Weissenbaum's Eye - Stetten

Weissenbaum's Eye - Stetten - Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

We used to ride the flywheel of a giant clock, and gauge our time and distance by the stars. But now the Earth turns blind, embedded in the senses of a stranger. No longer do we share the eyes of heaven, the open skies as wide as the horizon. The sun is bright and there is no wind. I have cast the lure-buoy of my simultron, and put my collar on, but as of yet my invitation to the whales remains unanswered. How long have I been waiting?

"Three hours," says the collar.

What a formal voice it has! We were so careful always, at Synapse, to allow just the most dry and factual voices from machines. The campus was a sparse and Spartan place, and wisely so, because we knew just how the medium could grab you from behind, and turn you any way it wanted.

These last few days have initiated me, despite myself, into the elegance of the medium. The voices I hear, the faces I see, are filled with richness. I try to capture them in my notebooks. I can no longer doubt these scenes, once their reflections are revealed through thin veils of tiny fish.

The day Sand first came back to the campus to find out about his mother, he told himself that it was just to please Benjamin Holly. Sand awoke from his couch, and held an arm straight up in front of his face. The blood drained from his fingertips, and little buzzing tremors came alive in the air between them. It was an odd sensation, one to remember and perhaps use.

He got off the couch and dressed in comfortable, light clothes. This was a day for a mission, a journey, and he had been careful to wake up with the morning sun. After washing and eating, he stepped through the door into the empty hallway.

Quietly filing past the closed doors of the other rooms, he found himself slipping into the private mood that pervaded these times off the couch, when he was truly by himself. The corridor stretched to a turn where the lights were dim.

Down the hall a door opened, and a woman appeared. Without looking in his direction, she turned and walked before him to the elevator. Her stride was healthy and Sand supposed she went out often. He remembered seeing her once up on the ground level, digging in the garden under the dome. At the elevator, she waited.

Just as Sand caught up, the door opened and she stepped in. Without thinking, he followed, glancing at her face for a moment. Then he looked at his feet as the door closed.

Too late.

She had noticed. From the corner of his eye Sand felt the woman's posture tighten, her breath become irregular. She did not look at him, but opened the door and waited. Still looking at his feet, Sand stepped back out into the hall.

The next elevator took him to the surface. Inside the spacious dome, many little plots were crowded into the garden. He chose a path that gave the woman distance. She was kneeling with her back to him, working a particularly well kept collection of flowers. Sand was careful not to look at her, remembering her profile in the elevator, what would have been a pleasing face, but for her terrified expression. He had meant no trespass. Sand understood the need for privacy, and silently apologized. But he was angry at the way she would not even meet his eyes, as if the elevator wall were more compelling than another human face.

Pouting like a punished child, Sand reached the outside door and stepped from the dome into the morning light. There he stood, holding onto the railing, gazing out over the algae pools that spread stagnant and dark before him.

It would be a long walk to the campus. The narrow concrete bridges were not equipped with railings, and for a moment Sand was content to rest outside the dome, waiting for his courage to answer. A warm breeze blew, full of scratchy things that bothered his eyes, and the clouds hung in a dizzy space that went on forever.

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