1n1REzE

Peter Watts 130 Blindsight
bumping against the hull. It took long seconds for each staticridden
image to accrete on the HUD: grunts descending into the
pit; grunts emerging into Rorschach's duodenum; a cryptic, hostile
cavescape in systematic increments. Down in the lower left-hand
corner of each image, timestamps and Teslas ran down the clock.
You give up a lot when you don't trust the EM spectrum.
"Looks good," Bates reported. "Going in."
In a friendlier universe machines would have cruised the
boulevard, sending perfect images in crystal resolution. Szpindel
and the Gang would be sipping coffee back in the drum, telling the
grunts to take a sample of this or get a close-up of that. In a
friendlier universe, I wouldn't even be here.
Bates appeared in the next postcard, emerging from the fistula.
In the next her back was to the camera, apparently panning the
perimeter.
In the one after that she was looking right at us.
"Oh...okay," she said. "Come on...down..."
"Not so fast," Szpindel said. "How are you feeling"
"Fine. A bit—odd, but..."
"Odd how" Radiation sickness announced itself with nausea,
but unless we'd seriously erred in our calculations that wouldn't
happen for another hour or two. Not until well after we'd all been
lethally cooked.
"Mild disorientation," Bates reported. "It's a bit spooky in here,
but—must be Grey Syndrome. It's tolerable."
I looked at the Gang. The Gang looked at Szpindel. Szpindel
shrugged.
"It's not gonna get any better," Bates said from afar. "The clock
is... clock is ticking, people. Get down here."
We got.
Not living, not by a long shot.
Haunted.
Even when the walls didn't move, they did: always at the corner
of the eye, that sense of crawling motion. Always at the back of
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