"He started unbuttoning in the middle of this long instrumental break, after the chorus of 'A Short Spell of Rain'—first cut on our first album, you should know it. And with every button he undid, it was like something rewiring itself in his head. Like a puppy changing into a wolf. When the instrumental break was over and he started singing the next verse…God, my hands were shaking so bad I could hardly play. The room fell absolutely still—not a whisper, not a glass tinkling. The bouncer outside the front door came running in, pulling on his brass knuckles like he expected real trouble; but he stopped in the entranceway, just froze there, with the brass knucks dangling on his fingertips, and he listened to the rest of the song. And the next song. And the next. Until we'd run through our whole repertoire. We left the stage, we went to the dressing room, and I buttoned up Alex's shirt without looking into his eyes. Then we both had terror-fits for a few hours."
Silence. Nothing but the swish of our three brushes sweeping old grit and dirt.
"I take it the woman in the audience was Helena Howe?" Jerith asked at last.
"You got it," Roland nodded, setting down his brush. "Our very own manager, director, and ballbreaker. And yes, Alex did get lucky that night. Or unlucky, depending on your point of view. He says they're in love." Roland wiped his dusty hands fiercely on a rag he picked up from the workbench. "I've never found out whether Helena makes him unbutton his shirt in bed. Interesting question, don't you think? Alex is easier to control, but the Singer would be more…volcanic."
He threw the rag down on the workbench and strode out into the gathering twilight. He didn't look back at either of us as he let the door click shut behind him.
Jerith let his breath out slowly. "I think I need a walk," he said. "How about you?"
My first reflex was to say no—too much potential for complications. Jerith had lived alone so long, he was ripe to get soppy about the first woman to happen by. Me, I have a policy against getting soppy. Walking with Jerith, giving him hope, would only be cruel. On the other hand, I still felt bad for making him self-conscious about his beard, and he was so desperate for company…what harm could there be in a friendly stroll, if I didn't lead him on?
"Sure," I said, "let's get some air. You can show me the sights."
The dusk was already full of stars, thousands more than you see on New Earth—Caproche is a lot closer to galactic center. A few ribbons of purpling cloud streaked the sky, but all were scudding off rapidly toward the horizon. It would soon be a clear, cool evening, with plenty of starlight to see by.
"It might turn cold," Jerith said, looking at the sky too. "I can get you a sweater if you like."
"I'm fine," I said.
Jerith led me around the base of a small hill and immediately the sounds of the camp were cut off, leaving only empty stillness—the stillness of starlit hills decorated with nothing but ruined bunkers and the scars of energy blasts. A desolate silence. "Don't you ever worry about being out here?" I asked Jerith. "All alone on a planet like this?"
"What would I worry about?" He sounded surprised at my question. "Alien ghosts?"
"Not ghosts," I answered, trying to sound like a woman who never gets the creeps. "But with so much junk left over from the war…what if you stumbled onto an old minefield? Or some robot weapon that's still active?"
He shook his head. "By the time humans arrived on Caproche, every battle site had been picked through a dozen times. The Myriapods surveyed the planet only two hundred years after the war, and you know how thorough they are. Even with their best sensing equipment, they didn't find a single functional weapon, nor a working vehicle, not even a battery pack that still held its charge. No bodies either…well, nothing they recognized as bodies. Other groups came after the Myriapods—the Cashlings, the Fasskisters, five or six others—but they didn't find anything either. The races who fought here stripped the place clean when they pulled out. Nothing left but trash." He smiled. "That's why Caproche only has one loony archeologist instead of a horde of prospectors looking for alien tech."
I expected him to make one of the classic moves at that moment: casually bumping against me, or touching my shoulder to direct my attention toward something, or taking my hand to lead me across a rough patch of ground…but he kept both hands thrust firmly into the deep pockets of his work pants, and as we started walking again, he scrupulously avoided accidental contact.
That irked me.
I mean, he'd been alone and celibate on Caproche for several years. In many circles, I'm considered sexy; when I sang with the Mootikki Spiders on Trash and Thrash, the reviewer from Mind Spurs Weekly singled out "the hot brunette on the bicycle" as the high point of the album. It was insulting that this desperate man didn't even try to…
He touched my shoulder.
I turned to look at him, relieved and preparing my "thanks but no thanks" speech.
He looked away. A moment later, he mumbled, "Over here. There's something you might like."
I followed him to a low wall built from fat bricks. Once upon a time those bricks might have been sandbags, but the bags had rotted and the sand left behind had hardened like concrete.
Splayed over the wall grew a mat of snarled threads, each thread porcelain-white under the stars. I could see more patches of the stuff beyond the wall, on rocks, on the grass, even streaked up the trunks of trees.
"I call it the Silk," Jerith said.
"Some sort of fungus?" I asked.
"No, it photosynthesizes," he answered. "It lives on UV light—I had it analyzed. Now watch this."
