul looked surprised for a moment, as if it were expecting a little bit more of a fight. It recovered quickly, however.
"Right, yes," it began hurriedly, "Well, you've been here quite a while, haven't you?"
"Yes," said Quince coldly. "Forever,"
"Of course, of course," stammered the Soul. "Which is exactly why we thought we'd come to you first. Let you know, sort of thing. It was only the polite thing to do, we thought."
Something in the Soul's tone made Quince wary. He nodded slowly.
"And?" he asked, interested despite himself.
"To let you know, I mean." The Soul looked a little embarrassed now, "And, well, to see if you wanted on board. To be honest, we could do with having someone with your experience on the team"
Quince leant back.
"What exactly is it you are doing?" he asked suspiciously.
"Oh, that's easy!" exclaimed the Soul, "We're going into business."

After Quince had finished shouting and the Soul had left – seeming even more dishevelled than when it had arrived – he felt he needed a little break to calm himself down and regain his composure. He moved away from the endless queue of Poor Souls and wandered around aimlessly in his ephemeral realm.

< 3 >
What nerve. What nerve!
To even think of setting up a rival business! He shook his head ruefully. The quality of Poor Souls was certainly on the decline, if this was the sort of riff-raff the system was throwing up these days.
He wondered briefly how the fellow had ever managed to scrape together enough of a personality to exhibit such wanton arrogance. You could tell just by looking at the scruffy Soul that he had never enjoyed the weight of a proper life. Probably the wretched thing had simply spent some non-time bumming around the pathetic little nooks and crannies which littered the void this side of existence. More than likely he would call the whole thing a "valuable learning experience" or other such nonsense, and use it as a pretext in an application for some minor clerical position on The Other Side.
Quince sighed heavily.
How he hated students.

After rather a lot of non-time had elapsed, Quince began to feel a little more like his usual self, and decided to make his way back to the heart of his realm and get on with the serious business of distributing the various shades of human triumph and misery which formed the ubiquitous colouring of every life he handled. But when he had made himself ready to receive his first client, he found to his horror that a most singular thing had happened.
Instead of the endless queue of clients stretching away into infinity, which usually formed the backdrop of his world, there was only one rather small, sad-looking Soul waiting for him.
The feeling of unease, which had been brought on by the visit of the scruffy looking Soul, and which he had only just managed to shake, retuned to him in full vigour.
Trying to stay calm, Quince hurriedly beckoned the Poor Soul over.
"Existence, pleas…" began the Poor Soul, but Quince cut him off.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded sharply.
The Poor Soul looked slightly hurt.
"But I thought we weren't allowed to ask that," the Soul wheedled, pointing to a sign that floated in the middle of nowhere above Quince's desk.

< 4 >
The sign read:

We thank you for not:


-Shoving


-Smoking


-Questioning the meaning of existence


Quince shook his head irritably.
"No, no, I didn't mean…." he rolled his eyes and spluttered incoherently, "I mean, well, where are all the others?"
"There aren't any," replied the Poor Soul, looking more pitiful than ever, "I'm the only one,"
"But there were millions of you here a moment ago," Quince pontificated desperately, "Where have they all gone?"
"They chose the other option," the Soul bobbed about a little and tried to look ingratiating. "I thought they were being silly," it added quickly, "I think your deal looks much better."
Quince – who could always be bought with flattery – found himself warming a little to the Poor Soul almost against his will, and calmed down somewhat.
"Well, it is, it is," he said more softly. "But…what could they possibly be offering that's more enticing than life?"
"Oblivion," said the Poor Soul simply.
"Oblivion?" ejaculated Quince, outraged.
"Yes, oblivion. Nothing. Nada. Void. Forever."
"And what on Earth is so appealing about that?" Quince was leaning very close to the Poor Soul now, staring desperately at it, willing it to answer him.
The Soul seemed to consider the question for a moment.
"We-ell," it said at length, "you don't have to get up quite as early, I suppose."
"What?!"
"You don't have to get up at all, in fact."
"And they all chose that over life?" Quince almost spat the question, "They could have had it all – excitement , adventure, fine wine, great sex, loss, and friendship, and ice cream, and love – they could have had it all, and instead they chose…not having to get up so early?"
The Poor Soul shrugged.
"No one likes having to get up," it said.

Quince marched resolutely through the vast expanses of nothing that composed his realm, the Poor Soul tagging along forlornly behind him.
He'd show them! Oh, yes, they wouldn't get away with this, not when Quince was around!

