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"Nemo, I'm coming."
"I am anxious to see you," Nemo said again.
She burst into Nerno's chamber, into warm bright light. Her throat burned.
Everything was silent, motionless. The silken sacs bulged, waiting. J.D.'s
LTMs perched halfway up the surrounding curtains, watching, recording,
electronically probing the plump and iridescent chrysalis.
J.D. moved cautiously toward Nerno's shell. The single free tentacle
twitched, its fur standing out, ruffling, smoothing itself.
"I'm here," J.D. said. Her comment spun off into a sleek new surface.
Instead of words in Nerno's reply, she discerned a feeling of welcome and
gratitude. She sank down next to the chrysalis.
She waited.
The chrysalis began to shift and churn. At first random, the motion evolved
into a regular wave of contraction from back to front. A second wave began,
opposing the first. The waves canceled each other, separated.
The chrysalis alternated between stillness and slow rippling, like the
tides, like birth contractions.
The welcoming surface in J.D.'s mind quivered and fragmented, leaving
emptiness.
"Nemo?"
Silence.
One of the mother of pearl circles along Nerno's flank dissolved.
Iridescent liquid splashed out like blood. Tiny fringed appendages probed
through the new hole. A small new creature pulled itself free. One after
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another, the pearl disks melted and dripped away. The creatures dragged
their amorphous bodies from Nerno's chrysalis, fell into the mother of
pearl puddles, and writhed, splashing and squeaking.
J.D. watched, amazed, frightened, wishing she could do something to help,
wishing she knew the normal progress of the change so she could be sure
that what was happening was right. Were the new creatures attendants, or
were they parasites, feeding on Nemo's flesh?
300 VONDA N. McINTYRE
The new creatures washed themselves in the liquid pearl; their bodies
condensed and hardened like organic precious stones. They pulled
themselves beneath Nemo's twisting chrysalis.
J.D. reached out spontaneously to grasp Nemo's uncovered tentacle, but
stopped with her hand just short of it, taking in its warmth. She was
reluctant to cross the last millimeter, afraid her touch might disrupt
the change.
The opposing waves of contraction strengthened and met, meshed and
augmented. Nerno's chrysalis writhed violently.
The shell burst with the high, tense scream of ripping silk. J.D. held
herself motionless by force of will. Her heart pounded.
The edges of the shell pulled apart, shredding and tearing, falling to
the floor in ribbons of color. The opening exposed a dark, crumpled,
angular mass.
The single tentacle writhed and convulsed and lashed around J.D.'s wrist.
It was as hot as an electrical wire with too much current flowing through
it. J.D. gripped the tentacle and held it. She thought of comfort,
reassurance. She had never borne a child herself, or attended a human
childbirth, but she had witnessed an orca bearing her young one. The
divers and the orcas had given her the privilege of sharing their joy.
She hoped Ncmo was doing the same.
The angular mass moved. A bundle of sticks rose from the destruction of
the chrysalis, drawing with them a fine film like a veined soap bubble,
like the swimming webs of a diver's hands. The sticks resolved into fan-
shaped frameworks, several pairs emerging from the length of the broken
chrysalis. The veins engorged; the skin lost its transparency, but its
iridescence increased. Delicate scales of color formed a pattern as
complex and seductive as the alien maze. The new wings were as thin as
gauze, yet J.D. could stare into their depths forever.
She broke her gaze and squeezed her eyes shut, disoriented.
METAPHASE 301
She was scared.
If my instincts about NemO were wrong, she thought, it's too late now.
She shivered, and repeated to herself: It's my job.
It was her job, and she could not change the way she approached it. Maybe
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eventually-maybe inevitablyshe would regret leaving herself open. But for
now she would expose herself to whatever Nemo chose to offer.
The head of the new being emerged last, rising from the tangle of
shredded skin. Iridescent facets of chitin interlocked to form its
surface, glistening like the carapace of a beetle.
But the eyes were Nemo's, a ring of compound lenses protected by a mobile
lid that opened, blinked, and closed halfway, languorous.
Nemo's wings stretched high above her, ten meters, fifteen, reaching to
the roof of the chamber, brushing it with their tips. Five sets of wings,
and at least one more trapped closed where Nerno's body disappeared into
the floor of the chamber.
The wings fluttered. Dry now, they rustled like moths, and J.D.
understood the name of Nemo's species. Europa had thought the name an
insult, but she had never known its meaning. Embraced and dazzled by the
fluttering wings, J.D. felt sorry for the alien humans. They had accepted
the judgment of Civilization. They had never given Nerno's people a
second thought.
The knowledge both depressed and encouraged her. She had come into space
hoping, perhaps, to find a utopian system that would magically rescue
Earth from all its problems. At the same time, she feared perfection. She
distrusted easy answers.
There are no easy answers, J.D. said to herself. And Civilization isn't
the perfect organism Europa represented it to be. They may have the right
to judge us. But they don't have the right to judge us without appeal!
"Nemo?"
"I am here, J.D."
"I'm glad to have you back," J.D. said.
"I'm glad to be done with the change."
302 VONDA N. McINTYRE
J.D. did not know what to say, because the change meant Nemo soon would
die.
The pearl creatures crawled out from beneath Nerno's body, pulling with
them shreds of Nerno's shell. One snatched up a bit of the shredded
chrysalis and shoved it into its mouth. The iridescent fragment crinkled
like paper and disappeared.
Like a horde of fuzzy ants, the tiniest animals swarmed up Nerno's wings
and groomed them.
"I thought you were beautiful before your metamorphosis," J.D. said. "And
I think you're beautiful now."
Nerno's wings swept down, brushing JDA face, and up again. They quivered,
and the quaking sound filled the chamber with the sound of leaves in the
wind. The wings were much more mobile than the wings of moths or
butterflies; the articulated framework moved the surfaces like bird
wings.
The tentacle around J.D.'s wrist relaxed and drew away. She had almost
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forgotten it; she flexed her fingers and shook her hand to get the blood
flowing again. Nemo brushed her cheek, her shoulder, with the tip of the
tentacle. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]