that,” Kurbi said. He got up. The glider was not coming up into view.
“What’s wrong?”
“The glider hasn’t come up over the cliffs.”
Poincaré got up also and they went to the terrace steps that led down to the path. In a moment Kurbi was running across the grass to the cliff’s edge a quarter of a kilometer away. Poincaré caught up with him just in time to steady him at the edge.
“There,” Julian said, pointing.
The glider was in the water, one wing broken.
“She took this updraft so many times.…”
“Let’s get down there,” Julian said. “Better still, I’ll go down and you call the medics.”
Kurbi turned and walked quickly up to the house, feeling that his body was not his own.
“Hurry!” Julian called after him.
She had fallen to the rocks after hitting the cliff; the sea had battered her body until she was beyond repair. There was no possibility of freezing the remains or of restarting the body’s regenerative systems; only cloning remained, and he had rejected the idea. The person who would have come to him bearing Grazia’s appearance and genetic structure would not have been Grazia, only her twin sister. For many others that would have been enough, but for him it would have been a mockery of his love for her.
He sat alone in the darkened living room and tried to choke his grief, compress it to a point and squeeze that point out of reality. Outside, the sky blazed, hurling spears of starlight through the clear wall between the living room and terrace. The glider sank in his mind and he reached out with invisible hands to stop it from hitting the cliff. She had been falling as he had talked with Julian, and he had known it; she might even have been conscious after hitting the sea rocks.
It would have been better, he thought, if she had been on the interstellar liner. That would have made more sense; better the explosive decompression of the void than the bloodying rocks; better murder than mindless chance. Anything was preferable to being reminded of frailty and the indifference of physical reality; the intended act was always superior to the unintended event.
Stupid thoughts, he told himself. Maybe he should go and help Poincaré trap his gadfly; maybe it would help him forget. It would be almost … as if he were searching for Grazia again.
He got up and went out on the terrace. The sky made him feel small. For a moment he felt that he understood the feelings of the outworlders, for whom life was joined to strenuous effort; out there living was valuable and dying meaningful. There they would laugh at the manner of Grazia’s death; there life was stretched between demanding limits and did not try to be more; there life spent itself so completely that little regret was possible at its end.
He thought of his son Rik, who had not come to Grazia’s funeral service, and who had refused to talk with him or share his sorrow. It would do no good to search for him among the diverse worlds of the ring; he would not recognize his son if he saw him.
Rik had never reconciled himself to the fact that he had been born of natural parents and in a fairly ancient way, while all his peers in the sun settlements were creative composites drawn from genetic-bank materials. Kurbi blamed himself for letting the boy leave Earth at an early age; in the ring he had come under the overwhelming influence of a myriad of styles. Earth could never be the same for him again.
In a way Rik was right; only a small portion of humanity lived on Earth; an even smaller portion lived the older life, which accepted leisure but little biological alteration. Perhaps, as Rik believed, the acceptance of the unmodified human form limited one’s range of experiences and exercise of creative powers; while the newer, variegated humanity, Rik claimed, had overcome the old discontents.
Suddenly Kurbi was sure that he would join Poincaré, but the feeling passed; what he really wanted to do, he admitted, was to wander
“What’s wrong?”
“The glider hasn’t come up over the cliffs.”
Poincaré got up also and they went to the terrace steps that led down to the path. In a moment Kurbi was running across the grass to the cliff’s edge a quarter of a kilometer away. Poincaré caught up with him just in time to steady him at the edge.
“There,” Julian said, pointing.
The glider was in the water, one wing broken.
“She took this updraft so many times.…”
“Let’s get down there,” Julian said. “Better still, I’ll go down and you call the medics.”
Kurbi turned and walked quickly up to the house, feeling that his body was not his own.
“Hurry!” Julian called after him.
She had fallen to the rocks after hitting the cliff; the sea had battered her body until she was beyond repair. There was no possibility of freezing the remains or of restarting the body’s regenerative systems; only cloning remained, and he had rejected the idea. The person who would have come to him bearing Grazia’s appearance and genetic structure would not have been Grazia, only her twin sister. For many others that would have been enough, but for him it would have been a mockery of his love for her.
He sat alone in the darkened living room and tried to choke his grief, compress it to a point and squeeze that point out of reality. Outside, the sky blazed, hurling spears of starlight through the clear wall between the living room and terrace. The glider sank in his mind and he reached out with invisible hands to stop it from hitting the cliff. She had been falling as he had talked with Julian, and he had known it; she might even have been conscious after hitting the sea rocks.
It would have been better, he thought, if she had been on the interstellar liner. That would have made more sense; better the explosive decompression of the void than the bloodying rocks; better murder than mindless chance. Anything was preferable to being reminded of frailty and the indifference of physical reality; the intended act was always superior to the unintended event.
Stupid thoughts, he told himself. Maybe he should go and help Poincaré trap his gadfly; maybe it would help him forget. It would be almost … as if he were searching for Grazia again.
He got up and went out on the terrace. The sky made him feel small. For a moment he felt that he understood the feelings of the outworlders, for whom life was joined to strenuous effort; out there living was valuable and dying meaningful. There they would laugh at the manner of Grazia’s death; there life was stretched between demanding limits and did not try to be more; there life spent itself so completely that little regret was possible at its end.
He thought of his son Rik, who had not come to Grazia’s funeral service, and who had refused to talk with him or share his sorrow. It would do no good to search for him among the diverse worlds of the ring; he would not recognize his son if he saw him.
Rik had never reconciled himself to the fact that he had been born of natural parents and in a fairly ancient way, while all his peers in the sun settlements were creative composites drawn from genetic-bank materials. Kurbi blamed himself for letting the boy leave Earth at an early age; in the ring he had come under the overwhelming influence of a myriad of styles. Earth could never be the same for him again.
In a way Rik was right; only a small portion of humanity lived on Earth; an even smaller portion lived the older life, which accepted leisure but little biological alteration. Perhaps, as Rik believed, the acceptance of the unmodified human form limited one’s range of experiences and exercise of creative powers; while the newer, variegated humanity, Rik claimed, had overcome the old discontents.
Suddenly Kurbi was sure that he would join Poincaré, but the feeling passed; what he really wanted to do, he admitted, was to wander
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