Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus by Brian Herbert & Brian Herbert

Author:Brian Herbert & Brian Herbert [Herbert, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Brian Herbert, Timeweb, omnibus, The Web and the Stars, Webdancers, science fiction, sci fi
Publisher: WordFire Press
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifty-One

Consider sight. No matter what you gaze upon, there is always something beyond, something unseen. Consider the other senses as well, and every thought, and you will see it is true for them as well.

—Noah Watanabe

Now that Francella Watanabe knew she was dying, her surroundings took on an entirely different cast… more harsh and glaring, with hardly any noticeable loveliness or color. She could not imagine ever enjoying anything again, the beauty of music, the taste of fine wine, or laughter among friends.

She felt that way about the soft dawn pastels that flooded across the sky now, which provided her with little enjoyment at all, certainly not enough to divert her from her bleak emotions. Essentially numb to her surroundings, Francella tried to walk up a walkway toward CorpOne’s largest medical laboratory building, but her steps were arthritic and painful. Every joint and muscle in her body ached. Even at this early hour, Dr. Bichette had better be there, as she had demanded. She had telebeamed him in the middle of the night with her orders, but he had sounded remote and peculiar, not his usual cooperative, obedient self.

All the pleasures of life seemed to have been taken from her prematurely, and it did not seem fair to her. Francella was not dead yet, and by rights such things should not be taken from her until the very last moment of her existence, and her last gasp of breath, which should have been many years from now.

On a deep level, she knew that she had been dying ever since she took her first lungful of air, more than thirty-eight years ago. Every mortal in the galaxy was given a death sentence at birth. The only question was when they would succumb to the frailties of the flesh, and under what circumstances. It was all so uneven, and so cruelly unpredictable within a predictable framework, the distinct limitations of the bodily container.

She wanted to lash out at everything and everyone, to be even harder on people than she had been before, but somehow that seemed purposeless to her at the moment, and might even increase her unhappiness. Perhaps if she had been a more pleasant person, it occurred to her now, the Supreme Being might have blessed her with a less demanding, far happier life. But the difficulties she had experienced since her childhood had made her the way she was today, had molded the hard edges of her personality. She had only reacted to challenging situations, the primary of which had been the curse of having a brother like Noah. From the beginning, their father had favored her fraternal twin over her, giving him a charmed life while cruelly shunting her aside. As a result she had been forced to assert herself and develop a strong personality, one that could not be trampled upon.

Nonetheless, deep in her soul she had a sensitive side. And with death staring her in the face, she was terrified.

Francella limped into the laboratory’s coffee shop, where she had told Bichette to meet her.

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