Xenos

I'm crying, and I can't stop.

I've been crying for three days, now, ever since they brought me up here to the mother ship. I've tried to stop - it isn't manly, and it isn't dignified - but I can't. They are kind - bring me meals, and a sedative so I can sleep nights. Might as well call it night, though here in orbit it doesn't seem to matter much, just eight hours in twenty-four.

Eight hours that I go quiet, and forget about it all, and don't dream, thank goodness. It must be getting on their nerves, all this crying, but they're so polite. They never mention it.

I know what will happen if I can't stop, though.

When SETI informed us that there were, indeed, 'aliens' from other worlds - that they'd received Communications from Out There - I was as excited as everyone, I suppose. Particularly as I realised I stood a good chance of being among the welcoming party when they finally got here.

They'd apparently intercepted Voyager, and been as excited as we would have been. Only, they had warp speed capabilities, and could come visit. They sent us a calling card - proof that they knew pi, and had language, and music...

Oh, that music. We were surprised, having sent Beethoven and Chuck Berry. They sent a single-voice recording - no instruments - that, well, made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. In a good way, of course. It's just that every person who heard it had exactly the same feeling - as if the tune were so obvious, somehow, as if you couldn't believe you'd never heard it before (though you hadn't), but having heard it, you couldn't imagine the world without it.

The only thing they didn't send was a picture of themselves, the way we had. And that gave us pause for thought.

When the people on our end of the phone realised the Xenans, as they called themselves (they managed to send messages to us in our major languages, being better at that, too, it seemed, than we were), were headed our way and would arrive within months, we on the reception committee started preparing. We mapped out sightseeing tours, arranged for security, the whole nine yards. We even knew what we wanted to say: Welcome, hope you come in peace for all Beingkind, that sort of thing.

What worried us most, however - and what took up most of our practice time - was controlling our reaction to the way the aliens were likely to look. After all, the last thing we wanted to do was to spoil the first impression we'd make on these lovely people - who had travelled lightyears to see us, after all, and who had sent some very nice presents ahead of them, including the solution to the Riemann Hypothesis - by recoiling in horror from their slimy tentacles, or compound eyes, or hairy, apelike bodies.

So we practised. Hiring actors in prosthetic makeup, we practised making our speeches without blinking in front of science fiction's most imaginative monsters. This was sometimes hard just because they made us laugh. Less easy were the mock state dinners. Keeping one's rubber chicken down while one's neighbour dug into a bowl of juicy grubs covered in tomato sauce was a job for the stout of heart. We remembered it was for humanity, and we persevered until we could smile and inquire politely if the motor oil was a good year.

Sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, even theologians lectured us about the possible differences in outlook between ourselves and our guests. Linguists warned us about pronouns, ethologists about body language. After months of preparation, we felt ourselves ready.

How wrong we were.

The young (?) Xenan female - I know she is female, from her short hair, and her dress, and the timbre of her voice - who has just brought me a delicious aloo palak seemed encouraged to see me writing.

'Why, how wonderful, Dr Bhabha.' She stretched out her hand, as if to touch my shoulder, but when I involuntarily shrank back withdrew it. 'I hope you enjoy your meal.'

I can eat and cry, I have found. But the food is delicious. It is always delicious - each meal the best I have ever tasted.

The shock of their arrival - their technological superiority, their knowledge of us, their appearance - was compounded by the horrendous news they brought. There was no question about it - Earth had only a short time to live. Events which even they could not prevent would lead to our sun's going supernova before its time. We had only two decades to prepare the mass evacuation.

The Xenans have been gracious, helpful, and utterly kind. (They are unfailingly kind.) They have made their vast resources available to us. They have promised us homes on their inhabited worlds. Such worlds are few and far between, it seems. This is not a gift to be weighed lightly. It is the gift of survival for the race of humanity.

Why can't I stop crying? My own survival depends upon it. If I learn to stop, I might save others. The others who can't stop crying, and who, if they can't, will not be able to make the journey.

For at the end of the journey are Xenans.

When the first delegation - four males, two females - stepped to the designated meeting platform, symbolically chosen at Cape Canaveral, the spot from which the first humans had left to go to the moon, we understood our mistake - and the revelation was devastating. For me, for so many of us.

The world was watching, of course. I believe that the satellite television audience was the highest for any event in history. After a few words of greeting, the leader stepped back, and a male and a female stepped forward, and, with the most gracious of smiles, began to disrobe, apparently both to satisfy our natural curiosity and to allay our fears about weapons. To show trust.

How misplaced was that trust, I wonder? What we saw destroyed our hearts.

Two Xenans, the male and female distinguished mainly by slight differences in their musculature, by different dress and hair style. Bipedal, bilateral symmetry, binocular vision, hair on their heads, none on their bodies.

But - they glowed. And they were beautiful. Every inch of their skin glistened, every muscle rippled with perfection. There were no unsightly blemishes. There were no visible sexual organs.

They were human - almost.

They were better than human. They were perfect. And at that moment, I believe, the heart went out of me - and out of so many who were watching.

Of course, those who were not in the room could not smell the newcomers, as I could. The odour was pleasant, not overwhelming. And indescribable. Nothing on Earth had ever smelled like that, and yet - it was perfect. Once one had encountered that scent, one could never imagine being without it.

The Xenans are as good as they are beautiful. They are concerned that their presence disturbs some of us so greatly that - should we not be able to overcome our reaction - we will have to be left behind on a doomed world. For the Xenans know of no worlds which are not already inhabited. By themselves. They are willing to share.

I have said that they know of no other worlds, but this is not quite true. The Xenans have asked me to write this account, bare as it is, for a particular reason. They have discovered another inhabited planet, some distance from here, and are sending a team even now to contact them, for they fear yet another disaster in the making, and the need for yet another rescue attempt. They would rather die than not try to save them. And yet, they fear rejection.

So I am writing this for you, the peoples of another world, whose name I cannot pronounce, and of whose nature I am ignorant. This is my hope for you:

I hope that you are green. That you have six arms, or three eyes each. I hope that you move by flying, or hopping, or that you live under water. I hope that you communicate by grunts, or sign language, or elaborate dance. I hope you have three genders.

I hope, above all, that your sense of beauty, and proportion, is not as ours. For then your rescuers will appear to you as pleasant, though possibly ungainly, beings, who are welcome for the help they offer. And not, as in our case, as a curse.

For I have seen the future - and it is not us. The humans of Earth may be rescued from death, but they will never achieve their potential. For the others will always be there, so lovely, so clever, and so kind....

If I can't stop crying, I can't go. If I can't go, I will mourn for the rest of my life, however short it is. For I will never be able to forget the sight of their faces, the sound of their voices, the kind look in their eyes.

If I tore my own eyes out, I could not.

The Xenans have agreed to send this, along with a photograph of myself, ahead of them. Your need is not so great. It may be possible to save your world without alien interference. You have more time than we did.

Choose wisely, my friends.

Yours,

Rajiv Bhabha,
Secretary General,
The United Nations of the Planet Earth

Christmas in Acme

On the morning of her 66th birthday, Louisa Logan MacAdam woke as a winter sunbeam filtered through a gap in the Carolina pines outside her bedroom window. It was 7.30.

