Read Online The Girl With the Jade Green Eyes by John Boyd - Free Book Online
Authors: John Boyd
Tags: Science-Fiction
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this crummy planet?”
“To get a spoonful of uranium.”
“Uranium? This is getting crazier by the minute. Wait’ll the kids at school hear about this. What planet are you from?”
“Kanab, but it is no more. Its sun exploded.”
“Exploding suns. Fantastic. Did you get to watch it?”
“I could see it on my viewing screen. It was gorgeous. One moment the star was a black hole in space, then, wham, it was a huge blob of light, a bright, fantastic supernova.”
“That must have been neat. Did you bring a brother with you to earth?”
“No.”
Matilda’s exuberance skidded to a halt against Kyra’s flat negative, and the silence gave Breedlove the chance to speak.
“Matty, I don’t want you telling the kids at school or anybody else about Kyra until the government makes the announcement. She’s top secret, but she’ll have to appear in public tomorrow, and I wonder if there’s anything you can do about her hair and skin coloring.”
“Easy. There’s a terrific new hair rinse out called Silvery Platinum and a flesh-toned cosmetic the kids are using to cover their acne, but why fool with her skin? It’ll match her platinum-blond hair. If you’ll drive to the drugstore, I’ll tell you what to get. And get some color film for the Polaroid. I’ll take some before-and-after pictures for my scrapbook. And while you’re gone I’ll take Kyra horseback riding. Would you like that, Kyra?”
“Terrific!”
Bemused by the turn of events, Breedlove went about his chores, considering how Kyra had come in a starship from an abyss of space to find refuge in a farmhouse on an alien planet to confront a female of her own organic age who spoke the language the visitor had acquired in precisely the visitor’s same breezy style. When he returned from the drugstore he took the afternoon paper from the porch into the living room. The girls were still out riding, but he had no reservations about their activity, since Matilda had lent Kyra a scarf to cover her hair and they would be riding on a stretch of desolate hills behind the farm. Matilda was an excellent horsewoman, and Kyra, with her agility, could easily be a rodeo rider.
He was reading the sports section when his mother came down from her afternoon nap to join him. She took the headlines and went to her favorite chair beside the window. Looking over, he noticed she was not reading but gazing out the window.
“What are you thinking about, Mother?”
“About the girl. She is strange.”
“Do you mean ‘stranger than strange’?”
“I suppose. She’s very inquisitive about us, but she tells very little about herself or her own people or the way they lived. It’s not that she’s evasive. She’s just not volunteering any information. She’ll answer if you ask, and then fly off onto some other subject. I’ve learned very little about her family.”
“She’s sensitive,” he said. “The subject’s painful to her.”
“She doesn’t always sound sensitive. I asked her about wars on her planet and she said they used to have tribal fights. I asked her if they had peace treaties between the tribes like our Indians, and she said no, because they fought until one side was exterminated. She didn’t seem one bit horrified. So I guess I did learn something about her family. They weren’t exterminated; they were the exterminators.”
“Why were you so interested in her family, Mother?”
“Because of you. I noticed how you looked at her at the table. I’ve never seen you so attentive before. You may be falling in love with her, and we know nothing at all about her family.”
“You’ll have to admit she’s a very unusual woman,” he said lightly. “In fact she’s so different a human probably couldn’t mate with her.”
“She’s not that different. I saw her upstairs. I can’t understand why she has no navel. Of course, you’ve seen as much of her as I have, and no doubt you noticed she has no navel. She might be a test-tube
“To get a spoonful of uranium.”
“Uranium? This is getting crazier by the minute. Wait’ll the kids at school hear about this. What planet are you from?”
“Kanab, but it is no more. Its sun exploded.”
“Exploding suns. Fantastic. Did you get to watch it?”
“I could see it on my viewing screen. It was gorgeous. One moment the star was a black hole in space, then, wham, it was a huge blob of light, a bright, fantastic supernova.”
“That must have been neat. Did you bring a brother with you to earth?”
“No.”
Matilda’s exuberance skidded to a halt against Kyra’s flat negative, and the silence gave Breedlove the chance to speak.
“Matty, I don’t want you telling the kids at school or anybody else about Kyra until the government makes the announcement. She’s top secret, but she’ll have to appear in public tomorrow, and I wonder if there’s anything you can do about her hair and skin coloring.”
“Easy. There’s a terrific new hair rinse out called Silvery Platinum and a flesh-toned cosmetic the kids are using to cover their acne, but why fool with her skin? It’ll match her platinum-blond hair. If you’ll drive to the drugstore, I’ll tell you what to get. And get some color film for the Polaroid. I’ll take some before-and-after pictures for my scrapbook. And while you’re gone I’ll take Kyra horseback riding. Would you like that, Kyra?”
“Terrific!”
Bemused by the turn of events, Breedlove went about his chores, considering how Kyra had come in a starship from an abyss of space to find refuge in a farmhouse on an alien planet to confront a female of her own organic age who spoke the language the visitor had acquired in precisely the visitor’s same breezy style. When he returned from the drugstore he took the afternoon paper from the porch into the living room. The girls were still out riding, but he had no reservations about their activity, since Matilda had lent Kyra a scarf to cover her hair and they would be riding on a stretch of desolate hills behind the farm. Matilda was an excellent horsewoman, and Kyra, with her agility, could easily be a rodeo rider.
He was reading the sports section when his mother came down from her afternoon nap to join him. She took the headlines and went to her favorite chair beside the window. Looking over, he noticed she was not reading but gazing out the window.
“What are you thinking about, Mother?”
“About the girl. She is strange.”
“Do you mean ‘stranger than strange’?”
“I suppose. She’s very inquisitive about us, but she tells very little about herself or her own people or the way they lived. It’s not that she’s evasive. She’s just not volunteering any information. She’ll answer if you ask, and then fly off onto some other subject. I’ve learned very little about her family.”
“She’s sensitive,” he said. “The subject’s painful to her.”
“She doesn’t always sound sensitive. I asked her about wars on her planet and she said they used to have tribal fights. I asked her if they had peace treaties between the tribes like our Indians, and she said no, because they fought until one side was exterminated. She didn’t seem one bit horrified. So I guess I did learn something about her family. They weren’t exterminated; they were the exterminators.”
“Why were you so interested in her family, Mother?”
“Because of you. I noticed how you looked at her at the table. I’ve never seen you so attentive before. You may be falling in love with her, and we know nothing at all about her family.”
“You’ll have to admit she’s a very unusual woman,” he said lightly. “In fact she’s so different a human probably couldn’t mate with her.”
“She’s not that different. I saw her upstairs. I can’t understand why she has no navel. Of course, you’ve seen as much of her as I have, and no doubt you noticed she has no navel. She might be a test-tube
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