Putting Up Roots

Chapter Three

Josh and Dawn arrived at the farmhouse with fifteen minutes to spare. Uncle Ryan used the time to give Josh a quick tour of the changed inside, showing where the data center was located in the old dairy, and where Josh would sleep in a little room near the peak of the sloping roof. Everywhere they went, like ghosts, tantalizing smells of cooking crept up from the kitchen and diffused through the old walls.

Even so, Josh didn’t have high hopes when they finally reached the dining room. He was used to carryout meals, or eating on the run in fast-food places, because his mother was always rushing off somewhere or too busy rehearsing or studying parts to do any cooking. Uncle Ryan said that Aunt Stacy was a great cook, but it was obvious that he was totally bowled over by his new wife. He probably thought that everything she did was great, no matter how bad it was. In any case, it didn’t seem possible that the reality could live up to the aromas.

As it turned out, Uncle Ryan was right. Aunt Stacy served a superb three-course dinner, soup and an herb-flavored meat pasta, followed by a wonderful chocolate soufflé so light it seemed to float off the plate, all served on the delicate bone china that adorned the dining-room table.

The whole meal was like a trip to paradise. If Josh had a single complaint, it was that he could have eaten more. He remembered Aunt Maria’s dinners, loaded dishes arriving in random order and vast quantities until you wondered when they would end. There was no doubt, though, that Stacy was a superior cook. And Josh had as many salad vegetables as he wanted, and as much apple juice as he could drink.

Aunt Stacy even offered a logic for serving smallish portions. “You live longer if you don’t overeat, Joshua, and you live healthier. Did you know that animals increase their life spans thirty or forty percent if they are put on a minimal diet? Not that I’m proposing anything as drastic as that!” She smiled at Uncle Ryan, sitting at the head of the table. “But Ryan used to be terribly overweight. I told him he was digging his grave with his knife and fork. Now he eats right. I make sure of that. I want him to live forever.”

Josh nodded, barely listening. After four days and nights on the bus, as soon as his hunger was satisfied all he could think about was bed. During dinner he hadn’t said much more than Dawn, who ate in complete silence except for “Thank you.”

Aunt Stacy and Uncle Ryan more than made up for them. They were having what sounded to Josh like an ongoing discussion.

“You ought to at least listen to them, Ryan,” Stacy said. “Let them come in here again, and let them make an offer. What do you lose? If you don’t like what they have to say, you refuse it.”

“My family has owned and farmed Burnt Willow for two hundred years.”

“I know that. But every year it becomes more difficult. You’ve told me so, a hundred times. Seven hundred acres. Nobody farms seven hundred acres any more. It’s too small to be worth bringing in the big equipment. But Mort Langstrom says that for the price that Foodlines would offer for Burnt Willow, you could retire for life.”

“I don’t want to retire, Stacy.”

“All right. Don’t retire. But I bet you could talk Foodlines into giving you a spread on Solferino a hundred times as big as Burnt Willow, as part of the deal. Land is going begging there, and they have that exclusive land development franchise.”

“It should be cheap. Hey, considering where Solferino is, it should be free. It’s out on the edge of the Messina Dust Cloud; twenty-seven light-years from anywhere. Three years ago nobody knew it even existed. The only people who’ve been there so far are the first survey team, and a little Foodlines colony of researchers. Nobody knows what Solferino really has to offer. It’s virgin territory. It wouldn’t be so much farming, as exploration. That’s why land is available, as much as you want of it.”

“There’s the challenge, then. You always say you like challenges. You could do the experimental work you’ve always enjoyed. You might discover native plants of real value.”

“That’s what Foodlines is hoping. It’s like a biolab the size of a whole world, where a couple of billion years of evolution has already done the work of sorting out which biological products are most useful. But what about Dawn? She was born here at Burnt Willow. She’s not used to living anywhere else.”

“That argument again! Of all the irrelevant—” Aunt Stacy checked herself, as though she were used to speaking freely in front of Dawn, but couldn’t do it with Josh listening.

It also seemed to Josh that she gave him a strange and speculative look. Was she thinking what he was thinking, that he might be able to go to Solferino, even if Dawn could not?

“Ryan, we’ll talk this over later,” she continued. “But I’ll tell you now what I didn’t want to tell you before: Mort Langstrom of Foodlines called me while the three of you were up on the ridge. They really want young people on Solferino. They’d pay all the costs of equipment, training, and transportation, too. Mort said he’d like to come out here again tomorrow and talk some more. And I told him that would be fine.”

Josh saw Uncle Ryan sit up straighter, as though he were bracing for an argument. Then he nodded, leaned forward, and touched Aunt Stacy’s forearm. “What would we do without you, love, to look after us? I’ll talk to him, of course I will. But I’m telling you, Solferino isn’t for me. I can see why they want young people. There’s probably a million opportunities there for a young man; but I’m getting old.”

