Terry wasn’t certain what he expected but what he
got was... well... not much of anything.
His screens didn’t change. There
wasn’t any kind of physical reaction that he could feel. His timer clicked and reminded him that his
shift was over and he should get something to eat.
He yawned enormously. Perhaps a nap first might be in order. He yawned again and didn’t remember reaching
his bed.
**
...dreams...
or am I dreaming? I’m... learning?
What? What is that? A planet
zoomed up close to his face as he almost flinched, in response to his question.
I don’t understand. What is a planetary
nebula? I don’t understand. Terraforming... What’s that?
My
head has been peeled open and my own questions are showing the gaping holes in
what I know. I have to ask back. What is this? What does that mean? How was
that discovered? Why? What? How? And occasionally
who?
Colours
I had no names for. Places I had no idea existed. People, not just the few
millions on Xanadu but hundreds of millions, billions, as many people as are
grains of sand and their faces fly by my dreaming eyes.
Dead
ends of questions that I just had to abandon because the start of it was
nonsense. Fusion? Space-Time Warp?
Alcu-was that a name? I got a phonetic
spelling of it. It was a name. Animals. Earthen animals, animals identified as other
planet’s fauna. I realize what the word
fauna means and it’s root. Why didn’t I
know there my language rose from?
Flowers. Fruit.
Exploding fruit and trees covered with thorns. Mother’s face. The
structure of human skin. Structure of chishik fauna tegument. Muscles of the human smile. Bush Dragon wing evolution. Perfume. How it’s made.
Moby Dick. Mobies on Ishmael. Planet
Ishmael. Sea-faring human culture, clash
and resolution with sentient Mobies. Blackmarket in sentient Mobies.
Corporate
Space. Kingdom, San, NeoBejing, Sacred Ball of Rock, Chat Chapeau, Steinpelz,
Church of the Divine Human Form.
Terry woke up, sitting in his bunk, soaked in sweat,
gasping “Stop! Stop it! Stop it! Turn it
off! Stop!” And, blessedly, the Font in his head stopped spewing information,
images and videos at him. He felt
suddenly, echoingly alone inside his own skull and was able to take a deep
breath. “How do I stop it doing that?” he asked the air, plaintively, and froze
as he was answered. The words... he could see the words as if they were
projected on the wall. He imagined a screen on the wall and one obligingly
appeared for him, rather than blazing on the fused moon rock as glowing letters
of fire – Christian Holy Book... ‘letters
of fire' appearing to King—“STOP!”
His shout echoed in his bedroom. *Operating System:
Subroutine sleep learning mode on full.
Change to ‘light’? Y/N*
“Um... Yes?” he said and the letters blurred
away. *Subroutine change accepted. Other operating system changes? Y/N*
“No. Can you
quiet things down while I’m asleep... you... machine you?”
*Operating system: Terence Charles Arthur Cameron
node 4 trillion 5 million 3 hundred 30 thousand and 5, sleep mode, engaged.*
The screen on his wall went away as if he’d imagined
it. Perhaps he had. But it was still quiet now. The inside of his skull felt a bit as though
it were the fading phosphor glow of a screen turned off, but that was
tolerable. He slumped back into his pillow
and rolled over. Blinking certainly hadn’t
changed. And he really shouldn’t be
afraid to close his eyes. He could see,
behind his eyelids, this doorway. With a
‘do not disturb’ sign on it in glow in the dark paint. “Do not Disturb while I’m asleep,” he
muttered to himself, caught himself yawning again. “Good idea.”
Between the gates of his ears he could hear a faint
lullaby, soothing, restful. He slept
again.
**
*RUN... Hara... we can’t outrun those things!*
*Fly then... let the warbirds go!*
Kyrus and Hara kicked loose of their stirrup straps,
flung themselves into the sky, with bee-like wings. As their feet left the riding birds the whole
flock fell apart into a faint drift of hair knots and beads and feathers.
The sniffers siphoned up the dirt code and the bits
and pieces, honking mournfully as their heads swung side to side, snorting out
clouds of dust, looking for them. Kyrus imagined his back muscles straining as
his wings lifted him up and away from the sniffers. Hara was already shrinking in size. Not because she was so far away from him but
because their size in the air would make them conspicuous.
As he concentrated on becoming smaller, a mournful honking rose. One sniffer was reared up on its hind legs, stretching up toward them. Toward him, specifically. They were far enough apart that it was obvious. It waggled its proboscis back and forth under him, bellowing as if it were a bereft Milari wooden horn, moaning
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