He poked at a strand with his finger. A moment later, the Silk made a sharp
"Oh, God, Lyra, I'm sorry," Jerith said. "Let me…." He reached out to help.
I ducked back from his outstretched hand. "Is this some gag?" I asked. "Like a squirting flower? Get me all gooey?" I gave my nose another rub.
"No, I just wasn't thinking," Jerith said. "I'm sorry. It's, uhh…I wanted to show you the Silk because it's my big discovery."
"Oh, yes?" I'd got most of the gunk off my face, but now my hands were sticky. I looked around for some Silkless terrain where I could wipe them off.
"Yes, the Silk," Jerith said. "My theory is it's a biological weapon. From the war."
I looked at my hands, covered with powder. Very quickly, I wiped them on my dungarees.
"You don't have to worry," Jerith went on hurriedly. "It's harmless to humans. The best labs on New Earth have checked it out. Biological weapons are usually species-specific, especially in a war like this, between different alien races. This dust probably shriveled one side but left the other side untouched." He poked another strand,
It didn't seem so funny to me, and I didn't like biological weapons going off in my face even if I was the wrong species; but Jerith looked so forlorn there, going
I didn't shriek, just made a choked "ungh" sound as I jumped back. When I'd watched Alex try to feed the same kind of animal at the recording session, I hadn't been close enough to see how ugly the little beasts were. This one was small and flat, like a mouse-size Gila monster, but with a topknot of three antennae, each undulating like weeds in water. The animal didn't scare me
—it wasn't even repulsive after I'd got over my initial shock—but it definitely wasn't the sort of thing I'd keep in my pocket.
Jerith saw my reaction, looked down at the brightly colored creature crawling up his clothing, and immediately detached it from his waistband. He winced slightly when he touched it, but held it gently, caressing it. "It's only my pet," he said. "It's very tame."
"Why did you have it in your pocket?"
"They like warm, dark places. They just curl up and go to sleep. When it heard us popping the Silk, it must have woken up and felt hungry."
"Hungry?" I said, uneasy with the way Jerith fondled the little beast.
"They eat the Silk," Jerith answered, holding the animal close to a patch of strands on the wall. The parrot pushed its snout forward; gingerly it tugged loose the end of a thread and sucked up the Silk like spaghetti. "Very delicate mouths," Jerith added. "They can gobble the stuff without popping it."
For a while, I watched the tiny animal eat. I wouldn't say it was cute, but its determined slurping did have an endearing quality. I put out my hand to rub its nose, but Jerith immediately jerked the parrot out of reach.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"They don't like to be touched by strangers," he said, backing away from me.
"Do you know how suspicious you're acting?" I wasn't one for melodrama, but who hasn't seen a dozen shows where an archaeologist on some isolated planet fixates on an alien species? And nine times out of ten in those shows, someone gets her brains eaten before the closing credits.
"It's not what you're thinking," Jerith blurted out.
"How do you know what I'm thinking?"
His face blanched. Turning away from me, he hurriedly slid the parrot back into his pocket. The animal didn't put up any fight at all. When he turned back to face me, Jerith kept his hand in that pocket.
"Look," he said, "I know I've developed some quirks out here. Being alone…knowing there isn't another human being within seven light years…I'm a little obsessed about the parrots, I know that. But they've been my only company…Caproche doesn't have any other land animals, not really, you can't make friends with insects…and the parrots are these sweet-natured, gentle little animals…."
"I was only going to pet it," I said.
"I know, I just…I'm possessive, it's wrong, I know, I'll work on it. I have to get used to dealing with people again. To tell the truth, Lyra, I've never been good at dealing with people, certainly not beautiful women…damn, you're defensive again, I'm sorry." He closed his eyes in pain. "Look," he said at last, "you can find your way back to camp, right?"
"Yes…"
"I really have to be alone for a while. To think. I'm sorry." He took a few steps into the darkness, then turned back. "I know I'm odd," he said, "but I'm harmless, you said so yourself. I won't hurt you or embarrass you…oh, good-bye."
He hurried away, around the Silk-covered wall and off into the night. I watched him till he disappeared behind a charred stockade fence.
Once again, I felt like shit. Maybe it was something in the Caproche air—I hadn't done anything, I hadn't said anything, and still I felt guilty. Angrily, I punched at a thick patch of Silk on the wall beside me. It exploded with a double-bass
"Hello," I said softly. "You just heard the dinner bell, didn't you?" I nudged a nearby thread,
Hesitantly, I reached out my hand. It actually moved slightly toward me, extending its neck. "Going to bite me?" I asked. But it made no further movement, so I bent my finger and rubbed its nose.
"Going to bite me, to bite me, bite me?" I heard my own voice say.
I pulled back from the parrot and looked sharply around. Had someone recorded me, putting my voice through an echo synth? It wouldn't be the first time a smartass roadie targeted me for a practical joke. But when I thought about it, the sound wasn't my recorded voice, the one I heard on playbacks and barely recognized as my own. It was my head voice, the one I heard when I talked—fuller than my recorded voice, less shrill.
