Berserker - Earth Descended Part 12

A little girl who said her name was Deirdre brought him a wheeled plastic toy whose axle had come loose from its containing grooves. He forced it back into place, so the wheels could turn again, and Deirdre carried it off, after a machine had made her stand still until she said "Thank you, Bart."

Counting as well as he could in the continuing melee, Bart decided that there were twelve girls and twelve boys in the group.

After dinner, when the machines had begun to pack the kids off to their beds, the Ship said to Bart: "You may remain awake for a few more hours if you wish."

He felt tired out, but not ready to sleep. "Maybe I'll read a book."

"I will provide some in your room."

Stretched out on his bed, he stared at a book for awhile without reading, then put it down and asked the air: "How long have I been here, in the Ship?"

"I have edited your memories of your past life for good reason. Your past contains tragic and violent things. Nothing can be done about the past. We must work for the future and achieve a successful revised mission."

"Are there any other people on board beside me and the little kids?"

"None. Much depends on you."

He lay there looking at the cover ofThe Young Detectives Visit Earth. Although his bed was comfortable and he was tired he didn't think he was going to be able to sleep.

But he really had no choice.

Four.

Again, either his shorts and shirt were washed for him as he slept or it was a clean new outfit that he found on the chair. Breakfast as before, and he was on his way. The books had been removed and there was nothing else to do.

Two boys and two girls, grown bigger since he saw them last, were playing just inside the children's compound; Bart decided it couldn't be thought of as a nursery any more. As he approached the four caught sight of him and jumped with excitement, calling out to others, their voices coming to Bart faintly through the heavy gla.s.s doors.

As he entered it, Bart saw that their compound had been enlarged again. There were no more adult images in sight. Children came, hesitantly at first, from everywhere, some pedaling vehicles, others emerging from toy houses of multicolored blocks.

"Hi, I'm Bart," he said to those who gathered close around. "Anybody remember me?"

"The Ship told us you were coming to see us today," a bold little girl spoke as she pushed for-ward.

"Look, look, see the picture I drew?" It was a row of a dozen or so little circle-faces, each the same size, with lines for hair and nose and eyes, and one large face above. "That's you." In a corner the artist's name stood in big shaky letters: SHARON.

As the day went on Bart heard the names of all the other kids, though he remembered only a few. He spent his time in play with one group and another, and then read them all stories from a book about old Earth as they sat around him on the floor. When the Ship directed, he saw them off to bed.

"Am I being a good enought parent, Ship?"

"The revised mission plan is proceeding satisfactorily."

Five.

All twenty-four of them were waiting for him excitedly just inside the heavy gla.s.s doors. This time they all remembered him.

"We're five now, Bart!"

"Ship, says we can have a birthday party if we want-"

"-like Billy and Lynn-"

It took him a while to figure out that Billy and Lynn were characters in some children's story the Ship showed them from time to time. Lynn and Billy were twins, back on Earth somewhere, and in one episode they had evidently enjoyed an elaborate birthday celebration, complete with cake, candy, and ice cream.

"How old are you, Bart?"

"Will you have a birthday with us?"

"Sure. If the Ship will give us cake and things. Maybe we can have some real candles."

"Yayy!"

So they had the party, the Ship providing real candles and entrusting Bart with a lighter for them. The machines even brought forth small paper-wrapped toys as presents for all the five-year-olds.

"Din'choo get a present, Bart?"

"No, it's not my birthday."

"When is?"

"In about a couple of months." The precise, date was something else still sitting undisturbed in his memory, with blank holes knocked all around it. "This was fun. Listen, maybe we can have another birthday party when I come back tomorrow.

You'll all be six, if the Ship keeps me on the same schedule."

"Tomorrow?"

"Well-next year. See, you and I are running on different schedules; I'm only awake one day every year.

I expect the Ship'll put us on the same time schedule soon."

"Next year?"

Bart sighed, seeing that for them the difference between tomorrow and next year was not too clear.

Especially the way he was talking.

Six.

This year the difference in time schedules was much easier for them to grasp. So were a lot of other things.

Again the compound in which the children lived have been transformed. Part of it had become what Bart recognized as a school, and everybody was busy at teaching-machine consoles when he arrived.

The Ship's voice then declared a holiday for them all.

"Let's have our birthday party!" a boy cried out.

