Brave New Worlds by Ursula K. Le Guin Page A
Authors: Ursula K. Le Guin
bleacher and walk along the side of the field.
I watch the back of Jenna's head, her blonde curls under the lights, almost golden like a halo, though no one, not even the most forgiving person is ever going to mistake Jenna for someone holy. Her mother was a murderer, after all. Yet I realize she'll soon replace that stupid fake locket with a real one while I have nothing. She might even get to marry a Police or a trash collector, even a teacher, while the best I can hope for is a position at one of the orphanages. My dad's idea that I might be a breeder someday seems highly optimistic.
"Let's go," I say.
"Are you sure? Maybe the next one. . . " But he doesn't even finish the thought. He must see something in my face that tells him I am done with childish fantasies.
She's never coming back. Whatever selfish streak caused her, all those years ago to kill one child is the same selfish streak that allows her to abandon me now.
We walk down the bleachers. Everyone turns away from us, holding their little kids close. My father walks in front of me, with his head down, his hands in his pockets. By the time we get to the car in the parking lot we can hear the polite applause from the football field as another woman enters the circle. He opens his door. I open mine. We drive home in silence. I crane my neck to try to look up at the sky as if I expect to find something there, God maybe, or the living incarnation of the blood pterodactyl but of course I see neither. There is nothing. I close my eyes and think of my mother. Oh, how I miss her.
The Funeral
by Kate Wilhelm
Kate Wilhelm is the winner of three Nebulas, two Hugos, and two Locus awards, and is an inductee to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Her short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , Omni , Asimov's Science Fiction , Amazing Stories , Orbit , and has been collected in several volumes, notably in The Mile - Long Spaceship ; Listen , Listen ; and The Infinity Box . Her SF novels include Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang , Juniper Time , Welcome Chaos , and the Constance and Charlie series ( The Hamlet Trap et seq. ). She has also written several legal thrillers, beginning in 1991 with Death Qualified . The latest of these "Barbara Holloway" mysteries, Cold Case , was released in 2008.
The story of two boys' quest for freedom, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels. Jim wants to escape slavery. Huck wants to get away from his horrible father. Their adventures rafting down the Mississippi River have become a part of the American identity, stirring up hopes and dreams inside the hearts of generations of dissatisfied children.
Our next story is set in a regimented society that, like the antebellum South, maintains some people are property, without voice and fully disposable. For girls like Clara, their lives are spent in frightened obedience, waiting for their futures to be set for them. Only the dying words of one mad woman offer Clara hope: the hint of a secret cave, a mysterious hideout that no one has ever found.
The Widow Douglas was always trying to "sivilize" Huck Finn—but she could never bend his indomitable spirit. If she could escape from her world, perhaps Clara could teach him a thing or two.
N o one could say exactly how old Madam Westfall was when she finally died. At least one hundred twenty, it was estimated. At the very least. For twenty years Madam Westfall had been a shell containing the very latest products of advances made in gerontology, and now she was dead. What lay on the viewing dais was merely a painted, funereally garbed husk. "She isn't real," Carla said to herself. "It's a doll, or something. It isn't really Madam Westfall. " She kept her head bowed, and didn't move her lips, but she said the words over and over. She was afraid to look at a dead person. The second time they slaughtered all those who bore arms, unguided, mindless now, but lethal with the arms caches that
I watch the back of Jenna's head, her blonde curls under the lights, almost golden like a halo, though no one, not even the most forgiving person is ever going to mistake Jenna for someone holy. Her mother was a murderer, after all. Yet I realize she'll soon replace that stupid fake locket with a real one while I have nothing. She might even get to marry a Police or a trash collector, even a teacher, while the best I can hope for is a position at one of the orphanages. My dad's idea that I might be a breeder someday seems highly optimistic.
"Let's go," I say.
"Are you sure? Maybe the next one. . . " But he doesn't even finish the thought. He must see something in my face that tells him I am done with childish fantasies.
She's never coming back. Whatever selfish streak caused her, all those years ago to kill one child is the same selfish streak that allows her to abandon me now.
We walk down the bleachers. Everyone turns away from us, holding their little kids close. My father walks in front of me, with his head down, his hands in his pockets. By the time we get to the car in the parking lot we can hear the polite applause from the football field as another woman enters the circle. He opens his door. I open mine. We drive home in silence. I crane my neck to try to look up at the sky as if I expect to find something there, God maybe, or the living incarnation of the blood pterodactyl but of course I see neither. There is nothing. I close my eyes and think of my mother. Oh, how I miss her.
The Funeral
by Kate Wilhelm
Kate Wilhelm is the winner of three Nebulas, two Hugos, and two Locus awards, and is an inductee to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Her short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , Omni , Asimov's Science Fiction , Amazing Stories , Orbit , and has been collected in several volumes, notably in The Mile - Long Spaceship ; Listen , Listen ; and The Infinity Box . Her SF novels include Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang , Juniper Time , Welcome Chaos , and the Constance and Charlie series ( The Hamlet Trap et seq. ). She has also written several legal thrillers, beginning in 1991 with Death Qualified . The latest of these "Barbara Holloway" mysteries, Cold Case , was released in 2008.
The story of two boys' quest for freedom, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels. Jim wants to escape slavery. Huck wants to get away from his horrible father. Their adventures rafting down the Mississippi River have become a part of the American identity, stirring up hopes and dreams inside the hearts of generations of dissatisfied children.
Our next story is set in a regimented society that, like the antebellum South, maintains some people are property, without voice and fully disposable. For girls like Clara, their lives are spent in frightened obedience, waiting for their futures to be set for them. Only the dying words of one mad woman offer Clara hope: the hint of a secret cave, a mysterious hideout that no one has ever found.
The Widow Douglas was always trying to "sivilize" Huck Finn—but she could never bend his indomitable spirit. If she could escape from her world, perhaps Clara could teach him a thing or two.
N o one could say exactly how old Madam Westfall was when she finally died. At least one hundred twenty, it was estimated. At the very least. For twenty years Madam Westfall had been a shell containing the very latest products of advances made in gerontology, and now she was dead. What lay on the viewing dais was merely a painted, funereally garbed husk. "She isn't real," Carla said to herself. "It's a doll, or something. It isn't really Madam Westfall. " She kept her head bowed, and didn't move her lips, but she said the words over and over. She was afraid to look at a dead person. The second time they slaughtered all those who bore arms, unguided, mindless now, but lethal with the arms caches that