The People

Mark lay back on the narrow pillow, "Thank you," he said. Then he turned his face to Meris. "Okay?"
"Okay." Her voice jerked a little past her emotion. "Love you, Mark!"
"Love you, Meris!"
Karen's fingertip went to Mark's forehead again. "I need contact," she said a little apologetically, "especially with an Outsider."
Meris fell asleep, propped up on the bunk, eyes lulled by the silent sli-i-i-ide, flip! sli-i-i-ide, flip! of the scriber, and the brisk flutter of finished pages from the tall pile of paper to the short one. She opened drowsy eyes to a murmur of voices and saw that the two piles of paper were almost balanced. She sat up to ease her neck where it had been bent against the cabin wall.
"But it's wrong, I tell you!" Remy was waving the paper.
"Look, this line, here, where it goes-"
"Remy," said Jemmy, "are you sure it's wrong or is it just another earlier version of what we know now?"
"No!" said Remy. "This time it's not that. This is a real mistake. He couldn't possibly have meant it to be like that "
"Okay," Jemmy nodded to Karen and she touched Mark's forehead, He opened his eyes and half sat up. The scriber flipped across the paper and Karen stilled it with a touch.
"What is it?" he asked, "something go wrong?" "No, it's this diagram." Remy brought it to him. "I think you have an error here. Look where this goes-"
The two bent over the paper. Meris looked around the cabin. Valancy was rocking a sleeping Lala in her arms. Davy was sound asleep in the upper bunk. At least his dangling leg looked very asleep. Johannan was absorbed in two books simultaneously. He seemed to be making a comparison of some sort. Meris lay back again, sliding down to a more comfortable position. For the first
time in months and months the cabin was lapped from side to side with peace and relaxation. Even the animated discussion going on was no ruffling of the comfortable calmness. She heard, on the edge of her ebbing consciousness, "Why no! That's not right at all!" Mark was astonished. "Hoo boy! If I'd sent that in with an error like that! Thanks, fella-" And sleep flowed over Meris.
She awoke later to the light chatter of Lala's voice and opened drowsy eyes to see her trailing back from the bathroom, her feet tucked up under her gown away from the chilly floor as she drifted back to Valancy's arms. The leg above Meris's head swung violently and withdrew, to be replaced by Davy's dangling head. He said something to Lala. She laughed and lifted herself up to his outstretched arms. There was a stirring around above Meris's head before sleeping silence returned.
Valancy stood and stretched widely. She moved over to the table and thumbed the stack of paper.
"Going well," she said softly.
"Yes," said Jemmy, "I feel a little like a midwife, snatching something new-born in the middle of the night."
"Dern shame to stop here, though," said Remy. "With such a good beginning-oh, barring a few excursions down dead ends-if we could only tack on a few more chapters."
"'Uh-uh!" Jemmy stood and stretched, letting his arms fall around Valancy's shoulders. "You know better than that-"
"Not even one little hint?"
"Not even," Jemmy was firm.
Sleep flowed over Meris again until pushed back by Davy's sliding over the edge of the upper bunk.
"Right in the stomach!" he moaned as he dropped to the floor. "Such a kicking kid I never met. How'd you survive?" he asked Valancy.
"Nary a kick," she laughed. "Technique-that's what it takes." "I was just wondering," said Davy, opening the stove and probing the coals before he put in another chunk of oak.
"That kid Johannan was talking about-the one that's got interested in vintage cars. What about that place up on Bearcat Flat? You know, that little box canyon where we put all our old jalopies when we discarded them. Engines practically unused. Lifting's cheaper and faster. Of course the seats and the truck beds are kinda beat up, and the paint. Trees scratch the daylights out of paint. How many are there there? Let's see. The first one was about 19-ought-something-"
Johannan looked up from his books. "He said something about selling parts or cars to get money for college-" "Or restoring them!" Davy cried. "Hey, that could be fun! If he's the kind that would-"
"He is," said Johannan and went back to his reading.
"It's almost daylight." Davy went to the window and parted the curtains. "Wonder how early a riser he is?"
Meris turned her back to the light and slid back under sleep again.
Noise and bustle filled the cabin.
Coffee was perking fragrantly, eggs cracking, bacon spitting itself to crispness. Remy was cheerfully mashing slices of bread down on the hot stove lid and prying up the resultant toast. Lala was flicking around the table, putting two forks at half the places and two knives at the others, then giggling her way back around with redistribution after Johannan pointed out her error.
Meris, reaching for a jar of peach marmalade on the top shelf of the cupboard, wondered how a day could feel so new and so wonderful. Mark sat at his desk opening and closing the box wherein lay the finished manuscript. He opened it again and fingered the top edge of the stack, He caught Jemmy's sympathetic grin and grinned back.
"Just making sure it's really there," he explained. "Magic put it in there. Magic might take it out again."
"Not this magic. I'll even ride shotgun for you into town and see that it gets sent off okay," said Jemmy.
"Magic or no," said Mark, sobering, "once more I can say Thank God! Thank God it's done!"
"Amen!" said a hovering Lala, and, laughing, Jemmy scooped her out of the air as they all found places at the table. Tad was an early riser. He was standing under the hovering pickup, gaping upward in admiring astonishment.
"Oops!" said Davy, with a sidewise glance at Jemmy. Tad was swept up in a round of introductions during which the pickup lowered slowly to the ground.
Tad turned from the group back to the pickup. "Look at it!" he said. "It must be at least forty years old!" His voice pushed its genesis back beyond the pyramids.
"At least that," said Davy. "Wanta see the motor?"
"Do I!" He stood by impatiently as Davy wrestled with the hood. Then he blinked. "Hey! How did it get way up there? I mean, how'd it get down-"
"Look," said Davy hastily, "see this goes to the spark-"
The others, laughing, pried into Mark's car and drove away from the two absorbed autophiles-in-embryo.
The car pulled over onto a pine flat halfway back from town and the triumphal mailing of the manuscript. This was the parting place. Davy would follow later with the pickup.
"It's over," said Meris, her shoulders sagging a little as she put Lala's small bundle of belongings into Valancy's hands.
"All over." Her voice was desolate.
"Only this little episode," comforted Valancy. "It's really only begun." She put Lala into Meris's arms. "Tell her good-by, Lala."
Lala hugged Meris stranglingly tight saying, "Love you, Meris!"
"Love you, Lala!" Meris's voice was shaken with laughter and sorrow.
"It's just that she filled up the empty places so wonderfully well," she explained to Valancy.
"Yes," said Valancy softly, her eyes tender and compassionate. "But, you know," she went on. "You are pregnant again!"
Before Meris could produce an intelligible thought, good-bys were finished and the whole group was losing itself in the tangle of creek-side vegetation. Lala's vigorous waving of Deeko was the last sign of them before the leaves closed behind them.