The Girl With the Jade Green Eyes by John Boyd Page A
Authors: John Boyd
Tags: Science-Fiction
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where’s your pouch? You’ve got to be from Australia. All strange things come out of Australia: koalas, platypuses, Evonne Goolagong, wombats, dingos, and the flat-faced swagman I married the first time. Don’t you deny it, young lady. You’re a dinko from the Outback!”
She scooped the forms from her desk, clutched them to her bosom, and plunged head first through the swinging doors marked PRIVATE, screaming, “Doooctor!”
“Well, this should forewarn Doctor Condon that you’re a very unusual person,” Breedlove said to Kyra.
“Breedlove, I’ve always known I was an unusual person, but it never frightened me before.” Tears were forming in her eyes. “What’s a dinko from the Outback?”
“I’ve never heard the expression before.”
He could sympathize with Kyra, so tiny and appealing, who had come so far to suffer these indignities, but he reserved a portion of his compassion for the quivering chief pharmacist, who had hurled herself through the swinging door. Anna Pilsudski had conducted herself in the highest traditions of the Navy up to the very threshold of credulity, and she might have carried on had it not been for the happenstance that her first husband was a flat-faced swagman from the Outback.
After an interminable two minutes the doors swung outward and a tall man in a smock, with coarse salt-and-pepper hair and the cragged features of an Abraham Lincoln, shouldered his way into the office, reading the forms Anna had completed with an abstract and faintly skeptical air. Glancing at Breedlove and Kyra, he smiled the confident smile of a man in control of the situation, laid the papers on the desk, and came to stand beside Kyra. He cupped her chin in his palm and looked down into her eyes. When he spoke his voice was low, friendly, and reassuring.
“So, this is the unnaveled young lady who reduces our Suds to foam and gives to airy nothing the name of Kanab. The Girl with the fade Green Eyes. Welcome to earth, Kyra Lavaslatta.”
He took his hand from Kyra’s chin and extended it in greeting to Breedlove. “And you’re her guardian.”
“Yes, I’m Breedlove. If it’s possible I’d like to wait while you examine her. I’m driving her.”
Condon turned back to the desk and picked up the papers, looking at them now without skepticism.
“If half what Pilsudski has written is true, she may have to remain here overnight. We’ll fake very good care of her. I wouldn’t advise you to wait. You can telephone her around 1700, and if she’s staying overnight the operator will give you her extension.”
Breedlove nodded and turned to Kyra. “I’ll leave, then. You can call me if you’re released early, and I can get down within half an hour. Go with the doctor now and be brave.”
He felt no irony in telling the being who had dared the perils of space to be brave, for she was frightened. As she stood to go, she reached out and took his hand and squeezed it in a gesture of sadness and regret. She took her bag and moved toward the swinging doors Condon held open for her. As she entered she cast a wistful look toward Breedlove before the doors swung shut behind her.
He returned to loneliness at the motel. Telling the desk clerk he was expecting a call, he sat in the lobby and penned a report to Peterson and a letter to his family. In the letter he described his sadness over having to tell her goodbye with such graphic power that it occurred to him that he might objectify his emotions, and in a measure purge them, by writing a poem to Kyra in language simple enough to match her budding literary skills but poignant enough to capture his feelings. Besides, it was something to do.
For over an hour he tried to write her the poem, but the words he found were too heavy-footed to bear such delicate freight and the meter was atrocious. Still, the idea was too good to let drop. In his frustration he decided on an expediency. Coming from an alien culture, Kyra would not be able to recognize a
She scooped the forms from her desk, clutched them to her bosom, and plunged head first through the swinging doors marked PRIVATE, screaming, “Doooctor!”
“Well, this should forewarn Doctor Condon that you’re a very unusual person,” Breedlove said to Kyra.
“Breedlove, I’ve always known I was an unusual person, but it never frightened me before.” Tears were forming in her eyes. “What’s a dinko from the Outback?”
“I’ve never heard the expression before.”
He could sympathize with Kyra, so tiny and appealing, who had come so far to suffer these indignities, but he reserved a portion of his compassion for the quivering chief pharmacist, who had hurled herself through the swinging door. Anna Pilsudski had conducted herself in the highest traditions of the Navy up to the very threshold of credulity, and she might have carried on had it not been for the happenstance that her first husband was a flat-faced swagman from the Outback.
After an interminable two minutes the doors swung outward and a tall man in a smock, with coarse salt-and-pepper hair and the cragged features of an Abraham Lincoln, shouldered his way into the office, reading the forms Anna had completed with an abstract and faintly skeptical air. Glancing at Breedlove and Kyra, he smiled the confident smile of a man in control of the situation, laid the papers on the desk, and came to stand beside Kyra. He cupped her chin in his palm and looked down into her eyes. When he spoke his voice was low, friendly, and reassuring.
“So, this is the unnaveled young lady who reduces our Suds to foam and gives to airy nothing the name of Kanab. The Girl with the fade Green Eyes. Welcome to earth, Kyra Lavaslatta.”
He took his hand from Kyra’s chin and extended it in greeting to Breedlove. “And you’re her guardian.”
“Yes, I’m Breedlove. If it’s possible I’d like to wait while you examine her. I’m driving her.”
Condon turned back to the desk and picked up the papers, looking at them now without skepticism.
“If half what Pilsudski has written is true, she may have to remain here overnight. We’ll fake very good care of her. I wouldn’t advise you to wait. You can telephone her around 1700, and if she’s staying overnight the operator will give you her extension.”
Breedlove nodded and turned to Kyra. “I’ll leave, then. You can call me if you’re released early, and I can get down within half an hour. Go with the doctor now and be brave.”
He felt no irony in telling the being who had dared the perils of space to be brave, for she was frightened. As she stood to go, she reached out and took his hand and squeezed it in a gesture of sadness and regret. She took her bag and moved toward the swinging doors Condon held open for her. As she entered she cast a wistful look toward Breedlove before the doors swung shut behind her.
He returned to loneliness at the motel. Telling the desk clerk he was expecting a call, he sat in the lobby and penned a report to Peterson and a letter to his family. In the letter he described his sadness over having to tell her goodbye with such graphic power that it occurred to him that he might objectify his emotions, and in a measure purge them, by writing a poem to Kyra in language simple enough to match her budding literary skills but poignant enough to capture his feelings. Besides, it was something to do.
For over an hour he tried to write her the poem, but the words he found were too heavy-footed to bear such delicate freight and the meter was atrocious. Still, the idea was too good to let drop. In his frustration he decided on an expediency. Coming from an alien culture, Kyra would not be able to recognize a
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