"Is something wrong?" she asked.
Temujin looked hard at the woman. He had never heard someone use those words with such a lack of solicitousness. "I'm all right."
"That bastard was interested in too many things."
Was.Krzakwa felt a cold prickle of realization creep along his neck. He thought of Sealock back on the alien lander, swearing that the empty shell they'd found had a familiar shape. "So what does it mean?"
"Nothing, I suppose, but it's an interesting coincidence. If I'm not mistaken, evolution at the viral level is very quick, and what we see is almost totally optimized. Maybe these things are optimized for a similar type of existence."
"What, invading asteroid-sized cells? We didn't see anything like that in the Centrum memories. That is what viruses do, isn't it, parasitize DNA?"
"Something like that."
"OK. You're the closest thing we have to an expert on this. If you can integrate some sort of theory on the shape of the Seedees with what you know about these viruses, do so."
"They do parasitize planets...."
"So do we all ... we need something better than that. Anyway, I don't want to talk about it right now. I've got to get some more sleep."
Elizabeth Toussaint lay alone on the bed in her room. Periodically, for no reason, tears would start to flow down her cheeks, oozing in the low gravity, then stop, and she would be still, staring at the ceiling. When her face had time to dry, the crying would start again.
What's wrong with me now? she wondered. I'm not feeling anything. Brendan's dead; Jana's dead. Am I? Why am I thinking about these things? This numbness was a new, withering factor. It was something she had inherited from John, and though it was, in a measure, comforting, it felt so wrong. Perhaps if she had to come up with a word for it, it would be perspective. She had lost her gauge for the importance of things. And experiencing the primitive emotions that dominated Sealock's memories had given this emotionlessness even a greater hold on her. I need to be with someone, she thought. John? No. She rejected the idea summarily. How could he help? Right now she couldn't even call up an image of his face.
The door opened quietly and Vana Berenguer came in. People were not respecting the idea of privacy anymore. There were connections now, strange ones.
"Beth?" She saw the drying tears and came over, concerned. "Beth? What's wrong?
The woman looked up at her, wooden-faced. "I don't know." She started to cry again, shaking silently. "I really don't know!"
Vana put her hand on Beth's brow, brushed back her hair a little, and shook her head slowly. "You shouldn't be in here alone. . . ."
"I want to be. No one can help.''
"Someone can." She reached out and, taking Beth by the arms, pulled her to her feet. "You helped Demo a little, back when we first got here, remember? Let him help you now. . . ."
"How?"
Vana smiled. "You haven't been under yet. It's more than you think. Come on." They walked out of the room, slowly, and John was waiting for them. "Beth? I wanted to see you." Vana shook her head. "Not now, John. In a little while."
The man ignored her. "Beth, do you want to link with me now? DR, I mean. . . ." Beth looked at him in astonishment. "Now?" she asked. "Oh, John. Go away. . . ." He seemed stunned. "But I ..." He turned from them abruptly and stalked off. Vana said, "Come on, Beth. Demogorgon's in Ariane's room. They've lost him together, you know, in the same measure. They need us as much as we need them."
Ariane and Demogorgon were alone together in the former's room. They had been talking, trying to talk, but were quiet now, curled up on the bed. Words were useless. Their hearts throbbed to a measured stillness, an inner silence that held a matrix of conflicting ideas. The woman thought, He loved him as much as I did, perhaps more. Our culture still breeds a strange sort of contempt, fills us with a curious lack of understanding. We think of bizarre biochemical mix-ups, of volitional neuroses for which a refused cure exists . . . but the emotions continue to seem real. It's more than just a friction between sticky bodies—the great I-don't-know-what that binds humanity. And there remain no explanations but the ridiculous romanticisms of dead poets.
The man thought, There must have been more between them than just the sweat and gruel of heterosex. People bind without reason. I don't know. I think I always looked on other people as warped extensions of myself. They're not. There are differences I cannot understand, shades of meaning that do not come through. We can see each other's experiences, live through a tide of alien feelings, but still we are not each other. We strain everything through the one-way filter of our own ideas and meanings. We view everyone through a lens that distorts them into ourselves. We never see them as they are. We think, If I did that, I would be bad, therefore he must be bad. Brendan is gone, but really, to me, did he ever exist? Can empathy be real without understanding?
Oddly, it was as if Brendan had died before the episodic projections they'd gotten from the Starseeder computer. The personality of the man as relayed from inside Iris simply connected with their other memories at no point, and it was disappearing from their consciousnesses like nothing so much as a bad dream.
The door crackled open and Harmon Prynne looked in, his face uncertain, his manner tentative. "Can I be with you?"
Demogorgon almost smiled. "Come in. Please."
He entered and came to sit on the edge of the bed. "Is there anything I can do?" Ariane patted him on the thigh. "Just be here. That's enough." They sat in silence for another little while, then the door sizzled again. This time it was Vana and Beth. They came over to the bed. Beth sat down and Vana remained standing, smiling down at them a little. "Well," she said. "We needed to be with someone. I guess we weren't the only ones." She sat. Beth lay down, tangling herself with the others, and sighed. After a while she seemed to fall asleep.
Prynne stirred, snuggling closer into the mass. "We're becoming like little children. Pillows and blankets to curl up in. Teddy bears to hug. Warm laps to lie in. This is comforting." Demo looked at him, surprised, then thought, Oh, why not? We are none of us as stupid and insensitive as we always seem. Magicians. We can be closer. . . . But the idea fled, unripe. A short while passed, and Tem's head stuck in through the unclosed door. "What's going on in here?" He came in, followed by Aksinia. They came over to the bed and Krzakwa grinned, looking down. "Is this something sexual?"
Ariane smiled up at him. "We're having a special conclave. Climb aboard." Aksinia pushed herself off the deck and drifted down onto the bed, clutching her book.
Krzakwa sat on the edge of the growing human tangle. "Axie's made something of an important discovery. We . . ."
"Can it wait?" Ariane asked.
"Well . . . sure. I think I see." He wedged his bulk in among them. Demogorgon was frowning. They're all here, he thought, we're all here, but something's still missing. This is an artificial sort of closeness, an electric-blanket sort of thing. Just because our bodies are warm .