Kibi turned and watched the small girl, who had just become a Lyceum member, run toward the heliport lobby, where she was quickly ushered through the departure doors. “At least she knows where she’s going.”
Boro stepped beside Kibi. “Maybe . . . we’re going about this wrong.
Maybe we just need to relax, find something to do, and let the mission . . . you know . . . come to us.”
Sata joined them. “I bet they’d let us take some classes. It would help our language skills, and keep us from being so bored.”
Rini and Mati both nodded.
“See what Ilika thinks,” Sata continued, glancing at Kibi, “and I’ll talk to Sister Rebecca.”
They all fell silent and looked at each other.
“Cafeteria?” Mati suggested.
Liberty, Shawn, and Ilika spent the next few days getting used to their new schedules that included meals with the other members, chores, meetings, work assignments, and classes.
Liberty, at fifteen, had less work but more classes. She glanced at her schedule and smiled, fully intending to finish the mandatory low-level classes quickly and move into more interesting college-level subjects. The coordinator of the animal barn was happy to receive Liberty’s offer to help with the horses. Finally, with an hour of free time before her first math class,
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she strode toward the Lost Forest Heliport with a gleam in her eyes.
Shawn didn’t mind the low-level refresher courses he had to take, and smiled to himself when he saw the general science class he had requested, but his eyes opened wide when he saw his work shift, that very afternoon, as a chemistry lab technician trainee. He suddenly felt hot and sweaty, remembering how his father had steered him — no, manipulated him — away from the sciences all his life.
Ilika smiled at the two classes he had to take, both designed to improve his language skills. He had work shifts in several places on the Lyceum campus, but plenty of free time to look for the real reason he was there.
That evening, as Ilika was sweeping the cafeteria floor after dinner, Liberty appeared with another broom and began helping. Ilika knew she wasn’t on the schedule.
“I signed up for pilot training today!” she said excitedly. “Want to help me celebrate tonight?”
He stopped sweeping and gave her a long look. “That’s wonderful, Liberty.
But I have the strong hunch you’d like to . . . celebrate with someone you can
. . . share affection with.”
Liberty nodded with a hopeful look in her eyes.
“The problem is . . . I’m only going to be a resident member for a little while, then I’ll be back on my . . . boat . . . and you know the saying about captains who have a girl at every harbor . . .”
Liberty frowned. “Oh. Yeah . . . I just left that kind of life behind and . . .
don’t really want to go back to it.”
Ilika nodded with understanding. “It seems to me . . . you’re ready for a boy who . . . will really appreciate you . . . and stick with you.”
Liberty swept an already-clean spot for a moment, then stopped. “Yeah.”
When the Reverend Tommy Mitchell announced his intention to run for president in the upcoming national elections, many Lyceum members knew enough about him to feel somewhat less than excited. But many other members didn’t realize the implications, so Shawn received nearly constant congratulations as he went from work assignments, to classes, to free-time
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activities. In the chemistry lab, the kitchen, and the swimming pool, smiles, waves, and thumbs up came to him from members young and old.
Shawn tried to remain modest. He thanked them for their well-wishes, assured them it would have no effect on his Lyceum membership, and went on with his life.
But by the middle of the week, he was getting sick of it. At dinner, after brushing off three supportive remarks from others at his table, Shawn suddenly dropped his fork onto his plate and stood up. The entire room sensed his serious mood and fell silent.
“If any of you think my father would make a good president, you are welcome to vote for him. Personally, I think it would be the worst thing that could ever happen to this country, and I’d rather not hear about it ever again.”
Shawn sat down and stared at his plate, but had lost his appetite.
Many other members did the same.
The two hooded figures kissed long and deeply in their special grove of trees. A squirrel in the branches above worked on shelling a nut.
“I’ve been using every free minute to read things about Shawn’s father,”
Ilika began when they parted. “If he became president, he could, and probably would, do a number of things to move the country away from democracy and toward theocracy. This might be why we’re here.”
“Do you think Arantiloria . . . or someone . . . will tell us if we’re on the right track?”
Ilika chuckled under his breath.
“I know,” Kibi answered her own question with deep resignation. “We’ll learn more by figuring it out for ourselves.”
A few days later, after the last flight back to Lyceum, Ashley helped Jenny off the helicopter and into a wheelchair.
“That was the most fun thing I’ve ever done!” Jenny squealed. “Thank you so much for bringing me here, Ashley! Do I really get to see you every day?”
The other three passengers had already departed, and the pilot and flight attendant were taking care of the helicopter. The two girls moved along the quiet glass-walled corridor, Ashley pushing, Jenny’s eyes nearly bulging at the
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lighted gardens beyond the glass.
“Sure!” Ashley replied, “unless you’re too busy recording your music. I’ve heard they have all kinds of instruments hooked directly to a computer, so you won’t have to use your breath, and you can hear all the voices of your symphony together.”
“Wow! The only life dream I’ve ever had was to play my music. When you’re ten and dying of cancer, you don’t get too many life dreams, you know.”
Ashley chuckled slightly as she struggled to hold in tears.
“But even that dream always seemed just out of reach because I’d be disturbing the other residents, or I’d get out of breath, or it would be time for meds, or something. Now . . . it almost feels like it might come true.”
Ashley didn’t say anything as they walked through Lyceum’s main lobby, nearly empty at that hour, but she knew she was going to do everything in her power to help Jenny with her dream.