She turned away from the harsh light, reluctant to face the day. Feeling slightly guilty, as always, she reached her socked feet out from under the down coverlet and felt around for her slippers, her bare legs tingling from the sudden cold as her nightgown rode up. Her feet found the slippers by muscle memory, and she forsook the warmth of her bed for the chill of the hallway, pausing to turn up the heat. The floor furnace came on with a satisfying thump, and she shuffled on across the old linoleum rug to the bathroom where her clothes were already hanging.

She washed and dressed quickly in the morning chill. She brushed her fluffy white hair and added a touch of lipstick, giving the result a quick critical look of approval in the speckled mirror. As her Aunt Mattie Emma had always told her, 'They can't take your pride, honey, if you won't give it to them.'

Turning on the coffeepot, Louisa grabbed her heavy wool coat from its peg by the door and made her way around the holly bushes at the side of the house, down the long driveway to pick up the paper and mail.

Looking back from the mailbox, Louisa laughed to herself to see her old one-storey house - the one she was born in, the one she'd inherited from her father - standing so isolated against the pines and bare sycamores. Not much of a Christmas Eve setting, she thought. The snow-covered vistas she'd no doubt see on the cards she clutched against the wind were invented by someone else. Picture-perfect was for people who didn't live in Acme, North Carolina.

Over a steaming cup of coffee and a couple of warmed-up biscuits, Louisa checked the paper for local items - not many, the 'big-city' paper wasn't much on tiny Acme, though the wedding announcements showed one of her former fourth-graders as a radiant bride; she must send her a card with a small check, she remembered the girl fondly - and then carefully wiped off the knife she'd been using to butter her biscuits, and slit open the Christmas cards one by one.

One card - a Christmas birthday one - from Joe's sister, who never forgot, the rest from former pupils to whom she'd been 'the lady with the nicest smile'. She smiled that smile to herself, now, as she arranged the cards on the mantelpiece over the unused fireplace, then tied on a bibbed apron to begin her household chores. Getting ready for her guests.

After all, a Christmas Eve birthday is special.

It hadn't been so special when it happened, Louisa thought to herself as she washed her few dishes. She'd been born in that bedroom in the back - the one she kept closed now.

Her mother had died in that bedroom, two hours later. Aunt Mattie Emma had told her, later, 'Logan women always give birth hard.' Hard had been the word, and then her mother lay, hard and cold, in the room Louisa never visited.

Her father, a dour mechanic, had never forgiven her for taking away the one shiny thing in his life, his lively and beautiful wife. He hadn't even looked at the baby, barely nodded as her old-maid sister Mathilda had told the doctor what names to put on the birth certificate - the ones the expectant mother had picked out, Louisa May, for their favourite author - and then, seeing that there was no comfort to be had here, taken the infant to her house.

Louisa had been happy with her aunt, she reflected as she dusted the Christmas ornaments placed lovingly around the parlour - she never bothered with a tree, although Joe's sister's boy always offered to set one up for her. Louisa gave particular care to the tiny carved 'gingerbread house', and pushed the little button so that the light shone out of the window. This had been Aunt Mattie Emma's. Louisa had been allowed to take it with her that January day, the coldest and bitterest Louisa ever remembered - when, barely 12, she had had to pack her bags and leave the dead woman's house to move to this house. Her father's house. And leave the warmth of women's confidences for the icy silence of male resentment.

Louisa set the gingerbread ornament with a sigh, and picked up her feather duster, the memories coming unbidden now.

She worked around the room, giving attention to her treasures - her mother's music box, the carved humidor that had been her father's one vanity. She opened it and inhaled the faint scent of tobacco.

It had been Louisa's turn not to forgive.

The six years that followed had been hard, full of long, brooding silences broken by sudden outbursts of violence. The house had been a prison then, from which Louisa, head held high and with makeup carefully covering the bruises, had escaped to the haven of school and good grades. The day the undertaker had taken away the body - its stony heart having given out at the age of forty-four - Louisa had thrown the leather belt in the trash, given the place a good cleaning, and taken the metal box from the closet to look for title papers.

Since her father had had the courtesy to die on the day following Louisa's eighteenth birthday, she had found herself the owner of a small but serviceable house, an old Ford pickup, and a small bank account. She was also the beneficiary of a life-insurance policy which allowed her to avoid the future her father had planned for her - a job as doffer at Cinderella Knitting Mills - and attend North Carolina State University, where she had been graduated with honours and a degree in elementary education.

Closing the humidor lid with a snap, Louisa went back to the bedroom. She laid out her dress for the evening, a dark-green knit that brought out the warm brown of her eyes. Joe had told her that. He'd loved that dress. And she could still wear it - her figure was still trim. She laid out shoes to match, and the necklace, so she wouldn't forget. The necklace Joe had given her for her birthday - he was the only person who had ever made sure to give her a birthday present, not using Christmas as an excuse for one gift only.

Joe had given her the necklace here, in this very room - they'd moved into her house, Joe giving up his interest in his late parents' home to his married sister. Louisa had kissed him, delighted, and then told him her news.

It had been Joe's turn to be delighted. He loved children. Poor Joe.

Louisa cast a look around the bedroom, nodded in satisfaction, and went back to the kitchen for a sandwich lunch. She opened a drawer, searching for a pickle fork, and stopped as her hand brushed a small, looped silver spoon in the corner. She picked it up, rubbing the tarnished thing between her fingers.

Joe, Jr, had been 'a perfect baby', according to the doctor, the nurses, according to Joe, who couldn't get enough of his wonderful son and his wonderful mother.

But Louisa had felt...empty inside.

And guilty. Guilty for not loving the baby. Guilty for finding his crying an almost unbearable torture. Guilty for feeling pain when he fed. One day, as the infant sucked greedily at her breast, Louisa, fighting the urge to push him away, wracked with spasms, had looked down at her son, who had looked up at her.

She had gasped with the knowledge she thought she saw in his eyes. Knowledge, and triumph, as if he knew how much he was hurting her. As if he reveled in it. Louisa had turned away, fighting nausea now on top of the pain. She told herself not to be stupid.

Just because he had his grandfather's eyes...

Louisa laid the baby spoon back in the drawer and closed it. After a quick lunch, she set about making cookies for the Watch Night Service at church next week. They'd need a lot of food. Quite a few people showed up to see in the New Year with songs and prayers. She sprinkled flour on the rolling-pin and pushed the dough flat, still thinking.

After Joe, Jr.'s funeral, friends and family had rallied round. Crib death, one of the most painful things that could happen to a young couple. Hardly a day passed for weeks that someone didn't send a card with a prayerful sentiment, or stop by with a gift of food. They had been kind.

Joe had never stopped loving her. But he had stopped...touching her. He had grown more distant as the months passed, and something unspoken - some unanswered question - had hung in the air in the old house. To fill her days, Louisa had gone back to teaching, rediscovering the joy of other people's children. Deprived of this comfort, Joe had become taciturn and melancholy, finally taking refuge outdoors of an evening, repairing cars for friends in the yard. Louisa had missed his companionship, though she could no longer bear the reproach in his eyes. When winter came again, Joe had spent his evenings in the garage, where he was fast assembling a workshop.

Louisa slipped the cookie sheets into the oven, and poured a cup of coffee while she waited. The garage had been where they'd found Joe, the life crushed out of him by a falling engine block. Freak accident, they'd all said - one stripped screw. Again, the outpouring of sympathy for the widow had been great. The Baptist church down the road was small, but full of good-hearted folk. And her pupils had always been a comfort to Louisa, every year a new crop of hopeful faces.

