Shiva and Other Stories (15 page)

Celebrating

A
T THE INSTITUTE, JESSICA’S LATENT ABILITY,
her remarkable raw talent, had blossomed. Anyone could see this. From simple loops and twirls, rigid suspensions and perilous dips, she had grown to intricate convolutions, somersaults, even figure eights. She had come home at the first break with an entirely new repertoire, and, seeing what she could do, the nonchalant skill of the child as it was expressed in a truly artistic, even
subtle
fashion, Thompson had found himself filled with pride and anger together: they had gotten her too cheap. Talked him into a wretched contract, down-played the child’s potential, haggled him into subservience. “A
natural
talent,” he whispered, watching Jessica demonstrate upside-down walking and those beautiful, almost mysterious figure eights. “Strange and wonderful. Once a generation.” He did not even consider complaining directly to the Institute. They would wave the contract in his face, remind him that a deal was a deal, contact his employer, make his life miserable. Thompson knew how such things had to be managed; he had read up on them.

You went directly to the government. The best way to the government, though, was not through the Department of Psionic Control; the regulators (like regulators everywhere) were in the pocket of the Institute. All of the staff would end up on the payroll after a change of administration. So you had to go to the General Ombudsman on matters like this. They didn’t like you doing that; they wanted the Ombudsman as a last resort or no resort at all—but Thompson was no fool, and he knew how these things worked. “Look at that,” he said to the government man whose name plate said
Wilbur Stone
after Jessica had completed her ceiling walk. “Look at that work. They told me she had barely any ability at all, so little that it was hardly worth developing—and this is what she can do after just three months there.”

“Two months and two weeks,” Jessica said, “and most of the time we were studying physics, not really working at all.”

“Exactly,” Thompson said. “They didn’t even begin serious training until a few weeks ago.”

The government man shrugged. He did not appear very experienced, but his eyes were knowledgeable in an unpleasant way. “I’m sorry, you know,” he said, “but a contract is a contract, and if you state that you signed, then you accepted the conditions—”

“It isn’t a contract if they lie to you, mister,” Thompson said. He opened his briefcase, removed the papers, and laid them on the government man’s desk. “If you look these over, you’ll see she was taken as a 1-D-1, they call it—a beginner, what they call a naked talent. Naked talents don’t ceiling-walk or figure-eight after two months.”

“Figure eights are
fun,”
Jessica said, “and they’re easy, no matter what they tell you.” She was an endearing child, albeit defiant now and then, and Thompson had conferred with her earlier, making sure to enlist her cooperation, to make sure that she had no smart remarks to make about the nature of her upbringing or a father who would take money to sell her to a circus—which were points that she made earlier and unnecessarily before she had gone off to the Institute. Thompson shuddered thinking of what her mother had had to say in letters.

Fortunately, though, that woman was on the other side of the country, he had sole custody, and there was only minimum contact. If her mother had known that Jessica had entered the Institute under the miserable agreement that Thompson had signed, there would have been difficult times indeed. He cringed just thinking about how awful it all would have been.

Wilbur Stone, the government man, stared at him. “It just gets me
so
mad,” Thompson said, “to have been cheated like this. Can’t you understand that? That’s why you people in the department are here, right, to protect us from those kind of practices. Aren’t you?”

Wilbur Stone said nothing; he was examining the contracts. He squinted as if in deep concentration, leaned forward, and rubbed his nose against the paper like an animal. Thompson cringed again. Jessica kicked at the leg of her chair and then floated slowly, drifting through a lazy, elegant figure eight.

“Could you please
stop
that?” the government man said. “I mean, it makes me very nervous; could you get her to stop doing that, please?”

One could not make Jessica do or stop doing anything, Thompson wanted to say but did not. “Jessica—”

“I mean, it just gets me very nervous. It’s all routine for you, maybe, but to see something like this—”

“But you must see it all the time,” Thompson said. “You work with these people, don’t you? Come on, Jessica, get off the ceiling.”

