Hugo awards the short st.., p.176
Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 1), page 176
She buried her forehead in the side of his neck, whispered against his throat, "For this, Jiritzu, I came aboard Baramundi for this."
He ran his thumbs down her breastbone, to her navel, to her white duck trousers, and peeled them down, and took her.
And the next day they were nearly out of biscuit and they went on half rations to make their supplies last longer.
They played children's games, shouting and chasing each other up and down the lighter's masts.
They leaped and sailed from the decks, past the membrane sails, into the emptiness, then hung for a moment and fell back, gently, to Baramundli.
Jiritzu leaped too hard, too high, and feared that he had broken from the ship. He looked up—down—into the coils of the Rainbow Serpent. He felt himself revolving slowly, helplessly hanging in the emptiness, alone and unshielded except by the close air his generator made and the protection of the pigment he carried in his skin.
He thought to cry for help, then held back. If he was afloat, Bidjiwara could not help him. He turned slowly, facing toward Baramundi, her membranes bellied with stellar wind, her deck reflecting the lights of the Serpent; he could not see Bidjiwara.
He turned slowly, facing toward the Rainbow Serpent, feeling as if he could fall forever into its colored bands, its long coils stretching no lesser distance than the span between galaxies.
He turned slowly, revolving on the axis of his own body, feeling no motion himself but watching the stars and the Serpent and Baramundi the sacred fish revolve slowly around him, wheeling, wheeling, when his outflung arm struck an object as hard and cold as the ultimate ice of a deadstar world.
He recoiled, spun involuntarily, stared.
It was—yes.
He looked back toward Baramundi, revolved using his own limbs as counterweights, placed himself between the corpse and the lighter and pressed gently with the soles of his rope-soled shoes against the hard, frigid corpse.
Slowly he drifted back toward Baramundi—and, wheeling again as he drifted, saw the corpse drifting away, upward or downward into the lights of the Rainbow Serpent.
As he approached Baramundi he pondered whether or not to tell Bidjiwara of his find. Finally he told her—the incredible happenstance had occurred.
Later they crept to the farthermost deck for their loving, then back into the tiny cabin to sleep.
And soon Baramundi's supplies were exhausted, and still Jiritzu and Bidjiwara continued. Their water remained, and a few of the capsules. They had wine from time to time. They gave less effort to running the ship, ceased to play in the rigging, ceased to leap.
The wound in Jiritzu's leg resumed its throbbing intermittently. He would rub it, or Bidjiwara would rub it for him, and the pain would ease.
They made love, it seemed, with increasing frequency. The sensations of their couplings seemed to increase as lack of nourishment drew their bodies ever tighter ever more acutely into awareness of each other.
They lay together most of the time, seldom dressing fully.
They drank water only, their wine capsules exhausted.
They slept increasingly.
In Baramundi's cabin Jiritzu fed telescopic data into the lighter's computer, read the responses displayed on its little illuminated screen. After the acclimatization of his eyes to none but sidereal light, even the miniature display lights were dazzling: his eyes pulsed with afterimages for minutes following the exercise.
It was difficult to climb from the cabin back onto the deck.
Bidjiwara waited for him there, barefoot, sitting on the deck with her wrists clasped around her knees, wearing only her white trousers and black knitted cap. She smiled a welcome to him, asked a question wordlessly.
"Here," he said with a shrug. "Here is where we are. As we have been. Riding the Rainbow Serpent. Riding the tide. Sailing the starwinds."
He felt dizzy for a moment, reached out with one hand to steady himself against the telescope mount, then sank to a squat beside Bidjiwara.
She put her arms around him and he lay on the deck, his head in her lap. He looked up into her face. She was Bidjiwara the lovely child, Miralaidj her aranda half, she was Jiritzu's own mother on Yurakosi, the Great Mother.
He opened and closed his eyes, unable to tell which woman this was.
He reached and traced the maraiin on her cheek.
She nodded, began speaking softly, telling him the meaning of the scarifications.