The cookies baked, cooled, and put away in tins for next week, Louisa went for a short walk before dark, out to the garden to pick some fresh greens growing in the lee of the house. She brought these in, cleaned them and bagged them for later, then cooked and ate her dinner. Realising that it had now gone dark, she went to draw a bath.

It was time to get ready for her guests.

After enjoying the luxury of a bubble bath, Louisa put on her green dress, and the jewellery, and her best high heels, brushed her hair out and freshened her lipstick, and went to light the lights in the parlour, bringing with her the basket she brought out every Christmas Eve, and setting it by the fireplace, checking to see that the three hooks were in place on the mantelpiece. Then she turned on the television, watching several Christmas specials while sipping a late cup of coffee and allowing herself two of her fresh cookies.

After all, her guests wouldn't be arriving just yet.

Perry Como had just finished singing, 'Do You Hear What I Hear?' when she glanced up at the clock. Almost eleven. Time to get ready. Louisa took her dishes into the kitchen and washed them - she could never abide to leave a dirty dish in the sink. Then she returned to the parlour and stood by the one modern thing, besides the television, in her old house: the CD changer given her by a former pupil, now a professional musician.

Louisa didn't bother with it much - she preferred to make her own music on the old piano by the inside wall - but on this night, she needed it. Her old pupil could not have known how much she prized this gift.

It could play six CDs in a row. Judiciously chosen, six CDs could make seven hours of music.

Louisa chose judiciously. Two CDs with Handel's Messiah, always a favourite, three with traditional carols. The final disc with Christmas folk tunes - it was surprising how many there were. 'I Wonder As I Wander' was a lovely tune, although the bad grammar always jarred with her, 'like you and like I', indeed. But her favourite song was the last one on the disc, Harry Belafonte singing 'Mary's Boychild'. That song always brought a tear to her eye. She set up the CD player so that she could start the sequence with a press of the remote button, and set the remote on the side table next to her armchair. Then, with a glance at the clock, she turned to her other preparations.

Opening her Christmas Eve basket, Louisa took out three miniature Christmas stockings, hanging each one from a hook on the mantelpiece. In each stocking she carefully placed one item:

In the first, a pillbox, the one that had dropped out of her father's lifeless hand as he had fallen, clutching his chest, onto the bed in the back room. The bed Louisa had been born in.

In the second, a tiny pillow - not the original, but made of a scrap of Joe, Jr's baby blanket, a soft and fuzzy green. It had worn a bit over the years, but it would see her through her lifetime.

In the third, a small wrench. Louisa stopped to wipe off a spot of rust where the chrome had worn thin.

She stepped back, checking her work, and then went for the chairs, a task a bit more awkward. She flattered herself that she was a healthy woman of... almost 66, now, but the lifting came harder this year than last year. She managed, though, to set the three heavy dining chairs in front of the dead fireplace, one before each of the Christmas stockings. Then she took her place in the armchair, smoothing her dress and crossing her legs, ladylike, at the ankles. She held the CD remote in her hand and waited.

At two minutes to midnight, precisely, two things happened: Louisa became a year older, and her guests arrived.

They filed in, silently, their footsteps making no sound on the old hardwood floor. They did not look around - they knew this place - but sat down, each in his chair, and turned their eyes upon Louisa.

Louisa studied each one, her gaze steady, though her knuckles were white where her hand gripped the armrest of her chair. The middle-aged man in overalls - he never got older - balding, with the scar on his upper lip from an old fight, looked back at her with the same implacable hatred with which he had regarded her that day, just before he'd felt the attack coming on, and reached for his pills, and taken what should have been nitroglycerin, and the look had turned to shock...

The man in the middle - almost a stranger to her, though his features were as familiar as the back of her hand. He changed every year, grew - first up, then older, until he now appeared to be as old as the man beside him. His clothes changed, too: tonight he wore a suit, as if dressed for his wedding, perhaps. His look was the same as usual, puzzled, hurt, questioning...missing the love of his mother. Louisa blinked back tears, but stared ahead, unflinching.

The third man, like the first, had not aged. Joe sat there, looking younger than his own son, his hands folded in his lap, a few grease stains on his jeans. The expression on his face was the hardest to take, though Louisa met his gaze as she had the others.

It was a look of...understanding. And forgiveness.

The clock struck midnight, and Louisa pressed the remote button, never taking her eyes from her three visitors. The visitors who did not need coffee, or cookies, or the lights that burned in the room (but, oh, Louisa needed them), or the warmth of the floor furnace (but, oh, Louisa needed that), nor the sound of the tenor voice that echoed in the room, enjoining someone to 'speak comfortably to Jerusalem'.

And how Louisa needed that.

Seven hours of music. In Acme in the dead of winter, dawn comes about seven a.m.

Seven hours to go. By the time she heard 'Mary's Boychild', Louisa knew, her guests would leave. It would be over.

For another year.

Last Meal

Tommy Johnson leaned against the ship's railing, and breathed in the sea air. Life was good.

The weather had been perfect so far - cloudless skies, warm breezes - and tomorrow the cruise would hit its first port. Johnson was looking forward to that: the dusky dolly-birds in the brochure had been inviting. Who would've known so much pleasure could be got out of Why-I-Use-Vigah-Soap-in-25-Words-or-Less? He chuckled. He'd been in the wrong line of work all these years, and hadn't known it.

Folding his sunglasses, Johnson hung them rakishly on the pocket of his white dinner jacket and smoothed back his Brylcreemed hair. That little widow at his table had been giving him the hairy eyeball. He might score. He stubbed out a last cigarette and flicked the end out to sea before heading in to the dining cabin, feeling on top of the world.

Soft lights, clean table linen, sparkling glasses with something sparkling in them - this was the life. Grub was good - his favourite, lobster thermidor. The widow laughed at his best joke, the one about the vicar's wife, and the band was playing the song he liked best - the one he usually got lucky with - 'Stairway to the Stars'. It would be heaven to climb to heaven with you...

He hoped they wouldn't have one of them fancy desserts. He hated fancy desserts. He liked his afters plain and simple and not French. Ahhh... ice cream. Strawberry. His favourite. Perfect. This was a perfect day...

Johnson dropped his spoon, startled. At a distant table, a baby had started crying. Conversation was interrupted for a moment. Then the young mother picked up the child and comforted it, and the meal resumed. But the moment was spoiled for Johnson. Damn kids, he thought. Why do they let the little rats in here? He picked up his spoon again, and savoured his next bite of ice cream... that's odd, tastes funny...

The ice cream really did taste funny. It made Johnson go queer. He looked across the table. The pretty widow was asking him if there was something wrong... there was something wrong, all right. Her smile... it was all crooked, twisted... her face, what the H was wrong with her face all of a sudden? It was... it was melting, that's what it was, and twisting, and...

The whole room wavered for a moment, and then... just disappeared. Damask cloth, gone, replaced by a hard wooden table. Sea view, gone, nothing but blank concrete walls. Charming widow, gone... in her place, a grim-faced warder...

Only the music stayed. And the bowl of melting, poisoned, that's what it was, poisoned, strawberry ice cream... his favourite... Johnson stared at it stupidly.

'That's it!' yelled Moore. 'Computer! Stop program!' The slight whirr of magnetic reels, which the music had masked, ceased. The holographic figures in the projection booth vanished, and an embarrassed-looking warder, dismissed, slunk off outside for a fag. Moore ran his hand over his face in frustration.

