The Anything Box

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screaming, 'Doovie! Doovie's drownd-ing! He's in the go'fish pond! All underthe water! I can't get him out! Mommie, Mommie!'
Serena grabbed his hand as she shot past and towed him along, stumbling anddragging, as she ran for the goldfish pond. She leaned across the low wall andcaught a glimpse, under the churning thrash of the water, of green mossy furand staring eyes. With hardly a pause except to shove Splinter backward andstart a deep breath, she plunged over into the pond. She felt the burning biteof water up her nostrils and grappled in the murky darkness for Doovie—feelingagain and again the thrash of small limbs that slipped away before she couldgrasp them.
Then she was choking and sputtering on the edge of the pond, pushing thestill-struggling Doovie up and over. Splinter grabbed him and pulled as Serenaheaved herself over the edge of the pond and fell sprawling across Doovie.'
Then she heard another higher, shriller scream and was shoved off Doovieviciously and Doovie was snatched up into rose pink arms. Serena pushed herlank, dripping hair out of her eyes and met the hostile glare of the rose pinkeyes of Doovie's mother.
Serena edged over to Splinter and held him close, her eyes intent on theLinjeni. The pink mother felt the green child all over anxiously and Serenanoticed with an odd detachment that Splinter hadn't mentioned that Doovie'seyes matched his fur and that he had webbed feet.
Webbed feet! She began to laugh, almost hysterically. Oh Lordy! No wonderDoovie's mother was so alarmed.
'Can you talk to Doovie?' asked Serena of the sobbing Splinter.
'No!' wailed Splinter. 'You don't have to talk to play.'
'Stop crying, Splinter,' said Serena. 'Help me think. Doovie's motherthinks we were trying to hurt Doovie. He wouldn't drown in the water.Remember, he can close his nose and fold up his ears. How are we going to tellhis mother we weren't trying to hurt him?'
'Well,' Splinter scrubbed his cheeks with the back of his hand. 'We couldhug him—'
'That wouldn't do, Splinter,' said Serena, noticing with near panic thatother brightly colored figures were moving among the shrubs, drawingcloser—'I'm afraid she won't let us touch him.'
Briefly she toyed with the idea of turning and trying to get back to thefence, then she took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
'Let's play-like, Splinter,' she said. 'Let's show Doovie's mother that wethought he was drowning. You go fall in the pond and I'll pull you out. Youplay-like drowned and I'll—I'll cry.'
'Gee, Mommie, you're crying already!' said Splinter, his face puckering.
'I'm just practicing,' she said, steadying her voice. 'Go on.'
Splinter hesitated on the edge of the pond, shrinking away from the waterthat had fascinated him so many times before. Serena screamed suddenly, andSplinter, startled, lost his balance and fell in. Serena had hold of himalmost before he went under water and pulled him out, cramming as much of fearand apprehension into her voice and actions as she could. 'Be dead,' shewhispered fiercely. 'Be dead all over!' And Splinter melted so completely inher arms that her moans and cries of sorrow were only partly make-believe. Shebent over his still form and rocked to and fro in her grief.
A hand touched her arm and she looked up into the bright eyes of theLinjeni. The look held for a long moment and then the Linjeni smiled, showingeven, white teeth, and a pink, furry hand patted Splinter on the shoulder. Hiseyes flew open and he sat up. Doovie peered around from behind his mother andthen he and Splinter were rolling and tumbling together, wrestling happilybetween the two hesitant mothers. Serena found a shaky laugh somewhere inamong her alarms and Doovie's mother whistled softly with her nose.
That night, Thorn cried out in his sleep and woke Serena. She lay in thedarkness, her constant prayer moving like a candle flame in her mind. Shecrept out of bed and checked Splinter in his shadowy room. Then she knelt and
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opened the bottom drawer of Splinter's chest-robe. She ran her hand over the
gleaming folds of the length of Linjeni material that lay there—the material
the Linjeni had found to wrap her in while her clothes dried. She had given
them her lacy slip in exchange. Her fingers read the raised pattern in the
dark, remembering how beautiful it was in the afternoon sun. Then the sun was
gone and she saw a black ship destroyed, a home craft plunging to incandescent
death, and the pink and green and yellow and all the other bright furs
charring and crisping and the patterned materials curling before the last
flare of flame. She leaned her head on her hand and shuddered.
But then she saw the glitter of a silver ship, blackening and fusing,
dripping monstrously against the emptiness of space. And heard the wail of a
fatherless Splinter so vividly that she shoved the drawer in hastily and went
back to look at his quiet sleeping face and to tuck him unnecessarily in.
When she came back to bed, Thorn was awake, lying on his back, his elbows
winging out.
'Awake?' she asked as she sat down on the edge of the bed.
'Yes.' His voice was tense as the twang of a wire. 'We're getting nowhere,'
he said. 'Both sides keep holding up neat little hoops of ideas, but no one is
jumping through, either way. We want peace, but we can't seem to convey
anything to them. They want something, but they haven't said what, as though
to tell us would betray them irrevocably into our hands, but they won't make
peace unless they can get it. Where do we go from here?'
'If they'd just go away—' Rena swung her feet up onto the bed and clasped
her slender ankles with both hands.
'That's one thing we've established.' Thorn's voice was bitter, 'They won't
go. They're here to stay—like it or not.'
'Thorn—' Rena spoke impulsively into the shadowy silence. 'Why don't we
just make them welcome? Why can't we just say, 'Come on in!' They're travelers
from afar. Can't we be hospitable—'
'You talk as though the afar was just the next county—or state!' Thorn
tossed impatiently on the pillow.
'Don't tell me we're back to that old equation— Stranger equals Enemy,'
said Rena, her voice sharp with strain. 'Can't we assume they're friendly? Go
visit with them—talk with them casually—'
'Friendly!' Thorn shot upright from the tangled bedclothes. 'Go visit!
Talk!' His voice choked off. Then carefully calmly he went on. 'Would you care
to visit with the widows of our men who went to visit the friendly Linjeni?
Whose ships dripped out of the sky without warning—'
'Theirs did, too.' Rena's voice was small but stubborn. 'With no more
warning than we had. Who shot first? You must admit no one knows for sure.'
There was a tense silence; then Thorn lay down slowly, turned his back to
Serena and spoke no more.
'Now I can't ever tell,' mourned Serena into her crumpled pillow. 'He'd die
if he knew about the hole under the fence.'
In the days that followed, Serena went every afternoon with Splinter and
the hole under the fence got larger and larger.
Doovie's mother, whom Splinter called Mrs. Pink, was teaching Serena to