Fish Swim in the Lake

Part 6.5 | On the ravish'd virgin vengeance takes

"It's just dead silicon," Colin said sullenly. "Vlad's wuffs are closer to aliens than she is."

"How do you know it's DEAD?" Vas's face blotched red and white as the drugs swarmed against adrenaline. "They operate in SWARMS, Colin! They're like BEES that form into BIGGER BEES! Don't you guys READ the mothering reports we send down with the bodies? Or were you in too big a hurry to turn them into merchandise?"

"Obviously they're dead. Our tests don't show any life signs."

Vas turned purple. "They're SILICON! We can hardly prove ANY of them are alive!"

"I'm no scientist," Colin said. "I don't know how the tests work."

"'Our' tests," Vas sneered. He flung himself down on a long buff-coloured chair. "I see the intelligence requirements for police officers haven't gone up."

"Well, we're cousins," Colin said pleasantly.

Vas folded his hands on his chest and forced his breath at symmetric intervals. His colour evened as he clipped phrases in his teeth. "We suspected something was wrong -- but you guys were on the right track -- you were going to steer us to thinking there was a mole working with the Magaz -- that they were getting a hold on Earth. But they're no threat -- they're no threat -- what do you do -- how do you stabilize them, Colin? Do you know how they -- how they keep the bodies from rotting, Colin -- so they can graft them into people's bodies? Did you know silicon can rot, Colin? Did you know?"

"Do clarify for me, Vas, darling," alphaDana said, her voice an echo on the choppy green hills fifty miles away. "You are saying my head is full of dead bodies."

Vas shut up and looked over at alphaDana. "Shit, Aud, I'm sorry."

"That is what you're saying? That is what you're SAYing?"

Vas nodded. Colin gripped the blue goosenecked bottle with white rimmed fingers.

"That Magaz Corporation does not so much manufacture at its factories as... embalm?"

"Come on, Aud. You know as much as I do now."

"No I don't! I don't know how or why whatever these things are -- aliens I guess? How they're getting killed in the first place!"

"What do you MEAN you don't know?" Vas cried. "You don't even know that? We're killing them and being killed ourselves and you don't even know? You don't even know what we're doing for you? You don't even know we're at war?"

Posted by gtaylor at May 17, 2002 07:28 PM