A Larger Universe (10 page)

"How is that possible?"

"That's a mystery I can't answer.  All we know is that
the computers on this ship are centuries old.  The lords were amazed at what
they found when we last arrived at Earth.  The progress you had made in just
five years astounded them.  One of them, Lord Ull, decided your technology
would be useful."

"What about the landers that took me?  Don't they have
computers?  How could they evade radar and cloak themselves without
computers?"

"The lords traded for that technology in my
grandfather's time," Feron said.  "We fix what's broken by replacing
with spare parts until it works again.  When the spare parts are gone, the
landers will be useless."

"Couldn't the lords trade for more?"

"They say not,” Feron replied.  “And before you ask,
it's dangerous to question the lords.  Better to do as they tell you and live
as if today is all you have.

"When I went on the trading mission to get the
computers we saw on your television, Lord Ull told me I must also find the
means to repair them.  The books are a part of that; you're the other,"
Feron said.

Tommy laughed.  "Well, if I hear you right, we're not
in trouble after all."

"What do you mean?" Feron asked.

"As my Dad says, everything is relative.  From what
you've told me, most of the computers in this room are more advanced than any
computer on this ship.  That sounds weird to me, but it means that most of this
is not junk.  I'm not sure how we'll connect any of this to your systems, but
it's not hopeless.  Besides, you tell me I don't have a choice except to make
these computers work.  Not much of a choice.  Do you think I want to go back to
work in the stables?  You have computers here!

"I want to know one thing, though.  Do you ever have
problems with mice down here?  The biological kind?"

#   #   #

Tommy and Potter weren't able to move until the following
day, and that was hardly soon enough.  Wherever he went in the farmers' part of
the ship, people stared at him.  Farmer boys followed him at a distance and
turned away whenever he glanced at them.  And he found the girls' actions to be
incomprehensible.  One of several girls always blocked the door as he passed,
forcing him to brush past her.  In the beginning, the girl would just make arm
contact, always followed by a disconcerting giggle or a blank expression.  As
the day progressed and that got no response, the girl would force her hip or
chest into him as he walked through the door. 

He realized, finally, that the girls were showing an
interest in him, but he didn't have the slightest idea how to react.  Maybe it
would have been different if he felt any attraction, but they just didn't seem
female to him.  They certainly didn't look anything like the girls in his
Atlanta school.  These girls were almost indistinguishable from the boys his
age on the ship and to their parents for that matter.  They had the same narrow
shoulders and tube shaped bodies.  Even the adult women had almost no breasts,
and the fifteen-year-old girls were as flat-chested as the boys.  Physically,
he and they could be different species.  Why the girls considered him
attractive was a mystery, even after he got an answer from Mark at his last
evening meal in the farmers' meal room that explained the boys' behavior.

Since the first rest day he and Mark had spent together,
whenever they were in the meal room at the same time, they sat at the same
table.  Whoever got to the meal room first would save an extra chair for the
other.  On this night, Tommy was seated and eating when Mark entered the room. 
Tommy waved at him to come over, but Mark hesitated before sitting down beside
him, and he was silent for a long while. 

"What's the matter?" Tommy finally asked.

"Nothing.  Nothing's the matter."

"You're acting as if I have horns growing out of my
forehead."

Mark glanced over his shoulder at Tommy's forehead as if
that might be a possibility, then hurriedly looked down at his food.

"Something is wrong," Tommy insisted.  "I
thought we were friends.  Why won't you tell me?"

Mark turned toward Tommy.  "I saw the stable.  The
whole corner of it collapsed.  They say Jules was trapped under all of
that."

"Well, maybe not trapped under all of that, but he was
trapped.  So?"

"They say you lifted the corner of the stable to get
him out.  They say you held it over your head as if it were nothing, and, after
Jules was safe, you caught the bird that caused the accident."

Tommy laughed.  "That's the funniest thing I ever
heard.  I helped lift one beam, and someone else caught the bird.  Who told you
that?"

"The other boys.  They're afraid of you now, even the
older boys."