'Okay, people, what was it this time? What broke the illusion?'

Parker was the first to speak. 'The child. It was the baby crying. Johnson, er, hates children.'

Moore rolled his eyes. 'How did the child get in there? Babies don't belong at shipboard dinners. Who programmed that?' There were murmurs of denial all around.

Parker cleared his throat diffidently. 'Sir? Er, um... that is to say... Johnson did it himself.'

Moore stared at him. 'Johnson did it himself? JOHNSON isn't HERE, my man. WE are. And Johnson WON'T be here unless we figure out this scenario.' His excitement made him stutter. 'W-w-what do you mean, H-H-Johnson did it h-h-himself?'

Parker the Meek looked as if he might dither himself to death at this point, so his colleague Noonan came to the rescue, waving a print-out sheet at his senior. 'Sir, Parker's right. Johnson is here, in a way. We programmed his responses into the scenario, and the computer came up with this. At the key moment, his vestigial sense that things are going too well for him will set off a search for the catch. Some hidden flaw in the scheme of things. And...' Noonan scanned the printed sheet, '99.9% of the time, the scenario will come up with the baby.'

Moore wrinkled his forehead in perplexity. 'But why a baby?'

Noonan had the answer for this. 'It was the baby crying in the next room that triggered the murders. Johnson thought he was alone with the woman, you see. And then he heard the baby crying... he stifled it with a pillow, and when the woman became hysterical, he strangled her.' He looked pensive. 'They think he might have let the woman live if he hadn't heard the child.'

Moore snorted in annoyance. 'So what do we do?'

Taking his courage into his hands, Parker spoke up. 'Dr Moore, sir? I think I have the answer.' He reached into his laboratory coat and brought out an object, holding it up for inspection. Moore stared at it in disbelief. 'A dummy?'

Parker nodded. 'I, er, have four children. This, um, keeps the youngest quiet.' He cleared his throat. 'I suggest we program into the scenario that the baby is sucking on a dummy containing, er, a small amount of laudanum. Not that we ever do that at home,' he added hastily. He looked to his more confident colleague in supplication. 'We could do that, couldn't we, Charles?'

Noonan nodded. 'It's actually part of Best Practice. My old professor called it "inviting the bad fairy".'

Moore thought for a moment, then nodded briskly. 'Make it so.' He wheeled around in his chair, facing the long console. 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends. And get the lead out. The event is scheduled for tomorrow, and we don't want to disappoint the Home Office.'

As he pushed buttons, made notes, and generally adjusted the scenario, Moore thought to himself, Executions should be painless. The subject should not suspect what is being done to him. Clever idea, that. Clever, and humane.

But who would have thought that the human mind was such a suspicious instrument? If things are going too well, we ask ourselves why...

Moore pushed the last switch into place, savagely. Thomas Johnson, you will die happy. If it takes the last byte of memory I've got.

The Suitcase

The parade had begun at eight a.m. - the endless double file of people, old, young, headed down Melnikova Street.

Liuba sighed as she watched from the kitchen window of her basement flat, hugging her ragged cardigan to herself as she sipped the last of the weak tea that would have to last her until supper. Supplies were hard to get in Kiev, since the Germans had come, and what she had would have to feed Olek and the children when they came home.

Occupation or no occupation, there was work and school on this late-September day.

Liuba knew who they were, these fellow-Kievan strangers, and why they were walking past her window - the early-comers hurrying, eager to get there first, to secure a seat on the train. She had seen the notice at Kurenivsky Market - not that she was interested in such things, she was not one for gossip, but these days, you had to keep your ear to the ground, feel out the neighbours... who was on what side, what seller might throw in an extra potato, who might report you... Liuba sighed again. Life was hard.

As she stared out the window at the passing families, Liuba almost envied them. They were going somewhere. They had a train to catch. The Germans were relocating them.

She thought, I'll bet where they are going, there are enough potatoes. And fruit, perhaps... lucky Jews.

She shook off the bitter thought, rinsed her now-empty cup in the basin, and took her pail and brush to attack the grime on the front doorstep. It was her turn today, and the sharp-nosed old harridan in the ground-floor flat would be in her element if she didn't do it, a dirty stoop, what a tragedy...

Liuba tied her scarf tighter about her head and bent to scrub, listening as she worked to the people passing. Scraps of conversations reached her ears, complaining about the haste, anxious about the arrangements, hopeful about the relocation... nothing to do with her, of course, but at least it passed the time and distracted her from the hunger in her belly and the stiffness in her knees... 32, two children, and she felt like this. What would 40 be like? She leaned back on her heels and wiped the sweat off her forehead, lest she get a chill in the cool air. There. That should keep the old biddy happy.

She looked up as she heard her name called, the sound sharp over the murmur of the passing crowd on the other side of the street. 'Striina Liuba, Striina Liuba!' Liuba half-smiled as she waved at Olek's nephew Bohdan. About ten years old, he was running - always running, that boy - in the opposite direction to the crowd, first along the cobblestones of the street, then hopping onto the sidewalk and up Liuba's freshly-washed steps.

Playing truant from school again. So like him. Liuba smiled and grabbed his cap, tousling his hair. 'Come in, sit down. I can give you lemon-water.' The boy, breathless, nodded, his face working with what he was bursting to say - some childish news, no doubt - and followed his aunt into the house and down to her flat, where he flopped into a chair in the kitchen and waited for the promised treat, a ball of lemon-flavouring dropped into a plain glass of water. In better times, there would have been a straw to play with, but for now, Bohdan sipped at the drink gratefully before spilling out his news.

'Striina Liuba, the Jews, they are taking the Jews...'

Liuba, her brush and pail put away, dropped into a chair, shaking her head impatiently as she gestured toward the window. 'I know, dorogoi, I can see them. They are going away on the train.'

Bohdan shook his head violently, lank hair falling into eyes. 'No, striina, not on the train. The ravine! I have seen them, I hid behind the bushes. I heard the machine-guns...' He held out his fingers in imitation of the machine-guns.

After she had comforted Bohdan over his discovery, after she had combed his hair, washed his face, sworn him to secrecy, sent him home the back way... Liuba sat for a long time, looking at her hands... red, raw, the hands of an old woman, she thought, an old woman who has heard too much.

Then she went to stand at the window.

She must have stood there for hours, forgetting the hunger, the chill in the unheated room, the tiredness in her legs. She stood there watching, thinking, as she saw them pass...

They're all going to die today. All of them. That babushka with her tiny grandchild, that dignified-looking, what? Lawyer? You've settled your last case, my friend, only you don't know it, you think you're going... The thoughts always broke off at this point. Liuba was a realist. Being a realist didn't mean dwelling on what could not be changed.

Liuba knew there was nothing she could do against the German army, against the Ukrainian collaborators. There was no point in warning them. The notice had said that anyone harbouring the Jews would be shot, as well as anyone entering their vacant flats to steal...

Then Liuba saw the woman, striding purposefully along far back in the crowd, holding a little boy of about five by the hand. In the other, she held a suitcase. A very fine leather suitcase, so unlike the shabby cardboard thing with the broken clasp that held Liuba's few treasures, there under the bed. Such a suitcase came only from fine shops.

Liuba shook off the thought as she went to light the candle under the samovar. She'd try to coax a bit of flavour out of the three-day-old tea leaves, at least the hot water would do her good. She glanced up again, standing on tiptoe to see the woman, who was still a few hundred yards away. The woman looked anxious, that was natural, and the little boy tired. What was in that suitcase? Surely things for the journey, surely things that might be useful, valuable... Her coat was good stuff, she looked elegant, almost...

