Чарли Андерс - The City in the Middle of the Night

Sophie pointed upward, and at last Mouth knew where she had gotten these images of the day, seen from above. A spaceship passed right over their heads: a silver shape, like a man crouching on his elbows and knees, with the sun painting its ancient skin a million shades of red and blue, rippling into each other. The Mothership had never stopped waiting, never lost faith in the people crawling in the dirt below.

They flew through clouds, ducked around tiny windstorms, and wove in and out of the day. Sophie beckoned Mouth with one finger, and they flew higher and higher, up into the blackness, past the edge of the atmosphere. They hovered far above even the Mothership, near the great yellow-orange crags of the moon. And they looked at January, the bright half and the dark half, not motionless at all but always turning. The day wasn’t just red fire, but had veins of blue and green, like jewels against a bright cloak. The night had a texture like velvet, with a dark purple sheen to it. Mouth stood in space, looking down at the world, and she was flooded with an emotion she couldn’t even identify. She almost couldn’t stand how beautiful January was from up here, and how wonderfully wrong it felt, to see so much daylight with what seemed to be her own eyes.

They drifted down, not even seeming to get any closer to the clouds at first, then picked up speed. Mouth almost screamed as she fell into the cloud layer, but it became a laugh instead. The clouds yawned and swallowed them, and then they descended in the night, racing over frozen peaks and canyons wider than anything on the road. At last they found the city in the middle of the night, and descended through an airshaft. Mouth saw her own body, inside a tiny chamber, with Sophie sprawled on top of her, and then she fell inside her own head and her eyes opened.

Mouth realized her clothes were soaked with sweat, and she and Sophie were stuck to each other. She didn’t want to peel away, because she felt her heart drumming, her blood so rich it dazzled her eyes, her skin wide awake. Sophie had given her an incredible gift, and she didn’t know what to do with it. She pulled her arms out from between Sophie’s knees, and hugged Sophie as tight as she could.

“I thought you hated me,” Mouth whispered in Sophie’s ear.

“I did, for a long time.” Sophie was breathing in sharp bursts. “But you’re my jinx. I guess I have to find a way to live with you.”

“I’m…” Mouth felt overcome for a moment, with stammering tears. “I’m sorry about Bianca. I’m sorry for all of it. I keep wishing I had died with the rest of the Citizens. I wish we hadn’t destroyed this delicate miracle that the Gelet had created. We should have paid attention.”

“Bianca made her own choices.” Sophie raised herself up, so she was kneeling across Mouth’s waist and lap. “The rest of it, I don’t know. But Bianca, she deserves to take the blame for her mistakes. I wanted to put all of it on you so I could keep her pure in my mind, but that’s not fair to her, either. I still blame you for the parts that were yours, but…”

Mouth sat, her hands just touching Sophie’s. “I thought if I could make up for what I did with Bianca and the others… I thought I could be a good person. But now, I feel like… I don’t know. I feel like I should do something to make sure what happened to the Citizens never happens again.”

Sophie twitched with fear, like Mouth could be about to suggest doing something drastic: revenge or something. And maybe Mouth should hate these creatures for killing her people, who had never intended any harm. But she couldn’t get the image of the marching icecap, full of burning rain, out of her head.

Mouth shook her head. “I mean, people need to understand. Maybe more people need to become like you.”

“They already told me that they want me to go back, to find other humans who could become hybrids,” Sophie said. “I don’t want to. I want to live here forever. You don’t even know how great it is, being able to share everything.”

Mouth would never forgive the Gelet for what they had done, but she could understand it. You might mistake understanding for forgiveness, but if you did, then the unforgiven wrong would catch you off guard, like a cramp, just as you reached for generosity.

Sophie led Mouth on tours of the city, which had innumerable wonders when you perceived it through Sophie’s senses. Mouth learned not to cringe, at least not too much, when Gelet came near. Some of their food tasted decent when you got used to the slurry texture and rough, chewy edges.

Sophie still wanted to convince Mouth to give in, to let go of humanity and learn to perceive all the beauty, the dream geography, of this city. To become like her. But Mouth would never have simple feelings about the Gelet, and there would always be some hate in the mix. Plus, her mind couldn’t open itself up the way Sophie’s did. If Mouth tried to live with those new senses, plus all of the vivid access to other people’s memories and ideas, her head would explode. “Even if I didn’t have all this toxic emotion, I wouldn’t have the right kind of brain,” Mouth kept trying to explain.

“This is the way to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself, you said so yourself.”

Mouth shook her head. Memories still pressed on the upper part of her spine. “You’ll find other people who can handle it, you’re good at reading people. You can find the ones who have nothing to lose, who have learned to listen with both ears so they can know when the powerful will come down on them next. The people Bianca was willing to die for. You’ll spot them, and offer them a different chance.”

“I can’t,” Sophie said. “This is going to destroy me. However sick you feel inside, when you imagine letting the Gelet reach you ever again, imagine that times a hundred. That’s how I feel about going back among humans. Even if I were normal. But looking like this… everyone who sees me will be disgusted.”

Mouth had gotten used to how Sophie looked. Her face was the same as ever, her eyes still clear and searching, her mouth wide and expressive. She had a protective hide around her shoulders and torso, which could appear like a suit if you weren’t looking carefully. But the tentacles, which seemed to help her see in the dark, and the moist grubs, which grew under her collarbone and waved like kelp in the water, would be harder to disguise.

“I think you’re beautiful,” Mouth said.

Sophie just scowled. “I’ll be dead the moment I set foot in Xiosphant.”

Mouth knew the next few words she spoke would change her life, maybe ruin what was left of it. But she had no choice: “I’ll protect you.” Sophie was staring at her, and maybe didn’t know how to trust someone whose head was a sealed vault. Mouth added, “I still can’t fight, or use a weapon. And I know I haven’t always kept my promises. But I mean it. I’ll guard you with my life.”

Sophie seemed like she was about to say something back, then thought better of it. She didn’t speak the whole rest of the time they walked around the city, even though Mouth couldn’t make much sense of the “tour” without Sophie’s narration. They walked through giant chambers and around the edges of deep pits, but though Mouth could take in just enough detail to recognize tremendous engineering, she mostly saw just tentacles and huge legs moving in the gloom.

No matter what Mouth said now, Sophie had stopped talking, as if they’d stepped back in time to when they had been strangers. Mouth tried to break through her wall, by making awkward jokes about the noxious gin-and-milk that everyone insisted on drinking in Xiosphant, but Sophie just shrugged and kept walking. Mouth lost Sophie a few times, but then Sophie would tug at Mouth’s wrist from out of the darkness. Mouth ended up back in her hammock, alone, with a few boxes of freeze-dried survival rations for company. One of them contained actual chocolate, which was more tart than she had expected.