The Red Queen Read Online Free PDF Page A

to feed and water me.
    It was harder to remain rational when needles stabbed painfully into the heels of both feet. Especially when the needles at my elbow had not been removed, but the ones driven into my heels were immediately withdrawn, only to be thrust into the tender arches of my feet. Then they were withdrawn and pushed mercilessly into the soft pad between the biggest two toes. The pain of each needling brought tears to my eyes and the wetness seemed to dissolve the resistance in my muscles.
    I opened my eyes.
    It was an incredible relief to find I could move even this much, but there was nothing to see save the same blackness as when I had first woken. The stabbing needles progressed painfully in a line along the back of each of my legs. Given that I was lying on my back, the needles must be coming directly out of the bench. When they reached my buttocks, I felt a strong urge to relieve myself and wondered with fleeting revulsion how this aspect of my care had been managed. I smelled horrible but not as vile as if I had been left to lie in my own waste.
    Still unable to sense the Tumen’s presence, I was nevertheless sure he was close by, watching me dispassionately. Driven by anger and frustration, I fought the reluctance of my body and croaked, ‘Why . . . are you doing . . . this to me?’
    The same voice as before responded. ‘Your muscles have withered from inactivity because you did not attain deepsleep stasis. They will require intensive electro-physiotherapy and manipulation before they can support you. God has devised a series of injections of serum to stimulate your nerves and muscles.’
    The stabbing needles were now piercing my back in several places at once as they moved gradually upward. This process was astonishingly painful, and I had nothing left with which to weave a coercive net, yet I took comfort from the Tumen’s talk of stimulating my muscles, for surely this treatment meant I would eventually be permitted to stand and move about. The best thing in the meantime would be to sleep, but there was one thing I had to ask first.
    ‘Before, you told me my companions had been resurrected, but then you said all new specimens were put into cryopods.’
    ‘All new specimens are put into cryopods to undergo deepsleep. After healing, data collection and evaluation of biological viability, acceptable specimens are resurrected within Habitat, as required by Revision Protocol Seventeen.’
    ‘What is Habitat?’ I asked.
    ‘A synthetic environment devised for the containment of a live pool of viable rescued specimens, as defined in Article Ten of Revision Protocol Seventeen,’ answered the Tumen. ‘Approved specimens remain in Habitat until death. Once expired, a specimen is removed for evaluation and final data collection before the body is returned to Habitat for the social ritual of burial.’
    I must have made some dismayed sound, for the Tumen asked, ‘Do you feel pain?’ His words were solicitous but his tone indifferent.
    Trying to keep fear and anger from my voice, I asked evenly, ‘Why am I here if my companions have been woken in Habitat already?’
    ‘You are an anomaly,’ the Tumen answered. ‘You woke spontaneously from cryosleep and even after strong sedation you have achieved sleep only in the alpha and high theta range. You did not reach the low theta or delta states required for return to full immersion cryosleep. As with the first anomaly, your alpha and theta waves spiked well above the normal range on the Hertz-Kraagan Index before you awoke. God requires all anomalies to be fully investigated and documented. Equipment is now being assembled for the acquisition of supplementary data during waking state.’
    Most of the Tumen’s stiff words were incomprehensible but I understood well enough that he regarded me as an anomaly because I had woken myself from cryosleep. Given that Jak had told me
data
was a Beforetime word for knowledge, it seemed the Tumen wanted to