When she had finished he took her hand, held it against his chest, and slowly told her the meaning of his own maraiin. He spoke with closed eyes, opened them when he felt a drop of wetness, saw her weeping softly, drew her face down to his own to kiss.
She lay down beside him and they embraced gently, then both slept.
After that they paid less attention to Baramundi's needs. Jiritzu and Bidjiwara grew weaker. They slept more, confined their activity to occasional short walks on Baramundi's decks. Both of them grew thinner, lighter. Their growing weakness seemed almost to be offset by the decreasing demands of the ship's artificial gravity.
They lay on deck for hours, watching the glow of the Rainbow Serpent. They were far beyond the Serpent's head now, the stars of Yirrkalla clustered now into a meaningless sparkler jumble far, far astern of Baramundi.
Jiritzu was awake, had taken a sparse sip of their little remaining water, left Bidjiwara to doze where she lay, her hair a mourning wreath circling her emaciated features. Jiritzu made his way unsteadily to the prow of Baramundi, bracing himself against masts and small stanchions as he walked.
He sighted through the ship's telescope, enjoying in a faint, detached manner the endless, kaleidoscopic changes of the Rainbow Serpent's multiradiational forms. At length he turned away from the scope and looked back toward Bidjiwara. He could not tell if she was breathing. He could not tell for a certainty who she was.
He returned to the telescope, tapped its power squares to cause it to superimpose its multiple images rather than run them in sequence. He gazed, rapt, at the Serpent for a time, then swung the scope overhead, sweeping back and forth across the sky above Baramundi.
He settled on a black speck that floated silhouetted against the glow of the Serpent. For a while he watched it grow larger.
He turned from the telescope back to the deck of the lighter. Bidjiwara had wakened and risen; she was walking slowly, slowly toward him.
In the glow of the Rainbow Serpent her emaciation was transformed to a fine perception that etched every line, every muscle beneath her skin. She wore sweater and trousers; Jiritzu could see her high breasts, the ribbed sweater conforming to their sharp grace, her nipples standing as points of reference for the beauty of her torso.
Her white trousers managed to retain their fit despite her starvation; Jiritzu discerned the lines of her thighs, the pubic swell over her crotch.
Her face, always thin, seemed all vertical planes now, forehead and temple, nostril and cheek. The ridges of her brows, the lines of her mouth were as if drawn on her face.
Her eyes seemed to have gained an intense brightness.
As she crossed the deck to Jiritzu she gained in strength and steadiness.
She held her hands toward him, smiling, and he felt his own strength returning to him. He took the steps needed to come to her, reached and took her two hands, clasped them in his. They embraced, calling each other's name.
The dark figure of Elyun El-Kumarbis dropped onto the deck of Baramundi. He strode to Jiritzu and Bidjiwara.
"Lovers!" he said. "Sky heroes!"
They turned to him, arms still around each other. Each extended a hand to him, felt his cold, cold.
"All my years," the O'Earther said, "I wanted no thing but to sail a membrane ship. To be a sky hero."
"Yes," Jiritzu said, "you are known to all sky heroes, Elyun El-Kumarbis. Your fame spans the galaxy."
"And where do you sail, sky heroes?"
"We sail the tide, we sail the Rainbow Serpent."
"Aboard your ship?"
"Baramundi has brought us this far, but no farther. It is fit now for us to return to the Dreamtime."
Elyun El-Kumarbis nodded. "May I—may I greet you as brother and sister sky heroes?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Jiritzu.
"Yes," answered Bidjiwara.
Elyun El-Kumarbis kissed them each on the cheek, on the maraiin scarifications of each. And his kiss was cold, cold.
Full of strength Jiritzu and Bidjiwara sprang to the spars of Baramundi's highest mast, scrambled up lines to the topmost spar of the lighter.
They looked back at Elyun El-Kumarbis, who stood wondering beside the ship's telescope.
