Venus plus X by Theodore Sturgeon

Author:Theodore Sturgeon [Sturgeon, Theodore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Award Winners
ISBN: 9780375703744
Publisher: Boston : Gregg Press, 1976, c1960.
Published: 1999-10-05T04:00:00+00:00

Disarmingly, Philos cut it out, then and there; his sharp eyes softened and in complete sincerity, he apologized. “I’m previous,” he added. “My turn comes after you’ve seen the rest of Ledom.”

“Your turn?”

“Yes—the history. What you think of Ledom is one thing; what you will think of Ledom plus its history is another; what you will—but never mind that.”

“You’d better go on.”

“I was going to say, what you will think of Ledom plus its history plus your history is another matter altogether. But I won’t say it,” declared Philos engagingly, “because if I did I should only have to apologize again.”

In spite of himself Charlie laughed with him, and they went on.

A few hundred yards from the cottage, Philos turned hint sharp right and they climbed a rather steep slope to its crest, and followed it until they came to a knoll. Philos, in the lead, stopped and waved Charlie up beside him. “Let’s watch them for a little while.”

Charlie found himself looking down on the cottage. He could now see that it was at the brink of a wide valley, part wooded, (or was that orchard? They wouldn’t do anything in straight lines here!) and part cultivated fields. Around and between the fields and woods, the country was as park like as it had been by the big buildings. Scattered throughout were more cottages, widely separated, each unique—timber, field-stone, a sort of white stucco, plaster, even what looked like turf—and each widely separated from all the others, some by as much as half a mile. He could see more than twenty-five of the cottages from their vantage point, and there were probably more. Like scattered, diverse flower-petals, the bright garments of the people showed here and there through the woods and fields, on the green borders, and on the banks of the two small streams which wandered down the valley. The silver sky domed it all, falling to hills all about; it seemed then to be a dish-shaped mesa, and higher than anything around it, for he could see nothing beyond the gentle ramparts of the valley itself.

“The Children’s One,” said Philos.

Charlie looked down past the growing thatch of the cottage below, to the yard and pond before it. He began to hear the singing, and he saw the children.

She and Mrs. Herbert Raile are shopping for children’s clothes in the dry-goods wing of an enormous highway supermarket. The children are outside in the car. It is hot out there so they are hurrying. Herb pushes a supermarket shopping cart. Jeanette fans through the stacks of clothes on the counters.

“Oh, look! Little T-shirts! Just like the real thing.” She takes three for Davy, size Five, and three for Karen, size Three, and drops them in the cart. “Now, pants.”

She marches briskly off, with Herb and the shopping cart in her wake. He unthinkingly follows the international rules of the road: a vessel approaching from the right has the right of way; a vessel making a turn loses the right of way.

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