Damien Broderick - Strange Attractors Original (pdf) (novels to read in english .TXT) 📖

Permanent Reviewers and the initial claimants, Action Con-Destructifdu Paris-Gauche, in announcing their responsibility for Wiglafs

suicide. In Kiev an apparently incurable attack of boils continues to afflict all

members of the Purpostful Translation Bureau that last month attempted to

discredit Wiglafs translations from various USSR minority languages. Young

writers said to be shamans of the Blacksoil Marijuana Party have been arrested

in large numbers, apparently in reprisal for the boils outrage, in and around the

city.

‘No more change for him. W hat you’ve got is a severe case of mens

sana in corpore sano.’

‘I wouldn’t have understood that before, either. W hat’s worrying

you?’

‘Listen, kid. Can you imagine Plush and Stella transferring, changing bodies? Just through contact with us?’

‘Often. Four-five times in the last few nights I’ve experienced that,

or dream t it, or pretended it. And not just that: Plush really has, in

herself, started to develop a few attributes, random stuff only we’d notice . . . ’

‘O f Stella. Yes. Stella’s done it, both the little things —you know,

shoe-size, curries —and the total change in the early hours, all this

month. She volunteered as much.’

‘W ithout your hinting or prompting at all? I’d believe her.’

‘T hat’s why I called you. I think we’re infectious, like I said.’

‘The others aren’t — or weren’t. Think of poor old Bert.’

No Bert. Gondibert? PANMARINE NEWSFLASH 41, for 11.30.36 at

22.00 hours. Gondibert Knight, ex-star-captain playboy, internationally

known as ‘Lucky’ Knight, was today banned from the whole Wrest Point

Casino Chain after incredible wins at both the Golden Mile Gamblery and the

Casino Casino. Following his expulsion from all international-level racing-

tracks, and a vicious assault upon him by unidentified hoodlums at the Sin-

Kiang Bloodstock Trials in April, ‘Lucky’Knight has applied to the World

Health Organisation for a total physical reconstruct on compassionate grounds.

International monetary interests are said to have already blocked this move and

are pressing for Knight to be transferred to the Ganymede Institute of

Mathematics and Astrophysical Computation where no gambling is permitted.

‘Lucky’ Knight is now confined to his yacht on Lake Kalgoorlie; his only comment on the Ganymede proposal so far is, ‘Does anybody guarantee that going satellite will keep the goddam crowds off?’

‘Maybe it’s different for us because ours was a transaction to begin

After the B eo w u lf expedition

99

with.’

‘You know how everybody said ours was adolescent— ’

‘Childish, wasn’t it?’

‘Infantile, let’s say. What I mean is, all them poor punch-an-judies

got the works, a complete deal. W hat we got is maybe growing up,

changing, making friends and finding new interests.’

‘H uh?’

‘Never mind. I think love comes under a different heading

somehow.’

‘W hat would that mean if we pushed where we’ve been pulling? If

we helped it all along?’

I have a complaint. I don’t know what they’re talking about. Have

they swapped wives, and so what? Have they changed bodies? O r

minds? O r certain popular parts of bodies? Here’s a sudden explosion

noise, like a snort or a sneeze with a giggle stuck on the back.

‘You sound just like a little boy, sometimes, Kid.’

‘And why not? I’ve got an idea: why don’t we . . . ? You read me,

huh?’

‘Now hold on, hey! Those geishas are half of them police or W H O

officers.’

‘Doesn’t invalidate the experiment.’

‘I’ll ring. W hat’ll it be?’

‘Leave it to you.’

Only three men left from the Beowulf crew-list. This one has got to be

Blanchis. Ah, their bell.

Two bells. C’mon Vera. They want us both. Leave it recording.

I ll

‘Hey, you’re good!’ There’s a dolphin somewhere in the roaring ocean

of my right ear, but this voice is deeper, deep as the base of my neck-

bones. Kind of laugh in a gasp. I think we’re all gasping.

‘He’s supposed to be good, Slatecoat!’ T h at’s the bony nose across

the glowing pattern of the near wall, the plane of a cheekbone lit by

flowing lights out of the intricate ceiling. Never realised how underwater the Filigree Room is . . . The ceiling is an upsidedown coral reef. O f his bones are coral made . . . Coral and kif.

Blanc.his’ nose is still breathing hard, though it drowned dancing

with the dolphin just now. A pearl rolls out of his eye-socket, up his

cheek and away.

100

Norman Talbot

‘W hat sort of contact was it, and where?’ You’re supposed to react

a lot in this game, and I’m reacting, but my game is a job. Both my

games are jobs.

‘Classified,’ groans the voice around my neck. ‘Tau Ceti. Satellite to

planet three. Can’t describe it.’ His breath carries kif.

‘Try.’ They should be loosened up enough. I’m so loose I’m shaking.

‘It gave all of you what you wanted. Right?’ Vera’s voice no longer

sounds like a dolphin. She —and the silence —have decided my

interrogation wasn’t sufficiently subtle.

‘If I explained, you wouldn’t understand.’ They both said that, in ludicrously perfect unison like in Oscar Wilde, except one of them had a ‘couldn’t’.

Secrets are very erotic. U nder the right kind of interrogation, the

Force always teaches us, the toughest punch or judy will let them go.

I stroke Slatecoat’s kelpdark skin. ‘Did the contact give you —’

U nder Vera, Blanchis says loudly, suddenly,