< 5 >
Oblivion, indeed!
"I don't mean to be a nuisance," the Poor Soul said at length, "But would you mind telling me where we're going?"
"To stop this nonsense," replied Quince, grimly, "We're going to find the competition and make it very clear to them that they are simply not wanted. I mean, after all, how popular can oblivion actually…oh!"
At that moment they topped one of the strange crests of non-space, and Quince fell silent at the sight before him.
Stretching away into the deep distance they streamed, millions and millions and millions of them: Poor Souls, shuffling and silent and empty, floating from the blinding, unassailable light of the Beginning towards…what?
He could not make out where they were heading at first. Quince squinted; then he frowned; then he snarled – his quarry had been found.
He plunged into the queuing souls, bumping them aside with scientifically executed ill-humour, and made his way to the Establishment of his rivals.
"Excuse me, if you don't mind, thank you so very much," he muttered as he shoved the souls out of his way.
Floating in the nothingness, there it stood: a cheap, chipped desk, in front of a panel of three battered-looking chairs; behind the chairs, a wall hung silently, its sole reason for existence apparently to provide a place for the posters to go. Quince did not recognise the posters, though they looked vaguely familiar and filled him with a sense of instinctive contempt. The first showed a green leaf from a plant that some of the people involved in Life seemed to find quite symbolic of some thing or another; it certainly seemed to be something that many people thought quite important. The second showed nine pictures of the same bearded and behatted man, identical except that each image was reproduced in a different horribly garish colour. The final poster showed an idiotic looking fat yellow man clutching an item Quince vaguely recognised as being something sweet and decidedly bad for you. He loathed all three of them on sight; but not so much as he instantly loathed the three souls seated on the chairs behind the desk.
One was sucking on a nasty-looking little hand rolled cigarette. Another was sporting a pair of designer jeans ostentatiously complemented with designer tears. But it was the third soul that caught Quince's attention. It was wearing a fluffy little beanie hat (Quince found it intrinsically annoying, and would have done so were he not already thoroughly annoyed with its wearer anyway) and a ridiculous pair of cheap plastic sunglasses. It was the soul who had pestered him earlier about the setting up of this rival business. It was Soul Dog.

< 6 >
Even as he watched, Quince saw Soul Dog finish talking in a bored-looking way to one of the Poor Souls and lazily indicate which way the client should go. The Poor Soul floated around the back of the desk and into what Quince recognised with a sudden burst of complete non-surprise as a toilet bowl.
There was a thin, ersatz flushing sound and the Poor Soul promptly vanished into nothingness.
"Hahaha," said Soul Dog.
"Awesome!" exclaimed Jeans. "That was, like, well funny, Soul Dog!"
"Yeah man!" added Roll-Up. "Classic!"
Slowly, the laughter died away. Quince was not laughing in a very prominent way.
"What," he said.
"Is," he said.
"The meaning," he said.
"Of this?"
"Um," said Jeans, looking at Roll-Up.
"Um," added Roll-Up, looking at Soul Dog.
"Um, yes," said Soul Dog, looking suddenly a little sheepish.
"You think this is funny, don't you?"
Silence.
"You think this is clever?"
Silence.
"You think you can just waltz in here and mess up a system that has been perfected over what is technically forever?"
Silence.
"You think…" began Quince, who was almost starting to enjoy himself by now.
"…your mum," muttered Soul Dog.
There was a horrified pause.
Then Jeans and Roll-Up collapsed into balls of helpless laughter.
"You think…" Quince tried to rally, but was drowned out by the catcalls of the two cackling Souls.
"Oh, you burned him, man!" shouted Roll-Up.
"Your mum thinks!" exclaimed Soul Dog, somewhat encouraged.
The other two collapsed once more at this masterly display of wit.
Feeling disturbed and suddenly out of his depth, Quince decided to change his tack.
"And look, what's with all this Lifey rubbish anyway?" he tried desperately, indicating the posters and the desk and Soul Dog's almost unbearably annoying hat, "I mean, if you lot are hawking Oblivion, why have all these cheap bits of Life stuff knocking around?"
The three Souls stopped laughing for just long enough to exchange a disbelieving look, before bursting once more into a derisive cacophony.

< 7 >
"Er, duh!" shouted Roll-Up.
"He's so dense, man!" Jeans chimed in.
"Yeah, it's ironic, dude," Soul Dog rolled his eyes.
"But…" tried Quince, who felt things slipping away.
"Move with the times, granddad!"
"But…" he said again.
"Life is so last paradigm,"
"Yeah, man, nothing is the new everything."
"But…" he tried, one last time.
"Your mum's butt," said Soul Dog.
And that was that.

Some non-time later, after the laughter had died down (or at least after he had gotten far enough away that he could no longer hear it) Quince realised he was not alone. A Poor Soul floated nearby, apparently trying to be unobtrusive and slightly comforting at the same time.
"There, there," it said to him, vaguely.
Quince stared at it sharply.
"What is it now?" he demanded, "Oh, have we decided I do have a use after all? Oblivion not your cup of tea now, is it?"
"No, I told you earlier, I wanted existence, please."
"Oh, yes, right," moaned Quince, suddenly remembering the Poor Soul he had met earlier, his last customer, "Well, I'm afraid existence is closed. Until further notice," he added grumpily.
Non-time passed.
"What's your name?" Quince asked at length, mainly because there was little else to do.
"I don't know," replied the Soul.
"Very well. I shall name you…" Quince paused, "Bob."
"That's a shame," said Bob at length.
"No it's not, Bob's a very nice name!" exclaimed Quince, rather scandalised.
"I mean, it's a shame about existence. I was quite looking forward to it. Bob's a good name."
"Oh," said Quince, mollified. "Is it? Doesn't seem that many of you people are missing it much."
And just at that moment, there was a blinding flash of light, out of which stepped a short man in a faintly shabby grey two-piece suite.
"I'm afraid, Mr Quince, that you are rather wrong about that," said the man. "People are, in fact, missing it a great deal."
"Ah," said Quince, looking suddenly nervous, "I was afraid this might happen."

