Free The Sudden Star by Pamela Sargent Page A

enough. "Ildy told me the old guy's retiring."
    "He just talks about it," Aisha said, not sounding as though she believed it.
    "She says he means to this time."
    "He can't!" Aisha wailed. "He just can't."
    Juan slapped her. "Keep it down, will you?" She slapped him back. He seized her shoulders and pinned her to the floor. "Ildy says not to worry." She relaxed and he released her. She sat up and moved away from him, then folded her legs, resting her back against the bed.
    "What's going to happen to us?"
    "How the fuck do I know?" He shrugged. "Ildy said he might set us up somewhere."
    "No, he won't. He'll keep us with him. Don't you know anything? He acts like we're his kids."
    Juan was puzzled. "But we're not." He recalled his own father slamming the door in his face and telling him not to come back. He didn't know what Aisha was talking about.
    "Don't be so stupid," she said. He wanted to hit her again, but decided to wait until she explained. Instead she stood up. "I'd better go downstairs and read to René," she went on. "Why don't you come along? You might learn something."
     
    René said, "There's something I want to tell you two."
    Juan sat up, trying to look attentive. Aisha put down the book she had just picked up. "You know I want to retire. I'm old and I'm sick."
    Juan took a breath. Here it comes, he thought. "I won't be living here anymore," the old man continued. "I can take you kids with me. I'll still keep an eye on things, and you can have some opportunities, but you have to have the brains to take them. I won't wrap them up and hand them to you."
    Juan waited. Ildy had said René had a place up in Riverdale. "Know anything about farms?" Rend asked. Aisha shook her head. Juan shrugged. "I've got a farm upstate. And I own land on two others near it. That's where a lot of our food comes from, and I get good prices for the rest from my friends on the ration board. A doctor told me a while back I wasn't going to live long here if I didn't rest." René paused to clear his throat. "I think I might be going up there. There's a big house, plenty of trees, even a lake to swim in."
    Juan shuddered. Aisha's eyes were large; her mouth fell open. René lay back on the bed, hands folded, eyes gazing at the ceiling. "Now farm families," he said, "have their own ways. They work hard, but they have horses and machines for a lot of work, and migrants do some. They have food, protection from the army, plenty of room. You kids are the right age to marry into a farm family if you want. You can have a good life."
    Juan was frightened now; he would have to speak. "Uh, can I—" He stopped. His voice was cracking. "If things are so good there, why do they come here?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "People from the farms, they keep coming here."
    "Because there isn't enough room for everybody there," the old man answered. "You have enough people to run the farms. The rest of them have to come here to work. So you have to work out there, but you can have something, at least."
    Juan sighed. He wanted to run away and disappear in the streets, but then he'd have to start all over again, and his chance to make contacts would be gone. He looked down at the floor, feeling trapped. He had to talk to Ildy, ask her what to do. He looked over at Aisha. Her knuckles were almost white as she clutched the book, pulling it to her chest.
    René said, "You can read now."
     
    Juan was discovering that travel made him sick. He closed his eyes, feeling his ass bump against the seat under him. The truck rumbled as it bounced along the road. Ernie Mathen, the big man driving the truck, had cuffed Juan when he asked him to stop for a minute. Ernie was only nice to him when René was around, and René had been loaded, with a mattress, into the back of the truck.
    The old man had decided to leave the city right after getting papers for all of them. He got the papers fast; Kathleen Ortega had seen to that. Juan tried not to think of Aisha's predictions, because Ildy