A Fisherman of the Inland Sea: Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin Read Free Book Online Page A

heroically and said, “Susan, I want to go live at the dorms. I just think
     it would be a lot better. Is that going to make Ike go nova?”
    The silence was long enough that she came closer to her mother and made out that she seemed to be crying.
    “Oh,” she said, “oh, I didn’t—”
    “It’s OK. It isn’t you, honey. It’s Eddie.”
    Her mother’s half brother was the only relative she had left. They kept in touch through the Network out-links. Not often,
     because Ike was so strongly against keeping up personal communication with people down below, and Susan didn’t like doing
     things she couldn’t tell him she was doing. But she had told Esther, and Esther had treasured her mother’s trust.
    “Is he sick?” she asked, feeling sick.
    “He died. Real fast. One of the RMVs. Bella sent word.”
    Susan spoke softly and quite naturally. Esther stood there a while, then went and touched her mother’s shoulder timidly. Susan
     turned to her, embraced her, holding on to her, and began to weep aloud and talk. “Oh, Esther, he was so good, he was so good,
     he was so good! We always stuck it out together, all the stepmothers and the girlfriends and the awful places we had to live,
     it was always OK because of Eddie, he made it OK. He was my family, Esther. He was my family!”
    Maybe the word did mean something.
    Her mother quieted down and let her go. “Do you have to not tell Ike?” Esther asked, while she made them some tea.
    Susan shook her head. “I don’t care if he knows I talked with Eddie, now. But Bella just put a letter into the Net. We didn’t
     talk.”
    Esther gave her her tea; she sipped it and sighed.
    “You want to live in the A-Ed dorms,” she said.
    Esther nodded, feeling guilty about talking about it, about deserting her mother. “I guess. I don’t know.”
    “I think it’s a good idea. Try it out, anyhow.”
    “You do?… But will he, you know, get all… you know.”
    “Yes,” Susan said. “But, so?”
    “I guess I really want to.”
    “So, apply.”
    “Does he have to approve the application?”
    “No. You’re sixteen. Age of reason. Society Code says so.”
    “I don’t always feel so reasonable.”
    “You’ll do. A fair imitation.”
    “It’s when he gets so, you know, like he has to control everything or everything will be out of control, I get sort of out
     of control.”
    “I know. But he can handle this. He’ll be proud of you for going to A-Ed early. Just let him blow off a while, he’ll calm
     down.”
    Ike surprised them. He did not blow up or blow off. He met Esther’s demand calmly, “Sure,” he said. “After your eye transplant.”
    “After—?”
    “You don’t intend to start your adult life with a severe, curable handicap. That would be stupid, Esther. You want your independence.
     So you need physical independence. First get your eyes—then fly. You thought I’d try to hold you back? Daughter, I want to
     see you flying!”
    “But—”
    He waited.
    “Is she ready?” Susan asked. “Have the doctors said something I hadn’t heard?”
    “Thirty days of immune-system prep, and she can receive a double eye transplant. I talked to Dick after Health Board yesterday.
     She can go over and choose a pair tomorrow.”
    “Choose eyes?” Noah said. “Gutwrenching!”
    “What if I, what if I don’t want to,” Esther said.
    “Don’t want to? Don’t want to see?”
    She did not look at either of them. Her mother was silent.
    “You would be giving in to fear, which is natural, but unworthy of you. And so you would merely cheat yourself out of so many
     weeks or months of perfect vision.”
    “But it says I’m at the age of reason. So I can make my own choices.”
    “Of course you can, and will. You’ll make the reasonable choice. I have confidence in you, daughter. Show me that it’s justified.”
    Immune-system prep was nearly as bad as decontamination. Some days she couldn’t pay attention to anything but the tubes and