< 8 >
"Well," said the man. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"
Quince sighed.
"Yes, I suppose. This is Bob." He turned to the Poor Soul.
"Bob," he said. "This is God."

"What do you mean, ‘revoke my charter'?" Quince exploded, "That's divine bloody law, that is! I mean, just who the hell do you think you are?"
"I'm God," said God, simply.
"A God, yes, of course, no question." Quince was trying desperately to keep his temper, "But don't get carried away with yourself, now!"
"There is only one God," said God. "We just have lots of little bits, that's all."
"Yes, and some of those bits are very little, I see," muttered Quince. "But, look, it's not my fault, OK? I mean, they were the ones who started the new business; I haven't done anything, have I?"
"Exactly," said God. "You haven't done anything. Some rivals move in, the whole of Existence going to rot and ruin, and what exactly have you done? Nothing, that's what!"
"Well," conceded Quince. "To be honest, I thought the whole thing would blow over in a couple of eons,"
"That's hardly the point." God pushed his horn-rimmed glasses back up his face; Quince noted without surprise that one of the arms was broken and held together with sticky tape. "The point is, down in Existence, not a child, not one child has been born since this nonsense started. You know why? I'll tell you why! No souls to fill the bodies! And that's just what's happening to Existence! Imagine the disturbances this is causing on The Other Side, and on Level Two!"
God rolled his eyes and made a little sniffing noise.
"When all's said and done, the whole thing's a ghastly mess. And that's why," concluded God, "I have been sent back here, back to the Beginning. To give you a little prod, as it were. Get the Souls flowing into Existence again, or your charter is officially revoked,"
"But," began Quince.
"No buts," said God sternly, "You're living on borrowed time, sunshine! Just you watch it, right?"
There was an implosion of light, and God was gone.

< 9 >
Quince was rolling his eyes, when God reappeared.
"Nice to meet you, Bob," said God affably, and vanished again.
Quince gave Bob a dirty look.
"Bugger," he said.

"This is so humiliating," muttered Quince, as they topped the rise and began drifting gently down towards the endless line of queuing Souls.
"Are you sure you don't want me to do the first bit?" asked Bob, kindly.
Quince scowled.
"No, no," he said gloomily, "It's my charter we're trying to protect. I should be leading this damn thing, I suppose."
They wondered a little way down-queue from the Establishment. Quince pointedly ignored the jeers and rude signs being made by Soul Dog and his cronies.
"So," said Bob after a while, "Should we start?"
"Yes, yes, I suppose so," snapped Quince.
He took a deep breath.
"What Do We Want?" he shouted.
"Existence!" Bob echoed.
"When Do We Want It?" Quince yelled.
"Technically Forever!" answered Bob.
The Poor Souls filed silently past. A few of them had the grace to look slightly abashed. Most of them just seemed indifferent.
After a while, Quince noticed that Soul Dog was coming over to them. He turned his back on the student Soul.
"What Don't We Want?" he thundered.
"Oblivion!" answered Bob.
"Why Don't We Want It?"
"A Fundamental Opposition To The Extinguishing Of Sentience As Opposed to A Constant Evolution Of Consciousness Towards A State Of Total Awareness!"
"That's very good," said Soul Dog, without apparent sarcasm. "Really catchy. Did you write it yourself?"
"Humph," said Quince, "Why are you so keen to know? Do you want to steal that, too?"
"My dear Quince, we are not enemies, just business rivals," Soul Dog grinned.
"Um, no actually, I think we are enemies," said Quince, with mock-thoughtfulness. "I can tell by the simple expedient of looking deep within myself, and recognising the vast and roiling sea of hate I feel for you. It's a dead giveaway, I'd say."
"My dear Quince…" began Soul Dog again, but Quince cut him off.

< 10 >
"I'm not your dear anything!" he snarled. "And while we're at it, what's with all these words of more than four letters you're using? When I saw you with your friends it seemed that your entire communicative repertoire consisted of asserting certain relationships between yourself and my mother. Not that I've got one, but still…And now that your two idiotic friends are nowhere to be seen, it seems you're suddenly capable of articulate discourse once more."
Quince glared at him malevolently.
"Well, the others, you see," Soul Dog looked embarrassed. "They don't understand…It's important to talk to them in language they are reassured by…"
"You mean you're pretending to be cool so they'll like you," said Quince flatly. "Typical bloody student."
"Well, anyway," said Soul Dog, visibly trying to pull himself together. "I didn't come here to argue. I just came here to let you know, the offer's still there if you need it."
"What?"
"The word from the Other Side is, you're in trouble," Soul Dog allowed himself to exude a smug little glow. "It seems Them Upstairs are unhappy with the way you've been running this show. Thought you might appreciate the offer. Why not take up with us? It's obvious you're pathetic little protest isn't having much effect. As endearing as the placards are, of course."
Quince couldn't quite stop himself from stealing a guilty glance down at the board he was wearing. It read:

OBLIVION – NOTHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT!


