Part 15 (2/2)
Jael hurried back to the lounge and donned the I/O helmet again. As promised, the rainforest selection was once more on the menu. This time she materialized walking, or floating, along a footpath under a canopy of dense greenery. There were blossoms everywhere: in purples, oranges, yellows, whites, and pinks. She glimpsed, darting through the tree branches, several birds and one snake. She didn't see Ed.
Gliding along the path, she spotted a pair of monkeylike creatures swinging from branch to branch, speeding through the forest. A long, bushy-tailed rodent peeked out of the underbrush and chittered up at her. It scratched at the ground, insistently, peering up hungrily. Peanuts or death! she imagined it threatening. With a frown, she checked her pockets and found an a.s.sortment of nuts. She tossed them toward the animal, which scrabbled about, gathering them up. Three more of the rodents dived out of adjoining bushes, and they began quarreling over the nuts. Jael walked on.
The ground underfoot was springy. She stooped for a closer look and discovered that the path was carpeted by a thick, spongy moss. As she pressed her fingers into it, a small purple-blossomed plant near her hand drew away, leaves rustling nervously. ”What's the matter?” she asked, instinctively reaching out to touch it. She stopped herself when the plant rustled again, and with a shrug she stood up. As she walked away, she heard a tiny sigh. Behind her, the plant was tiptoeing across the path. Noticing her glance, it scuttled quickly into the brush. There were some awfully curious beasts here, she decided.
Moving on, she noticed a large cl.u.s.ter of leaves nestled in the center of a short broad-leafed plant. The cl.u.s.ter was shaped like a large blossom, the color of dark cinnamon. At her approach, it broke apart into a dozen fluttering insects. Startled, she stepped back. The insects took wing straight toward her, then swerved away. Flas.h.i.+ng apart, they flew to a nearby tree and converged on a branch like a reversed holo of an explosion. Rising onto her tiptoes, Jael peered up at them. They looked just as they had before; like a dark, heavy flower.
”Rawk! Bugs! Bugs!”
Jael spun, looking for the source of the voice. She couldn't see him. ”Ed! Is that you?”
”Yawp!”
”Where are you?”
”Up here! Up here!”
She craned her neck, twisting around. She saw a tree with slender branches minus leaves, but with a skirt of hairlike tendrils that looked like fine rootlets. The parrot was perched near the top of the tree, peering down at her. He fluttered his green and scarlet wings in greeting, ”Ed! I was looking for you!”
”Always here! Always here!” The bird c.o.c.ked his head, surveying the land.”Come on down?”
”Aarrwwk! Sure.” Ed swooped. He landed with a dazzling flutter on a branch near Jael's hand. ”Hi, Jayl!” he squawked.
”What have you been up to?” She held out her hand to let him rub the side of his beak against her knuckles.
”Rawk. Who,me?” He turned his head to look around.
”No - your cousin Ned. Of course I mean you!”
Ed opened his beak, as though considering what to say. His tongue twitched. He made a stuttering hiss, which might have been laughter. ”But Ed not reel! You say Ed not reel! How can poor, not-reel Ed be up to any -”
”Ed, stop that!”she scolded.
He clacked his beak shut and gazed at her silently. ”S-sorry.”
”Good.” She took a breath. ”Hey, let's be friends, okay? No smart remarks about what's real or not, at least between you and me. Okay? We're both real. Right?”
Ed sneezed. ”Arr-right!”
”Good.” She frowned, remembering suddenly what the attendant had told her - that Ed might not be around much longer. She s.h.i.+vered, trying to put the thought out of her mind. She'd just made a friend; she didn't want to think about losing him. ”Ed,” she sighed, ”half the time I don't even know what's real anymore. You know, with all of these worlds, and this stuff in here” - she waved a hand around the landscape, which was difficult to think of as an artifice - ”sometimes it's hard to keep track.”
”Yawp. Ed knows.”
”Do you?” She squinted at the brilliantly colored bird, who was now preening himself. ”Do you, Ed? Tell me something. Do you know about riggers?”
Ed stopped preening. ”You rigger,” he stated.
”Right. But do you know what we do? When we're working, I mean?”
The bird seemed to squint at her, considering. ”F-fly,” he said hesitantly. ”You fly. Yawp?”
”That's right, we fly. But it's a little different from the way you, well ...” She paused, trying to think how to explain it to Ed, who lived in a world that in certain ways resembled the Flux. He probably had no understanding of the difference between his reality and hers. But she could think of no way to explain it, so she changed the subject. ”Anyway, I was talking to Ar yesterday - you remember Ar, don't you?”
”Ar. Sure.”
”Well, we were talking about someone I met a while back, someone who was a terribly good friend to me while I was with him -”
”Awk? Parrot?” Ed interrupted, stretching his neck.
Jael laughed. ”No - no, he wasn't a parrot. Actually he was a dragon.”Ed c.o.c.ked his head. ”Graggon?”
”Dragon. Sort of a great giant lizard, except that he flies, like you.”
”Arrwwk. Glizzard - yokk.” Ed tilted his head this way and that, as though trying to picture it.
Jael continued impatiently. ”Yes, well anyway, the point is that I was telling Ar about this dragon, and Ar couldn't believe me when I told him that the dragon was real. It was as thoughI couldn't believe it when you told me that you were real.”
The parrot flexed his wings vigorously. ”Ed reel!”
”Yes, I know. I made a mistake before, when I said that you weren't. And that's what I'm trying to tell you. I'm sorry and I wish I hadn't said it. I understand now how you feel, because of the way Ar reacted when I told him about my dragon friend.”
Ed pushed his beak toward her and nuzzled it into the crook of her elbow. She murmured and gently stroked the top of his head. He suddenly hopped up onto her shoulder and began to nibble at her hair.
Jael laughed self-consciously. She hadn't meant to bare her soul to the parrot. And now that she thought about it, was it even true, what she had said? She'd implied that Ed was real in the same way that Highwing was, and vice versa. But Highwing lived and breathed, in the world of the Flux. He was not a construct; he was objectively real. That was what she had struggled to convince Ar of. But what about Ed? He lived - and breathed, she supposed - here in this cyber-reality. He learned and changed - and thought, apparently. And hadn't Ar said that he was based on a real parrot?
Ed stopped nuzzling her hair and announced, ”Glizzards.”
Jael's heart almost stopped, as an image of flying dragons crossed her mind. An instant later, she realized that Ed wasn't talking about dragons. Perched on a boulder nearby, half shrouded by overhanging branches, were three bright green, ruby-throated lizards, each the size of her forearm. They appeared to be doing pushups, rising and sinking on their front legs as they breathed. ”They're very pretty,” she murmured. ”A bit different from what I was talking about, though - different from the dragons.”
”Aww?” Ed rustled on her shoulder. ”Ed would like - awwk!”
”What, Ed?”
”Like see graggons - dragons!”
Jael turned her head until she was practically eyeball to eyeball with the parrot on her shoulder. ”What's that?” She laughed. ”You'dlike to see dragons?”
Ed squawked, deafening her. ”Yep. Ed like see dragons.” He twisted his head one way and then the other. ”You take Ed? Go see dragons?”
”Ah - ” Her voice caught as she remembered what the young attendant had said.
”Yes? Awww.” He nuzzled his beak in her hair. ”Ed like Jayl.”
”Well, I wish I could, Ed. I'd like to.”
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