Read Online The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Samuel R. Delany
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off key.
“Yours?” I thumbed over my shoulder at the beast.
“Was.” He breathed deeply and the flat, bony chest sagged with his breathing, the ribs opening and closing like blinds. “If you come with us, he’s yours-to ride, anyway. If you don’t, he’s mine again.”
The dragon rubbed his gills ingenuously against my hip.
“Can you handle a dragon whip?” the stranger asked me.
I shrugged. “The only time I ever even saw one of these before was when some herders got off their trail six years ago.” We’d all climbed up Beryl-Face and watched them drive the herd of lizards back through
Green-glass
Pass.
When Lo Hawk went to talk to them, I went with him, which is where I found out about branding and the gentle monsters.
The stranger grinned. “Well, its gone and happened again. I judge we’re about twenty-five kilometers off. You want a job and a lizard to ride?”
I looked at the broken flowers. “Yeah.”
“Well, there’s your mount, and your job is to get him up here and back with the herd, first.”
“Oh.” (Now, lemme see; I remember the herders perched behind the lumps of the beasts’ shoulders with their feet sort of tucked into the scaly armpits. My feet? And holding on to the two white whisker type things that grew back from the gills: Gee ... Haw? Giddiap !)
We floundered in the mud about fifteen minutes with instructions shouted down, and I learned cuss words I hadn’t ever heard from that guy. Towards the end we were both sort of laughing. The dragon was up and on the beach now, and he had quite unintentionally thrown me into the water-again.
“Hey, you think I’m going to really learn how to ride that thing?”
With one hand he was helping me up, with the other he was holding my mount by the whiskers, with another he was recoiling his whip, and with the fourth he just scratched his woolly head. “Don’t give up. I didn’t do too much better when I started. Up you go.”
Up I went, and stayed on this time for a staggering run up and down the water’s edge. I mean it looks graceful enough from the ground. It feels like staggering. On stilts.
“You’re getting the hang of it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Say, where is the herd; and who are you!”
He stood ankle deep in the lake’s lapping. Morning was bright enough now to gem his chest and shoulders with drops from my splashing. He smiled and wiped his face. “Spider,” he said. “And I didn’t catch your name ...?”
“Lo Lobey.” I rocked happily behind the scaly hump.
“Don’t say Lo to nobody herding,” said Spider. “No need for it.”
“Wouldn’t even have thought of it if it weren’t for my village ways,” I said.
“Herd’s off that way.” He swung up behind me on the dragon.
Amber haired, four handed, and slightly hump-backed, Spider was seven feet of bone slipped into six feet of skin. Tightly. All tied in with long, narrow muscles. He was burned red, and the red burned brown but still glowing through. And he laughed like dry leaves crushed inside his chest. We circled the lake silently. And, oh man, the music!
The herd, maybe two hundred and fifty dragons moaning about (I was to learn that this was a happy sound), milled in a dell beyond the lake. Youth had romanticized the herders in my memory. They were motley. I see why you don’t go around Lo- ing and La- ing and Le- ing herders. Two of them-I still don’t see how they managed to stay on their dragons. But I came on friendly.
One kid with a real mind: you could tell by the way his green eye glittered at you, as well as his whip skill, and the sure way he handled dragons. Only he was mute. Was it this that upset me and made me think of Friza? You have a job to do....
There was another guy who would have made Whitey look like a total norm. He had some glandular business that made him smell bad too. And he wanted to tell me his life story (no motor control of the mouth so he sort of splattered when he got excited).
I wish
“Yours?” I thumbed over my shoulder at the beast.
“Was.” He breathed deeply and the flat, bony chest sagged with his breathing, the ribs opening and closing like blinds. “If you come with us, he’s yours-to ride, anyway. If you don’t, he’s mine again.”
The dragon rubbed his gills ingenuously against my hip.
“Can you handle a dragon whip?” the stranger asked me.
I shrugged. “The only time I ever even saw one of these before was when some herders got off their trail six years ago.” We’d all climbed up Beryl-Face and watched them drive the herd of lizards back through
Green-glass
Pass.
When Lo Hawk went to talk to them, I went with him, which is where I found out about branding and the gentle monsters.
The stranger grinned. “Well, its gone and happened again. I judge we’re about twenty-five kilometers off. You want a job and a lizard to ride?”
I looked at the broken flowers. “Yeah.”
“Well, there’s your mount, and your job is to get him up here and back with the herd, first.”
“Oh.” (Now, lemme see; I remember the herders perched behind the lumps of the beasts’ shoulders with their feet sort of tucked into the scaly armpits. My feet? And holding on to the two white whisker type things that grew back from the gills: Gee ... Haw? Giddiap !)
We floundered in the mud about fifteen minutes with instructions shouted down, and I learned cuss words I hadn’t ever heard from that guy. Towards the end we were both sort of laughing. The dragon was up and on the beach now, and he had quite unintentionally thrown me into the water-again.
“Hey, you think I’m going to really learn how to ride that thing?”
With one hand he was helping me up, with the other he was holding my mount by the whiskers, with another he was recoiling his whip, and with the fourth he just scratched his woolly head. “Don’t give up. I didn’t do too much better when I started. Up you go.”
Up I went, and stayed on this time for a staggering run up and down the water’s edge. I mean it looks graceful enough from the ground. It feels like staggering. On stilts.
“You’re getting the hang of it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Say, where is the herd; and who are you!”
He stood ankle deep in the lake’s lapping. Morning was bright enough now to gem his chest and shoulders with drops from my splashing. He smiled and wiped his face. “Spider,” he said. “And I didn’t catch your name ...?”
“Lo Lobey.” I rocked happily behind the scaly hump.
“Don’t say Lo to nobody herding,” said Spider. “No need for it.”
“Wouldn’t even have thought of it if it weren’t for my village ways,” I said.
“Herd’s off that way.” He swung up behind me on the dragon.
Amber haired, four handed, and slightly hump-backed, Spider was seven feet of bone slipped into six feet of skin. Tightly. All tied in with long, narrow muscles. He was burned red, and the red burned brown but still glowing through. And he laughed like dry leaves crushed inside his chest. We circled the lake silently. And, oh man, the music!
The herd, maybe two hundred and fifty dragons moaning about (I was to learn that this was a happy sound), milled in a dell beyond the lake. Youth had romanticized the herders in my memory. They were motley. I see why you don’t go around Lo- ing and La- ing and Le- ing herders. Two of them-I still don’t see how they managed to stay on their dragons. But I came on friendly.
One kid with a real mind: you could tell by the way his green eye glittered at you, as well as his whip skill, and the sure way he handled dragons. Only he was mute. Was it this that upset me and made me think of Friza? You have a job to do....
There was another guy who would have made Whitey look like a total norm. He had some glandular business that made him smell bad too. And he wanted to tell me his life story (no motor control of the mouth so he sort of splattered when he got excited).
I wish
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