Hope of Earth (75 page)

The van slowed, and stopped. It was time for Tourette to leave. Bry made as if to get out with her, but she shook her head. “They would not understand.”

“Maybe—next week?”

“I hope so.” Then she turned and walked into the forest. He watched her go, feeling strange emotions.

“So how do
her
jeans look?” Faience inquired.

“Just great,” Bry answered.

“Their whole compound is wired and guarded like the Maginot Line,” Faience remarked. “But she knows a safe route through. That’s how she gets out without passing the guard station. But she has to go alone.”

“You really like her?” Lin asked Bry.

“I guess I do. There’s something about her.”

“She’s got a pretty potent figure under that clothing,” Jack remarked. “If she ever dressed to show it off, she’d be something.”

“Oh, you were noticing?” Lin asked him.

“Don’t be jealous, wench. You’ve got something she doesn’t.”

“A sixth finger,” she agreed, and they laughed.

“Maybe that’s it,” Bry said. “Maybe I’ve been looking for someone with a sixth finger, or something.”

“Or something,” Lin agreed, nodding. “She’s got plenty.”

“I told you she was a nice girl,” Faience said triumphantly. “You two really hit it off, once she knew you were for real.”

Lin agreed. “I think she’s the one for you, Bry.”

He realized that she might be right. What a day it had been!

That evening there was a community gathering, where the family was introduced. There were too many people to assimilate all at once, but all were friendly. Several complimented Flo on her cooking; she had, in her fashion, dug in and made something good happen. It was a nice way to get acquainted. But Bry was distracted by his memories of the day, and thoughts of Tourette. Yes, she had an awkward syndrome, but it was indeed part of her appeal for him. He knew how precious the roses could be that others did not appreciate. And Jack was right: she was a comely girl. Her face and figure were nice, and so was her nature. Faience was right too: she was as bright a girl as he could remember encountering. He liked that. In fact he liked all of her.

Sunday morning they all dressed up and went to Meeting. It wasn’t required, but they wanted to understand this community, because it wasn’t just a question of finding employment. They were not being paid for their work in money, just in kind: their residence was free. If they decided to join, and the community of Dreams wanted them, they would continue to work without pay. Membership was the only reward. They needed to know whether they could fit into this religious community, and whether they wanted to.

Quaker Meeting was not exactly like a regular church service. There was no minister, and there were no songs or readings. The people filed in quietly and took the pews and seats. They sat in silence.

After a while, one of the men of the community stood. “We live in perilous times,” he said. “The world is becoming more difficult. It is good to find refuge in the field and forest. I pray to the divine spirit that is within all of us that our effort will be successful. We hope to achieve an island of peace that will endure though troubles come elsewhere. I see it being realized, but I don’t know whether it is enough. May amity and fellowship prevail throughout.” He sat down again.

Later another person stood, and spoke of the beauty of the day and the countryside, and the joy of the experience of harmony with nature. Another person did not stand, but leaned forward and spoke a prayer for peace in all the world.

Bry wasn’t sure what to make of it. This was a religious service? It seemed like a meditation session, with occasional comments thrown in. Yet he rather liked the atmosphere. There was a certain quiet good humor throughout. These people were quite serious, without taking themselves too seriously.

In due course the meeting ended, and people chatted with each other. Jes discovered an old friend of hers named Crockson. “I must repay that loan!” she exclaimed.

“What loan?” the man asked blankly.

“Don’t pretend you don’t remember! It enabled me to travel on until I found my husband.”

Bry moved on, not much interested, because he didn’t know Crockson. Faience came up. “What did you think of it?” she asked Bry.

“It’s different, but nice,” he said.

“Like Tourette?”

He laughed. “Maybe so.”

They adjourned to a nice lunch of fresh vegetables that tasted better than anything Bry had eaten recently. “We do our own gardening,” Faience explained. “We can use another gardener, if you’re interested.”

Offhand, Bry could not think of anything he would be much less interested in. But his recent experiences with the hydraulic ram, basket weaving, and Tourette had shaken his certainties. Maybe there would be more surprises. “Okay.”

