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again and again?
She preferred to look forward to a long bath. The goo was already crusting in her boots. Field-work
took a lot out of her these days. Not surprising, considering she was nearing her eightieth birthday. She
sat on her bed and peeled off her filthy socks.
Over the years, she'd transformed the bridge into a more human-friendly space. She'd gotten rid of
some of the old Shipwright furniture and replaced it with what she needed  a bed, a bathroom. The
view screens were still there and so was a chair that allowed her to control Daughter. She rarely
ventured into the other parts of the ship now. It had been years, maybe even a dozen years, since she'd
visited the basement.
Tate was lost in her own thoughts, hardly paying attention to Yago and Amelia's banter Then she re-
alized they'd grown quiet. They were waiting for her to answer a question she hadn't heard.
"What?" she asked irritably.
been her defender. Tate was stung. Yago had betrayed her. After all these years.
"We can't go because I don't want to go," Tate said mulishly. She was aggravated to be having this
conversation yet again. Why couldn't they just accept the way things were?
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The discussion made her feel like a petty tyrant. Yago and Amelia couldn't do anything but nag her.
They couldn't go anywhere she wouldn't take them. Well, too bad. Earth wasn't on the itinerary.
Yago said quietly, patiently, earnestly,
I die.>>
Tate froze in the middle of untying her boots. This wasn't the old argument. Yago was taking them in
a new direction. Tate stared at the floor  and then flung her boot across the room. It looped through
the air and landed harmlessly.
"Why?" she yelled angrily. "Why go back there? What's it going to prove? You  you're hoping
some green Eden is waiting for us there and it's not, it's not! All that's waiting for us is devastation! It's
only been sixty years. Nothing will have changed!"
Yago said softly.
after seeing all of those empty planets  to see even the relics of a civilization ...>>
Amelia admitted.
Kremes and fried clams  it all seems so improbable  >>
"Enough," Tate said with disgust. "This isn't an argument, it's nostalgia."
Yago asked.
Amelia said simply.
"Well, snap out of it," Tate said. "I said we're not going and that's final. Now, if you don't mind, I
want to take a bath and rest."
go? Are you afraid to face the  the remains of the other Remnants?>>
Tate didn't answer. "Daughter, a bath!" she roared instead.
Yago didn't press the issue. Perhaps he guessed she'd never answer his question.
She couldn't tell him. Telling him would mean giving up the one secret Tate had successfully kept
from Yago and Amelia for all these years. Her dreams. Her dreams had kept her alive.
They'd come to her regularly for sixty years. She'd walked with the ragged bands of people thou-
sands of times. Sometimes the dreams were indecipherable. Sometimes they were sad. But often they
were hopeful. And, occasionally, she dreamed of the green Earth, of Jobs and his children, of a society
born again on Earth. A dream like that could sustain her for weeks. She fed off the joy. If she went
back to Earth, she'd be forced to admit that her dreams were just that  dreams.
That was never happening.
The sorrow of it would kill her.
The dream came again that very night.
One part of Tate's mind was aware of her body, sleeping aboard Mother, the goo still caked under
her fingernails. Another part of her brain was on Earth, the good green Earth.
Billy was there, looking as young and fragile and strange as he had on that day long ago when they'd
gathered to board the Mayflower. He was holding her hand gently and leading her through a lush for-
est. They were barefoot. Twigs and ferns and tiny saplings broke under their feet. Leafy trees towered
overhead. Tate heard crickets and birds and the chirping of chipmunks. The air was warm and moist
on her skin, the thousand tones of green soothing to her eyes.
She'd never had this exact dream before.
It was lovely.
Billy led her to a clearing and Tate saw Mother. She had no sense of surprise. Her dreams were al-
ways haunted by the same elements, recombined in endless ways. Billy, the ragged band, Mother. The
same pieces shuffled over and over.
This time, in this dream, Mother was nothing more than a ruined hulk, half-submerged in humus and
vegetation. A huge hole was torn in her hull, exposing the bridge.
Mother crashed on Earth. That was part of the puzzle.
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Billy squeezed Tate's hand and pulled her forward. They climbed up a small crumbling embankment
of soil the wind had piled up under the ship and stepped into the bridge.
Tate saw that Billy's face was heavy with sadness. She tried to step back. She didn't want to have a
sad dream. She wanted one of the sweet, idyllic ones. But Billy shook his head vigorously and pushed
her on.
Tate stepped reluctantly onto the bridge. She saw the forest was claiming Mother, burying her, hid-
ing her Vines grew over the consoles. Mushrooms sprouted on the soft cushioning of the seats. A bird
of some sort had built a messy nest of sticks above the door.
Seeing this, Tate's chest ached with longing. The simple organisms humans took for granted, or even
despised  the spores, the fungi, the bacteria  Tate had spent most of her life searching for them in
the dead universe. They seemed precious to her now.
Tate turned to Billy. "How can you be sad here?" she asked. "This is glorious! This is life!"
With a heavy slowness, he nodded toward one of the Shipwright's chairs, toward a lump or clump of
 something she hadn't noticed because the bird's nest and the mushrooms had claimed her attention. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]