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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 9: Brown 247
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 224
Derek laid on his back staring at the bedroom ceiling in the evening dusk. Part of him wondered whether to turn on lights or to just go to sleep and let the sun awaken him in the morning, but he did not give much thought to that.
“Vashti?” he ventured.
Snuggled beside him, she made an affirming hum to indicate she was listening.
“Why are we here?”
She propped herself up, resting her head on her hand against her elbow on the mattress. “What do you mean?” she asked. Yes, there was that--it could be taken as a very existential question, or a very local one. He was aiming for something between the two.
“Why has the King brought us to this world, here, now? What are we supposed to be doing?”
“I would think,” she suggested, “that we’re doing it. We are changing the world, and it seems to be for the better; and we’re working to bring a peaceful meeting between the--the parakeets and the--the aliens. That sounds like something the, uh, the King would want us to do.”
He nodded in the gloom. She was right, although he wasn’t completely satisfied with that. She continued.
“Besides, from what you’ve told me, I would think that if He wanted us to be doing something else, something different or something more, He would let you know, somehow, wouldn’t he? I mean, maybe not another dream, but something.”
That made sense. He turned it over in his mind. Were they doing everything they should, or could? Nothing else seemed to come up in his brain. But then, he was still uncertain.
“Thing is,” he said, “I’m supposed to be figuring out how to make contact with these, these visitors, and I’m making progress--but I’m coming to a place where I won’t be able to do more, or even know whether I’m on the right track, without actually trying to contact them. And Bob and Joe have very good reasons why I shouldn’t try to contact them yet. So I don’t know the next step.”
He felt her shrug. It was getting darker quickly; he had forgotten how quickly one loses the daylight in the autumn.
“There’s a difference,” she said, “between not knowing where you’re going and not knowing the next step. But you’re not even really there, yet. You know what you have to do now, you’re just not sure what to do when you’ve finished that. You also know that at some point Bob and Joe are going to say it’s time to make contact, and maybe that will happen just as you’re able to do it, or maybe just before you think you’re ready. Or maybe you’ll be pretty sure you can do it before they say, and you have to wait a bit before doing it. But right now what you have to do is be ready for that moment when it comes.”
“And if I’m not?”
Almost dismissively she answered, “You will be.”
“No, but seriously, what if I’m not?”
Again she shrugged. “If you’re not ready when everyone else thinks it’s time, then it isn’t time; and if it is time and you think you’re not ready, then you’re wrong, and you are ready.”
He wasn’t sure whether that made sense or not, but at least she was right that all he could do at this point was keep working.
Or maybe there was something else he could do.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #476: Versers Deduce. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
