Orson Scott Card - St Amy's Tale

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ST. AMY'S TALE

By Orson Scott Card

Mother could kill with her hands. Father could fly. These are miracles. But

they were not miracles then. Mother Elouise taught me that there were no

miracles then.

I am the child of Wreckers, born while the angel was in them. This is

why I am called Saint Amy, though I perceive nothing in me that should make me

holier than any other old woman. Yet Mother Elouise denied the angel in her,

too, and it was no less there.

Sift your fingers through the soil, all you who read my words. Take your

spades of iron and your picks of stone. Dig deep. You will find no ancient

works of man hidden there. For the Wreckers passed through the world, and all

the vanity was consumed in fire; all the pride broke in pieces when it was

smitten by God's shining hand.

Elouise leaned on the rim of the computer keyboard. All around her the

machinery was alive, the screens displaying information. Elouise felt nothing

but weariness. She was leaning because, for a moment, she had felt a

frightening vertigo. As if the world underneath the airplane had dissolved and

slipped away into a rapidly receding star and she would never be able to land.

True enough, she thought. I'll never be able to land, not in the world I knew.

"Getting sentimental about the old computers?"

Elouise, startled, turned in her chair and faced her husband, Charlie. At that

moment the airplane lurched, but like sailors accustomed to the shifting of

the sea, they adjusted unconsciously and did not notice the imbalance.

"Is it noon already?" she asked.

"It's the mortal equivalent of noon. I'm too tired to fly this thing anymore,

and it's a good thing Bill's at the controls."

"Hungry?"

Charlie shook his head. "But Amy probably is," he said.

"Voyeur," said Elouise.

Charlie liked to watch Elouise nurse their daughter. But despite her

accusation, Elouise knew there was nothing sexual in it. Charlie liked the

idea of Elouise being Amy's mother. He liked the way Amy's sucking resembled

the sucking of a calf or a lamb or a puppy. He had said, "It's the best thing

we kept from the

animals. The best thing we didn't throw away."

"Better than sex?" Elouise had asked. And Charlie had only smiled.

Amy was playing with a rag doll in the only large clear space in the airplane,

near the exit door. "Mommy Mommy Mamommy Mommyo," Amy said. The child stood

and reached to be picked up. Then she saw Charlie. "Daddy Addy Addy."

"Hi," Charlie said.

"Hi," Amy answered. "Ha-ee." She had only just learned to close the diphthong,

and she exaggerated it. Amy played with the buttons on Elouise's shirt, trying

to undo them.

"Greedy," Elouise said, laughing.

Charlie unbuttoned the shirt for her, and Amy seized on the nipple after only

one false grab. She sucked noisily, tapping her hand gently against Elouise's

breast as she ate.

"I'm glad we're so near finished," Elouise said. "She's too old to be nursing

now."

"That's right. Throw the little bird out of the nest."

"Go to bed," Elouise said.

Amy recognized the phrase. She pulled away. "La-lo," she said.

"That's right. Daddy's going to sleep," Elouise said.

Elouise watched as Charlie stripped off most of his clothing and lay down on

the pad. He smiled once, then turned over, and was immediately asleep. He was

in tune with his body. Elouise knew that he would awaken in exactly six hours,

when it was time for him to take the

controls again.

Amy's sucking was a subtle pleasure now, though it had been agonizing the

first few months, and painful again when Amy's first teeth had come in and she

had learned to her delight that by nipping she could make her mother scream.

But better to nurse her than ever have her eat the predigested pap that was

served as food on the airplane. Elouise thought wryly that it was even worse

than the microwaved veal cordon bleu that they used to inflict on commercial

passengers. Only eight years ago. And they had calibrated their fuel so

exactly that when they took the last draft of fuel from the last of their

storage tanks, the tank registered empty; they would burn the last of the

processed petroleum, instead of putting it back into the earth. All their

caches were gone now, and they would be at the tender mercies of the world

that they themselves had created.

Still, there was work to do; the final work, in the final checks. Elouise held

Amy with one arm while she used her free hand slowly to key in the last

program that her role as commander required her to use. Elouise Private, she

typed. Teacher teacher I declare I see someone's underwear, she typed. On the

screen appeared the warning she had put there: "You may think you're lucky

finding this program, but unless you know the magic words, an alarm is going

to go off all over this airplane and you'll be had. No way out of it, sucker.

Love, Elouise."

Elouise, of course, knew the magic words. Einstein sucks, she typed. The

screen went

blank, and the alarm did not go off.

Malfunction? she queried. "None," answered the computer.

Tamper? she queried, and the computer answered, "None."

Nonreport? she queried, and the computer flashed, "AFscanP7bb55."

Elouise had not really been dozing. But still she was startled, and she

lurched forward, disturbing Amy, who really had fallen asleep. "No no no,"

said Amy, and Elouise forced herself to be patient; she soothed her -daughter

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Orson Scott Card - St Amy's Tale

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