Children of Tomorrow by A. E. van Vogt Read Free Book Online Page B

own choice.’
    ‘You mean, with little Miss Nothing Marianne?’ said Dolores sweetly.
    The words and her tone irritated Alike. He was a strong boy;
    and he now spun the dark-haired girl around with an easy skill and power. Such strength and such a way of using it was felt by Dolores. Something of her self-confidence was knocked out of her. She gasped, and struck at him. But by this time he had her solidly held at arm’s length, his hands grasping both her shoulders.
    ‘There are no nothings in this world,’ he said.
    “Then ! , snapped Dolores, ‘how come little Miss Baker spins her web in a little house by the railroad track, and you live in a silkworm palace?’
    ‘The outfits are going to change all that,’ said Mike. As he spoke, in his eyes was a strange idealistic look so common to outfitters. It was obvious that his words seemed real to the youth.
    But he was also a person with an exceedingly short span of interest in unnecessary problems. ‘Look, Miss Munroe, if I release you will you go quietly off to school with our blessing, and with another request that you behave yourself and rejoin an outfit?’ She was recovering from her rough handling. A faint smile quirked her lips. It was an alienated smile, infinitely contemptuous. ‘It’s a little late, Mike dear. I’ve discovered how much fun a jabber can have without the outfits and their holier-than-thou, do-your-duty riding herd on my morals.’ Her smile was infinitely superior. ‘Life is much more interesting now.’
    Mike was not to be diverted. ‘But if I let you go, you will go quietly off to school?’
    ‘I plan to get an education,’ she said, loftily. ‘And I’m looking forward to college, with all those wonderful moonlit nights.’ ‘You’ll never make it through college,’ said Alike. He had removed his left hand from her right shoulder. And now, with a quick motion of his body, he caught her left arm and, putting the other arm around her body, walked her a dozen feet before she braced herself and stopped. ‘Think you’re smart, don’t you?’ Dolores snapped.
    Mike stepped away from her, but he remained standing between her and Susan. It was evident that the situation was too much for the brunette girl. With a dismissing twist of her body, she whirled away and walked rapidly off in the same direction that Joe had gone many minutes earlier.
    Susan also moved forward. Mike took her arm, and the two of them walked rapidly, though not as fast as Dolores, toward the school, the grounds of which began slightly over a block away. Mike was puzzled. ‘What happened? How did all that start?’ ‘Oh!’ It required an effort for Susan to put her thoughts back to the event. Her attention had gone forward to something else. ‘ Oh,’ she said, dismissingly, ‘she was lip-kissing Joe in there, and they didn’t see me coming.’ She broke off, ‘Mike, what happens when people grow up?’
    Mike did not immediately reply, He was watching a woman who was coming toward them along the street. The woman had her purse hanging open on her arm, and she was applying lipstick, all the while gazing intently at her face in the small hand mirror. She was not pretty, and so hers was essentially a wasted effort.
    The woman passed them, with Mike half turning around to observe her as she went by. Susan, who had been involved with her own thoughts, became aware of Mike’s wandering interest as he dragged his feet a little, and so held her back also. She turned her head and looked briefly, and then said chidingly, ‘Mike, it isn’t polite to stare at people.’
    Alike nodded; and they were quickly walking again at their former pace. ‘She reminded me,’ he said. ‘I see my mother every day looking into her mirror. She’s in her late thirties, but she acts as if it’s her late sixties. So’ - he shrugged - ‘part of the answer to your question is, they get scared of growing old and dying.’
    Susan made a negating gesture with her body. ‘Mike,’