by Sharon Lee
"He should have trained you more fully," I said. "My own maker trained me carefully, so I would not make a foolish mistake, like going out into the sunlight or attempting to cross running water..." Nikita wasn’t listening. She was staring at the makeshift curtain she had drawn across her window.
"I put that up because the sun-- made me sick..."
She looked back to me.
"You’re old, you said. How old?"
"Two hundred forty-seven years."
"That’s old," she said. "And you still can’t paint."
"I will never paint," I told her. "Humans paint. And even among humans a true artist is rare."
She nodded then, very slowly, took my arm and turned me toward the wall. She pointed at the portrait of the human girl, poised before her easel.
"That’s yours," she said. "Send the rest of them to my mother, OK? Her name’s Sandra Elmwick--she’s in my address book. She always said I’d kill myself."
She dropped my arm and went toward the door, her stride firm, her thin back straight.
"Nikita..."
She opened the door; looked at me over her shoulder.
"I’m going for a walk," she said. "It’s going to be a beautiful morning."
She went, and there was nothing I might do to stop her, who was impervious now to my Speaking of her name. From the threshold of her room, I heard the front door open and close.
Four seconds later, I heard her scream.
First published in Variations Three, 2003
About the Author
Sharon Lee's first fiction sale was to Amazing Stories in 1980. She has since published 21 novels -- many of them co-written with Steve Miller and set in the award-winning Liaden Universe®. Sharon has occasionally been an advertising copywriter, a reporter, photographer, book reviewer, and secretary. She was for three years Executive Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., and was subsequently elected vice president and then president of that organization.
Find Sharon on:
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. . .or visit her website at: http://www.sharonleewriter.com