“Do you really think it would have been impossible?”
“Look,” he said, “it’s hard enough for two human beings to keep love alive. It’s always difficult to share your life with another person. And if the other person isn’t even a person—”
“I don’t think it’s so difficult to fall in love,” said Kathryn.
“Or to stay in love. And if the other person is a Dirnan, well, it may be harder, but—” She paused. “All right. I’m being foolish. They’re gone. We’ve each had a strange and wonderful experience, and now we’ve got to pick up the pieces of our lives.”
Falkner sensed that she had thrown him a cue. But he could not respond to it, not now, not so soon. In time, he realized, he and Kathryn might help each other pick those pieces up. For the moment he had to move warily, learning who she was and perhaps even learning who he was. before he dared to open himself once again. Despite what she said, he still believed that it was a difficult thing, this business of joining your life to another person’s.
“It’s dark out now,” she said. “I’d better start for home. Jill’s going to get cranky if I don’t show up soon.”
“I’ll take you back.”
Outside the house, they could see the stars, even though the young moon and the city lights of Albuquerque competed with them in the sky. Involuntarily, they both looked an. He knew what she must be thinking. Their eyes met, and he grinned, and she grinned, and they laughed.
“We aren’t doing a very good job of forgetting them, are we?” Kathryn said.
“Not yet. And we won’t really forget them, not ever. For a few weeks of our lives the stars came down to us. That can’t be forgotten. But it has to be survived. The stars are gone now, and we’re still here.”
They got into his car.
“I enjoyed this today,” she said.
“So did I. We’ll do it again.”
“Soon.”
“Very soon,” Falkner told her. There was more he wanted to say, much more. It would be said, in time. He was not much for blurting things to strangers. He suspected, though, that he and Kathryn shortly would cease to be strangers to one another. Too much bound them. A shared knowledge of smooth, cool skins and galactic politics, of broken legs and sudden farewells. That much drew them together, setting them apart from the rest of this planet’s four billion people. He felt a sensation within him as of a coiled spring beginning to unwind after too many years of compression. He was smiling as he kicked the starter and got the car moving. She smiled too. Above the windshield curved the vault of the heavens. Glair and Vorneen were out there somewhere. He wished them a safe voyage home.
Twenty-Two
The pueblo was quiet now. The Fire Society festival was over, the white folk had gone back to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Long streaks of moonlight splashed across the plaza of the village. The television set was on in the Estancia house. Ramon and Lupe sat entranced before it, as did their grandmother. Uncle George was out getting drunk. Charley Estancia’s father was in the kiva, gambling with his friends. Rosita sulked in the kitchen. She was without a man tonight. Charley knew why, but he didn’t tell her. Marty Moquino had left the pueblo. He hadn’t been seen in San Miguel, in fact, since the time not long back when Charley had frightened him with the Dirnan laser. They said he had gone to Los Angeles again. Charley doubted that he’d come back, this time. Not after he’d shown his yellowness to the eleven-year-old.
Standing outside his house, staring in at the bluish glow of the screen, Charley shivered a little. Winter was closing down on the Rio Grande. There had been a few wisps of snow this afternoon; there would be a heavier fall, perhaps, by Christmas. Charley didn’t mind the cold. Under his ragged jacket he had two things to keep him warm: a letter written in a loose scrawl on a square piece of shiny plastic, and a small metal tube that could hurl forth a beam of fantastic light.
He walked across the plaza, going nowhere in particular. His dog trailed behind him.
The moon was very bright tonight. He could see the stars, though, clearly enough. There were the three bright stars of Orion’s belt. There was Mirtin’s star. It made Charley feel good just to see it up there.”
Year after next, he told himself, I start the high school. Whether they like it or not, I start. If they say no, I run away, and when the police catch me, I tell them why. I can tell the newspapers, too. I say, Here I am, smart Indian boy, wants to improve his lot in life, only parents won’t let me go to the high school. Then everybody makes a fuss over me. They take me away, put me in school. I can learn . . . learn rockets, learn stars, learn space. Learn everything.
And someday I go out there into the night and visit you, Mirtin! Right up to your star! Didn’t you say we’d be getting there soon? That I’d be with them, when we did?
He sauntered out of the village, through the empty plaza and past the ruins of the old kiva, and across the scrubby flats, past the power substation. He did not go all the way to Mirtin’s cave. He knew it would be empty. Several times Charley had gone there, just to look around, but there was no need to make that pilgrimage on this cold night. He paused at the edge of an arroyo, thinking about the high school and all he would learn there, thinking too about what it would be like to get away from this village and its sleepy ways, out into the world of the white men, where someone with a mind could learn all the new things.
Charley looked up at the sky.
“Hey, you Dirnans!” he called. “Are you up there tonight? Can you see me? Hey, it’s me, Charley Estancia! I’m the one who brought tortillas for Mirtin!”
How high did they fly, the saucers? Was one of them swooping back and forth, ten miles over his head, right now? Did they have machines that could pick up voices from Earth?
“You hear me?” Charley called. “I’m the one! Come on, fly low, let me see you! I know all about you!”
Nothing happened. Somehow, he had not expected anything. But he knew they were there. Up above … watching.
He took the laser from its hiding place and caressed it. Setting it for a quick spurt, he touched the stud and watched the beam lick out and slice through the barren lowest limb of a cottonwood tree. It was a clever thing, a great toy. Charley promised himself that he would know what made it work, some day.
He put it away.
Quietly he said, “Listen, I know you’re up there. Just do me a favor. Just tell Mirtin for me that I hope he’s better fast. And tell him, thanks for talking to me. Thanks for teaching me so much. That’s all. Thank Mirtin for me, yeah?”
He waited. After a moment, when nothing happened, he began to move away, toward the pueblo. He stopped, picked up a rock, shied it into the arroyo. His dog barked and leaped high, as though snapping his teeth at the stars. A sudden gust of wind howled across the flats.
Then Charley saw a streak of brightness above him — a wobbly line of light that seemed to sprout from the very top of the sky and dribble downward, losing itself near the horizon. His pulse pounded, and he laughed. That hadn’t been any Dirnan ship, this time. Just an ordinary old shooting star, was all. He could tell the difference. He knew. This was nothing special, only a hunk of rock and metal burning itself up as it shot through the atmosphere.
But he took it as a sign, all the same. Mirtin’s people were answering him, acknowledging him. They were up there in their ships right this minute. They would look after him. He waved at the stars.
“Thank’s,” he said. “Hey, thanks, you Dirnans!”
He loped back to the village, the dog yipping at his heels, and neither of them paused for breath until the old adobe buildings had come into sight.