Free The Age of Scorpio by Gavin Smith Page A

all followed Eldon’s lead and opened their visors, making the suits recede from their faces. Melia was the last.
    ‘It smells of fish,’ she observed. ‘I’m hungry.’
    The bio-sculpted inhabitants of the ship/thing Ezard referred to as Mother were all staring at them, their expressions unreadable. Eden could not shake the feeling that they were communicating in some way. She had watched one of them crawl to a swollen nipple-like growth on the wall of the chamber and suck on it. Moments later she had sunk to the ground in what looked like a narcotic stupor.
    Ezard had said little. He had just let them wander, as they wanted.
    ‘When you feel safe, when you are happy, we should discuss if you would be prepared to help us leave this place.’
    Eldon had just nodded.
    ‘Call me when you need me.’ Ezard had then dived off the smooth bone/flesh island into one of the deeper pools. He glided though the water, propelled by a rippling movement in his cloak. Eden was not sure if it was technology, biology or some symbiosis of both.
    Brett was looking despondent. Their attempted genocide was weighing heavily on him. He was wandering towards the subjective front of the craft, approaching the biomechanical machinery/organs. In front of the wall of machinery/organs there was what looked to be some kind of web made of a fine, delicate version of the same material as Ezard’s staff. In the centre of the web was a cocoon of the same material. It glowed with an inner light and something about it suggested a feminine quality.
    Brett stood looking at it for a while. The others were some way back sitting on one of the islands, not sure what to do while they waited for genocide to take place.
    ‘We should be heading back,’ Melia said over the interface.
    ‘If it happens it’ll happen quick,’ Eldon replied, still angry at what he saw as betrayal by the licensed concubine.
    ‘We’ve no idea what effect it will have on their altered physiology,’ Eden pointed out. ‘If Nulty’s right and this is S-tech, then who knows how they could have augmented themselves.’
    ‘So what? We just make our excuses and leave?’ Eldon asked.
    ‘They don’t seem armed,’ Eden said. ‘But I don’t fancying holding off a small civilisation with four disc guns, yeah?’
    Brett looked down. He was surprised to see a dolphin looking at him, similar to those that worked with the Church. Except it was not quite a dolphin. Where the Church dolphins had waldos, this one had tentacles. Where the Church dolphins used interface to communicate, this one appeared to have a human mouth growing out of its neck. The creature looked old, its skin cracked and covered in growths.
    It was staring straight at Brett from about eight feet down in the clear water. A shadow passed over it and with a flick of its tail it dived down into a tunnel that led into the machinery/organs.
    Ezard all but leaped out of the water to land on the island next to Brett. The black pools of his eyes made him difficult to read, but Brett was pretty sure that he was staring at the cocoon with an expression of reverence.
    ‘What is it?’ Brett asked. He now spoke the same anachronistic version of Known Space common that Ezard did, the translation subroutine having learned it fully and meshed it with his neunonics. Effectively the language had been downloaded into his brain. Though Brett was pretty sure he had heard the others here speak a different language, one that sounded a little like sea life communicating. He had heard sounds like that in immersion programmes. Brett reckoned it would require modifications to their voice boxes to allow them to make the sounds he had heard.
    ‘She,’ Ezard corrected. He seemed to be struggling to explain concepts with the linguistic tools he had. ‘She is a conduit, a translator. The Mother speaks through her because she is of the Mother’s line. When we are in the real, maybe she will hatch, become like a god. She is the link between them