Terrarium Read Free

he said was, “Anywhere’s fine.”
    â€œHow about Shasta Gamepark at 1600 tomorrow? South gate?”
    â€œSure,” he agreed, reduced to monosyllables. “Fine.”
    â€œPeace.” With palm lifted, she began to drift away on the pedbelt.
    â€œWait,” he begged. In a panic he thought for ways to keep her, fearing that such an improbable creature might not survive until tomorrow. “Do you live in Portland Complex?”
    She jerked a thumb domeward. “Seven floors above you.” Walking again, she kept her place on the belt. Arched above her face the hair formed a red border of turbulence.
    â€œAnd what brings you through here for exercise?” he asked.
    â€œLooking for a walking partner.”
    â€œOh.” Again he scrambled for words. Her bluntness dried up his throat. “And why do you walk?”
    The smile again, crippling all his faculties. “I’m in training,” she said.
    â€œTraining?”
    â€œFor going away.”
    11 October 2026 — Astoria, Oregon
    Teeg and I watch an acorn woodpecker hammer a hole in the trunk of a dead fir, red topknot catching the sun. When the opening is just the right size and roundness, the bird taps an acorn snugly into it. Squirrels cannot dig it out. But the woodpecker can, and will, some February day when the bug population is running low.
    Teeg’s five-year-old eyes open wide in wonder. “Is it killing the tree, Mommy?” she wants to know.
    â€œThe tree is already dead,” I tell her, “poisoned from the things people sprayed, and the woodpecker is using it for a cupboard.”
    And all the open cities are becoming husks, abandoned shells, as people flood into the domes. At least we can salvage the steel and copper, the aluminum and chrome, the bits of Terra tied up in the old places. The dismantling of Portland is nearly complete. Sad, plucked city. Brick streets and wooden houses are all that remain. I mourn by bringing Teeg out here to Astoria for a weekend, where we admire the acorn woodpecker. Astoria, thank God, will not be recycled, for it is built mostly of wood. The salt and wind and birds can have it. We have seen fourteen birds since yesterday morning, six of them able to fly.

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TWO
    Unlikely as it seemed to Phoenix, Teeg did meet him at the gamepark. Afraid she might not recognize him in the crowd of merrymakers and chemmieguzzlers, he wore the same mask and costume as yesterday. He would have dangled a sign about his neck, if need be, to attract her attention. Who cared a fig about the stares? He stood on a bench to make himself a landmark, high above the passing wigs, and presently he spied her slipping toward him through the crush of people. Facepaint instead of mask, baggy robe kicking at her feet, hood tied crookedly about her head. Thrown-together look, as usual.
    â€œSo you came,” she announced, with what seemed like mild surprise. She drew him away from the racket of electronic warfare, past the simulators where people lined up to pretend they were piloting rockets or submarines, past the booths where ecstatic customers twitched upon eros couches.
    â€œZoo time,” Teeg muttered, leading him on. She said something else, too, but Phoenix could only make out herbitter tone and not the words, for two opponents were haranguing one another on a nearby shouting stage.
    Why so angry? he wondered, following her along the pedbelt. As the conveyor banked around a curve, Teeg swayed to one side and her hip swelled against the fall of her robe. She seemed unconscious of her body. How could he begin mating ritual with a woman who ignored the simplest sexual rules? She might rip off his mask and lick his chin in front of everybody. Who could predict?
    Soon they reached a deserted corner of the park, where the pedbelts gave out. Antiquated amusement booths, with shattered windows and dangling wires, were heaped on both sides of a disused footpath.
    â€œThis is