Well of Furies by Craig Delancey

Author:Craig Delancey [Delancey, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Amazon: B00AR7GLZO
Barnesnoble: B00AR7GLZO
Publisher: 496 Perfect Number Press
Published: 2013-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

“Kill me,” the collapsed Kriani librarian told Pala Eydis.

Eydis jerked back, raising her hands to her face till her fingertips touched her oxygen mask. After a moment she seemed to remember herself, and she lowered her hands and said, “No, Librarian. You’re a Kriani. No race in the history of the universe has suffered like your race, and yet, you survived. You built a world. That’s what you are: survivors. A race of survivors. And you’re the librarian! Each day you look at hard truths, and do not turn away. That requires strength. You’ll get better. You’ll survive.” She reached forward with both hands, and touched the Kriani’s antennae, a formal greeting.

“And don’t you see?” she added softly. “You didn’t do it. You still have your antennae. You see that, don’t you? You see that you struggled, like all the Kriani have struggled, and you won.” She squatted there a long while, waiting for an answer that did not come. But finally the Kriani seemed to sigh again, and Eydis nodded, as if it signified agreement. She stood.

Bria said, “Find book. Haste.”

“Haste!” the Thrumpit echoed. It ran off into the shelves, feet slapping.

Ki’Ki’Tilish reached forward with a single delicate leg and touched Eydis. “Human, what happens here?” she asked. “What terrible truth is not spoken? Before this one dies here, let this one face danger knowingly.”

Eydis shook her head, and then looked pointedly at the Librarian. Her point was clear to Bria, if not to the Kirt: she did not want to speak of this in front of the Librarian. Eydis walked to the far side of the pit, and stopped by another of the narrow halls made by stacks of books. Ki’Ki’Tilish and Bria followed. The OnUnAn’s encounter vehicle stayed where it sat, facing the Librarian, as if considering the Kriani.

“The Kriani were the slaves of the Ulltrians,” Eydis said, speaking only on audio. “But more than slaves. The Ulltrians are parasites at the beginning of their lives, in the first phase of their development. In this larval stage, the Ulltrian’s eat their host alive. And the Kriani were their hosts.”

“Know this,” Bria said. Though her nostrils closed in disgust again, to be reminded of the horror. Hidden within her armor, all her fur stood erect. Somehow actually talking with a Kriani, for the first time in person this day, and seeing that it was a person, a person that thought and hoped and breathed—this made the horror new. And to imagine then that millions of others like this Librarian had died from a growing parasite churning and chewing at their organs, all the while wholly aware of the source of their agony, hoping for a quick death but well knowing it would not come soon. It made Bria grind her teeth.

“In a galaxy of horrors,” Ki’Ki’Tilish clicked softly, “this is the most horrible. All decry this origin, worst of worst, most miserable in a miserable universe.”

“Well, what you may not know is that the Ulltrians bred obedience into the Kriani,” Eydis said.

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