Wei Loon Jingsheng
Loon dragged into the lounge and paused just inside. Cool seeped up from the white blocks of tile
that marked an informal boundary between the promenade outside and this lofty stretch of room.
Goosepimples marched up her legs under the rumpled pantaloons she'd thrown on that morning.
She was finally done. After an exhausting blur of long days and short nights, she had completed
her exams. Regardless of how she had done, compulsory schooling was behind her.
Her whole life — whatever that was going to be — lay ahead.
A smooth frame of ebony beams hemmed the cool tile, walls, and low ceiling of the ante-room. She
peeked past this polished casing to see who else might be sitting around the lounge. She quickly
recognized three or four faces, perhaps the backs of two more heads. She'd go in there next.
But first, the bulletin board. The floor-to-ceiling foilscreen occupied a very shallow alcove set
beside the doorway. Part of its geography hung motionless, full of permanent notices. The rest of
the surface, however, swarmed with a variety of patterns. Small blocks of text, graphed up and
decorated by their submitters, tramped through circles, rhomboids, spirals, reducing squares,
expanding waves, advancing at a rate set by some administrator's concept of average reading speed.
Loon never had trouble keeping up. Today, though, instead of racing ahead along the designs, she
would wait for new stuff to come to her.
An odd movement attracted her to the far side. There, one of the largest notices she'd ever seen,
hung motionless amidst the silent bustle of the board. The words didn't move, but the surrounding
border scintillated and flowed, turning back on itself with a play on optical illusion that was
intriguing at first, then annoying after a moment.
The notice said, "Residents of Popovich, Har Norma Byukan presents a rendezvous of futures, yours
and ours. If you are not currently part of a combine delivering a contract, join us in Ganj Dareh
and design the future ... for you, for Byukan-Hamil Consortium, for Continent Popovich, for
Yeibichai, and for all the worlds beyond. The galaxy's the limit ... for now."
Not for me. I've got some place to be, not a combine, but this Society for Passage. That's where
I belo —
Not anymore. She blinked. I've graduated. The words dropped like rocks through her mind. I
don't belong here anymore.
Loon refocused and read through the notice again, beginning to end, slowly. Now it seemed to be
speaking directly to her, almost like she'd passed through a curtain and stood on the stage of
life, no longer behind it, but out where people could see and hear her, out where they expected her
to perform some miracle and make herself useful to them. These days of study, concentration, and
work, at the extremes of her endurance, had delivered her to this new place — and suddenly, it
scared her.
Chewing her lip, mind clogged with the chasm of her future, she wandered further into the lounge.
Longer than wide, its boundaries drawn with beige plaster walls and vaulted ceiling, the room
offered a deep fireplace at the other end and tall window places for private conversations along
the sides, interrupted by alcoves with food and drink servers. Sprawling clusters of easy chairs
and wooden tables crowded the floor. A couple of dozen people from her Society for Passage filled
the place, adding odors of cologne and soap to pervading wood smoke and beer.
Loon stared at these people, who shared the only piece of society where she'd ever belonged. Yet,
now that she'd pushed through the curtain into adulthood, they seemed detached, unaware,
unconcerned that she had moved on. They went about their relaxation, here in a room where she'd
once felt at home.
Some were young, just arrived at this village-within-a-village with their parents, just girls and
boys, gawky, tripped up by their bodies' turn toward maturity before their minds were ready. If
only she'd had a mother to tell her about the onset of puberty — and what might come later.
Others, nearly her age, composed themselves with an adult set to their faces and bodies, but
youthful looseness in their postures. She wondered if she could ever slouch that way again.
The rest, somewhere in between the dependency of a child and the full responsibility of an adult,
just seemed awkward and earnest — and woefully na‹ve. She yearned to return there.
Enough of this! Grab a beer, sit down, and think this out.
Loon cut through sitting groups and waved back at their greetings. She drew a stein of lager at
one of the servers and snatched a basket of pretzels from another. She heard her name once again
and this time allowed herself to join in. Five kids lounged on dumpy chairs covered in rough,
terra-cotta-colored material. A low table filled in the center of the group.
"Where have you been?" asked a girl who shared Loon's cottage cluster.
"Exams." Loon gulped her beer. "Final exams."
"Singer care for me!" the girl blurted. "I didn't know you were that old!"
Loon snapped off a pretzel and crunched it. She met the eyes of a boy in the chair next to hers.
He hid a grin behind his hand. "I got a head start," she responded finally with a trenchant look.
"Orphans get to do that, you know."
"Oh." The girl jack-knifed from arrogance to contrition, spilling her beer in the process.
"Sorry," she added meekly as she fumbled the table's napkin out of its holder and vacuumed up the
mess.
"Do they just pop these things on you?" asked the boy as he reached into Loon's basket for a
pretzel. His fingers were long and nimble, clean and well-kept. "Or do they give you a warning?"
"They warn you." Loon took more beer. "But it's like entering the homestretch at the end of a
long race. You run and run and run with no end in sight. Then — swoop — it all just seems to
come together. You see the finish line and you have to sprint." She stared into her half-empty
stein. "When it's done, they dump you out the door." She drank. "What do you think of the
announcement?"
"What announcement?" asked the girl.
"I read it," the boy responded slowly. "And you're thinking it applies to you."
"It does now," Loon said. Where else do I have to go?
"What announcement?" asked the girl.
"Byukan-Hamil is having some kind of grand cattle call." The boy slouched back and perched his
stein on his thin chest. His gray eyes locked seriously on Loon.
"I'm going," Loon announced. The words brought more relief than surprise, with new doubts right
behind. Maybe they'll have anshin openings. Maybe not. Training for anshin? Maybe yes.
The girl interrupted Loon's thoughts with "When?"
"As soon as I can get packed and catch a train to Ganj Dareh."
"Don't you," the girl stuttered, "have to, uh, say 'good-bye' or something?"
"That's another advantage of orphan-hood."
"But we're your friends!" the girl protested.
"You're right of course." Loon paused and returned the boy's stare. Not long ago, just yesterday
in fact, she'd have taken his come-on, chased him back to his room, and wrapped her legs around him
two seconds after they were alone. But she could no longer touch yesterday.
Loon glanced at the girl, earnest, sweet, with tomorrow clear and bright.
"But no." She smiled and stood up. "Har Norma promised me a future. I'd better go after it
today before someone else takes it."
Her smile trembled. Loon walked away before it wavered into tears.
