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He slept with me until I got pregnant; then he moved on. When Linkeree turned
out to be a boy, he was delighted, and changed his will to leave everything to
the boy. Nothing to me. And then, after he had slept with every girl on this
planet and half the boys, he was run over by a tractor and I gave a little
cheer."
"He was well thought of on the planet."
"People always think well of money."
"They often think well of beauty, too."
And at that she cried again. Through her sobs, in a twisted, little-girl
voice, she said, "All I ever wanted was to go to Capitol. To go to Capitol
and meet all the famous people and be on somec so that I could live forever
and be beautiful forever. It's all I had, being beautiful -- I had no money,
no education, and no talent for anything, not even motherhood. Do you know
what it means to have only one thing that makes other people love you?"
No, Hort thought to himself, but I can see what a tragedy it is.
"You were your son's guardian. You could have taken him to Capitol."
"No, I couldn't. It's the law, Hort. Planet money must be invested on the
planet until it achieves full provincial status. It protects us from
exploitation. " She spat the word. "No somec allowed until we're a province.
No chance to have life!"
"There are some of us who don't want to sleep for years on end, just to stay
young a few years longer," Dr. Hort said.
"Then you're the insane ones," she retorted, and he almost agreed. Eternal
life didn't appeal to him. Sleeping through life seemed like a disgusting
waste of time. But he knew the draw, knew that most people who came to the
colonies were desperate or stupid, that the gifted ones or the rich ones or
the hopeful ones stayed where somec was within reach.
"Not only that," she said, "my damnable husband entailed the entire fortune,
everything. Not a penny could be taken from Pampas."
"Oh."
"So I stayed, hoping that when my son grew up we could find some way, go
anyway -- "
"If your son hadn't been born, the money would all have been left to you,
unentailed, and you could have sold it to an offworlder and gone."
She nodded, and began to weep again.
"No wonder you hated your son."
"Chains. Chains, holding me here, stripping away my only asset as the years
made hash of my face and my figure."
"You're still beautiful."
"I'm forty-five years old. It's too late. Even if I left for Capitol today,
they won't let someone over forty-five go on somec at all. It's the law."
"I know. So -- "
"So stay here and make the best of it? Thanks, Doctor, thanks. I might as
well have a priest as you."
She turned away from him, and muttered, "And now the boy dies. Now, when it's
too late. Why the bloody hell couldn't he have died a year ago?"
***
Linkeree patted the last of the earth over the grave he had dug for the head
and skin of the child. The tears had long since dried; now the only liquid on
him was sweat from the exertion in the hot sun of digging through the heavy
roots of the grass. No wonder the Vaqs had dug shallowly to hide the bones.
It was already afternoon, and he had only just finished.
But as he had worked, he had forced himself back, coldly reassembling his
memories in his mind, burying them one by one in the child's grave. It was
not Mother I killed in the street, it was Zad. Mother is still alive; she
visited me yesterday. That was why I fled the hospital; that was why I wanted
to die. Because if ever there was a person who deserved to live, it was Zad.
And if ever one deserved to die, it was Mother.
Several times he felt himself longing to curl up and hide, to retreat into the
cool shade under the standing grass, to deny that any of this had ever
happened, to deny that he had ever turned five at all. But he fought off the
feeling, insisted on the facts, the whole history of his life, and then hid it
under the dirt.
You, child, he thought. I am you. I came out here last night to die in the
grassland, to be eaten alive, to have my blood sucked out. And it happened;
and the Vaqs ate my flesh and now I'm buried.
I who bury you, child, I am the you who might have been. I am without a past;
I have only a future. I will start from here, without a mother, without blood
on my hands, rejected by my own tribe and unacceptable to strangers. I will
live among the strangers anyway, and live unencumbered. I will be you, and
therefore I will be free.
He brushed the dirt off his hands, ignored the painful sunburn on his back,
and stood. Around him the sucker eggs on the grassblades were already
hatching, and the newborn suckers were devotedly eating each other so that
only the few thousand strongest would survive, fed by the others. Link
avoided obvious comparisons, merely turned and headed back toward the
government compound.
He avoided the gate, instead climbing the fence and enduring the electricity
that coursed through him when he gripped the top wire. And then, as the
alarms went off, he walked back to the hospital.
***
Dr. Hort was alone in his office, eating a late lunch from a tray that Gram
had brought him. Someone tapped at his door. He opened it, and Linkeree
walked in.
Hort was surprised, but out of long professional habit, he didn't show it.
Instead, he dispassionately watched as Linkeree walked to the chair, sat down
comfortably, and leaned back with a sigh.
"Welcome back," Hort said.
"Hope I didn't cause any inconvenience," Linkeree answered.
"How was your night in the grass?"
Linkeree looked down at his scratches and scabs. "Painful. But therapeutic."
Silence for a moment. Hort took another bite of his sandwich.
"Dr. Hort, right now I'm in control. I know that my mother's alive. I know
that I killed Zad. I also know that I was insane when I did it. But I
understand and I accept those things."
Hort nodded.
"I believe, Doctor, that I am sane right now. I believe that I am viewing the
world as accurately as most people, and can function in a capable manner.
Except."
"Except?"
"Except that I'm Linkeree Danol, and as soon as it is known that I am capable
of running things, I will be forced to take control of a very large fortune
and a huge business that employs, in the long run, most of the people on
Pampas. I will have to live in a certain house in this city. And in that
house will be my mother."
"Ah."
"I don't believe my sanity would last fifteen minutes, Doctor, if I had to
live with her again."
"She's changed somewhat," Dr. Hort said. "I understand her a little now."
"I have understood her completely for years, and she'll never change, Dr.
Hort. More important, though, is the fact that I'll never change when I'm
around her."
Hort sucked in a deep breath, leaned back in his chair. "What happened to you
out on the desert?"
Linkme smiled wanly. "I died and buried myself. I can't return to that life.
And if it means staying here in this institution all my life, pretending to be
insane, I'll do that. But I'll never go back to Mother. If I did that, I'd
have to live with all that I've hated all my life -- and with the fact that I
killed the only person I ever loved. It isn't a pleasant memory. My sanity
is not a pleasant thing to hold onto."
Dr. Hort nodded.
There was a knock at the door. Link straightened up. "Who is it?" Hort
asked.
"Me. Mrs. Danol."
Linkeree stood up abruptly, walked around the office to a point at the far
wall from the door.
"I'm consulting, Mrs. Danol."
Her voice was strident, even through the muffling door. "They told me
Linkeree had come back. I heard you talking to him in there."
"Go away, Mrs. Danol," Dr. Hort said. "You will see your son in due time."
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