Willful Child: The Search for Spark by Steven Erikson

Author:Steven Erikson [Erikson, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780765383952
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Prison Planet Rude Pimente …

“But what does it all mean?” Molly asked in a furtive whisper.

The back wall of Tunnel 93F had just collapsed to the flimsy impact of Betty’s pick, revealing a vast glittering chamber beyond. The cavern was fecund with tropical plants rising from beds of moss almost perfectly covering the plant pots under them. Little nozzles misted the cool air. An ambient glow came from cleverly hidden light fixtures. Insects chirped and buzzed and birds tweeted in a rather short tape loop. It looked nearly wild, almost primal, and rising in the center of the vast expanse was a towering monolith.

“It’s like a…” Molly shook his head. “Like a … hopeless amalgam of tropes!”

Betty flung the pick to one side and stepped into the chamber. He made his way over to the monolith, stepping around the oblong coffin lying athwart the path. Tentatively he reached out toward the monolith.

“Don’t touch it!” hissed Molly, coming up behind him.

“Why not?”

“It could be, well, like some psychedelic drug, making things spin in kaleidoscope colors as your consciousness expands in unimaginable and frankly baffling ways, scrambling your entire life experience as you disengage from the normal space-time continuum, making you both a baby in a carriage and an ancient one in a rickety wheelchair all at once, with the room suddenly all white and the muted sound of breathing as you stumble into the scene wearing a spacesuit. It could be like that!”

“Huh,” muttered Betty, and he reached out and touched the monolith.

Molly gasped.

Betty grunted. Then he picked up a stick and began bashing things with it.

“Oh my!” breathed Molly. “Captain Betty has made a massive leap ahead in cognitive comprehension! Yes, Molly, you can hit things with sticks! Or, that’s right, exactly—you can even pick your nose with it! And that’s it, your ear, too. And your butt, sure, though how you’ll ever fit another stick up your butt I’ll never know. What a huge evolutionary leap!” Molly pushed Betty to one side (he snarled in sudden genocidal rage but Molly wasn’t paying any attention) and ran up to touch the monolith.

He gasped as the scene before him transformed in a wild cavort of rainbow colors that then converged to a point at one end and became a peacock, only to then blur and re-form as a …

“Oh crap, I get bad sitcom reruns. That’s not fair!”

Then Betty hit him on the head with his stick.

“Ow! Cut that out!” Molly jumped behind the monolith. “Hey! There’s a power cord!”

“DON’T TOUCH THAT POWER CORD!”

Molly and Betty froze at the strange stentorian voice that seemed to come from everywhere.

“Why not?” Molly demanded.

“YOU WILL DISCONNECT THIS AMPLIFIER.”

Molly yanked out the cord in a spray of sparks, and then turned to Betty. “Captain! Snap out of it! Put down that stick! We need to get out of here before something terrible happens!”

“Put down my stick? Are you mad? I have just experienced an evolutionary leap, a burgeoning of my intelligence. Look! I can use it as a crutch, or a baseball bat.

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