She activated the radio. He was out of sight.
What am I doing. He’ll see. He’ll know.
She caught herself. Be rational, she said again. He would be deep in his studies by now. She placed a call to Oxygen 2. It was easy.
“Who is this? Identify yourself.” She recognized the Grunt’s voice instantly. Emotion closed her throat.
“Kessel?” she croaked.
“Is that little Kalypso?”
“Yes! Yeah, it’s me.”
“Where are you? Tehar has been driving us crazy asking about you.”
“Tehar? He’s OK? Can I speak to him?”
“He’s stuck in First. Hold on. Let me get Ahmed for you.”
Stuck? What she wouldn’t give to be stuck in First.
Ahmed came on. “Kalypso, do you still have Marcsson?”
She swallowed unwelcome tears. Who gave a fuck about Marcsson? What about her? “Yeah. I still have Marcsson. But I—”
“Take very good care of him, Kalypso. Listen to me. Tehar says the only chance for Ganesh is to get Marcsson’s data. His work is rewriting Ganesh’s processing facilities. You need to bring Marcsson in to First.”
“I can’t. I don’t know where I am. I don’t even have a suit.”
Pause. “No suit? How . . . uh, how is it that you’re alive, Kalypso?”
“It’s a long story. I don’t have much time. He might come back any minute. Ahmed, it’s not exactly fun out here. Can’t you come get me?”
Static. He was conferring with the others.
“Look, we can’t leave Oxygen 2.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“The Grunts have taken over. They’ve confiscated all of the tentkits and boats and—”
“What?” Her feelings about her own oppression by the Dead and Marcsson spilled over into aggression. “You don’t have to take that! We outnumber the Grunts. Don’t pay any attention! Don’t let them kill Ganesh!”
It was as if she hadn’t spoken. “Kalypso, be careful. Tehar says Ganesh is turning wild. Tehar says—”
“Shut up about Tehar a minute,” she snapped. “You have no idea what I’m dealing with here. I need help. It’s . . .” She should have prepared her words ahead of time, and now fumbled to explain. “He’s hard to handle, you don’t know the half of it, and I really can’t—”
“You have to. The situation here isn’t good either. First is . . .” There was a kind of choking noise and the line went quiet for a second. Then she could hear him breathing. “Look, First seems to be . . . I don’t know how to say this. Disappearing. It’s very—”
“Yeah, I know, it’s the Dead. Ask the Mothers about Sieng’s team and you’ll see some first-class squirming. Listen, I can—” Ahmed spoke over her. “Whatever happens, take care of Marcsson. As soon as I can figure a way to come get you, or get you back here, I’ll let you know.”
“You can’t! You can’t call me here, Ahmed. He’ll—”
“All right. You call me, then.”
“Can I talk to the others?”
“No. There’s a distress call coming in. I have to go. They’re all right. Take care of—”
“—Marcsson,” she finished for him, and the link went dead. She was shaking with frustration; she was hot, disappointed, confused. They were supposed to reassure her; they were supposed to support her. But Ahmed sounded hyperextended, which she’d have thought impossible. She wanted to crawl among them and be comforted. At least they had each other. What did she have?
She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked. What had ever made her think she was interested in the Wild? What had ever made anyone think it was a good idea to put people on other planets, where they had to live in oxygen tents such that, if Marcsson wanted to for example, he could throw her outside and kill her anytime? Of if she stayed with him, could do anything at all to her. Anything he wanted.
What had ever made people think it would be a good idea to create children from stored gametes and bring them up on this farm in the middle of nowhere, inculcate into their minds the idea that they were living a good life, feed them on Dreams that could turn savage, just as Marcsson’s had done?
She hadn’t asked to be born. Was she supposed to be grateful to be alive, when her very life itself had turned out to be somebody’s idea of an experiment?
When you are small and not all that terribly bright—especially considering your parentage and the expectation it carries for you to be brilliant—when you are small you’ve got to be tough. You’ve got to be strong. You have to wear your strength like a badge, and whatever happens, you have to say, I can take it. Kalypso huddling beneath the canopy among the specimens she had to process before Azamat got back suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of being strong. It made her feel physically sick.
