The Golden Space Read Online Free Page A

one side of a clearing. Four others, with enclosed front porches, sat almost two hundred meters away on the other side of the clearing. Behind them, on a hill, she saw a red brick building that was large enough for several people.
    A bulldozer, a heavy, lumbering, metallic beast, excavated land doggedly while two men watched. She assumed that the two were involved in the project, although they might have been only curious bystanders.
    Josepha walked through the clearing, which would be transformed into a park. A tall brown-skinned man stood on the porch of one house, his back to her. She saw no one else. She came to a stone path and followed it, passing the unoccupied houses. Each was surrounded by a plot of ground which would become a garden. The park would eventually contain two large buildings: a hall where everyone could gather for meals, recreation, or meetings, and a hostel for the children. One part of the recreation hall would be used as a school.
    The path ended at a low stone wall. Josepha stood in front of an open metal gate and looked past a small courtyard at a two-story stone house. She approached the gray structure and peered through a window. She saw sturdy walls instead of movable panels, a stairway instead of a ramp, and decided this was where she would live. The house was too large for only one parent and child, but she could find someone to share it with her.
    She heard footsteps and turned. The tall man stood at the gate. He adjusted his gold-trimmed blue robe and bowed slightly. She returned the bow and moved toward him, stopping about half a meter away. His black hair was short and his beard closely trimmed. “Chane Maggio,” he said in a deep voice as he extended his right hand.
    She was puzzled, startled by the lack of ceremony. She suddenly realized that he was telling her his name. He continued to hold out his hand and at last she took it, shook hands, and released it. “I’m Josepha Ryba.”
    “You are startled by my informality.” He folded his slender arms over his chest. “Perhaps I am being rude, but we have little time to become acquainted, only a few months before gestation begins and then only nine months to the birth of the children. I am afraid we cannot stand on ceremony in our salutations.”
    She smiled. “How long have you been here?”
    “I arrived this morning. I believe we are the only prospective parents here.” He offered his arm and she took it. They began to amble along the stone path.
    She sensed that Chane Maggio remembered the Transition. She was not sure how she knew; perhaps it was the informality of his greeting, the sense of contingency in his voice, or his silence now as they strolled. Younger people always wanted to fill the silences with words or games or actions of some kind. The Transition was only history to them. To Josepha, and those like her, it would forever be the most important time of their lives, however long they lived. It had made them survivors with the guilt of survivors. The simplest sensation meant both more and less to them than to those born later. Josepha, acutely conscious of Chane’s arm, the clatter of their sandals on the stones, the warm breeze that brushed her hair, remembered that she was alive and that others were not and that she was somehow coarsened by this. A younger person, caught in the timeless present, would accept the sensations for themselves.
    “This venture promises to be most interesting,” Chane said softly in
his deep voice. “I have raised children before—I had a son and daughter long ago—a
rewarding task, watching a child grow, trying to—” He paused.
    Josepha waited, not wanting to be rude by interrupting. “There are problems, of course,” he continued, and she caught an undercurrent of bitterness and disappointment. “There is always the unexpected.” His voice changed again, becoming lighter and more casual. “They live on Asgard now; at least they did fifty years ago. They claim it’s too