Many Mansions

An old woman, Nor, welcomes a female visitor from the Motherworld.  She recalls the devastation wrought by the War and is grateful that the offworlders have returned to help rebuild. Nor indicates that her home was built by her husband, Todd, thirty years earlier. 

Offering her visitor cake and imitation tea, Nor remembers an earlier caller from the Motherworld.  She acknowledges that the visitor will have a difficult task in searching out her compatriot, given the lingering hostility from the War.  Nor posits that the woman was taken by one of the planet’s old houses.

Nor explains that the houses built before the War were made to be sentient and mobile.  She speculates that the homes were tethered to and controlled by human beings.

The old woman recalls her ancestral home and how it decorated itself with flowers and kept itself in good repair.  Nor denies having seen such a house but believes her husband Todd has.  

Nor reflects on the world before the War and its impact on the native people and on her own kind.  She remembers that the conflict sent many sentient houses into hiding for fear of being bombed or burned.  Nor describes how many homes remain concealed, out of sight of the offworlder patrols.  She describes how Todd once found a home in the woods with a light burning in its upper-story window.

The visitor asks whether the living homes remain occupied.  Nor indicates that people have been spotted in their windows from time to time.  The old woman explains that the houses are full of sought-after luxuries and that the buildings have been known to lure in curious humans with the promise of riches.

As her guest makes to leave, Nor asks that she linger longer.  The old woman tells a story of a local prostitute who was tempted to enter a living bordello that she encountered outside of town.  Nor breaks off her storytelling as she hears Todd approach.

Todd greets the visitor from the Motherworld warmly and offers a drink.  He explains away a shifting sensation rising from the house, which Todd notes was built by Nor’s father after the War.

The old man offers a story about a local lush, Pim Pyntey, and his encounter with a living house. Todd describes how Pim believed himself to be stalked by the houses and how he once, in a snowstorm, came across a mansion looking down on him along a mountain pass.  Digressing, the old man reflects on the tumbledown structures left on the world by civilizations past.