White Queen Read Free

their child, Bella, horribly. And without hope, because the baby who had been the light of his life didn’t exist anymore. It was two years now. Two years.
    It would have been better for Johnny if the revolution hadn’t happened. At least then he’d still be a political exile, able to dream of the day when all injustice would be undone.
    He tossed his letters unread. He nearly chucked the picture too, but some stubborn instinct of self-preservation prevented him. He walked about under the Gromyko bridge, social center for the dregs of Fo society. It was raining hard now; the New City and the old had both vanished.
    He studied the down and outs, and took grim warning.
    Rationally he knew that he would never see his baby again. But he also knew that he had done nothing wrong. Something deeper than all his pain told him to hang on. The innocent are not punished forever. Everything would be restored to him, somehow. Until that day he must use whatever means necessary to survive intact: to remain Johnny Guglioli.
    ii
    Outside some workshops a fight had broken out. The two principals and their supporters screamed at each other and scuffled under the streaming rain. Meanwhile a caterpillar truck loaded with goods was stuck in a pothole. It struggled, signaling doggedly for human assistance. The trader finally pointed this out, his round, gaudily wrapped body shaking with indignation. The gawky driver broke off the quarrel to swing himself into the cab and cut out the alarm. Both of them callously returned to the fray.
    No one was taking any notice of the explorers. They weren’t behaving any differently from the local bystanders—who were standing around, nervous and excited. But they were convinced that STRANGER was written all over them. The explorers’ captain was just about holding them together, when the truckers suddenly decided to use the struggling machine as an excuse to back down. They converged on it, shoving and cursing. The driver gunned the engine, eliciting dreadful cries. Everyone felt awful: but the captain, that person whose aspect is always tenderness for the helpless, couldn’t bear it any longer.
    “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”
    His sudden articulate yell panicked the others. As their leader ran back they scurried, confessing their fear and giving up all attempt at passing for normal. They hid behind some sheds on a dirt access road that led down to the big highway. In a short while the captain joined them, spattered with mud from head to foot. Luckily, no one seemed to have noticed the odd behavior of a small group of non-combatants. The others were shamed by the reminder of how quickly the small decencies of life had been muddied out of sight by adversity. That person whose obligation to principled action is unaffected by circumstance hadn’t meant to embarrass anyone. He was embarrassed himself, now; but unrepentant.
     sighed his guardian.
    Those who used fixed names had adopted, near as they could make out, equivalents in the local dialect. It would have been a friendly diplomatic compliment, except that the locals didn’t know. The captain was determined to remain in hiding
    
    It wasn’t really the captain’s fault. The long term effects of the crash were coming to the surface, not only in proliferating practical problems but also in low morale. People were afraid to be left alone. Whenever the person they depended on went foraging a search party would soon follow him, and become a liability. It was a silly situation. But someone had to go and do the shopping, and who else could it be?
    He put his arm around his guardian as they piled into the car, and brandished one of his parcels.
    
     Benoit hugged him.
    What a charming presence it was, though nothing in Agnès’s pleasantly irregular features deserved to be called beauty. The people