Soul Dog grinned.
"Yes, well," he said, "If you change your mind, you know where to find us. As I said before, we could use someone with your experience."
"Over my dead body!" yelled Quince.
"If your charter is revoked," rejoined Soul Dog. "It seems that is a distinct possibility. Farewell for now," he drifted away, before adding over his shoulder, "Or should I say: laters, dude!"
Poor Souls drifted past, but Quince did not have the energy to chant.
"What do we do now?" enquired Bob, at length.
Quince sighed.
"Plan B, I suppose. Tell me Bob," he asked the small Soul, "have you ever thought you might like dressing up?"

< 11 >

"But I don't want life anymore," protested Bob, "I quite like it here, I've decided. Can't I just stick around and sort of help you a bit?"
Quince rolled his eyes with exasperation.
"Look for the hundredth time, it's not a proper life OK?" Quince proffered the small life up for inspection. "It's just a little thing I knocked up, right? It won't take a moment, you'll hardly be gone at all. And it will be helping me, don't you see? This is Plan B! This is how we get the business up and running again!"
Bob looked uncertain, but he inched a little closer to the little life.
"Yes, that's it, that's it! Come on now, it won't hurt,"
Before Bob could change his mind, Quince suddenly thrust the life forward. The two connected, there was a brief flash of light, and Bob vanished…
…but only for a moment, and then he was back…
…only he looked rather different. He was still recognisably Bob – at least, when you knew that Bob was in there somewhere, and you actually looked for him – but he also looked like a rather podgy fellow in a black top hat, with wobbling jowls and a bulldog expression.
"What the devil was that?" Exclaimed Bob, "What the bloody hell am I wearing? And why on earth am I talking like this?"
Quince smiled. His plan seemed to have worked.

"Hey, you! Yes, you sir!" Quince pointed insistently at the random Poor Soul that had made the unfortunate mistake of catching his eye. The Soul was pulled inexorably towards Quince, where he stood behind his shabby makeshift stall.
"Ah, good of you to come to me!" Quince grinned. "Quite the right choice. Now, sir, I have a question for you: what on earth are you doing in that silly queue over there, when we have such unbeatable offers here?"
"Well," began the Soul, but Quince didn't give him time to answer.
"For instance," Quince continued, "did you know that right now, and for a limited time only you can get not one, not two, but three lives for the usual price?"

< 12 >
"Really?" asked the Poor Soul, a glimmer of interest beginning to show through.
"Yes!" exclaimed Quince, "Imagine that – three lives! There are people down there who have frittered away their first life just trying to find a way of getting one more, and you could get two extra for free!"
Another couple of Poor Souls had strayed away from the big queue, curious to see what the commotion was.
Quince swelled his chest and began to feel that things were not hopeless after all. It could work, it could really work…
"Well, I don't know…" one of them began.
"Well, of course you don't know," Quince jumped in quickly; this was what he had been waiting for. "You've never had a life, have you?"
The assembled Poor Souls shook their heads sadly.
"You don't know," he went on, "But I've some people here who would like to talk with you, some very satisfied customers, they'd like to tell you how absolutely wonderful my service is!"
Under the stall, he gave Bob a little kick.
There was a burst of light, and all at once the fat man of the black hat and bulldog face was standing next to Quince.
"Hello, my friends!" exclaimed the man. "I understand you are interested in taking a life? May I be the first to commend that choice!"
"And…who are you?" asked one of the braver Souls.
"A fine question," sang the man, "A great leader! I came when my nation called, and was honoured for it! And if you chose life, maybe you could do the same!"
"And tell me," said a new voice. "Was the whole affair sunlight and joy then?"
Quince looked up sharply.
"Bugger off, Soul Dog!" he said quickly, but it was too late; a cloud had already passed across the bulldog face.
"Oh it's not Soul Dog that bothers this one, Quince," said Soul Dog. "This one's got another dog that haunts his steps; and I'm not black."
"It is true, I must admit," the man stumbled over his words. "I was not always what you might call happy, exactly…"

< 13 >
He took a step backwards, head hung low, and he barely resisted as Quince swung him round and forced him into another of his pre-made little lives.
There was a flash.
The podgy fellow was gone; in his place stood a tall, elegant man with dark skin, a thick fuzz of dark, tightly packed hair, a brightly coloured bandana round his head, and a guitar slung over his shoulders.
"Listen to me, baby," the man crooned in his rich, honeyed voice, "Life is sweet; take of that tree, and eat all you can."
"Ah, yes," said Soul Dog. "And if you eat too much, well, that's what the vomiting reflex is for, isn't it?"
The man's guitar seemed to droop somehow, and all the fire fell from him.
Quince narrowed his eyes still further, and gave the man a shove.
There was another flash of light.
Now a woman stood there, with sultry lips and platinum blonde hair, and a skirt that danced and swirled in a wind that blew from an unseen grate.
"Take a life, boys," she smiled sweetly at them, and blew them a kiss. "Be born today, I'll sing you all your happy birthdays,"
"Ah, but nobody's perfect, right?" Soul Dog sighed. "And all lives have barbs, my dear, do they not? Sometimes, lives end on those barbs."
"Enough!" shouted Quince. There was another flash. Bob looked about, confused.
"What…Um, what was that?"
"My point exactly," said Soul Dog smoothly. "Now come on children, you've had your fun." He began ushering the Poor Souls back towards the queue. "You see then, Quince? If that's the best Existence has to offer, then surely my Oblivion is better?"
Quince began to speak, but at that moment there was another flash of light.
Quince looked suddenly very sick.
"Well, Mr. Quince?" asked God.
"I'm…" stuttered Quince, "That is to say, I'm in the process of…"
"You mean you still haven't done anything, don't you?" asked God, not unkindly.
"Well, let's not be harsh on him," said Soul Dog, looking rather smug. "I mean, he has been trying. It's just that the simple and unavoidable fact is that his days are past. Change must be our watchword; nothing lasts forever, that's what we say."

