The Deep Link (The Ascendancy Trilogy Book 1) by Veronica Sicoe Page B
Authors: Veronica Sicoe
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drones, and androids, were never allowed into the deeper
layers of the hive. The Protectors mercilessly tore them apart, human or
machine. But apparently a dirt-covered five-year-old playing in their tunnels
didn't alarm them.
That's how I recorded the only footage of Dorylinae nymphs
ever made.
I wouldn't have noticed them against the black of the
walls if they hadn't moved. Knee-high even to a child like me, the month-old
nymphs stirred in the moist darkness of the tunnel like tiny shadows. They
surrounded me—eight of them—curious, almost playful, investigating the novelty
of my smell and body-heat.
Those four and a half minutes of footage became legendary
back in camp. I wasted no thought on the meaning of it at the time, though. I
was touched and tasted by dozens of antennae, stared at with the hypersensitive
heat-sensors that worked as their vision, understood by hyper-electrical brains
that could process as much information simultaneously as an AI. Without any
effort on my part, I was accepted by these creatures that had never seen any
humans before.
One of them remained my friend long after its group
reached adulthood and spread throughout the hive. I called her Edrissa. She had
a tiny defect in her left mandible. It had a hole in one of the barbs, and air
hissed through it when she snapped her mandibles together. She was very curious
about me, about humans in general. She followed me every time we met, for as
long as she could. We started playing together: hide-and-seek, hunt and catch.
As I grew older and she grew stronger, we even ventured out into the Mazan
storms together.
I close my eyes and hide my face under the blanket.
I miss her. I miss my home. It's all lost to me now, part
of another universe.
Spiron's heating system breathes through the pipelines
under-deck like an exhausted giant, her gravity amplifiers buzzing softly
through the floors. The monotonous croon of the station's life support systems
is strangely soothing, and I finally allow myself to relax.
It's quiet now, and dark. I'm floating on my own
exhaustion, wrapped in the scent of soap and fresh linen. Before I know it, I
slide into the inscrutable depths of another world.
I rub my feet against each other, and a trickle of cold
water slips between my toes. My foot trails over the sheet, sending lazy
ripples across the liquid coolness.
Gravity begins to shift, and I'm no longer resting on my
back, but standing up to my ankles in a crystal-clear pond. I feel the chill of
tides lapping at my legs, and marvel at the slivers of sunlight dancing on the
water. Beyond it, rich fields of swaying copper grass expand toward the
horizon, a turquoise sky shimmering in the afternoon heat.
I never knew such a beautiful world exists beyond our
crowded, stuffy domes and frozen moons. I wish I could stand here forever, lose
myself in the scent of blooming grass...
Something rushes past me. It hooks me by the hand, and
pulls me along in a playful chase.
We run in swift, long leaps across the shimmering
grassland. My legs propel me tirelessly through the scented air, meters at a
time, as if I'm a great, weightless grasshopper. A slender creature with
iridescent skin and silky black hair runs alongside me, holding my hand. We're
both four-legged and long-limbed, elegant, fast. We are identical, and inhuman.
We stop at the end of the field, where the grassland nips
at a stretch of gray sand. I look at the creature beside me, staring back at me
with huge black eyes. I'm not me anymore. I'm an Emranti child, a nestling ,
and the beautiful creature holding my hand is my identical twin.
I realize I'm reliving one of Amharr's memories, but I
can't stop. I inhabit his body and mind, yet am still aware of myself—I'm still
Taryn Harber, asleep in a bunkbed aboard a human station. But my heart now
beats in Amharr's youthful chest.
We stand at the edge of the grassland, my twin and I, our
toes wedged into hot sand. I know what this is, and yet, I don't
layers of the hive. The Protectors mercilessly tore them apart, human or
machine. But apparently a dirt-covered five-year-old playing in their tunnels
didn't alarm them.
That's how I recorded the only footage of Dorylinae nymphs
ever made.
I wouldn't have noticed them against the black of the
walls if they hadn't moved. Knee-high even to a child like me, the month-old
nymphs stirred in the moist darkness of the tunnel like tiny shadows. They
surrounded me—eight of them—curious, almost playful, investigating the novelty
of my smell and body-heat.
Those four and a half minutes of footage became legendary
back in camp. I wasted no thought on the meaning of it at the time, though. I
was touched and tasted by dozens of antennae, stared at with the hypersensitive
heat-sensors that worked as their vision, understood by hyper-electrical brains
that could process as much information simultaneously as an AI. Without any
effort on my part, I was accepted by these creatures that had never seen any
humans before.
One of them remained my friend long after its group
reached adulthood and spread throughout the hive. I called her Edrissa. She had
a tiny defect in her left mandible. It had a hole in one of the barbs, and air
hissed through it when she snapped her mandibles together. She was very curious
about me, about humans in general. She followed me every time we met, for as
long as she could. We started playing together: hide-and-seek, hunt and catch.
As I grew older and she grew stronger, we even ventured out into the Mazan
storms together.
I close my eyes and hide my face under the blanket.
I miss her. I miss my home. It's all lost to me now, part
of another universe.
Spiron's heating system breathes through the pipelines
under-deck like an exhausted giant, her gravity amplifiers buzzing softly
through the floors. The monotonous croon of the station's life support systems
is strangely soothing, and I finally allow myself to relax.
It's quiet now, and dark. I'm floating on my own
exhaustion, wrapped in the scent of soap and fresh linen. Before I know it, I
slide into the inscrutable depths of another world.
I rub my feet against each other, and a trickle of cold
water slips between my toes. My foot trails over the sheet, sending lazy
ripples across the liquid coolness.
Gravity begins to shift, and I'm no longer resting on my
back, but standing up to my ankles in a crystal-clear pond. I feel the chill of
tides lapping at my legs, and marvel at the slivers of sunlight dancing on the
water. Beyond it, rich fields of swaying copper grass expand toward the
horizon, a turquoise sky shimmering in the afternoon heat.
I never knew such a beautiful world exists beyond our
crowded, stuffy domes and frozen moons. I wish I could stand here forever, lose
myself in the scent of blooming grass...
Something rushes past me. It hooks me by the hand, and
pulls me along in a playful chase.
We run in swift, long leaps across the shimmering
grassland. My legs propel me tirelessly through the scented air, meters at a
time, as if I'm a great, weightless grasshopper. A slender creature with
iridescent skin and silky black hair runs alongside me, holding my hand. We're
both four-legged and long-limbed, elegant, fast. We are identical, and inhuman.
We stop at the end of the field, where the grassland nips
at a stretch of gray sand. I look at the creature beside me, staring back at me
with huge black eyes. I'm not me anymore. I'm an Emranti child, a nestling ,
and the beautiful creature holding my hand is my identical twin.
I realize I'm reliving one of Amharr's memories, but I
can't stop. I inhabit his body and mind, yet am still aware of myself—I'm still
Taryn Harber, asleep in a bunkbed aboard a human station. But my heart now
beats in Amharr's youthful chest.
We stand at the edge of the grassland, my twin and I, our
toes wedged into hot sand. I know what this is, and yet, I don't
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