Exceptions to Reality_ Stories - Alan Dean Foster [107]
But he was asleep now. Not empathizing, not projecting, not receiving or feeling. Like his thoughts, his emotions were in stasis. The multiple tendrils that were twisting and weaving their way in his direction were doing so entirely on their own and without any prompting or tempting from their objective. The unanticipated activity did not, however, go unobserved.
The Teacher’s AI monitored the leaf’s fracturing approach via multiple lenses embedded in the walls and ceiling that were capable of scanning the entire chamber simultaneously. Though it could have sent mobile devices to intercept the squirming branchlets, it did not react immediately. Its history showed that whenever a serious threat to its owner presented itself, Flinx had invariably been stirred to wakefulness. The same was true of his winged pet. Both continued to sleep, ignoring the floral advance. Their indifference, even in sleep mode, caused the AI to dither.
By the time it decided that regardless of a lack of responsiveness from its master it ought to take some action, it was too late.
By now the diameter of the smallest of the continuously subdividing tendrils could be measured in nanometers. Entering Flinx via his right ear, they proceeded to worm their way deep into his cranium without damaging the delicate tympanum of the hearing organ or stimulating it to generate potentially awakening noise. Knowing exactly where to penetrate, they entered the cerebrum at points that would have struck a human neurosurgeon as not only harmless, but useless. A normal human brain would not even have been affected. Flinx’s mind, however, was far from normal. His closest human companion, Clarity Held, knew this. So, too, did a pair of longtime mentors, the human Bran Tse-Mallory and the thranx Truzenzuzex.
So also, it appeared, did certain highly specialized and abnormally active botanical xenophyta.
Once again Flinx found himself in that peculiar state of conscious sleep that periodically afflicted him. He was aware of himself and, to a certain extent, his immediate surroundings as well. He knew that he was safely on board his ship, in the lounge, but asleep. In this singular state of awareness but not wakefulness someone—or rather something—was attempting to converse with him.
Intermittent contact is wasteful. The sexless voice in his mind was vast, enfolding, luxuriant. Greater intimacy will facilitate progress.
Flinx did not argue. How could he, being asleep? Nor could he ignore what he was perceiving. He could no more blot out the voice in his mind than he could reach up and pull out the infiltrating tendrils of which he remained utterly unaware. Even if he could, there was no reason to do so. Their existence inside his head, inside his brain, caused him no pain, no discomfort. In fact, their presence was soothing, generating a kind of cerebral balm. As he remained motionless and unobjecting, the tendrils set themselves more deeply. He was aware that something was being done to his body but found himself unable and unwilling to oppose it.
As awareness dawned of what was taking place, the ship finally decided that it had to do something. But in order to safely counteract what it now perceived to be an unsolicited intrusion into the body of its master, it first had to ascertain exactly what was happening. Analysis always precedes action.
Alongside the couch-lounge a floor panel popped open. A cable emerged. The end of the cable split into smaller cables, which in turn divided into smaller and still-smaller metallic filaments. These gave birth to hypoallergenic wisps of silicaceous cilia. Ascending the lounge, they twisted and curled and found their way to the head of the recumbent, sleeping human. A small number of cilia entered