The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delany

Author:Samuel R Delany [Delany, Samuel R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction
Published: 2011-01-13T06:00:00+00:00

They were roasting dinner."

After a while I said, "You must have lived in town a fair while."

"Longer than I'd like to admit," Spider said. "If you call it living." He sat up and glanced around the fire. "Lobey, Green-eye, you two circle the herd for the first watch. In three hours wake Knife and Stinky. Me and Batt will take the last shift."

Green-eye rose beside me. I stood too as the others made ready to sleep. My Mount was dozing. The moon was up. Ghost lights ran on the humped spines of the beasts. Sore-legged, stiff-armed, I climbed a-back My Mount and with Green-eye began to circle the herd. I swung the whip against my shin as we rode. "How do they look to you?"

I didn't expect an answer. But Green-eye rubbed his stomach with a grimy hand.

"Hungry? Yeah, I guess they are in all this sand." I watched the slender, dirty youngster sway behind the scaled hump. "Where are you from?" I asked.

He smiled quickly at me.

I was born of a lonely mother with neither father nor sister nor brother.

I looked up surprised.

At the waters she waits for me

my mother, my mother at Branning-at-sea,

"You're from Branning-at-sea?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Then you're going home."

He nodded again.

Silent, we rode on till at last I began to play with tired fingers. Green-eye sang some more as we jogged under the moon.

I learned that his mother was a fine lady in Branning-at-sea, related to many important political leaders. He had been sent away with Spider to herd dragons for a year. He was returning at last to his mother, this year of wandering and work serving as some sort of passage rite. There was a great deal in the thin, bushy haired boy, so skilled with the flock, I didn't understand.

"Me?" I asked when his eye inquired of me in the last of the moonlight. "I don't have any time for the finery of Branning-at-sea as you describe it. I'll be glad to see it, passing. But I got things to do."

Silent inquiry.

"I'm going to Kid Death to get Friza, and stop what's killing all the different ones. That probably means stopping Kid Death."

He nodded.

"You don't know who Friza is," I said. "Why are you nodding?"

He cocked his head oddly, then looked across the herd.

I am different so I bring words to singers when I sing.

I nodded and thought about Kid Death. "I hate him," I said. "I have to learn to hate him more so I can find him and kill him."

There is no death, only love.

That one arrived sideways.

"What was that again?"

He wouldn't repeat it. Which made me think about it more. He looked sadly out from the work-grime. At the horizon, the fat moon darkened with clouds.

Strands of shadow through the thatch of his hair widened over the rest of his face. He blinked; he turned away. We finished our circuit, chased back two dragons. The moon, revealed once more, was a polished bone joint jammed on the sky. We woke Knife and Stinky, who rose and moved to their dragons.

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