Pink Noise - Leonid Korogodski [2]
So Nathi did the only thing that he could think of, wiring his own electronic mind into the girl’s brain to replace her destroyed self and to rebuild the missing integration circuit—the one ring to bind all others.
It had taken months to make it work. But finally he made her dream.
THE DARKNESS OF THE MARTIAN POLAR NIGHT IS CUT BY plumes of glow reaching for the sky. This is a distant view of the Pincushion, an array of “solar windmills” in the southern magnetic field anomaly.
Sky-tall, the power needles pierce through the Martian ionosphere, catching streamers of a violet aurora—bare glimpses in the dark, and no one to see them but this little girl, alone in an observation bubble nestled in the curve of a castle wall. But she is not afraid. She knows there is a whole world behind the seeming emptiness and silence, shimmering with invisible curtains, “too violet” for her to see. The girl imagines—prayer flags upon the lines that stretch across a floating forest; tall, thin trunks are draped with gauze of dust—the swirling skirts of dancers that will never stop.
“Prayer wheels turn round and round, make the little devils dance.”
From all around, slender columns of electrified dust, taller than Olympus Mons, are drawn toward the even taller needles—baby dust devils, only beginning to form. They circle around the needles, spinning, like dancing partners straining for a kiss, like moths that opted for the longest path to flame. But they keep coming, one after another, to turn the flywheels stacked along the axis of the needle like toy rings around a pole. Round and round the wheels go, hovering above each other, resting on their magnetic pillows.
If only she could reach and touch them, turn the prayer wheels, maybe the Needle Fairy would grant her wish. But she is just a little girl; and outside, the world is so cold the air itself has turned to ice. Nanny is strong, and fast, in that special battle-dress of hers, and she can shoot invisible sharp fire from her fingers—so sharp it cuts through shining armor—the girl saw that, yes she did!
But Nanny flew toward the needle long ago. And she has not come back.
The girl has lost all track of time, forgot her own name. But she remembers…
…blueberries. The Martian kind, the blue-gray spherules that had always fit into her palm. The special kind, with tiny fragile stems—the hardened souls of unborn dust devils. They can sometimes be found by the base of power needles, and they carry luck—that’s why all princesses in Martian fairy tales are always given some enchanted blueberries, or else the tales would not end well.
She used to have them, but she’d broken the stems.
Nanny had promised to bring her some. What if she’s looking for them still?
An image flashes by—a piece of broken memory? A blueberry-rock garden, serene beneath a softly glowing sky—the setting sun is lingering upon the blanket of suspended dust. The larger boulders, each taller than herself, set up a game of shifting, diffuse shadows.
Could it be she had just such a garden back at home?
Silence. Only baby devils leaving their tracks across a layered terrain.
Wrists—writhing slowly, contorting through unknown mudras. Quick, jerky thrashing of her feet—steps of a dance that never ends, a dance that she does not control. Some strange, inhuman force invades her limbs. She always liked to dance—but not to this un-rhythm, and not to this un-music. When did this painful dance begin?
“Prayer wheels turn round and round, make the little devils stop.”
No such luck. The Fairy keeps calling. It’s now her turn to go to the needle, spin the wheels. What if her Nanny needs her help? Imagine this—her strong, fast Nanny rescued by a little girl!
A rare, nearly forgotten urge begins