fucking margin. The Uau is using humans to take over the fucking Earth. That bastard, that bastard ElilE—he knew there was a goddamn monster living under the city, he had to know!”
Saru thought of the pit of writhing bodies under Philadelphia, the cathedral of living flesh, and the centipedes with human torsos for heads. It was a chimera, a bastard hybrid of her universe and the UausuaU. Okay, she could buy that, the damn thing was bizarre enough—but what was the chimera doing there ? Right under Philadelphia. Why wasn’t it five hundred miles away, somewhere secret? Why have your chimera in the most likely place you could ever be discovered? She had been going about it the wrong way, thinking the Uau needed to hide from humans. But no. Humans were their nectar, the petri dish in which they grew. Of course ElilE had known the Uau chimera was there. Saru had given him the benefit of the doubt—maybe he really was stupid enough to not have a clue. But again she had been approaching the whole problem backwards. She had assumed ElilE was trying to protect humans from the aliens, but it was just the opposite!
“Your job,” Saru said. “The Gaespora. Your job isn’t to protect humans. It’s to protect the Earth from humans. To protect your friend Ben here from us .”
And she understood the hate of the chimera beaming up at her from below, and the fear, not of her, but of what she could become if she succumbed to the lure of the Uau.
“The creature of human flesh you described could only have been a holodomor,” John said. “A chimera of the UausuaU. Your reasoning strikes truth. Human civilization is shifting Earth’s margin towards the UausuaU. Humans are a biological exploit. The Gaespora fight to arrest this corruption.”
“Holy shit!” Saru said. Her heart was racing. Her fists clenched and unclenched. The veins on her wrists popped taut. And on the heels of that first revelation came another:
“The thing that looked like a giant chandelier, the thing that shot a laser at the holla, hollow—”
“Holodomor.”
“Hollerdermor. Holodomor. That thing was the Blue God’s chimera, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. A scintillant. The Gaespora have known of SaialqlaiaS’s presence in this universe for some time. Its scintillants live within the radiation of our stars. They first appeared in the sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum that appears to humans as blue light. I did not know there was a scintillant growing within the light of our sun. Perhaps it was known to others within the shared consciousness.”
“Ten million bucks says ElilE fuckin’ knew.”
“SaialqlaiaS is still a great mystery to the Gaespora. There is overlap between the mechanisms of the Gods, but not enough to reach conclusions through extrapolation. The relationship between native host and chimera is symbiotic within the Gaespora. My erstwhile brethren and I strove to protect our chimeras, and they in turn protected us, and we all lent the labor of our minds to the shared consciousness. Within the UausuaU the relationship is parasitic, with the holodomors dominating their servant hosts—the elzi and the feasters.”
“Great! I could have a parasitic alien God growing inside me.”
“It is a possibility. The relationship is unknown. You demonstrate critical thinking and willpower. These are the armaments of the independent mind. Do not squander your energy on fear.”
“Yeah well—” Saru stopped. She was planning on saying “easy for you to say,” but it didn’t quite work. John had been there. He’d been part of the alien scrum. He knew the feeling.
“But here’s what I don’t get,” Saru said instead. “Individual people must have a margin with the UausuaU, right? Or else it wouldn’t make much sense that our whole civilization does. And so that means I must share a margin with the UausuaU. But I also have these magic blue eyes. And this magic flower of the Slow God.” She plucked the flower from her hair and
Saru thought of the pit of writhing bodies under Philadelphia, the cathedral of living flesh, and the centipedes with human torsos for heads. It was a chimera, a bastard hybrid of her universe and the UausuaU. Okay, she could buy that, the damn thing was bizarre enough—but what was the chimera doing there ? Right under Philadelphia. Why wasn’t it five hundred miles away, somewhere secret? Why have your chimera in the most likely place you could ever be discovered? She had been going about it the wrong way, thinking the Uau needed to hide from humans. But no. Humans were their nectar, the petri dish in which they grew. Of course ElilE had known the Uau chimera was there. Saru had given him the benefit of the doubt—maybe he really was stupid enough to not have a clue. But again she had been approaching the whole problem backwards. She had assumed ElilE was trying to protect humans from the aliens, but it was just the opposite!
“Your job,” Saru said. “The Gaespora. Your job isn’t to protect humans. It’s to protect the Earth from humans. To protect your friend Ben here from us .”
And she understood the hate of the chimera beaming up at her from below, and the fear, not of her, but of what she could become if she succumbed to the lure of the Uau.
“The creature of human flesh you described could only have been a holodomor,” John said. “A chimera of the UausuaU. Your reasoning strikes truth. Human civilization is shifting Earth’s margin towards the UausuaU. Humans are a biological exploit. The Gaespora fight to arrest this corruption.”
“Holy shit!” Saru said. Her heart was racing. Her fists clenched and unclenched. The veins on her wrists popped taut. And on the heels of that first revelation came another:
“The thing that looked like a giant chandelier, the thing that shot a laser at the holla, hollow—”
“Holodomor.”
“Hollerdermor. Holodomor. That thing was the Blue God’s chimera, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. A scintillant. The Gaespora have known of SaialqlaiaS’s presence in this universe for some time. Its scintillants live within the radiation of our stars. They first appeared in the sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum that appears to humans as blue light. I did not know there was a scintillant growing within the light of our sun. Perhaps it was known to others within the shared consciousness.”
“Ten million bucks says ElilE fuckin’ knew.”
“SaialqlaiaS is still a great mystery to the Gaespora. There is overlap between the mechanisms of the Gods, but not enough to reach conclusions through extrapolation. The relationship between native host and chimera is symbiotic within the Gaespora. My erstwhile brethren and I strove to protect our chimeras, and they in turn protected us, and we all lent the labor of our minds to the shared consciousness. Within the UausuaU the relationship is parasitic, with the holodomors dominating their servant hosts—the elzi and the feasters.”
“Great! I could have a parasitic alien God growing inside me.”
“It is a possibility. The relationship is unknown. You demonstrate critical thinking and willpower. These are the armaments of the independent mind. Do not squander your energy on fear.”
“Yeah well—” Saru stopped. She was planning on saying “easy for you to say,” but it didn’t quite work. John had been there. He’d been part of the alien scrum. He knew the feeling.
“But here’s what I don’t get,” Saru said instead. “Individual people must have a margin with the UausuaU, right? Or else it wouldn’t make much sense that our whole civilization does. And so that means I must share a margin with the UausuaU. But I also have these magic blue eyes. And this magic flower of the Slow God.” She plucked the flower from her hair and
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