Quiet Invasion(167)
Venera, at least, at last, was hers.
Chapter Twenty
T’SHA NESTLED AGAINST THE central heart of her city. She felt the ticking and timing of its valves and sacs underneath her body. Above her swarmed clouds of flies so thick they blotted out the sight of the clouds, and she could barely hear the rustle of her own skin under their triumphant buzzing.
All around her Ca’aed was dying and the flies had come to celebrate. She could smell nothing anymore but the scents of the rot. There was nothing to hear except the flies, and the wordless mewlings and keenings as the pain became too great for its smaller voices.
“Stop,” Ca’aed had said, how many hours ago? T’sha didn’t remember. Maybe it was only a few minutes since. She didn’t know. “There is nothing to be done. Stop.”
They had fought the disease with knives and shears. They had fought with monocellulars and antibodies and killer viruses. Its people had fought hand, wing and heart, and it had not been enough.
Now their city, exhausted and in agony, asked to be left alone.
T’sha had sent all the engineers to the quarantine shells, but she herself had descended into the exact center of the city, where she could touch the deepest part of its ancient, ravaged body.
Let the cancers take me too. She sent the thought freely onto the wind. Don’t leave me here alone with nothing but my failure.
“I remember when we grew the first park,” said Ca’aed. Its voice shook. It sounded old.
“Tell me.” T’sha nestled closer.
“I was so excited. I had spread out far enough that it was quite a flight sometimes for the people to get out to open air. So we were going to make a place just for gathering, just for dance and beauty in my heart. I think I drove the engineers to distraction. I insisted on testing every graft myself for its strength and vivacity.” Ca’aed stopped. “I don’t remember their names. The engineers. They were so patient, and I don’t remember them.”
“That part of you was probably removed,” said T’sha. “It’s not your fault.”
“Ah. Yes.”
The city fell quiet for a moment. Under her torso, T’sha felt one of the heart sacs collapse, and it did not swell again.
“Tell me about the New People,” said Ca’aed. “I want something different to think about.”
T’sha stirred her wings. “They are very different from us,” she began hesitantly. “They do not fly naturally. They spend long stretches of time doing this thing they call sleep, where they lie down in darkness and are still. At this time, their whole consciousness is changed from one state to another. It is part of their refreshment cycle.” She paused. “I admit I do not quite understand it.”
“It sounds frightening,” said Ca’aed.
“It is natural to them,” T’sha reminded the city. “They speak of sleep as if it were another place. They say ‘We go to sleep.’ I found it a little easier to think about it that way. It made it a journey they must undergo.”
Ca’aed thought about that. “Yes, that is a little easier.” The muscles under T’sha cramped and smoothed, and one of Ca’aed’s other voices gasped. “Tell me how they live on their world,” its main voice asked.
Vee’s pictures soared through T’sha’s memory. So strange, so different, but spoken of with such pride and delight. “They live on the crust of their world where the air is the thickest. It is so cold there, they have great pools of liquids filling the valleys that they call lakes and oceans. Vee lives in a city on the edge of one of these lakes. Their cities stay in one place,” she explained, “and the New People travel to them, as ambassadors do to the High Law Meet.”
A whole world of High Law Meets, T’sha remembered thinking. How grand that must be. “She says her city is an ancient place, encompassing revered centers of science and learning. Its people are great engineers and merchants and have been so for centuries. She spoke of the lake it sits on and how it sparkles blue and silver in the sunlight, and how it has a wealth of legends that belong just to it.”
“Then they do love their cities?” asked Ca’aed.
“Yes, very much.” T’sha rubbed her muzzle back and forth against Ca’aed’s skin, as she could not dip her muzzle pressed so close to the city. “They write poems about them and tell each other stories of their greatness.” She paused again, remembering. “‘Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive, and coarse and strong and cunning.’ Vee told me that was written about her city.”