She thought: If I start to crack, I won’t be able to stop.
Would that be such a bad thing? Just let go and not stop? Cry until . . . until what? Until someone came to rescue her?
No — too ineffective. Still, the idea of hysteria was appealing. It was no longer a deterrent, this not-being-able-to-stop extremity of feeling. It was, if anything, an inducement. Maybe she just wanted the rush.
She took off her interface and peered out through the canopy. She could see the muted colors of the Wild; on the deck she could see her own surface suit, lying still. Filled with Sieng.
Tehar, she thought and wounded herself with his name. Tehar, I need you.
The v. flagrare left a smell that the tent’s filters didn’t catch. She kept waiting to get used to it but it went away sometimes, destroying her immunity, and then came back to assault her all over again. There was a brownish condensation on the canopy, dripping and drying and slowly slowly slowly blotting out the light.
She had to reach Tehar. And that meant Dreaming. But Marcsson didn’t let her sleep in natural patterns. In fact, he didn’t let her sleep at all; he kept her awake ruthlessly, and she had to catch what rest she could while he was in the fugue states. These came unexpectedly and stayed for anywhere from seconds to hours. She never knew whether he was conscious or not. one in particular was singular in that he stood up in the middle of it, left the canopy like a sleepwalker — she had to hold the seals shut with her bare hands to protect herself from the atmosphere— and returned with Sieng in his arms. He brought the body into the canopy and laid it out among the gel studies. Kalypso assumed a position as far as possible from Sieng. Marcsson subsided into stillness, but he watched the corpse with watery, fragile eyes. With tiny precise movements his two eyes scanned the body. They were assembling information: but to what purpose? Behind Marcsson’s collection of behaviors, what was going on? What principle was generating his actions? Did he still think in words? Why did he sometimes speak, sometimes stay silent? What did he want? What pieces of him had been broken or rearranged?
He watched Sieng. Dumb. Inanimate.
“I’m supposed to help you, Azamat,” she told him although he was still fuguing. Felt her lip curling. “Everyone says you’re the thing. I’d better devote myself to you. That’s what they say.”
He started from the fugue and gaped at her, a look of sudden realization spreading comically across his face.
“I’ve made an error. How could I be so stupid?”
His brows crawled with anxiety. Kalypso felt the urge to laugh, hard on the heels of which came fear. Some people, when they went crazy, rotted from the inside out. They appeared perfectly plausible on the surface and went for years without inconveniencing anyone before they finally snapped. Why couldn’t he be one of those?
Or, more to the point—why couldn’t she?
The tray of gel resting on Azamat’s knees shivered.
She thought of the rest of her cluster as if reaching out to steady herself. She thought of Tehar. It didn’t seem to help anymore.
“I’m perfectly fine,” he said. His eyes searched her face. “There’s nothing wrong with me. You don’t need to look at me that way. You’re mak
ing a mistake.”
He put the tray away and stood up. With the measured care that characterized everything he did, he checked over his suit, gathered his collection materials.
“Algaics,” he said. “We’ve been overlooking their impact on the lower levels. Don’t you think?”
“Could be,” Kalypso answered cautiously.
“You know, in New Guinea these ants called irodomyrmex cordatus have coevolved with the m. tuberosa plant which features a specialized cell structure that suits its ant inhabitants as if it had been designed for them. The body extends itself across species and generation. Case in point.”
He turned his back to do something and she made a face at it. He had started doing the rhythm-thing again with his hands, which she’d forgotten about but now that it was back, it seemed worse than ever. The helm was extremely active, indicating probable thermal activity in their vicinity. He stood interfaced at the helm for long stretches, snapping polyrhythms across the fabric of his own suit but never speaking to her or acknowledging her presence. Sieng’s body in her suit was squashed against Kalypso’s thighs where she sat surrounded by sample trays. The body was soft and warm thanks to the currents heating the boat.