< 14 >
God peered at Soul Dog over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses.
"We?" he enquired.
"Yes, me and my colleagues," Soul Dog went on, "We run the Establishment which has usurped Quince's little business."
"Ah, yes, I see," said God, warmly. "I must say, we have been following you people with some interest. You see, now that it seems Mr. Quince here has been unable to fulfil the terms of his charter, Us Upstairs have been looking at the alternatives."
"But…" Quince began in a thin, broken voice.
"Not now!" said God, quite firmly, and Quince drooped like a wilting flower. "Anyway, Mr., err, Dog, like I say, we have been looking at the alternatives, and well, it seems that we might be able to come to some sort of arrangement."
"How interesting!" said Soul Dog, smiling shark-like. "And how exactly do you see that working? We specialise in Oblivion, after all."
"Yes, yes, we are aware of that," God stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Well, the thing is, you see, that the Universe has been going on for quite some time now, getting bigger and brighter and expanding and throwing out billions upon billions of Souls…anyway, you know the picture, I won't bore you with the details."
"Of course," prompted Soul Dog. "Do go on."
"Well, as things have worked out, your little Establishment has ended up bringing Us Upstairs round to questioning a few things. And it seems that we may have reached the Point of Reversal."
"The Point of Reversal?" echoed Soul Dog, intrigued.
"Oh yes, the Point of Reversal," went on God. "It has been a theoretical possibility since the Dawn, of course, but no one ever really took it seriously. Until you boys came along, that is. You see, the very fact that you have been so wildly successful in promoting your Other Option could be taken as an indication that the Point of Reversal is due."
"And…what exactly does that entail?" Soul Dog was looking rather eager now, hungry almost.
"Oh, basically what it says on the tin, hahah," God gave a dry little laugh. "When the Universe reaches its point of maximum expansion, there is a moment of absolute stillness, and then the whole thing starts running backwards. Lives stop being lived, children stop being born, the dead begin to, well, un-die, and that means…"

< 15 >
"That means," interrupted Soul Dog, "that means that all the souls who have ever existed, all the lives that have ever been lived, they all need to be…unmade."
"Bingo!" exclaimed God. "Ahahah."
Soul Dog swallowed.
"My God," he said softly."We're going to be enormous!"
"Yes, I am," said God happily. "And yes, you are."
"This is brilliant!" said Soul Dog. "I knew, I always knew my idea was terrific!"
"Oh yes, so it would seem," grinned God. "Quite inspired, I must say,"
"Yes, I've always been very inspired," agreed Soul Dog. "A generally inspired Soul, that's me,"
"So all that remains, if you are amenable," said God, "is for you and your colleagues to come and sign the necessary paperwork, and we can draw up the new charter. Which would make you official, of course."
"Yes, of course, of course," Soul Dog grinned. "But, well, do we really have to leave to sign the blasted forms? I mean, you can see how busy we are!"
He indicated the endless queue of Souls.
"Ah, I see your dilemma, yes." God frowned for a moment, but then his expression cleared. "But wait! The answer seems simple to me – why not just take on an extra pair of hands? After all, it hardly seems fair that someone like you, an ideas man as it were, needs to bother himself getting his hands dirty. Surely there's someone here who could work for you, and relieve you of some of the day to day tedium of your wonderful work?"
Their eyes met, and they turned silently to look at the forlorn Quince.
Soul Dog smiled.
"Well, he doesn't much look the part," observed Soul Dog.
"That can be easily remedied," said God, and clicked his fingers.
There was a puff of smoke. Quince was abruptly wearing a garishly coloured tracksuit. On his head was a horrible little plastic-coated cap, with the logo of The Establishment printed on it in big bold letters. He was wearing a badge that said,

