"Well, the earth is turning so the whole sky is moving over us toward the
West. About fifteen degrees an hour. They rise and set like the sun or the
moon."
"I didn't know that. Fifteen degrees, twenty-four hours; three hundred sixty
degrees. Hey, neat."
Is this what cool means, reducing everything to number?
"But of course we're moving around the sun too, so we don't see them in the
same place every night." He pommels his memory for the star-books of his
boyhood. "They rise about four minutes earlier every evening, I believe.
That's about twice the width of the full moon. I'm sorry I can't give you more
figures for your mathematics."
She laughs faintly. "Oh, that's not math, that's only computation... I
count things. Like, there were thirty-four tables in that messhall. Sixteen at
each table, allowing two feet each. Five hundred and forty-four."
In that beautiful head, numbers whirling endlessly. "I'm surprised," he says,
and catches the glint of change in her eyes. Is she thinking he'll comment
about her being a woman, or a Black? "I'm surprised you haven't gone metric."
She really laughs this time and her gaze goes back to the stars. The air seems
to be humming with some kind of energy. He hasn't felt so happy, so alive
in... years.
"That's east, right?" she says meditatively. "Yeah, I can almost see them
rise. Only it's really the trees that are sinking down. They just stay there.
Cool Do those stars coming up have names? They're not much."
"Ah, but you're looking toward the very center of our Galaxy. Those stars are
called the Archer. Behind them are clouds of dark gas and dust, and beyond
that is a tremendous glory we shall never see. Thousands upon thousands of
blazing stars packed in a great central mass. If the clouds weren't there they
would light up our whole sky, and the light would have been on its way thirty
thousand years."
He makes his mind produce numbers, dimensions, rotations, anything he can
summon up in the brimming, tingling night. He is so happy that he has a
momentary image of the Archer beaming rays at him, like an astral
Cupid. Stop it, calm down.
She gazes quietly toward the Milky Way, apparently pleased with his talk. The
noble poise of her head, the exquisite line of her throat and shoulders
exposed by the grey wrap are almost unbearable to him.
Daughter of the starry night; he has the absurd feeling that he is introducing
her to her proper domain.
"Funny," she says when he runs down, "it's like I can feel them, almost...
something out there, a million million million miles away. Cool."
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It's touching her, he thinks; she's dropped the exponents. He rubs his brow to
damp the tension. But it doesn't ease, it seems to be thrumming up around
them. I've overdone it, he thinks. Must ease off.
And suddenly it's worse, a surging, inflooding feeling so strong that he
flinches and peers at Margaret under the delusion that she must be feeling it
too. She's sitting quietly, her hand at her throat. Next second it lets go of
him; they are alone in the night.
How wonderful to have her here, resting so companionably. He searches the sky
for something else to intrigue her. Perhaps the great circumpolar clock of
Dubhe and Merak?
"Look north, up there "
Oh God, it's back. A frightening thrum is pouring through him, collapsing his
world a silent tumult that whirls him out of his senses. And he is rushed into
total blackness in which a spark blooms into a vision so horrifying that he
tries to cry out.
The shape of horror is a white kitchen table, chipped and cracked; he has
never seen anything so evil. He wants only to flee from the ghastly thing,
still knowing with some part of him that it is unreal, is only on his inner
eye.
Next instant reality goes entirely, he is swamped by dreadfulness. His limbs
are wrenched out, he is struggling, gagged and spreadeagled, trying to scream
at the sweating crazy dark faces above him in the smokey glare.
A knife shines above him.
Mother! Mother! Help me!
But there is no help, the unspeakable blade is forced between his young legs,
he can't wrench himself away. Hideous helplessness.
Father! No! No! NO!
The face that is
Father laughs insanely and the knife rips in, slices agonizingly it is cutting
into the root of his penis. Through the pain and screams his ears echo with
drumbeats and vile beery stuff splashes onto his face.
Then everything lets go and he clamps into a knot around his mutlilated sex,
rolls and falls hard to the floor in a gale of loud male voices. An old black
woman's face peers into his. He is dying of pain and shame. But as he clasps
his gushing crotch he feels alien structure, understands that he is female.
His childish body has breasts, his knees are dark-skinned
And abruptly he is back in the empty night, back to his old familiar body:
Daniel Dann huddled in a tin chair gasping "No no no "
He shuts his mouth. Margaret is still there beside him, her hands over her
face. The pain in his groin is so real that for a crazy moment he thinks she
has done something to him. His hand must feel himself, find his
genitals intact under the cloth before he can speak.
"M-Margaret. Are you all right?"
Through her fingers he can see the whites of her eyes. She's shaking.
"The fire," she whispers intensely.
"It's all right, it's all right." He reaches clumsily for her arm.
What in God's name happened?
"The fire," she repeats. "Burning the baby Mary.
Mary!
Oh-h-h "
Slowly her hands come away from her face, she shakes his arm off, staring at
nothing.
"There isn't any fire," he manages to say. But he's lying, a dread suspicion
is flaring up in Daniel Dann, former skeptic. The name she said.
He is afraid to think what fire she means.
"I should have gone back," she mutters. "I
should
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what?"
Oh God, oh God. The unsaid, unceasing nightmare of his life. I could have gone
back for them. There was just time. I could have broken away and gone back in.
"Margaret, Margaret, there isn't any fire. You're all right. Only I think,
somehow, it sounds crazy, I " With utmost pain he makes himself go on. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]