Read Online Donor 23 by Cate Beatty - Free Book Online

gourd
    When the sun comes back and the first quail calls
    The drinking gourd is right
    For the old man is waiting to carry you to freedom
    If you follow the drinking gourd.”
    After a few minutes, Joan gently chided him, “You have a good voice.”
    “Do you know what the song is supposed to be about?” he asked softly.
    “Just nonsense words like most nursery rhymes?”
    “My mother told me—well that is they say—it describes a way to escape.”
    “Escape? Escape to where?”
    There were stories about donors escaping the Alliance, but usually when a donor evaded, he or she remained in hiding inside the Alliance for the simple reason that the Outside was scarier. The Alliance has been quite successful in convincing everyone—citizen and donor alike—of the dangers of the immediate Outside of the continent.
    “Well, some say that outside the Alliance borders, the rest of the continent is not wild, not anarchy. There’s civilization.”
    Joan sat up, “Dad, don’t tell me you believe those stories?! Don’t you watch the news?”
    He shrugged and pulled her down. “I’m just repeating stories about nursery rhymes.”
    After thinking a minute, Joan asked curiously, “So how does it describe this escape? I don’t get it.”
    “It shows the direction—where to go.”
    “What?”
    “I was told the ‘drinking gourd’ is the constellation of the Big Dipper. See, it’s right there?” He pointed up to the northern sky. “I’d guess you follow the Big Dipper.”
    “Follow it where?” she persisted. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
    “Well, I would guess you keep it on your right. The song talks about it being on the ‘right’…and so on. If you kept the Big Dipper on your right, that would mean you would go west.”
    “The West of the continent? The West is all wasteland, from the Impact. Any people living there are wild. Mom was lucky she got rescued from it. What about the rest of the song?”
    Her father finished his whiskey, and the soporific effect was doing its work. “Who knows? I’m sure you’re right, and that it’s all nonsense, anyway.”
    He kissed her forehead again.
    “You know how I love you, don’t you? Now come on, we both should try to get some sleep.”

7
    C louds darkened the noon sky, threatening an early spring rain, as Joan walked up to the front entrance of the medical center, officially named the Alliance Center for Advanced Medical Research. The huge building towered before her. It was the largest, most expensive, and most lavish civilian building in the entire Alliance. Medicine was a booming business, made more so with organ donations that were critical to the economy of the Alliance.
    Among the new nations and those rebuilding, the Alliance offered the best in medical care. From its trading partners, many people came willing to pay with desperately needed goods and materials for access to its medical services.
    Medicine wasn’t the only service the Alliance had to offer. Many of its steel mills were up and running; a few oil refineries were in operation; and it had ample coal deposits, timber,and an abundance of farm goods, too. But The Alliance possessed one other commodity. Recognizing the possible benefits derived from the large donor population, the Governor recently changed the tax laws to allow other nations access to the System—access to donors. For a hefty price, newborns of wealthy people from these other countries could now become benefactors. It was a stroke of genius on the Governor’s part, and further relegated donors to a commodity—a valuable national commodity.
    Joan paused before the medical center’s massive front doors, which were a stunning combination of marble and glass. She glimpsed the main entry’s colossal crystal chandelier. Lines marked the floors with four colors of marble—a different color for each direction, east, west, and so on—because visitors often got lost in its vastness.
    She wondered how many donors were being