Matriarch Read Online Free Page B
life rose from a vague murmur to a cacophony of disorienting, directionless noise. Panic washed over him again and he fought for calm, scrambling onto all fours and disturbing the seabed again.
Concentrate on the next thirty seconds. Nothing more. Count. One, two, three, four, five, sixâ¦
Something caught against his collar as he turned his head. He sat back on his heels and put his hands to his throat; it felt like soft strips of sponge had stuck to his skin. Something was growing in his neck. His fingers probed instinctively, urgently.
They slipped into huge gaping slits.
Gills.
Oh my holy fuck gills no no noâ
He patted frantically down his chest and felt inside his shirt to find that the slits went down into his chest and alignedwith his ribs. For some reason he wanted to sob. He should have been glad to be alive, but he suddenly wasnât, oh God no he wasnât. He got to his feet, churning the mud into clouds, and the bezeri moved in. He could pick out their bright-lit mantles, three or four meters long with their tentacles, the last of a population that he had decimated with cobalt-salted neutron bombs.
And now he could distinguish a human shape, but he could hardly call it seeing in this permanent night.
Lindsay Neville was a sonar scan, iron filings bristling on a magnetic field, a brass-rubbing outline of the woman she had been in the visual spectrum. She crawled across the seabed on all fours and then stood up, unsteady, arms spread as if expecting a fall.
Surrendering to the bezeri had been her idea.
She parted her lips and he heard a long groan of what sounded like expelled air, but her lungs should have been flooded by now. They were both alive in a nightmare that should have ended in a quick death.
âRayatâ¦â
The sound fizzed with a bubbling note. Cavitation. Shrimp make sounds by cavitation. Hang on to the facts, stay sane, stay in your forebrainâ¦
He pursed his lips, more out of instinct than conscious thought. It was harder to make sound than he imagined. Whatever rapid cânaatat adaptation had given Lindsay the ability to manipulate microscopic air bubbles would emerge in him too. He was counting on it. He had things to say.
âLamp,â he mouthed. Could she see him? Could she lip-read? He could.
She held it up. The large round signal lamp that the wessâhar had built to talk to the bezeri in their language of colored light had survived the dive. That was something. At least they could communicate with the creatures.
It was going to be hard to find something appropriate to say to them. But the more Rayat watched and felt the changes the cânaatat parasite was making to him, the more he feltheâd been right to do whatever it took to keep the organism out of the wrong hands.
Sterilizing Ouzhari island hadnât destroyed the source of cânaatat. Even if that had made the deaths of the bezeri sadly unnecessary, it had also shown him how very high the stakes were. The parasite was even more remarkable and exploitable than heâd imagined.
This is for my government. This thing canât be trusted to commerce, either.
He could see Lindsay Neville clearly now. He could even see the detail of the shoulder tabs on her shirt. Sheâd taken off the commanderâs rank insignia long ago.
And gills.
They were slightly everted, like lips down each side of her neck. He was glad he couldnât see himself. Changes like that had to be accepted gradually, not appear shockingly in the mirror one morning.
âWe killed them, you bastard,â Lindsay mouthed. Her wide-open eyes were like a statueâs in his altered vision, a grayscale image devoid of pupil and color. âWe killed them. Now we pay for that. Forever. â
Rayat thought that forever was much longer than he had in mind.
Upper terraces, Fânar
Shan Frankland let the stream of water from the shower spigot play on her head and stared at the sliver of hard soap
Concentrate on the next thirty seconds. Nothing more. Count. One, two, three, four, five, sixâ¦
Something caught against his collar as he turned his head. He sat back on his heels and put his hands to his throat; it felt like soft strips of sponge had stuck to his skin. Something was growing in his neck. His fingers probed instinctively, urgently.
They slipped into huge gaping slits.
Gills.
Oh my holy fuck gills no no noâ
He patted frantically down his chest and felt inside his shirt to find that the slits went down into his chest and alignedwith his ribs. For some reason he wanted to sob. He should have been glad to be alive, but he suddenly wasnât, oh God no he wasnât. He got to his feet, churning the mud into clouds, and the bezeri moved in. He could pick out their bright-lit mantles, three or four meters long with their tentacles, the last of a population that he had decimated with cobalt-salted neutron bombs.
And now he could distinguish a human shape, but he could hardly call it seeing in this permanent night.
Lindsay Neville was a sonar scan, iron filings bristling on a magnetic field, a brass-rubbing outline of the woman she had been in the visual spectrum. She crawled across the seabed on all fours and then stood up, unsteady, arms spread as if expecting a fall.
Surrendering to the bezeri had been her idea.
She parted her lips and he heard a long groan of what sounded like expelled air, but her lungs should have been flooded by now. They were both alive in a nightmare that should have ended in a quick death.
âRayatâ¦â
The sound fizzed with a bubbling note. Cavitation. Shrimp make sounds by cavitation. Hang on to the facts, stay sane, stay in your forebrainâ¦
He pursed his lips, more out of instinct than conscious thought. It was harder to make sound than he imagined. Whatever rapid cânaatat adaptation had given Lindsay the ability to manipulate microscopic air bubbles would emerge in him too. He was counting on it. He had things to say.
âLamp,â he mouthed. Could she see him? Could she lip-read? He could.
She held it up. The large round signal lamp that the wessâhar had built to talk to the bezeri in their language of colored light had survived the dive. That was something. At least they could communicate with the creatures.
It was going to be hard to find something appropriate to say to them. But the more Rayat watched and felt the changes the cânaatat parasite was making to him, the more he feltheâd been right to do whatever it took to keep the organism out of the wrong hands.
Sterilizing Ouzhari island hadnât destroyed the source of cânaatat. Even if that had made the deaths of the bezeri sadly unnecessary, it had also shown him how very high the stakes were. The parasite was even more remarkable and exploitable than heâd imagined.
This is for my government. This thing canât be trusted to commerce, either.
He could see Lindsay Neville clearly now. He could even see the detail of the shoulder tabs on her shirt. Sheâd taken off the commanderâs rank insignia long ago.
And gills.
They were slightly everted, like lips down each side of her neck. He was glad he couldnât see himself. Changes like that had to be accepted gradually, not appear shockingly in the mirror one morning.
âWe killed them, you bastard,â Lindsay mouthed. Her wide-open eyes were like a statueâs in his altered vision, a grayscale image devoid of pupil and color. âWe killed them. Now we pay for that. Forever. â
Rayat thought that forever was much longer than he had in mind.
Upper terraces, Fânar
Shan Frankland let the stream of water from the shower spigot play on her head and stared at the sliver of hard soap
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