Arnole has set up a school at the fortress for the children of the recruits who are coming in. He calls it the university of the Real One, and it teaches only things that are known to be true, which means it is largely devoted to mathematics and sciences. Dismé and Michael have threatened to set up another school nearby which will teach only things known to be helpful, such as medicine, music, and horsemanship. Needless to say, no Regimic materials have remained except what is in the Archives of the Fortress.
Camwar and Jens, Bobly and Bab, have arranged to join a caravan to New Kansas at the end of the year in order to carry the message of the small god and arrange for the first god contest. As yet, we have heard nothing of the small god’s threatened prophets, and Dismé and I have wondered if, indeed, her peroration on herself as deity was not hyperbole designed to rub our fur the wrong way. The impression I got was that the small god is not above amusing herself at our expense a great deal of the time.
In speaking to Alan and the doctor, I have suggested we take a leaf from the Real One’s book and focus on what is, which includes a few people on the moon and a growing population on Mars. Surprisingly, the small god has said nothing at all about them, quite possibly because both places have small gods of their own (or they are worshipping The Real One, which is not unimaginable). What is may also include one aquatic and one arboreal intelligent race. We all guess cetaceans and gray parrots, and Falasti and Pierees have gone away to see if we are right.
One year has passed since I last woke in the redoubt. Michael and Dismé are expecting a child in mid-fall. I feel like a grandmother. Alan says he feels like a grandfather, too, and though he is uncertain which of my children may also be his, he pretends to find in Michael a likeness to his grandfather. I don’t think it matters, personally. Dismé sought me out to tell me the room set aside for a nursery was evidently invaded during the night, for a stone stands in the corner of it. This is, she believes, the twentieth stone, and she is driving Bertral mad wanting to see the book every hour on the hour to see who is about to be born.
It is almost dinner time, and Alan and I have planned a special meal for our anniversary, just us and the children, any who happen to be nearby. This last account has filled the last page in my journal. Perhaps I will find another one and write more, as time passes. Then again, I may leave the story as it is.
Signed: Nell Latimer Block.
Summerspan ten, nineday,
Year one of the Small God. Chasm date: 3052.
About the Author
SHERI S. TEPPER is the author of several resoundingly acclaimed novels, including The Fresco, Singer from the Sea, Six Moon Dance, The Family Tree, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, Shadow’s End, A Plague of Angels, Sideshow, and Beauty, which was voted Best Fantasy Novel of the Year by the readers of Locus magazine. Ms. Tepper lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Praise for the award-winning vision and artistry of
SHERI S. TEPPER
“Tepper takes the traditional icons, restores their resonance, and makes them her own.”
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“Her novels are the old-fashioned kind, despite their futuristic settings; the kind that wrap you in their embrace, that take over your life, that make the world disappear.”
Village Voice Literary Supplement
“One of sf’s most distinctive voices.”
Locus
and for
THE VISITOR
“Tepper blends science well…and finishes with a startling and hopeful ending.”
Booklist
“[Tepper] has created a complex and credible future—one readers will dive into and emerge from only reluctantly after the adventure has run its course.”
Tampa Tribune
“The book is beautifully and creatively constructed, full of fascinating and changeable characters and societies, all of which interact in complex and surprising ways.”
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Books by
Sheri S. Tepper
THE AWAKENERS
AFTER LONG SILENCE
THE GATE TO WOMEN’S COUNTRY
BEAUTY
GRASS
RAISING THE STONES
SIDESHOW
A PLAGUE OF ANGELS
SHADOW’S END
GIBBON’S DECLINE AND FALL
THE FAMILY TREE
SIX MOON DANCE
SINGER FROM THE SEA
THE FRESCO
THE VISITOR
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE VISITOR. Copyright © 2002 by Sheri S. Tepper. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition August 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-197639-1
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Sheri S. Tepper, The Visitor
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