James and Martha looked at each other and then sat down on the bench beside her. It seemed so pleasant and friendly in an unfamiliar way. She opened her bag and offered them some cookies from a container that had been in with her red yarn. They accepted a couple of Snickerdoodles each, and since they were young and hungry always, they ate their cookies.
“Now tell me,” said Alice, “where are you going children?”
“Now tell me,” said Alice, “where are you going children?”
***
“Why do you ask,” whispered Martha.
“It’s unusual to see people out for a walk these days,” observed Alice. “We used to walk all over the place, just because it was a nice day, or we felt restless.”
“I don’t know what to call you,” said James. “I feel awkward answering questions asked by a stranger at a bus stop, even a very kind stranger.”
Alice was encouraged. Caginess is always good, she thought. It can be a sign of intelligence. But not always.
“My name is Alice Franklin. I am 66 years old, and I lived in this city before the pods were stacked.” She laughed a little.
“I won’t ask your names because I can easily see that you are running. But don’t worry about me betraying you. That isn’t my business here today.”
“Why do you have two names,” asked Martha, a bit bolder now.
“Well, now, you must know,” said Alice, “about how people lived before? The parents and their own children, living together? Right? You know that. Well, they all together had a second name. You got that name from your parents. My father and mother had the second name, Franklin. You see? Actually, most of us had a middle name too. Mine is Lily. Now you know quite a bit about me! You may call me Alice.”
“The nurses called me Martha, that’s all,” said Martha. James nodded. That was how he got his name also. “I’m just James,” said James. “We had parents, of course, but we never met them.”
“I think they would have liked to number us, but it would be hard for the nurses to remember our numbers, so we got names, like pet animals,” said James.
Alice said, “what made you pick up and leave? I’m curious.”
“They decided it was time for me to produce a baby for them. So, they brought me to his pod and dumped me there. I was supposed to be there for five days. He was supposed to be the father. They called it a wedding,” Martha was whispering again and near tears.
“So, we just walked out,” said James. “No matter what they think, we are people. We had to leave. If I had not made her pregnant, they would have dragged her to someone else and tried again.
“I couldn’t stand it. So, we walked out. We thought that if we walked for a few days that we might run into people who lived like human beings out there somewhere. We thought that maybe even dying out there on the land was better than living in the pod stacks.”
It seemed to Alice that he had basically answered her other two questions. Now came the really delicate part of her job, the really interesting part. The offer. The final screening.
“I can see that you are looking for freedom really, aren’t you? A life that matters to yourselves and maybe others too,” said Alice.
“I can give you a short history lesson which you wouldn’t get in the kind of schools where you kids grew up. Oh yeah, I know about those places. Some of the best kids I know grew up in those places, don’t worry! In fact, it won’t take much of a lesson at all.
“Something like nearly a hundred years ago the powers over mankind decided to change the nature of people. They decided on two main ways. Destroy the family as it had been forever and ever, and the other way was to make people worship the state, instead of the Creator of all. The idea was to farm people and use them like animals, and in fact to get rid of most of them. There used to be a lot more people. Did you know that?
“That’s where you two come into the story. You have been living this horrible life.” Alice watched their faces then for a couple of moments. She saw recognition in their eyes. Bingo. They could see it.
“It very well could be that the Creator brought us together today. Such things do happen, even here and now, James and Martha,” said Alice.
Alice was pleased. They sat listening to her. They didn’t deride or even just leave.
It was coming up to midday. The sun beat straight down with that early summer intensity on the little group in the unused bus stop shelter. A boy and a girl on the road looking for something better, and a mysterious lady with a lot to say to them.
“I’m not just a grandma knitting a sock, though I am that too, I am a representative, a recruiter you might say,” said Alice. “I am looking for people. It’s what I do. I look for people who, number one, will talk to me. People with some curiosity, who are hungry and looking. If I find such people, I have an offer to make.
“It’s an odd one and it might be very hard to believe. But it’s just as real as those cookies you ate and the sun getting a little too hot in here.”
“Go on,” said James, sitting forward, elbows on knees, listening, a tall slight figure in green coveralls.
“Maybe you know, or maybe not, but for something like fifty years various earthbound space agencies have been looking for an earth-like planet, besides this one. Why, you ask? It seems to be a principle of life to keep looking outward and to go further and further.
“Two things happened at nearly the same time around five years ago. A way to travel between solar systems was learned. We’ll get into that a bit later. Then they found a planet. Uninhabited. Temperate. The right size. Covered with plants and animals. They called this planet Xanto.
“Simply put, the space agency I work for is looking for people to start populating Xanto with human beings. There really is no other way to do this but to find people who will go.
“There are a few hundred on Xanto now. But that’s not enough.
“This is where the offer comes into it. If you will go and work on Xanto for five years, we will get you out of here. After the five years, you will be free to make your own way on Xanto as you see fit, and conditions allow. You could even come back to earth if you wanted to.
“But this offer is for now. I need to know today if you two are interested in Xanto. That’s the way it works. Are you brave enough, hungry enough, do you want out of this badly enough? I’ll just keep knitting for a while and let you think it through. Help yourselves to more cookies.” With that she fell silent and started turning the heel of her sock.
“Alice, which space agency do you work for,” asked James.
“Israeli. We’re the only one left really,” said Alice, then she winked.
“We’re going to walk around and talk for a minute, be right back,” said James. So, Martha and James walked down the highway for about half a block then came back.
When Alice looked up from her sock they were standing before her holding hands, looking serious.
“OK, we’ll go Alice. We were willing to die for the sake of freedom here on Earth. We’ll take a chance on Xanto. We have no reason not to,” said James.
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