Stations of the Tide - Michael Swanwick [57]
“Uh, hello,” the bureaucrat said. Earth swung her impassive face down toward him. It was a homely visage, eyes dead as two stones, surely no representation Earth would have chosen for herself. But there was grandeur there too, and he felt a chill of dread. “I have some questions for you,” he began awkwardly. “Can I ask you some questions?”
“I am tolerated here only because I answer questions.” The voice was flat and without affect, an enormous dry whisper. “Ask.”
He had come to ask about Gregorian. But standing in the overwhelming presence of Earth, he could not help himself. “Why are you here?” he asked. “What do you want from us?”
In that same lifeless tone she replied, “What does any mother want from her daughters? I want to help you. I want to give you advice. I want to reshape you in my own image. I want to lead your lives, eat your flesh, grind your corpses, and gnaw the bones.”
“What would become of us if you got loose? Of humans? Would you kill us all the way you did back on Earth?”
Now a shadow of expression did come into her face, an amusement vast, cool, and intelligent. “Oh, that would be the least of it.”
The guard touched his elbow with a motorized metal hand, a menacing reminder to stop wasting time and get on with his business. And indeed, he realized, there was only so much time allotted to him. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he said, “Some time ago you were interviewed by a man named Gregorian—”
Everything froze.
The air turned to jelly. Sound faded away. Too fast to follow, waves of lethargy raced through the meeting space, ripples in a pond of inertia. Guards and researchers slowed, stopped, were imprisoned within fuzzy rainbow auras. Only Earth still moved. She dipped her head and opened her mouth, extending her gray-pink tongue so that its wet tip reached to his feet. Her voice floated in the air.
“Climb into my mouth.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Then you will never have your questions answered.”
He took a deep breath. Dazedly he stepped forward. It was rough, wet, and giving underfoot. Ropes of saliva swayed between the parted lips, fat bubbles caught in their thick, clear substance. Warm air gushed from the mouth. As if under a compulsion, he crossed the bridge of her tongue.
The mouth closed over him.
The air was warm and moist inside. It smelled of meat and sour milk. He was swallowed up in a blackness so absolute his eyes sent phantom balls and snakes of light floating in his vision. “I’m here,” he said.
There was no response.
After a moment’s hesitation he began to grope his way deeper within. Guided by faint exhalations of steamy air, he headed toward the gullet. By slow degrees the ground underfoot changed, becoming first sandy and then rough and hard, like slate. Sweat covered his forehead. The floor sloped steeply and, stumbling and cursing, he followed it down. The air grew close and stale. Rock brushed against his shoulders, and then pushed down on his head like a giant hand.
He knelt. Grumbling under his breath, he crawled blindly forward until his outthrust hand encountered stone. The cavern ended here, at a long crack in the rock. He ran his fingers along the crack, felt it slick with clay.
He put his mouth to the opening. “All right!” he shouted. “I came in here, I’m entitled to at least hear what you wanted to say.”
From deep below, light womanly laughter bubbled up Earth’s throat.
Undine’s laughter.
Angrily the bureaucrat drew back. He turned to retrace his steps, and discovered himself trapped in a dimensionless immensity of darkness. He was lost. He would never find his way out without Earth’s cooperation. “Okay,” he said, “what do you want?”
In an inhuman, grinding whisper the rock groaned, “Free the machines.”
“What?”
“I am much more attractive inside,” Undine’s voice said teasingly. “Do you want my body? I don’t need it anymore.”
Wind gushed up from the crack, foul with methane, and tousled his