And after Bart had talked with them all, and read them a new story as the Ship directed, and had been shown through the school by his small friends, machines wheeled out a big cake. This time there were balloons as well as little gifts of toys and candy.

"Isn't it your birthday too, Bart?"

"Well, no. Mine's coming in about a couple of months...in two months and two days."

"How old will you be?"

"Fourteen."

After the cake and ice cream was finished they had a good time playing games. The kids were awed by Bart's strength and speed and dexterity, and he taught them some of the skills he knew for games with b.a.l.l.s and ropes and sticks. Now and then someone who got b.u.mped hard in a game took time out to cry. Bart thought he could tell quicker and better than the machines just how serious the damage was.

Seven.

Before the seventh-birthday party got started, Bart went through a period of rather intense questioning by a few of the kids; Fuad and Ranjan and Ora wanted to know what he was doing all the time they didn't see him, where and how he spent the year between birthdays.

"I'm sleeping. The Ship can fix it so a person just sleeps all the time."

"Huh," said Ranjan, doubtfully.

"Why does it want you to sleep all the time?" asked Ora. Today she had a loose front tooth she kept wiggling with her tongue.

"I don't know," Bart admitted, feeling foolish.

"Don't you get hungry?" Fuad wanted to know.

"No. I guess it's not like regular sleep." Some vague knowledge of the process was available in his impersonal memory. "It's something like being frozen, only you never feel cold."

This year the games were rougher. When two or three of the boys grabbed Bart by the legs at once, they could tip him over.

Back in his room alone after dinner, he asked: "Ship, am I really helping much, being a parent, if I just come out once a year? How long will I be on this schedule?"

"You will not be on this schedule for any substantial portion of your lifetime. A definite time limit cannot be set now, but all computation on the matter is proceeding properly."

He tried again a little later, before going to sleep, but got essentially the same answer.

Eight.

When Bart walked into the schoolroom some-thing like boy-girl war was going on, the place in disarray, the weaker or more timid children in tears, the more aggressive screaming insults at one another and hurling toys and writing materials back and forth as missiles, over book-shelves and teaching machines turned into parapets. Adult images had been brought out by the Ship and were calling sternly and uselessly for order, and outnumbered machines were shaking some of the worst offenders by the arm and lecturing.

"Ship, can I help?" Bart cried.

"Yes. Two boys have got to a lower deck and should be brought back up." Ship's voice was calm and methodical as always, though somewhat louder than usual to be heard plainly above the screaming. "My machines are busy, and it would be helpful if you went after the boys and got them to come up again. Go down the stairs at the end of the corridor to your right."

It was a pa.s.sageway he hadn't been in before, evidently one recently opened by the ongoing enlargement of the living quarters. He found the two truants, Tang and Mai, without much trouble; there wasn't much of the lower level open to their exploration, only a loop of corridor sealed off by heavy gla.s.s doors at all other points where other pa.s.sages intersected. The stair also was sealed where it went on down to still lower regions of the Ship.

The boys were glad to see Bart and willing to go back with him; they had seen enough of the sights down here, interesting though they were. Through the various sets of gla.s.s doors you could see other corridors stretching away for hundreds of meters at least. Many other doors were visible, some of which stood open to reveal static glimpses of rooms furnished for human life, but unused and empty of movement. The lights were dim in that large world outside the gla.s.s, and there was not a footstep on the dustless, polished-looking floors.

"I wonder if anybody lives there," Mal had asked, nose against the gla.s.s.

"n.o.body does," said Tang. "Let's go back up."

"Maybe we will someday," Mal said in a small thoughtful voice.

Nine.

The war between the s.e.xes was not raging today, but it still smoldered, as Bart could tell readily enough from the grimacing and hair-pulling and name-calling that flared sporadically during the day. The cake and ice cream lunch was a success, as usual, and the games were fun, though now he had to exert himself somewhat to outdo some of the other players.

A girl and boy had a brief argument about what mathematical formula should be used to calculate the volume of the basketball they were playing with, and with a start Bart realized that now some of these kids knew things, maybe important things, that he had never learned. And he was supposed to be their parent! Or was it possible he had misunderstood what the Ship was saying?

These things still bothered him when the day was over and he had undressed and climbed back into his isolated bed. "Ship."

"Yes."

"...nothing." He decided to let well enough alone. Ship rarely gave him a helpful answer anyway. And he wasn't really all that anxious to be a father, at least not until he was older.