"Afraid of me?  After I saved one of them?"

"It's how you saved him.  Only a warrior could do what
you did."

Tommy stared at him.  "I didn't do all that.  I'm not a
warrior.  I may be stronger than you are, and maybe warriors are, too, but that
doesn't make me one."

Mark shrugged and stared at his plate.  He said just loud
enough for Tommy to hear, "But you might be."

"None of this is true.  Even if were, what difference
does it make?" Tommy asked.

"I know you're different.  You look funny, and you talk
funny.  That didn't matter much, but no farmer has ever been friends with a
warrior," Mark whispered, his head still tilted toward his plate,
"and I wouldn't know how to be."

Later, Tommy didn't have a clear memory of the next few
minutes or of leaving the meal room.  He had been staring at Mark, wondering
what to say next, when the edges of his vision became fuzzy, then sparkling
with shifting nets of light that circled towards Mark's face, until only his
face was visible.  The light in the room became almost too bright to bear,
piercing his brain through the blurry tunnel that had materialized in front of
his eyes.  Tommy stood, knocking his chair to the floor, and covered his face
with his hands.  He peered between his fingers and walked for the door,
stumbling against chairs and people carrying plates of food.  The sounds he
heard were muffled as if someone had plugged his ears. 
What’s happening? 
What’s happening to me?

The lights in the passageway outside were broken.  Just
standing with his back to the wall in the near darkness was an incredible
relief.  His head felt as if it would float away.  The skin on his face felt
tight, his hands were tingling. 
I must be sick
, he thought. 
I have
to go to my barracks and lie down.  To the barracks.  But how to get there?
 
His head was thick with fog, and the passageway was distorted by the tunnel in
his vision.  Nothing seemed familiar.

That tunnel disappeared as quickly as it had come, but in
its place came a slamming pain between the eyes that left him gasping.  He bent
over and pressed his hands against his forehead.  When that didn't help, he
stood up and lurched down the passageway, through the crowd that had followed
him from the meal room, in the direction he was now sure led to his barracks. 
He could think now, but he had to do it through the agony in his head.

When he found Potter curled up on his bunk, he grunted,
almost in relief.  Someone had brought Potter down from the stable.  He
couldn't have borne a trip to the Commons.  Tommy lifted Potter and thrust him
into his carrier.  The cat moaned.

"Damn it, Potter.  I know you hate being cooped up. 
This will only be for a few minutes.  You ought to be used to it by now.  Stop
it, please.  Please stop it."

Tommy picked up the cat carrier and the bag containing the
two changes of clothes he had been given.  The tunnel in his vision had gone
away, but the light still beat into his eyes. 

The trip downstairs didn't make Potter happy.  Tommy
repeatedly banged the cage against the walls, causing the cat's moans to turn
into howls.

Tommy had been given a bunk in a room designed for four, but
which held no other occupants.  Tommy blessed Valin for the favor, closed the
door, and let Potter out of his carrier.  He took a moment to set up the litter
box he had brought in earlier and put out food and water for the cat, then
turned off the light and curled up in his bunk.  At some point he must have
gone to sleep, at least temporarily smothering the pain.

All the farmers woke to the same call each morning.  Tommy
usually had no trouble getting out of bed, but this morning sitting up sent a
throb of pain through the back of his head.  As long as he was still, the pain
wasn't too bad, but a silent gong vibrated in his skull when he moved. 

Potter sat up at the foot of the bunk and cleaned himself,
one leg held high above his head.

"It would help, Potter, if you showed a little
concern.  I might have a brain tumor.  Who would take care of you if something
happened to me?"

Potter's response was an almost inaudible "Meow,"
as he jumped off the bunk and trotted to his food bowl.

Tommy shifted his legs over the edge of the bunk and put his
head between his legs.  "I hope I can find out what's wrong with me.  The
farmers said the doctors on this ship aren't much."  Thinking about the
farmers and their new reaction to him made his head throb again. 

