Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [47]
She heard a heavy beating in the corner of the cage, like thick rugs being slammed quickly together. Her breath came faster and she fumbled to pour the grubs onto the tray. The four little undulating lozenges slipped in a shower of paper debris onto the metal.
Immediately, something changed in the quality of the air. The caterpillars could smell the inhabitant of the cage, and they were crying out to it for succour.
The thing in the cage was answering.
These cries were not audible. They vibrated in wavelengths other than sonar. The scientist felt the hair all over her body bristle as the ghosts of emotions fleeted through her skull like half-heard rumours. Snippets of alien joy and inhuman terror wafted in her nostrils and ears and behind her eyes, synaesthetically.
With trembling fingers she pushed the tray into the cage.
As she stepped away from the bars, something stroked her leg with a lascivious flourish. She gave a moaning grunt of fear and yanked her trouser out of reach, clamped down on her terror, resisted the instinct to look behind her.
In her head-mounted mirrors, she glimpsed dark brown limbs uncurling in the rough undergrowth, the yellowing bone of teeth, black ocular pits. The ferns and scrub rustled and the thing was gone.
The scientist knocked brusquely on the door as she swallowed, holding her breath until it was opened and she stumbled out nearly into the arms of the guard. She snatched at the clasps under her head, pulling herself free of the helmet. She stared intently away from the guard while she heard him closing and locking the door.
“Is it done?” she whispered eventually.
“Yes.”
She turned back slowly. She could not look up, but kept her eyes firmly on the floor, checking that he told the truth by looking at the base of the door, then slowly and with a rush of relief raising her line of sight to eye-level.
She handed the helmet back to the guard.
“Thanks,” she murmured.
“Was it all right?” he asked.
“Never,” she snapped, and turned.
Behind her, she thought she heard a massive fluttering through the wooden walls.
She walked briskly back through the chamber of strange animals, realizing halfway through that she still clutched the now-empty box in which the grubs had come. She folded it and put it in her pocket.
She pulled the telescoping gate closed behind her on the massive chamber full of shadowy, violent shapes. She returned the length of the scrubbed white corridor and at last back into the Research & Development antechamber, through the first heavy door.
She pushed it closed and bolted it, before turning happily to join her white-suited fellows staring into femtoscopes or reading treatises or conferring quietly by the doors that led to other specialist departments. Each had a legend stencilled on it in red and black.
As Dr. Magesta Barbile walked back to her bench to make her report, she glanced briefly over her shoulder at the warnings printed on the door she had taken.
Biohazard. Danger. Extreme Caution Required.
CHAPTER TEN
“Are you a dabbler in drugs, Ms. Lin?”
Lin had told Mr. Motley many times that it was difficult for her to speak when she was working. He had affably informed her that he got bored when he was sitting for her, or for any portraits. She didn’t have to answer him, he had said. If anything he said really interested her, she could save it up for afterwards and discuss it with him at the end of the session. She really mustn’t mind him, he had said. He couldn’t possibly stay still for two, three, four hours at a time and say nothing. It would drive him mad. So she listened to what he said and tried to remember one or two remarks to bring up later. She was still very careful to keep him happy with her.
“You should give them a try. I’m sure you have, actually. Artist