From: aa811@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Terri M. Librande)
Newsgroups: alt.ql.creative
Subject: As It Fell Upon A Day: Part 11
Date: 31 Jan 1993 13:28:21 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
Lines: 211
Message-ID: <1kgk5lINNmdm@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc5.ins.cwru.edu


Dr. Barry's students decided to go with the plan to observe, thinking
it was just another rally.  There was nothing left of the lesson plan Sam
had slapped together, and he'd said what he'd wanted.  He felt helpless now.
When the bell rang at 11:45, it was a relief.  Soon it would all be over.

He left his books at the desk and followed the students out.  They kept 
close together as they headed toward the athletic field, as Al had suggested.
The Freedom Bell, utilized normally for pep rallies and the like, was being
rang by a student, calling others to assemble.  The area near Taylor Hall
was already crowded.  The west side of Blanket Hill, across from the troops,
took on a surreal quality for Sam, seeming more like a gathering at a
sporting event than a prelude to a disaster.  Everyone was shouting, and none
of it made sense.

As they gathered in the field, Sam counted heads.  Out of his thirty-six
kids, twenty were left here with him.  Hundreds of students were assembled
under Blanket Hill, waiting for the rally to begin.  He noticed also that
many students just hurried along, between classes, going to lunch or
whatever, before the afternoon session.  Even now, in this chaos, life
went on.

Sam tried hard to convince himself that this had been his concept of
'leaping' all along.  To observe historical events, tragic events, in the
history that was available  to him.  Fear choked him now, not knowing what
to do or why he was here.  It was obvious that he couldn't stop the situation
around him.  Time marched on and over him.

Al was suddenly at his elbow.  "We found the original history, Sam!"  He
sounded elated.  "When Dr. Barry disappeared after Kent State, he never
appeared anywhere again.  Ziggy says he never returned, not even to pack his
stuff.  His landlady reported him as missing, which started rumors that he
was a fifth shooting victim that the government was covering up.  We have no
current data on him!"

"What could have happened to him, Al?"

The Observer shrugged.  "What we theorize is that when Barry cut and ran
some of the kids had their support shoved out from under them.  He might have
felt he'd goaded the kids into the incident.  He couldn't handle his
guilt, and the kids didn't come to terms with theirs."

"Big help, Al," Sam said out of the side of his mouth.  "I'd figured most 
of that."

"That's not all, Sam.  While Barry encouraged the kids to demonstrate, with
that lecture you may have changed some minds.  If you can keep him here, give
him a reason to stay, like holding this bunch of students together, he'll
achieve tenure and remain at Kent the rest of his teaching career."

"Where was Dr. Barry when the firing started?"

Al wrinkled his brow as the information scrolled across the screen.  He
needed glasses and refused to where them.  "According to Ziggy, some
students saw him running toward the parking lot."  His expression was dark
with worry as he looked up from the display.  "That's where a lot of the
kids bought it."

"And we're in the field--away from the parking lot."  With some sense of
relief, Sam turned back to his students.  A couple of the girls and Artie
were standing as close to him as they could, trying not to look frightened.

"They're loading gas, Prof."  Artie's voice took on a hard tone.  "They'll
shoot it toward the Hill, won't they?"

The cannisters were fired--it seemed hundreds of them--but the smoke blew
away from teh students and toward the Guard.  In the parking lot, a cheer
went up, until they realized the gas was headed towards them.

From the line of kids in front and in back of them, Sam knew they didn't
have space to run, if they had to move fast.  Glancing at his watch, Sam
noted the time.  12:24.  A second later, the first shots rang out.

"What the hell are they firing?"  Artie strained to watch the troops
shoot.  Smoke was rising from their position on the Hill.  
"Blanks?"

With cold certainty, Sam knew Artie was wrong.  Screams split the shouting,
the chaos.  A mass of humanity was running for cover, any cover.  At the first
crack of rifle fire, Sam had followed the instinct to drop.  The blond
girl from his group was a few feet in front of him, screaming in blind
panic.  Inching his way over to her, he pulled her to the ground and held
her until the sound of weapon fire stopped.  Artie was on the grass next
to Sam, his face an expression of stunned disbelief.  Helping them up, he
looked back toward the parking lot.  A crowd was gathering there, not more
than five hundred feet away.  It was as if time had slowed and suddenly
silenced the screams.

Feeling numb, he checked Artie and the girl.  She seemed to have recovered,
her gaze stunned and wide, turning her face to the professor.  "They
shot us."  Her voice was small and empty.

Sam held her close for a moment, then felt he was needed elsewhere, with
the injured and dying.  He glanced at Artie.  Reaching over, he took the
boy's hand and the three hurried across the field to the parking lot to
assist the wounded.

