The Anything Box

of us but the Alphas—but when we go so far as to try to force ourselves,
physically, into the Never-Neverland of heart's desire—
I remembered Sue-lynn's thin rigid body toppling doll-like off its chair.
Out of her deep need she had found—or created? Who could tell?—something too
dangerous for a child. I could so easily bring the brimming happiness back to
her eyes—but at what a possible price!
No, I had a duty to protect Sue-lynn. Only maturity— the maturity born of
the sorrow and loneliness that Sue-lynn was only beginning to know—could be
trusted to use an Anything Box safely and wisely.
My heart thudded as I began to move my hands, letting the palms slip down
from the top to shape the sides of—
I had moved them back again before I really saw, and I have now learned
almost to forget that glimpse of what heart's desire is like when won at the
cost of another's heart.
I sat there at the desk trembling and breathless, my palms moist, feeling
as if I had been on a long journey away from the little schoolroom. Perhaps I
had. Perhaps I had been shown all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of
time.
"Sue-lynn," I called. "Will you come up here when you're through?"
She nodded unsmilingly and snipped off the last paper from the edge of
Mistress Mary's dress. Without another look at her handiwork, she carried the
scissors safely to the scissors box, crumpled the scraps of paper in her hand
and came up to the wastebasket by the desk.
"I have something for you, Sue-lynn," I said, uncovering the box.
Her eyes dropped to the desk top. She looked indifferently up at me. "I did
my fun paper already."
"Did you like it?"
"Yes." It was a flat lie.
"Good," I lied right back. "But look here." I squared my hands around the
Anything Box.
She took a deep breath and the whole of her little body stiffened.
"I found it," I said hastily, fearing anger. "I found it in the bottom
drawer."
She leaned her chest against my desk, her hands caught tightly between, her
eyes intent on the box, her face white with the aching want you see on
children's faces pressed to Christmas windows.
"Can I have it?" she whispered.
"It's yours," I said, holding it out. Still she leaned against her hands,
her eyes searching my face.
"Can I have it?" she asked again.
"Yes!" I was impatient with this anti-climax. "But—"
Her eyes flickered. She had sensed my reservation before I had. "But you
must never try to get into it again."
"Okay," she said, the word coming out on a long relieved sigh. "Okay,
Teacher."
She took the box and tucked it lovingly into her small pocket. She turned
from the desk and started back to her table. My mouth quirked with a small
smile. It seemed to me that everything about her had suddenly turned
upwards—even the ends of her straight taffy-colored hair. The subtle flame
about her that made her Sue-lynn was there again. She scarcely touched the
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floor as she walked.
I sighed heavily and traced on the desk top with my finger a probable sizefor an Anything Box. What would Sue-lynn choose to see first? How like a drinkafter a drought it would seem to her.
I was startled as a small figure materialized at my elbow. It was Sue-lynn,her fingers carefully squared before her.
"Teacher," she said softly, all the flat emptiness gone from her voice."Any time you want to take my Anything Box, you just say so."
I groped through my astonishment and incredulity for words. She couldn'tpossibly have had time to look into the Box yet.
"Why, thank you, Sue-lynn," I managed. "Thanks a lot I would like very muchto borrow it some time."
"Would you like it now?" she asked, proffering it.
"No, thank you," I said, around the lump in my throat. "I've had a turnalready. You go ahead."
"Okay," she murmured. Then—"Teacher?"
"Yes?"
Shyly she leaned against me, her cheek on my shoulder. She looked up at mewith her warm, unshuttered eyes, then both arms were suddenly around my neckin a brief awkward embrace.
"Watch out!" I whispered laughing into the collar of her blue dress."You'll lose it again!"
"No I won't," she laughed back, patting the flat pocket of her dress. "Notever, ever again!"Subcommittee
First came the sleek black ships, falling out of the sky in patterneddisorder, sowing fear as they settled like seeds on the broad landing field.After them, like bright butterflies, came the vividly colored slow ships thathovered and hesitated and came to rest scattered among the deadly dark ones.
"Beautiful!" sighed Serena, turning from the conference room window. "Thereshould have been music to go with it."
"A funeral dirge," said Thorn. "Or a requiem. Or flutes before failure.Frankly, I'm frightened, Rena. If these conferences fail, all hell will breakloose again. Imagine living another year like this past one."
"But the conference won't fail!" Serena protested. "If they're willing toconsent to the conference, surely they'll be willing to work with us forpeace."
"Their peace or ours?" asked Thorn, staring morosely out the window. "I'mafraid we're being entirely too naive about this whole affair. It's been along time since we finally were able to say, 'Ain't gonna study war no more,'and made it stick. We've lost a lot of the cunning that used to be necessaryin dealing with other people. We can't, even now, be sure this isn't a trickto get all our high command together in one place for a grand massacre."
"Oh, no!" Serena pressed close to him and his arm went around her. "Theycouldn't possibly violate—"
"Couldn't they?" Thorn pressed his cheek to the top of her ear. "We don'tknow, Rena. We just don't know. We have so little information about them. Weknow practically nothing about their customs—even less about their values orfrom what frame of reference they look upon our suggestion of suspendinghostilities."
"But surely they must be sincere. They brought their families along withthem. You did say those bright ships are family craft, didn't you?"
"Yes, they suggested we bring our families and they brought their familiesalong with them, but it's nothing to give us comfort. They take themeverywhere—even into battle."
"Into battle!"
"Yes. They mass the home craft off out of range during battles, but everytime we disable or blast one of their fighters, one or more of the home craftspin away out of control or flare into nothingness. Apparently they're just
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glorified trailers, dependent on the fighters for motive power and everythingelse." The unhappy lines deepened in Thorn's face. "They don't know it, buteven apart from their superior weapons, they practically forced us into thistruce. How could we go on wiping out their war fleet when, with every blackship, those confounded posy-colored home craft fell too, like pulling petalsoff a flower. And each petal heavy with the lives of women and children."
Serena shivered and pressed closer to Thorn. "The conference must work. Wejust can't have war any more. You've got to get through to them. Surely, if wewant peace and so do they—"
"We don't know what they want," said Thorn heavily. "Invaders, aggressors,strangers from hostile worlds—so completely alien to us—How can we ever hopeto get together?"