Scripture was comforting in direct proportion to its bitterness upon the tongue.
Tristen shook his head. Mallory touched him again, long fingers curving around his armored biceps. Tristen opened his mouth and closed it, opened his mouth once more.
'Tristen?'
'Her name was Sparrow,' Tristen said, eventually, because he had to say something. 'Before she died, she was my daughter.'
13
available light
Dostoevsky once wrote: 'If God did not exist, everything would be permitted'; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point.... Nor ... if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize our behavior.... We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free.
The orchid's hydra-headed blossoms looked delicate, but the tendrils were strong as carbon monofilament. And Benedick did not miss the manner in which--while one remained focused on him, petals up and forward as if straining with attention--the other four dragon faces bent down on their long stems, slicking petals back like reptiles flattening their frills. They gave the impression of hounds nosing after a scent, and indeed he saw one dart forth, grab the stiff, microwaved body of a leech, and gulp it down with head-jerking motions and a swelling of the stem.
While he observed, both worried and fascinated, the blossom that remained focused on him gently brushed his face and said, 'The cyberleeches were particularly programmed to hunt for you. Why should that be?'
Now that he was looking for it, he could see the way some of the tuberous stems behind the array of flat-laid leaves expanded and contracted, showing fine, translucent green membranes between dark ribs. The orchid's breath across his face was sweet, refreshing--not scented, but laden with exhaled oxygen. He breathed deeply to clear his head.
He didn't know the answer to the orchid's question, but he thought he had a pretty good guess. When uncertain, stall.
'Is my sister alive?'
Two more heads--or blossoms--came up to regard him, fanged labellums jutting pugnaciously. They moved closer, swaying the length of his body as if conducting an inspection by sniffing. The gesture allowed him an intimate view of the fangs--sharply curved thorns eight or ten centimeters in length--which seemed quite adequate to a fight.
'Sister?' the orchid asked in a dragony hiss. 'The other mammal?'
Its bellows worked even when it wasn't speaking. He also detected shifting aromas on the air that seemed timed to the pull in and push out. Was that its language?
Not very useful for long-distance communication. But then, neither would its whispery speech be.
'The other mammal,' Benedick confirmed. 'Is she alive?'
His orchid--the violet-and-yellow striped one--arched one stem way over as if to confer closely with the white-and-crimson splotched orchid restraining Chelsea. Three other blossoms remained focused on Benedick, while the fifth still snuffled after scraps of meat.
In the second plant's grasp, Chelsea lifted her sagging chin with neck-cabling effort. Her head wobbled briefly and tipped backward, but Benedick saw her blink. Her throat worked.
Her lips moved. The orchid supporting her shifted a coil of tendrils to support her skull, tipping it gently upright. She got another breath and muttered in broken syllables, 'I'll live. Fuck it all.'
Benedick winced in empathy. The burns on her face seemed to be healing under the froth of pale green foam, but the skin around it pulled up in dry ridges when she grimaced. Even her symbiont wouldn't keep that from hurting.
She glanced around, face rearranging itself from its tentative grimace to mild disbelief as she saw what had rescued--or captured--them. 'Hello, ah, orchid-people.'
Was that leaf-rustling laughter? The plant that gripped Benedick said, in its rubbing voice, 'You have not answered the question, mammals. What have you done to deserve ambush?'
Benedick glanced at Chelsea. She looked up at him from under her eyelashes and somehow managed to twist her lips into what he took for an attempt at a brave grin. It looked more like a rictus.
It stung how much she reminded him of what Caitlin had been when they were still young and courageous in their ignorance. It stung because he had loved Caitlin when she was brash and overconfident, and Caitlin wasn't that, anymore. And neither was Ben.
'We are on Errantry. We are in pursuit of a fugitive criminal,' he said. 'Whether the ambush is her work or not, I am uncertain--but I would theorize that if it were not hers, it might be that of her allies.'
'So that is your purpose here? You are doing nothing but passing through?' It took a moment to realize that the second orchid had spoken this time. Their whispery voices, if you could call them voices, were identical.
'And foraging as we go,' Benedick said, remembering the mushrooms and eggs in the pack.
'You eat plants,' it said. Benedick wished the voice had tone, so he could tell if its diction suggested horror, anger, or simple matter-of-factness.
Benedick turned his head to look significantly at a nearby cyberleech corpse. 'And you eat animals. I would not suggest that you would willingly consume sapient ones.' He hesitated, and looked the closest orchid face in the eyespots. 'Would you?'
The rustling--the sound of the spiked, broad, body-armor leaves rubbed one over another in tight, fast circles--it was
That he had to stop and think on. Ethical in the intent, at least, he supposed, if not always in the execution.
The orchid did not seem to become restless while he considered. Perhaps plants were patient by nature.
'Perhaps,' he agreed.
The orchid's coils loosened slightly, though they still cradled his limbs, offering support. One of the plants-- his, he thought, by the bellows motions--asked, 'Who are you?'
'I am Benedick Conn,' he said. It had provided enough slack in the tendrils now that he could lift his wrist and gesture to Chelsea. 'My sister is Chelsea Conn. We are on the Captain's business.'
'The Captain!' the plant said. 'There is a Captain?'
'Perceval Conn,' Benedick said. Then, softly, trying to keep his voice level and calm, he added, 'She is my offspring.'
He wondered how much animate plants could be expected to understand mammal biology. They might find
He felt it shift, resettle itself, and the leaf plates opened into a fantasia of agave-like spiral prickles. It said, 'A scion! You must be proud.'
Chelsea shifted in her bonds beside him, making a small sound that might be worry or discomfort. Benedick felt his lips thin. He drew his shoulders back. Proud was not the right word, but he supposed it could do, if one didn't mind being entirely incorrect. 'She is very brave and clever,' he said, and changed the subject. 'I am curious. Do you have names?'
'No names such as mammals use.' It seemed to deflate a little, which might be relaxation. He wondered how
