Human to Human Read Online Free Page A

transformed out of sonar-pattern language into sequential tones I could hang meaning on. For a second, I regressed to the stage where her speaking was meaningless noise until the computer whispered in my brain. Karl moved closer to me, then, as if he’d caught himself being afraid, stepped toward Black Amber.
    “Black Amber,” I said, coming up to her, stopping a step below. Her shift had gold threads woven in it, almost duplicating the gold in Karriaagzh’s Rector’s Uniform. I put my bag down. She folded her arms around her, hooking her thumbs behind her neck, looking much like a giant bat with her elbows at waist level, the webs collapsed at her sides. I brushed her with my left arm, then she unfolded her arms and took me up against her left side, the web slightly clammy against me. Karl’s jaw muscles clinched as he watched us.
    “You seem/are anxious (about what: several guesses),” she said, my computer layering the meanings with little pauses.
    “Marianne, my Linguist Mate, is with the people from those who fight us. Why didn’t you want her to come?” Black Amber probably could understand the noise I made for Marianne, but I doubted she could attach a meaning to Sharwani.
    “You didn’t ask the Rector bird for them. She did. She deserves to be alone with them.” Black Amber looked at my bag as if wondering what to do with it, then her small Karst One-speaking fuzzy servant came out and took the bag. She twitched her nostril slits in her muzzle and rubbed her sharp chin, then said, “Do you like my new house better?”
    “It’s impressive,” I said. Did she simply invite me here to make Marianne uncomfortable?
    Her brow hairs flared slightly as if what she heard carried the implication of “trying to impress,” or she’d sensed my irritation, then she simply said, “Yes,” and led us inside.
    The floor was basket-woven, very awkward underfoot for a flat-footed ape, like walking on a lumber pile. Through the weave, I saw steel joists. Along the stone walls were brushed-steel platforms at knee level. On the platforms were Gwyng tube sofas like open cocoons and feather-filled mats covered with something like coarse linen, handwoven no doubt, and so terribly expensive unless Marianne’s sister Molly cut a deal with her Gwyng lover’s adoptive mother.
    But where were the other Gwyngs? Karl looked up at me and said, “Where are Rhyodolite and Amber-son?”
    I wished I’d brought one of his friends along. “Have you been ill?” I asked Black Amber. Gwyngs were group creatures, constantly in physical contact with each other. Instinctively, they isolated the sick.
    “No, I have not been ill.” She went over to a table covered with translucent plastic globs—all colors—and picked up a blue glob like dribbled wax about five inches tall. Staring into it, she turned it in her hands and didn’t speak for a while.
    Karl whispered, “Can I play with those, too?” I knew that Gwyngs saw polarized light patterns and wondered if the plastic globs were patterned in a Gwyng-meaningful way. The room had a brutal elegance except for all that tacky plastic, not like Black Amber’s first beach house at all.
    I asked Black Amber, “If you haven’t been ill, why are you alone then?”
    “The Weaver and Rhyodolite are here. Cadmium is longer.” For a horrible moment, I thought she meant dead, but she continued, “Gone from my social life, but he breathes.” She continued to stare into the plastic.
    “Rhyodolite and Molly are here,” I told Karl, then I asked Black Amber, “Can you read the plastic?”
    “Art objects for not-limited brains,” she replied. “The Rector Bird…” She didn’t finish her statement, but I saw blood engorge her web veins slightly. “Your food is here, eat first alone/talk first with me, you decide.”
    Karl and I had to eat our disgusting vegetables out of her presence. Karl said, “I’m hungry. Where’s the food?”
    She said, “Follow,” her rolling stride and