Kal Aalit Nunaat & Sara Terblast
Sara settled the picnic basket on the park's grass, then eased herself down. The grass yielded to
her, springy though, cushiony. She'd never sat on such grass before. There was a luxury to it
that gave her chills.
Marian raced up, her child's face open and happy. Aalit chased behind her, wearing a
daddy-gonna-get-you grin and carrying little Muriel like a bundle of giggles.
"Ah'm hungry," Marian proclaimed. First day of school for the kids. First day of work for the
parents. And they'd all come to the park for a picnic lunch.
"Me too," giggled Muriel.
"Me too," said Aalit, a little more soberly.
"Well, Ah've not set it out yet," Sara protested mildly. "Go run around some more. Go play some
more." And special words came into her mind. "Go play in the
park." A Wonder that she could rightly say such a thing.
But as the three of them turned away, Sara heard an odd growling sound from the sky, punctuated by
her son's voice shouting, "Paw! Paw!"
"Ah'm right here," Aalit said mildly to the boy as Marc pelted up to them.
"It's the Chief! It's the Chief!" All excited, Marc waved at the sky.
Sara squinted past her family into the bright blue. An aircraft drove across it, low and real
close. Droopy-nosed, wings swept back and around like a collar, red-and-white stripes. Suddenly,
it spread its body and wings and flared itself and dropped toward a line of trees that edged the
park a good distance away.
"She's responding to an Incident!" Marc shouted, all excited and jumping around like he got at
times. "Right there, Paw. An Incident right there! Can we go?"
"How do you know all that?" Aalit asked in a voice so calm that it barely stood against Marc's
shouting, but the boy heard and planted himself to answer his father's question.
"Some guys at the gong-she. They showed me how to follow Incidents on the Em-Deh. Showed me
pictures of the Chief and her patrolcraft and her constables and ... and ... the fights, Paw.
They're having a lot of fights around town. The anshin call them 'Incidents,' Paw, and they head,
er, 'respond' to them and lay ever'body down to sleep with their dreamsticks. Ah'd sure like to
see that, Paw."
Aalit stared over the boy's head. His soft, pale eyes followed the aircraft as it settled behind
the trees. Then he brought those eyes around to Sara. They shared sorrow with her. Sorrow that
their chance at a new life should be soiled by such violence. Sorrow that their children should
learn of such things even second-hand.
Sara added her fear to their sharing. Fear that this savagery would engulf them, come over them
first-hand. Aalit understood.
"No," he said to Marc.
"Aw, Paw," Marc complained with a petulant stomp of his foot.
"No." Still soft, the word brooked no backtalk.
Marc shut it down. "Yessir," he said, not completely disappointed. Often a child wanted that kind
of answer. It kept a wonder-filled, yet scary world outside his life for just a while longer.
"Sara," Aalit said as he took Marian's hand. "Let's find another place to picnic."
Sara agreed by climbing back to her feet. She would go anywhere he wanted. She only hoped there
would be more grass there.
