Greg Bear: Hull Zero Three

More words, longer, richer words, implying a process—a surrounding world with its own expectations . The words are like doors that open. They hold their own promise. Soon I’m shouting big new words into the brownness, the not-quite darkness. Some of them mean nothing. Others provide strength and relief.

There’s a pain in my middle. It’s called hunger. If it gets worse, the misery will turn into agony. I’d better do something other than just shout words. I can see that. No luxury to sit shouting and bemoaning my fate.

More words rise up and I shout them, shout around them. Monster. Fate. Death and duty.

But worst of all, hunger . Better to be frozen with the others in their sacs, way back behind the bulkheads.

The little one threw something. It’s still there, probably. I’m not dying. I had hoped my end would be quick, but obviously I’ve come too far just to turn to ice on the floor. I roll and crawl forward. Walking and running got me nowhere good.

But that sentiment is fading. I learn that hungry people wish for only one thing, and it isn’t death.

Death. Fate. Which word is the name of this new world?

Hunger.

And the solution is food . The little one became food because something else big and dark was hungry. My hand closes over the thing she tossed—a little square thing. I can feel it but not see it clearly. I wonder what it is. I think it’s made of light metal or maybe plastic. More memories return with these words: My world is made of things, and the things have properties. Funny how it all fills in unevenly.

The square thing flops in my hand and I realize it has a hinge, opens on one side. It’s a book. I can feel pages, thin and tough. If there was enough light, I think I might be able to look at them, read them—if they’re not blank.

If I can still read.

My fingers feel out scratches on the flat part, a cover . There are seven scratches—I count carefully, since there’s nothing else to do, and I’m not going to die, and there’s no hope of finding something to make the hunger go away.

The walls are getting warmer. That temporarily takes my mind off my hunger. I’m sealed in this section of hall like a piece of meat in a can. Meat. Can. If it keeps getting warmer, maybe I’ll be cooked.

Nobody eats meat out of a can anymore. Nobody eats meat . Except maybe the dark armored furry thing.

My stomach gurgles. I’d smell pretty good, cooked. I think over the words for the various parts of my body, internal and external. I apparently know a lot of useless things, but maybe not how to avoid being eaten. I know what I am, how big I am, I know how to move, I know useless things and simple things, but I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know where to find food, I don’t know what’s inside the book or why it has seven shallow scratches on one side.

I’m dozing in and out. I can see myself—imagine myself—talking to young humans, young versions of me. They mostly pay attention, as if they don’t know what I know, and I’m saying things that are useful to them. I imagine turning my head and seeing that some of the young humans—many, actually—are female.

The little one—she was a young female human.

A girl. That’s what you call a young human female. A child .

You’re a teacher, dummy. Teachers talk to children.

“Are there still children?” I ask. Plural of “child.”

It’s time for sleep. Maybe I’ll be eaten. Maybe I’ll fall asleep in front of the children, and they will laugh at me for being silly.

The little girl with the curly hair will be in the front row, laughing the hardest.

My body takes a while to come up out of a cozy hole. The floor and the walls are warm. The warmth has made me sleep so deep and hard I feel stiff. I want to keep my eyes closed. Sleeping hurts less.

Then I realize there’s more light. The wall that sealed me off has pulled back into its notch. My head casts a fuzzy shadow. Instantly, my body tenses and thrills. I get to my hands and knees. The light is so bright I blink, but nothing’s waiting for me, and there’s no sound except for my breathing. Heavy, scared breathing.

I stop breathing for a moment. Silence. Almost. There’s a light purring noise, more of a vibration in the floor than a real noise in the air.

I stand up. Step forward. Step again. Walk for a few paces, over the notch, hesitating in case the bulkhead wants to drop and squash me. The notch remains just a notch. The lips of the notch are smooth, no gaps.

But there is blood. A few drops of dark red on the brown surface. I step over the blood. All that’s left of the little one. I wonder what she was like. Teacher doesn’t have all the answers, children. Monsters are supposed to hide in the darkness, but here, they wait in the brightness. At least, one did—once. Even so, I prefer the light.

Nothing to do but walk away from the darkness and into the brightness. I’m on my own, following my own internal instructions. This is the real beginning of my journey.

But someone opened the bulkhead. Someone’s helping me.

You’re on a Ship, remember?

Not really, but that’s a good hypothesis. It fits what few impressions remain from my Dreamtime. But what the hell kind of Ship ? Apparently it’s a big one. I’ve been walking for a while. Some parts cold, some warmer. Some bright, some dark. A Ship that wants to stay asleep but has to keep turning over, restless, to avoid getting stiff.

Wow. That’s a lot of stuff for one thought. Ship is a metaphor . That’s a true teacher word, and I’m embarrassed how weak it makes me feel.

The hall is getting wider, taller, and the corners are going away. The hall is turning into a wider tube. I crouch down close to the floor—keeping an eye on whatever lies ahead—and see lots of little spots of glowing stuff set randomly but evenly into the surface. That’s where the light comes from, and maybe the warmth as well.

The lights are called glim lights .

All the time I’ve been walking, I’ve felt a little dizzy . If I had food in my stomach, it might not stay there. Everything starts to feel really strange. I lean forward, then back, then sideways. My feet start to lift up from the surface. One foot stretches down and accidently kicks off and I start spinning. Up and down are going away. I’m moving along the tube, faster and faster, and I bump along like a ball, then start spinning, bounce off and hit the opposite side…. And after a few more bumps, I’ve caught up with the corridor, or the corridor with me, and I’m just floating, barely moving at all.

The dizziness is impossible to deal with, because dizzy makes you want to fall down—and without a down, just forward and back, dizzy means I might spin completely around and start walking—I mean, floating—back where I came from.

Necessary to pay attention to the little random patterns of lights. Fortunately I seem to have sharp eyesight and can tell if I’m turning around. I’m not.

But there won’t be any more sleeping, not until up and down come back.

Now, how to move! I push away from one side to the other, using my hands. I can wave my arms, but they weren’t made for flying. I’m naked, so I can’t take off my shirt or my pants or my jumper or whatever the hell and flap them like a sail. That probably wouldn’t work anyway.

But there is friction —the first teacher word that turns out to be useful. It hurts to push against the tunnel with my bare feet and hands—they’re still raw from the cold—but with some practice, I manage to control both orientation and direction. I learn the trick of drifting and echoing along the lazy curve.