She shook her head, the dark hair lifting from her shoulders. “Lahft. Lah-ah-ah-ahft.” Again the smile, waiting.
A fierce, dizzy joy swept across him, which he had to marvel at even as it passed. This was why he’d left the horizontal, gone vertical, stared down the wall and felt his guts rise in his throat, just to wake up and see that… all of that. To be standing, gazing at this female thing. But not that; that wasn’t it at all. An angel smiling at him. For her to be there, to be here… in a little space, nothing but the curtains and the echoing platform between him and the great empty air. If it only happened once, that was enough. Then it would always be happening, somewhere. Out here.
“Laaahhft. How’s that – okay?”
She nodded, then laughed when he told her his name. “Ny.” She looked upward, considering the sound. “Nigh, near, nearest. No such word as nearer. In a way.”
Her voice so bright, madly cheerful – considering what had happened to her, the condition he’d found her in – he wondered how much she actually understood of what she said, and how much was just parrot tape loops cycling around. Where’d she get it from, then? Eavesdropping – on whom? He let it slide, one of life’s mysteries. He stepped farther onto the platform, letting the curtains fall behind him; something small and metallic clattered away from the edge of his shoe. Looking down, he saw one of the scalpels he’d used to cut away the burnt edges of the angel’s flight membrane. All of the med kit’s implements were on the platform, arranged in lines and starbursts; the empty kit lay tucked under the table. She’d done all that, carefully and silently, before some small inadvertent noise had triggered the alarm mike.
He stepped over the surgical tools and stood by the table. The black leather satchel with his graffex gear inside was stowed beneath; with a real freelancer’s instinctive caution about the tools of his trade, he had put them out of harm’s reach.
The angel didn’t look at him, but went on gazing at the spoked curtains above her head. “The sky’s so small here.” She sounded puzzled.
“Oh – hang on.” He reached over to the nearest panel of fabric, unsnapped the fastener, and drew the curtain rattling to one side. The angel watched his actions with interest and gave a little delighted laugh when the open air was revealed.
“There you go.” Axxter grasped the edge of the table, bracing himself against the wind that now coursed over the platform. She looked at him, the same sweet smile indicating her incomprehension. You beautiful idiot; a sad twinge inside himself. How would she know anything, about anything at all? “You see – that wasn’t the sky. You were inside. You understand? Before I pulled the curtain back.”
“Before..” Lahft’s gaze wandered from his face. “Beee… fore.” Looking placidly at the sky. “Forbear. Four bears.”
Christ; maybe Guyer’s spoiled all this for me. The angel sat on the edge of the table, her hands folded in her lap, the wind tracing her hair over her bare shoulders. Axxter watched her with diminishing lust. Impossible to keep up a carnal interest in anyone – anything – this dim. Like raping a puppy. Enough bad payback there to last you for the rest of your life.
Or – he considered another possibility – maybe she’s smarter than you think. In the kinds of things that angels would know. And with just… a different sense of time. If any at all – he wondered how much it would be logical for angels to know about something like that.
She had caught sight of something over her shoulder and had twisted her slender neck to look at it. The flight membrane – whole and spheroid again, not the tattered rag Axxter had found her wrapped in – reflected her distorted face in the shiny metallic surface.
“Uh – I did that.” Axxter didn’t know if he was apologizing or bragging. “I had to, ’cause it was such a mess. That’s why it’s different now.”
“Different?”
No different without before. “This -” He reached above her shoulder and poked the flight membrane, his fingertip dimpling the biofoil he had implanted to replace the burnt-away tissue. “This isn’t the way it was…” He stopped, seeing her smiling, uncomprehending gaze. Was; what good did that do? Like teaching higher mathematics to a cat. He didn’t even know why he was trying to explain.
He tried again. “Look.” She obediently followed his lifted finger. “The sky – right?” A nod from her. She understands something, at least. “Okay, that’s the way it is now.” He reached for the curtain edge and drew it around, shutting off the view beyond the platform, enclosing them again in the protected space. The sunlight filtered dimly through the curtain fabric. “Now it’s all small again. Like it was.” The last word desperate; I’m blowing it, he thought. Not even getting close. He flicked the curtain partway open again, revealing an angled wedge of the sky. “Is.” Closed again, in half-light. “Was.” Shaking his head, a sigh; forget it. Somebody, a professional semanticist maybe, might be able to bridge this gap; he couldn’t.
She still smiled at him, Which only made him feel more frustrated. An amusing thing, in a world full of amusing things. A wonder that she hadn’t just broken out laughing at him. Maybe that’s the benefit of being an angel; all the sad things are in that other world, of before and was. She doesn’t have to worry about any of that. If she worries about anything at all.
He wondered how much she remembered of whatever had happened to her. Remembered – that was a laugh. Probably dropped like a stone through the clouds below, to whatever oblivion lay beneath them. He bent down and picked up a small battery torch from the tools scattered across the platform floor. The glowing ball of flame danced in her eyes as he held the torch in front of her and flicked it on. For a moment, Lahft smiled at the tiny spark – pretty light – then her face clouded. She drew back, hands pushing against the edge of the table.
Well, well. There’s something there after all – maybe right down in the cells, the organism’s own deep memory. Axxter snapped the flame off – the distress in the angel’s eyes made it seem uncomfortably like torture – and dropped the torch.
“Not… here.” She sounded almost thoughtful, gazing away from him, tilting her head to look up the expanse of wall above the platform. “A bright place. Like that.” She pointed to where the torch’s flame had been.
No time, no difference between then and now… She thinks it’s still happening somewhere. Always happening, without end, in that bright place. “Up there?” He indicated the wall sector from which he himself had been traveling.
“Yes.” Lahft nodded, the smile gone for a moment, brow creased with an effort at comprehension. “All bright… and loud.”
“Loud?”
Her head tilted back again, this time with her eyes closed. She screamed.
It sounded as if every death in the ruin zone, all the charred faces gaping against the blackened walls, had been taped, dubbed into one stack, and dubbed into a loop feeding back into itself. If God were a parrot… the hell of his lungs, tongue, broken spine. The platform’s curtains flapped as if they could rub into sympathetic fire.
The scream battered against Axxter. It didn’t stop; the cords in the angel’s neck tightened, vibrating. He stepped backward, the sonic wave pushing him away. His foot caught the torch he’d discarded, and he went down, landing on hip and elbow. He scrabbled to get away from the scream at his back, and found himself gazing over the platform’s edge. Beyond his fingertips clenching into space, he saw the clouds massing against the building’s curve. Even falling, hands outstretched, he wouldn’t escape the noise raking up his spine.