Air (or Have Not Have) by Geoff Ryman

Author:Geoff Ryman [Ryman, Geoff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: prose_contemporary

Mr Tunch joined her for lunch.

'I thought you might like to try the new food,' he said.

Because of her lecture, Mae knew what that meant. New proteins, new tastes, grown from new organisms.

'They are designed to be delicious,' he said.

The soup was bracing and solid, like lentils laced with lemon, and made hearty with something like tomatoes and pork. It was sour and sweet, with a bitter undertow like coffee.

'You see?' he said, chuckling. 'Good, isn't it?'

'Yes,' Mae had to admit. 'Yes. I wonder if I will be happy to go back to cold rice?'

He laughed again, and said. 'Maybe you won't have to.'

I am, in part, a Question Map for his future.

'You are experimenting on me,' she told Tunch, coldly.

'The food is specially formulated for expectant mothers,' he told her. 'Its nutrients pass within seconds into the bloodstream through any tissue layer. In effect, it is being digested the moment it enters the mouth.'

'Does that mean it's shit by the time I've swallowed it?'.

Mr Tunch only chuckled. He touched Mae's bruised face. 'Mae. We're trying to help you.'

For a moment, she almost believed him.

In the afternoon Fatimah led Mae to what looked like a flying saucer. Mae lay down in it, and again, there was no physical pain. Fatimah clucked once with her tongue. She turned the scan off, helped Mae down.

'What, what?' Mae said.

'The child,' said Fatimah, dazed. 'The pregnancy is in your stomach.'

Mae blinked. In Karz, the words belly or womb and stomach could be confused.

'Your food belly,' said Fatimah.

How? Mae knew what she knew. That was not possible. 'Your machine is wrong,' she said.

'No chance,' said Fatimah. 'Here.'

She replayed the file of the sounding. The screen showed a shifting mass of what looked like translucent grey porridge. Shapes seemed to bubble out of it.

Pumping and alive, something sighed and shrugged inside her. Fleetingly Mae even saw something like a head.

'That's the child. It has grown the usual protective sac, and appears to be healthy for now.' Fatimah turned back and looked at her. The downward slope of her head crumpled her chin and neck and made her look older, sad-fleshed, like Mae. 'It is in your stomach.'

'So how could it happen?' Mae's voice was raised.

Fatimah's deep-brown eyes kept staring down into hers, as if to offer her a stable place. 'Pregnancies can take root anywhere in the body, once the egg has been kissed. The question is, how would an egg and the male part meet in your stomach?'

And Mae knew how. 'Ilahe Illallah,' she gasped, though nominally a Buddhist, and covered her mouth. She had swallowed Ken; she had swallowed her own menstrual blood. She felt like a flurry of scarves, all fears and horrors. She was stripped and bare, her sexuality exposed, her private secret bedroom found to have one wall missing. The whole village could look in. Scientists peered over Mr Ken's shoulder, prying into her strange habits.

'Has this ever happened before?' Mae whispered.

Fatimah shrugged. 'If it has, it would miscarry by now.'

'What will happen?' Mae was following the consequences of this monstrosity.

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