Dark Genesis by J. Gregory Keyes

Author:J. Gregory Keyes [Keyes, J. Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, SciFi, Babylon 5
ISBN: 9780345427151
Goodreads: 1111903
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 1998-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Three

Fiona woke in pitch darkness. She was in a coffin. The walls were of some soft, padded substance that she could not tear.

Air sighed onto her face from a small tube. If she wiggled, she found she could move several inches in any direction. She could turn over, though it hurt her leg, which was encased in a heavy cast. She could not sit up—and she didn’t quite have enough room to pull into a fetal position.

“Where am I?” she whispered.

A few instants later she was screaming it, as her limbs began to itch, and then her belly, and her brain. And then she couldn’t stand it, the very thought that she couldn’t move her limbs through their full range of motion.

She didn’t know how long that panic lasted, but finally she grew calmer, used the relaxation techniques Grandpa Monkey had taught her. And she listened.

Almost, there was nothing—only the very vaguest chittering at the edge of perception. She pushed her mind out with everything she had.

Nothing.

She found two more tubes next to the air tube. One provided for water; the other, some sort of tasteless paste. So they weren’t trying to starve her.

She tried to reach out again. If only she could find another mind, one that stood beneath the Sun, one that had some grasp on the passage of time—but there was nothing. It had been a faint hope, at best-without line of sight she could have contacted only a teep as powerful as herself.

She passed the time doing multiplication tables, telling herself stories, remembering the hundred landscapes of her life—the rocky hills of Andorra; the cold green beauty of Alaska; the hustling madness of Tokyo, Singapore, New York, Mexico City; a quiet, still night on the waters of Tasik Chini…

It all ended, eventually, with her pounding at the walls, screaming just to hear something. Of all the places she had ever lived, none of them had ever been silent, both to the ear and the mind.

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