Ascending - James Alan Gardner [121]
He might be very hurt indeed.
As Nimbus flowed up Lajoolie’s nostrils, I called to him, “I am sorry I suggested you behaved improperly when you entered Festina. I was foolish to jump to such a mistaken conclusion. But it is amusing, is it not, how misjudgments occur? And it is also most traditional. You and I, we are son and daughter of the Shaddill; and as siblings, it is common to fall into ill-founded petty disagreements…”
I stopped speaking because he had disappeared—completely ignoring my words. Pretending I did not exist, because he was fiercely angry at me.
Sometimes it is hard to have a brother. Especially when you both make each other feel bad.
More Arousals
I do not know if Divians are easier to wake than humans, or if Nimbus had simply gained experience in rousing persons from this type of unconsciousness. Whatever the explanation, the cloud man did not take nearly so long to bring Lajoolie around as he had with Festina. As soon as her eyes flickered open, he proceeded immediately into Uclod’s sinuses, not giving me the tiniest opportunity to apologize again.
Watching Nimbus work on the two Divians, I wondered why he had not woken them the previous time they had been shot with the Shaddill’s beam. The probable answer was that invading other people’s bodies truly filled him with abhorrence. On the previous occasion, I had been doing an excellent job of piloting Starbiter so there was no need to rouse the two Divians; now, however, our predicament was so dire that it called for Extreme Resuscitation.
Of course, extreme resuscitation is not pleasant, and neither Festina nor Lajoolie looked to be enjoying their newly regained consciousness. Lajoolie showed a marked preference for lying in a fetal position, occasionally whimpering with pain. Festina remained sitting up, but drooped her head between her knees and muttered unintelligible phrases conspicuously featuring the word “hangover.”
In an attempt to divert them from brooding on their pain, I said, “Come, we will soon face the villainous Shaddill, so we must make plans for a fight.” But this did not rally their spirits. Lajoolie just groaned and Festina mumbled, “If there is a battle, pray God I get shot.”
When Uclod regained consciousness, he was no more eager to spring into action than the other two. Nimbus still would not talk—he went directly into Sergeant Aarhus without an instant’s pause. From Aarhus he moved on to Lady Bell, splitting himself into a dozen small fog patches and seeping into her body through a variety of orifices.
I do not know how he could tell which openings led into lungs, which into stomachs, and so on. However, the cloud man had the lady awake in under a minute…after which she howled most piteously. I opened my mouth to ask why she made such an appalling racket; but I closed it again when her head sank into her body as if being sucked down the neckhole. The skull fit exactly into her tiny torso.
This was something one did not see every day.
The now-headless Bell shifted her position on the floor to lie flat on her spine. Immediately her legs lifted up from the hips, slanting back and arching above her body until her toes touched the carpet near her shoulders—her legs completely covering her torso like two logs laid lengthwise down her chest. Reaching up, she wrapped her arms tight around her thighs, then bent her knees so that her calves were on top of her arms, on top of her upper legs, on top of her headless body. She held that tucked-up position for a brief moment; then the whole stack of Bell crushed in on itself with a sound like knuckles cracking. In a moment, she had reduced herself to a tight little basket of a person, a bundled-up woman who lay on the ground in a heap that