Lovelock (7 page)

“There
is
a lift,” Penelope said, turning her most helpful face toward Red and Mamie. “For
heavy
loads.” Since Pink hardly qualified, the remark seemed vaguely pointed at Mamie—and from the look of faint disgust on her face, Mamie didn’t miss the barb, either. It was pretty absurd, coming from Penelope; although Mamie was round, she was small enough that each of Penelope’s breasts probably outweighed her. Penelope was obviously a person who didn’t like having to change her plans to accommodate other people.

She led us to another elevator, a small one designed for people instead of cargo, and we crowded inside for the trip downstairs. Then she led us to the tube platform. It took only moments for a car to arrive. She seated us efficiently and pressed the name of our village, Mayflower, on the destination board. There was a pneumatic sound as the magnetics were turned on and the car lifted itself from the floor. Then, smoothly, it slipped through the network of tubes, choosing its own way at each intersection.

As we glided along, Penelope cheerfully pressed ahead with the urgent business of becoming our dearest friend. “Now that we’re settled down,” she said, “tell me about yourselves. Of course, I know all about
you
, Dr. Cocciolone.”

Carol Jeanne interrupted. “Please, no titles. Call me Carol Jeanne.”

Penelope pounced on the name and played with it like a cat. “Carol Jeanne it is, then,” she said. “Such a lovely name, Carol Jeanne. I’m so glad we’re going to be friends, Carol Jeanne.”

After bestowing a winning smile on Mayflower’s newest celebrity, she turned to Red, who was holding Emmy by a lock of hair to keep her from wandering. “Now, Mr. Cocciolone, what should I call you?”

“He’s Mr.
Todd
,” Mamie corrected. “Redmond Eugene Todd. We call him Red. Carol Jeanne is
Mrs
. Todd.”

Poor Mamie. Didn’t she realize that Penelope was only goading her?

Penelope and her breasts ignored Mamie. “And what do you do?” she asked Red.

“I’m a family counselor.” Red always looked proud when he said that—as if he had a real job, doing real work. Being a family counselor seemed as useless to me as going to church—it was just a way to pander to emotions instead of focusing on what was really important. Nevertheless, Red was probably good at it; he was one of those touchy-feely humans who communicate with hugs and pats on the back, forever clucking over strangers and telling them,
I
understand. Humans loved him for it.

Penelope looked as unimpressed with Red’s occupation as I was, though. “Inside or Outside?”

Red was obviously confused. “I usually consult with people in an office, if that’s what you mean.”

“You don’t even know about Inside and Outside?” Silence was all the answer she needed. “Outside is up on the surface, where the sun shines, where the crops grow. Where we
live
and farm. The
villages
. And Inside is down here, in the closed spaces, where we
work
. Our
jobs
. It’s as if we all lead double lives. Our Inside life, where we work with people in our profession, just like an office building on Earth, and our Outside life, where we live with our fellow villagers.”

“And family counselors specialize in Inside or Outside work?” Red asked.

“The Outside counselors are called by the chief administrator of the Ark to serve each village,” said Penelope. “People go to them when they have village problems. Being an Outside counselor is the greatest honor a person can have—except being the Mayor, of course. Only the most compassionate people in the village can be called to a job like that.”

“Then our Red will be an Outside counselor, of course,” said Mamie. The woman took the bait as eagerly as a trout sprang for a fly above the pond back home, and I was disgusted at how easily Penelope reeled her in. “He’s the most compassionate person I’ve ever met.”

“Indeed. That’s interesting news—I hadn’t heard that Mayflower’s counselor was due for replacement.” I don’t believe I imagined the smirk in Penelope’s voice, but to her credit she kept the smile from her lips. “The scientifically trained family counselors are Inside, of course, in offices. But I always think the Inside counselors are for when people are, you know…what’s the word—”

“Clinically ill,” said Carol Jeanne.

“Crazy,” said Penelope at the same moment. “Whatever. You go to a village counselor because you want to talk with somebody you can trust. You go to an office counselor because your supervisor thinks that your problems are interfering with your job. It’s so sterile and frightening.”

