Vermilion Sands Read Online Free PDF Page B

mixed ferns and stood looking at them. The ferns reached out towards her and trebled eagerly in their liquid fluted voices.
    ‘Aren’t they sweet?’ she said, stroking the fronds gently. ‘They need so much affection.’
    Her voice was low in the register, a breath of cool sand pouring, with a lilt that gave it music.
    ‘I’ve just come to Vermilion Sands,’ she said, ‘and my apartment seems awfully quiet. Perhaps if I had a flower, one would be enough, I shouldn’t feel so lonely.’
    I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
    ‘Yes,’ I agreed, brisk and businesslike. ‘What about something colourful? This Sumatra Samphire, say? It’s a pedigree mezzo-soprano from the same follicle as the Bayreuth Festival Prima Belladonna.’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘It looks rather cruel.’
    ‘Or this Louisiana Lute Lily? If you thin out its SO 2 it’ll play some beautiful madrigals. I’ll show you how to do it.’
    She wasn’t listening to me. Slowly, her hands raised in front of her breasts so that she almost seemed to be praying, she moved towards the display counter on which the Arachnid stood.
    ‘How beautiful it is,’ she said, gazing at the rich yellow and purple leaves hanging from the scarlet-ribbed vibrocalyx.
     
    I followed her across the floor and switched on the Arachnid’s audio so that she could hear it. Immediately the plant came to life. The leaves stiffened and filled with colour and the calyx inflated, its ribs sprung tautly. A few sharp disconnected notes spat out.
    ‘Beautiful, but evil,’ I said.
    ‘Evil?’ she repeated. ‘No, proud.’ She stepped closer to the orchid and looked down into its malevolent head. The Arachnid quivered and the spines on its stem arched and flexed menacingly.
    ‘Careful,’ I warned her. ‘It’s sensitive to the faintest respiratory sounds.’
    ‘Quiet,’ she said, waving me back. ‘I think it wants to sing.’
    ‘Those are only key fragments,’ I told her. ‘It doesn’t perform. I use it as a frequency –’
    ‘Listen!’ She held my arm and squeezed it tightly.
    A low, rhythmic fusion of melody had been coming from the plants around the shop, and mounting above them I heard a single stronger voice calling out, at first a thin high-pitched reed of sound that began to pulse and deepen and finally swelled into full baritone, raising the other plants in chorus about itself.
    I had never heard the Arachnid sing before. I was listening to it open-eared when I felt a glow of heat burn against my arm. I turned and saw the woman staring intently at the plant, her skin aflame, the insects in her eyes writhing insanely. The Arachnid stretched out towards her, calyx erect, leaves like blood-red sabres.
    I stepped round her quickly and switched off the argon feed. The Arachnid sank to a whimper, and around us there was a nightmarish babel of broken notes and voices toppling from high C’s and L’s into discord. A faint whispering of leaves moved over the silence.
    The woman gripped the edge of the tank and gathered herself. Her skin dimmed and the insects in her eyes slowed to a delicate wavering.
    ‘Why did you turn it off?’ she asked heavily.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got ten thousand dollars’ worth of stock here and that sort of twelve-tone emotional storm can blow a lot of valves. Most of these plants aren’t equipped for grand opera.’
    She watched the Arachnid as the gas drained out of its calyx. One by one its leaves buckled and lost their colour.
    ‘How much is it?’ she asked me, opening her bag.
    ‘It’s not for sale,’ I said. ‘Frankly I’ve no idea how it picked up those bars –’
    ‘Will a thousand dollars be enough?’ she asked, her eyes fixed on me steadily.
    ‘I can’t,’ I told her. ‘I’d never be able to tune the others without it. Anyway,’ I added, trying to smile, ‘that Arachmid would be dead in ten minutes if you took it out of its vivarium. All these cylinders and leads would look a little odd inside