Liuba poured the almost-tea into a cup and went to stand at the window again, watching... the woman was coming closer now, the suitcase weighing down her arm. She was carefully made up... She put on her makeup for the machine gunners, Liuba thought crazily. What am I thinking? What is in that suitcase? Jewellery, perhaps? Good clothing? The Germans will take it, and the filthy collaborators...

The woman was almost level with the flat now... Liuba set down the empty cup, and, with sudden decision, dashed out her door and up the stairs again, out into the street. Looking neither right nor left, not daring to see if there were an official or a soldier in sight, she ran up to the woman and snatched the suitcase out of her hand.

It was heavier than it looked. That was what stopped Liuba for a second - long enough for her to look into the other woman's eyes, see the expression of shock and pain. Then, before either of them could say anything, Liuba turned and ran as fast as she could, back into the house, her prize clutched to her, ignoring the woman's pleas and the startled cries of the child. The crowd was thick now, and the press of humanity carried the woman on, complaining about the loss of her possessions.

In the flat, Liuba locked the door and carried the suitcase into her bedroom, where she laid it on the bed and stood there for a moment, catching her breath and stroking the leather. It was really very fine leather.

Then she ran into the kitchen to fetch a knife, with which she forced open the lock, rummaging furiously.

A few clothes she could wear. A few clothes for the boy. Fedir could wear them. A brooch, worth a few rubles. A pair of serviceable shoes for herself. Liuba nodded. A packet of letters, tied with a ribbon. A photograph, showing the woman in better days - it was obviously her - with a handsome man in uniform, in a fashionable restaurant. Liuba stared for a moment in envy. She had never owned such a beautiful dress, all organdy flounces. What a life the woman must have had.

Liuba moved the clothes aside - and found the reason for the heaviness of the suitcase: potatoes. Ten pounds of them, at least, hardly a sprouted eye among them, plump, russet potatoes hidden under the winter clothes. Liuba sighed. Not much for a lifetime, but here, now.... She gathered up the potatoes in her apron and carried them in two loads into the kitchen. She also brought the letters and the photograph.

Liuba lit a fire in the stove, kindling the few bits of coal she had with the stack of letters. The flames curled around the photograph of the man and woman in the restaurant.

Liuba did not read the letters. She was not one for gossip. She closed the shutters against the parade outside, and, lighting the lamp, set about washing some potatoes and cutting up the radishes from the market.

They would eat tonight.

* * *

Note: 'Because of our special talent for organisation, the Jews still believed until the very last moment before execution that indeed all that was happening was they were being resettled.' - Commander of the Einsatzkommando, two days later. More than 30,000 people died in the ravine at Babi Yar, September 29-30, 1941. May they rest in peace.

Of Time Dilation and the Border Ballad

Hyperspace.

Outside - if there were an outside, when all there was, was space folding and unfolding, doing vaguely indecent things to itself - was a dazzling light display which would have hurt the eyes of an observer (if an observer were possible, which of course it wasn't, there being nothing 'out' there but space folding and unfolding, nothing moving, so to speak).

At the apex of a cone of this unspeakably dazzling light, the observer (who of course wasn't there, scroll up) would have seen a small, silver, six-ribbed spearhead - Bright Arrow, well-named, ploughing its way through space-time in a pattern of its own making.

Inside - and of course there was an inside, because how could a human being live in that outside? - was a remarkably ordinary scene, apart from the vidscreen where the impossible lightshow blazed, UV-filtered and polarised. In front of the vidscreen was a console, on a desk, of course, with a chair behind it, ergonomically correct for a man of about six feet. Beside the keyboard on the desk was the holographic representation of a beautiful young woman petting a border terrier.

The rest of the ship, rather familiar: a living area, a space with gym equipment, a kitchenette and bath. The only unusual object there was just now opening - a tilted dayglo-green sarcophagus - to reveal a handsome, sandy-haired man whose eyes, just now fluttering, turned out to be green (though not as green as the rising lid).

The man stretched, yawned a bit for effect, and stepped out of the cryopod, naked, muscular, a David out of time. As he headed for the shower, a bell sounded, followed by a blast of music: 'Scotland the Brave', played on a slightly wheezing piobreach. The man winced as he stepped into the shower.

'Blast Martin Connor, ' he thought, before a pleasant female voice announced, 'Good morning, Captain Gordon, we hope you slept well.' Gordon didn't bother answering, as he knew the voice belonged to his AI computer, showered for the sake of feeling the wetness on his skin (he couldn't really be dirty, even after seven years in cryonic suspension, but he felt dusty), and, towelling off, donned a blue jumpsuit with the Eurospace Corps logo on it before heading to the kitchenette to make breakfast. At least the wee piper had shut up, which was a mercy. He located a brand-new copper kettle, and set it on for tea, stuck some bread from the box in the toaster, and rummaged for a saucepan, thinking that - the wormhole jump being safely over (waking up was a pleasant surprise, he'd half-expected to die during that first-ever experiment), such ordinary activities as making breakfast had their charms, after all.

He made it safely through the preparations, and sat down to eat, before the next surprise came.

'Captain Gordon, you have not spoken to me for half an hour, ' the AI female said with a maddeningly calm and (he thought) smug air. 'If you do not reply within ten seconds, it will be assumed you are in difficulty, and Emergency Measures will be taken.' A series of bells started counting off the seconds

The porridge caught in his throat. He managed to get the spoonful down, wash it clear with tea, and choke out, with one second to spare, 'What the blazes? Can't you tell I'm breathing, you silly machine? Do you want me to talk to myself all the way home?' His outburst was rewarded by a laugh - a deep, rich guffaw, about an octave lower than the previous voice, in a tone redolent of the Bahamas, on impossibly faraway Earth.

'Heh, heh, got you, Anarchy, ' said the voice of Martin Connor, 'Thought you'd appreciate a bit of stirring up, when you'd been asleep so long. I've programmed the AI to sound like me, ha-ha, and I have given it the most precious gift of all...' a mock-sinister stage whisper, 'my sense of humour.'

Auchanachie Gordon groaned aloud, but was secretly pleased. He wasn't yet sure how long this part of his trip - the return through hyperspace from the one-way wormhole - was going to take. A friendly voice, and a friendly attitude on the part of his AI partner, would go a long way toward making the months (years?) pass more pleasantly. Gordon was a practical man, but not an unsociable one. He grinned.

'You program yourself to play chess?' The AI/Martin chuckled. 'Yes, sirree, I did that. I can subject you to humiliating defeat from one end of space-time to the other, buddy boy.'

Gordon replied drily, 'We'll see about that. If you didn't cheat and use SuperBlue to program with, I'll give you a run for your money.'

Martin laughed back. 'No cheating. Just my usual wizardry. Speaking of which...when you've finished your disgusting breakfast, step on over to the console and we'll find out the damage. This isn't a pleasure cruise, Captain Gordon, much as you're enjoying yourself....'

As Gordon washed up the few dishes (why not make use of the warp-matrix technology, they'd thought, plenty of air and water, plenty of everything, the interface that made hyperspace travel possible also regenerated the fabric of the ship itself, pity it didn't work when you weren't travelling faster than light, they'd end want forever), Martin kept up his jovial bantering.