His first words to Valin when he entered the workroom were,
"Did Feron get medical books?"

Valin got a stricken expression on his face. "You're
sick.  How sick are you?"

"I don't know.  That's why I want some medical
books--to find my symptoms.  Mom always looked up our symptoms in a book we had
at home before any of us went to the doctor."

Valin called, "Come with me," over his shoulder as
he quickly went out the door and down the passageway.

Another large room held wall-to-wall shelves filled with
books.  Valin led Tommy to a huge section containing nothing but medical
books.  "Another team will start on these soon.  They're hoping you will
also be able to help them, not just to translate them, but to understand
them."

Tommy said, "Sure, sure," and began scanning the
shelves for a general-purpose book of symptoms.  When he found one, he sat down
on the floor.

"Severe headache.  Distorted vision.  Disoriented. 
Sensitivity to light."  He read for a while.  "Well, I'm not going to
die.  I have a migraine headache.  Usually brought on by stress, it says. 
Well, that's curious.  I'm not under any stress, am I?"  His laugh cut off
when his head shook, and he endured another throb of pain.  "My aunt has
migraine headaches, but I never have before."  He squinted at Valin. 
"Never been trapped on a starship either.  Did you get drugs along with
the medical books?  The book lists some that are prescribed for migraine."

Valin led Tommy, book in hand, to another warehouse-sized
compartment, filled with pallets stacked onto deep shelves.  "The drugs we
got from pharmaceutical suppliers are on the far end of the box room." 

As they walked that way, every few steps brought another odor. 
Some he knew should be pleasant but were too strong; some were sharp and
penetrating--one of powerful onions, another of equally strong cloves--making
his eyes water; some disgusting, reminding him of the boys' bathroom at summer
camp.  With each change, his head pulsed and his stomach churned in time with
the pounding in his head.

The smells were muted among the pallets of pharmaceuticals. 
Each pallet had a sheet pasted on the side listing its contents.  After a
half-hour search, he found a pallet containing Sumatriptan unit dose sprays,
packed in boxes of three inside cases of twenty-four.  He tore plastic wrap off
of one corner of the pallet and pulled out a box.  "I'm not going to get
in trouble for this, am I?  Not that I care at the moment."

"The lords allow us to get medicine for our own use. 
No one will complain, as long as you explain to our doctors why you chose what
you did."

Tommy read the attached instructions.  "If this works,
no problem.  The book said the medicine should be taken when the headache
begins, and the visual distortions first appear, but it's supposed to help as
long as the headache lasts."

He tilted his head back and squirted the medicine into his
right nostril.  The spray burned as it worked its way down his throat. 

"Ahhh," Tommy leaned against the shelving and took
a few deep breaths.  The inside of his nose seemed to be expanding into his
skull.

"Did that help?"

Tommy shook his head and winced.  "Not yet.  But it did
take my mind off the pain for a second.  Let me sit here for a while and give
it a chance." 

As the drug took effect, the headache receded and left an
air-filled balloon of the same size inside his head.  He noticed the odors
again.  Now, they weren't so disturbing.  What else was stored in this place?

He stood up and looked across the warehouse.  "Do you
mind if we walk for a bit.  I'm not ready to go to work yet."

"No, but we mustn't be too long.  You may be sick, but
I don't have an excuse."

"Before we go, let me take a few of these in case I
have a relapse."  Tommy pulled out a second box of the nasal sprays.

"How did you get all of these prescription medicines? 
Did an American company sell you these?"

"I was told a company from your Southern continent sold
all of what you call prescription medicines to our agent.  He was unable to
obtain them directly from the producer."

Tommy put the two boxes under his arm and began circling the
warehouse with Valin following.

Valin’s tone was stern. "I caution you, you may look,
but don't disturb anything.  The items we have been searching through are for
our own use, though the lords may trade for them if they wish.  The remainder
of the warehouse contains trade goods."

"I won't touch anything.  I'm just waiting for the
medicine to work.  What's stored in here?  I didn't pay attention to the symbol
on the door."