Acts of Conscience Read Online Free PDF Page B

campsite’s metal and stone hibachi using firewood from the little pile the park service provided as part of the ten-livre camping fee. Cooked our sausages and meat patties, watched our neighbors swim while the sun went down, watched the stars come out as the sky turned dark.
    If you look sharp, you can sort of see a faint spiderwork of monorail lines on the face of the Moon. The lights on the nightside show up like bright, steady, misplaced stars.
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    Much later. Fire dying down to embers, soft breeze rustling the leaves of the trees, making a sound not so different from what you hear by the seaside, soft rush of water during an ebb tide. Stars glittering overhead. Twinkling’s the word Earthpeople use, I think.
    I sat dressed only in my shorts, back pressed to some smooth-barked tree, still sun-warm to the touch, bare feet combed into the turf and leaf litter, looking out over Lake A71K’s flat black water, lake named, I think, after the serial number of the bomb that dug the hole. There were stars reflected in the lake, light coming to me from stars hanging over the low treeline beyond the lake, stars sitting over the centuries-old remains of broken buildings.
    I thought about the prayer my parents’d made me say every night when I was a little boy. Now I lay me down to sleep ... Remembered arguing with my friend Shelly, whose own version of the prayer began with soon instead of now .
    If I should die before I wake ... I used to have nightmares about waking up in the emergency room resuscitation unit, empty inside, emptied of feeling, hardly like a human being at all... Well, Doc, the Lord came and took my soul while I was dead. What am I supposed to do now ?
    Soft rustling from the campsite nearby, from inside the nearest tent, the one pitched beside mine. Phil and Garstang. I heard them murmuring, whispering together. No words I could make out, only words I could imagine. Something like a giggle. Rustle of cloth. Sleeping bag zippers.
    Long, trenchant silence. Then the soft shadow of a sigh. Garstang used to make that same sigh for me. I sat, still as a mouse, quiet as a worm, paying careful attention to the sounds.
    Dark shadow suddenly looming over me in the night. Rua Mater coming back from the showerhouse, wrapped in a flimsy robe, dark blue I think, looking down at me, dark hair, dark eyes buried in shadow, no more than a hint of liquid glitter. Standing there with the robe clutched tight around herself, a curved outline of hip and breast superimposed against the lesser shadows of night.
    I heard her make an intake of breath through her nose, short and sharp, and she opened her mouth, about to speak.
    Garstang groaned, “Oh, Phil. Yes.”
    Rua’s mouth hanging open, startled, words halted.
    From inside the tent, rhythmic sounds started up, mostly the sound of cloth rubbing on cloth. Phil’s knees pushing the air mattress around, Garstang’s back moving on the sleeping bag maybe.
    Rua whispered, “Are you...”
    Am I what? Am I going to get my dick out and masturbate while my old girlfriend takes it up the middle? Well, yes, I was thinking about it before you came long.
    Rua Mater standing there, staring at me, while, inside the tent, Garstang’s breath started coming in short gasps. Rua whispered, “Jesus, Gaetan...”
    You could hear Phil’s breathing now, deeper sounds, longer gasps. Rua stood over me, suddenly reached out with one hand, halfway toward me, stopped, stood stock-still, arm outstretched.
    What now, Rua Mater of the dark hair and eyes and omnipresent vidnet clip? Feeling sorry for me, are you? Pity, then? Or contempt? No way for me to know. Or guess what was going to happen next. Women have their own agendas, driven by a very different sort of reproductive psychology. She might reach for my crotch now, or just kick me in the nuts.
    Rua whispered, “Goodnight, Gae.” Turned and walk away, stooped down and crawled through the fly of her own tent.
    I called out, “Goodnight!”
    The