She closed her eyes.
When the dream formed she was running a paintbrush across a large, dark surface. Instead of applying paint, though, she seemed to be revealing something that lay beneath, for with each stroke of the brush appeared another piece of brooding T’nane sky: lowering crimson clouds reflecting the unseen surface. On the handle of the brush were burned the marks: Sieng. 141 miles.
She kept painting, but something had changed. She was painting Picasso’s Blue across somebody’s body.
Tehar?
No such luck. It was Lassare, the young and skinny Lassare, and when the blue dust touched her skin she gasped and cried out in a high voice.
“It’s a vision of time but I’ll never get there Kalypso. The harder I try the farther it will retreat, but I can’t stop trying. It’s deadly. Quicksand. Paint me. I’ll give you anything. Please.”
“Tell me what Azamat’s doing with Sieng.”
“How should I know?” Lassare moaned, writhing. “You’re the one who talks to Ganesh.”
“You are Ganesh,” Kalypso said. “You’re only pretending to be Lassare. Why do you keep making puns about Miles and Sieng? Where’s the jazz vine? What are you up to?”
ANYTHING THAT COMES HERE, I EAT. NO EXCEPTIONS. YOU WILL BE NICE WITH SALSA. GO TO SLEEP.
But instead she woke, hot and drooling, feeling no more rested than before. The sound of the wind outside was high and constant, and she found herself stopping her ears, wincing. Marcsson was; busy at the helm. She was pretty sure they were moving to avoid a thermal. He was taking them into an alkaline zone where there was virtually no oxygen in the water, so they relied on stores to aerate the canopy. Marcsson had an oxygen cannister with a mask which he used from time to time to top up his suit’s levels, but he didn’t give any to Kalypso, who soon felt sick. The airmix was always too weak, and seemed to slowly get weaker. She began to think about her body in terms of its cells. How many were dying every minute? Which ones died when, and why? She couldn’t feel any of it; she could only feel the wash of chemicals bathing her brain in weariness. Her eyes simmered.
Then she realized her interface was missing. “Where’s my interface?”
Marcsson drummed and patted himself. The gel trays shook gently.
“Marcsson. Where’s my interface?”
He didn’t answer. He was fuguing.
She didn’t feel well enough to do anything but curl up and go back to sleep.
Time, anyway, proved to be the dictator. She made the mistake of hoping that something would change. She told herself, if I can just get through this hour/afternoon/day, then something will give. Sooner or later, I’ll be saved. This works for a while; but eventually no matter how stupid you are it dawns on you that you have no control. Nothing you do matters in the slightest. Maybe you’ll be saved. Maybe you won’t. You just have to wait.
And time carves you into the shapes of its choosing while you wait for something to happen.
You sit fighting it. Pull your knees close to your body, clutch your shins in both hands, rock slightly from side to side. There’s a calculus of adversity and its differentials have taken up residence in your very organs, inhabiting your limbic system and decorating you with feelings you’d be better off without. You neither know nor care where these feelings come from, but they’re hanging upside down from your rafters in droves.
Don’t speak. You’ll waste what little air you have. Don’t even look at Marcsson ’cause it only upsets you. Even if he’s sitting right there, practically touching you, don’t look at him.
“And if I feel,” she said slowly, each word seeming to take several seconds to come out, “an emotion for you, why do I always. Glimpse. Its other side out. Of the corner of my eye?”
His voice came so fast after hers, matched her pitch so closely, she thought it was an echo at first.
“It all happens so slowly,” Marcsson whispered. He paused to breathe from the cylinder. Her spine ached with desire for his air. “Like a tree cracking stone. You observe the microtubules within luma. Aha—you say—” He inhaled. “Structure!”
“Why can’t. I feel one thing.” They were talking at each other and he was winning—she knew this but couldn’t stop. “Why can’t I just. Hate you.”
