"Well, aren't you going to ask me what my problem was?" said Ariel.
Wolruf turned her head slightly. "Why sshhould I?"
"I-I thought you must might want to know, that's all."
"Nne of my bizzness. Not people's way. Deafenly not mine."
"Aren't you worried?"
"No."
"Don't you care?"
"Didn't hav' to wa'ch 'u all nite. Was migh'ily bored. Many times distrrack'ed. Could hav' lef' 'u at any time and Man'elbrrot neither knowed norr carred."
Ariel suddenly felt as tired as she had ever been in her life. Even to shrug with a labored air of nonchalance cost her a tremendous effort. "How flattering," she said sarcastically.
She immediately regretted the words. Wolruf was stopping just short of saying she had stayed to watch because she was concerned for her welfare. There you go, Miss Burgess, Ariel thought. You really will go insane if you can't recognize the good in people, whether they're human or not.
She sat down beside Wolruf and said, "I'm sorry. Please try to understand that in addition to all our other problems, my mental condition gets out of hand sometimes."
"Datzz all rite.”
“It isn't, it's just that I don't know what I can do about it right now. To make matters worse, it always gives me an excuse to misbehave, even if I don't know at the time that that's all it is. "
Wolruf pulled her lips back against her teeth in a kind of smile. "So-are 'u well?"
"I'm better.”
“There's no rreazon to be upset about vize't from tricks' er. Izz how he makes us obey his will, by makin' us see wha' he wantzz."
"That may be easy for your race to accept, but we humans aren't so used to having strange beings make pit stops in our minds at their every convenience."
Wolruf nodded thoughtfully. " 'U simplee lack perrspec'ive."
Ariel nodded in return. She had half expected that as a result of her apology she would feel the haze of exhaustion lift, but instead she imagined each individual cell in her body deteriorating steadily. A little while longer and she'd be a quivering mass of protoplasm.
"It's an old Spacer saying that everybody likes to feel in control of their lives, but with Aurorans it's only more so," she said. " And why not? It's not only an effect of our current culture, but an extension of our own history. As the first Spacers, we terraformed Aurora to suit our own tastes and purposes. We did everything we could to make our new planet a garden. We even brought with us the prettiest, best, and most useful Terran species, leaving behind the ones that would make life too unpleasant."
"If tha' 'ur plane'zz history, then the in'ivi'ual retlec'zz it."
"Yes, until I was exiled and cut off from my funds, I had a great deal of independence. Within socially acceptable limits-which I never really accepted anyway-I had complete freedom of action."
"'U brroke those limitz-"
"And lost control of my life. Funny how the details of my rebellion are so fuzzy now. Must be a side effect of my disease. Anyway, it's funny how the one thing I always thought I still had perfect control over-my mind-seems to be slipping away from me now."
"Trry to relax. Take it from one who hazz seen many un'err thrroes of vize'torr. 'U not control it, 'u detlec' it."
Ariel couldn't help but laugh. "You mean that when insanity is inevitable, relax and enjoy it?"
"Not insanity. Merely givin' in to morre compellin' fuch 'ions. Derec does that. That izz why he hazz so many ideas."
"I wish I could believe the same thing was true with me." Ariel paused as the implications of Wolruf's remark began to sink in. "Is that what he's doing when he spends so much time with Lucius, when he should be figuring out a way to get us off this hellhole?"
Suddenly Ariel stiffened. Her eyes went wide.
"Wha' izz it?" Wolruf asked. "Wha'zz wrron'?”
"I don't know," she replied.
"Ano'herr vize-shon?"
"I-I hope so." She grimaced, closed her eyes, and turned her head to the sky. It's not real, she told herself, it's only something r m imagining. But if reality is something we make, how do we deal with the forces making us?
But although she knew on one level that her neurological responses were going awry, her physical self nonetheless continued to respond realistically to the sensation of a distinct something, large and six-legged, distinctly within her lifesuit. A familiar something. There was only one this time, but it was bigger than she remembered. Much bigger.
It was crawling up her stomach. She forced herself to open her eyes, fully expecting to see her suit clinging normally to her torso. Instead she saw-with a vividness she could not help but decide was absolutely real-the outline of a giant metallic ant moving beneath her suit. The cold touch of its six legs, each pressing delicately against her skin, sent chills of terror through her fragile, eggshell mind.
The outline moved distinctly, delicately forward. She felt the cold brush of a mandible against her left breast, and watched in abject fear as the forefront of the outline moved to her right breast. And rested on it.
Ariel screamed at the top of her lungs and ran headlong in the direction she happened to be facing. She was vaguely aware of Wolruf yelling behind her, but she was too busy to pay attention. She did not know where she was running, only that she had to make a beeline there.
She jumped into the reservoir.
She was in it for several moments, stunned senseless by the ice cold water, before she actually remembered diving in. Frantically, she tore open the snaps and buttons and zippers of her suit and put her hands inside, rummaging about, searching for the insect so she could pull the sucker out and drown it.
But she found nothing. When it came to her ambition for revenge, this was a disappointing development. How she had anticipated seeing it squirm as it tried to get away from her in the water! But on another level, she was tremendously relieved. Insanity she could deal with; physical pain was definitely a cause for panic.
Ariel imagined that perhaps the ant had been real after all, and had just torn through the suit on the way oat. But the water around her, while not exactly clear, was very still. There was no evidence of movement beneath the surface. Even the sand and dirt she' d raised upon entering had settled down by now.
She calmed herself with an effort, closed her eyes again, and waited.
Soon she felt reasonably assured that the insect wasn't real enough to attack her, but she stayed in the water just to be on the safe side. The water sent pinpricks of pain cascading through her very marrow-but even that kind of discomfort didn't provide her with enough incentive to get out.
Wolruf sat patiently on the bank. "Are 'u well again?" the alien asked.
"I think so," she said. "I had another visit."
"Assumed as much."
"I think my visitor is gone now. I think I prefer looking at my episodes in terms of visitors, by the way. It's making it easier for me to accept them. "
"Good. Don't 'u wan' come out of water now? 'U mite catch cold."
"No. It feels rebellious, to be doing something prying robot eyes might disapprove of. "
"Will wait."
"Thanks. I'll just be a few more minutes. However safe my mind may feel while I'm in here, I don't think my body can take much more of this cold."