Red tried to look cheerful, though no doubt he was seething at her primitive attitudes about therapy. “I’m an Inside counselor, I guess. I’ll work for personnel. No doubt in an office.”

“Well, how interesting,” said Penelope, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that she had just insulted his profession. But I was sure that she had known all along that he was one of the “sterile and frightening” ones.

Dismissing Red, she turned her attention to Mamie and Stef. “And you—what are
your
names, and what do
you
do?”

She looked at Mamie expectantly. I was actually looking forward to what Penelope would say to put Mamie in her place.

“We’re Red’s parents,” said Mamie. “I’m Mamie Foxe Todd, and this is my husband, Stephan Brantley Todd. Everyone calls him Stef.”

“
I’ll
call him Stephan,” Penelope said, speaking to Mamie as if Stef were incapable of speaking for himself. “
Stef
sounds like a bacterial infection. And what do you do for a living?”

“We don’t do anything,” said Mamie. “Stef is a man of means, so it’s not as though he ever had to have a
job
. Of course he’d be retired anyway. He’s
much
older than I am…he’s sixty-three.”

I waited for Penelope to raise her eyebrows at that. Stef didn’t look like he was anywhere near sixty-three. He could have passed for seventy-five, and an old seventy-five, at that. Years of living with Mamie had beaten him down until he was shriveled inside himself, as though he had retreated into his very skin to escape her venom. But Penelope saw none of that. She smiled coquettishly at Stef and patted his forearm. She was
flirting
with that decrepit old fossil, and Stef responded. He smiled back, and years fell off his face. Once, centuries ago, he had been a handsome man.

Mamie cleared her throat. Mentioning Stef, she had relinquished her place as the center of attention, and she wanted it back. “Of course, I’ve
never
worked at a paying job, though I’ve done a great deal of volunteer work. I expect to continue with that sort of thing here, and Stef will no doubt putter around the way he did at home.”

Penelope dropped her hand from Stef’s forearm and knitted her brows. She checked her clipboard computer as if for reassurance. Then, obviously not learning anything from the computer screen, she snapped the clipboard shut.

“That’s not good news, I’m afraid,” she said. “That’s definitely not good news. Everyone here has to work, both Inside and Outside. It’s in the Compact. Don’t you remember?”

“What Compact?” Mamie asked blankly.

“The contract you signed before you came here, of course.”

“
That
thing? All I did was sign it. It was very long.”

“You didn’t read it?” Carol Jeanne asked.

“You didn’t
read
it?” echoed Penelope. The skin tightened on her neck, and her mammoth breasts jutted forward like warheads. “The Compact is everything. When you signed it, you agreed to work Inside and Outside. This is a working community. We can’t afford to have drones. Fair share, that’s how we live. Everybody does their fair share, and gets their fair share in return.”

“What else did we agree?” Stef’s voice sounded drier and thirstier.

“My goodness! There was so much of it, I can’t possibly remember. You’ll have to go back and read the Compact. I can promise you one thing—you signed it, and you’re responsible for keeping your end of the bargain, whether you knew what you were signing or not.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Emmy started whimpering, and Stef held out his arms to her. She climbed on his lap and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Almost immediately, she fell asleep.

Carol Jeanne looked out the window at the blank tube walls gliding lazily by, and Red stroked the top of Lydia’s head. Only Mamie was unintimidated by Penelope. She stared at Penelope’s chest for a long moment, watching it rise and fall the way some people sit and watch the ocean waves. Then, as if she had made a conscious decision to be pleasant, Mamie’s expression softened.

“Tell me about Mayflower,” she asked brightly, using the sing-song tone she usually reserved for Lydia and Emmy. “Tell me all about where we’re going to live.”

Penelope was obviously unaware of the effort that Mamie was making. “You read all about us when you chose the place you wanted to live,” she said. “We’re just as the prospectus described us.”

“I didn’t read the prospectus,” said Mamie.

