Nancy Kress (14 page)

“What’s not new?” Lillie said, not really interested. Rafe’s frenetic energy and hyperintellectualism put her off.

“The genetics we’re learning. The Human Genome Project decoded a lot of this stuff over ten years ago, and the Protein Effort found out the rest of it. Well, maybe not how to get proteins to do alternate expression, but everything else. This isn’t new genetics they’re teaching us.”

“It’s new to me.”

“You don’t care, do you, any more than anyone else does. You’re the eighth person I’ve tried to have this conversation with, and nobody cares except Emily that we’ve been carted up to a spaceship to learn genetics that our scientists on the ground already know.”

That got Lillie’s attention. “Are you sure, Rafe?”

“Of course I’m sure. I didn’t win the Fanshaw National Science Prize without knowing what I’m talking about.”

“I thought you were only a state winner, not the national winner.”

“Even so. Lillie, why did they bring us here?”

“To learn the right way.” She didn’t even have to think about the answer; it rose to her lips from the deep well of certainty.

“Well, yes … but even so …” Rafe seemed to lose his thought. He frowned. “Lillie …”

Caught by his uncharacteristic foundering, she looked at him. Really looked. Of course, they were sitting down, but his shoulder seemed to be on a level with hers. “Rafe, stand up.”

He did.

“You’re taller than you were when we came.”

“Yes. Boys get their growth later than girls, my mother always said so. But Lillie …”

“No, it’s not that.” She tried to concentrate. “Look at Rebecca. Over there, with Julie.”

“What about her?”

“Her skin is all cleared up. And it was really bad when we came here … wasn’t it?”

“I don’t notice girls’ skin. I have better things to think about.”

Lillie ignored him. Getting up, she started a slow tour of the garden, looking at everyone. Really looking.

Julie was laughing with Rebecca, a free open laugh. When was the last time Lillie had seen Julie cry? A long time. Julie used to cry at everything.

Susan was no longer overweight. She was still curvy, but a good curvy.

Alex, who used to be so skinny that Sam said you could use him for a fishing pole, had bulked up.

Sam’s hair didn’t hang lankly over his ears anymore. It was thick and shiny.

And then Lillie came to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was sitting by the garden pond, braiding rushes together and sticking flowers in them to make a crown. She looked up suspiciously as Lillie approached. “What do you want?”

Still Elizabeth. But definitely not Elizabeth. She was slimmer, too, but the big change was her face. Her features were somehow more … what? Regular. Prettier. Her skin was clear. And she wasn’t…

“Elizabeth, what happened to your glasses?”

She looked briefly puzzled. “I don’t need them.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know why not. I just don’t.” She held up the garland she was weaving. “For the feast of Christ the Holy King. It’s tomorrow, November 26.”

November 26? They had been here for three months?

“How do you know today is November 25?” Lillie demanded.

“I asked Pam,” Elizabeth said triumphantly. “She understands that I need to keep the holy days of obligation.”

Lillie just stared. Pam understood? But Elizabeth had once told Lillie that Pam and Pete represented the forces of the devil … hadn’t she? Was Lillie remembering right?

“Hey, Lillie, come dance with us,” Rebecca called. “What are you doing talking with that dork?”

Lillie didn’t know what she was doing talking to Elizabeth. They’d been discussing something important … wait, something about Elizabeth’s religion … no, her looks…

“Come on!” Rebecca called impatiently. She’d gathered six of the girls together for a “dance” to the music on Hannah’s cube. “Don’t Matter None to Me” pounded its pronounced beat. Lillie hesitated another moment, then ran over to join Rebecca. Bonnie came, too, and Amy, with flowers in her hair.

Lillie did wonder briefly why they never seemed to invite the boys —hadn’t Madison and Rebecca, at least, liked boys?—but then she forgot the boys as the dancing started. It was too much fun.

Some uncounted weeks later, Lillie woke up as usual, showered in the girls’ bathroom, dressed and went into commons for breakfast. In the doorway she stopped cold. Something was very different.

Nothing looked different. People sitting at the long table, eating the wonderful food, talking … No, something
was
different. In the talking, maybe? But she could hear scraps of conversation, it was the same things they always talked about.

” — raising the genemod roses, see, you have to — “

“—and three shots from the foul line, only—”

” — a dance after dinner, would you — “

Something was different. Lillie sat down and said to Jason, “Would you please pass the cereal?” He turned and held the bowl out to her, and something in her chest turned over.

God, he was cute! Of course, everybody knew that, Jason wanted to be an actor and he was the best looking of the boys, but Lillie had never noticed how really handsome he was. His black hair fell across his forehead in a slanting line, and that smile …

Their hands brushed when she took the bowl from him, and Lillie felt a little dizzy.

“Lillie,” Mike said on the other side of her, “would you like to sit at my table in class today? I don’t know why we always sit with the same people. It’s boring.”

She turned to Mike, and a warm feeling crept up from her belly to her chest, up through her neck … She’d never noticed how broad his shoulders were. Broader, really, than Jason’s.

“Yeah,” Rafe said across the table. “We’d learn more if we changed lab partners and got new perspectives on … on the material.”

Lillie laughed and looked at him. When had Rafe developed that gleam in his eyes? He was actually witty, sometimes, now that she thought of it. He could be a pain, but he could also be fun.

Breakfast had never tasted so good before.

In class she sat with Mike, Rafe, and Emily. Emily, that pale small brainy shrinking violet, tossed her white-blond hair and teased Rafe.