Hello! My name is


Quince


Please can I take your order

< 16 >

"Oh yes, that looks much better!" Soul Dog enthused.
Quince shot him a look that managed to encompass both bottomless bile and utter defeat.
"Come on now, Quince," said Soul Dog firmly. "Time to go to work,"
Quince followed God and Soul Dog as they led him to the Establishment. Roll-up and Jeans were working frantically behind the desk, sending Soul after Soul to the little porcelain toilet bowl floating in the middle of nowhere.
"Easy there boys," said Soul Dog, clapping his hands. "Why work so hard? Look, we've got a new employee!"
Roll-up and Jeans looked at the sad figure of Quince for a moment, and then collapsed into helpless fits of laughter.
"That's right," exclaimed Soul Dog. "We did it! We won! It's easy street for us now. Come on Quince! Get behind the desk and get stuck into your new career!"
Quince sighed. Slowly, he walked over to the desk and sat down with infinite misery on one of the chairs.
"Oh, and when you address me, remember to call me, ‘boss'," Soul Dog added, gleefully.
Quince did not even have the energy to look disgusted.
"The controls are fairly basic, I'm sure you'll pick them up pretty quickly," said Soul Dog. "Go on, try pressing that button there,"
Quince reached out a tentative hand and pressed a little green button on the desk. The toilet flushed. For some reason, Soul Dog and his Colleagues seemed to find this immensely amusing.
"Ah, that's it, I knew you were a quick study, Quince," laughed Soul Dog. "Good work! Now," he went on, turning to God," you mentioned some paperwork that needed signing?"
"Yes, yes!" said God. "My counterparts Upstairs handle all the paperwork. I shall arrange transport for you…ah, directly!"
As he finished speaking there was a small sighing noise. They all looked around, to see an elevator descending slowly from the endless sky. It stopped in front of them, and its doors slid open with a nice little "ping" noise.
"Please, gentlemen," said God, indicating the elevator.
Grinning widely, Roll-up, Jeans and Soul Dog trotted over to the elevator and stepped inside.

< 17 >
God shook each of their hands in turn.
"Wonderful doing business with you gentlemen," said God. "Send my regards to my people Upstairs, won't you?"
"Of course, of course!" said Soul Dog, a little peremptorily, "Now, how do we make this blasted thing work?"
"Oh, I think I can handle that for you, ‘boss'," enunciated Quince.
Soul Dog just had time to glance out of the doors and shoot Quince a glance of mixed confusion and fear.
"N..." he began, but at that moment Quince leaned forward and pressed the little green button.
The doors of the elevator slammed shut.
There was a thin, ersatz flushing sound.
The doors opened.
The elevator was empty.
Quince let out a long sigh and allowed himself a smile.
"He was right, you know," he said, cheerily. "The controls are fairly basic. And not too difficult to re-wire, I see. You can come out now, Bob."
There was a flash of light, and God disappeared.
"Oh my," said Bob, "That was an interesting one!"
"Yes indeed," agreed Quince, who was busy getting rid of the desk and the chairs and the posters and all the other trappings of the Establishment. "It was like I said – having a ‘plan B' is all very well and good, but sometime the thing it's most useful for is making them think you don't have a ‘Plan C'."
"It almost makes me wonder if I wouldn't like to try a whole life," went on Bob.
"Well, that's what I'm here for," said Quince merrily, as he put his old office back together. He checked his desk, and was happy beyond words to find all the lives piled up there as usual, just waiting for Poor Souls to come and live them.
"Although," began Bob uncertainly.
Quince stopped moving things around and looked at him.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Well, the thing is, you see," Bob stammered nervously, "I wondered, um…well I thought, you're going to be awfully busy now, after all that business, and I sort of wondered if maybe…"
"Yes?" Quince asked again.

< 18 >
"If maybe you needed an assistant?" Bob looked at him hopefully.
Quince smiled broadly.
"Bob, my friend," he said. "Welcome on board."

Earn Money In Free Time

Come on, what are you waiting for? Come Join Bux3 so we can earn money instantly, Its really Working and u can try just fill one form!

Use this link to join so you'll be set up as my friend:
http://bux3.com

Or

use http://max-ptc.com


Have a great day.

Abhishek Chaurasiya

The Outcasts of Poker Flat- By Bret Harte

As Mr John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the 23d of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air, which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.
Mr Oakhurst's calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was another question. 'I reckon they're after somebody,' he reflected; 'likely it's me.' He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.
In point of fact, Poker Flat was 'after somebody.' It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in the banishment of certain other objectionable characters. I regret to say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however, to state that their impropriety was professional, and it was only in such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in judgment.
Mr Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible example and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets of the sums he had won from them. 'It's agin justice,' said Jim Wheeler, 'to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp - an entire stranger - carry away our money.' But a crude sentiment of equity residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win from Mr Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice.
Mr Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was too much of a gambler not to accept fate. With him life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the dealer.

< 2 >
A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr Oakhurst, who was known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young woman familiarly known as 'The Duchess'; another who had won the title of 'Mother Shipton'; and 'Uncle Billy,' a suspected sluice-robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only when the gulch which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the leader spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to return at the peril of their lives.
As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out, to the repeated statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out-of Uncle Billy as he rode forward. With the easy good humor characteristic of his class, he insisted upon exchanging his own riding-horse, 'Five-Spot,' for the sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw the party into any closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of 'Five-Spot' with malevolence, and Uncle Billy included the whole party in one sweeping anathema.
The road to Sandy Bar - a camp that, not having as yet experienced the regenerating influences of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer some invitation to the emigrants lay over a steep mountain range. It was distant a day's severe journey. In that advanced season the party soon passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the foothills into the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The trail was narrow and difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon the ground, declared her intention of going no farther, and the party halted.
The spot was singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheatre, surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp, had camping been advisable. But Mr Oakhurst knew that scarcely half the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the party were not equipped or provisioned for delay. This fact he pointed out to his companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of 'throwing up their hand before the game was played out.' But they were furnished with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in place of food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long before they were more or less under its influence. Uncle Billy passed rapidly from a bellicose state into one of stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton snored. Mr Oakhurst alone remained erect, leaning against a rock, calmly surveying them.