“I didn’t, either,” Carol Jeanne admitted. “Other than the legal papers I signed, I didn’t read any of the specifics. I’ve been so busy planning our agenda once we reach the new planet that I haven’t had time to think about the Ark. I’m afraid I left all those decisions to Red.”

Carol Jeanne blushed, as well she should have. Red had never made a rational decision in his life. The truth was that she had left the reading to
me
, and so apparently I was the only one in the group to know what we were in for. Carol Jeanne knew that I would fill her in on anything she needed to know, as soon as she needed to know it. At least, that’s what I’d do as soon as I got a clipboard or a computer so I could communicate fully with her.

Penelope looked disgruntled; then she swelled up importantly and took a deep breath. “Well, I’ll have to tell you about it myself. First of all, we’re Presbyterian here.”

Mamie sniffed. “There’s not a Presbyterian in the bunch of us,” she said. “
I’m
Congregationalist, and Stef and Red and the girls are Episcopalian. Of course, with a name like Cocciolone, Carol Jeanne just
has
to be Catholic.” Mamie treated it as if it were an old family joke. But her smile was tight. Lines radiated from her mouth like legs on a spider.

“Mayflower is a compromise, Mother.” Red said it patiently, as if he had explained it a hundred times before. I’d heard him say it so many times that I wanted to throw feces at him whenever I heard it again. When I read the specs, I knew at once that Carol Jeanne should live in the village of Einstein, with the people for whom science was life, not just a job; or in Mensa, with the godless heathens. There would have been fewer distractions that way. But no, Mamie had insisted on living among Christians. Her brand of Christians, of course—or as close to her brand as she could get.

Mamie smiled indulgently at her dear boy. “Of course Mayflower’s a compromise, Redmond. I’m very happy with it.”

Penelope smiled, too. “You’ll be even happier the better you get to know us,” she said cheerfully. “We’re pretty open-minded here. Presbyterians are tolerant folks. All religions are the same, anyway, as long as they’re Christian. In fact, we even have three Jewish families who live with us, because Bethel Village is too Orthodox for them, and there are also some Mormons because nobody else wanted them. They have their own services, of course, but otherwise you’d never know they belonged to a cult.”

“How interesting,” said Mamie, plainly uninterested. It did not particularly please her to know that her village was one that included Jews and fanatics. She had never in her life had to associate with such people except when they served her in such roles as lawyer, store clerk, or maid.

Penelope didn’t catch Mamie’s sarcasm. “Actually, I think most people agree that Mayflower is the best village of all. For one thing, the chief administrator lives here. That gives the village a certain—prestige, if you will—that the others don’t have. It makes Mayflower—well, there
is
no capital city on the Ark, but if there were one, it would be Mayflower.”

“Oh?” Mamie’s mouth relaxed into a tentative smile.

“And now we have the chief gaiologist as well. People would
kill
to live in Mayflower. Oh, the parties we’ll have!—after the mourning is over, of course. I hope Cyrus marries again soon.”

“Cyrus?” Stef asked, sounding more tired than curious.

“The chief administrator, Dad,” said Red. “It’s his wife’s funeral we’re going to attend.” Red sounded as if he were looking forward to it.

“It starts in just a few minutes,” Penelope said. “Mayflower is directly ahead. We should be stopping right…now.”

With timing that was either a lucky coincidence or the result of diligent practice on Penelope’s part, the tube settled onto its wheels the moment she finished speaking, and in moments we came to a stop. The doors opened, and Penelope herded us onto the platform. We wouldn’t reach our house for seven hours, but in some sense we were finally home.

When we finally saw the village of Mayflower, nobody was more surprised than I was. We had flown all those miles away from Earth, only to boomerang home again. Except for the weather, we could have been back in Temple, New Hampshire. The photographs in the prospectus hadn’t prepared me for how like Temple the villages on the Ark would be.