They took each other's hands, dropped into place on the topmost spar, and together sprang with the full strength of their sky heroes' legs, toughened and muscled by years of training in the rigging of membrane ships.
They flew up from the spar, up from Baramundi the sacred fish, and looking back saw the fish flip his tail once in farewell.
They peered ahead of themselves, into the Rainbow Serpent, saw it writhe toward the far galaxies, heard its hissing voice urging, welcoming them.
They laughed loudly, loudly, feeling strength, warmth and joy. They plunged on and on, skimming the tide of the Rainbow Serpent, feeling the strength of the aranda, of all Yurakosi, of all sky heroes, mighty in their blood.
They threw their arms around each other, laughing for joy, and sped to the Rainbow Serpent, to the galaxies beyond the galaxies, to the Dreamtime forever.
CHILD OF ALL AGES
P. J. Plaguer
The child sat in the waiting room with her hands folded neatly on her lap. She wore a gay print dress made of one of those materials that would have quickly revealed its cheapness had it not been carefully pressed. Her matching shoes had received the same meticulous care. She sat prim and erect, no fidgeting, no scuffing of shoes against chair legs, exhibiting a patience that legions of nuns have striven, in vain, to instill in other children. This one looked as if she had done a lot of waiting.
May Foster drew back from the two-way mirror through which she had been studying her newest problem. She always felt a little guilty about spying on children like this before an interview, but she readily conceded to herself that it helped her handle cases better. By sizing up an interviewee in advance, she saved precious minutes of sparring and could usually gain the upper hand right at the start Dealing with “problem” children was a no-holds-barred proposition, if you wanted to survive in the job without ulcers.
That patience could be part of her act, May thought for a moment But no, that didn’t make sense. Superb actors that they were, these kids always reserved their performances for an audience,- there was no reason for the girl to suspect the special mirror on this, her first visit to Mrs. Foster’s office. One of the best advantages to be gained from the mirror, in fact, was the knowledge of how the child behaved when a social worker wasn’t in the room. Jekyll and Hyde looked like twins compared to the personality changes May had witnessed in fifteen years of counseling.
May stepped out of the darkened closet, turned on the room lights and returned to her desk She scanned the folder one last time, closed it in front of her and depressed the intercom button.
“Louise, you can bring the child in now.”
There was a slight delay, then the office door opened and the child stepped in. For all her preparation, May was taken aback. The girl was thin, much thinner than she looked sitting down, but not to the point of being unhealthy. Rather, it was the kind of thinness one finds in people who are still active in their nineties. Not wiry, but enduring. And those eyes.
May was one of the first Peace Corps volunteers to go into central Africa. For two years she fought famine and malnutrition with every weapon, save money, that modern technology could bring to bear. In the end it was a losing battle, because politics and tribal hatred dictated that thousands upon thousands must die the slow death of starvation. That was where she had seen eyes like that before.
Children could endure pain and hunger, forced marches, even the loss of their parents, and still recover eventually with the elasticity of youth. But when their flesh melted down to the bone, their bellies distended, then a look came into their eyes that remained ever with them for their few remaining days. It was the lesson learned much too young that the adult world was not worthy of their trust, the realization that death was a real and imminent force in their world. For ten years after, May’s nightmares were haunted by children staring at her with those eyes.
Now this one stood before her and stared into her soul with eyes that had looked too intimately upon death.
As quickly as she had been captured, May felt herself freed. The girl glanced about the room, as if checking for fire exits, took in the contents of May’s desk with one quick sweep, then marched up to the visitor’s chair, and planted herself in it with a thump.
“My name is Melissa,” she said, adding a nervous grin. “You must be Mrs. Foster.” She was all little girl now, squirming the least little bit and kicking one shoe against another. The eyes shone with carefree youth.
May shook herself, slowly recovered. She thought she had seen everything before, until now. The guileless bit was perfect—Melissa looked more like a model eight-year-old than a chronic troublemaker going cm, what was it? Fourteen. Fourteen?
