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    Blind Man's Lantern
    Blind Man's Lantern
    Blind Man's Lantern
    Ebook47 pages43 minutes

    Blind Man's Lantern

    By Allen Lang

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    About this ebook

    Successful colonies among the stars require interstellar ships—but they require, also, a very special kind of man. A kind you might not think to look for....
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEndymion Press
    Release dateAug 25, 2016
    ISBN9781531295196
    Blind Man's Lantern

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      Book preview

      Blind Man's Lantern - Allen Lang

      BLIND MAN’S LANTERN

      Allen Lang

      ENDYMION PRESS

      Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review or connect with the author.

      All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

      Copyright © 2016 by Allen Lang

      Interior design by Pronoun

      Distribution by Pronoun

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Blind Man’s Lantern

      BLIND MAN’S LANTERN

      WALKING HOME IN THE dark from an evening spent in mischief, a young man spied coming toward him down the road a person with a lamp. When the wayfarers drew abreast, the play-boy saw that the other traveler was the Blind Man from his village. Blind Man, the youngster shouted across the road, what a fool you be! Why, old No-Eyes, do you bear a lantern, you whose midnight is no darker than his noonday? The Blind Man lifted his lamp. It is not as a light for myself that I carry this, Boy, he said, it is to warn off you fools with eyes.

      —Hausa proverb

      The Captain shook hands with the black-hatted Amishman while the woman stood aside, not concerning herself with men’s business. "It’s been a pleasure to have you and Fraa Stoltzfoos aboard, Aaron, the Captain said. Ship’s stores are yours, my friend; if there’s anything you need, take it and welcome. You’re a long way from the corner grocery."

      My Martha and I have all that’s needful, Aaron Stoltzfoos said. We have our plow, our seed, our land. Captain, please tell your men, who treated us strangers as honored guests, we thank them from our hearts. We’ll not soon forget their kindness.

      I’ll tell them, the Captain promised. Stoltzfoos hoisted himself to the wagon seat and reached a hand down to boost his wife up beside him. Martha Stoltzfoos sat, blushing a bit for having displayed an accidental inch of black stocking before the ship’s officers. She smoothed down her black skirts and apron, patted the candle-snuffer Kapp into place over her prayer-covering, and tucked the wool cape around her arms and shoulders. The world outside, her husband said, was a cold one.

      Now in the Stoltzfoos wagon was the final lot of homestead goods with which these two Amishers would battle the world of Murna. There was the plow and bags of seed, two crates of nervous chickens; a huge, round tabletop; an alcohol-burning laboratory incubator, bottles of agar-powder, and a pressure cooker that could can vegetables as readily as it could autoclave culture-media. There was a microscope designed to work by lamplight, as the worldly vanity of electric light would ill suit an Old Order bacteriologist like Martha Stoltzfoos. Walled in by all this gear was another passenger due to debark on Murna, snuffling and grunting with impatience. "Sei schtill, Wutzchen, Stoltzfoos crooned. You’ll be in your home pen soon enough."

      The Captain raised his hand. The Engineer punched a button to tongue the landing ramp out to Murnan earth. Cold air rammed in from the outside winter. The four horses stomped their hoofs on the floor-plates, their breath spikes of steam. Wutzchen squealed dismay as the chill hit his nose.

      "We’re reddi far geh, Captain, Stoltzfoos said. My woman and I invite you and your men to feast at our table when you’re back in these parts, five years hence. We’ll stuff you fat as sausages with onion soup and Pannhaas, Knepp and Ebbelkuche,

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