Her voice was teasing again. It sounded delicious. “I could see that. They think you’re a god.”
“They do not. They both have girlfriends. Lisle is probably married by now. They don’t know anything. They don’t know what it’s really like.”
“What’s it really like, Alan?” Her voice had turned husky. She was slowly stroking his middle finger with her thumb. His chest felt tight and his skin tingled—and not from the light. Why would she do that? Dammit. She was the queen of mixed messages. How could such a simple touch turn his brain to jelly? He could barely think.
“It’s…I was thinking about getting a dog, but I work too much.” What was this, some kind of confessional?
“Why not just settle down?”
He pulled on his arm a little and changed the position of his hand so she’d have to stop it. “I don’t know how to….”
“Settle down? Just pick one and stick around for a while.”
“That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I didn’t know—I didn’t know where to find the right one to do that with.”
“Oh. That’s not an easy one.”
“No. I should have tried harder, I guess. It was too easy to just keep going the way I was going.”
“Maybe when we get back, it’ll be easier.”
“That’s the plan.” He clutched her hand almost convulsively, hoping to transmit the message, hoping she was receiving it, interpreting it correctly.
She made a strange sound like a yelp and her hand yanked from his grasp.
“Jane? You ok?”
“Something’s wrong. I think….”
“What?”
“I have to go. I’ll be back soon.”
“Jane, wait—tell me what’s going on first!”
She didn’t answer. He pulled on her arm, but she’d gone limp. “Jane?” He felt blindly for her shoulder, grazing—oh, crap—that was definitely a breast. “Sorry, Jane. Jane?” He pushed on her shoulder, but she wasn’t responding. “Jane!”
His voice was drowned out by a blaring klaxon. He jerked, banging his forehead on the glass above them. He let out a string of curses. One of the eye pieces fell off and he realized that the lights had shut off and the screen was rising into the ceiling.
He sat up. The door opened and Ajaya peeked into the room.
“What the fuck’s going on?” he demanded.
Ajaya looked bewildered. She shouted, “I’ve no idea. The lighting changed and then this alarm started.”
He could see what she meant. The room beyond was cast in a reddish glow, making it seem darker, more sinister. He turned to look at Jane. She was slack-jawed.
“She’s out again. I don’t like this,” he bellowed.
10
Jane relaxed her concentration and held back, before speaking. She’d expected to arrive in the casita but instead found herself in a cool place, obscured in shadow. She gradually became aware of limbs moving languidly in hushed, placid darkness.
Just as she registered this, Ei’Brai’s voice rumbled in her head, startling her. “Dr. Jane Holloway, you seek my companionship. I am honored by your presence, gratified.”
“How did I—”
“The mental connection—Anipraxia. It grows stronger. A portion of your consciousness and mine are converging on a single plane, a frequency, if you like. You learn quickly, navigate intuitively. This is auspicious.”
“I was drawn here. I didn’t….”
“Not so. You possess an inquisitive nature. You perceived a need and responded. You arrived here of your own volition.”
She paused. He was right. Oh, God, that’s disconcerting. “What…was that? I felt something.”
“You sensed a minor hull breach. It has been contained. You are quite secure in your present location. There is no need for your attention to the matter. The squillae have been reordered, are containing the breach.”
She would have to trust him on that point. She searched her mind for a translation of the unfamiliar word he’d just spoken. She frowned. The first word that came to mind couldn’t be right. “Shrimp?”
A low, booming sound resonated in her mind and she smiled hesitantly. He…was he laughing?
Information poured into her consciousness. She couldn’t discern if it was from the download he’d given her, as she made the mental connection with the unfamiliar word, or if it flowed directly from Ei’Brai. The boundary between her own mind and his seemed indistinct. Data streamed between them, she realized uneasily.
The veil of darkness lifted. A single, sedentary slug filled her vision. This was somewhere in the cargo hold. She could see it—not as she’d seen them from inside the room that morning—but, oddly, as though she were the wall itself that the slug was clinging to. Ei’Brai focused her viewpoint along a trajectory, zooming in ever closer on masses of swarming minute robots, working in concert. First, she became aware of one group forming a single microscopic layer between the slug and the void.
As each nanite was destroyed by the alkaline slime, another was already taking its place like soldiers on a front line, holding in the atmosphere and allowing the other machines to work unimpeded. Her point of view swung wide, to see others working to reconstruct the hull, micron by micron, protected from harm by the first group as they worked to effect repair. Ei’Brai commanded their movements. When the breach was detected, he removed them from other tasks, redirecting them to resolve the problem.
As she watched, some of the squillae emitted high-pitched sounds and the slug, disturbed, moved away, allowing them to work more efficiently. A thought occurred to her—why not command the squillae to attack the slugs directly and remove the problem outright, rather than repairing the damage they constantly wrought?
Ei’Brai answered, “Under Sectilius law, squillae are confined to inorganic repair except under rare, tightly controlled circumstances. Technology serves life. It does not destroy it. These lessons are rooted in the very foundations of Sectilius culture and law, without deviation, under threat of penalty of strictest nature. The slug population must be dealt with, but the squillae will not perform that duty.”
Jane acknowledged this insight into Sectilius culture, still captivated by the movements of the minute machines.
“They’re sacrificing themselves to keep us safe,” Jane marveled.
“They are machines. Living beings do not make such sacrifices so readily.”
She pulled her attention away from the squillae at work, sobered by the thoughts his comment evoked. “Sometimes they do.”
“You contemplate your progenitor.”
“My father, yes.”
“A rarity among your kind,” he said swiftly, as if he knew.
She felt anger quickening and quashed it down. She did not want him to speak of her father that way—casually, dismissively, but she had to remember her training. “What do you know of my kind? Why are you here?”
“You have many questions.”
She was about to reply, to make demands, when she felt something cool flow over her in the darkness, like an eddy in a pool, sending her spinning. She was suddenly buoyant, lax, and free. She felt herself bob and lift to maintain her position. She’d lost her bearings. “What’s happening?”
“Observe.”
Lights flashed in the darkness—indistinct blobs, darting in the distance, sparking in cycles of magenta and cobalt. Then, she realized—she was seeing through someone else’s eyes.
“My age-mates,” Ei’Brai hummed. “Conveying danger in our most primitive form. Too weak, too small yet to communicate properly. We scattered, but it did not impede our capture.”
She felt some kind of primordial panic, a pulsing squeeze, and frantic motion. She’d lost track of up and down and only knew the instinctive need to flee in random flails to evade whatever was in pursuit. She began to tire. Was she safe?