THE WALKING CITY PART 1 BY JASON HELLER Around Zelia the walls oozed. They clamped onto every side of her skinny frame like lips sucking a finger. When she lay perfectly still, she could feel a dull pulse run through the Gut’s smooth muscle. It was as though a dozen giant slugs were slithering across the surface of her gutsuit. Not that she’d ever seen a slug, let alone touched one. As with all animals, they existed only in myth, within the dim memory of the Mind. The closest thing to an animal that anyone had known in centuries was the vast, walking city of M’bul itself. Zelia occasionally came across half-digested, half-fossilized chunks of animals, along with the remnants of plants and rocks and soil that M’bul fed upon as it trod the barren land far below. After all, that was her job: to clear such blockage. The Gut always needed cleansing the day after M’bul sent down its massive feeding tube to suck up sustenance from the Remained. But those clots of unprocessed debris were required to be handed over to the Mind — as the Mind dictated — for preservation and study. She cleared her throat then inhaled deeply through her nosepiece. The airsacs in her gutsuit fluttered against her, alive in their own way. No. 119 Why am I letting my thoughts wander? That’s the first thing Lira warns her apprentices about: “Be ever aware. The Gut knows not the difference between sustenance and citizen.” Zelia was, she reminded herself, just a gutrat. A member of the Guild of the Body. The Mind spared her no attention. Why should she spare any attention to it? Plus, she had a more urgent thing to occupy her. Her job. Wriggling her right arm free — an effort that produced a slick, slurping sound — she reached up and adjusted her goggles. Their bioluminescent lenses cast a faint, green glow into the blackness ahead. She was in one of the tight, minor tubules that threaded themselves through the Gut. At the next junction, she should be able at last to pull herself into a larger passageway. There she’d continue toward her destination by crawling on all fours — or if the Gut were being particularly agreeable today, she might even be able to crouch-walk. For now though, she still had a quarter-mile or so left in the tubule. A quarter-mile of creeping along on her stomach, contorting herself to get through tricky loops and spirals. She thanked M’bul for the millionth
21 Publizr Home