The Invasion of the Tearling

That was a difficult question to answer. During the day things were fine, because the sky was wide open and Lily could look from horizon to horizon. But she didn’t sleep more than a few hours at a time before jerking awake, certain that she would see the accountant standing in front of her … or worse, Greg. They were out of reach of all of that now, the ship’s prow cutting smoothly toward the better world, but Lily felt a sudden, terrible foreboding. All of the people around her, sleeping on the deck … surely they brought their own stories, their own violence. How could anyone build a better world, a perfect world, if people brought along their own nightmares of the past?

“It won’t be perfect,” Tear answered, staring moodily over the railing. “I knew that, almost as soon as I knew I would try to do it. The world will be better, but not easy. In fact, in the early going, it’s going to be very difficult.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at what we’ve left behind, Lily. We have no electricity, no technology. While I was asleep, Dori had the computer techs dump all of their equipment overboard, along with the guns. It has to be that way; technology is convenient, but we’ve long since passed the point where convenience outweighed danger. Tools of surveillance, of control … I knew, long ago, that these would have to be the first things to go. But think of the other things we won’t have! Fuel. Heat. Textiles. I’ve brought drugs and antibiotics, on the white ship over there”–he gestured northward–“but they’ll go bad long before the decade is out. We’ll have none of these things, unless we figure out how to make them ourselves, with whatever we find.”

Lily struggled to remain silent. She worshipped this man, she realized now, and it was a difficult thing, to hear him tear himself to pieces. But she suspected that he could not voice these doubts to anyone else, certainly not to all of the loyal people who had followed him for years.

“There will be animals in the new world, for meat, but we’re all going to have to learn to kill them without guns or machinery, to cook from scratch over an open fire. We’ll have to grow food. We’ll have to learn to build our own houses, make our own clothing. I have several people who know the process, from sheep to wool to weaving, but the rest we’ll have to learn. There was no way to do this without throwing nearly everything away, and if we want to keep anything, we’re going to have to learn to do it all over again.”

“You think we can’t?”

“We can, certainly. The question is whether we will. It takes effort to build, Lily. It takes effort to put the community’s needs before your own. But in the coming period, everyone will have to do that, or we’re doomed to fail.”

“Socialism has never succeeded anywhere.”

“So we keep on trying. These are civic-minded people. They will raise civic-minded children. I chose them as such.”

“Me as well?”

Tear smiled. “You as well.”

“How do you know I’m civic-minded?” Truthfully, even Lily didn’t know if she was; there had been so little opportunity to find out. Her entire life with Greg played out inside her memory, an ugly feedback loop.

“I told you, Lily: I’ve known you all my life.” Tear held up the sapphire, displaying it on his palm. “I saw you here, long before I ever knew who you were.”

“Why?”

Tear stared at her for a moment, his gaze contemplative. “Are you healing?”

“Yes. My shoulder barely even hurts, except when I try to sleep. My hand’s being a pain, but I can bandage it again once there’s enough light.”

“You don’t fool me, Lily. Your injuries aren’t physical. You’re not healing yet, but you will.”

Lily felt her cheeks flush, wondering if he could look straight inside her and see the nightmares, Greg constantly lurking. It seemed likely that Greg would always be there, dug into some part of Lily that refused to let the past go.

“It might be that way for a long time,” Tear told her. “But I promise you, you will heal.”

“How do you know?”

Tear closed his fingers around the sapphire for a moment, staring off into some place that Lily couldn’t possibly begin to imagine. Then he held it out to her.

“Have a look.”

Feeling foolish, Lily lifted the jewel to the sky again, squinting. For a moment she saw nothing, but then the sapphire began to glow from within, a tiny blue flame against the lightening sky.

“What–”

“Shh. Look.”

Lily stared at the sapphire, trying not to blink, and after a moment she realized that a figure was forming, far beneath the surface. At first it was shadowy, only a silhouette against the blue background, but then Lily gasped, for she saw herself. This was a different Lily than the one she had seen in the mirror all of her life: careworn and slightly hardened, her arms muscled, her skin dark with sun. The woman turned, and now Lily saw what Tear had meant her to see: her stomach, rounded with late pregnancy, protruding against the blue.

“How are you doing this?” she asked. “Is it an illusion?”

“No illusion, Lily, only the future. I promise you, it will come to pass.”