'You know why they picked a Scotsman for this, don't you?' Gordon grinned, knowing how badly Martin had wanted to be here - and now he was, in a way. The AI continued remorselessly, 'You're cheap to feed. This tub is stocked with oatmeal, freeze-dried salmon, haggis, of all things. You are a nutritionist's nightmare, Anarchy Gordon.' Gordon chuckled as hung up the dish towel - Martin's needling was welcome, he was getting used to the place that would be his home for...how long?

Time to find out.

Crossing to the console, Gordon flipped a switch, and the view on the screen shifted from lights to numbers. With practised ease - he knew every system by heart, he'd helped build it - he keyboarded his way to the program he needed, the one with the answer he both hoped and dreaded to find. As he waited for the calculations to come up, his eye fell on the holograph, and he realised with a start that he'd been awake for nearly an hour (he glanced up at the chronometer) without thinking of Jeannie...

Jeannie would be waking up now, too, he thought, as he fondled the pedestal above which she bent, her rich brown hair half-obscuring her delicate features, stroking the head of the badly misnamed Lassie (male, and a terrier). Jeannie had put herself into suspension at the same time as her intended, had promised to wait, even if it took the threatened seven years for him to return, even if took longer...Oh, dear heart, his mind whispered, Let it not be that long, let the mathematicians be wrong...A whoop from Martin interrupted his reverie.

'Anarchy, look, look, you daft git, look at the screen! We've done it - you and I were right!' Gordon looked - and almost jumped out of his seat, so glad he was.

'Three and a half years, ' he said, wonderingly. Then he shouted, 'THREE AND A HALF YEARS! That's no time at all!' And then, to himself, in amazement and gratitude to whatever forces where holding him in his tenuous relation to reality, 'I can be home in three and a half years.'

Martin laughed his full-throated laugh. 'We were right, boyo. You were right. In forty-two months, Bright Arrow will materialise - not fall from the sky, not drop into the ocean, no, indeed - will materialise in its signature spot.' The AI laughed again. 'Right in your sweetheart's back garden.' Gordon laughed along with Martin.

'"Back garden" is hardly the right expression, ' he chided jocularly. 'That's the formal garden of a proper estate, you know.'

Martin chuckled. 'I know. And a fine place it will be for the monument. Didn't you say they moved the statue of Robert the Bruce, just to give us a safe place to park this thing?' Gordon started to protest - it was William Wallace - but gave in. 'Okay, laugh, but at least there won't be any danger of somebody happening to be standing on the spot when Bright Arrow appears. I'd hate to show up and kill an innocent bystander.'

Martin's voice assumed lecture mode. 'In order to prevent this, we have determined the exact spot where materialisation will take place.' Another evil chuckled. 'The most you could do would be to knock off a stray squirrel.'

Gordon laughed - and then stopped, suddenly struck by a suspicion. 'Three and a half years - for me. But what about...?"

Martin answered, 'For your lady love? The same, my boy, the same - our algorithm was right, it's one-to-one.' Gordon let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding, in relief.

Then Martin's voice took on a new tone, and Gordon could have sworn the AI program was rubbing its hands in glee. 'I, er, have a surprise for you, my boy, ' he said slyly. 'One you are really going to like. I, er, snuck a piece of hardware aboard that you didn't know about. Hit that blue button on your keyboard, the one that says, Panic, and I'll tell you a-a-a-ll about it.' Gordon did so, and as the program went through its diagnostic, heard the most amazing news of an amazing day.

Martin explained, 'What you are about to see is my own special contribution to the science of tomorrow, boyo - a state-of-the-stateless-art, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the future. You see, the technology that runs this bucket, taking it through the warp space-time of its own making, will be able to detect the event energy surrounding its materialisation...and translate it into visual imagery.'

He continued ironically, 'If you'll put the colander on your head, that is - for the interface.' Startled, Gordon found the offensive object - more headset than colander - and put it on his head, then settled back to watch. Martin cautioned, 'You can only see about five minutes on either side, but that should be enough to test the program. When Bright Arrow materialises, the alarm will go off, right? And Jeannie promised she'd look out her window, right? So you should be able to see her...the lights should be bright enough, even though it will be evening, early summer.' Gordon was all eyes, and no more ears for Martin, for the next five minutes, as the program unfolded the images...

And gasped. Instead of the quiet garden he was expecting, he saw a gala affair, people dressed to the nines, filing in, taking seats. Were they expecting his return? No, Earth didn't have the ETA, there was no possible communication between now and then, besides, they were facing away from the platform in the centre of the garden, so why...? Then he saw it, the rose arbour, the orchestra, the aisle set off with glowing luminaria for the evening ceremony, the cheerful clergyman, and waiting at the altar...

Robert Saltoun? Why was that whey-faced nerd dressed up like that? No matter that he owned half the shire, with his computer company and his North Sea oil revenues, what was he doing getting married in Jeannie's garden? The orchestra struck up the music, the bride was coming.

And then he saw her - his beloved, dressed in white, coming down the aisle between the guests on her father's arm. Gordon groaned. She went to sleep for me, for seven years. She couldn't wait? Maybe she thought, maybe they told her, maybe, maybe -

But then it happened: the lights flashed, the alarm sounded to herald the Arrow's approach - and disaster struck.

The guests all jumped up, looking around wildly, some seeing the lights over the landing platform and understanding, others guessing God-knew-what...

And Jeannie, Jeannie in her long, white wedding dress, turning, confusion in her face, turning, right into the luminaria, so that the candles caught the fine stuff of her gown, caught, flaring, Jeannie going up like a torch, screaming, Robert Saltoun, the fool, fussing, losing precious seconds, not knowing what to do, not reacting, while Gordon's Jeannie, screaming, caught between one set of events and another, went to her death in flame. Gordon screamed where he sat, almost tearing the headset off, trying to will Saltoun to do the right thing, roll her, quickly, on the grass, the dew-wet grass...the grass wet as his face, with the tears streaming down...

Afterwards, Gordon sat for long minutes, his head between his knees, shaking. Martin (wisely, for an AI) was silent until Gordon lifted his head and spoke.

'Five minutes. That's all we need. Five minutes, one way or the other.'

Martin's voice was gentle but firm. 'No way, brother. It can't be done.'

'How do you know? None of this has been done before. Not ever. Five minutes, that's all I need. And five minutes I will find.'

Martin sighed. 'You're the boss.'

Long into the 'day' they worked, and long into the 'night', as the ship Bright Arrow plunged on its self-made path toward the dimensional layer that was Earth, worked as long as Auchanachie Gordon could stand or sit, until Martin, concerned for his health, told him tomorrow was another day, and turned off the console, dimming the lights and telling him to rest, exhaustion would not help him.

Or Jeannie.

Reluctantly, Gordon agreed. 'We'll find the answer. We have time...three years, five months, 29 days...'

Before retiring for the night, Gordon got out his bagpipes - he'd insisted on them, to the real Martin's great glee, as a way of passing what was presumed to be long leisure hours aboard ship - and played one song.

The sad lament had been in his family for quite a while. Martin sang along, and there was no one there to wonder how an AI program could have such perfect pitch...

And the unseen, non-existent observer might have heard, had the walls of Bright Arrow been thin enough - but they were thick enough, and there was no outside, anyway - the words of the song:

'The day that Jeannie married was the day that Jeannie died, and the day that young Annachie came home on the tide...'

