insistent.
“ It ’ s okay, ” I whispered. I shut the 3i down but couldn ’ t do anything about the mite cluster. The hollow ache in the pit of my stomach had turned my legs weak.
They ’ re hungrier than we are, I thought. They take so much... eighty percent of all consumable calories from the combined feedlots ... how can they still be so hungry?
The surrogate center loomed up ahead and I picked up the pace. When I got closer to it, I noticed that the eyes around me began to thin out until, by the time the pinprick scanners at the gate flashed black-light blue, they were gone.
I hopped off the walkway. The front entrance, a thick glass partition so clear and clean I hadn ’ t even realized it was there, slid silently on its track to let me through. I glanced back once and saw the smattering of staring eyes in the distance wink out one by one.
“ It ’ s okay, ” I whispered in Tānchi ’ s ear, hugging him to my chest. I felt him relax a little as he held me back.
Inside the building a long, empty corridor stretched off into darkness where there were no signs in any language. Not sure where to go, I started down, the squeak of my damp rubber soles echoing ahead and behind. The air turned cooler, and I ’ d passed several closed doors on either side when something flickered in the dark up ahead. Electronic black-lit eyes stared down at me, and a knobby metal ball dropped down on a mechanical stalk that trailed a web of hair-thin wires. The array of electronic sensors focused on me, and the ball emitted something between a chirp and an electronic fart, but my attention had turned to the shadows beyond it.
Whoa.
Past the eye, the walls had been stripped down to their I-beams. The tiled floor had been peeled away to form a yawning, circular hole underneath the steel framework.
What the hell is that?
The hole dropped down into blackness, ringed by what looked like giant spines or bristles. A low rush of air rumbled from its mouth, and the kid clucked happily, pawing at the air toward it as the shape inside his head shuddered.
I had stepped past the eye to get a better look when I felt a hitch and the view in front of me changed. I ’ d passed headlong through an unseen gate and stumbled into a dark, low-ceilinged room somewhere else. I heard scurrying overhead and looked up as a series of soft white lights flickered on to let me see. Tiny little servos, biogel blobs with wiry mechanical legs, streamed across ordered clusters of wire above me.
With a jolt, I spun around but saw only a honeycomb-scaled wall behind me. I turned around again and found myself facing a semicircular guard station on the other side of the room, where a uniformed male haan stood.
His wide-set eyes glowed brilliant orange, his skin glistening in the low light. Through the forehead of his handsome mannequin-like face, I could make out the grublike curls of his two brains, and the clusters of cilia that tethered them to other half-seen nodules in there with them. The little brain began to quiver, and when I glanced down at Tānchi I saw the smaller shape inside his head stir in response.
“ Excuse me, ” I said, breaking the silence. One of the haan ’ s eyes turned to me, the pupils making a quick revolution. His suit draped from his broad shoulders, folded around him like leathery wings as he stared.
“ I need to — ”
“ Wait, ” the haan said, the voice box at his throat flickering as the smooth, synthesized voice issued from it. A scalefly buzzed out from the folds of his suit.
“ But I — ”
“ No further information is required of you at this time, ” he said.
“ Stop cutting me off, ” I said evenly. “ Don ’ t you want to know why I ’ m here? ”
“ No. ”
I opened my mouth to say something else, but closed it again. Sometimes haan were like that. I adjusted Tānchi ’ s weight in my arms and tried to keep from
“ It ’ s okay, ” I whispered. I shut the 3i down but couldn ’ t do anything about the mite cluster. The hollow ache in the pit of my stomach had turned my legs weak.
They ’ re hungrier than we are, I thought. They take so much... eighty percent of all consumable calories from the combined feedlots ... how can they still be so hungry?
The surrogate center loomed up ahead and I picked up the pace. When I got closer to it, I noticed that the eyes around me began to thin out until, by the time the pinprick scanners at the gate flashed black-light blue, they were gone.
I hopped off the walkway. The front entrance, a thick glass partition so clear and clean I hadn ’ t even realized it was there, slid silently on its track to let me through. I glanced back once and saw the smattering of staring eyes in the distance wink out one by one.
“ It ’ s okay, ” I whispered in Tānchi ’ s ear, hugging him to my chest. I felt him relax a little as he held me back.
Inside the building a long, empty corridor stretched off into darkness where there were no signs in any language. Not sure where to go, I started down, the squeak of my damp rubber soles echoing ahead and behind. The air turned cooler, and I ’ d passed several closed doors on either side when something flickered in the dark up ahead. Electronic black-lit eyes stared down at me, and a knobby metal ball dropped down on a mechanical stalk that trailed a web of hair-thin wires. The array of electronic sensors focused on me, and the ball emitted something between a chirp and an electronic fart, but my attention had turned to the shadows beyond it.
Whoa.
Past the eye, the walls had been stripped down to their I-beams. The tiled floor had been peeled away to form a yawning, circular hole underneath the steel framework.
What the hell is that?
The hole dropped down into blackness, ringed by what looked like giant spines or bristles. A low rush of air rumbled from its mouth, and the kid clucked happily, pawing at the air toward it as the shape inside his head shuddered.
I had stepped past the eye to get a better look when I felt a hitch and the view in front of me changed. I ’ d passed headlong through an unseen gate and stumbled into a dark, low-ceilinged room somewhere else. I heard scurrying overhead and looked up as a series of soft white lights flickered on to let me see. Tiny little servos, biogel blobs with wiry mechanical legs, streamed across ordered clusters of wire above me.
With a jolt, I spun around but saw only a honeycomb-scaled wall behind me. I turned around again and found myself facing a semicircular guard station on the other side of the room, where a uniformed male haan stood.
His wide-set eyes glowed brilliant orange, his skin glistening in the low light. Through the forehead of his handsome mannequin-like face, I could make out the grublike curls of his two brains, and the clusters of cilia that tethered them to other half-seen nodules in there with them. The little brain began to quiver, and when I glanced down at Tānchi I saw the smaller shape inside his head stir in response.
“ Excuse me, ” I said, breaking the silence. One of the haan ’ s eyes turned to me, the pupils making a quick revolution. His suit draped from his broad shoulders, folded around him like leathery wings as he stared.
“ I need to — ”
“ Wait, ” the haan said, the voice box at his throat flickering as the smooth, synthesized voice issued from it. A scalefly buzzed out from the folds of his suit.
“ But I — ”
“ No further information is required of you at this time, ” he said.
“ Stop cutting me off, ” I said evenly. “ Don ’ t you want to know why I ’ m here? ”
“ No. ”
I opened my mouth to say something else, but closed it again. Sometimes haan were like that. I adjusted Tānchi ’ s weight in my arms and tried to keep from
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