Pru came to rest in the final position of her morning Tai Chi practice, and let her body relax. They had spent the night in Terry´s apartment in New York Sector after a concert they had both enjoyed. Pru picked up a towel, wiped away the light film of sweat from her face and breasts and put it under her when she sat on the bed next to Terry.
“You do that every day, don´t you? When did you begin?”
“Yes. Every day. It´s like coffee – but I like my morning coffee, too. I guess I started when I was about five. We were in China then, and Tai Chi was everywhere, but my mother did her practice every day then, and still does today. So, it was just natural. As I was growing up, I tried some of the other arts, too.”
“You said you´ve been OC a lot too, didn´t you?”
“Yeah. Mostly day trips, you know. You must´ve done those, too. And, camp-outs.” Terry nodded.
“Now my parents live OC outside of a CA in North Africa, and I spent a lot of time there as a girl, made a lot of friends. And, I did spend one whole summer OC when I was in college. A bunch of us spent the summer with a community of Voluntaries – it was kind of a spiritual thing for them – in southern Michigan.”
“How many were in the bunch?”
“Oh, ten. We were all in school together; you know. Close enough for sex, but none of us were bonded. We were there for almost three months.”
“A learning experience?”
“Oh, I´ll say. I learned one thing, anyway. Clothes count.”
“What do you mean, ‘clothes count´”?
“I grew up mostly in Controlled Areas. But, I´ll tell you, when you live OC all the time, clothes make a difference. Sit on watch all night; it gets chilly. Go hunting and clothes protect you from the underbrush. Working in the fields… I don´t know what all. You can go naked most of the time, but then you find a situation where you need a shirt or some pants to protect you. I´m really happier wearing as little as we do in the CA, but reality bites if you don´t watch out.”
“So do bugs,” Terry observed.
“Well, that summer in Michigan, we ate lots of garlic. That kept most of the bugs off.”
“We´re glad you´re here guys; it´s great to have additional help during the busy summer months.” The tall, lean woman spoke to the group of college students in front of the log lodge that was the main building in the small village. Surrounded by stands of old-growth hardwood trees, about 40 cabins and outbuildings were grouped around a well. An open-sided shelter stood more or less in the center of the village. Fields and gardens were visible through beyond the edge of the woods,
“We´ll be asking you to share your skills with us, especially if any of you know about gardening, or agriculture or hunting. But, I´ll be honest with you; one of the biggest ways you can help us is by taking over the watch duties.” She beckoned to a muscular man, who came forward.
“This is Jason. He runs the watch. Tell them what it´s about, Jase.”
Jason was a good two meters tall and obviously strong. ‘Not bad looking, either,´ Pru thought.
“Thanks, Laura. Folks, I don´t know what mythology you´ve been taught about the areas that are Outside Control. Yes, a lot of them are agricultural or industrial areas where people live much as you do in the Controlled Areas. But not all. Where we are is typical of those areas that have pretty much gone wild. That´s why we´re here; because, that´s the kind of environment we like. But, there are disadvantages, too, and one of them is that these areas also attract Expellees, people who are not welcome in Controlled Areas. And, I think you can guess that most of them aren´t welcome here, either.
“So, we keep a watch. During the day, it´s not much, but at night, we have a watch in the village and in the fields as well. When we are fortunate enough to have people like you with us, we use you to release our members from watch duties so they can be productive in the fields, and at other work you haven´t learned yet. So, for a while, we´ll be asking you to take watch duty – at night especially.”
Laura spoke up again. “That´s really only to begin with. We´d like you to learn to take part in everything we do, but you´ll need training. We´ll give that to you as fast as you´d like. But, for the first few days, you´re going to be on watch. Is that all right?”
One of the young men spoke up. “Are there a lot of Expellees around here? How do you control them?”
“We try to be good neighbors and hope they are, too,” Laura replied, “and if they´re not, we deal with them. We let them glean our fields after harvest, and we trade with them for things they want or need. But, we try to keep them out of our fields and our village as much as we can. That´s why the watch.”
Jason added, “If anyone makes trouble, we deal with it pretty directly, or if we have to, we take them back to a CA and let the authorities handle it. Most of what they try is to steal from our fields. They don´t have much luck getting into the village. Any other questions?”
