[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

thought of her as mild-tempered, even meek, and she was. But when
Stephen Thomas suggested that he go out instead of her, she lost her temper.
"The food will not hurt you."
J.D. accepted Nemo's offer.
It touched her lips. The jointed legs fluttered against her tongue; the
abdomen disappeared like sea foam or cotton candy, bursting with a flood of
strange flavor: sweet and gingery, spicy-hot enough to make her draw a
startled breath. The air passing over her tongue dissolved the spicy taste
into a cool musky flavor like perfume. She crunched the delicate legs, but
when she swallowed even the legs had evanesced.
The evanescence dissolved straight into J.D.'s blood, straight to her brain.
J.D. broke out into a sweat, she flushed from collarbone to forehead, and her
heart began to pound. As J.D. gasped for breath-and coughed violently in
reaction to the air-Victoria's voice rumbled from J.D.'s suit helmet, rising
in pitch. A spot of heat appeared in the back of JDA mind, a signal from
Victoria. J.D. let it in.
"J.D., I'm coming after you!" Victoria said directly into her mind.
"Nemo, what's happening?" J.D. said.
Trying not to sound panicked, she sent a message back to Victoria and the
Chi. "No, don't, not yet. I'm all right. . . . I think I'm all right."
"It's the effect of decorative food," Nemo said.
Nemo's long tentacle manipulated another creature from the wall and carried it
beneath Nemo's mustache of shorter tentacles. The creature disappeared, with a
faint crunch.
Veins in the gauzy fins over Nemo's legs darkened,
34 VONDA N. McINTYRE
and the fins rippled rapidly. The long tentacles twined around each other,
leaving the silk-spinners to their own direction. The tips of Nerno's legs
pattered erratically against the floor. Nemo's eyelid opened completely, then
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
closed, then opened again in J.D.'s direction.
J.D.'s flush passed, and her heartbeat steadied. Only a quiver of sexual
excitement remained, pleasurable and comforting and startling.
"Some effect," J.D. said.
"That's the decoration." Nerno's fins returned to their normal color, and
settled back into their usual gentle wave. Instead of replacing the spinners
on the rim of the silken pouch, Nemo let them wander in patterns across the
surface.
"Did you know how I'd react to it?" J.D. asked.
"Tell me how it felt."
"Like ninety-proof champagne. Like excitement."
"Yes," Nemo said.
"How did you know?"
"Human biochemistry."
"Is that how it feels to you?"
"If excitement feels the same to me as it does to you.,, "Is this what you
live on all the time?"
"No one can live on decorative food," Nemo said.
"What do you live on?"
"Starlight," Nemo said. "Radiation."
"Photosynthesis-?"
The theory had always been that the metabolism of animals was too high to be
sustained by sunlight alone, that fictional creations like giant, walking,
talking plants could not exist-or at least that they could not walk very far,
very fast, or think very much.
"The light.of Sirius helps sustain me.9'
That would explain the other crater-nests, the ones filled with smooth silver
silk in parabolic shapes: solar collectors, focusing the starlight, converting
it, and funneling it to its users.
Nemo touched the silk-spinners and guided them to
METAPHASE 35
the rim of the pouch. They had created a pattern of scarlet and indigo.
J.D. wiped her forehead. Her hair was damp with sweat. The first effects of
the decorative food had passed, but her hands were shaking. She wondered if
the food acted with a wave effect, or if it was about to give her a flashback.
I'm hungry, she thought. I'm hungry and I'm exhausted and I have a bad case of
sensory overload. And like Nemo said . . . nobody can live on decorative food.
"Nemo, I must go back to the Chi for a while. I have a lot to think about, and
I'm tired-aren't you?"
"No, I don't tire."
"You're fortunate. Would you like to visit with someone else while I'm gone?"
"I will think, until you return."
She took that as a polite refusal.
As she put on her spacesuit, she wondered how to persuade the alien being to
let her colleagues come into its nest. They would be horribly disappointed if
they could not.
Several of Nemo's attendants whispered past her on tiny invisible feet, and
clustered around the gossamer thread that had led her in. When they passed
over it, it parted. They hunkered down over the pieces, drawing in the
threads.
"May I have a piece of your silk?" J.D. asked Nemo, gesturing to one of the
threads.
"Tell me what you'd do with it." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]