Note: For a graphic-novel approach to this material, see the web comic Anarchy Gordon.

Teddy the Avenger

The AWW, h2g2's Alternative Writing Workshop,  is inspirational in many ways. The following is inspired by, and constitutes a tribute piece to, LLWaz's short story 'Fisi Crosses the Boundary'. Anthropophagy is a popular topic on the AWW (second, perhaps, to arson as a form of popular entertainment), and has appeared at least twice in the UG. Here, then, is yet another story of nature's yearning to eliminate the human threat by turning it into food. I offer the tale of one creature's journey toward revenge and satiety.

Teddy lumbered his way down Oxford Street, a small furry menace, keeping out of the way of late pedestrians and the streetlamps. Night was his element.

He stopped in the shadow of a rubbish bin, sniffing the air cautiously. Man, the eternal enemy, was everywhere. The monster had driven him into the shadows, had driven him mad. But he would have his revenge. It was very close now.

Teddy was Cricetus cricetus, and proud of it. Proud of his ancestral lineage, which reached back to the steppes of Central Asia. The race memory of animals is hard-wired: Teddy had an innate knowledge of what it had felt like, back in the 1930s, when his kind had invaded across the River Nister, swimming in their tens of thousands. Many had died. More had arrived, finding rich pickings in the fertile grain fields of the Banat. Many had died there, driven to starvation by the shovels of farmers digging up their burrows for the hoarded grain...Man the Destroyer.

From Romania his grandmother had immigrated - illegally, of course, but also accidentally, brought hither in a grain sack aboard a cargo steamer - to the wilds of London, where she had ended up in, of all places, a pet shop, due to the ignorance of the owner, who took her for merely a very large Mesocricetus auratus.

Humans, Teddy thought, and took advantage of a red light to sprint across the street, as far as he was capable of sprinting, being built for comfort and not speed. He reached the other side, and made his way on four padded feet towards his goal - the pet shop near Bourne & Hollingsworth. There his prey awaited him...although the prey did not know it. Teddy chuckled.

Teddy was a foot long. He knew this, because he had measured himself against the official ruler - no, not her, the brass one in Trafalgar Square, which was exactly twelve inches long when the temperature was at 62 degrees Fahrenheit. Measuring himself had been an aerodynamic feat, and he had been rewarded by a pigeon fancier who shared some of the breadcrumbs with him. Fool, thought Teddy. This careless charity will not save you. For Teddy had Ambitions.

He was going to eat a man.

Not just any man. The one who sat, night after night, in the pet shop window, grinning at him, staring into space. Teddy hated pet shops - he was born in one - and Teddy hated this man, with his oddly mottled skin. Teddy hated him enough to give up his usually herbivorous nature.

Teddy hated him enough to consume him.

Reaching the pet shop, Teddy made use of his height to stretch and reach the hole he knew was there, the one he'd seen the squirrel go into, and then come out of with his stolen food. Aha, he thought. Got it. The screen had not been replaced. In he went. This was going to be easy.

In a twinkling, Teddy was in. He stopped and sniffed around the pet shop. The hated odors of his childhood came flooding back...the smell of all manner of species kept in one place, cats, dogs, birds, ferrets...and under it all, the smell of man. Disgusting, a mixture of sweat, tobacco and spam. Teddy ignored the window for now - he knew He was there - and concentrated on his search in the aisles for sawdust bedding.

He found the large blocks of bedding in Aisle Three, and began pulling them, one by one, into the centre of the floor. He was going to need a lot of it, he suspected. He ripped open the plastic packaging with strong teeth, and then scrabbled at the packed contents with his claws, first spreading it out, then gathering it up in a huge pile. Teddy had been born and raised on this bedding - it had been the bedding of his 'home' on Holland Road, where the blonde Pink Giant had squealed at him every day, until, when they opened the cage, he had run out...out into the streets...out into his desperate freedom...

Satisfied with the mountain of sawdust, Teddy addressed himself to his intended victim, who in all this time, curiously, had not moved from the chair in the window, nor even turned, although six blocks of packed gerbil bedding make a lot of noise.

Teddy now approached his prey, boldly, as was his wont. He looked up at the dauntingly large figure sitting in the chair, under the sign with the bird pictures on it. He surveyed the mottled skin, the staring black eyes...then he remembered the indignity of The Wheel. His blood boiled over, and he attacked.

Teddy's bite was fierce, but the monster did not move, merely stared straight ahead, as if impervious to pain. We'll see about that, thought Teddy, and attacked with renewed vigour, biting off a toe.

Hmm, humans taste better than I thought. A hint of anise... Teddy ate from his unresisting victim until his cheek pouches were full, then ambled down to his makeshift nest, where he buried the grisly remains under the sawdust. Then he returned for more.

On into the night Teddy laboured - and it was labour - the streetlamp shining through the shop window illuminating his determination. First one leg, then the other...trips to hide the spoils...then the torso...the giant did not move, seemed in a trance, perhaps mesmerised by the horror of it all, perhaps stunned by the streetlamp...there was less gore than Teddy had imagined.

Teddy was beginning to tire. He stopped to drink some water from a dish in a now-empty cage, then forged on, relentless. The final triumph was when the head fell from the crumbling shoulders with a plop, and the hated eyes popped out onto the floor. Teddy took one in his mouth...ugh...and spat it out again. Disgusting.

Teddy was flagging, his vestigial tail drooping. Revenge had turned out to be tasty, but exhausting. He crawled to the sawdust nest, gathered some up, away from the remains of the human, and curled up to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream of the wheat fields of Russia...

****************************************************************

Michael looked at mess in his shop window in outrage. "Pete! Come here! Did you leave the cages open again?'

Pete, who had already seen the mess, arrived with broom in hand. 'No, Mike, I did not. Nor - before you ask - did I destroy that masterpiece in the window, your imaginative Birdseed Wicker Man. I believe I know what did, though.' He reached down into the pile of sawdust on the floor - sawdust mingled with about a hundred pounds of first-quality Eiffel Mountain Brand birdseed - and gently touched the sleeping ball of brown, white, and black fur.

'Ouch!' Pete drew back his hand hastily. 'The little beggar bit me.' He sucked his bleeding finger as he picked up his boss's favourite bits - the Brazil-Nut eyes - from the floor..

That's funny, thought Teddy drowsily. That one didn't taste nearly as good.

Guilty

The white woman across from the desk was small and neat, a bit prim in her long denim skirt and baggy jumper. Silvester could tell she was nervous at being alone with him - it showed through the patina of professionalism in the way she kept fiddling with her papers, her glasses, the styrofoam cup of cold, bad coffee from the guards' workstation. She cleared her throat.

'Silvester. We have made a lot of progress here in the last few months. The parole hearing is tomorrow.' She folded her hands on top of the official report, and, with an obvious effort, looked him in the eye. 'What are you going to tell the parole board?'

In response, Silvester folded his own large hands in his lap. Unconsciously settling down in the aluminium chair - he knew how intimidating his size was, six foot six, broad-shouldered, muscular - he returned the social worker's look with as much sincerity as he could muster.

He spoke clearly in his rumbling bass voice. 'I'm going to tell them that I am sorry for what I did to that woman...'

'Mrs Ingram,' the social worker corrected him gently. 'She has a name.'

Silvester nodded solemnly. 'Mrs Ingram. I can show them the letter she wrote back, when I wrote her. I told her I was sorry.'

