Filaria - Brent Hayward [96]
“If you ask me to go away, I will. We can talk later.”
“Go away!”
She stood, bolting, crashing through the brush that grew behind the bench until she banged up against the translucent wall of the cage with her knee and forehead. She did not fall. Outside: endless, hostile sand, russet, undulating with heat.
Looking out, panting, her wounds hurting, her head throbbing where she’d hit it. When it became clear the voice had indeed gone away, she said, “Voice?”
The reply was immediate: “Yes?”
“You never answered my question. What’s going to happen to me?”
“You’re going to carry the torch, Deidre.”
“What does that mean?”
“Try not to think of yourself. Think of your species. Deidre, I’m one of the ones that got away. We are your real ancestors. We lived here once, but we left. And we hit a brick wall, genetically speaking. Until a short time ago, we were facing slow doom. Then we discovered you. Stuck under the ground. There were rumours of the project, old news files of the habitat . . . So now we’re coming. We’re coming to get you!”
Tears streamed her face. Snot dripped from her nose. Nearly hysterical, she leaned against the barrier, pounding at it with her fists.
“Please,” the voice whispered, “please, don’t panic.”
“Go away!” she screamed. “Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”
“I know this is a difficult time — ”
“Stop talking!”
And for a time, at least, the voice did.
MEREZIAH, L1
Quick, clean pain woke him. He lay on his back. There was a stench in the air — wet coals, and something worse, something burning that had recently been alive. Had he smelled burnt flesh previously? That did not seem likely, but how else could he have identified it?
Damp mist nearly soothed him, but there was a disturbing, fluctuating susurrus of muffled moans and wails that grew louder now, nullifying the sensation. Mereziah opened his eyes —
Smoke, and sharp light. He moaned, wanting to rub at the irritation, but could not move his hands.
He coughed a moment later, and pain flared through him again.
Some warm and damp membrane covered his mouth.
“Relax,” a voice said, gently, from nearby. A large, blurred face peered down over him. “I’ve given you a shot. And you’re in a mask. Try to relax.” The face sported a red beard and had the soot-smeared features of a man who did not dwell in perpetual gloom. “Don’t talk. You’ll get your strength back soon.”
Mereziah was about to disobey, and try to speak, when he realized it had begun to rain. A rare occurrence, but not entirely unheard of: he had experienced rain twice before in his life, falling down the length of the shaft.
What had happened to the world? And where was this place? He closed his eyes again. The pain was constant now, radiating out from his chest. Whatever was over his mouth was not easy to dislodge; he touched the substance with his tongue and found it to be resistant, like a layer of skin grown there. When he rolled onto his side to retch, the strange, pliable cover vanished to let out the hot bile but reformed quickly.
“Please, try not to move, sir, try not to move.” The firm hand on his back rubbed. “You’ve had a coronary.”
“My heart . . .? I’m . . . Who are you?” The covering over his mouth had not hindered his speech, and his throat felt raw, as if the fire he smelled in the air had burned inside him as well. But, as the voice had promised, he felt the pain lessening, in pulses, felt himself growing stronger. Soon his breathing came a little easier, and when he opened his eyes he could keep them open, though he blinked, squinted, and tears streamed his cheeks.
“My name is Steven,” said the bleary face. “Please, lie still.”
“Are we at the bottom?” Mereziah tried again to move his hands, wanting desperately to reach up and clear his mouth; whatever the thing was, it moved with his lips, conforming as he spoke. The sensation was horrible.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand your question.”
“At the bottom.