< 3 >
Mr Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his own language, he 'couldn't afford it.' As he gazed at his recumbent fellow exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah trade, his habits of life, his very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him. He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes, washing his hands and face, and other acts characteristic of his studiously neat habits, and for a moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him. Yet he could not help feeling the want of that excitement which, singularly enough, was most conducive to that calm equanimity for which he was notorious. He looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand feet sheer above the circling pines around him; at the sky ominously clouded, at the valley below, already deepening into shadow; and, doing so, suddenly he heard his own name called.
A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the newcomer Mr Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as 'The Innocent,' of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over a 'little game,' and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire fortune - amounting to some forty dollars - of that guileless youth. After the game was finished, Mr Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator behind the door and thus addressed him: 'Tommy, you're a good little man, but you can't gamble worth a cent. Don't try it over again.' He then handed him his money back, pushed him gently from the room, and so made a devoted slave of Tom Simson.
There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic greeting of Mr Oakhurst. He had started, he said, to go to Poker Flat to seek his fortune. 'Alone?' No, not exactly alone; in fact - a giggle - he had run away with Piney Woods. Didn't Mr Oakhurst remember Piney? She that used to wait on the table at the Temperance House? They had been engaged a long time, but old Jake Woods had objected, and so they had run away, and were going to Poker Flat to be married, and here they were. And they were tired out, and how lucky it was they had found a place to camp, and company. All this the Innocent delivered rapidly, while Piney - a stout, comely damsel of fifteen - emerged from behind the pine-tree, where she had been blushing unseen, and rode to the side of her lover.

< 4 >
Mr Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less with propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not fortunate. He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough to recognize in Mr Oakhurst's kick a superior power that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, the Innocent met this objection by assuring the party that he was provided with an extra mule loaded with provisions, and by the discovery of a rude attempt at a log house near the trail. 'Piney can stay with Mrs. Oakhurst,' said the Innocent, pointing to the Duchess, 'and I can shift for myself.'
Nothing but Mr Oakhurst's admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to retire up the canyon until he could recover his gravity. There he confided the joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire - for the air had grown strangely chill and the sky overcast - in apparently amicable conversation. Piney was actually talking in an impulsive girlish fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an interest and animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. 'Is this yer a d-d picnic?' said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist into his mouth.
As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked the tops of the pine-trees and moaned through their long and gloomy aisles. The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine boughs, was set apart for the ladies. As the lovers parted, they unaffectedly exchanged a kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been heard above the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent Mother Shipton were probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence of simplicity, and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was replenished, the men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes were asleep.

< 5 >
Mr Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke benumbed and cold. As he stirred the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused the blood to leave it - snow!
He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers, for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had been lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain, and a curse to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been tethered - they were no longer there. The tracks were already rapidly disappearing in the snow.
The momentary excitement brought Mr Oakhurst back to the fire with his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled face; the virgin Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended by celestial guardians; and Mr Oakhurst, drawing his blanket over his shoulders, stroked his mustaches and waited for the dawn. It came slowly in a whirling mist of snowflakes that dazzled and confused the eye. What could be seen of the landscape appeared magically changed. He looked over the valley, and summed up the present and future in two words - 'Snowed in!'
A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the party, had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the felonious fingers of Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and prudence they might last ten days longer. 'That is,' said Mr Oakhurst sotto voce to the Innocent, 'if you're willing to board us. If you ain't and perhaps you'd better not - you can wait till Uncle Billy gets back with provisions.' For some occult reason, Mr Oakhurst could not bring himself to disclose Uncle Billy's rascality, and so offered the hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally stampeded the animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their associate's defection. 'They'll find out the truth about us all when they find out anything,' he added significantly, 'and there's no good frightening them now.'
Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store at the disposal of Mr Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced seclusion. 'We'll have a good camp for a week, and then the snow'll melt, and we'll all go back together.' The cheerful gayety of the young man and Mr Oakhurst's calm infected the others. The Innocent, with the aid of pine boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless cabin, and the Duchess directed Piney in the rearrangement of the interior with a taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of that provincial maiden to their fullest extent. 'I reckon now you're used to fine things at Poker Flat,' said Piney. The Duchess turned awvay sharply to conceal something that reddened her cheeks through their professional tint, and Mother Shipton requested Piney not to 'chatter.' But when Mr Oakhurst returned from a weary search for the trail, he heard the sound of happy laughter echoed from the rocks. He stopped in some alarm, and his thoughts first naturally reverted to the whiskey, which he had prudently cached. 'And yet it don't somehow sound like whiskey,' said the gambler. It was not until he caught sight of the blazing fire through the still blinding storm, and the group around it, that he settled to the conviction that it was 'square fun.'

