Filaria - Brent Hayward [43]
But the most shocking discovery came when he’d glanced at the area directly above the freakish pod: portions of the tracks were moist and striated and caught the faint light. When he’d seen this, a fist turned in his gut. The giant pod had descended. Recently. Not much, but the traces of moistness on the tracks were proof that the device was very capable of motion. Who requested such monsters to retrieve them? Why would so many people need transportation at one time? And where in the world would they be going?
Possibly many pods up here were this large, nearer to the top of the world. Maybe things weren’t so similar here after all —
Flaccid skin on his neck prickled. If the pod were active, he thought, there are people about. And these people, if they were also different, might not be so friendly. They might not tolerate a deserter.
Under the body proper of the device were several groups of rings. Mereziah saw them dangling from where he clung. Enough rings for a small army of lift attendants to attach themselves to while they worked. He glanced about but no one lurked in the darkness: no movement; no unusual source of light other than the pale and pulsing glow of the walls themselves.
Fingers of tepid breeze from below lifted his clothes and ran fingers over his belly.
Two rows of windows. Staggered. Eight, at least, in each row. The nearest few were sealed but several others, farther away, appeared to be open. No illumination whatsoever emanated from within. The bulbs inside the huge pod were quenched? Devoid of power?
Mereziah forced himself to proceed with his investigation but a growing part of him wanted to flee, retreat to the mad passenger and the single pod he had left behind. Inside his body, as inside that slim device, his own stowaway prowled: a bad and sour feeling, hitching a lift. Was he about to be taught a lesson for leaving his post? Ironically, it was the professional facet of him, not the newborn and ill-fitting spontaneous facet, that impelled him to stay, to assist, to offer his services.
The mechanisms of the windows appeared similar to those he was familiar with, despite the visible differences such as size, obviously, and contour. He positioned himself close enough to touch the surface of the pod. The skin appeared similar to most other pod coverings: smooth, pliant.
Reaching out with one trembling thumb, to caress the ridge that would open the shade of the nearest window, he touched the slider, moved it quickly aside. Nothing. Only blackness. He pressed his face against the pane, and squinted, imagining now he could discern something, a vague highlight or two, an outline, a shifting form? He knocked, very quietly, and was sure he heard the sounds of gentle movements, an answering and disturbing groan —
The glare was blinding, an explosion of light so strong it caused him to lose his footing and fall back hard into the netting, swinging down and slamming one knee against the wall of the shaft, which, though relatively soft, still sent daggers of pain through his body. Caught in the web, hanging there, blinded, his useless hands flailed. His heart hammered and threatened to stop in his chest.
Above him, from within the giant pod, a young girl called out: “Who’s there? I mean, who the fuck is out there?”
The light was a beam. He could see that now, as it played harshly across the darkness where he had been, gleaming on the mucuscovered tracks and ashy pale webwork of the shaft.
Mereziah lay for a long while, watching this light, waiting to hear the voice again, trying to calm himself and surveying his limbs to see if he were hurt. That voice had certainly sounded like a girl’s. A normal, if somewhat brazen, girl. When he heard the question repeated one more time he frowned, began to untangle himself, and replied, as loudly and as confidently as he could, “Hello there? I’m a lift