Primordium by Greg Bear

Author:Greg Bear [Bear, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novela, Ciencia ficción
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 2010-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

We were walking along the trail, picking our way over the creepers—or in the ape’s case, plowing and swinging through them—and watching through the broken canopy of branches and leaves the perhaps not so endless progress of shadow and light on the sky bridge. The skies had cleared for a time since midmorning and the air was moist, but the trail—dead leaves overlying stones and bits of wood—was drying and firm enough underfoot.

All illusion. How could I know anything was actually solid? Perhaps this was an amusement being enjoyed somewhere by jaded Forerunners. If I did not amuse, then at any moment my story, my life, might be crumpled up and thrown away…

Our tales spun on while we walked. I told Vinnevra the ancient story of Shalimanda, the heaven-snake, who one night swallowed the original shining, jewel-encrusted stream of worlds, and the next night exploded, showering the sky with all the darker, earthy orbs on which humans would grow. As long as I heard us speaking, our voices soft and hollow in the jungle, I seemed more tightly bound to what was real, to all that I could smell and see and feel.

The girl—the young woman, for she was no longer a girl—was a comfort to me. More knives in my head as I tried to resist.

But I continued to listen and to speak in turn. I knew her real name. Perhaps that is not something you feel much about, one way or another, but for anyone tuned to daowa-maadthu, the old man’s confidence was terribly important. I could not just leave her behind, not now, any more than I could abandon a sister… or a wife.

The ape listened to us and occasionally threw in her own commentary, low rumbles and occasional sighs. If she used words, I could not understand them—perhaps they were hidden in her grunts.

Something made a small crunching sound off to our left and silenced us. Vinnevra cocked her head to listen, then threw it back and sniffed. “It’s your friend,” she whispered. “The little one.”

Riser came out of the jungle, climbing over two embracing tree roots, then stopped several paces in front of me, stood straight, and folded his arms. He looked me up and down, as if to satisfy himself I was not another ghost.

His small, wry face was as hard and serious as a stone.

I was still numb at the loss of the old man and the loss of my freedom. I wanted to reach out and touch my friend but didn’t dare. Then, Riser began to silently weep. He wiped his eyes with one long-fingered hand and turned to Vinnevra.

“You knew first,” he said, and then, to me, “The woman is smarter than you. No surprise.”

“Why did you follow us and not show yourself?” Vinnevra asked him, as if chiding an old friend. Riser had that way with some people.

“The ape is smarter than both of you put together,” he said. “She smelled me and she knew I was following, didn’t you?”

The ape pushed away creepers and branches, showering dead leaves over the trail.

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