she develop the bioluminescence, and then the language?
I wonât be human then. What am I now, anyway?
She put eternity out of her mind. Even planets died in the end, and their oceans with them.
Great billowing shapes with tentacles trailing moved towards her in pulsing movements, propeling themselves with jets of water. They settled in a semicircle, translucent and yet a complex sac of dense tissue filled with voids of varying sizes, rippling pinpoints of colors through their mantles in dazzling patterns.
Lindsay activated the signal lamp and held it up.
At first she heard random chatter booming from the device as it picked up and translated the light patterns from the bezeri. Then she moved it so that it was facing straight at one of the creatures.
You never thought what your bombs would do to us.
Lindsayâs brain merged the multilayered image of light and density and faint electrical impulses. Is this how Shan sees things? She chose her words carefully.
âI didnât know they contained cobalt. Iâm truly sorry.â
The lamp flared a sequence of colors. There was no way of knowing how well it translated.
We may not survive even now. There are too few of us.
Lindsay was aware of movement behind her. Rayat was picking his way through the mud, trying to balance in unfamiliar terrain and currents.
âWeâll help you,â she said. The lamp projected her words. âGive us a chance.â
âGive me the lamp,â said Rayat.
âSod off. Iâll do the talking.â She focused on the bezeri again. Concentrating kept her panic under control. It stopped her thinking about what was happening to her and what wouldhappen for an unimaginable time to come. âWhat do I call you?â
You will retrieve our archives and help us preserve them. They are all we have left. If we die out, then at least we leave some existence behind us.
Perhaps they hadnât understood. âDo you use names? Iâm Lindsay Neville.â
Eeeenz.
It took Lindsay a few moments to grasp what the bezeri was saying. It was trying to pronounce her name.
âLindsay,â she repeated.
Leeenz.
âYes. Leenz. â
Saib.
âSaib.â Lindsay repeated it. âSaib.â
I am a patriarch. My children are dead.
âMy child is dead, too,â said Lindsay. David, premature David, who would have survived if Shan had given him a little of her altered blood. âI can understand that much.â
How will you eat?
Rayat cut in. â Cânaatat will enable us to digest anything, Iâm sure of that.â
The lamp didnât translate; Rayat was beyond the range of the mike. Lindsay hadnât even thought about the daily routine of life, and the fact she had overlooked that appalled her. She had to get a grip.
Could you starve to death if you carried cânaatat? Shan survived months drifting in space without a suit; Lindsay didnât want to test what cânaatat could force her to survive at this depth. And as soon as she thought of that, she remembered something that she was sure sheâd never experienced.
A gorilla reached out with its leather glove of a hand, staring her in the eye, and withdrew. Then it rubbed its palm in a circular motion over its chest followed by a fist-on-palm gesture, over and over again. Lindsay felt shame and regret so overwhelming that it made her shut her eyes involuntarily, but it wasnât her memory.
It was Shanâs. Eddie had told her about it: the gorilla was asking for help, but Shan hadnât understood until years later. It haunted her.
I donât want your memories but youâre welcome to mine. Thatâs what Ade had said when he transferred the parasite to her, making sure her blood didnât contaminate his. Genetic memory; another little add-on that cânaatat had picked up along the way. Lindsay had no idea what alien memories would surface in her, and that was an extra layer of the