Holding Wonder

"Close your mouth," I said, still breathless, my heart not compensating as
quickly as it should have. "No cavern tours today." "That-that was Engle!" she said in an awed whisper. "Engle Faucing!" "Oh?" I grimaced at the first taste of chartreuse. "Who's he?" I could not-see him too! Besides, I really hadn't noticed.
"Who's he!" Lellice strangled chartreusely. "Only the son of Kermit Faucing, megapolis council member! Only the Rep of Senior Levels to the Governing! You voted for him! Only the utter out of all outness!" "Oh, I'm sorry," I said. "He looked like a nice kid. Poor thing."
"Poor thing!" yelped Lellice. "Have you crazed across?" "To have a name like Engle Faucing," I explained. "It's as left-footed as his dancing." I regretted that as soon as I said it. He could dance-could dance-but only with his feet, I guess.
"Twixt! You sheerly are double-dump-stuff!" Lellice turned her back on me and loudly went on drinking her Squelch.
The outside of me walked back to my carrel after the break, as usual, but the inside of me, for some reason, crept back unhappily and huddled tightly as I sat down in my chair. I stared blindly at the viewer, thinking nothing-only feeling a three-quarter beat pulsing-I thumbed the response button viciously and went off into history, silencing the tutor's jabbing introductory voice.
And then of course it was Release Time today. I usually like the break from regular school and feel pleased and loose for sure when we all go up to the church floor of the school complex and drift off, each to his own instructional class. I like getting into discussions of matters in which Man is the most important thing about earth instead of his just being an eddy of life around the bottom of the eyeless, towering buildings. But that day we had Immortality for our lesson. I suddenly couldn't even want to believe in it. Not with flesh so soft and unhappy and walls so hard and uncaring. I drooped, wordless, through the class.
Afterwards, everyone else left the building to go to their usual glides, but I cut through another way to go on an errand for Mother. All alone in the school Open, I looked up and up the sheer wall that towered without an opening on this side from Crib Level all the way up to Doctor's Degree. And it scared me. What if it should fall on me! I was so little and I could die! The building looked as though it didn't know I was alive. It looked solid enough to go on forever and ever after I died. I suddenly hammered my fists against the vitricrete and cried, "I'm supposed to be immortal, not you! You you unlive you! I've got a soul. Whoever heard of a vitricrete soul!"
But I was the one that bruised, and the vitricrete didn't even plop when I hit it.
And then home to Mother's breaking. And my tears in the slot. And a weary going on with the usual routine.
Dad came home that evening more silent than ever, if that's possible. My tears were long dried and I was sitting on the floor in front of the telaworld watching the evening news. I gave Dad a hi and cut my picture to half a screen to clear for his sports program. I removed the ear so I could hear what Dad had to say.
"Chis?" Dad asked as he flipped a finger to inflate the chair to his weight before he dropped wearily into its curving angles.
"Not in yet," said Mother guiltily, her face pinking.
"He knows," said Dad. "Guidance warned us-and him. If he glide-hops once more or enters male-subteen-restricted areas, he'll go to therapy."
"And so will we," I thought sickly. "The whole family will have to go to therapy if Chis does. Illness isn't isolated."
"I-I-" Mother looked miserable. "Darin, can't we do something for Chis? Can't we get him brighted on anything?"
"Like what?" Dad filled his half of the telaworld with his underwater program and fumbled for the ear. "Even Guidance is stumped."
"But at ten?" Mother protested. "At ten to be so quenched on everything?"
"Guidance says they're working on it." Dad sharpened the focus on his half-screen. A shark seemed to swim right off the screen at us. "He's on page 14 in volume 2-of the ten-year-olds. I wonder which, page they'd have me on?" He turned from the telaworld. "I don't imagine the list would be very long of malcontent males who stop in midmorning to remember the feel of sand dissolving from under his bare feet in a numbing-cold, running stream."
"I wish," said Mother passionately, "that we could-just go!"
"Where?" asked Dad. "How? We'd have to put in for locale amends, specifying a destination and motivation. Besides, is there any place-"
"Just any place," said Mother rigidly.
"Would it be different?" I asked, feeling hope surge up inside me. Mother looked at me silently for a moment; then she sighed and her wrists went limp. "No," she almost whispered. "It would be no different."
I didn't know when Chis came in. I guess he slid the secondary exit. But there he was, sitting in his corner, twirls and twirling a green stem between his fingers-a green stem with four leaves on it. I felt my heart sag. He had picket leaf! From greenery!
Mother saw him about the same time I did. "Chis," she said softly, and Dad turned to look. "Is that a real leaf?"
"Yes," he said, "a real one."
"Then you'd better put it in water before it dies," said Mother, not even a tone in her voice to hint of all the laws; he had broken.
"In water?" Chis' eyes opened wide and so did mine.
"Yes," said Mother. "It will last longer." She got a plastiglass from the dispenser and filled it. She held it out to Chis. "Put the stem down in the water," she said. And he did. And stood there with the glass tipping almost to spilling and looked at Dad. Then he leaned over and put the plastiglass on the table by Dad's chair. Dad looked at the leaf and then at Chis
"Will it grow?" asked Chis.
"No," said Dad. "It has no roots. But it will stay green for a while."
Chis reached his hand out and touched Dad gently on the shoulder. Dad showed no withdrawal. "I won't ever take another," offered Chis.
"It's better not," said Dad.
"But someday," cried Chis, "I'm going away! I'm going to find a place where I can run on a million, million leaves and no one will even notice!"
I hunched there in front of the telaworld and felt myself splintering slowly in all directions into blunt slivers that could never fit together again. This must be what they meant by crazing across. I was immortal, but I must die. And soon, if I couldn't touch the soil I had never touched. I didn't want to touch anywhere, and yet I could still feel a hand enveloping mine and another pressed firmly against my waist. I hated where I was, but sickened to think of change. But change has to come because. it had been noticeable that Dad hadn't withdrawn when his own son touched him. Nothing would be smooth or fitted together again-
I creaked tiredly to my feet. Mother quirked an eyebrow at me. "Only to the perimeter," I said. "I want to walk before dimming."
Outside our unit I paused and looked up the endless height of the building-blind, eyeless, but, because it is an older unit, I could still see scars where windows used to be-when windows were desirable. I walked slowly toward the perimeter, automatically reminding myself not to overstep. With Chis already on warning, it wouldn't do for me to be Out of Area after hours. Someday-some long away day-I'd be twenty-one and be able to flip my Ident casually at the Eye and open any area, any hour of the day-well, not the Restricted, of course. Or the Classified. Or the Industrial. Or the-well, I have the list at home.
Around me, as up as I could see, were buildings. Around me as far as I could see, were buildings. The Open of our area, ringed about by the breathing greeneries, must have had people coming and going, surely a few, but I didn't see them. I seldom do any more. Of course, you never deliberately look at anyone. That's rude. Nor ever speak in public places except when you absolutely have to. You do murmur to friends you meet. And because you don't look and don't speak, people sort of get lost against the bigness and solidbuiltness of the complexes. So I walked alone in the outer dimming, my pneumonosoles not even whispering against the resilicrete floor of the Open.