Clarkesworld Magazine - Issue 51 by Kelly Barnhill & A.C. Wise & Nancy Fulda

Author:Kelly Barnhill & A.C. Wise & Nancy Fulda [Barnhill, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction magazine
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2010-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

It wasn’t fair, the one who had been Sarah Beth-John considered as s/he looked down the hill at the human settlement below. The dome gleamed with reflected starlight, a soap bubble, thin and frail, struggling to hold back the night. S/he hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. Why did change have to be this way? Why did the most important things in the universe have to be full of pain? Why did the new have to rip the old apart before taking its place?

S/he sighed. The child who had been Willy-Jane slipped long, thin fingers into Sarah Beth-John’s hand, and s/he offered it a smile. Timmy-Tamara took hir other hand. Its blue-gray eyes caught starlight; they seemed wide enough to hold the entire sky. The faint ache in hir heart faded as Sarah Beth-John turned and guided the children away from the view of the settlement below.

S/he and the others — the ones who had been Catherine-Steve, Laura-Matt, Karen-Dave, Charlene-Charles — they’d tell the children stories of Earth-that-was with fondness in the years to come. Even if the humans didn’t believe it, even if they thought their former friends, lovers, and children mad, those that had changed still honored their past. It was a part of them, but it was a fragment of a larger whole. The universe was so much larger out here.

Maybe someday the humans would understand. Maybe they’d come up into the hills, following in the footsteps of those who had come before them. Maybe they’d wake up one morning, and they wouldn’t be afraid anymore.

Their lungs would be new, their limbs long, their eyes blue-gray and wide enough to hold the stars. They’d walk out of the dome, and breathe the alien air; they’d step barefoot over the soft sands and croon-sing to their brother-sisters, asking to come home. They would be welcomed, as Sarah Beth-John and the others had been by those who had gone before them.

On that day, Sarah Beth-John would rejoice. Until then, she’d hold them in hir heart. S/he’d love them, just as s/he loved hir brother-sisters here above the human’s dome. It didn’t matter if it took forever, or if the change never happened. S/he could be patient. S/he could wait until the end of the world.

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