[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

memory-thing howl in despair, burning with frustration at my refusal to watch.
It pounded away on the thready thin barrier that separated its consciousness
from mine; but before it could bash through, I hurtled back into normal space
and collided with a mound of soft padding.
Page 104
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I don't know how long I lay there, trying to clear my head. Not long the
padding was jelly bagged up in rubbery plastic, nice and yielding on impact
but cold and wobbly the longer you stayed on top of it. They must have made it
that way on purpose, so you wouldn't sprawl there forever... especially when
other people were coming through the Sperm-tube right behind you.
Other people. Kaisho.
With a surge of adrenaline, I tried to heave myself off the landing pad. The
jelly beneath me gurgled and sloshed, absorbing my motion; when I pushed
harder, my hand just sank into the folds of the bag.Like trying to fight a tar
baby, I thought. Forcing myself to be calm, I pulled my hands tight to my
chest and simply rolled sideways... off the bag just as Kaisho barreled out of
the tube behind me.
Her mossy legs missed me by a whisker. I was sure that's why she'd come right
after me in hopes of an accidental collision. The Balrog would slam into me,
then a splurge of hungry red spores would ooze across my skin...
No,I told myself.Don't be stupid. The Balrog couldn't want to possess a
person with screwed-up chemicals in his brain. Especially not when I was
already half-possessed by something else.
"Help me up," Kaisho whispered as she sprawled on the jelly pad. "Please."
On her trip through the Sperm-tail, Kaisho's hair had got all mussed... which
means it'd fallen off her face enough to show what she really looked like. I
found her striking in an elegant, weathered way what people usually call
"handsome," because they won't call women beautiful after the first wrinkle
appears. Kaisho had her share of wrinkles around her soft brown eyes... but
the wrinkles had such a well-aged grace, maybe they deserved to be called
crinkles instead. Serene and amused, both at once. Strong cheekbones, wide
half-smiling lips...
She saw me staring. The half smile froze on her face not a sudden jolt, but a
clamp-down of control, keeping her expression exactly as it was till she could
cover up. I could tell she was forcing herself not to hurry; oh so slowly, she
shook her hair down over her eyes, then brushed her fingers through a few
times to make sure there were no gaps in the veil.
"Maybe someday you should stop hiding," I said.
"Maybe someday I will," she answered in her usual whisper. "When the Balrog
has 'elevated' my consciousness to such heights I can't feel childish
emotions." For a moment, the fingers she was combing through her hair clenched
into fists gripped by some sudden emotion, rage, shame, I don't know. She
trembled with the power of it; I could imagine her face scrunched in on itself
under that hair, her eyes squeezed shut, the serenely crinkled skin bunched up
into ridges and hollows.
A long ten seconds passed before she relaxed. Then she shook her head and
flung her arms wide toward me, crying, "Help me,Teelu." Not a whisper a
desperate plea.
But in the next instant, a shudder went through her; and though her position
scarcely changed, all the pleading passion vanished. Got squashed down. "Help
me,Teelu," she said, back to her old staid whisper. "Help me up, if you
Page 105
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
please. Festina promised me time to get clear, but soon that Sperm-tube will
spit out a three-hundred-kilo lobster with big sharp claws."
I stared at her a moment. What had just happened? The woman herself speaking,
"Help me," then the Balrog choking her off? Or was it all playacting: the
Balrog amusing itself by making me worry, or trying to trick me into something
I'd regret?
No way to know. But Kaisho was right about one thing if Zeeleepull flew out
of the tube while she was still in the line of fire, his pincers could spear
straight through her. I hurried over to pull her away... but realized in the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]