78 - Tryptch

Despite Tizrav’s chattering and dancing, Hara finished her water, ran a cool cloth over her face and hands before lying down.  “All right,” she said, and the bees came down and settled on her.

Tizrav eeled up and stretched out under her chin and along her breastbone. “You want me to get to Terence himself, instead of his machine, on Xanadu and get him and someone else… Shashi’s cub you called them… here to us.  Am I right?”

*You fly I fly.  Get Terry fly fly run away.  Save secret cub.*

“There’s a secret cub of some kind on Xanadu.”

The bees roared a yes into her head loud enough that she flinched her eyes closed. “When you say secret cub… you mean someone… one of ours who actually made their way secretly to Xanadu.”

She wasn’t asking.  Secret cub.  Tizzy was talking about a spy.

For some reason the Great Hive and Tizrav wanted her to reach Terence, himself, on Xanadu.  “All right.  You are going to have to pave my way in… and my way out.”

*You fly.  We fly.*

She lay, eyes closed, feeling the tickle of the bees’ feet and Tizzy’s whiskers.  “All right.  Let’s fly.”

**

Oh, endarkened, Davood… Davood… they took you away, these unveiled people.  We tried… we tried to be like their Illiterates but there was so much that even the non-machine folk just knew… we watched and learned their language.  Like High Lainz or Milari without the peasant tongue in it.  The mander speak.  English.  That is what they called it.

Davood… you woke up today and I have to watch.  You recognized me, you called me by my real name… You are answering to them calling you ‘David’ as if it were your own.  You aren’t there behind your eyes anymore.  They took out your mind and put code in, instead.  You love the owner.  The owner can do no wrong.

They took that ferocious intellect.  You were the most free soul I knew, when I met you.  Even the old man… he’s like us, but tired and he’s weeks worth of travel away.  We made it across the sand, we watched so we could fit in…

They caught us.

Davood, don’t tell them about us… I’m being quiet still.  You can’t remember where you are from.  What they did to you has burned out your memory.  I sit in this cage and watch you.  You’re free.  They don’t even lock you up, they just tell you that Prime wants you to stay here for now and you won’t move until they tell you.

Davood… my brother.  I’m ashamed.  I should have fought harder when they discovered us.  I should have saved us… I should have been better.  I’m going to have to tell mother and father that I’ve lost you.  You aren’t there anymore.

Mama will cry.  I have to get away somehow… code is closed I can’t get a message out.  Mama will cry for both of us.  I put my hands on the bars.  “Davood… can you let me out?”

“Prime wouldn’t like that, Eshmaeel.”

“He wouldn’t mind me going to get a drink of water now, would he?”

“I can get you water, Eshmaeel”

The tall man… the manager.  I want to hate him.  He runs these white-coats who torture us.  We are his rats.  I’m going mad. I’m a rat.  In a cage.  Not even a ferret.  A ferret could run through the bars in the code and unlock the cage

They pour code into my head and it burns.  It burns.  I am Eshmaeel.  I will not say anything else.  Give me my veil you naked faced barbarians.  Give me some privacy!

**

“Gerald… I can’t do this for you.  I don’t have anywhere to run to, don’t you see?  You’ve gotten this idea that there is somewhere else other than Xanadu.”

“Brother… You’re the one without a family… I arrange this right and you can take the one we haven’t yet ‘modified’.  I’ll find a way to arrange a horrific lab accident… to cover your tracks and to destroy key components in our work.  Terry.  When you sent me the letter I was overjoyed.  You’ve given me a way out.”

“But… Gerry… You’re willing to risk sending me out into the sand with a man your team has driven half crazy?  You think he can get me to this mythical somewhere else?”

“The Heir is on the spine liner coming from Steinpelz.” Terence had never seen his brother look so grim.  “He is not like our Prime at all and the old man is setting up to trap him—wonderful flower gardens Mr. Jones.” Gerald touched his hat as their host bustled away from the main party to accost them.

“Thank you, thank you… whatever are the two of you talking about so thick as thieves back here?”

“I spotted a very rare earthan flower of yours Mr. Jones,” Terence said.  “And I absolutely had to show my brother.  He didn’t believe me.”

Gerald picked up on the hint.  “Tacca Chantrieri?  However did you get it to survive here?  It needs so much humidity.  I’m astonished.”

“Oh, that’s my ‘Chat’s Whiskers’!  I have a glass bell I have placed over it every night… It is only out in the open display like this when I have my little parties.”  Jones beamed at his monstrous, dark purple flower, that had more care than a dozen Illiterate children on his estate.

 “I’m not done talking to you, Terry,” Gerald hissed.  “We aren’t finished and it needs to be soon.”