Behemoth Read Online Free PDF

lover. The skin of the tent stretches against her cheek, rippling with slight iridescence. It’s a striking contrast, Friedman’s tenderness notwithstanding: the woman, black-’skinned and impenetrable, gazing with icy capped eyes at the naked, utterly vulnerable body of the man. It’s a lie, of course, a visual metaphor that flips their real roles a hundred and eighty degrees. Friedman’s always been the vulnerable half of that couple.
    â€œThey say something bit him,” Walsh says. “You were there, right?”
    â€œNo. We just ran into them outside the lock.”
    â€œShades of Channer, though, huh?”
    She shrugs.
    Friedman’s speaking. At least, her mouth is moving; no sound accompanies the image. Clarke reaches for the panel, but Walsh lays a familiar hand on her arm. “I tried. It’s muted from their end.” He snorts. “You know, maybe we should remind them who’s boss here. Couple of years ago, if the corpses tried to cut us out of a channel we’d shut off their lights at the very least. Maybe even flood one of their precious dorms.”
    There’s something about Friedman’s posture. People talk to the comatose the way they talk to gravestones—more to themselves than the departed, with no expectation of any answer. But there’s something different in Friedman’s face, in the way she holds herself. A sense of impatience, almost.
    â€œIt is a violation,” Walsh says.
    Clarke shakes her head. “What?”
    â€œDon’t say you haven’t noticed. Half the surveillance feeds don’t work any more. Long as we act like it’s no big deal they’ll just keep pushing it.” Walsh points to the monitor. “For all we know that mic’s been offline for months and nobody’s even noticed until now.”
    What’s she holding? Clarke wonders. Friedman’s hand—the one that isn’t clasped to her partner’s—is just below the level of the table, out of the camera’s line of sight. She glances down at it, lifts it just barely into view …
    And Gene Erickson, sunk deep into induced coma for the sake of his own convalescence, opens his eyes .
    Holy shit, Clarke realizes. She tweaked his inhibitors .
    She gets to her feet. “I gotta go.”
    â€œHey, no you don’t.” He reaches up, grabs her hand. “You’re not gonna make me eat all that produce myself, are you?” He smiles, but there’s just the slightest hint of pleading in his voice. “I mean, it has been a while…”
    Lenie Clarke has come a long way in the past several years. She’s finally learned, for example, not to get involved with the kind of people who beat the crap out of her.
    A pity she hasn’t yet learned how to get excited about any other kind. “I know, Kev. Really, though, right now—”
    The panel bleats in front of them. “Lenie Clarke. If Lenie Clarke is anywhere in the circuit, could she please pick up?”
    Rowan’s voice. Clarke reaches for the panel. Walsh’s hand falls away.
    â€œRight here.”
    â€œLenie, do you think you could drop by sometime in the next little while? It’s rather important.”
    â€œSure.” She kills the connection, fakes an apologetic smile for her lover. “Sorry.”
    â€œWell, you showed her, all right,” Walsh says softly.
    â€œShowed her?”
    â€œWho’s the boss.”
    She shrugs. They turn away from each other.
    *   *   *
    She enters Atlantis through a small service ’lock that doesn’t even rate a number, fifty meters down the hull from Airlock Four. The corridor into which it emerges is cramped and empty. She stalks into more populated areas with her fins slung across her back, a trail of wet footprints commemorating her passage. Corpses in the way stand aside; she barely notices the tightened jaws and stony looks, or even a