Read Online Shoggoths in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Bear
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baby, just ask her. She knows more about entomology and dinosaurs and stellar astronomy than I ever will.
She’d known I’d come after her. She’d known I could save her. She’d jumped out of the bed so I would see that she was in distress. And she’d crawled away from me, buying time.
They talk about possession. After a crisis, you hear people say they have no idea what they were doing.
I knew exactly what I was doing. I reached down and grabbed Dr. alMansoor’s wrists and held on tight. “Jillian, let go,” she said. “It’s just the Heimlich maneuver.”
Her face was inches from mine, her eyes red with sleeplessness rather than asphyxiation. He scarf has fallen back, and her hair was all tangled over her shoulders. It didn’t matter. We were all women here.
“Thirty seconds,” I said.
She stared at me. She leaned against my hands but I held on to her wrists. Tight.
“Brain damage,” she said.
Dreams can happen fast. The length of the REM cycle affects it, of course, but sometimes even when they seem to take hours, days, they’re over in seconds. Just the forebrain trying to make symbolic sense of electrical noise kicked up by the random signals firing up the brainstem. “Hadiyah. Thirty seconds. Twenty seconds. Let her talk to Albert.”
She licked her lips. And then she jerked her chin sharply, and I saw her mouth move, counting. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen—
Albert is waiting. He’s in a hurry, too. This time, he grabs Tara’s hand in his manipulator without preamble and almost drags her into the tunnel, his many legs rippling indigo-azure-gold as they race underground. But this time its different, dream-different, the microphone gone and a kind of control panel in its place, not made for Tara’s hands. She stops, confused, just inside the arched doorway and waits for Albert to show her what to do. And isn’t it funny, now that she thinks about it, that the doorway is tall enough for her, when Albert’s only two feet high?
He takes the controls in his manipulators. They move over the keypad with arachnid grace. “Tara,” the air says.
“Albert?” At her voice, colors ripple across the panels before him. He turns, regarding them with every evidence of thought in the tilt of his expressionless face on the ball-jointed neck. She shouldn’t try to guess what he feels. She knows that.
She does it anyway. “You figured out how to talk to me.”
“I did,” he says. “Come here. Put your hands on the plate. We don’t have much time.”
“Before my mother stops us?”
He chitters at her, his antennae bristling. “Before the program ends. This is a simulation. I am the last remaining, and we used the last of the power to reach you. We looked and looked, and you were the first we found.”
“You’re dying?”
“Our sun is dying,” he says, and her face crumples painfully. She sniffs back stinging. “Soon, the computers will fail. We’ve lived in them for a very long time. The rest have gone ahead, to conserve power. I chose to stay and search.”
“But you can’t—I just got to talk to you—”
“Will you let me give you our history?”
“Of course,” she says, reaching out. He stops her, though, as sharply as he urged before, his manipulator indenting the flesh of her hand.
“Wait,” he says. “I will put it in your brain. You have to give permission. It could change you.”
She stops. His manipulator is cool and hard, the surface sandpapery. “Change?”
“Make you more like us.”
She looks at him. His antennae feather down, lying against his dorsal surface like the ears of an anxious dog. He’s still. Maybe waiting, she doesn’t know. “And if I don’t, you die.”
“We die,” he says. “Either way.”
She stares at him. The stinging in her eyes grows worse, a pressure in her sinuses and through her skull. She pulls her hand from his manipulator, reaches out resolutely, and places both palms on warm yellow metal as the first tear burns her
She’d known I’d come after her. She’d known I could save her. She’d jumped out of the bed so I would see that she was in distress. And she’d crawled away from me, buying time.
They talk about possession. After a crisis, you hear people say they have no idea what they were doing.
I knew exactly what I was doing. I reached down and grabbed Dr. alMansoor’s wrists and held on tight. “Jillian, let go,” she said. “It’s just the Heimlich maneuver.”
Her face was inches from mine, her eyes red with sleeplessness rather than asphyxiation. He scarf has fallen back, and her hair was all tangled over her shoulders. It didn’t matter. We were all women here.
“Thirty seconds,” I said.
She stared at me. She leaned against my hands but I held on to her wrists. Tight.
“Brain damage,” she said.
Dreams can happen fast. The length of the REM cycle affects it, of course, but sometimes even when they seem to take hours, days, they’re over in seconds. Just the forebrain trying to make symbolic sense of electrical noise kicked up by the random signals firing up the brainstem. “Hadiyah. Thirty seconds. Twenty seconds. Let her talk to Albert.”
She licked her lips. And then she jerked her chin sharply, and I saw her mouth move, counting. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen—
Albert is waiting. He’s in a hurry, too. This time, he grabs Tara’s hand in his manipulator without preamble and almost drags her into the tunnel, his many legs rippling indigo-azure-gold as they race underground. But this time its different, dream-different, the microphone gone and a kind of control panel in its place, not made for Tara’s hands. She stops, confused, just inside the arched doorway and waits for Albert to show her what to do. And isn’t it funny, now that she thinks about it, that the doorway is tall enough for her, when Albert’s only two feet high?
He takes the controls in his manipulators. They move over the keypad with arachnid grace. “Tara,” the air says.
“Albert?” At her voice, colors ripple across the panels before him. He turns, regarding them with every evidence of thought in the tilt of his expressionless face on the ball-jointed neck. She shouldn’t try to guess what he feels. She knows that.
She does it anyway. “You figured out how to talk to me.”
“I did,” he says. “Come here. Put your hands on the plate. We don’t have much time.”
“Before my mother stops us?”
He chitters at her, his antennae bristling. “Before the program ends. This is a simulation. I am the last remaining, and we used the last of the power to reach you. We looked and looked, and you were the first we found.”
“You’re dying?”
“Our sun is dying,” he says, and her face crumples painfully. She sniffs back stinging. “Soon, the computers will fail. We’ve lived in them for a very long time. The rest have gone ahead, to conserve power. I chose to stay and search.”
“But you can’t—I just got to talk to you—”
“Will you let me give you our history?”
“Of course,” she says, reaching out. He stops her, though, as sharply as he urged before, his manipulator indenting the flesh of her hand.
“Wait,” he says. “I will put it in your brain. You have to give permission. It could change you.”
She stops. His manipulator is cool and hard, the surface sandpapery. “Change?”
“Make you more like us.”
She looks at him. His antennae feather down, lying against his dorsal surface like the ears of an anxious dog. He’s still. Maybe waiting, she doesn’t know. “And if I don’t, you die.”
“We die,” he says. “Either way.”
She stares at him. The stinging in her eyes grows worse, a pressure in her sinuses and through her skull. She pulls her hand from his manipulator, reaches out resolutely, and places both palms on warm yellow metal as the first tear burns her
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