It was me.
Oh, shit, I thought, and reached out to touch the parrot again.
"Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit…"
Except I hadn't said anything this time. I just thought it.
"Thought it, thought it, thought…"
Parrots.
"Parrots, parrots, parrots…"
I lifted my finger and the sound stopped instantly. I touched the little animal lightly and the sound kicked in again…but I knew it wasn't a sound, not a real one.
I tried to think things through; and as I did, every chance thought, every tiny notion echoed back to me a fraction of a second after passing through my mind…disorienting at first, but I was used to singing in concert halls with a tiny delay between hitting a note and hearing it over your headphones. I could handle the telepathic equivalent.
First question: did the parrot only echo the thoughts of the person touching it? Or did the parrot echo every thought nearby?
I remembered how Jerith had responded to my thoughts all evening, like touching me when I was annoyed that he hadn't tried anything yet. His hand had been in his pocket most of the night, the pocket that held the parrot.
The parrot must echo everyone's thoughts. And not just the unspoken words; I could sense it broadcasting my emotions too, the outrage growing in me as I realized how Jerith had eavesdropped on my mind. I felt violated. He'd seen me more naked than naked. Hell, who cared about being naked anymore? I'd bared my all three times on Trash and Thrash; by now, half the galaxy had had the chance to count my freckles.
But this…I tried to remember all the thoughts I'd had in Jerith's company. I tried to recall what shameful things might have passed through my mind…
Jerith had said, "That Kilgoorlie is a spooky guy."
I wondered what thoughts the Singer had. About me.
I wondered what thoughts Alex had. About me.
And Roland. And Helena. And the roadies and everyone.
But of course it was wrong to eavesdrop on them.
The parrot didn't resist as I picked it up and stroked its nose. The little animal seemed perfectly content to be held. It nestled into my palm and gave a tiny yawn.
I told myself I would take it back to camp, to prove to the others what the animals could do. Telepathic parrots that echoed people's thoughts—no one would believe that without proof. Well, Alex probably would; but that was a mean thing to say. The parrot repeated the thought over and over, "Alex would believe it" …and under that phrase other thoughts chorused like backup singers, copies of my own voice whispering things I hadn't put into words: Alex is gullible, Alex is a child, I want to know what he thinks, I want to know what he thinks of me.
I barely recognized I'd had those thoughts, but they echoed back clearly.
"I won't use the parrot," I said aloud. "I'm just taking it to camp as proof."
The backup singers in my brain said, I'm lying to myself, I'll probably eavesdrop, I don't know what I'll do.
I stuffed the parrot into the pocket of my dungarees and hastily pulled out my hand. The voices cut off instantly and the silence of the night flooded in. I breathed a sigh of relief and began walking back to the camp, trying to fill my heart with good intentions.
I touched the parrot several times as I walked, just to see that it was still working. The parrot didn't react. It seemed to be asleep, but it still broadcast my thoughts loud and clear. Some creatures give off body temperatures; others give off mental echoes.
What did I hear from the parrot? Excitement mostly, the feeling of power. Qualms too—using the parrot to spy on others was wrong, but could I resist? And a memory of facing a similar conflict when I discovered masturbation at the age of thirteen: an exciting power,
an irresistible compulsion, yet an act I'd been told was dirty. Secret vice. Is that a parrot in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? "How far do I have to dig this damned hole?"
I jerked my head around. That last thought wasn't mine.
There was no one in sight…but I stood on barren ground between two flat-topped hills. Someone could be on one of the hills, within range of the parrot's hearing, whatever that range was. I took a few steps toward the hill on my left, then stopped and touched the parrot: nothing but my own thoughts, racing, trying to figure out whose voice it had been. Male. Alex? Roland? I hadn't paid enough attention.
I wanted it to be Alex. The thought of eavesdropping on Alex was so tantalizing…
As quietly as I could, I moved back toward the other hill, stopped, and listened again. "Damned stone. Why are there so many damned stones?"
Alex.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled my hand from my pocket. I would resist. I would be good.
One last touch. The echoes of my thoughts told me I was only delaying the moment of eavesdropping on Alex. I was intent on doing it, and simply holding off a few seconds to excite myself more, the way you sometimes hold off on a kiss: you know it's going to happen, but you wait an extra second to make it sweeter.
The hill was too steep to climb with my hand in my pocket.
Alex stood a short distance away, stabbing a shovel into the ground and wrestling up a load of dirt. His body was soft with starlight. He still wore the billowing white shirt and tight leather pants from the recording session, but his shirt was buttoned to the throat. With each thrust of the shovel, he grunted. At his feet lay a knapsack and a growing pile of dirt.
I walked quickly up to him before I could be tempted to reach for the parrot. When he heard my footsteps and turned around, I asked, "Digging a grave? Or just robbing one?"
Gravity Wells (Short Stories Collection) Page 11