Sam couldn't tell where to start.  It was obvious the moment he saw the
carnage that he was in the middle of the target area.  One girl had no
throat.  A pool of blood grew beneath her unconscious body.  There was one
boy lying as if dead.  He, too, had been shot.  All Sam could do was make 
him comfortable and urge the students not to move him.  If the ambulances
arrived in time he might live, but from the nature of the wound, he'd
probably be paralyzed for life.  Kneeling by the wounded boy, Sam felt
cloth pushed into his hand.  Artie was  at his elbow tearing his t-shirt
into strips.  Together, they wrapped the boy with the makeshift bandage
and stabilized him until help could come.  Artie and Sam exchanged tight
grins as they tied the last of the cloth.  His bleeding had stopped.
"Stay with him, Artie," Sam said, pushing up from the ground.

He offered a backwards glance toward Al and found he was right at his
shoulder.  His face was blank with grief, fresh and bright.  "This is like
a war zone," he heard Al mutter.

Sam knelt next to another kid, a young man with a shoulder wound.  Beneath
Sam's hands, he was quiet, not crying out as his injury was treated.  "It
is a war zone, Al."  Blood streaked the scientist's hands and face as he held
a pad over the shoulder; the boy was passing out.  In the distance he couuldChear the sound of sirens.  Would the student allow the ambulances to get 
through?  Would they arrive too late?

"Aw, Sam."  Al looked confused, wandering through the people hurrying around
him.  It was like the battle of Do Chi, but this one had been fought on
American soil.  He watched as Sam shook his head, giving the boy up to 
the attendants.  Half-crounched on the ground, tears streaking down his 
face, Sam looked pretty messed up.

"Kid?"  Al leaned down to try to make his friend hear him.  "We'll leave
soon.  Any minute you'll leap."

Al had never seen such vulnerability on Sam Beckett's face before.  His
partner had never been one to hide his emotions.

"Leaping won't help me forget this."  Sam locked gazes with his friend
for a moment, then went to help more wounded.

The injured and dying were taken away and Sam still hadn't leaped.  The
campus was being systematically cleared and it was quiet, even with
the crowd that was gathered.  Sam was in the midst of it, blood staining
nearly every bit of clothing and exposed skin.  He felt numb.  The touch
of a hand on his shoulder made his head come up.  It was Artie.  And the
others in his class.  Somehow, they had found him.

"What do we do now, Dr. Barry?"  Artie's voice was as dead as Sam felt.  He
was covered in blood, too, from assisting the injured.

"You did good, Artie.  Maybe it's your calling."  He had to grin at the
look that crossed the boy's face.

"That's it, Sam."  Al gestured with the link.  "
"Artie goes on to medical school.  Not that he finishes it, but he becomes
an emergency medical technician, and a good one, too."

Sam glanced down at his hands and fingernails.  Blood, dark and drying.  The
faces of the students around him were expectant, hoping he had all the
answers.  What could he tell these people?  That 'THEY' had won?  Give them
another lecture?  Pulling as many as he could into his arms, Sam held the
students close.  Touch, not words, was what would help them heal.  And time.
He knew Dr. Barry better now.  The kids were clinging to him, frightened,
and willing for his comfort.  That was why the professor was staying this
time--to help them through this, each of them, including Artie who was 
headed toward a better future.

After the ones living on campus had collected their things, the group 
headed toward the Triumph.  They couldn't bring much, leaving most of teh
their possesions to be picked up later.  The Guard was clearing off
everyone.  Sam managed to stuff four students and their luggage into the 
little car.  Al was  standing alone by the driver's side as they arrived,
looking fairly shaken.

Sam glanced at his friend.  There was more of an understanding in his 
eyes now, a feeling of relief that it was over, and something else he
couldn't fathom.

"You gonna be okay?"  Al asked.

"I think so." Sam grinned.  His heart wasn't in it.

"Dr. Barry will be okay, too, I think.  According to Ziggy he stays at 
Kent and helps the kids traumatized by the murders.  He's still teaching
and crisis counselling for the school."

Sam glanced back as the kids settled in the Triumph, his hand on the car
door.  They were too busy talking among themselves to notice much else.

"How is he going to understand what happened today if he wasn't here to
witness it?"

"He'll know.  And, with these kids around, he'll learn to accept it.  The
kids do okay, too."  Al's voice reflected the grief in his eyes.

Sam got in the car and turned the engine over. It was a bit cramped ion
the  front, even with the top of the car down.  He twisted around to
adjust the side mirror.  It was off-kilter, and as he turned it into
position, his eyes widened  in shock.  There was a bullet hole, neatly
centered.  It had travelled through the mirror and away.  His last 
thought, before he leaped, was wondering what Dr. Barry's reaction would
be when he saw it.

He sensed he materialized in familiar territory.  It gave him a sense of
peace, even with his eyes closed.  And the smell--an aroma, like a deep
part of himself coming through--a memory.

"October.  No, November!"  His eyes took in the golden glory around him.
Seed corn.  //And where there's seed corn--there's pheasants!//

The End

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