Read Online Surfacing by Walter Jon Williams - Free Book Online Page A

said. “Sometimes he inhabits me.”
    Whalesong rolled up from the sea. We and Air Human send one another cheerful salutations and expressions of good will.
    “Talk to the whales first,” said Anthony.
    *
    “Telamon’s a scientist,” Philana said. “He’s impatient, that’s his problem.”
    The boat heaved on an ocean swell. The trade wind moaned through the flybridge. “He’s got a few more problems than that,” Anthony said.
    “He wanted me for a purpose but sometimes he forgets.” A tremor of pain crossed Philana’s face. She was deeply hung over. Her voice was ragged: Telamon had been smoking like a chimney and Philana wasn’t used to it.
    “He wanted to do an experiment on human psychology. He wanted to arrange a method of recording a person’s memories, then transferring them to his own… sphere. He got my parents to agree to having the appropriate devices implanted, but the only apparatus that existed for the connection of human and Kyklops was the one the Kyklopes use to manipulate the human bodies that they wear when they want to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. And Telamon is…” She waved a dismissive arm. “He’s a decadent, the way a lot of the Kyklopes turn once they discover how much fun it is to be a human and that their real self doesn’t get hurt no matter what they do to their clone bodies. Telamon likes his pleasures, and he likes to interfere. Sometimes, when he dumped my memory into the n th dimension and had a look at it, he couldn’t resist the temptation to take over my body and rectify what he considered my errors. And occasionally, when he’s in the middle of one of his binges, and his other body gives out on him, he takes me over and starts a party wherever I am.”
    “Some scientist,” Anthony said.
    “The Kyklopes are used to experimenting on pieces of themselves,” Philana said. “Their own beings are tenuous and rather… detachable. Their ethics aren’t against it. And he doesn’t do it very often. He must be bored wherever he is— he’s taken me over twice in a week.” She raised her fist to her face and began to cough, a real smoker’s hack. Anthony fidgeted and wondered whether to offer her a glass of water. Philana bent double and the coughs turned to cries of pain. A tear pattered on the teak.
    A knot twisted in Anthony’s throat. He left his chair and held Philana in his arms. “I’ve never told anyone,” she said.
    Anthony realized to his transient alarm that once again he’d jumped off a cliff without looking. He had no more idea of where he would land than last time.
    *
    Philana, Anthony was given to understand, was Greek for “lover of humanity.” The Kyklopes, after being saddled with a mythological name by the first humans who had contacted them, had gone in for classical allusion in a big way. Telamon, Anthony learned, meant (among other things) “the supporter.” After learning this, Anthony referred to the alien as Jockstrap.
    “We should do something about him,” Anthony said. It was late— the white dwarf had just set— but neither of them had any desire to sleep. He and Philana were standing on the flybridge. The falkner shield was off and above their heads the uninhibited stars seemed almost within reach of their questing fingertips. Overlook Station, fixed almost overhead, was bright as a burning brand.
    Philana shook her head. “He’s got access to my memory. Any plans we make, he can know in an instant.” She thought for a moment. “If he bothers to look. He doesn’t always.”
    “I’ll make the plans without telling you what they are.”
    “It will take forever. I’ve thought about it. You’re talking court case. He can sue me for breach of contract.”
    “It’s your parents who signed the contract, not you. You’re an adult now.”
    She turned away. Anthony looked at her for a long moment, a cold foreboding hand around his throat. “I hope,” he said, “you’re going to tell me that you signed that