Page 112 (1/1)
It’s been four years since I last stood here Stars twinkle in the gray above as night pulls on its hood The garden is smaller than I remember Less filled with color, with sounds I suppose that’s to be expected, being where I’ve been, seeing what I’ve seen There’sand drinking I toe an empty beer can with my shoe A candy bar wrapper ether
I rerass But there are weeds now Maybe there eeds then and I just didn’t notice thes I touch one with h the bubbleRoof to see stars shooting across the sky I snort Once they er But now I know they are the warships that prepare for an assault on Luna I don’t knohat I expected No ic remains here
Should have left this place perfect in memory I wonder if Eo is safer there, safe from my eyes If I saw her now, if I came back, would I be so in love? Would she seearden It really is barely larger than my suites on the Pax I’rass balds near the base of theround
I find the place I carave Dozens It would seem a rave with her She’s not there any longer I know that The Grays would have dug her up and strung her froedI ca but she’s not here She’s fled this cage for the Vale
So I sit cross-legged, waiting for the sun to set, where once I waited for it to rise When it does, the day’s waning light fills the bubbleGarden with a bloody hue And then the sun surrenders to the horizon and night draws its star-pierced shroud over Mars
I laugh at nar slips fro to hiift"
"So the place one last look
The garden isn’t as perfect as it was in memory And neither was she She was impatient She could be spiteful for sirl Not even seventeen And she gave the most she could, did the best she could hat she had That’s why I will always love her, and it is why I knohether or not she would give her blessing for what I go to do, e she herself has fled It istrate Tiinus waits fortheir best and brightest uniforinus’s best, and perhaps only, caviar Ugly Dan is gone
"Lord Androinus croons with that supercilious inflection uppity Coppers favor He is fatter His hair thinner And he sweats like a pig in heat as he fans open his heavily ringed fingers to favor me with a queer bow popular in the HC political dra the ore compression facilities"--probably a whorehouse in nearby Yorkton, at the edge of the taiga--"when news of your visit ca your forgiveness I wonder, though, may I be so bold as to ask the purpose of your visit?" So he can sell the information to men like Pliny Coppers rarely mean all that they say "An inspection is not due for …"
"In polite society, it is considered rude not to introduce yourself, Copper" I talk like a Peerless, not the Pixies he so eagerly e into a bow so deep I’d fear he ht touch his nose to the floor were it not for the cushion of his substantial gut "I ainus, your humble servant And --"your aspect is grander than I had indeed expected! Not to say that I did not expect you to be broad and tall--the ArchGovernor has only the best of the best in his employ, naturally--but the HC does you the barest justice"
"You htens self-consciously and peers behindthe reason someone like me came unannounced to his mine
"As I know you’ve no doubt heard froistrates were overjoyed to hear the planet had been liberated fro? Pfah, amateurs"
"They don’t knoar either, apparently"
Sing, he glances again to arden
"A beautiful space, is it not?" he asks "It reminds me of my time on the Pyrrus River The tulip blosso like it, as I’m sure you know And the trees, aren’t they so very like the birches that stretch along the steppes of the Olympus Mons? I stayed there at the Chateau le Breu" He e expansive motion with his hands "I know, I know, but sometimes one must treat oneself In fact it is where I discovered the most unique sottocenere cheese" He smiles proudly "They call me Marco Polo, my friends, because I relish travel It’s the culture I seek Refined co to find around here…"
I don’t kno long he would continue trying to impress me if I didn’t look at his s, and frown
"Is soht," I say
His beady eyes scurry back and forth between his best Grays, searching for signs of the inequity I noticed It disgusts me how desperate he is to please me This man stole froed reed
"I a at me
"That it is impossible to find refined company in places like this" My eyes fall so heavily on hi Dan, does nothing but fill eness I wanted them to be terrible, hideous monsters But they aren’t They are petty men who ruin lives and don’t even notice How many others are there like them?