Mayflower hadn’t been patterned after our home town, of course. It’s just that both Temple and the village of Mayflower had been designed, centuries apart, to look like any small town in New England. The elevator up from the tube disgorged us onto a town square just like the one in Temple. There was a grassy commons in the middle, with white buildings all around. One looked like a general store. Another could have been a post office, though that was unlikely. All that was missing was a Revolutionary War cannon in the center of the town square—that and a big clock that tolled the hours. There was even a church on the far end of the square, as white as every other structure in the village.

There was one difference, and that was a big one. All the buildings were inflatable. All of them looked puffy and impermanent. I knew that inflatable buildings were vital here—all structures had to be designed so they could be removed and stored for each changeover, and then quickly put back in place when the soil had been restabilized. Even so, the overblown structures reminded me of nothing so much as Penelope’s breasts. This place would be heaven for an unscrupulous person with a pin.

As I clung to Carol Jeanne’s neck, Mamie was the one who blocked my line of vision. Her mouth opened and closed, just like the gaping mouth of a goldfish in a bowl. I knew she was going to say something when she got her breath.

“Good grief,” Mamie said finally. “The buildings all look like
balloons
.”

“They’re
cartoon
houses!” cried Lydia.

“
Our
house won’t look like that, will it?” asked Mamie.

“Oh, you’re such a tease,” Penelope said. “Of course it will. The prospectus explained all about it…but you didn’t read that, did you? I keep forgetting. I never heard of anyone else who came here without reading it.”

“I had more important things to do—packing up our household. And saying good-bye to all my friends.”

Red had handled the packing; all Mamie had done was point and command. And what friends was she talking about? Mamie had acquaintances by the score, but none of her country club peers would be so gauche as to have
friends
. Their primary entertainment was getting together in groups and saying vicious things about whoever wasn’t coming or had just left.

The corners of Penelope’s mouth turned up just a bit. I already knew she had a sarcastic streak in her, and I rather liked her for it. “Just think,” she said, “you’ll
never
have to say good-bye to any friends again as long as you live.”

Mamie looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”

Penelope was all innocence. “Why, because we’ll all be together
forever
. One big happy permanent family.”

“Mamie treats
all
her friends just like family,” Stef said. Did Penelope get the double meaning of that? Mamie certainly knew
something
was wrong with what he said—she gave her husband a withering look. But Penelope’s smile only broadened.

Lydia pulled on Red’s shirt, as desperate for attention as her beloved grandmother had been. “Are we home already?” she asked. “When is breakfast? Why do all the houses look like cartoons?”

“They’re balloon buildings, Lydia,” Red said. “People blow them up just like balloons.”

“Oh, wouldn’t we just wear ourselves
out
with puffing if we did!” said Penelope. “No, there’s an air vent inside every house, putting out the gentle air pressure that keeps the structures standing.”

“It sounds very drafty,” said Mamie.

“Cool and refreshing, most people think,” said Penelope.

“What if the ventilation system fails?” asked Stef.

“Oh, Stef, must you ask worrisome questions in front of the children?” asked Mamie.

“There’s a semirigid structure built into the walls. You can always get out, and there’s always enough air to breathe. But that was a
very
good question.” Penelope patted Stef on the arm. Stef smiled wanly—he knew that whatever happened in this quiet catfight between Mamie and Penelope, he was going to pay for it later.

Since we couldn’t escape the funeral, we trudged toward the church behind Penelope. Trudging was only a state of mind on the Ark, because the lower gravity lightened our steps. In fact, it lightened everyone’s steps so much that practically everyone stumbled several times.

“It’s physics,” Penelope explained cheerily. “We still have the same mass, even if we don’t have the same weight. So you hurtle along with as much force as you ever had, and gravity won’t help you slow down. Your children will doubtless bump into walls a lot till they learn how to stop. It’s another benefit of inflatable walls—you can’t get hurt bumping into them.”

I inspected the village as we crossed the town square, and I was amused to see that every one of the dwarf trees that made up the orchards and beautified the landscape here and there was neatly contained in a pot. Portability was the word of the day. There’d be no spreading chestnut trees large enough to shelter a village smithy, unless the potters here had exceptionally large potter’s wheels.

