He inclines his head at her, blinking fast, as though a thought runs out in front of him, too quick to catch. “It was Grandmom,” he murmurs, “who used to say that.”
Oxygen at twenty percent, says the hood.
A bead of sweat clings to the tip of Father’s nose, quivers, then drops.
“At home,” he says, “in Scheria, an irrigation ditch ran behind the house. Even after it dried up, even on the hottest days, there was always a surprise if you knelt there long enough. An airborne seed, or a weevil, or a brave little starflower all by itself.”
Wave after wave of drowsiness breaks over Konstance. What is Father doing? What is he trying to tell her? He rises and stumbles over the mangled stool and out of the vestibule.
“Father, please.”
But his face passes out of sight. He braces one foot against the edge of the door, wrestles out the mangled stool, and the vestibule closes.
“No, don’t—”
Outer door sealed, Sybil says. Beginning decontamination.
The noise of the fans builds. She feels cold jets against the bioplastic of her suit, shuts her eyes against the three pulses of light, and the inner door opens. Terrified, exhausted, biting back panic, Konstance drags the toilet inside, the sacks of Nourish powder, the cot, the food printer in its wrap.
The inner door seals. The only light is the glow of Sybil flickering inside her tower, now orange now rose now yellow.
Hello, Konstance.
Oxygen at eighteen percent, says the hood.
I adore visitors.
One two three four five.
Fifty-six fifty-seven fifty-eight.
Oxygen at seventeen percent.
Eighty-eight eighty-nine ninety. Mother’s unfolded blanket. Father’s hair damp with sweat. A bare foot sticking out of a tent. She reaches one hundred and disconnects the hood. Pulls it off her head. Lies on the floor as the SleepDrops drag her down.
TEN
THE GULL
* * *
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, Folio K
… the goddess spiraled down from the night. She had a white body, gray wings, and a bright orange mouth like a beak, and although she was not as large as I expected a goddess to be, I became afraid. She landed on her yellow feet and took a few steps and began picking at a pile of seaweed.
“Exalted daughter of Zeus,” I said, “I beg you, say the magic incantation to deliver me from this form into another, so that I might fly to the city in the clouds where all needs are met and no one suffers and every day shines like the very first days at the birth of the world.”
“What in the world are you braying about?” asked the goddess, and the reek of her fish-breath nearly knocked me over. “I’ve flapped all over these parts, and found no place like that, in the clouds or anywhere else.”
She was clearly a cold-blooded deity, playing tricks on me. I said, “Well, at least could you use your wings to fly somewhere bright and warm, and bring me back a rose, so that I might return to what I was before, and start my journey anew?”
The goddess pointed with one wing at a second pile of seaweed, frozen to the gravel, and said, “That’s the rose of the northern sea and I’ve heard that if you eat enough of it, you’ll feel funny. Though I can tell you right now, a jackass like you is never going to grow wings.” Then she cried, ah ah ah, which sounded a lot more like laughter than magic words, but I put the slushy mess in my mouth and chewed.
Though it tasted like rotten turnips, indeed I did feel a transformation begin. My legs shrank, and so did my ears, and slits emerged behind my jaw. I felt scales sliding across my back, and a slime crept over my eyes…
THE LAKEPORT PUBLIC LIBRARY
FEBRUARY 20, 2020
5:27 P.M.
Seymour
Crouched beside the upended shelf of audiobooks, peeking out a sliver of window, he watches two more police vehicles move into place, as though they are constructing a wall around the library. Bent figures hurry through the snow along Park Street, pinpoints of red traveling with them. Thermal scanners? Laser sights? Above the junipers, a trio of blue lights hover: some kind of remote-controlled drone. These, the creatures we have chosen to repopulate the earth.
Seymour crawls back to the dictionary stand and is trying to swallow the swirling panic in his throat when the phone atop the welcome desk rings. He clamps his hands around his ear defenders. Six rings seven eight and it stops. A moment later the phone in Marian’s office—hardly more than a broom closet beneath the stairs—rings. Seven rings eight rings stop.
“You should answer,” says the wounded man at the base of the stairs. The earmuffs keep his voice faraway. “They’ll want to find a peaceful way to resolve this.”