Read Online The Dark Design by Philip José Farmer - Free Book Online Page B

bundles down on the floor. Schwartz followed her in. “This belonged to a couple killed by a dragonfish. It came up out of the water as if it had been fired from a cannon. It bit off one end of the fishing craft. Unfortunately, the couple were standing on the end and were swallowed along with the logs.
    “It was also unfortunate that this happened after the resurrections ceased. So, they won’t be appearing elsewhere, I suppose. You haven’t heard anything about new
lazari,
have you? Recently?”
    “No, I haven’t,” she said. “Nothing reliable, anyway.”
    “Why do you suppose it stopped? After all these years?”
    “I don’t know,” she said sharply. Talking about this made her uneasy. Why had the gift of immortality been so suddenly withdrawn?
    “Bloody hell with it,” she said loudly. She looked around. The floor was hidden under grass that reached almost to her crotch. The blades rasped against her legs. She would have to cut the grass close to the ground and then bring in earth to cover it. Even then the blades might not die. The roots went so deep and were so interconnected that the grass could flourish without benefit of sunshine. Apparently they could draw their sustenance from the roots of those exposed to light.
    A steel sickle hung from a peg on the wall. Steel was so common here that this tool, priceless elsewhere, had not been stolen.
    She moved around, slowly, so that the sharp edges of the grass would not cut her legs. She found two clay pots—thundermugs—in the tall green. A jar for drinking water was on a bamboo table which had not as yet been overturned by the pressure of the growing grass. A necklace of fishbones hung on another peg. Two bamboo cots and pillows and mattresses, made from magnetically locked cloths stuffed with leaves, were partially hidden by the grass. Near them lay a harp made from turtlefish shell and fish intestines.
    “Well, it’s not much,” she said. “But then it never is, is it?”
    “It’s big enough, though,” Schwartz said. “Plenty of room for you and your mate—when you find one.”
    Jill took the sickle from the peg and swiped at the grass. The blades fell like so many heads. “Hah!”
    Schwartz looked at her as if he wondered if she would go from the grass to him.
    “Why do you assume that I want a lover?”
    “Why, why, why, everybody, that is, everybody does.”
    “Everybody doesn’t,” she said. She hung the sickle back onto the peg. “What’s next on this Cook’s tour?”
    She had expected that, when they were alone in the hut, he would ask her to go to bed with him. So many men did. It was evident now that he would like to ask her, but he didn’t have the guts. She felt relief mixed with contempt. Then she told herself that it was a strange feeling, self-contradictory. Why should she look down on him because he behaved as she wanted him to behave?
    Perhaps some disappointment was also present. When a man got too aggressive, despite her warnings, then she chopped his neck with the edge of her hand, squeezed his testicles, kicked him in the stomach while he writhed on the ground. No matter how big and strong a man, he was taken by surprise. They were all helpless, at least while the agony in the testicles lasted. Afterward… well, most of them left her alone. Some had tried to kill her, but she was ready for that. They didn’t know how handy she was with a knife—or with any weapon.
    David Schwartz was unaware of how narrowly he had escaped crippling and a permanent dent in his ego.
    “It’s quite safe to leave your belongings here. We’ve never had a case of theft yet.”
    “I’ll take the grail. I’d feel nervous if I couldn’t keep my eye on it.”
    He shrugged and took a cigar from the leather bag hanging from his shoulder. One of this morning’s offerings from his grail.
    “Not in here,” she said quietly. “This is my home, and I don’t want it stunk up.”
    He looked surprised, but he shrugged again. As soon as