People were still flowing into the village church that faced the town square; the funeral hadn’t started yet. The closer we got to the church, the more it looked like a parody of the ones in New Hampshire. The inflatable church had an inflatable steeple, as functionless as the steeples back home. A lot of trouble had been taken to make Mayflower as homelike as possible, but in my opinion humans who were that susceptible to homesickness should have stayed on Earth where they belonged.

Outside the church was a table, stacked high with clear packets of some sort. A woman sat behind the table, looking officious.

“Oh, it’s you, Penelope,” she said when we approached. “I’m sure
you’ll
want to spread the word about Odie Lee.”

“Oh my, yes!” Penelope extended her sausage fingers, and the woman handed her a strange object encased in a clear protective sheath. It looked like a flower, with a green stem and filigree leaves. But at the top of the stem, the flower was a puff of tiny white threads that looked as if they would scatter at the slightest provocation.

“Those are dandelions,” Stef said, wheezing dryly.

Mamie giggled. “You actually brought
weeds
to the Ark? Even out in the country we had exterminators. I haven’t seen a dandelion in years.”

Penelope shook her head vigorously. “These may be dandelions, but here they’re not weeds. They’re a very useful flower. Glory village grows them for the leaves. Nothing is better than a mess of young dandelion greens. Plymouth village grows dandelions for the yellow flowers; you can make a delicious wine from the blossoms. And the bees like them, of course.” She bounced her sausage hand on Lydia’s head a few times; no doubt she meant the gesture as a love pat. “
You
like honey, don’t you, you sweet thing? That’s why we need dandelions—so the bees can make honey for
you
.”

Lydia looked at her as if she were crazy.

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand what dandelions have to do with funerals,” Carol Jeanne said.

It was interesting to see how Penelope deferred to Carol Jeanne. She delighted in needling Mamie, and she enjoyed flirting with Stef—though whether that was because she was attracted to him or simply wanted to annoy Mamie it was impossible to tell. But when Carol Jeanne asked a question, everything changed. Penelope immediately became sincerely deferent. Apparently she knew her place in the hierarchy, and wished to ingratiate herself with the Ark’s chief gaiologist. She almost stammered when she spoke to Carol Jeanne. Either she really was in awe or she was very good at simulating it.

“It’s a little custom we’ve developed here,” said Penelope. “I hope you don’t think we’re too silly. It’s a way of—I don’t know, sharing with each other. Giving the dead back to the world. Releasing the soul to flight. You’ll see how it works. All the villages do it—it’s an Ark thing, not just in Mayflower.”

“Will
we
need dandelions?” asked Carol Jeanne.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Penelope. “I mean, you don’t even
know
Odie Lee! How could you possibly spread the word about a
stranger?
”

Carol Jeanne said nothing, but I knew what she was thinking: If Odie Lee is such a stranger, why are we at this funeral at all?

Penelope herded us inside the church, holding her dandelion packet as carefully as she would a vial of liquid nitroglycerine. “Sit here,” she whispered. “No! There’s a better spot up in front.” She opened a path for us through the congregation milling in the aisles. We had to file along behind her as she loudly announced, “Move aside, please! We have important guests here. The Cocciolones just arrived. Please make way for the Cocciolones.”

Necks craned to see us. Carol Jeanne was embarrassed, of course; she hated the trappings of celebrity, and having Penelope call out her name like that was excruciating. But Mamie loved it. Oh, she didn’t like it that Penelope identified everyone by the Cocciolone name, but having all eyes upon us, people straining to catch a glimpse—that was heaven. Carol Jeanne might be trying to disappear, but Mamie strutted down the aisle like an ocean liner surrounded by tugboats.
She
knew how to look important. Anyone glancing at us would naturally assume that she was the celebrity among us.

Penelope scooted down to the center of a long pew, sat, and patted the wooden bench next to her so we would sit with her. One after another, we found our places and took a seat. Pink squealed once and Red lifted her into his lap, so she could see. I never had to interrupt Carol Jeanne’s thoughts for petty help like that—but then, it didn’t much matter whether Red’s thoughts were interrupted or not.

