Green Grow the Rashes and Other Stories Read Free Page B

them.
    The more I looked, the
more I saw it; there in the shadow where a body hung over an
overturned chair, there in the corner under the food processors,
but mostly in the eyes, dancing and twinkling, mocking my
horror.
    I stumbled past more
bodies than I could count, searching for a reason, an answer as to
what had happened. The empty eyes followed me everywhere I went.
There was a door opposite me, and I went through, hoping for some
small escape from the terror.
     
    ~-o0O0o-~
     
    I recognised where I was.
The corridor structure almost exactly mirrored the structure of the
warren here. Indeed, I began to fear for my sanity, thinking I had
inadvertently returned home to find you all dead, all taken. There
were no bodies in this part of the system, just long empty
corridors, but that somehow only made matters worse.
    I went deeper.
    Although I was still safe
inside the suit, the air seemed somehow thicker here, more
oppressive; a faint trace of blue mist hanging in the air. If I
were home, I knew I would be approaching the bionic plant. Despite
the terrors of the eating area above, I was almost eager to visit
the working parts of the site, as there may even be something
salvageable there, something that would further prolong our own
time here in the warren.
    I descended a stairwell
and walked out into their bionics plant.
    Scores of pairs of eyes
turned and looked at me, reflecting like twinkling stars in my
helmet light.
     
    ~-o0O0o-~
     
    They had once been human,
that much was obvious. What was equally obvious was that they had
not been so for some time. The skin was pale, almost translucent,
their eyes large, like saucers in heads too small to hold them.
They scrambled, on all fours, amid a pile of slurry that seemed
thicker in places.
    I gagged when I saw the
first rib cage, the first thighbone.
    They started to crawl
towards me, piteously mewling like hungry kittens. Stars danced in
their eyes.
    I fled.
     
    ~-o0O0o-~
     
    I will not tell of my
flight from that place, save to say that I have deleted the
co-ordinates from the systems. If you want the ore, you will have
to send out another flyer.
    But I would advise
against it, for the darkness will come back with them. The sky will
fall, and your eyes will fill with stars. The darkness will get
inside, and it will consume you, as it did to those poor things in
the bionics lab… as it has started to do to me.
    It is vast, it is empty,
and it does not care.
    It just does not
care.

 
The Sweller in the Dress
Hold
     
    "So what are you reading this
time?"
    Robin Fraser put out his cigarette and
looked up from his book into the smiling face of Tom, drinking
partner, friend and, most importantly at this point in time,
foreman.
    He gave back an equally large grin as
he turned the book around to show Tom Delaney the cover.
    "How to see the world on
five dollars a day."
    "And what would you be wanting to see
the world for?" Tom said, his heavy Irish brogue coming through
thickly. "Sure and don’t the docks bring the world to you, every
day, and for less and five bucks?"
    Robin thought hard about the answer.
He’d lived in this city all his life, all twenty years of it. Up
until this year he had wanted no more. He had many good friends, he
had a good job, and Friday nights in the bar were just fine. Tom
was partially right. Working in the docks had brought the world to
him.
    But lately the wanderlust had grown in
him and he often looked out along the river and wondered. Recently
every day, he found himself wondering a little bit more.
    "You know how it is Tom," he said. "A
young man’s got to sow his oats while he can."
    The older man laughed at
that.
    "Sowing oats now is it? And what would
a lad from the Bronx know about oats? Now come on. Are we going to
get some work done or are you going to sit there all
day?"
    Robin had to stretch his back as he
stood, both hands pressed tight to the base of his spine as if he
could push the pain away.
    "So what is it today?" he