Linda Nagata - Old Mother
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2024-11-24
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LINDA NAGATA
OLD MOTHER
Long strings of fire-crackers sparked and exploded in the moment of the New
Year, roaring across the seaside pavilion like an assault of armies. The violent
odor of gunpowder invaded the clouds of salt spray thrown up by the huge combers
that boomed against the beach: a baseline rhythm for the drums and gongs that
drove the lion to dance. The lion was a fantastic animal, fifteen feet from nose
to tail, neurocell plastic glittering white and red and gold, great green eyes
winking under heavy lashes, huge maw snapping open and shut as it charged about
the crowd pursuing invisible demons. Asha ducked and stumbled backward, laughing
as the lion raced past her. Clay caught her; stood her back up on her feet again
with a grin. The drums pounded a blood rhythm into her head, a pulse that
hammered at her doubt. She crowed with a hundred other voices when the the lion
reared up on its hind legs to roar at the stars winking overhead.
The stars, the stars. They teased her in the night, faint and shimmering in
mystery. Never confuse the stars with the planets. The planets were bright and
close and too well understood. But the stars . . . no one had ever tried for the
stars before. That would soon change. This time tomorrow she'd be off on the
first leg of her journey to Dragon -- the almost-living biometal ship that had
been growing in orbit for five years. All was ready now.
"Time to make the offering!" Clay shouted over the thunder of surf and drums. A
farmer would remember that, Asha thought. Even in the new century, it didn't
hurt a farmer to pay attention to luck and omens and gods.
Nodding, she reached into her skirt pocket. Little rectangles of gold foil were
al ready shimmering in the torch light, held over the heads of the crowd by
eager hands. Asha added her own to the glitter. Clay's strong hand encircled
hers, left over right. For luck, for prosperity. She smiled and leaned against
him, feeling the strength of the land in his body, his lean muscles like the
binding roots of the orchard he tended on his grandmother's farm. For a moment,
fear glittered in her sight like starlight on broken glass. But she turned away
from it. That was for tomorrow. Tonight they would dance together to the rhythm
of the drums.
The lion was working the other side of the crowd now. She could see its handler,
seated behind the musicians, studying a video display of the pavilion, directing
the lion's dance with the aid of a collision avoidance program. And his partner
beside him -- Clay's grandmother, Electra -- a dark and heavy old artist in a
flowing blue dress who used smart paint and guile to make lifeless things
suddenly seem alive. Around Electra, reality became slippery. Any inanimate
object could suddenly awaken to a new and animate identity, Nothing was fixed.
Nothing was quantifiable. She'd raised Clay in a world in which dreamtime could
hardly be distinguished from the waking state.
Asha's gaze fixed on Electra's wide, brown face, on her dark eyes that managed
to scowl despite the joyful bend of her mouth. Clay had been nothing more than a
bit of embryonic tissue when his grandmother had taken him in. She'd raised him
in her womb, nursed him at her breast, filled him with her own primal vision of
the land as a mother-deity and they'd been happy -- until Asha came along.
From across the pavilion Electra seemed to sense Asha's gaze. Her head turned;
triumph sparked in her eyes. Then a drunk tourist whirled across Asha's line of
sight, blonde hair flying as she spun her own dance to the New Year. Asha tipped
her head back to look over her shoulder at Clay. He misread her mood and kissed
her, his scraggly black mustache rough against her lips.
"You two ought to be married!"
Asha looked around, startled to see the blonde tourist swaying in front of her.
The woman lifted a lei of knotted hala leaves from around her own shoulders and
held it up with a brilliant smile. Then she reached out and quickly tied it
around Clay and Asha's outstretched hands, binding them tightly together. "Make
your offering to the lion," she advised. "And leave the bondage on until it
falls off naturally. Then you'll be married well and long. I guarantee it! And I
am a licensed witch!"
She whirled away to spread her benedictions elsewhere, while their friends
laughed around them. "You have to marry him now, Asha!" "Go for it, Clay!" "Do
it for real! Log it on the P.A. net." Do it, do it, do it, the chant started at
once on all sides. Then the lion charged. People screamed and fell back. The
great beast wove up and down against the straining crowd, its mouth snapping
shut over gold foil after gold foil. "Feed the lion," Clay intoned in her ear.
Together they extended their offering. Asha stared at their bound hands for a
moment, touched by a sense of wonder. Clay's hand was trembling as it closed
over hers.
Suddenly, multicolored jets of flame ignited overhead. Paper lanterns began to
burn with the ferocity of rocket fuel. The lion snorted in fear and bounded
backward while Asha ducked instinctively, pulling Clay down with her. Within
seconds the fire cut through the rope that suspended the lanterns above the
pavilion. The rope fell to the concrete floor in neat, arm-length sections that
began to writhe, gleaming and hissing and rearing up, forked tongues tasting the
sudden scent of fear. Asha recognized the arrow-head and spiny tail of death
adders, serpents that had long ago cut a niche for themselves in the island's
deranged ecology. The crowd gasped and fell back before the snakes' collective
gaze. For a moment silence engulfed the pavilion while the angry snakes
flattened their coils against the ground and debated attack. But they waited too
long. The lion had recovered. It charged toward the line of death adders on
great, padded feet. They seemed to sense it and turned as if to flee, but too
late. The lion caught them and crushed them. One-by-one they exploded in purple
fire under its trampling feet, each ignition accompanied by hysterical screams
of approval from the crowd. Asha's throat was raw with her own passion as she
cheered the destruction of what must be Electra's artful demons.
"The lion!" Clay cried, reminding her why they were there. And suddenly it was
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分类：外语学习
价格：5.9玖币
属性：14 页
大小：31.86KB
格式：PDF
时间：2024-11-24
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