A Thousand Deaths by George Alec Effinger Read Free Book Online Page B

stripped of all conveniences, the necessary ones as well as those that merely cluttered up living. Some of those conveniences were for the benefit of the community, while others were for the individual. He couldn't help thinking that despite her attitude, they had all lost much more than they had gained in coming here. But he said none of this to her. At that moment, he knew that he never wanted to say or do anything to disturb her. He didn't want to do anything that would make her take her slender suntanned hand away.
    Molly joined them. "Zofia has passed away," she said, curiously in the same whisper everyone used on the third floor. Courane glanced around; no one in the other occupied beds would understand their conversation, even if they could overhear it. "She always trusted God, she trusted that the Lord would give her the grace to endure her pain."
    "I wish someone would do that for me," said Courane.
    Molly looked astonished. "Don't worry," she said. "You'll learn to take up your burden. That's part of the purpose of our group, to help the newcomers accept the difficulties of life here. This is the challenge TECT has set you, and if you meet it you will be rewarded with growth and peace and the unshakable faith to overcome anything, including death. Zofia showed that."
    To Courane's mind, Zofia had probably been so far gone she hadn't known who or where she was. But he didn't say anything to Molly. He could make an educated guess now at what had landed Molly on Planet D. On Earth she had likely held a civil service job as a paid minority member, probably a Christian. It was against the law to remain in character after working hours, but it seemed to Courane that Molly had done just that. It was an unusual effect of these jobs; some people were so weak and impressionable that after a while they began to believe they truly were what they had been hired to impersonate. Under the old Representatives, that had been a capital offense. These days, deluded people like Molly were merely excised from the community at large. Now Courane and the others on the farm would have to put up with her.
    "If you let the Lord show you the way, He will help you in your troubles. All you have to do is welcome your cross and follow in His way. It will all be made easy for you."
    Courane was embarrassed for her. "It was always the day-to-day things that caused me the most worry," he said. "I don't want to think about dying for a long time yet." He smiled at Molly apologetically.
    "I'll pray for you," she said. She left them and went downstairs with the others.
    "We ought to go, too," said Alohilani. She noticed that her hand still rested on Courane's arm, and she self-consciously dropped it to her side.
    "What about Zofia now? Will there be a graveside service?"
    She led him downstairs. "Arthur will take care of all that," she said.
    Arthur. That was the name of the other man. Eleven people, three of them confined to the infirmary, and himself. And all of them just a little unsavory in one way or another. On the second best of all possible worlds.
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    In the month of Nero, after a wearying autumn, when the calendar said there was still twenty-five weeks until spring, when the snow piled against the house promised that winter would be hard and long, when the fireplaces in the house failed to warm anyone sufficiently, when the stored food of the summer grew tiresome in its lack of variety, when the confinement in the house became worse than the prison Courane had expected, at last he was driven to learn what he could do for himself and the other prisoners. He went to Daan.
    "You're wrong," said the older man. "This isn't a prison. We're not being punished. We're here to serve these people."
    Courane sat in a chair beside the tect. Daan was searching through the vast library of medical information available through TECT. "I don't understand," said Courane.
    "It's simple. Everyone around us is seriously ill. That's why they're here. Our job is