“Look! A monkey!” It was an ugly little girl on the row in front of us. “Have you ever seen such tiny black hands?” She had buck teeth and her nose looked squashed, like someone had used her face for a whoopee cushion. I estimated her age at eleven or twelve. Closer to sentience than Lydia or Emmy; she was mature enough to keep her remarks to a whisper, though of course I could hear her easily.

The boy next to her, no doubt her older brother, turned and looked. “There’s a pig, too,” he said. “They must be witnesses.”

She got a look of disgust. “Of
course
they’re witnesses. You can tell by the i/o ports in the back of their necks. That’s where they hook up to computers.” She craned her neck for another look at Pink. “Besides—who’d let a pig into church if he wasn’t a witness?”

He rolled his eyes and faced front again. “Who’d have a
pig
for a witness? That’s the stupidest choice I’ve ever seen. They should have gotten two monkeys.”

I knew on the spot that these were bright children, charming children, and buck teeth and squashed noses were not altogether ungraceful features.

“Whoever they are,” said the girl, “they must have just left the ship. They smell like they haven’t bathed in a month.”

Observant children, logical children. I hoped Carol Jeanne and Red had overheard their comments. Everyone stank, but I was cute. I was practical. I was a perfect witness. On the other hand, Pink couldn’t even hop up on a crowded bench without help, and she squatted on Red’s lap as precariously as if she were on a tightwire. I chattered at the children and made faces; the boy soon realized he was being patronized and stoically faced front, but the girl kept stealing glances at me. I stood on my head. She smiled. I waggled my hips. She broke up laughing and her brother jabbed her with an elbow.

Carol Jeanne relaxed into her seat as I performed. She knew what was going on, but she didn’t mind. I think she felt that regular people would be less in awe of
her
if they liked
me
.

All too soon, a scrawny old man revved up the synthesizer, and the service began with a rousing Protestant hymn. As mourners chirruped to the music, the star of the funeral—the dead body herself—was wheeled up the aisle on a cart. She was round and healthy looking; she didn’t look sick enough to be lying there dead. The way she was rolled up to the front of the church, she looked like a rib roast at a prime rib banquet. Carol Jeanne would have appreciated that observation, and I wished again for a clipboard.

Everyone sat reverently through the invocation. I groomed Carol Jeanne while the heads were bowed.

The minister plunged right in at the end of the prayer, not even stopping for a breath between “Amen” and the opening remarks. “We’re here for a sad but glorious occasion.” He did a remarkable job with his facial expression; he looked both mournful and exalted, all at once, like a medieval painting of a saint. I imagined him practicing in front of a mirror all during his years of study in the seminary. “Odie Lee Morris was our chief administrator’s wife. If that had been her only accomplishment, people would have honored her, for she was a gracious accompaniment to that good man all her life.”

He paused for this profound idea to sink in. The man was a philosopher, a poet of the quotidian. “But the praise of the world meant nothing to Odie Lee,” he continued. He also had a remarkably large and active Adam’s apple. “From the moment she set foot on the Ark, she
devoted
herself…to
others
. Here was a woman who never worried about herself. Despite her poor health—and we who knew her are well aware how much Odie Lee suffered—she spent her life administering to others’ needs.”

The minister bowed his head for a moment. His Adam’s apple quivered in indecision, waiting for a cue to begin dancing again. “But enough of my humble words.” His tone had changed. He was through with the ministerial part, and now he was master of ceremonies. “I will speak of no particular creed or doctrine. Odie Lee lived as a Christian—an exemplar of Christianity at its best—but she belonged to all of us in the Ark, Christian or…” The words
pagan, heathen, heretic
, and
infidel
no doubt crossed his mind.”…non-Christian. Now it’s time to let the people who loved her spread the word about Odie Lee. Form a line here, to the left of the podium. Take your turn. Everyone who wants to speak will have a chance.”