In the evening there was a song session. The harmonies were not perfect, but were enthusiastic, and Bry found himself joining in as he learned the songs. One especially struck him: ‘The Garden Song.” “Inch by inch, and row by row, Going to make this garden grow.” There was a wholesome optimism that was contagious. “Pulling weeds, picking stones, We are made of dreams and bones.” The image caught hold of him. Dreams and bones—that was indeed what this community was all about. It was personal for Bry, because this community was called Dreams, while the nickname for the other community, where Tourette lived, was Bones. Bry and Tourette, dreams and bones. He had nice dreams, she had nice bones. But it was more than that. Much more.

The next day, Monday, Bry started the day with Ned and Bill, who were trying to design a refinement for the Solar Stirling engine. Bry realized that if he wanted to be of any real use with the computer, he would have to learn to understand the principle of the Stirling engine. But its mechanism was weird; it had a piston, but it wasn’t like a gasoline motor. For one thing, he had heard it was a free piston, connected directly to nothing. How could that accomplish anything?

“Maybe I can help,” Faience said. “I have a general notion, because Dad has explained it to me about half a zillion times. I can tell you what I know while we work on the garden.”

He had forgotten: he had agreed to go to the garden with her. “Okay.”

It turned out that they had a number of gardens, ranging from old-fashioned outdoor dirt to hydroponic. They had to pull some encroaching weeds from a tomato patch without damaging the garden plants. This was reasonably tedious work, which was ideal. While they worked, Faience explained the Solar Stirling engine as she understood it.

“First, you have to understand that it’s an external combustion engine,” she said. “It can run on anything, but we’re using the sun as much as we can. We have huge reflectors set up to focus the sunlight on the engine, making it very hot.”

“I didn’t see those.”

“They’re portable, and made of shiny cloth or foil stretched on frameworks; no point in setting them up until we get the kinks out of the engine. We can also use a series of Fresnel lenses—named for a French physicist—which consist of very thin optic lenses of short focal length layered in concentric rings. We can get square Fresnel lens panels commercially, and they can generate a lot of heat—up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. They’re less sturdy, but resistant to minor pocks or scratching, and much more efficient, and that’s important here where we can’t be sure of intense sunlight.”

She obviously had more than a “general” notion. She was comfortable with terms he had never heard of. “Okay,
I
understand how a lot of heat can translate into power. A gasoline engine does that. But there the explosions push the pistons, and the pistons push the wheels, ultimately, making the car move. Your Stirling engine has just a loose piston that stays inside. I don’t know what makes it move, and how it can do any work when it does move.”

“Those are easy questions to answer,” she said. “The heat focuses on a chamber and heats the air inside. Actually it’s not air, it’s helium, what we call the working fluid, but you can think of it as air if you want to.”

“Isn’t helium a gas, rather than a fluid?”

She smiled. “Sure it is. But under high pressure at high heat, it acts just about like a fluid, so that’s the technical term. It heats and expands, and pushes the piston out. Then the heat is cut off, and it cools and contracts, and the piston comes back in. So that’s what makes it move. Of course the actual cycle is way more sophisticated, with a regenerator, a piston, which is actually connected to the alternator, not exactly ‘free’ in the way you thought—it’s what we call a ‘kinematic mechanism’—and a displacer, and the pistón and the displacer take turns moving as the helium changes volume and moves about. The displacer is to make sure it doesn’t lock up at the extremes, I think. I could draw you a diagram in the dirt—”

“No, I get the message: it gets hot and pushes the piston out, then it gets cool and pulls the piston back in. But since the piston isn’t connected to anything solid—”

“How does it do any work,” she finished for him. “You’ll kick yourself for this one. You know how they generate electricity from big dams or whatever?”

“They pass iron wiring through magnetic fields. The motion generates electric current that—” He paused, seeing it. “Electricity! The piston generates current. It doesn’t need to go outside the engine; all it needs to do is move.”

“Right. So it moves a tenth of an inch, sixty cycles a second. The helium varies only a few degrees in temperature, at about 670 degrees Celsius, but it does the job. And we have power. Or will, once it is properly set up.”

“What’s the matter with it? Don’t they deliver these things ready to operate?”