“You’ve been suspended from school for the third time this year, Melissa,” she said with professional sternness. May turned on her best Authoritarian Glare, force three.
“Yep,” the child said with no trace of contrition. The Glare faded, switched to Sympathetic Understanding.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” May asked softly.
Melissa shrugged.
“What’s to say? Old Man M—uh, Mr. Morrisey and I got into an argument again in history class.” She giggled. “He had to pull rank on me to win.” Straight face.
“Mr. Morrisey has been teaching history for many years,” May placated. “Perhaps he felt that he knows more about the subject than you do.”
“Morrisey has his head wedged!” May’s eyebrows skyrocketed, but the girl ignored the reproach, in her irritation. “Do you know what he was trying to palm off on the class? He was trying to say that the Industrial Revolution in England was a step backward.
“Kids working six, seven days a week in the factories, going fourteen hours at a stretch, all to earn a few pennies a week. That’s all he could see! He never thought to ask why they did it if conditions were so bad.”
‘Well, why did they?“ May asked reflexively. She was caught up in the child’s enthusiasm.
The girl looked at her pityingly.
“Because it was the best game in town, that’s why. If you didn’t like the factory, you could try your hand at begging, stealing, or working on a farm. If you got caught begging or stealing in those days, they boiled you in oil. No joke. And farm work.” She made a face.
“That was seven days a week of busting your tail from before sunup to after sundown. And what did you have to show for it? In a good year, you got all you could eat; in a bad year you starved. But you worked just as hard on an empty gut as on a full one. Harder.
“At least with a factory job you had money to buy what food there was when the crops failed. That’s progress, no matter how you look at it”
May thought for a moment.
“But what about all the children maimed by machinery?” she asked. “What about all the kids whose health was destroyed from breathing dust or stoking fires or not getting enough sun?”
“Ever seen a plowboy after a team of horses walked over him? Ever had sunstroke?” She snorted. “Sure those factories were bad, but everything else was worse. Try to tell that to Old Man Morrisey, though.”
“You talk as if you were there,” May said with a hint of amusement.
Flatly. “I read a lot.”
May recalled herself to the business at hand.
“Even if you were right, you still could have been more tactful, you know.” The girl simply glowered and hunkered down in her chair. “You’ve disrupted his class twice, now, and Miss Randolph’s class too.”
May paused, turned up Sympathetic Understanding another notch.
“I suspect your problem isn’t just with school How are things going at home?”
Melissa shrugged again. It was a very adult gesture.
“Home.” Her tone eliminated every good connotation the word possessed. “My fa—my foster father died last year. Heart attack. Bam! Mrs. Stuart still hasn’t gotten over it” A pause.
“Have you?”
The girl darted a quick glance.
“Everybody dies, sooner or later.” Another pause. I wish Mr. Stuart had hung around a while longer, though. He was OK.“
“And your mother?” May prodded delicately.
“My foster mother can’t wait for me. to grow up and let her off the hook. Jeez, she’d marry me off next month if the law allowed.” She stirred uncomfortably. “She keeps dragging boys home to take me out”
“Do you like going out with boys?”
A calculating glance.
“Some. I mean boys are OK, but Tm not ready to settle down quite yet” A nervous laugh. “I mean I don’t hate boys or anything. I mean I've still got lots of time for that sort of stuff when I grow up.”
“You’re nearly fourteen.”
I’m small for my age.“
Another tack.
“Does Mrs. Stuart feed you well?”
“Sure.”
“Do you make sure you eat a balanced diet?”
“Of course. Look, I’m just naturally thin, is all. Mrs. Stuart may be a pain in the neck, but she’s not trying to kill me off or anything. If s just that—” a sly smile Crossed her face. “Oh, I get it”
Melissa shifted to a pedantic false baritone.
“A frequent syndrome in modern urban society is the apparently nutrition-deficient early pubescent female. Although in an economic environment that speaks against a lack of financial resources or dietary education, said subject nevertheless exhibits a seeming inability to acquire adequate sustenance for growth.
