Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [141]
Matthew had no idea whether he was telling the whole truth or not. He had known Bernal Delgado, and the way he’d just represented and explained him was exactly the way that Bernal Delgado would have represented and explained himself—but how well, Matthew wondered, does any human being ever know any other? And how well, in the final analysis, does any human being ever know himself—or herself?
The point was that it was believable. On this occasion, in these circumstances, it could pass for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
It was reason enough for Dulcie Gherardesca to step away from the edge of the precipice, and step away she did—but before she stepped away, she looked down.
After that, there was no possibility whatsoever of her jumping.
Anything she might have said would have sounded incongruous on her lips, but it was Matthew, when his gaze followed the direction of her pointing finger, who spoke.
“Oh fuck!” he said, with all the feeling he had left.
THIRTY-ONE
The two chain saws were already roaring into life again, but it was obvious that they weren’t going to be much use. Matthew was already scrambling for the rifle too, but it was equally obvious that the gun wouldn’t be much use either.
If Ike and Lynn hadn’t been so absorbed in the early stages of the 3-D jigsaw that was Voconia they’d have noticed the problem much sooner. If Matthew and Dulcie hadn’t been so absorbed in the question of whether Dulcie was going to hurl herself off the cliff to her death they might have noticed it instead—but on Tyre, everything was purple, and if Matthew hadn’t managed to spill an oversized carton of snow-white boat-food the extent of the problem might not have been obvious to observers on the clifftop even now.
From Matthew’s vantage point the newcomers looked like giant leeches, but that was a reflection of the way they moved rather than an insult to their lifestyle. They were long, flat, dark-hued worms, each half a meter to two meters long, and there were hundreds of them. So far, at least, there were hundreds of them. They were still coming, oozing avidly out of the uncrushed undergrowth like slimline slugs on amphetamine.
Were they dangerous? Ike and Lynn obviously hadn’t been sure at first. When they started the chain saws the first poses they took were defensive. They waited, unwilling to start cutting up the worms unless and until it seemed necessary. When the vanguard reached their legs, however, and began to curl around and climb them, they decided that it was definitely necessary. Matthew would have come to exactly the same conclusion at exactly the same moment.
The worms weren’t hard to cut. Indeed, they seemed to be absurdly easy to slice and shred. But there were hundreds of them already, and more were coming.
Matthew was momentarily astonished by the floods of red that fountained from the severed worms, although he had known perfectly well that Tyre’s animal-analogues had a hemoglobin-analogue in their blood-analogue. The red mingled with the pulpy purple backcloth soon enough, though, dissolving into it and subtly altering its shade. It held its redness only where it spattered Ike’s and Lynn’s additional armor, whose ground color was an ochreous yellow. There the lavishly spilled blood mingled with a light patina of manna-dust, making a dull pink. Had they only been wearing their surface suits the supersmart fibers would already have absorbed the boatfood, and would have made an immediate start on the blood, but the armor was stupid. The red-and-pink splashes stood out like garish items of abstract art.
Matthew didn’t raise the rifle to his shoulder. There was nothing to shoot at but leech soup, and he knew that shooting soup was a fool’s game. He kept the gun in his free hand, though, as he yanked the basket onto the ledge and held it there for Dulcie Gherardesca.
She didn’t hesitate. Like him, she had no clear idea of what they could do once they got to the bottom, but they knew that they had to help. When she was safely in he had to pass her the gun