Free The Secret City by Carol Emshwiller

natives nor of us who grew up here. Some of the tourists must have gotten back before they stopped picking us up. Some of those tourists must have told them about this world. And why don’t they sit down and talk with us even for just a minute? Give us a chance to think about it and choose if we want to go home or not and if we do, give us a chance to say good-bye? They think we don’t know enough to decide for ourselves. Mollish knows both worlds and wants to stay.
    I have to get down to her to see if she’s all right.
    Except I don’t want this man trying to send me home again when my back is turned. But that was a good punch. He’s out cold. I examine his instruments, strange small tubes with little paper clip things as switches. I wouldn’t dare flip any of them. I’d like to get rid of them and him—send him home though I don’t know how. I wonder if Mollish remembers how to use these.
    I look under his arms and as far as I can see there’s no beacon. Yet they can’t want to be stuck here any more than our parents did.
    I take his tubes, then I go along the trail until there’s a way to climb down. I toss his tubes down in front of me, take off my backpack. Then I leave the trail and start down. I hope Mollish is all right. It’s a long fall but she’s tough. For sure tougher than they are.
    Allush wanted to go home. I shouldn’t feel bad though I do. Did she really want to go back without me? Or did she think I’d follow? She’s the only woman of my own people…. And she liked me.

    ALLUSH
    I CAN’T TAKE IT IN . S PIRES, DAZZLE, CHIRPING AND cheeping. A distant humming. The air has a kind of glitter. Could that be? Maybe it’s all inside my head. But it’s wonderful even so. I knew I was right to come back. The Secret City was supposed to be like the cities of home, but it wasn’t. It was supposed to remind our parents and show us younger ones what the home planet was like, but how could it? Everything had to hide under the trees and here it’s all towers and shine! They couldn’t have had any of this. And, with everything made of granite, there was nothing but gray. Here I can’t tell what I’m seeing. I hardly know where one tower begins and another ends.
    Porches. Are those really porches? Tethered? Like square boats but in the air? Our parents should have told us. But maybe they tried and we didn’t understand.
    And those doorways! I’m sure they really open and not just into a closet or into nothing.
    Those sounds might be birds. Our parents said there were lots of birds … that almost everything was birds. There’s something twirling in the distance. Do their birds twirl instead of fly?
    There’s this silvery haze. It looks as if it’s raining though it isn’t. Little white puffy things like seeds are falling out of the sky. Everything that should be green is reddish. There’s a bitter smell. I’m not sure if I like it or not. But this is home! This is what I’ve waited for all my life. How can I not like it?
    I think to move closer to get a better look at the buildings, and then I realize I’m on a platform above everybody else—as if on display and there’s a dead man lying right beside me. He’s wearing a ridiculouso outfit. It’s those clothes they all thought the natives wore but they hardly ever did—except in Hawaii. But everybody here is colorful. I’m the one, looks drab. I’m in my worn deerskin outfit. And I’m dirty. They all have fancy hairdos, black hair even curling round their eyes. Or maybe that’s some kind of glasses. I hate to think what
my
hair looks like. I hardly ever comb it anymore. That’s because I can’t. I did try because of Lorpas being there, but it was in a permanent tangle. I knew I’d have to cut out the knots first. I was going to ask Mollish to help.
    Everybody’s looking at me. This is a wide central square and they’re on wide steps below. They’re laughing and trying to hide it. For sure they’ve never seen somebody from the