Capitol - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,65

door where Doon told the Little Boys to go wait elsewhere.

"This had better be good, Doon," Mother said, knowing from the way he acted that it would be good.

"It'll be worth the walk. Though you used to walk much farther than this in your childhood," he said.

"Kilometers and kilometers," she said. "What a wonderful word. It even sounds like going up hills and down them again. A traveling word. Kilometers. Show me this place Where the birds sing from the trees."

And Doon opened the door.

She walked in briskly, then slowed, then stopped. And after a moment she began walking briskly among the trees, pausing only to strip off her shoes and dig her bare toes into the grass and the dirt. A bird fluttered past her. A breeze spun her hair out like a fan. She laughed.

Laughing, she leaned against a tree, put her hands on the bark, slid down the tree, sat in the grass. The sun shone brightly above her.

"How did you do it? How did you hold this spot of earth? When I last touched ground like this, I was twenty, and it was one of the few parks left on Capitol!"

"It isn't real," Doon,answered. "The trees and birds and grass are real enough, of course, but the sky is a dome and the sun is artificial. It can tan you, though."

"I always freckled. But I said, 'Damn the freckles, I worship the sun!'"

"I know," Doon said. "I tell everyone that this place is modeled after Garden, a planet where they restrict immigration and industry is kept to a minimum. But you know what this place really is."

"Crove," she said. "My grandfather's world! What this planet used to be before it was sheathed in metal like a vast chastity belt, blocking life from this place forever; oh, Doon, whitever it is you want, you can have, only let me come and spend an afternoon here on every waking!"

"I'll be glad to have you come. Only you know what it means."

"But you want something from me, anyway," she said.

He smiled. "Want to swim?"

"You have water?"

"A lake. Crystal clear water. A bit chilly, though."

"Where!"

He led her to the water, and she unhesitatingly took off her clothes and dove in. Doon met her in the middle of the lake, where she floated on her back, looking upward as a cloud passed before the sun.

"I must have died," she said. "This must be heaven."

"You're a believer?" Doon asked.

"Only in myself. We make our own heavens. And I see, Doon, that you have created a good one. Well, Doon, you're the first man I've talked to today who wasn't an utter ass."

"I do not aspire to surpass my superiors."

She chuckled, fanning her hands to propel herself gently in the water. Doon, too, lay on his back in the water, and they heard each other's words through the rushing sound of water in their ears.

"Now the complete list, Mr. Doon," she said. "All the things, you are in control of."

"As I told you," he said. "Part of the ministry of colonialization."

"And?"

"The rest of the ministry. And the rest of the ministries."

"All of them?" she asked,

"Through one means or another. No one knows it, however. I just own the people who own the people who run it. I don't muck with the everyday affairs."

"Good of you. Let them think they're independent. And?"

"And?"

"The rest of the list?"

"That's the list. All the ministries. And the ministries control everything else."

"Not everything. Not somec," she said.

"Oh, yes. The independent, untouchable agency. Only Mother can make the rules for the Sleeproom."

"But you control that, too, don't you?"

"Actually, I had to take it over first. That let me control who woke up when. Very useful. It lets me get rid of people I don't want. I just put them on a lower level of somec, if they're weak, and they die out very soon. Or I put them on a higher level of somec, if they're strong, and they aren't around often enough to bother me."

"You rule my empire, then?"

"I do," Doon answered.

"Have you brought me here to kill me?"

Doon swung over and treaded water, looking at her in alarm. "You don't believe that, do you?" he, asked. "I'd never do that, Mother, never. I've admired you too much. I've modeled my life on yours. The way you controlled the empire from the start, and everyone thought it was your husband, Selvock, the poor stud."

"He wasn't much of a stud," Mother mused. "He never fathered a child on anyone."

"No, Mother.