“Oh, I
see
it,” Wilbur Stone said. “That isn’t the same thing, you know.”

Jessica, back in her chair, had the knuckle of her left thumb in her mouth as she gave Wilbur Stone a long, unpleasant, searching stare. “Don’t yell at me,” she said.

“I don’t mean to yell at you, Jessica, but it just gets me upset; don’t you understand that? It could appall someone.”

“Well, I think it’s neat.”

“Well, for you it’s neat,” Wilbur Stone said, “but it’s hard to take levitation for granted.”

“Well, you ought. It’s your job, isn’t it?”

The government man gave a despairing sigh, put his hands in his hair uncomfortably, and stared at the contracts. “I see that they refer to her ability as inherited,” he said. “I deduce from that, Mr. Thompson, that you also can—”

“Not really,” Thompson said firmly. “I mean, not anymore. I don’t keep up with it, so to speak, never have, not for a long time. One flier in the family is quite enough. You’ve got to practice all the time, you know, to be any good at all, and have training when you’re young right through your teens. I never kept up with it. I never had the advantages early, and my parents didn’t want me to develop—”

He stopped abruptly. Now he actually sounded resentful, as if he envied Jessica her opportunity, when the truth was that it had been the happiest day of his life when he had stopped believing that his awkward, embarrassing flight was worth anything at all. He had been overjoyed to stop. “They told me that her ability was common, that almost anyone could do it,” Thompson said bitterly. “That’s how they got me to sign that paper for next to nothing.”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it next to nothing,” the government man said judiciously. “It’s not that bad an agreement, you know, even though there are no renegotiation clauses, which appears to be your principal complaint. I mean, they didn’t mislead you, after all; more than half the population has the latent ability, and it’s been coming out increasingly through the generations, what with the evolution of good training techniques—”

“You sound like
them
,” Thompson said suspiciously. “That’s exactly the line they were handing me, about half the population. You’re on their side aren’t you?”

“I’m objective.”

“Are you? A lot of kids can fly a little, but not ceiling-walk or figure-eight like that. She could be a professional; I know it. She can make the Olympics and then the leagues.”

“Daddy,” Jessica said gently, “you shouldn’t yell at Mr. Stone. It just makes you madder, and it doesn’t do any good.”

Thompson subsided and leaned back. “I wasn’t yelling,” he said. “I was just trying to make a point, Jessica; sometimes to make a point, grown-ups raise their voices a little, but that isn’t actual
yelling
, only—”

“You see, Mr. Thompson,” the government man said, “the point is this: The problem with these contracts as far as I can see is that you feel the Institute got your daughter cheap, and I agree that her progress has been remarkable; but the fee is not inequitable, and a contract, well, a contract is definitive unless it can be proved that it was signed under duress. Now, there’s no such allegation here—”

“I didn’t say duress, you government man. I said they lied.”

“My name is Stone. Wilbur Stone. I’d prefer it.”

“Those were
lies,
Wilbur Stone; that’s what I’m saying. I see your nameplate right on that desk, but by me, you’re just the government man, giving me government talk.”

“I can understand your outrage,” Stone said, “but it doesn’t look like any kind of a case to me. The facts are clear, and although there are varying interpretations. . . .” He paused. “You can always file an appeal.”

“
This
is an appeal,” Thompson said angrily. “It says right on your door, ‘Complaints and Appeals.’ I checked all that before I filed here to see you, and then I had to wait for weeks to get through.”

Stone stood reluctantly, as if the various limbs and extensions of his frame were being slowly tugged into this new position by strong but invisible forces of pain. “There’s nothing more I can do,” he said. “This is a denial, that’s all.” Solemnly, he extended his hand toward Jessica. “It was very nice to meet you, young lady. You fly very nicely—beautifully, in fact—and I’m sorry that it made me nervous. It’s good, though.”

“This isn’t fair,” Thompson said. “I know all about the government, but really, this isn’t fair at all. You shouldn’t be allowed to do this to ordinary people. We’re—”

Jessica stood. “It was nice to meet you, too,” she said. “Let’s go now.”

