Thirteen Specimens Read Online Free Page B

creature he carried, commanding it to transmit a particular image onto the film roll) had been shot from inside the living airship that had transported him here, and of the eight other organic craft as they began to lift off. They were huge creatures with stiff tapering tails, blind, guided by the men who rode in the hollow backs of their humped carapaces. They had been developed and shaped by the Guests – who had even made them a camouflaged olive green like Candle’s instrument – as if they were gods guiding animal species through their evolution, adapting them to a certain environment.
         It was easy for Candle to despise the loudly humming monster he saw floating above him, as if it were the insect itself and not the human gunner that was unloading those pounds upon pounds of metal projectiles through the roof of the fragile home. But he didn’t hate all the organic technology the Guests had bestowed upon humankind over the decades, this technology more and more complex every year. Gifts in return for the...entertainment...these humans provided, with their rapes, murders, their wars. He was actually rather fond of the organic automobile he himself owned, a dome-shaped beetle-like creature popularly nicknamed the VW “Bug” (their sort grown on farms in Germany). But it was hard to remember, sometimes, that these living machines were not the Guests themselves. That the true nature of the Guests was unknown...anonymous...
         And over the past couple of years, though in form the various mutated creatures had become more advanced, it had been noted that their life spans were not as long as they once had been. After only a year or two, an organic TV might begin to stop receiving images, rot while alive and quickly die. The living buildings that had sprouted up in greater and greater profusion in the cities, barely recognizable as having their origin in the world of terrestrial invertebrates, were dying off and decomposing as if they had contracted some mysterious disease. And then there were the Mediums – those human hosts, to some degree always in a position of authority, who carried a parasite insect which enabled them to be more directly linked to the minds of the Guests. Yes, look what was happening to some of the Mediums, lately...
         Was it too much for Candle to hope that the influence of the Guests was waning, or becoming infected, corrupted? Did some interference between the dimensions now make it difficult for them to master the cells of their tools? If so, did that mean it was also harder and harder for them to peer into the realm the humans dwelt in? Candle could only pray it was so.
         But what then, anyway? Humans would still want to see the staring dead eyes and the sundered flesh he caught on film. Humans would return to their own wars over politics or religion or natural resources, instead of being directed like chess pieces for the amusement and titillation of an unseen force. Either way, it would be the same...just the same...wouldn’t it?
         And if the Guests faded away altogether, and every last one of their instruments decayed, could he still earn his living with a purely mechanical camera? Or would he, in essence, decay too? Candle wondered if he himself were a kind of parasite...
         Three soldiers were heading toward Candle; they tended to separate into such small groups in their sweeps. He figured it was one of these men who had fired upon the family that had been hiding behind the bamboo trees. As they came, one of them made an exclamation and raised his M-16 a little higher. Candle glanced around behind him. He saw that the small boy who had been struck down with his parents was staggering dazedly after him, somehow still alive despite having had his nose torn away and one arm broken off at the elbow, hanging by only a few rubber bands of tissue.
         “Jesus Christ,” Candle breathed, as if that were the person he had seen so miraculously