because one recognized some of the component parts (the eyes, for instance, which sat in cups of bone like human eyes, though they were white through and through) while other features (the feeding arms, the mandibles) were insectile or otherwise unfamiliar. But you learned to transcend those distressing first impressions. More disturbing was the inability to see past them. To see
meaning
. Humans were wired to recognize human emotion reflected in human faces, and with some skill a researcher could learn to understand the expressions of apes or wolves. But Subject’s face defied interpretation.
His hands, though—
They
were
hands, disturbingly humanlike. The long, flexible fingers numbered three, and the “thumb” was a fixed bony protruberance erupting from the wrist. But all the parts made instant sense. You could imagine grasping something with those hands. They moved in a fast, familiar fashion.
Marguerite watched them work.
Were they trembling?
It seemed to Marguerite that the Subject’s hands were trembling.
She forwarded a quick note to the Physiology team:
Tremor in Subject’s hands?
Looked like it (3:30 this P.M. on direct feeds).
Let me know.
M.
Then she went back to her own work. It was pleasant, somehow, tapping at her keyboard with the image of the Subject over her shoulder. As if they were working together. As if she had company. As if she had a friend.
She picked up Tess on the way home.
It was a gym day, and on gym days Tess inevitably left school with her blouse buttoned off-kilter or her shoes untied. Today was no exception. But Tess was subdued, huddling against the autumn chill in the passenger seat, and Marguerite said nothing about her clothes. “Everything okay?”
“I guess,” Tess said.
“From what I hear, the data pipes are still shut down. No video tonight.”
“We watch
Sunshine City
on Mondays.”
“Yeah, but not tonight, sweetie.”
“I have a book to read,” Tess volunteered.
“That’s good. What are you reading?”
“A thing about astronomy.”
Home, Marguerite fixed dinner while Tess played in her room. Dinner was a frozen chicken entree from the Blind Lake grocery store. Dull but expedient and within the range of Marguerite’s limited culinary skills. The chicken was rotating in the microsteamer when her phone buzzed.
Marguerite dug the talkpiece out of her shirt pocket. “Yes?”
“Ms. Hauser?”
“Speaking.”
“Sorry to bother you so close to dinnertime. This is Bernie Fleischer—Tessa’s homeroom teacher.”
“Right.” Marguerite disguised the sudden queasiness she felt. “We met in September.”
“I was wondering whether you might be able to stop by and have a talk sometime this week.”
“Is there a problem with Tess?”
“Not a problem as such. I just thought we should touch base. We can talk about it in more detail when we get together.”
Marguerite set a date and replaced the phone in her pocket.
Please, she thought. Please, don’t let it be happening again.
Chapter Six
School ended early on Wednesday.
The final bell rang at 1:30, so that the teachers could hold some kind of meeting. It had been homeroom all morning, Mr. Fleischer talking about wetlands and geography and the different kinds of birds and animals that lived around here; and Tess, although she had stared out the window most of the time, had been listening closely. Blind Lake (the lake, not the town) sounded fascinating, at least the way Mr. Fleischer described it. He had talked about the sheet of ice that had covered this part of the world, thousands upon thousands of years ago. That in itself had been intriguing. Tess had heard of the Ice Age, of course, but she had not quite grasped that it had happened
here
, that the land right under the school’s foundations had once been buried in an unbearable weight of ice; that the glaciers, advancing, had pushed rocks and soil before them like vast plows, and, retreating,
meaning
. Humans were wired to recognize human emotion reflected in human faces, and with some skill a researcher could learn to understand the expressions of apes or wolves. But Subject’s face defied interpretation.
His hands, though—
They
were
hands, disturbingly humanlike. The long, flexible fingers numbered three, and the “thumb” was a fixed bony protruberance erupting from the wrist. But all the parts made instant sense. You could imagine grasping something with those hands. They moved in a fast, familiar fashion.
Marguerite watched them work.
Were they trembling?
It seemed to Marguerite that the Subject’s hands were trembling.
She forwarded a quick note to the Physiology team:
Tremor in Subject’s hands?
Looked like it (3:30 this P.M. on direct feeds).
Let me know.
M.
Then she went back to her own work. It was pleasant, somehow, tapping at her keyboard with the image of the Subject over her shoulder. As if they were working together. As if she had company. As if she had a friend.
She picked up Tess on the way home.
It was a gym day, and on gym days Tess inevitably left school with her blouse buttoned off-kilter or her shoes untied. Today was no exception. But Tess was subdued, huddling against the autumn chill in the passenger seat, and Marguerite said nothing about her clothes. “Everything okay?”
“I guess,” Tess said.
“From what I hear, the data pipes are still shut down. No video tonight.”
“We watch
Sunshine City
on Mondays.”
“Yeah, but not tonight, sweetie.”
“I have a book to read,” Tess volunteered.
“That’s good. What are you reading?”
“A thing about astronomy.”
Home, Marguerite fixed dinner while Tess played in her room. Dinner was a frozen chicken entree from the Blind Lake grocery store. Dull but expedient and within the range of Marguerite’s limited culinary skills. The chicken was rotating in the microsteamer when her phone buzzed.
Marguerite dug the talkpiece out of her shirt pocket. “Yes?”
“Ms. Hauser?”
“Speaking.”
“Sorry to bother you so close to dinnertime. This is Bernie Fleischer—Tessa’s homeroom teacher.”
“Right.” Marguerite disguised the sudden queasiness she felt. “We met in September.”
“I was wondering whether you might be able to stop by and have a talk sometime this week.”
“Is there a problem with Tess?”
“Not a problem as such. I just thought we should touch base. We can talk about it in more detail when we get together.”
Marguerite set a date and replaced the phone in her pocket.
Please, she thought. Please, don’t let it be happening again.
Chapter Six
School ended early on Wednesday.
The final bell rang at 1:30, so that the teachers could hold some kind of meeting. It had been homeroom all morning, Mr. Fleischer talking about wetlands and geography and the different kinds of birds and animals that lived around here; and Tess, although she had stared out the window most of the time, had been listening closely. Blind Lake (the lake, not the town) sounded fascinating, at least the way Mr. Fleischer described it. He had talked about the sheet of ice that had covered this part of the world, thousands upon thousands of years ago. That in itself had been intriguing. Tess had heard of the Ice Age, of course, but she had not quite grasped that it had happened
here
, that the land right under the school’s foundations had once been buried in an unbearable weight of ice; that the glaciers, advancing, had pushed rocks and soil before them like vast plows, and, retreating,
Similar Books