“That’s not the right sequence, Rafaelo. If you don’t remove the repressor from that gene, your RNA polymerase isn’t ever going to get going.”

“I was just going to flex the repressor a bit, not remove it,” Rafe said, smiling at Emily.

“You obviously must believe in repression, then.”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. What about you, Em?”

“Depends on the circumstances,” she said, looking at him sideways through half-lowered lashes. “Sometimes repression is a good thing.”

“And sometimes you can slip through repressors.”

“Can you, Rafe?”

“Well, RNA polymerase can. Just flex the repressor a little …” Mike flexed his biceps. “Like this, Rafe? Or maybe I should ask Emily.”

“You can ask me,” Lillie said, and instantly thought,
What the hell am I doing?
She felt herself blush.

Mike grinned. “Maybe you are the right one to ask, Lillie. Sensible Lillie.”

“That’s not very flattering to Lillie,” Emily said, laughing. “Okay,” Mike said, “pretty Lillie, then. Beautiful Lillie. Is that better, Lillie?”

“I didn’t mind ‘sensible,’ ” Lillie said, with comic primness, and knew she meant it. But he’d also called her “beautiful” …

That evening the boys and Bonnie all left their basketball and wandered over to the paved cafe area where the girls usually danced.

Sam was the boldest. “Jessie, wanna dance?”

“Why not?” she said flippantly. Lillie saw that, for the first time in a long time, Jessica had put on the make-up she’d brought with her from Earth. So had Madison.

Maybe Madison would loan Lillie some eyeliner. “Dance, Lillie?” Mike said. She nodded and he took her in his arms.

The song was slow, “Always and Only You,” a big hit by Something Extra. Leaning awkwardly against Mike’s chest, Lillie felt waves of warmth roll over her. She didn’t want the song to end.

It did, and the next one on the cube was a skurler. Lillie hung back, not knowing the steps, but Alex seized her hand. “Come on, Lillie.”

“I don’t know how to skurl,”

“It’s easy. I’ll show you.”

Skurling required the partners to hold each other’s wrists constantly and do as many energetic, rhythmic moves as they could without letting go. Alex was good. Lillie was awful, and once she fell down in a heap. Alex pulled her up, not letting go of her hands, and made her continue. His hand felt warm. She could feel the pulse in his wrist.

She danced a skurler with Rafe, who was better than she expected, a slow dance with Jason, then another with Jon. Then Sam slipped his arm around her waist. “My turn, Lillie.”

She didn’t want to dance with Sam. She didn’t even like him! But his arm pulled her strongly to him, and she didn’t pull away. He had a stronger smell than the other boys, a sort of nice smell actually, and the palms of his hands pressed flat against her back. She felt them—oh, yes, she felt them!—even through her T-shirt. But when one palm crept toward the side of her breast, she pushed him away.

“Don’t be such a cock-tease, Lillie.”

‘You leave me alone!” Suddenly she was near tears.

Sam shrugged and walked away. Lillie started out of the garden, but then changed her mind and sat down in a chair to watch the dancing.

Sajelle was dancing, very close, with Alex.

Jason’s handsome face was flushed as he clung to Hannah.

Madison was dancing with Rafe, whom she’d always called “that little dork.” He was now as tall as she was. Some of her lipstick had come off on his shirt.

Sam had taken Jessica away from Derek, and now Sam was dancing with her. They were pressing the bottom parts of their bodies together and thrusting in unison, and it almost looked like … Lillie looked away, embarrassed.

There were more girls than boys, so some of the girls danced together. Sophie danced with Amy and Bonnie with Julie. But it wasn’t the same. Sophie and Amy held each other loosely, inches between their bodies, but Bonnie kept pulling Julie toward her. Julie pulled away a bit, smiling, but Bonnie only held her more tightly, and the look on Bonnie’s face …

They used to call Bonnie “a lezzie.” Months ago, when everybody first arrived. Not lately, not for a long time, but—

“My dance,” Mike said, looming in front of her. Lillie stood and moved into him, and none of the others she’d danced with, Alex or Jason or Rafe, was the same as Mike. Nobody else felt like this in her arms, nobody else felt so right…

She danced with Mike the rest of the evening, which was over so soon that Lillie was shocked. The lights blinked, which meant time to go to their rooms, and it had to be a mistake, the system was off, it couldn’t be any later than nine at the most―

Mike and she stared at each other. For a terrifying, exhilarating moment she thought he was going to kiss her. But he stepped back and mumbled awkwardly, ”’ Night, Lillie.”

“Good night, Mike.”

She walked back to her room, feeling curiously empty.

Inside, she locked the door, undressed, and lay on the bed. Twenty minutes after blinking, the lights went out for the night, leaving only a faint glow around the doorway and in the corridor leading to the bathrooms.

Lillie stared at that glow, unable to sleep. She heard doors opening, closing again. It was a long time before she could drift off, and her dreams were troubled and strange.

At breakfast the next morning, Sam and Jessica sat very close together and groped each other under the table. “Get a room,” Madison muttered. Lillie looked away from Jessie and Sam. It was obvious they’d spent the night together and wanted everybody to know it.

Lillie went back to sitting in class with Emily, Sajelle, and Madison. None of them mentioned it; they just sat together. Lillie felt relieved. Still, she couldn’t stop glancing over at the table Mike shared with Derek, Sophie, and Amy. Why was Mike talking so much to Sophie? Sophie had never struck Lillie as that interesting.