Free A Cage of Butterflies by Brian Caswell Page B

given Larsen a list of eight names. Kids who apparently failed to survive the fevers which had preceded the Babies’ radical changes. Perhaps it was a warning to Larsen. A reminder of the dangers involved. Richard was bright; he may have seen the direction Larsen’s mind was heading. Maybe he could have kept him in check. We’ll never know – the accident prevented him from trying.

XIV
    Learning Phase
    September 2, 1990
    â€œBeef casserole. Too much pepper, not enough sauce.” Greg could never master the skill of “sending” his thoughts without speaking them aloud. So far, only Katie had managed the trick.
    verygoodgreg … It was Pep’s thought-tone. She was the easiest to pick. There was a – gentleness about her projection. After eight weeks, the different “tones” of the soundless whispers which appeared inside his head were almost as recognisable as individual voices, heard over the phone.
    â€œIt wasn’t very difficult. We only had it for dinner last night. I guess they feed you lot the same garbage they feed us.”
    ofcourse … There was a pause and a congratulatory warmth crept over him. buttastesare … hardtocatch … youaredoingverywell. He could sense the difficulty she had slowing down the thought-stream. To Pep, this kind of conversation had to be like trying to watch the whole of Gone With the Wind in ultra-slow-motion, or reading War and Peace one word at a time.
    Greg remembered the Babies’ early attempts at conscious communication. Syllables exploding simultaneously, rolling over each other in their haste, until the whole message became a meaningless jumble and he felt like screaming with frustration.
    It wasn’t so bad if they waited until you were asleep. They could home in and for some reason, in that semiconscious state you could absorb the whole message intact. Chris theorised that it was because the subconscious operates on images rather than words, and doesn’t stop to break a thought into individual ideas, but eats it whole. He thought he recalled reading somewhere that a dream which you remember lasting for minutes or hours really took place in the few half-seconds before you woke. That seemed to make sense.
    In fact, that was how they first contacted Katie. At night. Greg remembered Mikki’s description of those early nights, when Katie would lie there asleep – her eyes open – mumbling replies to unheard questions. And Mikki would feel those buzzing sensations at the back of her mind which had irritated her so much until she learned the truth.
    gregareyoureadyfor … thenextone. The pauses, the breaks inside a message or a question were quite random. They were just pauses: the Babies’ concession to a mind struggling to grasp and translate. It had been Mikki’s idea, and without it no one, except maybe Katie, would have made such progress.
    Still, it took a large measure of discipline on the Babies’ part; first to channel a whole thought into a stream of syllables, then to break that stream artificially into bite-sized pieces. The twins found it hardest, of course – they had more years of telepathic habit to overcome; quite often, one or both of them would assault some member of the tank with a barrage of indecipherable thought, before they realised and shut it off apologetically.
    â€œGo ahead.” Almost before the thought was complete, his mind was filled again. This time a burst of sound, melodious, soothing. “Music. Piano. Who is it?”
    verygoodgregit … israchmaninov … youlikeit. It was difficult to tell whether Pep was asking a question or making a statement. The Babies could fill you with such powerful feelings if they chose to, but when they communicated in words there was no intonation, no emotion; just the words. Like the artificial voices they program into talking computers.
    â€œYes, I like it.” He paused. “Do you?”
    yesido …