“Session Seventy-One, first of November 3671. Hi, George. Didn’t we just spend the entire weekend together, trying to keep smiles on some very glum faces?”
General Ba-kerga chuckled. “I think you and Lisa did most of the work in that department. We were actually reaching for the phone to call you, Susan, two or three times.”
The psychologist smiled, and several others laughed.
“So,” Priscilla began once everyone was quiet, “what do we have today?”
Colonel Bo-torin raised his hand. “I found a tape recorder this time, some more religious craziness . . .”
Before he could begin his presentation, the telephone rang, so Susan slipped into her bedroom to answer. Not many seconds later, she called out to the group, “It’s Malcolm! He says to turn on the T.V.”
Colonel Ma-soran, beside it, punched the on button.
“. . . just confirmed by the last station of the Deep-Space Telemetry Network. There’s no doubt about it, Ladies and Gentlemen, and there’s no cover-up this time. Scientists are scratching their heads all over the world, and conspiracy theorists are coming out of the woodwork. But the telemetry can no longer be denied. The space probe is definitely decelerating, in a manner that would bring its speed from more than six thousand miles per second, to zero, about when it reaches home . . .”
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 392
A lanky adolescent girl burst through the rooftop door of the old tenement building, thick newspaper under her arm, and ran to one side of the roof.
Without pause, she leapt over the edge and landed on her feet on the next roof, just a few feet away and slightly lower, her bent knees absorbing the shock easily.
Only seconds passed as she crossed that roof and climbed a rickety steel ladder up to the catwalk behind a billboard. After dodging all the places where boards were missing, she grabbed a pole with one arm and slid down into a jumble of old crates, barrels, and trash.
“Password?” came a young male voice.
“Benny,
you
know I can never remember your stupid passwords!”
“It’s Corky,” a deeper male voice declared. “No one could imitate her voice.”
An old tent flap, barely visible among the trash and junk, was suddenly pulled open. Benny, about ten, looked out. “Did you get it?”
“Of
course I got it!” Corky replied, crawling in. “Do I ever go shopping without getting what I went for?”
“Just wondering, ‘cause you said you didn’t have any money . . .”
“I
usually don’t have any money. When did that stop me?”
The older boy, sixteen or seventeen, hunching over something in another part of the large tent, laughed. “What’d you have to promise him?” he asked without looking up.
Corky spread out the newspaper in the middle of the tent floor. “I just gave him a kiss, which is probably more than he got from his wife today, or yesterday. What he thinks he’s getting later is not my problem. Here it is.
Space Probe Coming Home For A Soft Landing. Any luck with the radio, Alex?”
“I think so,” the older boy replied, still concentrating on his work. “I cleaned the battery contacts, and the batteries Benny borrowed from his mom’s flashlight look like they have plenty of juice. There.”
The battered old radio, showing multiple signs of its recent origin — the dumpster behind the tenement building — burst to life with cracking static noise. Alex adjusted the volume, then the tuning. Several music stations came and went. Finally he stopped at a news station.
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 393
. . . are reporting that police are completely overwhelmed by the sudden rioting and looting in several cities, including the capital, and military units are rushing to help keep the peace. Much of the unrest seems to be coming directly from the pulpits at fundamentalist churches, who are particularly angered by the obvious implications of the most recent news about the space probe . . .
Alex switched the radio off. “We’ll listen again when everyone’s here. I think I hear Stephy now.”
A crashing sound outside the tent revealed that something large and heavy had just descended from the catwalk above.
“That you, Stephy?” Benny challenged, opening the tent flap.
“Why can’t I ever land gracefully, like Corky does?” the voice of an over-weight girl asked as she appeared among the junk and trash. She handed a pastry box to Benny, then crawled into the tent.
“That pole is hard when carrying something,” Corky said, trying to show sympathy.
No one said anything as they all selected a doughnut from the box that had obviously once contained three more than it did upon arrival.
“Got a report for us?” Alex asked between bites.
“Holy shit, you wouldn’t believe what uptown’s like!”
“Sure we would,” Corky said while chewing, “if it’s anything like midtown.”
“Caught off guard!” a girl even younger than Benny declared as she opened the tent flap, grinning. “News from the waterfront, and cold pizza from my dad’s office yesterday.”
“You are so cool, Mouse!” Benny said, receiving the pizza box.
Alex cleared his throat. “Stephy was just about to tell us about uptown.”
The large girl started to reach for another doughnut, but stopped herself.
“Um . . . it’s crazy. Preachers are out on the streets, cops are trying to shut them up, and people are running around like chickens. Streets are clogged up with cars, some trying to get to the airport, some out to the highway. There’s not much looting in uptown yet, but that’s not true a few blocks north of there! I had to run. You know how much I hate running . . .”
Her four friends laughed for a moment, then all five looked at each other in silence.
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 394
“Mouse?” the leader eventually prompted.
“Oh boy,” she began thoughtfully, “first they said school would be open, then they changed their minds when the cops told everybody to stay indoors.
The dock workers all took it as a holiday, so my dad got the day off. Maybe all week, who knows? Some stores got looted, but the diners are open, with big guys at the doors almost like a nightclub. Not much traffic, but the streets down there don’t go anywhere. Some preacher tried to stir up people on a street corner, but someone shot him. The cops picked up the body.”
The group heard similar stories from Corky, Benny, and Alex about both poorer and richer parts of town. Then the radio confirmed that the same thing was happening in other cities.
After nibbling cold pizza for a few minutes and discussing what they had learned, Alex pointed to the newspaper. “Corky got a paper, so I’d like . . .
Stephy . . . to read . . .”
“Awww. I hate reading.”
“I know, that’s why it’s so hard for you. But remember, the one who’s reading gets to sit close beside me so I can help you with words, and I’ll put my arm around you, and after we read the news, we’ll read a chapter in The Book . . .”
Both adolescent Corky and little Mouse immediately volunteered with big smiles and hands waving in the air.
Stephy quickly reconsidered, snuggled close beside their handsome leader, and closed her eyes for a moment of wishful thinking when he put his arm around her.