Radiant Green Star (novella) by Lucius Shepard

Author:Lucius Shepard [Shepard, Lucius]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SF
Published: 2010-10-29T22:00:00+00:00

I was still sitting there, trying to comprehend whether or not by contracting the engagement, Vang hoped to provide me with a basis for an informed decision, or if his interests were purely self-serving, when Tan stepped into the trailer.

She had on a sleeveless plaid smock, the garment she wore whenever she was cleaning, and it was evident that she’d been crying–the skin beneath her eyes was puffy and red. But she had regained her composure, and she listened patiently, perched on the edge of the desk, while I told her all I’d been thinking about Vang and what he had done to us.

"Maybe it’s for the best," she said after I had run down. "This way you’ll be sure you’ve done what you had to do."

I was startled by her reaction. "Are you saying that you think I should kill my father . . . that I should even entertain the possibility?"

She shrugged. "That’s for you to decide."

"I’ve decided already," I said.

"Then there’s not a problem."

The studied neutrality of her attitude puzzled me. "You don’t think I’ll stand by my decision, do you?"

She put a hand to her brow, hiding her face–a gesture that reminded me of Vang. "I don’t think you have decided, and I don’t think you should . . . not until you see your father." She pinched a fold of skin above the bridge of her nose, then looked up at me. "Let’s not talk about this now."

We sat silently for half a minute or thereabouts, each following the path of our own thoughts; then she wrinkled up her nose and said, "It smells bad in here.

Do you want to get some air?"

We climbed onto the roof of the trailer and sat gazing at the shadowy line of the forest to the west, the main tent bulking up above it, and a sky so thick with stars that the familiar constellations were assimilated into new and busier cosmic designs: a Buddha face with a diamond on its brow, a tiger’s head, a palm tree–constructions of sparkling pinlights against a midnight blue canvas stretched from horizon to horizon. The wind brought the scent of sweet rot and the less pervasive odor of someone’s cooking. Somebody switched on a radio in the main tent; a Chinese orchestra whined and jangled. I felt I was sixteen again, that Tan and I had just met, and I thought perhaps we had chosen to occupy this place where we spent so many hours before we were lovers, because here we could banish the daunting pressures of the present, the threat of the future, and be children again. But although those days were scarcely two years removed, we had forever shattered the comforting illusions and frustrating limitations of childhood. I lay back on the aluminum roof, which still held a faint warmth of the day, and Tan hitched up her smock about her waist and mounted me, bracing her hands on my chest as I slipped inside her. Framed by the

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