“Nonsense! You’re not old.” Aunt Stacy reached out and took Uncle Ryan’s hand in hers. Josh couldn’t help noticing that as she did so she flashed another quick glance at him. Then she looked away at once.

“But you’re right,” she said, “it would be a wonderful opportunity for a young person.”

Josh didn’t remember undressing and going to bed, but he must have done it, because here he was. The room he slept in was at the top of the house, with an east-facing window, and the midsummer sun streamed in soon after dawn.

He lay there for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling. This room seemed to be a sounding box for the whole house. He could hear noises coming in from everywhere. He realized that it had been the sound of voices that woke him, more than the morning sun. Uncle Ryan had been talking to Aunt Stacy. Their words carried distinctly to Josh’s room, but in his semiconscious state he hadn’t followed their meaning. Now the voices had ended. He heard running water, a clatter of dishes, the whistle of a boiling kettle, and through the open window a welcoming bark from the old spaniel.

Mister Micklegruber. Josh remembered the dog’s name now, from his other visit to the farm. Who had picked that? Aunt Maria, for a guess. The overweight Mister Micklegruber—“Mick,” except when he was being told off, when it was “Mister Micklegruber!”—was apparently not included in his new aunt’s diet plans. Nor, for a bet, was the dog allowed inside the newly spick-and-span house.

Josh pushed back the covers, and found that he didn’t remember undressing because he hadn’t. Except for his shoes, which he had removed when he entered the house, he was fully dressed. His two cases sat unopened at the bedside.

He must have been really tired.

The staircase that led to the kitchen was old and creaking. Josh tiptoed down, trying not to make any noise at all. The next level had two doors. One of them was closed, and he remembered it as being Ryan and Stacy’s bedroom. The other was ajar. He peered in through the crack and saw Dawn. She was asleep, lying face up with her eyes closed and her mouth open. He realized now why she looked the same as when he had first met her. Her face was absolutely peaceful and unlined, like a baby’s.

The kitchen when he came to it bore signs that someone had been and gone. A single mug, washed up, stood neatly in the draining rack.

He was pretty hungry, but he didn’t feel that he could just go in and help himself to breakfast—particularly with Aunt Stacy’s views on who was in charge of the kitchen.

Instead, he headed for the old dairy at the back of the house. Uncle Ryan had been very specific: Josh was free to use all the computers and communications equipment in the new data center.

He took one quick look at the weather radar displays and satellite precipitation maps on the walls. Burnt Willow Farm stood out as a kind of inverse oasis, an isolated dry spot with plenty of soil moisture all around. He sat down and called for the general database. He didn’t know the spelling of the subject that had been on his mind since the previous day, but three tries did it.

Or-tistic. Aw-tistic. Au-tistic.

Autistic—autism. The download began into his headset.

Josh, engrossed in what he was hearing and deaf to normal disturbances, felt a light touch on the back of his neck. He jerked sideways and almost fell off his chair.

He turned. Dawn was standing behind him. He ripped off the headset and gave a command to print the file, so he could look at it later in his room. He glanced guiltily at Dawn, but he didn’t have to worry. She showed no interest in knowing what he had been listening to, or in the keywords displayed on the screen.

She was smiling, apparently staring at the wall to the exclusion of everything else. “Breakfast,” she said. And then, “Ugh. Not mushrooms. You eat mushrooms? I’d just as soon eat worms and slugs.”

It was the small-child voice again. Again, Josh was convinced that she was quoting him, directly, from eight years ago. He hated mushrooms nearly as much as he hated olives, and that was saying something.

“Do you remember everything like that, word for word? Oh, never mind.” He turned off the data unit. “Are you telling me that Aunt Stacy is giving us mushrooms for breakfast?”

It was a waste of time. Dawn pulled her mouth to one side and rolled her eyes, but there was no knowing what she meant, or even if she was responding to his question. Josh followed her to the kitchen.

The food again was great—with one nose-wrinkling exception. Fortunately, Aunt Stacy had prepared each dish separately. The fried mushrooms sat in a neat circle in their own deep bowl. Josh left them untouched but he helped himself to everything else, noting that some of Aunt Maria’s breakfast staples had been eliminated. Hot scrapple and bacon glistening with fat, two of Uncle Ryan’s favorites, had been replaced by some sort of spiced curd. Liver and steak chops had vanished entirely. On the other hand, the beans and fried tomatoes and wheatcakes were the best that he had ever tasted. And this time there was no problem with quantity.

Josh followed Dawn’s lead, loaded a huge oval plate, and ate and ate. As he did so he wondered how he was going to earn his keep. He couldn’t expect his uncle and aunt to go on feeding him for nothing. Even if that was what his mother had had in mind when she sent him out here, Aunt Stacy would never stand for it. And although he had been to Burnt Willow Farm before, he really knew nothing about farming. What was he going to do? Would he be able to stay? If not, where would he go?

