Islands in the Net

Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling Read Free Book Online
Authors: Bruce Sterling
airport, no matter what the city claimed. The City Council had expanded it after the last hurricane, in a last-ditch attempt to boost Galveston’s civic morale. A lot of taxpayers had quickly used it to leave Galveston for good.
    They checked her mother’s luggage. Laura watched her mother chat with the ticket clerk. Once again she was the woman Laura remembered: trim and cool and immaculate, self-contained in a diplomat’s Teflon shell. Margaret Day: still an attractive woman at sixty-two. People lasted forever, these days. With any luck, her mother could live another forty years.
    They walked together toward the departure lounge. “Let me hold her just once more,” her mother said. Laura passed her the baby. Her mother carried Loretta like a sack of emeralds. “If I’ve said anything to upset you, you’ll forgive me, won’t you? I’m not as young as I was and there are things I don’t understand.”
    Her voice was calm, but her face trembled for a moment, with a strange naked look of appeal. For the first time Laura realized how much it had cost her mother to go through this—how ruthlessly she had humbled herself. Laura felt a sudden empathetic shock—as if she’d met some injured stranger on her doorstep. “No, no,” she mumbled, walking. “Everything was fine.”
    â€œYou’re modern people, you and David,” her mother said. “In a way you seem very innocent to us, oh, premillennium decadents.” She smiled wryly. “So free of doubts.”
    Laura thought it over as they walked into the departure lounge. For the first time, she felt a muddy intuition of her mother’s point of view. She stood by her mother’s chair, out of earshot from the sprinkling of other passengers for Dallas. “We seem dogmatic. Smug. Is that it?”
    â€œOh, no,” her mother said hastily. “That’s not what I meant at all.”
    Laura took a deep breath. “We don’t live under terror, mother. That’s the real difference. No one’s pointing missiles at my generation. That’s why we think about the future, the long term. Because we know we’ll have one.” Laura spread her hands. “And we didn’t earn that luxury. The luxury to look smug. You gave it to us.” Laura relaxed a little, feeling virtuous.
    â€œWell …” Her mother struggled for words. “It’s something like that but.… The world you grew up in—every year it’s more smooth and controlled. Like you’ve thrown a net over the Fates. But Laura, you haven’t, not really. And I worry for you.”
    Laura was surprised. She’d never known her mother was such a morbid fatalist. It seemed a weirdly old-fashioned attitude. And she was in earnest, too—as if she were ready to nail up horseshoes or count rosary beads. And things had been going rather oddly lately.… Despite herself, Laura felt a light passing tingle of superstitious fear.
    She shook her head. “All right, Mother. David and I—we know we can count on you.”
    â€œThat’s all I asked.” Her mother smiled. “David was wonderful—give him my love.” The other passengers rose, shuffling briefcases and garment bags. Her mother kissed the baby, then stood and handed her back. Loretta’s face clouded and she began snuffling up to a wail.
    â€œUh-oh,” Laura said lightly. She accepted a quick, awkward hug from her mother. “Bye.”
    â€œCall me.”
    â€œAll right.” Bouncing Loretta to shush her, Laura watched her mother leave, blending in with the crowd at the exit ramp. One stranger among others. Ironic, Laura thought. She’d been waiting for this moment for seven days, and now that it was here, it hurt. Sort of. In a way.
    Laura glanced at her watchphone. She had to kill an hour before the Grenadians arrived. She went to the coffee shop. People stared at her and the

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