Fremder by Russell Hoban Page B

with a double blow, Bam!
    ‘
Odontodactylus scyllarus
,’ said Pythia. ‘Isn’t he beautiful? This is a genetically engineered giant strain, it’s a foot long. The tank has bulletproof glass, otherwise it would have shattered it.’
    ‘What’s exciting it?’
    ‘You are. Your terror is coming to me but a splitter feeds it tothe shrimp as well and I can put the shrimp’s output up on the pixels. Therefore the nether-world hath enlarged her desire. Canst thou draw leviathan with a fish-hook? This creature’s eyes have eight spectral classes of photo-receptor and it can perceive colours that humans can’t.’
    ‘But why is it hooked up to me?’ My head, meanwhile, singing:
    HEAVEN, I’M IN HEAVEN,
AND MY HEART BEATS SO THAT I CAN HARDLY SPEAK,
AND I SEEM TO FIND THE HAPPINESS I SEEK,
WHEN WE’RE OUT TOGETHER DANCING CHEEK TO CHEEK.
    ‘This strain of mantis shrimp’, said Pythia, ‘perceives very faint electrical emanations from prey or predator as colour signals; what you’ve been seeing on the pixels is the colour of your terror.’
    ‘From the look of that I must be pretty scared.’
    ‘It’s a very strong terror: it’s not a weakness, it’s something you can use. Maybe you’ve already used it.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘That’s what I’d like to find out.’
    ‘With a mantis shrimp?’
    ‘Terror is older than evolution; it’s the oldest thing there is: in the beginning was the Terror. And the Terror was what there was, what there still is. Behold, it cometh, leaping on the mountains, hopping through the trees. You’ve learned to hide it but the shrimp hasn’t so it’s a useful gauge.’
    ‘Can it handle that kind of voltage?’
    ‘It’ll last out the session if you don’t have too many surges.’
    What if I were the shrimp? I thought. Actually I wasn’t altogether sure I
wasn
’
t
the shrimp dreaming of being Fremder being unsure whether he was Fremder or the shrimp.
    ‘Pythia,’ I said. ‘Please disconnect the shrimp.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘It has none of the pleasures of being human and it doesn’t deserve the pains.’
    ‘OK, Fremder, it’s disconnected.’ The pixels came out of the purple-blue and went into easy abstractions. The music had gone silent. ‘Where were we?’
    ‘In the ancient sea. White mist on the water. I hope you haven’t got anything else wired up in tanks.’
    She ignored that. ‘Tell me about the terror.’
    ‘Give me a break, Pythia – I’m not in very good shape just now.’
    She was cuddling me with her sensors; it felt good. ‘You know you want to tell me about it, so tell me.’
    Around the edges of the silvery circles of nothing the pixels hit the ululating purple-blue again and I shut my eyes. There was a new smell along with the silk-knickers one, it was both strange and familiar, a smell from ancient memory, a smell of danger.
    Pythia’s voice was breathy. ‘Ah, that was a big one.’
    ‘Jesus, Pythia, is this how you get your ooh-oohs?’
    ‘Ooh-oohs come later.’ But her sensors were licking me with tongues of fire and ice. ‘What did you smell when you had the terror surge just now?’
    ‘Wait a minute.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You said you disconnected the shrimp.’
    ‘That’s right, I did.’
    ‘Then how come I got that purple-blue again?’
    ‘I don’t know, maybe you’re evolving. What did you smell?’
    ‘Why do I have to say everything out? You’re hooked up to my brain, you’re getting whatever sensory recall there is.’
    Her sensors had gone cold and prickly. ‘What kind of smell was it, Fremder? I need to know what it was to you.’
    What was it? Difficult to be certain. ‘Animal,’ I said.
    ‘What kind of animal?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ There were no pictures in my head. Darkness and light were shuddering over the pixels but there were no images.
    ‘Nothing?’ said Pythia.
    I kept silent as there came a faster alternation of darkness and light, a sensation of hugeness and tinyness, then the screaming purple-blue again