Aunt Stacy came in while they were still eating. Josh could have asked her his questions, but the previous evening had given him the funny feeling that he did not quite trust her. It was a relief when she said, almost before the “Good morning” was out of her mouth, “Joshua, I have a job for you. Your uncle and I are going to be busy with a visitor, and I don’t know how long it will take. I forgot, but Dawn has a doctor’s appointment this morning. She can’t go alone, of course. I’d like you to take her. Will you do that?”

“Sure.” It was a relief to feel useful.

“Then eat up. The doctor’s office is in Payette. It’s easy to find, once you’re in the town.” Aunt Stacy glanced at the clock over the stove. “You’ll have to hurry, though. I’ve called for the bus to stop for you, same place as you got off yesterday, in twenty minutes.”

He was already stuffed. Just the same, it was a scramble to get washed and changed and ready in ten minutes. And it was a surprise to find Dawn, in a new dress, patiently waiting for him at the door when he thundered back down the old wooden staircase.

She didn’t speak, but maybe she understood a lot more than Aunt Stacy gave her credit for. She at once took his hand and began to run them uphill. There was no time today for looking at failing crops, or wandering along the ridge when they got there. Josh had one moment to glance north, at another hazy sky free of rain clouds, and then the PV was in sight. It cruised toward them, slowing as its memory told its sensors that it was expecting new passengers.

Dawn grinned happily at Josh as they boarded and settled into their seats. He wondered again, how much did she follow of what was happening? She had the uncanny knack of parroting back exactly what she heard, without adding to it; but the words she quoted always seemed relevant to the question or the situation. That meant she must understand. She merely chose a strange way of answering.

Josh made a decision: if he was allowed to stay at Burnt Willow Farm, he had to be very careful what he said in Dawn’s presence. She might be badly retarded, as Aunt Stacy insisted, but her memory and the odd way that her mind worked also made her likely to say things he might not want to hear repeated.

Josh had seen his own role as a kind of chaperon, guarding Dawn to the doctor’s office and making sure that she got safely back.

While he waited for Dawn’s examination to be completed, he finally had a chance to read the rest of the file that he had printed.

“All right.” It was Dr. Ergan, standing at the door. “I’m done with Dawn. Your turn.”

“Turn for what?”

“Your examination.”

“I’m just here with Dawn. I’m not here for an examination.”

“You are, you know. You were scheduled for a complete physical.”

“Me? Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. I spoke to Stacy Kelsh less than two hours ago.” The doctor was maybe sixty-five years old, but still straight and vigorous, and her bright gray eyes seemed to see right inside Joshua. “She’s your aunt, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” Josh didn’t want to get into the fact that she wasn’t his real aunt. “But I don’t need an examination.”

“How long since you had one?”

“A physical? I don’t remember. Four or five years.” Things like physical examinations were low on his mother’s scale of priorities.

“Then you ought to have one anyway, whether you think you need one or not.” Dr. Ergan smiled at him. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt a bit.”

Hurt, no. Embarrass, yes.

Josh didn’t like the idea of taking his clothes off in front of strangers. He liked even less being poked and prodded and sniffed at, even if the poking and prodding and sniffing was done by spidery little machines, while Dr. Ergan sat behind a bank of monitors and seemed to take no notice of him at all.

After twenty minutes of that she stood up—still without looking at him—and said, “All right. That does it. Clothes on, and come outside.”

Dawn was waiting in the office, staring at the same page of the same picture book as when Joshua had left. Dr. Ergan motioned Josh to a chair next to his cousin and sat herself down opposite. For a few seconds she studied both of them in silence.

“Well,” she said at last, “I’ll be sending the full report to your aunt, of course, but I thought you might like the quick summary. You, Joshua, are in fine physical condition. So is Dawn. I just wish that most of the people I see were in half as good shape. Of course, there are a couple of things. Joshua, how long since you visited a dentist?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can make a guess. Certainly not since your second permanent molars came in, and probably not for a long time before that. I bet it’s five years and more. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You have half a dozen cavities. Do your teeth ache?”

“No.”

“You’re lucky. They will, unless you have some work done on them in the near future. But don’t worry. Three or four short sessions, and you’ll be fine. You can relax about everything else. I don’t see anything that would stop you from going—today, if you had to.”

Josh wondered what he had missed. “Going where?”

“Uh-oh.” Dr. Ergan bit her lower lip, and glanced from Joshua to Dawn and back. “I hope I haven’t spoiled a surprise. But your aunt didn’t say to keep anything a secret. Look.” She turned around to her desk, picked up a message sheet, and read from it. “Examine as soon as possible, to make sure that they are medically fit to travel off-Earth, and could stand to make transitions through the node network.”

“That’s what it says.” She laid the sheet back on her desk. “I’m going to reply to her that you are both medically fit enough, even without the dental work. I see no reason either or both of you shouldn’t go up into orbit. Or, if you feel like it, through a node to the Kuiper Belt. Or anywhere else that your uncle and aunt see fit to take you.”