The social worker nodded encouragingly. 'And what did Mrs Ingram say, Silvester?'

Silvester smiled ruefully. 'She said she could find it in her heart to forgive me, because she was a Christian. She said she would pray to Jesus to turn my heart around.'

The woman looked embarrassed. 'Do you feel that your heart has been turned around, Silvester?'

Silvester considered this, cocking his large, shaven head to one side. 'Yes, ma'am, I truly do. I'll tell them that, if you think it helps.'

The social worker collected her papers briskly. 'I think it will. And I believe my recommendation will help, as well. I believe you have a different attitude toward women now, Silvester.' She stood up, and with sudden decision, reached out to shake his hand. 'Good luck - and don't disappoint me.'

Silvester took her hand in his, carefully. 'Thank you, ma'am, and no, I won't let you down.'

That night, Silvester waited in line to make a collect phone call, the only kind allowed, to his half-brother Calvin, a respectable bookkeeper. It was not a happy phone call. They argued, back and forth, as they had been arguing for months now. Silvester won the argument, as usual, although he knew it would start again the next time they spoke.

The parole hearing went well. The board were impressed with the supporting documentation, convinced of Silvester's repentance, and - in a matter of days, to Silvester's surprise - the convict was released as rehabilitated.

Standing in front of the state penitentiary, in his own clothes after five years, a paper parcel in his hand, Silvester breathed in the fresh air, so different from the smell on the other side of the wall - the smell of sweaty bodies, the smell of disinfectant, the underlying acrid smell of fear. Here, apart from the disapproving stare of the guard at the front gate ('I don't want to see you around here again, boy'), there was nothing to remind him of the recent past, just a clear spring day... and Loni climbing out of her car, running to throw her arms around him. Silvester gasped.

Not because he wasn't expecting her - she'd promised to pick him up. And not because of her new-model car, a Ford Focus he hadn't seen before. But because, just to surprise him, his girlfriend was wearing a leather miniskirt that would have raised eyebrows where she worked. It certainly raised the eyebrows of the guard at the gate.

She flew into his arms, and he hugged her tightly, strong arms around her slim waist, breathing in the scent of her, the touch of patchouli she always wore. He murmured, 'Honey, what would the principal of Woodrow Wilson High School say if he saw that outfit?'

Loni laughed her throaty laugh as she looked up - way up, in spite of the high heels - into his face, searching for changes, although she'd seen him a week ago on visitor's day. 'Ain't wore this for him,' she chuckled. 'Wore it for you, don't you like it?'

Silvester laughed as they headed for the car. 'Baby, you look fine. Let's get on home.'

Home turned out not to be the next stop, however, but his grandmother's house - Silvester had urgent reason to go there, of course, but he'd sort of planned on putting it off until the next day, when he felt more sure of himself. Loni insisted.

As soon as the front door opened, and he saw the balloons and heard the shouts of 'Surprise! Welcome home!', Silvester understood why. Calvin was there, most of his friends from his old insurance office, even Rev White from Beulah CME. But the lady he wanted to see was in her parlour, holding court like a queen, waiting for him to come to her.

So he did.

The tiny, wizened woman in the flowered dress rose with visible difficulty, but stretched out skinny arms to reach for him. Silvester hugged her gingerly, careful of her frailty, and then looked down at her with tears in his eyes.

'You're looking good, lady,' he said. This was patently untrue - although Akeesha from the beauty parlour had obviously been over to set her hair, and she was wearing her best jewellery, the dark circles under her eyes and the pallor of her usually rich skin belied the frippery. The old lady chuckled, an echo of her huge grandson's bass rumble.

'I don't look good, and you know it, Silvester McComber. Didn't I teach you never to lie?'

Silvester helped her gently back to her easy chair. 'Yes'm, you did, and I'm not lying now.' He patted her arm as a lady friend came up with an afghan for her lap and a cup of tea for her dry throat. 'You look awful good to me.' With that, she was satisfied, and Silvester chatted with his grandmother for a few minutes, until her eyelids became heavy and she drifted off into a nap, exhausted by the excitement of his return. He nodded his thanks to the kind churchwomen, and tiptoed off to rejoin the party that was, after all, being held in his honour.

There was laughter - not all of it easy - and music, and news of this and that. There were promises of help, phone numbers written down. The Rev White shook Silvester's hand regally, welcomed him back into the world, and opined that he would see him on Sunday. With that, he took himself off in his Lincoln, in order to allow the younger folk to break out the liquor without losing any of his dignity.

Loni was busy in the kitchen with the food - somebody had ordered barbecue, and the women had brought side dishes - so Silvester took a tall glass of C-and-C and went out onto the screen porch for a private talk with his brother.

Calvin, a foot shorter than his half-brother and thin, sharp-faced, almost the image of their grandmother, had come over from work, and was still in his business suit, his loosened tie his only concession to the relaxed atmosphere of being in the home he'd grown up in. He glared at Silvester through his wire-rims.

'Sly, what in blazes are you doing here?'

Silvester blinked mildly. 'I'm enjoyin' my freedom, Cal. Don't mess it up.'

Calvin set down his ginger ale in order to pound his thin fist on his grandmother's side table. 'You know what I mean! You gave in, Sly. You knuckled under. I know as well as you do that you didn't do no rape. Why didn't you fight 'em?'

Silvester looked at his brother sadly. They had been through this before. 'I couldn't prove it, Cal,' he said for what seemed the hundredth time. '"I was in the library working on my night-school paper" isn't much of an excuse, when nobody saw me.'

Calvin snorted. 'I done sent you that man's email address. The one from the Innocence Project. They coulda proved it. They coulda got them people to admit how sloppy them DNA labs was.' He looked at his brother helplessly. 'Why didn't you try? Why did you let 'em do it to you? Now you can't vote, you can't finish school, you can't get a decent job, you can't even buy a gun...'

Silvester laughed. 'I never owned a gun. Don't want one. And if I can't vote here in Virginia, well, I can't. I can breathe. I'll get work.' He leaned forward, studying his brother seriously. 'Cal, if I'd done what you asked, if I'd waited...' He glanced toward the kitchen door, and lowered his voice. 'She might have been gone. I couldn't, not to Gramma. Not to the woman who raised me and you, all by herself... you know all this. You know what the man told me... it would have taken years to get out... if I kept claiming I was innocent.'

Calvin shook his head stubbornly. 'It ain't right. You're my brother.' He stared at Silvester, his face twisting. 'You are also the finest man I have ever known. You ain't never disrespected nobody in your whole life.'

Silvester reached over and hugged him fiercely, whispering into his ear, 'Listen to me: if I'd held out, I might have been in there for ten more years. Gramma would have been gone. And what would I have had? Nothing. They don't do nothin' for you if you're innocent. Just toss you out the door.

'This way, I get help. I tell 'em, "Sure, I'm guilty, guilty as sin, but I'm sorry," and they'll help me find a job. Help me get a place. Help me get a driver's license...' He held Calvin at arm's length, looking him in the eye, wishing he could wipe away the frustration in his face, the way he'd wiped away his tears when they were boys together. He still didn't raise his voice.

'Cal, some things are worth fighting for - a future, respect, your life.' Silvester's eyes were sad. 'But sometimes, the price is too much to pay. Because it's being paid by the wrong people.'

When Loni came out to call them to supper, she found her man sitting in the porch swing, a burly arm around his little brother's shoulders, rocking in time to the blues from inside the house.