Read Online The Meat Tree by Gwyneth Lewis - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gwyneth Lewis
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a beam was shone into me. It came from him, the way he reflected my own being back at me. But there was more, I was being scanned. Something was reaching inside my brain, searching and questing. For what, I donât know but it was being done by an entity much more complex than any of the characters in the game.
Iâm tired. What started as a curiosity of a wreck is proving more difficult than I ever thought. Hell, I used to solve cases like this all the time, didnât find them so hard. I must be getting old. Probably no bad thing that Iâm retiring. I havenât got what it takes any more.
It was like being snow blind. I used to think that meant that your pupils opened so wide you were dazzled. What happens is the opposite. They contract to pinpricks and never want to open again because the light outside is such a threat. So, at the very moment when youâre staggering around, fully illuminated, your eyes are confined to their own private blackness.
What am I missing while Iâm dark in the light?
10
Arms
Synapse Log 7 Feb 2210, 15:00
Apprentice
Short day today. Did the second curse, the armour. As expected, straightforward.
He told me about the cassette tape last night. Campion thinks that it holds the key to the wreck. That the VR is an imaginative version of what happened to the crew. Long voyage. Boredom. Relations take on a dynamic of their own, unforeseen by the planners. Someone screwed someone they shouldnât have. Illicit relations. A child born, his mother not happy. Et cetera.
Whatâs wrong is the time frame. What if, I asked, they came not from Earth but from another direction? What if they came from a planet so remote that it took a whole generation for them to travel here? That gives them plenty of time to conceive and bear children. Might that be why the VRâs so obsessed with young ones of every kind â fawns, piglets, wolf cubs, boys?
Inspector of Wrecks
Of course, itâs ridiculous. It canât possibly explain how an old-fashioned vessel, full of Earth culture, could come from somewhere else. It doesnât make sense. Only time-wise. The whole thing refuses to add up.
Second curse was straightforward. Aranrhod: no arms for the boy. So Gwydion and Lleu â I still have a hard time thinking that name â go away to ponder. I made Nona take the Gwydion part, as I wanted to try something without her noticing.
She
So Gwydionâs a master of disguises, yes? So I change our appearance and present ourselves to Aranrhodâs court as two poets. Not my idea of entertainment, but I suppose in those days they were desperate.
He
Aranrhod does the usual medieval thing and invites them in. That night, at the feast, Gwydion enter tains her.
They have a good time, as theyâre a match for each other. For every story that Gwydion tells, Aranrhod knows another. And it gets very late and the drink is flowing. You know the kind of night. When the sugar in the booze keeps you up, more awake than youâve been all day and life is funny and fits neatly into your stories. Then everythingâs suddenly unbearably sad, and a song is called for. Then more alcohol until even your drunkenness is in tatters, you could go on forever, except that your eyes⦠and when you lie down, the room whirls around you.
She
Except that Iâve only been pretending to drink, keeping pace with Aranrhod.
We go to bed, the lad and I, and then I get busy.
He
As Aranrhod, Iâm lying there, having been sick, with a terrible hangover. I hear a huge racket outside: alarms being sounded and an armed attack on the fort. I get up and, in the confusion, canât work out whoâs fighting us or why. But the only thing I think to do is to arm every man in the place. The servants have their own armoury and have already taken out pickaxes and lances. I remember the poets! They donât bear arms, so I must supply them.
She
Next thing we hear is an
Iâm tired. What started as a curiosity of a wreck is proving more difficult than I ever thought. Hell, I used to solve cases like this all the time, didnât find them so hard. I must be getting old. Probably no bad thing that Iâm retiring. I havenât got what it takes any more.
It was like being snow blind. I used to think that meant that your pupils opened so wide you were dazzled. What happens is the opposite. They contract to pinpricks and never want to open again because the light outside is such a threat. So, at the very moment when youâre staggering around, fully illuminated, your eyes are confined to their own private blackness.
What am I missing while Iâm dark in the light?
10
Arms
Synapse Log 7 Feb 2210, 15:00
Apprentice
Short day today. Did the second curse, the armour. As expected, straightforward.
He told me about the cassette tape last night. Campion thinks that it holds the key to the wreck. That the VR is an imaginative version of what happened to the crew. Long voyage. Boredom. Relations take on a dynamic of their own, unforeseen by the planners. Someone screwed someone they shouldnât have. Illicit relations. A child born, his mother not happy. Et cetera.
Whatâs wrong is the time frame. What if, I asked, they came not from Earth but from another direction? What if they came from a planet so remote that it took a whole generation for them to travel here? That gives them plenty of time to conceive and bear children. Might that be why the VRâs so obsessed with young ones of every kind â fawns, piglets, wolf cubs, boys?
Inspector of Wrecks
Of course, itâs ridiculous. It canât possibly explain how an old-fashioned vessel, full of Earth culture, could come from somewhere else. It doesnât make sense. Only time-wise. The whole thing refuses to add up.
Second curse was straightforward. Aranrhod: no arms for the boy. So Gwydion and Lleu â I still have a hard time thinking that name â go away to ponder. I made Nona take the Gwydion part, as I wanted to try something without her noticing.
She
So Gwydionâs a master of disguises, yes? So I change our appearance and present ourselves to Aranrhodâs court as two poets. Not my idea of entertainment, but I suppose in those days they were desperate.
He
Aranrhod does the usual medieval thing and invites them in. That night, at the feast, Gwydion enter tains her.
They have a good time, as theyâre a match for each other. For every story that Gwydion tells, Aranrhod knows another. And it gets very late and the drink is flowing. You know the kind of night. When the sugar in the booze keeps you up, more awake than youâve been all day and life is funny and fits neatly into your stories. Then everythingâs suddenly unbearably sad, and a song is called for. Then more alcohol until even your drunkenness is in tatters, you could go on forever, except that your eyes⦠and when you lie down, the room whirls around you.
She
Except that Iâve only been pretending to drink, keeping pace with Aranrhod.
We go to bed, the lad and I, and then I get busy.
He
As Aranrhod, Iâm lying there, having been sick, with a terrible hangover. I hear a huge racket outside: alarms being sounded and an armed attack on the fort. I get up and, in the confusion, canât work out whoâs fighting us or why. But the only thing I think to do is to arm every man in the place. The servants have their own armoury and have already taken out pickaxes and lances. I remember the poets! They donât bear arms, so I must supply them.
She
Next thing we hear is an
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