There were one or two grumbles, but none were serious. Jason described what he called the “Rules of Engagement” for people on watch. Basically, that meant using whatever force was appropriate to ensure the safety of the village. Watches would be four hours long, each starting after the evening meal and continuing until the early morning wake-up.
As the days passed, the students merged into the life of the village, going about their assigned duties and learning the ways of the community. The work was hard, but evenly shared, and the members of the village were helpful, tolerant and happy. The happiness was catching and just about everyone had a good time. The food was simple but plentiful.
Pru found watch duty not at all unpleasant. She could spend her four hours of darkness listening to the near-silence of the woods and fields where she lurked, and found that she could hear at lot of activity from the night birds, the ground-based night hunters and scavengers. It amused her to guess what the rustlings and squeaks meant and, when the early light began to come, to watch the transition from the animals of the nightlife to the life of other animals of the day. And, it was also a time when she could meditate, drifting into a state of alert but motionless peace that left her relaxed and filled with a strange strength.
In the mornings, of course, Pru did her Tai Chi practice, and some of the villagers remarked on it. She offered to teach them, but there were no takers.
Meat for the community was largely supplied by a flock of sheep, which also supplied wool. A few cattle provided milk, meat and occasional hides. And, the village´s hunters provided variety with occasional kills of deer, wild pigs and other, often smaller, game. In the winter, traps were set to harvest fur-bearing animals for clothing and trade.
Pru went on a hunt one day with one of the village hunters. He carried a well-cared-for slugthrower.
The two of them reached a likely spot and Pru watched as the hunter stalked a deer and shot it. She helped him dress it out and carry the meat and skin back.
On another occasion, Pru took a shot at a deer and missed. The deer, of course, escaped and the hunt was unsuccessful. She promised herself that would not happen again, and that when she got home, she would make herself proficient with these anachronistic weapons.
On watch one night, Pru was guarding a field of melons that were nearing harvest. It was well into the watch and the sky was beginning to lighten when she sensed a presence not far away. She remained still and calm, centering her attention and gripping the staff she carried a little more firmly. To one side, she saw a stooped figure approach the edge of the field.
Pru rose, took three steps and brought her staff sharply across the back of the intruder´s head. The man fell on his face and lay still. Pru picked up the whistle all guards wore around their necks and blew on it. By the time the other members of the watch arrived, she had bound the thief´s wrists behind him and was sitting on his hips.
The next day, two of the villagers asked Pru to teach them how to use her staff. She convinced them to start Tai Chi practice with her each morning. Over the next week, she gathered a small class of devotees.
“Was that the only incident you had on watch? No other encounters with Expellees?” Terry asked.
Pru´s face darkened. “No. There was one other time. I kind of lost it.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“I was guarding the sheep one night. They didn´t have dogs then, but I think they got some later. Or maybe it was llamas.” She turned to look at Terry. “You know what they are?”
Terry nodded. “No-hump camels,” he muttered. “So what happened?”
“It was in the middle of the night, and the flock was pretty quiet. I was resting against a tree, almost dozing. There was a night-bird singing in the tree, but it stopped suddenly and I heard it fly away. I guess that alerted me. I felt a hand on my face and I dropped. The guy must have been going for my throat with his knife, because I felt it cut me a little. I grabbed his hand and threw him – I think I broke his arm, because he yelled. I heard another person coming, and I just pulled my knife and got him in the belly the way I´d been trained back home.” Pru shook her head. “By the time the watch answered my whistle, he was dead. The other guy just had the broken arm.”
“You okay with that? It must have been tough.” Terry reached for her, pulled her down on his chest.
Pru muttered into his chest, “Yeah. It was hard for a while. I had nightmares. But, the women at the village helped me deal with it and I meditated a lot when I was doing my katas, and I worked my way through it. Not right away. I killed a man, but it wasn´t my fault: they should have stayed away from our sheep. And, they were perfectly willing to kill me just to get a sheep. They were from a roving band of Expellees, and we chased them out of the area after that we didn´t have t any more trouble.” She rose on her elbow and looked at Terry. “Please don´t sneak up on me,” she said, and kissed him.