“Oh, we’re going,” Thompson said. “We’re going, all right.”

“It’s not his fault. He’s nice. I think he wants to help us.”

“Isn’t anyone trying to help us,” Thompson said grimly. “That’s the whole point of being underclass: there’s no one there at all. But we live and learn, government man; we bide our time—”

Stone said nothing, only stared; and after a while, Thompson could see that it was pointless: nothing could be done. They had their methodology—that was all there was to it—and it was on their property, too. He motioned to Jessica and led her from the office, leaving the door open behind them. Make
him
close it. That was all there was left you, those little gestures of contempt. But they meant nothing.

In the corridor, holding his daughter’s hand, walking her through the wide hall under the great, distant ceiling, Thompson felt the assurance that he had simulated in the government office begin to slip like an ill-tied cloak. He had forced himself to a kind of dominance there, but now the interview over, his position said to be of no merit, he felt himself beginning to slip into the same Randall Thompson that he had known for all these decades—that sniveling, easily broken Randall Thompson who had been victimized by his childhood, victimized by that woman, victimized finally by the Institute and the government man. They knew just what to do with him. Everything worked for people like that because they knew secrets.

He felt the humiliation—it was difficult to handle, not easy to take all of this—and if it had not been for the little girl beside him, he might have given in to it. But there was no way that they would break him; he was going to remain strong in front of her. After all, he
was
the father; he had fought for that, and he had a position to maintain. It was an honorable thing to be the father, and it did not come casually; if it had, he would have let all of that go sometime in the past and been out of this. No way, no more.

He squeezed her little hand. She was his daughter, and that meant something. Two young secretaries clutching papers floated by him conversing intently. A youngish bureaucrat with a bright red bald spot arced past head first at a distance of inches. “Watch it, you,” the bureaucrat said. The secretaries giggled. Even government men could fly.

“Come on,” Jessica said. “Let’s do it, too. They’re staring at us because we’re the only ones walking.”

“But I don’t want to fly. We walked in and we should walk out.”

“Oh Daddy,” Jessica said, “just stop it now; don’t be like the rest of them, always thinking about what you should or shouldn’t do. They tell us at the Institute just to be ourselves; that’s the best way. Let’s fly now.”

“Jessica—”

“Flying isn’t so bad,” Jessica said intensely. “It’s just that you make it that way because you’re so mad at the school and everything. But it’s kind of fun. I don’t want to forget that.” She dropped his hand, rose against him, then was suddenly above his head, giggling. “Come on,” she said. “This is nice.”

Thompson hesitated. Jessica reached out a hand and tugged at his elbow. To his mingled disgust and excitement, Thompson felt his feet leaving the floor.

“See?” Jessica said, “It’s easy. Come on, more now.”

Thompson reached for her hand and flapped his elbow. Oh my, oh my: it had been years. He felt himself rising gently. Was it that you couldn’t forget? Was that the point? His head was close to the ceiling. Jessica pressed hard on his shoulder, averting collision. “Figure eight now,” she said, then dropped his hand and went into slow descent. It was a long, long way down. Two clerks, braced against a wall to give room, watched the intricacy of her slow fall. It was beautiful. Thompson inhaled deeply and followed. Breathe, drop, revolve. Kick, straighten, drop, revolve—

“When you hit the floor now,” Jessica said, “you bounce.”

“I remember,” he said. “I remember.”

Yes, when you hit the floor, you bounce. Falling slowly, gracefully in the thick air exhaled by all of the government people, Thompson felt the first thrust of an emotion he had not known for many years; and reaching for the floor, pushing off the floor,
bouncing
, he gave a cry of release.

“You see, Daddy?” Jessica said, springing above him, her arms extended, paddling. “It’s supposed to be fun.”

“Yes,” Thompson said, positioning himself awkwardly to follow her. “Yes, I forgot that. I really did.”

Oblivious of their newly entranced audience, the two swimmers swept on.