Newsgroups: alt.ql.creative
Subject: As It Fell Upon A Day Part 5
Message-ID: <1jceooINN6c1@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
From: aa811@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Terri M. Librande)
Date: 17 Jan 1993 20:15:20 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc5.ins.cwru.edu
Lines: 153


Saturday ran into Sunday as they talked far into the early morning.  Sam
managed a few hours sleep before Al awakened him near noon, but it didn't
seem to dull his certainty that this leap was to save lives.  Fear 
coursed through Sam as his intensity grew.

"I'd like to take a drive," Sam said, pulling a jacket over his sports
shirt.  Tan slacks and loafers completed the ensemble.  It certainly was
a giant step above the last time he'd been a college professor.  From what 
he'd seen of himself in the mirror he wasn't quite as disheveled or eccentric.
If it wasn't for his more conventional wardrobe he'd be mistaken for one of teh 
students.  Dr. Barry's beard was neatly trimmed, his hair long and groomed.
A man on the level of the kids he taught, but with his feet firmly planted 
on the ground.

Al accompanied Sam as he left the apartment, knowing where they were going
without asking.  No amount of talking would change his friend's mind.  It was
mid-afternoon as they approached the campus and Sam could hear the rise and fall
of angry voices as they neared the main intersection near the school. 
Sam parked the car and went to check out the student gathering.  Al followed
closely behind.

A beautiful, black girl ran toward Sam and threw her arms around him, hugging
tightly.  It wasn't an embrace of passion, but of fear and needing someone
close that she cared about.

"This Dr. Barry must have a line going."  Al grinned, but his eyes were
serious.

Ignoring Al, he put his arms around her in a comforting manner, stroking
the girl's hair.  "What's going on?"  he questioned, keeping his voice low,
his eyes alert to what was happening around them.

Her face tipped up to his.  She was exotically beautiful, but very young--
probably no older than eighteen or nineteen.  She had the build of a female
athlete, eyes that seemed as if they could laugh or cry at the drop of a
hat.  "We're protesting the curfew.  The Guard is on campus and some of the 
kids got bayonetted and...other things.  I just knew you'd be here."  She
grinned.  "Like a big brother."

If the situation was this bad off campus,it must be worse there.  "I 
wouldn't advise driving on campus, Sam."  Al confirmed, keeping his voice
calm and even.  "There's guards all over the place, not to mention 
students that are ready to explode.

"The Guard found what they thought was a fire bomb and think everyone is
out to get them."  The girl's voice was anxious.  "They're pointing their
guns at anyone or anything that seems to threaten them.  It's not safe 
anymore."

"Ziggy says she could be one of his students, a..."   Al's eyes widened
as the name scrolled across the tiny screen.  "Verbena Beeks.  OUR Verbena."

This anxious, frightened girl would become one of the smoothest, calming 
women Sam had ever known.  It was hard for him to remember details about
Dr. Beeks, the staff psychologist, but from the looks of this Verbena, and 
the way she clung to him, she was sensitive and caring.  Dr. Barry, it seemed,
had many students who depended on him for support in rough times."
\
"There's a protest at eight tonight--when the curfew goes into effect."
Her brown eyes were large, excited.  "No one knows really how the Guard
will react if we don't evacuate the campus then."

"I think I'll stay put for a while," Sam said, laying his arm across
Verbena's shoulders.  She clung to the hand that draped over her, smiling
up at him.  He glanced at Al who was beginning to get that haggard look
on his face.  "Some people are pretty worried about me being here, Verbena."

"If my parents knew I was protesting..."  She wrinkled her nose.  "I'd be
on my way to Stanford before you could spit."

"It might be a good move."  Sam's voice was growing thin.  The sharp scent
of tear gas was in the air.  It hadn't been long ago that it had passed 
near this area.  "It's a pretty good school to get a psych degree."

"I never thought of that, considering I was going for a nursing degree."
Thoughtful, she grinned.  "Not a bad idea, though."

Verbena kept close.  Sam discovered that he was the favorite prof for many
of the students and gathered more of the crowd as he walked among them.  Most
of the kids, Al told him, referring to Ziggy's data banks, were frightened
and certain about their academic future because of current events.  The
majority were not radicals."

Sam also learned more about Artie, the spokesman for his visitors the 
night before.  He and Verbena encountered the boy passing out pamphlets
for a rally to be held the next day.  Holding it at an angle for Al to 
read, Sam glanced over the words carefully before tucking it into his
pocket.

Al's expressive face stilled, his eyes darkening.  "That's it, then," he
said flatly.

"You don't look too good, Dr. Barry."  Having passed out the last of the 
flyers, Artie joined the professor and Verbena as they walked along among
the seated protestors.

"I'm fine, uh, Artie.  It's the protest--maybe too much sun."  Samhad felt
helpless when he read the words, RALLY AT NOON, MONDAY on Artie's paper.
The expression on Al's face had chilled him. More of the information he'd
forgotten about Kent State was surfacing in his Swiss cheesed memory.  Sam
gave Artie a shaky smile.  "How is your friend with the leg wound?"

"His parents flipped--came to the dorm this morning after he called and
pulled him out of school."

Sam's head came up, eyes wide, as the door of the Imaging Chamber opened
and Al headed towards it.  "I gotta get back.  Stay put, okay?"

Sam cocked his head at his friend.  With everyone around him, he couldn't
say much in the way of goodbye.

*****************

As the door closed behind him, Al hurried toward the main control room.  IN
his scampish way he looked forward to finding a certain psychologist and 
letting her in on who Sam Beckett was keeping company with.

She was alone in the office she shared with the staff physician.  It was a
quiet place to think and evaluate what was happening at any given time.

Al surprised her at the doorway with a quirky smile across his face.  "I
know, Admiral."  She gave him an ironic grin.  "I was at Kent in 1970, the
year before my parents convinced me to transfer to Stanford.  No cracks about
my younger self, please?

It was hard for Al to picture this elegant-looking woman as the pretty but
gawky girl back with Sam.  "He's having trouble on this leap, Verbena.
You couldn't imagine..."

"I can and will."  Her gaze was serious as she sipped at the strong coffee
in her cup.  "She gestured with it at Al.  "Want some?"

"I figure once vice at a time is enough," Al said, waving his cigar.  

"Did you get some sleep?"

"You know, I once went thirty-six hours without rest."  Al held the cigar
toward the ceiling, the smoke drifting around his head.  "It was during 
this all-night marathon party and there were three or four girls--I can
remember one name.  Delores.  What a..."

"Hedging, Al."  She wagged a manicured finger at her old adversary, now
friend and patient.  "
"What made you search me out tonight?"


More to come...
Terri Librande
-- 
"Unscrupulous--but effective!"  Al in "Starcrossed"
Terri Librande aa811@cleveland.Freenet.edu  Assistant Sysop
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Sig--Go SCIFI