21.
 “I think there is a little wagon I can get you,” Moira said when she returned after the men had had lunch.
Taxi had checked out several of the cars. So far there were three half-full helium drive bottles, one quarter full, and several empties. A minor treasure, in all.
“I’ll have to wait until tonight to put the wagon outside,” Moira said. “It’s in the potato bin, and we use it to lug potatoes to the kitchen.”
“Will it hold a 200 pound helium drive bottle?”
“Several of us rode in it once and it didn’t break.”
Taxi and Moira both laughed at the picture.
That evening, Taxi waited kind of lonely, by herself, while the people of this little community had their common supper in the square outside. Taxi sat in the cozy, dimly lit dormitory and thought about how to get the bottle over the fence. Weighing almost an eighth of a ton, the bottle would be too heavy for her to lift. Even with Sam together, they couldn’t do it. She lay back, figuring the complex logistics necessary.
When Moira came back, Moira asked Taxi to go for a walk. “Nothing special,” she said. “Just to be with you alone for a little bit.”
They walked together, each in her gray skirt and white apron, with a dark cloak thrown over the shoulders against the slight, damp evening cold.
“Look at the stars,” Moira said, slipping her arm through Taxi’s.
Taxi was used to maybe once in a while walking with Sam like this. She hoped nobody could see them. Then Moira showed her a dark area, just outside the range of lights. They stood overlooking the far fields, and Moira wanted to kiss, and Taxi looked uneasily about, ready to grab her gun. “There any lions around or anything?”
“We’re safe in here.”
“So why the hell do you want to leave?”
“I know that being safe is different from being free. If I have to give up one or the other, I’ll give up being safe.”
Taxi rapped her on her lovely head. “You just won’t get it, will you? Being scared all the time is not the same as being free either. If I had to pick between being safe or being scared, I’d pick being safe.”
Moira’s eyes glittered with humor and intelligence. Her face beamed, and the wet of her lips shone. “Then why don’t you stay here?”
Good question. “Well — .”
“ — Yes, well? — .”
“Number one, you said I can’t be here because I’m part cat and God knows what else. Also, I have a rather nice man waiting for me.”
Moira embraced her and kissed her on the lips. It was warm in their cloaks, and Taxi found herself kind of enjoying the sensuousness of it.
“I’ll help you tomorrow, but you have to take me with you.”
“No!” Taxi took Moira by the upper arms and shook her.
“How will you stop me?”
“We’ll just leave you there and you can wander back in.”
“I won’t be able to get back in.”
“Then I’ll shoot you before you can get out.”
“Taxi, that’s mean. You wouldn’t shoot me.”
“Yes I would, baby. Right in the leg. They can patch you up. Out there, nothing can patch you up.”
Moira sniffed, whirled, and walked off.
Taxi slowly walked up behind Moira’s figure, which looked like a chess piece as she looked away. “I’m sorry, Moira.”
“I should have turned you in,” Moira said.
“Aw, come on now. I just want for you to be safe.”
Moira switched from coy to passionate and embraced her. Taxi, looking past Moira’s ear, saw the white-robed figure standing silently on the other side of yet another fence.
On the way back to the dorm, Taxi asked: “So is there any hope you people will ever get out of here with help from the government?”
Moira shrugged. “People used to talk about it when I was small. Nobody believes the government is coming back. As long as we’re safe here, those of us who want to stay, it’s a pretty good life.”
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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