Science fiction; Time travel -- Fiction; War stories
I squeezed Sid's hand and I started to say something to him, but he
didn't know I was there; he was listening to Lili quote Tennyson with
his eyes entranced and his mouth open, as if he were imagining new
things to put into it--oh, Siddy!
And then I saw the others were looking at her the same way. Ilhilihis
was seeing finer feather forests than long-dead Luna's grow. The
greenhouse child Maud ap-Ares Davies was stowing away on a starship
bound for another galaxy, or thinking how different her life might have
been, the children she might have had, if she'd stayed on the planets
and out of the Change World. Even Erich looked as though he might be
blitzing new universes, and Mark subduing them, for an eight-legged
_Führer-imperator_. Beau was throbbing up a wider Mississippi in a
bigger-than-life sidewheeler.
Even I--well, I wasn't dreaming of a Greater Chicago. "Let's not go
hog-wild on this sort of thing," I told myself, but I did look up at the
Void and I got a shiver because I imagined it drawing away and the whole
Place starting to grow.
"I truly meant what I said about a seed," Lili went on slowly. "I know,
as you all do, that there are no children in the Change World, that
there cannot be, that we all become instantly sterile, that what they
call a curse is lifted from us girls and we are no longer in bondage to
the moon."
She was right, all right--if there's one thing that's been proved a
million times in the Change World, it's that.
"But we are no longer in the Change World," Lili said softly, "and its
limitations should no longer apply to us, including that one. I feel
deeply certain of it, but--" she looked around slowly--"we are four
women here and I thought one of us might have a surer indication."
My eyes followed hers around like anybody's would. In fact, everybody
was looking around except Maud, and she had the silliest look of
surprise on her face and it stayed there, and then, very carefully, she
got down from the bar stool with her knitting. She looked at the
half-finished pink bra with the long white needles stuck in it and her
eyes bugged bigger yet, as if she were expecting it to turn into a baby
sweater right then and there. Then she walked across the Place to Lili
and stood beside her. While she was walking, the look of surprise
changed to a quiet smile. The only other thing she did was throw her
shoulders back a little.
I was jealous of her for a second, but it was a double miracle for her,
considering her age, and I couldn't grudge her that. And to tell the
truth, I was a little frightened, too. Even with Dave, I'd been bothered
about this business of having babies.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account