Read Online The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) by T. J. Bass - Free Book Online Page A

where his eyes could not reach. The black, granular soot tasted acrid. The soft furry things scurried away. He collected loose items around himself and sat in his corner watching the other members of the household go about their daily routines. Occasionally he was tossed a word or a food item, but mostly he was ignored. Had he been older, he might have thought his ugliness accounted for his isolation. Or that his untrimmed feet, with their five toes, indicated his bestiality, earning him this low neglected station in life. But this reasoning would be wrong, for the adults were just too dim-minded to relate.
    Clover’s feeble grasp on reality was shaken loose by the Chucker Team. They stood in her doorway – three of them wearing gaudy smocks and carrying toys – and asked for Little Har. She pointed numbly at the toddler in the centre of the cubicle.
    ‘But he’s so small . . .’ she stammered.
    ‘If he walks or talks he needs a permit,’ said the Team Leader. ‘Here, Har, see the toy.’
    Clover’s mind retreated into the dark furrows of her brain. Her face went slack, expressionless. ‘Harlan,’ she said blandly, ‘go with these men. Return to the protein pool.’
    He tilted his head up quizzically. The words meant nothing, but the blank expression on her face frightened him. Her eyes did not focus on his anymore. He ran to her, grasping her knees. ‘Ma!’ Rough hands pried him away and set him in the Chuck Wagon. He scrambled out. The net fell on him.
    When he saw the ominous, dark Chute he quieted. Its foul vapours chilled his heart. ‘Ma!’ His tiny fingers clung to the net, to the sleeve of a Chucker, and to the crusted rim of the Chute. The struggle was brief. His cries faded down the Chute.
    Clover sat quietly in her darkened cubicle – her FBMs returning.
    Little Har’s fall was brief, interrupted by a pillowy catcher’s mitt attachment. The White Meck operating the mitt was counting ‘lives saved’. When the daily quota was achieved, the mitt was removed and the Chute panel replaced. Subsequent objects completed their trip to the blades.
    Har sat in the musty darkness quietly. He had started to crawl, but found that he was on a narrow beam. Echoes told him that he was surrounded by vast space – dangerously long drops if he slipped. A small heap of puzzled and confused infants surrounded him. One did wander off and drop. Its scream was interrupted by the strum of a tight cable far below. One adult had been rescued – a weak, old derelict who promptly died.
    The White Meck flashed its light around, picked up the infants and placed them in its dorsal stretcher cradle. One of the more vigorous, a wily simian, crept away into the darkness. Har liked the gentle way he was handled. He trusted the meck and gripped the cradle straps as it rolled down a spiral air vent. The darkness was broken by scant light sources, weak reds and blues on control panels, jagged whites where seams opened to living quarters – enough to teach him the three-dimensional aspect of their journey to City-base. They were going down; his mother was up.
    The meck quickly deposited its living contraband in a maze of pipes and conduits – a jungle of sweating, pulsing, hissing tubes that were the City’s vascular system. Har caught glimpses of other fugitives cowering in the perpetual shadows. He turned to look for the meck. It was gone. He sat down and cried, the simple weeping of a little lost soul. He slept. When he awoke he was changed. His strong genes surfaced – unpitted. The little stoic was driven by hunger and thirst – and the desire to return to his mother-figure.
    He followed the sound of water: dripping, splashing, and lapping. He found two larger children drinking from a pool under a cold, frosty pipe. When he approached them, he was met by a kick and a snarl. He crouched quietly and waited for them to finish. After they moved on he approached and drank. The taste was fresh and clean. He’d remember this