Bear, Greg - Forge of God 02 by Bear Greg

Author:Bear, Greg [Bear, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-30T15:33:35+00:00

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kilometers, to fight with ghosts… to take revenge on people who aren't there. That's funny."

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Hans' expression solidified, dangerous, head drawn back as if he might snap at a passing bug with his teeth.

But there was something about Rosa's tone that kept them in their seats. She was not going to harangue them for being foolish; nor play the doom-saying prophet, holding up the example of the corpse of a Ship of the Law to chasten them; she was up to something else.

"How many of you have had strange dreams?" she asked. That hit the mark; nobody answered or raised their hands, but a stiffening of bodies, a turning away of eyes, showed that most had. Martin looked over his crewmates, neckhair rising.

"You've been dreaming about people who died, haven't you?" Rosa continued, still smiling, still disarming.

"What about you?" Rex barked.

"Oh, yes, I've been dreaming; if you could call it dreaming, the crazy things that happen to me. I've got it bad. I don't just talk to dead people; I talk to dead ideas. I visit places none of us have thought about since we were little children. Now that's crazy!"

"Sit down, Rosa," Hans said.

Rosa did not flinch, did not shift her smile or narrow her eyes; she was oblivious to him.

"I've been dreaming about people who died on Earth," Jeanette said. "They tell me things."

"What do they tell you?" Rosa asked. Target acquired, audience responding, some at least warming to this change, welcoming relief from the previous cruel absurdity.

Kai Khosrau jumped in before Jeanette could answer. "My parents," he said.

"What do your parents tell you?"

"My friends when I was a little girl," Kirsten Two Bites called out. "They must be dead; they weren't on the Ark."

"What do they tell you, Kirsten?"

"My brother on the Ark," Patrick Angelfish said.

"What does he tell you, Patrick?" Rosa's face reddened with enthusiasm.

Martin's skin prickled. Theodore.

"They all tell us we're in a maze and we've forgotten what's important," Rosa answered herself, triumphant. "We're in a maze of pain and we can't find a way out. We don't know what we're doing or why we're here any more. We used to know. Who knows why we're here?"

"We all know," Hans said, eyes squinted, looking from face to face around him, shrewd, assessing.

"We're doing the Job. We've already done more than all the others before us—"

He cut himself short, glanced at Martin, grimaced.

"We know up here," Rosa said, tapping her head. She placed her hand over her breast. "We do not know here."

"Oh, Jesus," Hans groaned. No one else said a word.

"We play and we try to laugh. We laugh at Hans, but he doesn't deserve our laughter. He's Pan. His job is tough. We should be laughing at ourselves. At our sadness."

Paola Birdsong cried out, "You're sick, Rosa. Some of us are still grieving. We don't know what to think… Stop this crap now!"

"We're all grieving. All our lives is grief," Rosa said.

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