Bull Spec #7
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ARAH WASN’T SURE WHEN HER PAST HAD FADED. Yesterday was as sharp as honed steel, as were the days before that, but her memories of life before coming to care for him were pufs of smoke silhouetted against a blazing sunrise. She knew that she had not always been in this place, that he had brought her here from somewhere else, but now seemed so bright and alive that then was lost in its glare. She knew that proper skies were blue, but the knowledge was overshadowed by the rose blush beauty that hung above her. She knew that nighttime skies were scattered with stars, but the one here, with its bright clots and long, twisted rivers of light, illed her with awe. She wasn’t sure she would go back, if given the choice, but she hadn’t been given the choice. She was here for him. He was twice her size and looked as if he’d been carved from a single block of blue-tinted marble shot through with veins of amethyst. He never left the cloud of pulsing silver light that was his bed. Sarah gave him his medicine when he directed her to and brought him other things when he asked for them, but mostly they just talked. He had never told her his name. here was no need. In this room, with its cut crystal walls and invisible ceiling that blocked the rain and denied the wind despite its seeming nothingness, a name would be superluous. here was Sarah and there was him. “Why bring me here?” Sarah asked him once, early on while everything still held the novelty of freshly-drawn pictures of an impossible world. “Wouldn’t your own people be better to help you with this illness?” he alien’s voice was crunchy, like shule steps on a grit-strewn road. “his disease frightens us. It fevers the mind. Destroys our control. We strand the alicted alone, where they can do no harm.” “It sounds cruel.” Sarah stepped close, reaching for the alien’s hand. Her skin tingled, matching the pulse of the bed, and she drew back. “Is there no cure?” “he disease is cruelty itself.” His hand luttered the smile he seemed too weak to show. “We can cure ourselves, but only when we’re well.” “I don’t understand.” “No,” he said. He often ended conversations that way, dismissing her with the wave of a single word. She wasn’t ready to give up, though. “Don’t you miss your own kind?” “We make friends when we need them.” He smiled at her and closed his eyes. He fell asleep then, the smile fading slowly away. While he slept, she explored the conines of her crystal palace prison. It had facets, rather than rooms. hey appeared at odd angles, as if becoming rooms only after she had decided to enter. Everywhere she went, even up or down, the ceiling that wasn’t there revealed the sky above. As far as she could tell, the two of them occupied the heart of an endless gem. She asked him about it once. It was still early in her stay, when the alien seemed more bright and alive. he disease hadn’t yet begun to destroy him. “Did your people build all of this just for you?” She traced a inger along the wall. Rainbows rippled in its wake. “Or was it already here?” “Your question has no meaning.” She shrugged and folded her arms tightly in front of her. “Neither does your answer.” He smiled at her, sitting up in the glowing bed. “I see I’ve made you curious.” “I think I’ve always been curious.” “Yes, of course. It is your nature.” He grew unsteady, then, as if
dazed. He slid back down into the bed’s frenetic glow. “Some of my people believe that challenging the mind helps stem the growth of this illness. Curiosity is good.” Nothing she found in her explorations sated her curiosity, though. Mostly, everything simply raised more questions. here were practical places, like the pantry, where hundreds of foods for which she had no name were stored. heir lavors were vaguely familiar, rumors of echoes of memories, but little more. One room she called the library, where the walls were covered in colorful gems that sang to her as she touched them. But the words meant nothing to her. Some rooms were given over entirely to a single object. In one of these she found a crystal globe within a globe within a globe that seemed to repeat inside forever. Each globe held images of places and beings, but the outer ones obscured the inner. It was as if each layer had to be destroyed to fully appreciate the one within. “I think I’m lonely,” Sarah told the alien once, after a long walk that ended, as they all did, with a sudden turn that brought her back to his room. She still had so much trouble remembering what had come before. Her memories were made up of half-formed thoughts and pencil sketches. Details teased her from behind the smudges that obscured them. “Was it always so?” “Poor Sarah.” He waved his hand toward the vial of medicine that rested on the bedside table. “I forget how hard this must be for you. I never properly prepared you for it. Forgive me.” She poured the precise three drops of the medicine into a goblet of water that she knew was only there because she had reached for it. he medicine eased his fever and let him sleep. Each time the vial was empty, she would tell him. hen he would tell her it wasn’t, and it would be full again. When he was too weak to drink it himself, like this time, she would sufer the groping worm tingle of the bed and hold his head so that he could drink. His skin was soft and smooth and icy. When he inished drinking, he laid his head back and showed her a feeble smile. “I found you on a mighty ship,” he said, “sailing between the stars and exploring worlds undreamed of. A brave people. Adventurers. Seekers of knowledge.” Memories sprang into her mind. hey were fresh and clear, undimmed by time’s haze. here was the city where she grew up on a world far away. Snapshots of a happy childhood. here was the great love she’d had as a young woman, just out of college; a love that had burned so brightly that the passion had exhausted its fuel in just a few iery years, leaving nothing but scorch mark memories and cold ash. here was the ship. Happy times with caring friends. he worlds they’d seen. Years of memories to explore. “Where did we come from?” He breathed deeply and shook his head. “A watery world with lush vegetation. Green, beneath a yellow sun far out on the edge of the galaxy.” Yes. Blue skies and a scattering of stars. “Earth,” she said. He nodded slowly. “Please, now. I must rest.” “We’re a kind and wonderful people, aren’t we? Is that why you chose me to take care of you?” His eyes were closed tightly, brow furrowed. “Please.” “But I must know.” “Later.” “But—” “Horrors!” He lashed out at her with the word. “Cruel, bitter people!” Terrifying visions illed her mind. Starving cries washed away by fat gales of laughter. Blood-soaked bits of violence cutting friends 19