“You look at the organization of each species, some vertical, some clustered, some randomized or so you think. The chemistry is deceptively simple. Sulfur, phosphorus, methane — it looks so terrestrial. So ideal. No wonder the probes were fooled. The volcanic activity of course—”
“Shut up!” she cried, frustrated at how little sound she was able to generate. “Listen to me. Hear me. I am here.”
She had pressed forward into his space, aggressive, gasping. His expression shifted but she didn’t know if he registered her presence. The air was gray. She could smell the dread on her own skin.
“What the fuck is with you? See me. Azamat!”
He had drawn back, taking the cylinder with him. He covered his face with the mask as if to hide. Condensation ran down the walls like mice.
“No more of this,” she rasped. “Let me live. Don’t let me die here.”
He brought himself to bear on her face without appearing to recognize her. She saw the blue loco disease in his eyes, just like in Unit 5. just like in the Gardens. Just like attacking Neko.
This is it, she thought. one blow, and I’m dead. He can easily do it. He will.
The poison wind screamed across the Wild.
He tossed her the mask.
It covered her whole face. She inhaled. This was the closest thing she’d had to an orgasm in recent memory.
He had averted his eyes.
SKIN
THE THERMAL PASSED THEM AT SOME distanse. It obscured the volcanoes and brought a glimpse of sunlight in the form of a white veil shearing into the water nearby. The System roiled and adjusted, their oxygen supply stabilized, and Marcsson worked. He never got tired of it. Kalypso seemed to have been forgotten. For hours on end she had to watch him delicately transferring minute amounts of fluid from one gel tray to another; administering light, heat, chemicals; measuring, recording, pondering. She was no longer on edge. If anything, observing his methods put her in a kind of trance. She continued to do the detail work to save his eyes, grateful at least to be kept occupied even if the work was tedious.
She hadn’t spoken to anyone but him in days. She had put an automatic SOS on the radio and hoped he wouldn’t notice it. Without the interface, ht learned how it felt to be stalked by the Wild.
You can feel it. One minute you’re beneath the canopy, safely absorbed in some work, convinced of your self. The next it’s encroaching on you, consuming you with its emptiness. Beneath the glass of its waters you can feel the neverness, the impossibility of understanding what it is. Yo
ur body fails to respond: there is no fear in your body because your body has no programming, no immune response to this brand of terror. If it were a vast height, or a conflagration, or a devouring beast, your body would know how to react. But it is all abstract: it’s all built by you. So that when you look at the System and its mysterious colors, or the shape of Marcsson’s sleeping mouth and the folds that lie to either side, shadowy with new hair, all you can feel is a horror that will never find expression—not unless you finally manage to touch this feeling with your bare hands. And you don’t want that at all.
He began spending more and more time doing things with Sieng’s body, to which he was unnaturally attached. He’d begun to systematically collect samples of the intra-Sieng luma, on which he ran various tests. Sometimes he just probed through the tissue with an analysis stick, a surgeon-cum-frontier-explorer deep in the jungle.
That’s what he was doing late one night when she was startled by the chime of the radio announcing receipt of a signal. Marcsson was fuguing and didn’t react; at length, Kalypso stood and went to the helm. She put the call on speakers.
“Kalypso, it’s Tehar.”
She made an inarticulate noise.
“Are you there?”
“Yes. I’m—” She looked at Marcsson, searched for words. She took so long that Tehar began talking. “I need to speak to Marcsson.”
“You can’t.”
“Don’t be funny, Kalypso. I don’t want him treated like a criminal. Let me speak to him.”
“It’s not like that. He’s crazy, Tehar. I don’t want him to know we’re talking.”
“This is very important. It’s the most important thing you’ve ever done. Just let me talk to him.”
“It wouldn’t do any good, Tehar. Trust me.”
“Damn you, Kalypso. How can I help you if you won’t cooperate. Get Marcsson, make him come to the radio, and let me speak to him. Do it.”
She continued to protest; while they were arguing, Marcsson popped out of fugue.
“I told you to keep your hands off things,” he said, getting to his feet.
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