the reason he studied the Worldese for hours every day, aided by his natural ear for languages. Once, in his brief and abortive attempt at college, Noah had heard a famous poet say that factual truth and emotional truth were not the same. “You have to understand with your belly,” she’d said.
He did. For the first time in his life, he did.
His feet made a mistake, leaving a red toe print on the floor in the wrong place. No one chided him. Cliclimi, her old face wrinkling into crevasses and hills and dales, a whole topography of kinship, just laughed at him and reached out her skinny arm to fondly touch his.
Noah, not like that. Color in the lines!
Noah, this isn’t the report card I expect of you.
Noah, you can’t come with me and my friends! You’re too little!
Noah, can’t you do anything right?
When he’d danced until he could no longer stand (Cliclimi was still going at it, but she hadn’t drunk as much as Noah had), he dropped onto a large cushion beside “Jones,” whose real name he still couldn’t pronounce. It had more trills than most, and a strange tongue sound he could not reproduce at all. She was flushed, her hair unbound from its usual tight arrangement. Smaller than he was but stockier, her caramel-colored flesh glowed with exertion. The hair, rich dark brown, glinted in the rosy light. Her red tunic—everybody wore red for lllanthil—had hiked high on her thighs.
Noah heard his mother’s voice say, “A hundred fifty thousand years is not enough time for a species to diverge.” To his horror, he felt himself blush.
She didn’t notice, or else she took it as warmth from the dancing. She said, “Do you have trouble with our gravity?”
Proud of himself that he understood the words, he said, “No. It small amount big of Earth.” At least, he hoped that’s what he’d said.
Apparently it was. She smiled and said something he didn’t understand. She stretched luxuriously, and the tunic rode up another two inches.
What were the kinship taboos on sex? What were any of the taboos on sex? Not that Noah could have touched her skin-to-skin, anyway. He was encased, so unobtrusively that he usually forgot it was there, in the “energy suit” that protected him from alien microbes.
Microbes. Spores. How much time was left before the cloud hit Earth? At the moment it didn’t seem important. ( Noah, you can’t just pretend problems don’t exist! That had usually been Elizabeth.)
He said, “Can—yes, no?—make my—” Damn it, what was the word for microbes? “—my inside like you? My inside spores?”
IV: S minus 6.5 months
MARIANNE
Gina had not returned from Brooklyn on the day’s last submarine run. Marianne was redoing an entire batch of DNA amplification that had somehow become contaminated. Evan picked up the mail sack and the news dispatches. When he came into the lab, where Marianne was cursing at a row of beakers, he uncharacteristically put both hands on her shoulders. She looked at his face.
“What is it? Tell me quickly.”
“Gina is dead.”
She put a hand onto the lab bench to steady herself. “How?”
“A mob. They were frighteningly well armed, almost a small army. End-of-the-world rioters.”
“Was Gina . . . did she . . . ?”
“A bullet, very quick. She didn’t suffer, Marianne. Do you want a drink? I have some rather good Scotch.”
“No. Thank you, but no.”
Gina. Marianne could picture her so clearly, as if she still stood in the lab in the wrinkled white coat she always wore even though the rest of them did not. Her dark hair just touched with gray, her ruddy face calm. Brisk, pleasant, competent. . . . What else? Marianne hadn’t known Gina very well. All at once, she wondered if she knew anyone, really knew them. Two of her children baffled her: Elizabeth’s endemic anger, Noah’s drifty aimlessness. Had she ever known Kyle, the man he was under the charming and lying surface, under the alcoholism? Evan’s personal life was kept
He did. For the first time in his life, he did.
His feet made a mistake, leaving a red toe print on the floor in the wrong place. No one chided him. Cliclimi, her old face wrinkling into crevasses and hills and dales, a whole topography of kinship, just laughed at him and reached out her skinny arm to fondly touch his.
Noah, not like that. Color in the lines!
Noah, this isn’t the report card I expect of you.
Noah, you can’t come with me and my friends! You’re too little!
Noah, can’t you do anything right?
When he’d danced until he could no longer stand (Cliclimi was still going at it, but she hadn’t drunk as much as Noah had), he dropped onto a large cushion beside “Jones,” whose real name he still couldn’t pronounce. It had more trills than most, and a strange tongue sound he could not reproduce at all. She was flushed, her hair unbound from its usual tight arrangement. Smaller than he was but stockier, her caramel-colored flesh glowed with exertion. The hair, rich dark brown, glinted in the rosy light. Her red tunic—everybody wore red for lllanthil—had hiked high on her thighs.
Noah heard his mother’s voice say, “A hundred fifty thousand years is not enough time for a species to diverge.” To his horror, he felt himself blush.
She didn’t notice, or else she took it as warmth from the dancing. She said, “Do you have trouble with our gravity?”
Proud of himself that he understood the words, he said, “No. It small amount big of Earth.” At least, he hoped that’s what he’d said.
Apparently it was. She smiled and said something he didn’t understand. She stretched luxuriously, and the tunic rode up another two inches.
What were the kinship taboos on sex? What were any of the taboos on sex? Not that Noah could have touched her skin-to-skin, anyway. He was encased, so unobtrusively that he usually forgot it was there, in the “energy suit” that protected him from alien microbes.
Microbes. Spores. How much time was left before the cloud hit Earth? At the moment it didn’t seem important. ( Noah, you can’t just pretend problems don’t exist! That had usually been Elizabeth.)
He said, “Can—yes, no?—make my—” Damn it, what was the word for microbes? “—my inside like you? My inside spores?”
IV: S minus 6.5 months
MARIANNE
Gina had not returned from Brooklyn on the day’s last submarine run. Marianne was redoing an entire batch of DNA amplification that had somehow become contaminated. Evan picked up the mail sack and the news dispatches. When he came into the lab, where Marianne was cursing at a row of beakers, he uncharacteristically put both hands on her shoulders. She looked at his face.
“What is it? Tell me quickly.”
“Gina is dead.”
She put a hand onto the lab bench to steady herself. “How?”
“A mob. They were frighteningly well armed, almost a small army. End-of-the-world rioters.”
“Was Gina . . . did she . . . ?”
“A bullet, very quick. She didn’t suffer, Marianne. Do you want a drink? I have some rather good Scotch.”
“No. Thank you, but no.”
Gina. Marianne could picture her so clearly, as if she still stood in the lab in the wrinkled white coat she always wore even though the rest of them did not. Her dark hair just touched with gray, her ruddy face calm. Brisk, pleasant, competent. . . . What else? Marianne hadn’t known Gina very well. All at once, she wondered if she knew anyone, really knew them. Two of her children baffled her: Elizabeth’s endemic anger, Noah’s drifty aimlessness. Had she ever known Kyle, the man he was under the charming and lying surface, under the alcoholism? Evan’s personal life was kept
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