Read Green Grow The Rashes And Other Stories Page 5

  ~-o0O0o-~

  Several things happened at once. He passed me the stick. At the same moment I looked to the ground to see that both his legs seemed to have sunk deep into the soil. White roots slithered across his whole lower torso. The stick writhed in my hand and I felt a slight pain as it too took root, nestling in my palm as if it had been grown there. Green veins spread up my arm and I smiled as a new beard sprouted on my chin.

  The green man smiled in return, even as the roots tugged violently at him and his body fell apart into a moist brown loam that quickly turned green.

  The song rose up in me and could not be contained. I walked through the cemetery, singing and waving the stick in time.

  But give me a cannie hour at even,

  My arms around my dearie, O,

  An' worldly cares and worldly men,

  May all go tapsalteerie, O!

  Spring followed behind me.

 

  Out of the Black

  Ten short years.

  That’s how long we have. The ore that gives us light, keeps us warm, and runs the food plants has finally come to an end. Three hundred and fifty years after the dimming. A good run.

  But not long enough. Not by my reckoning. I’m only twelve points short of my breeding merit. There’s no way I’m checking out of here before then.

  So I volunteered. "Exploration duty", that’s what they call it. "Suicide", Tom Draper said. "Escape", Linda whispered in my ear the night before I left.

  As it turns out, all three were right in their own way.