Read Online The Marriage Machine by Patricia Simpson - Free Book Online

have happened to anyone. Anytime.” She crossed her arms. “But the Marriage Machine is as good as new—unfortunately.”
    “What do you mean by that, young lady?”
    “I mean no disrespect, Citizen Ramsay. Your family’s invention may have saved the human race—”
    “There is no doubt that it did.”
    “And again, no disrespect.” She paused, hoping her words would not over excite the man and cause him to have a heart attack. But she didn’t think he was as frail as Mark had led her to believe. She sensed in him an indomitable physical being and an even more indomitable spirit—much like she hoped someone would see in her someday.
    She raised her chin. “I believe the Marriage Machine has seen its day.”
    “What?” he sputtered. “You have no idea what you are talking about.” Spittle flew from his wrinkled lips “What’s your name again?”
    “It’s Shutterhouse, sir.”
    “Shutterhouse, before my great-grandfather invented that machine, we were lucky to have a handful of births a year in Londo City. The damned radiation cloud had made everyone sterile.”
    “I am aware of that. But that was long ago. The world is changing.”
    “People’s reproductive organs were malfunctioning.”
    “I know. My great aunt told me all about it.”
    “You stand here today, Shutterhouse, because of the Marriage Machine. Without the machine, your own mother would never have realized the full bloom of womanhood.”
    “But as I have said, times are changing.” Elspeth pressed forward, wanting to be heard for once by someone who might be able to make a change, even though she suspected her philosophy would not only ostracize her from Londo society but from the Ramsay clan as well. “Women’s bodies are changing, citizen. But no one has the courage to speak out.”
    The wrinkles on his brow deepened. “What do you mean, women’s bodies are changing?”
    “Young women are reaching menarche on their own, without mechanical assistance. We are overcoming what the Grave Mistake did to us.”
    For a moment the old man gawked at her, as if he couldn’t make sense of her words. Then he shook off his shocked expressions.
    “You’re speaking nonsense.” Ramsay shook his cane in the air. “Whoever heard of such a thing?”
    “My cousin began bleeding at the age of twenty. My best friend at nineteen. And I myself have menstruated since I was twenty-two. But no one will come forward. They are too afraid of being labeled as freaks. They want to be selected for the Marriage Machine.”
    “And you don’t?” he stared at her.
    “No. Not when there are such side effects.”
    “Couldn’t be helped.” He cackled to himself. “And who wouldn’t want a woman that’s always happy to see you—is never upset by anything?”
    “Weren’t dogs bred for that?” Elspeth retorted, her voice cold. “And look what happened to them.”
    Ramsay stared up at her from under his bushy white brows.
    “I doubt your wife was a drone,” Elspeth remarked. “I bet she wasn’t a little brown mouse from Londo City, dumbed down and silly.”
    Ramsay’s watery eyes slanted away. For a moment he gazed at the wall of blank shelves as if looking back to earlier days, to the days the library had been full of books and perhaps a beautiful young woman who had loved him and at the same time challenged him. For a moment, he lapsed deep into thought.
    “I’m tired,” he snapped, without looking back at her. His shoulders seemed to have disappeared beneath the shell of his suit. “All this talk is wearisome.”
    “I’m sorry, but the truth is hard to take,” she said. “And change is even harder.”
    He glanced at her, and their eyes locked. For a moment she thought she had gotten through to him, and that he was going to say something. But then he broke off the stare and rapped his cane on the floor.
    “Mark!” he shouted. “Mark!” He scowled at her, as if he’d come to a decision. “I don’t know where you belong, young