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Read Ebook: Bright Islands by Riley Frank Orban Paul Illustrator
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Ebook has 83 lines and 5553 words, and 2 pages
Tears filled her eyes, squeezed in droplets between the closed lids. Tears because she was so alone. Tears of unbearable sadness and pity, for her people, for her youth and her young body, for the warmth that would be eternally cold, for the unnatural child that squirmed and turned, and would never cry.
In a last forlorn gesture, in a final seeking before the darkness closed, Miryam let her mind stray out of the white room, out of the marble magnificence of Center. She let her thoughts escape on the soft breeze of the early summer evening.
How beautiful it was, even here in the city, amid the science buildings that formed bright islands of light around the minarets and vaulted domes of Government Square.
Even these awesome buildings were lovely in the purple dusk. Their windows were like scattered emeralds of light.
How could there be so much beauty without compassion? So much knowledge without understanding? So much human genius without humanity?
And what a battering of thoughts in the mild air around the centers of science! What a discordance! What a tumult of theories, each of them nurtured within its own walls by the zealous Sars.
There were the Departments of Chemistry and Physics. There was the glass-walled tower of Astronomy! There was the Institute of Psychology, with all its many bureaus. And the new Electronics Building, alabaster even in the dusk.
They were all there, extending in stately splendor along the main avenues, and along the park, where the gossamer mist was rising.
How intolerant were the thoughts they radiated! How sure!
Electronics said: "Quite obviously the answer to psi is in the electrical currents of the brain. Our newest electro-encephalograph has demonstrated...."
Chemistry said: "Solution to psi inevitably will be found in the chemical balance of the cells...."
Parapsychology said: "We must continue to ignore those who insist upon attributing physical properties to a non-physical characteristic...."
And underneath this learned babble, Miryam heard the moth-like whispering of her own people, starving in the Ghetto, or hidden throughout the city, disguised, furtive, tense.
Her mind came close to Government Square, and she cringed, as she had cringed all her young life. The somatics were unbearable. Hatred and fear, blind prejudice, jealousy, cunning, ceaseless intrigue and plotting, setting Sar against Sar, using the genius of each science, dividing and ruling.
No, there was nothing left. No hope, no promise. This was the end of time. This was the night of the world.
Withdrawing again, retreating into itself, Miryam's mind brushed the fragment of a thought. It was a half-formed thought, more a groping, more a question, than an idea. It was delicate, fragile, a wraith and a wisp. But it came to her as clear as the note from a silver bell.
Startled, she hesitated in her withdrawal, and perceived the young Geno-Doctor in the corridor near her room. He had paused by the casement window, and was staring out at the twinkling islands of light around Government Square.
And as his gaze wandered moodily from Tech, to Psycho, to Chemico, to all the incandescent, isolated centers of genius, the idle speculation had formed.
"Wouldn't it be an unusual view if all those bright islands were connected by strings of light...?"
Once formed, the speculation had fanned the ember of a thought:
"Wonder if psi will build those strings of lights?"
Then the young doctor turned almost guiltily from the window to meet the Geno-Sar coming down the corridor. And he said with crisp efficiency,
"I'll check out 12-A for delivery."
"Good boy! I'll go on up and check the staff...." The Geno-Sar rubbed his hands together, and walked off, repeating nervously, "Two psi characteristics must be the answer--two psi--"
"Maybe they are," the young doctor murmured softly. "Maybe they are...."
Delivery, Miryam thought. The life within her throbbed and prodded. There was an ebbing of pain for a moment, and in that moment she saw with the blinding clarity she had sought that this child of hers might bring new hope to the world. That psi ability might be the answer to many things for the race of mankind. What did it matter that it was conceived without love and emotion. What did it matter that she was being used as an experiment ... if this child within her could fulfill the promise.
Miryam spat the soft capsule between her quivering lips. She watched it roll and bounce across the polished tile floor, toward the door.
Pain returned, and its fire was warm. There were no shadows on the wall. Pain returned, and it had purpose and promise. Wonderingly, she beheld the concept that science, too, lived with fear, each science in its own Ghetto. And if the young doctor was right, if psi....
As the doctor stepped into the room, he bent over and picked up the red capsule. His thumb and forefinger felt the warmth, the moisture, and he looked long and thoughtfully into Miryam's dark, glowing eyes.
His fingers shook as he wrapped the capsule in a piece of tissue and dropped it into the pocket of his white jacket. He picked up the chart from the foot of the bed.
"Miryam--" His voice was not under complete control, and he began again, with an effort at lightness. "Miryam--that's a strange name. What does it mean?"
"It is an ancient spelling," she whispered, her eyes deep and dark, filled with pain and wonder. "You may find it easier to call me--Mary."
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