sympathy and memberlike docility.
She complained about insects and boredom. There was a rain night and she complained about the rain. One night Chip woke and heard her moving. He shone his flashlight at her. She had untied her wrists and was untying her ankles. He retied her and struck her. That Saturday night they didn't speak to each other.
On Sunday they rode again. Chip stayed close to her side and watched her carefully when members came toward them. He reminded her to smile, to nod, to answer greetings, to act as if nothing was wrong. She rode in grim silence, and he was afraid that despite the threat of the gun she might call out for help at any moment or stop and refuse to go on. 'Not just you,' he said; 'everyone in sight. I'll kill them all, I swear I will.' She kept riding. She smiled and nodded resentfully. Chip's gearshift jammed and they went only forty kilometers. Toward the end of the third week her irritation subsided.
She sat frowning, picking at blades of grass, looking at her fingertips, turning her bracelet around and around her wrist. She looked at Chip curiously, as if he were someone strange whom she hadn't seen before. She followed his instructions slowly, mechanically. He worked on his bike, letting her awaken in her own time. One evening in the fourth week she said, 'Where are we going?'
He looked at her for a moment—they were eating the day's last cake—and said, 'To an island called Majorca. In the Sea of Eternal Peace.'
''Majorca'?' she said.
'It's an island of incurables,' he said. 'There are seven others all over the world. More than seven, really, because some of them are groups. I found them on a map in the Pre-U, back in Ind. They were covered over and they're not shown on MFA maps. I was going to tell you about them the day I was—'cured.'' She was silent, and then she said, 'Did you tell King?'
It was the first time she had mentioned him. Should he tell her that King hadn't needed to be told, that he had known all along and withheld it from them? What for? King was dead; why diminish her memory of him? 'Yes, I did,' he said. 'He was amazed, and very excited. I don't understand why he—did what he did. You know about it, don't you?'
'Yes, I know,' she said. She took a small bite of cake and ate it, not looking at him. 'How do they live on this island?' she asked.
'I have no idea,' he said. 'It might be very rough, very primitive. Better than this, though.' He smiled. 'Whatever it's like,' he said, 'it's a free life. It might be highly civilized. The first incurables must have been the most independent and resourceful members.'
'I'm not sure that I want to go there,' she said.
'Just think about it,' he said. 'In a few days you'll be sure. You're the one who had the idea that incurable colonies might exist, do you remember? You asked me to look for them.' She nodded. 'I remember,' she said.
Later in the week she took a new Frangais book that he had found and tried to read it. He sat beside her and translated it for her.
That Sunday, while they were riding along, a member pedaled up on Chip's left and stayed even with them. 'Hi,' he said.
'Hi,' Chip said.
'I thought all the old bikes had been phased out,' he said. 'So did I,' Chip said, 'but these are what was there.'
The member's bike had a thinner frame and a thumb-knob gear control. 'Back in '935?' he asked. 'No, '939,' Chip said.
'Oh,' the member said. He looked at their baskets, filled with their blanket-wrapped kits. 'We'd better speed up, Li,' Lilac said. 'The others are out of sight.'
'They'll wait for us,' Chip said. 'They have to; we have the cakes and blankets.' The member smiled.
'No, come on, let's go faster,' Lilac said. 'It's not fair to make them wait around.'
'All right,' Chip said, and to the member, 'Have a good day.'
'You too,' he said. They pedaled faster and pulled ahead. 'Good for you,' Chip said. 'He was just going to ask why we're carrying so much.'
Lilac said nothing.
They went about eighty kilometers that day and reached the parkland northwest of '12471, within another day's ride of '082. They found a fairly good hiding place, a triangular cleft between high rock spurs overhung with trees. Chip cut branches to close off the front of it.
'You don't have to tie me any more,' Lilac said. 'I won't run away and I won't try to attract anyone. You can put the gun in your kit.'
'You want to go?' Chip said. 'To Majorca?'
'Of course,' she said. 'I'm anxious to. It's what I've always wanted—when I've been myself, I mean.'
'All right,' he said. He put the gun in his kit and that night he didn't tie her.
Her casual matter-of-factness didn't seem right to him. Shouldn't she have shown more enthusiasm? Yes, and gratitude too; that was what he had expected, he admitted to himself: gratitude, expressions of love. He lay awake listening to her soft slow breathing. Was she really asleep or was she only pretending? Could she be tricking him in some unimaginable way? He shone his flashlight at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, her arms together under the blanket as if she were still tied.
It was only Marx twentieth, he told himself. In another week or two she would show more feeling. He closed his eyes.
When he woke she was picking stones and twigs from the ground. 'Good morning,' she said pleasantly.
They found a narrow trickle of stream nearby, and a green-fruited tree that he thought was an 'olivier.' The fruit was bitter and strange-tasting. They both preferred cakes.
She asked him how he had avoided his treatments, and he told her about the leaf and the wet stone and the bandages he had made. She was impressed. It was clever of him, she said.
They went into '12471 one night for cakes and drinks, towels, toilet paper, coveralls, new sandals; and to study, as well as they could by flashlight, the MFA map of the area.
'What will we do when we get to '082?' she asked the next morning.
'Hide by the shore,' he said, 'and watch every night for traders.'
'Would they do that?' she asked. 'Risk coming ashore?'
'Yes,' he said, 'I think they would, away from the city.'
'But wouldn't they be more likely to go to Eur? It's nearer.'
'We'll just have to hope they come to Afr too,' he said. 'And I want to get some things from the city for us to trade when we get there, things that they're likely to put a value on. We'll have to think about that.'
'Is there any chance that we can find a boat?' she asked.
'I don't think so,' he said. 'There aren't any offshore islands, so there aren't likely to be any powerboats around. Of course, there are always amusement-garden rowboats, but I can't see us rowing two hundred and eighty kilometers; can you?'
'It's not impossible,' she said.
'No,' he said, 'if worse comes to worst. But I'm counting on traders, or maybe even some kind of organized rescue operation. Majorca has to defend itself, you see, because Uni knows about it; it knows about all the islands. So the members there might keep a lookout for newcomers, to increase their population, increase their strength.'
'I suppose they might,' she said.
There was another rain night, and they sat together with a blanket around them in the inmost narrow corner of their place, tight between the high rock spurs. He kissed her and tried to work open the top of her coveralls, but she stopped his hand with hers. 'I know it doesn't make sense,' she said, 'but I still have a little of that only-on- Saturday-night feeling. Please? Could we wait till then?'
'It doesn't make sense,' he said.
'I know,' she said, 'but please? Could we wait?'
After a moment he said, 'Sure, if you want to.'
'I do, Chip,' she said.
They read, and decided on the best things to take from '082 for trading. He checked over the bikes and she did calisthenics, did them longer and more purposefully than he did.