“They do, but it seems that the tolerances are extremely close, and it has to be adjusted just right. That’s what Dad’s been working on. He’s checking the computer to get the settings exactly right for the job we have, and, well, he says the devil is in the details.”

“That’s what Ned says, too. They’ll work it out.”

“They’d better. We’re on commercial power now, but when the crash comes, we’ll have to be on our own power.”

“The crash?”

“You know, when society collapses and civilization ends. That’s why were out here. So we won’t be taken down with it, and humanity won’t expire.”

Bry was amazed. “Do you really think that’s going to happen?”

“Oh, sure. We just don’t know when. Isn’t that why you folk are out here? To save your skins?”

“No, just to find decent work and living conditions. We don’t much like it in the big city. But I guess you’re right: We know that things can’t go on as they are. Something’s going to give, and maybe pretty soon.”

“Yes. So it’s best to be well away from the bomb before it explodes. And not to be dependent on the rest of the world for anything, so we don’t get dragged down with it.”

“Isn’t that a rather selfish philosophy?”

She nodded, unsmiling. “I guess it is. But I don’t see too many others trying to protect themselves either. They find it easier just to ignore the handwriting on the wall.”

“How about the survivalists?”

“Bones. Yes, I guess they are doing it too. But we don’t like their guns. In fact, they make us pretty damn nervous.”

“Why? Aren’t they just trying to be ready to protect themselves?”

“From what? From us? More likely they figure to come in and take what we’ve got.”

Bry was silent, pondering that. It did seem like sheep living next to the den of wolves. “But Tourette—she’s not like that.”

“Yes she is. Ask her.”

“But then why are you friends with her?”

“The crunch hasn’t come yet. So there’s no problem. But when it happens, we won’t be friends any more. We both know that.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Well, you’re half in love with her.”

“I am not! We’ve only dated once.”

She shook her head. “I’m jealous, I admit it. Not of you personally. I knew you weren’t for me. I mean of your relationship. You saw her, and she saw you, and it was like two magnets getting charged. And not just because you’re handsome and she’s pretty, though I guess that doesn’t hurt. I wish I could meet someone and have that happen. I’m a little annoyed I didn’t see it coming, but of course I was afraid you’d be turned off by her syndrome. You said you understood, but I didn’t really believe that. Tourette was almost afraid of you, despite being fascinated. Then when your sister showed her hand—you’ve been waiting all your life for someone like Lin, only who’s not your sister, and there she was. And Tourette—she’s never had a boyfriend. She saw that hand, and she knew. You two were destined for each other.” She looked at him challengingly. “Now tell me it’s not so.”

Bry considered. Could he be in love with Tourette, after just one day with her? And she with him? “I don’t think love happens like that. Fascination, maybe, but not love. Sure I like her. But—”

“What’s the big distinction between fascination and love, except that the one happens fast and the other slow? You two are in mutual orbit, spiraling in together. Maybe if you never see each other again, you’ll get over it. But next week—do you even want me along?”

Bry reconsidered. “I think maybe you’d
better
be along. If she feels the way I do, we’re in free fall. There’s no telling what might happen.”

“Would it be wrong?”

“Yes! We’re not ready for that. My family may not even stay here, and anyway, if I’m a Dream and she’s a Bone, how can it be?”

“Okay, I’ll be there. But I think you’d better have that Dreams and Bones discussion with her right away.”

“I’d better,” he agreed, with uncomfortably mixed feelings.

The week passed, and with every day it looked more as if the family was fitting in, and would stay. Flo liked the big kitchen, and the community members liked her cooking. Dirk was an all purpose handyman, doing good work. Sam was finding plenty of outdoor hard work to do, the kind he liked, on a crew that Ittai organized, and it was evident that they were making a difference. Ned and Bill were working well together, each appreciating the intellect of the other. Snow and Wildflower and Lin were mixing with the women, doing everything from baskets to painting walls, compatibly. The children loved everything about the community. Faience showed Bry around the rest of the garden area, including the heated greenhouse, which could be kept at over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit if required. It seemed that some of their rare medicinal herbs liked that kind of environment. Only Jes seemed a bit out of sorts, but that might be because she was still adjusting to new motherhood.