The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (96 page)

"They weren't very nice people in real life, Lawrence. I was real close to Fred, but only because it was Cyberspace. There it was nothing but a sick game, and my friends were the people sick enough to make it interesting. But here ... it isn't a game. What I called love back there and what I call love here have nothing to do with one another."
"What do you call love here?"
"Lie back and find out," she teased. As Caroline rode him he looked to the side and saw Nugget watching them, and then he closed his eyes and let himself become lost in the feelings.

THE FALL + 14 YEARS

"It won't be long now, Lawrence."
It was the only argument they had ever had. But it had gone on for years.
They had long since made their home on the ridge separating West Mountain and Music Mountain. It had been tempting to settle on Hot Springs Mountain itself, nearer to the springs, but some instinct had told them that it wouldn't be proper to live on such a unique spot. Besides, the ridge offered a number of different nearby micro-climates supporting a wide variety of gatherable plants and game.
Within the vacuum that was once the town itself, besides the negative impressions of long-disappeared buildings, a public fountain had survived, because it had been made almost entirely of cut stone. The mortar had gone but the stones remained in their original positions. It was not hard to plug the gaps with wooden shims, which would expand to make a water-tight seal when water was added, and to dig a channel guiding the spring's runoff back onto the splash plate so that it could fill the basin. The spring had a chance to cool some as it ran down the mountain, so that the water temperature was suitable for a hot bath; even in the coldest part of winter, the water emerging directly from spring heads was hot enough to scald.
The man-made lakes which once surrounded the town had disappeared with still obvious violence, apparently when the dams restraining them had simply ceased to exist. Floodwaters had cut deep
gulleys
in the valley lowlands, making them treacherous. Occasionally they found arrowheads, which Caroline quietly buried; she had not introduced the bow and arrow to her family, and did not intend to. There were also a couple of Civil War era fortifications, complete with descriptive signage engraved in stone. Whenever she passed one of these, Caroline made sure to take a few swings at the sign with the heaviest available rock; she wanted them obliterated before her children learned to read.
She, of course, would never teach them such a ridiculous thing, but Lawrence was obstinate on the point and Caroline didn't think it would do any harm. It would be forgotten in a few generations, since it served no purpose in their primitive lifestyle.
To celebrate their arrival, Caroline had Lawrence work the gold nugget into a short wire. She used it to pierce her nose, and then bent it into a simple ring. After a while, Lawrence even got used to her wearing it all the time.
Nugget and Ozark roamed freely, together and alone, sometimes miles from home. From one of these expeditions Nugget returned with an improbable prize, a tiny ice-clear stone which caught the sunlight and reflected it in brilliant flashes. It was a faceted diamond. Caroline told her daughter only that it was exceedingly rare, letting her think it was somehow related to the natural quartz crystals which were all over the place.
In warm weather Nugget sometimes wore a loincloth, in Lawrence's fashion, and sometimes went nude like her mother. Ozark had adopted Lawrence's more modest habits. The younger children, male and female, went nude unless the weather required otherwise; Caroline refused to force them into modesty, and they had demonstrated little inclination in that direction. All of the children had seen them having sex; Caroline insisted that they make no effort to hide it. Fortunately, the kids seemed to accept their explanation that they were "playing an old peoples' game."
Except that Nugget would soon be ready to play it, too.
"I can feel it. In a month or two, she'll be a woman. I haven't hidden it from her, you know; I've shown her my own period, and she knows what it's for."