Legends From the End of Time by Michael Moorcock (best thriller books to read TXT) 📗

Having no wish to take them by surprise, she called out, but came upon them almost immediately, to discover Miss Ming dabbing hastily at Snuffles' face. In the poor light it was difficult to see why she dabbed, but Dafnish assumed that the lad had, as usual, been eating some confection of which she might have disapproved.

She chuckled. "Oh, dear. What have you two been up to while my back was turned?" (This whimsicality more for Miss Ming's sake than her son's). She reached out her hand to the boy, whose guilty glance at Miss Ming seemed more imploring than was necessary, and led him into the sunlight.

She quelled the distaste she felt for the long red robes of velvet and lace in which Miss Ming had clothed him (Miss Ming herself wore tights and doublet) but could not resist a light: "What would they make of you in Armatuce?" and wondered why he kept his face from her.

Turning to Miss Ming, who had a peculiar expression upon her own features, she began, "I'll take him —" And then her voice died as she saw the smeared rouge, the mascara, the eye shadow, the paint with which Miss Ming had turned the child's face into a parody of a female adult's.

Shocked, she trembled, unable to speak, staring at Miss Ming in accusation and horror.

Miss Ming tried to laugh. "We were playing Princes and Princesses. There was no harm meant…"

The boy began to protest. "Mama, it was only a game."

All she could do was gasp, "Too far. Too far," as she dragged him to the air car. She pushed him roughly in, climbed in herself and stood confronting the ridiculous woman. She tensed herself to reduce the shaking in her body and she drew a deep breath. "Miss Ming," she said carefully, "you need not call tomorrow."

"I hardly think," said Miss Ming. "I mean, I feel you're over-reacting, aren't you? What's wrong with a little fantasy?"

"This," indicating the cosmetics on the frightened face, "is not what children do!"

"Of course they do. They love to dress up and play at being big people."

"I thought, Miss Ming, you played at children. You are a corrupt, foolish woman. I concede that you are unaware of your folly, but I cannot have my child influenced any longer by it. I admit my own stupidity, also. I have been lazy. I allowed myself to believe that your nonsense could do Snuffles no harm."

"Harm? You're overstating…"

"I am not. I saw you. I saw the guilt. And I saw guilt on my boy's face. There was never guilt there before, in all the years of his life."

"I've nothing to be ashamed of!" protested Miss Ming as the air car rose over her head. "You're reacting like some frustrated old maid. What's the matter, isn't Lord Jagged —?" The rest faded and they were on course again for Canaria.

Metal servants gently bathed the boy as soon as they arrived. Slowly the cosmetics disappeared from his skin, and Dafnish Armatuce looked at him with new eyes. She saw a pale boy, a boy who had become too fat; she saw lines of self-indulgence in his face; she detected signs of greed and arrogance in his defiant gaze. Had all this been put there by Miss Ming? No, she could not blame the silly woman. The fault was her own. Careful not to impose upon him the strictures which she imposed upon herself, she had allowed him to indulge appetites which, perhaps, she secretly wished to indulge. In the name of Love and Tolerance she, not Ming, had betrayed Trust.

"I have been unfair," she murmured as the robots wrapped him in towels. "I have not done my duty to you, Snuffles."

"You'll let me play with Miss Ming tomorrow, mama?"

She strove to see in him that virtue she had always cherished, but it was gone. Had it gone from her, too?

"No," she said quietly.

The boy became savage. "Mama! You must! She's my only friend!"

"She is no friend."

"She loves me. You do not!"

"You are that part of myself I am allowed to love," she said. "That is the way of the Armatuce. But perhaps you speak truth, perhaps I do not really love anything." She sighed and lowered her head. She had, she thought, become too used to crying. Now the tears threatened when they had no right to come.

He wheedled. "Then you will let me play with Miss Ming?"

"I must restore your character," she said firmly. "Miss Ming is banished."

"No!"

"My duty —"

"Your duty is to yourself, not to me. Let me go free!"

"You are myself. The only way in which I could give you freedom is to let you come to adult status…"

"Then do so. Give me my life-right."

"I cannot. It serves the Armatuce. The race. We have to go back. At least we must try."

"You go. Leave me."

"That is impossible. If I were to perish, you would have no means of sustenance. Without me, you would die!"

"You are selfish, mama! We can never go back to Armatuce."

"Oh, Snuffles! Do you feel nothing for that part of you which is your mother?"

He shrugged. "Why don't you let me play with Miss Ming?"

"Because she will turn you into a copy of her fatuous, silly self."

"And you would rather I was a copy of a prude like you. Miss Ming is right. You should find yourself a friend and forget me. If I am doomed to remain a child, then at least let me spend my days with whom I choose!"

"You will sleep now, Snuffles. If you wish to continue this debate, we shall do so in the morning."

He sulked, but the argument, the effort of thinking in this way, had tired him. He allowed the robots to lead him off.

Dafnish Armatuce also was tired. Already she was debating the wisdom of allowing herself to react as she had done. No good was served by insulting the self-justifying Miss Ming; the boy lacked real understanding of