Life on other planets -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
He asked her and she nodded and covered her face with her skirt. "Why?"
he asked, "Hungry?" She shrugged; all of her gestures were his. He saw
himself in them. Suddenly he realized he had not thought of his brother
Harry and the flaming heat exchanger room for months. I've traded one
pain for another, he mused, and did not have the heart to slap her for
killing the rooster.
Another thing that amazed him: he had never given her a name.
"Harriet," he said, pointing at her, but she shook her hair in a swirl
about her head; she was nameless as the tree was nameless; it had cling
peach characteristics but there were non-Earthly shapes to its leaves
and the ripening fruits were blue. He didn't press the matter; with the
two of them, names were unnecessary. When one called it was for the
other.
He learned she behaved in cycles. For several weeks she would be
attentive, watching closely while he pushed seeds into the earth,
helping when he directed her, although she rarely volunteered. Then
she would begin to stand with her bare foot on his, to put her hand
in his pocket, to chatter and push him to attract his attention, to
sneak her arms about him and chew gently on his shoulder. Sometimes
when he would push her away she would snarl and squawl at him, other
times, she would stand with her lip pushed out and her eyes blinking so
that he was near tears himself. He listened for the rocket with eager
unhappiness.
In the ninth month, without warning, she bit the tip off his ear. The
impetus of the pain swung his fist against her mouth. When she stumbled
to her feet, she tore off her dress, spitting blood and hatred, and
fled into the woods. He watched her go with mixed feelings.
In the afternoon, when he began to gather the peaches, he could feel
her burning gaze, but he gave no sign. When mealtime came, he did not
call her and she did not come, although he glimpsed her once through
the alien trees.
Silently he mashed the peaches in five gallon cans, then welded the
tops on. He found useful copper tubes in the junk of the _Ventura_
venture. But the world was for waiting. Perhaps the spaceship would
come first. It was strange, he reflected, that no other ships had
paused. The Sirius System was supposed to be a sure thing.
The girl took her meals with him again, but there was a razor edge
between them. She watched silently when he cut open the swollen cans
and poured off the top liquid. Idly she rubbed dirt in her hair while
he set the distiller perking. She whined when he wouldn't give her any.
Soon the freeze box room shimmered with colored lights, New Chicago,
with copters honking and girls hurrying along the mobo-walk in striped
woolen slacks, very tight, and high plastic hats, the latest style.
They were smiling and the world was flowing by, but the nameless girl
sat quietly, blocking out the Radfriend Building and three bars, much
too large, right smack in the middle of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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