Life on other planets -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
The leader and the doctor made a triangle of glances between each other
and the gun, but Paul forestalled any ideas with a backward step,
coupled with a deft extraction of what men do not like to look in the
muzzle of.
The leader opened his hands. "Get him some books." He smiled rather
gently at Paul. "Will you have children?"
"A lot of them, I hope." He wondered if he should take the man to see
her tracks, but it was a windy day. They might not find any and the
men might take him off guard. He had no intention of calling her down;
he was afraid to, somehow.
The doctor set down a double armload of books. On top, with a crooked
smile he laid a thick treatise: WELTY'S CARE OF THE EXPECTANT
MOTHER-AND CHILD CARE--ONE VOLUME EDITION.
But he began telling Paul about Earth, the great railyachts and gay
cities, the chic girls and cool drinks, plumbing, radiant heat,
libraries, dancing, Feelies, Tellies, everyone lived well since the
thirty-hour work week.
"Then what are you people pioneering around for?" retorted Paul.
When that last manmade sun was lost in the sky and the loud sound was
the blowing of the leaves, Paul limped back up the hill, whistling. But
she did not come. And he did not find her or her tracks.
The leaves fluttered with amazement, flew up in familiar patterns that
frightfully burst. The hill surged red as the sun found the horizon.
Down through the alien treetops, across the leaf-shrouded peaches, its
bent rays javelinned the mouse on the trunk of the tree. Chittering, it
vanished.
Paul cried out and ran. Down the hill toward the shed, the leaves were
rattling together.
He didn't see her till she giggled.
For a long moment he stared, breathing, as she struggled guiltily into
her dress. She was watching him so intently she could not seem to find
her hand into the armhole. A leaf flitted between them.
Paul smiled; her elbow was sticking out of the armhole.
"Leave it off," he breathed. "That sack isn't necessary any more." He
held out his hand. "We'll go look at our peach tree."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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