Matriarch

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Book: Matriarch by Karen Traviss Read Free Book Online
Authors: Karen Traviss
Tags: Science-Fiction, Fantasy
she develop the bioluminescence, and then the language?
    I won’t 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.
    Lindsay’s brain merged the multilayered image of light and density and faint electrical impulses. Is this how Shan sees things? She chose her words carefully.
    â€œI didn’t know they contained cobalt. I’m truly sorry.”
    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.
    â€œWe’ll help you,” she said. The lamp projected her words. “Give us a chance.”
    â€œGive me the lamp,” said Rayat.
    â€œSod off. I’ll do the talking.” 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. “What do I call you?”
    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 hadn’t understood. “Do you use names? I’m Lindsay Neville.”
    Eeeenz.
    It took Lindsay a few moments to grasp what the bezeri was saying. It was trying to pronounce her name.
    â€œLindsay,” she repeated.
    Leeenz.
    â€œYes. Leenz. ”
    Saib.
    â€œSaib.” Lindsay repeated it. “Saib.”
    I am a patriarch. My children are dead.
    â€œMy child is dead, too,” said Lindsay. David, premature David, who would have survived if Shan had given him a little of her altered blood. “I can understand that much.”
    How will you eat?
    Rayat cut in. “ C’naatat will enable us to digest anything, I’m sure of that.”
    The lamp didn’t translate; Rayat was beyond the range of the mike. Lindsay hadn’t 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 c’naatat? Shan survived months drifting in space without a suit; Lindsay didn’t want to test what c’naatat could force her to survive at this depth. And as soon as she thought of that, she remembered something that she was sure she’d 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 wasn’t her memory.
    It was Shan’s. Eddie had told her about it: the gorilla was asking for help, but Shan hadn’t understood until years later. It haunted her.
    I don’t want your memories but you’re welcome to mine. That’s what Ade had said when he transferred the parasite to her, making sure her blood didn’t contaminate his. Genetic memory; another little add-on that c’naatat 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

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