< 6 >
Whether Mr Oakhurst had cached his cards with the whiskey as something debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say. It was certain that, in Mother Shipton's words, he 'didn't say cards once' during the evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an accordion, produced somewhat ostentatiously.by Tom Simson from his pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Covenanter's swing to its chorus, rather than any devotional quality, caused it speedily to infect the others, who at last joined in the refrain:

I'm proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I'm bound to die in His army.
The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward, as if in token of the vow.
At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the stars glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr Oakhurst, whose professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson somehow managed to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused himself to the Innocent by saying that he had 'often been a week without sleep'. 'Doing what?' asked Tom. 'Poker!' replied Oakhurst sententiously. 'When a man gets a streak of luck, - nigger-luck - he don't get tired. The luck gives in first. Luck,' continued the gambler reflectively, 'is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for certain is that it's bound to change. And it's finding out when it's going to change that makes you. We've had a streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat, you come along, and slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your cards right along you're all right. For,' added the gambler, with cheerful irrelevance,

'I'm proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I'm bound to die in His army.'
The third day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut, - a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvelously clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles away. Mother Shipton saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky fastness hurled in that direction a final malediction. It was her last vituperative attempt, and perhaps for that reason was invested with a certain degree of sublimity. It did her good, she privately informed the Duchess. 'Just you go out there and cuss, and see.' She then set herself to the task of amusing 'the child,' as she and the Duchess were pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but it was a soothing and original theory of the pair thus to account for the fact that she didn't swear and wasn't improper.

< 7 >
When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the flickering campfire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by Piney - storytelling. Neither Mr Oakhurst nor his female companions caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have failed too, but for the Innocent. Some months before he had chanced upon a stray copy of Mr Pope's ingenious translation of the Iliad. He now proposed to narrate the principal incidents of that poem - having thoroughly mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the words - in the current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of that night the Homeric demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily Greek wrestled in the winds, and the great pines in the canyon seemed to bow to the wrath of the son of Peleus. Mr Oakhurst listened with quiet satisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the fate of 'Ash-heels,' as the Innocent persisted in denominating the 'swift-footed Achilles.'
So, with small food and much of Homer and the accordion, a week passed over the heads of the outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and again from leaden skies the snowflakes were sifted over the land. Day by day closer around them drew the snowy circle, until at last they looked from their prison over drifted walls of dazzling white, that towered twenty feet above their heads. It became more and more difficult to replenish their fires, even from the fallen trees beside them, now half hidden in the drifts. And yet no one complained. The lovers turned from the dreary prospect and looked into each other's eyes, and were happy. Mr Oakhurst settled himself coolly to the losing game before him. The Duchess, more cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of Piney. Only Mother Shipton - once the strongest of the party - seemed to sicken and fade. At midnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst to her side. 'I'm going,' she said, in a voice of querulous weakness, 'but don't say anything about it. Don't waken the kids. Take the bundle from under my head, and open it.' Mr Oakhurst did so. It contained Mother Shipton's rations for the last week, untouched. 'Give'em to the child,' she said, pointing to the sleeping Piney. 'You've starved yourself,' said the gambler. 'That's what they call it,' said the woman querulously, as she lay down again, and, turning her face to the wall, passed quietly away.

< 8 >
The accordion and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer was forgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to the snow, Mr Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and showed him a pair of snowshoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack-saddle. 'There's one chance in a hundred to save her yet,' he said, pointing to Piney; 'but it's there,' he added, pointing toward Poker Flat. 'If you can reach there in two days she's safe'. 'And you?' asked Tom Simson. 'I'll stay here,' was the curt reply.
The lovers parted with a long embrace. 'You are not going, too?' said the Duchess, as she saw Mr Oakhurst apparently waiting to accompany him. 'As far as the canyon,' he replied. He turned suddenly and kissed the Duchess, leaving her pallid face aflame, and her trembling limbs rigid with amazement.
Night came, but not Mr Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and the whirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some one had quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a few days longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from Piney.
The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each other's faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke, but Piney, accepting the position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm around the Duchess's waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of the day. That tonight the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the protecting vines, invaded the very hut.
Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, which gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours: 'Piney, can you pray?' 'No, dear,' said Piney simply. The Duchess, without knowing exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon Piney's shoulder, spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and purer pillowing the head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they fell asleep.
The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of snow, shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white winged birds, and settled about them as they slept. The moon through the rifted clouds looked down upon what had been the camp. But all human stain, all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle mercifully flung from above.

< 9 >
They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them which was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in each other's arms.
But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine-trees, they found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife. It bore the following, written in pencil in a firm hand:

BENEATH THIS TREE
LIES THE BODY
OF
JOHN OAKHURST,
WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK
ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER, 1850,
AND
HANDED IN HIS CHECKS
ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.
And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.

Don't let me down!

Come on, what are you waiting for? Come Join YouMint so we can send free sms to anyone in India!

Use this link to join so you'll be set up as my friend:
http://www.youmint.com/network-chaurasiyaa

This site is great, it's free, we will also get paid for incoming sms and emails. 15 Lakh indians have joined and I was invited too! YouMint is an award winning service where members have already generated Rs 35 Lakhs in earnings! It could pay our mobile bills:-)

Let me know once you've set up your profile, can't wait to check it out.

Have a great day.

Abhishek Chaurasiya

Earn Your Money In The Form of Mail