Balzac's War: A Tale of Veniss Underground Read Online Free Page B

here and there, sometimes on four legs, sometimes on two legs. A meerkat hybrid, no doubt a leftover from biotech experiments before the Collapse, with a much bigger skull and an opposable thumb. Made creatures. When we captured this one, they went into hiding, and now they only send their servants, the flesh dogs . . . ”
    Watching the grimace of Mindle’s features, the hatred embedded there, Balzac had felt a prickle of unease, as if Mindle were not the messenger, but the presence of death itself.
    With Mindle gone, Balzac turned to Jamie, her face set like a jewel in a ring, nearly buried by the folds of tissue on the flesh dog’s head. Clinically, he forced himself to recall the little he knew about such symbiosis: Jamie’s head had been cut from her body and placed in the cavity usually reserved for the flesh dog’s nutrient sac; the nutrient sac allowed the beast to run for days without food or water. Her brain stem had been hardwired into the flesh dog’s nervous system and bloodstream, but motor functions remained under the flesh dog’s control. She could not shut her eyes without the flesh dog’s approval, and although she kept her own eyes, they had been surgically enhanced for night vision, so that now her pupils resembled tiny dead violets. Sometimes the wiring went wrong and the symbiote would fight for muscle control with the flesh dog – a condition that ended with uncontrollable thrashing and a slow death by self-disembowelment.
    Jeffer stumbled over a chair and Balzac became aware that his brother still shared the room with him.
    “Why don’t you leave, too,” Balzac said, anger rising inside him.
    “You shouldn’t be alone. And what if there were others? I need to watch from the balcony.”
    “There’s no one with her.”
    “I’m staying. You’ll hardly know I’m here.”
    Balzac waited until Jeffer had stepped out to the balcony. Then, thoughts a jumble of love and loathing, he forced himself to stare at his lover’s face. The face registered shock in the dim light, stunned as it began to recover itself. As he watched, the eyes, pupils stained purple, blinked rapidly, the full mouth forming a puzzled smile. Balzac shuddered. She looked enough like the Jamie he remembered for love to win out over loathing. He had known it would; deep down, in places he would never reveal to anyone, he had hoped Jamie would track him here. He had assumed that once she had found him again he could bring her back from the dead.
    Looking at her now, he had no idea what to do.
    “Balzac? Balzac?” That voice, no longer demanding and sexy.
    He was so used to her being the stronger one, the one who had an answer for everything, that he couldn’t reply. He couldn’t even look at her. Throat tight and dry, legs wobbly, he took a step toward Jeffer. Jeffer was only a silhouette, behind which rose the night: a ridge of black broken by faint streaks of laser fire.
    “Help me, Jeffer.”
    “I can’t help you.”
    “What should I do?”
    “I would have shot her in the street.”
    “But you didn’t.”
    “I missed.”
    “Balzac,” Jamie said. The disorientation in her voice frightened Balzac. He ground his teeth together to stop his tears.
    “She can still hurt you,” Jeffer said.
    “I know,” Balzac said. He slumped down against the wall, his shoes almost touching Jamie’s head. The floor was strewn with dirt, pieces of stone, and empty autodoc syringes. Beside Balzac, the flesh dog’s entrails congealed in a sloppy pile.
    “Balzac?” Jamie said a third time.
    Her eyes blinked once, twice, a miracle for one who had been dead. She focused on him, the flesh dog’s head moving with a crackly sound.
    “I can see you,” she said. “I can really see you.”
    You’re dead, he wanted to say, as if it were her fault. Why aren’t you dead?
    “Do you know where you are?” Balzac asked. “Do you know who you are?”
    “I’m with you,” she said. “I’m here, and it’s cold here.”
    The effort